It was 1-2 list, divide & conquer [1] and 40 minute deathclock.
I have been playing Asphyxious the Hellbringer a lot in the last few months, and I'm slowly getting tired of Cryx for a while. But my spreadsheet statistics forced me to play with Asphyxious once more - four rounds of tournament would bring him up to 16 games played, which starts to be comparable to every other Cryxian warcaster. I'd be able to quit playing Cryx for a little while with happy knowledge of having every single warcasters on 15+ games.
Anyway. Anyway.
My chosen list was:
Asphyxious the Hellbringer & Vociferon
- Erebus
- Ripjaw
- 2x Helldiver
Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Withershadow Combine
Satyxis Raider Captain
Warwitch Siren
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
So that's basically my 50 point list without Bane Thralls. And Cryx without banes sounds like a dangerous idea - but then again, Bane Thralls would have been slow as hell. Oh well.
My first game was against Cryx and against my own Warcaster, just a different incarnation.
Opponent had a list something like:
Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Malice
- 2x Nightwretch
Maximum unit of Bane Riders
Minimum unit oF Bile Thralls
Darragh Wrathe
Warwitch Siren
Skarlock
I lost the starting roll, but got to go first. Scenario was Incoming. Scenario zones are a bit hard to see in the pictures, but they are there. Honestly.
I had to re-evaluate Satyxis Raiders and their function here. Bile Thralls made them useless as a front line tarpit, Ashen Veil granted them only concealment which affected only spells from Asphyxious. Meh. I decided to hold them back and wait that Bane Riders launch themselves on me.
Well, still I placed them too far ahead. A feated barrage of Breath of Corruptions took threesatyxis out, which wasn't too bad. The major difficulty here now was the breath templates, that outright blocked a charge from Satyxis - and anything else.
To open a game somehow, Ripjaw charged Malice and tore off it's harpoon arm. But that was it.
Sadly there is a one full round in-between the pictures, so I have to try to remember what happened here.
For sure, at least, Malice possessed Ripjaw and moved my arc node in middle of the board (where now is a lonely wreck marker...) and Iron Lich Asphyxious wrecked it, and teleported behind the house.
Bane Riders ran to block the majority of my army. Encouraged by this, the Bile Thralls ran forward, which was the most threatening aspect here. Surely I would take out the Bane Riders next, but then all soft targets would melt into sludge.
So, Erebus with three Focus and the rest of Satyxis with Power Swell did take out the Bane Riders. Asphyxious the Hellbringer dared to personally kill one Bane Rider, even, and then he used his feat.
Then I see I have no pictures at all from this game. Next round, however, was the last.
Bile Thralls did take out most of the Satyxis - a few survived because they were too far away. But they failed their Massive Casualties test. Darragh charged Satyxis, but missed scythe attack. Mount, however, managed to get the kill. Darragh cast Hellfire somewhere, I forget where.
I vaguely remember that Admonia died somehow, and main culprit here might be the enemy Warwitch Siren. But if so, that was one heck of a damage roll from a POW 10... perhaps a Bile Thrall purge reached there, too? Iron Lich Asphyxious takes a risk and comes out from behind the building, casts Breath of Corruption and then teleports to the his enemy zone (my friendly zone), behind the Breath of Corruption cloud.
Mobility + advance + reach was enough to bring Iron Lich Asphyxious to Asphyxious the Hellbringer's melee threat, so the game was over there.
Game 2: Retribution
Next round I had Issyria on the opposing side. List was something like:
Issyria
- Hyperion
Maximum unit of Houseguard Halberdiers + Unit Attachment
Arcanist
Houseguard Thane
Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Mage Hunter Assassin
Retribution starts the game, and first picture is from the end of Cryx turn 1.
Here I thought that Satyxis Raiders with Ashen Veil would be an annoying tarpit against, well, everything except Mage Hunter Strike Force. I also boldly marched forward with Asphyxious in a way that's beautifully depicted by Devil Doll in one of their songs: "whose irrational daring springs only from the ignorance of danger." He was camping three focus, so I assumed he might take a few random shots in.
But, you know. Issyria has a feat. A certain feat that does... things.
The additional die on hit & damage upped the averages crazily and every single damn Sstyxis (except for the Captain...) died. Mage Hunters rolled disgusting numbers for their damage on Asphyxious, and I think Hyperion scored some kind of a hit, too. Asphyxious took nine points of damage from only a couple of attacks, but opponent didn't dedicate more resources for killing Asphyxious because of miscalculations - he was supposed to cast Crusader's Call and charge Asphyxious with Mage Hunter Assassin. I did remember that Mage Hunter Strike Force has Arcane Assassin, but I completely forgot that the solo has Arcane Assassin, too. With Issyria's feat the Assassins might have had a realistic chance of one-hitting Asphyxious down.
Scary stuff there. We need to get a resident Retribution player here in Jyväskylä so details like this are kept in fresh memory.
Erebus loses movement system, which is highly annoying, because absolutely nothing would be doing damage to Hyperion now, except maybe for Withershadow Combine on a charge. But they're not coming up close.
I'm unsure what the heck I'm supposed to do now, so I go full steam ahead. Asphyxious camps full seven focus and walks up to a hill and uses his feat. Satyxis Captain runs to engage Halberdiers, who had used their minifeat to deal with the Satyxis unit.
Random bits and bobs tried to kill as many Magy Hunter Assassins as possible, because they still scared Asphyxious, who had taken nine or so damage.
But that was it. Come what may.
Issyria comes to cast Blinding Light on Asphyxious, and Halberdiers attempt to take out Ripjaw and a couple left behind deal with the Satyxis Captain. All roll horribly poorly, I believe only arc node and cortex break from the Ripjaw, possibly movement too with last possible attack.
Remaining Mage Hunters shoot Erebus into a wreck, and Hyperion advances to protect Issyria from any possible Helldiver shenanigans.
Then it starts to shoot Asphyxious. I'm pretty confident behind Arm 24, but goddamn those rolls! Most attacks thankfully missed, but those few that hit rolled Asphyxious below 50% hit boxes yet again. And next turn Asphyxious would have no feat.
Well, best place next to a shooty colossal is in melee, so Asphyxious charges to Halberdiers, kills two of them and casts Ashen Veil on himself with Blood Boon. Ripjaw and Satyxis Captain kill two other models, so Asphyxious would have four souls for next turn, if it would ever come.
Warwitch Siren charges Hyperion and Shadow Binds it, as well as engaging two Mage Hunters in melee.
On Retribution turn the few remaining Mage Hunters get a couple of really good rolls and kill the Warwitch Siren. But it looked like opponent used all available good luck there that turn.
I'm a little bit fuzzy on what Halberdiers did, but I think that they just advanced away from Asphyxious to make him an easier target. One Halberdier got next Admonia. They killed Satyxis Captain, but that was all. Then Issyria misses Def 15 Asphyxious even with a boosted attack roll. If Asphyxious was still in melee, she would have still needed only 11+ to hit.
Asphyxious was, by the way, camping 9 focus, making him Armor 26 target. Though, yes. But he had, what, six damage boxes remaining, at most? Possibly even less? I don't remember, but I was mentally sweating because of the possiblity of one peak damage roll.
Best chance, the Starburst Cannon, missed. It managed to kill the Halberdier engaging Admonia, giving her a soul token.
The sidearm cannons may have scored a few hits or something, but POW 12 needs quite a few 6's in damage rolls to punch through ARM 26.
So, Cryx did see another turn.
One of the remaining Halberdiers is standing so that Asphyxious' Line of Sight to Issyria is blocked. I don't remember who shot Maelovus and when, but there was only two members of Withershadow Combine alive. Tremulus gave Puppet Master to Admonia, and Admonia shot the Halberdier with Dark Fire, using soul token for an attack roll boost, because damage roll needed to be anything but double 1's to kill.
Well, it was double 1's. After surviving the mental shock I remembered Puppet Master, and that re-roll saved Asphyxious' day.
He had Line of Sight to Issyria now, and charged her with 11 available Focus. He had to take one free strike, but he survived - Issyria didn't. Damage roll for Asphyxious' attack was triple sixes.
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