Blood & Deed: The Aftermath - Game 2

 

GAME TWO: Depletion

Opponent: Thomas Wilson

Alphas

Rashka the Devastator
+ Ghost Heart Mushrooms
+ Unearthly Rage
Bobata the Bellringer
Zuba the All-Seeing
Lost Slave
Lost Slave

Ambush (4 rice)

I had heard there was an Alphas warband going around, and I was interested in finding out what they'd taken. Much to my delight, I was matched up against Thomas' warband, so I would find out firsthand.

Another low model count warband, and one without Combo Attack, so it would be pretty easy to tie up models like Rashka with the Itsiro Crab Swarm and the Kami of Morning Dew. The key would be surviving the Flank turn when the oni would appear somewhere behind my main battle line. Another key factor is that this scenario has no reset mechanic.

Thomas only deployed Zuba and a Lost Slave, and once against I had Hiroto and Eldest Brother arriving on turn 2 on my right. Thomas had the weaker warband on turn 1, and so opted to simply Focus with Zuba and the Lost Slave.

Turn 2 arrived quickly, and we quickly discovered that we'd both Flanked models on the same side of the board, leading to a bit of congestion. Rashka used Oni Rage, triggered the Unearthly Rage and the Ghost Heart Mushrooms and then turned Minato into a red smear at my backline objective. We had actually forgotten about Berserk, and Rashka would have just ploughed into the Itsiro Crab Swarm, but by the time I'd realised that it was already halfway through turn 2. I'm still very confident with my warband, and I'm not a fan of trying to reset a board state when we've both progressed beyond it.

Thomas ran his Lost Slave closest to Rashka, which was a pretty critical mistake as it left the Slave very close to the unactivated Itsiro Crab Swarm. Thus the Slave met an unfortunate end.

Hiroto advanced up to Thomas' backline objective and spent some time becoming Prone thanks to Zuba, but ultimately I managed to pray at both midline objectives using Hibiki and my lone Kohanin, and scored the VP of turn 2. From here on out, Rashka was bogged down fighting the Itsiro Crab Swarm and the Kami of Morning Dew while Eldest Brother eventually perished fighting Bobata. Zuba did Zuba things, but Hibiki blendered the oni when he got too close to my backline objectives.

All this time Hiroto and the Kohanin are generating scenario points at the Enemy objectives. While that objective was removed on turn 4, I had used all my Prayer tokens and had a total of 13 Scenario Points. It was a lead that was simply unassailable with the amount of models Thomas had left.

So far I have not had to adapt the basic strategy of my warband as Andrew Garry's small Minimoto warband and Thomas' Alphas warband basically operate on similar principles that can be addressed in the same way: Itsiro Crab Swarm + Kami of Morning Dew. Hiroto/EB score points.