Game 409 - Thexus1 (OT) vs Krueger2 (DH)

Game 409 - Thexus1 (OT) vs Krueger2 (DH)
Spread the Net

We return to a world with less Caine3 and loads more stilted Infernal releases. No strong opinions yet, if I was Eilish I can see selling my soul to regain Hexblast after losing it in CID (This line blatantly stolen from Chickenslayer).

Returning back to the stump of how to deal with Circle, the next theory is maybe enough physic blasts that don't care about line of sight can do it?

Thexus, battlegroup is triple Warden. Mostly a hangover from my previous generalised build (Back when Thexus was main and Gorten covered the weak matchups, times have changed), thinking the Shield Guards would be used to counter Lord of the Feast placement.
Maxed out the Overlords, something I thought I'd never do to the point of not owning a third unit, working on that. Pathfinder and pew pew ahoy.
Maxed out Mind Bender Drudges, felt like I might not need the slight melee benefits/spawning of the punchy Drudges.
Solo mixes of max Agitators, Machine Wraith, Pistol Wraith.
Had eight points at the end of that, for the week up to the game it was a min unit of punchy drudges that could ambush in. The day before I changed my mind and flipped in the recently buffed Devil's Shadow with a Dominator, thinking that Zira could pew pew, die, then get resurrected by her fellows.

This time the Devouring Host is led by Krueger2 (Cliche line about my Mark2 nightmares), still rocking the double Ravagers with a two battlegroup then Ravager bits and bobs for days. Let us compare our use of TK then?

Spread the Net. Hmm. Given the Tharn want to get up in my face, not super confident this will work out like I'd hoped. I won the die roll, elected first to get board space. This did lump me with garbage terrain of forests and water that would slow up the Drudges and Monstrosities. Circle get a couple hills and a wall that doesn't matter.
Other notable piece is a fog blob in the centre of the board, Circle have the Guidance Bog Trog, so if it's important enough they can make it work.


Round 1: Everyone's stuff runs up, the Drudges but up behind the rough terrain. The Machine Wraith leans toward the left side, the Pistol Wraith the right. I do a convoluted series of Drudge/Monstrosity placements to prevent Lord of the Feast coming up and straight up ganking Thexus.
This proves negligible when everything Tharn runs up and the Feasty Boy hangs near the right hill.


Mercs 2: Krueger had whimsically dropped all his Fury. My options were, if I ran up a Warden, was to either double Hex Blast boosting damage or Rampage the two beasts to punch him. I ended up opting for neither, one beast couldn't get into the backup and they turned out to have lame punchyness when unbuffed (The hoppy Goat and a Feral) and the Hexblastyness relied landing a pair of unboosted 6's. Bad test result if it works anyway.

I decided to try to feat and get some attrition in. Wardens fumbled around a little bit, positioning for arcing stuff.
Thexus moves across, TK's Aiyanna forward. Feats to push Lord of the Feast and the right side unit of Ravagers together. Also pushes the beasts away. One Ravager also gets TK'ed around.

Aiyanna moves up, lands Harm. Holt pew pews a Ravager down. Two units of Overlords move forward, one unavoidably ends up toeing the centre cloud. The Ravagers, aside from the officer up the back, all die. Lord of the Feast basically giggles at the feeble POW 12's attacking him.

The Pistol Wraith runs up the far right edge of the board, mostly to be an annoyance. I can't provide a rational reason for that decision.

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My ultimate feeling at the end of that turn is that a unit of Ravagers wasn't a good enough trade for the feat. If I pop Lord of Feast it would have been better. I weighed up if I was better off casting Influence on Ravagers to boop Feasty, the answer is yes in terms of higher success chance due to higher POW, still atrociously low to the point of unworkable. Arm 19 is just a stretch to far to kill with unboosted damage rolls available to the list. Ho-hum.


Circle 2:Wolves and Hippes sniff the Buffy cover up drug instead of free love and start murdering mah stuff. Ravagers come forward up left, kill half a dozen Mind Bender Drudges with mini-feat, stealthy murder solo chicks run up to contest my flag.

Right wise on jumpy wolf rider gets magic weapons from the solo dude and pops the pistol Wraith
His bro vetoes the place of Billy Connolly in a dreadful fantasy Trilogy, pops forward to kill a couple Drudges and get into my rectangle zone.
Lord of the Feast and the last Ravager on this side (The officer) kill the forward six Overlords, teleports with the Raven into my back arc. Realistically Thexus dies here, better Warden placement is required to keep him safe. Duly noted.

Krueger saddles up and trots into the trench, Circle 3 off the left/centre zone and their flag. This ship is going down quick smart.

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We play out another round, I clear out the stuff around my left flag and rectangle and use a Rampage to shuffle out the scoring beast on Circle Rectangle, however ultimately my miscalculation with the Pistol wraith is more costly than I imagined, even with TK and Adrenal movements the furthest I can get any model is half an inch from contesting the Circle flag.

Ergo Circle score on my turn to make it 4-2, Krueger and beasts then trivially clear out the centre circle and contest up to get the scenario win.

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Triple Wardens didn't really work out, so the battlegroup will have some modificaitons. Sadly there is a high chance one will be a Subduer for the soul purpose of sacrificing itself to kill Lord of the Feast. In hindsight, the Pistol Wraith doesn't really meaningfully do anything to the Tharn list either, especially without a grab bag source of souls. His function is better served by a Machine Wraith.

Triple Benders/Overlords will stay for the moment, no real need for the punchier Drudges yet. Will drop Devil's Shadow for the above, they were excess to requirements.

Game 408 - Gorten1 (Irr) vs Denny1 (DH) - League Rnd 2

Game 408 - Gorten1 (Irr) vs Denny1 (DH) - League Rnd 2
Epic Recon

League round 2: No more Mag-aloo. Flipping in a new version of the Gorten list, throwing in the Galleon. Had another version that evolved from the OTC lists using the Steelhead Volley Guns, don't currently own those so plonking this one down instead.

Ye olde push and pull Dorf fella no longer has a viable Strength of Granite target, heavies dropped for a half a dozen bunnies split between sprays and hand cannon versions. Double Pressgangers remain to be vaguely sticky, using their lives to gun up giant cogs. Alexia2 made it in again as did Eiryss1 and Grogspar, Hawk got added now that she's a Sprinting Lunging machine thingy (Though I do miss Savio). Rounded off with Gastonne1 controlling a Galleon.

Notably, Gorten as a Rhulic caster can't reactivate the Galleon and there are no Marshalls in the list, just to make Gastonne even more of a potential weak point. Woot.


Recon 2 isn't ideal for me, basically have to push one zone in the scenario play to get the lazy win on feat turn, plus going into Denny1 Banes so clouds and stealth might make the assassination harder. Guess we'll see.

Both sides get a wall near their objective, making both Galleon and Kraken placement have some annoying positioning issues. Otherwise there's a central forest and other terrain that doesn't hugely impact play.

I lose the die roll, take the side with a vaguely defensive hill and a better hiding possibility with the central forest. Figure if Denny isn't available to die then we hide behind the forest and pop shots into the Kraken until it falls over (Spray bunnies can deal with the Banes once all the Press Gangers die gloriously in combat for three fiddy).


Round Uno, the game I keep getting official rules clarifications for on twitter: Both sides run at each other, the Kraken opts for the right side. Galleon ops for even Rightier.
Bane Warriors are on both flanks with the Knights in the centre, Denny goes up behind the wall.

The Pressgangers form literal lines, as Solid Ground stops being too concerned. The Galleon went so far right primarily because I completely forgot the point of it being in the list, which is to shove Gorten forward another 2 inches with it's new Crane rule. Whoopsie daisies.
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Cryx 2: Banes! Banes everywhere! They swarm forward and get into my grill for the most part.
Kraken moves up, kills a couple Press Gangers (enough to fuel up Alexia).
Denny moves up and feats, she arcs a Venom on the left that sees a pair of Gangers tough out and Hawk dies. Dangit.
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Merc 2: My plan had been to do a chip turn, have the Galleon/Handcannons kill the arc nodes, then ding the Kraken. Spray down some Banes. Send Alexia's triple Thrall missiles to hopefully finish off the Kraken.

Undead avarice rendered that plan less pointfull, as in order to get more stuff (Bunnies and Gorten) under feat Denny had walked over her wall and could be dragged forward. Time to attempt some juicy murder.

There's a spread of Bane Knights in front of her with the Defensive Strike mini-feat (Anti-PP quibble: The Bane Knight UA is a signature piece of failed design principles, far to many rules on one model, they should stop that) and she is camping....two focus? (Boosted Venom, fuelled up Kraken, the amth checks out!).

The Press gangers move around to be the wall of Banes-Being-Pushed blocking. They pass an absurdly high amount of their tough rolls, one dies out of the fiveish attacks that hit.

Gorten is feated on, so with his glorious speed of 2 he is an inch out of feat range. Grogspar winds his arm up....
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...and trivially lands the hit, luckily he was out of Denny's feat range so Gorten was pseudo defence 9. Yes, none of this is required if I place the Galleon centrally (i.e correctly).

Gorten goes forward 6 inches, he ends up in a Machine Wraith (Proxied by a Brute Thrall) so gets about 5 forward. Grogy does a damage point. Gorten then activates, throws out an Eruption at a Bane Knight, backs up a tiny bit and drags Denny and most of the Banes forward. The Eruption does a solid whack to Denny.

Denny ends up engaged with a Press Ganger, I wanted to land an Eiryss shot alas it seems untenable. One Spray and two Gun Bunnies later Denny is splattered. Still had Eiryss potential, Galleon blast damage desperation, another Bunny and a fully loaded Alexia to go.
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Pretty happy in the matchup anyway on the proviso I can kill the Arc Nodes on my turn 2, just to ensure Gastonne lives. After that Bunnies and Galleon shooting feels like it'll do well at the expense of Press Ganger lives, which is what it's for.

No list issues at present. Need to actually use Galleons rules. Dislike not having a Tinker/Anastasia/Bradigan in, though not a real drama. Haek is better list wise, functionally replacing Savio. I did ponder putting the JAIMs in, expect one game against Tharn or Ogrun will kill that notion.