It was supposed to be a 35 point game, and I played with following list:
Epic Asphyxious
- Corruptor (Yes, you read right. I need to feel better for playing epic Asphyxious and not downright filthy.)
- Nightwretch
- Cankerworm
- Helldiver
Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Warwitch Siren
Gorman diWulfe
Bloat Thrall
And opponent had:
Strakhov
- Black Ivan
Maximum unit of Assault Kommandos + 1 flame thrower
2x Kayazy Eliminators
Widowmakers
Widowmaker Marksman
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe
When I'm playing Cryx I've really started to see Assault Kommandos in a different light. Again here that often dismissed infantry unit was immune to Warwitch Siren, Bloat Thrall and even Caustic Mists. And, well, even to that particular ammo of Corruptor, but I don't think that really counts for anything.
Anyway. After the game we noticed that this Khador list was, in fact, 5 points short. In the original list there were Great Bears of Gallowswood that didn't make it to the board.
Game started with Cryx taking the first turn. Scenario was Into the Breach, and large blast template marks the middle point of control zone. First picture is taken from the end of Khador's first turn. I'm including that picture, since upcoming pictures have completely atroctious camera angles.
Anyway, second picture shows how I (having learned some lesson from my fooling around in Ropecon 2013) marched Bane Thralls this time in front of whole flank to the right. And the second half of that second picture... wow. Opponent did pretty good job of wrecking whole damn unit of Bane Thralls. Only Officer and two thralls survived out of full 12. One thing caught me completely off guard.
Black Ivan had bulldoze. That combined with Overrun and Strakhov's feat is rather devastating gimmick indeed. Chances would be that I would still have at least 2-3 thralls more if Bulldoze hadn't pushed the flag bearer of Bane Thralls out of the 1" pick-up radius of other grunts. I think I got to make only 2-3 tough rolls whole game before I lost the flag to this fancy trick. Maybe my next lesson to learn is to always keep flag so far away from any and all even unseen threats?
Widowmakers advanced and shot a couple of bane thralls and Kayazy Eliminators walzed through 4 thralls.
However, I was actually quite content with this huge loss. I was ready to use Spectral Legion any time now, and opponent would lose almost all serious attack power on my turn... or would he?
First Warwitch Siren advanced and seduced Kayazy Eliminator (again?) and all four of them were in a nice clump next, and one Bane Thrall was free to charge.
I doubted I had enough killing power for Black Ivan, so I decided to probably sacrifice Bane Lord Tartarus. He cursed Black Ivan and advanced, aligned himself properly and unleashed Thresher. Two thralls were created to the back arc of Black Ivan. Funnily enough Tartarus himself missed the attack roll against the cursed Ivan.
Bane Thralls charge Black Ivan next and with plenty of unsuccesfull rolls (and one really succesful!) the warjack is still pretty much standing with nothing important destroyed. Crap, crap, crap! It's then Asphyxious' time to activate, and he charges Black Ivan - that monstrosity just needs to die. Two attacks and it's finally gone, and Asphyxious teleports away, camping one focus.
Then Bloat Thrall shot the huge AoE all over Eliminators and... well, none of them died. Not even those two that were having -2 ARM from Dark Shroud. However one of my own Bane Thralls died, which ironically needed exactly same damage roll as to kill one Eliminator outright. Drats.
Things actually started to look a little worrisome right now. I can only imagine my distress had the Great Bears been on board! But of course, different decisions would've been made then and game would probably have played differently. At least that's what I try to keep telling myself.
On opponents turn Def 15 saves Warwitch Siren from assassination attempt by a Kayazy Eliminator. I think it was a charge attack so that the other Eliminator had to run, so Siren had to dodge only one combo-strike or two ordinary strikes.
Bane Lord Tartarus and all Bane Thralls are destroyed by various attacks, but Bane Thrall Officer defied all fate behind a wreck marker and was left standing with one hit box (and under Fire continous effect). Khador scored two Control Points this turn by dominating control zone.
Bane Thrall officer died to the Fire, by the way.
Well, then is my turn, and I try to use a little bit of Cryxian crowd control techniques. Nearly all Assault Kommandos had cramped up in attempt to kill Bane Lord Tartarus (damn I wish he would've lived... or... continued being undead, how that one needs to be expressed?), and even Gorman diWulfe was in that huge blob of warm, tender flesh. So.
My grand plan was that I would somehow would get rid of both Kayazy Eliminators in middle of my lines, then run Bloat Thrall next to the gathering of souls, advance Nightwretch so that I could launch Death Knell on Bloat Thrall and boost damage to the thrall. That way AoE 4 Death Knell would kill what it may and it would be followed with even larger AoE pow 14 death blast.
But I just couldn't figure any way to remove those Eliminators, as even the Corruptor was blind with Black Oil.
So I had to use the Bloat Thrall to clear the way for Nightwretch. This time it managed to kill two already corroded Eliminators, yay.
Next Cankerworm advanced to act as a loving homing beacon for Death Knell. Nightwretch advances into position. Asphyxious activates, puts down his soul gathering template and casts death knell through nightwretch to Cankerworm. Attack misses but deviates just so that that damned Gorman is out of the template. And what's even more annoying is that two damage rolls fail to kill, despite blast damage coming in with... what... pow 11 or 12? Assault Kommandos were in Shield Wall. That order was indeed a good call this time. Asphyxious got 4 souls from this affair.
Well, then. I lose everything but Nightwretch and Asphyxious. Technically I didn't lose Cankerworm or Corruptor, but they were both Blind from Black Oil.
So. I'm actually losing this game unless I do something drastic.
Time to call in Spectral Legion.
Nightwretch advances out of a good charge lane (and actually survives a free strike from one of the Eliminators) and then Asphyxious charges an Assault Kommando. He kills three of them and burns, well, pretty much ALL of his remaining focus to kill one pesky Kayazy Eliminator, saving only enough for a teleport. Obviously attempt to kill the Eliminator just fails.
Then he uses his Feat and table is filled with Bane Thralls once again. It's a pity I didn't take a picture before removing the models.
Anyway. Only four thralls make it to Strakhov. Suprisingly, however, first thrall hits! And rolls a godlike damage roll, leaving Strakhov with only two hit boxes remaining. Well, I still got 3 tries to roll a 9+ for a guaranteed kill. Second one is a miss. Third one is a miss. Fourth one hits! P+S 11 with 4 dice vs Strakhovs armor of something 17 or so. There are no markers next to him, but he was camping some focus. After all... where would have he actually used them?
Damage roll doesn't exceed his armor. To add an insult to injury, damage roll is exactly equal to his armor. It was something like 1,1,2,2 or 1,2,2,2.
Now wasn't that sweet?
Luckily rest thralls manage to kill some important pieces such as Gorman diWulfe.
Opponent then wrecks Cankerworm, who had been standing valiantly until this late game in the middle of enemy forces. Requiescat in pacem, until Asphyxious reconstructs it.
Strakhov heals a couple of damage points and goes to hug wreck marker. Enemy doesn't actually have too much models on board any more, but neither do I have too many attacks available. I do a little math, and I figure that I will actually lose to scenario unless I manage to assassinate Strakhov somehow.
So.
I am thinking of trying to spell-assassinate Strakhov next, but I didn't think I brought Nightwretch close enough to get through Stealth (Strakhov had been upkeeping Occultation on himself for whole game - wise move, actually, since I would've probably tried to assassinate and/or Parasite him at various points of the game - especially on the feat turn) and Strakhov in cover is outside of Asphyxious' league, I dare say.
Last remaining Assault Kommando had ran to engage Nightwretch.
On my upcoming turn it seemed like my only chances were to kill everything on the control zone and start dominating for points. However... if even one of enemy models remained that would just hand over the loss to me. So many dice rolls had already barely failed in this game that I thought that it'd be so much against all odds if this last chance would be ruined also.
Asphyxious allocates a focus point to Corruptor and Nightwretch. Corruptor advances and strikes the Assault Kommando down (while free-striking Eliminator doesn't strike Corruptor down) and then Nightwretch runs to Strakhov.
Asphyxious activates and advances so that he can attempt one last fully boosted Excarnate on Strakhov. Hits, and damage roll is excessive.
Phew.
Only logical reason for Eliminators, Gorman, Strakhov and to some extent even Black Ivan (it took almost every possible attack to nail the warjack down so the resources couldn't be directed to any other target) surviving for so long is that the spirit of the missing Great Bears of Gallowswood was magically supporting their performance. Wait... that's not logical at all... Another possible explanation is that some form of greater dice gods and kharma and whatnot punished me for using Corruptor.
Anyway, I hope we get to play another game some time with same lists, this time bears included. Game was a really good one and exciting, but still opponent was playing 5 points down, and it bugs me.
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