Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Battle Report 40: 2Una vs. Hexeris 2



In the quest to find something in Skorne with which to counter Una 2, my local Skorne opponent cast the net into the forums and came up with the idea of a Hexy 2 list anchored by the Mammoth and with a bunch of good Arc Nodes thanks to his Field Marshal.

He asked for this game, just to clarify.

Hexeris 2
- Marketh
- Mammoth
- Razor Wurm (proxied by Shaman)
- Basilisk Drake
- Gladiator
- Agonizer

Tyrant Radheim
Soulward
Mortitheurge Willbreaker

Min Beast Handlers

My Una 2 list has evolved somewhat. I'm trying to use it as an answer to Karchev and Mad Dogs, and I think the trick for that is Wrong Eye and Snapjaw. Star-Crossed means that the Dogs need tens on four dice drop the highest, and that's not great odds there. I also get two free turns of murdering Mad Dogs, which I can do pretty reliably.


Una 2
- Wilder
- Scarsfell x7 (one proxied by Totem Hunter since I haven't put him together yet)
- Gorax Rager

Wrong Eye
-Snapjaw
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Swamp Gobber Chef

Sentry Stones x2
Shifting Stones x2

We rolled up Recon as the Scenario (which I love), and our friend laid out terrain for us.


I lost the roll off and my opponent went first (the correct choice). I took the side with the Trench since I wanted Una to be safe from spells, blast damage, and Mammoth shots.

This is a good Scenario for my opponents' list too - anything super spread out will make it hard for him to contest easily for very long, but a nice central zone gives the Mammoth a good foothold.

I also liked the house to give my Griffons cover.

My opponent deployed pretty central.

Remember, that Shaman is a Razor Wurm
And I deployed split, making sure Una was within walking distance of the trench. I haven't played against Hexeris 2 in forever, so I didn't realize how conservative I had to be with my Sentry Stones on Deployment.

Also, not a Totem Hunter, but Scarsfell 7

Skorne turn 1:

My opponent runs with pretty much everything. The Gladiator puts Rush on the Razor Wurm, who casts.....Spiny Growth and charges...hmmm....okay this was technically illegal in hindsight, but I was busy getting out tokens and didn't notice until now. Ah well, he could have just ran.

Hexeris arcs a Hellfire through the Razor Wurm at the unpainted Sentry Stone and spikes damage to kill it in one shot. A good start for Skorne!

Note the sad, empty spaces where my beautiful Sentry Stone unit used to be.

Circle turn 1:

Well that sucked!

I have an ARM 17 DEF 17 model against conventional shooting in my face, he's too far away to charge and all I have is one unit of Sentry Stones left to really hit it with.

Una goes and puts Hand of Fate on the Stones. She takes a boosted shot into the Razor Wurm from the Trench and flubs damage, doing 1. She takes another and doesn't do damage.

The Sentry unit roll 2 for fury, and knock the beast down to 6 ish health. I am really dumb and don't port the Stone itself backwards.

Griffons run. I position the one engaging Radheim so that his back is to the building to prevent Radheim from getting easy back arc. I do the same with another that goes to the front edge of the building, and then I just spread out to get as many angles as possible next turn. My ideal here is to be able to commit 2-3 Griffons to any part of the board if I need to.

I hide two behind the wall on the right, and one goes to engage the Razor Wurm.

Shifting Stones teleport up to provide fury management. Wrong Eye casts Submerge and doesn't move out of fear of Ashes to Ashes. Snapjaw runs. Lanyssa runs up to the edge of the Trench to be able to apply Hunters Mark wherever I want it next turn.


Skorne turn 2:

Radheim does 15 damage to the Griffon next to him and moves Repositions around him.

The Drake moves up and sprays the hurt Griffon to death, healing the Razor Wurm for 1, and doing 6 more to the Yellow Bird in the Middle.

The Razor Wurm boosts an attack into the proxy base Griffon in front of it, and misses. He casts Spiny Growth.

The Mammoth gets Eyeless Sight from the Soulward, and Puppet Master from the Mortitheurge.

He rolls 2 shots, and misses his first on the Griffon next to Snapjaw, even with re-rolls. He nails the second and boosts damage, knocking out Mind and Spirit.

Hexy arcs a Hellmouth through the Drake at the Sentry Stone, then arcs another to kill it. He feats, pulling in some Fury and does it again at....something? Probably a Griffon and missed.

Agonizer cries the -2 Strength effect, and him and the Gladiator hug Hexy tight so I can't engage him with any Griffons.



Circle turn 2:

Well I'm down a Griffon and both Sentries, but I can charge everything I want to and that means it's feat turn!

Una goes first, pops Feat, heals the central Griffon for 1, and then casts Primal and Hand of Fate on it.

The Yellow Griffon goes and murders the Agonizer before popping his animus.

I walk the Griffon engaging the Razor Wurm over the Razor Wurm and do a few damage to the Mammoth.

Lanyssa successfully casts Hunters Mark at the Mammoth. I heal the buffed up Griffon with the Shifting Stones and then send him into the Mammoth's back arc. The dust clears, and the Mammoth is on about 20 boxes.

Another Griffon charges in and murders him.

Wrong Eye casts Star-Crossed and Submerge and charges up, bumping into the objective.

Snapjaw moves up and kills the Drake, and then casts Submerge.

I still have two Griffons left, and my opponent calls it. We roll out the rest of my turn for kicks, and the remaining Griffon on the right murders the Razor Wurm and sprints to engage the objective. The last Griffon charges the objective and kills it easily, and Stones port up so that I'm not even going to take Frenzy checks next turn.


Victory for the Druids!

Post-Game Thoughts:

I've played several games with Una 2 now, and my opinion is that she is too strong. Sure, she has answers in the form of a few really nasty gunlines, but there are entire factions that don't really have a way to handle her game plan. 

I'm certainly going to be playing her competitively while I can (who knows what January will bring), because she is just so strong that I'd be stupid not to, but she just does so much with such insanely cheap models. 

I don't see her or Scarsfells getting nerfed too badly in January because 1) She's brand new and 2) the Scarsfells weren't absolutely absurd before she came out, and it's too quick a timeline for PP to balance an errata on them, but I do expect that by July she or the Griffons will be getting worse. 




The Krueger Season, Flirting with the Blight: Batrep 39 - Rhyas 1 vs. Zaadesh 2


Image result for rhyas sigil of everblight art


Prologue:

This Rhyas list is affectionately known as "The Manny List" after the Pressganger that I consider to be the most important Warmachine Mentor I've had. This list was his pride and joy (well, minus the Hellmouth's, but he had quit Legion by the time they were a thing), and it's probably the most fun I've ever had playing Warmachine. 

Since these are the Legion models I've obtained from him, and because this list is a tremendous amount of fun, it only seemed appropriate to document a game using the silliness and fun known as Rhyas 1. (Look, I even rhymed there). 





Lists!

Rhyas
-Scythean
-Scythean
-Scythean
-Scythean
-Seraph

Shepherd x3
Forsaken

Hellmouth
Hellmouth

One of my Scytheans is proxied by a Carnivean cuz I couldn't find my fourth Magnetized Chassis.

Zaadesh 2
- Tiberion
- Sentry x2
- Gladiator

Cetrati
-Vorkesh
Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer (TyCom for the rest of this report).


I lost the roll off and picked the opposite side because I like that wall. Same Scenario and Terrain as last time.

I was actually really unhappy about this matchup - I was highly impressed by Zaadesh 2 when he was first released, and as people play more with him I find that they tend to also be pretty happy with how he plays. Skorne heavies at MAT 8 hurt a LOT and there's not much you can do about them hitting you when they all get Defensive Strike.

My opponent deployed to threaten my flag with his entire battlegroup.


I deployed to basically make that unlikely with the Hellmouth in the way there. He'd have to commit a heavy to take it out and I might be able to trade 2 for 1 at that point.


Skorne turn 1:

Everything ran. Inviolable Resolve got stuck on the Cetrati and Battle Charged got put on Zaadesh.


Blighted Druids turn 1:

Everything on my side ran too! Rhyas cast Rapport on one of the Scytheans to actually have something to do with her Fury and that was basically it.

I made a wall of Tentacles so that if he wanted to get at the Hellmouth with Tiberion he'd have to do something silly. In hindsight, I should have added that third one in so that I could have blocked the Sentry on the left.


Skorne turn 2:

Sentry goes in and murders the Hellmouth, putting up its Animus.

Shield Wall Cetrati and Feat from Zaadesh, plus two of the Cloud spell to flank the Sentry so that Rhyas couldn't easily charge things.


Blighted Druids turn 2:

I seriously doubt this is the last time I'll say this, but man I hate Zaadesh's Feat.

I drop Rapport. 

I mis measure here and think I can get a Scythean into back arc of the Sentry without taking a free strike. I couldn't see the other side of the arc marker from my position, and didn't bother to measure it since I'm a goober.

He takes a massive free strike and loses his body. Yayyy...

He dings up the Sentry a bit.

Going into the tank, I think I can get at least Rhyas and one Scythean onto Zaadesh this turn.

Rhyas charges through the Sentry into his back arc and engaging Tiberion. His other Sentry Countercharges and misses. Tiberion takes a Defensive Strike and misses. Okay, scary time is over. She makes her charge attack, then pops her feat. She uses her Feat attack into Tiberion, damages him, and ports base to base with him in the back arc and engaging Zaadesh.

She buys an attack, and does about 8 damage. She buys another attack, GETS THE CRIT DECAP and BOOSTS, doing 28 damage to the Furyless warlock and ending the game.


Victory for the Blighted Druids!

Post-Game Thoughts:

This probably isn't a great matchup for Rhyas, although being able to damage something and then port into it's back arc to ignore the shields is pretty okay for the Scytheans. 

Had Rhyas not been able to pull that off, we checked it and I was able to get the middle left Scythean onto Zaadesh no problem with minimal damage, and MAT 6 with Murderous kills DEF 15 Warlocks no problem. 

Like I said, most fun you can have in Warmachine, Rhyas is nuts :) 


The Krueger Season, Flirting with the Blight: Batrep 38 - Fyanna 2 vs. Feora 2


There is little doubt that the Archangel is the most beautiful model in the Privateer Press line currently in production (the Storm Raptor and the Desert Hydra will certainly test this dominance though), and with the mark 3 update, it's actually a playable model (yay!)

I love my Lylyth 3 double Archangel list, and so I decided to see how Fyanna with 2 would play. With Fury, they hit at PS 22/20/20, and under her feat, they're DEF 14, which is a little absurd on a gargantuan. 

It's been a pet idea of mine since I saw Fyanna's rules, and I decided to give it a shot. 

Fyanna
-Archangel
-Archangel
-Naga Nightlurker

Blighted Sorceress and Hellion
Shepherd x3

Hellmouth x2

And my opponent had:

Feora 2
-Hierophant 
-Reckoner x2
-Hand of Judgment
-Blood of Martyrs

Flamebringers
Daughters of the Flame
Min Choir

Punch Monk (proxied by a TFG)


Right away I looked at this matchup and had a big "uh oh" moment. I can't shoot anything important with the Archangels because everything is immune to fire. He's got Escort so his jacks are just as fast as my Archangels are, and thanks to Ashen Veil, I need sixes to hit his jacks. Yuck!!

I won the roll off and decided that I really needed to go first. We were playing Take and Hold with a really ugly central obstruction and a wall on one side that my opponent promptly (and wisely) took. 


Blighted Druids turn 1:

Full steam ahead! Archangels run/fly to the left side of the table where they can actually fight the things they want to fight. I'm hoping to be able to kill a jack and then use my feat to weather the retaliation before killing 2-3 more jacks and get up on attrition. 

Fury goes on the unpainted Archangel, and Admonition goes up onto Fyanna. The Naga goes into the trench. 


Menoth Turn 1:

He starts his turn off by running the Daughter Cav really wide. Daughters run and jam stuff, and then Feora goes and casts Escort and Fire Starter on Blood. 

Things start to go off the rails pretty hard when his pair of Reckoners move up and shoot 28 health off the left Archangel with 2 shots at dice --4. Uh oh. One of the Reckoners is behind the wall, the other by Feora. 

I start measuring out my turn prematurely, tipping off my opponent that I can get an Archangel onto Feora, so he goes ahead and puts Hand of Judgment in the exact place where I can't actually attack him with melee attacks thanks to the building and also blocking a landing spot for an Archangel. 

Blood comes over to play on the right, and the Punch Monk moves up and becomes DEF 18. 


Blighted Druids turn 2:

Well it's go time! I upkeep both spells, and then I run a druid up so that the Archangel can get forced when he charges the Reckoner behind the wall. 

I use back arc Hellmouth tentacles to clear Daughters, and the other Archangel also shoots some off the table.

The Grey Archangel goes in anddddd.....I miss 3 boosted 8s and leave the Reckoner on about half health with nothing crippled. 

Fyanna moves up, Feats, and puts Fury on the Hellmouth, which pounds on Blood a little bit. 

The Naga moves over and murders a Daughter Cav with a shot. 

I'm going to get counter punched so hard. 



Menoth turn 2:

Well...Things die. The Reckoner kills the Archangel. 

Daughter Cav come murder...well nothing actually. The one that can charge the Naga misses thanks to the Feat (yay!) They do engage the universe though. 

The Punch Monk moves up and goes invincible again. 

Blood murders three Hellmouth tentacles. 

My opponent puts some damage onto the Archangel (like 20 damage) between Feora and the other Reckoner, and then Feats to get another Focus onto Hand of Judgment, who charges in anddddd.....doesn't quite kill the Archangel. 


Blighted Druids turn 3:

Well...he moved Hand and he DIDN'T move Feora, so I have exactly one real shot at winning this game. 

Fyanna drops everything and charges Hand, boosting to hit anddddd CRIT SMITE. Yes! She then puts Fury on the Archangel and heals his two crippled aspects. 

The Painted Hellmouth spawns a tentacle, and between the Tentacle and the Maw, kill the Daughter Cav engaging my Archangel. 

The Nightlurker moves over and casts Wraithbane on the Archangel. 

The other Hellmouth drags the Reckoner away so that the Archangel doesn't take a Free Strike. 

The Archangel goes in and connects with 2 attacks, clawing the Menite to death. 



Victory for the Blighted Druids!

Post-Game Thoughts:

Okay, against Menoth at least, this list is not very good and I really, really missed my Angelii to Slipstream and cycle Fury around on. 

Also, had my opponent just left Hand of Judgment in front of Feora, I would have had to try and crit smite it 3 inches away with Fyanna, which just seems really, really unlikely to happen. 

To be fair, I really shouldn't have lost basically an entire Archangel worth of damage to 3 boosted Reckoner shots, but hey, it happens. 

Anyway, yeah double Dragon is great with Lylyth 3, but I'm not convinced with Fyanna yet. Maybe if there's not a massive huge central obstruction in the way this list gets better, but even then, I don't love it into speed 7 reach jacks. 





Tuesday, November 22, 2016

The Krueger Season, Flirting with the Blight: Batrep 37 - Fyanna 2 vs. Feora 2


Introduction:

When I got my Limited Edition Una 2, I also ordered a Fyanna 2 (and a Horgle 2 and a Zaadesh 2, but those are stories for another time) because 1) the sculpt is sweet and 2) the rules are sweet. 

What more can you ask for? Also the cards are foily, and I come from a Magic: the Gathering background, so foil cards are a weakness of mine. 

I had some serious list building challenges with this lady - I literally want like half the things in Legion in her list. Fury is SO good. Admonition is SO good. Iron Flesh is SO good. +3 DEF and Dodge is SO good. 

In the end, I decided to just play something that I thought really abused both her feat and Fury

Fyanna 2
- Angelius x2
- Seraph
- Zuriel

Shepherd x2
Feralgeist

Max Swordsmen
Max Raptors

Bunches of Weaponmasters? Check. Armor Piercing silliness? Check. (Side bar, a charging Angelius with Fury does 17.5 damage to an ARM 20 Warjack/Warbeast on average dice. Isn't that absurd??)

Super fast dudes? Check. Yeah this is all stuff I can get behind. 

My local Menoth opponent dropped:

Feora 2
- Heirophant
- Hand of Judgement
- Reckoner x2
- Blood of Martyrs

Cinerators
Daughters of the Flame
Min Choir

Wrack
Allegient of the Order of the Fist (proxied by TFG man)

We're playing outlast and this is shaping up to be an interesting game already. He's got Escort, and I'm naturally faster and have Slipstream to boot. He hits a lot harder generally, but I have Fury. I get a turn of relative safety due to my feat, but I'm not sure if that's enough against a bunch of fire. 

I win the roll off and go first (everything in my list is bonkers fast), and my opponent takes the side without the annoying forests for him to have to run around. I laugh as my blighted wings carry me ever higher....wow the blight is strong, must resist.....

Hey look! I have like...actual Raptors now...though unassembled.

My opponent deploys opposite me, skewing hard for the left zone. 



Blighted Druids turn 1:

No finesse here, Fury goes on one Angelius, Admonition on Fyanna (holy crap I'm playing Tanith in Legion) and everything runs up the table full distance...except the Swordsmen because they still have nightmares about the Daughters over there (this is the first Legion game I'd played since the previous batrep on October 9). 


Menoth turn 1:

Menoth runs at me! Escort goes up, and jacks advance. One of the Reckoners takes a potshot a the Angelius behind cover and misses. 

Daughters get in my face, and Cinerators labor up the board...slowly. 

The Punch Monk gets his Shifting Sands Stance (say that three times fast) and advances. 


Blighted Druids turn 2:

Alright so...goal for this turn is to murder Daughters. Everywhere. We hates them. 

I also don't really have much else to shoot at since..well..Cinerators are immune to fire, all of his jacks are immune to fire since Blood of Martyrs got the fire upkeep spell on him....yeah. 

Seraph casts Slipstream and moves over to the Angelius and back, placing him out of melee with the Daughter. 

He gets a couple shots and boosts, killing two Daughters. Yessss. 

The Angelius, now free to do what he likes, charges into the right hand Reckoner, whiffing a couple hits and leaving it on one. 

Swordsmen charge in and kill another pair of Daughters. Sweet revenge. 

Fyanna moves up after casting Slipstream, and kills another Daughter after placing the Angelius next to her so that he can see Blood of Martyrs. 

She casts Fury on him and pops her feat. 

The Angelius goes in and...really whiffs, but knocks out Blood's cortex. 

Raptors shoot down two Cinerators and damage a third. Zuriel contests. 

Shepherds leach fury from the Seraph. 


Menoth turn 2:

Well he's in a bad spot here and he knows it. Vengeance triggers on the Cinerators, and they move over. The first one misses the Angelius, which dodges back. 

His two unhurt heavies go into the other Angelius, one missing, the other connecting for a bunch of damage and lighting him on fire. 

Feora aims and Sprays both of them, lighting up one and leaving the other on three boxes, on fire, right next to Hand of Judgment. He manages to hurt Blood enough to cripple his good arm between blowing up the Wrack and actually hitting him.

His remaining Daughter....murders two Swordsmen. CURSE THOSE THINGS!

His Punch Monk Advances and engages one Raptor with Shifting Sand Stance. 

The Cinerators run to the right zone. 


Blighted Druids turn 3:

Not only does my SUPER close to dead Angelius not die to fire damage, it doesn't even Frenzy! Woahhh. 

I upkeep my spells. 

Apparently, Zuriel is MAT 8, so he walks behind the Punch Monk and kills him dead. 

The Raptors finish off all but the far left Cinerator. 

The Angelius with Fury on it takes a free strike to fly over the completely crippled Reckoner, but it misses, and he puts some good damage on Hand of Judgment (missed his Armor Piercing attack, even with boosting to hit). 

The Seraph Slipstreams a Swordsmen so that I can get two charges onto Hand with them and then blows up the last Daughter. Hooray! I don't care if I win at this point!

The Swordsmen charge in and finish off Hand of Judgment. 

Fyanna activates, heals the Angelius for 2, and then moves over to kill the last Cinerator. She overtakes into the zone, and camps one. 

The nearly dead Angelius misses his Armor Pierce attack on the healthy Reckoner, and buys an attack into the Reckoner with one box, killing him too. 

I get 3 points. 


Score 3-0
Advantage Blighted Druids

Menoth turn 3:

He goes for the assassination run with Feora's sprays and spells, but his dice roll just average and Fyanna is alive, on fire, with three boxes and a transfer left. 

My hurt Angelius dies. 

I technically score 2 more points here, but we both forgot in the heat of the moment so the game went on!


Blighted Druids turn 4:

Fyanna drops everything, casts Fury on herself and charges Feora. She hits, getting the Crit Smite and knocking her back 2 inches. 

Raptors move up and shoot the wretched Flame Bringer to death. 


Victory for the Blighted Druids!

Post Game Thoughts:

This feels like a really bad matchup for Feora. I get a time walk feat, I massively outthreat him with everything that matters. In addition, an Angelius with Fury on the charge does 17 damage, then another 5, 5, 5 for a total of 32 - really close to dead most of the time. 

Follow that up with masses of charging weaponmasters and, well, that's no fun for Menoth jacks either. 

Overall, she feels very strong, very interesting, and probably has a fairly high skill ceiling (which is something I always like in a caster). I also don't feel like I've even come close to the right list with her yet, so stay tuned for that. I'm probably going to pair her with Rhyas 1 or the Twins should I ever take Legion to events, so look forward to more batreps with those warlocks!



The Krueger Season, Flirting with the Blight: Batrep 36 - Twins vs Reznik 1



While I am definitely a Druid through and through, occasionally I mess around with other factions in order to either understand a faction better or to just take a break from the min/maxing required to play Circle really well.

I'm going to be playing a lot of more casual games with Legion in the upcoming month or so as I wait for the errata. Fear not, more Circle batreps will come as I play in tournaments etc, and more Circle tactica and idea articles will be forthcoming.


This game happened about a month and a half ago, but I wasn't ready to commit to playing Legion yet, so I waited to post it until now.


I've been fascinated with the Twins (well, mostly Rhyas) since I first saw their announcement. I love Warcaster/Warlocks that can bully the table, and the Twins are really good at doing that.

I also think they present a unique challenge to play, as their order of activation can be complex and difficult, and I wanted to give it a shot.

My list:

Twins
-Blightbringer
-Seraph
-Protector (proxied by Bolt Thrower)

Swordsmen, Max
Raptors, Max (one proxied by Efaarit)

Shepherd x3
Spell Martyr

VS.

Reznik 1
-Heirophant
-Scourge of Heresy
-Reckoner
-Revenger

Temple Flame Guard and CA
Flamebringers (empty bases)
Daughters of the Flame
Min Choir

Nicia
Wrack x2
Pyrrhus


The idea of my list is that basically the Blightbringer can apply a giant AOE of Rhyas being a PS 15 Weaponmaster with Crit Decap, and I can trade her for a few heavies, feat her back, and then trade her for a few more.

I won the roll off and opted to go first on the Pit (badddd choice by the way).




He counter deployed:



Blighted Druids turn 1:

I basically ran everything. I think Occultation went on something? Probably the Swordsmen.


Menoth turn 1:

He also ran with most everything, although the TFG also popped their mini feat.


Blighted Druids turn 2:

I make a grave tactical error here and don't run the Blightbringer into the zone.

I charge in Swordsmen at his Daughters, but I miss a LOT of sevens and three survive.

I take a random shot with the Blightbringer, and the Raptors kill 4-5 TFG.



Menoth turn 2:

Things go off the rails here a bit as his Daughters roll like fire (hit six unboosted 8s in a row), allowing him to clear the zone and dominate with Reznik behind the forest over there.


Score 0-2
Advantage Menoth

Blighted Druids turn 3:

I feel tremendous pressure for some reason, and decide the only thing to do is to throw Rhyas at the three heavies he has clumped up and murder them all.

I clear a path, run a Swordsman up, shoot him with the Blightbringer to catch his shooting immune jacks with the AOE of +2 Strength and ARM for my models.

I run a shepherd up so that Rhyas can't get pushed back off the Revenger.

Saeryn casts Slipstream and fails a charge, while Rhyas charges in and goes bananas, wiping out both heavies and mostly killing the Revenger.

I run the Protector up so that both Rhyas and Saeryn get the +2 DEF, but I should have just run him to block LOS to Saeryn from the Daughter Cav....


Score 0-2
Advantage Menoth

Menoth turn 3:

My opponent, our friend, and I work through a cunning plan. Reznik casts Engine of Destruction and moves up, murdering Rhyas and apparently RFPing her.

He then feats. What does his feat do again? I ask naively (this hadn't come up much since usually my Unblighted Druids Warlocks stay wayyy back). It removes all Saeryn's fury! He says gleefully.

Uh oh.

He can only get one Flamebringer onto Saeryn, needing a boosted 11 to hit and another boosted 11 to kill. He rolls both and the game is over.



Sadly, a loss for the Blighted Druids

Post, post, post, post game thoughts:

Yeah it's been a month and change since this game happened, and I've mulled it over a fair few times in my mind to see what I could have done better, as I tend to do. I've come up with a few things I could and should have done. 

1) The Blightbringer should have been in the zone so that I didn't have to even come close to committing my Warlock that early. 

2) The Nephilim Protector should have ran and blocked LOS to Saeryn. If I do this, there's no way he can get enough damage into her to kill her, and I can leach the next turn and send a Blightbringer into Reznik. 

3). I should have crossed my Raptors over to deal with the Daughter Cav turn 1 instead of running them straight ahead. I don't have enough other good ways to deal with them in this list, and the RAT 7 shots with 60% chance to kill on a hit against them is a big deal. 

4) I should have rolled more sevens so that the Daughters wouldn't have been alive to murder swordsmen (kidding on this one). 

I really enjoyed the Twins, and I'm sure I'll be back to them at some point, but for now I have more interesting things to play with...more....Furyous things to play with....

(To be continued)

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Batrep 35: Grayle vs. The Witch Coven of Gharlghast



Long before these girls dominated the Cryx competitive meta in mark 3, my good friend and regular opponent played the ever living crap out of them in mark 2. I probably clocked in 40 games against them in six months.

They haven't changed much in mark 3, people are just finally realizing A) That they're really good and B) That they're one of Cryx's few answers to gunlines. They also have some pretty sweet game into melee armies too.


As I've mentioned in previous battle reports, the meta I'm working in is brimming with newer players. We just finished a journeyman league up, and we're gradually expanding our player base. As such, when our resident Cryx player wanted to throw down, I resisted the impulse to reach for Wurmwood as my stock reaction to Cryx and instead threw something down that I thought would be an interesting game.

Grayle
-Feral
-Pureblood

War Wolf x2
Morraig
Lanyssa

Wolves and CA
Reeves and CA
Skinwalkers and CA

And he dropped:

The Witch Coven
-Withershadow Combine
-Kraken
-Inflictor (proxied by Seether)
-Deathripper x2

Necrotech
Pistol Wraith x2

Satyxis Raiders and CA


My opponent won the roll off, and opted to go second after we discussed how one half of the board would basically kill any potential his Kraken had to do anything. If you look at the table edge I'm deploying on, the house would have prevented him from getting into the zone significantly, while the forest would have given me a lot of leeway for a couple of turns by blocking LOS from the Kraken but not too the Kraken.

I deployed pretty central. The Kraken is bad news for this list, as are most colossals. My one saving grace here is that, for a Colossal, the Kraken is squishy.


My opponent immediately makes things hard for me by putting the Raiders opposite my Reeves and the Kraken opposite my Wolves. Ick.



Circle turn 1:

Operation RUN commences. Grayle casts Storm Rager on himself and Death March on the Skinwalkers. The plan there is that the Skinwalkers will slowly win an attrition war with the Raiders.

Grayle then charges the Kraken, hiding behind the cloud from my Fuel Cache and the forest.

Everything else runs. Skinwalkers move up fast, Reeves move central to stay away from the Raiders, and Wolves spread way out.


Cryx turn 1:

He runs at me. Infernal Machine goes on the Kraken and Occultation goes on the Raiders, who pray for Force Barrier.

He pops feat. Looking back at this, that might have been premature. I can't actually get at very many things here except with Reeve shots. I feel he should have been slightly more aggressive in order to justify the feat.


Circle turn 2:

Well I can't do much here. Grayle upkeeps both spells. Skinwalkers pop their mini feat and run at the Raiders.

Reeves pop their mini feat and run. One of the Reeves moves up so I can get a spray onto a Witch with the pureblood. I classically nail my own dude with an unboosted 8 and then miss the Witch. Darn.

Wolves run and jam some more.


Cryx turn 2:

His Pistol Wraiths do terrible things to me this turn.

The left side one murders the Alpha from the Skinwalkers. The right side one murders the Wolves Chieftan and a War Wolf.

The Satyxis hit two Crit Knockdowns (impressive) but fail to kill any more Skinwalkers.

The Kraken eats 3 Wolves and Kill Shots into the Pureblood.

Curse of Shadows gets cast on the Wolves, and the Deathripper moves up and murders one.


Apparently I didn't take a picture of this turn. Hmmm.....

Circle turn 3:

Well I have a plan here, but it's not great. I can get a Pureblood with Primal onto the Kraken, two PS 12 charges, and two POW 15 Reeve shots. The Pureblood does 40 damage on average, the two PS 12 charges do another 8 ish, and the two POW 15 shots do 6 for a grand total of 52. I also have the option to feat and walk the Feral around the forest Warping Speed, but I really don't want to do tha.

Skinwalkers Vengeance and kill a couple raiders.

Grayle activates, Primals the Pureblood, and feats.

Lanyssa lands Hunters Mark on the Kraken.

The Pureblood goes in and....does way less than 40 damage thanks to missing an attack (double ones, yeahhhh).

The War Wolf runs up. Wolves get a charge order, dinging the Kraken for a few.

The War Wolf gets to Sic 'em, and rolls bananas for damage to make up for his big brother Pureblood.

The Reeves move up andddddd leave the Kraken on one box, with a Necrotech right behind.

The Skinwalkers murder more Raiders, triggering the feat twice, once for Morraig to move over, and once for the Feral to. The Feral Warps Speed, moves around the forest, and does the last point of damage to the Kraken. Feat trigger moves the Pureblood up to the Inflictor so that I don't have to worry about his Frenzy.

Morraig charges and murders the right side Pistol Wraith, then repositions into melee with the Deathripper.

Cryx turn 3:

Losing the Kraken is a big deal.

His Raiders wail on my Skinwalkers, knocking another one down. The Inflictor misses 3 of 5 attacks on the Pureblood. The Necrotech whacks the Pureblood for a few.

He decides that his Deathripper needs to get LOS to Grayle for a last ditch assassination attempt. but Morraig makes a massive free strike and tears out its Arc Node, and my opponent concedes.




Post Game Thoughts:

That was a really tense game at points. I feel like my opponents one mistake was not being more aggressive with his feat turn. He could have moved up a little bit more perhaps and been okay, but it's more of a balancing act there for sure.

I did a really good job of keeping Grayle safe, which is important, and he did a pretty darn good job of keeping the Coven safe, which is also important.

Also the Coven's focus manipulation rules are absurd. Egregore can take 15 damage, send 5 to each Witch, and then each Witch can spend a focus to negate that damage. Geezeeeeee.

Hope you enjoyed!

Monday, November 14, 2016

Tactica Time: Tanith, the Feral Song



Tanith was the first new Circle Warlock coming into mark 3, and man is she a strong one. The Circle Battlebox is amongst the strongest of the battleboxes, having, unlike many of the others, an extremely high skill ceiling based solely off the Warlock.

I've been asked to write a specific tactica about the list I have been running as of November 2016, and I will do that at the end of this article.

The bulk of this article will look at Tanith in general, her abilities, tricks, and synergies with the faction. Again, this article was written in November 2016, and the likelihood of changes based off the January 2017 errata, while not particularly large for her, still exist.


Stats and Abilities:


Tanith has an extremely average stat line. Speed 6, MAT and RAT 6, DEF 15 and ARM 15 with 15 boxes says solidly middle of the road. She also has an average FURY stat at 6.

For other defensive tech, she has Prowl, which gives her Stealth while she has concealment. This is actually not too bad with easy access to clouds (Gobbers) and the general decrease of models that ignore Stealth out there.

She will die to virtually any dedicated assault in the game, which makes playing her extremely tricky because she really, really wants to utilize the most important part of her card....

Jaws of the Earth

This weapon looks fairly unassuming based solely on the front of her card, and indeed were it a normal RNG 10 POW 12 magic gun, it wouldn't be great.

Fortunately, it has two incredible abilities. First of all, this weapon ignores the defensive benefits of concealment, cover, and elevation. This is huge, making her RAT 6 seem like a much less useless stat.

Second, and more important, if this weapon directly hits an enemy model, it centers a 4 inch AOE on top of that model. Any ENEMY model touched by that AOE suffers Shadow Bind for a round (-3 Defense and cannot advance except to change facing).

I cannot begin to describe the various applications of this weapon, but I will try to hit a few extremely relevant points.

First, it is absolutely bonkers against Shield Wall units. I have used it to successfully stop 5 of 7 Cetrati from doing anything but sit there for multiple turns in a row. I've caught 6+ Temple Flame Guard with it, rendering them completely impotent as they sat a mere inch outside of the Zone they desperately wanted to contest.

Second, it is truly absurd against models with any of the following abilities or spells on them: Dodge, Counter-Charge, Admonition, or Enliven. It also completely messes up Vyros 2's feat.

This has been relevant for me innumerable times. I've shot Warpwolves with Admonition on them to enable my own beasts to finish them off. I've used it on Man O' War Drakhuns to prevent them from countercharging my models as they go in. I've hit Menoth jacks with it to prevent Enliven from saving his heavy.

Third, it lowers DEF by 3, which is a huge deal in a world where arguably Circle's best beatstick is a Warpwolf Stalker at MAT 6. There are lots of heavies in the game the Stalker is capable of killing without Primal...if he can connect, and this really fixes those problems. I've found myself almost never casting Primal with her since I rarely need it between her gun and the spell Scything Touch (I'll get to that in a minute). It also enables some pretty legitimate Assassination runs, which is awesome.

If Circle ever, EVER gets a model with Far Strike as an animus, Tanith will immediately become one of the top Warlocks or Warcasters in the game based solely off of this weapon.


Spell List:

Tanith has one of the absolute best spell lists in the entire faction. She has a DEF debuff, an ARM debuff, Admonition, and two nuke spells.

I'm going to list these spells in the order I value them, there's not a real rhyme or reason to this.

Admonition:

this spell is so wrong in Circle. I played a lot of games with a 4 heavy version of her list where basically I threw a Feral with Admonition on it at an enemy heavy, and then sent in a Stalker to finish it off with Scything Touch and then Sprint out. The opponent would generally have to dedicate two heavies to kill the Feral because the first one would trigger Admonition and the Feral would dance away. He'd send in the second heavy to murder it, and then I'd kill his three heavies easily with the remaining Feral, Stalker, and Ghetorix.

The other application this spell has is a massive threat extender. This often comes up later in the game when your opponent sends a heavy after your Admonition target to jam things up. Instead of Admonitioning back, you can easily Admonition your heavy forward. This is most useful if your opponent has next to nothing left to activate.

I've gotten free assassinations off of this tactic as my opponent parks their warcaster 12 inches away from my Pureblood, only to run random dudes to jam me at the end of his turn and watch my Pureblood Admonition TOWARD his warcaster, only to get buffed up the next turn and murder them. It doesn't have to be on Warcasters either. A Pureblood (the most pillow fisted Warpwolf) with Scything Touch and Primal is MAT 8 PS 20, and that will fairly likely one round most other heavies in the game.


Scything Touch: 

This spell is such a big deal, especially with the new melee range clarification. For those that don't studiously read infernal rulings, the new melee range ruling means that any model within whatever RNG the longest melee weapon on a model with Scything Touch has will get -2 ARM from Dark Shroud.

For example, a Stalker with Scything Touch can kill something, Sprint away, and turn its back arc to an enemy model to give it -2 ARM without engaging it so that other models can shoot it for example. This could be especially important if you take Reeves or Bloodtrackers or....well any shooting model to be honest. It synergizes well with Sentry Stones and Pureblood Warpwolves too, although only because it now affects a larger area of the board than it did before.

What this spell does is let Tanith play without crutching on Primal, unlike so many other casters in Circle. As a result, your opponent has to worry about your whole army all the time, which is something that people playing against Circle are pretty unused to.

But what about a hit fixer? (I hear you wondering how a MAT 6 Warpwolf Stalker can actually kill anything) Well outside of her gun, which is a pretty darn good one, she also has....

Affliction: 

This is a relatively straightforward spell, and one that I don't end up casting in about half of my games. This offensive spell reduces the DEF of a model/unit affected by 2, and also stipulates that if an attack directly hits an affected model and fails to break ARM, the model still takes 1 point of damage.

This spell is a big part of the reason Tanith is so flexible. She can play easily into infantry swarms, while simultaneously taking on big ARM lists thanks to Scything Touch. I have used Affliction and two-three Mannikin sprays to single handedly eliminate an entire unit of Horgenhold Forgeguard in Wall of Steel and under Ossrum's feat (Effective ARM of 20+).

You won't actually cast this spell every game, simply because there isn't always going to be a target that you desperately need to swing -5 DEF on or there isn't a unit of infantry that you need to mulch through, but when it's good, it's absurdly good.

The Nukes:

Tanith has the obligatory crummy nuke spell or two in the form of Bleed and Rift. These are corner-case to cast, and I realize that's a controversial statement in many ways, but I believe it is true.

The "dream" is to use her Feat to reduce the cost of bleed to 1 and then KD a warcaster and use boosted Bleeds to kill the warcaster in question. In my experience, this is almost mathematically impossible into most warcasters, and isn't worth the time. At best, use Bleed to remove an annoying model in the way of your soon to be charging heavy.

Rift, on the other hand, has a few more applications by nature of leaving an AOE 4 of rough terrain. This is a huge deal against certain factions (Menoth in general and much of Khador and Cygnar jacks) where you can use a Mannikin as a target for a Rift in front of your army to really neuter your opponents' threat ranges. If they don't have pathfinder, this spell is far more useful for its controlling aspect than it is for doing damage.


Feat:

Tanith's feat lets her channel through models in her battlegroup and reduces the casting cost of friendly fraction models' spells by 1 in her control, to a minimum cost of 1 (important note).

This looks pretty underwhelming, but it actually gives you a lot of flexibility. Upkeep Scything Touch somewhere, charge in, activate Tanith, cast Affliction for one and boost, cast Scything for one, cast Primal on something, and camp a couple is a typical feat turn.

It also makes Wraithbane on the Pureblood cost 1, and Primal on the Feral and Gorax cheaper as well.

There are supposedly times when the correct thing to do is to use her feat to assassinate.

To that I say....seriously?

Take Nemo 1, DEF 14 ARM 15, 14 boxes. Say he has no focus.

If he's not KD, I'm going to have to boost every Bleed I put into him. An unboosted bleed does 2 damage, and I'll get three of them.

If he IS KD, then I get 3 boosted bleeds, which do 16.5 damage on average, so sure, he's dead there, but if he's camping even 1 focus, this doesn't work, and Nemo 1 has among the worst defensive lines of any warlock/warcaster in the game.

I'm not saying this is never an option, just please don't go into the game expecting to use this as your primary win condition. It's much better to toss around cheap animi and Afflictions.

A Quick Note on Fury Management:

Tanith wants to use her Fury, a LOT. She wants to be up in the middle of the table shooting things so that she can affect the game. 

How can you do this without dying? There are a couple of ways. 

You can use your Sentry Stones to literally do nothing but create a mobile screen with her, and some games, this is exactly what you want to do with them. 

You can also keep her relatively safe by clouding up around her with the Gobbers, since many lists won't have ways to ignore Stealth. If you pre-measure correctly, you shouldn't have to worry about melee threats. 

A final way is to put Admonition on her, so that should anything come after her she can dance away. 

Model Synergies:
Image result for nature synergy

Sentry Stone and Mannikins:


If you don't have two of these in your list right now (Nov 2016) then you're playing a sub optimal list. They hunt solos incredibly well, prey on high DEF/low ARM or low DEF/High ARM single wound infantry, and can even assassinate pretty well now with the way focus has changed in mark 3.

Add to that an ability to create a six inch movable forest wall with which to hide Tanith behind, and you really start to get a unit that is worth its weight in gold.

Their best synergy with Tanith comes from Affliction making their sprays into RAT 6 auto point attacks, which is pretty incredible into Shield Wall or Wall of Steel units like Sentinels, Halbardiers, Forge Guard, Iron Fang Pikemen, Karax, etc. I've used Affliction plus one unit of Sentry Stone Mannikins to wipe out a ten man unit in one activation easily.

Also important, you can use them to keep Tanith in the middle of the table without too much fear of reprisal by building her a forest wall every turn. This is massively important for her, since she wants to use her gun every turn if she can.

Reeves of Orboros:

You want infantry clear? These guys will do it no problem. With Affliction, they all become RAT 7 auto point shots with two attacks each, for 20 attacks on the base unit or 22 with the CA (You should always take the CA if you can).

It's also great fun to put 22 damage onto a Heavy Jack with a bunch of POW 8 shots and then kill it with a Scarsfell Griffon/Stalker/Pureblood spray/Mannikins on the charge.

They also have Combined Ranged Attack, giving them the potential for two RAT 17 POW 19 shots, which is going to do about 1/3 of an average heavies health on it's own with no support whatsoever.

I have drifted away from this unit simply because Sentry Stones tend to clear the infantry well enough with Affliction that having Reeves feels redundant, but they are definitely a strong choice.


Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew:

Yeah these little dudes are kind of an auto include for Tanith. They give her stealth, they give the Stalker stealth, they add to the LOS denial with the Sentry Stones, and they're high enough def that they can contest moderately well.

Add to that their incredibly cheap cost (2 points!!) and the fact that they have a weapon now, and I don't see a reason to ever leave these two at home.


Bloodweaver Night Witch:

If you're not bringing Reeves and still want to slaughter a unit without using your Sentry Stones, consider this 4 point mini Madrak. With Affliction and the ability to boost to hit, this lady has chewed through entire units of Dawnguard Sentinels, Temple Flame Guard, and Iron Fang Pikemen for me. Sure she only threats 10.5 inches, but that can be a big deterrent for zones and flag control.

Natural Stealth is a plus.


Druid Wilder:

Tanith wants to upkeep at least 2 spells every turn, and that can get pricey fury wise. The Druid Wilder helps out with that immensely, leaving Tanith an extra fury to boost a hit roll with or to camp. She can also force warbeasts outside of Tanith's control range which has randomly been useful, and she can heal or leach fury from beasts, another big deal in a faction with such finicky fury management.


Gallows Grove:

This is not an auto-include, but can be very strong with her. Very often, you'll want to arc an Affliction after her feat turn, and it is frustrating as all get out when you don't have a bark node in your list. While they're not mandatory, they're definitely a good option.

Also they stop Imperatus from triggering Phoenix Protocol within 5 inches, so that's always a good thing right?


Scarsfell Griffon:

This model is in the spotlight right now, and for good reason. It is Circle's answer to the question "How do we piece trade effectively?"

With Tanith, this guy can be MAT 8, PS 16/15/15 on its initial attacks. That's not going to kill a Khador heavy (average dice on a charge against a Khador heavy says 22 damage without hunters mark, and 26 with) but it will scrap any ARM 18 heavy in the game (average dice says 27 damage without hunters mark and 32 with it) assuming you get Hunters Mark on it.

Since I use Tanith primarily as my Circle drop, this is of extreme value since I can pretty reliably trade an 8 point light for a 17-19 point Warpwolf.

Also note that their animus gives them dodge, and I've had games where my opponent misses one attack on a unit that charges the griffon, allowing me to dodge away from the rest of his unit and take no damage whatsoever. Also a useful animus on Tanith.


Warpwolf Stalker:

Tanith can make this guy incredible. Any time you do NOT have to Primal your heavy hitters is amazing, and Tanith, thanks to Scything Touch and her pair of defense debuffs, allows the Stalker to hit accurately and at PS 20 even without Primal.

Add in a hunters mark, and this guy will do 39 damage to a Khador heavy with just his reach attacks, meaning he probably has one fury left over to cast Lightning Strike and Sprint out.

The other thing is that his melee range is 2", and with the recent infernal ruling, he spreads Scything touch to within 2 inches of him EVERYWHERE.

That means that if he is facing away from a model, he's not engaging it but it is still getting -2 ARM for your Reeves to shoot up or for Tanith to tag with her gun. It's a big deal, and he can cover a large swathe of the table. Even more importantly, if he kills whatever he goes into and can sprint out, he can apply Scything Touch in two places in one turn. Efficiency!

Also, native pathfinder is a big deal in this era of heavy terrain on boards.



List Building:

Tanith is a hard warlock to build lists for by virtue of....well she can kind of do anything. Need a -5 DEF swing? On it. Need an ARM debuff? Here ya go! Need to murder shield wall units? (Something Circle traditionally has a hard time with) Easy peasy.

I've played her multiple ways, so I'm just going to give you three general ways to build her and then give you my sample list.



The ARM cracker:

This build focuses on 2 important spells - Scything Touch and Admonition.

I play it with four heavies (two Ferals, Stalker, Pureblood) and the idea of the list is to chuck a Feral at something while it has Admonition on it, and then follow up with a Stalker with Scything Touch to kill it and Sprint out.

Your opponent then has to deal with an Admonitioned heavy in their lines, usually requiring 2 heavies to kill since you just scoot away from the first one.

The following turn, you get to go in and kill two more heavies, and your opponent is down 3 heavy warbeasts/warjacks for the price of a Feral (who might not even be dead, DEF 14 is a thing).

This is great against any Warjack heavy list outside of Karchev and his Mad Dogs, and it's also fairly easy to play.

Sample List:

Tanith
- Wilder
- Pureblood
- Feral
- Feral
- Stalker
- Scarsfell

Lanyssa
Gallows Grove
Alten Ashley

Sentry Stone x2
Swamp Gobbers



The Circle Drop:


Cuz this is Circle right now

When I've been playing Tanith of late, she's been paired with Wurmwood. As a result she has become my Circle, Ret, and all around "cover Wurmwood's weaknesses" list.

The list runs 3 Scarsfells, and was originally piloted by Tom Guan. I was already running something similar, but he had the stroke of genius to replace 2 Griffons (I was running five at the time) with Wrong Eye and Snapjaw.

Let me tell you how amazing DEF 15 models under Star-Crossed are. They're bonkers. Boosted NINES are a 45% ish chance to hit with that spell floating around, and that's what most Warjacks need. Couple that with Dodge, and these birds take a ton of resources to kill.

This list preys on Wurmwood/other Circle lists, most Ret builds, and can be dropped into many Wurmwood counters like Rasheth with a million Shamans with success.

Placement and activation order are very hard to nail down with a list like this though, and only after about 20 games did I really feel like I understood the list.

Tanith
- Stalker
- Pureblood
-Scarsfell
-Gorax

Una
-Scarsfell x2

Wrong Eye
-Snapjaw

Sentry Stone x2
Shifting Stone
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew



Other options:

Tanith can be built so many ways. Literally stick models in her list and go, and she'll probably perform okay.

A common (ish) alternate build I've seen with her is taking double Reeves to capitalize on Affliction. The math is pretty gross actually. 44 Auto Points if they all get shots is enough to kill any heavy in the game and to severely cripple even the toughest colossal. At that point your Stalker goes in and mops it up pretty easily.

While I don't know I'd really recommend picking up a second unit of Reeves just to do this, I can say that it certainly is an interesting idea.

Other builds I've seen are the 6+ Scarsfell lists, but with the release of 2Una, I seriously don't think Tanith is the one to do that with anymore, as 2Una's griffons do far, far, far more damage than Tanith's do.

What NOT to play her into:

Tanith has a really, really hard time with gunlines, especially those that ignore Stealth. Specifically, I'm looking here at Caine 2 and Sloan, since against Issyria, DEF 15 is still hard for unboosted shots to hit under feat.

This is a common problem among Circle casters, and a big, big part of why you'll see Wurmwood in most Circle pairings - he really punishes those gunlines by not letting them do....well anything really.

She also has a really hard time with massive amounts of Spell Ward on High Arm infantry like Precursor Knights or Banishing Ward onto Karax or Flameguard.


Conclusion:

I absolutely love Tanith. She plays super cat and mouse with your opponent, laying traps and springing them with Admonition and Shadow Bind. She can play into literally anything in the game with the right build, and ADR with her is just disgustingly good.

If you don't own her yet, try her out. If you lose with her for the first little while, don't get discouraged! She's immensely hard to play well, as every single turn has a massive amount of options and ways in which to approach it.

Thanks for reading!