Asphyxious2 with only one Caustic Mist and no Teleport during a game

Heck, I'm getting a lot of Warmachine games in.

Well that's good, but I'm starting to get a little backlog on games I have to write up here.

Anyway. Since I knew I was playing Kreoss1, I took a warcaster from my arsenal that as of yet hasn't played even one game against him during Mk2. Choices were Kaya1, Deneghra1 and Asphyxious2.

Since we got something like 300 kilometres in between us with this particular hobbyist, we played on Vassal. This was first game on Vassal for a few months.

So, epic Asphyxious it was to be. With a following 35 point list:

Lich Lord Asphyxious
- Malice
- Nightwretch
- Stalker
- Helldiver

Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Bane Lord Tartarus
Orin Midwinter
Warwitch Siren

Opponent had:

High Exemplar Kreoss (tier 2)
- Reckoner
- Repenter

Maximum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Exemplar Vengers
High Exemplar Gravus
Vassal Mechanik

Opponent won starting roll and first picture is from end of my first turn. Defensive Ward is on Vengers and Lamentation is on Kreoss. Asphyxious has Hellbound on. The Caustic Mist you can see was the only one cast during game.

Next turn opponent didn't do much else except close in a little with warjacks. Errants were going to shoot at Bane Thralls, but forgot they had stealth. Rest of attacks fell on Malice, doing nothing. Reckoner also missed Malice. Defensive Ward was re-cast on Exemplar Errants. All in all a rather defensive turn.

Then it was time for my fearsome turn of unbound onslaught!

First two bile thralls go and try to purge Vengers. Only one of the horsies gets under both purges, and only about 3 damage is done. First, and most powerful purge (because it triggered Battle Driven) was mere pixels away from two other Vengers.

Then Nightwretch runs where you can see it. Asphyxious casts Death Knell on Reckoner, killing one choir member and dealing little damage to Vassal Mechanik. Template was mere pixels away from one Errant and another choir member, which would've been +2 to all damage rolls. Tough luck, I guess.

Luckily Orin Midwinter was the only model who knew what he was doing in my army. He cast lightning on Reckoner, managed to hit and fried the mechanik.

Bane Lord Tartarus cursed Errants, and then Bane Thralls charged them. Four got into contact with MAT 8, though Errants were DEF 14 at the moment. Results: one dead Errant.

A succesful turn, really...

Then it was opponents turn of slightly tickling the armor of my undead might.

You can also read that as completely wrecking face.

Kreoss used his feat, Divine Wrath, and knocked down everything upward from Malice.

Errants destroyed all but three Bane Thralls. Quick Work was too fast for spiteful spectres. Revenger burned Tartarus and set it on fire with only one health box remaining. Reckoner beat up Nightwretch.

Vengers then killed a couple of bile thralls (unimportant) but two charged Stalker and one charged Malice. Dice were smiling at me, though, when both charges missed Stalker. Venger who charged Malice dealt about 8 points in.

I wasn't convinced at my situation here.

But since I got one bile thrall left, there was still hope for me. Asphyxious activated first, moved on to hill and laid down Daeamortus on three Vengers. Then he cast Parasite on them. Rest focus had been allocated away, so that was it for him. He had even to drop off Hellbound to achieve this.

Then last bile thrall bravely purged upon horsemen of Menoth. Four were under. Though I needed 7's to kill each of them with Parasite on and no Battle Driven, bile thrall killed only two - with one being already damaged one. My hero.

Stalker then comes to help where Bile Thrall had failed, and with three attacks kills only one already damaged Venger. My hero.

Malice then had to go to be sacrificed. It killed a Venger and one Exemplar Errant, giving it a total of 3 souls.

Tartarus stood up and cursed Errants again (damn, the bane lord talks like a pirate! Hearing that can be really demoralizing!) and Bane Thralls charged them, failing to kill anyone with their MAT 8. So, I guess Bane Thralls were just banging their heads to the shields of Errants', because at this point I had killed only 3 Errants, despite numerous attempts.

Helldiver popped up and decided to stay above ground to engage Reckoner, in case it mattered. Turned out it didn't.

I gritted my teeth in excitement and passed turn.

Now Errants killed all but one Bane Thrall and Quick Work made a bad pun at Tartarus, who went home, weeping.

Godlike damage rolls from Repenter took off both arms from Malice despite it's arm 20. What the hell was that?! Gravus and Kreoss tried to destroy Helldiver, and succeeded in mangling its movement. That was no burrow for me any more.

Reckoner thought it didn't mind a free strike from Helldiver, and, well, truth be told it didn't. Helldiver hit but couldn't pass Reckoner's armor.

Then the warjacks shot a boosted Condemner shot at Asphyxious. Missed. Thank you, Lord Toruk.

Anyway.

I saw only two possible choices here. Either mop up Errants and warjacks with Asphyxious' feat or mop up Kreoss with Asphyxious' feat. However, I wasn't sure if I could transfer the feated models far enough and if I would have enough space for them where I landed. The barbed wire thingy was in a bad position for me.

But I thought that if I could destroy Reckoner with Asphyxious with 7 focus, I could place more than enough thralls on top of wreck. I blame it on some special mental instability moment when I decided that 7 focus would be enough and allocated 2 to Malice. Asphyxious had two souls from Vengers that died inside Daeamortus template.

Asphyxious rolled damage very badly. He even scored one miss. One above average roll would have probably wrecked Reckoner but no, because Reckoner failed at shooting Asphyxious, Asphyxious failed at destroying the warjack. I guess there is some mercy within the ancient lich, after all?

Well, one bane thrall from feat finished what Asphyxious couldn't and wrecked Reckoner.

Luckily I had more than enough space to get Bane Thrall Officer and Bane Lord Tartarus and one more thrall against Kreoss, if needed. I doubt I'd have gotten much better placement if Asphyxious had destroyed Reckoner instead. Maybe one Bane Thrall more.

Anyway, High Exemplar's story ended at first swing of Officer's axe. By the way, it dealt 17 points in just by itself.