Spaceships and Knights

I managed to sneak in two games this last weekend before diving into paint night. You would think with a whole day off on Saturday, I would get more. But, due to people copping out, I was short on opponents. I did manage to face Shea in Drop Zone and Mike in Relic Knights.

Sadly, I seem to have lost the only picture I took of the Drop Zone game. The board was an outdoor one, basically the one shown in the Relic Knights shots, just spread to a 4'x4', instead of the 3'x3' I condensed it to afterwards for Relic Knights. I was running my everything I own Shaltari list from previous posts about the league. Shea was running a list similar to what he ran at the tourney. Angelos, Sirens, scout drones, some light drop ships, some APCs, two two man Phobos, two Odins, a Zues and Hyperion combo. Going in I thought I was stuck in it. We were playing table quarters. I had originally though that tanks could drive in substantial terrain, while skimmers could not, but that is insubstantial terrain. Substantial terrain only allows infantry and walkers. This equalized things quite a bit. I also set myself to walk on or deploy on turn one, while he went for a farther forward turn two drop. This set me up with a very strong beach head in my own quarter, From here, I pushed right, taking that as my secondary, from which to threaten either remaining corner for the tie breaker. I can't beat PHR on Kill Points, so a straight draw was out of the question. He dropped his sirens out behind a large hill(removed for RK game), which I headed after with a pair of Yaris with the anti-infantry card in hand. And then I shot wildly into the air. And, of course, that didn't end well. For the price of both Yaris and a held card I took down one Dp on a Siren base. They did take down the light dropship, so, it wasn't a complete loss. He had dropped his Odins behind a wood that I was able to stay behind 4" of. I think, had he moved into it, he could have shot me from it. But, he didn't. My goal was to kill the Phobos, they always make life miserable for my gates, and destroy his dropships. I couldn't let him have mobility late game. He never threatened my corner, so on turn 4, I dropped a Haven back, planning to have it alone hold my corner. I had some, including a Jag, in his second corner, and the Fire Drake was circling the hill to drop some rain on the Sirens and Angelos next turn. The corner to my right had all of my troops, a Jag, my Coyote, and a couple Havens in it, basically guaranteeing it as mine. My Tomahawks and my Kukris all moved to the center, taking some shots, but mostly moving to push into his home quarter on turns 5 and 6. As we went into turn 5, Shea started doing math on where things stood. He was too slow to threaten my home quarter, my anti air had seen to that. The corner to my right was very heavy on my side, and it was unlikely he would make the points there. The corner to his right was about to get very hot, with a good chance of becoming mine, though I didn't point out that my Fire Drakes pilot was an atrocious shot. As such he decided to concede. Then I pointed out my skimmers, who would have tipped the balance my way in either of the corners on his side, with my greed likely leading to me trying to take all three. A great game, and afterwards we were able to discuss our own strategies and how the game went down. That is one of the reasons I really like playing Shea. When he gets beat, even a massive stomping(which this wasn't) he is eager to learn, and listens to criticism and suggestion. I was able to point out that I couldn't allow a quarters draw. He had me in KP, hands down. I didn't mention it, but I should have pointed out that in that match up, he should always play it out. At worst he would get a 16-4, since I can't take Kill Point points from him.

Alright, now it was time to get down to the new hotness, Relic Knights. Of course, as I live most of my life on mute, Mike didn't he me say I would have 40 points ready for last weekend. This week I will be at 50, woot! Anyway, we ended up playing starter boxes. Over the last week I had been reading the forums and learning new trick, and I was ready to play them out. I did warn Mike, I'm not completely ruthless. I did add two boosts, jut to match points, the armor one by my Primary Objective, and the Esper one, uselessly in the middle.

He crushed me for Villain. We had the same orders for objectives, just flipped Primary and Secondary. He had Tear It Down and Anarchy, I had Heist and Carnage. Great, Carnage, if I could do that, it wouldn't even be a game. Well, focus on Primary for 5, faction(Lap Time) for 2 more, and kill just one freaking model for the win. Sound strategy, simple enough, lets go. He deployed his primary just left of center, his two secondaries back, I placed a secondary almost straight towards my right from his Primary, the other almost straight back towards me from his Primary, then my Primary back in my right hand corner. I didn't want him to have a single target for Tear It Down.

I stuck to my plan a little too strongly, activating Esme first to refocus, even though I already had a decent hand. Then I dropped Marie-Claude's speed boost. He did a little shuffling, and used the tank to shot my Secondary on the right. I had written that one off, hoping to protect the other two. I then made my move, I shot Wrecker forward, grabbed a Heist token and pulled his Primary back towards my crew. Sadly, he found a trick of his own, and Sabotaged my Secondary in the open and then continued to blow it up.

With his Primary in base with the Wrecker, who was in base with the edge, I just grabbed and dropped my way to Heist and Lap Time, putting me quickly and easily up, seven nil.

He continued to murderise my objective, with myself having no real ability, or really want, to take advantage of his tank next to a Sabotaged objective.

With my other objectives complete, it was time to kill. The closest model in his crew was Magnus, so I set my sights. Heh.

He continued to target my Secondary, and with a good formation of Diamond Corp..

.. finally finished it off.

Esme finally handed out the Esper he had built up on the very first activation.

And the Black Diamonds showed they shady side, Sabotaging their both of own objectives.

The Wrecker went toe to toe with Magnus, but that scum had taken my armor and recover AoE and then proceeded to Bribe the tank to take the hit, from miles away.

After the Wrecker drug Magnus off, the tank took a shot at the Secondary, but the Pit Crew saved the day, bringing it back up to full.

But Magnus was tenacious and in the end, the objective fell to curroption.

With my queue set up to protect the objective, I was suddenly lined up all wrong. In a desperate gamble, I surrounded Magnus, planning to use bodies to lock him down, while I tried desperately to get a kill, somewhere.

But it was no use, the tank had slunk in on my unprotected objective, while I was trying to protect his. Something about that seems wrong.

I threw Magnus around a bit, but he lived.

And I lost, 7-8.

And then Mike whined about his hand. I don't see the problem, that looks awesome to me.

An awesome game, I am really digging Relic Knights. It is in danger of giving Malifaux a run for its money. I think I could have gone after the tank instead of Magnus, but I had been hoping for my Hell's Bells, as they were to be my damage. Also, When he started his move towards my objective with his tank, I was wishing my Pacer had come in a week earlier. An Oil Slick would have been awesome. As it was, I didn't have an answer to it. In hindsight, maybe I should have destroyed his Primary after I had Heist. Then only my Primary would be left to complete his Anarchy. Of course, it would have turned into a slug fest, for which I was ill prepared. However, I only would have needed one kill to his three. Possible, yes, likely, maybe not. Ah, well, maybe next time.

Please, leave a comment below if you do or don't like the photo dump style battle report. Maybe some day I will even go so far as a video bat rep.... naaahhh.

I am deep into Mousling SDE, so expect pictures of that soon. I also hope to get some paint on my Knights. Kinda tired of grey on purple bases versus grey on purple bases.

Till then, happy gaming!