Tomb2- Micks Mei Feng game number three

Played my third game with Mei this week, against the same opponent as my second (which I didn't write up here as I was so enraged at my own stupidity I couldn't type... suffice to say I lost pretty badly) and was really hoping he wasn't playing ressers, unluckily he was and Molly (same master as last time) turned up for a scrap with Mei.

Strat- Reckoning, standard deployment
schemes- Assassinate (ben), Bodyguard (Me/Kang, Ben/Philip) Frame for Murder (Me/Willie) Deliver a message, AlitS

My Arcanists Mei feng- 4 pool
Vapourmancy- (slipped under the table, forgot I had it, twit)
Seismic claws (auto include, made up for my missing everything)
Kang- Imbued energies
Lazarus- Imbued energies
Willie
Gunsmith x2
Metal Gamin

Theory- gunline to stay away from his stuff while picking them off, Mei to vent steam and protect from Lures, Gunsmiths rather than mages are they are tougher and can switch to melee mode if needed) no-one can resist killing Willie so he's good for frame. and hopefully I can keep the almost indestructible Kang alive (this time)

Ben's Ressurectionists
Molly- 7 pool, gorgons tear, spirit summoning nonsense
Phillip and the Nanny
Toshiro
Nurse
Belle
Chiaki
Datsue-Ba
probably some other irritating upgrades

Theory- Molly and Tosh do all the hard work, Datsue Ba sneaks around and every other model just supports Molly like those weird guys that stand behind rappers on stage shouting 'Yeah!' and 'cmon!' except more dead. Summon everything really easily. win.  

I deployed first, I took a stance in the west with Lazarus on his own out east, Ben countered with a strong central force and Datsue-Ba facing Laz.

Turn one
Laz decided Datsue Ba was more effort than she was worth and regrouped to the west, The arcanist blob advanced together (stupid move) with Vent steam covering them all, Willie pushed the furthest up with the gunsmiths to the rear. Tosh and Molly advanced to the centre where she spent pretty much the rest of the game (with some help from the belle) but the rest of the ressers just walked a bit and dropped a scheme marker for phillip to card spam with. Phillip card spammed. Molly summoned a necrotic machine across the front of the arcanists, catching three models and wounding one, willie passed with flying colours, and the two gunsmiths gained fast so one wound was fine, molly gave the necrotic a shot a gunsmith and wounded him more as well as getting off the infectious trigger, then companioned him for another attack that luckily missed

Turn two. 
The slightly more wounded gunsmith (el pedro) shot the living shit out of the machine, Then the Arcanist blob spread out a bit, an Onryo and a shikome arrived up close (more fast for the two GS) after another round of Molly throwing her weight around. I managed to smash the Onryo with Kang which gave out slow to a Gunsmith countering his fast as well as willie. for reasons I simply can't understand I charged the metal gamin up to stand next to Molly, he missed his headbutt twice (both Ben's defence flips were higher than I could possibly score, even with a RJ, not sure what I was thinking) Tosh made something fast and stabbed the Gamin to death, the rest pretty much did exactly what they did the turn before, more scheme markers, more cards for philip. Laz bombed the living fuck out of Tosh and Molly for a few wounds each with Imbued and Flurry, Mei decided to try the 'punch ressers in the face' advice and went hell for leather at Molly, some average luck and some wasted SS meant with a few misses and a few combos I reduced Tosh to one wound and Molly to two, without cards in hand Ben still pulled off two full heals from the nurse and one condition removal on Molly to undo all my hard work. (dammit!)
I scored 1 for Reckoning. (1/0)

Turn Three
(My memory is shakier from here on in as the cold got to me, my right hand stopped working and Ben was kind enough to shuffle my cards every time it was needed) Being in melee and surviving another round of Mei punching (back down to three wounds) didn't stop Molly giving mei [-] flips, as another Onryo/Shikome combo popping up and removing Willie from the game and scoring me frame for murder. I dropped them both with combined fire from the gunsmiths and Kang, but El Pedro was left on one wound (and fast). The other Gunsmith (dirty rosewood) was lured into Datsue Ba's charge range and they got into a fairly minor scuffle with a few wounds on both sides, the gunsmith got fast again. Tosh gave Mei a stabbing while she was at negative flips. lazarus fired into the Molly/Mei scurm but only managed to give mei a push away into the nurse/belle/chiaki/phillip support team. {this is where I made my biggest mistake- Afterwards Ben pointed out I should have taken the hits on Mei instead of triggering and dropped the blasts on Molly, she couldn't reduce so she would have been forced to use her last soulstone, If I hit her twice she could only survive on a Black joker} I scored 1 more for reckoning, 2 for frame for murder. (4/0)

Turn Four
Mei activated first and started throwing punches and kicks at the surrounding support mob, but only really managed to push them away and do a wound here and there with some terrible flips except one quite startlingly good punch to phillips head which would eventually deny him full VP on bodyguard. The return attacks from Toshiro, the nurse, Chiaki (who flipped the red joker for damage) and the belle finished Mei off with some extra attacks and fire support from Molly who ran around the tree in the centre, {second big mistake- I used my last SS reducing the red joker damage when I should have accepted Mei was going down and saved it for bodyguard points on Kang} El pedro charged Datsue Ba with some aura from Kang, and between the two reduced her to one wound, she in turn stripped Dirty rosewood to one wound. Laz blasted Tosh some more for a handful of wounds, but other than the death of mei this turn was largely quiet. you will be stunned into surprise to hear that Phillip another marker for a card and moved up for bodyguard, which Kang also claimed.
Ben scored 1 for reckoning, 2 for assassinate, Both scored 1 for bodyguard (5/4)

Turn five Best to call this the turn of Datsue Ba, Molly summoned something near kang to tie him down then gave Datsue an extra Ap and companioned her, Datsue then went apeshit on the Gunsmiths, killing them both and raising two free Gaki, one then ran up to Kang to try and stab him, Laz charged up and dropped the thing Molly summoned (a Shikome perhaps?), The gaki took a chunk out of Kang, so Kang thumped the Gaki back, dropped imbued energies and sprinted into the wild, {mistake number 3- I got bodyguard confused with Entourage, rather than running into a nice safe bush I ran him into the enemy DZ, within sight of the Belle) Tosh made the Belle fast who then dragged Kang back into the scrum, the combined weight of every model on the table pounding him (plus another red joker damage flip) took it's toll and down he went.

game ends due to tournament rules

Ben scored 1 for bodyguard (5/5)
 
Thoughts- still need to remember Mei is not ironsides, she cannot survive in the same situations and needs more backup. Kang I'm starting to get the hang of, just need to get him in the ruck a bit more. Need to not lose my focus on the schemes, particularly when bodyguard is on Kang I need to save the SS. The gunline was a good call for Reckoning as it gave me early points, that said the summons were in my face so much maybe some beaters would have worked just as well, luckily Gunsmiths do both jobs well:)

My hands were without fail abysmal, I had only three cards higher than an 8 over the entire game, those being one red joker, the 11 of Masks and the 10 of Tomes. This didn't even balance out on better flips as I always seemed to flip a face card with an ace or deuce for every negative flip, one triple neg I even managed three face cards and a four. that said, without those three mistakes I could have taken the game, so I can't blame the cards here, though a little luck would have been a nice buffer;)

Mei- dogged with terrible hands and terrible flips, Mei still managed to shine and throw out a good 5/6 attacks a turn, I am looking forward to the day I get the cards and flips to see what she can really do. Vent steam is a great way to piss Belles off;) wish I'd not forgotten Vapourmancy as I still have no real gauge on it?

Gunsmiths+Kang is an ace combo, they are super destructive, especially when they are almost always fast:) they do seem a good counter to Molly as his summons extra AP is countered by the (potentially multiple) fast i was gaining, though in this game I feel Ox mages would have served me better against all the damn spirits.

Metal Gamin- I'm not sure what the hell I did here, first I gave protection to willie (already DF6?) then tried to take on Molly and Tosh in melee, should have bought a raptor and had an extra in my cache.

Lazarus- did more wounds to Molly and Tosh than any other model in the warband, bust up a summon to free up Kang at the end. blasted everything he could and survived on full wounds. He is truly my favourite malifaux model:)

Willie: always a good FfM bet, his wheel barrow took two summons out in two turns, maybe I could have got more from him. I won't be taking FfM against ressers as much as their masters (and henchmen) tend to let others do the dirty work!

  next time you evil witch summonabanch fargin icehole... {Edit: of happiness and rainbows... apparently}