Peter and I played a 25SS game tonight. My crew was led by Lady Justice and had the Plant Evidence strategy and I selected the Bodyguard and Breakthrough schemes. Peter’s crew was led by Sonnia Criid. He had A Line in the Sand as his strategy and opted for Bodyguard as his scheme.
Divided Loyalty
Samael Hopkins clutched the inscribed scroll cases tightly as he moved rapidly up the left flank, ducking and dodging through a small copse. He was accompanied by a Witchling Stalker. They unnerved him, but their abilities to subdue even the most potent spell caster could not be denied. Ahead he spied Francesco at the edge of a derelict settlement, but today they were not friends. Whoever he was working for needed to be steered from their current mission and these scrolls were just what would do that.
A wall of fire suddenly appeared in front of Francesco as Hopkins levelled his Colt .45 at him, obscuring his view and causing the shots to miss their mark. This concerned him – what had Lady Justice gotten him involved in. He ordered the Stalker into the small settlement to distract the Ortega while he pushed forward to ensure his mission was completed. He heard gun shots from his right. The Judge and Lady Justice must have encountered some resistance.
As he ran towards some ruins the clashing of swords rang out from where the Witchling had entered the settlement. Francesco’s attention was drawn away and he fired in that direction, presumably finishing off that vile creature. Hopkins would not mourn its death. With Francesco distracted Samael seized his chance – he took aim and dropped the Ortega with skillfully placed shots to his shoulder and thigh. The wounds wouldn’t be life threatening, but would keep him out of action for a while.
Advancing forward to the foot of a small tree he saw the opportunity to plant the first scroll. As he placed it into a rotten hole at the tree’s base he caught the flash of a crimson coat out of the corner of his eye. Even with her back to him and at some distance he knew it was Sonnia. What had Justice gotten him into? He ducked out of sight and quickly placed the second scroll. He skulked back toward the copse. Lady Justice never explained herself to anyone, but he wished this once that he had known what she was asking of him.
Peter and I more-or-less traded models for most of this game. The masters clashed in the centre, on the far side of the settlement. Sonnia survived a charge from Lady Justice – I had a terrible hand of cards and failed to hit her despite having Cb +2 from my Sword Style! The Judge tried to shoot into the melee at Sonnia, but I ended up having to negatively cheat in order to miss hitting Lady Justice. A Witchling Stalker charged into Justice and missed, but caused 2 wounds with Immolating Demise when her Riposte struck it down. In her activation Sonnia just about did enough damage to bring Lady Justice down to 3 wounds and then she cast Inferno, thus dealing the last 3 wounds at the end of the turn. In the following turns Sonnia then had to backtrack to prevent Samael achieving the Breakthrough scheme. The game ended in a draw with Peter achieving his Bodyguard scheme (2VP) and me just about planting two pieces of evidence (2VP) before the game ended.
Owen