The mini-tournie of Chorely from Sath

Hey ppls

wow, first tournie already and it was, well- bit of a blast!
Went with Neal, Tom, Alex and a lad known as Pete, whom had Protectorate (who happened to win a faction coin at the end of the tournament).
Looking back at my two lists, i didn't immediately realize till we were at the venue that both of my lists had a heavy emphasis on ignoring terrain effects (i.e. Mortenebra's list had quite a lot of ghostly, whereas Deneghra's list had some ghostly options and pathfinder as well on the satyxis)

Mortenebra & Deryliss
Harrower (in a rather surprised pose)
Nightmare (this one reminds me of Michael Jackson's Thriller)
Seether

bane knights (6 models)
Banelord Tartarus (aka Tartare sauce)
this list had a serious model count deficit issue as i was riding on using 3 hard hitting jacks to run with Terminal velocity. The harrower is a walking hell with auto-boosted thresher attack rolls, Nightmare should of been the premier assassin runner, and the Seether as a brawler while the baneknights make sure Mortenebra isn't caught in a charge lane.
In the reality of it despite Nightmare didn't attack his prey in 3 of the 4 games, the prey ability on this bad boy is a surprisingly effective psychological party trick, as well as people not really wanting to be on the receiving end of a seether charge either


Warwitch Deneghra
Nightmare (Thriller)
Seether
Defiler

Satyxis raiders (6 models)
Satyxis sea witch
Withershadow combine (3 models)

Skarlock thrall
Gorman di wulfe
The dream was to pop denny's feat, crippling grasp or parasite, Gorman runs up with one of his bombs and hits the caster, then Nightmare or Seether comes barreling in to rip the caster/warlock a new butt hole, or another suitably in-the-way model like a heavy warjack.
In reality the feat as usual, fouled up players' plans for a turn (and in the game against Neal it proved to be a real mangler) but it didn't go as i desired, the satyxis had their moments, Nightmare didn't shine that much and the Withershadow were more of a psychological tool for most of the tournie!



Game 1:
Jim's Khador

Since Mortenebra near-failed in the practice match against Neal the night before i opted for the Deneghra list, his army had a very prominent warjack presence (probably the Khador red paint)

Karchev the Terrible
Wardog (Caster attachment)

Kodiak
Berserker
Spriggan

Man-o-war demolition corps (3 models)

Manhunter
Manhuntress
Yuri the Axe
Kell bailoch

We played a spot of mosh pit, and tow is a little gem as far as Khador jacks are concerned, its effectively free movement before their activations if you do it right, which makes things like the berserker very happy.
The wheels on his plan fell off when he tried to beat the Nightmare down and then have the kodiak throw it around, which failed.
It was really close for Karchev as he was 6 points away from death after getting picked and poked repeatedly by me, the pit was contested and we had to end early, so it ended as a draw!


Game 2
Neal's protectorate

This was bar none, my best game of the day in terms of victory points. We played a bit of no-mans land, aye yes we did, and it was gory!

The Testament of Menoth
Heirophant (caster attachment)

Crusader

Temple Flameguard pikemen (6 models)
flameguard officer & standard bearer (UA for temple flameguard)
Flameguard cleansers (5 models)
Knights exemplar (5 models)
Exemplar Bastions (5 models)

High exemplar Gravus
Vassal of Menoth

As we can see Neal had a very infantry thick force, though when planning my lists i decided Mortenebra could have her 3 heavy jacks trample infantry to death, i went for Deneghra again...
This match culminated in me obliterating 22 of his infantry in just 1 turn but the Testament had all but 3 of the souls (because Gravus took 3), by the end of it the Testament was a basket case with a lot of soul tokens plus his focus, he spent the soul tokens bringing back models, 3 knights exemplar and 3 cleansers so he could have a go at cutting the head off of my army (Deneghra) but failed at first. His infantry pile quickly dropped back down (meanwhile the most he wrecked was my 5 point defiler), the bastions and knights exemplar were all dead, and the flameguard standard bearer was all alone, so the testament used a soul token to leave combat with the angry satyxis, popped his feat to go incorporeal, charged Denny and quickly shanked her!
Neal technically won the match because of caster kill, but i'm pretty sure i brought home the VP on this one


Game 3:
Oh man, this one was my worst, and it left me with a bad taste in my mouth (the guy felt depressing to be near, don't ask why), we had a game of table quarters

Steve's Retribution

Dawnlord Vyros

Manticore
Phoenix

Dawnguard invictors (10 models)
Dawnguard officer & standard bearer (UA for the invictors)
Soulless escort

Dawnguard Scyir
Griffon (marshalled to the scyir)
Arcanist


Terrible rolls and near-perfect rolls for him all game! I mis-judged my charge distances for the Nightmare and Seether both by .0001 of a milimetre! It Fell apart very, very quickly for me as the invictors took great delight in doing combined ranged attacks in pairs at the satyxis and re-rolling because of the fooking UA! Bloody beardy if you ask me since it amounted to 5 combined ranged attacks which because they were combined, could be re-rolled if they missed, i think this is comparable to Caine's maelstrom feat when factored in with the officer's range enhancing mini-feat

All i had left by turn 4 was 2 of the (almost dead) Withershadow, a defiler and Deneghra and all i'd destroyed was 1 of the invictors in close combat with the combine...
If i have anything positive to say about this... Fiend was that he didn't spread out to contest 3 of the table quarters so he could win, he stayed relatively central to finish off all models, only contesting a 2nd one to have it draw when it was time to stop


Game 4:
Left dazed and confused by the last game, the 4th game shook the effect off me, the game was technically moshpit, with 2 pits instead of one.
I pulled the goalies and used Mortenebra's list this time

Ruth's Circle Oboros

Kromac the ravenous

Feral Warpwolf
Gnarlhorn Satyr
Gorax

Tharn ravagers (4 models)
Tharn shaman (UA to the ravagers)
Tharn bloodtrackers (8 models)

Blackclad wayfarer

this match felt like the fastest paced, the (surprised) Harrower saw combat with the ravagers, perisher claw swinging wildly
Nightmare was wrecked on the warpwolf's 13" charge (Nightmare was gonna do the same to the warpwolf come my turn), i distinctly remember trying to use overrun to navigate the seether into a charge lane on Kromac (buffed by spectral steel, terminal velocity, focus and mortenebra's recalibration feat, but the gnarlhorn satyr's counter-slam saw the trolley wheels go erm, flying off that plan counter-slam activates when an enemy model ends its movement within 6", overrun allows a full advance to one model/unit outside that unit's activation, its still the ending of the model/unit's (bonus) movement even if its outside its activation

My only claim to the moshpit was the harrower who was dangling for dear (un)life by the thread of 1 little Cortex box away from being wrecked, the warpwolf and Gorax nom nommed Mortenebra since she had used all of her focus setting Kromac up for some serious pain delivery from the Seether, immediately making it a round win for Ruth and scenario draw (which was apparently her first win all day, ouch!)


Fighting Circle re-awoke memories of looking at Legion of Everblight (well i'm not interested in Trolls or Circle, According to part-time former Skorne player Alex- Skorne have been hit by the nerf bat (in the crotch), making Legion the natural choice ) It does not help that Ablsonia now truly sits in the league of beast/warjack casters where the likes of Vayl, Mortenebra, Amon Ad Raza etc can be found, while having a strong combat presence (does the thought of Typhon with effective MAT 9, an extra D3 regeneration ability tacked on, P+S 19 jaws for all 3 heads, reach and the fact that the jaws will count as open fists make you cringe? Try P+S 20 carnivean jaw and P+S 18 claws with a rich MAT 8 compote. Its a slap in the face for warjacks )

Legion archers as it turns out can pull off that silly re-roll combined ranged attacks thing via their ammo porter UA, but i wouldn't go there, instead i find striders plus their UA plus a strider deathstalker solo lead by eLylyth more appealing: they're stealthed, advance deployment, natural pathfinders, the UA lets the unit ignore concealment, cover and forests when getting LOS to a target and gives bushwhack, the solo is a sniper and if he's near the striders after they kill something they can shunt 2" in any direction (shoot and bushwhack a total of 9" away somewhere) and eLylyth can go and pop her feat for extra shots (another 2" swift hunter move if lucky) and +4 range. When you want to fill infantry/casters with 7000 arrows whilst being a nuisance to completely remove, these look like the guys to call. I wish to do so next time Retribution Invictors show their smug faces

All in all for scenarios:
3 draws (it could be considered only 2 draw, the Retribution player scarpered away with his bag fat with victory points for that one!)
2 caster kills suffered

what a day, I remember speaking to you after your game 3, and you really and you really had the blues!

I really ot ripped by your army in game 3, I do recommend that no matter how well you are doing, be careful not to over extend yourself and leave opportunites. I was fluky with that.

I played that Steve guy, although I'm pretty sure his name was Dave...
We had an awesome game although he did come across like he couldn't really be arsed.

Neal Orange peel wrote:

be careful not to over extend yourself and leave opportunites. I was fluky with that.

yeah, i got caught up by the fact that all 3 of the withershadow combine had a charge lane at the crusader so i could wreck it and spawn a free helljack, and the only unit local enough to clear the lane was denny, the withershadow failed to wreck the jack anyway

hmm, remembered i haven't suffered 3 caster kills, only 2, must correct that....

petezilla wrote:

I played that Steve guy, although I'm pretty sure his name was Dave...
We had an awesome game although he did come across like he couldn't really be arsed.

There was another Steve there - Steve Bowden. Did he also play Cryx?

all these Cryx steve's is gonig to be really confusing

well if it helps, i'm Steven,
I think the Cryx Steve was the one with the Witch coven of Gharlgast (the white and green army, quite a nice flip on the normal Cryx theme)

Course, i hope i can motivate myself to pick up the Nightmare and put brush to jack later, and its a big IF

COME ON STEVE you can do it! get brush to jacking. IF it helps, maybe join in Alex's painting blog,

Neal Orange peel wrote:

COME ON STEVE you can do it! get brush to jacking. IF it helps, maybe join in Alex's painting blog,

I wouldn't be able to, the event is really supposed to stretch out over 6 months, and i'd need a different jack/ unit gaggle of solos to show for each month, once i get started and don't get interrupted by things like food and sleep and errands i can get a lot done, it took 3 days to get the Soul Grinder of Chaos to what he looks like now because of the amount of experimentation involved

you wont get shot if it aint perfect. As long as you are makng progress on your army, taking pics and posting then you will be fine.