Battle Report Deux
Part of the Online Gamer’s Journal is playing games with our armies! Of course, what’s the point in participating in a journal that requires games if you don’t write them down? Here’s the game I played against local player Mark last Thursday:
Lists
| The Arrow’s Tip Lylyth, Herald of Everblight – Shredder – Bolt Thrower – Carnivean Shepherd Spell Martyr | eGaspy’s Goon Squad Iron Lich Asphyxious – Deathripper – Deathripper – Slayer Cephalyx Mind Slaver & Drudges (full) Necrotech & Scrap Thrall |
His list was constructed without knowledge of mine, yet it ended up being the perfect counter to everything I had available to me. You’ll see. I won the roll off and made him set up first.
The Battle
Cryx 1
All the ‘jacks ran forward, as did the Cephalyx tarpit, Necrotech and Scrap Thrall. eGaspy cast Hellbound on himself (cannot be targeted by charges, within 5″ counts as rough terrain for enemies), walks forward to hide behind his wall of goons.
Legion 1
Everything ran forward except the Shredder, who turned out to be just a bit short to be able to put Tenacity up on Lylyth.
Cryx 2
eGaspy upkeeps Hellbound and arcs Deathknell through a Deathripper’s arcnode which luckily misses horribly. Otherwise, everything advances.
Legion 2
Shredder moves first, casts Tenacity on Lylyth (+1 DEF / +1 ARM). Spell Martyr runs ahead, and Lylyth casts Eruption of Spines through it into the Drudges. It hits 6 targets (5 + original target), only kills two Drudges (damn tough rolls), and deals 2 damage to a Deathripper.
The Carnivean takes a few steps and sprays the Scrap Thrall who was sneaking around my flank. Lastly the Bolt Thrower whiffs a boosted shot at one of the Deathrippers.
Cryx 3
eGaspy upkeeps Hellbound and gives 3 focus to each arcnode. The first Deathripper charges the Bolt Thrower, knocking out Spirit (no forcing). The second Deathripper charges the poor Nephilim and finishes it off. Everything else ran.
Legion 3
Shepherd makes a tactical withdrawal. Lylyth tags the Deathripper closest to the Drudges doing no damage. She then casts Spiny Growth on the Shredder and bushwacks behind the building to safety. Shredder casts Tenacity on Lylyth, goes Rabid and gets a free charge on the tagged Deathripper, missing with it’s one attack. The Carnivean runs to get back to the group and casts Spiny Growth on itself.
Cryx 4
eGaspy upkeeps Hellbound and again gives 3 focus to each Deathripper. The first one hits and reduces the Shredde to 2 health. With sustained attack, it just chews harder and kills the little beastie. It takes a total of 5 damage from Spiny Growth though. Second Deathripper can now charge the Carnivean and does so. It connects on the first hit and gets a pair of boosted damage rolls with the 3 focus. It deals 11 damage and takes 2 from Spiny Growth. The Necrotech hides behind the more damaged Deathripper and repairs 3 damage. eGaspy moves away from the building, away from Lylyth.
Legion 4
Shepherd heals the Carnivean for 1 restoring its body. The Carnivean attempts to double-handed throw the Deathripper and misses the (boosted) attack roll. It then attempts to bite the thing and whiffs the (boosted) attack roll. What a windmill. Lylyth misses her first shot at a Cephalyx, but hits and kills with her second shot (darn). She then hits a Drudge with Eruption of Spines, killing only one Drudge, but turns the nearby Deathripper into “swiss cheese”, having dealt damage to every system without knocking anything out.
Cryx 5
Guess what? eGaspy upkeeps Hellbound, each Deathripper again gets 3 focus. The two Deathrippers chomp on the Carnivean and kill the big beastie. The Drudges attempt a charge, but only one reaches Lylyth, missing her DEF 16. A Drudge kills the Shepherd.
Legion 5
Out of beasts and with half a battlefield and an entire tarpit between her and her prey, Lylyth makes her escape. She swings at the Drudge engaging her and misses. A second attack kills it, but the tough roll means it’s just knocked down. She slings Eruption of Spines at a nearby Drudge and misses. The knocked down Drudge offers no resistance as she flees the battlefield.
Conclusion
I lose horribly. Not only did my entire force get wiped out, I barely killed a thing. I attempted to use the building on my left as a pick, slingshotting around it into the back of his forces, but when I used an 11 pt beast to kill a 1/3 pt solo for an entire round, I really gimped by ability to quickly move around the board. My dice also failed me the entire last half of the game. I couldn’t hit anything!
The worst part is, my opponent didn’t even use half the stuff in his arsenal! eGaspy, for an epic caster, as nothing more than a focus battery for the two Deathrippers. Those two little ‘jacks with sustained attack just destroyed my entire army. And, even if I had been able to get something in charge range of eGaspy, Hellbound would have stopped it. Lastly, the tarpit with tough negated most of the power of Lylyth’s tarpit clearing spell, Eruption of Spines. I would have done a bit better with clearing the Drudges if they would live after a bow shot…
Things I need to focus on doing differently:
- Be aggressive.I tried to be sneaky and that’s not really Lylyth’s playstyle. Lylyth also needs more beasts, more attack vectors.
- Think about model tradeoffs. Using the 11 point Carnivean to kill the 1/3 pt Scrap Thrall was a horrible misuse of my resources. That would have been a much better target for the Shredder, or a spare bow shot once it got closer.
- Always try to go first. Legion has to get the first hit, the models are glass cannons and can’t withstand a turn of abuse. I need to go first if possible so I can be the first to connect.
What do you think I could have done differently (besides everything)?
Great battle report. I just started playing Legion myself so it was particularly interesting to me. Excellent pics and write up.
I like your 15pt list. I don't know how useful the Bolt Thrower is at this point level, but it's a cool model. I wonder if the Protector might be a better fit tho.
I would definitely have gone hey diddle diddle straight up the middle with the Carnivean, possibly trampling the drudge tarpit. You can kill a lot of trooper models in one turn with a good trample, particularly if you popped Lylyth's feat that turn to ensure hits. Not much you can do if they refuse to fail a tough roll though.
I might have saved the spell martyr a while longer too, just to make your opponent waste time and energy worrying about what that 1pt arc node might do if he doesn't deal with it.
That was appalling how much damage those little chicken jacks did to your force, and that without actually arcing spells.
I'm the cryx player here! BTW-Like the name of the Cryx force (Goonies ATTACK!):).
Beyond some pivitol dice rolls (the missed two handed throw, and the bolt thrower being the biggest)my thoughts were of as follows:
Going straight up the middle would not have been much better. With the forest and the Drudges (who have eyeless sight) it would not have bothered me id I lost that squad to the Carnivean.
I thought you put the bolt thrower too far forward and it was not able to be defended/supported by the Carnivean. I was able to munch on it with both Death rippers. This enabled me to take on your army piecemeal rather than all at once.
To nate's comments:The bolt thrower could have been useful, it just didn't have the chance to.
WIth the drudges being only 6 points of the force—they (and I was suprise he used the spell Mytr on them).
Trampling through the drudges would not have accomplished much IMHO, as I had e-gaspy and a slayer close enough to counter attack. Also the druges formation would have prevented him from getting that many drudges underfoot.
Side note:The slayer was a sad panda that the deathrippers didn't leave him anything.
"Going straight up the middle would not have been much better. With the forest and the Drudges (who have eyeless sight) it would not have bothered me id I lost that squad to the Carnivean."
I guess what I should have said was "trample through the drudges to get to the Slayer" and then "throw the Slayer at Gaspy's head" or something like that. You are certainly correct that the loss of the drudges would not have greatly inconvenienced you.
"I thought you put the bolt thrower too far forward and it was not able to be defended/supported by the Carnivean. I was able to munch on it with both Death rippers. This enabled me to take on your army piecemeal rather than all at once."
You're dead on here. Allowing your opponent the opportunity to engage your forces piecemeal is never a good thing. Going up the middle with the Carnivean would have, at the very least, made that much harder to do.
I'm still appalled that two deathrippers were able to take out a Carnivean.
"I guess what I should have said was "trample through the drudges to get to the Slayer" and then "throw the Slayer at Gaspy's head" or something like that. You are certainly correct that the loss of the drudges would not have greatly inconvenienced you."
The Canivean would have had to survive a counterstrike from the slayer & Gaspy to do so. It wasn't likely to happen due to the position of Gaspy and the Slayer (who were essentially being used as my reseves).
The problem Plarzoid had was that with 15 points he only had enough troops for a good first wave (3 models beyond the caster) and a highly doubtful 2nd (caster and sheppard). 11 of his points were in the carnivean.
THat said, Plarzoid–when you move the list up to the next level, I would strongly suggest fitting in 1 light warbeast and a squad of nyss swordsmen or archers.
As I said, it was just a bad, bad matchup – I had few options, and I don't feel the list is all that great.
Also, with Hordes, you can't go beast light or you'll run short on fuel. You basically have to go beast heavy, and the Cryx list is really a good counter to that.
The next level will see no Spell Martyr and 9 small based models in Striders + UA + solo. It should be much better.
The list I used isn't a 15 pt list, it's really just part of a 25pt list, and you can tell.