Saturday, March 3

League Game - Round 4 Cryx vs Menoth

Another League game today, this one was Round 4, Scenario 6 - Destruction. This was a very tricky scenario for me, involving killing 2 ARM20, HP20 monoliths.

I really had very few models capable of taking down these monoliths, namely Bane Lord Tartarus and Nightmare. Curse of Shadows would take them down to ARM18, but that still is not enough.

On the other hand, Josh's Menoth list was an excellent counter to my own lightly armoured Incorporeal list.

Grand Scrutator Severius
>Blessing of Vengence
>Reckoner
>Vanquisher
Choir of Menoth
Exemplar Errants + UA
Knights Exemplar
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Vassal of Menoth

So many Magic Weapons! Just about everything was capable of putting paid to most of my models, with a scary 15" threat range on his Errants even running Blackbanes couldnt out-threat them.

Sorry for the lack of pics for this game, I forgot to bring the good camera, and thought it would be a waste of time taking cellphone crappy pics.

Basically what happened was I picked first turn, and deployed most of my troops in the middle. There was two houses and some walls in the middle of the map, providing cover to my troops and Warjack. My Blackbanes were deployed opposite Knights Exemplar, and a few solos and a Deathripper vs the Errants. The majority of my forces were in the middle, taking on his Warjacks and Sevvy.

This game started out well for me, got really bad in the middle, and then managed to pull off an assassination right at the end that got me the win.

To begin with, I ran everything forward to behind cover. Josh responded the same way, and attempted to arc Ashes to Ashes into my unit of ghosts. This missed by the narrowest of margins, which really shook me up. It would have severely hurt me.

I managed to retaliate by harassing his Exemplars with ghosts, and attempted to flank around to avoid losing my ghosts with another Ashes to Ashes. I hid everything else behind houses, hoping to avoid being hit by the multiple heavy cannons and spells.

Blessing of Vengeance responded to this by running forward, deep into my lines - ready to arc Ashes to Ashes on my monolith which would have thrashed it, plus my solos hanging around there. Unfortunately for Josh, his caster was 1/2" out of control range and he was not able to arc anything! I also managed to capture two of his Warjacks with Machine Wraiths, which slightly frustrated them. He had shot my Monolith a few times by this point, and damaged it to half life.

Blessing of Vengeance took some heavy hits, a charge from Tartarus (and luckily he dodged Defensive Strike) took off his shield and most of his boxes. I had run the remaining Ghosts into the back of his army, and tried to kill Rupert - but failed. I also ran my Deathripper forwards, preparing to arc Hellmouth onto the Errants - and totally forgot they are immune to enemy spells. DAMMIT! My Deathripper was shot to bits in the next turn, losing his Arcnode and his Weapon.

Then the turn I almost lost on - Sevvy popped feat, catching Deneghra in it. The Monolith took a major beating, and was destroyed. I was no where near threatening his Monolith either. My damaged Deathripper was destroyed, and I also lost both my Machine Wraiths when Severius kicked them out of the Warjacks they were inhabiting. Knights Exemplar were getting into position to charge Deneghra, and they would wreck her face. Deneghra, on my next turn, had to retreat - no focus, no casting, and no arcing. I sacrificed Admonia (from the Withershadow Combine) as the Exemplars charged her.

Next turn was critical for me - with my Focus back, I allocated two to Nightmare and one to a Deathripper, and ran everything I had straight at Severious. Deneghra popped feat, locking his army in place (except one Choir member and one Errant) and cast Venom, killing some of the choir and the damned Vassal. Next turn, my whole army was ready to charge Severious - which I was hoping would kill him before he killed my last Monolith.

His turn, and I held my breath. 10 crossbow shots from the Errants managed to take off 1 damage off the Monolith. Nothing else had range on it, so I was safe. Nightmare suffered fire from being shot at by his Warjacks, but there were not able to get in melee range. Severious cast Ashes to Ashes, wiping out 3 ghosts, and then cast Vision and camped his last focus.

My turn - Vision is removed by the last surviving Blackbanes Ghost. The Warwitch Siren misses on a back strike. (MAT5? Seriously?) Marked for Death and Bane Lord Tartarus charges, reducting Severious to DEF12 ARM13. Nightmare activates and advances on his prey - 6 possible attacks, and kills him with the first claw attack. Cryx wins!

In conclusion. This was a tough matchup for me, possibly the toughest in the league. My best advantages, spell power and Incorporeal models were largely negated by the large number of Magic Weapons, the Errants UA, and Sevvys feat. ARM20 Monoliths were impossible (just about) for me to kill without losing my win condition - Nightmare.

I was lucky with a few key mistakes made on Josh's part, namely out of range for Ashes to Ashes and running Blessing outside of his control area. This game would have been very different if it wasnt for that.

I made a risky manouever, feigning a retreat with eDeneghra in order to bait Severius into coming closer, in range for a two turn feat + army charge. Luckily he advanced just enough to be in feat range and charge range for most of my models, which allowed me to set up the game winning charges.

Josh played excellently, and this was one of the fastest and accurate games Ive played, he really knows his models and rules as well as mine, and vice versa. We rarely had to check what the other players feats and spells did, and we are both quite adept at "5's to hit, dice minus 2 for damage".

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