State of the 'faux

I managed to get 3 games in this weekend, including 1 at Hobby Town! But in a cold muddled stooper I only took pictures at the first one at Hobby Town. Ah well.
The first game was on Saturday at the good old HT. I played James, good guy, but this was only his fourth game. I'm pretty sure the other three were against my Viks, so I thought I would switch to Leviticus, you know, to be nice. Strategy was shared escape and survive, we both had Stake a Claim and he had Breakthrough, I had Kill Protege. I did some coaching through out, some good, some less so. Not on purpose bad, just maybe not the best, such as the end game move, which I had him gamble more than I should have. I basically only took two significant models, Leviticus and the Hooded Rider. Underhanded? Definitely. Why? Well, with my SPAs combining, it meant that at the end of my first turn I was sitting at 150% of my starting significant models. Options: run my to super fast big guys around, keeping them alive, and acing the game while Leviticus munches the enemy; OR take it to him and bash heads. I may have taken Leviticus against a starter crew, but I do have limits. And I was a about out of it. Anyway, the game was rough. I did my best to offer helpful suggestions. I think he focused to early on his schemes, though I was to slow on mine. I mostly just munched his crew dropping him below the 50% mark real early. He managed to off both the Desolation Engine and the Rider, leaving just Leviticus and a max of two points for strategy for me. In hunting his last guy I pulled Leviticus to far back and almost lost those two. His Judge was dead, guaranteeing me those two. I coached him to try and kill my Waife and stop me from killing and thus moving Leviticus back out. What probably should have happened was him moving his guy around the stake a claim TP and into his breakthrough, getting both for a tie. Would have worked, but was aweful close eyeing it. Good game, very close. I wasn't on top of it at all, either helping him or playing me, on two turns Leviticus lived when I didn't want him to. Mind you, this meant that my broken trash game plan should have ended in a tie, but whatever.
Game two was on Sunday at TEG. It was another one versus Tim. Shared Distract. I only took 2 SPAs trying to start with less and build more. It didn't work so well, about how it usually goes. I also had three belles and a canine. The name of this game was blast. Things turned when he made a comment about he had eight stones and I only had three. I pointed out that he only had two models versus my eight. The he dropped his blast, getting severe and taking out three models and hurt another. Then munch munch munch just Leviticus and two waifes left, then blast shift two inches blast blast my everything is gone. But I still had it, if it doesn't go on to seven and give him time to move back into his zone. It went to seven, curses.
Game three I decided to not run any SPAs, and it went better than trying two. I think its the difference between basing my list on SPAs and not having enough and excluding them completely and not worrying about them. Also, watching the blasts better had to help. We had shared Contain Power, he took both of the guild schemes, Raid and the other one, basically he needed to kill all my minions while saving his. Um... Thank you. Maybe he was cocky from the previous game, I don't know. I even threw caution to the wind and took Thwart. First time I ever got it. This game went the other way from the last. This was my game to win. Not much really to say, and less that I remember. Running zero SPAs seemed more effective than running two. And it was a fun different way to play.
I picked up Ramos, and I am in the process of magnetizing the spiders. I will need to get some games in with him to have a feel by Genghiscon, but I'm itching to try the spiders with Leviticus. Hank not so much, but we'll see.