Battle Report: pDeneghra vs eMorghoul

The journeyman league got pushed back to January, so I’ll be Cryxing things up for another month. Only had time for a 25 point game this week, so here’s what I brought:

pDeneghra
* Desecrator
* Nightwretch x2
* Skarlock
Bane Thralls (full)
* UA

I know that if you scroll down a bit, you’d see me recommend to always take Tartarus with the Banes, but points were tight.

My opponent brought the following:

eMorghoul
* Rhinodon
* Archidon
* Basilisk Krea
Venators (full)
* UA
Beast Handlers (min)

He put the Rhinodon in the middle with Morghoul and the Beast Handlers, the Archidon to his right and the Venators to his left. I put Deneghra in the center with the Desecrator and the Banes close to her right and left, respectively, with the Skarlock behind the Banes and a ‘Wretch on each flank.

Round 1:
He ran everything forward, pushing the Venators far up the board with their reform.

I ran... most of my stuff forward. The right Nightwretch ran a bit to the center to catch a charge from the Rhinodon while still being close to the Venators. Deneghra then arced two Venoms into the unit, killing six of them.

Round 2:
He charged the Nightwretch with his Rhinodon, crunching the jack handily. The surviving Venators CRAed into the Desecrator but failed to disable any systems. Everything else did some maneuvering as the rest of my army was out of reach.

I realised I had slightly jammed myself in. I wanted to start my turn by feating and catching Morghoul in it, but my Banes were in the way. So instead I started with them. One ran to engage the Archidon, the four that could fit charged the Rhinodon, and the others ran about to keep everyone in command. Of the four attacking the Rhinodon, the first missed, the second and third did negligible damage, and the last proved his worth by mauling the hell out of it. Grumbling, I moved Deneghra up. I chose not to feat since I was pretty sure I could finish off the Rhinodon with Venoms, Morghoul didn’t have a charge lane on Deneghra, and I wanted to be able to counter his feat. So instead I sent two Venoms into the Rhinodon, killing a Bane Thrall in the process and leaving the corroded beast with one health left. Well... hopefully the acid would get him. The Desecrator walked up and killed four Venators with its gun, which was pretty neat.

Round 3:
The Rhinodon dissolved away, as did my confidence when Morghoul Apparitioned to get a charge lane on Deneghra. It wasn’t perfect though, as a couple Bane Thralls were barely in the way. The Archidon flew to kill the interfering thralls, provoking a free strike along the way. I was licking my lips at the opportunity for a Dark Shroud, Weapon Master free strike, but the lousy thrall only did six damage. The Archdon managed to kill the two thralls it needed too, but doing so filled it up on fury. The surviving venators and Krea killed another thrall, and then Morghoul charged Deneghra, leading with the fan and boosting the attack.

And he missed. So before taking his sword attack, he cast Flashing Blade, again attacking with the fan and boosting the attack roll. This time he hit, dealing four damage and blinding Deneghra. Now, only needing a four to hit, he used his second initial with his sword.

And he missed. So, using one of his two remaining fury, he bought another attack.

And he missed.

:D

His last attack hit for a fair amount of damage, and then he feated. The turn ended with Deneghra badly hurt, blinded, and in melee with Morghoul, but still very much alive.

Deneghra gave two focus to the surviving Nightwretch and one to the Desecrator, with the plan being to drop point blank aoes on Morghoul until he stopped moving. She activated first, feated, walked away and used the rest of her focus in a shameful heal.

Even with The Withering, Morghoul was still sitting at DEF 17, so I was surprised and delighted when the Skarlock landed an unboosted Crippling Grasp on him. The Bane Thralls bunched up around him to further debuff his armor for those aoes, and then the officer took Morghoul’s head clean off with his first attack.

I would say that the MVP of this game were the dice. They started strong, had a rough patch in the middle, but then pulled through for an amazing finish. Really though, I should have feated on my second turn, and eMorghoul should have killed Deneghra.

Yay dice.