Battlecon Solo - Baroness Ancella's Crypt

Booting up the ol' blog for a battle report of sorts.  I played through the first solo scenario from Battlecon - Devastation today.  It's an interesting sort of adaptation of a competitive 1 on 1 board game!

To start, you pick a character and get an amount of gold to spend on items!  This starter mission gave me 100, which I spent as follows:

Consumables - 1 use only, and can only use 1 per ante:
Life Potion (10g) >> ante to gain 4 hp
Metabolic Booster (10g) >> ante to gain +4 priority on the current attack
Limit Breaker (30g) >> ante to Use your finisher

Armour - permanently increases your max health:
Bronze Armour (15g) >> start with 30hp instead of 20

Trinkets:
Displacer Charm (30g) >> ante to move one space, cycles through discard

For my character, I chose the tag team werewolf fighter Karin.

The intro mission in the box is Baroness Ancella's Crypt, which runs you through the following path.  You can see that each different mission has a sort of speed clear bonus, which either rewards you with a health increase or changes which encounter you fight next.

I start off in the Zombie Room!  Initial setup looks like this, and you can see the numbered tokens that are used to randomize enemy behaviour.  I've also pasted in the stats for the zombies.

This room starts of fairly easy.  The zombies are mostly slow, and you regain 3hp if you manage to kill them all in 5 attacks or less.  I made quick work of the mob, not even taking a hit.  The strategy was pretty simple, just stay back and kill them one at a time.  

Next up was the Imp Room.  These enemies are a bit more tricky, with movement and ranged attack options as well as a very fast and deadly suicide attack.

Note that as you move from room to room, you reset your board as if starting a new game of Battlecon but your health total does not change.  I start this game off with a Full Moon Grasp and ante priority, aiming to quickly take out the first imp.  This works great, but the second imp gets his Rushdown attack and does the first bit of damage to me!  

For my second attack, I used a slower move and both imps ended up using the Rushdown attack.  In multi-character Battlecon games like this the fighters are not allowed to be on the same space, so only one imp is able to get in any damage.  I retaliate and leave only one imp remaining, which I easily finish off as Feral Claw out-speeds yet another Rushdown.

Since I won this fight in less than 4 attacks, I regain 3 of the 4 hp that I lost in the battle.  Next up, the last basic fight is in the Whispering Room.  This one is the first to add a sort of puzzle element to the fight.  You can see in the picture below that the Wisps cannot be hit by me if I have moved, so I have to plan out my attacks and I am not able to use any of Karin's powerful movement options.

The other interesting thing about the wisps is that they only have one attack, with its range being the variable factor.  This proves to be pretty interesting, as I can easily guarantee that I will win priority.  This leads into a rough first beat, as I take out the first wisp but take 6 damage from the remaining three.  I basically churn through the rest of them, taking another 2 damage in the process.  I do use my health option in this room, leaving me with a total of 24 health.

This is the fight were I really learned to appreciate Howling Grasp, as I finished the last wisp off by attacking with this fast combination of Style + Base that launches from the Jager (the wolf token).  By winning in less than 5 beats, I was able to advance to the Filthy Ooze Room, which seems like the e of easier he two routes available in this mission.  This is where the rooms start getting challenging, you'll see that the ooze is quite a bit tougher than the enemies that I've fought previously.

This match really showed off the power of the 'Coordinating' style.  You don't want to be beside this ooze at all if possible, and Coordinating stopped it on Jager's space on the first turn as pictured above.  I started by dealing with the wisp nearest to me, as pictured above.  The armour from Coordinating also reduced the damage from the farther wisp, so I only take 1 damage from it.  
The second round also goes quite well, as Howling Grasp comes in clutch again, hitting and stunning the ooze.  I use my Displacer Charm for the first time here, which lets me back off and dodge the attack from the surviving wisp.

In the third round, I use a Dual Shot to stun the ooze again and move Jager towards the other wisp.

In the fourth, Feral Claw also hits and stuns the ooze, leaving it on a single hp.  Jager advances on to the wisp's space, and it once again fails to hit me.

Next, I set up a Full Moon Drive with my Displacer Charm activated again.  The ooze rolls its defensive move, but I bash through the armour and finish it off.  The wisp whiffs its attack, and Jager is still on its position.

Finally, the classic Howling Grasp returns to allow me to strike the wisp and finish it off.

For finishing this round off in less than 10 beats, the starting hp of each enemy in the next room is reduced by 3.  This is quite nice, as it's a nasty one!  The Horde of Imps room respawns the Imps as they die, but I only have to kill the werewolf to win.  Werewolves are also quite nasty, as you'll see below.

I start the fight with a Coordinating Drive, with the intent of slowing down the werewolf's advance and finishing off the closer imp.  This works fairly well, finishing that imp off and getting two chip damage on the werewolf when Jager stops its advance.  The second imp does its classic Rushdown attack, taking 2 hp off me.

For my second attack, I go for a gamble and it pays off huge!  Howling Claw with an extra shot of power is exactly enough to finish off the werewolf.  If it had got another Wall Leap or Counter Claw off here I would have taken some major damage, but instead it got Crossover for its attack and that was enough for me to get the win.

After this, only the boss fight remained!  This one was another step up in complexity.  It uses the standard 7 space board instead of the larger 9 space board that you've seen in previous screenshots.  Also, the spaces are marked.  You can only damage Ancella's ghost if you are in the same type of square as her.  Finally, she has a full suite of 6 different attacks that all seemed quite strong.  I'm going into this battle with 21hp, and she starts with 22.

Full Moon claw gets me in for a decent start and hits for 2, but Ancella's Wail gets 1 damage back as she attacks through the Jager's space.

Feral Shot's movement options let me duck and dodge around Living Death, getting in for 3 damage and taking none in return.

In the third beat, I use my Priority potion to boost Dual Drive, getting in another solid hit.

Next, the ghost gets its scream attack, which hits at a blistering priority of 8.  This only does 1 damage, but it stuns me and spawns a wisp at the other end of the arena.  

Full Moon Grasp teleports me out of range from the wisp and right beside the Ghost.  This only does 2 damage, but it also prevents her from doing any damage in return.  This teleport also puts me out of the wisp's attack range.

In the sixth beat, Dual Drive keeps me up close and hits for 4 damage.  This stuns Ancella, and the wisp is out of range. 

Feral Strike has priority in this beat, so I managed to hit for 4 damage and stun!  The wisp is in range though, so I take 2 damage in return.

Full Moon Claw with anted priority lets me get in first, closing the distance on Ancella once again and hitting for 2dmg, stunning the ghost.  Armour from Full Moon blocks the wisp's damage.  

I try to mix things up next and use Switch Grasp with anted priority.  This misses due to Ancella's Living Death attack moving the ghost out of range.  She retaliates by hitting me for 4, though the wisp is thankfully out of range.  At this point, I'm down to 10hp and Ancella is down to 5.

Go for Lunar Cross using my last potion!  Lucky for me, Ancella does not move so I'm able to finish her off with my finishing move.

All in all, this was a fun couple of hours.  Funnily enough, the 10 hp that I had remaining was the hp that I had bought with my armour, so that certainly worked out well.  This seemed like a nice way to test out a character.  I felt like I had a decent grasp on Karin's capabilities after these 'vs AI' matches.   I think I see some more Saturday morning solo Battlecon in my future!