Hello readers, took me a while but I finally decided to write up some reports for this years first big tournament, Talvisota. As it has already been a week, some of the memories have gotten a bit fuzzy so forgive me if I make some errors in my reports, I’m only human afterall. I personally had a great time as usual and even placed decently but moving on to lists.
Lich Lord Asphyxious (*6pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Helldiver (3pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Bane Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Bane Thrall Officer & Standard (3pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)
Effigy of Valor
My main list, everyone knows and loves the good old Lich. I finally managed to assemble and buy 30 knights so I wanted to run them with someone and Asphyxious2 seemed like the perfect fit as I already had other plans for Skarre1. This list has good or even match ups against the vast majority of lists and my two other lists were designed to patch up the bad match ups.
Effigy of Valor is there to grant cover for Tartarus/node/Asphyxious but I might swap it to the impervious flesh one eventually.
Pirate Queen Skarre (*6pts)
* Kraken (19pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Aiakos, Scourge of Meredius (3pts)
* Kraken (19pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor (2pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Ragman (2pts)
Fuel Cache
And here is my pHaley / circle drop. pHaley in particular is a problem match up for almost all cryx builds and the D&C0 format allowed me to take out this kind of extreme counter to it. The extreme amount of armor should also do decently against circle builds outside of Bradigus.
Basic idea is that I completely negate POW10 spam. With escort Aiakos’ kraken actually out-threats stormwall/galleon even under temporal barrier. With feat I should be able to deal enough damage and to withstand counter attacks to dismantle this dread match up.
The solo battery is there to improve the krakens and to combat other dual colossal builds with Gorman/pistol wraith. I’m probably going to replace the pistol wraith with three machine wraiths to get some more contesting action in there. Fuel cache obviously for some extra focus-efficiency.
Goreshade, Lord of Ruin (*5pts)
* Kraken (19pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bane Riders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (11pts)
Blackbane’s Ghost Raiders (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Soulhunters (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Darragh Wrathe (4pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Arcane Wonder
Another anti-anti-cryx list. He’s there mainly to avoid list chickens so I have a fallback if I don’t want to risk it. With his assassination heavy playstyle and somewhat generalist list my Goreshade rarely has extremely bad match ups. Skewing speed, not being all that vulnerable to POW10s and being able to handle armor cracking lists decently is the reason why I chose Gore3 as my last list.
Game 1 vs Marko Eerola, Khador, Recon
He was packing all three Butchers, first two in theme forces. I don’t like my odds against doomreavers with my other two so I pick Asphyxious and to my surprise Marko selects Butcher1 with Kodiak, Kodiak, Juggernaut, 3 x Max Shocktroopers, Yuri, 2 x Manhunter. Lots of metal to chew through.
I think I lost the roll off and had to go second but I’m not too sure about that. He deploys the shocktroopers centrally with Butcher behind them, kodiak, juggernaut, Yuri and one manhunter on the right and the remaining manhunter and kodiak on the left. I just flood my deployment zone with banes with all the non-banes in the middle except for my node that goes on the right flank. Bane thralls on the left side.
Turn 1A Khador : Everything runs up and the shocktroopers get pretty far up with the speed buff, no spells cast yet this turn.
Turn 1B Cryx : Everything runs up and I try to bait him into charging a few knights with manhunters or to shoot them with shocktroopers to trigger vengeances. Asphyxious puts up hellbound and places one caustic mist in front of the leftmost shocktrooper unit.
Turn 2A Khador : Manhunters and jacks back up slightly to avoid bane charges. All shocktroopers shield wall and two units toe the zone with the last unit and Butcher behind them. The leftmost unit takes 3 points of damage from the caustic mist and gets Iron Flesh.
Turn 2B cryx : Most of my banes are still out of charge range. Since I don’t have all that many possible charges yet I decide to spare my skarlock and node for next turn and just charge in about 5-6 banes into the shocktroopers on the right side, killing one and wounding others.
Bane thralls on the left run up to block the flag from the kodiak and the remaining bane knights run up to so that few are exposed to trigger vengeances. Asphyxious moves up to take cover from his objective and places down one more caustic mist to block LoS.
Turn 3A Khador : Iron Flesh is upkept. Manhunter on the left runs up to flag and engages two bane thralls. Yuri and the other manhunter cut up 3 bane knights between them and juggernaut punches one more to death on the right side. In the middle shocktrooper units kill nearly 7-8 banes between but remaing stuck on the edge of the zone. His kodiaks move up slightly but are still in the back..
Turn 3B Cryx : Vengeances on the juggernaut do some damage to it. The remaining banes mainly vengeance for good charge lines against the shocktroopers. Skarlock moves up to cycle parasite to the non-iron flesh shocktroopers but rolls snake eyes to hit. Node shuffles up a bit and Asphyxious casts parasite himself.
Tartarus curses the iron flesh unit and charges the parasited unit also catching juggernaut in the thresher too. He kills two and wounds one more. Bane knights finish off the parasited unit, juggernaut, kill one from the iron fleshed unit and damage the kodiak on the right side. Thralls cut down the manhunter harassing them and move up ready to join the action in the middle next turn.
Turn 4A Khador : he does not upkeep Iron Flesh. His last manhunter and kodiak on the right kill a few bane knights. Kodiak on the left moves up to cover the shocktroopers on the left and whacks a bane. The third shocktrooper unit moves up to where the wiped out unit was and kills Tartarus and another couple bane knights. The last unit also kill off the knights engaging them.
Turn 4B Cryx : I plan to feat this turn so I unburrow my helldiver close to Butcher and allocate it two focus for boosted headbutt. I only need to clear out the left side shocktroopers and the kodiak and I have a perfect highway to apply 10 banes to KD Butcher. Bane thralls put the kodiak down decisively while the skarlock parasites the shocktroopers. Biles + knights manage to take down all 4 that remain of the unit. The kodiak on the right also goes down to knights.
Asphyxious charges up, parasites Tartarus and then I notice that I accidentally placed the helldiver so that the kodiak wreck is in the way and I can’t reach Butcher, d’oh. I decide to save my feat for next turn despite having pretty good chance of killing full camp Butcher and teleport to the flag on the left safely behind bane thralls. I nab a control point from the flag.
Turn 5A Khador : Manhunter and last shocktrooper unit manage to finish off my bane knights and Butcher runs towards the right side flag. I score another control point.
Turn 5B Cryx : Bane thralls charge and body block the shocktroopers from even attempting to get to the left side. Asphyxyious makes a cloud to completely LoS block himself and biles, skarlock and node move up to contest the right side flag. I go up to three control points.
Turn 6A Khador : Butcher feats and just wrecks my objective to get atleast a single control point and I go up to 4
Turn 6B Cryx : I end my turn immediately to win 5-1
Rather good match up for me but that much metal really took some time to chew through. I was a bit surprised that he me managed to kill all of my bane knights in the end but I guess that’s what I get for saving my feat too much. Winning in the opening rounds is always a good confidence booster so I went to the next game with optimistic mindset.
Game 2 vs Jukka Nyholm, Cryx, Incursion
Jukka had only two lists, Goreshade3 and Mortenebra so my pick was rather obvious here. We ended up doing Asphyxious2 vs Gore3. He had Kraken, Defiler, Max Blackbanes, Max Blood Witches + UA, Soul Hunters, Darragh Wrathe, Warwitch Siren, Skarlock Thrall.
I lost the roll-off and I picked a side with a forest to hide behind. He deployed his battlegroup centrally with Goreshade behind the kraken, witches and blackbanes on the left side and soulhunters with Darragh on the right.
I used similiar deployment as in last game, thralls on the left with the knights spreading out. Battlegroup in the middle with biles.
Turn 1A Jukka : Everything runs up, blackbanes get scything touch and kraken infernal machine.
Turn 1B CorLeonis : Everything except Asphyxious and helldiver run. The diver burrows and Asphyxious advances, casts hellbound, camps 1 and blocks LoS to himself with caustic mist and the forest very cleverly, or so I thought.
Turn 2A Jukka : I think he upkept scything touch or he may have not. He barely manages to run up a blackbane around the caustic mist to get to Asphyxious. His witches run up and minifeat. His soul hunters clear up some bane knights so that the node can receive infernal machine from the skarlock and power boost from the warwitch siren. Then it ran up 19″ to my cloud, uh oh…
Kraken moves to the side and Goreshade charges up, freezes Asphyxious and starts shooting siphon bolts at the lich. However he misses the first shot with snake eyes. Second shot with boosted damage deals 9 points and the second damage boosted does 5 points of damage leaving me at 4 boxes and barely alive. That was way too close.
Turn 2B CorLeonis : Tartarus charges up to curse Goreshade, Bane knights and thralls kill each other for feat missiles, Asphyxious charges up, parasites Goreshade, feats 10 banes back and teleports away. The banes charge through the incorporeal witches and the first two kill Goreshade.
Ok, I really didn’t see T2A assassination run coming despite having played Gore3 a little myself. On average rolls I should have survived it even had he not missed with snake eyes (averaging about 15-ish points of damage with two damage boosted siphon bolts and one unboosted) but it was way too close for comfort, just a small dice spike away from a loss.
My opponent saw what was probably his best chance to win the game and took it, well played even in a bad match up. Next time I’ll remember that even complete LoS block and advancing 5 inches from your deployment zone won’t necessarily save you from Goreshade3.
With that the first days games for the main tournament were done but I sticked around for a who’s the boss tournament. 25 +5 points format, I took kraken, max blackbanes and skarlock thrall.
I rolled up Doomshaper2 vs Butcher1 leading cryx, assassination win. Second round I got Caine vs Absylonia1 leading Protectorate, scenario victory and last round I rolled up Rasheth vs Morv1 leading earthbreaker and support (impervious flesh + focus + steady is really fun vs ranged assassinations…), scenario victory.
After the third round I was one of the two players undefeated but the TO had already disappeared and we were too tired to play a fourth round and decided to leave it up to TO to decide it tomorrow.
Sunday comes and a fresh day of gaming with it.
Game 3 vs Sampo Mäntylahti, Retribution, Close Quarters
He has Rahn and Ossyan only. I don’t want to play Gore or Skarre into Ossyan so I default into Asphyxious again and we end up with Asphyxious vs Ossyan. His army consists of Banshee, Max Strikeforce + UA, Max Halberdiers + UA, 2 x Stormfall Archers, Min Riflemen, Houseguard Thane, Magister, Artificier, Ayana & Holt, Mage Hunter Assassin.
He wins the roll off and goes first deploying Ossyan and banshee centrally with halberds and riflemen, stormfalls and mage hunters on the right. I use similiar deployment as in previous games.
Turn 1A Retribution : Everything runs up, admonition goes up on banshee.
Turn 1B Cryx : Everything runs up max distance, except for my battle group. Node slinks into a forest for concealment, helldiver burrows and Asphyxious puts up hellbound and makes some clouds to block LoS and stays firmly out of mage hunter threat range.
Turn 2A Retribution : Quicken goes up on halberds and Ossyan moves up a bit to shoot his defense reducing gun at my node and feats. The halberds charge my node and body block Ossyan a bit. The node croaks and his army starts shooting, removing 16 banes in total when the dust settles.
Turn 2B Cryx : I notice that Ossyan has come forwards nicely. I decide to slam with helldiver to KD Ossyan. Helldiver slams and the banshee moves to intercept the halberdier so no KD, d’oh. However I am still in curse range and I can easily fit in 2 banes + 3-4 more if I kill the helldiver or banshee first out of the way and with parasite and dark shroud I’m rolling dice -1 weaponmaster attacks hitting with 7+.
I get the curse in and charge with Asphyxious the max range instead of measuring until I’m in parasite range so like a retard I get in the banshee no spell aura. No parasite, no teleport. If I mess up the assassination it’s easy game over. I feat and bring back ten banes. First I charge with the two banes I can get in for certain, one misses and the other does 10 points of damage.
Next I try to wreck my helldiver with 5 non-feat bane knights but even with back arc bonus I miss 6+ four times in a row and the way is still blocked. Desperation kicks in but 4 feat banes crunch the banshee and the way opens for two more banes and the first one of those two manages to kill Ossyan.
Wow, lots of unnecessary mistakes there like blocking my own way with helldiver, forgetting admonition and charging into no spell aura. Luckily I was playing Asphyxious so player skill is meaningless. But a win is a win, I’ll take it. Onwards!
Game 4 vs Tero Särkijärvi, Circle, Two Fronts
Tero has Bradigus, Krueger2 and Morv2 theme force. I’m pretty certain he is not going to drop Bradigus with the threat of my bane spam Asphyxious so I risk it with Skarre1. If he decided to go for Morv2 I’d likely get my ass handed to me but luckily for me he predicts wrong and goes for Krueger2. He has Gorax, Ghetorix, Megalith, Stalker, Druids + UA, 2 x Stones + UA , Wilder, Gallows Grove and Pendrake.
I lose the roll off and Tero goes first. Stalker on the left side, Krueger, druids, stones and ghetorix in the middle with Pendrake, grove and Megalith in the right. I deploy Aiakos’ kraken on the left and Skarre’s kraken on the right with support behind them.
Turn 1A Circle : Everything moves up and druids pop clouds but Tero doesn’t actually bother placing down the clouds (shame on you).
Turn 1B Cryx : One of his shifting stones from the non-ua unit is suspiciously close to one of the druids and I ask Tero to place the cloud there and turns out it is in the cloud and not behind it like he thought. Aiakos’ kraken guns it down and tags the druid too with blast. Skarre’s kraken just waddles up a bit but doesn’t roll a low scatter and the druids avoid it, damn stormwall. I accidentally cast null magic with Orin before doing ritual sacrifice, derp.
Turn 2A Circle : Tero moves up the cloud wall a bit and shoots down some scrap thralls, Stalker is out of the cloud wall but on a hill and a few inches out of Kraken charge range.
Turn 2B Cryx : I walk up Aiakos’ kraken and try to shoot the stalker but I barely enter stormwall range and don’t get range on it. Skarre’s kraken runs up to toe the enemy zone and Skarre moves up to middle into the killbox, to get both krakens in cntrl range and feats for 5 defensively and camps 9. Surgeon heals Skarre up to full and Gorman puts a smoke cloud on her Orin moves up with his null magic aura.
Turn 3A Circle : He is bothered by the null magic aura so Tero devises a plan to charge Orin with Krueger, feat, cast TK on Skarre to remove the kraken from her cntrl area and then wail on the non-armorbuffed colossal with Ghetorix. Stalker casts lightning strike on itself and kills my objective and retreats.
Wilder casts LS on Krueger who TKs himself and charges Orin, kills him, feats Skarre away who ends up exactly 10″ away from her kraken, does TK anyway but misses boosted 8+. Tero then forgets to lightning strike away and moves druids to force bolt Skarre away but 4 bolts all miss and then we notice that Tero forgot to move the druid UA and they were out of command anyway.
With that fantastic play, Tero then primals Ghetorix and it wails on the still armor buffed colossal and does neglible damage. His shifting stones shift to block Aiakos’ kraken from walking into melee with Krueger.
Turn 3B Cryx : Gorman walks up, gets to within 4″ of Krueger and tags him with blind and Aiakos’ kraken shoots him to pieces. Funnily enough, Tero still scores killbox CP from me this turn as I hadn’t activated Skarre yet.
4-0 and the finals await me and my opponent just happens to be the finnish champion who has already crushed two cryx in previous rounds so he has a taste for undead blood.
Game 5 vs Mikko Heinola, Trollbloods, Outflank
He has Grissel1, Grissel2, Grim1. His two Grissel lists are very meat mountainy so I send out my best prayer to the gods and risk it with Skarre1 again in hopes of him playing it safe and taking Grim.
Turns out that nobody expects Cryx to actually play double krakens and we end up with Skarre1 vs Grim1. He has Bomber, Impaler, Max Nyss Hunters, Max Burrowers, Max Fennblades + UA, Dahlia Hallyr + Skarath, Fellcaller, Kithkar and Sorcerer attached to Fenns. Aside from the scenario I feel pretty confident as his list caps out at POW16.
I lose the roll off again and he deploys Grim, bomber, impaler and the nyss on the left, burrowers in the middle, skarath and fennblades on the right with solos in the middle. I deploy Aiakos’ kraken on the left and Skarre kraken on the right with Skarre in the middle.
Turn 1A Trolls : Grim gives himself cross country and moves up to a forest, everything else runs up a bit cautiously, burrowers don’t burrow yet.
Turn 1B Cryx : Aiakos’ kraken gets one focus and with escort up it walks up and blasts the bomber for 4 points of damage. It also manages a lucky boxcars to kill one nyss hunter from concealment with the small gun. Skarre’s kraken runs up to toe the right zone. Support solos just hang out behind the krakens.
Turn 2A Trolls : Burrowers burrow, bomber gets snipe and does decent damage to Aiakos’ kraken. Nyss hunters throw a few shots at a necrotech but deal only 3 points of damage. Two fennblades run up to jam Skarres kraken and the rest hang back. Skarath moves up to toe the right zone.
Turn 2B Cryx : Feat time, I think for a bit about casting dark guidance but I only need 6+ to hit the bomber and I can afford to miss attack or two and still kill it with dice + 7 damage (feat + death field) and I’m afraid of Grim knocking me down and burrowers spiking damage against Skarre. So I only feat and camp 8. I forget to activate the necrotech first and Aiakos’ kraken walks into combat with the bomber and misses three times in a row leaving it barely alive, denying me killshot against the nyss hunters, d’oh.
Orin Midwinter shoots arc lightning at kraken and clears both fennblades off of it. The kraken then has a clear charge at Skarath and kills it with two to-hit boosted attacks. Killshot hits the fellcaller who goes down and fails tough.
Turn 3A Trolls : The nyss hunters do nothing this turn but mainly remain out of combat with Aiakos’ kraken. Fennblades jam up Skarre’s kraken a bit and the bomber spikes some good damage in to Aiakos’ Kraken who is now left with 3 boxes on the right side and full left side (32 boxes). Burrowers come up and kill Gorman and Ragman with some weight of 10+ to hit attacks.
Turn 3B Cryx : Skarre’s kraken mulches a few fennblades and deviates killshot away from the gaggle of burrowers. Aiakos’ kraken tries his best to not kill the bomber but after two misses finally brings it down and blast a couple nyss hunters dead again. Midwinter fries 3 burrowers and hurts kithkar with his lightning and pistol wraith shoots down one burrower and the kithkar.
Turn 4A Trolls : Two charging fennblades, three chargin nyss hunters and two non-charging nyss hunters wreck my Kraken from 32 points with some amazing damage rolls and I’m really badly screwed. Fennblades and burrowers jam up stuff and Grim dominates for 2.
Turn 4B Cryx : I get necrosurgeon, pistol wraith, Skarre and Skarlock in the zone and Skarre’s kraken mulches more fennblades and tries to killshot some nyss hunters but deviates badly.
Turn 5A Trolls : Grim feats and kills the wraith, nyss and impalers kill the surgeon and Midwinter. His remaining stuff jam up my remaining kraken. He dominates for 2.
Turn 5B Cryx : Can’t make it to melee with Grim and try to kill him with hellfire + Aiakos harpoon. Aiakos and Hellfire both miss thanks to concealment.
Turn 6A Trolls : He misses KD shot with aiming boosted Grim rolling 112 requiring 5 but then the nyss hunters stab Aiakos to death and he dominates for the win.
Bad scenario for me and my inability to kill the bomber combined with his good rolls against the kraken sealed the game. Nonetheless, with almost every advantage I managed to lose, Mikko played very good game and stayed a good sport for all of the game.
I should have just killed his sorcerer on the right flank and contested with pistol wraith as his list lacked magic weapons. Then I could have had Skarre’s kraken in the middle ready to commit to the left zone if Aiakos’ kraken croaks or to the right if Grim manages to snipe out the wraith somehow. Next time I’ll bring more spooky ghosties…
In the end as we didn’t have finals table variant I placed 3rd with SoS which is very good for a mediocre player like me. I really liked my (two) lists this time around, Skarre could use some tweaking but I think I’ll stick to this Asphyxious build in the future too.
The TO then decided that we should decide WTB winner by a duel of epic proportions so we played the fourth round with rock-paper-scissors. I played rock, he played scissors. GG ez no re.
My gaming will be mostly focused on legion and minions for the near future. Until next time readers!
WM/H Finland 