Welcome back to Tactical View!

Today I decided to take that list that I’ve been talking about and actually put it on the table.

I managed to get down to my friendly local game shop, Knightfall Games in Beaverton OR. There I pulled out my freshly painted Empire List (Using some of Erin’s Techniques on a couple of the faces even!) and squared off against Xenopsyllus’ (of the AT Forums) dastardly Azure alliance list. Strap in, this is gonna be a long one.

My not-so-expertly painted Empire

My List:
Empire 300 Levels
Advantage: Emperor’s Armor
Yuri Olsen
Claire Adelheid -Talisman of Eriol (Reideen Made a great argument for this last time)
Macbeth – Rafael’s Blessing
Lillian Virgil – Aura – Team Weapons of Azrael
Samiel The Black Lion – Orb of Power
Daniella Meris – Clock of Chronos

His List:
Azure Aliance 300 Levels
Advantage: Organization
Plot Card: Logistics
High Arbiter Alastor
The Colonol – Raphael’s Gift
Kyler – Clock of Chronos
Deadmoon – Dragon Blood – Team Lords of the Abyss
Hel – Raphael’s Gift
Jerome

The Scenario was Nodes.

I won the Deployment roll, and elected to deploy first. The Lords of the Abyss were all Infiltrated, so I decided that an offensive strategy would leave me open to models popping up behind me. I deployed Claire near the left node and Samiel near the right node. Yuri, Macbeth, and Lillian all deployed in the center. Daniella Advanced deployed Reactively on the right after he placed two of his infiltration tokens next to my right node.

He Deployed Kyler on his right, The Colonel on his left and Alastor in the center, then placed one infiltration token on the center node, the node on his side to his right and the node on my side on the right. He also placed a second token near the center and a second token on my right.

He won the first initiative roll and the game was underway.

Turn 1:

Pretty uneventful, Kyler began the game hidden. He misread his speed stat and chose to run him to the node on his right and spent his last action point capturing it. Claire also ran to the node on my left and captured it in response. The Colonol took the point on his left and Alastor ran up the middle. I ran forward with my center but kept everyone close together, with Lillian staying behind a wall in case of infiltration shenanigans on the next turn. Samiel moved up and used a seek action to force him to remove the infiltration token on my node. Daniella then moved to the node and captured it.

Turn 2:

He won the initiative Roll again, Lillian popped Inspiration to provide me with extra threat on the center. Jerome came onto the board hidden behind Daniella and Samiel. He took his free move into Daniella and used Mark of Death. Despite dodging, Daniella took the hit hard, dropping her to 1 LP! This attack would throw me off balance for the rest of the game. I responded by moving Yuri in between Samiel and Macbeth and using Warcry, then throwing King’s Castle on Daniella, leaving him on 1 AP

Hel popped up on the center point, while Samiel buffed himself up by spending a power token and using hearth of shadows then charging Jerome. Despite his mighty attack stat of 7, Jerome successfully dodged the attack, further increasing my frustration.

Deadmoon popped up just behind the center point and used Shadow of the moon to deny LoS, While Lillian moved over to the right to use Breath of Life on Daniella. Alastor responded by moving up and using Opugnis on Jerome, but with King’s Castle up he couldn’t finish the job.

Deadmoon Moved and threw Lunatic Sickle at Macbeth but failed to hit his defence 10.
At this point I should have charged with Macbeth, but I wanted to see if Hel would move into a position that would allow Claire to charge as well, so I held back and capped my point with Daniella. Hel moved alright, by charging Macbeth, essentially making my inspiration turn useless. She did minor damage. Macbeth Responded by consecrating himself and using soul of light, but his dodge dice were really hot, and he escaped destruction on a 9.

Claire decided to sit back and capher point, and Kyler and the colonel did the same, keeping us tied for nodes.

Turn 3:

I finally won initiative and decided that Jerome was going to pay for it. My lust to destroy him would prove to be short sighted, but I really wanted him gone. Yuri activated first and declared a charge on Jerome, with Samiel using a reactive free move to get out of his way. Yuri managed to land a hit with a crit, but Jerome also rolled a 10 on dodge so it only did minimum damage.

This is when I realized my mistake, with Yuri over attacking, I had no one between Alistor and Lillian! Alistorcharged in and even though Lillian dodged the attack, she was still in dire straights. He also ordered Jerome to attack Daniella (dodged) and ordered Deadmoon forward 2″.
Lillian activated and attempted to escape from Alastor, but failed, so she threw breath of life out on Daniella again.

Deadmoon activated and took the center point, ensuring that he would be gaining a power point this turn. The berserking Samiel attempted to finish Jerome but was foiled yet again by a dodge. Hel activated and swung at Macbeth, but missed on an abysmal roll. So Macbeth swung around her to get closer to Lillian, consecrated himself and swung at Hel, but missed yet again. However, Hel had to use her last action point to evade Macbeth’s swing.

The Colonel activated and capped his point, and Daniella activated, capped her point, and attacked Jerome, missing again but leaving Jerome on only 1 ap.

Kyler capped his point, then I took a deep breath. He was going to get a power token this turn, there was no way around it, so to make up for it I was going to have to destroy his team. Claire wound up and launched at Hel with Eadgil Solaris, Finally I managed to land a critical hit right when it counted. Hel rolled a 10 on dodge, but it didn’t matter because the throw sent her into a building behind Lillian, stunning and dropping her to 0. He was forced to sacrifice Jerome to keep her alive, freeing my three characters.

Took the picture before he picked Jerome up.

Turn 4:

Turn 4 would see things swing in my favor. I won initiative and threw Macbeth’s healing onto Lillian. Yuri then spent a point and used Tactical supremacy, giving everyone an extra ap. Yuri went first again and put kings castle on Lillian but didn’t have enough left over to walk and attack Alastor so he just moved. Alastor unleashed Pandemonium and hit Lillian, but thanks to kings tower and a decent dodge roll, failed to kill her. He then used motum to move Hel closer to the fray.

I decided to strike out after his power base with Samiel, moving forward and throwing preying shadows at the Colonol. Which was dodged. Hel then free moved into Lillian and using Hell Calling barely managed to finish her. Losing Lillian was a major blow, so Macbeth charged in to try to bring down Hel in return. Unfortunately he still couldn’t hit her (in fact I don’t think he landed a single attack all game.)

The Colonol sneered derisively at Samiel and blasted him twice with soul steal, dropping him to 5 hp and capped his point again. In a moment of truth Claire used Eadgil Solaris a second time, fueled by Yuri’s Tactical supremacy. She struck into Alastor’s back arc and critted again, throwing Alastor into Hel and dropping him to 2 HP!  Deadmoon charged into Claire to try to capitalize on her lack of AP, but only managed to do 5 damage. While Daniella took aim and finished off the AP-less Alastor! Kyler finished the turn by capping his point and giving him another power point.

Turn 5:

Though the game progressed to the 7 turn limit, this was the effective end. With his leader gone things were looking grim for him, even though he had 100 points worth of power points saved. I won the Initiative again. Macbeth opened things by trying to take down Hel, but his track record held. That’s when the unthinkable happened. Hell used Gates of Hell on Macbeth. Macbeth has a resistance of 10, I just needed to roll a 5 or higher and then I could take my time killing an AP-less Hel. I rolled the die and an ugly 4 stared back up at me. Just like that the game swung right back into his favor. Scrambling to make things up, Claire attacked Deadmoon with Nualla, but failed to kill her after dodge was factored in.

The Colonol then made things even worse for me by killing Samiel with another Soul Steal (Later I would discover that Soul Steal only works on friendly models, serves me right for not reading his cards!) Sending him into the undying state. Desperate I fired into the melee between Claire and Deadmoon with Daniella and on a crit managed to drop her to 0, however Dragonblood decided that she would stick around for a bit longer.

Kylercapped his point and Yuri walked into Deadmoon and used Queen’s Round to finally finish her off. But the damage was done. He picked up a third power point and I had no way to beat the spread.

I spent the next couple of turns trying to chase down Hel, but by Turn 7 she still lived and he was sitting on 200 points of power tokens. I had to concede the game to him.

Despite the loss the list performed well. Claire really pulled through as my MVP, getting me kills on Hel and setting up my kill on Alastor. Samiel and Macbeth on the other hand couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. His MVP had to be Hel, for single handedly shifting the flow of the game with a single attack. It was definitely an exciting battle with multiple shifts in flow.

In the end, I was outplayed by superior tactical decisions. Despite the Soul Steal mistake, Samiel still wouldn’t have been able to do much to the Colonol when he made it into combat and the point spread wouldn’t have been much different. I should not have allowed him to just take two of the nodes every turn and should not have allowed my frustration with Jerome to cloud my judgement. Next time Xeno!

Next time I’ll start talking about my second faction: Samael