Scaverous - part one: The Lesson

As the wife is away on a business trip, I have booked myself two games this week. The second game I will be pitching Mordikaar against Scaverous which is a replay of Tuesday nights game against Oli where he used his Cryx:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous
* Deathripper
* Deathjack
* Malice
* Skarlock Thrall
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
The Withershadow Combine
Bane Lord Tartarus
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

The list is missing a couple of points as I cannot remember what else was taken and my Cryx recognition skills are lacking.

My Mordi list was comprised of:

Void Seer Mordikaar

* Basilisk Krea

* Bronzeback Titan

* Titan Gladiator

Cataphract Arcuarii (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Nihilators (Leader and 9 Grunts)

Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Praetorian Swordsmen (Leader and 9 Grunts)

* Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard

Agonizer

Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor

Void Spirit

I won the roll-off and elected to go first. I bricked everything except for the Nihilators who I wanted to give me a bit of width. Oli deployed in a highly compacted Cryx Brick while DeathJack was set at the edge of the AD line.

First turn for me and I laid down my upkeeps (Hollow on the Swords and Banishing Ward on the Nihilators). The rest of the fury I dumped into the Agonizer. All units ran forward while the beasts and solos walked up behind them. Oli advanced everything towards me while putting Death Ward on the Bane Knights and then arcing Icy Grip through the deathchicken onto my Swords. Feast of Worms was also arced through DJ and killed four of my Swordsmen. This was the first (and only instance that I forgot that Hollow had given them Tough. Doesn’t sound like a good start.

Next turn I revived three of my Swordsmen to put them easily within charge range of the Bane Knights. The charge didn’t work so well as I only killed two. Everything else advanced to end a fairly tame turn. The Bane Knights got their own back and started off with Vengeance and then their regular activation (aided by Ghost Walk) to completely obliterate my Swords and four Arcuarii. Everything else just sort of shuffled forward.

Already things were looking bad for me (you know this is a regular occurrence in my games) at the start of my feat turn. The void Spirit and Nihilators charged BLT who had actually stayed around and must’ve started laughing at me. The Krea moved around and used her spray to soften up the Bane knights for the Gladiator, Bronzeback. The Arcuarii (who had three members revived finished off the Bane Knights and dragged the Deathchicken. The Bane Knights were finished and the Deathchicken also laughed in my face. Oli stepped up a gear by having a Bile Thrall Purge the laughable Arcuarii. The Nihilators were decimated by a mixture of a further Purge, BLT and the Withershadow Combine. Malice limbered up and dragged the Gladiator and started the damage. Scaverous arced Telekinesis through DJ to bring the Bronzeback towards him. DJ started to pound my large Titan but ended up missing a couple of times and was pushed back with Poltergeist.

Next turn I let the Titans unleash some pain. The Gladiator couldn’t quite finish off Malice as he missed once or twice. The Bronzeback put some big pain down on DJ, but this also wasn’t enough. The Arcuarii joined the Bronzeback but couldn’t do any better. The remaining Nihilators charged BLT and finished him off. Oli turn saw DJ kill the last Arcuarii (using their souls to heal a lot) and the Bronzeback. The Withershadow Combine joined the fight against the Gladiator, but combined with Malice, didn’t complete the job. The Nihilators were killed by another Bile Thrall.

Desperation saw my Gladiator tear into his assailants. But already sitting on two fury, he couldn’t do much. He did, however, succeed in getting rid of Malice and one of the Combine. The next step was to try out Essence Blast using the Gladiator as the point of attack. This was aimed at Scavvy (naturally). I boosted the Magic attack roll and hit and then boosted the damage. As it was even damage (Titans strength +5 equalled Scavvy’s armour) I needed 18 to win the game. I rolled 13 and the Gladiator died. Orin moved up hoping to use his Arc Lightning to win the day but couldn’t hit anything. Scavvy then moved forward and used Telekinesis to move DJ in charge range of Mordi. DJ then laying the smack down. When he was done, Mordi was left with 1 point of damage after transferring some to the Krea (killing her).

The game was ended here as I only had two fury and could not hope to finish off DJ and then withstand an attack from Scavvy. If I had three fury, however, I could have cast Ghost Walk and tried to attack Scavvy. But I didn’t and I couldn’t.

I was mostly pleased with how things worked under Mordi. The things I should have done better were numerous:

• Better deployment of Mordi would have enabled me to feat on the second turn (which was in the back of my mind before the game). This might have saved some swordsmen and held the Bane Knights up a bit.

• Orin and the Agonizer would have been of more use further up the field.
• The Krea could also have been used more effectively.
• My deployment of the Nihilators was just plain bad to start with.

But now I know that Revived models could be better placed (preferably before the unit activates) The Void Spirit had an off day and some of my damage rolls against Malice and DJ were just bad.
Overall I am more confident that I can be a bit less conservative in my play style with Mordi, and I cannot wait for Scaverous: part 2 tonight.