Battle Report 51: Kromac 2 vs. The High Reclaimer

I'm going to need to draw different artwork for the Storm Raptor or this one is going to get stale (even though it's really cool looking).

K and I decided to re-wrack and see how his other list did into Stormy - The High Reclaimer.

We only had an hour and a half until close, so we played the same terrain and scenario.


Kromac 2
- Stormy
- Stalker
- Feral

Blackclad x2
Ogrun Bokur x2, cliented to...

Sentry Stone x2

Against:

The High Reclaimer
- Heirophant
- Devout
- Reckoner x2

Wrack x2
Punch Monk (Allegiant of the Order of the Fist)

Knights Exemplar and CA
Exemplar Vengers
Idrians and CA
Choir (min)

This time I won the roll and opted for first, and my opponent took the same side since a cloud wall between the building and the forest seemed like a nice place to hide and wait to pull the Reclaimer Trigger.

Hey look, my deployment is very similar to last game!

So is his! Although this is deceptive since with the HR feat, even though my right side of the table looks relatively weak, he can easily have an entire unit on that half of the table if he wants it there with next to no way for me to really do anything about it.

I'm already resigned to either having to tank HR's Feat with Kromac or basically lose the Storm Raptor. If I can make him feat with my Feat up, I might survive, but it's going to be tight.

Prey goes on the Sentry Unit closest to the Idrians this time.

Circle turn 1:

Same drill as last time! Awakened Spirit on the Stalker and Vengeful on Stormy and full speed ahead! Well...almost, I kept both heavies more than 16 inches away from his Idrians.

Left

Right

Menoth turn 1:

And thus began the slow, slow turtle game.

Idrians shuffled forward and used their mini-feat to dig in.

Knights shuffled forward.

Vengers shuffled forward.

Reclaimer made a cloud wall and put Hand of Fate on the Vengers.

Reckoners shuffled forward.

Punch Monk uses Shifting Sands.

Good times.

Circle turn 2:

Yuck. I've got next to no good angles here. Time to murder Idrians that aren't that close to HR so he doesn't get souls I guess.

I upkeep my spells, and send the Sentry Stones after the Idrians, careful NEVER to hit a Venger with a spray.

I back things up so that the Knights can't charge anything, and Stormy eLeaps some more Idrians to death. I contest the right zone with a Blackclad behind the forest and a Sentry Stone in a self made forest.

Left

Right

Menoth turn 2:

More turtling!

He runs a Reckoner over to the side next to my Blackclad.

The Knights move up an inch or two, and Reclaimer activates to cast Ashes to Ashes at his Reckoner, frying the Blackclad.

Idrians back up and shoot stuff, and two Vengers go in, killing my Sentry Stone.

Prey moves to the Stalker.

Left

Right

Circle turn 3:

Well...I think I can kill all of the Vengers this turn, which would be amazing.

It relies on Kromac killing one, the Feral throwing the other one into the Punch Monk, the Blackclad casting Hunters Mark at the closest one so the Stalker can kill it without spending fury, and then Stormy moving up and shooting the other two to death.

At the end of this, ideally, I'll have all the Idrians engaged and all the Vengers dead, AND score two points.

I upkeep my Awakened Spirit and Vengeful, and then everything else starts going awry.

Kromac moves up and kills the Venger after popping Feat and camping five.

The Feral throws the other Venger, who was already pretty beat from eLeaps at the Punch Monk...who toughs.

The Stalker charges the other Venger, kills it, and Sprints into the Idrians.

I go to place Stormy...and he can't actually land in order to shoot. Uh oh...

Stormy charges the Punch Monk in the butt, killing him.

The Blackclad sprays Idrians and I brace for a turn of awfulness. I do, however, score 2 points.

Score 2-0

Advantage Circle

Menoth turn 3:

We're close on time, so no more pictures, but I'll do my best to describe what happens.

Reclaimer moves over and pulls a focus from the Wrack, which explodes and kills the Knight Officer.

He then kills three knights and casts Hand of Fate on the Unit before Feating all four back, along with three Vengers.

The Knights charge Kromac and pop mini-feat.

MATH TIME.

Hand of Fate and the Knight's mini feat each add an additional dice and drop the lowest. This averages out to about +2 to hit and damage, although spikes vary widely here.

The Knights weren't battle driven, so they were "only" PS 11 Weaponmasters, or PS 15 with both effects up.

Kromac is ARM 20 on Feat turn, with 19 boxes. At dice -5, each Knight should do 9 damage to him, meaning that I can tank two hits and transfer two hits.

The Vengers are also coming in, and they ARE battle driven at PS 16, so dice off four but not weaponmasters, so doing 7 damage each, so I can definitely tank 2 attacks from that.

After the Knights charge, Kromac is down to 10 boxes left with 3 transfers remaining, and the Vengers charge in and I have to transfer twice more to stay alive, leaving my Feral and Stormy on about half health each.

The other Vengers kill the Bokur gumming them up.

Idrians move over and at dice - 7 (Yay Kromac feat!) don't do more than a handful more damage.

My opponent passes the turn.

Circle turn 4:

I reeve my three fury and cut for three more. Kromac goes first, casts Carnage and kills every single Knight and Venger engaging him with 1 corpse token and one bought attack before Sprinting deep into the left zone.

The Stalker warps berserk, and kills all but one Idrian, who Stormy kills in addition to the Vengers.

I send another Bokur into the zone on the right, along with the Feral and go to 4.


At this point, the store flashes the five minute lights and we have to call the game, but my opponent is down to 2 Knights Exemplar and two Reckoners to my entire battlegroup and support staff, with Kromac sitting too far away for anything to get to him and plenty of tools to clear the zone again for a scenario win.


Post Game Thoughts:

Stormy didn't get to do a whole lot this game, EXCEPT be a massive threat to my opponent which forced him to keep his positioning very defensive.

Kromac is ridiculously hard to kill on feat turn.

High Reclaimer is REALLY scary.

And...I really like having the Raptor in the list.

Back story: I always thought Kromac 2 was really, really boring. He was a blunt object in a faction of really big scalpels.

With the Storm Raptor, he is a BLAST to play. There's something incredible about the level of threat projection he brings to the table, and Kromac makes it so that 1) He can hit things and 2) he doesn't die without an incredible amount of resources dedicated to him on the backswing, resources that often your opponent won't have access to.

Perspective of the Raptor as of this game: Okay, I'm becoming convinced, this seems pretty darn good.