Best in James: Reva Cortinas, Luminary vs Shenlong - 17 April 2025
This was it!
After a lot of hemming and hawing, we decided to host the actual Best in James match. Using clocks and tournament clock rules. It was on for the mug!
I declared Reva 2, since I’ve been enjoying her lately. I chose three Shieldbearers—the idea being one could protect a Lampad on each flank, and one could look after Reva. Boosey brought a large number of Monks, so we both ended up with slightly non-standard lists. It was also my first outing with Bête Noire, whom I won in the raffle at A Breach in the North XI.
In truth, I was hoping Reva could turn one of those Monk minions into a Lampad with Immolate quite easily, but Boosey wisely kept them out of reach.
We were playing Break the Line, in preparation for the Yorkshire Rumble, and I mistakenly thought you Pushed the markers instead of Placed them. As they say, “Reading OP.”
My plan worked quite well at first, but on the right-hand flank, somehow (I have only myself to blame!) my Lampad and Shieldbearer got separated. Boosey put a lot of resources into killing it—activations from four different models and cheating a Red Joker—but he managed it. My hand was drained of cards and I couldn’t bring it back! That scuppered me a bit. I think the plan may still be solid, though, as on the other flank the Lampad survived, scored points, and ended up with Burning +lots.
Reva didn’t fare so well. Fan the Flames and Traverse Through Ember are great. Not as great against Sensei Yu, who has Laugh Off. I also thought I had In Your Face (which wasn’t even in the scheme pool!) instead of Death Beds, and I spent a long time trying to kill Sensei Yu when I actually just needed to kill any model near a Scheme Marker and a Pyre Marker (and there were plenty of Pyres…). I finally managed it in Turn 4, when James charged a Monk into a Shieldbearer next to a Pyre Marker and a Scheme Marker, and I had two severes in hand. The previous turn, I hadn’t had the cards to do much, and had discarded the Black Joker and three cards of 4 or below. I shuffled them in without thinking, and James very honourably made me take them out of the deck so I’d have a better draw.
The Charm Warder did solid work for Boosey. The Shady Dealings trigger meant I was discarding two random cards per turn for a while (as I struggled to score schemes), and Chaos Theory was nasty! No wonder he kept them away from Reva’s Immolation…
Eventually, with the Shieldbearer dead and no cards to cheat, Reva fell, and I think the game was pretty much sealed at that point. I managed to pivot into dropping Scheme Markers and secured the final point for Death Beds and the first point of Espionage.
We played five turns—which we hadn’t managed with this matchup before—and while I clocked out, it was in my last activation.
It ended 7-5 to James Boosey, and while still a loss, it was a much better result than I expected halfway through!
This was my last casual game of Third Edition! I’ll be writing about my transition to Fourth Edition and the Open Beta. The Yorkshire Rumble is this weekend, which may be my last games of Third! Exciting times!
