I, however, being the imaginary set collector I am, wanted to get all of my Hordes warlocks having fought Cryx. That meant changing to Hexeris, with following list:
Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan
- Cyclops Shaman
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Aptimus Marketh
Orin Midwinter
Totem Hunter
This time opponent won the starting roll and opted to go first. After the game it became apparent that in both games we played, it would have been better for both to pass the start to the other player, because our lists had elements that didn't really want to face some element in the opposing army.
So this time I was able to place my Cetrati on the flank that had Bile Thralls, and Swordmen where the Bane Thralls were.
Anyway, first picture is taken from the end of opponents turn 2, but before my second turn.
Mentionable happening during that was Deathripper running where you can see him and Asphyxious killing it with an arced Excarnate, which provided him with an additional bile thrall.
On my turn Cetrati formed a shield wall and one of them got the deathripper into melee range. Miss.
Orin Midwinter fried three Bile Thralls and Cyclops Shaman tried to shoot the other deathripper that was hiding behind barrels, managing to hit, thanks to ignoring concealment and cover. Damage was lousy, though, four points.
Picture is taken from the end of opponents next turn, where he charged and repositioned bane thralls and backed off with bile thralls. The bane that got into contact with Shaman did some serious damage, but didn't break any branches. Three cloud effects are Asphyxious' Caustic Mists.
Then it was my turn to launch a pretty devastating mass carnage.
Pardon for the weird picture, I tried to take a bit closer pictures from the models in two parts, but the angles don't make a coherent view of the whole board.
Anyway, Hexeris activated first, went into caustic mist and put on his feat. He killed the first bane thrall, who started the chain of zombie-march up to Tartarus, where it stopped as the thrall didn't even manage to hit him.
Then he cast Soulfire on the other thrall who was less than 5" away and killed it, who started another rather long chain that didn't stop until a tough roll was passed. I just wonder how all would have gone if tough rolls would've succeeded at critical places...
Then Praetorians charged and used their minifeat. Even more zombies.
Cyclops shaman was enraged by the beast handlers and charged to Tartarus, who was killed in the process and went to beat Asphyxious. He managed to hit and dealt some damage in.
Now when I count it, Hexeris' feat gave me only 3 extra kills and some damage on Asphyxious. But what made that round so painful for the Cryx player was the fact that all those six bane thralls and Tartarus were removed from play because of the feat, meaning Asphyxious had pretty much lost the edge of his own feat.
Orin Midwinter continued to fry Bile Thralls, again killing three.
Opponent found his situation so desperate that he attempted something that could be best described as "Page 5". I hadn't taken anything like that into consideration and just by an accidental positioning of Bronzeback Titan I made it less severe.
He advanced maximum distance closer to Hexeris and teleported next to him, camping all possible focus, sitting at arm 21.
If I hadn't moved Bronzeback there, the value after running would've been armor 23.
Aptimus and Hexeris together couldn't beat Asphyxious down, though little Aptimus did contribute by giving one point of damage in.
Hexeris did leave one fury left for transfers, however.
Then Bronzeback turns on its tails and marches into Asphyxious. In the picture it has been turned around and because of that it looks like it's not within melee range, but it was moved it was turned around 180 degrees. However, it wouldn't have looked epic at all if Bronzeback Titan killed Asphyxious by sitting down on him or something... worse.
Bronzeback managed to hit and got above average damage roll with its tusks and, by that, finished Asphyxious.
These two games against the same list and with the same faction and with only some changes in army composition on my part teached a few things.
For starters, when playing with somewhat slow army against Asphyxious and Bile Thralls, deployment can affect the game quite a lot. This time around I didn't feel that bad at all, when my cetrati were against bile thralls and swordmen against bane thralls.
Also, in both games both players made a huge mistake that pretty much cost the game. For me it was falling for the excarnated bile thrall, and for opponent in this game was overextending bane thralls when faced with possibility of "remove from play" effects.
Well. These are the hard lessons you're bound to face in Warmachine. But in the end, I'm sure in future games things like these are easier to take into account.
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