Thexus1 (Operating Theater) - 2x Wardens, Subduer, 3x Slavers, 2x Benders, Alexia with Dominator, 2x Overlords
vs
Goreshade2 (Dark Host) - 2x Bone Jack, 2x Stalker, Wraith Engine, Bane Cav (Max), 2x Bane Warriors + UA's (One Max, One Min), 2x lots of Scrapthralls
Scenario is Breakdown/Barbell again, so a centre rectangle with circles on either side. Slower than other scenarios, but plays well with Thexus whose lsit naturally wants to follow that engagement pattern anyway (A Monstrosity up the guts with units on the sides).
I......lose the die roll? Cryx take first anyway. I take a side with a central defensive wall that Thexus can hide behind and direct stuff like the wannabe general he is. My side also has a hill and obstruction on it's sides, they don't massively affect the game. There's a large forest in teh centre rectangle, groaning about Stalkers incoming. Cryx get some other terrain pieces that I don't think come into play, plus their clouds which also aren't super relevant.
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Round 1: They're coming right for us!
Sure enough the Stalkers go into the centre forest, threaten me in a way which is super mean.
Bane Cav move up on the right, Warriors flock out behind. Goreshade puts Mirage on the Cav, hangs up the back with the Wraith Engine.
My own stuff runs up, the opposing list has no guns so Decel and Sac Pawn considerations aren't required. Wardens go up on each side, Subduer hangs near Thexus across from the forest, the thinking being that feat and/or arced TK's from Wardens could let the Subduer knock down both Stalkers then they become easy kills.
The Stalkers are mostly obscured by the forest, however a full advancing Risen was able to be turned into a Thrall, who was TK'ed forward and managed to charge a Stalker jsut barely in its rear. Hit and knocked out an arm and cortex, so a damn good start.
However, I'd spotted that play halfway through doing another, which led to a whoopsie moment. Thexus arced a Hex Blast on the Bane Cav, knocking off Mirage, boosted the damage and killed him just. Vengeance triggered. The better play was to get the Warden slightly further up and target the one under the Wraith Aura aiming to not damage the unit, but oh well.
And screw Stalkers. They're just the worst guys.
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Cryx 2: Bane Warriors flood the left and centre zone. Goreshade and the Wraith Engine hang in the backfield. Curse of Shadows gets arced to the right warden. The Bane Cav charge forward, aided by Vengeance letting them move around somewhat, they kill a couple Green Drudges, two of them go into said Warden and splat him hard. One cavman repos forward, the others back peddle. The healthy Stalker stays in the forest, the damaged one comes forward and flails poorly at Drudges in front of Thexus.
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Merc 2:Done that classic played-the-game-left-the-write-up-for-an-age. Oh well.
Simple enough planning really, I'll kill as many Warriors as possible with the intent of re-killing htem when feat/mini-feats return them, wipe out the Bane Cav to stop the most meaningul Scrap Thrall Goreshade feat trade and kill the Stalkers. Yellow Drudges ambush from the right.
Thexus hangs around his wall, feat pushes Banes into clumps were doable, pushes the stalker into the forest forward enough for the left Warden to get LOS. Said Warden geets TK'ed so as to have enough movement to get through said field of trees. Four other focus gets spent....indeedy....
Left wise, Overlords spray down a bunch of hte Bane Warriors and hang out of threat range for hte most part. The Blue Bender unit Adrenals the Pink Slaver unit.
Centrally, the Pink Drudges go in, they miss the damaged Stalker in an embarrasing display. The left Warden charges the healthy Stalker in the forest, boosts his to hit rolls and kill it with ease.
Centre/right, killing the Bane Cav time. Four remain.
The first, the most forward, gets killed by Green Drudges who also manage to CMA the damged Stalker down. THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE PINKIES.
The second/third get knocked down by the Subduer advancing and hitting with his gun under Instigate, this includes dragging one in and killing him with the free stab.
Now to kill the hardest to reach one as I have other attacks to kill the knocked down third guy. The Yellow Ambushers get Adrenalled by the Purple Benders on the right, they charge in. Two get into Darragh, the first manages the dismount (thought it would take two to do so, he then gets palced outside of Drudge melee range because .5 is garbage).
Fourth Bane cav is attacked by the third Yellow Adrenalle Drudge. It's MAT 9 versus Def 12. I miss.
........Christ in Cream Cheese Sauce, this is bad.
Desperate recovery is the right side Overlords advancing and spraying, POW 12 versus Darragh's aura on Bane Cav is insufficient, they do one box and fail to finish off Wrathe.
Ergo two cav remain, as I'm better off leaving one knocked down to cancel Vengeance and using my remaining attacks (An Alexia spawned Thrall) to charge the Arc Node in the same region, he hits (Thralls on FIRE this game. Not....literal....fire, the models are not their sturdy and in game terms they die on anything but snakes for damage), smacks it down to three boxes (I think with jsut movement remaining?).
My greater plans have failed, but at least the Stalker is dead. I will definitely lose the second Warden, a good trade as far as I'm concerned for Thexus not being jumped and killed by an oversized unnecesarily powered thgeoretically mechanical flea. Really should make someone smarter talk about avoiding plans with a single point of failure.
A single toeing Bane on the left prevents that flank from scoring.
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Cryx 3: Goreshade chills out the back, feat returns all the Bane cav and half the dead Bane Warriors off the left side. Throws Curse of Shadows on the ambush Drudges.
Left zone, the Warrior UA mini-feats and returns all the dead doodz, they move forward with a charge on an Overlord and a Pink Drudge, misses the Cephalyx and kills the Grunt.
Centre wise, a couple of Banes go into the Warden, take off half his health. The Wraith Engine then charges up, kills the monstrosity and sits in the rectangle zone. machine Wraith spawning is forgotten about until well after the game. Tartarus goes behind the Battle Engine.
Bane Cav shuffle around, their one attack being enough to kill the Ambush unit leader, so a back line Drudge has leadership thrust upon him. He does alright for a Command 4 dude. The super damaged Bone Node kills the Thrall Warrior.
Cryx scores the centre zone, now up 1-0.
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Merc 3: Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod the Wraith Engine is corporeal. IT MUST DIE. Otherwise with the feat expected it's just kill stuff. Ideally I'd pop the second Bane Warrior Officer with an unexpended mini-feat (Actually repped by a Bane Knight), alas he is quite safe behind the forest.
Left wise, Overlords advance and do sprays on the Max Bane Warrior unit and the line blocking the Wraith Engine. They roll averagely as well as Cryx getting a fair chunk of tough results, do sufficient for the main goals of the turn including killing the UA. The Blue Benders expend a pair of grunts to Adrenal some of the Pink Drudges.
Centre wise, the Purple Benders also Adrenal some Pink Drudges. Pinkies then charge forward, with multiple Adrenal Drudges getting in and killing the Wraith Engine without to much issue. They also pop several toughed out Warriors.
Thexus stays chilling with Alexia behind the wall, uses a TK on the Subduer to get him enough distance for the next plan.
Alexia spawns a Thrall Warrior, who charges and kills Tartarus. Magic.
On the right, the Green Drudges kill some Warriors from teh min unit and a blocking Bane Cav. The Agitator Instigates. The Subduer then charges Darragh, killing him a Warrior and a Cav. Good stuff.
The ambush Drudges limp forward and get into their puny command range. The Overlords here go behind the obstruction and kill the damaged Bone Jack.
This turn was probably pleasurable enough to be illegal. Darragh has died so rarely Andmon hasn't even had the dismounted model in his bag for years. The only way to improve it would have been killing the remaining Bane Warrior UA.
I score the right zone, 1 all.
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Cryx 4: Left Banes charge the Overlords, kill one. The reserve Bone jack runs to toe the centre rectangle.
Right Banes charge in, they alas forget to pop their mini-feat.
The Cav charge into teh Curse of Shadowed ambush unit, impact attacks under those circumstances do a truly awful amount of work, stymied only by an unfeasible amount of tough checks on my part.
Neither side scores.
Merc 4: Photos cease alas due to time constraints.
I'm super low on clock for this phase of the game, I doubt I could it even put together a meaningful assassination in time. Time to get my Zerg on and claim territory.
Overlords and charging Blue Benders clear out the left zone. Pink Drudges flood into the centre zone, a three man CMA misses the Bone Node, Warriors die. On the right the ambush Drudges kill the contesting Cav fella, Overlords pop the Standard bearer and UA (Though I do it in the wrong order and have to kill the toughed out Officer).
I score both side zone, now 3-1
Cryx 5: Goreshade charges into the right zone, slaughters Drudges. Few remaining Bane Warriors kill Drudges around them. Last cav man goes into the right zone. Nothing can contest the left zone.
Now 4-1 to me.
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Merc 5: Down to a minute, have to clear either the centre or right zone.
The Pink Drudges CMA on the contesting Bone Jack, hit, crank the damage and pop the movement. Thexus advances, toes the centre, boosts a TK to take the light jack and move it out of the zone.
I win on scenario with 39 seconds to spare.
Awesome game. Much funs. So many doodz. So, so many. Could make an orgy pile with that many.
The Wraith Engine attacking was immediately noticed after it was done, it should have just been an annoying contest/threaten Thexus' placement deal. Unnacceptably slow once again, think I've worked out that the ideal spot is to have 15 minutes remaing at the end of round 4, with going belowing 10 being the realm of Kenny Loggins.
