Game Day 1-30-16

All right folks here are some of the pics and the results of last Saturday's game day.  The wife and I headed up to Wise to get a couple games in with Josh and Mychaela.  We test-ran our Journeyman League starter forces and I have to say I am generally pleased with my decision thus far.  So without further ado let's get started!

To start here is my 'battlebox' that I finally settled on:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous:

• Ripjaw
• Ripjaw
• Leviathan

In retrospect the Leviathan might not have been the best choice of jack for Scavvy, but since I'm starting off with Cryx I wasn't really sure what else to go with.  I chose the Ripjaws because compared with their 1 pt cheaper Deathripper brothers I feel that the Ripjaws can help cut through some of the heavier armor that Scavvy might not be able to himself.

My first game was with Josh who brought eKrueger, a Gorax, and a Warpwolf Stalker.  Josh is getting used to the Fury mechanics that are key to effectively playing with Hordes so there were some mistakes made with making sure beasts were in control range to be forced and making sure he had the right fury balance.  First couple of turns weren't too interesting aside from being in the right position.  He was able to move his Stalker through the forest and put a hurting (17 points worth) on one of my Ripjaws, but the cortex and head were still intact so I could strike back. 

I was able to lock down his Stalker though with some savvy Scavvy tricks, but this is also where I felt that his weakness was exposed.  I had to pop my feat to do all of those but I was able to telekinesis the Ripjaw out of combat, so I could telekinesis the Stalker to turn around exposing his back arc.  Then I moved one Ripjaw into his back and did a Vice Lock preventing him from advancing (and change facing) and the other Ripjaw went in and did Armor Piercing.  In 2 turns the Stalker was unable to move and was torn to shreds by the Ripjaws.

His Gorax unfortunately ended up frenzying and charging my Leviathan kept him out of the fight most of the time.  Throughout the fight though Josh was able to ping Scavvy with lightning bolts knocking him down in health piece by piece.  Sure 3-4 damage might not be much at first but after several shots it wore him down.  Scavvy ended up having to charge Krueger in an all-or-nothing charge and got him down to 2 boxes, but couldn't finish him off.  Krueger took the game after that.

For Courtney and Mychaela it was a fight between Ravyn and eDenny respectively.  From what I saw Courtney did a fair job dealing out damage but was trying to fight a way of attrition.  Neither of the two are used to their casters/forces and so it ended up being a game of learning more than anything else.  Courtney ended up losing to an arc node assassination run when one of Mychaela's Nightwretches went around and put itself in prime position to be channeled through.  Cryx came through with an assassination victory!

For my next game it was a Cryx vs Cryx matchup against Mychaela while Josh and Courtney went against each other.  This game went by more quickly than the one against Josh as both Mychaela and I had assassination on the brain and we had similar lists.  Turn 1 had the usual running up into place except both of my Ripjaws went in to engage with her Nightwretches to deny arc node usage.  She casted Ghostwalk on the Nightwretch to my left so that she could move it up and try to channel some spells at Scavvy.  Unfortunately this left her open to the Ripjaw being used as an arc node right in front of her.  Scavvy popped his feat, chucked some spells at her, got her down to a couple hit boxes.  Luckily my Leviathan moved up and was able to roll above a 9 (like I said luckily) and took her off the board for the win.

Courtney and Josh played their game and from Courtney's description she took the chance to learn how her spells worked more than anything else.  She is not used to how Fury works as a mechanic as well so we had a chat about the pros and cons of Focus/Fury afterwards.  I believe it ended up being a loss for Courtney as well with Josh able to assassinate her via beasts.

It was a good day overall with only a couple games.  I can see why Scavvy might not be so popular to play with.  He's got some tricks up his sleeve but they come at a cost.  Unless you happened to have a good round of soul grabbing (which I don't think would be a good idea to throw him at an infantry unit and hope for the best), his spells are pricy.  Good but pricy.  You really do have to decide what you are going to do that turn and only do that.  If you need to buff up your jacks, that's all you can really do.  If you need to cast a bunch of spells, you can do that too but only that.  If you need to attack something yourself you can do that but only that.  He doesn't really have the means to spread his actions out like some other casters do.  Still I enjoyed him and I think it will be a great league in the near future.

That's all for today folks, I hope it's been a great weekend for you all and this weekend coming up should be another round of game day shenanigans!  Until then happy gaming!