This Saturday will mark my LGS's Resurgence tournament. I will, of course, be representing Cryx - which is a serious change from my approximate month and a half straight of playing Legion - and, in fact, taking a caster who I have yet to play in Mark II and only played twice in Mark I. I speak, of course, of the man, the myth, the legend, Lich Lord Asphyxious. We're doing a 25/35/50 round scheme, which has earned a special hatred from me and I will discuss in a moment. Some discussion with a fellow forumite who shall remain nameless helped me tweak my lists.
For any of you who aren't aware of the format, it's Escalation-style (meaning the models from your 25-point list must be included in your 35-point list and so on) with three control zones in the middle-ish of the board. You get one control point the end of -each- player's turn for the zone closest to you, two for the one in the middle, and three for your opponent's. First to seven wins, tiebreaker is most control points first, most control points in different zones second (I hate that last one for the record). It's a little bit of a tricky scenario. For my dime, it favors shooty armies. Armies with potent shooting can advance or run into their closest control zone to start getting the easy one-points every round, and then unleash hell on any poor bastard who advances into the middle control zone, while sending forward their own solid stuff (melee units or heavy warjacks) to mop up and start getting bigger points. This can hopefully be mitigated with terrain, but any board without a big fat forest in the middle is going to cause an issue - something to keep in mind when building lists.
I anticipate lots of shooting. There are at least two Cygnar players I know of, and two Retribution players. Two merc players will be there as well with, you guessed it, shooty lists, and a smattering of Khador. Probably not much in the way of Cryx, but you can never be too sure - I know of one other Cryx player right now. Menoth will be there too it seems. Maybe a Hordes player or two as well? Everyone is going to be packing lots of shooting.
So - I think the smart players will be building with plenty of shooting, or with plenty of answers to shooting. You'll also definitely be needing something with threat range to contest or snag objectives, and probably something to either deal with opposing heavy hitters or at least make them go away. Forget this at your own peril - this scenario is the great equalizer. I saw a really good player laid low by someone not up to his level because the lesser player remembered scenario and the first player didn't. I also suspect lots of jack-heavy first rounds - not because it's most efficient, because I don't think it is with most casters, but because it just feels natural to take mostly warjacks at this points level.
I playtested a Mortenebra list at 25 and it just didn't cut it. Dual Slayers, a Seether, a Defiler, and two Necrotechs is okay for just straight caster-kill, but I would've been annihilated by scenario had my opponent not suffered from a rash of bad dice luck that led to Siege getting torn in half. I built the list with Round 2 mostly in mind and got punished for it.
I played around with iBodger during downtime at work and came up with some Asphyxious lists that just weren't working. Then my discussion with the previously-mentioned forumite, and together we hammered out these:
25 point:
Iron Lich Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Seether
Satyxis Raiders(Min) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls(Min)
Total: 23/25
I'm playing down this round intentionally, for more wiggle room next round. Normally I would fit a Skarlock in for the psuedo-free upkeep on Scything Touch, but the Skarlock does nothing for Lich Lord Asphyxious and would weigh me down in the following rounds, so I'm going to suck it up and deal without it.
This list fits in my principles. It's -fast- thanks to the bonejacks and the Raiders. It's not especially vulnerable to shooting - the only thing in the list that care about non-boosted shooting is the Seether. Boostable shooting will present a bigger problem, as ol' Gaspy is pretty vulnerable to that, but that's a risk I just have to take, and ideally their shooters will be tied up with high-DEF Satyxis Raiders anyway. This can be dealt with on the table.
The plan will be the usual for Gaspy - maneuver node into position, BoC, BoC, BoC, fatality. Otherwise, try to Backlash-ping them to death (Raiders with Scything Touch are -hot-) or Seether to the face if they're not careful. I'm not really planning on winning by scenario so much as keeping my opponent from doing so, but anything's possible. I'm actually quite happy with the list, which is strange given that it's the first 25-point list I had that really felt good.
Round 2(and 3 if necessary):
Lich Lord Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Deathjack
-Cankerworm
Satyxis Raiders(Full) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls (minimum)
Necrotech + 1 Scrap Thrall
Total: 35/35
This is where I feel like the list really comes into its own. Epic Asphyxious is practically tailor-made for this scenario. Dropping 3" clouds that auto-kill infantry that enters them or hangs around in them? How beautiful is that? (The answer is very beautiful) He keeps himself safe with them early game, then I can funnel my opponent's objective-grabbers out on penalty of death and feeding the Lich Lord even more souls. Having the Deathjack there (upgraded from the Seether) is a big old security blanket. And I actually love the Cankerworm with Asphyxious, especially in this scenario. He's incredibly fast, immune to shooting, and resilient enough that he laughs at blast damage. Slap Parasite on a heavy and it hits like an Angelius, and add in Dark Shroud for extra amusement. His Feat is also really good at giving you a second shot at clearing out the scoring zones or, like always, killing a caster.
Finally, we come to Round 3 (or 4, or whichever the last round ends up being):
Lich Lord Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Deathjack
-Cankerworm
Satyxis Raiders(Full) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls (Full)
The Withershadow Combine
Necrotech + 1 Scrap Thrall
Bane Lord Tartarus
General Gerlak Slaughterborn
Total: 50/50
Basically, at 50, I finally round out the Bane Thralls, and throw in the characters I couldn't take earlier. Not a huge change, and should play almost exactly like the other list, just with a hell of a lot scarier Feat turn. Two chances for Gerlak to kill an entire unit is pretty amazing.
So, those are my lists and strategies for tomorrow. We'll see if my theorizing will work on the table.
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