Strakhov versus Mortenebra. For lack of a better title.

Yesterday I played a game of Warmachine.

It was a 35 point game with me using Cryx against Khador.

This time I didn't play with Scaverous, because, uh. I've played with him for quite some time already and results aren't all that... encouraging.

I tried something I've never tried before, which was Mortenebra's tier 4 list.

My list was:

Mortenebra & Deryliss
- Corruptor
- Harrower
- 2x Slayers
- Stalker

2x Necrotechs & Scrap Thralls
2x Warwitch Sirens
A set of 3 scrap thralls
Bloat Thrall

Opponent played:

Kommander Oleg Strakhov
- Marauder

Maximum unit of Iron Fang Pikemen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Assault Kommandos + 2x flame throwers
Maximum unit of Winterguard Infantry + Unit Attachment
Widowmakers
Kovnik Joe

It was kinda funny how we had constructed such lists that had totally different approach to strategy. I was worried about the huge swathe of infantry in front of me and opponent was sweating on how to crack so many heavy targets. Sure, most were def 13 arm 17 "heavy" targets, but anyway.

Even the often laughed at Assault Kommandos had a lot of immunity against plenty of my attacks despite me not having Bile Thralls. (They were immune to Sirens' sprays, Bloat Thralls blast and the Area of Effect attack of Corruptor helljack).

Uh. Now those were some weirdly constructed sentences.

Anyway, I won the starting roll and we had this "No Man's Land" scenario coupled with Kill Box artifice.

First picture is taken from the end of opponents first turn. Spectral Steel was on Harrower and Superiority on Marauder (big suprise, huh?)

Now, my next turn I constructed the following iron curtain to protect Mortenebra.

Deryliss cast Overrun on Harrower and Mortenebra cast Terminal Velocity, so Harrower was able to do this weird move of charging at Widowmakers behind the walls, killing them and "overrunning" back to the position where you can see it in the picture.

All in all I felt it was a good enough turn, except that I hadn't taken one important thing into consideration. Which was that I was fighting against Strakhov.

It was almost an assassination of Mortenebra there.

Here, take a look:

First Strakhov lunges forward and uses his feat. Marauder combo-slams Corruptor, who inflicts a bit collateral damage on both Mortenebra and Warwitch Siren.

Then Iron Fang Pikemen charge. Only two get within reach of Mortenebra and don't kill her. I don't remember actual damage dealt, but had there been a second Combined Melee Attack with about equal rolls the arachnoid would have been much deader than before.

Assault Kommandos try to run to form a meatwall to protect Strakhov who tries to imitate Stealth in the picture (the shady miniature in front of the building behind three assault kommandos)

Next was Mortenebra's feat turn.

What I needed to do was to remove enough of the meatwall so Harrower could go and do a caster kill.

Two sprays from Warwitch Sirens really helped there.

In fact, the sprays were perfect and the turn was otherwise just awesome, except that I managed to wreck only Cortex from Marauder and nothing else. With Superiority on and Mortenebra down at 7-8 health boxes there was a serious threat to my warcaster if Harrower failed to do its job.

But, really. It was filled with two focus and three souls when it started its thresher that killed an assault kommando, iron fang pikeman and did some damage to Marauder. That triggered Overrun, and this is the last picture of the match. Harrower did a bum rush, though, and is facing exactly the opposite because it didn't want to destroy the beautiful building.

So, with free boosted attack rolls and focus and souls up to 5 additional attacks made minced meat out of Strakhov.