In turn, I have wanted to get some games in against Cryx for a while now, as my only recent experience against non-Lich1 Cryx was against Denny2, which kind of rocked my world. While I learned some things from that game, the thing I learned most was that I knew next to nothing about how good Cryx can be.
So, I asked my friend James to give me a tutorial of sorts on how the faction worked, and Sam (the guy who destroyed me with Denny2) decided to come down and play a game as well. For my part, I was playing with Cassius, whom I had only played with once before. I'm hoping to get a working Cassius list together for any Masters events I might play in, and would love this to be my Cryx drop. I figured this was a good opportunity to get some practice in with him :)
My List:
Cassius
-Megalith
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Gorax
Tharn Ravagers
-Tharn Ravager Chieftain
Nyss Hunters (max)
Shifting Stones
-Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer
Game 1: Circle (Cassius) vs. James' Cryx (Lich3)
His List: (from memory)
Lich3
-Ripjaw? (arc node)
-Ripjaw? (arc node)
Mechanithralls (max?)
-3x Weapon Attachments
-Skarlock Commander
Satyxis Raiders (max)
-Unit Attachment
Satyxis Blood Witches (max)
-Unit Attachment
Bloodgorgers (max)
Necrosurgeon
Necrosurgeon
Warwitch Siren
Satyxis Raider Captain
Gerlak Slaughterborn
Probably other stuff
Honestly, just an assload of dudes.
The Mission:
Same mission all 3 games. 12"x6" zone in the center, with an objective on each player's lefthand side. Destroy the objective for 1 CP, THEN dominate/control the zone for 2/1 CPs. You will notice that our zone is a little small - we just assumed that the zone was an extra .5" long on each end.
**James won the roll to go first, and took it.
Pre-game thoughts:
Well... lots of guys here intimidates me a little bit. The fact that Satyxis Raiders are AD ensures that I'll be a little jammed here, though the Ravagers do help to keep me from being super-jammed. I would need to kill as many of the high-DEF models with Hellmouth as possible, and try to chisel out the others as necessary.
Mostly, I was sad that James had first turn. I feel like having the initiative in this scenario against this sort of army is a huge advantage. Still, I was somewhat excited to see what they could do!
This would be my first time using Nyss. I actually really liked them, after reading their card. Seemed like a good unit with Cassius and all. Unfortunately for both of us, James told me they had AD, and I blindly trusted him. We both found out later that wasn't the case, which may have made our game different. Not really sure how huge a change it would have been. My other two games reflect my corrected knowledge though :)
Deployment:
 |
| Oh yeah, James is lending me his nicely painted Nyss. I don't even own the models yet, though I will soon, hopefully. |
Cryx Turn 1:
James ran his guys forward. Satyxis got up in my grill, as they are wont to do. I believe that Lich3 gave them something that gave them Ashen Veil, which made them like DEF 18 against a lot of stuff. Madness :)
 |
| And... I suddenly don't have much room to operate in. |
Circle Turn 1:
Nyss went first, using CRAs to kill a bunch of Satyxis. Please note that they did advance, so I wasn't getting my aiming bonus. They just ignore cover, and I only used a couple CRAs (3?)
A Stone shifted up, ready to be Hellmouth'd.
Megalith advanced and put a boosted Curse of Shadows on the Satyxis Raiders.
Ravagers went, and got the run/charge order. Two of them charged Satyxis, but one was outside of my CMD, and couldn't strike. The other one killed its mark.
Cassius went and cast Hellmouth on the Stone, which sucked a few more Satyxis to their death, including the one my out-of-CMD Ravager had charged.
Other Stones shifted Wurmwood up to better collect souls.
Gobbers popped some smoke.
 |
| Well, I killed James' front line. Lots and lots (and lots!) more to go though. |
James ran his guys forward again, keeping Ashen Veil on his Raiders. I believe the Blood Witches popped their mini-feat to be incorporeal for a turn. I believe this was the turn Gaspy popped his feat.
 |
| Up in my grill. |
First, Cassius upkept Curse of Shadows (CoS).
Stalker went and killed a few Raiders in the forest.
Nyss went and shot a few Raiders and a few Blood Gorgers.
This is where I kind of (really) messed up. I got it into my head that I could assassinate Asphyxious with the Ravagers. All I would need to do was to put CoS on the McThralls, then move the tree up and pop my feat. If I did that, the Ravagers would have LOS to the caster, and could get to him with their POW 15s.
First, Megalith walked up and and cast CoS on the McThralls, boosting and needing a "6". He missed.
At that point, I should have just called it quits. My plan had called for casting two Hellmouths into the units to get rid of blockers, but now I would need to put CoS on the McThralls with Cassius, only allowing for one Hellmouth.
Instead, I kept going.
Cassius went next, casting Hellmouth on an enterprising Stone and killing several Blood Witches. He then put CoS on the McThralls and popped his feat.
Ravagers would only be able to get two bases into Asphyxious, instead of their planned-for 4 models.
Two still charged him, and the other members of the unit charged other models. I believe the maths say that when I hit Asphyxious (with however much focus he had on him), the Ravagers would do 5 damage on the charge. Reasonable likelihood of hitting him on the charge, so with the Chieftain and another guy swinging at him, they *should* cause around 10 damage.
Instead, they combined for 1 point of damage.
The others managed to kill a WA Thrall and the arc node jack in front of his caster, which I was later told was a mistake - it was there to die anyways in order to provide cover. Doh!
Well, it was a somewhat of a good turn for me anyways, having killed almost all of the Raiders, a big handful of Witches, a few McThralls, and even a couple Blood Gorgers. I could have done more with the Ravagers if I was using my brain, though. They definitely could have cut a swathe through the McThralls, had they decided to go that route, or even killed a bunch of Necro Surgeons. /shrug
 |
| Still a lot of dudes, but far fewer now. |
James essentially ran forward again.
One Blood Gorger ran past a Nyss, was free-struck and knocked down (from Tough), but they weren't really able to do much to the Nyss.
McThralls and Gaspy combined to kill every single Ravager, despite the feat. Ouch! James also put 11 points of damage on the objective, buying me another turn at least. He wasn't really able to do much with his Witches due to the feat.
 |
| At least Wurmwood loves it when my own models die. Heh. |
Circle Turn 3:
I dropped CoS on the McThralls.
First, I had a Gallows Grove move up to within 8" of the KD Blood Gorger.
A Stone moved up by a few Witches.
Cassius went, taking a few souls from the Tree. He first arc'd CoS on the Blood Gorgers (the KD guy was a great target) and then cast Hellmouth on the Stone, killing a couple other models, but mostly failing to do much. Significantly, this left him with zero fury.
Gobbers popped smoke, but did it awkwardly enough that I wasn't really blocking Cassius or Wurmwood very well, though that was the intent.
Megalith walked up and cast his Animus, then pounded a few Blood Witches.
Nyss stayed where they were (a few walked out of melee) and shot up about 5 Bloodgorgers, who were only on ARM 13 due to CoS.
Stalker warped for Berserk, put Lightning Strike on himself, then walked up and killed several infantry models, lightning striking back into the forest.
At some point, the Blackclad killed a couple other infantry.
Aside from my poor smoke placement, I felt like this was a fairly solid turn for me. Most of James' infantry is gone, though the McThralls would be growing themselves huge with all the corpse tokens they had collected.
 |
| Only the McThralls and about 4 Blood Gorgers are still alive, along with a few support models. I actually feel like I have the attritional advantage right now. |
After a few models shifted around, Saxon Orrick gave Gaspy Pathfinder. It was then that I saw my mistake.
Gaspy just barely had LOS to Cassius through the cloud. It was really really close, but he had it.
So, he charged and killed Cassius.
*facepalm*
 |
| *another facepalm* |
Results: Embarassing loss for Circle via assassination!!
Post-game thoughts:
*sigh*
The trend of me not protecting my models continues, though I do feel like I'm getting better at it. And, in this case, it wasn't a case of not remembering to - I did put the cloud down, though I (obviously) need to work on its positioning.
So, let's ignore that part.
I felt like I actually played the game well. James said that I was too passive with my models, though looking at these reports, I don't think that was the case. The Nyss killed *so much* throughout the game, and if he hadn't gotten the assassination off, I think I would have been able to clean out most of the rest of his army in my next turn, then focus on killing Asphyxious.
Hellmouth against high-DEF infantry is seriously bonkers. They just don't have any way to mitigate the pain Hellmouth brings them.
I also loved the Nyss. They did a lot of work this game, and are really damn flexible in general. They're especially good with CoS, as they can then disengage when they don't want to be engaged, and if they do want to be, it's a damage buff to their weaponmaster swords.
Overall, a fun (if disappointing) first exposure to Gaspy3.
Game 3: Circle (Cassius) vs. Cryx (Gaspy3)
My List: (same as before, but I'll paste it again here for you)
Cassius
-Megalith
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Gorax
Tharn Ravagers
-Tharn Ravager Chieftain
Nyss Hunters (max)
Shifting Stones
-Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer
His List:
Gaspy3
-Arc Node of some sort
Bane Knights (max)
Satyxis Raiders (max)
-Unit Attachment
Bane Cavalry (max)
Soul Hunters (max)
Darrag Wraath (or however you spell it)
Warwitch Siren
Satyxis Raider Captain
Mission: The same as it's been for the past 3 games. *sigh*
**Sam won the roll to go first, and took it.
Pre-game thoughts:
Sam is a great player, and destroyed me in our little grow league tournament a while back with Denny2. He's one of the region's top tournament players, and I was pumped to get some experience against him.
I (again) wanted first turn, especially with how fast his list looked to be. But, since I didn't get it, I needed to focus on what I could do to win.
I knew that the Satyxis Raiders would be up in my grill again, as they often are. I needed to clear them out as well as I could, and prepare for his Cavalry as a quick 2nd wave. This time, I would also be *very* cautious about killing Bane Knights, as their Vengeance moves really took me off guard last game. If I could kill Sam's models one wave at a time, I should be able to win the game.
Deployment:
 |
| Pretty much the same as last time. I decided I wanted the Ravagers to mess around with the Bane Cavalry, while the Nyss just wanted to shoot up his Soul Hunters. |
Cryx Turn 1:
He ran up!
He also did an interesting movement swap: his Knights and Hunters were fast enough to criss-cross their locations. I was happy to see that I had deployed "correctly" with my Ravagers and Nyss, to the point that Sam would be forfeiting some of his jamming in order to get better matchups.
Ashen Veil went on the Satyxis. *surprise*
 |
| Not the most awful situation for me thus far, though the Soul Hunters will be able to advance through the building next turn, via Darragh Wraath giving them Incorporeal. |
Circle Turn 1:
I needed to kill lots of Satyxis.
So first, I put a Stone in the midst of about 4 or 5 of them.
Cassius went and cast Hellmouth on the Stone, killing the 4 or 5 close to the Stone.
Nyss went up and used one massive CRA to kill a single Nyss, making sure to stay behind the forest so the Bane Cavalry wouldn't be able to charge them.
Ravagers charged a few other Satyxis, killing or or two.
At the end of the turn, Sam had about 3 or 4 Satyxis left alive, which felt nice.
 |
| So, I mostly cleared Sam's first wave. Now I would need to deal with an assload of cavalry. |
Cryx Turn 2:
Sam's Soul Hunters moved up and killed a few Ravagers, advancing through the building, then using their Fast Cavalry moves once the few Ravagers had been killed.
Bane Cavalry used their Run moves to jam the Nyss.
Bane Knights advanced up the middle.
I believe Gaspy popped his feat this turn.
 |
| Well, not an awful turn for me, all things told. I lost 2 Ravagers, and that was about it. Now we would see if I could kill much more of Sam's force. |
Circle Turn 2:
I would need to kill most of Sam's Bane Cavalry and a big chunk of his Bane Knights if I wanted to have a chance this turn. Luckily, I had my feat to slow his models down some.
Megalith went first. He charged the nearest Bane Cavalry, put his Animus up, and pounded the single model he had charged. I only then realized that he *should* have put CoS on them first, but forgot. Instead, he put CoS on the Bane Knights.
Shifting Stones went next and put the Stalker in the midst of three Bane Cavalry.
Stalker warped for Berserk and killed all three of the Banes.
Another Shifting Stone went up in the midst of a bunch of Bane Knights and Satyxis.
Cassius moved up, ported his tree nearby, and cast Hellmouth on the nearby stone, killing a handful of Knights and Satyxis. He then popped his feat.
Ravagers walked up to the Satyxis and killed a couple of them, causing a CMD check, which they failed. Woot.
Nyss went next, and failed to kill the final Bane Cav, despite three of them swinging at him. Not really an upset, just disappointing.
They did manage to get several accurate shots on the Bane Knights though, and killed about five of them, bringing the Knights total number to 3 remaining.
All in all, I killed a *ton* of Sam's stuff this turn. Losing most of the Knights and Cavalry really hurt Sam, though he still had a bunch of tricks up his sleeve. Good news for me that my forest is up though - it would make things difficult for Sam to assassinate me.
 |
| Awkward sideways picture! |
Bane Knights walked up with Vengeance and nearly killed the objective.
After measuring and trying to figure out what to do, Sam determined that he wouldn't be able to assassinate me this turn. (see, I'm learning!)
The Bane Knights finished off the objective, Gaspy walked into the zone to dominate it.
Soul Hunters killed another couple Ravagers, then used their Light Cavalry movement to move backwards.
Significantly, one of his Warwitches ran up and was able to shadowbind my Stalker, making him forfeit either his movement or action. Doh!
Still, I felt like I was in reasonable shape moving into the next round.
*felt* being the operative word.
 |
| I mostly have all my models left alive, while Sam is struggling, model-wise. |
Circle Turn 3:
After a while of thinking, I dropped CoS on the Bane Knights, which was a mistake.
Stalker warped for Berserk and just managed to kill both Witches.
Ravagers forgot that the Satyxis were fleeing, and so mostly did nothing. One Ravager who already had a corpse token managed to kill a couple soul hunters though. Useful.
Nyss shot up some more stuff, but I then realized something - I couldn't get into the zone. Well, I could, but not with anything that wouldn't die easily next turn.
I should have either tried to get a bunch of Nyss into the zone via CoS, put Lightning Strike on my Stalker to get him into the zone, or even just charged Megalith in there.
Sam had done an expert job of hemming me out of the zone, and I had fallen for his diabolical scheme.
So, instead of wasting time playing it out, we agreed that he would very likely have won (barring awful luck) and shut it down.
Results: Loss for Circle Orboros via implied scenario failure!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well... this game was disheartening, but also very um, heartening. I lost because I lost sight of the scenario, which doesn't often happen with me. So, that was embarrassing.
However, I had killed a ton of Sam's models, and I was playing fairly well. I checked, double-checked, and triple-checked to make sure he wouldn't be able to get the assassination off. I had good target priority. I managed to remove a large number of models for very little cost.
Honestly, I should have been a little more aggressive on my first turn movement to make sure at least Megalith could get into the zone quickly and threaten Gaspy.
This is a problem I can see moving forward against Cryx. I think I could have won this game if I had gotten first turn. That isn't a recrimination or anything, it's just an honest appraisal. Sam would not have been able to get his caster into the zone nearly as easily as he did. That said, against Cryx, I'll get to go first only about half the time. I need to devote some time thinking of strategies to ensure that I can threaten the zone against Cryx' (extremely!) fast army even if I have to go second.
We had time for one more game that day, and James took out an old Goreshade3 list of his.
Game 3: Circle (Cassius) vs. Cryx (Goreshade3)
My List: (same old)
Cassius
-Megalith
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Gorax
Tharn Ravagers
-Tharn Ravager Chieftain
Nyss Hunters (max)
Shifting Stones
-Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer
James' List (from memory):
Goreshade3
-Reaper
-Skarlock Thrall
Satyxis Raiders (max) <----- p="" surprise="">-Unit Attachment
Bane Thralls (max)
-Unit Attachment
Daaragh Wrathe
Pistol Wraith
Pistol Wraith
Machine Wraith
Machine Wraith
Satyxis Raider Captain
Tarterous
Probably other stuff
The Mission:
Same Old.
**FINALLY I won the roll to go first, and took it.
Pre-game thoughts:
Well, this list was also scary, especially because I wasn't used to this particular caster. Goreshade3 has the feat that makes my models stationary, but he also lacks one thing that was really messing with me in the past few games: Carnage. He couldn't get his troopers past their initial MATs, which would really help. Also, no Ashen Veil for the Satyxis.
My goal was to jam him as hard as I dared (Satyxis would be able to punch me back HARD on Turn 1 if I wasn't careful), and look for opportunities to get ahead in attrition.
Deployment:
 |
| Sam showed me a cool way to deploy my Stones. Gonna have to do this more often :) |
Circle Turn 1:
I ran the Ravagers up, putting one in charge range of the Satyxis, but also blocking the Satyxis from jamming the rest of my army via run moves.
Everything else advanced. I put the Tree up a little closer to the front in order to collect my own inevitable souls.
 |
| Come at me! |
Cryx Turn 1:
He put Scything Touch on the Satyxis, then had them run/charge. Through a tricky method I hadn't thought of, James managed to kill one of my Ravagers I had thought safe, though he then failed to kill a Ravager which I had otherwise given up for as dead.
Otherwise, it was just a general advance.
Darragh Wrathe put up his aura of messing with living models and their damage output.
 |
| So far, about as planned. |
Circle Turn 2:
I saw the chance to "assassinate" Tartarus, which would make my life much better if I could succeed at it.
First, Megalith moved up and boosted CoS on the Satyxis, put his Animus up, and killed the two nearby Satyxis.
Cassius then moved up and shot a Stranglehold at the Machine Wraith on the right (killing it), then popped his feat (after Wurmwood had been ported up by some stones)
Ravagers then had clear line of sight to Tartarus, and no units which could get free strikes on them.
So, I had two of them charge up and kill Tartarus, while another one charged and killed one Satyxis. I forgot Megalith's animus :-/
Blackclad took a shot and killed another Satyxis.
Nyss had an epic fail, taking a shot at Goreshade with one massive CRA and doing a single point of damage. Whoops, should have charged some Banes or something.
Still, killing Tartarus was a huge swing in my favor - he would have made my day much worse had he survived.
 |
| I made sure to keep the Tree loaded with souls so that any assassination attempts would fail. |
Cryx Turn 2:
James did what he could under the constraints of the feat. He managed to kill only one of the Ravagers, since Goreshade wanted to make sure and camp most of his Focus.
Banes got all mixed up with the Nyss, and so did the Satyxis. Thing was, they couldn't easily hit my DEF 15 Nyss or DEF 15 Ravagers (+2 DEF in the forest).
I was in great shape after this turn.
 |
| Only 3 of my models had died thus far, and I was about to unleash some hell on the Cryx. |
Circle Turn 3:
This whole time, I was looking for an assassination vector on Goreshade, and I thought I saw it.
It was a very complex thing, and though I did get a fully primal'd Stalker into him, I missed a critical CoS with Cassius (needed a "6" on 3 dice, got a "4", lol), and then (despite MAT 8) missed the majority of my attacks on him. I think I did a total of like 5 damage to Goreshade.
Really a poor play on my part.
I was ready to concede the game, but James pointed out why I still had a great chance to win, and I actually agreed with him. However, the store was about to close, so we decided to call it there.
Results: Not really sure!!
Post-game thoughts:
The reason I had a great shot to win still was that he just couldn't kill my models. The Nyss in particular were problematic for his low MAT, and they would in turn destroy the Banes in melee. It made some good sense, though I still think it was a *huge* mistake to try to kill Goreshade. I had forgotten about Darragh Wrathe subtracting two to my POW, and that was also a big deal.
If I had just used that turn to kill an assload of Cryx models, I would absolutely have done better. Nyss vs. Banes is no real contest, as I quickly discovered, and hellmouth vs. any Cryx infantry is also no real contest.
I'll do better next time out vs. Cryx. I learned a ton about "dudespam", and I feel that Cassius is a pretty good choice. Even better than that, Cassius is a ton of fun to play! He looks really boring and overly complicated when you see his card, but he's a blast! I really want to keep trying this list out. Ravagers may or may not go away in favor of Bloodtrackers, but we'll see! They had their moments of glory as well :)
Thanks for reading, what are your thoughts of Cryx, and Cassius vs. Cryx?
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