Cryx vs Legion, 50 pts, 3/1/12

Another quick battle report.

Played a 50 point game against Rob, who decided to run Legion of Everblight.  I took the Witch Coven list I had run two days prior against Minute.

Rob's list:

Vayl, Consul of Everblight
- Nephilim Protector
- Shredder
- Angelius
- Ravagore
- Typhon
Blackfrost Shard
Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters (Leader and 9 Grunts)
- Bayal, Hound of Everblight
The Forsaken

I had never seen Epic Vayl in use before, and this was his first time trying her.  Although we knew her abilities, it's hard to say how they would work out in-game.

The scenario we rolled up was 'Incursion'.  In this one, there are three flags along the mid-line of the board, and one randomly disappears.

For set up, Rob basically had his army slightly off center, but mostly focused slight to my left.  I, in my normal Cryx manner, spread out to put things all across my deployment zone.  Mechanithralls + Necrotech + Nightwretch to my far left.  Deathjack + Witch Coven + Withershadow Combine + Bloat Thrall in the center, and the Banes, Bile Thralls, a Nightwretch, and the Warwitch Siren off to my right.  This gave me the ability to apply some pressure to all three flags at once.

Rob went first, and basically sent everything straight forward, and put Admonition on the Ravagore.

I ran as much forward as I dared to.  The Bile Thralls hid in a forest off to my right, about 6-7" away from the flag there, and the Deathjack approached the center flag.  At the end of my turn, we rolled to remove a flag- this ended up removing the center flag.

This put Rob in a rough spot- he had most of his forces slightly to the right of center, approaching the central flag, but still in range of the rightmost one.  The only thing he had close to the left flag was a Ravagore.  Still- with three control points required for victory, it wasn't a big issue for the moment.

Rob started his turn by shooting the Deathjack with the Ravagore, and dropping 8 damage on it.  His Hex Hunters moved up and started to magic away at my various troops, accounting for 2 Bile Thralls, 2 Bane Knights, and a Bane Thrall I believe.  His Nephilim Protector moved up to contest the right-hand flag, in case I got through the Hex Hunters, and the Blackfrost Shard parked a little behind to support him,  Typhon moved up as well, towards the center of the board.

I try to guestimate the distance to Typhon, and am fairly sure I'm in range.  I allocate three focus to the Deathjack, and have the Witch Coven advance and spread some Ghost Walk to my troops in the forests, as well as Infernal Machine on the Deathjack.  I then pop my feat.  The Bile Thralls, Bane Thralls, Bane Knights, and Tartarus make short work of the Hex Hunters, leaving them with a single model.  The Mech Thralls run to the far side of the left-hand flag, and I park my arc node right next to it, giving me control of it.  The Deathjack then charges in.  Despite having Excessive Healing on it to help preserve its life, the Typhon quickly dies to the Deathjack due to incredible damage rolls (I think I dealt 14 on my charge attack, and followed it with another 10?).  My turn ends, and I gain a control point.

Rob is faced with a lot of tough decisions here.  He has the Deathjack front and center, who is going to create a tremendous amount of problems for his army if he doesn't deal with it.  He has only one beast available to try to wrest control of the left-hand control point from me.  On the right, he has the Nephilim Protector contesting the control point, but I had run a Bane Thrall into it to try to lock it into place.  On top of all of that, the Witch Coven's feat was up, making LOS and hitting my models a tremendous pain. 

Rob spends some time going over a few options, and decides that his primary goal needs to be contesting the left-hand control point, and killing the Deathjack.  He has the Ravagore trample towards the flag, getting in range to contest it, and attempts to take a swing at the Nightwretch, but misses.  At least for now he is contesting it.

He contemplates how to tackle the Deathjack with the available resources, and sadly makes some order of activation errors. First, he has the Blackfrost Shard move up- they kill the Bane Thrall engaged to the Nephilim Protector, and kill two Bile Thralls, hoping to make a game of contesting the flag over there. 

The Angelius charges in against the Deatjack, manages to hit, and then rolls poorly for damage on the Armor Piercing attack.  A few more attacks put a few points on the Deathjack, before the Angelius decides to Repulsion it away.   The Nephilim Soldier then charges the Deathjack, and despite the -2 to hit, manages to put a few damage onto it as well.  The Forsaken moves up, and I think drops one more point on it. 

So, at this point the Deathjack had taken about 20 damage, and had only lost an arm.  Not nearly enough to help Rob, so he has Vayl move back (out of my feat), shoot the Angelius to create an Arc Node, and pops her feat.  The first Obliteration unfortunately misses (here's the order of activation problem- he definitely didn't want the Deathjack engaged for this, although his roll was poor enough it wouldn't have mattered), but succeeds in killing his own Forsaken.  Thrilled, he puts Admonition on Vayl, Frostbite on the Mechanithralls (to stop them from Combo Striking), and then spends Fury for another Obliteration shot that DOES hit.  A boost to the damage doesn't deal enough to the Deathjack, however.

At this point, Rob conceded, more because we were running low on time than because of his chances.  I personally think I could've gotten a control point on the right this turn, using the remaining Bile Thralls to clear the Blackfrost Shard, and then moving the Nightwretch onto it.  The left one would've been more difficult, because the Ravagore was too close to most of my Mechanithralls, meaning they couldn't have charged, limiting my damage.  I probably could've gotten a Curse of Shadows onto the Ravagore which would've helped, but even so, Rob would've had a difficult time fighting for the right flag at this point, which would've given me the win.

We aren't really sure what to do with Epic Vayl- she has a decent number of tools, but finding the right models to run with her will be a challenge.  Hopefully Rob takes her again, and we can get a better idea of just what she can do!

Anyway, thanks for reading everyone!  I will start working to put pictures back in the battle reports soon!