I still wanted to play with Goreshade. I want to see him work one way or another. And as the Black Ogruns had demonstrated their effectiveness in such an exquisite manner last game, I was forced to leave them out. It hurts me to do that, but I have to harden myself. Those bastards (no, not my warcaster) have hurt my feelings, and they need to take a little pause to reflect on what they have done.
But what should I add instead? Perhaps something universally efficient, like more Banes? Hell no!
My list:
Goreshade the Bastard
- Harrower
- Leviathan
- Nightmare
Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + Skarlock Overseer
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Maximum unit of Soulhunters
Darragh Wrathe
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Warwitch Siren
Saxon Orrik
Objective: Fuel Cache
Opponent had:
Feora, Priestess of Flame
- Judicator
- Avatar of Menoth
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Daughters of the Flame
The Covenant of Menoth
Hierophant
Vassal of Menoth
Wracks
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Scenario was Recon, and Protectorate started game. Nightmare's prey was Daughters of the Flame. I thought that I didn't have a real answer for their high defence, so if they decided to hurl themselves to block my advance, I'd have at least Nightmare who would reliably take them down.
Recon is a nice scenario for objective placement. All of my warjacks packed themselves close to it to possibly benefit from charges at some point in the game.
Turn 2 Protectorate huddled forward. Looked like Feora would be going for left flag while Bastions, Avatar and Judicator would be contesting the zone. Challenge accepted!
Annoying deviation from Judicator caused Necrotech to perish.
On my turn Nightmare moved to the left to discourage Feora from dominating the flag. Fully loaded Leviathan and a focusless Harrower shot at the enemy objective, but rolls are fairly poor. Darragh Wrathe moves a bit and casts Death Ride, mostly just moving the Soulhunters tad forwards. Then Soulhunters charge. One goes to objective and one to a Bastion. Objective shatters and Bastions take, if I remember correctly, eleven points of damage divided between them.
Mechanithralls ran behind the Soulhunters and prayed for unlucky deviations from Judicator.
Turn 3 Protectorate moves Eiryss close close to Nightmare and disrupted it. Daughters of the Flame charged Warwitch Siren, or at least one of them tried. Charge fell only a few millimetres short.
Judicator tried to shoot my objective, and thanks to atrocious dice the fuel cache remained nearly uninjured. Bastions kill one of the Soulhunters who had charged in. Only one, because other Bastion missed. Avatar had to come and make the Soulhunter a gruesome example how things should be done.
Feora advances to dominate left flag and casts Wall of Flame to protect from charges by totally expected unexpected Bane Thralls.
Cryx turn 3 is a bit disappointing. It has a beautiful start when Saxon Orrik made his one and only shot during whole damn game, and that shot killed Vassal of Menoth.
Darragh casts Death Ride again to move Deathwalker slightly, and then do random repositioning here and there. Soulhunters then charge the two Bastions that are blocking charges to Avatar of Menoth, and the damage rolls were exceedingly good yet again. Black Ogruns - take a look here how underused models should perform! Oh, don't start that "but we do roll double sixes" talk to me, because that doesn't count if it happens only in Command checks!
Anyway. Light cavalry movement later there is now space for Mechanithralls to charge Avatar. Now looking back I should have taken a free strike with one of the Soulhunters (and possibly set a second one on fire...) to have space for one additional Mechanithrall. But that didn't happen. Only two grunts and a Brute Thrall get to it. And I had already expended my allotment of good rolls, damage done was alarmingly low.
Deathwalker runs close to Eiryss, and then Leviathan comes and shoots her dead. Now Warwitch Siren was able to Power Boost Nightmare, who then charged Feora. Sadly Nightmare wasn't within 4" of the objective, so it had to hit Def 15 with it's Mat 8. Nope. Not today, little one.
Harrower who had been allocated one focus charges Avatar for free, and also Harrower misses. It buys additional attack and breaks Avatar's shield, but otherwise it was fully functional. Damn.
Now. Goreshade did have three focus on him, so either I would start scoring points, too, by running Goreshade to right flag. Other option was to call Nightmare back and leave Feora grinding points from the flag. The damage to Avatar had been so damnably low that I'd lose both Harrower and Leviathan most probably next turn, so if I called Nightmare back with Soul Gate, it'd have a lot on its hands to do after that.
So I decided to leave Nightmare there, next to Feora. Goreshade ran to the flag with three Focus on camp and hoped that there was enough stuff between him and the Avatar.
Turn 4 Protectorate dedicates everything to removing everything that was blocking Avatar. It started to look rather nice, when Bastions showed to Avatar what they had learned from its earlier lesson - that was, nothing. Well, they do break Harrower's movement. Judicator misses rocket volleys really badly, which leaves the Mechanithralls right next to Avatar alive, though they take down either the Skarlock Commander or the actual unit leader model. A spray attack kills both Soulhunters on the right side of Avatar.
Feora casts Engine of Destruction and leaves the flag to advance as far as possible to shoot the last remaining Mechanithrall with her flamethrower. This gives Nightmare a free strike, but since it had done no damage earlier, the eight points it did now was nothing. The Mechanithrall is just out of reach, and I swear I spent fifteen minutes looking at the pictures trying to figure what Feora did to actually kill the thrall? After all 8" range on flamethrower is equal to 8" range of Immolation.
Oh wait. It's not. Immolation is 10" if Hierophant is close enough.
Avatar has free reign then, but it has to survive one free strike by Harrower. Six damage points to column 5 would take out the sword arm. It's only a roll of 9+ with three dice! You can do it, Harrower! Come on!
Screw this undamage-able Avatar. Harrower scores four or five points or something like that, which is enough to fill columns one, two and three. But our Avatar here has Movement boxes even in column four.
It's possible that Avatar slew Goreshade in just one hit. I'm not entirely certain on that, but I guess Goreshade just can't escape Menoth's wrath. Not that Menoth has any particular reason to hate Goreshade, though.
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