Molik Karn is ridiculous...

Absylonia has bad days...


...especially when I play poorly versus Molik Karn!

After the game vs. Khador yesterday I saw a guy I'd played before online looking for a 25pt game. He was practicing for a tournament, using eMakeda with Karn (there was other stuff in the list, but really does there need to be any more? :P )

I used Absy with Carnivean, Ravagore, two shredders, a harrier, 2 Forsaken and a Shepherd.

He didn't want to do a scenario, so we just ran at each other and killed stuff.

He won the roll and chose to go first, deploying all his stuff right at the middle of the table. I, of course, chose a nice forest to deploy behind, hoping to use it to block LOS for charges.

On turn 1 he used Leash to pull the Glad forward and ran everything up to mid-table. I juked in to the forest and foolishly put the Ravagore forward enough to get a shot at the tightly-clumped Glad, Karn, and Makeda. I got them all on fire, took a chunk off the Glad, and put a boosted blast shot on Makeda, getting a good roll (about 8 points I think) which he transferred to the Glad...poor Glad in this list is demoted to damage-receiver and Rush giver. Such is the life of a tortured six-limbed elephant.

I'd put the Ravagore out too far, of course, and he took advantage. He put Leash on Karn, advanced Makeda and charged Karn in to the Ravagore. He used 3 Fury to take the Ravagore down to 3 boxes left, and decided to use his Animus to run away instead of taking two Forsaken to the face. His swordsmen ran in to try to finish the Ravagore, but only one could get in range, and with no CMA he was unable to do any damage. Karn pulled away, taking a few points from the Ravagore's Free Strike, and left me wondering what to do.

I had a lot of choices here, and none of them really seemed bad, or better than any other. I decided to get unnecessarily fancy...

First the Forsaken went in and cleared out most of the Swordsmen with their Blight bombs. The Harrier went in and finished off the UA, and Sprinted to engage Makeda and the Gladiator. Absylonia went, and while I could have just used a few points of fury to get the Ravagore fully active, I chose to use her Feat to fill him up. She put her Blight Field down where I thought the Ravagore would be...I figured the Gladiator would be in range of him but not where I planned for the Carnivean to be, so it seemed the best spot for it.

Then Ravagore advanced up to Karn, picked him up, and tossed him at a surviving Swordsman...and...Ordo: 2, 1, 1 on the throw to-hit. If I'd hit him, the Carn could have advanced and killed the knocked down Karn, but no luck. Then the scatter roll...5 of 6 directions of scatter would have the same result...Carnivean could walk in and kill. Of course, Ordo...the only bad direction is the one I roll. Karn landed with my Forsaken squarely between him and the Carnivean, so no charge for me. I did Assault charge him, got a good flame breath from the Carnivean, which left Karn with just a handful of boxes. My last Shredder went in on him too, rolled Ordo for his first bite, and the second bite....left Karn with ONE BOX. All I could think was how much I'd rather have that Harrier to finish Karn instead of going to kill the silly UA. Lesson learned, save the unimportant stuff for last, in case you need it to do something important!

So now with nothing between Karn and Carnivean, he simply activated Makeda, healed 2 points on Karn, used her Feat, she killed a Shredder that would have had free-strike on Karn; Gladiator put Rush on Karn; Karn walked over and used his 5 fury to kill Absylonia splat. My opponent did forget to stand Karn up during Control Phase, but I let him do it anyway. If it were a more serious game setting, I would not have forgiven the mistake, but for a vassal "for fun" game, no big deal. Has I not, he probably would have killed the Carnivean with the 3-box Karn and killed Ravagore with the boosted Makeda...but that would have probably allowed Absylonia to kill Makeda. Yes, Makeda and Karn are that good together...speculation, though.

Hindsight always 20/20...when I recognized that I could not kill Karn with the Carnivean, I should have moved him in between Karn and Absylonia, forcing him to deal with the big beast first. Farther back, the Ravagore with his two attacks could probably have finished Karn, who was hurt from the Spikey Growths on the Ravagore, as well as the free strike from the Ravagore...he was probably 1/3 dead already. Ravagore could advance, and get three boosted POW 16 attacks, probably doing over 20 points of damage and finishing him. This would have left him with a 1/2 dead Gladiator, a few Swordsmen, and Makeda vs. my undamaged army.

Hindsight, 20/20...blah :P It was a good fun fast game, though, I have no complaints about a loss where I have fun, especially when I learn something too. I hope my friend Derek does well in his tournament!