Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Saeryn, Omen of Everblight vs. Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast

Hi everyone, welcome back to the latest edition of my battle reports! This week I got my regular game in vs Hall of Legends' Jayke and his crazy experimental Cryx lists, since he's trying to diversify his field a bit more. All of which you can read on his blog! I still want to get experience with Saeryn and, unlike last week, this was actually a favourable match to drop her into. I haven't changed the list since I last played it and so it's still:

Saeryn +5

-Angelius -9

-Angelius -9

-Scythean -9

-Scythean -9

-Raek -4

-Shredder -2

Foresaken -2

Foresaken -2

Deathstalker -2

Deathstalker -2

Spell Martyr -1

Spell Martyr -1

Maximum Spawning Vessel -3

Objective - Fuel Cashe

Pregame 

The scenario we rolled out this week was Imcoming from the 2015 Steamroller. Jayke was playing his new eSkarre list, using her Merchants of Death tier list at Tier 4. The list consisted of Skarre with a Reaper, Leviathan, Slayer and Nightwretch, and then had two max units of Satyxis Raiders with their UA, a max unit of Blood Witches with UA and two raider captains (thanks to tier). I won the roll to go first and, since I didn't want to have a bunch of fast, ADed, extended deployment, Desperate Paced raiders shoved down my throat, I took first turn. 

Deployment 

I deployed with my Scytheans opposite the opposing zones and the Angels and Raek opposite my own zone, with Saeryn, the support and the Pot central, except for the Foresaken who took a flank each. Jayke deployed Skarre centrally with the Jacks on the flank by his own zone and the Blood Witches on the other flank opposite my zone. I set my Deathstalkers up near my own zone while Jayke ADed all the Raiders in a long screen across the deployment zone, one on each flank. 

Legion Turn One

Taking first turn I had all my beasts run up the board, getting an Angel and the Raek into my zone. The Spell Martyrs and Foresaken paired up on each flank. The Deathstalkers advanced back, moving around the obstruction. Saeryn put Banishing Ward on herself and moved up before casting a defensive Blight Bringer on the lead Angel. She then threw out an early feat to mitigate the line of Raiders staring me down. The Shredder moved up and put Tenacity on Saeryn. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Cryx Turn One 

On Jayke's turn the Captain advanced and took a shot at the Spell Martyr near my zone, but missed. Starting the run of VERY bad dice Jayke had all game. Wait. Sorry. Spoiler Alert. Sorry. The green based Raiders near my zone advanced up to engage the Angels and Raek but couldn't attack because of the feat. On the other flank the second Captain gave desperate pace to the second raider unit who ran up to engage the Scythean, Saeryn and a whole bunch of stuff on that flank. The Jacks advanced up behind the Satyxis. Skarre moved up and put Death Ward on the Raiders in my zone to help them not die so easily, then she used her feat to cripple both of my Angels, my Raek, my Scythean and then put her feat on herself too. Jayke completely forgot the Witches until the last minute but they advanced into my zone behind the Raiders to jam some more. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Legion Turn Two

On my turn two I had to deal with the problem of not being able to attack anyone this turn with most of my models. I knew I was only going to be able to handle one side of the board at a time and so I decided to go for my left where the unit was further up and in Saeryn's face. I had the Shredder go rabid and it took two attacks on the Raider closest to Saeryn, killing her with the second. The feated Scythean then advanced up into a better position but obviously couldn't do much else. Saeryn then cast Blight Bringer on the Scythean, clearing out a few of the Satyxis, but failing to clip the UA I'd wanted. The now full pot activated and moved up to pop out a Harrier. The attendants moved in to attack some Raiders but failed to hit with their low MAT. The rear, unfeated Scythean activated and moved up to clear another of the Raiders, freeing up the lane for the Harrier to charge the UA. My objective let me charge for free and with animus I hit and killed, also placing the Harrier in front of the Scythean to block a pull on him. This put the unit at below 50% and since I'd taken out the rear of the unit they were no longer in Skarre's inspiration range and they failed their test. On the other flank, being unable to attack, the Angels and the Raek moved up further into the zone getting closer to the Raiders to deny charges next turn with Power Swell. One of the Angels riled for 4, which was taken by the nearby Foresaken. Finally the Deathstalkers activated. One was definitely engaged by the reach of the raider but the other might've been out. I activated the one who was in and advanced into melee but failed to hit. I decided to give it a shot with the other and stood still to aim, hoping for the best. Turns out he was just out and, with aiming bonus was able to take out two raiders on that flank and move back 2" as well. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Cryx Turn Two 

On the Cryx turn Jayke now had one flank full of Satyxis and one with most of the Satyxis dead but with his heavy Jacks in the rear. On the Satyxis-y flank the raiders got as many charges as they could, targeting the Raek, both Angels and one sneaky one on the Foresaken in the back field thanks to reach. Because of close positioning, though, most of them couldn't get the 3" for the bonus. They fired off the mini feat for extra damage, and started taking some swings. The Defence on my beasts was high enough, though, that they struggled to hit. Only a few attacks got through, and the damage was scattered enough that it only crippled the mind on the Raek and left the Angels with all their aspects. The Blood Witches activated and used their minifeat for the extra jam and did a run/charge, moving into good positions for next turn. One charged and finished off the Deathstalker that the Raider engaged but had to use her horns to do it, missing the magical benefits. Skarre moved back and away, hiding behind the Objective for some safety. She then fired a Perdition into the Scythean, doing 3 points of damage with a boost and having the Reaper move up from the spell. On the other flank one of the Captains charged the Harrier and did 12 points of damage, leaving it on one box. So this forced the other Captain to charge in too, hitting and finishing it off. The routed Raiders ran 0" and then passed their command check. Now cleared up, the Reaper shot the Scythean and pulled it into melee. It took the free attack but hadn't been loaded up with much focus and so didn't do much damage to the heavy. The Leviathan moved up but didn't have much to shoot. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Legion Turn Three

I'd lost a lot less in my turn than I'd expected last turn. I had to heal one point from the Scythean to repair its spirit. Saeryn took a blightbringer into the lead Scythean, clipping both of the Captains, killing one and leaving the other on a single box. I then had the Foresaken on the full side of the board near my zone moving up, keeping the Blood Witch engaging her into melee before unleashing her blight all over the Raiders, killing about half of the unit on her own, apart from a few lucky Satyxis who toughed it out (but not Toughed). Because Skarre had moved back the Raiders were now no longer fearless and they also failed their command check. The remaining Deathstalker took out both of the Satyxis that had engaged her partner, moving further along the flank. The Angels finished off all but two of the raiders, unable to hurt the Incorporeal Witches. On the other flank the Pot activated and popped another Harrier, and then managed to kill a couple of Raiders with lucky dice, forcing them to take another check, which they failed again. The shiny, new Harrier took its animus/free Fuel Cashe charge on the surviving Captain, finishing her off. This allowed the Scythean to advance into melee with both Jacks followed by the other one with a free charge. Between the two of them and their chain attacks they scrapped the Reaper and beat up the light. The Foresaken moved up and sucked up the four fury from a Scythean.

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Cryx Turn Three

On Jayke's turn there was a lot of dead Satyxis and not enough dead beasts. So he had the Witches charge in on the busy flank, many of them getting the charge bonus. Thanks to gang they were able to hit the high DEF but they didn't do much damage to the beasts, not managing to finish off any of them, but did kill the Foresaken on that flank. The two pairs of raiders continued to run away. On the more empty flanks everything rested on the Heavies. The Leviathan charged the healthier Scythean and managed to cripple mind but not much else. The Slayer charged the damaged Scythean in the rear and finished it off with the charge attack, leaving him with two focus and no reach thanks to his tiny T-Rex arms. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Legion Turn Four 

On my turn the Shredder frenzied into a pot attendant, adding her to the stew. The Harrier swept into the Slayer and did a few points of damage. Last turn Jayke had very kindly bunched all of his Witches on my beasts. The Spell Martyr on that flank activated and moved up, allowing Saeryn to channel a Blight Bringer through him onto the Angel on the far flank, killing half the unit and the Hag. This forced another command check which, guess what, they managed to fail. This freed up the non blightbringer'd Angel to charge the Slayer over the top of them, using the Armour Pierce to deal a bunch of damage, boosting a second hit to put on some more damage. The Foresaken over there moved up and used its Blight to catch the Slayer, finishing it off with 4 dice thanks to the remaining focus on it. The pot killed another Raider, forcing them to fail another command check and made a new Harrier to contribute to clearing my zone. The second Angel and the Deathstalker finished off the rest of the models in my zone. The remaining Scythean had lost mind and I hadn't remembered to heal it so I just boosted hits on the Leviathan, seriously damaging him and the arc node but not clearing either. This left me in control of the board with only Skarre and two heavily damaged Jacks on the Cryx side of the board. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

After Game 

With the game shop closing around us and the board state favouring me so heavily Jayke decided to call the game there. With both his Jacks heavily damaged and missing their cortexes he wasn't going to be able to clear the zone easily while I still had plenty left between my three heavies to clear his zone or go for the assassination that it was looking like my game anyway. In terms of development I think I should have deployed with my heavies the other way around. It would have been much better to have the Angels near the opposing zone so their repulse would have actually made a difference in scoring a few points!

Regardless of the final outcome this was a really fun game and I enjoyed playing with Saeryn and against Skarre who posed a lot of interesting questions in this list. Lucky Saeryn is well equipped with answers. Plus the Satyxis not passing a single command check worked in my favour! I'm looking forward to getting my next game in with her! Hopefully Jayke and Hall of Legends will be showcasing some more of his interesting list variations too!

As always thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out the Facebook page and 'like' for regular post updates, photos and more at www.facebook.com/Mitsuharuonminis 

-M