James Wilson Codes

Note - I've been super busy with non-gaming and a turnip 28 regiment build and event (will try and do a post on this!) and life stuff, so I'm afraid this one is going up a little late and without the level of detail I've tried to include.

I was excited to play this game, as I'm loving learning Reva. I asked Tom Kapel at Skivemind as I know he's played Molly a lot and the (somewhat scary) advice was "Kill The Children" - referring to the Crooligans.

My aims going in:

• use the corpse candles more effectively now I can summon them
• kill the children
• have fun

I picked Power Ritual and Espionage - my hope was to use the Lampads as Scheme runners. We will see later why I should have picked different schemes...

This match is best described as a big pile up in the middle, with Crooligans on the side. Jordan deployed two Crooligans From The Shadows, and I sent a Lampad to deal with one of them, planning to heed the 'Kill the Children' advice and deal with the other one, but, when it came to Reva to activate, I saw I had the Red Joker. This gave me a chance to force through 6 damage on Molly, which I took. It did mean that I didn't have an option for easily dealing with the other two Crooligans though.

In the centre, Reva was a beast. She was sat in pyre markers, so getting burning for each action/move, and reducing that to heal and get positive flips to duels - which I think is the intended synergies. She managed to take down Molly, the Necrotic Machine via Burning, and also Phillip and the Nanny. Archie was a problem though - He can't gain conditions due to Burning, so my plonking a Pyre marker under him didn't do anything. He was also healing himself, and being healed by the Necrotic Machine before it was incinerated.

I asked Tom for advice after the game, and he said that you have to dogpile Archie - as he has low Df/Wp - and also consider the Killer Instinct upgrade to help overcome the Terrifying.

Essentially, the game was lost by being bogged down in the middle and not getting to score my schemes. Painfully, I would have scored In Your Face and Assassinate (which were in the pool!) just from what I did, so scheme choice was probably an issue. The Crooligans teleported back to Archie to cause trouble at the end by denying me some Raid The Vaults points.

An MVP was one of my Shieldbearers - it took Jordan till Turn 5 to drop her, and she had definitely done her job by then.

The most painful moment for me - and I genuinely have only myself to blame was the very last turn, where I could have forced a draw by using Reva's Death Ascendant trigger on her Ethereal Reaping attack. This removes Scheme markers and replaces them with corpses, which could have removed a scheme marker and stopped him scoring the second point of Protected Territory. I could thunder into range on Bessie (Reva's Mv 7 horse, named by my youngest daughter) of a corpse marker to target a Crooligan from, and I had the cards to force it through (I drew some 13s) and the stones for the suit...

...and I declared the wrong action, Feed on Grief which doesn't have that! We had time, and I don't know why I didn't stop and read the card. Kicking myself, but it's on me. Jordan played really well, and said it was his first victory, so that was fun to be a part of - and hopefully I gave him a decent challenge with Reva!

Of my goals: I didn't kill the children, I forgot to summon the corpse candles in later turns, but I did have fun!

Takeaways

• Kill the children! I was warned, and the Crooligans are a nightmare.
• Know your model's cards - that bit at the end was avoidable.
• Dogpile on Archie - possibly with Killer Instinct to give Ruthless.