Mirsuharu on Bat Reps - Intercessor Kreoss vs Orsus Zoktavir the Butcher of Khardov

Hey everyone, welcome back to Mitsuharu on Bat Reps and my latest practice game with the Intercessor. This week I faced off against Khador and the prime incarnation of Butcher. My list was the one I theory-machined out last week:-

Intercessor Kreoss +5

-Vanquisher -8

-Reckoner -8

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Nicia, Tear of Vengence -3

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Wracks -1

Vassal Mechanic -1

Daughters of Menoth -5

Max Exemplar Vengers -11

Max Exemplar Errants with UA -10

My opponent was using a tier 4 pButcher Claws of the Dragon tier list. This included 3 max units of Black Dragon Iron Fang Pikeman all with Black Dragon UAs. An IFP Kovnik, The Great Bears of the Gallowswood, a Manhunter and Butcher brought 2 Devastators and a War dog as tier requirements. This was a good game but we both attritioned pretty hard and the whole game was a harsh grind throughout. The clock was also tight for both of us. His list was comparatively simple to use, and his strategy was straightforward, but the numbers of models meant that each turn took a lot of activations, wearing down the clock. On my side of the table my list was smaller and didn't require as many activations or time spent, but did require a lot more thought on target priority and activation order, meaning I was spending a lot of time on my turn considering options. 

The scenario this time was Fire Support and Khador got the first turn and the advance moves put the army at around the midline from turn one. I put out my usual buffs (Ignite to the horses, Holy Ward to the Daughters, and Warpath on Kreoss) on my turn and had the daughters turtle around the Bunker objective and everything else shuffled forwards. Following this one unit of IFP moved onto my flag and the other two units advanced to engage my Errants who were sat in a forest opposite his flag. 

For the rest of the game the Vengers and Daughters held my flag, grinding out the IFP on that flank, while the Errants managed to survive the entire game against both units of the IFP, neither being able to kill the other decisively. The Errants with Rhupert and the Covenant plus the fact that I got a stupidly high number of toughs and the unfortunate to hit rolls from the IFP kept them in the game, whereas the sheer volume of bodies on the IFP took too long for the Errants to kill. The Great Bears and the third unit of IFP killed off half the Vengers and killed most of the objective, but both got wiped out after multiple grinding turns and couldn't hit the DEF 17 Daughters. 

I played far too preciously with Kreoss again, and allowed my concern about assassination to keep me back, not utalising him to the maximum since he's a hard-hitting and survivable caster. This also led me to kill box myself on the side of the board, as I'd forgotten this rule in my rush to protect him. This set me back on scenario, giving my opponent the upper hand. Following this I dominated my own flag twice, having to Force Hammer one of his jacks out of contesting on my last turn. Butcher also managed to dominate his flag before it could run my Daughters clear across the board to contest. My Force Hammer slam had unfortunately moved the Devastator next to my objective (which only had two points left on it) and he sacrificed movement to stand and then took out the objective for the final point he needed to win the game. 

This was a hard game on both our sides but I feel a lot more comfortable with this list incarnation than previously, as I feel it can handle a lot more attrition and still dish out some serious damage. I need to play much more aggressively with it though, as I allowed my opponent to dictate the board to me, and was too cautious with my caster who could have been dominating my flag much sooner if I'd moved up more aggressively. I also need to be focusing more on challenging for the scenario more as I felt that cost me in this game too. 

I'm looking forward to using this list again in the tournament in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime I'm planning to practice my Feora list a couple of times too. 

Stay tuned for more!

-M

Cogs in the TheoryMachine - List Developments

Hi everyone, this week is a new segment called 'Cogs in the TheoryMachine' where I'll be discussing list building, tactical ideas and other miscellaneous meta gaming I'm doing. This first week will be focusing on my latest list ideas and tactical concepts I'm developing for the Menoth lists I'm planning to bring to the local Hull Warmachine monthly tournament in February. 

The first list I'll be using is the Intercessor Kreoss list I've been developing over the last few weeks, which has undergone a much bigger shift following my last game against Nick. This started out as quite a heavy list that mashed armour but struggled against infantry swarms. I like a good skew list as much as the next guy but in a more competitive setting versatility is always the heart of the game. Luckily I felt that the two games I've had (both of which were very infantry heavy) the list didn't perform too badly and so isn't exactly auto-lose as is. Having said that I'm hoping that with a few changes it'll be much more well rounded. What I've got so far is:

Intercessor Kreoss +5

-Vanquisher -8

-Reckoner -8

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Nicia, Tear of Vengence -3

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Wracks -1

Vassal Mechanic -1

Daughters of Menoth -5

Max Exemplar Vengers -11

Max Exemplar Errants with UA -10

This list has sacrificed the quality of the Avatar for the quantity of Errants. The Errants are in the list for two reasons, firstly to tag with Rhupert to create a Tough unit that's hard to shift from contesting, and also to pump out attacks between weaponmaster melee and quick work, hopefully balancing the list more vs infantry. To further throw a spanner in the works the Covenant of Menoth can also stop the Errants that do tough from being knocked down, making them a real pain for my opponent. Maintaining the Menoth Jam the Daughters with Holy Ward are very hard for anyone who can't boost, and even then they've got a decent chance of dodging a hit. With the Errants in the list the Vengers are freed up to be able to move around to be wherever they're most needed, keeping them in reserve. Hopefully this means they can hit where they can do most damage. Nicia is in the list to help deal with troublesome solos. The two jacks along with the vassals and choir are an obvious choice, both having good ranged attacks as well as decent melee options, and both can make good use of Warpath. 

The really interesting question in 2015 is which of the objectives goes best with the list? Arcane Wonder seems like a good option, but I find that Kreoss is either up keeping or allocating and even though he has lots of upkeeps he doesn't need the focus assist much anyway. Effigy of Valour and Armoury aren't much use to this list. Stockpile is nice but Covenant covers most of that functionality. Fuel Cashe is a nice ability that the list can use well but I'd prefer it in my second list and don't want to repeat myself where possible. So that leaves Bunker. This one has Impervious Flesh, making it more difficult to destroy at range, forcing the enemy to move towards my force, potentially giving me a greater chance for a strong first strike. Also this objective has the Girded ability, making this a nice out for my Daughters:- by jamming this objective it removes one of their biggest weaknesses in blast damage making their DEF 17 daunting to overcome. So I think Bunker's the way to go. 

Now the second list I'm planning to use has changed a couple of times too, without being played, mainly because of character restrictions having an effect when I made changes to my Kreoss list. List two is an eFeora list:

eFeora +6

-Bonded Judicator -18

-Reckoner -8

Vassal of Menoth -2

Wracks -1

Vassal Mechanic -1

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution -3

Dartan Vilmon -3

Saxon Orrik -2

Gorman Di Wulfe -2

Min Choir -2 

Max TFG with UA -8

Min Zealots with UA -6

This list is a very different build to the Kreoss list, but is based on more solid principles, and a playstyle that I've had more practice with. The TFG and Zealots are in the list with a dual purpose, firstly they jam the board and generally make a nuisance of themselves, being hard to shift out of zones or away from flags (Dartan is in the list to compound this further). Secondly on their mini-feat turns the TFG can poke each other with flame pikes with little chance of killing and the zealots can bathe in Judicator flamethrower to get a whole bunch of cont. fire on the board for Feora to play with using her own feat. Saxon Orrik is in the list to dole out pathfinder to the TFG who are slow enough without getting trapped in difficult terrain. Gorman and Eiryss are in the list to generally cause my opponent issues. The choir, wrack and vassal options are all fairly standard to support the jack load out. In this list I opted for the Judicator as a collosal is always fun to put on the table, and Feora's warjack bond only cranks that all the way up to 11. I've heard stories of casters being set on fire in turn one of a game with running and an ancilliary attack from a vassal. The Reckoner is in the list as a secondary jack, and is more than capable of using the flare on its gun to offer an assist to the Judicator before a charge against a higher DEF enemy. On top of that the Reckoner is a powerful and versatile option in its own right. 

Unlike the Kreoss list I had a good idea which objective I was planning to use with this list as soon as SR2015 hit. Fuel Cashe. This gives jacks starting their activation within 4" a free run or charge, helping with focus efficiency for Feora, who sometimes feels starved on key turns. But the real reason, if I'm honest is that I couldn't resist the thematic benefits of making a list where even the objective can set my enemy on fire! 

These are the lists as they stand at the moment, though they are, of course, subject to change when they hit the board. My biggest concern at the moment is that the Feora list will be too large to get through on timed turns (that and the fact that I don't actually have a Saxon Orrik model yet). At the moment though these are two lists that I feel relatively confident with and am looking forward to using on the table. Hopefully I'll be able to report some success come February!

-M

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Intercessor Kreoss vs. Kallus, Wrath of Everblight

Welcome back, wargamers! This week I'm continuing my practice with the Intercessor Kreoss list I used last time. Following my defeat last week I switched out Dartan as planned for Nicia to help with solo removal, making my list:

Intercessor Kreoss +5

-Vanquisher -8

-Reckoner -8

Avatar of Menoth -11

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Gorman di Wulfe -2

Max Vengers -11

Daughters of the Flame -5

Nicia, Tear of Vengence  -3

Paladin -2

My opponent this week was Nick, the owner of Solid Ground Studios and all the lovely bases they make (http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk) using his skew Legion list. His army consisted of Kallus with a Ravagore and a Succubus, along with two max units of Warspears with UA, two minimum units of Warmongers, a maximum pot, a set of Swamp Gobbers and a max unit of Gators. This is a bit of an unusual Legion list but given it's full of pretty meaty infantry and has only lost one game so far it's a pretty safe bet to be honest. If nothing else there's a real psychological edge to seeing quite that many Blighted Ogrun on the other side of the board, I can assure you.

Nick won the roll to go first and so I selected the table edge with the least terrain that would swamp down my pathfinder-light list. We were playing 2014 Outflank in a goodbye to Steamroller 2014 (since the new rules for 2015 had only just come out and neither of us had had much chance to read them over). Nick deployed his force centrally while I put my Daughters, Reckoner and Avatar on one flank with Vanquisher, Vengers, Nicia, Gorman and Kreoss on the other. For both of our first turns the majority of the turn was taken up with running everyone further up the field while getting upkeeps out. Kreoss put Holy Ward on the Daughters, Ignite on the Vengers and Warpath on himself, while Kallus gave one of the Warspears Ignite on the Legion side. 

Moving into the second turn things started to happen for Legion. The Warspears assaulted the Vengers, killing two and hurting a third. The other spears and mongers moved up into the zone while the gators moved up into the other. The warmongers on the other flank charged the Daughters but couldn't meet their boosted DEF 17. The Ravagore moved out of the forest he'd been hiding in and managed (seeing through Gorman's smoke) to get a shot on Kreoss, who was sat on zero focus after dishing out his upkeeps. The shot hit and with a boosted damage roll he managed to put 10 damage on my caster at the top of turn 2 and giving me a sad face. 

On my turn the Vanquisher softened up the Warspears, hurting/setting two on fire and outright killing one. Then the Vengers charged the Spears that had assaulted them, completely destroying two and getting some disappointing damage rolls on the others but putting some hurt on them nonetheless (to be honest I may have forgotten some of my buffs etc. the clock was putting pressure on me and I messed it a little). This activated my Warpath, allowing the Reckoner to side step the obstruction that was between it and the Ravagore. This set the Reckoner up for a charge on the heavy beast, which he promptly did and between the assault shot, the charge attack and buying a second (I'd only allocated 2 to it) I managed to kill the Ravagore in one round, somewhat making up for the offensive shot on the last turn. The Paladin moved into jam the zone, the Daughters joined together to charge the two Warspears in the zone and combined their attacks to kill them. Across the board Nicia charged a Warspear but didn't manage to get the kill to activate her sprint ability to get to safety, even with her second attack. 

On the Legion turn the pot spat out a Harrier who put up it's auto hit animus and flew over to Nicia and bit her head off without any difficulty. The remaining Spears charged the remaining Vengers and polished them off. Two of the members of the other Warspear unit charged Kreoss and managed to reduce him to 4 boxes between their charges and assault shots. The Gators moved up with the last monger in the flank zone and swung at the daughters, but even with the cold blood reroll they only managed to kill one of the girls. The unhurt unit of Warspears and a couple of the gators managed to wreck the Reckoner in retaliation for the fallen Ravagore. Kallus threw his feat up to mitigate some of the damage coming in the next turn. Killing my Vengers had left the zone clear, scoring him the first control point. 

On my turn the Avatar charged the Gators and Warspears, hoping to clear the zone, allowing me to move Kreoss in to Dominate and edge a scenario win. Unfortunately he had only rolled 2 for focus, and failed to kill one of the models, meaning my redemption shot was a bust, but still seriously hurting his jam units. The daughters ran into some gators but didn't have the P&S to crack their ARM, even with combined melee. The Vanquisher moved in to contest the zone and killed one of the two Warspears engaging Kreoss with a shot, hurting the other and setting him on fire. Kreoss then used a ride-by attack to finish off the Warspear and then moved further into the back field, feating to put Holy Ward on himself while camping a full stack. 

On the Legion turn the gators managed to kill most of the unbuffed Daughters, and the mongers put a few points on to the Avatar. Kallus put Ignite on the unit of Spears nearest Kallus and then put up Dark Guidance, using his full stack, and leaving Kallus flapping in the wind in a direct line from the Avatar, throwing all his chips in. The two Incubi that had had spawned from the feat then charged Kreoss but couldn't hit his DEF 16, followed by the last two Warspears, who missed their assault shots. The first Warspear took his first swing, but only took Kreoss down to 1 point. The final Spear cracked his neck, rolled his Blighted shoulders and plunged his spear straight through the Intercessor with a powerful thrust, netting the win for Legion. 

After the game Nick and I had a discussion about the list and I asked his opinions on what I should do moving forward. We agreed that the list needs to be more balanced, especially in a two list format. The list is great for armour but doesn't handle infantry well at all. For my next practice I'm thinking about making some more drastic changes. Starting with swapping out the Avatar for a max unit of Errants with UA to offer a bit more jam and crowd control to the list to make it more balanced, maybe even changing up the merc and solo load out too. I'll probably make another post with some list ideas next week. 

Until then may all your dice roll be 6s. Apart from command checks. And skill checks. And checking continuous effects on your warcaster. And... You know what. Just be lucky. 

-M

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Intercessor Kreoss vs Constance Blaize

As promised I had my first game using Krehorse recently, testing out my first draft list with him at 50 points. I'd chosen quite a heavy list that included a lot of heavy hitters:-

Intercessor Kreoss +5

-Vanquisher -8

-Reckoner -8

Avatar of Menoth -11

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Gorman di Wulfe -2

Max Vengers -11

Daughters of the Flame -5

Dartan Vilmon -3

Paladin -2

The list is very low on models but hits pretty hard, especially on the charge. The daughters are in the list since they're fast enough to keep up and with Holy Ward hit DEF 17 which makes them a surprisingly good jam unit. The Vengers are really cranked up by Kreoss since he grants them Divine Inspiration for free (additional die on all melee attack and damage rolls dropping the lowest). The Avatar is a great melee jack with some of the best focus efficiency and gaze helps to herd the enemy army. The Vanquisher provides a degree of crowd control alongside Gorman (who can also drop smoke near Kreoss early game too). Like in a few of my lists the Paladins are purely to lock up zones and contest flags and generally help me to not lose the game. 

My opponent was playing a list he'd not really used before either, and so we agreed to play untimed to help us get to grips with the ins and outs before playing more competitively. He was fielding Constance Blaize with Gallant, a max unit of Precursor Knights and UA, a max unit of Boomhowlers with Jonas, Aiyana and Holt, a unit of Trencher Commandos, Lord Runewood, Maxwell Finn, a journeyman, squire, Anastasia Di Bray and epic Eiryss. Lots of bodies on the table on his side and most of them with sneaky abilities to overcome armour too. 

We were playing Incursion and I won the roll for the start of the game and decided to take the first turn, sacrificing the better board edge to be able to safely get all of my upkeeps out. This meant I ended up with a large forest right in front of the centre of my deployment zone. On the other side of the board were a couple of walls to provide some shelter for my opponent's army. 

I got my upkeeps out, Holy Ward on the Daughters and Ignite on the Vengers and Warpath on Kreoss. My army advanced quickly across the board to contest the flags. Following this the Cygnar army also moved up, spreading his masses of infantry out to avoid getting hit by AOEs. The flag on the side with the majority of his infantry disappeared. 

In my second turn I moved the Daughters into contest the remaining flank flag. I was lured into charging a couple of Boomhowlers with my Vengers, killing them but exposing myself to retaliation in the following turn. My jacks advanced up and took some pot shots at the enemy to little effect. Avatar moved up and used Gaze to lock a large chuck of the army into moving towards him. 

On the Cygnaran turn Aiyana and Holt, two Precursors and the Boomhowlers made light work of the Vengers. Five other Precursors made a charge into the Avatar (using the Mini feat) but after the first attack doing a couple of boxes I Enliven'd him backwards to avoid taking further damage, and left them clumped together. The Trencher commandos threw point blank grenades at the Daughters to kill enough to force a command check, which they failed. Gallant charged the Avatar and did a reasonable amount of damage, crippling movement and the Shield. Finally Constance threw up her feat to offer some more defence. 

On my turn the Avatar and the Reckoner scrapped Gallant between them while the Vanquisher and Gorman killed three of the Precursors and left two knocked down, corroded and on fire. I chose to use an ancilliary attack to take another shot at the Precursors, killing the standard bearer, and hurting the UA. The following turn the fire finished off the UA and the other two knights. Constance nuked Dartan and the remaining precursors used their magical maces to kill the other paladin. The Boomhowlers charged the Vanquisher but barely hurt it and the commandos finished off the daughters. Anastasia moved on to the field to my side. 

With little shielding Kreoss, who'd been hanging back all game, he ran around the forest that was in front of my deployment zone, getting close to Constance. The Avatar moved up and used Gaze to lock her in place. The Reckoner charged a group of 4 commandos and killed 2, failing the to hit roll on the other two. The Vanquisher had lost cortex last turn and so took out a single Boomhowler of the 5 engaging him. Gorman moved up and stuck black oil on Boomhowler and one of his buddies, also contesting the flag, since the Cygnarans had scored a point last turn. In the following turn Eiryss shot my buffs off Kreoss and he then took a couple of pot shots from the commandos that mostly missed, and the two engaging the Reckoner failed to damage it. Maxwell Finn used his gun to finish off the last few boxes on the Avatar, freeing Constance to run away behind a wall. The Boomhowlers continued to smack at the Vanquisher, taking some more boxes off it. Anastasia then used espionage to make the Boomhowlers, remaining precursors, and commandos able to advance and attack a second time, putting more hurt on the Vanquisher, killing all but one Choirister, and having three commandos put some anatomical precision damage on Kreoss. 

I started my turn by feating, placing Holy Ward on Kreoss, and putting ignite on the Reckoner. I then charged Kreoss into the Junior hoping to get Eiryss in my reach, but had to move over 2 large wreck markers (the Avatar and Gallant) and so didn't quite make the range, but did crush the junior with the charge attack. I then pulled a focus off the wrack to put me at Def 16 ARM 25. The Vanquisher then took a weak swing at a Boomhowler. Cygnar then started the turn by having Eiryss aim and shoot at Kreoss. He came up an 8, but since I had my toe in the Avatar's wreck marker Kreoss was at DEF 20 vs Shooting, and so this missed by 1, leaving my Holy Ward and full stack on Kreoss. The three commandos then charged, using anatomical precision to get a couple of points on my caster, then ran a Precursor into B2B with Kreoss to get the Flank bonus for the charge with Constance Blaize. She charged in and thwacked at the Intercessor with lots of boosting but left him on a single box. Then Anastasia activated, placed espionage out and one of the Commandos connected for an anatomical precision assassination. 

Looking back at the game retrospectively it's clear that there were several issues for me from this game. The first is how bad a match up this game was for my list, which is designed to crack armour and not wipe out infantry swarms. Secondly I made some very simple errors throughout the game, especially over committing the Vengers and losing them early game, as well as forgetting both Dartan's Commander ability that would have saved my Daughters and Kreoss' Imperisable Conviction ability that would have really helped Kreoss survive the last round. 

The other major issue I noticed with the list is that it doesn't have a conveinient method of disposing of enemy solos, and that let Eiryss and Anastasia run roughshod over my caster in the late turns. Considering this I'm thinking of swapping out Dartan and the Paladin for Nicia and an Allegiant, or just swapping Dartan and Nicia at least. 

Hopefully in my next game I'll be more aggressive with Kreoss, less careless with the Vengers and more able to deal with annoyances. I felt that Kreoss himself was very impressive, being able to camp and dish out focus to his jacks made him versatile and survivable, especially late game. I want to try out this build another time to see if it might be worth swapping out a jack for another unit. What I'd ideally like would be to play it against an armour list where it could play the way it wants to. 

Hopefully I'll have that for you next time!

-M

Happy New Year - What's coming up

Hi blogosphere. Mitsuharu on Minis took a bit of an unexpected holiday break over the last few weeks! But no worries I'm happy to tell you I'm back and will be getting deep into the hobby in the coming weeks. I'll be happy to report it as I go. 

My hobby club is starting to run regular Warmachine tournaments, with the next one being in mid February. I'm going to be playing some practice games. Principally with Intercessor Kreoss (since I caved went into cavalry as part of my Christmas this year). I'll be posting my battle reports and thoughts on my lists as I develop them; as well as obviously the tournament itself once it's all done. 

Also come February I'll also be getting a batch of new models for my Legion as well so I'll post some more painting updates then too. 

Look forward to my first battle report using Intercessor Kreoss in a couple of days time!

-M