Cryx V. Menoth Battle Report, Dene and Kreos

K and I got together for a game last week. I've been trying to learn how to use Skarre lately and that hasn't been going too well. Now I'm by no means a power gamer but a 1-6 record with Skarre was starting to cause my morale to sink. So.... I went to my ringer and brought out The Warwitch herself. So without further ado, here it is...

Part I -- The Forces

500 pts
Player 1 Menoth
Player 2 Cryx

Menoth
Kreoss, Vassal, Hierophant, Devout, Devout, Crusader, Knights Exemplar (6), Choir.

Once again the standard disclaimer applies, I suck at remembering the names of Menothian stuff so if its wrong just let me know and I'll fix it. Maybe... :)

Cryx
Deneghra, Harrower, Deathripper, Deathripper, Nightwretch, Mechanithralls (6), Mechanithralls (6), Skarlock, Pistol Wraith, Pistol Wraith, Necrotech, Scrap Thralls(2).

PartII --The Table



The table had a "tournament style" terrain layout. The North Side of the table had a small forest in the Western corner and a hill in the Eastern corner. The South side mirrors the North with a wood in the West and a Hill in the East. The middle ground was occupied by a stone dwelling on a hill in the centre and a similar house on a hill on the Eastern edge.

There was also a road running from the Western board edge to the Centre then turning North to bisect the Northern edge. We have house rules in place that if a model spends its entire movement on a road that it gains an extra 1" of movement. For example a Deathripper running on a road can move 15". This is a subtle but fun effect and gives us a chance to use roads for something other than just a show.


PartIII -- Deployment

Menoth
K won the die roll so he chose to be player 1 and deployed in the centre of the Northern deployment area. He placed his Choir and Crusader on the road to take advantage of the extra inch of movement that it would provide. His left flank was guarded by a Devout and the Vassal, while his extreme right was occupied by the Knights Exemplar. The Centre-Right was held by the Revenger and the second Devout. Kreos and his Hierophant deployed closely behind the Devout on the Centre-right.


Cryx

My Deployment was equally simple. With the lack of speed reducing terrain I was not expecting to make a great deal of use out of the "Ghost Walk through terrain and Arcnode you" trick. So I decided that I needed to tarpit the Jacks with my Mechanithralls and attempt to break through the Knights to get a shot at Kreos. That's the theory at least. :)

I occupied the Southern deployment zone so I couldn't take advantage of the extra movement provided by the road on the first turn. I deployed my Mechanithralls on my right to counter the Jacks on K's left. Outside of that my plan was to use an Arcnode or two to get in close with the Knights and then Venom bath them into oblivion. I anchored my flanks with a scrap thrall on each side with a Pistol Wraith to harass each flank of the enemy. My left was occupied by the Arcnodes, so they would have the protection of the building on the hill when things got a little closer.

I didn't really have a plan for the Harrower, it was really meant as a backup to mop up if things went wrong with plan 'A'; at least I would have something with some punch that couldn't be knocked down to act as a bodyguard for Dene if it came to that. I didn't really have much for the Skarlock to do this game either so I threw him and the Necrotech in behind the Mechanithralls.



Part IV -- The Fight

Menoth Turn 1
As you might expect since K didn't have any ranged weapons his first turn was spent moving forward as fast as he could. Kreos puts Protection of Menoth on the Knights and Retribution on the Crusader. As an asside it must be noted that K was having a hard time remembering to activate his Hierophant before Kreos so he wasn't taking full advantage of the Hierophant's powers. The choir does what it always does against Cryx, (for those of you who live under a rock, that means they sang the hymn that makes Jacks untargetable by magic.) and the Devout in front of Kreos advances and uses Spellguard, thus making Kreos untargetable by spells.

Menoth Turn 1.

The Crusader runs along the road to bring the fight to me.

Cryx Turn 1 ("The Hook")

My intention on turn one was to establish a solid position from which to attack and not be too vulnerable to Kreos' feat. That meant holding back a little and "chumming the water" a little with a Boneturkey and a Pistol Wraith in the hopes of drawing either some of the jacks or the Knights. I also sent my first tarball Mechanithrall unit out to die (er... re-die?). I left the Mechanithralls just outside of what I hope is the Crusader's charge range since I either want him to run to get to me or I want to run or charge to get to him. Once I get K committed I the plan is to come around with the Arcnodes and kill Kreos.

I keep the majority of my army back and Dene casts Death Rage on a Pistol Wraith. The Harrower advances and takes a shot and falls short (no suprise there but a guy's gotta try right?)

Cryx Turn 1.

Menoth Turn 2

Kreos upkeeps Retribution and Protection of Menoth, allocates a focus to a devout and camps the remainder. The Choir advances and sings (second verse, same as the first). The Hierophant advances and reduces the cost of one of Kreos' spells. The Vassal advances and enlivent the Crusader. The Devout advances and raises spellguard.

Now for the interesting bit. The Revenger advances to the top of the hill in order to be in range for arcing. Kreos advances and casts Lamentation for one less focus thanks to the Hierophant. Kreos also takes a crack at the Pistol Wraith but fails to hit. In an attempt to protect the jacks, the Knights run laterally accross the field to screen the Crusader.

The Advance of Menoth

Cryx Turn 2 ("The Fight")

Now you'll notice in the picture below that by advancing the Revenger, the Devout and the Deathripper on my left are all in a nice little line.

Cryx Turn 2 (The Setup)

Dene upkeeps Death Rage on the Pistol Wraith, allocates 2 focus to the Deathripper and keeps 4 for herself. The Deathripper slams the Revenger and rolls a 6 for the distance. The Revenger flies back off the hill ripping into the Menothian line causing havoc everywhere. As a result of the slam the Revenger, a Devout, two knights and Kreos are all knocked down.

Knowing that she doesn't have the position for an assassination attempt Dene opts to soften Kreos for a later chance by casting parasite on him. The Death Raged Pistol Wraith advances and takes out a Knight and the Knight Leader. The Harrower stays still and shoots but is out of range and misses. The second Pistol Wraith advances and triple taps the Devout to cause a Death Chill.

It is important to block up the advance at this stage so the Mechanithralls charge the knights and fail to kill any, but more importantly the middle ground has been clogged with bodies and knocked down jacks.

Cryx Turn 2 (The Result)

Menoth Turn 3

Kreos allocates 1 focus each to the Devouts and keeps 5 focus to himself. In an attempt to stabilize his position K trys to get rid of my Pistol Wraiths and my Mechani-pit.

The Choir sings the "Extra Choppy" song and gets all the jacks and the Hierophant drops the cost of casting a spell for Kreos.

The Death Chilled Devout runs up to engage one of the Pistol Wraiths while the Vassal follows up and gives the Devout an extra attack. Alas the Devout wiffs and the Pistol Wraith lives(?) to fight on.

The Crusader advances and kills a Mechanithrall and the Knights mop up some others but three remain from the first wave.

In the mean time the second Devout advances and puts up his spell guard. Kreos comes up behind him and uses Anti-magic Pulse to drop the Death Rage and takes out the Pistol Wraith. This leaves Kreos engaged with a Boneturky and in B2B with a Spell Guarding Devout. Kreos opts not to feat since he would not catch the majority of the Cryx second wave.


Cryx Turn 3 ("The Kill")

So here is my chance.

Dene upkeeps Parasite and keeps the remaining 6 focus to herself.

The problem I have to overcome here is Kreos' defence. I can't shoot him or magic him directly because:

1. Very little line-of-sight from most of my models
2. Kreos is engaged (+4 def)
3. Kreos is elevated (+2 def)
4. Kreos is next to a Devout who will move to block shooting
5. The Devout has spell guard running so I can't target Kreos with magic.

The Achilles heel in this set up is actually a part of what makes it so strong, The Devout. Because Kreos has to be in base to base with the Devout to gain the benefit of Spell Guard he is in danger from being affected by things that affect the Devout.

So here's how it plays out...

The Scarlock moves up and casts Ghost Walk on the Ripper, and the ripper walks out of combat which both removes the engagement issue and potentially some line of sight issues. The second Ripper advances in support. Deneghra advances to within control area and feats, while casting Scourge on the Devout. I have no illusions of killing either the jack or Kreos with the splash but by boosting to hit Dene guarantees a knockdow on both the Devout and Kreos thus solving more line of sight problems, reducing Kreos defence to a very managable 7. She also boosts the secondary damage on Kreos since he's also Parasited and Withered so he takes a little damage. With the prep-work done now we can get on with the killin'

With the Devout knocked down he doesn't block line of sight nor can he move to intercept a shot so the Pistol Wraith advances and double-taps Kreos for the kill. I must admit to some good rolls with this but I still had the Harrower and a Nightwretch left to shoot so I feel confident that Kreos would have gone down anyhow.

Before and after "The Kill"

Final Thoughts

Once again a fine time was had by all. I thought K played a fine game and he only really made one mistake. That being said I never mentioned this but we play with a chess timer so we have seven minute turns each with one "long" turn per game wherein a player can take as long as he really needs. This is usually reserved for feat turns or turns when there is a lot of dice rolling to be resolved. Any how K had a total play time of twenty-one minutes for three turns, it's hard to be perfect under those conditions.

Not going for the you can't spell me song on turn 3 was probably the biggest problem, I still could have gotten around it by targeting my Boneturkey with the Scourge to get the knockdown, but it would have been more difficult since he would have been engaged and not affected by the Withering so I could have missed and gotten a bad scatter which would have ruined the entire run.

Like I said all in all it was a good time.

PS: We played again last night and K handed me my ass twice with Severus V. Dene, conveniently I didn't take any pictures so there will be no report on my shame. :)

Yours in Service,

The General.