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The Necrotechs Workshop – LVII – Raining Blood

Well. I finally did It. With nine slayers assembled and painted, I decided to take them with me as my pair for Scaverous in what turned out to be a massive local tournament (32 players with multiple turned away). How did it go? Let’s talk about it! 

First things first, I’d spent a lot of time with Scaverous lately, and was really pleased to see how he was progressing. I needed a list to cover his downsides, though, and a bit of armor in general, but also needed a plan for what happens when Sloan is inevitably at the top of heap towards the end of the tournament. You have to plan well to capitalize on any luck you get dealt. To that end, I figured I’d take my 9 slayers list as the pair, and play it whenever I thought Scaverous had a bad matchup. Instead,  after discussing the pairing with a friend, it was determined I would have better luck if I spun the pairing around and played Scaverous except in just a few instances which we had discussed earlier. So, instead of being a series of reports on how Scaverous works, I’ll instead be talking about a lot (4) of games with slayers and only 1 with Scaverous. 

So, the list pair. 

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
Black Industries

Asphyxious the Hellbringer [+24]
– Nightwretch [0(7)]
– Nightwretch [0(7)]
– Scavenger [0(7)]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
Machine Wraith [2]
Soul Trapper [1]
Black Ogrun Ironmongers [6]

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]

The Slayer list is pretty standard, but I decided to go with a Scavenger instead of the third Nightwretch. It worked out well and did a solid job, but I really think that the other Nightwretch would have come in handier. Just too much to do with the little guys to leave them at home. 

The Scaverous list was tweaked a bit from Lock and Load, but not too much. I like the addition of the scavengers in this setup as well, and they can cause a significant amount of damage. Assimilator even came up once! I did swap out Saxon for Ragman and didn’t once regret it, though there was that time that I did regret having Ragman because he just kept getting splorted or was too easy to remove. Other than that, the list feels roughly good going into the tournament, though it still has this nagging problem with armor. 

In order to make this a fairly tolerable read over all 5 games, I’m not going to give a turn by turn, but an overall conclusion of the game and some preliminary information, hoping to get the basic thoughts and experience covered. 

Game 1

Crucible Guard – Sylvestro – Mirage

His list pair was, as all of CG was that day, Locke and Sylvestro, both with a small variety of jacks and the same general units. Looking across, I didn’t see anything that really scared me off the pile of heavies, so I dove right into this guy with Slayer Spam. 

Going second felt like it put me a little on the backfoot, but I was able to take out two of the Rocketman Gunners as well as knock off Transmutation from the Press Gangers run by Morely with a well placed Hex Blast. I was able to get into a pretty aggressive scenario position as well as place some jacks that he would, hopefully, focus on and take down while some CP’s were able to accumulate and hopefully avalanche out of control. 

He took the bait and tried everything he could to take out the Slayers in his face and in his zone. Press Gangers jammed in trying to deal damage with the Assault Troopers and Rockemen chipping in as well. The Suppressor and the Vindicator were also contributing to assisting with pulling down the Slayers. It was all for naught! 

The following turn was very much the make or break turn, though it didn’t feel like it at the time. I had moved Vociferon into position and was trying to maximize my soul collection because, with only two models with focus, it was unlikely I was going to get a fantastic feat. Unfortunately, He’d popped both Morley’s mini-feat and the +2 def and Immune to Blast Damage order on the Rocketmen. I had to figure out a way to get rid of them both to have a solid turn. I made sure, using the Nightwretch, to blow a hole in the Press gangers to allow me LOS to an un-engaged Rocketman and to Morely, allowing me to apply calamity to the Rocketmen, lowering their defense, and then using hellfire on Morely to remove his Minifeat. A quick trample followed up to allow a jack to step on the Rocketman UA and kill him, removing the threat of the high defense order for the rest of the game. That quickly enabled me to down a number of models and give Asphyxious 10 souls for the next turn. 

Using the 10 souls given to me, I was able to get enough work in from the slayers to rid myself of all the pesky contesting models around the center flag and then charged Asphyxious into combat to get the other flag. I made him take out 4 of the 5 Assault troopers on his own, including using blood boon to cast a spell and hard casting another to eliminate everyone surrounding the flag and Finished out with a Slayer walking over into his zone to contest and win the game for me on control points. 

It was an interesting game, but the list and even a lot of CG suffer into slayers because of the reliance on ranged attacks to deliver damage. Slayers are just going to chew that up, and this list was no different. His other list, Locke with 3 Torros, a Suppressor and a pair of Vindicators would likely have done better, but he wasn’t confident in its abilities. It was a solid game against a newly returned player, but the Slayers were just able to overrun him. 

(Photos)

Game 2 

The Retribution of Scyra – Kaelyssa – Spread the Net. 

Looking over the lists here, I figured that I would simply have to outplay him. Phantom Hunter was going to eat Scaverous if I allowed the drop, and with only 20 Weapon masters, I should be able to chew through them at such a pace that I could stem the bleeding just enough that I would come out on top. His Issyria list I just didn’t think he was going to drop – he needs the weaponmasters if he is going to pummel slayers. 

Again, getting the second turn, I had to contend with a slew of models surging forward, but he thankfully left Eiryss within range of a running arcnode to get within 5″ and cast a Hex Blast on her to remove her poor face. Everything else, in a thrilling repeat of the prior game, ran up, just outside the threat range of his Sentinels, and threatened all the zones. In return, he took of Vociferon, probably evening the game out rather well in return for Eiryss. I also lost the arc node to charging Sentinals, but they were going to get beat up by a Slayer anyway. Amazingly, the arc node Survived the retaliation of four Dawnguard, an unexpected turn of events. There was an acid pool in the center of the table, and I’d lined a slayer just within range of a couple of the Sentinels to see if I could get a few free kills from terrain while also keeping my slayer protected just a little bit. He only took the bait with two, which seems reasonable, but those two left a huge hole in the slayer, nearly killing it. Thankfully I was able to repair it twice before it finally died, getting value out of the metal beast. The game ground and ground on like this, trading small pieces of each other’s armies over and over again. I did make two fairly large mistakes, though. The first was making an attack with the Machine Wraith. The same turn I did that, taking over a Marshalled Hydra and moving it away to try and kill a Mechanic, was the same turn I’d killed the Scyir marshaling it. The Hydra wasn’t going to attack the Machine Wraith, it had better things to do, and It likely would have prevented the score from wracking as high up as it ended. The second is that I didn’t remember throws quite right, and positioned to throw his Hydra into the zone instead of out of it, a very easy and simple thing to fix for the next time. 

This game was a hell of a slog, and my opponent was great throughout – all of them in the tournament were, to be fair – and in the end, I was just able to edge him out on time. He clocked out trying to get the Slayer out of the zone when I had around 3 minutes left. We had eliminated almost everything on both sides of the board, and it was the slogiest game I would have the whole day. I was a bit drained and hungry, but the next round was starting. 

(Photos)

Game 3

Convergence of Cyriss – Iron Mother Directrix – Recon 2

This game was going to be pretty bad. I knew that I had problems with armor with Scaverous, but I needed to be able to not die instantly to feedback, so Slayers were off the table. One of the main reasons I might change the Scaverous list from what it is up there is because I need to cover this matchup specifically: Mom v. Scaverous. 

I finally get to drop Scaverous here, and I really wish I didn’t have to. Armor is hard for me to peel apart, and he has three big bases with substantial armor and a pile of hit points, as well as a boatload of shield guards to make my Croes and my Maurauders really, really sad.  I thought at the start of the game that I’d try and take the left-hand zone and give up the right, because, with the building as it was, I’d likely be able to still control the flag, even if I lost most of the zone turn after turn. Once he committed the Axion to the left, however, I committed to running to the other side of the board and taking it, ceding that half of the board – and his flag – to him completely while keeping my own. The Croes, disappointingly, took a mitigator out, and then most of them got blasted by the TEP, and when I was able to spin him around and get a Feast of Worms on him, they failed to do any significant damage. On the other side of the board, he was able to successfully dodge my many charges with a combination of Tactical Supremacy and the constant churn of Servitors from the TEP being forever in the way. When I was able to turn this TEP around, I was also unable to kill it, enabling both of them to continue to wreck my army. Thankfully, the next round, with continued pressure, I was able to down them both, though with only remnants of my army still on the table and contesting. The buildings contributed greatly to the flow of the game, with one hiding Axiara and a Nightwretch in great position the whole game, and the other providing a hiding place for my scavenger. 

Speaking of which! the Scavengers were amazing over the course of the day, but this here was why I included them. The TEP on the right-hand side had been able to slip out of deaths certain grip but had taken some damage. The Axiom had destroyed one of the two that were up and engaging him, but the other made it out alive. That one, however, was able to get over to the damaged TEP and finish the damn thing off, and honestly, he was able to do two 11 damage hits on his own – it would have been almost enough to kill it right out (It needs to have taken damage first, of course, so that 1 point is clearly the damage to enable finisher). 

The Prime Axiom not being dead and holding up the entirety of my right flank until it crushed it and I had to flee to the right side was vastly bothersome. I don’t think there was anything in my list that could have killed it, and I was grateful to have assassinated when I did because there wasn’t a whole lot of game left. 

(Photos)

Game 4

Mercenaries – Constance Blaize – Standoff

I made it to the final 4. It was a grind to get here, but the days not over. I have this and one more round to go, at least, and this one is against a heavyweight of the local meta. He brought Shae and Constance, and in a moment of lapsed certainty, I just slipped in and brought Slayers. Multiple discussions afterward made it pretty clear that I should have dropped Scaverous to eat all the souls in both lists, but it just wasn’t on my mind.  

This game was another grind, much like the game against Ret, where I had to dance and trade my slayers for 3-4 weaponmasters and hope I could get a good drop on the heavy jacks in order to take them down. I felt I held down my fort pretty well, scoring where I could in my zone, and preventing him from scoring in the neutral zones and his side on my turn. We went back and forth over the flanks for a long while, keeping most of the models out of the dead center because there were no zones there.  

This game felt pretty winnable if I had a better state of mind and been not making mistakes. I’m not saying that my opponent didn’t play better and win the game, there are just some very specific times I feel that I made wrong choices that crippled me at vital times. 

On the left, for instance, where I was fighting Idrians, twice I made the choice not to attack the last model in the zone because other models were more dangerous to my list. While it is true that dangerous models are important to take out, it is also critical to attempt to score points when possible, and not give up scoring opportunities, and in doing that twice I enables an insurmountable lead at the end of the game, which he was able to capitalize on by scoring 4 points and winning outright.  

The second was not using the buddy system properly over a couple turns, and a single misplaced slayer on the right. Each turn, I would say to myself that I need to make sure to send a slayer to help out the one in the zone over on the left, or he is going to get killed with no reprisal. Three turns in a row I decided to make foolish attacks that either didn’t further the cause or didn’t get me in the correct direction, and he ate slayer after slayer that I fed to that flank, and so, my winning streak came to an end and I wasn’t able to break through Connie B into the final table. (which would have been against the Sloan player, so maybe that’s OK. 

(Photos)

Game 5

Mercenaries – Ossrum – The Pitt 2

This game was a shamble and a shame. It was late and against another local good player, and We both decided not to go for the list-chicken and played Ossrum into Gaspy 3. I took the first turn and got way up the board, making sure to position aggressively,  getting as many jacks across the line as I felt comfortable with. he responded with caution and reserve, which I matched with slamming 4 slayers into his line and daring him to kill them so that the rest of my 5 could drop him. 

Instead, between energizer, bulldoze, and his feat, I ate a whole slew of Shots to the face, dying ingloriously to a hail of gunbunny fire. It wasn’t the best end to the day, but it was an appropriate end to the tournament at just shy of 10 pm. 

It was a long day, and though I’d lost my last two games, I’d made it to the fair-top of the bracket. It was a decent showing and one that I am overall happy with. I understand I’m a mediocre-good player and don’t expect to win every tournament. 

The Scenario game, though, was a massive view shift, and I absolutely loved it. I am thinking about the game and the way its played in a different light than I was just a few weeks ago, and it interesting and cool and different. Its a completely different way to look at the game. 

I’m really looking forward to playing more Scaverous, and maybe next time I don’t get scared out of him in the process of testing a list. 

(Photo)

 

Until next time!