After a successful round one with Kingpin and the Criminal Syndicate, the summary of it is here, I am paired against Mike and a Pentathaletes roster as discussed by Xavier Protocols. The short story of the list is using Pentagram of Farallah for some exciting turn 1 plays, including scoring the Wakadan Herb, Hulk picking up 3 Cube Shards, or getting M.O.D.O.K onto the midpoint of Gamma Shelters to take 4 actions attacking with All You’ve Got and healing with Field Dressing. None of these scenarios seems particularly good for me, but with the amount of VP the Syndicate can score on the scenario, playing smart and calculated was necessary.
My opponent wins the priority roll off and selects Secures. It is starting off not so good for me already. I hope to pull Senators to keep the threat value low and of course, it is discarded and I have to chose between Herb and Cubes. Cubes is probably the worst of the options for me and Syndicate has good play into Herbs. I think that he will score Herb on the first turn, and I will score it on the second and need to prevent his on the second round and from there it will be a scrum for sure. My opponent selects Demons Downtown and opts for 15 threat. He stated he didn’t want to see both M.O.D.O.K and Killmonger coming at him. A valid argument for sure.
Character selection is somewhat predetermined for me at 15 points and Herbs. Kingpin, Taskmaster, Bullseye, Okoye and Mystique. I need to have at least 5 activations to help keep him off of the last activation. The TT cards I take are All According to Plan, Medpack, Brace for Impact, Deception and Climbing Gear.
My opponent selects Doctor Strange, Soul Gem, Wolverine, Valkyrie and Toad. His TT cards are Pentagram, Field Dressing, Advanced R & D, Medpack, and No Matter the Cost.
My opponent deploys Toad near the Herb vessel, Strange in the middle, Wolverine to my right and Valkyrie in position to grab the Herb. I deploy Taskmaster to get my Herb, Bullseye next to him, Okoye in the middle, Kingpin to score on the vessel and Mystique on my right flank. She should’ve been more central, but hindsight is always 20/20. Her long move will help compensate for the poor deployment.
Round 1 goes as expected, Valkyrie moves to pick up the Herb, using the portal to teleport back. Bullseye double moves to the middle Demon portal. Strange secures the near Demon portal and takes a shot at Bullseye, doing 1 damage. Bullseye uses Parting Shot to move back into position and get a point of damage to Strange. Wolverine moves into position to do some damage in round 2 by climbing onto the size 5 building. Okoye moves to my near Demon portal and shoots at Wolverine. She doesn’t get any damage through but gets to 2 power. My opponent passes. Kingpin moves towards my vessel in hopes of catching a Herb in round two. Toad uses Finder’s Keepers after Advanced R & D to take the Herb from Valkyrie and move into position to score. Taskmaster moves twice to pick up my Herb. Mystique moves twice to get closer to Toad so I can use Deception next round to prevent another 4 pt VP swing.
To start round 2, my opponent starts with Valkyrie and a double move followed by a throw on Taskmaster. He wisely leaves her within range 2 of Toad to prevent a Deception play. Mystique moves towards Toad and takes a pistol shot at Valkyrie, dealing 2 damage and getting a hit, so Rapid Fire triggers and she does another 2 damage. With 4 damage on Valkyrie, my opponent moves Strange off of the back point to use Oshtur’s Refuge to heal Valkyrie 3 damage and then shoot Bullseye. Again, Strange does 1 damage to Bullseye and he uses Parting Shot to move back into position and get a point of damage to Strange. I’m in a really bad spot as Taskmaster has been thrown out of position to attack and move close enough to Okoye to use Illicit Network to pass the Herb. Taskmaster moves with range 2 and attacks Valkyrie with a strike. He is really mad about being thrown out of position and rolls 3 hits, 2 crits and a skull. Remember he gets an extra die because of the Herb. The crits add an extra hit and a blank. Valkyrie only blocks 1 damage even with the defence boost from Strange and is dazed. Wow, what an amazing swing in events. Taskmaster plays Climbing Gear to move closer to Okoye and passes the Herb.
Wolverine is outside of range 3 to attack Okoye, so he moves closer, plays No Matter the Cost and attack her with Berserker Barrage. My opponents dice fail miserably and he only does 2 damage to an Incinerated Okoye. Okoye moves back to the Demon portal and passes the Herb to Kingpin. My opponent passes. Bullseye throws some knives at Strange to no avail. Toad gets into range 3 of Mystique and attacks her. She has cover from the billboard and only suffers 1 damage even though she is also Incinerated. Before Kingpin activates, I play Deception to pull Toad off of the vessel. In hindsight, as I am writing this, I realize that we misplayed Oshtur’s Refuge as a range 3 effect instead of range 2, which would have prevented Deception. Kingpin moves to score the Herb for me and the round is over.
Round 3 is going to be beatdown of a round. Valkyrie charges, uses Dragon Fang and Warrior of Legend on Mystique. Unfortunately, my opponent’s dice are still ice cold. He only gets 2 hits with no wild to trigger the flurry attack. My opponent decides to concede as he doesn’t think it is worth continuing with his dice being so cold.
We talk about what would happen in the rest of the round. Mystique would Expert Sabotage to blow up the yellow car to deal 2 damage to Toad and Valkyrie then Espionage to daze Toad. My opponent would need to send Strange through the portal to come after Kingpin and move Wolverine to support that effort. He is doubtful that the two of them can daze Kingpin this round to prevent the 4 VP for the Herb, especially with me holding Medpack to keep him standing. Bullseye would move to the far Demon portal and Taskmaster would end up on the middle Demon portal. This outcome would score me 7 VP this round, putting me to 15. The next round, my opponent would be able to score his Herb again, probably stop Kingpin from scoring mine, but he would not have the models or actions to stop me from getting the last point necessary to get the win.
While the match was fun and exciting, it is always difficult when my opponent gets so frustrated with the dice that they don’t want to finish the match. We also had a pretty sizeable misplay in the range of Oshtur’s Refuge which certainly impacted the game, but we both missed it and those things happen, sadly. I guess the take away is to double check the range of effects even when you think you know them.
Onto Round 3 next week and the amount of 2-0 players is dimished yet again. With some luck and good fortune, I will be back in the winner’s circle again next week but either way, I will post the play by play.
