Saturday, March 10, 2012

Color Me Disgraced

With great pain I doing a write-up of last nights game.

I don't know if I need to say anything more than that I played Scaverous.

We played a 35 point game with a steamroller 2012 scenario Diversion.

My list was:

Scaverous
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Cephalyx Overlords
Bane Lord Tartarus
Darragh Wrathe
3x Scrap Thralls
Skarlock
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw

And opponent was playing:

Scrutator Severius
- Crusader
- Revenger

Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Exemplar Errant Seneschal
Vassal of Menoth
Hierophant

This time around I won the starting roll and first picture is taken from the start of my second turn. Egregore and Machine Wraith act as the flags that needed to be controlled.

I was going to go and control the flag with my Cephalyx Overlords, and, heh, exemplar errants were already sitting at the flag they needed to control. Eye of Menoth was on and Defenders Ward was cast on Temple Flameguard.

On my second turn I opted for a cautious advance. I did run one of my nightwretches close to enemy, though. I so much wanted to cast Excarnate on temple flameguard and fill up my minimum unit of bane thralls.

It succeeded half way. Scaverous managed to hit, but he didn't manage to kill the bugger even with a damage boost. Oh well. Next Darragh Wrathe comes up and teaches Scaverous how to fling spells: he hits and kills the very same flameguard Scaverous tried without boosts of any kind.

Death Ward was cast on bane thralls because, well, I guess I've seen enough of Ashes to Ashes.

Now, opponent does something what I'm not used to in this meta: played aggressively. Flameguard popped their minifeat of +4 arm and ran to engage my stuff. One ran just outside the forest where my Cephalyx were hiding. Then Revenger arced Ashes to Ashes there. Two out of three overlords were dead, as well as both scrap thralls (whose blasts clipped Darragh) and Darragh took a damage roll too, which did no damage.

Darragh survived: 2x scrap thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes.

Anyway. Only 3 of my bane thralls died to exemplar errants, which I guess was a good omen.

Next I really wanted to use Scaverous' feat, but. Well.

Opponents warjacks were untargettable by spells, exemplar errants had their flag and Severius himself is immune to spells. I did not see much point in wasting my feat yet, though I was highly suspecting next round Severius would use his feat.

Anyway, combined efforts of Snapjaw and bane thralls munched four exemplar errants. Skarlock cast telekinesis on Tartarus, who cursed exemplar errants and proceeded to thresher them. He killed only two of them, but what else to expect when you got def 15 arm 19 infantry with set defense standing about?

Darragh Wrathe and engaged arc node just shuffled a bit and Darragh cast Beyond Death.

The lone overlord went to control the flag and sprayed one choir member dead. Woo hoo.

As I remembered Severius' feat wrong, I spent all of my focus "just because". It did result in Death Ward on himself and a Feast of Worms killing one bastion.

Now, on opponents turn the revenger killed the last cephalyx overlord, making it nearly impossible for me to even try to win by scenario.

And then my favore part of the game. Temple Flameguard poked around with their sticks behind the tower (sorry, you can't see the most interesting part of everything).

A lucky combined melee attack hit home and set nightwretch on fire. Then two two-man combined melee attacks tickled Darragh Wrathe, dealing 2 points in together. Beyond Death in situation like that is an amazing spell.

Darragh Wrathe survived: 2x Scrap Thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes, 2x 2-man combined melee attacks, set alight.

Even Tartarus survives a charge by bastion and a random strike from flameguard completely intact. This is where opponent started to panic a bit.

Exemplar errants make a mess out of bane thralls and their unit attachment, leaving only two alive. Then the Crusader charges Tartarus and well, the Bane Lord wasn't all that tough when pow 20 mace was delivered to his undead face.

Severius moved forward and used his feat. Sad times.

Then it was my turn. Darragh Wrathe survives a fire continous effect damage roll. The ghost rider. Wow. Because he couldn't cast spells he tried to kill the flameguard around him, but failed.

Half (well, one) of remaining bane thralls died to fire effects too. But one was more than enough to complete my dirty schemes.

It advanced next to Crusader.

Then I cleared a vague charge line for Snapjaw to Crusader. Snapjaw then charged and used the bite attack as its charge attack, meaning that every point that I rolled with 3 dice would go straight in.

2, 2, 1. Woo. Hoo.

And to make matters worse, this triggered Enliven. Crusader was in too tight space to escape completely, but it got out of Dark Shroud and out of reach of Snapjawn's teeth. So my awesome attacks of "equal to" pow 19 were reduced to slapping around with a lousy p+s 14 with Snapjaw's tail attack.

I did a little math, and counted that had Crusader not moved, it would have suffered 7 points more damage with exactly same rolls (which were pretty damn lousy rolls, I can tell).

Well, that was pretty much all I could do.

Crusader put Snapjaw out of its misery. I was losing ground quickly in the important part of the playing board. Errant Seneschal was controlling the flag and errant unit ran to probably contest the diversion zone some day.

But then to my favorite part of this game!

Two more 2-man combined melee attacks against Darragh Wrathe! Only 4 points in and still in fire!

Darragh survived: 2x Scrap Thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes, 4x 2-man combined melee attacks, 1 fire continous effect damage roll.

Then, finally, it was Scaverous's feat turn. Oh, and Darragh survived yet another fire damage roll without a single point in. Or maybe one point. Don't remember any more.

First, Wrong Eye charges Crusader. It was fully loaded with 4 fury and charge attack (bite) dealt 7 points in. Now, dark shroud assisted bite attack from Snapjaw dealt only 5 points in. I guess the beast's name is derived from the fact that it's jaw is snapped broken or something, when the master bites harder.

Wrong Eye buys another attack and boosts damage and deals some five points in or something. That's some 23 points in in total, and not a single system broken. Or maybe the fist attack.

Scaverous activates and uses his feat. He casts telekinesis on himself and on revenger and charges it and, spending almost all of his focus he manages to wreck it. But doesn't manage to kill any temple flameguards for souls. I don't know why I didn't try to cast Icy Grip on them. I had the focus, I had the boost.

Then I try to maximise damage, and Darragh Wrathe tries to kill flameguards the old fashioned way. Doesn't succeed, so battle wizard doesn't trigger.

Skarlock comes to launch an Excarnate on the closest bastion, despite it being in melee. Hits easily, but deals no damage in. Snake eyes with an awoken third eye.

Well, then after opponents turn he scores 1 scenario point. Gone is Wrong Eye, gone is Skarlock, but gone ain't nightwretches or... Darragh Wrathe!

After another two 2-man combined melee attacks he still isn't even dismounted, though he is left with only one damage point!

So, Darragh survived: 2x Scrap Thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes, 6x 2-man combined melee attacks, 2 fire continous effect damage roll.

Then comes my turn. Let's add one more survived fire continous effect damage rolls to the list above.

So, either I go and contest the flag with my engaged Nightwretch or I kill all errants contesting the diversion zone.

Scaverous casts Telekinesis on himself and tries to desperately kill all of them in one fell swoop. Well, half of them die. Which isn't enough. Even Nightwretch is totally wrecked from free strike.

Yet another loss for Scaverous, but a damn good game nonetheless.

Oh, and the hero of the match is obviously Darragh Wrathe. Let's sum it all up:

2x Scrap Thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes, 6x 2-man combined melee attacks, 3 fire continous effect damage roll + anything less serious or less cool I may have forgotten. That's 3 rounds in fire (ouch) and 3 round in middle of wall of spears. He entered that combat with suicidal scrap bombs exploding all over him and holy fire scourging his impure soul.

And yet he wasn't even dismounted!

This game goes epic just because of Darragh Wrathe.

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