The Season of the Raptor continues....
I'm participating/partially running a massive narrative league that will cover the next six months across the vast majority of Eastern Washington and North West Idaho.
We had our kick off event this weekend, and a buddy and I decided to drive out the day before and get some games in on Friday as well as cashing in our games on Saturday.
Naturally, Stormy came along for the ride (and made disparaging comments about my driving the whole way).
I got a total of five games in with him over the weekend (and batreps for all of them will be coming down the pipe in the next couple days), and the first one was into my good friend K's Reznik 2 list - usually the bane of my non-Una 2 lists.
I played an unchanged Kromac 2 list from the last few times:
Kromac 2
- Stormy (Storm Raptor)
- Stalker
- Feral
Blackclad x2
Ogrun Bokur x2 (Cliented to...)
Sentry Stones x2
And my opponent was playing this monstrosity of a list:
Servath Reznik, WRATH OF AGES
- Madelyn Corbeau
- Scourge of Heresy
- Reckoner x2
- Devout
Wrack x2
Nicia
Punch Monk (Allegiant of the Order of the Fist)
Idrians and CA
Rhoven and Co.
Min Choir
I rolled up Outlast as our random Scenario, and I lost the roll off. My opponent elected to deny me the side with the massive forest and building since he didn't want to see a massive wall of Sentry Stone forests, and so I got to go first.
My game plan was to run Stormy over the house on the right there, get Kromac and friends into the trench, and then just see how the game went from there. Sentry Stones and Stormy would be on "Kill all the Idrians" duty, and then I just had to rely on Stormy being really fast to get the alpha on any 'Jack that poked it's head out.
My opponent put his battlegroup opposite Stormy and the Idrians off to the left.
My hope then was to draw the bulk of the 'Jacks off to the right and then forcefully clear the left zone to dominate it with Kromac.
The Idrians chose Kromac as their prey target.
Circle turn 1:
Well it's time to scream up the board. Sentry Stones moved up to get out of the way, and Kromac activated, putting Vengeful on the Storm Raptor and Awakened Spirit on the Stalker before charging Reznik and hiding out behind my generated forests.
Stormy ran, staying 17.5 inches away from his Reckoners.
I put Mannikins and the Feral in the trench, and I put the Stalker up 16.1 inches away from the central Idrians.
Blackclads swung left and right.
Menoth turn 1:
Idrians move up, and one runs out of command to engage two Mannikins.
Punch Monk gets Shifting Sands Stanced up and moves around the forest.
His 'Jacks pretty much all go hide off to the side behind the forest so that they can take pot shots at Stormy next turn.
Death March goes on the Idrians and Lamentation goes on Reznik, but the only thing in his control range is Stormy.
Circle turn 2:
Well I don't like paying double, but I upkeep Vengeful and Awakened Spirit.
I think I can kill all but a couple of Idrians this turn between Sentry Stones and Stormy.
The goal here is to keep Stormy too far away from Scourge for it to be viable for him to charge in.
With that in mind, I carefully premeasure out where he can land going left, and then move things away from that space. Mannikins activate and kill a few Idrians.
Other Mannikins activate and kill a few more Idrians.
The Feral runs around to the other side of where Stormy will be, and the Stalker runs up to the wall.
Stormy moves over and eLeaps a few Idrians to death.
The left Blackclad sprays down a couple of Idrians as well - Idrians dying makes me happy.
The right Blackclad runs to the edge of his zone, and so does a Bokur - carefully staying within 3 inches of both Stormy and the Feral.
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| Left Side |
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| Right Side |
Menoth turn 2:
Idrians Vengeance up and then Reznik drops Death March but upkeeps Lamentation.
The goal for him here is to clear the right zone, potentially clear the left zone, and then get two points and pressure me.
He needs to Battle his Reckoners to reliably kill the Bokur in one shot, and he needs to do it in one so that the second one can move up and blast the Blackclad.
Idrians charge the Mannikins, killing 2 out of four. The two that connected reposition to engage the remaining Mannikins.
Nicia charges and slaughters the Blackclad, shoots a Mannikin, and Sprints out.
Reckoners get battled and blast both the Bokur and the Blackclad off the table.
Scourge moves in to control the zone, as does the Punch Monk.
Reznik hangs out 13 inches away from the Storm Raptor and passes the turn, getting one point.
 |
| Left |
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| Right |
Score 0-1
Advantage Menoth
Circle turn 3:
It's time to pull the trigger.
I can move Kromac out and get both enemy warjacks in control for Carnage and it's time to pop feat.
I upkeep Vengeful and drop Awakened Spirit from the Stalker. I place two Mannikins.
That happens first, and Kromac also casts Awakened Spirit on the Feral.
The Feral activates, casts Primal on itself for free, warps Speed, and charges Scourge, killing him pretty dead.
The Storm Raptor activates and charges the Reckoner, killing him and some Choir boys.
In the left zone, the Stalker moves up and warps Berserk, killing all of the remaining Idrians.
The Sentry Stone unit tries to kill Nicia, but fails, and the Stone ports away from her at the end of their activation.
The other unit moves up and makes it impossible for anything to see Kromac with a forest.
The other Bokur moves in the right zone, and I score a point.
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| Left |
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| Right |
Score 1-1
Tie!
Menoth turn 3:
The Reckoner gets loaded up, and Reznik charges the Storm Raptor, cursing the Feral.
His charge attack does pretty good damage, and then he misses 2/5 attacks into the Feral, leaving it on five boxes.
The Punch Monk charges the Feral and leaves it on 1 box.
The Reckoner gets Battled, and walks up. He kills the Sentry Stone on the first swing, and then buys into the Raptor.
I Retaliatory Strike with Vengeful and hit the 7, disrupting the Reckoner and stripping its remaining focus, at which point my opponent calls it.
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| Left |
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| Right |
Victory for the Druids! STORMY!
(wait, I didn't type that...Stormy get over here, is this your doing?)
Post-game thoughts:
I've played 4 more games with this list since this game, so I'll do my best not to let my evolved thoughts creep into what I was thinking after this game.
My opponent and I went through the motions of the next turn just to see. The Feral frenzies and dies to the Punch Monk free strike.
Kromac moves up and casts Carnage again, and then Stormy puts Reznik down in 3 hits.
K and I discussed the list a lot, and we basically decided that my static threat ranges being as good as his best threat ranges (on the Reckoners) made this matchup very favored for Kromac, especially with the standard amount of Circle infantry clearing to make the Idrians a non-issue.
I was very impressed with how much of the table the Storm Raptor could threaten, and how easy it was to re-deploy it after turn 1 to a safer place. Kromac really makes this bird sing (I DON'T SING FOR ANYONE BOSS)and it's really something to have access to a speed 7 garg when you can pump it to MAT 9, PS 22/21/21 - that'll kill nearly anything in the entire game.
Perspective on the Raptor as of this game: Cautiously optimistic, he's much better in practice than he seems on paper (at least with Kromac).
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