Dojo - Something Old, Something New.

Alright, so I have some dojo I would like to talk about, and it encompasses a few warcasters I've been looking at. I'm super happy with Coven, and I'd like to keep tweaking away at their list until I'm super happy with it. I'd also like to have a look at some lists for Venethrax, who I managed to grab at the Scottish Masters raffle.

So, first up the Coven. Here's the list I've been playing (read: proxying / playing on Vassal) for a while:

The Witch Coven of Garlghast +26
-The Withershadow Combine 9
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
-Deathripper 6
-Deathripper 6
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
Aikos 4
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
Ragman 4
Machine Wraith 2
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I really like this list, it's 20pts different to the list I took to the Scottish Masters (due to lack of Stalkers >:) where I played Soulhunters instead. The issues I have with this list (and my SM one) is the lack of hitting power, enter Poland. Konrad Sosnowski played a very interesting Coven list at the WTC this year:

Witch Coven [Fuel Cache]

Witch Coven

Barathrum

Seether

Seether

Deathripper

Deathripper

Cankerworm

Soulhunters (max)

Blackbane's Ghost Raiders (max)

Machine Wraith

Machine Wraith

Alright, so what have we here. To start with, it has Fuel Cache which is an objective I found of limited use with the Coven, because by and large if a model can ignore Stealth then it can also see through a cloud. Otherwise he has Barathrum (a generally considered strong model) and 2 Seethers (generally considered rubbish because 12/17) as his Battlegroup. Now, it was often said in mk2 that if you wanted to play Seethers you should play them with the Coven or with Goreshade1 because they are the only casters in Cryx that can deliver them, and I imagine this is still true. Also, Counter Charge seems incredibly valuable considering the Coven's suite of abilities (particularly their Feat & Veil of Mists) so I don't hate it. Otherwise we have Cankerworm, who is fine, Soulhunters who are also fine and then Blackbane's which are a little controversial in that they're either really good or really bad, such is Incorporeal. Now, I think that the Soulhunters & Blackbane's could easily be Satyxis if need be, I imagine which unit is better out of these 3 options (and I think Rev Crew also deserve consideration for this position) will probably differ depending on matchup. It is my opinion that Blackbane's are too much of a liability because of what they do in games against Caine2, and I'd be very interested to hear Konrad's take on this but at present all I can do is speculate. I also think having heavies is something of a liability against Haley2 because Domination & Telekinesis are stupid, and Thorn's bond allows him to get around the Coven Feat & Counter Charge Conundrum. Still, a cool list that I'm going to test and perhaps try and incorporate elements of.

Now for something new: Venethrax. This is a caster I hated on principle for what he did to my poor Mortenebra, but since I got his model I've been putting some thought into him. He has Eruption of Ash, which is a rule Fraser Mc taught me to really respect on pThagrosh, and he has a pretty phenomenal spell list in Terminal Velocity, Mortality, Lamentation & Deadweight AND he has Field Marshal: Counter Charge. His feat is a little mopey, but hey, we can't have it all. In fact, I think Mortality, Deadweight and Blood Rain perhaps makes him the best caster for Spell Slave models in Cryx as those are three phenomenally strong spells. So, I spent some time trying to build a Venethrax list that abused cloud walls using Gunslingers because well, Counter Charge & cloud walls seem legit, but I couldn't find a way that really gelled. So instead I have a pair of lists that I think are pretty strong.

Lich Lord Venethrax +26
-The Withershadow Combine 9
-Deathjack 23
-Desecrator 14

-Desecrator 14

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

Darragh Wrathe 9

Bane Lord Tartarus 8

Warwitch Siren 4

Warwitch Siren 4

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This one is fairly simple. It has a strong control game with Deadweight being able to be cast multiple times a turn (and Seduction scores bonus points for setting it up) on top of decent infantry clearing from multiple castings of Blood Rain and Scathers from Desecrators combined with Eruption of Ash mean there's serious potential to wall off infantry. Sweet list, looking forward to trying it. The other one is a fair bit sillier.

Lich Lord Venethrax +26

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

-Stalker 8

-Deathripper 6

Warwitch Siren 4

Machine Wraith 2

Wrongeye and Snapjaw 17

75

Yep. Stealth is obnoxious with Counter Charge and this list still has the setup for Deadweight. Idea is to slaughter everything that's not a heavy with Stalkers whilst controlling the damage heavies can cause with Deadweight and the Feat. Sillier, but I'm not convinced it's terrible. 

Scottish Masters - Coven vs Rask

Alright. Back again. The finals, no pressure. Playing against Fraser McFetridge, which was the Scottish Masters 2014 final where I took down his pVayl with Doomy1, I was hoping to repeat the feat. He had his broken new power faction, minions, his list was:

Rask
-Wrastler
-Wrastler
Gatorman Bokor and Swamp Shamblers
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Dahlia & Skaryth
Wrongeye & Snapjaw
Rorsh & Brine
Orin Midwinter
Lanyssa Ryssyl

I critically won the roll for first turn, and opted to take 2nd. Jk mk3, took first.

Turn one I did the thing. It should be noted we played the cloud on the table as permanent. I ran up, IM on the left hand Stalker cause it was near Dahlia, Occultation on the 'Hunters, VoM to extend the cloud in the middle. I overextended some Soulhunters here, woops.

Fraser sends in the big pig (which is what I wanted) but also kills a Soulhunter with the snake's spray. Big pig has Fury on him alongside Boundless so charges in and kills 2 Soulhunters. Rask feated. Otherwise stuff shimmied and the Lesser Warlocks all ran away from Stalkers, so they huddled in the centre. Orin zapped Brine and did some damage to a soulhunter, my node and killed a Raider.

So, time to counterfeat. Obviously I can't get too much back because of Rask's feat, so we keep it simple. I have Ragman walk up near Brine and Death Field. 2 Soulhunters charge in and deal a tonne of damage, taking out his Mind & Spirit before light cavving back to get in front of where my egg is going (to soak throws). Otherwise it sure was Rask's feat turn, so most of my stuff just ran to abuse my feat, I jammed in his heavies pretty hard (too hard, probably gave away too many Raiders) with my left unit of Satyxis, and the right hand unit finished off Brine and set up to be wave 2. Stalkers shimmied to threaten. The proxy bases on the right hand side are where the ball is going to end up to not killbox my witches in the following turn (except the witch on the right, she's on her proxy base, just wouldn't stand cause of terrain). I also excellently didn't put either of my Machine Wraiths on the flags, which would have forced Fraser to contest. I'm so good at Warmans.

Remember how I said I gave up too much stuff? Woops. Well, Fraser gets a pretty sweet turn here and kills pretty much everything I sent into the grinder, with the lessers huddling even closer into the middle for shelter from the Stalkers. The gobbers go up and pop down a cloud. But this is the Coven's feat turn, so much like last turn, not hellish much happens. Orin managed to kill 2 Satyxis & my Machine Wraith on the left with a Chain Lightning.

Alright, the egg goes back home, 3 focus goes to the IM stalker because Dahlia is absolutely for it. I run a node around, have the WSC put Ghostly up into some Satyxis and Puppet Master into my Witch. I pop a Shambler that's in the way with a Stygian, and put a Stygian into Dahlia, forcing a transfer but not blinding her sadly. Then the IM stalker jumps onto her and eats her. Nom. Ragman walked into my Veil and put up Death Field, before having a bunch of guys charge through him to put some damage into the left Wrastler and killing Snapjaw (Satyxis & Soulhunters together did it). The right unit of Satyxis killed the gobbers and consolidated their position. The Stalker on the right flank jumped behind Lanyssa & also a handy rock, killed her and claimed the rock for himself. My Machine Wraith finally got on the flag.

So, with Fraser super boxed in here and bleeding heavies he really needed some dice to make something happen.  Thankfully, Orin Midwinter had his back. Orin hits a 7 to hit the engaged Wrastler in the back, rolls 3 bounces, kill all 3 Satyxis jamming the wrastler, one of which was the UA without boosts (cause they were all gone). Wellp, that's bad. Wrastler walks up and lobs a Soulhunter at another Soulhunter, killing both & Ragman. Also, a tonne of Shamblers came out this turn and started mopping up my frontlines. Wrongeye and some Shamblers managed to mostly cripple a Stalker, which died to a shot from Rask's gun. Rask opted to camp 4. The other Wrastler had to trample to contest. With my second wave and armour debuff decimated by that play with the Wrastler I was in big trouble. Fortunately, Fraser had had to max out the Wrastler's fury to get it there, so he only had one transfer target. I have to apologise here for the lack of photos, but I was getting nervous at this point, I felt like the game was slipping away from me because of recursion and the fact that if you take a list full of Minion models you basically end up with about 15pts more stuff than the other guy.

So, at the start of my turn I decided I had to kill Rask. So I sat in the tank for a couple of minutes to work out how. Eventually I came up with a run, and I proxy based EVERYTHING. It wasn't super complicated, but I wanted to make sure I got everything in the right order. I gave 2 to both my Stalker & the Deathripper Rask was nearby. It started with me running a node way out to the right hand side to get within 6" of my Stalker, but outwith 6" of the trampling Wrastler which had Admonition on it. I had a Witch put Ghost Walk on that Stalker and also put Curse of Shadows through my node onto Rask. I had my Combine walk up and put Ghost Walk on my unit of Satyxis Raiders, and Puppet Master on the node near rask (it was in the Veil cloud). My node activated and walked through Rask into his back arc and boosted a headbutt at him, knocking him down but dealing no damage. I bought an attack, rolled crap, rerolled and did 6 damage, he transferred (3 to go).

Then, I had my Satyxis Raiders get a run/charge order on the Admo'd Wrastler which was his only Transfer target. First one charged Rask, not triggering Admo. Second one ran to engage Rask for gang. The third charged the Wrastler in a postion that it wouldn't be able to Admonition if another charged it, so he Admo'd to deny a charge. I believe I got 3 into it after the Admo move, but without Ragman I wasn't able to do a really huge amount of damage, but I did pretty well. I also charged it in the back with a Machine Wraith, who sadly missed. Alright, gig time.

Rask has enough transfers that that I was going to have to kill him through the Wrastler, seeing as he has 3 transfers to my stalker's 4 attacks. He had I believe somewhere in the region of 20-25 boxes as the stalker came in. By the time my first two initials were gone he had 12 boxes left. I've got 2 dice minus ones. First damage roll was a 10. Needed a 4 on two dice. WTC Round 5 all over again. Not like this. Rolled a 9. Not a problem. Whew.

And with that I won the Scottish Masters for the second time. For what it's worth, I think I made more mistakes than Fraser this game, but it was still incredibly close. Even if Rask hadn't died here, Fraser is very far up, but I still have options and would be sitting on 2 CPs playing with what I had left (not much) against a Wrastler and a Bokor. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't look good, but I think I could have made something of it. Certainly with the Coven's lategame secret weapon, contesting with a super camping Egregore. Camping 9 it's basically 69 boxes of 13/17 you have to go through, which is absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, good job Fraser on once again making me work like a dog for the trophy, and congratulations on a well deserved second place.

Also mandatory hardware pics:

I'll post up some thoughts about the tournament and Cryx and the like once I've had more time to decompress. I've been writing reports for hours now, but I hope you guys enjoyed them. Cheers. (:

Scottish Masters - Skarre1 vs Wurmwood

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

This is the one metagolem I was really wanting to dodge. I don't think it's a horribly bad match for Cryx, in terms of what exists in the meta he's certainly not the worst but considering my 2 list pairing and the fact that I'm seriously looking like I'll get locked into Skarre in the final I think I have to play my list with a Kraken vs Wurmwood. God dammit. To make matters worse I'm playing a caster I haven't played in Mk3, hated in Mk2 and it's against my fellow WTC teammate Michael Dick. God. Dammit.

Also, this game went late. I eventually stopped taking photos because I was entirely focussed on the game. My opponent's list:

Wurmwood
-Pureblood
-Feral
-Stalker
Sentry Stone & Manikins *2
6 Wolves of Orboros
Gatorman Bokur & Shamblers
Shifting Stones
Wrongeye & Snapjaw

Seeing as this is my first (and probably only) game on this blog with Skarre, I'll repost the list:

pSkarre +28
-The Withershadow Combine 9
-Kraken 36
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
Darragh Wrathe 9
Orin Midwinter 5
Ragman 4
Scrap Thralls 2
75

I won the first turn roll, thank god. I took first. The Scenario was Recon (which is my favourite scenario, dear readers). Deployment looked like so:

Turn one I ran, sacced some stuff. Rolled a 5. Force barrier went up. Yadda yadda. Skarre stuff. Was mindful not to give away super mega god tier aim sprays for Mannikins.

So Mike makes some Mannikins and sprays some Satyxis, he pops Wurmwood into the cloud his objective makes with his stones, kills some more Satyxis, goes for an Errant Stranglehold on the Kraken which I let through and he raises an eyebrow and realises I'm not going to let him burn my Power Tokens for free, so he doesn't boost damage (to manage his Fury better). Then he goes for a CoS, which I actually care about and stop. He ports back to the tree. Otherwise his list runs up pretty aggressively and feats.

Well. There's a bunch of stuff that I'd like to kill but sadly  Wurmwood feat. We shuffle, RitSac, Kraken gets in the zone, Mortal Fear goes up. Orin is behind the Kraken still, Skarre moves to a hill and starts going towards the flag on the right hand side. Satyxis continue their sadly short lives in a generally forward but also in a projecting-lots-of -reach-in-front-of-my-Kraken-to-annoy-Cassius-y fashion. Mike generally just keeps sandpapering here, doesn't commit and I take my medicine.

More whittling. Mike once again doesn't commit, but he did put Stranglehold up on the Kraken (rolling 17 for damage, which sets a trend for his damage on the Kraken by the way) after clearing out some (but crucially, not enough) Satyxis. Thankfully my plan worked, I figured if he wanted the hold plan he couldn't get the all the raiders due to lack of Hellmouth and I was right. He put a Growth in front of Wurmwood to screen him now and in future turns. Thankfully, this left Satyxis able to charge heavies and with Skarre that means dead heavies. Oh, he was offering Snapjaw up as bait so he charged him in, but maxed him out on Fury which was a huge opportunity for me. With the feat gone this is where the game actually started, by the way.

It was go time. I spent a lot of my clock working out the correct order of activations for this turn, and it was a pretty intricate puzzle. Basically the situation was he had 3 Manikins screening a Feral from the Satyxis unit that had to activate first (metal ones in the picture), he also had a Shambler in the way. If I could clear out one Manikin and that Shambler I could get 2 Satyxis into the Feral and one into Wrongeye (who had no transfer target). Thing is the Manikins were blocking my 2nd unit of Satyxis (behind the Kraken mostly in the above photo) so the Sentry stone had to die. Thankfully Mike had opted to boost lots of hit rolls so didn't have prowl on it, meaning my Kraken could shoot at it with the big gun, and if necessary one Satyxis could hit it with a pow 16 whip or 15 horns. So, the plan went something along the lines of: Skarre advances, casts Dark Guidance, feats on herself, the relevant Satyxis, including some insurance Satyxis to charge and kill Snapjaw if I don't kill Wrongeye, her Kraken and Darragh. She Sac Strikes a Raider to kill the blocking shambler. WSC go, Rit Sac & put a Puppet Master on the Kraken. Kraken rolls okay on the Sentry after a reroll, leaving it on 2 boxes. Metal Raiders charge, 2 on the Feral, one into Wrongeye, one runs for Gang on Wrongeye (this stage took a lot of lasers & proxy basing, lanes were tight). Wrongeye explodes to the Satyxis' whip. The Feral takes fairly mopey damage. Next unit of Satyxis charges the Feral, blows it up and manage to deal 6 to the objective. Darragh walks to within 9" of Wurmwood behind a wall and says bite me. I pass turn feeling like that should set me in good stead.

Now we're both getting low on time, so photos are a bit sketchier. What happened since the previous photo is that Mike ported a Stalker into the big clump of Satyxis and berserked a lot of them down. Hellmouths came out (at pow 10, hah) and killed some more, it also managed to nab Ragman. The Bokur came in and with his Shamblers did a horrible job of killing Satyxis. Darragh was his immortal self. So basically, Mike killed the models I sent into the Feral, Sentry Stone & Objective, and a couple more with a Hellmouth. No hold on the Arm 26 Kraken, funnily enough, nor could he CoS it because of Orin (and not having Fury spare). So, seeking to really put the pressure onto Mike I decided to not commit with the Kraken and give him the option to roll dice for an out, and instead didn't commit my Kraken. I had my WSC go. Poor Admonia got sacrificed for Skarre, Puppet Master went up on the big guy. The Kraken shot the objective off the table and did some damage to the Bokur, who was finished by Satyxis. Orin ran to protect Skarre because I felt like at this point Mike would be looking for the assassination out, rather than seeking to win by attrition or scenario. Darragh just put up Mortal Fear and stood in a place to make it really hard for the Stalker to get at my Kraken, even with CoS and Hellmouth. I scored 3 CPs because of Skarre on her flag. Oh, I think I healed for a tonne this turn too, because I had 12 focus. I think I was at 14hp by this point.

Alright, a lot happened before this end game photo. Lets see what I remember. Mike had a turn trying to get the Stalker to the Kraken with CoS. He had to clear Darragh and I believe 3 Satyxis Raiders, contest my flag and kill a Satyxis UA.  He ported his stones (because I pointed out that it was the only model which could contest Skarre's flag, and this is a good time to point out that Mike and I had a super friendly, open game, and I remember at that point thinking that the Scottish Warmachine meta is something I was pretty proud to be a part of, because sportsmanship is really good up here, anyway...) to contest and also set up a Hellmouth. His Pureblood charged into Darragh and managed to dismount him. I fucked up and left Darragh a couple mm out of engaging Cassius, who could now run for free to my Kraken and land a CoS. A (pow 10, hah) Hellmouth came down on the stone in the middle of the Satyxis & Darragh and managed to hurt but not kill Darragh but Mike did get the dice he needed to kill the Satyxis UA unboosted, he also very narrowly avoided pulling his stalker into such a place he couldn't charge, which didn't matter anyway cause Darragh lived. So, with Darragh alive the Stalker had to trample, which it did, missing Darragh and then bought 3 attacks on the Kraken, rolling absolute fire and dealing a shitload of damage with only 3 hits. The poor guy was not feeling good at this point. I think I was on something like 29 boxes? Also, incredibly, his Sentry Stone which had 0 fury at the start of its activation did 13 fucking points of damage to my objective in 3 boosted sprays. Eeeeeeeek. So, with that incredible run of hot dice Mike passed turn.

So, at this point we had something of a crowd watching as the other semifinal was over and the pressure was really on. I like to think that one of my strongest suits in Warmachine is the lategame puzzle, and I intended to make it out of this the victor! I had my WSC walk up to my Kraken, put up Puppet Master and then have Maelovus sacrifice Tremulus and hide behind the cloud from my objective. Orin moved to be out of range of the Mannikins because well, I didn't want Skarre to die at this final hour. She cast Dark Guidance and the Kraken walked up and murdered the contesting shifting stone, killed his Stalker, kill shot the other stone that could contest and killed that too. At this point it's really make or break for Mike. I passed my turn, going to 4 CPs.

Mike has a plan. His Pureblood kills my Kraken, Cassius can then run to a position to both contest and stranglehold my objective to death. First thing's first, the Sentry Stone has its little dudebros murder Darragh and put some damage into the Kraken. The Pureblood then charges in, and I have a crowd of people watching me mark damage on my Colossal. He takes out the entire damaged right side with his initials and the bought attacks are pouring in to its left. The PB is rolling at dice -1 with CoS, and it comes down to me having 7 boxes left and it being on 3 fury. He rolls his damage for his last swing and gets the 1,1. Internally I'm thinking "Christ, finally, it's about time you rolled less than a 7 on that thing", but I had to keep my gameface on, cause I'm still not sure I've lost. Some fast measuring from Mike confirms that he can no longer contest, kill the Kraken and Stranglehold down the objective, so Cassius charges my Kraken, kills it and Wurmwood Strangleholds the objective to death, killing it and as the turn ends with both of us <10 minutes (I think Mike under 5) I go to 5-3.

OH. MY. GOD.

Jesus Christ. I could write up a post game tactical analysis here, but all I can say is that you shouldn't drop colossals vs Wurmwood, and also pSkarre is a caster for chumps and I still hate playing her. I would much much rather have had another drop here, and the Kraken felt like an enormous liability too. I wish I had had the models to run pSkarre with 5 Stalkers like I wanted to, but sadly couldn't get Stalkers for the event. I feel like that would have been a much, much stronger Wurmwood drop.

Anyway, incredibly good game to Mike. Hats off for this absolute nailbiter of a game, and as I previously mentioned, I had great fun the entire time, despite 2 shit casters being on the field. Really does make me proud to be part of Team Scotland. <3 Also makes me happy that games between my teammates are so close.

Scottish Masters - Coven vs Axis

So, for round three I get drawn against a Convergence player, as it would happen. And he's playing my ETC lists! So, I have a pretty good handle on how this is gonna go, and I know it's going to be hard for me. My list struggles with hitting power at the best of times and Axis was absolutely going to exacerbate the issue. My opponent had:

Axis
-Inverter*2
-Corollary
Clockwork Angels*3
Optifex Directive
Steelsoul Protector*3
Transfinite Emergence Projector*2

The scenario was.... I think it's called Take & Hold now? Close Quarters. I lost the roll for first and was given second, which I knew was a big deal.

And here is where my phone ran out of battery. Thankfully Andrew was a star and let me use his to take photos. So this is at the end of my first turn, where I ran a bunch of stuff and elected not to put out upkeeps in favour of casting Stygians at the TEP until it was blind. I also zapped two angels to death because I got the blind on the first roll. This game I was planning on playing without a Warcaster if I could make Andrew play without Battle Engines.

So in Andrew's turn he couldn't really do much else other than shimmy, with the right hand TEP blind, and the other one in range of nothing he mostly just moved up cautiously, cast a Razor Wall to make getting onto the TEP awkward and put 2 Angels into my Stalker. One Angel hit its 9, but thankfully crippled nothing (I was prepared to lose Cortex, as I am whenever anything hits a Stalker). Otherwise, tactical shuffling ensued.

Alright, time to start making moves. Something important had to happen first though. Strings went on a witch, and I blinded the right hand battle Engine on the first Stygian by using a reroll. Then I put Curse of Shadows on the right Engine and charged into it with a Stalker, a Deathripper and some Satyxis, which took it down. I ran a Soulhunter through a building in the middle of the table to engage a bunch of Axis' battlegroup to stop Counter Charges, and I think one Soulhunter might have eaten a Steelsoul, but some definitely killed some Angels. My Satyxis on the right mopped up the TEP and put small damage into the Inverter while the Satyxis on the right killed some more Angels and otherwise shimmied. I feated this turn to try and preserve my forces. I also put Ragman in a horrible place.

If you can see it you'll know why. This turn Axis counterfeated, otherwise mostly shuffled but the Inverter on the right hand side (which had Iron Aggression) trampled and killed like 5 Satyxis and Ragman with a combination of tramples and bought attacks. Easily preventable by putting a Soulhunter in the way and a silly mistake by me, because Ragman was going to be very necessary for the remainder of this game.

Argh, stupid stupid stupid. Now because I didn't box that Inverter in with large bases I had an Inverter crazy near my caster, most of my stuff was -2STR and I had no Ragman to help out. I also had a TEP that was threatening my caster and basically I absolutely loathe playing the Coven in Killbox. I went into the tank this turn, honestly. I knew I needed to push a lot of damage into the Inverter on the right, and I definitely needed to do something about the TEP. The problem was doing both. I could rely on the slightly better than 50% to blind with a reroll, but I didn't love that plan. So instead I decided to try and do both as well as I could, the plan was to cripple the Inverter to the point that it wasn't a threat to my Coven, and put enough into the TEP to kill it or to completely deny it movement due to weight of bodies. Well, basically I got saved by dice this turn because everything came up Cryxshanks. I managed to break the Induction node of the Inverter (so it could trample but not buy attacks) with some Raiders, a Deathripper and a Stalker under CoS, then hotswapping CoS into the TEP I managed to kill it with a combination of charging and non charging Raiders, some Dark Fires, some sSoulhunters and honestly more good fortune than anything else. I think that had it lived though it wouldn't have been able to push through the scrum, but it would have damn near wiped everything near it from existence. Oh, and a Stalker killed a Steelsoul.

So at this point Andrew's in real trouble. There's Cryx everywhere and not much to kill it with, so he honourably sends in Axis, who kills some nerds of mine.

And I respond by showing him who's boss!

Well, this was really close, and really hard. I think Stygian Abyss is an excellent tool against this list, but it's not reliable and stressful as hell to plan around. If a few key dice rolls hadn't gone my way this game would have been blown wide open, getting the TEP when I got it was huge, and I'm still kicking myself for letting that Inverter get so close to the Coven, just because it was so easily preventable. I also think I could have done a lot more to not let Axis feat on my entire list, but I'm still new to Cryx and it's one thing to know Axis vs Cryx from the Convergence side, now I need to learn how to beat him from the Cryx point of view. I really think a second list with some more armour breaking capability would be helpful though, if I had one complaint about my Coven list it's that sometimes it just hits like a wet noodle.

In any case, I was 3-0 now and into day 2, and as you read in my update yesterday night, preparing for Wurmwood. D:

Scottish Masters - Coven vs Amon

So my 2nd round is against a guy who I haven't played against before, but I've been told is quite good. He goes by the name of Lewis Watson, and he plays PoM. He had High Reclaimer and Amon, so I was settling down to play Coven vs HR, and he elected to drop Amon, which I thought was very odd. The scenario was outflank, which may have had something to do with it, I'm not sure, but Amon didn't seem very strong there to me either. In any case, I dropped Coven.

Amon
-Templar
-Crusader
-Reckoner
-Dervish*5
-Devout
-Choir*2
-Vassal*2
-Hierophant
-Wrack

I won the roll to go first (I'm so good at this) and took it because I'm playing the Coven. Deployment looked like so:

 So turn one is fairly standard. Occultation & ghostly on the hunters, IM on the right hand stalker. A VoM for the lulz. One thing I will note that I think is pretty important to do with Coven, especially if you get first, is try and get your egg up the table. If you don't have much to cast you can have your Egg & 2 more witches run, and have what was the frontmost witch become the backmost witch, it nets you a couple of inches more freedom on your feat turn, and can be a huge save in Killboxes. I end up doing something kind of weird here to get a VoM attached to the cloud already on the table (need to run the egg for range), but I create a triangle I can easily close at the start of my next turn. Anyway, because Amon's threat is so low and his only gun doesn't ignore Stealth I can go crazy here and stand basically wherever I like. So I do. I do think vs lists like this I should be way more aggressive with my Machine Wraiths though, putting them on the front lines etc.

Lewis asks about my threat ranges and ponders this matchup some. He spends rather a large amount of time wondering what he can do, because to go into the clouds is basically suicide, So he opts to build fort Amon just outside my right hand zone, protecting Amon from all my Veil/Ghostly/Leap BS with walls of metal I can't end my movement on top of. Still, a very cagey move that I could definitely punish.

So, because Lewis moved up so cagily here I decide I can just feat and set up to absolutely murder whatever comes into either zone. I position my Machine Wraiths so that they can threaten whatever comes in, and otherwise just pussyfoot with most of my force. The witches zap a vassal to death and 2 choir with Stygians, because Amon has 0 threat on the egg. At this point I'm feeling incredibly comfortable. I also put a witch in a zone to really punish not contesting.

So, Amon decides to shuffle over to another zone, and only contest with a Dervish in each because he was too afraid to take an alpha from my list. The Reckoner was the only model that could easily attack my node during the fort Amon relocation project (because hey, Coven feat is good), and sadly it missed twice.

So, I didn't want to commit the left hand Machine Wraith just in case it gave Amon some crazy out in scenario, but the right one was in no danger. I put Curse of Shadows on the Dervish in the left hand zone and blinded it with a Stygian dealing considerably damage. Then the WSC put Puppet Master onto my Machine Wraith in the right hand zone and 2 Dark Fires into the Dervish, causing some damage. My 2 Satyxis units shimmied about and I popped 2 Hand Cannons into the Dervish on the left from the UAs. Finally, Ragman stepped up and finished it off with a Dark Fire. On the right, my Machine Wraith walked the Dervish out from its little nook (after casually strolling into its back arc) and then it got mulched by Soul Hunters who Repositioned back into total safety. I went to 3 CPs.

From this position Lewis conceded. I said as much during the game that I thought this matchup was horrible for him, and after playing it he agreed. It makes the Coven feel like Haley2 with their ability to just hit you so brutally hard and force you out of scenario with constant assassination pressure. An unfortunate matchup for poor Lewis!

Unfortunately I don't have too much to add to this game, but this was just pretty much a dream MU for the Coven. 

Scottish Masters - Coven vs Kreoss1

Short update before I dive into reports, my phone bricked so I won't be able to do batreps for my practice games the day before the Scottish Masters unfortunately. Fortunately however I was able to borrow a phone for the Scottish Masters and now I have some sweet photos and games to show y'all.

Anyway, Scottish Masters! My lists can be found here:

The Witch Coven of Garlghast +26
-The Withershadow Combine 9
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
-Deathripper 6
-Deathripper 6
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
5 Soulhunters 18
Ragman 4
Machine Wraith 2
Machine Wraith 2
75

pSkarre +28
-The Withershadow Combine 9
-Kraken 36
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
Darragh Wrathe 9
Orin Midwinter 5
Ragman 4
Scrap Thralls 2
75

Round one I get paired against a friend of mine Sarah Chew, playing her new PoM with Kreoss1 as one of the lists. I have 22 Raiders in each list and no Raider Captain, which I'm beginning to regret, but I elect to drop Coven because they're better vs guns and I like them on this scenario. I won the starting roll and took first, and was given the side with the rough terrain etc.

Her list: (to my memory)
Kreoss1
-Hand of Judgment
-Vanquisher
-Vigilant
10 Idrians w/UA
Choir of Menoth
Alten Ashley
Eiryss1
Wrack
Hierophant
Mechanic

One thing I've learned about Coven is that it doesn't matter what side you get if there's abusable terrain, and that forest looked fun. My turn one was me putting up Occultation on the Soulhunters, Infernal Machine on the right hand Stalker and a Veil down for posterity mostly (that I forgot to actually put down but paid for, it's in the 2nd photo I think). Things ran, I put a stalker in the forest, Hunters were super aggro with no rhoven, Raiders force barried and belted up the table.

PoM was considerably more measured, the Idrians walked up into the Trench, the heavies and other stuff all ran up, some potshots were taken at Satyxis on the hill and one died. DefWard went up on the Idrians.

So, I figure this feat is only going to be more crippling the later in the game it comes and I'll bleed attrition if I don't commit enough to provoke it, so I decide we're going in hard to try and push Kreoss out of his own zone, even if it means committing attrition suicide. I start my turn by having my IM stalker jump behind Eiryss1 and shank her. I swap IM to the left hand stalker, leap it into Rorsh's butt and put good damage into Brine through transfers and leave Rorsh bleeding. Then with a couple of Soulhunter charges I manage to put down the big pig. Otherwise I run some Satyxis to engage Idrians & other models, some get charges off but I think I only killed two. I engaged Alten then feated on the whole lot, and my right hand unit of Raiders charged into HoJ and luckily got his gun, which made me feel somewhat silly for camping so much on the egg but hey. I prepared to have pretty much everything I committed blown off the table because def skew isn't so good when you're on your arse. I also ran a witch into my zone because contesting on the Coven's feat turn is a huge pain, but i was afraid to have a witch KD'd and sprayed by HoJ. Thankfully that fear subsided after I blew out his gun, multiple activations ftw!

So this counterattack was inevitable sadly, and it was going to hurt a lot. Sarah moved her Vigilant over a bit to make way for Kreoss, who walked forward and knocked down a bunch of stuff, then he camped because Kreoss1 doesn't have much use for Focus. Sarah had HoJ advance to the end of the big line of Satyxis that engaged her Idrians (I kind of forgot the implication of K1 feat here.... has been a WHILE since i've played vs this guy) and thankfully for me hadn't allocated focus because she assumed KD'd Satyxis would be easy to hit even with the gun out. Thankfully for me with the feat and Force Barrier they were Def 9, so a couple got to live. Otherwise infantry died en masse but critically my stalkers both made it through fully functional, which meant I could at least kill some decent things next turn. The Vanquisher instead of killing the stalker decided heading into the zone was probably smart because nobody has worked out how broken Machine Wraiths are yet. I go to 1 CP.

Alright, attrition isn't looking good with those heavies up there so I decide it's time to really put the pedal down on scenario. My Stalker on the left with IM, Satyxis, Soulhunters all combine to clear everything barring the Vanquisher out of the left hand zone, which is dominated out by my Machine Wraith and it lands the mother of all aoe shots, hitting Kreoss for a couple points of damage, the hierophant for the same, setting 2 idrians on fire and killing 3 choir. Sweet. On the right hand side CoS goes into HoJ and the Stalker decides to start tearing at him with some boosted damage rolls. I think I get another system, maybe cortex? Otherwise I position models in my zone to dominate HoJ out if he comes in, and potentially to rough him up even more. I position aggressively on the left flank to really start pushing Kreoss out of both zones. I put the ball in the zone seeing as it isn't my feat turn because I don't want random Idrians killing me.

The writing is on the wall here for Sarah, so Kreoss goes all in. Otherwise some models contest and kill a few of my troopers but there's only so much that can be done.

I end up killing every model and Kreoss and scoring 5 CPs.

Whew. Well, Kreoss1's feat hasn't got any less good. I was hankering for a bloody Raider Captain all game. Still, I think this game showcased the excellent ability the Coven have to sieze board space and never give it up until all their models are dead or gone. It's also an excellent showcase of their spot removal tools. I always praised them in mk2 for being the only caster with decent spot removal in Cryx, and the same is still true here. The ability to murder random solos and the like is just excellent.

Quick Update - Scottish Masters

I'm 3-0 and into day 2, played 3 games of Coven vs Kreoss1, Amon & Axis. Next round is vs WTC-mate Micky Dicky, with Wurmwood. Other undefeateds have Karchev with a bunch of heavies (<10 though) and Rask. Soooo cause of D&C I feel really pressured to drop Skarre into Wurmwood, not sure if that's right. I have a Kraken but also Orin, so maybe it's okay? Feels like he can just spam his way through Arcane Vortex.

More to follow. Got pics of every game from yesterday and today, but my phone died and I might not be able to get the pictures off of it. Thankfully I had a replacement phone to take pictures with today, so all my Masters games are photographed.

Dojo - Why Am I Not Running The Same List Twice?

Serious question. I used to always be an advocate of doing 2 lists that do drastically different things, like playing an infantry skew and jack list or shooty list and melee list or whatever. But real talk, the most successful streak I've ever had playing WM/H was playing Trolls with basically 2 of the same list (2 arm skews). And I'd just pick whichever one had better tools into my opponent's armour answer. So with internal balance being a bit of a trainwreck in Cryx I might try going back to this strategy.

The Witch Coven of Garlghast +26
-The Withershadow Combine 9
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
-Deathripper 6
-Deathripper 6
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
Aikos 4
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
Ragman 4
Machine Wraith 2
75

pSkarre +28
-The Withershadow Combine 9
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
-Deathripper 6
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
Aikos 4
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
Ragman 4
Scrap Thralls 2
75

Worth a try, to say the least. At least until I get the models to mess around with a Lich3 brick.

Vassal Game - Coven vs Issyria

Alrighty then, first batrep for this site. My opponent has Helynna and Issyria, considering my current 2 list is one teched to the brim for anti guns and one that well, isn't, the drop was pretty obvious. Coven vs Issy!

My opponent said to me before we started he was trying out Destors & Hypnos, Destors I don't really mind, I think the Coven are naturally strong vs Cavalry, but Hypnos is definitely something of an issue. He can shoot on my feat turn and is naturally spell warded.

Issyria
-Sylys
-Hyperion
-Hypnos
-Chimera
3 Dawnguard Destors
Elara
-Discordia
Arcanist

Arcanist

I won the roll for initiative and opted to go first, because on the table we had I didn't think there was a good side for him. Deployment looked like this:

So my opponent, having a colossal, naturally took the side that didn't have a giant rock in the middle of it. Thankfully for me combined with Fuel Cache & VoM I had the option for a massive LoS blocking wall once Issy's feat was gone, which was nice. It also gave me a sweet base of operations for the Egregore. Additionally, my opponent couldn't threaten the far side of the forest, which I could exploit. I deployed fairly symetrically, with the Coven being on the side that could hide safely behind the wall of LoS blocking, the idea being that later in the game one of them might run onto the flag. The 2 stalkers on the outside are on the Coven, the 2 on the inside are on Aikos.

On my turn one I had Helleana put up Occultation on the left unit of Raiders, Infernal Machine on the right hand stalker and advance. Aikos put up Escort and advanced. Stuff generally ran, until Selene advanced and put up a VoM, to begin construction on fort Cryx. The Stalker with IM was able to run far enough to make a real nuisance of itself behind a forest.

 Well, this kind of play normally gets some reaction from my opponents. It feels a lot like going 2nd vs Haley2. So, my opponent opts to timidly advance, after asking all of my threat ranges. I explained my Stalkers could walk 9 then leap, and yet my opponent advanced a couple inches with Elara. Going to definitely punish that. IR went up on Disco and Admonition on Hypnos.

Wellp, it was time to pull the trigger and roll some dice. The IM Stalker got allocated 2, as did the one that was able to leap behind Elara. I dropped VoM because I'd be feating this turn. Kept Occultation on the far unit of Raiders though because potentially a few of them would be really wide, and I didn't have much to do focus wise this turn due to Arcane Vortex. My node ran up and I put Curse of Shadows onto the Destors. The Stalker jumping at Elara got Ghost Walk & Puppet Master from the Combine. Ghostly Stalker walked through a rock and jumped behind Elara, despite some poor dice and Puppet Master not really helping, he was able to put Elara down with all his focus. The Infernal Stalker walked up, leapt to be 1" from a pair of Destors and shanked them both. Otherwise stuff ran and the Coven feated. I jammed Hyp with a Stalker to contain the amount of damage it could do to my Raiders. Ragman moved to threaten the entire zone with Death Field.

So, my opponent was in a bit of a bind here. He also realised he had forgotten Sylys, so I naturally let him put him down. He allocated out 1 to both Hyp and Hypnos and then had a think. Issy feated and Ancillaried the Hyp,which promptly rolled 6,6 to hit then 6,6 for damage on the stalker engaging it. Then she walked and reactivated Disco. I pointed out that you can't Ancillary then walk, rather than accept a take back, my opponent elected to Velocity to get there, leaving Issy on 0 focus after she cast Admonition on herself. Eek. Hyp advanced into his now clear lane (grumble) and rolled a crit with the Starburst Cannon onto my Stalker (further grumble), leaving it on 4 boxes and killing 4 Raiders around it. It died to the little guns, but every other shot missed. Hypnos took a FS for 0 dmg form my Stalker to walk into its butt and punched the little guy to death. The Destor flailed ineffectively at Satyxis and Discordia (now able to walk after being reactivated in mk3) engaged my Stalker.

Well, it's certainly go time. The Stalker with IM got 2, I kept IM and CoS (so I could get more raiders into jacks for feedback, if need be). The Combine put Ghostly on the big unit of Raiders on the right, and Puppet Master onto Morgaen. The Egregore ran back into Perfect Conjuction, and a Deathripper ran to be within 6" of the IM'd Stalker and 8" of Issyria, but outside of 6" to not trigger Admonition. Morgaen crit a Stygian Abyss into Issyria, blinding her (how's that feel, nerd) and dealing 11 damage with a boosted roll and putting Ghost Walk onto the Stalker. Then my Machine Wraith advanced up to Hypnos, my opponent elected not to trigger Admonition, hit him, dealing 0 damage, but moving him so that Admonition was very awkward (or so I thought), then missing his attack on Issy (boo!). After that my Stalker walked up to just outside of 1" from Issy, who promptly flew over the Arcanist I'd intended to box her in with. Woops. Thankfully she couldn't go far enough that I couldn't still get her in melee, whew. Stalker leapt in and sliced her head off. Even if I hadn't been able to get the Stalker into melee, I only had to deal 4 damage to various Warjacks with my Satyxis & Ragman, which shouldn't have been too difficult considering I could get 8 into Hyperion.

Whew, some thoughts:

This list in testing seems incredibly solid against gunlines. It falters somewhat vs higher armour, but it's not too bad with Ragman & a strong feat to set up. Thankfully it exerts so much scenario and assassination pressure that it normally balances out due to forcing my opponent to make unfavourable trades. Also, Coven are very mean to Journeymen Warcasters, between Stalkers & Stygian Abysses. Had my opponent played more conservatively with Elara on turn 2 I still think I would have been in a strong position to start really forcing scenario on my turn 3, and I probably would have put real pressure over the course of the game onto Issyria with Feedback. Doesn't seem like a bad matchup at all for the list, which is great. I'm getting some real games tomorrow, which is good, although I may not be able to get terrain....

Lists!

So, what zombies will I be playing? Well, I think the obvious selection is Coven. They didn't get hit very hard in the transition from Mk2 > Mk3, losing some focus efficiency from Perfect Conjunction, and Stygian Abyss getting arguably buffed is also kind of nice. Also, they bring shooting / long threat range answers in a meta revolving around that.

The Witch Coven of Garlghast +26
-The Withershadow Combine 9
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
-Deathripper 6
-Deathripper 6
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
10 Satyxis Raiders w/UA 19
Aikos 4
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
Ragman 4
Machine Wraith 2
75

This is the list I've been playing the most with Cryx in mk3. I feel like it's strong, if frontloaded and incredibly fragile. This list relies on threat range, freedom of movement and jamming to stay alive. It has a lot of scenario and assassination pressure and is simply monstrous on a lot of scenarios if it gets the first turn. I feel like its gameplan is applicable to most things in the meta, and with so many stalkers its got good game against the metabenders with LoS denial. So that's sweet.

My second caster is currently Deneghra1. She barely got hit (somehow) going from Mk2 to Mk3, and I think remains one of the strongest casters in the game. What I'm playing with her is in flux.... So have a sweet smorgasboard of Deneghra1 lists.

Warwitch Deneghra +28
-Nightmare 18
-Deathripper 6
-Deathripper 6
10 Bane Knights 17
10 Bane Knights 17
10 Bane Knights 17
Darragh Wrathe 9
Bane Lord Tartarus 8
Gorman di Wulfe 4
Soul Trapper 1
75

Warwitch Deneghra +28
-Nightmare 18
-Deathripper 6
-Deathripper 6
Iron Lich Overseer 5
-Seether 13
Aikos 4
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
Necrotech 2
Soul Trapper 1
Wrongeye and Snapjaw 17
Rorsch and Brine 15
75

Warwitch Deneghra +28
-Kraken 36
-Nightwretch 7
10 Nyss Hunters 19
Aikos 4
-Stalker 8
-Stalker 8
Ragman 4
Necrotech 2
Rorsch and Brine 15
75

I think these lists all have merit. Presently for the Coven I'm the most afraid of Mad Dogs & Circle including things like Wurmwood or Baldur2 and I think all of my lists are at least half decent in those games, with the best one (against what I'm worried about) probably being the Banestorm. That said, they all look solid and I'll put some time in with a bunch of different Deneghra lists.

I've got some games due on Friday, and it's vs Cygnar so I'll put up some Coven reports.

A brief introduction....

So, I'm planning on getting back into my Cryx. I've missed my zombies and I decided I'd write a blog and do batreps of my games, as an incentive to both play more games and pay more attention to my play. Hopefully it'll be interesting to y'all.