Magnus vs Malya

Second game of Relic Knights and this time it's not a mirror match. Yay. Still 35 points though



Black Diamond
Magnus
Sophia Drake
Black Dragons

Cerci
Princess Malya
Rin Farrah
Hells Belles (2)

So I end up going 2nd (Villain) and our deployment is as such. His scenarios are Corruption primary and Entropy secondary. Mine are Doctrine primary and Creation secondary.  My objectives are all placed roughly in my half of the board, with one of them placed on top of a bridge. His are mostly scattered in his half as well. Sophia Drake is placed as closed to his primary objective as possible, and this means the Black Dragons have to be close as well. Meanwhile Magnus and Static are placed in my half of the board, with Static standing right in front of a secondary objective. His hells belles are placed within 9" of my secondary objective, to try and capture it. Malya hides behind a building. We reveal our first activation and his is Rin Farrah (1) and the Hells belles while mine is Static (1) and then Sophia. 

Rin Farrah tries shooting at the black dragons but luckily I have whatever cards I need in hand to guard against it. Then Static activates and places an aoe right next to the objective, making it so that anyone entering the AOE will take 4 dmg, which is a lot when the Hells Belles have NO armor. As a result, he decides to use the hells belles for other reasons  and runs them off the bridge. 

Sophia Drake goes next and she walks up, casts her AOE buff and does nothing else but dump an infuse counter on the enemy objective. Linked Black Dragons walk up and do the same. They don't have LOS to anything anyway. Rin Farrah goes again and tries to shoot at Sophia but I guard it again. Then Magnus activates, walks up and electric blasts the Hells belles. I press for increased damage and the hells belles have no response. They take 7 and are pushed into a wall, instantly killing the two of them. Then I walk back and dump another infuse counter into my objective, trying to score as much as possible. 

The next few rounds go slowly as I complete my objective and try to make it up the map. I get stopped in a shooting match with Malya and Rin but due to copious amounts of Esper thief, held esper and basically, just plain out guarding, NONE of our remaining units die. Granted, his Malya is down to 8 hp, while Magnus is down to 7 and Sophia has 10 remaining, but basically, it's insanely hard for us to kill each other. 

It takes so long that I decide to say screw it, and go and complete my secondary objective, which is to dump a life token that Sophia drake is holding onto the opposite side of the board. To do so, I use Magnus to cast Void; a corruption initiate spell, and block LOS to Sophia and the Black Dragons. This prevents them from being shot at by Rin and they just run up and dump the token. 

Okay, the game gets bogged down very very quickly once you start killing people with a guard/redirect. I think a huge part of the game is knowing which units to kill; ie. those without guard/shield/redirects, which helps cut down on the enemy forces a lot. I would have killed Rin but she was stealthed for almost the entire game, which was annoying. 

As such, I can see why people say it's an objectives game first; and a killing game second. Because sometimes units just don't die so it's actually a lot easier to just run and complete your objectives while hoping you stay alive. Was interesting playing against Cerci because they have some INSANE speed, unfortunately his hells belles were too far out in the open and paid the price very early on.