Week 1: Trixie's TnA vs Feed Me Seymour

WhoooHoo!  

That's right, boys, the Gremlins finally won one!  Admittedly by the skin of their rotten yellow teeth, but a win is a win. So without further adieu, I give you your battle report:

Trixibelle's Team T&A (Taxidermy & Alcohol) vs. JoJo's Brilliant DooDoo Monster People

Set up:

We draw Reconnoiter with corner deployment. Schemes are Line in the Sand, Murder Protege, Assassinate, Bodyguard and Entourage. JoJo reveals Murder Protege with the only eligible target being the Whiskey Golem. Chad reveals nothing. 

Turn one:

This is how we look going into turn 1:

You can't see Joe's guys cuz they're hiding behind that Nekima box, uh, I mean, accurately represented building.  FYI just seeing a picture of Nekima was enough to send dread crawling up my spine (Editor's note:  We played a 5 week truncated capaign before this one and Joe had Nekima as his Hencemen.  She was a beast and killed nearly everything). Nice psychological play, Bear!  Turn one is nothing but positioning. I was worried with Whisky Pete being a scheme target so I tried to keep him from being a first turn target and marched him along the table edge. So exciting. 

End of turn one: 

Chad 0 JoJo 0 

Turn two:

  My forces are split (trying to set up for Reconnoiter) and Joe has a ball of brilliance right in the middle of the table so I decide to try some Stuffed Pig Shenanigans(Tm) and double walk my little ball o dynamite right into the middle of three or four models. Joe attacks and kills it triggering the bomb and all his models take a couple damage. Smelling blood, I risk running a taxidermist out from cover, and summon another pig off the corpse of the first one. Joy!  He pays the price however by getting shot in the face by the Illuminated, then charged and murdered by the PoopMonster. The summoned pig then pops his own cork and damages the same models again for a couple more damage to everything and the smell of bacon was becoming intoxicating.  JoJo's dudes were tied down with the pigs most of that turn so they didn't move much and I managed to position my remaining enough to score for the strategy.  Guild Guards hit the table. 

End of turn 2: 

Chad 1 JoJo 0

Total summoned stuffed piglets: 1

Total exploded piglets: 2

Turn three:

*That corpse in the middle was frequently re-piggified. 

JoJo activates the Beckoner and she lures the second taxidermist closer in an attempt to stop the pig summoning treadmill. It actually helped me because luring him close got him in range to summon another pig off the corpse of the previous and then run away to the safety of the whisky golem's loving arms. Joe kills that pig with his Illuminated and this time I get 4 damage off on the bomb. Still no dead Joe models and I'm beginning to realize these guys are pretty resilient. The Illuminated heals up a bit but Trixibelle manages to finish him off with her gun. Whiskey then kills a guard for one scrip. I'm down to three models and Joe denies me two board quarters while scoring his own VP. Also a Guild Guard shot up Joes PoopMonster a bit. 

End of turn 3:

Chad 1 Joe 1

Total summoned stuffed piglets: 2

Total exploded piglets: 3

Turn 4 

This is a super fun and game-defining turn!  Watch and see!!

Attempting to finish off the last Taxidermist, Joe moves the depleted into melee but whiffs. With my first return attack, Taxi gets the Depleted to one HP and triggers a corpse marker. Second attack finishes him off and that triggers an instant stuffed pig!  Then his 0 action makes a second pig from the first corpse marker!  Two pigs summoned in one activation from the same enemy!  My crowning achievement!  My game highlight is matched if not exceeded, however, by an amazing error from the Bear:  He asks  "this is turn 4 right?"  I say yes.  He kills the Guard in base contact then he runs the PoopMonster straight away from everything into the far corner of the board.  I'll come back to this in a bit.   I shrug and move Whiskey across the board using Trixie pushes and nimble into combat with the Beckoner. If I can kill her, I'll score another Reconnoiter VP. First attack gets her down to one HP, second attack hits and the damage is: Black Joker!  Yay. 

Turn 4 ends with neither of us getting a single VP.  Joe then says "ok lets flip to see if the game is over"  "Joe, it's just now turn 5 coming up, we don't flip yet."  This is what I saw when I looked up at Joe's face:

So that's why he ran the leader away. Stupid, Stupid Joe. I would like to take this opportunity to bestow upon our dear old bear, the first title of the campaign:  the prestigious "Turn Four Turtle"

End of turn four:

Chad 1 Joe 1

Total summoned stuffed piglets: 4!

Total exploded piglets: 3

Total Foolish Bears: 1

Turn 5

Whiskey finishes off the Beckoner then hauls back to the far side to secure a board quarter. Joe positions the last Illuminated to attempt a shot to finish of the Taxidermist and fails. Trixie adds insult to injury and lures the Poop all the way back as far as possible and gives him slow.  Here's the scene:

Yeah that's him wayyy back in the south corner. Stupid, stupid Joe. 

Taxidermist makes a final piglet which blows up on the Illuminated for little effect. I scored a Reconnoiter and we flip and the games ends. 

End of turn 5, final score 

Chad 2   Joe 1

Total summoned stuffed piglets: 5

Total exploded piglets: 4

No injury flips, we each scored 1 scrip from the event and 1 scrip from the battle. 

Joe successfully completes one step in his bounty. 

Notes:

1.  We both chose Assassinate and Murder Protege and we both failed to score a single point for either. I just had to kill Poopy to score both mine but after Joe revealed Whiskey Pete as his target, and he had that big ball of brilliance tossing fools in the middle of the table, I didn't think there was any way I could kill it before the Golem died. I'd pretty much written this off as a loss right then and decided to focus on the Strat & keeping the Golem alive. 

2.  Summoning pigs was a blast!  I was so happy it worked and I really didn't think I'd be able to pull it off that much especially when one of the Taxidermists died so early. They didn't kill anything but weakened Joe's crew a lot and tied up quite a few models allowing me to score Reconnoiter. 

3.  Joseph Turn Four Turtle Barber the First of His Name would probably have won or at the least tied me if not for that critical timing error. 

4.  Even though the game was super low scoring and we hardly earned any scrip at all, I had a blast today and it proved again how much variety is built into this game. 

5.  I like Joe's crew a lot. Looks like they are pretty fun to play and that brilliance crap works really well. 

Thanks for reading, sorry I rambled on!