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.