He had taken a new warcaster for him, Iron Mother Directrix. So in that way last week was amazing - outside of a tournament I got to play against two casters I had never played before!
Ahem.
Anyway, my list was:
Lord Exhumator Scaverous
- Seether
- Ripjaw
- Nightwretch
Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Iron Lich Overseer
- Desecrator
Darragh Wrathe
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren
Opponent had:
Carrier Group tier 4
Iron Mother Directrix
- Prime Axiom
- Monitor
- Assimilator
- Mitigator
- Diffuser
- Corollary
Optifex Directive
... + amazing amount of different servitors I can't even begin to guess. I can count 17 Servitors from the first picture, two who are from Mother and three that are from Prime Axiom, so it's four batches of various servitors that actually use army points.
Scenario was Two Fronts, and Cryx started game. First picture is from the end of Convergence turn 1. Death Ward has been cast on Seether.
Best thing I could figure out to do was Telekinesis a bile thrall forward, then use Death Ride with Darragh Wrathe, and then purging out. It took out five servitors.
Scaverous was scared of the harpoon drag of Prime Axiom, so he hid behind objective marker, Darragh Wrathe and Seether. I'm not sure why I brought Darragh Wrathe that much forward. Maybe because if I had to lose something to Prime Axiom, a 4 point solo would do just fine there.
Desecrator missed a boosted shot at servitors and template deviated so that nothing was under. Damnit, I'm giving you a chance, Desecrator! Don't fail me! Anyway, Iron Lich Overseer then stealthed both.
Skarlock cast Ghost Walk on Bane Thralls, who then charged. Or only one did, and the rest ran.
So... what's this Prime Axiom made, of, then? After a little bit of shuffling and Fire Group from Iron Mother, it advanced and yanked Darragh at it, who had first been knocked down by Mitigator. We actually messed up quite a few rules here, but the end result was that Seether was left alive with six boxes remaining. It was my bad, really, and those are always annoying, because Seether should have got one more P+S 20 damage roll against its ARM 19, which would have been a dead Seether on 7+ - so about a 50% chance of making entire game different.
Assimilator harvested some Bane Thralls with Ground Pounder, but they were lucky with a few Tough rolls, and only two died, despite elimination servitors backing the heavy vector up.
Well, who knows what I would have done next turn if Seether would've been crippled enough to be of no use or a smoldering wreck. At least this way I wasted scaverous' feat probably a turn too early. In fact I played next turn so badly that I'm almost giving "fail" tag to this game, but as it wasn't entirely game-changing grand mistake, self-ironic main topic has to suffice.
My main goal was to somehow reduce colossal support and get rid of some repairers. Nightwretch ran into middle of enemy forces and Scaverous activates, uses his feat and shoots away one Optifex with Excarnate and adds a Bile Thrall. Then he shoots Feast of Worms on the Prime Axiom, and Seether starts mauling it. Damage rolls are absurdly high and it takes out one damage grid, minus one box in weapon system.
Desecrator had taken an aimed, boosted shot at Iron Mother's servitor. This time it hit, but that servitor was the only casualty there, really. Iron Lich Overseer tried to cast Dark Fire on the elimination servitor in front of the wall, but failed to score a hit. That was bad, because I could have brought a Bile Thrall deeper into enemy lines if it wasn't for that meddling Elimination Servitor...
Then the Bile Thralls activate. The excarnated one advances and I take my time carefully positioning it - I deemed one POW 12 damage roll at Nightwretch worth three servitors and a damage roll at Mitigator.
But sure that 6" is a long, long distance. Well, all that were supposed to took their damage, though it was a bit annoying that Mitigator took only one point of damage and Nightwretch some five or six. What was downright horrible was that Desecrator, Iron Lich Overseer, objective and even Scaverous himself just caught themselves in the purge! It was a matter of 2-3 millimetres, but they were undeniable 2-3 millimetres. Scaverous took three damage, Iron Lich Overseer took four and Desecrator suffered only corrosion.
Great job there.
On the right I also accepted the price of POW 12 damage roll at Ripjaw in exchange for two servitors and a damage roll at Diffuser. Well, Diffuser was out of range. Ripjaw didn't take much damage either, but still...
Great job there.
Bah. Maybe at least Bane Thralls would do something useful? Well, in a way they did. Two got to charge Assimilator - and only half of them missed. The damage roll from hit was quite good if I remember correctly, so missing didn't feel that bad. But how good would it have felt to wreck a heavy vector with two Bane Thralls? I guess I'll never know.
Then it's Convergence, and I don't remember if Iron Mother used her feat last turn or this turn. Somehow I think it might have been this turn, because there are suddenly so many wrecked Def 15 bonejacks in the uppermost picture. Mitigator at least knocked down the Nightwretch who even gained cover bonuses. Then Prime Axiom finished it with drag drill, and Seether went down with a weak slap - Scaverous had quit upkeeping Death Ward, too.
Opponent took some various shots at objective marker, but damage rolls were abysmal. Assimilator also failed most rolls (and Banes passed?) on the right and downed only one tormented spirit.
Next turn Bane Thralls charge, and what is this sorcery, I must ask? Assimilator has now survived four charges and one unboosted attack from Bane Thralls. But they didn't fail entirely - they destroyed enemy objective, so Scaverous could start gaining control points now. And that pretty much looked like the only possible way to win this game by now.
Warwitch Siren charges Diffuser and hits, so the vector is shadow bound for a turn.
One full round has passed in between the middle and last picture. There is so few moving pieces on the board any more that including them all seemed like a waste! But anyway, Convergence unleashed everything they had at the objective marker. That's 6 accelespiker shots from Prime Axiom and two drag arm drills and a critical shot and boosted shot from Monitor. Mitigator had already activated, but I don't remember what it did. Anyway... after all this the objective marker stood defiantly at one damage box remaining. If the goddess of maths and probabilities drinks morning coffee, they'd have been all over her keyboard there.
Diffuser is locked in shadows, but Assimilator goes crazy and kills all three Bane Thralls that are engaging it. Well... at least nothing got to contest my friendly zone. Oh wait... there's still Iron Mother left! And she casts Tactical Supremacy on Assimilator, who then advances to contest.
Damn.
At the start of Cryx turn the objective melts to corrosion - that I had caused by myself.
Again one full round, and Bane Thralls advance here and there. Two get to Assimilator and Officer goes for Mitigator. One also gets Corollary.
Assimilator has now survived four charges from Bane Thralls and three unboosted attacks from them. At least Corollary takes quite a blow, but one Bane Thrall is not able to entirely wreck it.
Before Iron Lich Overseer and Desecrator say good bye to each other, Desecrator charges Assimilator and does its most heroic moment, well, ever. It wrecks a heavy vector who has steadily suffered severe hits from Bane Thralls during course of three or four turn. My hero.
Iron Lich Overseer on the other hand starts to advance to my enemy zone, but casts stealth just in case. Warwitch Siren hits the Prime Axiom, and that's it. Cryx goes to four control points.
Corollary comes to contest the zone, and Warwitch Siren finally dies. But too late - Corollary is the only model in between victory for Cryx.
Phew.
It was a hard fought and interesting game. But the objective was one of the main contributors for this victory - as it refused to die even after two rounds of shooting and one purge from me, opponent didn't have enough reliable resources to deal with Warwitch Siren. I think the priority was right - first objective, then the Siren, because Siren wasn't a factor when it comes to control points as long as the objective is still standing.
But really, considering my own play, I should have saved up Scaverous' feat and one arc node instead of trying to wreck the colossal with only a few models. Even if a good assassination chance wouldn't have ever come, the threat would have been there. All I caused now was just a purge that dealt more damage to my own army.
No comments:
Post a Comment