Clearage

And finally last game written up that dates waay back.

It was before the Levels -tournament, a practice-sort-of game with someone who was about to enter tournament (but eventually couldn't make it, sadly.)

We played a 35 point game with random scenario.

I took my Cryx with following list:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Malice
- Slayer
- 2x Nightwretch

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Withershadow Combine
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren

Opponent was playing something like this:

Ravyn
- Phoenix
- Manticore
- Aspis

Maximum unit of Houseguard Riflemen + Unit Attachment + Soulless Escort
2x Arcanist
Ghost Sniper
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

Scenario was Outflank, and area middle points are marked by Helldiver burrow markers.

Board itself was restrictive as hell itself thanks to the river. It was agreed as being only shallow water with no extra elements to it, though it is icky green and gooey and stuff.

On Cryxian side there was this nasty bottleneck caused by obstructions, river and covering fire templates by Manticore. That much for my mechanithralls advancing through.

However, I was able to pull Phoenix with Malice to that aforementioned bottle neck, possessed it and walked itas far into Cryxian territory as possible. I had messed up my activation order, I had planned to cast Parasite on Phoenix before starting all these fancy shenanigans. And I was reminded pretty well that you just don't do mistakes like that.

Malice was the only model that rolled a couple of good damage rolls. I was thinking if I should try to clear lanes for getting Withershadow Combine to make their Black Industries, but looking back I'm glad I didn't. Mechanithralls failed so badly, either they missed completely, or did next to no damage. And they did have Scything Touch on them that Skarlock had graciously managed to cast. But nonetheless, myrmidon was still pretty badly mauled, so I tried to soften it up a little more before going in with Asphyxious.

Withershadow Combine shot spells at it, doing nothing. Well okay, maybe Asphyxious might sacrifice a couple Focus points more, no problem.

Asphyxious charges and misses. All the following attacks fail miserably, and Aspyxious has to burn all focus to finally wreck the thing. All focus but two, of course, that were reserved for Teleport.

But still I would've liked to nail Eiryss down with Breath of Corruption.

Next turn opponent sent a fully loaded Manticore (that moved a bit with Locomotion) to Malice. Damage rolls were just not quite enough to wreck it, if I remember right it lost just about everything else except Cortex.

Combined Ranged Attacking Houseguard Riflemen shot my arcnode down on the leftern front. That's something those pesky Mage Hunter Strike Force wouldn't have done except with phenomenal rolls.

On my next turn I had learned my lesson about activation orders, and cast Parasite on Manticore first. This time two charging mechanithralls, almost wrecked Malice and possibly a few Dark Fires and/or random Hellfires brought the myrmidon down.

This pretty much secured right side for me so much so that on following turns I could actually start dominating the zone.

However, I did have some trouble on left side. I had Slayer and two solos there, and if I wanted to dominate, the Slayer wouldn't gain too much focus from Asphyxious. His control range isn't that far reaching, after all.

But what I could drag to the left side zone were enough to contest it long enough for Asphyxious to dominate twice and other Cryxian troops to control once.

Though Ravyn was footslogging in the river most of the game, it wasn't actually that bad position. For whole game I tried to find a good way of delivering 4x Hellfires into Ravyn, but it just wasn't doable.

Different terrain output really shaked the game here. I think board in the end favored Asphyxious because of his teleportation possibilities, but really... if you want something different, do weird terrain with scenarios. Maybe not in a tournament, but now and then it surely makes for interesting games.