This post summarizes the game I played against Sean today, Jan 26th, 2013: Cryx's pDeneghra vs Cygnar's Siege, 50 pts. Siege was able to pull off a risky feat assassination on Deneghra after her feat, because of a ranger and Mage Sight. Due to the necessity of time, I've had to significantly shorten these battle reports from what I was originally doing, though I hope to get back into longer ones eventually.
Lists
Sean's - 50 pts - Cryx - pDeneghra
Kraken
Night wretch (2x, cryx bonejack, a.k.a. "bone chickens")
Pistol wraith (2x, solo)
Scrap thrall (solo)
Necrotech (solo)
Master Gunner Dougal Macnaile (merc solo)
Blackbane's Ghost Raiders (unit)
Cylena Raefyll and Nyss hunters (merc unit)
Mine - 50 pts - Cygnar - Siege
Stormwall
Black 13th
Rangers
Gun mages + attachment
Boomhowlers
Reinholdt
Stormcallers (2x)
Versh
Junior
Squire
My Setup
Sean's Setup
End Turn 1A (me)
I ran everything up and had Junior cast arcane shield on the boomhowlers, which called 4+ tough throughout the game. The rangers and Black 13th went into the forest. Unfortunately, I spaced the rangers and gun mages too closely together, as will soon become evident. I wasn't sure where to put everything. There were a lot of units. I forgot to put out the Stormwall's lightning pod.
End Turn 1B (Sean)
The Kraken 4" aoe-ed my gun mages to death and all but two of them died. Range 16 is a very lovely range on those guns. I didn't realize he had an aoe. >.> The Kraken also picked off a ranger or two with single shots, I think. The Nyss hunters moved up, but didn't do anything. The single model off to the right is the scrapper solo, which is basically a suicide bomber that blows up. I think he's a 4" aoe pow 16 when he blows up. The bone chicken on the left there arc noded pDeneghra's crippling grasp (-2 spd, str, def, arm, no run or charge, no special attacks) on the boomhowlers while the ghost raiders came up behind it.
End Turn 2A (me)
Siege gave the Stormwall three focus. Junior upkept arcane shield. It missed the Kraken with its left big gun and put 11 damage on it via its right big gun. I put out covering fire templates with the small guns, but it was mentioned that yeah, they wouldn't do much against ghost raiders. Ghost raiders are incorporeal and don't care about the templates. The Stormwall also shot a lightning pod out as close to the Kraken as it could (about 1.5" away).
Ryan risked her life to walk out of the forest and mage storm the Nyss hunters. It fell short and deviated five, about 4-5" I think, to end up on the hill in the center. The rangers moved a bit more into the forest, but not much. One of them ran over by the bottom right of the stairs. The stormcallers moved up (black models, left and right of the board). The boomhowlers tried to kill the chicken with their range 8 pow 12 guns and failed. Two of them stood still to aim and four of them walked up to shoot at it, but all of them missed.
Siege moved up behind Stormwall, to get closer to where pDeneghra was hiding in the left forest. She was very close, and I was thinking of killing her if she came any nearer. He also put fox hole (5" aoe gives cover) on Ryan to help protect her. Unfortunately, that was unnecessary, because Nyss hunters ignore cover (and forests and concealment).
End Turn 2B (Sean)
This is where it got interesting. pDeneghra moved up ON TOP of the hill, parasited the Stormwall (-3 arm, +1 arm on caster) and feated (-2 spd, str, mat, rat, def, arm, focus to everything in her control of 14"). The ghost raiders killed three boomhowlers (didn't roll any toughs). The Nyss hunters moved up and tried to shoot Ryan (some were within 5") but they missed her. They also missed the ranger at the top right of the hill (obscured partially by the plants). A pistol wraith shot and killed the pod in front of the Kraken. The Kraken charged through the pistol wraith at Stormwall (he has a 4" reach), crippled his R side and did ~11 damage to his left side, column 3.
Discussion (Turn 3A, me)
On my turn, I spent a long time looking at it, but I couldn't resist trying to kill Deneghra, even though Siege was severely hampered by her feat. What did it for me was the ranger on the hill. I wouldn't have tried it without him. He ran up next to Deneghra. Siege gave one focus to Stormwall (whose L side was going to finish off Deneghra if Siege failed, I hoped). Reinholdt used reload on Siege. Siege had to walk up on the hill to see her, from behind Stormwall (to where you see him now in the picture) and feated. I had given him an extra focus from Squire, but he still only had 5. He mage sighted Deneghra with two focus leaving him with two, and boosted to hit, needing tens. He missed with his first shot and hit with his second shot boosted shot. He rolled for damage unboosted and managed to roll a 10! Best feat roll I've ever done. It one shot Deneghra - 18 damage to her 17 boxes. That was very lucky and somewhat unexpected.
I think I could have done a bunch of things better here - particularly positioning all those gun mages and it would have been nice to have the Black 13th on the L side, to face off with the ghost raiders. I'm pretty sure that Deneghra didn't have to be up that far in order to catch me in her feat and could have been a little safer. Sean forgot about Siege's mage sight. It's a nice spell. I need to play more Cryx, as I don't know it well. This was a fun match up and I think my first 50 pt game. That was a lot of models.
Key Points
1. Needed to put gun mages on one side and Black 13th on the other, to better deal w/ incorporeal models.
2. Ghost raiders are incorporeal.
3. Watch out for Kraken's aoe.
4. Crippling grasp sucks. O.o
5. John thinks the pods of Stormwall cause disruption. Should have maybe shot a pod at bone chickens and/or had Stormwall shoot them. I can't decide if that would have been better than focusing on the Kraken. In this case, I suspect not.