James Wilson Codes

The last time I played Jamie, it was still Resurrectionists into Bayou, but I got a much better result than I was expecting. However on that occasion I was playing a crew I'd solo-ed for months, and he had his first game with his. Whatever happened, I knew it'd be fun because playing games with Jamie is fun.

This was a game in our local Escalation League, so I was still learning Reva, and he was learning Mah Tucket 1. I'd played against Mah 2 before, but this was my first time up against the original. I knew that Pit Traps were still involved.

I wanted to give the Ghost Eater another try, although his previous two outings made me suspect he is not for me. Due to how the Escalation League works, I couldn't add my fourth box (Abra-Cadaver, I am excited to get Ezekiel on the table!) so I had a similar crew to the last time I played.

Seeing two Soulstone miners on the table was a concern, as well as Big Brain Brin - he had a lot of stuff that could bother me - but I reasoned that Reva was a good counter to him - she could draw off burning with Channeled Flame to get a positive flip to cancel out Serene Countenance, and if she attacks with Ethereal Reaping drawing LOS through a corpse marker, she wouldn't trigger Knew You Were Gonna Do That.

Scheme choice was, as always, difficult. In a moment of daftness I picked Hold Up Their Forces, thinking that Corpse Candles and Ghost Lights would be great for it, totally forgetting they are Insignificant. I thought Let Them Bleed would be reasonable though, Reva can splatter out some damage, and the two models starting that would be targets, TrixieBelle and Brinn both only had Df 5.

I know that Jamie chose one of his schemes by dice roll because he wasn't sure what to pick!

The Game

I think the biggest impact on this game was my lack of Corpse Candles and thus, Pyre Markers.

Jamie made a point of killing the Corpse Candles before I could - meaning I got only one Pyre marker from each. I also have since realised that if a ShieldBearer uses Blasphemous Ritual, it's just a Corpse that the Corpse Candle won't drop - I'd still get two Pyres, with one ideally positioned under my crew - instead I was wasting non-bonus actions (and not getting a bunch of free focus).

I had an exposed Lampad, which Jamie quickly shot with a Bushwhacker, and I decided to retreat it, as there was nowhere to use Demise(Possessing Flame) if it got killed.

I moved Reva forward to try and take out the other Bushwhacker and the pesky thing luckily survived and tried to escape, although the other Lampad took it out the next turn.

Jamie did kindly remind me that Pit Traps were destructible, and I used the Corpse Candle to take one out. The Ghost Eater's Ghost Lights were less than helpful, even accounting for me mistakenly putting Burning on them, even though they were Incorporeal! Jamie helpfully killed them for me anyway.

Vincent St Clair was very cautiously hiding in a Pyre Marker, around a corner from the Tricksy crew. Then a soulstone miner unburied outside of his 0 inch Staggering Punch melee range but close enough to engage him. This was so frustrating, and is definitely a weakness of his. With a helpful suggestion from Ed, the proprietor of Powder Monkey, I used Agile to walk to a Strategy marker and get an intel token, but it didn't feel like a great henchman activation.

There was quite a bit of Concealing terrain near the centre, and it did mean Jamie was using his focus to get around Concealment.

Mah got into the mix, and while the pit traps are painful, she's quite squishy - I did quite a lot of damage to her, and set her on fire, and her health was going down nicely before she got retreated by another model. I kept flipping suits that gave me triggers to drop more corpses, when they weren't strictly needed. I had forgotten about Vincent's Cremation tactical action that would have let me turn them into Pyre markers and then possibly push the marker, causing Burning straight away. Then I could have used The Unquiet Dead to pressure his hand, and possibly pulse out some Injured.

The end of the game was really just me scrambling to score a point of Hold Up Their Forces. The Restless Spirit was engaging TrixieBelle, and the Ghost Eater used Consume Essence to totally kill a Shieldbearer for a big heal and then legged it across the board to engage Mah. Reva moved across the board to try and block Soulstone miners from possibly unburying and killing the Ghost Eater - she could only use her 50mm base to block one of them, but it was enough.

I enjoyed this game, but it was frustrating to be held back - it's taught me a lot about the importance of being the one to kill my own Corpse Candles, and I actually think Ezekiel bringing in Mindless Zombies to Slam Pit Traps would have been more use than the Ghost Eater, for all that he scored me 50% of my points.

I'm still enjoying Reva though, and I just want to learn to get the best out of her!