Is there life after purge?

I played a game of Warmachine yesterday too.

It was against Protectorate of Menoth and I had brought my Cryx with me. It was a 35 point game and my list was:

Warwitch Deneghra
- Erebus
- Slayer
- 2x Nightwretches

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Darragh Wrathe
Ragman

Opponent had the following list:

Epic Kreoss
- Avatar of Menoth
- Crusader
- Repenter

Minimum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum Choir of Menoth
Nicia

We played the good ol' Mosh Pit scenario. And I must warn again that in case you see any drudge thralls on opponents side of the board they are singing hymns for the protectorate warjacks until choir arrives from the mail.

Also, Satyxis Captain tries to disguise herself as Nicia.

I won starting roll and rushed to mosh pit already. Picture is from the end of opponents first turn.

Inviolable Resolve had been cast unsuprisingly on Avatar.

I decided my best bet would be to try to get Ragman into position to give Slayer Dark Shroud, load up the warjack with 3 focus, give 1 focus to Nightwretch and cast Ghost Walk on Slayer too.

That way, with some luck, I might drop either the sword or the shield from Avatar.

Well, first Nightwretch scored a hit, but pow 14 + 3d6 couldn't penetrate Avatars armor value of 23.

Then Ragman went to cast his spell and Slayer charged Avatar, attempting a combo-strike.

Slayer was less than half an inch away from gaining the Dark Shroud from Ragman and it botched its combo-strike. If I remember right it dealt something like 8 points in, which in itself wasn't bad, but I needed a little above average rolls to do any real damage. And I got a little below.

A new attack did some damage in too, but whole sorry affair merely tickled the Avatar of Menoth.

You can see Satyxis Raider alias Nicia peeking in that picture. Darragh Wrathe had cast Beyond Death and there was a little moment of thrill next turn when opponent tried to figure a way to charge Deneghra with Nicia. Charge attack with poower + strenght 10 + 4d6 followed with two p+s 10 + 3d6's could really have threatened Deneghra, who was focusless and had armor 14.

Darragh Wrathe's Beyond Death dropped a lot of threat from trying to pull off such a charge, so things went on differently.

Opponent retaliated by using Kreoss' feat.

Avatar rolled only 2 focus for it, yet it wrecked both Slayer and Nightwretch.

Crusader decided to charge one mechanithrall because it was so-and-so if it could reach Erebus.

It slapped one mechanithrall dead and hit Erebus real good. And, to be honest, during whole game I didn't need Erebus' defense 14 nor Overtake. But arm 18 over Slayer's 17 saved it when it was left with 5 or 6 hit boxes from about 4 attacks.

Now, thinking back, had I lost Erebus there I would've been really screwed as it still had Cortex and one arm intact.

Then it was Deneghra's turn to feat.

First Deneghra cast Ghost Walk on mechanithralls and then cast Crippling Grasp through arc node to the Crusader.

Picture doesn't show but bile thralls killed all but one bastion by purging all over.

Bile Thralls, half-hearted Erebus and aiming Nightwretch wrecked Crusader and five combo-strikes from Mechanithralls mopped up Avatar. Satisfying feat turn I guess.

Once Repenter had sprayed all over the place and a lucky random temple flameguard killed necrosurgeon, troops were spreading thin. Though now when I think of it, I think we forgot to reduce MAT and STR of the flameguard who killed Necrosurgeon.

Anyway, Kreoss decided to start tanking. I think we also forgot to stop Kreoss from running, but that didn't really change things all that much.

On my next turn I tried to cast Crippling Grasp on Kreoss through nightwretch, but I had ran it just into melee with Kreoss. I guess I should've tried to live with the elevation bonus.

Not much else to report, as the remainder of mechanithralls and temple flameguard were stuck in endless melee.

Then opponent makes a ballsy move of running Kreoss, camping all focus except upkeeping Inviolable Resolve on himself, where you can see him in first picture:

In second picture I moved nightwretch to get a back strike bonus against Kreoss in melee. Then Deneghra cast Crippling Grasp on him and ran away, giggling.

Erebus, that had been allocated 3 focus, smashed all it could at Kreoss and dealt plenty of damage.

However, Kreoss, despite being crippled, just turned around and destroyed the poor warjacks.

Then, on my next turn, the sole surviving mechanithrall comes to combo-strike Kreoss and Darragh tries to cast Hellfire on him. Kreoss is having about 5 boxes left.

In last picture, however, I made a funny little mistake. Deneghra re-aligned her position to get a good charge next turn, as she couldn't charge from where she was earlier.

Out of Mosh Pit.

So it was Kreoss' time to wipe out everything or die trying.

There was a big fight between Repenter (who had lost its flame thrower) and Nightwretch, but sadly Repenter just didn't kill Nightwretch.

Kreoss himself, however, dismounted Darragh and killed the mechanithrall. He did even get additional attack on dismounted Wrathe, but rolled damage miserably and Darragh took only couple of damage boxes.

Anyway, brave last stand.

Focusless Kreoss that had around 3 hit points was a foe worthy of Deneghra's personal attention, so she charged in and skewered the grand exemplar.