.....Divide and Conquer 1 you say?.....
Cryx you have? Well......fuck....
Gorten1 - Earthbreaker, Siege Crawler, Ninja Pig, 2x Kayazy Eliminators, Eiryss2, Harlen Versh, Anastasia, Thor, Aiyanna and Holt
vs
Skarre1 (Dark Host) - Kraken, 2x Stalker, 2x Bane Warrior (Max) + UA, Skarlock, Bane Knights (Min?), Tartarus
I lose the roll for the first time in the day (Dammit Anastasia! Spy harder!), get given first. This proves to be quite painful shortly.
Scenario is the Pit 2, so centre circle zone with each flank have a rectangle that in turn has an aligned objective on one edge.
I have a wall formation on the left, a hill in my centre backfield and an awkward obstruction on teh right.
The left Rectangle has a big blob of water around the Cryx objective, the centre circle has a forest that favours the Cyrx side.
There's other terrain on the cryx side that I don't think comes up (Forest/trench/hill).
Not confident going in, double Huge Base into Cryx hitting power feels bad, likewise Skarre has answers to my various reasonable defence solos. The biggest issue is that forest in centre of the zone, I have poor answers for the Stalkers that can hide behind then come out, leap and kill whatever they want. Outside of that however Epic Pit is ok for Gorten's feat (Sure isn't the original version alas) and the Cryxian threat ranges are rather explicit.
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Round 1: stuff runs at each other.
The Crawler fangs a shade out left, as the Kraken is something it *reeeaaallllyyyy* wants to shoot a few times. Plus that odd wall formation has good defensive potential again melee in later rounds.
Ninja Pigs go far left, intent being to kill things threatening the Crawler.
Gorten, Eliminators, Versh, Aiyanna/Holt go up the centre.
Thor, Earthrbeaker and Eiryss go for the right.
The Kraken heads basically straight towards the Crawler, fanging for the left/centre zone border. The Stalkers stay behind clouds/forests. Skarlock sacrifices a Knight for focus.
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Merc 2: Simple enough, get out some pot shots, try to limit the amount of points I'll give away.
Left wise, the Pigs jiggle around. Rorsh shoots down a Bane Warrior.
The Crawler goes exactly 12 away from teh Kraken and shoots it for some nice early damage. he periscopes a Knight in the Cryx clouds because it might as well.
Centrally, Gorten shuffles toward the Crawler, ptus down a wall that stops the Kraken being able to get into the Battle Engine. Solid Ground is up. Versh touches the centre zone, outside of the charge rane of anything. The Red Eliminators form up behind him.
Right ways, Earthbreaker tries to scatter some AoE's to no avail. Eiryss shoots a Warrior, repositions back. The Green Eliminators run over here, one toes the right zone outside of anythings threat range.
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Cryx 2: Mostly there isn't much for anything to do, so Banes run forward and engage things. The Kraken forgot to be allocated to, so shoots the Crawler with a single boosted damage to do about 8 points or so. Rorsh, the Crawler, Versh all get engaged. Both Stalkers wander into the forest. One Warrior does get a charge on my obejctives, leaves it on 8 boxes.
Cryx score the left zone, now 0-1.
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Merc 3: I get tempted to feat this turn, the Bane Warrior engaging Versh is in charge range and nets me the stuff in the zone and the Kraken. I determine this would be awful, as one Stalker is out of range and would come in on Skarre's feat and kill me easily. The play becomes attrition for the turn, with the primary goal being to kill the Kraken.
Aiyanna and Holt go amongst the walls, she harms the Kraken, he shoots it. The Crawler then moves into little gun range, sadly under rolls on his little gun shots. A bit more desperate for attacks now (A crit Stagger would have also freed up my turn considerably), the Red Eliminators charge in with Combo strikes which also contest the left and centre zone, Gorten tries a double shot. Harlen is engaged so has to walk over and stab down a Knight (The Thrall engaging him is amazingly far out of command). The Kraken lives with movement, an arm and cortex up, so sadly the Earthbreaker instead of getting to fall back and pew pew has to advance to land the killing blows (Kraken had 6ish boxes left). He rolls low on overall shots, so only kill a few Bane Warriors around him (he was meant to shoot a Stalker down, alas I forgot to periscope with the Crawler).
Skipping over to the far left, Anastasia had ambushed and charges the Bane officer in the back. break armour and he toughs. This is going.....poorly.....
Enough Bane Warriors have died for the Officer to get the max use out of his mini feat, so I decide to sacrifice Ninja Pig to try to save the left flank. Brine kills a couple Warriors, freeing up Rorsh to shoot down the Officer and some more Grunts.
Rightwise, aside from the Earthrbeaker, Eiryss shoots a Warrior and repositions back. Green Eliminators get into the zone, killing three Bane Warriors.
I score the right zone, so 1 all.
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Cryx 3: Skarre feats on 7 models (Herself, Stalkers, Warriors), casts Dark Guidance, comes in and kills the Red Eliminators (A screwed up activation order means she only snacks and eats for one box of healing).
The left Warriors stretch themselves out, kill Aiyanna, Ninja Pigs and Anastasia.
A Bane Knight guts Versh in the centre.
The Stalkers, Tartarus and right side unit come in on that side, bizarrely the Earthbreaker lives though with no arms and a grand total of three boxes. The Green Eliminators die.
Cryx score the left zone again with Skarre, now up 2v1.
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Merc 4: The Attrition play is advance with Gorten, feat, then use the Crawler to bulldoze Holt free, advance, pew pew the Objective and non-skarre feated left side Banes or Objective. Earthbreaker gets repaired and Sweeps to kill most of the stuff on the right, plus boosting to hit on the Stalkers (even with penalties has about a 50% chance to knock out a system).
My concern with that is Gorten probably ends up flapping in the breeze, so 12 focus Skarre could have a good run on him. I instead misread my assassination odds and go for that, which is not the correct play.
Skarre has 3 camp and is feated on, 10 health remaining.
Gorten walks up, feats her into his melee range. Hits with all his Forge Father attacks, no crits. Boosting the damage rolls strips her of all of her focus camp, leaves her on 5 boxes. Crawler goes in, shoots with Dual Attack. Big guns put Skarre on 1 box. Desperation shots from Earthbreaker do nothing, Holt risks free strikes to try to get in and dies.
Well, that's that I guess.
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Cryx 4: Skarre gets her regular focus (Skarlock ran out of regular targets previous round and had to get up the board).
She misses with her Rack, then does Swords attacks. Takes off most of Gortens health. The non-Gorten feated on Stalker walks over and pounces into melee, punches the Dwarf to 1 box. Due to the models that were in threat range being curtailed by speed reductions and no charges, that it for melee. The Skarlock moves up, targets the Stalker with a Blood Rain to land Corrosion. It scatters forward, goes max distance and just hits the Crawler.
Earthbreaker and my Objective die, not relevant at this point.
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Merc 5: Gorten and Skarre agree to not talk about this and go there seperate ways. At least according to my headcannon.
Or Gorten unches Skarre to death, take your pick.
Well, that was just a silly in the end. Gorten can take on straightforward lists, doesn't makie him want to play Cryx (Though the concept of playing this into Ghost Fleet doesn't merit any consideration, as I haven't lost my mind that badly yet).
I don't make the top 4 cut alas, so that's my first of hopefully many flunkies in the opening round of Tas champs.
