Tour de Cryx Tournament Report – Delewar!

Last weekend – as I am writing this – I was able to attend an awesome event in Delware at The Icehouse. A 25 man tournament, with 32 slots, run over 2 days with tons of prizes. Competitive players were everywhere, and most games I heard of were awesome – I know all 4.5 of mine were!

As I went over here, my lists were Terminus and Scaverous. I made no changes to the lists going in, so I won’t bother re-hashing them take a peek at them first to see what you think.  

Game 1

This round is the chanciest of all in a tournament. Random pairings means you just don’t know what your gonna get. Sometimes you’ll get a shark, sometimes you get a baby seal, and most of the time you get a great game. This day, I got a great game. 

We were playing the pit. The table, see below, was a g’damned mess. Tons of terrain, but only one blocking LOS at all. 

She brought Retribution – Garryth and Ravyn. Ravyn was a monster gunline list, and Garryth has all sorts of tricks. I didn’t feel particularly bad into Garryth with either list, but Ravyn against Scaverous looked pretty bad. I picked Terminus, hoping to outlast her, whichever end she went. She picked Ravyn. 

Ravyn
-Hyperion
-Sylys Wychnaylar
Arcanist
Arcanist
Arcanist
Ghost Sniper
Ghost Sniper
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Soulless Voidtracer
Soulless Voidtracer
Dawnguard Destors (x5)
Stormfall Archers
Stormfall Archers
Heavy Rifle Team

She won the roll off, and opted to go first. I picked the side with the highest likelyhood to use both a trench and the tower, and denied her two of three hills. I put prey on Hyperion: seemed prudent. 

Her turn 1 she advanced into solid positions, almost straight forwards. Destors are pretty fast, turns out. 
My turn 1 I put myself into solid position in order to not explode everywhere. With Hyperion and Stormfall, I know its going to be very, very hard. She put snipe on the Destors, so I knew there was nowhere I was going to hide. Jam fast and hard. 

Her turn, she started lighting my forces up. Destors aimed and blew out all the crows on their side, and start working around my right flank with reposition. It was a bloodbath. The Ghost Snipers, riflemen and Stormfall also took aim at the Carrion thralls, but just on the other side of the board. There were a lot of birds and just a few guns over there, though, and over half the unit took their second dirt nap. Hyperion, Ravyn, and more stormfall dropped just shy of half the Bane’s, but the rest of the list was unaffected. 

My turn, I pushed further into the zone and piled around the flag, hoping to start scoring. Carrion Thralls, in the only role I have for them other than Jam, swarm and eat Eiryss before repositioning into the stormfall. Banes, unable to reach anything via charge, simply run in to position, hoping for one more turn. 

This is where I think I made a major mistake. Nightmare and Hyperion have the same threat range.I purposely put Nightmare about 1/4in out of threat range, threatening the Colossal if he moves anywhere. I then swarmed the zone, preventing him from moving, defeating my well laid plans. Terminus moved up a touch on the flag to score first, and the Mechanithralls all flooded around the back lines, waiting for their time. 

This is where things start to feel like the wheels are falling off for me. I’ve managed to get up 1-0 on her VP’s, but my army is rapidly coming apart. The Destors wheel around at drop more than a few Banes, and then pull up onto and around the hill. The Stormfall archers, the Rifle and the Ghost snipers pound my Carrion and Mechanithralls. Hyperion and Ravyn blow out pretty much all of the Banes, leaving only 2 behind. Its a god damned mess. She pulls a Victory point out as well as I, and we go to 2-1.

I’ve gotta do something about that stupid colossal. Both Bane’s go in, reducing the armor by two and getting nice weaponmaster hits on it. The Inflictor, in range, charges in and rips a good chunk out of it, leaving it with 18 boxes. The Mechanithrallsm facing off against the Destors, feeling that their time has finally come,  charge in to die in a blaze of glory! Surprising everyone, they take out two with no problem. Just gotta roll 8’s, right? Terminus edges forward  with his resurrected bullet-sponges and Nightmare, now wise to the ways of colossals, shimmies forward to get into position to take out the pinned in place Hyperion. Man, I hope this works. We go up, 3-1

Her next turn, she spends a lot of time extricating herself. Destors lay into, and remove to a single man, the Mechanithrall unit they are engaged with. Ravyn and the Voidtracer team up to remove the Mechanithralls and the Bane on the right. Hyperion, having been repaired 6 points, takes down the Inflictor. The Stormfall, a Ghost sniper and the Heavy Rifle Team take out all but on of the Mechanithrall bodyguard for Terminus. The other ghost sniper runs up to block the flag from being scored. We go up, 3-2. All I have left are Nightmare, 2 Mechanithralls, the Necrosurgeon unit, and Terminus. 

I have to win, now, or I likely die to both a colossal and Ravyn. The Hyperion has 24 boxes left. There is a Voidtracer and two Stormfall archers in the zone. I got this. I allocate two to Nightmare. Terminus pops his feat, because why not, and Assaults the Hyperion. Spray does some damage, but misses the poor Arcanist behind him. His charge attack connects, and deals a hefty amount of damage. He buys an attack with his claw, destroying one Stormfall archer. Buys a second attack with his sword, and kills the second Stormfall, clearing the way for Nightmare. I buy two more attacks with Terminus against the colossal, rending it significantly, but leaving it with a cool 3 damage boxes. Nightmare now needs to position himself within 1″ of both the Voidtracer and the Hyperion, and take them both out. Charge attack into the Hyperion breaks it, and the boosted attack into the Voidtracer also kills it. I dominate the pit for 2 and take the game. 

Man, what a freaking game! She was slowly running out of time – though with 13 minutes left it wasn’t all that bad, and I was very rapidly running out of models. I don’t know how I escape that, honestly. Maybe big T simply belches fire at two of the blocking models, clearing the way for Nightmare, nightmare goes and finishes Hyperion off (average if all 5 attack hit is something like.. 31?) and forces Rayvn to commit or die? 

I make it past the first round! 

Game 2

That last game was a grinder, and I really hope the rest of the tournament isn’t that long every round. 

This second game I was paired up against a legion player from Philly, who is an awesome dude. I’d met him a few times at local events and cons, so I knew we were going to have a pleasant – and likely intense- game. 

This time, we were playing incursion. The board was a little bit better, but not overly so.  As I said earlier, he brought legion. I don’t remember his second list, but he brought Vayl2, a caster I was prepared to play into. With Terminus. 

Vayl 2
-Angelius
-Seraph
-Typhon
Forsaken
Shepard
Shepard
Strider Deathstalker
Strider Deathstalker
Spell Martyr
Spell Martyr
Blackfrost Shard
Hellmouth
Hellmouth

 He won the roll to go first, and I took the side with trees to hide behind (take care to remember this board… ). I put prey on Typhon – seemed at least like a not-dumb move. 

 

Turn 1 he advances, getting into position way up field, taking the hill, forest and pools. Her upkeeps went out, admonition on Typhon, and Occultation on the Angel, for what seems like good measure. 

My turn 1 I do what I always do – Flood the board. everything runs forward into position to be able to make sure I am contesting straight across the centerline. Terminus hides behind the forest for good measure – I heard them Hellmouths are dangerous! 

 

His turn 2 was fairly standard. He started tearing into my lines with blighted dragonfire and tentacle-whips. Birds died to fire everywhere, but the rest was either out of range or way to dodgy. He was ready to clash on the center. I felt pretty strong after seeing what I had left after turn 2. Most often, it was less than this. 

My turn 2 was very basic. I annihilated almost all of his tentacles on both the Hellmouths, and with all of my Banes and Crows pushed forward, establishing the line of engagement on his side of the board. I even hopped over to the far left flag to claim a point, pleased that I was able to go up so early. 

His turn 3. Well, remember when I said that Hellmouths were dangerous? I should have listened. Not that it really would have mattered because I didn’t understand what that really meant. Having played against them only once before, and in that game killing it with a Kraken fairly early, I never got to experience what happened next. 

The Seraph and the Bolt Thrower teamed up, and started mowing down the birds in the way of his plan. You’ll notice their are only three… one made a clutch tough roll. The Blackfrost shard, though, came in and dropped two Ice Cages on big T – one after using the tough bird to trigger battle wizard – and then a harm. Vayl then decided to join the fun! she popped her feat and tossed an Icy Grip on Terminus, bringing him down to DEF 8, and shot him with a pair of chastens, doing a not insignificant chunk of damage. Still, I felt naively fine. Then, the Gripping Hand came. The Tentacle, placed conveniently within striking distance of Terminus during the start of the turn, smacked Terminus and drug him to the Hellmouth… mouth… where he ate a POW 17 to the face, and then another. Terminus was sitting on 3 focus and five health when the Forsaken strolled over and, NBD, dropped a 6,6,6,4,4 Terminus died instantly. I forgot to roll tough, but Typhon was there, with his 8 pow 17 attacks sitting right near by. Game over man! 

Turns, out, If I just put Terminus where I have him in the pic below, I probably don’t die that turn and get to keep playing! 

 

Well. I’m now 1-1. Time to go onto the third round!

Game 3

I was paired up against an excellent fellow playing trolls, who I had spoken to earlier in the day. He’d never played against Cryx and mentioned he wanted to play. Well, Excellent! 

The Scenario was Recon, and he brought two lists – Madrak 2 Heroes and Doomy 2 Power of Dunia. He dropped the Doomshaper 2 list, and I  – Having lost and wasn’t playing for first, picked my Scaverous list. Besides Heroes scares off piles of tough anyway. 

Doomshaper 2
-Mulg
-Dire Troll Mauler
-Dire Troll Mauler
-Earthborn Dire Troll
-Earthborn Dire Troll
-Axer
Krielstone (max) + Stone Scribe Elder

I won the roll to go first, this time, and he picked the side with a nice trench right outside the deployment zone.

Turn 1 I ran up, onto the hill and tossed the Cutthroats behind the forest on the left. Everything else was ready to get into the action next turn, wanting to take out some Dire Trolls, somehow. 

His turn 1, he ran everything forward, and put Doomy into the Trench. Prepared for a scrum, he passed the turn. 

It was at that point that I thought to myself – Man, he looks awfully close to that arc node I have on the hill. Maybe… 24″? At which point I measured it out. 21″. Interesting. I measured to my Cutthroats. 5 of them were within 18″. Even more interesting. 
He looked at me and I told him that I was going to go for the assassination. 

The Banes went first, unpacking from around the arc node, who then ran into position 8″ out from Doomshaper, in the Trench. The Withershadow then moved up and used both TK and Puppet Strings on Scaverous, itching him a bit closer. Scaverous activates and uses his feat. His first TK pulls him out of the Trench, 2″ directly towards the Cutthroats, using a proxy to place him right where I needed him. I then hit him with both a Feast of Worms and an Excarnate, doing a fair bit of damage. Passing the activation, the Cutthroats moved in and did what they always do. 4 backstrike attacks to the back of his noggin later and the game was over. 

which is why I only have a picture of our second game… because I both forgot and the game ended so fast. 

We did rack up again, and play another, more interesting game, but this article is getting long. It was a good game, in which I discovered that I can remove 4 heavies in a single turn with that list. Pretty sweet!

The next game was the next morning – about 11:00. So I stayed up until 2:30am and got up right early to get to the store. 

Game 4

While we didn’t know it, this would be the last game of the tournament, due to the pair down losing. The guy who I lost to with legion was in the finals, so I was rooting him on. 

I got matched up against a Cygnar player – as everyone knows, my favorite game to play against – and he brought with him a Caine 3 and Haley 2 list. Matched up against Cryx, he wisely chose the Haley 2 Heavy Metal list, as it was pretty obvious I should drop Terminus, but I wanted to get more reps in with Scaverous, So I dropped him instead. The Scenario is Extraction. 

Haley 2
-Squire
-Stormwall
-Thorn
-Charger
Journeyman
-Charger
Allison Jakes
-Hunter
-Hunter
Captain Strangeways
Mechanics

I was playing on the same table that I’d played on against legion the day before, and I ended up second, again, again taking the side with the terrain and trees inside of the Killbox. 

You’ll notice that there is an arc node sized hole in my list, which bummed me out. Loosing a vital model like that on the top of 1 is really irritating. It set the whole game well. 

He took a central position on turn 1, with the Hunters a bit forward, having removed my arc node. I was sad, believe me, but I thought I could get Jakes and both hunters. 

My turn 1, I managed to pull the far left hunter forward, but get off only 4 charges on the jacks, hitting with three. It was not an auspicious beginning to the game. 

His turn 2 he dug even deeper, picking off my second arc node and a few of my Satyxis, while popping his feat. 

My turn two I put myself into a position behind the woods, in  the kill box and hoped it was good enough. I did manage to do the last few damage to Jakes through feedback,  though, and tossed Deathward on Erebus, preparing for the following turn. 

A turn I would never get. 

Running Thorn over to get within LOS of Scaverous on an angle I didn’t notice, he pulled me out from behind the woods with a nice little TK, tossed an arcane bolt into the side of my head, and then followed it up with Two charger shots and Three Big Gun shots thanks to temporal acceleration. He didn’t even need the last one. 

 

Conclusions

Well! most of my games, two of them because I’d not really thought out what I was doing and got assassinated – which happens, ended on turn 3 or earlier. I was glad to be able to get out and play games, though I would have liked a 5th round. I did walk away with two prizes, though, a new Crabjack Plastic kit to magnetize and a Khador Battlegroup – because as the only Cryx player in MK 3, I needed to start a new faction. 

I mean, I have Butcher1, Vlad1, and Sorcha1 already along with armies… 
Nah! For the Dragonfather!

Till next time,