James Wilson Codes

I haven't listed the exact crews as we didn't use the app, but I took Lampads, Vincent, Ghost Eater, Shieldbearer and Reva, and Geraint had Autumn Knights, Killjoy, Aeslinn, Gorar and Bultungin.

I found Reva 1 into Titania a difficult match up. It may have been the board, but the Underbrush markers seemed to hem me in (as they are supposed to!)

I took Let Them Bleed and Death Beds with Pyre markers as Reva has proved quite killy in the past.

I started off well, making plenty of pyre markers and pushing them up - but because of the underbrush, I was forced into one particular path - I sent the Restless Spirit and a Lampad up one flank, but Titania wiped out the Lampad, and the Restless Spirit didn't do much more than distract (till the end of the game when he got me a third of my points by voting!

On the other side of the board, my biggest problem was Killjoy. I'd not really heard of him before, and I think he's been buffed in the 2024 errata. He just kept healing, and placing with Bloody Gate and then proccing Made To Kill to get extra melee attacks (I can't complain having used White Eyes for similar!) - and with a 3/3/6 damage track and a built in positive flip for being near an underbrush marker, he was doing a lot of damage! A lot of my effort was spent in healing up my models - which meant there was little progress on scoring points.

At one point, when Killjoy had 1 health left, I managed to flip the Black and Red jokers together. Surely one of the most heart crushing occurrences in the game!

I also passed up on an opportunity to kill Killjoy because I wanted to score Let Them Bleed and Aeslinn was not down to half health. I have since learned that if I had read Let Them Bleed properly, I would have known that it is the two highest cost models on the board not that you hired (I think I was getting it mixed up with the second point of In Your Face) so I could have dropped Killjoy when I had the chance, and concentrated on Aeslinn, whom I had set on fire, and probably an Autumn Knight. I did manage to burn the Gorar to death though, which was some satisfaction, but by the end of the game, I only had the Restless Spirit, on full health sitting on a corner ballot box. Reva got killed because she ventured out of her Pyres to try and score some points - but by that point she didn't have any support.

Because Killjoy burned to death before Turn 5 scoring - I managed to score Death Beds as I had left a Scheme marker there. Geraint scored 8 (well earned) points.

However, this game was a lot of fun. Geraint is a lovely opponent - he plays his game hard, but is incredibly sporting - always giving the benefit of the doubt to his opponent. I like it in games where people help each other - not to go easy, but to say 'oh, do you want to use X ability here' or 'are you sure - these guys have Y stats and get a free attack if you do'. He didn't need much help from me but I did point out he should probably secure his 8th victory point rather than wipe out all my models right that moment.

I found the Ghost Eater hard to make use of - he did more shooting than soulstone shenanigans - I probably should have moved him closer to Vincent so he could have stoned for Critical Strike on his Sanctified Crossbow to get a positive flip and a soulstone back. Hopefully the Ghost Eater will be as powerful as he seems to promise, but it feels like there's a lot to learn with him.

Geraint has offered a rematch at some point - so I hope to come back when I know this crew better, and at least do a little better for myself!