144 Thexus1 OT vs Wurmwood1 DH
07.11.2021, 2d6 Showdown #19-21
Final game of the day and I am pitched against a Circle player who brought Wurmwood with Tharn and Kromac2 with all the new and improved living beasts. This is a clear Thexus drop for me and exactly the kind of matchup I brought him for. My opponent drops Wurmwood, so I will really need to try and remember how to play around all the tricks in Devourer’s host.
Mercenaries
[Theme] Operating Theater
[Thexus 1] Exulon Thexus [+29]
– Doctor Stygius [0(4)]
– Warden [10]
– Warden [10]
– Warden [10]
– Warden [10]
– Warden [10]
Cephalyx Agitator [0(2)]
Cephalyx Agitator [0(2)]
Pistol Wraith [0(4)]
Void Archon [9]
Asphyxious the Sanctified [14]
– Stalker [8]
Cephalyx Overlords [6]
Cephalyx Overlords [6]
Croe’s Cutthroats (min) [10]
– Cephalyx Dominator [1]
vs
https://conflictchamber.com/?c8201b_-2a5vmDmKoPmVmVmI54jXmSeE5f5fmj5wmj5w
Circle
[Theme] The Devourer’s Host
[Wurmwood 1] Wurmwood, Tree of Fate [+27]
– Feral Warpwolf [14]
– Ghetorix [17]
Dhunian Archon [6]
Gallows Grove [2]
Gallows Grove [2]
Lord of the Feast [0(5)]
Tharn Ravager Shaman [4]
Boil Master & Spirit Cauldron [5]
Bríghid & Caul [7]
Death Wolves [9]
Shifting Stones [3]
Shifting Stones [3]
Tharn Ravagers (max) [15]
– Tharn Ravager Chieftain [0(5)]
Tharn Ravagers (max) [15]
– Tharn Ravager Chieftain [0(5)]
Deployment
I win the roll-off and knowing that my opponent has a lot of AD pressure I know I need to take first turn. I prey the Feral.
Turn 1A
I run up quite conservatively and try to make sure that Lord of the Feast is unable to get to my Agitators. I am also very cautious of any potential Hellmouths sniping out any of my squishier elements like overlords, Stygious and the Stalker. Gaspy runs up behind the building.
Turn 1B
Wurmwood ports up and feats. He makes a forest on the left to complete the screen against the Croes. The warbeast stay way back to protect against Rampager, but the Tharn Ravagers and Death Wolves push up quite hard.
Turn 2A
I set up around the building trying to protect my Void archon and Agitators by bubble wrapping them with Wardens. I place the Gaspy clouds on each side of the building, but in hindsight I see that they should both have been on the left side. On the right side I place one Warden in the zone+flag and keep the Stalker and overlords back for the counter punch. This is way too greedy because I am still in range of four Ravagers and one Death Wolf and they will have no problem clearing the zones.
What I needed to do was to either put another Warden in the zone or commit the Stalker. A warden would probably be the correct play since the Stalker is so good in this matchup. Another and even better option is to put the Gaspy clouds over to protect the zone. This doesn’t prevent my opponent from charging all his Ravagers over to the Wardens near the building, but It would probably have protected the Warden contesting the scenario elements.
Another maybe more greedy would be to keep the Warden just toening the zone. This would abandon the flag, but only in range of the Death wolf and two of the Ravagers. It is still a risk to get blown out, but it is not unreasonable that the Warden survives and I only give away one CP.
Turn 2B
Wurmwood curses the Warden and the Ravagers plus Death wolf charges the Warden in the zone and kills it easily. Some Ravagers charge in on the left and kill my objective and deal some damage to a Warden.
Score 0-4
Turn 3A
I feat and clear out the leftmost Ravagers with Croes and overlords and send in a Warden on the Feral. Unfortunately it survives and I make a poor decision sending in Gaspy to try and finish him off while also killing the Dhunian archon before I start working on the right side. Unfortunately the archon toughs a couple of times so Gaspy ends up doing very little. It would have been much better to send him in to the left of the Feral where he would have been safer from retaliation and also contesting the flag. Best case scenario there could have been a spot where I could also have gotten to LotF or maybe even the objective.
On the right side I manage to Clear out all the Death Wolves and all Ravagers except the UA. I misallocate my attacks a bit since I get confused with the amount of corpses on the Death Wolves so I end up basically wasting one of the Warden’s activation just to kill one remaining Death Wolf who was in my way. I also forgot to collect souls on the Void archon from the Ravargers which died earlier, so I didn’t have anything to boost the spray attacks with.
All in all this was not a bad attrition turn, but I only score one point it has taken me quite a while considering that the two previous turns had a lot of complicated placements to protect my support elements, so now I am down to about 8 minutes remaining.
Score 1-4
Turn 3B
Ghetorix clears the flag in the right zone, and Brighid and Caul kill the one Warden who was contesting the left flag.
Score 1-6
Sadly, a loss for the Mercenaries.
:: Evaluation ::
This should on paper have been a decent matchup for me, but for some reason I have always struggled with the Devourer’s Host matchups and especially Wurmwood since there are so many angles to play around. My opponent commented after the game that I am probably too afraid of Hellmouth. He is probably right, but to be fair I have been on the receiving end of some devastating Hellmouths in the past. See for example this game against Agathon. As it stands in this game I end up making a bit too many mistakes towards the end and especially not putting Gaspy over on the left really stands out. The turn 2 setup with only one Warden in the zone was also a game losing mistake.