Chaos stirs in Bagot Prime, and its hair is fabulous.
Marvel Crisis Protocol: Asgard vs Brotherhood of Mutants
The Jimulthuan Quadrant campaign rages on, and I, Stylus, have once again sidestepped 40k to bring a little Protocol to the proceedings. Chaos (represented by Asgard) will be trying to Asset Dominance against jhnlk's Xenos (represented by Brotherhood of Mutants - as xenos as they come) on Bagot Prime.
Asgard
All the ladies of Asgard are represented tonight: Enchantress (Posh), Lady Sif (Sporty), The Mighty Thor (Strawberry Blonde), Hela, Queen of Hel (Scary) and Valkyrie (Baby). The aim is mostly to run some of the new models I've painted, but the theme just wrote itself.
Lady Sif and Valkyrie are both short-range bruisers, which ties in well with Mighty Thor's ability to give rerolls up close. Enchantress brings energy and mystic attacks, along with some cheeky abilities. I'm not sure where Hela fits in, but with so many bodies on the table, she ought be be collecting lots of captured souls. Almost everyone has throws, pushes or repositioning, so I'm hoping to keep the mutants off points.
My tactics are Doomed Prophecy, Odin's Blessing, Rainbow Bridge, Brace for Impact, Sacrifice
Brotherhood of Mutants
I, jhnlk, curated my xenos from the big, bad & ugly (Juggernaut, Sabretooth - Apex Predator, The Blob) and the mysterious & cunning (Avalanche, Mystique, Toad).
I can't tell you that I know what these characters do (or even who many of them are) but they look brilliant. Hoping to pool their skills into a finely tuned bulldozer, the game plan is a simple smash & grab.
Guided by the whisperings and strand-weaving of the cabal, my tactics are: Asteroid M, The Books of Truth, Do You Know Who I Am?, Indomitable, Brace For Impact
Mission and deployment
We're playing Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership as the Extract crisis, which seems suitably xenos. These four Skrulls have a tendency to squirm when picked up, so characters have to roll Wilds or Crits against their physical defence when picking one up, or else get pushed by their opponent.
The secure crisis is Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0, which is a dramatic way to describe a basic objective with the ability to heal damage (it's also one of the crisis that allows Mystique's leadership to work and make an objective 'sticky').
Round 1
Both sides rush to claim the flanking objectives: Hela takes the western Skull, facing off against The Blob; Avalanche takes the eastern Skull, then gets punched and pushed back by a charging Lady Sif. Toad then hops up beside her to contest the objective.
In the centre, Juggernaut piles forward to scoop up a Skrull and is met by Valkyrie, who charges forward and causes just enough damage to pick up the nearest Skrull. Mighty Thor also charges forward, thumping a bigger chunk out of the Juggernaut. Sabretooth joins the fray, but is ushered away by Enchantress' Siren Call, before she secures the back point.
Mystique stays out of trouble and hangs around her back objective, making it sticky.
With two Skrulls each and one uncontested objective each, the first round scores out as a draw.
Score - Asgard 3 : 3 Brotherhood
Round 2
Round 2 wastes no time in drawing blood. Mighty Thor starts off against Juggernaut, but can't do enough to drop him. Throwing a nearby lamppost prompts Brotherhood to play Brace for Impact and avoid the damage, so Juggernaut still stands. Sabretooth runs back into the fray, dazes Valkyrie and takes her Skrull.
Mystique ventures forward to fire a couple of pistol shots into Mighty Thor and Enchantress leaves her back point to pick up the fallen Skrull and send a Spurned Affection beam that dazes Juggernaut and damages Sabretooth.
On the flanks, The Blob immediately squashes Hela and takes her Skrull, securing the objective. Lady Sif dazes Avalanche and takes his Skrull, but needs two actions to do it, so has nothing left for Toad, who attacks, inflicting poison and incinerate.
The round ends with Asgard securing no objectives, and holding two Skrulls. The Brotherhood also have two Skrulls, but are still securing two objectives, so they pull into the lead.
Score - Asgard 5 : 7 Brotherhood
Round 3
Sabretooth activates next, with plenty of power to combine Stop Squealing and Die with Bloodthirsty Onslaught. Valkyrie takes an immense amount of damage, so this seems a good time to play Odin's Blessing and reduce it to one.
Sabretooth is outraged, and delivers a Claw Slash that reduces Valkyrie to a single wound, and inflicts Bleed (which could KO her anyway). Just to be sure, he throws Valkyrie against Enchantress, so they play their own Brace for Impact and stay alive.
Unable to believe her luck, Valkyrie decides to make a play for the sagas. With Warrior of Legend, she makes a Dragonfang attack into Juggernaut, racking up an massive amount of hits that KO the big man. With one action left, she has enough to pick up a fallen Skrull, move onto the back objective, interact with it to heal one damage (and then lose it to Bleed at the end of the activation - but still stands on one wound!).
It's more straightforward on the western flank, as The Blob squashes the injured Hela for a second time and KOs her. Luckily for the goddess of death, enough bodies have been dropping to give her sufficient captured Soul Tokens to revive. Blob still has a second attack and this nearly drops Hela a third time, leaving her clinging to a wound.
Abandoning this fight, Hela runs towards her back objective, zapping a few wounds off The Blob with Claim Soul (and restocking her supplies, which is the only thing keeping her alive).
On the eastern flank, Lady Sif steps on Toad with ease and then ducks behind the portakabin to avoid Avalanche's attack. Avalanche is still able to blow up the nearby digger to damage Lady Sif, then moves up to the objective and pushes her away with a Landslide.
Mystique runs over to assist the easter flank, blowing up a cement mixer that dazes Lady Sif and takes her Skrull.
Enchantress is the last to activate. She takes a few wounds off Mystique, before sending Sabretooth on another walk and throwing a car that bounces off The Blob.
With only one Skrull and one objective (both on Valkyrie, who has no right to still be alive), the Asgardians fall behind the Brotherhood, who hold two Skrulls and three objectives and have the finishing line in sight.
Score - Asgard 7 : 12 Brotherhood
Round 4
Sabretooth starts the round by targeting Mighty Thor, who is still healthy, but only a few wounds from dazing. I play Sacrifice for Enchantress to take the hit instead, and her bravery plays off when she survives the attack.
The Rainbow Bridge is activated for Hela to get onto the back point (and further from her nemesis, The Blob) and for Mighty Thor to jump on onto the Brotherhood's back point, removing Mystique's claim on it, and healing a little damage. To cap it off, she dazes Mystique with a hammer strike (but runs out of power to pick up the dropped Skrull).
Enchantress runs over to the western objective, hoping to have better luck against The Blob. She promptly drops him with a mystic attack and takes his Skrull.
On the eastern flank, Lady Sif follows suit and KOs Toad. Avalanche hits back and pushes her away but Hela runs over to contest the objective.
Sabretooth finds himself with no-one to play with in the centre, and lacking power (because I've decided I don't want to hit him any more). He runs westward and tries a Claw Slash against Enchantress, but can't bypass her mystic defences.
The Brotherhood took a fair bit of punishment that round, with only Sabretooth scoring from his Skrull. Conversely, the Asgardians have two objectives and two Skrulls, so manage to close the gap.
Score - Asgard 11 : 13 Brotherhood
Round 5
Faced with the two team bruisers, Enchantress does her best to send The Blob walking away, but can't escape getting dazed by Sabretooth and The Blob then collects her Skull. That flank alone is scoring 3 VPs for the Brotherood, which is enough to win. Which means I need to equal or score everywhere else on the battlefield to stay in the fight.
Hela, who has barely thrown a punch so far, vents her anger with a Rain of Hel attack onto Avalanche. Boosted by all her captured souls, poor Avalanche doesn't stand a chance.
Mystique makes a play for the win, picking up the fallen Skrull at Mighty Thor's feet. Unfortunately, this is the one time the Skrull has its own ideas about where to go, and drags Mystique directly in front of Mighty Thor. With bullets bouncing off her, Mighty Thor punches Mystique, throws her into a lamppost, drops a car to KO her, then picks up the Skrull, heals a damage on the objective and shakes the Bleed condition. Productive turn!
Lady Sif crosses over to the centre of the battlefield, and Valkyrie stays on the back point and heals another wound.
With three objectives and two Skrulls, the Asgardians also reach the finish line of 16VPs. With one round left to go, we're into sudden death!
Score - Asgard 16 : 16 Brotherhood
Round 6
The Blob decides he's had enough of Valkyrie's nonsense and jumps a Thunderous Splash that finally KOs her. Already holding a Skrull, he can't do anything with Valkyrie's so throws it far out of reach and claims the back objective.
Enchantress has a much more nonviolent solution: she delivers Amora's Kiss to Sabretooth (I mean, who wouldn't?) which compels him to hand his objective over to her. She then sends Sabretooth far away (just a brief encounter, then) with Siren's Call and uses her two actions to run far away onto the Brotherhood's back point.
This leaves Sabretooth with no enough power to get back in the fray and no-one around to attack and generate some more. All he can do is walk back onto the western objective.
Lady Sif and Hela can cool their heels, as Mighty Thor takes a pragmatic approach and walks onto the western objectives. No heroics, but a healthy character can take it off an injured one, so Sabretooth is thwarted again.
With The Blob as the only mutant with an objective and a Skrull, the Asgardians run through the finishing tape with three objectives and two Skrulls. Blessed by the All-Mother!
Score - Asgard 21 : 18 Brotherhood
Back in the Feasting Halls
That has to be one of the most enjoyable games of MCP I've ever played! A real mix of attrition and objective play, some big swings and a desperate scramble to victory. Thanks to jhnlk for the great game (and commiserations that I just wouldn't allow Valkyrie to die).
As we talked it out afterwards, we agree that Valkrie's surviving was the turning point. Not only did she clap back hard with all that accumulated power, but as the game played out, having extra bodies on the table proved vital. Generally, the Asgardians just seemed a little bit hardier than most of the Brotherhood (especially when I gave up on the bruisers and started picking on the weaklings) and I was draining the secure objectives to make sure my team stayed topped up.
Valkyrie aside, I was very impressed with Enchantress, who was one of my main scorers. I won't even apologise for the nonsense way she managed to seal victory without hitting Sabretooth, since that's exactly why I brought her.
Poor Hela had a rough time, although I think The Blob is a great 3 threat for holding down a flank. At least her captured souls kept her alive until she unleashed them on Avalanche, which is very characterful.
Lady Sif did a solid job on her flank, being just a deadlier version of Valkyrie. You can't account for exploding cement mixers.
The Mighty Thor didn't hit as hard as I wanted (although I was going after big targets like Juggernaut and Sabretooth), but she did stay healthy for the whole game and her leadership was useful to have (although I think I'd rather user Loki's).
And most importantly - a win for Chaos in the Jimulthuan campaign!
Despite not being too confident in my choices, the game plan worked as intended. I am pleased that the bruisers got to work on the offense and allowed the more nimble characters to sweep around in the backfield. I think the only deployment I misjudged was pairing Avalanche and Toad. I hoped for more resilience from Avalanche, to allow Toad to run away with the objective. In reality, both of them were ably managed by the master swordswoman Lady Sif.
I berated Valkyrie's survival to Stylus during and post-game, and rightly so - enacting Oden's blessing to stay alive on one wound (with bleed), KO Juggernaut, score an objective and heal herself to avoid bleeding out - all in one turn - was sensational and truly the pivotal moment. However, Enchantress managing Sabretooth every turn has to be the play of the game. Sabretooth was in a prime position for the whole game to deal endless pain but time and time again was hypnotised, re-positioned and even bewitched into handing over a crucial objective at the end!
I had a brilliant game, with gut-wrenching highs and lows. MCP surprises me once again for being a game that is so easy to get invested in despite not being too familiar with the characters and game mechanics. I can't imagine the Cabal will be best pleased with the result... or the poor soul who gets to inform them.
No comments:
Post a Comment