Last entry I discussed the reasons for a few changes in my 35
point Kreoss1 list and painting up these new models. Overall I felt that the list certainly
benefited from the changes and am eager to continue playing Kreoss with these
in mind. I’ll spend the remainder of
this blog entry discussing how I faired in the event:
The first game was a 50 pointer and only one list, my chosen
list was the following:
+6 Hierarch Severius
6 *Revenger (bonded)
8 *Reckoner
8 *Reckoner
2 Choir (min)
5 Daughters of the Flame
4 Temple
Flameguard (min)
2 *Temple
Flameguard UA
8 Exemplar Errants (max)
2 *Exemplar Errants UA
4 Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
4 X2 Vassal of Menoth
3 Eiryss2
Game 1 – Adam Archer
Cryx; Denny1
Deathripper
Seether
Reaper
Stalker
Nightwretch
Skarlock
Banethralls (min) + UA
Bilethralls (max)
Tartarus
Bloat thrall
Pistol Wraith
The scenario in this battle was #15 Restoration, which
involved interactive objectives, where control points are scored by destroying
your opponent’s objective and controlling a 14”x6” zone. I won first turn and Adam chose the board
edge with a linear feature for some decent defensive cover. I was quite aggressive with my first turn
running all of my advance deploy units far up the field and the remainder of
the army followed. Adam advanced
cautiously, sending his light jacks around the flanks and advancing his shooty
units, whilst keeping Denny and his melee units back. A few Errants died, but most remained intact.
On my next turn the Errants advanced again, a couple stood
still to get the aiming bonus on the Pistol Wraith and their magical bows
killed it. They capped a few Bile
Thralls and I almost killed the Bloat Thrall too, leaving it on one damage
box. The Revenger ran into harms way,
but this allowed Sevvy2 to arc his gun into the Reaper with the hope of Admonisher catching the Skarlock, this
worked, though my node would take a charge, therefore a Reckoner was positioned
to counter and a spare focus left on it to take advantage of the bond – it was
too far up front to become Enlivened. Sadly I forgot to activate Eiryss2 and shoot
the Reaper or Seether to cause disruption and limit their damage output, but
all in all a good turn for the Menites.
Adam shot the Revenger and caused a lot of damage, I opted
not to use the focus point I had left to ignore the damage (Sevvy2 bond
ability) at this point figuring the Seether’s charge would hurt more. I did use the bond ability on the charge
attack off the Seether and the non-reach Cryx heavy was repelled away leaving
the Revenger operational all bar the arc node and the Seether in a bad position
fro Adam, especially having caused no damage.
Adam’s Bloat Thrall and Bile Thralls advanced in the centre and went to
town on the Errants killing several, my Errants numbered about four by now.
During my turn three I was winning the attritional game and
Denny was still lurking in the back field.
I charged the Seether with my Reckoner and trashed it, the Cryx arc node
jack also died at this point and I disrupted the Reaper with Eiryss2; meaning
my right flank was very strong by now.
The Errants killed off the remaining Bile Thralls and Bloat Thrall
freeing up the centre and I positioned to defend my left flank from the last
two Cryx light jacks. Tartarus and the
Banes were very far back and I felt it was time to seal the game and destroyed Adams
objective and flooded the zone with my models.
Sevvy2 feated and burned a few Banes that were at the edge of his
control area for good measure.
Adam realised that he would loose unless he contested the
zone, he feated with Denny and arced Crippling
Grasp into the Temple Flameguard: following this Tartarus/Bane Thralls
charged them, most died but their shield wall order, set defence and Iron Zeal
mini-feat helped redress the balance.
The Stalker ran into the zone to help contest, but only it and a single
Thrall made it.
On my next turn the Daughters of the Flame charged the
Stalker and trashed it with two combined melee attacks and the remaining Temple
Flameguard killed the last Bane Thrall with a another combined melee
attack. The game was mine at this point
though I continued the remainder of my turn to rack up VP’s. Most interestingly I decided to charge Sevvy2
at Tartarus to see if he could slay the Cryxian, I used his Creators Wrath spell and boosted the hit
meaning Sevvy2 was MAT 4 plus 4D6 to hit and
P&S13 + 4D6 damage – Tarter Sauce bought it!
Result: win (scenario)
Lunch was at this point and players were encouraged to leave
their armies on display for consideration for ‘Best Army’ as well as being judged
on the painting criteria. Below are a
few snaps of the armies on display:
The remainder of the event was a 35 point steamroller affair
with two lists of which both must be used.
My lists were:
+6 Grand Scrutator
Severius
7 *Blessing of Vengeance
8 *Vanquisher
11 Avatar
2 Choir (min)
4 Temple
Flameguard (min)
5 Exemplar Errants (min)
2 *Exemplar Errants UA
2 Vassal of Menoth
+5 High
ExemplarKreoss
8 *Reckoner
8 *Reckoner
2 Choir (min)
8 Exemplar Errants (max)
2 *Exemplar Errants UA
4 Visgoth Rhoven & Honour Guard
4 X2 Vassal of Menoth
2 Covenant of Menoth
2 Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Game 2 – Paul North
Circle; Kromac
Stalker
Gnarlhorn
Feral
Gorax
Tharn Wild Riders (min)
Shifting stones
Paul and I are good friends and we had a catch up over
dinner and we exchanged information on our casters for pondering over the
break. Paul had Morvahna and Kromac, I
knew which caster he would take given the amount of upkeep denial I could
muster and I knew I would take Kreoss accordingly!
The scenario in this battle was #12 Envelopment with the Reinforcements artifice. I won the roll off and opted to go first
advancing my forces as usual, as did Paul.
The second turn was quite good for me as I hit the stalker
very hard with the Reckoner’s guns dropping it to just one box of health, but
didn’t have enough left to kill it unfortunately. I did kill a Shifting Stone in this turn
which was crucial to my plans as the ‘teleport a heavy almost 10 inches’ is
nasty and I’ve been on the receiving end a few times. I chose to leave my reinforcements until
later as Paul might end up exposing his rear to a cavalry charge depending on
where he committed his forces.
On Paul’s next turn he hit one of my Reckoners very hard
with a Primaled and strength warped Feral, which he trashed easily. I could have Enlivened the Reckoner but opted for the Ancillary attack to try and finish the Stalker. The Stalker was healed by Kromac and went
into the Errants with Wild Agression
up and Warpath on Kromac. However the horrible combination of un-knock-down-able,
tough Errants with Self Sacrifice meant the Stalkers Berserk attacks failed as did the possibility of any Warpath moves.
During my next turn the cavalry came on and attempted to
charge the Gnarlhorn, but fell short by a few millimetres, still I was
threatening Kromac’s position with the cavalry.
The Stalker died, and the Feral took a beating from Errants and Rhoven’s
bodyguard, though the fully loaded Reckoner attempted to finish it off the
‘jack didn’t have enough movement to engage it, instead it shot Kromac causing
a bit of damage. Paul also lost a couple
of Wildriders I think.
Paul’s next turn saw the Feral frenzy, as per its Primal
ruling and it didn’t do much. The Gorax
engaged the Errants, as did Paul’s Bloodtracker reserves. The Gnarlhorn killed off two Venger’s and
Kromac struggled with upkeeping/casting spells whilst in Kreoss’ Lamentation range.
On my next turn the Feral died and the Gorax took some
punishment from the Errants as well as the last Wildrider dying. Time was starting to burn heavily for us both
at this point and Paul was loosing the attrition, though neither of us were in
any position to win on scenario both of us were looking at a caster kill for
the win.
Though Kromac was already wounded from his feat and some
damage I had inflicted previously he attempted a leaping assassination attempt
on Kreoss but was too far away and instead cleared out several Errants, but
left himself vulnerable to my remaining forces and Kreoss given he had no
transfers.
For some reason I totally forgot about my feat and didn’t
think about it until after the game had finished… The Reckoner advanced and boosted the to-hit roll
needing an 8 and failed, bought and boosted, failed, bought an attack and
missed… Kreoss charged and boosted
needing a 7, failed, bought and boosted, failed and then failed on his final
un-boosted attempt. The Ancillary attack
on the Reckoner failed. One Errant
managed a charge and failed to hit. I
couldn’t believe that many boosted to hits failed, and still I hadn’t
remembered my feat (what the hell I hear you say). My last ditch attempt was from Rhoven and Co.
the bodyguards were engaged, but Rhoven himself was on for a charge, he
connected and luckily for me killed Kromac.
It was a really good game that swung to-and-fro and I was
pleased to win, though I made hard work of it by not feating and allowing the
auto-hits which would have sealed the deal without getting so dangerously close
to loosing. I guess that I should have
still connected with a few of those boosted failed-to-hit rolls and any of them
could have done the job! Still a second win which put me quite high in the standings.
Result: win (caster kill)
Game 3 – Tom
Frettwell
Legion; Thagrosh1
Carnivean
Scythean
Ravgore
Hex Hunters (max)
Shepherd
Spell Martyr
This game was #7 Incursion and I opted for my Severius list
for this encounter though my Kreoss list would likely have faired better given
the match-up. Tom’s other list was Vayl2
and I felt that Sevvy’s feat would hamper hers if I could time it right should
I face her in this game. Tom took the
first turn and I chose a board edge which offered a small amount of useful
terrain.
Tom quickly advanced his warbeasts and Hex Hunters, as
expected, and I reciprocated as per a standard first turn.
During Tom’s second turn he fired the Ravgore’s flame AOE
and lit up an Errant and a Flameguard, the Hex Hunters charged but dealt no
damage to the Errants. Tom also sent his
Scythean very close to the Avatar. I
managed to clear out most of the Hex Hunters with a cunning Ashes to Ashes aimed at one of my own Temple
Flameguard as well as melee/quickwork
from my infantry. I opted to run the
Vanquisher to one of the flags and score a control point, though I wondered
whether it would have been better attacking the Carnivean or Ravgore. The Avatar destroyed the Scythean, though I
knew the Carnivean would kill him the next turn and Tom would feat to bring it
back. To be honest I didn’t have a lot
of choice and I knew the next turn would be the decider.
Tom did in fact feat and block me scoring further control
points as well as trash the Avatar as predicted. I also managed to see the Ravgore’s threat
range and moved Sevvy backfield to get out of range. Unfortunately for me however Tom still went
for Sevvy and was short on range, as I had engineered, but rolled a 1 for
deviation (straight forward) and enough distance to catch Sevvy in the AOE, Tom
boosted and caused a bit of damage as well as setting my caster on fire. In my turn the fire didn’t expire and Sevvy
lost a lot of wounds and was on just three remaining boxes after my maintenance
phase! I knew all was lost so rather
than trying to fight the attritional battle and kill the Carnivean and resurrected
Scythean I opted to fully boost the Vanquisher’s cannon into Thagrosh and send
a second unboosted shot via the Vassal into him, plus an Errant charging. As I expected I caused some damage and set
Thags on fire too, but he was able to transfer the damage, or absorb but still
in no real danger – unlike poor Sevvy!!!
On Tom’s next turn he sent a fully boosted flaming AOE into
Sevvy again and managed to hit him despite his cover bonus at DEF 18! It was curtains for the Menites, but I
learned a lot and had a bit of a giggle attacking Thags and setting him on fire
in return!
Result: loss (caster kill)
Game 4 – Felix Hughes
Menoth; Reznik (Tier 4)
Reckoner
Reckoner
Vanquisher
Heirophant
Flameguard Cleansers (min)
Flameguard Cleansers (min)
Choir (max)
Wracks
Vassal
Vassal
This game was #1 Close Quarters and I opted for my Kreoss list for this
encounter and I took the first turn.
There was a bit of confusion at this point as I asked Felix what his
tier bonuses where and didn’t recall him telling me one very important bonus,
but it was the last game and we were both quite tired by this point. I ran all of my units forward to press on objectives
and start the fight. The important bit
of information was that one of the tier bonuses gave Reznik’s battlegroup +2
Speed on the first turn of the game so potentially both Felix’s Reckoners could
Assault Kreoss on the first turn and
kill him dead (effectively 22” of threat on the guns). I felt a bit aggrieved at this because I
couldn’t remember him telling me about it and was confused when he was loading
up both his Reckoner’s for the assassination, but in the interest of fairness I
let it go. Luckily for me both
Reckoner’s were short on range so it was a moot point.
On my second turn I let rip with both my Reckoner’s into
Felix’s Vanquisher dropping it down to just a few remaining boxes and crippling
the gun and cortex. My Errants also
formed a staggered assault where just the first line charged some Cleansers and
a Reckoner, jamming up Felix’s forces somewhat.
Felix managed to kill off some of the engaging Errants and get a trample
through to one of my Reckoners, but was unable to trash it, leaving its melee
weapon and cortex fully functional.
Felix feated this turn to limit the pain I would inflict, so no focus
could be allocated to my jacks.
On my third turn I feated knocking down a large portion of
Reznik’s force the damaged Reckoner engaged and Errants charged Felix’s nearest
Reckoner (which had trampled) and killed it.
The other shot Reznik, set him on fire, but didn’t do that much damage
considering I couldn’t allocate focus in order to boost. The Errants mopped up many Flameguard
Cleansers, Choir boys and both Vassal’s so I had ripped the heart out of
Reznik’s force, leaving him wounded and on fire with most of his support dead
and I now outnumbered him 2:1 with heavy jacks, though one of mine was almost
dead. The fire went out on Reznik during
the maintenance phase and Felix allocated focus to his last jack and trampled
again managing to destroy my wounded Reckoner and Reznik attacked the Errants
killing several.
On my fourth turn I tried to destroy the remaining Reckoner
but forgot it was Enlivened and got
backfired for all the times I’ve done it to other people! I put some serious damage on Reznik however with
my last few charging Errants, taking him down to just two wounds, but not
enough to kill. Felix retaliated by
slaying all of my remaining Errants, his Reckoner was unable to damage mine due
to positioning.
On my fifth turn I destroyed the last Reckoner and mopped up
several support pieces, I tried a cheeky assassination on Reznik with Rhupert,
he charged a wrack (created by Reznik) hoping to catch the enemy caster in the
blast, but he was just out meaning he avoided the POW14 blast, again so
close! Felix realised that I was in a
very strong position as his caster was almost dead, he had lost his battlegroup
as well as most of his infantry, both of us were very low on time and Felix
opted to run away with Reznik to avoid my Reckoner shooting him dead and try
and time me out on the chess clock, given I had many more activations to
perform and a bit less time.
The remainder of the game saw Reznik running away behind a
large wood and my Reckoner pursuing (followed by its entourage of Choir boys
and Vassals). I considered attempting a
scenario win as all that stood in my way was a single Choir member, but as
Felix played for-and-got, my time expired and I lost on ‘Death-clock’.
It was a shame to loose on time, considering I had the upper
hand at the end of the game, but that is the way it goes! I enjoyed the attrition struggle and felt I
gave a good account of myself, almost killing Reznik, in a position to win on scenario
as well as destroying most of the enemy force.
Felix also only had a few seconds remaining so it was indeed a very
close battle for the second place tournament standing.
Result: loss (death-clock)
Open War 17 – concluding thoughts
The event was a smoothly run and well organised affair from
start to finish, myself and others all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves very much
and hope to attend this event in the future.
In the final standings I placed a respectable 6th out of 16
and this was mainly down to the secondary sort of VP’s; I am an attrition-style
player with an attrition based army so this favoured me personally. I made a few mistakes, but certainly not as
bad as the Grand Slam ones, and was in with a shout for second – so all in all
I was pleased with my performance. The
Kreoss list changes really helped and I will practice using him at 50 points in
preparation for the ETC.
Perhaps the best announcement of the day was the ‘Best Warmachine/Hordes
Army’, which I won; this was a peer vote by all Open War attendees from all
systems. I was really pleased with this
as it is the first time I’ve won any painting awards with Warmachine/Hordes and
felt all the hard work over the past year or so has paid off (big grin). :-)
 |
| My trophy for 'Best Army', Warmachine/Hordes Open War 17 (14/04/2012) |
Hope you’ve enjoyed the read!
