Epic Recon
I qualified for the Aus SS series final tourney, alas last minute bushfire/family stuff forced me to cancel the travel last minute. Woot. Still, at least the containment line a kay and a half from work weren't jumped over, so woohoo continued employment!
The finals might have been missed, still time to put the Rask/Arkadius pair down for a bit and try some other stuff, beginning with the craze-that-never-really-took-off, Barny the slightly older and more open chestier.
The whole Barny2 + Wrongeye/Snapjaw thing seems overated to me. Small bubble effects are bad and leveraging the defence stat in the current reality of high MATs about the place seems bad. Plus 23 Warbeast points makes thing super awkward, you can take the Lesser easily in Will Work for Food however your unit options sucks some serious hemipenes.
Ergo, I opted to plonk him in Blindwater with double Croak, double Shamblers, double Pot. Some solos to taste, battlegroup (aka here for the transfer damage) being a Bullsnapper, double Boneswarm, Spitter. Solos being Kwaak, Totem Hunter, a Chef and the spell croc into bondage submission stuff.
Kwaak is probably a bad super SUSS choice, far to many dreams of using....duh duh duh.....double medicate.
Pick up game into Venethrax in Black Industries running I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Gaspy3 of a pile of Slayers, a Reaper and a Seether on a Jack Marshal dude (Henceforth known as Angry Bot and Comptroller).
Lamentation? Eugh. Instant single game confirmation bias against having Star Crossed in the list!
Going in, expectation is that we'll just have to see how many Slayers Barny can kill personally.
I lost the roll and got second, one board side had some forests that would be mildly inconvenient so I too the side away from that stuff. I get a central defensive trench, a small corrosion cloud on my left and a hill on the right. There's a forest smack bang in the centre that could be either painful or useful to either side.
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Round 1: Cryx jacks run up, Venethrax heading toward the Cryx flag with a pair of Slayers on either flank, the remaining three Slayers and Reaper beside Venny boy. Ahngry Bot and Comptroller are way out on the right.
I Preyed the Comptroller, thinking being that if he ran somewhere weird to avoid being attacked then he was unlikely to be doing something I cared about vis a vis the flag scoring situation.
Croaks are about to die, that's basically unavoidable at this point. Both units move up, spacing out a bit. If Slayers come in and I get to kill them then that's alright by me.
The Toad men do some shots, the leftier unit pinging a Slayer for some chip damage (Grr Carapace), a pair try some cheeky shots to get some ping damage on the oiled Venethrax alas it wasn't to be. The right side unit actually manage to straight up kill an Arc Node, so I guess 8's to hit aren't a big deal.
Bokors and Pots moved up, with the Zombie fellas placed to get priority for most corpse collecting.
Pots also fill Barny up on Corpses.
The Spitter shuffles up the centre, also does a pot shot on the forward central Slayer and puts up Counterblast, being just shy of Lamentation range. The Bullsnapper chills up the back, given he's basically a medpack. The Boneswarms chill out on either flank for theoretical zone scoring.
Barny himself goes up the centre with Spiny Growth up, he also flicks a Rebuke through the Bone Shrine onto a Slayer. No Combo Smiting Croak Raiders for you! (Aka I had to toss some Fury anyway for the Spitter activation). I keep one of his Bone dudes in Sac Pawn range in case the Reaper gets any funky drag ideas.
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Cryx 2: Venethrax moves directly up, pops Temporal Accelaration and looks super out of place in Barny murder range. He then Deadweights a Croak so Barny has to sac movement/action. Damn. Hopes and dreams raised and abruptly dashed.
The Slayers all move forward and get stuck into it, the lead one doesn't take the Counterblast/Retaliatory/Enliven bait of the Spitter or a doomed run on Barny. Alas.
Instead loads of Croaks get popped, 8 of the yellow left unit and four of the smurfs on the right, Corpses getting distributed between the mostly the Bokors and a few to the Pots.
Bone Nodes stick behind, Angry Bot and Comptroller don't get involved.
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Minion 2: Alrighty Carolina North from North Carolina, time to win our spot on Geraldo.
Venny is on no camp, I formulate the plan to drag a Slayer out of the way, Stationary him with the left Bokor, then charge in the Spitter. Even with the Ironbacks limp wrist melee attacks it can kill a caster in that situation.
There's a few early exist points, the first is the Pot drag on a Slayer. This is done by the right pot, it easily lands it's shot and drags said Slayer all the way to my objective. Barny then lands a Hunters Mark on the Reaper, given the Spitter the charge distance needed to get to Venny. 'lock then eats the Slayer, feats away a bunch of Shamblers to get his Fury stack again and Spiny Growths. Lamentations continues to be style cramping.
I have to engage a Slayer next to the central forest to stop him counter charging the Bokor and blocking the lane. I do this by Press Forwarding the Smurf Croak Unit on the right, sadly the Croak that moves in to engage is put down in a poor position, so the Reaper can see him and fails a Coutner Charge to block the Spitter landing spot. Doh. Plan binned and dusted.
Oh well, back to just trying to kill Cryx Murderbots. The Smurfs charge/run around, three get it on a Slayer on the right where they perform bizarrely well, dinging it up pretty badly.
Right zone wise, only one Slayer is in range to contest my flag, alas Barny's Bone Shaker tried to get it's Dark Shroud up in their and was not blocking the Bokor charge lane, so the Soul Slave nukes it away. Good resource planning there. The Bokor charges in, burns down to a pair of Shamblers to get the job done. Bone Swarm toes the zone.
Left zone wise, the other Bokor goes in on a Slayer, this one does have Dark Shroud put on it properly so it dies vastly quicker. The pair of yellow Croaks throw their darts at a central Slayer out of a beleaguered sense of optimism.The Spitter charges in, rolls like a savage to kill the Reaper and ding up the Slayer in front of Venethrax.
Four jacks down, however now the hard hitting things in my list are stupidly vulnerable, aside from Barny himself. Felt like a sad feat pop, that's a rubber band that basically snapped and flicked me ont he nose while pointing out the hypocrisy of the national anthem.
I score the right flag at least, 1-0.
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Cryx 3: Venethrax charges the Spitter, gives him a whack that he Enlivens away from.
The Slayers all then Pile in, killing the Bokors, Spitter and Bone Shrine.
Comptroller runs to the back right of the board, Angry Bot goes in and eats a bunch of the Smurfs.
The lights pile in front of Venethrax.
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Minion 3: If I had feat then barny would commit on the left and kill a bunch of fools. Alas, we have to push to the right and gum up the works to push the scenario lead.
Leftwise the remaining stuff piles in, a four man Shambler CMA with a Dark Shroud Barny Boi spikes hard and actually manages to pop a Slayer. Did not expect. Kwaak Venoms the Light jacks twice, one of them takes a fair chunk of damage, the other doesn't suffer unduly.
Barny charges to teh right to claim the flag, easily killing the contesting Slayer.
Comptroller gets nuked by the Soul Slave, Prey cycles to his jack.
Angry Bot get a Chef in the back, a Totem Hunter Big Pointy Stick charge and a Bone Swarm flailing at it, leaving it pretty damaged though still a fully functional Battle Station.
I score the flag again, 2-0.
Cryx concedes at this point, we both have 10 minutes on clock and I can do a running to contest/score deal a lot more efficiently, so that's fair enough.
Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh! A Caster that can kill stuff in melee! Bit handwavy on the list, infantry package feels fine, unsure on battlegroup and solo load out.
