thread: 2009-02-11 : Weep, O Children of Every Sun
On 2009-02-12, Vincent wrote:
Here's the story of the battle from my point of view.
Joshua didn't expect to start the game in the lead, thus playing defense, but he did. He put the sarcophagus along one edge of the battlefield, piled with killer nuns, and his other station in the opposite corner, with just an artillery-armor mech to guard it.
If I were to pull a move like this, it'd become "Vincent's forces are separated and get torn apart." Why for J it becomes "Vincent's and Rob's forces split themselves up and badly divide their effectiveness," I'm not clear. But that's how it works.
Initiative for turn 1 bites me pretty hard. A couple of my mechs go first, then all of J's nuns, then the rest of my mechs, then Rob.
So my side jumps hard on initiative and smashes into J's nuns while they're fresh and mean. We do a little harm but really what happens is I lose my first mech in the first half of turn 1. Oh, did we say this here? No ranged weapons at all, except J's artillery. So to attack with my first couple of mechs I absolutely have to break formation and leave them hanging out there exposed.
Anyway, all I really accomplished is, I pulled J's nuns out of position so that in the bottom of turn 1, Rob's creepy tripod alien mechs could slip past and seize the sarcophagus.
Go me.
The midgame was, oh, dashed hopes. Having committed and already lost a mech, my only chance to come out of the battle ahead was to stay in and do well. See, meanwhile, Rob had committed to the sarcophagus too, so instead of fighting J for it, I had to choose between fighting for it and fighting J, but to win the game I had to do both.
It didn't work out for me. Three distinct times I blew big damage rolls I needed to ace, while four distinct times J aced move-attack-defend rolls I needed him to blow, and Rob rolled consistently well enough to stand me off.
The last turn was particularly bitter, with a last-white-die nun of J's managing to hold off an undamaged mech of mine. Her dying, just that, would have changed our VPs significantly: J down to 35, me up to 18. Still a bad loss for me, but it would've put me at 1/2 everybody else, not 1/3 everybody else.
