Widget, Tinker Extraordinaire [3]

Kayazy Eliminators [5]

Kayazy Eliminators [5]

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Turn 1A

I get the first turn. Hot shot up on the leftmost Blockader. I am not super happy about the cannon placement behind the forest, but I figure that as long as I can see the flag I will have something relevant to shoot. I take care to spread out wide so that I won’t get rushed on scenario. Spread the net is a scenario which can go downhill really fast if you get locked into Magnus2’s feat.

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Turn 1B

Magnus stays out of threat ranges. Lanyssa took an aggressive position. The Eliminators run up alonh each board edge, outside of the field of view. Note that Bullet Dodger was moved over to Kell after I took the picture.

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Turn 2A

I keep spreading out and Bart feats from the most forward position I can afford without exposing myself to the Blockader. Unfortunately the placement of the wall and the flag screws me over pretty hard here because there is nowhere I can stand with the leftmost Blockader while staying outside of his Blockader’s threat and still protected by feat against his Toro on the flank. The solution I go with is therefore to move all the way over to the other side of the flag. This is OK enough, but I feel that I would have been much better off in a more forward position since I have already feated. With the position I have now I should have kept my feat instead.

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Turn 2B

No picture unfortunately. The Eliminators on the left run in to jam the Blockader. His Blockader walks up to shoot at my green Freebooter. Together with Kell they deal a good bunch of damage.

Score 0-2

Turn 3A

I take a risk and trample the leftmost blockader over both the Eliminators and into his zone. My reasoning is that this sets me up for a strong scoring turn and forces his army over to the left side to deal with my ARM 22 Blockader. In hindsight I am convinced this was a mistake and I should have played much more conservatively and just accepted that my opponent will score a point on my turn.

On the right side my Blockader and cannon try to deal some damage on a Toro, but don’t really achieve much.

Score 2-2

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Turn 3B

Magnus casts Calamity and backs off. His Blockader and one Toro kills my leftmost Blockader. The Toro on the right walks up to deal some damage to my blue Freebooter. Orin runs to the flag and his Hermit runs to contest my zone.

Score 2-4

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Turn 4A

All attacks from First Mate Hawk and the Commodore Cannon miss Orin, so I am forced to use the Blockader sprays to remove him from the right flag. The Freebooters spend most their attacks dealing with the Hermit, so in the end I only get a couple of attacks on his Toro who is now quite beat up, but not yet dead. A river raider runs over to contest his zone and a Monkey claims the right flag.

Score 4-4

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Turn 4B

He clears his zone and flag and score two. It is a bit difficult to see on the picture, but Widget has run over to contest my square zone. Mangus2 feats and fail charges so that he is protected behind the central obstruction. I am not allowed to walk forward and to the left. Toro kills my blue Freebooter.

Score 4-6

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Turn 5A

Since the forwardmost Dirge seer is locked by feat I need to bring in the Press gangers to contest his zone. I can still contest the flag, so I decide to bring them in far away to the back so that they are protected from Kell and Scythe. My opponent commented after the game that this makes it impossible for me to contest both the zone and flag on later turns. I am still not sure which line of play would be better.

I clear my zone and the right flag and score 2. In the process my Blockader has moved off to the right to get a better spray angle. This is a double edge sword since it ensures that I get a triple spray on Widget, Lanyssa and the Toro, but it also means that I leave the central zone. The shooting deals some damage to his front Toro, but not enough to take it out.

Note that it looks like one of my Dirge seers have moved forward during his feat, but that was actually from a dodge the previuous turn.

Score 6-6

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Turn 5B

Opponent clears the flag and square zone again and the Toro kills my Freebooter. Luckily one of the Dirge seers survives to contest the central zone. Sylis runs over to contest the right flag.

Score 6-8

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Turn 6A

Blockader kills Sylis and the Toro. This means that the Cannon is blocked, so I sequenced that activation the worst possible way. There were three ways to do this and two of them would have been OK: 1) Shoot Sylis with cannon and spray both Toros with Blockader, or 2) Shoot the back Toro first and then activate Blockader to remove Sylis and the forward Toro.

I am unfortunately not able to move the Blockader into the zone without exposing myself to his Blockader.

Score 8-8

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Turn 6B

Blockader walks up and sprays my Dirge seer and the Toro runs over to contest the flag. Scythe and the other Toro clears the left flag. This means that my opponent will score 3 points.

Score 8-11

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Turn 7A

With no chance to score three points and no chance to contest his flag this turn I am pretty much going to lose the game unless my opponent somehow fails to score or contest either of my zones next turn. So the Press gangers flood his zone and I move my Blockader into the central zone and kill his Toro. This means I score two and he scores 1.

Score 10-12

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Turn 7B

All my opponent really needs to do is to run his Blockader into my zone, but he tries to go for the max win and clears out all the Press gangers due to some horrible tough rolling on my part. Blockader walks up and starts punching my Blockader, but it survives. This means that we score two points each.

Score 12-14

Sadly, a loss for the Mercenaries

:: Evaluation ::

It was a close and good game, but unfortunately it didn’t go my way this time either. The double colossal Bart list was more fun to play than anticipated, but I don’t like the low damage output it produces. D3 shots really screwed me over multiple times and the RAT 5 is just awful even with shooting gallery. What lost me this game was not being able to deal with my opponent’s Toros in time. My feat timing was the most obvious mistake, because it would have been much more effective if I popped it the turn after.