I played with Circle of Orboros with following list:
Cassius the Oathkeeper
- Riphorn Satyr
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Woldwatcher
- Gorax
Minimum unit of Tharn Ravagers + Chieftain
Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Minimum unit of Farrow Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
2x Gallows Grove
Druid Wilder
Lanyssa Ryssyll
Opponent had:
Darius
- Stormwall
- Centurion
- Ol' Rowdy
Black 13th
Journeyman Warcaster
Gorman diWulfe
Ragman
Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Epic Eiryss
Scenario was Close Quarters and Cygnar started game. There are a couple of important proxies in the pictures - huge base is obviously Stormwall. Orange medium base on the other hand represents Darius. Gobbers are storm pods.
First picture is from the end of Circle turn 1. On the other hand I tried to stay far from the Stormwall AoE's, and yet I wanted to present some sort of a threat. But I was sorely suffering from the symptom that's being called a "clustercoitus" in the internets. Well, technically that's not true. The actual term is far less... clinical. Anyway. Everyone was in the way of everyone.
Turn 2 Cygnar advanced a little bit and laid down a curtain of damaging AoE's. Stormwall had Arcane Shield.
I decided to charge with Ravagers anyway, and lost one in the process. Only one got to make any attacks, and those were against Black 13th. The Ravager killed two of the gun mages. Repair those, Darius!
The rest of my forces just gathered into a huge blob of meat and soul, and Cassius used his feat. He also cast Stranglehold on Ol' Rowdy.
I had intuitively thought that Lanyssa's Winter storm does not affect colossals, because, well, nothing affects colossals. But Winter storm does. Damn it. That would have made the game to look very different if I would have advanced more with Lanyssa and use the spell in question... but alas, I didn't.
Turn 3 Stormwall tramples right next to my heavy warbeasts. After that Darius spams Jackhammer with all of his focus points, which results in dead Riphorn Satyr. What kept me somewhat in the game was the fact that defence 14 made Warpwolf Stalker survive the onslaught.
The situation is a bit tricky now. And I guess my greatest failing as a competitive player is not making up my mind with different plans, and stick to it. I had two options: try to assassinate Darius now. There might not be another chance to do that even if I would be able to bring Stormwall down. Another one was try to beat Stormwall dead.
I made a compromise: I'd beat Stormwall with everything I got, and then decide what to do with 11 fury points Cassius would have. What happened was that Primaled Stalker, Woldwatcher, Wolves of Orboros with Power Swell and Tharn Ravager chieftain charged it. They did okay-ish... but did not destroy the colossal Arm 22 warjack. It had only a few damage points left, so I was torn between trying to assassinate Darius and finish the colossal off with Cassius.
I chose to attack the colossal. Now. If I had originally planned just to kill the colossal and bother with Darius later, I could have activated Cassius first and cast Curse of Shadows on it. This way I might have had some resources to attacks something else.
Turn 4 Darius starts scoring points from his own flag, and his warjacks just shuffled around - because they could. My warpwolf would be frenzying next turn.
I had a clear charge lane to Darius with Cassius. He was camping something like five focus points, though. So instead Cassius charged either him or Ol' Rowdy, I forget which. He casts Curse of Shadows on Darius, and jumps back to safety with Unseen path. Woldwatcher advances to contest the enemy flag. Wolves of Orboros tried to kill Gorman and perhaps tickle Centurion.
Turn 5 Gorman survives a free strike from Wolf of Orboros, and he lobs Black Oil on Warpwolf Stalker. Centurion then butchers the warbeast. I don't remember how Darius spent the rest of his focus, but an educated guess would be on Jackhammer to Ol' Rowdy. There must have been some pretty awful dice rolls involved, because Woldwatcher didn't die. However, Journeyman Warcaster cast Arcane Shield on Darius.
So now I needed to kill the orange medium base. I did have the tools for it, I just used them a little bit foolishly. First I tried to shoot Darius with everything I got - that included Arcane Bolt from the remaining Bonegrinders and Ice Bolt from Lanyssa. Lanyssa was hoping for a lucky critical hit. After the game it was pointed out that had they killed Journeyman Warcaster instead, that would have meant Arm 16 Darius for me to handle. Well. Killing the journeyman would have required at least 7+ hit from both, and 8+ to instantly kill with Ice Bolt, and 9+ with Arcane Bolt. But perhaps combined...
I see one more desperate chance to aid Cassius in his endeavour. First Woldwatcher advances so it quite doesn't leave Ol' Rowdy's melee range. Gorax then performs a two handed throw on it, and tries to throw the wold on Sylys Wyshnalyrr, who had ran to protect Darius. Initially I estimated that perhaps Gorax would clip Darius on a direct hit and if Gorax would miss, deviation still had a chance to knock Darius over. But a direct hit it was, and Darius did not get knocked down. Even Sylys had the insolence not to die to the collateral damage roll.
Well, that was all I could do.
Next Cassius and Wurmwood used cool party tricks and shenanigans to get next to Darius, and started beating. I would roll damage with -7 and Darius did have twenty two damage boxes. I decided to roll without attack boosts, because I had enough fury points for either two fully boosted attacks (and perhaps one completely unboosted), or three or four damage boosted attacks if I skipped the attack boost and rolled 7+ to hit.
Two attacks hit and made Darius go somewhere around eight hit boxes left or something. So at least the six additional damage points it would have meant for me wouldn't have made a difference... if that's of any consolation.
But it was all a phantasm, really. There was only some orange glow on the ground where Darius was supposed to be.
You can't kill what does not exist.
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