It's a good thing, because I was starting to get tired of playing Asphyxious1/Venethrax!
So, tournament was held in Kangasala. It was 50 points, 1-2 list DC [1] and used Active Duty Roster season 2.
I'm quite fond of playing less used warcasters, and what's better than getting a real incentive to use them?
Taking advantage of that my lists were:
List1:
Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Ripjaw
- Nightwretch
- 2x Slayer
Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 2x Brute Thralls + Skarlock Commander
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Aiakos, Scourge of Meredius
- Harrower
Pistol Wraith
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Saxon Orrik
Gorman diWulfe
Objective: Fuel cache
Specialists:
Stalker
Nightmare
Ogrun Bokur
Orin Midwinter
Machine Wraith
List 2:
Lich Lord Venethrax
- Seether
Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Maximum unit of Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters
Ogrun Bokur
Satyxis Captain
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
Objective: Effigy of Valor
Specialists:
Corruptor
Warwitch Siren
Maximum unit of Bile Thralls
Madelyn Corbeau
This was a 30 player tournament. Surprisingly there were only three Cryx players, me being one myself.
Game 1:
So needless to say, first game was obviously against Cryx.
I don't remember what was the caster pairs opponent had, but I considered Venethrax to be good enough for both of them. Opponent ended up choosing following Deneghra1 list:
Warwitch Deneghra
- Slayer
- Nightwretch
- 2x Deathripper
Maximum unit of Bane Knights
Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Withershadow Combine
Pistol Wraith
Skarlock
2x Warwitch Siren
Objective: Arcane Wonder
I used Active Duty Roster to switch Bane Thralls for Bile Thralls.
Scenario was Recon, and Venethrax started game. First picture is from the end of Deneghra turn 1. I thought that Lamentation might bring better defences against Deneghra if I only could somehow get rid of the arc nodes. Satyxis had ran forward pretty much as far as possible. Enemy Deathripper got engaged by a Satyxis Raider by accident. That was a major bonus considering Deneghra was free to cast Venom three times, or two with various boosts.
Turn 2 Venethrax used feat, which turned out to be somewhat of a lackluster (are there any other kind of Venethrax feat turns?) as enemy was advancing from two fronts. To make matters even worse, damnable Bane Thralls seemed to have something equal to 2+ Tough rolls. Only one Bane Thrall actually died, and another was knocked down.
Sea Witch used Power Swell so that they'd be able to crack through Slayer and Deathripper armor.
I had thought of shooting a couple of Bane Knights with Nyss Hunters, but decided against it because they were packed together so closely - even if I managed to turn somebody to Charnel Flame template, it wouldn't truly block Knights' advance... and I'd only trigger Vengeance.
Deneghra turn 2 Bane Knights charged Nyss Hunters, mostly just to engage them.
Four Satyxis on the left perished under Bane Thralls and a Pistol Wraith. Skarlock and a Warwitch Siren unleashed Venom over Satyxis, but on a hill they were quite capable of dodging the corrosive fluids that were flying left and right. One Venom, however, caught the Sea Witch and killed her and broke Satyxis Raider coherency.
Venethrax turn 3 Satyxis wrecked Slayer and tried to do something to Deathripper. By now Feedback had given quite a few damage points in to Deneghra.
Next two Bile Thralls advance to Purge, one takes down the Deathripper (and the two Satyxis engaging it...) and the other one purged over Bane Thralls and caused a number of successful Tough rolls yet again.
Nyss Hunters attack Bane Knights and roughly take half off the unit. There might be one ninja Knights on the right that's not seen in the picture.
Since Deathripper and the two Satyxis went away, Seether charged the Warwitch Siren. Somehow it felt like a good idea to give a little bit more additional threat saturation than just Venethrax on the middle, when Deneghra hadn't even used The Withering yet...
Deneghra turn 3 she does use her feat, though. She was afraid of coming too close to the action (probably because of having lost about half of her hit boxes to Feedback?) so she got only Venethrax, Seether and all the remaining Satyxis under it. That obviously spelled certain doom for Satyxis.
Gorman lobbed Black Oil over Seether, and Deathripper with three focus points advanced to dismantle the heavy warjack. Withershadow Combine also walks closer to Seether and shoots it with Dark Fire bolts. All this brings Seether down to some three or four damage boxes remaining.
Pistol Wraith shoots a few Bile Thralls away.
Venethrax turn 4 Venethrax was all but useless with his might 10" control area and penalties to everything. So he just stays there, giving the other Cryx a stern look.
Bile Thralls purge quite a few Bane Thralls away this time. Opponent probably expended all luck on Tough rolls over turns 1-3.
Since Bane Thralls were pretty much the only thing contesting the middle zone, I tried to destroy the enemy objective to get a scenario game going. It required quite a lot of shuffling because of difficult charge lanes, but in the end Ogrun Bokur and Snapjaw scored the kill.
Then I was about to activate Seether, and realised that I had Seether with less than five damage boxes remaining, and enemy Withershadow Combine were waving their hands in anticipation towards it. This would not do.
But I had already activated all but Satyxis Captain. She'd have to do it before enemy Combine does it.
And she succeeded. That might have cost me the game had she failed.
Remainder of the game was short. Opponent rushed in to contest, and I had to clear the zone. Clearance was successful, so the game was 5-0 for Venethrax.
Game 2:
Second game was against Convergence of Cyriss with:
Lucant
- Corollary
- Inverter
Maximum unit of Reciprocators
Maximum unit of Obstructors
Minimum unit of Reductors
Optifex Directive
2x Clockwork Angels
Attunement Servitors
2x Enigma Foundry
I picked Iron Lich Asphyxious for the job, but I somehow thought it would be good idea to switch Harrower for Nightmare and Saxon Orrik for Orin Midwinter. Somehow it escaped my thinking at the time that Harrower could have actually taken souls from the small based infantry, and that Cipher shot rough terrain batches.
Scenario was Incursion, and I believe Convergence started game. First picture is poorly focused and from the end of Cryx turn 1. I didn't have much of a plan yet. Mostly I was anticipating a feat round for Lucant.
Turn 2 was not a feat round for Lucant. In fact Convergence pulled back a little on the western front, and didn't press all that aggressively on east either. Two nasty 4" AoE's of rough terrain took most of my chances to get any kind of meaningful alpha strike off, however.
On my turn I'm absolutely certain Lucant will use feat next turn, so I have to use this turn to charge and engage as much of enemy forces as possible. It failed spectacularly. Most of my attacks missed or dealt no real damage. Nightmare charged the Reciprocators, and with three focus points did not kill even one ARM 20 target. And now I had thrown away the one and only model that might be able to do damage if Lucant uses feat... pro move, here.
Slayers at least did a little bit more. Two six point warjacks killed four models. At least the eastern flag was contested now.
Necrosurgeon built three Mechanithralls, so I did get about five Mechanithralls to actually charge despite the rough terrain. They killed one servitor, one Clockwork Angel and one Reductor.
Though why am I listing the kills here? All of them would just be coming back...
Turn 3 casualties were surprisingly few. Necrosurgeon was still alive and well, so Mechanithralls didn't count. Only Nightmare and possibly Pistol Wraith died permanently. And still Lucant didn't use feat! Well, I guess the damage done by both parties involved was rather laughable, so I guess there was no need to seize a turn of nigh invulnerability.
On my turn Slayers, Warwitch Siren, Orin Midwinter and even the oft neglected Scrap Thrall conquered eastern flag, so I would score 1-0 for Cryx this turn.
Other than that, Mechanithralls just shambled about and Asphyxious advanced under full focus camp. Skarlock cast one Breath of Corruption cloud to the middle just for kicks - and hopefully to block one wound infantry advancement.
Turn 4 is rather annoying. Opponent didn't have too much time left on his clock, so he went hellbent on assassination of Asphyxious. First he had to clear the charge lanes, and then successfully charge with two heavy warjacks. Cipher had easy enough charge lane, but Inverter needed a bit more work. Eventually one Mechanithrall or Stitch Thrall or something was left standing in-between, so Inverter had to charge that guy. Asphyxious was just out of 2", so assassination attempt failed and opponent's clock ran out.
I would've wanted to play that game properly, since the situation was rather interesting - not clearly in anybody's favor, though I think I was slightly on the losing side because of the strong attrition that Enigma Foundries brought.
But tournaments are tournaments. Oh, and the last picture looks like that since I was too slow to take a picture. We had already began removing models from board.
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