In the end I took this list:
Iron Lich Asphyxious* Cankerworm
* Nightwretch
* Skarlock Thrall
Bane Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls
This was my first games with Asphyxious, and I came away from the day having won 2, lost 1. However many mistakes were made by all, including many misjudged distances and once or twice even forgetting to allocate focus.
If I run this force again, I think I'll switch casters and take Denny again. It will mean switching the Cankerworm for another Nightwretch, but more Arc Nodes are never a bad thing. While a fully focused Cankerworm did make mincemeat of the heavy jacks it came into contact with, I found myself missing Denny's debuff's, and her feat is so much more awesome.
However, I thoroughly enjoyed the games played, and hope to get a few practise ones in before the next Warmahordes weekend at the end of August.
Battle Overview
This is all coming from my memory as I didn't take any notes. If I make any mistakes, those that were there can correct me.
The playing area was 4'x4', with a modest amount of terrain added in the form of a couple of small hills, tree areas and a couple of walls. The placement of the 2 areas on trees on the mid line basically created 3 corridors of clear terrain for units to pass through, unless they wanted to deal with the rough terrain penalties.
Game 1 vs Retribution
First game was against my brother's Retribution force, made up of Mage Hunters and a light and heavy jack. I ended up splitting my forces, sending my Bane Thralls down the middle with the Skarlock, and the remainder of my force going to the left. The Cankerworm advanced deployed and using its Affinity with Gaspy managed to get itself in the woods in the middle by the end of my first turn.
Alan ended up sending his caster, Ghost Sniper and light jack to deal with the Bane Thralls, and while the Bane's never made it into combat, they did tie up those 3 units for quite a while. While that was going on, my Cankerworm made very short work of his heavy jack, and my Mechanithralls pummelled the Mage Hunter squad with steam powered fists.
The game almost slipped away from me when a number of mistakes came back to haunt me. Due to a missunderstanding of the charge rules, I ended up never putting my Cankerworm in base-to-base contact with its targets. That meant that I never used its salvage ability, to steal the shiny Retribution weapons. By the closing stages of the game, my only ranged abilities were Gaspy's spells, and with no cover available from either terrain or hiding behind his own units (damn being a medium base) I went into the last turn of the game on 1 health point. Thankfully I managed to unleash a volley of Hellfires, popped my feat and repeated until I won.
Game 2 vs Cygnar
A highly melee focused force vs a jack heavy ranged force. This one didn't at all go to plan, and I'll be working on some counters for future engagements.
Again I went with a split deployment, but this time put my Mechthralls down the middle and took the Banes to the right. The Cankerworm moved up fast, but after seeing what it could do, my opponent decided to try and take it out with some AoE effects. The only thing threatening me to the right was a Hunter, with the 2 heavy jacks and Warcaster facing off against the Mechthralls. While I dispatched the Hunter and stole its gun, poor positioning on my part put Gaspy in LoS to a Charger and Brisbane with no camped focus. He didn't last very long.
I'm going to need to look at ways of dealing with ranged heavy forces. I think I was a little too cautious to start with, Cryx is quite fast and needs its speed to get into combat fast.
Game 3 vs Circle
My first game against a Hordes force, and in a previous battle he'd made mincemeat of the Cgynar force, so I wasn't keen to go head to head with the entire force. Packing a heavy warbeast, light warbeast and a 5 man medium based infantry unit and a bucket load of movement tricks, this one was interesting.
In what turned out to be a theme of the weekend, I deployed in a split fashion again with my mechthralls in the centre, and everything else to the right. After seeing his speed the last few battles, I didn't push the Cankerworm too far ahead. I managed to get a hit on his heavy warbeast with Hellfire and sent it running, leaving only the light and infantry really as a threat. I left the Mechanithralls to die at the hands of the infantry and concentrated on working my way around the forest to deal with the light and warcaster. While the light warbeast died to a combined assault to the Bane Thralls and Cankerworm, I almost lost the whole thing when I forgot the caster had Pathfinder and what I thought was a safe position turned out not to be. The dice gods smiled on me though as I weathered a hail of magic attacks on low health, and importantly with a speed reduction. Unable to charge, I had to resort to Hellfire + feat in an attempt to get the kill. However the dice gods withdrew their favour and I left my opponent on 1 health! Surprisingly they didn't push for the kill, instead decided to withdraw, at which point I gained the upper hand and finished things with an arc'd Hellfire.
I had 3 very different battles, in each both myself and my opponent made mistakes that would come back to haunt us later in the game. We all were having problems judging ranges, leaving a couple of warjacks/beasts stranded after a failed charge, or a critical spell being just out of range.
I'm looking forward to our next wargaming weekend. Hopefully before then I can get some practise in against my brother using a few variations of my list. I'd also like to break out the Skorne, as I like how they play and Titans are awesome!!
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