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