Post by jest on Mar 27, 2017 17:03:56 GMT
Hi all - I just started Cryx in my casual journeyman league and though I'd share here to see if any fun discussion can come out of it. I'm usually more of a lurker, but I know the community is in a weird state with the PP forums going offline so I wanted to add some content to (hopefully) keep things livelier here! I'll post my first two games and if people are interested I can post the rest. I can also include pictures on future games.
We've started a new playgroup at my local store in a "build your own battlebox" casual Journeyman league. The idea is take a caster that is reasonable at low point matches (use your judgement) and any non-character jack battlegroup you want for the first round. Player experience ranges from "I've played for 6 years straight" to "I played in MK2 and just started up again" to "This is my second month playing". I've been playing since November and this is my first table top wargame.
For my battlegroup, I choose:
Warwitch Deneghra (Denny1) (WJ +28)
Leviathan (16)
Deathripper (8)
Deathripper (8)
Today I would face Lylyth1, Sorscha1, Kraye1, Madrak1, Butcher1. The scenario would be Mangled Metal on a 30x30" board
Match 1: Lylyth 1 with a Bolt Thrower and a Carnivean.
My opponent was a veteran player who let me know he felt bad about this game because it's not a great match up for me. I thought that meant I was going to have a tough time getting through the Carnivean. What he didn't tell me (and had no obligation to) is that as soon as Denny is in within LOS and 23 inches threat you better be camping 2 focus or Lylyth will kill her.
Turn 1, opponent deployed behind a long, narrow forest that went from his zone up to about 1/3 of the way up the 30" table. He positioned Lylyth back in the forest and ran the Carnivean up to the edge which was closest to the middle of the table. The bolt thrower was up as well to Lylyth's left.
I knew I would get the first shot with the Carnivean in my Leviathan's ranged threat range. I allocated a focus to the Leviathan for a total of 2. I then ran my Deathrippers up a hill to my right, one to arc a debuff on the Carnivean, the other back further to be ready to charge next turn. I activated Denny, moved up slightly (mistake 1) and attempted a debuff on the Carnivean's armor and speed with a Crippling Grasp. I needed a four to hit and rolled a 3 so I spent my remaining focus (mistake 2) to try again, and I hit. I rolled a 1 on the Leviathan's d3 shots and did 6 or 7 damage to the Carnivean and passed my turn.
My opponent then said "hrmm - this is why I apologized ahead of time man". Lylyth then casually walked up with 3" of the forest's edge, popped feat, snipe, ("hey you know she ignores stealth right?") and proceeded to snipe Denny with a shot, a free parasite, and another boosted shot for the win. OK - didn't see that coming.
Started out 0-1.
What did I learn: So I knew Denny was squishy but against eyeless sight she has to measure threat range all the time. This means on a shortened 30" board she basically had to be at a diagonal AND on the table's edge against Lylyth's feat. I also learned that I need to keep an eye on terrain balance. When my opponent choose to go first, I should have choose his side of the table or asked to take turns re-deploying terrain. The particular table was setup in an unbalanced way, where one side had a forest and the other had a small pond but no cover. Not using this as an excuse, but I made note of it to keep an eye out from now on. I would have loved a forest for Ghostly Denny to hang out in.
Finally, in these games the Leviathan's fate is really in the hands of the RNG gods. When your battlebox heavy, the only heavy you have, is d3 attacks it makes a shooting strategy very swingy. In a big game rolling a couple 1s to start isn't horrible because you have 85 points of other stuff, but here riverboat levi was my main offence. From then on I adjusted my strategy to charge with the claw on important turns where I needed to get work done like feat or alpha.
So my first game wasn't that exciting, but I learned some hard lessons one of which only applied to this match up, but the others I would take with me to my other matches.
Match 2: Sorscha1, Destroyer, Juggernaut
My opponent was a new player like me. He had less games under his belt, but more games as his faction/caster as he had been playing Khador/Sorscha from the start while this would be only my second game with Cryx ever.
The deploy was pretty straight forward, with him taking advantage of a small wall on his side while I would move up the board via a hill on my side. He would move his two heavies together in a brick while Sorscha would hide behind the wall.
Again, I knew the Leviathan would get the first shot here due to the 13" gun and the lack of threat from the slow heavy Khador monsters. This would be on turn two rather than one so I moved my jacks in such a way as to be ready to shoot/arc on turn two with one jack to the right of the leviathan (closer to Sorscha's wall) and the other to the left with Ghostly. That way, even if my opponent attempted to stay out of range, one of my nodes would be able to get off a speed debuff, allowing my team to safely move up a bit more.
Turn 2 my opponent moved up the board. Sorscha was able to move up and fling a Razor Wind at my Leviathan, feat, then Wind Rush (reposition 6"!!) back to safety. My jack shrugged off the hit taking only 2 damage from the boosted POW 12 against my ARM 17.
Using her feat, which made my entire team stationary, setup an conundrum for me. The board was setup in such a way that it would make for an excellent feat turn. My Leviathan could aim and shoot one of his jacks while my Deathrippers could charge in, finish the one, while engaging the other. However, it would cost me three focus on my team to do so and I would not be able to "double up" debuffs on his ARM 20 jack. My attacks would be dice off 2 on the Levi and dice off 5 on the Deathrippers.
I ultimately decided to feat. My reasoning was that I could expect about 18 damage from the levi ("expect" is a bad word here since it is so swingy with its d3 shots), but even if it did zero I would get around 16 total from the rippers who would be jamming his heavies which would be RAT 5 against Def 14 under feat. I choose the Juggernaut as the target since its POW 19 arm was scarier than the Destroyer's POW 14 Bombard Canon and POW 17 Axe. The Levi ended up getting two shots taking out half the Juggernaut's boxes (totally happy to get average here!). Deathripper 1 charged in and did a few damage. Deathripper 2 charged in and rolled a monster 16 on charge damage dice, leaving the Juggernaut with only his Open Fist.
Next turn, my opponent decided he was going to try to kill the pesky Deathrippers. Picture two little dudes standing in front of two giant red towering behemoths, one crippled, and both with the heavy weight of Deneghra's Withering on him. He made an interesting play in taking a free strike on his Juggernaut in order to try and get a double blast damage hit on my Deathrippers. I think the idea was that he would take two boosted POW 7s, one on each jack, that are very likely with a (low-ish) possibility of a direct hit POW 14 (his RAT 2 POW 14 could only hit my DEF 14 on a 12) rather than hitting a single jack in melee, with a possibility of getting nothing and a likelihood of getting one POW 17, dice +3 boosted hit in. My opponent was sort of giggling through this so I think he went for the AOE shot in a bit of desperate "ok let's give this fun high-variance approach a try". Hitting both my dudes would mean a boosted straight dice on one and a boosted dice -7 on the other. His shot missed (needed a 12 on three dice) deviated in the one direction so that my second jack was out of AOE (doh! think he could have thought out his disengage better to prevent this) and hit my Ripper for 3. His crippled Juggernaut then pounded my other 'Ripper with it's open fist taking out its Arcnode and it's movement (lucky for me!). Sorscha then went the safe route and poked my Levi a bit more while putting up her concealment buff. Since her speed was reduced to 4" she couldn't get in range of my almost-dead-Ripper and reposition out without putting herself in Leviathan charge range.
My turn 3 - my plan was to finish off the crippled Jugg with my crippled Ripper, free up my second ripper to Arc a debuff on the full health Destroyer, then attack it with my Levi followed up by my Ripper #2. I knew since the Jugg's movement was out I wouldn't have to worry about boosting to hit attacks. Plan B would mean committing the second ripper to the Jugg which would mean a waste of focus/attacks that could have been used to cripple the Destroyer. Plan A executed pretty well. The Jugg died on two attacks my Ripper, which needed to do 3 damage from two boosted dice off 8 shots. It was a little scary when the first one did no damage and I prepared to execute plan B which would take up my 2nd 'Ripper's activation. I was glad when the second attack did 4 damage freeing up my Ripper to put everything into the Destroyer. Activated Denny to Parasite the Destroyer down to 17 Armor. Then had the Leviathan move up and get 1 shot in for decent damage (still waiting for this d3 to land a 5 or 6!). Ripper #2 went in and did another solid amount of damage in.
Opponent's turn - what I though was going to happen here was Sorscha charging my last Ripper and beating it down with Dice -1 damage attacks with Frostfang. What instead happened was a pre-measure fail where he tried to walk up halfway to Denny, Wind Rush the rest of the way in, and then smack her down with Frostfang. I realize A) I think if he took a better route he may have gotten to her and B) I had almost thrown away a potential win because of Denny being a little too close. I actually offered my opponent the chance to reset and try and go inch-by-inch around the wall instead of using direct lines out to see if that put in in melee, but he graciously said he rather just learn the hardway and try and blast Denny with a couple razor winds. The Razor Winds I knew where a possibility all game and was OK with the risk of taking two unboosted spells to the face especially at Def16/Arm15 (parasite) vs. Magic Ability 6/POW 12. Denny survived, and with only 1 focus on the Destroyer, the Deathripper survived the POW 15 hit as well.
This left my opponent with a roughly half HP heavy, and a full HP caster. Since Mangled Metal is kill caster OR kill all Jacks in the battle group I had a choice; upkeep parasite on the Destroyer and try and kill it with my fully loaded Levi and Ripper or try and kill Sorscha with Denny/Levi. Either way, my Levi was charging in with his claw, because screw rolling a 1 or 2 on d3 shots this turn when I could get guaranteed POW 17 attacks in with a giant crab claw - this was now or never. I decided to go for the Destroyer for a couple reasons. One, Sorscha was at DEF 18 since she Wind Rushed last turn which would mean even a boosted grasp from Denny would be dicey, literally. Second, if my assault on the Destroyer failed, I could run Denny away 14 inches in such a way to leave Sorscha with a crappy unboosted Razor Wind option again. Thankfully, my dice were good enough to take out the remaining 20 boxes or so on the Destroyer to win the game.
What did I learn: First, confirmed that the crab claw is a good consistent option that should be used when spacing isn't relevant, or a game winning/saving opportunity presents itself. Second, Deathrippers can actually do work on debuffed heavies, and in small games they absolutely should be positioned to jump in on feat turn. Third, could have easily lost this game if Denny was an inch closer than she was, read all the rules for your opponents casters.
Ok - not sure if that was a complete rambling or decent to read. Critical feedback on how I played, or how I wrote the report welcome!
We've started a new playgroup at my local store in a "build your own battlebox" casual Journeyman league. The idea is take a caster that is reasonable at low point matches (use your judgement) and any non-character jack battlegroup you want for the first round. Player experience ranges from "I've played for 6 years straight" to "I played in MK2 and just started up again" to "This is my second month playing". I've been playing since November and this is my first table top wargame.
For my battlegroup, I choose:
Warwitch Deneghra (Denny1) (WJ +28)
Leviathan (16)
Deathripper (8)
Deathripper (8)
Today I would face Lylyth1, Sorscha1, Kraye1, Madrak1, Butcher1. The scenario would be Mangled Metal on a 30x30" board
Match 1: Lylyth 1 with a Bolt Thrower and a Carnivean.
My opponent was a veteran player who let me know he felt bad about this game because it's not a great match up for me. I thought that meant I was going to have a tough time getting through the Carnivean. What he didn't tell me (and had no obligation to) is that as soon as Denny is in within LOS and 23 inches threat you better be camping 2 focus or Lylyth will kill her.
Turn 1, opponent deployed behind a long, narrow forest that went from his zone up to about 1/3 of the way up the 30" table. He positioned Lylyth back in the forest and ran the Carnivean up to the edge which was closest to the middle of the table. The bolt thrower was up as well to Lylyth's left.
I knew I would get the first shot with the Carnivean in my Leviathan's ranged threat range. I allocated a focus to the Leviathan for a total of 2. I then ran my Deathrippers up a hill to my right, one to arc a debuff on the Carnivean, the other back further to be ready to charge next turn. I activated Denny, moved up slightly (mistake 1) and attempted a debuff on the Carnivean's armor and speed with a Crippling Grasp. I needed a four to hit and rolled a 3 so I spent my remaining focus (mistake 2) to try again, and I hit. I rolled a 1 on the Leviathan's d3 shots and did 6 or 7 damage to the Carnivean and passed my turn.
My opponent then said "hrmm - this is why I apologized ahead of time man". Lylyth then casually walked up with 3" of the forest's edge, popped feat, snipe, ("hey you know she ignores stealth right?") and proceeded to snipe Denny with a shot, a free parasite, and another boosted shot for the win. OK - didn't see that coming.
Started out 0-1.
What did I learn: So I knew Denny was squishy but against eyeless sight she has to measure threat range all the time. This means on a shortened 30" board she basically had to be at a diagonal AND on the table's edge against Lylyth's feat. I also learned that I need to keep an eye on terrain balance. When my opponent choose to go first, I should have choose his side of the table or asked to take turns re-deploying terrain. The particular table was setup in an unbalanced way, where one side had a forest and the other had a small pond but no cover. Not using this as an excuse, but I made note of it to keep an eye out from now on. I would have loved a forest for Ghostly Denny to hang out in.
Finally, in these games the Leviathan's fate is really in the hands of the RNG gods. When your battlebox heavy, the only heavy you have, is d3 attacks it makes a shooting strategy very swingy. In a big game rolling a couple 1s to start isn't horrible because you have 85 points of other stuff, but here riverboat levi was my main offence. From then on I adjusted my strategy to charge with the claw on important turns where I needed to get work done like feat or alpha.
So my first game wasn't that exciting, but I learned some hard lessons one of which only applied to this match up, but the others I would take with me to my other matches.
Match 2: Sorscha1, Destroyer, Juggernaut
My opponent was a new player like me. He had less games under his belt, but more games as his faction/caster as he had been playing Khador/Sorscha from the start while this would be only my second game with Cryx ever.
The deploy was pretty straight forward, with him taking advantage of a small wall on his side while I would move up the board via a hill on my side. He would move his two heavies together in a brick while Sorscha would hide behind the wall.
Again, I knew the Leviathan would get the first shot here due to the 13" gun and the lack of threat from the slow heavy Khador monsters. This would be on turn two rather than one so I moved my jacks in such a way as to be ready to shoot/arc on turn two with one jack to the right of the leviathan (closer to Sorscha's wall) and the other to the left with Ghostly. That way, even if my opponent attempted to stay out of range, one of my nodes would be able to get off a speed debuff, allowing my team to safely move up a bit more.
Turn 2 my opponent moved up the board. Sorscha was able to move up and fling a Razor Wind at my Leviathan, feat, then Wind Rush (reposition 6"!!) back to safety. My jack shrugged off the hit taking only 2 damage from the boosted POW 12 against my ARM 17.
Using her feat, which made my entire team stationary, setup an conundrum for me. The board was setup in such a way that it would make for an excellent feat turn. My Leviathan could aim and shoot one of his jacks while my Deathrippers could charge in, finish the one, while engaging the other. However, it would cost me three focus on my team to do so and I would not be able to "double up" debuffs on his ARM 20 jack. My attacks would be dice off 2 on the Levi and dice off 5 on the Deathrippers.
I ultimately decided to feat. My reasoning was that I could expect about 18 damage from the levi ("expect" is a bad word here since it is so swingy with its d3 shots), but even if it did zero I would get around 16 total from the rippers who would be jamming his heavies which would be RAT 5 against Def 14 under feat. I choose the Juggernaut as the target since its POW 19 arm was scarier than the Destroyer's POW 14 Bombard Canon and POW 17 Axe. The Levi ended up getting two shots taking out half the Juggernaut's boxes (totally happy to get average here!). Deathripper 1 charged in and did a few damage. Deathripper 2 charged in and rolled a monster 16 on charge damage dice, leaving the Juggernaut with only his Open Fist.
Next turn, my opponent decided he was going to try to kill the pesky Deathrippers. Picture two little dudes standing in front of two giant red towering behemoths, one crippled, and both with the heavy weight of Deneghra's Withering on him. He made an interesting play in taking a free strike on his Juggernaut in order to try and get a double blast damage hit on my Deathrippers. I think the idea was that he would take two boosted POW 7s, one on each jack, that are very likely with a (low-ish) possibility of a direct hit POW 14 (his RAT 2 POW 14 could only hit my DEF 14 on a 12) rather than hitting a single jack in melee, with a possibility of getting nothing and a likelihood of getting one POW 17, dice +3 boosted hit in. My opponent was sort of giggling through this so I think he went for the AOE shot in a bit of desperate "ok let's give this fun high-variance approach a try". Hitting both my dudes would mean a boosted straight dice on one and a boosted dice -7 on the other. His shot missed (needed a 12 on three dice) deviated in the one direction so that my second jack was out of AOE (doh! think he could have thought out his disengage better to prevent this) and hit my Ripper for 3. His crippled Juggernaut then pounded my other 'Ripper with it's open fist taking out its Arcnode and it's movement (lucky for me!). Sorscha then went the safe route and poked my Levi a bit more while putting up her concealment buff. Since her speed was reduced to 4" she couldn't get in range of my almost-dead-Ripper and reposition out without putting herself in Leviathan charge range.
My turn 3 - my plan was to finish off the crippled Jugg with my crippled Ripper, free up my second ripper to Arc a debuff on the full health Destroyer, then attack it with my Levi followed up by my Ripper #2. I knew since the Jugg's movement was out I wouldn't have to worry about boosting to hit attacks. Plan B would mean committing the second ripper to the Jugg which would mean a waste of focus/attacks that could have been used to cripple the Destroyer. Plan A executed pretty well. The Jugg died on two attacks my Ripper, which needed to do 3 damage from two boosted dice off 8 shots. It was a little scary when the first one did no damage and I prepared to execute plan B which would take up my 2nd 'Ripper's activation. I was glad when the second attack did 4 damage freeing up my Ripper to put everything into the Destroyer. Activated Denny to Parasite the Destroyer down to 17 Armor. Then had the Leviathan move up and get 1 shot in for decent damage (still waiting for this d3 to land a 5 or 6!). Ripper #2 went in and did another solid amount of damage in.
Opponent's turn - what I though was going to happen here was Sorscha charging my last Ripper and beating it down with Dice -1 damage attacks with Frostfang. What instead happened was a pre-measure fail where he tried to walk up halfway to Denny, Wind Rush the rest of the way in, and then smack her down with Frostfang. I realize A) I think if he took a better route he may have gotten to her and B) I had almost thrown away a potential win because of Denny being a little too close. I actually offered my opponent the chance to reset and try and go inch-by-inch around the wall instead of using direct lines out to see if that put in in melee, but he graciously said he rather just learn the hardway and try and blast Denny with a couple razor winds. The Razor Winds I knew where a possibility all game and was OK with the risk of taking two unboosted spells to the face especially at Def16/Arm15 (parasite) vs. Magic Ability 6/POW 12. Denny survived, and with only 1 focus on the Destroyer, the Deathripper survived the POW 15 hit as well.
This left my opponent with a roughly half HP heavy, and a full HP caster. Since Mangled Metal is kill caster OR kill all Jacks in the battle group I had a choice; upkeep parasite on the Destroyer and try and kill it with my fully loaded Levi and Ripper or try and kill Sorscha with Denny/Levi. Either way, my Levi was charging in with his claw, because screw rolling a 1 or 2 on d3 shots this turn when I could get guaranteed POW 17 attacks in with a giant crab claw - this was now or never. I decided to go for the Destroyer for a couple reasons. One, Sorscha was at DEF 18 since she Wind Rushed last turn which would mean even a boosted grasp from Denny would be dicey, literally. Second, if my assault on the Destroyer failed, I could run Denny away 14 inches in such a way to leave Sorscha with a crappy unboosted Razor Wind option again. Thankfully, my dice were good enough to take out the remaining 20 boxes or so on the Destroyer to win the game.
What did I learn: First, confirmed that the crab claw is a good consistent option that should be used when spacing isn't relevant, or a game winning/saving opportunity presents itself. Second, Deathrippers can actually do work on debuffed heavies, and in small games they absolutely should be positioned to jump in on feat turn. Third, could have easily lost this game if Denny was an inch closer than she was, read all the rules for your opponents casters.
Ok - not sure if that was a complete rambling or decent to read. Critical feedback on how I played, or how I wrote the report welcome!
