I played another game with these guys in the hands of a new player. There were a couple of tactical errors and swings in luck, but he still enjoyed them quite a bit.
SWAMP THING by Browncoat
390 Points
Glyph of Dagmar
Player 1: Velnesh Alphas, Raelin (SotM), Ashigaru Harquebus x3
Astro: Zombies of Morindan x5, Sir Hawthorne
SURVIVING UNITS:
10x Zombies (16 revivals)
~200 Points
GAME SUMMARY:
Player 1 led with the Velnesh Alphas, quickly claiming Dagmar as I led Sir Hawthorne a bit into danger. A Velnesh shifted behind a tree on height to lie in wait, while the last took the eastern hill.
Zombies and Raelin began developing. The Velnesh on the western side whiffed its defense roll, bringing down their numbers almost immediately. Another one jumped down and managed to kill a zombie, but failed to roll the 2 shields it needed to survive the retaliation despite being in Raelin's aura. The last one sat on the glyph for the rest of the game; it served as a slowdown, since I neither wanted to attack it over other targets nor did Player 1 want to risk another turn with it.
Sir Hawthorne then betrayed me, leaving him blocking the western hill flank and forcing my Zombies to take the long way around. The Harquebus began surrounding Raelin, firing down on the Zombies but failing to completely slow their tide.
The Zombies managed to finally reach the Ashigaru on the eastern hill, and they quickly began converting their numbers. It swang a bit back and forth as the Ashigaru almost reclaimed their hill and banished the Zombies, but a sudden string of successful attacks wiped the Ashigaru off of the hill and left a few stragglers in the central swamp and 6 Ashigaru in the starting zone. The Zombies abandoned Raelin for the starting zone, losing some figures but managing to persist until it had been converted.
Then they began Onslaughting Raelin with their superior numbers. A few fell, but at the end, there were 13 surviving zombies against the Velnesh on Dagmar and a full-life Sir Hawthorne. The Velnesh died to an Onslaught and Sir Hawthorne then proceeded to take down three zombies before he also succumbed to the horde.
POWER USAGE:
Shift was used liberally on this map to quickly climb each hill.
Blink triggered twice, first on a successful block on the western hill and then once on the glyph holder (who stayed put).
The Velnesh never rolled defense dice outside of Raelin's aura. It didn't significantly help them in this game.
Overall, they killed one zombie and absorbed about five attacks.
THOUGHTS:
Player 1 should've led with the Ashigaru here to get the hill sooner and reinforce before the zombies had a chance to catch-up. I tried leading a bit with Sir Hawthorne to offset the initial OMs on the Velnesh, who despite their speed, serve as poor overall defenders, but the early betrayal kind of killed that plan. Generally, this just reinforces that leading with the Velnesh is typically a bad idea--I think that they are best as endgame units or saved for when they can get the first strike with their high attack. They definitely have a high potential, but placing them in unnecessary risks typically neuters that very well.