Masha Shingai vs Romans and Redcoats

Highways and Dieways
Glyphs: Move +2, Unique Attack +1
500 Points

Army 1: Masha Shingai, Raelin, Tagawa Samurai Archers x5 (495)
Army 2: Marcus Decimus Gallus, Me-Burq-Sa, Roman Legionnaires x3, 10th Regiment of Foot x2, Siiv (490)

What Units Survived?
Marcus Decimus Gallus (2 wounds), 1 Roman Legionnaire, 2 10th Regiment of Foot, Siiv (no wounds)
~150 Points

Game Summary:
Me-Burq-Sa and the Romans won initiative, quickly claiming the movement glyph. Masha rushed out to engage some Romans, and a stray TSA managed to engage Me-Burq-Sa. Unwilling to be tied down, Me-Burq-Sa took a wound from a leaving engagement attack, but managed to take down some archers with him.

With Masha further away from my starting zone and the Roman Legionnaires being the main opposing force, I was finally able to abuse the line-of-sight-blocking trees and 4 range on the aura to avoid it the next round, only losing 1 attack dice on the first turn of the round. Masha soon claimed the movement glyph, forcing the 10th Reg. to take some potshots at him from height. Due to some above-average defense rolls, he blocked every hit (despite them being outside of his aura). The next turn, however, they Wait-Then-Fired from height, managing to deal 3 wounds in 3 attacks (and losing two of their figures to his Spite).

The next round was an initiative switch, letting Raelin fly out to back up Masha as the TSA began reinforcing the movement glyph stronghold. Unfortunately for them, the Romans did their best to block the way. Me-Burq-Sa took out a TSA blocking off a melee height advantage for some Romans, but took one wound via Spite. This was well worth the sacrifice, since it freed the way for 3 Romans to swarm him and safely kill him, despite Raelin’s aura.

The Romans and 10th Reg. then tried to break through a screen of TSA with Raelin, falling to Counterstrike left and right thanks to some careful shots placed by the archers to neutralize the opponent’s range. Finally, Marcus the Romans were able to break through the screen and slay Raelin, bringing it down to one squad of TSA versus Marcus, half a squad of Redcoats, and Siiv for the final round. Siiv rushed out, and coupled with the road and movement glyph added to his 7 move, the TSA weren’t able to escape him or take him down before he killed every member of the last squad.

Usefulness of Powers:
Aura of Terror subtracted 8 dice from his own archers and 4 dice from the opponents army (-1 to Me-Burq-Sa, -3 to Romans).
He blocked 4 attacks from Romans (1/3, 1/3, 0/3, 1/3).
He blocked 4 attacks from 10th Reg., none of which were in his aura (1/3, 2/3, 2/3, 2/3).
Burning Spite activated 2/2 times (15, 8 ) for himself, taking 1 wound the first time and 2 wounds the second.
Burning Spite activated 1/1 times (he rolled a 9) for an adjacent TSA, dealing 1 wound to Me-Burq-Sa.
He made 1 normal attack (3/5 skulls, blocked).

He made his presence much more known on this game. I was able to abuse rotating my archers a couple of times to avoid his aura once he was in the trees, and the TSA actually did fairly well at both attack and defense this game. His aura also made it difficult for the Romans to finish him off (especially with Raelin’s aura), giving the TSA the time that they needed to be able to actually take down some figures. Burning Spite was also a nice consolation, killing half of a squad of 10th Regiment and dealing 1 wound to Me-Burq-Sa. His normal attack completely missed again, but I was mostly using him for positioning and his Spite/aura anyways. He may have only killed roughly 50 points, but he felt good this time, making a much greater impact on the game than in the past tests. It also helps that the TSA made a much better showing this game than the last, making some good rolls on both attack and defense to take care of the Romans.

Additional Comments:
Masha Shingai rolled particularly well for defense whilst he was holding the glyph, especially since Raelin only came to protect him when he already had 3 wounds. Once the archer blocking the path to him fell, however, he could do little against a combined Roman onslaught from height, even with Raelin’s +2 defense.

He feels really unique from all of the other Samurai as a result of Burning Spite. The other player really wants to engage him to avoid the potential wounds, which leads to some great synergy with the other Samurai who benefit from melee encounters. I hadn’t been completely sure about the power before, but now that I’ve gotten the chance to get a feel for it in action, I think that it’s legitimately a great addition to the Samurai faction, both in feel and effect. The balance might need to be adjusted after further playtesting, but I’m really enjoying the mechanics of his Spite so far.