Time for the weekly meet-up, and more efforts of getting the Crimson Court and Paths of Prophecy to work in some form or another.
I settled myself on taking these to Benelux Clash II, but I have low expectations for the combination, it just works to chunky. But I won't be changing out now anymore, this is the band and deck that will have to do it, and the lower tiers will be my fate.
I made peace with that...
The first game was against the Skittershank's Clawpack warband and the Hungering Parasite, a beast that is everywhere these days, and which scores smooth and swift all the time.
I opted for the longboard deployment, in the vain hope of trying to buy some time and score at least some points.
Duvalle managed to take down Skulck immediatly, but this found him a bit in a rough spot.
The Skaven ganged up, including the Bane of Heroes wearing Snyp Padpaw, but I needed to keep that objective to score some decent glory in the first round.
Vellas von Faine came to the aid of the prince, pushing back Slynk Skittershank after wounding him.
But all the Skaven wanted a piece of her, and a true train was formed to attack her and the prince.
It was in the last activation of the round Duvalle however who fell to the ping of the Bane of Heroes, and that meant the objective wouldn't be scored as I needed one within two hexes of no-man's land. The gamble hadn't paid off, and the Skaven led 5-6 after round 1.
Vellas avenged the fallen leader at the begining of the second turn, taking down the Skaven leader Slynk Skittershank herself.
But that meant she now had to face an increasingly stronger Snyp Padpaw, who kept raking up the upgrades with the Bane of Heroes.
And she couldn't keep up against the onslaught, falling to his savage assaults.
As Gorath took hold of the objective on my half, the ratman raced into my territory, charging Ennais but missing him.
The second round ended on a hefty 7-11 lead for the Clawpack, and I needed to get first turn in the final round the save the whole affair.
But unfortunatly I didn't, and the Grievous 2, 3 wounds basic, gazillion dice Snyp took down Ennais in a single blow.
To add insult to injury, he also pinged away the last wound of Gorath thanks to the Malifec Siphon, tabling the Crimson Court and leaving the road wide open for a strong score of the Clawpack.
They duly went on to do this, and I could only score a single point this round, resulting in a hefty 8-18 defeat against the Clawpack.
In maybe had one chance in the opening round to get a strong lead and take the game, but in the end the Bane of Heroes equipped, heftily upgraded Snyp just tore through the vampires and I doubt I would have been able to hold out.
For the second game, the Thricefold Discord using Force of Frost faced my Crimson Court.
I didn't longboard this time, instead opting for a staggered boardplacement. The bands set up, the Court holding back from the Discord, and battle commenced.
Lascivyr infiltrated my half, as the vampires went round to try and secure objectives.
This all resulted in an impressive 1-1 score after round 1.
In the beginning of the second round, after Duvalle had taken down Lascivyr, Vellas swooped away using Quicksilver Advance to end up deep in enemy territory, as the lumbering Vexmor put himself on objective 3.
Vashtiss zapped Gorath off the objective, and after a barrage of spells the Vampire went down.
Ennais in the meantime had infiltrated also into enemy territory, while Vexmor delved his objective down. On the scorebord was now an 8-4 lead for the Crimson Court though, and I had some playable end of turn 3 cards in hand, so I had to make sure I could hold out.
Vexmor went after the Vampires, whom saw Duvalle also go and grab an objective in their lands.
Ennais flipped the objective token he was on, before the Vashtiss took him down.
The rest of the turn only saw Vashtiss returning to an objective to score for the Discord, meaning I was lucky for Duvalle to survive as I needed him to score Death's Domain. The result as such was an 11-9 victory for the Crimson Court, but once again the play wasn't impressive, let alone the score.
So yeah, Benelux Clash II will be a very hard affair with this combination, and I hope to win at least one or two games out of I believe the six rounds that will be played. It is best of one, so maybe the fact the combination itself might suprise people allows to avoid some counterplay beforehand, but I make no illusions for that day.
But first let's see what this weekends reveals on Warhammer Day will bring for Underworlds. If the game "remains sort of the same", I will be having a whole set of builds ready for going into 2025, and slowly I will be started to try them out, leaving the Crimson Court / Paths of Prophecy go down in my notes as an intresting, but not succesfull, experiment.