The Oldest vs the Newest (an exaggeration)

I played a 35 point game against Convergence of Cyriss.

I decided to take Iron Lich Asphyxious in for a spin, and I came up with following list:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Reaper
- Slayer
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls
Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren

Much to my amusement I noticed that all but two models were printed in the original black & white Prime from 2003! And Warwitch Siren is the only model that didn't exist in Mk1.

Convergence had almost same list as last time, but with a couple of improvements:

Syntherion tier 2:
- Corollary
- 2x Diffuser
- Mitigator
- Assimilator
- Monitor
- Cipher

Attunement Servitors
Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Anyway, Cryx won starting roll but went second, as I didn't really want any kind of shooting vectors on a mountain. This time we played with a scenario, which was Close Quarters, which has Killbox in effect. First picture is from the end of Cryx turn 1. Hot Shot was on Cipher, Reconstruct on Mitigator and Synergy on Syntherion. Scything Touch is on Satyxis Raiders.

I was willing to take a risk with the Satyxis there, as I was quite sure that Ground Pounder with RAT 5 wouldn't kill too many Def 16 Satyxis. And, well, it didn't.

But I had not taken into consideration the horrible Def lowering capabilities Convergence had. A flare template from Attunement Servitor lowered Satyxis' natural defense to 12, and then Syntherion cast Magnetic Hold on one of the flared Satyxis. Force Barrier doesn't affect spells, so it was an easy hit. Ground Pounder and various other attacks killed four Satyxis, which wasn't too bad. But -2 spd from Magnetic Hold that prevented charges hurt most.

A lucky deviation from Cipher destroyed two Bane Thralls, and it was Cryx's time to act.

Satyxis advanced what they could and destroyed one Attunement Servitor.

Slayer tried to come bait vectors a little, though I was unsure if such a trade would be any good. A Nightwretch in the middle shot a second Attunement Servitor, and then Skarlock re-cast Scything Touch on Reaper. Nightwretch on the left shot third Attunement Servitor and placed itself easily within 10" range of the arc node optifex. A hellfire from Asphyxious would deal with it.

Reaper advanced and shot harpoon against Mitigator, dragging it and wrecking it. Again I hadn't paid any attention which model had Reconstruct on... So Mitigator just spawned out of Reaper's melee range.

Hellfire went to Mitigator instead, then, and Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex wiped the sweat from his/her brow.

Convergence activates, and Syntherion uses his feat this turn.

Diffuser on right attacks a Satyxis and shoots the homing ripspike to Slayer.

Then Monitor charges Slayer, and charge attack would have caused critical erosion if double 1's could score a hit. Additional attacks against Slayer didn't wreck it, and I guess this is what messed up Convergence's battle plans pretty badly.

Of course I don't know what opponent had in mind, but once it dawned on me that Diffuser could give +2" charge range, I had worried about the safety of Reaper. I doubt four Bane Thralls would have made up for the disappearance of two heavy warjacks.

But instead of charging Cipher played safe and further reduced my Bane count to three as well as dealing minor damage to Nightwretches.

Diffuser tried to shoot a boosted and aimed, re-rollable shot at Nightwretch on a hill, but missed.

There is one full round between pictures now, but Cryx turn went so that Nightwretches desperately tried to shoot Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex out from the way of Reaper's harpoon, but Def 15 (with Iron Sentinel) caused some problems for them. Both arc nodes had to try shooting before it went down.

Reaper yanked another light vector, but damage rolls weren't good enough to wreck it.

Slayer, on the other hand, rolled atrocious damage rolls against Monitor and wrecked it.

Last remaining Satyxis tried to tickle the vectors on the right, and did just that. Tickle. As a side note, Feedback isn't really worth anything against Syntherion with his auto-repair.

Next it was Convergence.

Assimilator and Diffuser on right continued to stomp Satyxis. I don't remember exactly what Cipher did, but since there's still three Bane Thralls in the picture, I assume it tried to shoot all of my support models away in one go - after all Necrotech, Skarlock and Warwitch Siren were quite badly clumped.

Corollary came forward to block Banes from charging Cipher.

Cryx turn again, and it started to look like game over for Convergence here, when Parasite to Cipher and Scything Touch on Reaper wrecked Cipher and both Diffusers went down with various charges.

Next turn Reaper charged Syntherion and economically destroyed him - there was not even one point of excess damage.

Biggest turning point in the game was unquestionably when Monitor botched the charge attack. Looks like critical double 1's have a really big impact on 35 point game with really low model count army.

Anyway, I'm starting to build up a serious loathing for Reconstruct spell, and Magnetic Hold seems like a powerful spell. Now, if I only played even just one faction Eiryss works for... but alas, I don't.