Battle #2

I had another game today. Once again I played against with my LJ crew (with an addition of one Austringer) against caen's Viktorias that had the help of Freikop's Trapper, Librarian and Misaki.

The Austringer isn't in the crew photo as he''s still unpainted - I'll improve that soon. 

The strategy was A line in the Sand. I was happy with it as it enforces a more offensive play and doesn't leave much time for sneaking around. We both had Hold Out and Bodyguard schemes.
The description of this strategy states that dynamite markers should be placed along the centerline of the table. Did we do it properly or should they be placed slantways?

I won the initiative flip in the first turn and quickly moved the Judge and one of the Marshals to the center area, hoping they could cause some damage and prove enough distraction to let LJ and the rest of the crew work from the right side. I was quite lucky as I managed (mainly thanks to the Judge's Bullets and Blades) to reduce one Viktoria to just one wound and caen's use of his Librarian proved very ineffective (at this point cards were against him).

Unfortunately for me, my forces were too much spread to make the killing blow and soon afterwards Viktorias took down both the Judge and the Marshal. Added to that, three of the dynamited have already been armed by caen. Killing one of the Viktorias at an early stage of the game would have given me an edge as their Sisters in Spirit action enables them to cause a lot of problems.

I managed to charge the trapper and LJ killed him in a single blow, making him pay for disemboweling her brutally in the previous Scrap we played. Soon after that, Misaki entered the fray by LJ's riposte and a successful attack proved too much for her. Thing were looking up but in the meantime caen managed to successfully heal his Viktorias.
At this point I was faced with a dilemma. I could either try to run and reach caen's deployment zone (and he could have tried the same thing) or try to disarm one dynamite (in both cases hoping for turn #6 which never came).

In the end I activated the Austringer, made sure he successfully delivered orders and found an opening to strike at Viktoria, wounding her. Following that, I made one last desperate move and placed LJ so that she could fire her paired pistols at the wounded Viktoria. Unfortunately at this point I didn't have good cards in hand and the Soul Stone didn't help too. In his next turn, even though caen tried to take down LJ, she managed to survive the ranged attacks and he ended up killing the Austringer in melee.

I suppose I should have focused more on taking control of the center of the field, making sure the dynamite there remains unarmed. The distraction idea wasn't a bad one but I didn't have enough force there to make enough impact. LJ proved her worth in melee but shou would have shown more if I had managed to put her into the combat at least one turn earlier.

In the end more Dynamite remained armed, which gave caen a narrow 7:6 victory. I was a fast, offensive game with many situation requiring thinking ahead and making difficult choices. I'm beginning to really enjoy these dilemmas - use a Soulstone or cheat Fate ? The answer is never obvious and for me that's one of the reasons the gaming experience in Malifaux is so enjoyable.