Spread the Net
Get ready for the Spread effect,it's buterfly jailing time. Mmm. Butter. Baby goat horns are cool. I would treasure a jar of Goat Eyes.
It's Menoth. Harbinger and Testament. Sigh.
No Arkadius for this dumpster fire. Awe is just dreadful. The idea that it needs to go to 12" is straight up madness to me. Rask also has RFP on Brine, Skarath and Bone Swarms so if Testament does drop I ameliorate the whole revive shenanigan he's got going.
Sure enough Harby drops which doesn't shock me unduly. After that slow nightmare grind in the Cancon semi-finals the ploy is to play for the assassination. It's Faithful Masses, or whatever the unruly unbathed mob theme is called, meaning Harby is going to place a wall and hide behind it.
Hmm. For a mob of filthy peasants this list sure has a bunch of elite knights and kicky monks. When I think of kicky monks all I hear are screams as my earlobes attempt to seperate from me, eager as they are for me to be a classic bond villain. Roger Moore was decent.
I lose the die roll, Menites pick first. There's a central forest, I take the side from which it feels the Bone Swarms will be better able to run up and hide behind it in the quest for a bottom of 2 kill run.
I also have a blob of water, and a forest in my rectangle zone on the right flank that would be more a problem than anything else.
Menites have a hill way out on their left and a defensive cloud. Their wall terrain goes behind the forest in the central zone. I'll see you there soon Harby.
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Menoth 1: Idrians move up on the left side of the board, having Preyed Brine.
Menoth favours the left side of the table pretty hard, sure enough Harby goes behind the wall.
One Paladin and the two Kicky Monks go out to the right side of the board, one sitting on the Menoth flag while the other runs up to contest my zone from behind the forest of irritation.
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Minion 1: Per the plan, the Boneswarms run forward. Rask throws out all his upkeeps, Admonition on the right Swarm, Fury on the left, Veil of Mists out next to the forest. Idea being that Harby will hopefully burn focus on Purification.
Ninja Pig hangs back, Squid goes out left to waste Idrian time.
Dahlia and Skarath pop Haunting Melody/Counter Blast and wonder over to my rectangle zone, plan being for them to take over the right side of the board. Skarath has pretty good odds of straight up eating kicky monks, so let it be done.
I activate the pot stupidly late, so it gets three corpses and can't pass them out to any Boneswarm, so that's not a good use of planning right there.
Rask also feats this turn to try to limit menoth getting in and killing my stuff in this set up phase.
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Menoth 2: Turns out my guess on what Harby would do are completely off. The Champions take point in front of Harby and at the centre line edge of the Menoth rectangle while Harby feats and camps, the Idrians back up and the Hammer Dwarves move up to the top edge of the circle zone.
Rask feat effects really.
Both Kicky Monks assume the stance of unkillable lols, one flag camping while the other goes into the forest in my rectangle zone.
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Minion 2: Alright, lets do it. Plan is for the Bone Swarms to punch out the Champions and make Harby Martyr a bunch of time, then Squid goes in, overtakes to her and kills her.
Rask shoots the left Champion, which draws out the Shield Guard. This is critical as it lets Alten land the hit instead, applying Grievous wounds and allowing the requisite overtake move for the Squid.
The Bone Swarms......turn out to suck when you mess up and don't give them Corpses. It takes all three to dismount the Champion in front of the Harby, so they do no Martydoms at all.
The Efaarit scout at least lands on a Hammerdorf and gets a point on her. It's something.
The proper long term play is to run the Squid back and probably switch gears to trying to recover attritionally, I instead go for it anyway. Harby will probably run away after this and I won't get the chance again.
That said, I charge the Squid to the wrong side of the Champion so he can't possibly use the overtake move to get to her. Good at this stuff. it eats the Champ and awaits it's demise.
One Gobber Chef runs to my flag, a Bellows Crew members gets up and contests the Menoth flag, Skarath with the 4 dice to hit eats the Kicky Monk contesting my zone.
I score my flag and rectangle zone, 2-0.
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Menoth 3: Leftwise, the Menoth Heavy has no issues killing the Squid. Idrians move up and do a super CRA on the Gobber Chef camping the flag.
Centrally, Harby shuffles to have the right side Kicky Monk in Martydom range as the Hammer Dwarves kill all the Bone Swarms with some solo assistance.
Rightwise, one kicky monk sits on the Menite flag, the Paladin moves up in whatever the armour stance thing is.
Menoth scores their flag and rectangle, I score my rectangle, 3-2.
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Minion 3: Just muddling along at this point trying bad assassination runs.
Swamp Gobber Chef who was chilling out on the left flank runs in to contest the Menoth zone, Mist Speaker moves to my own flag.
Do some bit attacks that force Martydoms, harby ends up on about 8 health. Totem Hunter gets Fury, jumps into the backline and misses both Harby and the Hierophant. Nuts.
Ninja Pigs move back to score my rectangle as Skarath and the Efaarit move up to the Menothy flag, eating the Paladin on the way.
I score my flag and zone, now 5-2.
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Menoth 4: A Paladin gets a charge on Rask (Need to stop letting that happen), does a big belt that takes out the Wrastler Mind and Spirit.
Idrians once more kill the solo (Mistspeaker) on my flag, repo forward puts one of them in conteting range.
Hammer Dwarves kill the Boilmaster who ran in suicidally to block them up, also get three charges into Skarath and do some damage. One also gets up and toes my rectangle.
Menites score their flag, now 5-3.
No pic for the next turn. This wasn't a game with tight gameplay from the get go with multiple repositionings and some out of sequence things, which is fine, except one of those things came up for dispute. I hadn't clicked on the game state at all, so didn't realise why things were contentious. Ultimately my weakest aspect as a player has always been the early establishment and enforcement of clean play which would have avoided the entire shemozzle.
Anyway, Edrea runs to contest the Menoth zone, Alten kills the contesting Idrian and goes to my flag, Brine easily clears the dwarf contesting my rectangle, Skarath Crit Consumes the Kicky monk and eats the three nearby dwarfs. Efaarit moves to the Menoth flag.
I score three, now 8-3.
I slap the clock. Harbys Plantlife looks at me as though I was a moron, which I am, because I didn't realise I'd just won.
Just odd. I've never tripped so hard into a win before, which was done solely on habits rather than intent. 2-1 for me, alas the Submarine is grounded as the opening Primal Terrors gets Ossrumed. Oh well, it's all about the chance to play sweet games anyway.
