The Necrotechs Workshop LVI – The Master Pair

I’ve been on a Scaverous kick since before Lock and Load, and I’ve really enjoyed my run with him, which has started to make me curious what I would pair him up with when I finally do get to a tournament. I’ve taken a look at a number of lists and am still trying to parse out what covers, and doesn’t cover the Lord Exhumator. 

Blind Spots

When first looking for a pairing around Scaverous, I wanted to make sure that I covered as many of his blind spots as possible. He’s a well rounded caster, but there are a few places that he is going to struggle a good deal. 

The  build I am looking at is something very close to this: 

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
Slaughter Fleet Raiders

Lord Exhumator Scaverous [+27]
– Nightwretch [7]
– Nightwretch [7]
– Scavenger [7]
– Scavenger [7]
– Satyxis Blood Priestess [4]
Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]
Ragman [4]
Black Ogrun Smog Belchers (min) [9]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
– Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Croe’s Cutthroats (max) [16]
Scharde Dirge Seers [6]

There is a bit of wiggle room, something in the range of 4-9, depending on what you’re looking to do with the list, and what holes you’re going to need this list to tank, and which ones you’re going to need to cover with a second list. 

1- Armor: This list has a problem with concentrated, high (over 20) armor. with the lack of speed in the list and the general tankyness, it’s going to want to play either a very short game or a very long one, and high armor means that your opponent more than likely has an edge in the long game. 

2- Immunity to spells: This seems Harsh at first, but can prove just fine. Scaverous doesn’t need to play all in on the assassination, but their caster very well better have protection for the vast majority of the game or it could very well simply end for them. It is harder for Scaverous when there are a number of spell immune models on the board on the opponent’s side. 

3 – Hordes: Croe and his friends can often overpower a power field when killing enemy warcasters, but the same does not hold true for hordes. While they will be shunting significant damage to their beasts, many times it just simply isn’t enough to be worth giving up the cutthroats to Whittle away at their beasts, though you can judge the risks game to game. 

4- Shooting that Ignores Clouds: Scaverous has a mobile cloud fortress with him at almost all times, and it really helps with his 14/17 stat line in making sure that he doesn’t end up removed from the world by a few errant bullets and some bad LOS. Seeing through those clouds can make him a little less comfortable, and more likely to seek out the shelter of a nearby building or forest. 

5- Anti-Infantry tech: The list has just a slew of infantry models that do all the work in the list. Without anything that can really cause anti-infantry tech to shrink back, I’d just have to face tank a ton of shots and hope that I can tough out one or two. 

Those Four blind spots are what I want to worry about with Scaverous, and about in that order, as well. Armor is the greatest concern, with Immunity to spells and Hordes being progressively lesser problems, and specific shooting solutions like legion being a fractional, but large, problem, and Anti-Infantry something that I likely just have to not play into, so I wasn’t worried about it so much. 

Optional Solutions

Now, I have to start thinking of the solutions to the lists problem. The first and most obvious solution is to simply dodge. If I take another list that has strong assassination potential and the same infantry-clearing weakness that the Scaverous list falls prey to. It was the road I took for lock and load, and man did I regret that decision. 

In this game, it the current meta, there are too many armor skews and too much infantry clearing. It is not like the heyday of MKII, where players were regularly counting on clearing out some 20+ trooper models a turn, but it is out there enough that having two lists that are extremely vulnerable to the infantry problem, and a second list that isn’t a real armor-solution turned out to be problematic. 

My second thought was to go with a dedicated armor buster – Someone like Asphyxious 1 or Deneghra 1, who can bring to bear multiple armor debuffs and powerful melee models and simply go hog wild into many of the armor spam lists. The problem with both of those lists, however, was that they fall prey to the same problems as Scaverous does – Anti-Infantry tech, Spell Immunity, and accurate shooting, While the list here would probably give me broader coverage, a single, and very devastating hole, existed that I didn;’t want the opponent to exploit, so it was back to the drawing board. 

Next, I looked directly at the best lists in the meta. First one to get a glance was Skarre 1 Double Wraith Engine. It is a strong list with powerful models that will often be able to trivially remove armor and is generally safe from most anti-infantry tech. Its got stealth, two Wraith Engines, a Shield guard and a number of other options that enable her to survive through most of the game. She doesn’t fall prey to Anti-Magic tech, because she has nothing to cast on the opponent, and hordes cannot tank through her slew of powerful attacks. I liked this pairing, and I even had it mentally stuck in my head for a few days. It can accomplish all forms of victory and asks the opponents very hard questions. 

the list does, however, have a powerful weakness to magic weapons. It doesn’t crack the list neatly in half, but it does pose some problems. I knew that there would be more than a few lists with a veritable pile of magic weapons, so I didn’t want to rely on the rest of the army to do all the work while the engines sat around. 

Lastly, I looked at one of the boogeymen of the current meta, the source of pain and contention, the list where, when two Warmachine players exist, so does its name – 9 slayers. This list covers a number of the blind spots that the Scaverous list has solidly, It doesn’t care at all about anti-infantry tech, it loves playing into Hordes, it doesn’t care one bit about immunity to spells, and it just loves guns. It does not, however, solve the initial problem with armor that the Scaverous list suffers from, meaning that I am more than likely going to be in a bind whenever armor is dropped on the board, and am going to have to play better than them every time it drops on the table. 

honestly, I don’t know where I am going to end up, and I’d like to hear any other list suggestions that people have for the pair. Remember, though – I have a lot of Magic Weapons and an excellent Kara Sloan player in my area. 

Until next time! 

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