My fifth game and... first victory!

I played another game last week, this time against Lilith and a list based on Nekima and her skills that enhance the growth of young Nephilims. The scenario was Supply Wagon. I haven't played this one before so I didn't really know what to expect. And having never played against Lilith (or Neverborn) before, I was at a slight disadvantage.

Just a quick pic that shows the situation somewhere around the middle of the game when LJ started her DF flips ;) 

In the end it was a very tough battle with both crews reduced significantly and seriously wounded. I think my main mistake was that I underestimated Nekima. My opponent (caen again) played her very skillfully and he proved that she can be very nasty and has a few aces up her sleeve. Still, I should have taken advantage of her relatively low defense... Anyway, it was a good experience and I was looking forward to my next game.

Yesterday I played against Ophelia and her family. It was a 25SS scrap. Knowing that she heavily relied on speed and companion rule, I tried to choose the most mobile crew I could come up with from the minis I currently have. I ended up with :
LJ
The Judge
2x Death Marshals
2x Austringers

I thought that since the Judge is the only model that has a WK of 5 other than LJ, I'll include him this time (despite his less than impressive performance in the games I've played so far).  That Left me with 4 SS in my cache, compared with 3SS in Ophelia's. My opponent used:

Ophelia Lacroix
3x Young Lacroix
Francois Lacroix
Pere Ravage
Rami Lacroix
Raphael Lacroix

Silence before the storm

The scenario was Slaughter and we had the Standard Deployment. I took Assassinate (Ophelia) and Bodyguard for LJ. My opponent picked Hold Out and Kill Protegee (the only one that wasn't announced).

My opponent won the priority flip in the first turn and quickly started putting the family into position.

Playing against very nicely painted minis added a lot to the enjoyment of the game

I moved my whole crew together with only one DM staying slightly behind. I realized that a frontal assault would be suicidal so I tried to time well the moment of coming from behind the cover. Keeping the Austringers alive was crucial as they're deadly against gremlins (+flips for dmg and wd). Ophelia sent Pere my way, hoping to blow him up as close to my crew as possible.

The action picked up from there quickly. First, much to my dismay, Rami made short work of one of my Austringers. This wasn't a good start at all but I paid back by taking care of Pere - DM wounded him and the Judge finally managed to make some impact by finishing him off. The same DM was killed a moment later by YL but managed to put him down thanks to his Slow to Die ability. After that the real slaughter began...

I decided to go for broke and moved LJ to the young Lacroix and dealt an attack from melee expert. He somehow survived but that wasn't the worst thing. I stupidly ended LJ's movement so that she was touching the opponent's base, forgetting that she has a reach of '2 with her greatsword.

Sometimes a small detail can lead to a big obstacle

Winning priority in the next turn was crucial. I flipped 13 and could start my punishment. I declared a charge against Ophelia (she was partly in cover but LJ's Blindfighter allows her to ignore LoS when declaring charges. My mistake from the previous turn resulted in not only wasting a solid 13 from hand but also burning a  SS. I managed to avoid a disengaging strike but a very high card and a precious SS were wasted. Having played with the same crew a few times I came to a conclusion that hiding LJ behind covers and stalking around makes no sense. She's meant for melee and should get into it whenever she has a good chance...

...even when the cards on hand look like these.

I cast Sword Style and managed to inflict a moderate damage on Ophelia, which wasn't good enough but with cards like these one can't hope for too much. Not only I didn't kill her but she also managed to use a Squeel! df trigger and moved '4 away. LJ tried to take out her frustration on Raphael by using her melee expert attack but he survived with one wd remaining. My action clearly made an impact but I knew it wasn't enough and braced myself for punishment which came moments later. Ophelia used "Oooo! A girl!" to move Raphael from the danger zone and together they started dealing in lead, making short work of LJ (have I mentioned lack of good cards  on hand?).

The Judge activates and starts "plan B"

Having failed at Assassination, I decided I'd try completing my other Scheme and moved the Judge forward. Seeing two Young Lacroix in front of him, I made one WK action and shot in the next. When that failed, I moved my remaining Austringer '4 forward and made one Raptor Strike against the wounded YL. Much to my dismay, nothing good came out of this and turn three ended.

Turn 4 started with Young Lacroix killing the Judge and the prospect of winning  suddenly started looking very remote. Not only my chances of reaching Ophelia's deployment zone were basically non-existent but also my crew was outnumbered and at this point models removed from play were worth more SS than the dead Gremlins.I thought that this had to be the end but I won the initiative flip in turn 5.

Luck was with my as I drew 4 very good cards (11,2X12 and one 13), which made it possible to make a solid Hunting Raptor attack against Ophelia. One that she didn't survive as she had no SS left. Raphael managed to heal 4 of his wounds and put himself in a position to attack the Austringer next turn.
At the same time, Rami unsuccessfully tried to kill the remaining DM. at ths point my opponent made a big mistake by moving Rami too close and the DM walked '4 forward, got him in sight and fired a deadly shot from his trusty Peacebringer (free Critical strike can be a good thing).

I lost the much needed priority in turn 6 but once again I was able to draw very good cards and the Austringer cheated fate successfully two times in a row. It was a promising start but I got rid of my best cards and as a result was unable to inflict damage on Raphael.

Bird's eye view on the final stage of the scrap

And that ended the game as my last flip was a 9, meaning we could start counting victory points. We both completed only one of our schemes but the total SS cost of models I killed was higher and I was victorious.

The game was a true Slaughter. We exchanged deadly blows turn by turn and most of the models that started the game ended up dead. It feels good to finally win a game but I have to admit it was very challenging as my opponent was very skilled.
Austringers are really strong against Gremling. An additional damage and wound flip against Gremlins is a huge advantage. If I hadn't lost one of them early on in the game I might have been able to do much more damage with their nasty Hunting Raptor strikes.
I'm beginning to get used to LJ crew as I feel that at this point I can take advantage of most of their skills and  remember about all the triggers. Still, I'm looking forward to playing with the Ortegas. It won't be long as I'm buying a crew later this week.