The Necrotechs Workshop – LIV – Reporting In
Building on last weeks finally of the Tour de Cryx, extended play edition with Skarre 3, I wanted to go back and talk about the Boat Host games I played in the tournament and afterward, looking at what I had going on. It wasn’t a long tournament, but its worth a look, still.
The List
I believe that I put forth the list I ran in the last article, but let us pull it up here anyway:
Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Dark Host
Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet [+27]
– Desecrator [14]
– Desecrator [14]
Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)]
Darragh Wrathe [9]
Soul Trapper [1]
Bane Knights (max) [15]
Bane Knights (max) [15]
Bane Warriors (min) [10]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Bane Warriors (max) [16]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Cephalyx Overlords [8]
As I mentioned in the article, this is a very cool list that makes use of every portion of the Admirals toolkit, allowing her to get good use out of Dash, Guided Fire, Reinforcements, Dark Waves and Deceleration. I thought that I would want to use Dark Waves and Death Ride more, but each time I went to use them I couldn’t really find the resources to do that with all of the other reason to either save or spend it out there.
One of the decision points I have not been good at as of yet is how to use the front unit, as both have their reasons to be taking the alpha, and both have reasons to sit in the back.
The Warriors, for instance, have tough and recursion built in, Enabling them to take more casualties then you would normally on the way in because of their resilience, rise, and recursion. On the other hand, the Bane Knights have a much higher base armor and higher threat range, so they are able to charge deeper, need less help from Skarre/Wrathe when charging, and having Set Defense makes them a little tricky to charge into.
The Overlords are cleaners with magic weapons and sprays, allowing them to remove a ton of infantry or other pesky models while also staying close by to Skarre for Reinforcement shenanigans. It’s a good combo and one that the Banes might need from time to time as they aren’t that great at clearing out infantry, though with Tartarus they are plenty good enough.
So, that’s the simple list – A bit of Crowd Control in the AOE’s of the Desecrators and Skarre’s Cannons, a ton of armor removal in 30+ banes, and infantry clearing in Banes + Overlords and AOE guns. Charge forward at the enemy, make them pay for playing on their half of the board. Good times for everyone!
Game 1
Back in MKI and MKII, there was a Cryxian Boogeyman that crawled out from under the bed to eat your armies every once in a while and then faded from view. She was a terrifying monster that would destroy everything you love. Then, one day, the powerful devs decided to remove her power and banish her to the unused, bored bin of history.
Haley 1 has always terrified me, and though I’ve played against her a number of times in her nerfed form let me tell you, she is still a monster. She has a Def Debuff for her whole control – the only full control area, Stat Debuffing spell I can recall, discounting Wind Wall and RNG – and her feat is devastating to the opponent. Each time I play into her, I find a new way to suffer.
This was his list:
Cygnar Army – 74 / 75 points
[Theme] Sons of the Tempest
Captain Victoria Haley [+27]
– Hurricane [39]
– Thorn [13]
– Squire [0(5)]
Arcane Tempest Rifleman [4]
Arcane Tempest Rifleman [4]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [4]
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios [7]
Lieutenant Bastian Falk [0(5)]
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages [11]
– Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer [4]
Black 13th Strike Force [10]
Trencher Combat Engineers [5]
I dropped boat knowing that We’d played a few times and that with so many guys, he might simply clock himself, though I’d given him advice on how to avoid it with his list. I also knew it’s an anti-cryx list that he wants to get as many reps in against what She’d likely face, so doing a switcheroo to my Scaverous list would probably not work out well for either of us. Also, I wanted to play host all day, so here I was, playing host.
We are playing the Pit II, and I’m pretty sure I won’t be winning via scenario. I lose the die to go first and choose table sides. There wasn’t really anything I needed to worry about from my end with the terrain, so I simply stayed where I was.
Turn 1
Simple and sweet, having deployed in a pretty standard fashion, I run everything forward as far as I can possibly manage. I’m going to need every inch of space on this board to be able to weather the storm that is coming my way on her feat turn. Giving her that space and respect she commands is simply not going to be something I can survive. I did put both of my Jacks on the same side of the board, thinking to deny the zone to any infantry access to the scenario zone, but he didn’t have a ton anyway, so I knew I wasn’t going to be getting a ton of use out of it. Still, it felt smart, especially when I blasted 2 of the Gun Mages off the board bottom of 1 thanks to a daring Dark Waves, leaving me empty but pretty confident I could make it through the next turn, being far enough away from most of his dangerous guns.
Turn 2
Surprising absolutely no one, he pops his feat and just lays into my army, tagging infantry left and right. Thankfully, between my innately high armor, tough checks, and Deceleration, I was able to endure. I’d lost 3 ea of my Bane Warriors unit, so I was comfortable with their losses, making sure that I would be able to bring at least some of them back, and more than a few Bane Knights, but I felt I was going to need the Bane Warriors more, so that wasn’t as big of an issue as it seemed. The biggest thing about his turn was that he’d shot Skarre in the face with Eiryss 1, and that was going to cause problems if he continued to do that. Thankfully, I would still be able to feat, so I was going to be able to cast all of my spells, but I wasn’t going to be able to upkeep Draconic Blessing, and I wasn’t going to be able to camp. Furthermore, I didn’t really have a whole lot to take care of the Elven lady that wasn’t Skarre herself, so I was going to have to take a risk that I somehow didn’t end up dead following removing her. He’d also managed to tie up both my jacks with Thorn, and the idea of blowing out both of their cortexes did not appeal to me, compounded by the fact that I had no focus to allocate, leaving them with “only” two each.
My turn comes around, and I hem and haw a bit, but I have to do it. I send the Knights into the ATGM, though they don’t score a hit, and I send the Bane Warriors on the other flank into the Black 13th, who also don’t score a hit. I pop both my mini-feats with the Bane Warriors, and bring back 3 from each unit, pulling them back to full strength. I charge the Hurricane with a few Banes, but not enough to do real damage, and ding him up. Skarre moves up into position to shell Eiryss and pops her feat. Boosting the first hit against the elf, I miss and scatter off. The second cannon, though, does its job and takes her off the board. Finally, she pops off a shot at Falk with her hand cannon, and takes him off the table – This may be the second most important die roll of the game. I attempt some attacks with my derpy little Desecrators, but they fail to do anything of substance.
Turn 3.
Having most of his army engaged, and Skarre in the center of the table, he thinks for a few minutes, contemplates my Def and ARM, and decides to go for the assassination. I’ve already taken 3 damage from Deceleration, Dash and Guided fire, so I was sitting at 23. I have Deceleration up, so I’m 12/21 v. guns. He considers casting Temporal Barrier to lower my def. by 2. Haley gets a shot, needing a 6 to hit and boosting a 12 – 2 damage. Hurricane can get both the cannons and the emitters, needing 6’s, but cannot get aiming if he wants all four. 11 damage from the two emitters, 3 damage from one cannon, 0 damage from the other. 16 damage already, but they all need 6’s to hit, and if one misses, it’s hard to make up the damage. But he does have both Gunmage Riflemen to get 6 more damage in there, the Gun Mage UA can drop a crit brutal damage shot and hope for a spike, and Ryan can shoot two POW 12 brutal shot, getting 2 more damage, maybe. 24 damage, if everything goes right.
Sadly for him, it all goes fine until Ryan, who can’t get that last point of damage in to finish off Skarre.
Thankfully for me, Haley had edged just a little closer to me then she had to, ending up within my 11″ charge range. I manufactured a way to run a Bane Warrior behind her so I could get the Dark Shroud and get closer when I rammed her – because the .5″ Cutlasses weren’t close enough on the initial charge. Sadly, I missed the boosted charge attack, and then did nothing but kill my own Bane with the Cannons and Handcannon shots, but the follow-up attack hit and knocked her down, and over those 5 remaining attacks, I put her into the dirt.
Whoof. 1-0, and close.
Game 2
Sometimes, when you look at a guys tray, you know what list he is playing, no matter what it says on his sheet or other models he pulls out and “pretends” to want to play. This guy, he was one of those.
This was the list he was going to play.
Khador Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Jaws of the Wolf
Kommander Harkevich, The Iron Wolf [+28]
– Conquest [35]
– Victor [34]
– Victor [34]
– War Dog [0(3)]
Greylord Forge Seer [0(4)]
Greylord Forge Seer [0(4)]
Manhunter [0(4)]
For this one, I debated a little bit. With three Huge bases, it would be awfully easy to bog him down with Trolls, and Scaverous likes trolls, and if Scaverous could get a nice line on Hark, he could probably put him down. At the end of the day, however, it was the need for a million high pow attacks that did it for me.
Deployment and Turn 1
I deployed and ran screaming at him, knowing that I had to close and destroy his jacks as soon as possible, or he’d simply light everything on fire and call it a day. He tried none the less. That house is greater than 5″ tall, not that anyone took advantage of it.
He blasted a ton of my troops with fire and cannons, taking more than a few off the board, and moved up a bit.
Turn 2
I hadn’t really taken enough casualties to make the mini feats worth it, so I simply ran everything up one more time. I didn’t have the range to get any charges because he was so slow, but I was taking up a ton of the board. (seen above) I positioned myself was ready for a bunch of my guys to be on fire and burn out a slow death the following round.
He, in turn, noted that I was, once again, in aiming range of colossals. Three, this time. Broadsides would help get some damage in, and he could boost three POW 15’s. It was probably enough. I’d not feated yet, so I was sitting on my full complement of hitboxes. He goes all in. The first Victor declares a flare, boosts, and connects, dropping my DEF to 11 against these aiming rat 4’s. Not my favorite. He boosts damage, and takes off a considerable chunk, more than either of us were expecting. Great. He then pops the conquest, doing another solid roll, and the second victor takes a third, and considerable, chunk out of the boat. Harkevich then strolls casually up, drops a pair of blunderbuss shots into me which, thankfully, do no damage, and then proceeds with his Broadsides into the other colossals. I have maybe 7 HP left, and he leaves me with one, on fire. It goes to my turn, and the boat, what with it all being made of wood, continues to burn, but thankfully it doesn’t do any damage. I’d forgotten it at the time, but I did have a focus on me I didn’t use, so it wasn’t AS ass-clenching, but it was pretty bad. Thankfully, Harkevich had to poke his head out and he’d not feated, so I was able to lay down a considerable volume of fire – two cannons, a hand cannon, two Desecrator shells and three Overlords Sprays, into his head. He didn’t last long.
There, I emerged victorious as the tournament winner, having defeated two players, with the pair down losing.
So what did I do? I played the pair down in a follow-up game, just to prove that even if he’d won his game, I still would win the tournament!
Game 3!
Unfortunately, I don’t have pics of this, so its hard to describe the battlefield, and it was called short, so while I won, it wasn’t a sure thing.
I played Boat Hoast into Magnus 1 and about 5 jacks, hoping that I’d be able to take out enough of them and attrition him down so that he wouldn’t bring his guns to bear on my army to long or too hard before I could eliminate them.
Mercenary Army – 74 / 75 points
[Theme] The Irregulars
Magnus the Traitor [+30]
– Mangler [15]
– Mule [15]
– Nomad [11]
– Renegade [10]
– Rover [15]
– Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker [0(4)]
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios [0(7)]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)]
Taryn di la Rovissi, Llaelese Gun Mage [0(5)]
Idrian Skirmishers (max) [15]
– Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide [5]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt [8]
Quick Synopsis:
The Idrians were going to be a pain, but I managed to plink off 3-4 in my first volley, then jam them up with Knights prior to the second. He spent a lot of time crushing the Knight units and took more than anyone else had off over the whole tournament. The jacks did well, but I was able to do significant damage to a number of them on one turn, and then followed up with eliminating those wounded completely on the next turn, both with minimal losses while trying not to overcommit. If I remember correctly, it was the Rover, Mule, and Mangler, with a significant amount of damage to the Nomad. The renegade was tied up pretty well. I couldn’t do anything to the Eliminators as they tore through my flank until they were clumped up enough that I dropped a Desecrator shell on them. I was pushing hard for the scenario, had killed his heaves and not lost any of mine, and was getting ready to put the final push on when the store closed. I’m not sure I would have won, to be fair, but he was convinced that the game was over and the day was mine.
All in all, a great day (more than a few weeks back, prior to the Boat Host 2 coming out) and I can’t look forward enough to playing in another tournament, though I think the next one I have is at Lock and Load. Going to try for the Masters LCQ into the Iron Gauntlet.
I really enjoy the Boat, and am going to be getting a number more games with her, and definitely trying both scourge and slaughter. Should be a great time.
Until next time!
As always – if you’re looking for more, I’m on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, though they all aren’t equally active.
I make my lists at Conflictchamber.com
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