Okay, here's a real fancy battle report with pictures and everything!
I talked Tom into another Vassal game tonight. Alayna’s away with family all weekend, so I don’t have anything better to do! We played scenario 3, which was nice and simple – two flags, the friendly flag can be dominated for 1 CP and the enemy flag can be captured for 2 CP (dominated for 3 CP.) Flags are a tricky scoring mechanic… anyone within 4” contests, need to have a model b2b to control/dominate it, and units must be above 50% and totally within 4” to control. Still plugging away with Vlad, this time against pSkarre.
(Note that Vassal doesn't have a sprite for the Vlad model yet, so he's represented by the blank red base.)
Vlad3 (+5)
-Behemoth (13)
-War Dog (1)
Max Nyss Hunters (10)
-Valachev (2)
Kayazy Eliminators (3)
Doom Reavers (6)
MoW Drakhun w/Dismount (5)
pSkarre
-Harrower (big crab jack, Reach/thresher and an AoE 3” blast)
-Skarlock
Necrotech + Scrap Thralls
Min Mechanithralls
Max Bane Thralls
-UA
Max Satyxis Raiders
-UA
Satyxis Sea Witch
3x Scrap Thralls
Deployment:
Super zoomed out!
Turn 1:
Tom’s Satyxis have a blistering 14” threat range on the charge… since he’s on the 16” line, that means he can reach 30” across the board… my Doom Reavers start the game only 5” out of his charge range! I try to run them up cagily, sending two guys way up in front to threaten with free strikes so the Satyxis can’t get the rest of the unit. If I had been a bit smarter, I would have just ran them all the way – with Dash they run 14”, and have 2” of reach. I could have likely pinned down most of the unit that way. Behemoth lumbers up. Vlad gives Behemoth Hand of Fate, so that I can hot swap it next turn (I can upkeep on Behemoth, shoot, then Vlad can recast it onto the Nyss so I benefit from it twice in one turn). Casts Dash, and moves up next to Behemoth. Kayazy Eliminators run up behind the flag, Nyss run up and spread out to threaten Tom’s flag, trying to scare pSkarre off of dominating. Drakhun moves up, prepared to screen Vlad or give the Nyss some support if they need it. That’s my turn!
Tom starts by moving his Harrower up, trying to clip one of the Doom Reavers that is running interference on his Satyxis. His shot falls an inch short, and he gets an unfavorable scatter. His random zombie thrall guys scurry around the table. Tom needs to get his Satyxis forward to make way for his Bane Thralls, but doesn’t know what to do about my DR – his Raider Captain gets a nice hand cannon shot, killing off one of the screening Reavers and giving him room to charge forward. Skarre moves up, but can’t get far enough forward to use Dark Guidance for the Satyxis. The Satyxis charge, reaching 3 of the 5 surviving Doom Reavers – one of them survives, but the Satyxis are jamming me well. The Bane Thralls run up right behind the Satyxis, clogging the board with stuff that is going to be a nightmare for me to kill. Le sigh! I remembered for the first time in however many games that my Doom Reavers are abominations… we test for everyone, and the only unit that fails are my Kayazy Eliminators (who are now stuck behind the flag crying, instead of fighting).
Turn 2:
Well, I have to somehow unjam myself. Behemoth moves up, lobs some bombards but doesn’t do any big damage to the Bane Thralls like I hoped (I think he kills a few mechthralls). The Doom Reavers activate, the guy on the left berserks through three satyxis but the other two fail to do anything (and critically, my Kayazy can’t move in to help them). Vlad moves up, kills two Satyxis, and then backs up (thanks to ride by attacks!). He passes HoF off to the Nyss, and then ends his activation… with blood tokens, he’s armor 22! The Nyss advance, but I’m in a weird spot – if I get too close to the Banes, they can charge and kill. Too far, and I can’t shoot them under stealth. I manage to kill the front two, and then back up using Zephyr from Valachev (which is another great ability)… I should be able to avoid retaliation. The Drakhun runs up to cover Vlad with a counter charge just in case the Banes get through. I didn’t kill as much as I had hoped/needed to this turn, so was a little nervous… I thought Vlad was safe, but I’ve been proven wrong on that many times before!
Tom runs his scrap thralls up, blowing up two of them to free up his three satyxis on the right. His Harrower takes a trick shot at the Doom Reaver in melee on the left, just barely missing. Skarre slinks up, throws up Dark Guidance (boosted melee attack rolls), and pops her feat: it gives all of the models in her control +5 strength and +5 armor. Now she is near invincible, and her army will be too… even worse, they’re about to hit me like a ton of bricks! She uses sacrificial strike to turn a Bane Thrall into a bomb that kills the Doom Reaver his Harrower missed. More zombie scrubs scurry around in the backfield (killing one Nyss). His Bane Thralls charge, engaging one Nyss I left behind to jam and my last Doom Reaver. My Drakhun counter charges to kill one, locking down the Satyxis on the left from beating up on Vlad with her other super sisters. His Banes kill a Nyss and a Doom Reaver, while dismounting the Drakhun (this fortunately let me play with his front arc some more, to try and prompt more free strikes). The Satyxis activate… one engages the Drakhun, one charges Behemoth, and two charge Vlad. Gulp! Behemoth takes 5 damage, Tom misses Vlad, and the Drakhun is killed. Critically here, Tom moved his Satyxis out of feat/dark guidance range when attacking Vlad. That really messed up his turn... still he, clearly had the upper hand. I had no idea how I was going to deal with all of his super infantry this turn.
Turn 3:
Things were looking really grim – my Nyss didn’t have the strength to really kill all of Tom’s super infantry. Knowing it was a long shot, and figuring that I was in poor shape to win anyways, Vlad held onto all of his focus to try and go out in a blaze of glory! Pop feat, cast HoF on himself. Flashing Blade on the three guys to his right, kill them all. Charge the satyxis north of him… impact attacks kill the satyxis and a bane, flail kills the last bane (side step north), spear kills the Sea Witch (side step northwest, into the Bane Thrall standard), two flashing Blades to kill the two Banes (including the standard, so no more tough!) and the Raider Captain. Sprint down back behind my flag, dominating it for a control point! Vlad killed 4 Satyxis, the Captain, the Sea Witch, and 4 Banes... he ended his activation with 0 focus and 6 blood tokens, making him power 19 with his flail and armor 23. I'm a sucker for super solo casters (even if they're inherently more risky, as Bob wisely reminds me!), and I live for cool moments like this... Vlad's blood quenched ability craves living infantry, which is probably why I've been struggling against Tom's Cryx the past few games. Anyways, Behemoth advances but can’t hurt anything with his bombards (He should have spent more time running, less time taking potshots... I had no chance to give him Infernal Machine to speed him up). The Nyss move up and clean out the mechanithralls (Valachev’s spray being a big help here… this unit is freaking awesome). My Kayazy Eliminators finally get to do something, and charge into the surviving Banes, killing two of them. I’m floored that I managed to do so much on Skarre’s feat turn, and the tables have totally flipped -- Tom is now on the back foot, scrambling to handle all the Nyss knowing full well that Behemoth and an angry Vlad are only a turn away from reaching battle.
Skarre is in a bad spot, lacking resources to kill my army… usually this is the point in the game that Tom pulls out an insanely amazing caster kill, but with Vlad at def 17/arm 23 across the table that wasn't a very promising prospect. Skarlock slings a spell at the Eliminators, who were engaging a Bane… doesn’t kill the Kayazy, but the Bane dies. Skarre casts Dark Guidance, kills a zombie for more focus next turn (which has been happening all game!), and lurks behind her flag to try and avoid getting killed… camps 4 focus! The Harrower threshers 3 Nyss and Valachev (that jack is a monster!)… the Bane Captain runs towards my flag, to block me from scoring again (CP are a big deal for tournament scoring, so Tom and I try to play under that logic).
Turn 4:
Short turn here. Vlad gives Behemoth 1, upkeeps HoF, casts Infernal Machine on Behemoth, and kills the Bane Captain so I can score again. One of my Kayazy died to corrosion, so her sister charged the necrotech and his last thrall, killing them both and engaging Skarre. Valachev was crushed by the Harrower last turn, so Cylena and her remaining hunters charge the jack, wrecking it with some crazy hot Hand of Fate damage rolls (5 dice, drop the lowest… ouch). Behemoth sprints into melee range with the skarlock to keep it from going anywhere. I get another CP (for two total), and Skarre and her Skarlock are left facing down Behemoth, an Eliminator, and 5 Nyss Hunters
We call it here, as Skarre only rolled a 1 for extra focus and had no hope of facing down a hellish Behemoth.
For fun, we rolled out his assassination run on Vlad3 assuming he had gotten all of his Satyxis in range of Skarre’s feat (he would have had to walk in, so no charging bonus)… he did one point of damage, which is the same result of the actual game via feedback off Behemoth
The extra defense from the war dog made a world of difference, without his buff three of those attacks would have connected with the Khadoran Great Prince. We both took awesome lists: the Nyss are excellent with Vlad3 and the War Dog proved necessary to keep me from getting myself killed... Behemoth was okay, this was a bad match up for him. A Spriggan would be pretty terrifying under Vlad's feat though, and free up some points. pSkarre is awesome, especially with this kind of list -- boosting attack rolls gave Tom a chance of hitting my infantry, and her feat makes Bane Thralls as hard to hurt as warjacks and even makes mechanithralls scary! The Satyxis Raiders were definitely MVPs of the game, they're very hard to kill at range and move faster than my Advance Deploy/Dash Doom Reavers!
Thanks to Tom for the great game, this was the closest one yet! We’ve been having a blast testing stuff on Vassal… the rest of you are welcome to join us!
Vlad needs more living infantry to feast upon.