Telekinesis + Croe's is stupid... stupid good.

Yah, I said it. So in case you didn't realize, I got my first game with Scaverous in last night. So here's the list that I played.

Points: 50/50
Lord Exhumator Scaverous (*5pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Malice (9pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Croe's Cutthroats (Croe and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)
General Gerlak Slaughterborn (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)

I didn't go with the whole excarnated bile thrall trick because I wanted a list that would punish both Hordes (via TK + Croe's to ruin beasts) and Warmachine (via Malice + WSC). That said, I totally forgot about Croe's + TK for assassination. At least I remembered in game.

Anyways, I faced off against an entirely ranged list: Siege, a Squire & 2 Defenders, ATGM & Cyclone, B13, Rangers, Jr Warcaster, Arlan, eEiryss, & Reinholdt.

Terrain didn't make too much of a difference as it was just 2 hills & 2 forests in opposite corners.

So I lost the die roll, but he went 2nd

My 1st turn I put Death Ward on the Bane Knights, put 1 arc node in a good position to TK anything in the middle of the board forward, while I hold the other one back. The Machine Wraith runs into the forest, an everything else just runs up (Gerlak in the middle, Bane Knights on the right flank, Croe's move to left flank on a hill across from eEiryss & ATGM). Tartarus stayed back in order to be able to curse where necessary, while the 2 sirens hung out near the arc nodes.

His turn , he moves up with a few things, shoots Gerlak with 2 Defenders to force the tough roll (which he freaking failed, gah). With the Black 13th, he knocks out my Machine Wraith that was in the forest doing nothing. Then he foxholes Siege & his foremost Defender while Jr. puts Arcane Shield onto Siege.

On my turn (top of round 2), I ran out my front arc node (power boostered) towards his front Defender, who was sitting at a comfortable DEF 16 vs. ranged and magic. 1 focus had gone to Malice for the boost, leaving me with 2 chances at a boosted TK onto his defender (9's to hit). Thankfully, the first one hit, and so I TK'ed his other Defender around and away a smidge. Then Scaverous scuttles back to safety >20" from anything in his army. Skarlock TK'ed Malice forward, and then I walked forward 4" (turns out I didn't need the 2nd TK) and dragged the Defender in, smacked him, and sent him back toward the Withershadow Combine. Since I didn't deal a whole lot of damage to the Defender with the Malice drag (6 or 8 pts I think), I then "charged" my Bane Knights. I charged the Defender with one Bane Knight in his back arc (in order to ensure that a crap roll by the combine didn't leave me with a mostly scrapped defender), and the other 9 just ran toward the Rangers/B13, spreading out to avoid getting capped by a good magestorm. 4 Bane Knights are about 1.5" shy of engaging the Rangers. A pretty good damage roll from the Bane Knight left that Defender to be short work for the Combine, who made me a pretty little Harrower. He tried his luck at shooting Rangers/B13, but was out of range with all the Bane Knights blocking his path. Croe's ran to engage eEiryss and/or hide in the forest by the Gun Mages. I got 2 engaging eEiryss and 2 blocking her immediate path towards Scaverous, so I was feeling much better with that taken care of.

For his second turn (bottom of round 2), he planned on taking out a majority of my army with Siege's feat. Long and short of it, he killed 2 Croe's (1 of the 2 engaging Eiryss, and 1 other in the forest), leaving me with Croe engaging Eiryss, and 3 others hanging out in the back of the forest. His cyclone & Jr. warcaster wrecked my front arc node, while Siege tried to put the hurt on Malice. He had some crap rolls there, so he only took out my Cortex and right arm. Still, enough to make Malice not too useful. Siege's ground pounder put killed off a bane knight and Admonia, but he missed on the rolls against the other 2 members of the Combine. The Rangers & B13 killed off a majority of the Bane knights, but some flubbed rolls left me with 1 alive. A magestrom right onto the Harrower's head left me with a cloud right in the center of the board (protecting Siege's overextended ass from a Tartarus charge).

For my third turn (top of round 3), I first surveyed what I had left: 4 Croe's (1 engaging Eiryss), an autonomous Harrower without a working gun, a badly damaged Malice, BL Tartarus, Maelevolous & Tremulus of the Combine, 2 WW sirens in good position to power booster or spray with a TK to help, a Skarlock, Gorman, and finally.... Scaverous + his feat. Not a whole lot left, but still plenty deadly. I was hoping that I'd have 1 Bane Knight survive, because then it would just be a matter of procuring Siege's back arc, and excarnating 3 bane knights into existence. My other option of the 15" charge with Scaverous wouldn't work either since Siege was out of range. This was the point that I realized that Croe's would get 4 dice on backstrike's against Siege, in addition to only needing 5's to hit if I landed an icy grip on him. It would need some good rolls to work out since he was sitting at a happy ARM 21, but definitely doable. So, time to get things started. I powerboostered my remaining arc node, who then ran up to say hello to Siege. Scaverous then has to walk forward a few inches to get that arc node back into his control area, but then pops feat and proceeds to TK Siege closer & turn him around, Icy Grip him to help everybody hit, and then drop feast onto his head to lower his ARM a smidge and dropping 2 pts of damage onto him. With my remaining focus, I TK Gorman and BLT further just in case I need a little extra. the 3 cutthroats who aren't engaged then shoot some large holes in Siege. They're at dice -9 for damage, but have 4 dice. Should do about 4 damage each with average, but I got above average. The first 2 nailed him for 12 damage, leaving him at 3 health, but the last one rolled crap. Thankfully, I still managed to do average damage with those 3 rolls. The combine tried and failed miserably to deal any damage at dice -7, but Siege was still sitting close to malice & a harrower. The power boostered harrower sealed the deal, but I think that I could have sealed the deal with Malice + BLT as well.

Overall, I think Scaverous is ludicrous. He will have some bad matchups in eLylyth & eCaine or severe anti-magic (possibly Kromac or, but who doesn't. Playing against ranged armies is going to be a challenge, but I think that a majority of the melee armies out there will be great matchups for him. My current setup is definitely good at assassination thanks to Scaverous' great enabling abilities, but he can also play mean attrition as well.

Last but not least, I was talking with people afterwards (including my opponent). Turns out, Scaverous is the first caster with TK who can also take Croe's Cutthroats. Cygnar (eHaley), Retribution (Rahn), and Circle (eKrueger) all haven't had access to them. It's just silly being able to give my guys 4 dice and +4 to hit with Scaverous + Croes. On the other hand, they're only POW 10's, so they'll often be at dice -5 or greater... but that's not really a great reason to allow these shenanigans. Maybe it's just because I've been playing a lot of Mercs recently, but damn does Cryx get some BS stuff sometimes.

Anyways, I'll probably keep playing this list (or some variation on it) for a few weeks until I get McBain & the Kayazy painted.