The Necrotechs Workshop – Lock and Load Recap – Part 2
In part 1, I went over the first day of lock and load, as well as the thought process to the pair and a little bit of travel and planning. Now, we’re going to look at day 2 and 3, which promise to be much less interesting, and see how Scaverous shook outplaying him in both Dark Host and Slaughter Fleet
Day 2
I stayed asleep a bit more than I wanted to day 2, but I woke up pretty solidly at 8, showered and packed my bags, and took te 30′ walk to the iron area floor. A buddy of mine convinced me to sign up for scrambles, and in a little while, I was signed up for the first, 8 man scramble of the day.
It was a single-list affair, and I had decided that Scaverous just wasn’t good enough into armor, so I was going to play Scaverous still, but this time in Dark Host. The list was a typical Host list, just slotted to get Croe in there.
Cryx Army – 74 / 75 points
Dark Host
Lord Exhumator Scaverous [+27]
– Desecrator [14]
– Desecrator [14]
Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)]
Bane Riders (max) [20]
Bane Warriors (max) [16]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Bane Warriors (max) [16]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [5]
Croe’s Cutthroats (max) [16]
I figured I’d put it through its paces and see if it was just the list that suffered, or Scaverous himself.
Round 1 I am paired up against Nemo 3, a standard list with a thousand methods of lighting leaping my models off the board. However, Nemo over-respects my assassination threat with Scavs, and plays right into my hands, giving me a quick scenario win when I TK his models out of the zone and make sure the rest are dead. Its a rather ignominious defeat for Nemo 3, but I’ll take the win.
Round 2 This time, I get slotted in against Maelok, and hell if that list isn’t scary. I jam him extra hard, but leave enough holes that it is extremely easy for him to swamp me with attacks and simply take out reams of models. I was starting to collapse the left flank when my right flank got simply annihilated, and that was all that I wrote for that one. His army – the standard Maelok 4 posse build, was great, and I have to find a way around it. maybe not allowing him to simply walk to easy holes in the army would be the best, but I’d just spaced on the feat and lost out.
Round 3 This was a really close game against Old Witch 2 and about a thousand Khador Heavies. I was pretty stoked to toss my banes into it and see who came out the other side. I went up on scenario 3-0 pretty quick, and the last turn of the game I needed to score a quick 2 to win. Sadly, I was only able to score one, and then I forgot, completely on empty, to TK Scaverous behind the clouds of the theme. Old Witch then Boundless charges a nearby Marauder, blinds Scavs, and that is all she wrote. Sadly, going 1-2 wasn’t enough to win the tournament, but it was enough to get 3rd, and I traded the third place prize for the Khador players second. I thought it was fair because I feel I should have beat him, he just wanted bronze, metal, focus tokens.
Going 1-3, I wanted to get right back into the fight, but it took some time before I was ready again.
I make my way up into the Iron Arena Hall again, which is meltacular. Its warm and oppressive and full of funk, but I want to get some games in. I wander over to a fellow playing a bunch of new Armored Corps stuff. We agree to get a game in, and he starts getting all nitpicky about when I place my clouds. Well. come to realize, we’re both judges, and we’ve never met each other, and its one of those golden moments where two judges are playing games, against each other, in a casual setting just for fun.
Sadly, the game goes south for the Dark Host. I used my spells to sparingly, spent too little resources pulling his army apart, and instead got punished for it. The Strike tanker, bless that things monstrous heart, killed at least four of the 5 Cavalry models, and maybe even killed all four, by himself. Made up his (free) points, he did.
Following that game, I managed to get back to back games in against a Crucible Guard player using Lukas. He ended his first turn within 22″ of an arc node and within 16″ of 10 Croes. He felt safe, there was a forest, and five clouds, and a Warjack and a wall all protecting him, but I was able to get the arc node in there, hit Lukas with a boosted TK, and get him away from the wall by being in two clouds at once. The Croe’s did their job and ended him right on the spot.
We re-racked after he told me that his spell assassination plan was very similar, and I miraculously deployed Scaverous directly across from his colossal, who, with a little help from some of his spells, he took Scaverous of the board pretty swiftly.
At this point in the day, its growing late, after midnight, and I retire to get some rest. Up again at 8:00 to get on with the iron areana.
The first game I play is against a fellow painting enthusiast who’d won a number of painting awards, much better than me, who I had had to bail on in order to play the scramble yesterday. He pulls out an amazing looking Haley 1 army, and I put down, having abandoned the Dark Host list yesterday, the Scaverous Slaughter Fleet list. This game, he went first, got into a nice position, but my Black Ogrun Smog Belchers were ready for their time to shine. I TK’d them forward top of one and managed to drop a trio of AOE’s on the lot of them, reducing them to but a pair of models. His turn of retaliation was swift and brutal, eliminating Kharybdis with the feat, as well as a large portion of my trolls. It wasn’t the best day for the poor fellas. However, I was able to survive with an arc node and a few models to make ancillary attacks, and that was all it needed, though Jussika was there to finish her off in the end when everything seemed lost. She did her job well!
Following that up, I played on a scenario table, looking to get some more points so I could take the Scarlock Commander Art home. The fellow I asked needed only three points – a painted game against a new opponent, and he wanted to get it done quick so he could snatch up one of the last prizes left that he wanted, so we played a quick 25pt game. Scaverous loves small games, and I was able to devour the whole of his croaks with Soul harvester and follow up with a quick and solid kill of Jaga Jaga. Not many casters can survive 7+ excarnates and a feast of Worms.
We went up to report, and after talking to the guys at the table, I realized I didn’t need to grind out a bunch more games, I needed to get but a single game in to get the print I wanted. I just needed to play fully painted, on a scenario table, against a new opponent. That meant, though, playing out of theme. It was a miserable choice, but one I had to make.
This is the list I ended up putting together. Felt very, very MKII
He deployed out an unorthodox Gaspy 3 list with 21 extra points and my heart sunk. I didn’t know what I was going to do against this juggernaut. Well, thankfully, I was able to wear him down with the deaths of many of my models. I picked at Stalkers, a slayer or two, and some chaff he brought, but it wasn’t going down very well for me. He passed the turn and I felt I should give him the game, but he encouraged me. Never count cryx out, he said. So I started thinking to myself and a lightbulb popped on and I thought I had it.
Coven runs the egregor to within 8″ of gaspy 3. One coven member runs way wide, another runs wide again, and the third shifts to get the perfect conjunction. Fire off a Curse of Shadows that connects. Fire off two Stygian Abysses, both connect and one blind, both doing significant damage. Gorman, Feeling fancy, walks up and tags the Hellbringer again in the noggin doing a bit more damage. Lastly, Orin Midwinter, a favorite of mine, walks up and, boosting with his power tokens, hits and does enough damage with a POW 10 Lightning bolt to kill him. It was a great game that I was completely out of that I was able to pull the fat out of the fryer at the last minute. Walking up and reporting I recieved 40 points and got the print I wanted. Now to find a place to put it.
At that point, the room was unbearably uncomfortable, so I thought I’d just go and hang out for a while with friends and just call it, but a while later I was asked to participate in a really great company of Iron Scenario.
four players, 20 points each, playing cooperatively against a mountain king (that I was controlling) there are 14 beads in a bag, 4 black, 10 clear. Every time a person finishes a turn, they draw from the bag. Black bead: King goes, and the bead is returned. Clear bead: play passes as normal, and the bead is kept out. If the players do more than 10 damage in a single activation a bead is not drawn, and the King immediately activates. The Mountain King has his own deck, and all his attacks are affected by the bottom portion, if possible. He flips over one card at the start of the turn. He has two health tracks. The first one is normal, and once he is killed, his health clears and all his attack and damage rolls are boosted. Two rounds to kill it or the beast flees.
This was an awesome scenario, and I loved eating everyone in sight and healing so that they needed to kill almost 3 full mountain kings instead of just two.
The whole trip was excellent, I got in a huge pile of games – though not as many as last year, and the hall was miserable to be in, so I don’t know that I could have anyway – and came away with a much better understanding of Scaverous and what he does.
Next time, I’ll likely be looking at Scaverous and trying to hone the list a bit more, bringing it to that razor edge I really want it to be.
Until next time!
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I make my lists at Conflictchamber.com