An old ex and other things

Last Thursday I followed up on the promise in my last post to give Scaverous a spin. Like hooking up with an old ex it seemed like a good idea at the time, the familiarity of rolling about in the sheets having a certain nostalgic appeal. But getting all pelvic with an ex usually means you're either left with the regret of being reminded of why you left the relationship, or you're pining for the one that got away and this quick fling has only reminded you of what you can't have. My game was a little bit of the latter.

Such a caring and gentle lover

Scaverous was the first Warcaster I bought and the one that made me pick up Cryx. Coming from 40K, I was making my WM/H decisions based upon aesthetics, not gameplay. I inadvertently chose one of the deepest models in the game to learn up on, which was a bit derpy on my part. My first few games saw me constantly getting my arse handed to me, but were fantastic learning experiences where I was able to manufacture all varieties of in-game maneuvers and get to grips with how the game mechanics allowed for various synergies to be formed.

For shits and giggles I ran Scav in tier:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous 
- Skarlock Thrall
- Deathjack 
- Ripjaw 
Warwitch Siren 
Warwitch Siren
Pistol Wraith
Pistol Wraith 
Necrotech 
Necrotech 
Iron Lich Overseer 
- Harrower 
The Withershadow Combine 
Mechanithralls 
- Skarlock Commander 
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls 

This list runs solo heavy to take advantage of the tier2 benefit as much as possible. My thinking was that the ILO starting with a soul on it, along with the Harrower, made for a tight little package that would be able to put out a fair amount of damage. There's also plenty of boostable magic shots on the board.

And then I ended up facing Matt Bissel's Calandra tier :| playing the Destruction scenario no less.

yuck

Can't remember the exact numbers, but there was a slew of Storm Trolls backed up by two Slags, two Pyres, and a Winter Troll with misc supporting elements. I was envisaging just rolling under the bus and getting roflstomped.

Most of my army bought the farm pretty promptly. I decided to just camp with Scaverous and throw him into the thick of it. With Deathjack on the flank as well, I have two models over ARM20, and I figured getting stuck in was better than trying to hold Scavs back. There was no real plan here, I just thought it's probably better being up in the guts staying alive, instead of holding back (which I sort of did turn 1).Everything else pretty much rushed in over two turns, putting some damage out here and there, but otherwise doing jack-shit.

Under Calandra's feat my McThralls weren't long for this earth, and the Harrower and ILO went down not too longer after that. Those things dying aside, instead of going under the bus the game had turned into more of a tickle fight:

Between the Deathjack getting stalled and Scaverous unwilling to spend any of his stack, I was unable to really put out much damage on Matt's beasts, and in turn the trolls were barely able to scratch the paint on my key pieces. This was all a sideshow however; Matt had the numbers to go up 3 control points, poised for a scenario win. The rest of my army tried to contest but Matt had me pretty stitched up, with only 7 small based models needed to be ground into dust to scoop the win. Except Admonia managed to survive on 2 boxes allowing her to continue to contest.

Nikola had been complaining a couple of days prior about how bullshit it was that the Withershadow were ARM161. It certainly came into play here. I feel Matt did most things right to clear the zone. The only mistake I thought was that he opted to shoot at the Pyre Troll engaged with Admonia, figuring he would be easier to hit and bounce electro leaps off. I would have just shot at Admonia anyway, and if he missed he'd have the chance to connect with the Pyre anyway. In any case, he managed to hit his Pyre both times, but wasn't able to get the damage he needed nor the number of leaps to make it to Admonia.

Matt was expecting to clear the zone, and he really should have. Calandra was now camping nothing, having opted to spend her fury for rerolls, with no Star-Crossed either. The Scaverous Rube-Goldberg started cranked into action, parting the Red Sea of Matt's trolls - feating and TK'ing a path to Calandra for Deathjack to charge her in the back. Rolling a casual 17 at dice +2 for the charge attack and Calandra was laid low in one hit.

Now there was a lot about this game where I look back and see how lucky I was - Matt definitely had the more powerful list.something that I think would make a fantastic Cryx drop in general. It was interesting thinking that my best option was to massage one flank with my two hardest models and hope for the best. But I've been thinking with my foray into Skorne that this is an option I can't afford with Skorne Warlocks. They lack the ability to get to that high an armour level, or camp enough transfers to really make it worthwhile. I'll be looking for these sort of options however, as these were the ideas I had for running Xerxis 2. Beyond that, having the chance to manufacture an assassination with multiple TKs was a lot of fun again. I'm still determined to continue running with Skorne next year, but it was nice to have this brief flirt with the cold, soulless embrace of Scaverous.

In other news, I've unpacked and assembled a slew of Legion models and misc Mercs for Nikola. Being on holiday from my studies have meant I got the time to write this blog, paint models, fart around on the Xbox, etc etc. It's been fun putting together models from an entirely different faction, and I can empathise with the sort of reluctance Nikola may have had to assemble a mass of models, many of which were for the second time. I missed my opportunity to sabotage these fellows, as I'm sure several people are not looking forward to being on the receiving end of multiple Ravagores, Saeryn, pVayl and the like, but c'est la vie.

1 There were further complaints at the Warwitches being ARM13, when a troll threw Scaverous into one and she survived. lulz