Mapp vs Relic Knights: Corsairs & Speed Circuit
The Lesser Spotted Sprog came over to visit this afternoon, armed with a handful of models and a burning desire to push them around a table while muttering "yarr" to himself. We're still kind of feeling our way through Relic Knights, which is an anime-inspired sort of skirmish game involving toy soldiers, and this is only the second time we've tried these two factions. Paul's Corsairs were led by Calico Kate, the Relic Knight for the faction, fighting alongside the Iron Chef, two units of Corsairs and a Broadside cannon. I opted to take Malya, for some crazy Relic Knight vs Relic Knight action, along with a Royal Wrecker, some Pit Crew to keep it intact, Rin Farrah for some ranged support and a unit of Hells Belles. Sadly, I've already managed to forget what all the objectives were; I think I had to destroy the two secondary objectives or the primary one, and sabotage at least five objectives. Paul - I think! - had to kill three units and... do something else.
My plan to keep the Royal Wrecker alive failed miserably, as it was subjected to volleys of fire from both the Broadsides and the Corsairs, backed up with a bit of help from Skully the Cypher. This sent me into a bit of a panic, as the Wrecker was rather central to my initial plan of tearing apart the enemy objectives quickly. With the Wrecker taken apart quickly, my Pit Crew were somewhat wasted, and I struggled to come up with a plan to keep the Cerci Speed Circuit in the game. While Malya comfortably ran rings around everyone (hitting her six esper bonus, meaning she could cover two thirds of the board in one turn comfortably), I spent too long being indecisive - I didn't fully commit to the objectives, nor did I fully commit to taking down Paul's units, so eventually I found myself playing to stop Paul achieving his goals, rather than playing to achieve my own. Eventually Malya was pinned down between Calico Kate, a lone Corsair and the Iron Chef and beaten to death, netting my brother enough victory points to win the game.
Compared to my experiences with the Black Diamond, the Speed Circuit seem a lot trickier to play. Their speed gives them a real advantage when it comes to some of the scenarios, but I think you've got to come up with a plan on how to deal with the scenario and start going straight for it from the very first turn. Black Diamond, on the other hand, feels like they're capable of fighting for a while before going for the objectives. I'll probably drop the Wrecker and Pit Crew for the next game, replacing them with some more Hells Belles; going all-out to start claiming victory points via scenario conditions within the first few activations, then worrying about the enemy models after I've got some victory points under my belt. Units in the game seem to have some of the best cost-to-damage ratios, so hopefully a pair of units - if they don't get taken apart straight away - can clean up once an objective is complete.
Malya is... good, I think. She's fast, and that's a lot of fun, but Suicide Queen's cadre ability Speed Trap is very valuable with the fast units in the faction. Rin is a good shootin' sort of model, who uses Law primarily, which makes for fewer wasted cards in the deck, but I find it hard to justify her eleven point price tag during the game. Perhaps it's because she's a Law Initiate? Her AoE debuff used early on in the game looks useful as an area denial tool, but the amount of damage is a bit lacking. I'll reserve judgement until I've used her some more, but units really seem to be where it's at right now.