Finding Miss Faversham

With a long walk behind us and a lazy sunny Sunday afternoon stretching out before us, Catherine and I had a second game of Battlesworn the day after the first.

This time I set an objective. In a ruined hut in the centre of the board Miss Faversham was hiding. The Yokai were looking to capture her. SAVE were looking to rescue her. Or the other way around, according to Catherine, who opted for what she termed the heroic Yokai in this game. Miss Faversham had to be escorted to a side's base edge for victory to be achieved.

The hut could only be entered from one side, and counted as a terrain change. Flyers could nit just fly into it (it has a roof, even if you can't see it). There were rules for moving Miss Faversham once she was captured/rescued. Again, these were designed to limit Flyers, who couldn't use their flying ability whilst she was in their grasp.

Catherine seized the initiative, using the Tengu to fly to the door of the hut. I moved Josephine Carfax up in response. hoping her Sniper ability would enable her to engage the Tengu even if his retreat was covered by other characters.

The Jorogumo cursed Miss Carfax, so I moved one of my hired guns up as well. Meanwhile the Tengu emerged from the hut, with the struggling Miss Faversham. Catherine denied that she was struggling.

Note the blobby pink Nuppeppo familiar has moved up in the background. This is important.

I rushed the Tengu with one of my hired muscle, which pinned him in combat. The Tengu, being a Brute, had a real edge here.

I moved in one of the Shooters as well, and between them they took down the Japanese demon, but at the cost of them both being at status red, one hit from dead. In the meantime Catherine had moved up the Dorotabo, and it had taken control of Miss Faversham. But The Baron was also in position to intervene.

The Baron engaged the Dorotabo.

Miss Carfax came up in support, striking a mighty blow which lifted her curse. Meanwhile, however, Miss Faversham was now in the hands of the Witch's familiar, the Nuppeppo. This is a mere Rabble, killed by one hit, so I charged in a wounded Fighter ...

... who was thwarted when the Nuppeppo used a reaction move to break off from combat. The Fighter was on red, and break-off is allowed if all of your opponents are red.

Meanwhile The Baron fell to the Dorotabo.

As the Nuppeppo fled with Miss Faversham, Josephine Carfax finished off the Dorotabo, and drew her pistol to try and shoot the little monster down.

It was not to be. A series of tied bids saw Catherine gain a single action whilst I had no reaction, allowing her to move to her base edge. I got one shot, just as the figures left the table, but missed.

So Catherine picked up a win. You'll notice that a lot of figures didn't take part in the game. This was because we were both bidding low in order to try and keep the initiative in the fight in the centre, so neither of us got spare actions or reactions to move anything else into position. I think if I ran this scenario again I would make it harder to take control of Miss Faversham by having her 'passed on' by another character; I allowed it to happen automatically, but really it should require an action. Only if she is uncontrolled should grabbing her be a freebie. This would have slowed down Catherine's run for her baseline and probably opened up the game a little, encouraging more supporting moves.

It was good fun though; having an objective is always helpful for games like this, and learning what does and doesn't work in terms of such objectives for a particular set of rules is useful.

I can see both of these warbands getting future outings.