I played my first game with Void Seer Mordikaar last Friday.
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Archidon
- Rhinodon
- Cyclops Shaman
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Aptimus Marketh
Agonizer
Feralgeist
Well, yeah. The list is missing Void Spirits which are an obvious choice with Mordikaar... or are they? I don't know. At least they seem so. I also left Bronzeback home, so I knew I would be struggling against tough targets.
Opponent was playing Convergence of Cyriss:
Carrier Group tier 4
Iron Mother Directrix
- 2x Modulators
- Cipher
- Assimilator
- Monitor
- Diffuser
- Mitigator
- Corollary
Optifex Directive
Elimination Servitors
Attunement Servitors
Accretion Servitors
That seemed like a lot of heavy warjacks to take down without Bronzeback.
Anyway, scenario was Close Quarters and Convergence started game. First picture is from the end of Skorne turn 1.
Not much happened on round 1 anyway. Tactical Supremacy was on Monitor and Hollow was on Praetorian Swordsmen. Krea and Cyclops Shaman used Krea's animus. I figured I wouldn't really need Banishing Ward, since Hollow just had to be on Swordsmen and Shrapnel Swarm would do diddly squat against Cetrati. And the two other offensive spells affected only warjacks.
Somewhere during game I realised that our feats had some funny interaction. Mordikaar gives +3 DEF, and Directrix' feat essentially gives +3 MAT & RAT to her battlegroup. If Mordikaar used feat first, there would be almost no effect from either feats. But if I wouldn't use feat first Skorne would have to deal with MAT & RAT 8. But enough rambling for now.
Round 2 Cipher shoots some rough terrain splotches and servitors come to tease Cetrati and contest my friendly flag. Various Convergence models shoot three Praetorian Swordsmen dead.
I'm wondering if I should lure out Iron Mother's feat now, but I decided not to, come what may.
Cetrati advance in shield wall and kill some servitors. Rhinodon charges a servitor in a trench. Mostly just to get the additional movement, since the King Bowser was crawling in the craters. Basilisk Krea and Cyclops Shaman used Paralytic Field again.
Mordikaar revives two swordsmen and advances to hug cover and Paralytic Field from Cyclops Shaman. Aptimus Marketh casts Ghost Walk on the swordsmen, who charge next. Modulator seemed like bad news for swordsmen, so I left that jack alone. In fact it looks like the two revived swordsmen were the only models who actually made casualties. They killed two servitors and one point to Monitor.
Basilisk Drake advances as much forward as possible and sprays Modulator and Mitigator. Damage roll to Mitigator was amazing, but not amazing enough to kill.
Round 3 Directrix uses her feat. But first remaining servitors mostly float around and miss things, though in case of Attunement Servitors that doesn't matter much. Some Cetrati and Basilisk Drake were under the effects of flare when Directrix activated.
Her own servitors shot Imperil to Basilisk Drake. Directrix cast a Shrapnel Swarm at the swordsmen, who mostly died. What else they could do? Then Mitigator and Modulator punish swordsmen even more. Well, at least that meant a lot of Fury for Mordikaar next turn. But real loss to the unit was the death of the officer who wouldn't be coming back.
Drake had suffered one point of damage either from Mitigator shot or the Shrapnel Swarm. Monitor proceeds to shoot Basilisk Drake, and rolls critical brutal damage. Thanks to Imperil the attack dealt 18 points of damage. I was remembering that most light warbeasts have about 20-21 damage boxes, so I was a bit shocked to find that the Monitor just killed the warbeast with one shot. Drake has only a total of 19 boxes. This was so unexpected that I forgot to use Feralgeist here.
Cipher and Assimilator shoot models at my friendly flag, but make no mistake. Basilisk Krea is worth it's weight in gold especially during MAT & RAT 8 feat turns. Enough attacks missed or did no damage at all. I think Agonizer took two points in from some vector.
Diffuser shoots Rhinodon and scores a hit. Modulator then charges Rhinodon, and damn it. The beast just dies there. And whole Cipher & Assimilator thing had looked so good just a moment before. And again I forgot to use Feralgeist.
But then it's Skorne, and obviously it's time for Mordikaar's feat. But before that happens Cetrati advance in shield wall and make attacks against the Modulator. Plasma Nimbus isn't that scary when you got ARM 20 and multiple damage boxes.
Basilisk Krea uses her animus and walks or charges into melee with the Modulator just because it can. But the vector ain't dead yet.
Beast Handlers enrage Cyclops Shaman and Archidon. Shaman charges Modulator and leaves it standing with just one box remaining. Aww heck. Archidon feels bold enough to charge Cipher, right there in the middle of three heavy vectors. I was counting on it surviving with DEF 17 and no focus allocation to enemy warjacks. Well, it does respectable damage but doesn't wreck Cipher.
Mordikaar activates now and uses feat. He revives three swordsmen and uses Krea's animus on himself. Mordikaar then shoots the last remaining damage point off from Modulators with his ranged attack and aiming bonus.
Praetorian Swordsmen charge around, and three of them wreck Mitigator. Well, that sounds grand, but most of the job had been done by Basilisk Drake last turn.
Last but definitely not least, Agonizer starts crying and runs into the trench.
Round 4 then. Despite all efforts made by Convergence the Agonizer just doesn't die. Diffuser gets it to one hit box remaining and nothing else hits or damages it. This was a lucky turn of events, since when I had rushed in with my only remaining heavy warbeast, I had been completely ignorant that some of the heavies had Sustained Attack. That could have been ugly.
All the heavy vectors mostly miss whatever they were attacking. Directrix shoots Feralgeist down. That was a good thing in case I would actually remember to use it one day... sigh...
Modulator on left kills swordsmen. That straight line of automatically hitting pow 10's (if the ranged attack is a direct hit against something) was surprisingly effective even during Mordikaar's feat.
Then it's Skorne. In the trench the Cetrati gang up on Diffuser and wreck it with a few combined melee attacks. And to nobody's surprise Agonizer continues to cry.
I was quite sure that an enraged Archidon would be able to wreck Cipher, so it charged Monitor and bought extra attacks against Cipher. But turned out that Archidon couldn't do it, so an enraged Cyclops Shaman had to come and make up for Archidon's failing. Last possible attack by Cyclops wrecks Cipher.
Mordikaar revives swordsmen, Marketh casts Ghost Walk on swordsmen and then swordsmen charge, but they don't do much. At least they were in the way of enemy models.
Round 5. Convergence makes good effort to get rid of every and all remaining Praetorian Swordsmen, but there were far too many misses for that to become reality. Monitor fails to kill Archidon. Only one attack hit and didn't break any branches.
I couldn't count on Archidon surviving much more any longer and after it died I wouldn't have much chances on wrecking three enemy heavies. Well, obviously Cetrati could do something, but their number of attacks would be quite limited. Same goes for Convergence, though. My guess is that situation would have went to full and slow trench warfare.
So I want to try an assassination instead. I've had dreams of charging a warcaster with Ghost Walking Archidon, and that dream finally came true.
It's just that...
It charged outside of Mordikaar's control area. So it was just amazing luck that Archidon hit with it's MAT 6 and dealt something like fifteen points of damage in. That felt almost like cheating.
After that Mordikaar advances to bring the warbeast back to control range. He casts Essence Blast on Archidon and finalizes Directrix with POW 15 spray.
My first impressions about Mordikaar?
Hollow is an amazing spell.
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