Game 172: Elara2 vs Gaspy2

Game 172 – Vs Glen Wareing – Cryx – 07/04/18

My list:

Elara, Death’s Shadow (Shadows of the Retribution)

-Chimera

-Siren

-Siren

-Aspis

Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

Arcanist Mechanik

Mage Hunter Assassin

Mage Hunter Assassin

Min Mage Hunter Infiltrators

Max Mage Hunter Infiltrators

Max Mage Hunter Strike Force

-Commander

Max Mage Hunter Strike Force

-Commander

Spears of Scyrah

-Soulless Escort

His List:

Lich Lord Asphyxious (Dark Host)

-Skarlock Thrall

-Cankerworm

-Desecrator

-Defiler

-Ripjaw

Bane Lord Tartarus

Darragh Wrathe

Max Bane Riders

Max Bane Warriors

-Officer & Standard Bearer

Max Bane Warriors

I am still searching for the strongest possible pair for Vyros2, and spent a day this weekend at the Merseyside Mammoths club testing Elara2 in Shadows. She is a caster more commonly seen with a load of Halberdiers but I’ve never really been a fan of that list and so wanted to try something a bit different, and 40 Stealth infantry will ask a hell of a question to a lot of opponents. First up was Glen, playing Gaspy2 in Dark Host. I won the roll to go first and we got moving.

Elara puts Scything Touch up onto one of the min unit of Infiltrators and everybody gets up the table, spreading out as much as possible to protect against the large amount of blast damage that Glen’s force can potentially unleash. My biggest issue is the Bane Riders, so the Mage Hunter Assassins line up in front of them, with the interest of trading for them early and reducing their impact.

Glen moves up the table, taking shots where he can and putting down a cloud wall on the left of the central forest with Gaspy. A few Mage Hunters are killed but nothing too bad. Cankerworm takes up an aggressive position in the centre of the table.

Time to go in and see what sticks. I don’t need Scything Touch on the left, so switch it to an Assassin on the right and use them a couple of Infiltrators to take out 3 of the Bane Riders. The Sirens do good work persuading Bane Warriors to take chunks out of Arc Nodes, with the left node being finished off by charging Mage Hunters. Most of the Bane Warriors are out of threat, so I just kill what I can, not bothering about the corrosion on the Strike Force as they’ll be dead next turn anyway. I reduce Cankerworm to a few boxes but he’s still operational.

Glen comes back at me and kills off a decent number of Mage Hunters. The main threats were Death Knell from Gaspy and the shooting from the remining jacks, with the 2 remaining Cavalry each taking out one of the Assassins. One Mage Hunter hangs on in Glen’s zone, and with Cankerworm contesting mine it means that scoring starts at 0-0.

The plan no needs to be start scoring and keep Glen out of the left zone to grind out a scenario win. I finish off Cankerworm and take out another Bane Rider, whilst successfully clearing the left zone and scoring with the min Infiltrators. As a last move of the turn I choose to run the Aspis right into Glen’s zone to force him to deal with is. I take a 2-0 lead.

Glen is running out of attrition power, but he still has Gaspy’s Feat and even though only 4 Bane Warriors haven’t been removed from play they are more than enough to remove the Aspis. The same can’t be said for the Spear of Scyrah in the zoen though, who manages to stay alive through Duellist. Further Mage Hunters are taken out, and all the zones are contested to keep the score at 2-0.

All I need to do to win is remove the contesting models and take out Glen’s objective. I have a Bane Warrior swing (if I kill with the Siren), a Convection and 2 Spear charges, which should comfortably do it. The dice say no however, as both the Convection and Siren miss, and Elara is left pretty abandoned in the middle of the table (I lost my head a bit and didn’t think to Teleport back). I take a 4-0 lead.

Glen goes for the assassination, with Gaspy’s spells, the Desectator shot and Darragh all being able to get onto Elara, the dice are a pretty mixed bag and Elara is left on a single box. As the left zone wasn’t contested I win 5-0 on scenario

VICTORY

The dice all went a bit weird there at the end, but I was really pleased with how the list played. I used a lot of time but that can be expected with the first run of a list like this. I don’t regret making the play for the objective, as with the attacks I had on it I had a 95% chance of taking it out and winning the game. More testing with the list is needed but I like the first look at it.