I knew I would be facing Retribution, so I thought it'd be a nice and ironic thing to bring Goreshade the Bastard to the field.
Here was my list (50 pointer, scenario plain caster kill):
Goreshade the Bastard
- Malice
- Nightmare
- Ripjaw
Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 1 Brute Thralls
Necrosurgeon & Scrap Thralls
Cephalyx Overlords
Bane Lord Tartarus
2x Warwitch Sirens
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Gorman diWulfe
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
And opponent had:
Kaelyssa
- Discordia
- Phoenix
Maximum unit of Houseguard Halberdiers + Unit Attachment
2x Arcanists
Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen
2x Mage Hunter Assassins
Epic Eiryss
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios
Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker
And if I'm not forgetting something it seems my opponent played with two points down. Well, more glory for him, then.
Opponent won the starting roll and went first. I was left with the board side with a river. How did I miss Ghost Walk... Anyway. First picture is taken from the end of my first turn. Banishing Ward had been cast on Halberdiers and Phantom Hunter was on Kaelyssa herself. Looked like I would be doing little else except for Shadowmancer.
I had picked up Discordia to be Nightmare's prey.
Next turn opponent backed up a little and used Kaelyssa's feat, obviously waiting for me to close in. Which I did. I did try to have enough "counters" for possible charges, like having all of my sprays close by and mechanithralls within charge distance of anything that tries to engage Nightmare.
If only things were that simple!
Mage Hunter Assassins charge Nightmare. First one misses. Second one does 20 points of damage and cripples both of its arms. Well, I still have Necrotech, I thought. Well, then Kaelyssa shoots the 'tech. Halberdiers advance in shield wall and reform closer so they're engaging both Nightmare and Malice.
Discordia fried my Gorman, which was an insult to injury. More often than not Gorman defies all fate and probabilities and whatever and stays on board. Now he died to first shot ever made against him.
Bane Lord Tartarus (who luckily survived a boosted spray from Discordia), what was left of Nightmare and two Venom casting Warwitches later halberdiers had been mostly beaten down, and the only one who didn't suffer from corrosion was the standard bearer.
Cephalyx overlords managed to kill Narn. Good.
But then, this was about all I did with my turn. All three halberdiers suffering from corrosion died at the start of opponents next turn.
When I was uploading pictures I had to double check if the following picture has only opponents next turn included and not, for example, one complete round in between.
Nope.
If you take a close look, Goreshade hasn't moved a bit and is camping same amount of focus. Can't have missed any turns.
Well, it was a bit brutal to lose 10 mechanithralls + brute thrall, Necrosurgeon + 3 scrap thralls, Nightmare, Bane Lord Tartarus and a Warwitch Siren during a course of just one turn.
All of my heavy hitters gone. Really, this called for desperate measures next turn. I didn't expect THIS heavy losses, though it was obviously to be expected that it would be a turn that could hurt. But 24 points?
No time to cry any longer. No tears left.
I tried some kind of an assasination and did some funny shenanigans.
First, Cephalyx Overlords use Influence on Skeryth Issyan, who kills the houseguard halberdier.
Next, Warwitch Siren comes over and seduces Skeryth Issyen, who walks up and tries to skewer the mage hunter assassin that was close to Malice. Sadly the attack misses. Would have been so awesome to kill two enemy models with their own solo in one turn. Ripjaw then walks to the back arc of mage hunter assassin and kills her off.
Now Malice is freed from melee and is loaded up with souls. It charges Phoenix and beats it around and eventually possesses it. It walks up and tries to kill Eiryss (though misses), but is now within charge distance of Snapjaw. Snapjaw comes and wrecks the jack.
So the morale of the story is that if you lose all of your army, use enemy models. Oh, and if it still doesn't work, pull models out of thin air.
Because then Deathwalker runs close to Eiryss and Goreshade charges the elf mage hunter. He barely hits Eiryss and kills her and then uses Dark Summons, calling bane thralls to the field. Four of them charge Kaelyssa, one charges arcanist and one charges Discordia.
However, first he needed to use all remaining focus to shoot off Sylys Wyshnalyrr, who was standing in a wrong place. That meant no Shadowmancer this turn.
Despite needing 10+ to hit, two of the charging bane thralls score a hit. First rolls extremely poorly with 4 dice, dealing only four points in though it was rolling 4d6 with only dice -2 (she was boosting power field with one focus)
Second hit went a bit better and scored 8 points in, but still way below average. And now Kaelyssa was left with two points of health, and Goreshade was... uh, without stealt, within 12" of 11 mage hunter strike force members and one heavy warjack who had not lost any weapon systems yet.
But still it took everything opponent had to bring the bastard down. Strike force shot him down to 2 hit boxes. Hey, what's that noise? Is it karma or something? Anyway...
Discordia walks to Goreshade and rolls absurdly high damage roll for first attack. Deathwalker restores Goreshade and Discordia has one final initial attack left.
Hits and scores a few points in when Goreshade has only one.
Damn tough and exciting game and a perfect example how you always have a change even if you lose 47% of your army in one go. This time applying more banes didn't solve the problem, but if the game was this exciting I don't think it's an actual loss anywhere else except in my statistics! :P
Oh dear. Did I actually use a smiley? Must be the first time ever in this blog.
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