Seishin vs. Orcs

IF YOU CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT… by Dignan
Glyphs: Dagmar (Initiative +8 ), Gerda (Defense +1)
Astro: Seishin Samurai x2, Masha Shingai, Tomoe Gozen, Izumi Samurai, Kozuke Samurai
Nathan: Arrow Gruts x2, Swog Riders x3, Blade Gruts x2, Grimnak

Note: Seishin played with 4 defense instead of 5.

Surviving Units:
Tomoe Gozen (unwounded), 2x Kozuke Samurai
~170 Points Left

Game Summary:
The Samurai forces made a beeline for Gerda. Nathan split his attention between Arrow and Blade Gruts, but managed to do a good job of picking off some enemies while they developed. Unfortunately lost most of his forces to lava field damage, but the Samurai were regularly whiffing attacks and did no damage for the first half of the game to counterbalance this.

Eventually, Masha Shingai and Tomoe Gozen managed to tie down Grimnak and block off a key chokepoint, protecting his Samurai brethren for enough time to turn the tides. Dice were rolled, attacks were blocked, dreams were crushed, and Orcs were whittled down until Masha finally fell after dealing no damage. Still, Tomoe Gozen and the remaining Kozuke were able to maneuver around Grimnak and finish off the remaining Orcs for the win.

Power Usage:
A total of 4 Seishin were placed. They never attacked anything, receiving only one Order Marker when one was near the back of the fight so that it could claim Gerda and promptly die to lava field damage afterward.

One was chomped by Grimnak.
Counterstrike killed one Blade Grut. Several other Arrow Gruts and Blades whiffed in melee thanks to Masha’s Awakened Terror, but the Seishin responded in kind by rolling no shields.

Despite their lack of damage dealt, I was able to use the placement power when a Kozuke was killed to block off the two remaining Arrow Gruts who had moved that turn, forcing them to attack the Seishin instead of my other Samurai. Similarly, one Seishin was able to stop Grimnak for one turn, giving Masha time to engage to start the chokepoint of death.

All in all, they killed 10 points but drew some helpful fire. I probably could’ve gotten away with just one in this case; rarely were two on the field.

Thoughts:
Nathan wanted to mix Arrows/Blades against my advice. Thanks in part to my Samurai rolling very poorly for offense and just adequately for defense, this actually still worked out for him for a very close game until the end when Grimnak finally whiffed defense.

I was surprised at how fun the Seishin were to play with the normal Masha/Tomoe/Uniques pod that I have become very familiar with. They were mostly designed with the Tagawa Samurai Archers in mind, but the extra assurance for untimely Samurai deaths was nice compensation.

They weren't able to deal much damage at all, but I was able to use them as an important tactical block for keeping Grimnak from swiftly ending my army or for diverting a few attacks by engaging archers. Nathan often refused to attack when this happened, buying me valuable time to try and whittle down his forces.

Nathan’s Thoughts:
As the point allowance goes up, I think that they’ll be a lot more useful. I got pretty lucky in killing all of them pretty much right away, though, so they might be good where they’re at.

3 feels like a good number of them. At worst, things go slowly and you don’t get to make the most out of them, but in most games, with more normal rolls, they’d probably do a lot better. They also feel like they’re meant for the archers; with the uniques, there are fewer opportunities to replace them and each loss hurts more.