Scaverous digs his own grave

Yesterday I played a 35 point game of Warmachine.

Now, having finished Scaverous, I decided to take him as my warcaster for the first time.

I was against Harbinger of Menoth.

I also wanted to test Ragman around, so my list came arounda little bit weird:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous
- Reaper
- Harrower
- Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Withershadow Combine
Ogrun Bokur
Ragman
Skarlock

And opponent had:

Harbinger of Menoth
- Templar
- Templar

Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Minimum unit of Exemplar Vengers
High Paladin Dartan Vilmon
Vassal of Menoth
Saxon Orrik

A word of proxy: Zealots are in fact Temple Flameguards, their unit attachment being monolith bearer (officer) and errants standard bearer (flameguard standard bearer). Also, Vilmon is an exemplar errant and Saxon Orrik an allegiant.

Opponent won the starting roll. We were playing a scenario to speed up the play, as we had a deadline when we needed to have it all finished up.

In the end both had forgotten the scenario and in hindsight it looked like the winning player scored 1 scenario point, losing player none.

Anyway, there's not much to tell from first picture, except it's taken from the end of Cryx's first turn. Second turn the brutality began. Crusader's Call, Saxon Orrik's reconnaissance and guided hand on Vengers, they came and beat up Harrower. Now, they nearly wrecked it, but funnily enough, every other system went down except the weapon systems. So that trade-off didn't work too well.

However, I didn't realise even myself how little Harrower cares about a broken Cortex in situations like these.

First, Skarlock went to engage one Venger and cast Icy Grip on them.

Then Ragman advanced and put up Death Field. One Thresher later Harrower was loaded up with three souls.

Then Reaper got to do its thing. It dragged one Templar away (choir had been singing no spells on jack). It did take everything else in my army to wreck the templar, but eventually it succeeded with Satyxis who used their Power Swell.

Next... For some reason I didn't expect Crusader's Call and Orrik's reconnaisance to work onb warjacks. Well. A menite warjack that's threatening from 11" away is indeed a bit scary. Now, add there beat back...

I had also assumed always that beat back forced you to move to the direction of "beat". Now I know better. Now I understand why Bronzeback's animus is cool.

So, Templar walzed through Harrower and Maelovus and took a couple of hits at Reaper. Lucky for Cryx, it had Death Ward on it, so no systems actually broke down. I guess that with Death Ward or no, something would have gone down if Templar didn't miss one of its attacks.

All menites rushed forwards and killed what they could, down went Admonia and Ogrun Bokur and plenty of Satyxis. On top of that Harbinger had used her feat.

Now, it was a harsh turn. But I thought that it would not be the end of everything, as I had a small plan to get rid of the second Templar.

First, Ragman put up Death Field. Then Scaverous used his feat and placed Templar within melee range of a Withershadow member, facing so it wouldn't gain its shield bonus. Then Ragman was placed with Telekinesis a bit closer to action.

Scaverous had allocated 3 focus to Reaper and upkept Icy Grip on Temple Flameguard, so he had only one focus left. He advanced close to Templar and tried to beat it with a damage boost. Sadly though he didn't punch through its back armor, despite Dark Shroud bonuses.

Now, Tremulus and Reaper wrecked the warjack well enough. Satyxis scored a hit on Vilmon, who suffered three points of damage or something like that.

Then it was opponents turn, and, well, I ran out of troops. Vilmon and Flameguards totaled Reaper and Flameguards butchered all of remaining Satyxis. Guided Hand is a nasty spell.

Next turn I had Ragman, Scaverous and Nightwretch left.

Had I remembered Martyrdom, I might have done things differently. I considered running Nightwretch up and shooting two unboosted Hellfires at Harbinger, but she had a couple of focus left and it would have needed quite lucky rolls to actually finish her. So Scaverous upkept Icy Grip on Flameguards.

Scaverous advanced up to nice formation of Flameguards and Vilmon and threshered them. However, Vilmon was saved with martyrdom from Harbinger. In the end Scaverous decided to remove Vilmon from play with Excarnate, but it left him with only one focus.

So, come hell or high water.

Harbinger charged Scaverous herself and humiliated him in melee. Though, actually the final kill came from a boosted Cataclysm.

Anyway, good game, and it's always epic when it comes down to final showdown between the warcasters.

But next time I think I won't try to make Satyxis + Ragman to work, Ragman did nothing for Satyxis, though he seems sweet with placement effects from telekinesis.