Martin’s Martial Martyrdom: Part 5 The ETC – Eternal Testicular Conundrum

There is hearsay some people prefer to call it the European Team Challengepionship but that is laughable in my eyes. This year was the start of a new era, since the former organizer went bankrupt with most of the participants’ ticket fees in his pocket allready. A noble team of guys, namely Rich, Tony, Darran and Jamie took it upon themselves to save the event and even offer it free of cost this time. They deserve huge thanks from the community for this.

Due to some scheduling collisions and vacations I ended up hiring Polish mercenaries for my team, so Team HukuLu consisted of another Martin from Slovakia with Legion, Jaromir and Adam from Poland with Retribution and Circle respectively and me with Skorne. I went with Rasheth and Mordikaar in an attempt to cover as many matchups as best as I could, while we also had eVayl, pLylyth, Ravyn, eVyros and eMorv with eBaldur on the team.

The first round draw was published in advance so we knew we will be facing Ed Smith’s Superstars from London and I would be playing the man himself – Ed Smith. Ed was known to play a lot of Cryx, so I was expecting to put Mordikaar to the test. Ed and his team arrived on friday as well so we met at the venue and it turns out he brought Legion! Specifically pThagrosh and Bethayne, hmmm. While I haven’t seen the lists I wouldn’t hesitate to drop Rasheth against pThagrosh with Carnivore being nasty against his feat, Hex Hunters under Beth’s feat on the other hand could mess up Gators and actually Titans as well pretty good. All the spell hate I had with Mordikaar would be quite handy in this case, but would he be able to deal with Thags? List chicken at it’s best I guess. In the end I decided Ed will expect Rasheth and thus drop Bethayne so I went with Mordikaar and fortunately I was correct in my assumption. So then I faced:

Faction: Bethayne – Black Magic

Tiers: 4
Bethayne & Belphagor (*3pts)
* Ravagore (10pts)
* Scythean (9pts)
Blackfrost Shard (5pts)
Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Blighted Nyss Sorceress and Hellion (3pts)
Blighted Nyss Sorceress and Hellion (3pts)
2 Spell Martyrs (2pts)
Succubus (2pts)

 The rest of the matchups were Legion against Legion, our Ret against Khador and their Ret against our Circle.

Before I start, there was one feature at the tournament that needs mentioning. Since there was an even number of player per team a 2-2 split was possible and thus before the round one table was randomly determined to be the crucial or „hot“ table whose outcome would break the tie. Each team also had a Team Feat they could use once per tournament to change the table as they wished unless the other team feated too in which case it canceled out.

So then Ed’s roll made our table hot! Scenario was Close Quarters. Ed went first and he just ran forward which made me approach more cautiously – the Cetrati put on shieldwall and set on a path towads Ed’s flag. Due to Ed’s tier bonus my spells in the first round were 1 Fury more expensive, so I decided to cast only Hollow and dump some fury on the Agonizer. I had fortunately a hill in front of my deployment zone to get bonus def, but it was impossible to balance any models on top of it 😦 The hill proved it’s worth when Ed‘s Ravagore’s first shot missed though. Ed approached a bit again with the rest of his army except for one unit of Hex Hunters on my left flank, the others, on the right were more aggresive since my Nihilators didn’t have Banishing Ward on yet. His first Spineburst cast rolled a 5 for additional targets, so I was promptly down several dudes, but some of them were Hollow, so at least it netted me some souls.

On my turn the Cetrati continued their inoxerable advance toward the enemy flag, I revived some Bloodrunners, Reveilled the knocked down ones, cast Banishing Ward and feated. The Bloodrunners killed a Spell Martyr a Hex Hunter and did a few points on the Ravagore and jammed him up. Nihilators charged in as well into the Hex Hunters but had no big success, mostly just tied them up.

It was time for Bethayne to feat as well, but first Ed wanted to clear his Ravagore and make place for Belphagor to later arc through. He got lucky with his Scythean and hit both Bloodrunners despite needing 11s who would have otherwise Poltergeisted him away creating trouble in his lines. The Hex Hunters on my left pulled back a bit and rather than facing the Cetrati fell on the Vessel Handlers who actually put up a pretty good fight, but in the end turned into a Shredder nevertheless 😀 Bethayne feated and had good luck again with her Spinebursts rolling 5 both times, channeling the spell into the newly created Shredder to circumvent my Banishing Ward. My Nihilators were dying quite fast. The right hand side Hex Hunters were supported by the Hellion Sorceresses, so again the Ward was not enough to keep the Nihilators safe from the magic sprays and after the dust settled I had luckily one  left…

My next turn saw the Cetrati charge the Ravagore and reach the flag. With my Bloodrunners decimated by the Scythean’s animus from the previous turn I swapped Hollow on the Nihilators and revived two more. One finished off the Ravagore the other killed some Hex Hunters and the last one backed off to try to hide so I wouldn’t loose the entire unit. My Bronzeback moved into position for a possible countercharge, but wasn’t shielded well enough as it turned out. Most importantly, the Agonizer screamed his despair into the world behind the Cetrati wall. Finally, my Drake crept up behind the Cetrati and slowly nibbled on the Hex Hunters from that side.

Ed started off with a channeled 6“ Gallows on my Bronzeback to bring him into the Scythean’s threat range. He wanted to harm him some more but since Gallows damaged him as well I used Hyper Aggressive to get into melee with Belphagor to prevent him from channeling further. Thanks to the in melee penalty Kiss of Lylyth from the BFShard wasn’t even attempted. So then the Scythean went to town on the Bronzeback, but thanks to the Agonizer he was at dice -4 and since the dice weren’t spiking, Bronzy survived just fine. The weaker Belphagor wasn’t able to finish him off either. Finally a spawned Stinger tried his luck but missed if I remember correctly or didn’t do any meaningfull damage. At least Ed managed to finish off my Nihilators, which I really wasn’t happy about and it left me with just the Tycom and the Krea guarding my flag since Mordikaar started advancing towards the enemy flag.

With both Ed’s beasts close to Bronzy and helpless, things were looking well. Cetrati went into shield wall again, cleared some Hex Hunters here and there and did some damage on the Scythean. I failed to clear all the Hex Hunters from Ed’s flag due to them having Ashen Veil and I erroneously approached the Drake to the Hex Hunters to catch more of them with the spray but I got into Ashen Veil range as well 😦 so then one or two of them were left to contest the flag.

I then charged the Krea into Belphagor to spread the Paralytic Aura around so that everything save snake eyes from the Bronzy would hit who then proceeded to murder both beasts.

Ed’s priority was to finish off the Bronzeback who was severly hurt. He wanted to Kiss him again with the BFShard, so he decided to move the Stinger away from Bronzy to avoid the in melee penalty, however, I promptly countercharged the Stinger, killed him and got into reach range of one Hellion Sorceress, which Ed didn’t see so he activated the Shard and missed with the Kiss. He then moved the Sorceress away and started Hex Bolting the Bronzeback in the back. First a miss, then a hit and no damage, then a hit, damage and Hyper Aggressive into melee with the Hex Hunter so the others now were again facing the in melee penalty 😀 Bethayne decided that the sharade went on for too long, so she charged him and finished him off, then got covered by the second sorceress and the Succubus and whatnot. The second unit of Hex Hunters Hex Bolted the Krea to death.

Time was starting to run short, so I just tried to finish clearing the Hex Hunters from Ed’s flag, yet again one somehow survived but I killed one sorceress, the succubus and spread the Cetrati to contest my flag as well.

Ed however didn’t have many options left. He charged his 2 remaining Shard members into the Cetrati finally killing one, but the Hex Hunters were powerless against them without charges. Bethayne ran away somewhere.

I finally cleared the last Hex Hunter from Ed’s flag, made a wall around it with the Cetrati and Mordikaar dominated for 3 and I gave the turn over to Ed. In order to contest his flag he had to brave free strikes from the Cetrati with the remaining sorceress or something else, who proved vigilant and didn’t let anyone through so after an intense and interesting battle I proved to be the hotter guy at the hot table thus deciding the round in our favour because Martin lost to a hail mary luck-fueled assassination, Jaromir couldn’t best eSorscha but Adam luckily won against Retribution.

Since my wordlimit seemingly dissipated as fast as an Irishman’s sobriety, I’ll leave you with a promise of an extra follow-up article or two, sooner than the at usual sluggish pace to have the entire tournament covered asap. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to head in front of a mirror to start practicing the winner’s pose for this weekend’s EU Masters in Rotterdam!

Laters alligators

Martin