Quick update, semi-TOMB3 related:
I played in a tournament at Paladin Games in Orlando, FL this weekend with my Neverborn, and fought my way to first place, nightmares blazing and bureaucracy shining! Did I take pictures like I intended to? NO! I SUCK!
In rounds one and two (vs Neverborn/Pandora and Ten Thunders/McCabe), I played The Dreamer with his summoning upgrade and none of my TOMB3 models, so I won't really talk about them in depth. I won round one by a large margin (8-1 or so), and won round two by a single point and some grace (8-7), which I'll talk about in the end.
In the final round, vs Arcanists (Mei Feng), I decided to play Lucius, whom I had not played yet. The strategy was Squatter's Rights, and the scheme pool was ALitS, Protect Territory, Distract, Cursed Object, and Spring the Trap. I chose Spring the Trap and ALitS, figuring that I'd be dropping Scheme markers on the center line, and his master would come up to meet in the middle.
The crew I brought was all minions, except for Lucius and the Primordial Magic. This meant that I had a whole lot of targets for Lucius to issue commands to, and with a Guild Lawyer in the mix, I don't think I failed a single Horror duel from Lucius. However, I was lacking in beaters, and by the end of the game, I had only Lucius and the totem left while he had only lost the Emberling and a rail worker. I had scored a full points Spring the Trap on turn two, with a pair of scheme markers in the center of the board, before Mei Feng could super-kick them away. I only scored for the strategy twice, but the Primordial Magic did its job to become my fourth LitS marker at the end of the game. I ended up winning 8-7, as he got 3 from strategy, 3 from Protect Territory and 1 from LitS. Overall an incredibly close and bloody game.
On Lucius:
I still need to figure out how to play him, but at the basic level (he walks and issues commands) I felt okay. I forgot about his upgrades pretty regularly, forgot that hidden sniper needs a Ram, and threw away a lot of my crew for early points. It worked out well this time, but was on the knife's edge from losing. He needs some minions, but not all minions. I get that now. I'm excited to play him some more, and to try different crews out.
On sportsmanship:
I witnessed excellent sportsmanship this weekend, and I wanted to point it out. First, some backstory: In playing most mini-war-games, knowing your rules is important, but knowing your opponent's rules is more impactful on the game. Its also tougher, as there are 7 factions, and they all have lots of models, and all of them have different rules, and lots of gotcha's. I've gotten into the habit of keeping the "gotcha's" out of my games, typically with reminders and courtesy warnings. I tell my opponents about the Primordial Magic's "become a scheme marker" shenanigans, remind about Terrifying before its provoked, remind about Teddy's Smell Fear when someone is about to fail said Terrifying, and is trying to decide whether to Cheat Fate to pass or let it go, and so on and so on. I'd rather lose a game with full knowledge out there than pull the rug out from under an opponent.
In my second round of this past weekend's tournament, I played against Josh's Ten Thunders led by Lucas McCabe, in Reckoning. I have not played or played against McCabe before, and I told Josh about this at the start of the game, more or less to pre-apologize for questioning lots of things. We both play the game, and like always, I am as forthcoming as possible on what's going on with the game. I get a bit lazy towards the end of the last turn, as it looks like I've got the full points for Breakthrough and Murder Protege, and he's got full points for Protect Territory and LitS, and we're tied on Reconnoiter points but I have 2 table quarters firmly held, one contested and he's out of models to activate. I attempt to pass with my remaining models (including the Dreamer), but he stops me, and informs me that at the end of the turn, he'll be able to move McCabe via an upgrade, which would move him into the contested quarter and flip it to his side, which will make the game a draw. I thank him, and summon a model with the Dreamer and take the quarter, and the win.
I thanked him again afterwards for his honesty, and his response was "I may have lost, but I'd rather lose than win that way when we've been so honest about things the entire game." Class act. Would I have been upset about getting "gotcha'd" that way at the end of the game? Nope, not really. He'd made that end-of-turn move a few times already, and I had forgotten it. My fault, and moreso my fault for not pushing to guarantee the win, even if it felt excessive. But the point remains, Josh was a classy opponent, a kindred spirit in the belief of fairness and I would play him any day of the week
Wow, this quick update went long.
TL,DR: Won a tournament, played Lucius. I'm a basic Lucius player who needs to play more to get better with him and do more than just walk. Josh is a class act, who showed me how to win when I was trying to earn a draw via a lack of model knowledge.
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