22 February 2012

Kirai vs Rasputina


After a week's break from gaming – I had taken some time off work – it was game time again. Fugs threw a curve ball into the mix by fielding Rasputina instead of his current mistress Lilith.

I had had plenty of thinking time (and time to buy more stuff) and decided to try a mix of new and old.

Strategies were flipped: I got Slaughter and took Bodyguard and Kill Protegee as Schemes; Fugs also flipped Slaughter and took Bodyguard and the Raspy mirror specific Scheme.

My crew consisted of Kirai, Lost Love, Canine Remains, Deperate Merc, Datsu-Ba, 2x Insidious Madness, 2x Seishin and 1x The Drowned.

Fugs took Rasputina, Essence of Power, 2x Silent Ones, 1x Gamin …and Taelor.

The game itself was intense and quite a blur to me now. It ebbed and flowed and it was impossible to predict who would win. I started with my usual shenanigans – taking the Merc and Dog down to one wound so Datsu could create Gaki, although I was hoping for Onryo with the trigger. Alas my starting hand was devoid of any crows which would hamper my opening activations.

By the end of turn one I had two Shikome on the board hunting the Gamin. They tried to cast Guaranteed Fate on him with no luck and tucked back into cover to avoid any reprisals. In turn two Datsu managed to create a Gaki and an Onryo and Kirai summoned a second Onryo. By the end of the turn I had 12 models on the board to Fugs' 6. It was still very cagey though – I was nervous about Taelor and all the magic spells facing me, Fugs wary of the sheer numbers facing him.


I threw out a couple of bait models and Taelor went for it, killing an Insidious Madness and leaving the Gamin and a Silent One unsupported. I moved The Drowned into a clearing in melee range of Taelor and the other Silent One and cast Drag Under successfully, moving Taelor 3" nearer to my awaiting troops. The Drowned was then killed, dealing 2 Damage to these nearby enemies.

A series of mistakes undermined my strike at this point. I swirled Dasu into melee with Taelor, having already activated her (doh!). There was a tiny slither of a Seishin base visible from behind cover which exposed Kirai, Lost Love, a Gaki and 2 Seishin to a December's Curse blast. Kirai and the Gaki managed to survive but this threw a spanner in the works. On the plus side the Onryo in base with Taelor manage to land 5 wounds in one hit which was something of a silver lining.



The following turn saw Taelor engage with Datsu, the old dear managing to frustrate her opponent by  taking all three melee hits to die. I summoned Ikiryo who managed to NOT kill Taelor, the heavyweight Onryo finishing off the job he'd started earlier. Alongside all this Rasputina (and the EoP) was having a field day blasting the rest of my crew to pieces – even killing her own Silent One in order to polish off an Insidious Madness and Onryo out of LoS.

The game went to turn 6 and by the end I had wiped Rasputina and her crew off the board, but Fugs had killed over 50ss worth of my models!!… not bad for a 30ss game.

The final score was 6-4 to Raspy.

Post game thoughts were positive. I made some shocking mistakes – I blame the week's break – and I was far too cautious for the opening half of the game; when I was bold (especially with the Shikome) things started to die. Considering my Terrifying was negated by the opposing crew and I was facing all Magic attacks I was pleased with how things went overall. It was a good alternative to facing the Lilith melee crew, and even Fugs saw Raspy in a different light after being Sonnia's punchbag for such a long time.

2 comments:

  1. Chin up - nice job facing down Raspy. Sucks when you forget something and it hurts the gameplan like swapping in models that have already activated.

    I've been having some good success with Kirai lately. I try to set my models up so most of them are out of LOS or in cover or what have you at the end of the turn and use my Seishin to force my opponent to activate models when he may prefer something important on my side go. I don't like to have less than 3 Seishin on the board at a time. Shikome are great to have out early, but Kirai can summon them exactly where you need them when the time is right. On the turn you need the Shikome to go for a kill, have both the Spirits (usually Seishin) activate before you summon to force your opponent to activate two more of his models too. By the time you summon with Kirai, your opponent should be out or near out of models to activate. Then summon a Shikome (it never gets slow, so no slow from summoning), move it into range and rip the tar out of your target.

    Then... laugh with glee.

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  2. I've just realised (after re-reading your Kirai vs Hoffman post, Mike) that I could have avoided the whole December's Curse blast by sacrificing a Seishin at the beginning of Raspy's turn to make Kirai immune to blasts – if I sacrificed the Seishin that Raspy could see she would not be able to take the shot anyway.

    These are the kind of tricks I will think about over time, it's just that Kirai involves so much multitasking that these neat little things get forgotten in the heat of battle.

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