Rats and Reanimation: A Zombie PBP

After having Thada's butt swiftly kicked by Elves (along with that of Wrexial and Treva too) in a game that totalled a mere 40 minutes, I verbaled into Balthor's Zombie Legions (c) for what would hopefully be an equally swift second game as we had only 25 minutes on the clock.

My opener had 2 Swamps, Twisted Abomination, Reanimate, Grave Defiler, Lord of the Undead and Rotting Rats. I can cast everything in my hand but the Defiler off that hand and still have a potential 6/4 regenerator in play. I decided to keep.


Turn 1: Playing first, I drew Swamp, played Swamp and passed.


Turn 2: I drew Carrion Feeder, played Swamp and passed with the intention of going EOT: Swampcycling, untap Reanimate. Instead I Swampcycled and drew a Grave Titan in my draw step......... Hum.


Turn 3: Swamp, play Rotting Rats discarding Grave Titan. Play Reanimate targetting the Grave Titan and end the turn with the start of a small army.


Turn 4: Swamp, play Lord of the Undead, revenge attack Rys with the Titan, the 2/2 Rat and two 3/3 Zombies. He takes 14 on the chin. During his turn he Oblivion Rings the Grave Titan.


Turn 5: Swamp, Grave Defiler finding nothing. Meh. Send the team (without Lord) back into Rhys. He chumps two of the tokens and takes another 8, slipping to only 4 due to damage from the other 2 players.

Turn 6: Bury Alive for Noxious Ghoul, Death Baron and Vengeful Dead. I neglect to play the Carrion Feeder and it costs me a Grave Titan. When I kill Rhys his Oblivion Ring leaves play. In our playgroup we get back what's under Rings etc., a decision that Treva & Wrexial are now regretting. I get two more tokens but Treva sends it on a Path to Exile before I can profit any more.


Turn 7: Death Baron and attack to kill Wrexial. The Wrexial player has put a Quietus Spike on a Rotting Rats and attacked Treva the previous turn. This, along with my leftover attacks, leaves Treva very suceptible to having his brains eaten the following turn. His draw doesn't yield solutions and he splatters his brains over the canteen roof rather than join the shuffling legion.


Total game time: 15 Mins. Moral of the Story: Don't f%#k with dead people. Or Grave Titan on turn 3 is good.


Either one.

PS: I'm currently re-reading The Walking Dead. It's thrilling and sickening in equal parts. I don't remember thinking about the human condition this much when I read it the first time. Maybe I've matured. Maybe I'm secretly interested to see if I'd make it. And, just a tiny little bit, maybe I'm curious to see if I could do what needed to be done, if it really had to be done.

I'm pretty sure it's an accurate description of what people would be capable of given the lack of any social restraint. Chapeau bas!

The battle to defend the peaks.

A scree of pebbles sprayed outwards as Aisling bounded down the sheer mountainside. “Fighting after lunch always gives me heart-burn,” she grumbled, casting her eyes at the exhausted Vedalken as she swept back past him. “A slap on the wrist, just a taste of what that Sphinx will get if she pokes her nose into the mountain passes. She can stay on the wet lowlands! The mountains are no place for such as her. Keys and Dynamos: Devices, toys, gadgets! Useless thrash, polluting the ground, spewing smoke and restricting the magic of free folk, though, that's hardly a bad thing when it come to the “dragon”.


"What sort of dragon doesn’t spit fire? How can a beast with no affinity to the high places, the crags and peaks, no molten flame in her blood, call herself a "dragon"? Pwah! She’s a soft thing of the woods and plains and water! Water!? Unnatural! A cow with wings, no "dragon"!


“Ah, Koth, my friend, there you are. The summits bless you for answering my call! My thanks for bringing these mighty gauntlets. Do you see what I must contend with? Endless plains, seas, bogs and trees with only the strength of the mountains as my comfort. Can you see?! That mythical throw-back has started a Forge in the foothills and that flying Cow thinks a pair of boots can protect her!! An abomination! There will be vicious repercussions, I will have them fleeing in fear from the very shadows cast by my flames.

“You must speak with Tezzeret for he has signed a pact with worse than Bolas if he thinks to serve that junkyard scavenger Sphinx. If we’re lucky, the “dragon” will see his duplicity and chase him off. Look Koth, she’s even brought a friend, a metal Hellkite, another unnatural creation. Koth? Answer me, Koth!"

Ashling cast round frantically for her ally, panicked by his loss but strangely bouyed by the mountain rock under her feet, thrumming in harmony with her heartbeat, pumping fiery blood though her veins. Understanding came even as she noticed Koth's Hammer sigil etched into the rock-face where she had last seen him standing. She smiled; what odds that he didn't stand beside her in the fight if the mountains themselves could rise up to defend themselves? She turned to face her adversaries crouched below her and raised her voice.

“YOU DARE COME TO MY MOUNTAINS?! YOU DARE?! You will feel the fiery claws of the Molten Pinnacle! You will feel my elemental fury! I promised repercussions and you shall have them! I AM YOUR FLAMING DOOM!!”

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Treva settled, exhausted, upon the scorched plain and licked at her burns. “It will heal”, she thought peacefully, “It always does.”


She lifted a booted claw and turned it to better catch the sun shining on the lightning flashes etched down the side.


“She can certainly deal with Sphinxes in rather explosive style but she has no taste in fashion, that girl!”

The World's Mightiest Mortal

After a previous co-operation* with my friend Antoine on the Elvis/Momentary Blink which you can find at the top of this post, I decided that I would try my hand at a new alter, alone.

*For "co-operation" read: "Me mucking it up and Antoine rescuing with brilliance"

It was to be an Ice Age Adarkar Wastes full art. I spent the first week curling the card with too much water when I was clearing away the borders. I then put it between a couple of books and forgot about it. Clearing house this weekend uncovered the unfinished Adarkar Wastes and a surprise Season's Beatings. I filed the SB and finished the Wastes. While I accept that it's not exactly on a level with Poxy14, I wasn't expecting it to be. It's now flat and finished and here in all its glory.

After initially forgetting about the Adarkar Wastes, my delusional brain thought I could somehow overcome my inability to paint detail (or complete a project) so I savaged a Hellkite Charger extension. It came out acceptably well considering but remains a good lesson of what not to do to cards you are painting. Scraping off the existing layers with a cutter before painting = bad.

How could I cap such a streak of unfinished mediocrity?


I know! Alter a Captain Marvel onto a Rafiq. It couldn't be all that difficult, could it?


Em....


Ok, the intent was good. The cloak covering the lion was obvious and lightning cover the sword wasn't a bad idea either, it's just that my artistic ability isn't really much more advanced than that of my 7-year-old.* Maybe determination wasn't a suitable substitute for skill in this instance. It kinda looked like my mock-up in MS Paint. Knowing that my MS Paint skills are worse than my usual artistic endeavours should give you an idea of what I had when I took stock.

*Probably an unfair comparison. She's much better.

Cap and card in hand, I presented myself once more before the master and begged favour. At great sacrifice to happiness in his household, he gave me back this:

Thank you Antoine. I am Billy Batson your Captain Marvel.

Shazam!!