Battle Report: Captain Shae vs. The Witch Coven of Garlghast

Played a game today at Dark Sphere London vs the mighty Geektoast, running Coven. This was a semi casual game, no timer, as he wanted to try out Coven for the first time. I decided not to bring Lilith3 and be that guy, instead bringing the pirates. On seeing the rest of his list, I decided to drop Shae.

He had:
-Coven
-- Arc Node
-- Deathjack
-- Barathrum

Maxy Satyxis Raiders + UA
Min Bane warriors
Max soulhunters

Skarlock thrall
Siren

You can find my list here: http://countingcroes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/mercenary-two-list-pair.html

I won the deployment roll and elected to go first. Deployment was fairly standard, though I think I put the pirate solos too far to the right as I ended up trying to focus the pirates on the left hand side of the board later. Not much I could have done about this, it's a fairly typical pirate problem. I pushed forward, spread out and expected the worst.

End of Turn 1

 He came forward a lot, the Egregore going front and centre behind the two heavy jacks and a bunch of clouds (objective, veil of mists x2). The banes held back with the witches and their support, the soulhunters and satyxis spread out on the flanks. Scary stuff.

Turn 2 Cloud Fortress

 My turn two I pulled some sweet pirate jank. Shae activates, scoots to the side his full 6" (I had to go around the Bosun as seen in picture one) and feats. Everybody comes forward, including crucially, Eiryss. Pirates activate and press forward, killing two Soulhunters, and one runs to engage Barathrum (prevents his countercharge), and one stands 1.5 inches in front of the Deathjack in the cloud. The Commodore gets a bead on the unfortunate pirate and slams him into the Deathjack like a large, meaty beanbag. This let Eiryss get exactly 5" from the Egregore and tag it with a disruption bolt. Goodnight floaty metal eye monster! I then craft a thrall rune for an extra charge, which chunks some damage off the witches, and then the mariner aims, hits the thrall in the back and boosts the blast on Egregore. The witches are left with about 8 hit points between them.

Cryx 2 becomes damage control, attempting to remove as many pirates as possible without any focus. The two heavy jacks get a lot of work done, and because I'd thrown the pirates really far forward I had to advance the support solos right up, the second picture up there is at the end of my turn 2. He removes a large amount of my support points and jams me up fairly heavily, revenge killing Eiryss and scoring 1 CP for controlling the central zone.

He feats and trusts his safety to everything being ~8" or more away from the Egregore, which is about 1" back from the zone, behind a cloud. Unfortunately, it's exactly 10" away from the Freebooter that's halfway up the board in picture 2.

I try to throw Barathrum (with the other Freebooter) to free up the Booter with distance on the Egregore but miss because of the feat, so I suck it up and tank the free strike, luckily not loosing any systems. Coup de Main and Jury Rig gives him a cool 9" advance and he's got 3 focus on him. One boost to hit and one boost to damage is all I need however, since I spike the roll and do 10 damage and he had no chance to replenish focus.

Freebooter destroys proxy base Egregore

Very enjoyable game, with a very fun opponent. Both of us learned some lessons, and another unlucky player is caught by janky pirate plays. Do your bit to prevent this happening on a game table near you by spreading this blog to everyone you know, for their own good.

Mercenary Two List Pair

My other faction being mercenaries, I thought it would be good to run through my two list pair. However, I must preface this by saying I am aware these lists are not optimal, they are in a theme that I stick to when it suits me, sort of. Privateers!

http://conflictchamber.com/#b61b8b9v8i8j8j8kca8m8o9w8N8O8Q3W8R9u8S

Mercenary Army - 75 / 75 points

(Shae 1) Captain Phinneus Shae [+28]
 - Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker [4]
 - Buccaneer [6]
 - Freebooter [9]
 - Freebooter [9]
 - Mariner [14]
The Commodore Cannon & Crew [7]
Sea Dog Pirates (max) [13]
 - Mr. Walls, the Quartermaster [4]
Alexia, Mistress of the Witchfire [7]
Bloody Bradigan [3]
Bosun Grogspar [4]
Doc Killingsworth [4]
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios [7]
First Mate Hawk [4]
Ragman [4]
Lord Rockbottom [4]

Captain Shae, king of the pirates, with the crew of his ship. And Sylys, because Shae is incredibly focus starved, but we won't worry about that.

The idea of the list was to run Shae, the Sea Dogs with all their solos, and the Commodore. Shae gifts them with incredible speed and has some personal melee game, this list screams into zones and contests points. It then promptly dies, but whatever, I looked good losing.

Better pictures would be great right? You guys deserve better. Oh well.

So with an entire pirate boat, I figured I'd go whole hog and try to make them useful. Ragman and Alexia help them hit harder and recycle them respectively. 90% of wins with this list have involved throwing something with a freebooter at an enemy warcaster (or running a pirate right in front of them, and slamming it in the back with the Commodore...) and charging three Thrall Warriors at it from an odd angle.

The warjacks themselves benefit a TON from Coup De Main and become pretty efficient. The Mariner is growing on me a lot, the cannon is easy enough to manage (it's usually Sylys loading it for me, I rarely need his arcane secrets because I think I've cast Blow the Man Down like, never).

List 2

http://conflictchamber.com/#b61b8gc59vca8m8o8P8Q8O8S7ydHbF

Mercenary Army - 75 / 75 points

(Fiona 1) Fiona the Black [+31]

 - Galleon [39]

 - Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker [4]

The Commodore Cannon & Crew [7]

Sea Dog Pirates (max) [13]

 - Mr. Walls, the Quartermaster [4]

Dirty Meg [3]

Doc Killingsworth [4]

Bosun Grogspar [4]

Lord Rockbottom [4]

Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [5]

Gobber Tinker [2]

Wrong Eye [17]

 - Snapjaw

I spent all that time painting damn Sea Dogs, I'm going to use them. Bare minimum to let them be difficult to shift from a zone, with added Wrong Eye and Snapjaw (def13 starcrossed becomes just the right side of hard to hit for mat6 trampling warjacks).

Galleon and his entourage of repair bots/spell vortexes goes up front and centre, dropping aoes, dragging things in and doing as he does. Affliction and Nonokiron brand help him land hits and see through things, but the brand usually sits on the Commodore all game for me because it turns it from pretty hot to super spicy. Snapjaw is a great Telgesh Mark holder, as he's usually submerged and always pushing forwards (plus he's a decent heavy that sucks none of your short focus). Roth's mercy is perfectly stupid on 4+ tough, immune to knockdown pirates in a zone.

Fiona herself has a reasonable ranged game with arced Soulfires, but generally this list all about applying exact force in exact places. It's very fun to play and not awfully bad, just sort of.

That's it for a high level summary, expect more in depth posts about the individual lists, their warcasters and components. Plus battle reports and maybe even pictures if I'm particularly benevolent. Yaarrr!

Vayl2 in MK3

As a first post, I'll be discussing how my favourite MK2 warlock fared in the transition to MK3.

Basic changes:
+ Chasten - single target upkeep purge
+ Deadly Storm - Fury3, Pow13, AoE 3 replacement for Obliteration

- Lost Machinations of Shadow theme force
- Refuge
- Obliteration
- Purification

On paper, it looks like Vayl lost a lot, and she certainly lost what made her most interesting to me in MK2; Refuge. The faction as a whole also changes drastically, and the landscape of the whole game is also very different, so these changes cannot be considered in a vacuum.

Lets cover a few of the major in faction winners and how Vayl can still make them shine:

Hellmouth
The current poster child for why Legion can't have nice things, this is a great control piece. Vayl loves control pieces, but ones that can spawn a free, far up the field, impossible to kill with the oraculus arc node target? Please. Plus dragging in enemy heavies is almost as good as having refuge back. Almost. It's a neat occultation target as well.

Swordsmen
In my opinion, these guys are one of the better light infantry melee units in the game, and certainly the best available in faction. Vayl can give them occultation to help deliver them, debuff defence and purge enemy upkeeps for them. Not bad.

Carnivean Chassis (And Character Beasts)
Offers similar benefits to these guys, with the addition of Admonition and Boundless Charge. Extra speed and pathfinder on Typhon is straight cash, especially with an icy grip on a juicy clumped up spray.

Archangel
It's decent now, boundless charge makes it scream across the table, and it's a big base to hide behind and arc spells through (you can also see it to shoot it regardless of any 14" forests that might be on your table....)

Raptors, Anyssa
Still great, still better with Occultation, still great for a ranged assassination.

Nephelim Bolt Thrower
Almost an auto include for the animus, extending how far away from your arc node you can be. Also pretty decent in and of itself.


Sample Lists
http://conflictchamber.com/#ba1bbtbfbvaOaRaYfTbqbdbd

Legion Army - 69 / 75 points

!!! Your army must contain at least 98 total points.

(Vayl 2) Vayl, Consul of Everblight [+28]
 - Nephilim Bolt Thrower [11]
 - Naga Nightlurker [8]
 - Seraph [14]
 - Typhon [24]
Blighted Nyss Raptors (max) [18]
Hellmouth [6]
Annyssa Ryvaal [8]
Strider Deathstalker [4]

Strider Deathstalker [4]

This has a few leftover points to play with, a second hellmouth can round it out, or some spell martyrs, fury support, minions, whatever you fancy. This list is all about the huge threat ranges, with a very strong ranged/spell assassination, and all the tools needed to play a more attrition based game.

http://conflictchamber.com/#ba1bbtcqbfaOfTa_b0fUbdbdbb

Legion Army - 75 / 75 points

!!! Your army contains a pre-release entry.

(Vayl 2) Vayl, Consul of Everblight [+28]

 - Archangel [37]

 - Nephilim Bolt Thrower [11]

 - Seraph [14]

Hellmouth [6]

Blighted Nyss Swordsmen (max) [15]

 - Blighted Nyss Swordsman Abbot & Champion [6]

Blighted Nyss Warlord [5]

Strider Deathstalker [4]

Strider Deathstalker [4]

Blighted Nyss Shepherd [1]

Who else can't wait for the Warlord? Vayl2 can't! This list hits hard and hits fast in melee, the seraph could be swapped out but I do love the threat of arcing a spell or 6 through a model 22" away....

Let me know in comments what you think of Vayl2 in MK3, and how you're playing her. She's not quite trash yet, and who knows, maybe one day we'll see Vayl3?