15pt Cygnar vs. Cryx

During terrain placement, the Cryx player wisely put plenty of forests smack in the middle of the board, nerfing my ‘shooty’ Cygnar list significantly.

Turns 1 & 2: I sent my long gunners running towards the opposite side of the board on the other side of the river. I was hopping to provide ‘melee proof’ covering fire from across the river with the decent 14″ range on the long gunners. Stupidly, I set up my caster on the other half of the board, so the Cryx player simply ran up the ‘far’ side of the board and completely ignored my Long Gunner screen. (duh!). My only option was to try and turn the screen into a flank, which meant two more turns of running because the second bridge (not visible in this picture) was still further down the board.

Turn 3 – Cygnar: Because I couldn’t get line of site through the forests, I couldn’t engage the advancing Cryx army yet. My Cygnar Cyclone laid down 2x AOEs with ‘dual covering fire’ and Siege laid down rough terrain by casting ‘rift’ right in front of the forest. My hope was that I’d slow them down enough to get at least one round of ranged before the Bane Thralls or Helljack arrived.

Turn 3 – Cryx: Defiler camped right out of the AOE from the cyclone, and Deneghra channeled ‘venom’ and damaged my warcaster! Since it’s a spray AOE it ignores cover.

Turn 4 – Cygnar: I opened up on the Defiler (bonejack with arc node channeling Denegra’s venom spray attack) with the Cyclone, Siege, and the Charger. While I HIT 4 out of the 5 attacks (which was decent given the +2DEF the Defiler got due to the forest), I rolled poorly and didn’t take out the Defiler. This proved to be very, very bad.

Turn 4 – Cryx: Deneghra popped her feat (nerfs most stats) and channeled another shot of Venom through the Defiler. I *think* she may have casted twice, and with decent roles, she successfully assassinated Siege! GAME OVER.

Next time:

• If I don’t get a clear killing field for my ranged army, and I’m against spray attacks, I need to take out the arc node at all cost, or not rely on cover and kite for a few turns to get the terrain on my side.
• I could have easily engaged the Defiler in melee, thus disabling it’s arc-node. That would have wasted another round of range, and there was nothing else to shoot at, so that’s not ideal.
• I would set up my caster near the river, right at the bridge, so the screen of Long Gunners could have whittled down the opposing army as they advanced.

I learned the Siege (and any warcaster) is vulnerable to Deneghra’s spray attack spell VENOM. Watch out!

Cryx:

• Deneghra
• Slayer Helljack
• Deathripper bonejack
• Defiler bonejack
• Bane Thralls Unit (6)

Cygnar:

• Siege Brisbane
• Reinholdt Gobber Speculator
• Cyclone Heavy Warjack
• Charger Light Warjack
• Long Gunners Unit (6)