A game of Malifaux, 4th edition.
Strategy: Flank Boundary Dispute
Schemes: Public Demonstration, Harness the Leyline, Frame Job
My list:
Kirai, Lady of Vengeance & Ikiryo
Datsue Ba
Carrion Fate
Kuchisake-Onna
Lost Love
Shikome
Gwisin
Seishin
Pool: 6
Opponent had:
Hoffman, Inventor & Edie Clark
Peacekeeper
Melissa KORE
Guardian
2x Hunter
2x Watcher
Pool: 4
Turn 1:
I was considering either Harness the Leyline or Frame Job, but then I noticed hard nerfs that Harness Leylines had received at some point. However, I decided try and bluff it by moving Shikome as my first activation to the centerline and planting a scheme marker.
Augmented took the bait, and Peacekeeper walked down from a stone formation and charged the minion for two victory points for me.
Shikome survived relatively well, but her position so vulnerable that Kirai walked for a bit and pulled her back with a heal.
Soon enough Ikiryo walked and charged Peacekeeper and slapped it down to seven health remaining.
Melissa shot a bunch of damage to Kirai, some of which was redirected to Gwisin.
Kuchisake moved a strategy marker, walked and shot two seishins right to Peacekeeper. One of the seishins gave a walk for Ikiryo for her to go and engage Melissa as well as Peacekeeper, and be in contact with a strategy marker.
Edie gave an action to one of the Hunters, who tried to shoot Ikiryo with harpoon. This failed, but Hunter felt confident that throwing enough harpoons at Df 3 target would eventually do the trick. Which it did.
Carrion Fate interacted a strategy marker, flied with Gwisin towards top-left quarter and interacted again the same marker.
As I was running out of actions at the center, Lost Love had to reposition there to throw a strategy marker past centerline. This left Datsue Ba alone with a Seishin to face against Hunter, Hoffman, Watcher and even a Guardian.
Oh, minus that Seishin, because Datsue killed the thing herself with Lantern of Souls. Well, thanks to Seishin's valiant sacrifice, both players (and not only Guild) scored a point from strategy. Guild didn't get their scheme and abandoned it for a 3-1 lead to Resurrectionists.
Turn 2:
Going from top to bottom, Gwisin eventually placed two schemes - one to corner, one past centerline to bluff both Harness the Leyline and enable double points from Scout the Rooftops.
And, uh, Peacekeeper. Yeah. That thing killed Carrion Fate in just one activation. Didn't even empower anything. Carrion Fate had a rotting fate.
Kirai wasted two actions to get in a summon. An extra Shikome tried to engage Peacekeeper before it had wronged fate.
Melissa and Hunter smacked the summoned Shikome down to two remaining. Watcher had ran to a strategy marker, and as my last activation Kuchisake tried to kill both Watcher and another Hunter to the right, but failed the attacks despite benefiting from Adversary.
Hired Shikome activated late in the turn and went to place a scheme for Scout the Rooftops. Edie spammed actions here and there.
There was this final gathering of Watcher, Hunter and Hoffman against a granny. Hunter started clawing her, which got her down to six health remaining. She had to activate to save herself, and summoned Ikiryo to bodyblock Hoffman. She tried to skin a metal robot, but did only a few points of damage. But she scored crows and healed for a bit.
Watcher had interacted, leaped and interacted a strategy marker deep into Resurrectionist deployment zone. To at least remove that terrifying schemer, Ikiryo charged it, but failed to kill. I don't remember what actually killed the Ikiryo - probably some combination of Edie's shenanigans. But yeah, Ikiryo died, but Lost Love teleported in to re-summon it. She smacked Hunter down to two remaining from the summon attack, and then charged the Watcher dead.
However, Hoffman had walked on top of terrain when first (or second, however you count it) Ikiryo had blocked Datsue from view. He scored two beam attacks, managing to stagger her and bring her down to two health remaining.
Guardian went to toss one of my strategy markers back to wrong table half.
Resurrectionists fell behind in strategy, but had scored doubles from Scout the Rooftops. Datsue was still clinging to her dear life, so Assassination succeeded only in half. Scores went 5-3.
Turn 3:
Hunter started beating Datsue Ba, who was at two health remaining. And look at that - she survived. It did take two of my highest cards from hand, though. But then the granny skinned Hunter, healed for a bit and even infused a soulstone. That somewhat eased the pain of losing Carrion Fate that easily.
The other Hunter went to engage Gwisin at top-left corner after shooting summoned Shikome dead.
Kirai attempted to remove Peacekeeper, and did it in a costly manner. She walked on top of a stone, used crew action to bring Ikiryo to hit Peacekeeper - and then hit it again with soulstone trigger from Soothe Spirit. Not sure how that counts as soothing, but at least Peacekeeper fell to two health remaining.
With a single raise and soulstone trigger, Peacekeeper would be able to smack Ikiryo off the board and not die to Vengeance. The robot decided to take it's chances, and died to vengeance. Ikiryo did go down to one health remaining, though, so she activated and walked and charged... somewhere? She didn't really accomplish anything, though.
Melissa shot Ikiryo dead with quick reflexes, and damaged Kuchisake down to four health remaining. Kuchisake, feeling threatened by the presence of a tiny, not yet activated Watcher, summoned Ikiryo back after walking to within 12" of Lost Love. Ikiryo was able to kill the bat with summon attack.
Hoffman went to place a couple of scheme markers on top of terrain, and shoot Datsue Ba down to one health remaining.
Edie spammed actions again, but used one action to go and engage hired Shikome. Ikiryo charged Edie, and while she landed a hit, she wasn't able to free Shikome to do any scheming. Shikome walked away from melee, then, and walked and charged Hoffman on top of the terrain to block Scout the Rooftops.
Lost Love teleported to Ikiryo to plant a couple of scheme markers to Edie for a victory point.
Augmented scored strategy, but missed Scout the Rooftops. They didn't abandon the scheme, because they had it set up pretty well.
Scores went 6-4 for Resurrectionists.
Turn 4:
Game ended 9-7 for Resurrectionists.
Both totems seemed... Intense. For both crews I'd dare to say that they were the MVP's of the match.
