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Tour De Cryx – Battle Report: Scaverous v. Wormwood

In my journey to play each caster 5 times, I’ve not really kept pace. Hopefully, though, I’ll be able to Catch up. I’ve made my 4th game with Scaverous, and figured I’d drop a battle report for it real quick. (ha, you all know my Battle reports are long and unwieldy) 

I did decide to go with the Better Scaverous list, to see how it plays out. While I wasn’t thrilled with it, it does seem to be the way to go. not having to spend 4 for feast of worms to get a -2 arm seems critical. 

What were the lists, you say? 

Scaverous
-Withershadow
-Erebus
-Deathripper
-Deathripper

Bane Thralls x6
Satyxis Raiders x10  +UA 
Croe’s Cutthroats x10

Soul Trapper
Wrong Eye
-Snap Jaw

 

Wormwood, Tree of Fate and Cassius
-Loki
-Megalith
-Gorax
-Pureblood

Shifting Stones
Shifting Stones +UA
Sentry Stones
Sentry Stones
Farrow Bonegrinders (x4)
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew

Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer
Hutchuck, Ogrun Bounty Hunter

 

Initial Thoughts

We both brought a single list. Its pretty common with our causal games, as we will play into the matchups no matter what simply to be aware of what happens, and how to try and pull ourselves out, in those rough times. Wormwood isn’t as backbreaking as he used to be, but he is still very good. Looking at the list as it was pulled out, it was something I didn’t think I had a lot of answers for. there was a lot of spellcasting, a lot of stealth, and a lot of armor. There was also a strong lack of souls. I wasn’t really looking forward to it in a meta sort of way, but I knew I’d enjoy the game and get to see how a soulless Scaverous pans out over the long haul. 

The Game

Scenario: Recon
Cryx Deployment: Second
Cryx Objective: Fuel Cache
Circle Objective: Fuel Cache

Circle Deployment

He didn’t have much to deploy, so he just centered all his warbeasts and the few units. 

Cryx Deployment

I’m trying to work on Counter-deploying and taking scenario into play, so I looked for a bit. I knew I wanted one side for the Croes, so they got onto that, and then I had the Satyxis on the other side. Wrongeye and Snapjaw needed to be able to stay together while also giving starcrossed to the majority of the Satyxis. Scaverous eyed the side of the board away from all of the beasts, and put the Bane Thralls behind the building to just run right through it. Erebus tried to get into a position to take advantage of the cloud and the scenario zone. Def 16 or denial of LOS seemed good. 

Circle AD

This was fairly equitable, with a Sentry Stones, Shifting Stones and a Gallows Grove to each side. To the left was Cassius and the Stone Keeper, and one stone from that side (left) was over on the right to facilitate teleporting. 

Cryx AD

Man, that forest looked super. I chose second with that and the trench in mind to keep some of my models safe. The Cutthroats went behind that forest. The twin benefits of Pathfinder and Reform 5″ allowed me to take great advantage of the safety of the forest without having to commit them to anything. If his caster ever makes a move, or anything valuable, really, towards that flag, I can shoot an arc node, turn it around and hopefully drop it with the Croes. Anything but the stoutest model drops to 10 Croes shooting it in the back. POW 10 + 3 dice damage + Feast of Worms is 3.5 per Cutthroat to ARM 20. That’s 35 damage, and takes out even a Khador heavy, at RAT 7 w/ Three dice to hit. it only gets better from there. No models are immune to backstab in this edition, so I figured I could even pluck out a Sentry or Shifting stone or even Wormwood if things went in that direction, and at the very worst I’d simply scare off anything from that flag. Croe wen’t on that side. 

Deployment. Awesome Terrain from Tectonic Craft Studios, Awesome FAT mat.

Round 1

Circle: Turn 1

Simple turns. Almost everything runs, ports or shifts into position, keeping away from the threats with pre-measurement as is appropriate. Cloud and forest wall goes up with wild growth, Fuel Cache, and Forest Growth. Everything important is in clouds/forest, on a hill, or both. Wormwood drops his giant, wooded self in the zone, in a cloud. Cheeky. The Bone grinders chopped themselves up to feed the Hungry Tree, giving it two souls due to positioning. The Stone Warden tossed a big, bulky rock at a third, but the Bone Grinder was having none of it, and toughed. Hutchuck, at the behest of the Hungry Tree, wandered forward and dropped the downed Bonegrinder to get that precious third soul!

Cryx: Turn 1

Well. going second against Manikins is always fun, right? Ugh.  I know I’m going to get the majority of my lines sprayed, so I make what I think is the best of it. I measure out to two of the Manikins closest to the Satyxis – about 15″ out, so I run and engage them. turns out, it was a misunderstanding with how we were both cross communicating. In response to his “whats your threat” question, I responded ” run 14  + Reach.” I was walking away to get something, however, and the reach wasn’t clearly enough communicated. We played it as it stood. I left a nice little path for Wrong-eye to get into the trench while charging, under submerge and starcrossed, tossed Snapjaw upfront under Submerge as well. Erebus creeping up behind the Fuel Cache Cloud, with the arc nodes trailing behind, ready to pop out and get some TK’s going. The Cutthroats all moved forward into the woods and two of them took brave aim at the one both on a hill and in the woods. I needed 11’s to hit, and feeling playful, I called that I’d be able to shoot the manikin, no problem. Dice being what they are, they provided, with the first, and only, roll being an 11. The rest of the unit was able to gang up on the remaining Manikin in range, take it down, and then everyone faded 15″ from the tree to be super-safe.  Scaverous tossed out Death Ward on Erebus, getting him up to a gentleman’s 14/20 with Poltergeist, and then wandered off to the right, away from all the nasty, nasty heavy warbeasts. 

Round 2

Circle: Turn 2

The Package starts to unfold. the Hungry Tree knew a great clump of delicious hellmouth targets when he saw one, and my raiders were just primed for the picking. With the 10 focus, he could even do it twice if he desired, and he did. Wild Growth and forest growth vanished, and he gained fury on both the Sentry stones, as well as a new Manikin on the right flank. He moved the right-flank gallows grove first, moving it within 8″ of one of the rear Satyxis while also staying out of reach of the Satyxis in front. The Hungry Tree then activated, and dropped the first hellmouth on a cluster of Satyxis and a Bane Thrall, and they were all sucked from the world and disposed of in the most grisly fashion. The second hellmouth found its way into the back line, and killed 3 more, leaving only a single Satyxis up and engaging two manikins. Finally, he popped Black Roots and moved on, satisfied with the turn. Megalith proceeds to trample forward, trying to get into LOS of the last Satyxis to Stranglehold her, but fails to get LOS through the feat, leaving her alive. The two free manikins move up and, thanks to some idiotic placement, he’s able to get two sprays onto Wrong eye while under submerge by targeting the Withershadow combines members I’d moved to the back lines, eliminating Tremulous. The rest of the turn was rather uneventful, with a Manikin on the other side running to engage my arc node on one side, and the warbeasts getting into position behind/within the feat. Finally, some stones moved up to try and protect Megalith from any untoward responses during the feat. 

Cryx: Turn 2

In games like this, loosing the whole bunch of Satyxis can be really demoralizing, but I had to push on. Its not like he had many souls or that I could really take advantage of Feedback, so it wasn’t a big loss. I upkept Deathward on Erebus, allocated nothing, and went to my turn. 

I knew I would have to make some strong moves to keep up this turn, and the only thing I could see clearly was that I might be able, if things went right, to get Megalith. First I needed to clear a few things up, though. The Croes took care of freeing up the arc node and removing a second manikin, repositioning behind the forest,  leaving the Sentry stone on that side pretty dry. The Satyxis cleaned up another two from the second stone, making the far side pretty empty. The feat was going to be problematic for everything else. The Bane thralls moved on next, having LOS to a single Sentry stone in the Red unit, and activated, destroying the stone in one swing. This cleared a bit of room around the Megalith, and I hoped I had enough room to TK him forward and get LOS from Snapjaw, allowing him to charge. After a bit of fiddling with some proxy bases for both the arc node and Megalith, it was determined that yes, I could and would get LOS with Snapjaw onto Megalith following a TK. I promptly moved my arc node and TK’d Megalith not only forward, but into a Dark Shroud, allowing Snapjaw to have a much better chance at removing it. 

Wrongeye activated next and wiggled around, making sure that the end position of Snapjaw was going to be within his control, so that I could force for more attacks. Everything set into place, Snapjaw got to work. It took both his initials and 3 more attacks, but the Megalith was removed and I was able to re-submerge, protecting me from something, I was sure. 

Erebus and the support finished out the turn, with Erebus running into the Cloud to get up to DEF 16 and the rest waddling to where they best saw fit. 

I hoped I was free from most reprisal, but I was pretty convinced I was going to lose Snapjaw. I deserved it. 

Round 3

Circle: Turn 3

The turn started off pretty standard, with Loki getting a few measurements and a couple grunts of confirmation. The gallows grove and Sentry stone activated on the left side first, clearing up a hole for Loki. I wish I remember why the Hungry Tree activated early in the turn, but man I just can’t I think he tossed out a hellmouth, but I don’t remember the consequences. Many models, some, I assume, good ones, died. The Manikin on the right side, created this very turn, charged into Wrongeye, under starcrossed. I felt confident. Sadly, that confidence was misplaced as both the hit roll and the damage roll spiked high, leaving me with only a tough roll on Wrongeye to keep Snapjaw in the game.

Man. That was close. 

With the lane clear, and Snapjaw still on the board, the course was clear. Loki wandered himself up to the top of the hill and heaved his massive hook into the DEF 16 Erebus. NBD, connects all well and good with a boost. Deathward let me pick the column for the subsequent guaranteed damage , but it wasn’t gonna save me from the drag. Pulled up the hill, and needing only 7’s now, he takes his free attack from drag, boosting the hit, connecting again, and on his initial, he boosts and connects once more. Choosing the columns left me with everything up, but in critical condition. with two fury left, he buys an attack, opting not to boost saving Loki as a potential Transfer target. Thankfully for me, he misses and is launched 3″ backwards thanks to Poltergeist. 

After Erebus survives, he moves to take out Snapjaw.Hutchuck gets out of the way by going in on the Arc node, blowing out the node. The Stones teleport out of the way, both forward and leftwards, to block the lane between Erebus and Wormwood. The Swamp gobbers did the same. Then, In comes the Pureblood onto Snapjaw. After a full fury load of attacks, the resilient giant Alligator is left standing. I count myself lucky, with both my heavies still alive. 

Cryx: Turn 3

Alright. I Managed to survive this moderatly intact. I’ve got both my heavies, my feat, my caster and an arc node. I think I can do this. Loki is within 18″ of all the Croes, so I’m pretty sure I can take him out from downtown. Snapjaw can likely pull down a backwards Warpwolf Alpha, given that I can get a bane thrall into melee with it first. But there is also, as I look over the board, a chance that with enough finagling, I can get Snap Jaw into position to take down Wormwood.  After working out where I need to be in order to get the TK on Loki, hit the TK on Wormwood and get a stone out of the way, I can’t proceed until I clear a the Stoneward from the Arc Node landing zone. Send in the Banes! I manage to leave the Sentry stone up, having charged it off to the left, I did take out the Stoneward with the backstrike bonus.

The landing zone cleared, I move up the Deathripper. Scaverous goes next, and moved up to the Manikin threatening the knocked down Wrongeye. Scaverous swings and takes him down. I then pop my feat, the path cleared to get Snapjaw up to the Tree. Loki is the first target, and he’s simply moved directly towards the Croes and turned around for Backstab goodness. Next I move a stone, out of the way, and then Wormwood forward to within walking distance of Snapjaw. Now, to free Snapjaw. I can’t use the Arc Node, because its the wrong direction, but thankfully I am able to have distance with Scaverous. My first TK misses the mark, but it randomly selects Hutchuck. I pull him out of combat and backwards. My second TK also flies wide. This time, It targets Snapjaw, who I place closer to the Hungry Tree and out of combat with the Pureblood. Finally, the TK goes through and I move the Alpha out of the way. 

Finally, with the lane cleared, Wrongeye moves up into position to make sure that Snapjaw is within Control when he eats the Tree, and sets him too it. By the end, I have one fury left for Snapjaw, and the Tree is in the belly of the Croc, where it belongs. 

Final thoughts

There was a moment, as I was going through my feat, where I thought it would be better for me to use the feat to remove both beasts, and possibly get him on the next turn. With only a Gorax and Cassius to try and take down my two injured heavies, I thought it would be a gamble, but a worthwhile gamble. In the end, though, I went for the Tree because it seemed an extremely safe assassination. What do you think? Is it better to go for the assassination, or simply play it safe and use attrition to your advantage? 

Next time – a hopefully shorter 4 game battle report from the Delewar event!