Twisted Steampunk : The Boxes (COVID-19 edition)

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, all gaming has come to a screeching halt. So it's solo time! I decided to play Twisted because I finally (after nearly 2 years) assembled the MDF Twisted terrain. Not that I had a choice. The monsoon rains were making my MDF go all mouldy so I had to dry it all under the sun for 2 days before embarking on a week of assembling. Still, it's all done now and it looks good!

The game pitted the Scions of the Sands vs the Guild of Harmony.

100 point game using Mission 5: The Boxes. 

Scions: Carter, Indigo and the ever-reliable Scarab Mummy.

Guild of Harmony: Tricia Harker, Tzandi and Arielle.

TURN 1

Guild has priority. Scions have favour. 

Tzandi runs up to the first objective. Indigo ditto. Tricia casts Elegant Movement on herself and moves towards the next objective. Carter runs to the nearest objective. Arielle completes the Guild turn by running to the objective in the centre. The Mummy flies closer to Arielle. 

TURN 2

Arielle goes first and succeeds in her search! She gets a 3-point Delight... a Hermetic Hat!

As expected the Mummy activates and flies towards Arielle, landing in her back. That’s when he discovers he doesn’t get a back-stabbing bonus due to her Amorphous ability! Ha! Arielle Tempts Fate and draws Prescient Invocation, enabling Tricia to attempt Energy Drain on the Mummy. She fails and the Mummy’s first attack deals 7 DAM! But he misses his second strike. 

Tzandi goes next, attempting to search the objective. She needs a 7 to pass and fails miserably with a 1! What?!

Indigo passes her search easily and also finds a 3-point Delight... a ... a ... dang. A smoke grenade?! 

Tricia goes next and successfully casts Energy Drain on the Mummy, dealing 2 DAM. She uses her final action to move to an objective. 

Carter successfully searches his objective and finds ... 4 water essences. Not great. But not bad. We can’t roll 6’s all the time. 

The Mummy attempts to break the Invocation, needing a 9... and just misses with an 8!

After all the back and forth... the Scions now have both Priority and Favour!

TURN 3

As expected the Mummy activated first ... and missed both attacks! In fact, Arielle rolled 20's ... twice!

Arielle now activates and slides around to get behind the Mummy, giving her a +1 bonus to her attack roll. She succeeds but... the Scions play an EoE card ... Deflection! A mysterious green glow sheaths the Mummy's body. Tendrils of light reach out ... and settle on Arielle! She does 7 DAM to herself! What a turn of events!

Carter invokes Windwalker on Indigo then moves up towards the next stash. 

Tzandi foregoes the stash and moves up to cast Quagmire on Indigo. No chance for her to avoid so her speed is halved. Indigo is also affected by the Lacklustre EoE.  

Tricia searches the stash and comes up empty handed! What?! But the Energy Drain she cast on the Mummy does 3 DAM.  

TURN 4

Scions play Awry Activations. Indigo charges Tzandi. Who plays Lacklustre on her. And sure enough, Indigo misses. But since the miss was less than 5, that triggered her Lucky ability ... and the die roll was even worse! So she called on the Engine... and flubbed the roll again! The Engine sniffed with disdain and went over to the Guild. 

Tzandi goes next and invokes Weaken on Indigo. -2 to Melee Def. She attacks and Indigo Tempts Fate ... the Engine ignores her! Man, when the Engine turns on you, it really turns on you! Both of Tzandi’s attacks hit but with Indigo’s 7 ARM only do a paltry 3 DAM. 

The Mummy activates next. Arielle Tempts Fate and gets Prescience. The Mummy flubs its first attack. But the second hits despite Arielle’s Prescience. With only 2 HP left, that was all she wrote. Arielle is Out of Action!

Carter runs to the next stash. Tricia searches her stash again and finally finds some Tumbler Rounds. Energy Drain does another 3 DAM to the Mummy. 

After all the back and forth, the Guild keeps both Favour and Initiative! 

AAR: what an unfortunate turn of events for the Guild! At such low points, every single model counts. Losing Arielle with all her abilities was painful. 

TURN 5

Tzandi Bows Out then moves behind her original stash. The Guild plays the Blackguard Eye Of The Engine (EOE) card and Indigo slowly turns around and fires at the Mummy, dealing 4 DAM!

The Mummy flies towards Tzandi. Tricia moves to help Tzandi. She’s too far away to do anything useful so she catches her breath and recovers half the essences used. 

The Scions play the Excellence EOE on Indigo raising her already excellent stats to an absurd level! She turns around and moves behind a lamppost then shoots at Tzandi, dealing 4 DAM. 

Carter runs towards Tricia, setting up an interesting conundrum for the Scions next turn : should she deal with Carter or continue to help Tzandi?

Guild retains both Favour and Initiative. 

TURN 6

Tzandi activates but then Scions trump that with a Rage of the Engine EOE card! The Mummy immediately flies towards Tzandi, landing BEHIND her! It’s at 10 (!!!) melee and 9 (!!!) Strength!!! Thankfully it misses the first attack but lands the second dealing Tzandi 11 DAM (!!!). If both attacks had hit, she’d be gone! 

Tzandi now gets to Bow Out away from the Mummy and lobs a Bead Bomb at Indigo aided by The Engine Guides My Aim. Indigo evaded using a Favour of the Engine re-roll! Dang! (Not sure how that happened now as the Guild supposedly started this turn with the Favour). 

The Mummy now flies and lands behind Tzandi (this is getting old) and attacks! Missed its first attack and the second only dealt 2 DAM thanks to rolling a 1 on a d6. Tzandi lives! And is on the verge of being Wounded! But not yet!

Tricia runs to Tzandi’s aid... but is it too late? 

Indigo takes two shots at Tzandi... and misses! Tzandi Tempts Fate anyways and gets Deflection! The very same card that did Arielle in. 

Carter, fed up of forever chasing after Tricia, decides to fire at her. He misses his first shot but deals 3 DAM with his second. 

TURN 7

Scions have Favour. Guild has Priority. 

Tzandi goes first. Invokes Wall of Air vs Indigo so she can’t fire through (or difficult to fire through) then attacks the Mummy. But before she does so, the Scions play Lacklustre on her so she Tempts Fate ... and gets Direct Displacement! She’s whooshed off a total of 8” away from the Mummy... so he can still attack ... and back into LOS of Indigo with no Cover and out of the Wall of Air! Truly a cursed situation when the Engine takes a dislike to you!

The Mummy does its thing but can’t quite get a back strike. Still, +2 to melee isn’t to be sneezed at. He does 3 DAM on the first attack (don’t ask) and totally misses the second! Tzandi lives!!! But she’s Wounded.

Tricia Invokes Salve on Tzandi, and uses an extra 2 water to maximise the effect, healing 6 HP to Tzandi. She then invokes an Elemental Spirit on the Mummy and uses her Balanced Mind to get a roll of 18. The Mummy fails its dodge roll and is dealt 5 DAM. Can the Guild deal 8 more DAM AND pick up a stash token in the final turn? 

Indigo fires at Tzandi who decides to Tempt Fate again. She gets Stop Motion which gives her another attack (?) vs the Mummy. She hits both times and deals enough damage to take him within 3 points of being Taken Out. Indigo finally fires at Tzandi. She misses the first shot (Tzandi having rolled a 20) but deals 7 DAM with her second, leaving Tzandi within 1 HP of being taken out! She’s Wounded again, naturally. 

I think it’s over. I don’t see any way the Guild can pull themselves back from this one. As it is the score stands at 8-3. There’s now no way for the Guild to finish off the Mummy AND grab the other loot that was dropped by Arielle to even out the score. They can do one or the other ... but not both. 

AAR : That was a fun game! Played for narrative fun and not in tournaments. The incredible swings of the game make for great narrative play. Arielle was done in, of course, by that crazy Eye of the Engine card. And I just realised that Elemental Spirit was Arielle’s invocation, not Tricia’s!

But lesson learned. In terms of invocations I need 1 that boosts movement, 1 that heals, 1 that hampers the enemy, 1 that deals direct damage and 1 other. 

It’s satisfying playing with the proper Twisted terrain now. Will be better once it’s all painted of course. (I do need a bit more terrain though. And the layout of this table wasn’t optimised. Some of the more interesting bits of terrain with stairs and walkways and balconies were laid out on the outer edge so didn't factor in at all into the game play.)

The Scarab Mummy is really OP for its points cost and deadly in smaller point games like this one. 

Also: I realised after the fact that I need to take the loot OFF the table to score points. But even then, the Scions were ahead so no chance for the Guild to win this one.

Next game: a full 150 point or even 200 point game.