Aftermath vol2: The CURSE

Second game I played was against Protectorate of Menoth. It was 35 points again with no scenario.

My list was:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous
- Slayer
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
2x Warwitch Siren
Iron Lich Overseer
- Reaper
Skarlock
Orin Midwinter

And opponent had:

Harbinger of Menoth
- Crusader
- Vanquisher

Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Knights Exemplar
2x Paladins
Vilmon
Hierophant
Vassal of Menoth

It was a disturbing list to face, because Martyrdom trumps both Excarnate and drag from Reaper's harpoon. Also Impervious Wall made dragging impossible.

We didn't change the board setup, but this time around the bottleneck with impassable building and linear obstacle didn't look nearly as intimidating as in last game, since there were no Mage Hunter Strike Force around.

I think I won starting roll again, since picture 2 shows Protectorate closing in. Vanquisher scored a lucky deviation and burned way too many bane thralls alive. Unlive, alive? How should that be said?

Anyway, this is where I started missing Bile Thralls.

Mostly everything I did failed miserably, but at least I killed one paladin with a single shot from Orin Midwinter. I didn't want to kill the paladin yet, only soften up him enough for Scaverous to cast Excarnate on it and create one more bane thrall for charging.

Reaper did some little damage in to bastions, but a charging bane thrall either missed or rolled abysmal damage roll.

Next turn Harbinger obviously uses her feat. I was somewhat happy that my whole army didn't just dissolve to charging warjacks and weapon masters. In fact, I pretty much lost only bane thralls, though almost everything else was on fire.

I saw a potential assassination here.

First I'd have to remove Bastions from Scaverous' way and he'd be able to cast Telekinesis on himself and either charge Vanquisher or Harbinger herself (if within range. If not, Telekinesis on her too before Thresher.)

But as it happened, every attack deflected away from Bastions. No, not from their Armor stat... but from their Defense stat! And the attacks that did hit scored next to no damage. I unloaded on them two Venom sprays, full melee capability of Reaper and its marshal, the Iron Lich Overseer plus whatever Slayer was able to do (it had lost one of its arms.) Also Orin Midwinter threw full 4 bolts at them.

After all of this there was still an Exemplar Bastion standing in-between Scaverous and Harbinger. But all the damage and Martyring of dying Bastions had dealt some 8-9 points in to Harbinger thanks to plenty of 5-6 rolls on d3.

I thought that maybe I might kill her with a few well-placed Excarnates.

Scaverous charges and threshers bastions, missing and not-killing them. He did, however, wreck his own Reaper with a damage roll of 5,6.

Using his feat he starts landing Excarnates on Harbinger and first one hits just fine and after a damage roll Harbinger had 3 hit boxes left. She was camping 5 focus, though, so she had at least some defense.

Well, then Scaverous launches his assassinating Excarnate. Attack hits and on 11+ on three dice Harbinger would be dead. Damage roll came out as 1,1,2 or 1,2,2. One focus left Scaverous pulls Harbinger just a little closer with Telekinesis and Skarlock tries to shoot yet another lucky Excarnate on Harbinger. But 11+ on just two dice just doesn't do it.

Next turn Vanquisher and Scaverous have a little chat.

That chat didn't end well for Scaverous. I don't know why it is, but my Scaverous is just destined to lose. Or is he? I played one more game with him, but that's different battle report altogether...