Battle Report as promised:
First, off, my opponent and I agreed to a 90 minute match with a timed one minute planning period. Just as we approached the 90 minute mark, I finished his Priestess off using this book. Here are a couple key points:
1. The most damage I carried at any point in the game was 7. Some of this had to do with some poor combat choices on his part I think. I had the the Gargoyle Sentry and both Jellies out at one point all in the same zone, and I think my Jellies freaked him out enough that he focused almost all his attacks for at least 3 to 4 rounds on the Jellies. I either guarded with the Jellies, or attacked his mage if she didn't have a creature guarding.
2. I kept the Priestess within 1 - 10 health of death almost the entire game. At one point she was down to 1 health, and had I not made the horrible, HORRIBLE mistake of forgetting about my wizard's basic melee attack she would have been defeated at the one hour mark- I fretted about this mistake the entire rest of the game and one I will never make again. Just glad I did win else this mistake would have bugged me all day!
3. This win was with the Priestess healing herself probably a total of 40+ health over the duration of the game, which started to kind of annoy me a bit. The second big mistake i made was misplacing Deathlock. I definitely cast at the right moment, but I cast it one zone too close. Had I moved my mage and placed it just one zone further away, the game would have been over around the one hour mark.
That said, here are few things I am going to change based on my opponent's play:
1. Replace both Fog Banks with Rolling Fog. I know Fog Bank is cheaper to cast if just casting one, but I think they would only last one round, where as Rolling Fog would give me three rounds, if the purpose is truly to defend against ranged attacks. Needless to say, I didn't cast them at all.
2. Replace Cheetah speed with Poisoned Blood. This is probably just from my mistake of misplacing Deathlock, but this would have been a great back up and would have bought me at least two additional actions before the priestess could have healed herself- which even with misplacing Deathlock, would have won the game around the one hour mark.
3. Remove 1 Mage Wand and 1 Dissolve for 1 Thunderbolt. Towards end-game, I lacked a spell that had that little extra bite. As many times as I had my enemy 2 - 3 measly health from death, Thunderbolt may just have provided that something little extra to finish her off.
Undecided: I'm a little undecided on Voltaic Discharge vs. Electrify. I decided to keep Voltaic Discharge in my book for another try, but because of creature placement, I wound up staggering two of my own creatures without any means to remove the condition. Again, I had used this spell as a closer, and came up 2 short, so if you have suggestions for playing this differently, please let me know!
Overall, this book is solid- and even though I made two big mistakes, those two mistakes were really my only mistakes, so I do feel like my game-play is improving. With the few changes I made for next time, I think I can shave 10- 20 minutes off the time to victory.
Thanks for the book- had a lot of fun this morning.
P.S. As a bonus, we snuck in a quick game of Conquest- it came down to just a few units at the very last planet, but I wound up winning that too- all in all, had two great victories on this rainy Saturday morning.
