Battle Report: Dark Age Campaign Week 2- Prevailers vs. Bounty Hunters

   Ok, I've never tried writing a battle report before, but I figured I'd try it, since the game was only 300 points and it made a good story. So here goes- let me know what you think!

   It's week two, and we're still at 300 points, but today, instead of kill'em all, we can actually only score points with secondary objective cards. I was really frustrated with the uselessness of the Coils last time (the 3 of them only killed 1 model total, and didn't move far, while Michael flew across the field and took out the other 4), so I decided to go the other way, and just bring 2 archangels, hoping that wouldn't bite me in the arse for objective running. TOG, who also likes to play big guys, brought only 4 models- 3 mercs and one sidekick to a merc. That's 6 models in all for the whole game ::lol::

   Round One: Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody moves, and you can't collect objective points anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, my approach is to start moving my guys to where they can obtain a point for my first objective in Round 2: Advance: Have everybody in No Man's Land at the end of the turn. Not too hard since I only have 2 guys. I am assuming my esteemed opponent is doing the same- moving towards objectives.

   Round Two: TOG charges right in with Phadros, slashing at Gabriel from two inches away, because he figures (quite correctly) that leaving that jerk on the field any longer than necessary is a bad idea. He does one point of damage out of three. Gabriel retaliates by smacking him with the Angelic Choir, both stunning him and knocking him prone, because Gabriel's a punk.
   Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, Michael can't aim for Lucky, who is just out of range, so he shoots at Maximo, hitting Lucky anyway since it's a blast template, and doing 1 point. Ironically he does not kill the 1 health point sidekick, who makes both his armor saves, but now they are both on fire, which always becomes important later.
   Lucky retaliates by hitting Michael and blinding him, like she does. Yeah, that whopping 4 point deficit to your AS is definitely annoying.
   Blade runs over to join in on tag-teaming Gabriel, sliding in at the edge of an objective marker hoping to score his team some points, but does not have enough actions left to hurt the big punk.


 

  Round 3: Phadros wastes so much energy getting back on his feet that he can't finish off Gabriel (because Gabriel's a punk). Rather than let Blades also get a shot off on him, Gabriel smacks him point blank with a face-full of Angelic Choir, which sounds bad enough, but really it was Blades' unfortunate crit-failing of his armor save that did him in. He apparently leaned into it, and took both his hit points at once, having had no chance at all to show off. Sucks to be you, Blades. Michael, who has always been the slugger of the Heavenly Host, decides that he'd better come to Gabriel's aid, vaulting in at a 90 degree angle to Gabriel so Gabriel can still use the Angelic Choir if he needs to. Unfortunately, Michael is not able to finish off the massive Phadros, which is only a problem because I have won initiative maybe 5 times in my entire life. What were the other two busy doing this round? Well, Lucky, who remembered that she was on fire, spent the round putting herself out so she wouldn't burn to death, while Maximo, who forgot he was on fire, tried to attack Michael and merely succeeded in immolating himself. (Fire, bad!)




  

   Round 4: TOG wins initiative (big surprise) and activates Phadros (big surprise) who finishes off Gabriel (big surprise), who explodes, like he does. The blast did one point of damage to both Michael (oops, I guess that 90 degree angle wasn’t the right pick) and Phadros, who alas only had one left… because Gabriel's a punk.

   So now it's my activation, and I have one guy left- so does TOG, but mine is bigger- and can get within melee range. What was the lesson of week one, kiddies? Don't get into melee with Michael, especially if you're a ranged specialist. Michael vaults in on Lucky, charging her with his massive bonuses. She gets a free melee attack on him and tries to plunk him with the butt of her pistol, but it's like a kid with a pinata stick beating on a mech. He finishes her off with his usual brutality.

   Mind you, this week was all about those objective cards, and at this point he had 3 cards to my one, but I got lucky with pulls, and ended up with 4, since you keep playing it out through round 8.

   So there was the fight, but the really brutal part was the after-game campaign rolls. Gabriel walks away without a scratch, while the guy that killed him (subsequently getting himself blown up in the process) rolls a crit-fail and is out for 3 games. Because Gabriel's a punk. To make matters worse, Lucky and Blades roll just as badly. Ouch. The biggest problem with that is TOG's entire force is based on having 8 or 9 big mercenaries, and he's already down 3 for the next 3 games. At this rate, he may very well end up with a game in which he cannot fill his points allotment, which is generally not good for one's campaign score.



   So, let's recap. Week one, the moral of the story is: Don't Melee with Michael. Week Two, the moral of the story is: Gabriel's a punk. Honestly, TOG really likes that about Gabriel. He's thinking about making a Gabriel and the Banes crew- the version I resisted, 'cause they're a bunch of punks.