It's Extraction into the partially Reds. With some Pink. And white. And Bare metal. Anyway, it's Khador.
The opposing pairing is Butcher1 and Vlad2. I'm expecting Vlad, which is a list I've played into a couple times. I'm confident with Gorten into it, ultimately though I needed more practice with Thexus so down he goes.
Thexus1 (Operating Theatre) - 2x Wrecker, 2x Agitator, 3x Slavers/Drudges, 2x Benders/Drudges, Alexia1/Risen/Matrix Escapee, 2x Overlords
Objective: Bunker
vs
Butcher1 (WGK) -Ruin, Juggernaught, 3x Marauder, WGRC + 3x Rocketeer, WGI + UA, 2x WGI Mortar, WGI Field Gun, Kovnik Joe
Objective: Bunker
Well, that was a surprise. At least Thexus doesn't have to live in fear of super dooper Kayazy Eliminators coming a knocking.
I lose the roll, get given first. We've got some green templates spread around as forests, a cloud between two of those tree lots for a wall of line of sight block and a massive central hill with an obstruction on it next to the left flag. Khador side also gets a wall.
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Merc 1: Nothing super exciting. Drudges run forward. Overlords are on the extreme left and inter meshed with the drudge blob on the right.
Thexus cowers in a forest bravely.
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Khador 1: Khador stuff sticks away from the flanks, corralled by Trebor's favourite ambush unit, Slaver Drudges.
Marauder leads out on the left, Juggernaught behind. Rifle Corp behind them shoot down a front Risen.
The second Marauder moves up the centre, with the third iteration on the far right behind the forest in which the right flag makes its home. The WGI infantry are spread out between and behind that centre and right side Marauder, with Ruin behind the wall behind them to not be subject to my feat. Butcher is dead centre, Iron Fleshes himself. The various artillery pieces all charge up for their big move of the game.
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Merc 2: Plan this turn is to holdfeat and dent up the Marauders. I opt to not bring in the ambushers, expecting them to be better off when the lines are more engaged.
The Mind Bender units both Adrenal the Slaver unit next to them, Alexia creates a Thrall on the hill.
The Wreckers run out to either side to be arc nodes. Lacking a Sac Pawn target, Thexus maneuvers in the forest to not be in the line of sight of anything as I pictured Butchered feated Rockets and blast damage disintegrating him. Exulon pops Decel, which gives Drudges the vague resemblance of defensive stats against guns. I then TK one of the left Overlords and place the right most Marauder outside of Butchers control and turned around.
The Green Slaver Drudges on the left charge the left most Marauder, spiked rolls take out the Cortex and right arm.
Also on that side, the Overlords move up, two remain behind the forest, the last gets up the board and Influences a Mortar, who takes a shot at the Field Gun (Damnable minimum range! All those Rifle Corp......). The Mortar misses, scatters back, kills the Field Gun Crew and hits Joe. I roll the damage. Joe toughs. So close to glory.....
Other Overlords wiggle around in the centre, waiting to Physic Assault the WGI when they come up and spray down my stuff.
So......the screw ups. Oh God the screw ups.
I placed a Drudge in the way of the Thrall, so he hangs on the hill instead of charging the left damaged Marauder.
One of the Agitators didn't activate.
The need for one Wrecker to go far across to arc on the right most Marauder meant that the Adrenal Drudges couldn't charge at all, so I wasted three Mind Bender Drudges to casting spells for no reason.
Most damning of all though......I killboxed myself. Pretty sure my internal scream nearly broke the glasses in the bar next door.
Khador goes to 2 CP.
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Khador 2: With the inevitably of Wile E Coyote realising he's treading on air, the Khadorans load up and start the scoring mission. Butcher hangs back near his objective.
The Various Artillery pieces kill Slaver Drudges around the place.
On the left, the Rifle Corp advance. Six form a literal firing line, assemble a Rail Gun together and explode the Thrall who was hiding on the hill behind the obstruction. The rest do various mulch shots around the place, clearing Drudges contesting the flags.
The left Juggernaught kills a Drudge, tries and flails at the Overlord who Influenced the Mortar. The Marauder goes up to the flag.
On the right, the WGI pop their mini feat, come up and spray away. They aren't super successful, but have enough attacks to clear the flag and pop the Slaver running the Pink Drudges. Command 4 time!
Ruin stays up behind the wall.
Khador goes to 4 CP.
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Merc 3: Being down on Scenario with Thexus feels utterly surreal.
It's not all bad though, I think I can pull this off. If Butcher had held his feat I'd be screwed, as is my mission statement just becomes grind it out and bank on a Decelled Bunker not being liable to die to ranged attacks.
Thexus moves his floaty carcass forward, pops feat to bunch up infantry. I wasn't super enthused for this, as I wanted it to stay as an option against Ruin, ultimately I didn't have that luxury as as many things needed to die as possible at this point.
I cast Decel, which is now mandatory rather than nice. I TK the right Marauder again, I'm going to kill it with a Wrecker and use the forest as a shield from Ruin getting in and killing him.
On the left, the Ambushers come in. One runs to engage the left side Mortar, which I know will lead to the whole "Take Up gets around engaging with a single model interaction". Damnable rules. I get one two man in on a Rifle Corp, triggering a Prep for Surgery. A few charge into the Juggernaught, they don't do especially well.
The Overlords move up around the Juggernaught, one does an excellent spray, the other two Influence Rocketeers who find the centre Marauder really hard to hit and consequently do sod all. Imph. Imph I say!
Around the left flag, the Wrecker goes to max contest range, needing to stay away from the Juggernaught charge as that would be game ending. He attacks the damaged Marauder, sadly without an Instigate buff caused by last turns non-activation. Does a chunk of damage, leaves him with a few boxes. The Green Drudges come in and manage to get it done.
The central Overlords move up, spray down a bunch of the WGI that my feat bunched up.
Wrecker on the right manages to bin the right side Marauder, burning all his focus.
The Pink Drudges run up and join the right flag contesting party, forced to crowd anyway by their leaders mighty Command 4.
I get on the scoreboard, now 4 to 1 for Khador.
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Khador 3: Sure enough, the left Mortar uses Take up to get out of the way. The various Artillery bits plink away, killing some Green Drudges on the left and rolling flat out awful on the Pink Drudge blob, for whom the Mortar got an excellent shot.
The Juggernaught kills two of the Overlords on the far left, Rifle Corp futz around and kill two of the centre Overlords.
The remaining Marauder comes up, fails to kill an Agitator. The few remaining WGI spread out contesting the right flag, tough out some of the Pink Drudges.
The last move is the clincher and easily the biggest problem. Ruin and Butcher move up, the Jack in charge range of the Objective. Eep.
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Merc 4: Biggest issue is Ruin, plan is to flood the front of the Objective to deny him a landing place, the Drudge Horde can seize the left side in future turns while I trade out a Wrecker to kill Ruin, then I'll be able to Telekinesis Butcher and turn him around while I slowly score up and just jam him out for the endgame.
Left wise, the Yellow Ambush Drudges charge in. Two go into the Mortar, ones in the back arc so I stupidly don't bother to CMA and promptly miss twice. Hmm. Several Rifle Corp die and I Prep Surgery another couple times.
The Wrecker on this side moves toward the centre for the Murder Ruin if he comes forward plan, contesting the left flag and being outside of the Juggernauts threat range.
Thexus casts Decel, TK's the Marauder up to get in my Wreckers Line of Sight and free up the Agitator, who moves to the right flag and Instigates. Said Wrecker then kills the Marauder.
The Pink Slaver unit kills a couple WGI and other just sit around the flag waiting to be souls for Ruin.
Last, every remaining model runs in front of my objective. One dies to a counter charging War Doge. I sadly have once again failed to place any Risen, making my screen far more anemic than it needs to be.
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Khador 4: Butcher, Winter Guard and Artillery attacks clear out a space, Ruin charges in and one shots the Objective, Khador get the deserved 5th point. Khador had 6 minutes, I had 10, so I'd probably need to win in about three rushed rounds.
While discontent with my Killboxing, I did quite enjoy trying to pull that one out. With only the relatively minor screw ups (Relative to Killboxing, so not exactly small errors) I think this matchup fairly easily goes to Thexus.
