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!