Death Angel Combat Teams

I’ve played a lot of solitaire games of Death Angel lately. It’s sad. Still, I’m enjoying it for the most part. I’ve found a few general strategies to be helpful.

General strategies:

1) Don’t let the game lull you. And don’t think you can take it easy on turn one if only a few Genestealers spawn. Losing a marine early is often what makes a game unwinnable.

2) Use your support judiciously. For instance, in a single-player game, often a marine will be engaged with just a single Genestealer. That Genestealer can be killed by the marine on a 1-3 of the die, a 50% chance. But more importantly, the Genestealer only kills the marine on a 0 or 1, so rerolling the second roll is more likely to yield promising results. Of course, the former does remove a bug from the formation. . .

3) Think several turns ahead. Know that a bigger stack of bugs will likely move during the Event phase of the game, and plan accordingly. Move a heavy gunner into position to fight the menace next turn and have the marine engaging the swarm take a defensive action.

4) Fear the Genestealer Lair. One of the final locations is the Genestealer Lair. When this card is turned up, all the Genestealers on each side of the formation combine into two huge stacks, and a Brood Lord is placed on each one. Make sure you’re ready for that possibility. If you find yourself facing down the two Brood Lords with all your guns facing the wrong directions you’re going to lose a lot of marines.

Team-specific ratings and tactics

Lorenzo/Deino (blue team): Lorenzo’s combat team is really strong, but not always in an offensive sort of way. Their support action might be their strongest suit: Whenever Lorenzo is defending and rolls a skull on the die (50% of the faces have skulls) he kills a Genestealer in the swarm attacking him and it attacks again. With enough rerolls, Lorenzo can do some serious damage or at least hold off a lot of Genestealers for a turn. Their move ability is strong, as after the move they can reshuffle some Genestealers into the blip stacks, depending on a die roll. Their attack might be the weakest part of their overall setup, as they can really only kill one Genestealer (per marine) per turn. If they do kill one on the attack they get to add a support token to a marine, so that’s decent.

Attack: 1.5

Defense: 3.0

Awesome combo-ability: Lorenzo’s power sword attack combos well with moving Genestealers to engage him. The move ability combines well with the Door terrain card. 3.0

I often keep Lorenzo and Deino near the swarms so that in an emergency I can use the move action to push bugs back into the blip stacks and buy me time to regroup. Using Lorenzo's support action to fight bugs is often more effective than simply shooting them.

Zael/Onmio (pink team): Zael’s combat team is one of the best overall, in my opinion. While Zael’s range isn’t as great as a standard marine’s, he can kill a lot of Genestealers with his Flamer Attack. That attack kills a number of Genestealers equal to the die roll (0-5 on a six-sided die). With a few rerolls/support tokens, Zael is one of the biggest bug-killers out there. Oh, and Onmio gets an attack while all this is going on as well. Kickass. Their move action allows them to “scout ahead” and see the next event card (Or “Genestealer spawning and random happening” card). If they don’t like what they see they can put it on the bottom of the event deck. That’s pretty awesome. Their support card is combo-rific, as they can move a swarm of Genestealers up or down a space, or even move them from their current location across the formation. That helps out a lot. Too bad Zael can’t Flamer attack in the same turn.

Attack: One of the best. 4.0

Defense: The scouting ability might be considered defensive, and the support ability is pretty good. 2.5

Awesome combo-ability: The support ability is huge. 4.0

Zael is the deadliest marine in play. Use him well and keep him safe from Genestealers. The support action combos well with a lot of other teams’ plays.

Leon/Valencio (orange team): Leon is the autocannon marine, and his team’s Full Auto attack action lets him fire three times instead of one. This, combined with his extended range attacks, makes the orange team one of the deadliest out there. Their move action is strong if they’re near the Door terrain card, as it allows them to put double the support counters on the Door. Putting support counters on the door is a good idea most of the time. However, their support action is lackluster, and this is sad considering it is the iconic Overwatch action.

Attack: 3.5

Defense: 1.5

Awesome combo-ability: Other than Leon’s autocannon, these guys aren’t helping the team out that much. 1.5

Leon is probably the second-deadliest marine to play. Try to keep him out of harm’s way, and try to keep him or Valencio near a Door terrain card if it’s available. Their support action isn’t so good, but getting support tokens on Leon so that his three attacks per round are more deadly is pretty good strategy. His range is mighty.

Calistarius/Scipio (grey team): Calistarius is the resident psyker for the marines. The grey team is pretty strong overall, because each of their actions does something awesome. The attack allows Calistarius to continue attacking as long as he’s killing bugs. Their move discards a card from a blip stack, essentially “killing” a bug. And their support action puts a swarm off Genestealers in stasis, so that they can neither kill or be killed until the next turn. This is huge, as it allows other teams time to prep for a massive swarm and to ready their flamer/autocannon/sword.

Attack: 3.0

Defense: 4.0

Awesome combo-ability: 3.0

Calistarius and Scipio might be the best team to play, overall. Their move action removes bugs from blip stacks, their support action also freezes a swarm, and if Calistarius can get some support tokens for rerolls, he can kill a fat stack of bugs on his attack turn.

Claudio/Goriel (yellow team): Claudio’s team is a strange one. I’m a bit conflicted about their overall worth. On the one hand, Claudio’s Charge attack allows him to kill three Genestealers without rolling a die, and they can be anywhere within a range of 1 and on any side of him. That’s friggin’ awesome. Their move action allows them to swap places with any marines, which is the best way to reposition guys in the game, and can set up Zael for a flamer attack or Lorenzo for a sword defense. Their support action makes it incredibly difficult to kill the marines on the yellow team, because if they spend a support token for a reroll on defense (during their support turn, natch) they can only be killed on a 0. That’s all amazing.

On the other hand, after Claudio does his cannonball he has to roll the die, and on a 0 he dies as well. That’s a big gamble. I find their support ability decent, but as it doesn’t help when they are flanked it isn’t as awesome as it could be. It also requires a reroll/support token to be useful at all, so it spends some resources in the process.

Attack: 3.0

Defense: 2.5

Awesome combo-ability: 3.5

The yellow team is a gamble, but as long as it pays off they are awesome. Claudio’s facing-defying cannonball charge can be a real marine-saver, and this team moves better than any other. The support action helps keep them both alive, but burning tokens to do so irks me.

Gideon/Noctis (green team): Ah, poor Gideon. I’ve derided the Thunder Hammer Sergeant in other areas of this blog, but as it turns out he’s pretty good in the board game. Not as much here in the card game. In theory the green team is decent. In practice they’re difficult to use. Their support action might be their best. While Gideon is defending on their support turns, he can’t be killed when a skull is rolled. That’s pretty amazing, as a swarm of 15 Genestealers still only has a 50/50 shot at killing this Sergeant on defense, and it works whether he’s being engaged from the front or the flank. However, 50/50 isn’t great, and he’ll need some rerolls to survive against the biggest stacks.

Their move action allows them to burn a support token after moving to make an attack. I’m not a huge fan of actions which require burning support tokens in order to get their special effects. I’m extra-skeptical when they allow me to burn a token for a single attack, and the range on one of the marines is friggin’ zero, so Gideon is rarely in range to be useful unless he’s moving.

Their attack action is interesting. They kill a Genestealer upon rolling a skull, like everyone does, but when attacking with Dead Aim, they also kill 3 Genestealers if they roll a 4 (which normally doesn’t kill any). Both of them receive this benefit. In theory it’s pretty awesome. In practice it’s a lot riding on a 1/6 chance (better with rerolls, I guess). And again Gideon’s range of zero is a huge disadvantage here.

Attack: 1.5

Defense: 3.0

Awesome combo-ability: 2.5

Perhaps I’m just playing Gideon wrong? I’ve been favoring using him on the defense to block massive swarms and buy me time, and maybe I should instead be using his one turn of usefulness (if the bugs move he’s out of range. . .)to gamble on killing three bugs with his hammer. I’m not sure. I’ve played the team both aggressively and defensively and when the gamble pans out they’re awesome. When it doesn’t they’re dead, and when they’re dead they’re endangering my other marines as well. I think this is the weakest combat team.

-Merlin out

A Digression in Praise of Digressions!

With apologies to Jonathan Swift.

Desktop Dungeons is a (currently) freeware "adventure" game that essentially combines the brutality of nethack with the casual fun of minesweeper. Give it a shot. There's a lot of math involved, so you've been warned.

To win one must simply kill the level 10 monster on the map. The map is always a 25x25 grid randomly generated and populated with various monsters. The easiest monsters to kill are the character's level or below. However, the lower the monster level the fewer experience points the kill is worth. Killing high-level monsters will advance a character quicker, allowing them to keep more low-level critters around for power-leveling later.

Here's the math: the grid is largely hidden at the start of any game, and the character only regenerates health and mana (magic points, whatever. . .) when exploring. So the player must balance exploration to find low-enough level monsters to level up, while only revealing as much is necessary to win. Sometimes a game is lost because there isn't anywhere left to explore, ending regeneration before the player is ready to solo the "boss".

It's easier the first time. The game keeps the math in the player's favor until they win a game. Then things get more difficult.

The game has at first four basic character classes, the iconic fighter, thief, priest, and wizard. Winning the game with any of the classes will unlock a "tier 2" class related to the primary class. For instance, winning the game with a fighter unlocks the berserker. Similarly, winning with the berserker unlocks the warlord, a "tier 3" related class. There are also several extra classes to unlock through advanced play.

There are five races available at the start of the game, with two more available for unlock. The various races can consume spell runes (or glyphs as the game calls them) for bonuses. Humans consume runes for attack power, dwarves for health, elves for mana points, halflings for health potions, and gnomes for mana potions. The hidden races for player are the goblin, who eats spells for cashmonies, and the orc, who eats spells for experience points.

The races are pretty well balanced, but the various classes play better with certain races, and sometimes in certain challenge dungeons.

I really just want to talk about the 18 available classes today.

Fighter: The basic warrior class. The fighter's special benefits include an extra experience point per kill, a monster-sense which shows all monsters of the character's level and lower, and protection from the first killing blow. So the fighter gets the most mileage out of the lower-level monsters because of his extra experience, and his protection from killing blow gives him essentially one free attack on a monster who would kill him. I often use it on the final boss, saving it for the last. I like playing as the fighter, but it can be a little frustrating at times. Sometimes I try to ignore my monster sense and kill higher-level monsters, but I often find myself exploring toward weaker prey. The great thing about the fighter is that there's no reason not to use magic, it's just that he doesn't use it especially well. He can still toss fireballs around providing he can find the fireball spell in the dungeon early enough (more on that later). For all the good stuff here, the fighter is still ultimately boring to play.

Best races: Orcs combo with bonus experience, but I prefer dwarves and halflings for either bonus health or bonus health potions, which always seem to come in handy.

Overall rating: 2.5

Thief: The thief is awesome. His benefits include a 30% bonus to his first time attacking any given beastie, bonus gold and shops in the dungeon, and the mother of all benefits: when the thief uses a mana or health potion, he gets some regeneration to both health and mana. So his potions do double-duty. This is absolutely huge. To maximize the bonus, make sure to use spells and physical attacks both before drinking them potions, so that the double-regen effects help. In a world with limited regeneration, the thief rocks the house.

Best races: Gnomes and halflings both get extra potions, which are dope in this scenario. Goblins thieves have some serious cashmonies to play with.

Overall rating: 4.0

Priest: The priest kind of rocks the house. He gets some sweet benefits in the form of a 100% heal rate from health potions (most classes get 40% back from either potion), double damage to undead, and a bonus 2 health per level. The priest is a healthy, jolly fat monster. His bonus undead damage can really help when leveling: seek out the zombies and such, and crush them when two levels below them for an experience boost. Save the health potions for full regeneration during the final confrontation, and whoop ass.

Best races: Halflings and their bonus health potions are just goddamn huge here.

Overall rating: 3.5

Wizard: The wizard, as usual, gets kicked in the balls. Repeatedly. Spells are generated in random locations of the dungeon, and the player (with some exceptions) starts with no spells. The wizard can sense the presence of spell runes, so he knows where all of them are, though they are represented by ? symbols and therefore he has to guess at which one is which. This wouldn't be a huge deal, but the wizard, more than any other class, needs him some fireballs. He can carry an extra spell (most classes have 3 spell slots for runes, the wizard has 4), he has rune-sense, and his spells all cost a mana less than other classes' spells do. The problem? The wizard's basic attack is nerfed 25%, meaning he has trouble killing monsters of his own damn level sometimes without magical assistance. Not cool.

Best races: Elf for mana, gnome for mana potions.

Overall rating: 1.0

Berserker: The tier two fighter character. This guy is a blast to play. He's a brute who just wants to smash. He does bonus damage to higher-level monsters, has 50% magic resistance (warlock-type monsters and whatnot have a "magical attack"), has a 30% damage bonus to begin with, and has a hard time reading spell runes (+2 mana cost to any spell cast). There's something awesome about blasting through the dungeon with the berserker after carefully managing both mana and health to win the game as a fighter or thief. Sure, he can still cast some spells, but not many, and he's great at just laying into the bad guys with his hammer. Nice 'n' simple.

Best races: Human for even more damage (smash!), halfling for more health potions.

Overall rating: 3.5

Rogue: The rogue is an interesting dude. He has first strike all the time, which means he gets a slap in before the bad guys know what's what. He has a 20% chance to dodge, which is alright. But here's the kicker: he's got a 50% damage bonus and half health. So managing your fights as the rogue is that much more difficult. The level 10 boss monster can almost always kill the rogue in a single strike (the average level 10 critter damage is 75), so some kind of backup plan needs to be in place to survive. Although, truth be told, I've won with the rogue by dodging the killing blow on that 1/5 chance, and there's something great about that.

Best races:Dwarf for health bonus, human for even more damage (smash again!).

Overall rating: 2.5

Monk: The monk is another crazy character type. He starts with a bigger fisticuffs nerf than the wizard, only inflicting 50% damage, but he's also got 50% resistance to both magic and physical attacks to compensate. He also regenerates health much more rapidly than other characters. The monk is a lot of fun to play. He's a challenge, forcing me to rethink the math that I've got worked out already. However, I find the challenge often rewarding, though I often play human monks, possibly the best of all.

Best races: Human to negate the damage penalties, elf to go for a more magical route.

Overall rating: 3.5

Sorcerer: The sorcerer is a weirdo. He needs to use both physical and magical attacks to the fullest to use all of his benefits: He has an additional 5 mana (a bonus 50% on normal starting mana), he regains 2 health every time he spends a mana, and every time he physically attacks a critter, the critter takes a magic damage per level of the sorcerer. That's a lot of goos stuff, but as I said, it requires a balanced approach to the game. Going with a purely magical or brute-force style of game (several of the gods in the game support these approaches) is difficult with the sorcerer. Still, he's a lot of fun to play, though he's a bit lame if he can't find a useful magic rune early. A lot of his benes don't truly activate until he finds BURNDEYRAZ (fireball) or BYCEPS (the attack bonus spell).

Best races: Any do pretty well, but Humans combine well with the magic attack bonus, and elves give the sorcerer a huge mana boost on his already huge mana boost.

Overall rating: 3.0

Warlord: The third-tier classes all begin the game sitting on a special spell-rune. Each of them interact on the main with their rune to change gameplay. After winning the game with any of these classes, the spell-rune becomes available for random generation in any game. The warlord's special rune is CYDSTEPP, which is incredibly expensive to cast, but grants the character death protection (protection from the next killing strike). Using this rune, the warlord is able to fight and kill many monsters above his level. He's a powerful class. His other benefits interact with this bonus: +30% damage when his health is below half and +30% damage (stacking w/ previous) after drinking a mana potion. When death-protection kicks in, the character is left with 1 health, so the warlord, while CYDSTEPP is in place, usually has at least the first damage bonus, and since it can be pre-cast, the character gets the equivalent of two extra attacks on critters which would otherwise kill the warlord. He's super strong, really.

Best races: Any, though the human is great for the damage bonus, and the gnome is good for more mana potions.

Overall rating: 4.0

Assassin: The third-tier thief is a poisoner. The assassin starts with the APHEELSIK spell-rune, which when cast prevents the affected monster from regenerating until the character attacks any monster. So the assassin can stab a critter, then poison it when death is immanent, then go explore to regenerate, then go finish the job. On top of that, if the assassin has explored all around a creature he gets first strike against it, and he instantly kills all creatures below his level in one strike. He's awesome. He sucks against undead, however, because they're immune to poison. So watch out for zombies.

Best races: Orc for the experience bonus (higher level assassins kill things easier), human for the damage bonus.

Overall rating: 3.5

Paladin: The third-tier classes all sort of break the game in a way. I find the paladin to be an extremely strong class. He starts with HALPMEH, the healing spell-rune. This will cure a portion of his health and cure poison for a paltry sum of mana, allowing the paladin to take on higher-level monsters with relative ease. But he gets more! He's got 25% physical resistance so he takes three-quarters damage from most beasties (awesome) and he gets a health boost from killing undead (cornercase). Starting with the spell is everything, though. He can even beat the standard regeneration math of many standard critters 2 levels higher than he is, because he's getting hit for less, and he regenerates mana (which = health for him) at the same time as health, so he's double-dipping. Strong.

Best races: For even stronger regen-breakage, the humans for damage bonuses or elves for extra mana (and therefore extra healing) are where it's at. Elf paladins?

Overall rating: 4.0

Bloodmage: The bloodmage, or Santa as I like to call him because his little sprite/icon looks like St. Nick, is the least awesome of the third-tier classes. He's still pretty cool. He begins with a glyph that converts health regeneration to mana regeneration, called BLUDTUPOWA. That's pretty strong if he can find BURNDAYRAZ early. If not it can be a waste. He also gets 100% mana regen from mana potions, but they also harm him to the tune of 6 health per level, which is a lot. So he can't even drink a mana potion if he's too badly hurt. That's a pain. However, to mitigate this somewhat, he regains some health from the blood pools left behind by slain monsters, so a tricksy blood mage player will explore as much as possible without stepping on dead critter squares to maximize late game regen-without-exploration. That way the player is regaining health but his prey is not (monsters only regen during player exploration). So he's an interesting class to play, but he can also be really frustrating.

Best races: If he can find a useful spell early, elf and gnome bloodmages are pretty awesome. Humans are a good choice as well, because bonus physical attack never seems to be bad to me.

Overall rating: 2.5

Transmuter: There are three "weird" classes and three "racial" classes in addition to the tiered classes. The three "racial" classes can't be chosen with a race, they are a class and a race at once. The transmuter is the first of the "weird" classes, which means the player still gets to choose a race. The transmuter is whack as hell, however.

All of the "weird" and "racial" classes once again turn the math of the game on the ear. The transmuter, I find, is actually incredibly strong. He begins the game with a spell rune called ENDISWALL, which allows him to destroy a section of wall. Normally this is an expensive spell in mana to cast, but the transmuter gets it for a single mana point. Further, he regenerates 2 health per level whenever he eats a section of wall. However, the price he pays is that he doesn't regenerate health during exploration as normal.

In theory this is difficult. In practice it's actually awesome. Since the transmuter doesn't regenrate health during exploration, he can instead explore enough map to expose a higher-level beastie who can't kill him in one hit, then crush it while carefully casting his spell to regenerate health while never actually exploring (so never allowing the beast to regenerate). Careful play yields serious results here, and I've found the transmuter to be an absolute badass. The downside is that it's actually really onerus to play this way.

Best races: Humans for that kung fu bonus. Gnomes or elves for mana potion or mana bonuses.

Overall rating: 3.0

Crusader: The crusader is truly whack. He gets a cumulative 10% damage bonus each time he kills a monster, so if he can chain killing strikes he gets more and more deadly. Any time he strikes without killing the bonus resets to zero. He also is immune to poison and mana burn (both conditions that prevent regeneration of whichever), which is huge. And last but not least, if he is killed, he does a triple-damage death blow to whatever kills him, so he is the only class that can win while dying.

That's alright.

I find the crusader boring to play. He's pretty strong overall, and moreso if he can get himself some death protection via CYDSTEPP or whatnot, and if he can get a nice level up and keep a bunch of low-level beasties around to kill-chain into a monster smash on the final boss he's awesome. But that doesn't always pan outt. Still good.

Best races: Humans are great all around for the attack bonus. Orcs can get a crusader a level up early on for kill-chaining later.

Overall rating: 3.0

Tinker: The tinker is all about items. Tinkers get gold for killing foes, they get a discount at shops, and they get bonus shops in the dungeon. Given that items can make or break a game (the fine sword item is shit hot) sometimes, this is a big plus. But then, it's random. sometimes there just won't be an awesome item at hand when the tinker needs it, and that can be a pain. The class is a bit of a toss-up, but ultimately fun to play.

Best races: Goblins for yet more gold, any other grants some decent bonuses on an otherwise "blank" class.

Overall rating: 2.5

Gorgon: The first "racial" class, the Gorgon is a petrification machine. She starts with the ENDISWAL spell-rune, and she needs it, because her kill strikes replace monsters with stone blocks of impenetrable wall. She does half damage at start, she has 50% physical resist (see the monk), she has a poison attack, she's immune to death gaze (which other Gorgons have), she regens mana on monster kill, and she has a 10% chance to instantly kill any foe at start. This can be increased by converting/eating spell runes. That's a lot of nonsense.

The gorgon is difficult to play. The ENDISWAL spell-rune costs a whopping 8 mana of the character's starting 10, so casting it in quick succession without regeneration requires potion use. The player must balance regeneration of mana with the gorgon's slaying of enemies and the subsequent wall-destruction that must often occur. For this reason, if I'm not careful, I sometimes find myself trapped without a way to regenerate mana in a stone corridor. That sucks. The whole half damage thing is also a pain in the ass, and since the gorgon only has 50% physical resist and not both physical and magical resist like the monk, magical creatures like dragons really hurt the gorgon. If the final boss is the dragon or warlock (or worse, both, as in the library challenge dungeon), the gorgon has a tough climb ahead of her.

Overall rating: 1.5

Half-Dragon: The half dragon is a strange class, but it can be a lot of fun. It's got double health, has a magical attack that gets through physical resistance (watch out for magical resistance, though), has increased scouting capacity, can't cast fireball at all, and starts with +20 knockback damage. The last is cool: when the half-dragon hits an enemy, the enemy is blasted back a square directly behind the assault (including diagonally). If the enemy hits a wall or another enemy, it takes the knockback damage. If it hits a wall, the wall is destroyed while the enemy gets blasted back. If it hits an enemy, both foes take the knockback damage. The half-dragon can eat spells for bonus knockback damage (20% per).

This can be a bitch to get right at first. If the dragon blasts an enemy into unexplored territory without killing it, the creature will regenerate (as will the dragon) as the dragon approaches to finish it, lengthening the process. The player has to carefully circumscribe the foe to make sure the baddie isn't just going to get healthy again before the next blow falls. Better yet, the player should blast beasties into their friends. It takes some practice, but when it all works it's a lot of good times.

Overall rating: 3.0

Vampire: Ah, the finale. The vampire completely revamps the game. He's got 30 health at the start, begins with 3 health potions instead of one, gets extra damage per level, and LOSES health while exploring instead of regenerating. He's got first strike, poison immunity, he can sense monsters/juice bags, he has ZERO mana and can cast spells with his health, and he regenerates health from blood pools left by kills. he starts with a 25% life steal, and can get more by eating spells at 5% per glyph eaten.

That's nuts. The vampire is great because while completely changing the game, he also makes it quicker. The player generally knows whether a game is winnable with the vampire in the first few minutes. Either the vampire has found enough easy prey nearby to cull, or he's going to die from exhaustion too early. Of special note is the vampire who find the BURNDAYRAZ spell early on: since he casts spells with health instead of mana, and his health is immense, the vampire actually makes the best spellcaster in the game. He can cast five fireballs at level 1 and full health, which is 3 more than a level 1 wizard who starts close to the fireball glpyh. At high levels the vampire can cast absurd amounts of fire, and since he loses little physical brawn while doing so this is a lot of fun to do.

The downside is that he feels like an all-or-nothing coin toss at the beginning of a game. Never tell me the odds.

Overall rating: 4.0

Death Angel Multiplayer and VTES

I wrote some of this over the weekend after the games, but I'm currently swamped at my two jobs and decided to publish it. I apologize for any errors in the text.

I played several more solo games of Death Angel. I died a lot and lost. Gideon failed me both times. Goddamn Thunder Hammer isn’t reliable. I did win one game, with Lorenzo, Calistarius, and Caludio. I think that the "sweet spot" for single-player involves Lorenzo, Calistarius, and any other team except Gideon. I can say with certainty that activating the Door terrain often (when switching locations, kill a genestealer for each counter on the door, placed by activating) is actually a good idea all the time.

I then went out to play with friends. Eskimatt (Matt the Inuit) and Ray joined me for a three player game of Death Angel, and it went pretty well. Three player games move very quickly, because 6-10 genestealers spawn every turn on average. We had to keep our shit together to slap them down. We had all twelve marines, four to a player, in play.

Ray took to it as he always does to new games, with a lazy competence that slaughtered genestealers while still barely understanding the overall strategy of the game. Go brute force.

Eskimatt spent a lot of time each turn talking to me about what actions we should take as an overall team. We did pretty well, but every once and a while we had to just shut up and pick action cards.

We lost a few guys, but in the end we still had nine of twelve marines, and we got the “kill all genestealers in blip piles or in play” victory-condition card, which is middle of the road as far as difficulty goes. We were certainly going to lose some guys killing all the bugs, but then we figured out a way to pit them all against Sergeant Lorenzo, who I controlled, and then I played the Lorenzo-team Support card, which says every time you roll a skull on the die on defense (50/50 chance, 3 of the sides have skulls) you kill a Genestealer and the swarm rolls again to attack.

We piled like 5 support tokens on Lorenzo for rerolls and I used 3 of them to kill a stack of 7 with Lorenzo’s Support ability. It was fucking hardcore: Lorenzo stabbed over a half-dozen marine-killing Genestealers to death with his sword.

Good victory, though it actually felt a little easy.

Then we played some VTES, as Devin had arrived.

Game 1:

Ray (Cailean Wall)--->EskiMatt(Full Steam Ahead)-->Me(Bored of Directors)-->Devin(Melisande Soul Gem)

Ray got Mouse, Clarissa Steinbergen and Cailean. EskiMatt popped Vardar the Vardarian and Olugbenga. I got Lana Butcher, Joao Bile, and Elena Guitierrez. Devin got Melisande.

EskiMatt’s deck, which is actually my deck, is my (almost certainly worse) version of a David Cherryholmes deck concept I read about on the google group. It’s never quite run right for me, but every once and a while it scores. It tries to ignore its predator by ousting the hell out of its prey with Loss bleeds at stealth. It’s important to save the Khabar:Glory for the oust turn, but there are 6 or so in the deck, so the hope is that you can always play one every turn if you have two. There’s 14 or 15 Loss in there.

So I knew what I was in for. My Ventrue weenie breed/bloat/vote had a chance to handle it, but I drew into nothing but master cards after getting the ball rolling nicely. Lana was the Prince of Miami, I had the Sunset Strip and Headquarters in play, and Elena was the Justicar. I even called some early pool damage votes to hit Devin for 6 or 7 pool. Then I had three change of target and a bunch of master cards in hand. It kind of sucked.

Ray’s Cailean wall does as many wall decks do: it got a pile of cards on the main guy. Cailean got a Guardian Angel, a Flak Jacket, and a Raven Spy quick, and then a Laptop and an Eternal Vigilance as well. Mouse didn’t do much. Clarissa ran into Melisande.

Devin’s deck was interesting. He got out Melisande, Villein’d to get some pool back, gave her THA with a skill, and had her magic up a Soul Gem the first turn she could. Then he put a Palla Grande in play and bled with her. Clarissa got in front of it and Devin showed his hand. He’d gotten Melisande close to empty, and with her add-strike she was empty and played Burst of Sunlight. This gave Devin a fresh Melisande to act with. But now she didn’t have superior thaumaturgy, so the train would have to wait until next turn to roll again.

Eskimatt hammered me with Loss for two turns, getting me for 10 or 12 pool. It sucked. I drew into one Con Boon, but I was running out of pool and time. He jammed for a turn on stealth but I was on the ropes.

Devin and Ray mixed it up a bit. Cailean got another Bird. Mouse found an Army of Rats.

Matt bled me down to 4. I played a Hostile takeover, thinking that Devin might buy Vardar off of my predator and thereby get me another turn. I then bled with all my guys, hoping Devin would try and block each one with Vardar so that I could Change of Target. It worked. I drew 3 Master cards. Goddammit.

Then to top it all off, I left Joao untapped (he could have hunted after the bleed/CoT. . .), despite the fact that I knew Matt had a From a Sinking Ship in his hand, as he’d misplayed it earlier. Devin did some Melisande nonsense. Cailean’s team got Smiling Jack, the Anarch into play. Cailean got another bird.

Ray bled the table a bit with Smiling Jack, but Matt stole Joao from me (an Eye for an Eye apparently) and then bled me for one with each of his guys to oust me. Goddamnit again.

Matt then plowed into Devin with a Gambit Accepted as poolgain/bleed, and D actions to avoid the threat of Cailean.

Ray blocked everything he could for a few turns, but this left Cailean at one blood and despite Ray’s Hunting Ground/Blood Doll combo on Cailean, Smiling Jack was starting to really hurt him. He was down to four pool when Matt ousted Devin, and then to three with Smiling Jack pulling counters from him.

Ray and Matt did the stealth/intercept dance for a bit, but Matt had a Dreams in play by now and his Lost in Crowds was doing double duty on Cailean’s animalism intercept cards. Matt drew into an Elder Impersonation, and with the Loss he bled with, it sealed the deal.

EskiMatt 4 VP, GW

Game MVP: Loss, or maybe Khabar:Glory, which is sick.

Game 2:

Ray (G5=6 Baali vote/bleed)-->Me(Victim---G2-3 Internal Maleficia toolbox)-->Devin (!Salubri swarm)--> EskiMatt (Kyasid Ravager bloat/bleed)

The game broke badly, as four-player games often do. Matt and I, crosstable buddies, found ourselves in trouble early. Devin was swarming on Matt like crazy before his bloat could set up, and it turns out while Ravager + Hungry Coyote + a couple Vessel is strong, Hide the Heart still fucks it all up if the dude is empty when he does it.

I got out Dylan and a couple Caitiff, and then I spent most of the game going backwards. Ray got Annnazir and Arishat, the G6 voting Baali, and they proceeded to bleed for 3 per action, or call Reckless Agitation. I had a bunch of Evil Eye and super-Maleficia on Dylan, so I defended alright, but being infernal and being on the ropes really sucks. I got Sargon out, as I needed him to play Ruins of Charizel, but Ray had already beaten me down pretty hard. On top of that, Matt hadn’t been able to do much to Ray because Devin had gotten out every group 2 !Salubri and they’d also summoned a few Brothers in Arms, so he could bleed for 6 with his weasels.

Devin pushed at Matt relentlessly, and Ray pushed at me relentlessly. I got ousted first. Then Devin threw everything he had into ousting Matt, though I was telling him (kibitzing at this point, really) that destroying Ray’s fourth Path of Evil Revelations (I’d destroyed several already) was necessary. Devin ignored me; it’s usually a good idea. Turns out it wouldn’t have mattered much. Ray had enough pool to untap his guys anyway, and with two Reckless Agitation he ousted Devin quite handily. He also had two Horde in play by now.

EskiMatt only had a few pool by now, so Ray was able to oust him with relative ease.

Ray: 4 VP and 1 GW

Game MVP: Annazir. Guy is a beast.

Then it was late. Devin was interested in playing a game of Death Angel, and EskiMatt was hanging out still, so we played 3-player again. Things went so much worse for the marines this game. We lost a couple of red-shirt vanilla marines early, and then we got the Teleportarium for the middle location card.

The Teleportarium location has a control panel, and activating the control panel does this: All space marines must spend a Support token or roll a die, and on a 0 they die. Then all the blips in both piles are removed and the marines move to the next location.

We were having trouble, with extra blips being added to the stacks (event cards!), and we decided to activate the Teleportarium. This was a mistake, because we were probably gonna lose two marines on average. We lost Zael, the Flamer marine, and Leon, the autocannon marine. This was very very very bad.

Without heavy weapons we really only had Claudio and Calistarius to get multiple attacks, and we’d allowed a lot of bugs to accumulate on the board by this point. We lost another two marines in the 3^rd location, and more and more bugs started flanking our guys. We only had 6 marines, and we’d lost all the green (Gideon) team and purple (Zael) team by the last location.

The final location was the Launch Control Room. The win condition here is to activate the control panel and either put a support token on it or roll a die, and if the die is equal to or less than the number of tokens on the card the marines win.

By now there were bugs fucking everywhere. We lost another vanilla marine while putting a token on the control panel, and we were lucky not to lose more. Without the heavy weapons marines we had little chance of surviving the next turn or two: There was a stack of 10 genestealers marauding the Hulk by this point, and several smaller 3-5 bug swarms.

I looked at Devin and EskiMatt, and said, “let’s go for the control panel victory and hope we get lucky”.

We spent all our action cards on Move/Interact actions, and we managed to put two more tokens on the Control Panel. Then Sergeant Lorenzo, under Matt’s control, activated the panel and Matt had a 66% chance of winning the game for us: 0-3 on the die. EskiMatt was pissed about the pressure. There was some wailing and gnashing of teeth. The roll was properly dramatic.

And it was a 3! Victory with 20-odd Genestealers spawned around 5 marines! Hot.

We decided that the marines magnetized the Hulk and then opened the hatch to the great void, and watched the Genestealers get sucked out into space while they worked their life support systems. Lorenzo isn’t wearing a helmet, tho. No matter. Victory was ours, and it was properly dramatic. Nice.

Good times.

-Merlin out

Death Angel: Space Hulk Card Game Solitaire

I'm a fan of the board game, clearly, and the Death Angel box says 1-6 players. So I thought I’d give it a go, one player. I’ll try to rope the boys into some multi-player games, but the single player experience, as with so many games, is alright if you can’t find a friend.

When masturbation’s lost its fun you’re fucking lazy.

But I digress. Death Angel plays like this: depending on the number of players in the game, there are 6-12 marines in play, assembled into a single line called the formation. The top half of the line faces left at start, the bottom right. Facing is important for firing, line of sight, etc. The marines are delineated into two-man combat teams, with each team comprising a basic storm-bolter type marine and a special weapons, sergeant, or otherwise extraordinary combatant. The teams are basically set up as:

Sergeant Lorenzo with the Power Sword, and backup dancer Brother Deino.

Sergeant Gideon with the Thunder Hammer and Power Shield, and backup dancer Brother Noctis.

Brother Zael with the Heavy Flamer, & fly girl Brother Omnio.

Brother Leon with the Autocannon, & extra from the “Thriller” video Brother Valencio.

Lexicanum Calistarius, the psychic “Librarian”, and wingman Brother Scipio.

Brother Claudio of the Lightning Claws, and some guy named Brother Goriel (fun fact: Goriel is latin for “gibs of God”).

The game starts in a standard location of a Space Hulk depending on how many marines are in play, as defined by starting location cards. All games begin in the Void Lock, though they are different depending on how many marines are in play. Each location has different “terrain” features, like the door card, the corridor card, the ventilation shaft, etc. These features are essentially genestealer spawning points. Each location also has a left- and right-side blip stack, which defines how many bugs can spawn on each side of the location. If, at the end of any phase, a blip stack is empty, the marines move onto the next location, staying in formation and with any ‘stealers in the formation staying as well.

Each game moves through several locations, as defined by the first location card, but randomized a bit: there are 3 of each number location and each game moves through 4 or 5 locations (starting to a random #1 type location, then to a #2 type, etc to #4 type location and marine win conditions), and therefore the various locations the marines can move through have several permutations, enhancing replayability.

So the marines get set up in their formation, and then the genestealers get spawned a bit to get the ball rolling. The spawning points are conveniently in front of the marines at the game’s start, but as the game progresses things change and it gets hectic and dangerous. Then the marines get to choose their actions for the round, based on their two-man combat teams. Each team gets to choose to either Move/Interact with the environment, Support their fellow marines, or Attack the bugs. The team cannot choose the same action two turns in a row, so if Lorenzo’s team Attacks on the first turn, they must Support or Move/Interact on the second turn. And so on.

Each team has special cool little stuff they can do with their action choices: Leon’s team’s support card is called Overwatch, and at the end the turn the Overwatch card is played, any marine can burn a Support token (generally gained by choosing the support action) to take a shot at a bug; Lorenzo’s team’s attack card is called Lead by Example, and once this turn, while attacking, if Lorenzo or Deino kills a bug, they can add a support token to any marine. And so on. So there’s actually a lot of cool shit going on for these teams, and they’re asymmetrical in this way: even while choosing standard actions they’ve got a lot of special, exception-based text working for them.

So, each marine squad chooses a card to play (discussed with other players if playing with multiple players), and they’re resolved in a particular order: each card has an initiative number, and they are resolved in ascending order. For the most part, support actions take place, then move actions, then attack actions. Attack actions for marines go like this: the marine attacking rolls the die which comes with the game, and if a skull-side of the die shows, a Genestealer of choice in the marine’s range dies. The die is special. It is a six-sided die enumerated from 0-5, and there are skulls on the 1, 2, and 3. So a marine essentially has a 50/50 shot at killing a bug on his attack turn.

Assuming the marines have not eradicated all the bugs currently against them after their action cards resolve, the bugs get a chance to strike back. The bugs attack as a swarm, with each pile of genestealers attacking the marine closest to them. The marine defending from the swarm rolls the die, and if it shows a number equal to or less than the number of Genestealers attacking his marine, the marine dies. So a basic 1-bug swarm in the beginning of the game kills 1/3 of the time, not counting those rerolls. If the game’s gone on a bit and there are 4 bugs in the stack, they’ve got a 5/6 chance at killing their foe. Don’t let 5 or more Genestealers gather in a swarm.

Support tokens can be spent for rerolls in either attack or defense, but only against bugs facing the marine. Don’t let them behind you.

I played a one-player game with random teams. The one-player scenario starts with 3 teams. I got Leon, Lorenzo, and Calistarius. I shuffled the guys up and they were pretty well spread out, with Leon at the top of the formation, followed by Lorenzo’s backup dancer Deino, then Calistarius’ guy Scipio, then Calistarius, then Lorenzo, and finally Valencio, the “Thriller” extra from team Leon.

The game went incredibly well for me. It took a long time, as I had to stop and consult the rules a bunch, but several factors seemed to work in my favor: My support token rerolls always were used to save a marine’s life in defensive spots, Lorenzo’s support card allows him to use his power sword to fuck up Genestealers while defending, Lorenzo’s move card lets him get Genestealers off the board and back into the blip-stack from whence they spawned, Leon’s Full Auto Attack card lets him roll three attacks during his combat action and he has the largest range of any marine, and Calistarius’ support card essentially holds a swarm in stasis for a turn.

There’s a lot of ways in which these abilities came together to buy me time when I needed it. The team was strong and I blasted my way through the starting Void Lock location to the randomly chosen Teleportarium. The second location had some weirdness to it, but I ignored all the special text and just mowed through bugs to get to the third location, and then quickly on to the fourth and final location, the Genestealer Lair. My victory condition was to kill the two Brood Lord Genestealers, which could have been difficult in some other game, but in my game it was easy. The board was already cleared of bugs, and since the Brood Lords need other Genestealers to hide behind in order to be resilient, I had a lot of opportunities to end this one easy. I finally did. No marines dead.

I decided to play again a few days later. I pulled up different teams at random. This time I got Lorenzo, Gideon, and Claudio. The two close-assault marines and Lorenzo, with no heavy weapons and no psyker to lay down the psionic assault.

It didn’t go well.

At first it was okay, but Gideon’s backup dancer Noctis got surrounded early, and one of the bugs behind him managed to kill him. That was a drag. Then Lorenzo’s pal Deino bit the dust too. I fought off some of the swarm, but they seemed immune to my bullets and without Leon’s deadly autocannon I was feeling the hurt. The bugs had moved away from Claudio (at random, per the rules), and this was really bad for me, as Claudio can do some damage with his Heroic Charge attack action (kill three bugs within range one of Claudio, then roll the die, on a 0 Claudio dies as well) to help even the tide. But the bugs were all too far away for him to make much difference.

When marines die bad shit happens: the formation shifts. Because the “location” and “terrain” cards are an abstraction, a dead marine means shifting the formation up or down so that the marines are in a single line again. This can merge stacks of Genestealers into even larger swarms, and worse yet, in the later throes of a game it can merge terrain cards (spawning points) together, making huge and untenable swarms of Genestealers arrive in single locales. Losing the first marine isn’t so bad, but it’s the beginning of a slippery slope: each further death seems to exponentially reduce the chances of marine victory. When down to one or two marines, those guys are almost certainly surrounded by bugs, spawning points, and moments from a die roll with a good chance of death.

Gideon bit it next, which was a damn shame, because I didn’t get to test his mettle much. Further, when he left I had lost an entire team so I had one fewer action card to choose during my turns. After that I got some ground back with Claudio’s aforementioned Heroic Charge and Lorenzo’s Intimidation move action, which moves a die-roll worth of Genestealers off the board and back into the blip stacks. But the next turn saw four more bugs spawn on either side of Lorenzo, and since I couldn’t just do the Heroic Charge/Intimidate thing every turn, I had to try something else. I went with support tokens, as both Lorenzo and Claudio have good support bonuses, but while doing this Claudio’s buddy Goriel died.

With just Lorenzo and Claudio into the final stretch, I again pushed a bunch of bugs around and cannonballed Claudio into a pile. That didn’t stop the xenos from killing Lorenzo in the madness, however.

Claudio made the final location (the Launch Control Room this time), but the Control-panel based win condition required a lot of perseverance and more turns than I had. A stack of 7 Genestealers ended the marine game shortly thereafter (they couldn’t lose).

As I hadn’t played Zael’s team yet, I waited another night and gave him a go.

This last time I had Zael, Leon, and Claudio. This seemed like a hot combination. The two heavy-weapons marines have some of the strongest attack actions, and Claudio’s Heroic Charge has demonstrated its usefulness: even if he dies he’s taking three bugs with him.

In theory it was awesome. In practice I rolled badly. Leon the autocannon marine died before the marines left the Void Lock. He failed to kill the swarm in front of him with his many many attacks, and then died despite having a support token to reroll for defense during the ensuing Genestealer counterattack. Sad. Losing Leon hurt a lot. Zael and Claudio fought off the swarms that killed Leon, and things leveled out for a while. Then I lost Valencio, Leon’s buddy. That sucked, as I had one less action card to play then and so my options were low.

The Genestealers spawned a lot in the third location, the Genetorium, and Zael couldn’t handle the swarm (I rolled poorly for his incredibly powered Flamer attack). Losing the third marine really hurts in a one-player game: the last three guys will find bugs all over them in no time. I managed to kill a bunch of them with Claudio’s cannonball Heroic Charge, and moved to the final location, the Toxic Pumping Station this time. This final location is all about killing bugs: the marine victory hinges on exhausting both piles of blips and then killing all the bugs in the formation. This is a totally doable goal.

But again I rolled badly, and then Goriel died. Then Omnio. Claudio cannonballed again to crush a bunch of bugs, but unfortunately 4 were left in a stack in play, which means that during counterattack Claudio needed to roll the 5 to live. Didn’t happen, but victory was in my sights at least: one blip stack was exhausted, and there were only 3 cards left in the other, so if Claudio had been able to stay alive another few turns I might have been able to pull it off.

Two losses, one win. It’s surprisingly fun, and the various combinations of teams and locations help with replayability.

The three final locations, I’m afraid, are all that there is. So the marines’ win conditions are either: kill all the bugs ever (Toxic Pumping Station), kill the two Brood Lords (Genestealer Lair), or move/interact with the environment a lot while fending off the bugs (Launch Control Room).

The toughest might be the Genestealer Lair, as the Brood Lords are beasts, but in my game I’d gotten lucky and killed all the bugs before even facing the Lords. And the Lords are nothing without their pals. The Launch Control room seems the most difficult for a whittled-down squad of tired marines: the marines have to activate the control panel multiple times to ensure a decent chance at victory, and then again to actually try and win. All while fending off the villainous aliens.

Overall, I like the game a lot solitaire. But then, I like Space Hulk a lot. If I can sucker my pals into playing with me I’ll post some multiplayer playthroughs.

-Merlin out

Hulk IV and VTES

Robb and I managed to plan a game night recently. It started off with more Hulk and then evolved into VTES. Robb wanted to play the 6th Hulk mission again, with me as the marines. He thought he'd made some serious mistakes that cost the marines the game, and that it was a totally winable scenario. We'll see.

Mission VI: Alarm Call (again)

I placed Zael first, instead of Lorenzo. This was because I thought I'd need the Flamer to clear the halls of bugs early on. I also used some of my placements to block entire sections of the Hulk, as sleeping marines block movement. I neglected to mention this to Robb again, and I actually had assumed he didn't know that, so that was a total dick move on my part. It was a night of many dick moves on my part, really.

Robb put Lorenzo far far away. Then we placed the rest of the marines, and I used my last two to put guys in front of doorways to keep too many bugs from slipping in behind me. I ran Claudio o' the lighntning claws and Calistarius the Librarian to rescue Zael ASAP. The bugs filled the halls around us. Then the marines dashed across the final hallway to rescue random marine 1 and then Lorenzo, who was in the farthest room. One of the marine win conditions is that they rescue 3 guys before bailing. All that went down. I used Claudio as a stop-gap marine in the end hallway. I was hoping that he'd be able to maul a few bugs while the rest of the rescue went on. Alas. He took the third close assault on the chin and went down in a heap. Lame.

After waking the final marines, I had to make sure Calistarius and at least two other doods got off the boat. This looked difficult. The hallway near the exit was teeming with Genestealers, just as it was during our other play of Mission VI. I used Zael and my vanilla marine to slowly push down toward that hallway while waiting for Lorenzo and the Librarian to catch up. Eventually those guys caught up, but they brought a world of Genestealers right behind them, and I managed to really suck at rolling kills with Calistarius' psychic storm power, so I was burning psi points to little gain.

Robb and I had independently come to the conclusion that the force barrier power was where it was at by this point. I used barriers to cover my ass and Lorenzo managed to kill the last bugs crawling at him as he caught up to Zael and Calistarius. However, I'd lost the vanilla marine by this point.

So, at this point I looked at the board. Robb had like 6 bugs behind my guys but several squares away, and there were something like 10 in the two branches of the final hallway just "off-screen". Zael blasted a flamer burst down the hall to keep them busy, and then ducked down a hall to let Calistarius run closer for the final push. It was Calistarius, then Zael, then Lorenzo in the final rush. I made some poor rolls and Robb got a bug up in Calistarius' face, but i dropped a force barrier to block that hallway and had left a smoking ruin behind me with Zael to gather the troops.

If the librarian died in close assault the game would be over. Robb had one roll. We tied. I spent one of my final two psi points to kill the Genestealer, and then prepared for the final push. Calistarius rushed across the deadly hallway, and Zael cooked the intersection behind him to block the bugs. Then Zael and Lorenzo moved up, just out of Genestealer reach.

I counted my guys, and then I counted how much movement I needed to win. IF I drew six command points AND I used my last psi point to regain a command point, I would win. Otherwise, Lorenzo would probably be left with his back to a hallway full of close assaults.

I drew the six.

Marines win! But damn, just barely. Brutal mission.

Mission VII: The Artefact, or Get Some Shit and Leave

Robb and Devin took the marines on this one, and I filled the hulk with bugs. The mission was pretty straightforward: move across the hulk, get the mcguffin, and then return the mcguffin to the marine entry squares. It looked rough, but the marines did have Calistarius and Claudio to back up Lorenzo's squad. Robb and Devin decided that Lorenzo, Zael, and Calistarius should go get the artefact, while Claudio and the three basic marines tried to stem the tide in the entrance of the ship.

The plan went pretty well at first. The advance team made a lot of progress. Their progress was slightly hampered by the fact that I drew 18 Genestealers in the first two turns, and revealed them so as to spread them all over the hulk. Claudio once again proved a victim early, as my bugs killed him in his very first close assault. Unfortunately, Claudio's backup, Brother Goriel, was an absolute crack shot, and on Overwatch he managed to kill something like 8 Genestealers before I got him. That was huge.

I got one more marine in the front of the boat in the late game, but Robb and Devin had managed to get the artefact and move it far closer to victory than I would have liked. I managed to flank the librarian twice, but the bastard was lucky in close assault and he didn't waste too many psi points fending off the bugs. That was a damn shame, and it proved my undoing.

In the final throes of the game Lorenzo, who was carrying the mcguffin, passed it off to Calistarius, who made a mad dash for the entry and then placed a force barrier in the way of my Genestealers to keep them off of him. I conceded victory, as there was no way I'd get to him before he stepped into a victory square.

The marines win again, although to be clear, Lorenzo and Deino probably weren't going to survive the pile of bugs I had accumulated in the hulk by that point.

Marines rating: 3.5. Genestealers rating: 3.5. Lots of fun and villainy.

Alayna arrived soon after the second Hulk mission so we decided to play some VTES, having four players.

I'm really starting to hate four player vtes. It feels like the games are decided by turn 5.

Game 1:

Devin (Hermanas Menor)--->Me(Eyes on Africa)--->Alayna (Jaroslav bruise/bleed)--->Robb(Saulot is a Fakir)

Things went pretty well, since Devin went first and therefore his little sister machine wasn’t a whole turn ahead of me. I had Homa down and managed to get a ready minion by the time Devin had two sistahs to fire at me. Better yet I got a Blood Shield on Homa, so they did a little less damage to me.

While this was afoot, Alayna and Robb got out Jaroslav and Saulot the hard way. Then Robb started the slow train to getting Fakir al-Sidi up with Saulot and transfers, and Alayna got Tyler.

Devin and I locked into a two-player struggle, with him getting all four of his opening hermanas up and getting them some blood via hunting. I got up Kisha Bhimji in addition to Homa, and managed to call a Neonate Breach past Jaroslav to plink Alayna for 1 and Devin for 4. Devin was miffed. But then, his deck has little answer to pool attacks, and lots of minion threatening. He dropped Fame on Kisha and then tried to rush with Oppugnant Night, but I had a ridiculous amount of wakes in my hand and Homa stepped in front of the rushes. He finally decided to bleed instead, which I bounced at Alayna.

Alayna’s gameplan seemed to be bruise/bleed, which is always dubious. In this case she had combat cards she couldn’t play because no one would fight her, and no bleed boost. Robb did as many would when Jaroslav is bleeding them for one: he took the bleeds. Tyler’s arrival complicated things, but by then Robb had Fakir up and anarched out (because his deck doesn’t have enough moving parts without anarchy) to defend.

Saulot and Fakir actually discarded a lot of Sense Death, instead Saulot got a Phone and proceeded to bleed for 3 each turn. Devin took these faithfully, tapping out to try and hurt me and then taking pool damage on the chin. I never quite understood the “full left even if I get ousted” mentality, but his deck looked like a cannonball that never really fired. He’s trying to go Lilith’s Blessing on his empty sisters, but he never actually has Blessing in play early enough for it to make a difference, and there’s enough other masters in the deck he’s always doing something else. One turn he dropped Agent of Power on one of his girls, then they did a Sanguine Instruction chain to hook up with superior wo-Man-love all around.

It was hot.

The game broke in Robb’s favor, as Devin didn’t have much answer to Saulot’s bleeds at zero stealth, and I wasn’t drawing any of my damaging votes, instead relying on toolboxy bleed such as Kduva’s Mask, Ancestor Spirit, and Ancestor’s Insight. Still, I wasn’t making much of a dent in Alayna’s pool before Robb rounded the corner. He’d played Minion Tap on Fakir and then gotten up Lord Ephraim Wainwright to round out his crew. I played Sudden Reversal on his next Minion Tap, and Jaroslav played a Burning Wrath on Saulot to cook him (no anarch, no prevent?).

But Alayna was still only bleeding for two per turn with Tyler, and Lord Ephraim was reducing that with Detect Authority quite easily. Without much pressure Robb recouped his lost pool, bought another Saulot, and started grinding on my already-beat-up-by-sisters minions. Kisha was Famous for the second time, and she took a dirt nap from whence she would never return. My game was sealed, and Robb beat Alayna in the head’s up.

Robb 4 VP, GW

Game MVP: Saulot is pretty strong.

Game 2:

Robb(Nergal+Unnamed Baali)--->Me(Huge G2-3 FoS Eternals)--->Alayna(DoC)--->Devin(G2 Salubri Marionette bleed)

Devin seemed upset that I drew an early Eternals of Sirius. He was more upset when I played the second in as many turns, and downright scowling when I played my third. BY turn three Sutekh, the Dark God and Nefertiti graced my ready region. That was awesome. Now what to do with them? That’s the rub.

Meanwhile, Robb got out Nergal, Alayna got up Sashiya and Aimee Leroux, and Devin got up Matthias. Soon after Devin got Miriam Benyona as well, and Alayna used her Wider View to pick up Yseult.

I bled with Sutehk every turn, and that seemed pretty good. Nergal bled me for 4 with his first action, and that actually stung a bit. I’d accelerated my ready region, but my pool was still aching for a Villein, which I hadn’t drawn in all my Eternals-playing. I did have a Pentex Subversion, however.

Very early on, after that first bleed and before Alayna had dug out Yseult but after Devin had gotten Miriam, I decided to Pentex Subvert poor Nergal. Robb scowled and pissed about me backousting him, but hey, he’s playing Nergal, right? I was hoping Devin would bleed him for a few and keep him honest while I dug for more poolgain.

Robb did what most good players do: he begged for crosstable assistance. This was good play on his part. Alayna eventually decided (after Robb had suggested it several times) to use her 2-cap, who couldn’t call Lily Prelude anyway, to try and remove Pentex. This took me by surprise. I knew Robb had been sort of jokingly mentioning that she should help, but I’d never considered that she might take him seriously. I was pissed. I became an asshole. I asked her why she was actually listening to Robb? I ranted. I may have frothed a bit. I certainly recall calling her action retarded.

I felt bad later. It was an overreaction. She’s a newer player. Though Robb does assure me that she is beyond suggestion and actually plays better than he does, she is not and does not. She sometimes does things without weighing the consequences, and therein lies my frustration. For you see, Alayna couldn’t give me a cost/benefits analysis of having me backousted instead of me backousting Robb (that’s what my Pentex play boiled down to in the end). I’m convinced she was better off with me as a predator instead of Nergal, while Robb is convinced that allowing Devin (her prey) a victory point is a worse play.

We only got one side of the story, as I had a wake to block her attempt at destroying Pentex (which Robb felt should make me stop my bitching immediately, but that isn’t the case. . .) and my vitriol (and logic, to be fair: I explained that removing the Pentex the first turn it sits actually bleeds me for 2+whatever Nergal bleeds for next turn) either convinced or cowed her into not taking any more actions to remove it.

So, probably good on me, then, despite the douchebaggery? Still not sure. My venom wasn’t the result of calculated social engineering, so. . .

Anyway, the game devolved quickly. Robb later told me he had a Horde down, but was reluctant to pull it up, instead going for the unnamed, which is a whopping 20 pool of infernal vampires. His allegations that I backousted him were starting to ring a little more hollow.

I bled for two with Sutekh and Nefertiti, but it seemed wrong that I had a fistful of stealth and wasn’t moving cards fast enough. Alayna drew her Conductor and good stuff and mugged Devin but good. Devin stole the unnamed and gained two pool via Spirit Marionette. Then Miriam bled with her Pulse of the Canaille.

Robb looked at me and gave the “hope you’re happy, because you’ve backousted me” speech. I nodded and said that I was aware, but that I’d allow him to remove the Pentex now (he said he didn’t have stealth. . .?), as I’d drawn a Villein. He did, and I regained some pool, bleeding for a bit with Sutekh as well.

Alayna was keeping up with my meager bleeds quite handily. She called a Benefit Performance every turn, and sometimes with a Voter Captivation. So she could ignore me at her leisure. She ran out of forward moves on Devin, though, and he slipped in to oust Robb with a Spirit Marionette bleed from Nergal.

Robb gone, I managed to draw a Mokole’ Blood, which is an important card for my deck, as it allows a giant snake to get four Snake Drive from my deck and put it on himself. Sutekh promptly did so, then untapped and bled. Then he untapped and called a vote of KRC. Passing the vote was a bear, as I wasn’t cycling well enough to draw push, but I did manage to hit my prey for seven that turn with Nefertiti’s bleed.

Alayna was actually a little low on pool. She regained a few with a Cap, and went full bore into Devin. He tried to block some with Matthias but the Lure of Sirens was too much for his third eye, and all those actions went through. Lily Prelude is incredibly strong.

I had a chance to oust Alayna, and I almost danced for Joy when Devin bled me for four with Matthias using a Pulse and Spirit Marionette, as I was going to have Nefertiti Lost in Translation the bleed to my prey for an oust, but alas, I’d forgotten that Alayna put Narrow Minds into play early, and Nefertiti couldn’t afford the bounce.

Ousted. Damn. I had a chance at least.

In the head’s up Devin steadily lost ground to Alayna’s bloat and brutal vote damage, and they tied in the end.

Alayna: 2 VP, Devin: 2 VP, no GW.

Getting Sutekh, the Dark God into my ready region for any game is a secondary win condition for me, so I was a happy guy, but I still feel like an asshole.

;)

-Merlin out