Last night saw the Worcestershire Hunt face a humiliating reverse in the War for Northfield.
Despite previous hard won loot points being spent on moving Tigraine up the experience tree, upgrading my grunt, the young squire, into a sniper and purchasing some new gear, the Hunt's optimistic hope of establishing a winning run was seriously misplaced.
Losing the initiative and deploying last, away from much of the loot crates, was a depressing start.
However, seeing the State's deployment I saw a chance of deploying within sniper and assualt rifle range. Deploying around a stoney out-crop, and immediately to the right of the State would give me an excellent chance of taking out a few of the suckers straight out blocks.
As long as anybody but Jon won the initative, my sniper would have an excellent chance of taking out a couple of Southerners.
At first it seemed to go like a dream. My marksman shot down Jon's marksman with his first shot. Despite fluffing his next shot, I was feeling good - two more assualt rifle armed Huntsmen all ready to to shoot down a few more of the Staters from the security of my rocky outcrop.
Unfortunately, my dice rolls went horribly wrong, worsen by Jon's evil bastard leader's timely use of his four leaf clover card. Within no time, the State troops had fanned out, eluding all my fire and the squire had jammed his sniper rifle (and it would remain jammed for the rest of the game).
As I belatedly began to move out, a State trooper swiped my nearest loot. Meanwhile, my scout, Magdelene was gunned down by the State's ever watching, ever waiting Heavy. Further trauma was to follow as the scumbag nonchalantly finished her off.
I did, eventually recover the loot she was shot for, luckily revealing a counter for 30 loot, thanks to the dashing Lord Percival. Completely out-manuevered by the State, the hunt exchanged desultory fire for the rest of the skirmish, missing time after time.
Meanwhile on the other side of the table, the Meat Eaters spectacularly nabbed a 50 point loot crate, fought a running skirmish with the Worker's Militia and shot up the State to confidently win the game and the area, with 60 (?) points
The State came second with a disappoint ly impressive tactical flair, hauling in a number of crates, simultaneous bottling up the Hunt and holding off the screaming lunatics of the Meat Eaters. 50 points
The Workers' Militia grabbed two loot markers, and narrow failed to stop the Meat Eater leader's charge to safety after bring all six guns to a deployment zone ambush. 40 points
Post match rolls saw Magdelene healed at the cost of 10 points, seeing me net a measly 20 in total. Humph.