Putting Kraye's theorymachine into play

  Right after my last post, my wife and I decided that it'd be fun to spend the entire day at the game shoppe, and play games, either boardgames, cardgames, or Warmachine.  I.E., she'd con people into playing the Lord of the Rings Deck Building game with her, while I get to Warmachine.

  Deal.

  I took Kraye and eCaine, who I've been playing pretty much exclusively these days trying to get used them working together in the 2014 tournament season.  First game landed me a Harkevitch tier list with 4 destroyers, Black Ivan, 2 WG gun crews, WG deathstar and Joe.

  In case you're unfamiliar with Harkevitch (Most of us are), the Destroyers gain pathfinder with him, and he has broadsides as a spell that they can shoot out of activation once per turn.  This lets them move up the board 4'' at a time at ARM25 while the rest of his army follows behind until feat turn where they charge in with an extra 2'' of movement and cause problems.  Idk what the WG are there for.  Filler.

  I brought:

Kraye
*Squire
*Stormclad
*Ironclad
*Avenger
*Minuteman
Full Nyss w/ Jonas
Eiryss
Min Blazers

Eiryss disrupted all day long, but it was kind of silly since nobody wanted any focus and Hark just camped it most of the game.  However, right off the bat, I pushed the Avenger up the middle, the Stormclad way out to the right and Ironclad to the left to try and divide up his clamjacks.  It somewhat worked, allowed Eiryss to aim, and drop Escort and four focus off of Harkevitch, leaving him at ARM16.  My Stormclad had a 17'' charge range and was well within charging Black Ivan, and hitting Harkevitch with Reach after that.

  But!  For kicks and giggles, I figured I'd shoot Black Ivan with the Avenger and KD the Jack and Harkevitch both.  I proceeded to miss on 3 dice, and learned that Black Ivan has dodge... He blocked my charge lane, I lost my Stormclad, yeah.  Nyss don't handle 4 Clamjacks bombarding them every turn, and neither does Eiryss.  Losing the Stormclad was pretty paramount.

  Overall, I played the list fine until I dumbed up and shot Black Ivan.  I wouldn't have, but it was my fault for not knowing the Jack or looking at his card.  On the plus side, the Minuteman killed most of a weapons crew, three winterguard and Joe all by himself, wandering around behind enemy lines.  I think I'm bringing the same list back, but I'll bring 2 minutemen, and no Avenger.  I realize that Minuteman really can't do much against that much Hi-arm, but 2 of them wandering around behind enemy lines does 2 things.  1)  It wipes out support if it's left alone, and 2), forces my opponent to dedicate things from his front line to deal with the problem.  In this case, it'd be a Devastator or two, and lets me deal with things a bit more at my pace.

  I liked my list, was just really ticked at myself for screwing up a perfectly solid assassination run.

  The second game was eCaine vs. Kallus in Legion, and that was over fairly quick.  Hiding behind the Angelius does you very little good when I have Taryn.  Which, in other news, may have been a better list to bring against Harkevitch there as well, except I didn't have a way to strip focus like eEiryss can.

  Overall though, I'm pleased with my lists, and enjoying playing Kraye different than I have been.

Playing Kraye as if I want to win by Scenario.

  Christmas season is past.  It's still difficult to prime models when it's -2 outside, but progress is still being made.  The painting table is slowly transitioning from Cygnar and Mercernary support to Trollbloods.  I have a primed Axer and eMadrak on the table right now, and the finishing touches to a Lylyth3 and Raptor Solo for a friend.

  Meanwhile, on the gaming side, games have been scarce, but there's been a few.  The two main things I'm working on is figuring out out to play Trollbloods and develop the Kraye game a bit more.  I posted some basic musing on him last month sometime, but I've sounded out and put to the test a few of those theories.

  1.  Arcing Pursuit.  This seemed pretty neat at first.  Run Kraye with a Lancer and land pursuit out there.  This lets me move my favorite heavy up 4 or 5 inches, extending his threat range considerably and forcing my opponent to really wonder how much he wants to move.  This didn't work for a couple of reasons.
  A)  Lancer is 6pts, and he can't arc in melee, so you move him up, and that's it.  Next turn, he's going to die, be engaged, something, and you can't use him anymore to arc.  So you're paying 6 army points to move your Stormclad 5'', assuming your opponent doesn't find away around it.
  B)  There's a decent shot your opponent will.  Maybe 25%.  Maybe he won't move that jack, and he'll move something else.  Maybe it's Circle, and I'm an idiot, and the Stones will move him.  Either way, my Lancer either dies without accomplishing much, and possibly, my Heavy doesn't actually get to move.
  C)  Me moving my Stormclad forward may work in his favor.  Overall, at the end of the day, the Lancer is 6pts I'm gambling on when I really would rather have something I know is going to do work.

2.  Hunters.  I'm slooowwwwly less hostile towards hunters, but they still make me sad reeeaaally frequently.  It's also required in Kraye's tier to bring 2 if you want anything good.  That's 12pts of gambling.  Quite frequently, I find that while the AP cuts the base ARM in half, the +2 or +3 ARM buff the jack has makes it really tough for POW6 to do anything.  So sometimes, they do ok, but generally, I just dislike them.  They've been working better for me, but usually, if I'm taking them in a Kraye list, I realize I'd rather have something useful, like Nyss or and Jonas vs. 2 hunters.

  3.  Infantry.  And not Rangers.  There's been three major candidates for Kraye's infantry.  Nyss, Boomies and the Trencher Commandos (gasp).  The Nyss so far seem to be winning.  Boomies really are good, but I use them in my other list.  So the Nyss see more use with Kraye.  They do well, tarpit excellent, and don't really need help from Kraye, which is great because has nothing for them.  The Commandos are just fun, but they want help from Finn and/or Rhupert, turning them into a 14pt module, 17 if you go all out.  Nyss like having Rhupert, and Jonas, but they're not nearly as required.  Either way though, running Nyss or Commandos has been working for me, screening rather well.  My favorite game with the Commandos so far has to be my eStryker vs. Constance game.  My opponent brought 2 units of Forgeguard, and my Commandos with Stryker and Runewood and anatomical precision killed probably 14 models on feat turn, and I only got maybe 7, 8 of them into combat.  Anatomical precision cares not about your ARM34, dwarf.

4.  Ironclad.  I'm liking the Ironclad with Kraye, more than the Hunters, really.  PS18, Tremor, SPD5.  He plays up front, alphas in, kills something, and dies.  Which is great, because it begins the piecetrade process, and starts with me on the high side.  13'' threat range w/o feat turn is great.  I'd consider running 2, but I really need infantry.

  So, right now, my list looks like this:

Kraye
*Squire
*Stormclad
*Avenger
*Ironclad
*Minuteman
 B13
Nyss (max)
Rhupert
Eiryss
Blazers (min)

  This generally doesn't mind a decent amount of infantry (Cryx hordes aren't any fun, mind you), but excels against lots of Warjacks, support heavy armies, and can deal with upkeep-heavy armies.  Khador, possibly Retribution (MHSF hate Minutemen, yo), Menoth (Eleaping blazers eat Choir), Legion (Same problem), and sometimes Circle.  It's also my drop against Mortenbra, possibly Scaverous, and a few Skorne lists.  Maaaaaybe Trolls, but probably not.  Lots of Medium-base infantry is a problem for this list, though weapon-master Nyss help.  I'd expect this list to struggle against a High Reclaimer list though, when you're usually seeing multiple units of Bastions.

  The other option I'm testing is to trade out the Avenger (gasp.  Jedi, Kraye, and no Avenger?!) and drop in a second Minuteman and Jonas for the Nyss.  This would let it handle more infantry, more support, and throw wrenches into a lot more plans.  I still don't feel like it'd be comfortable to handle a camping Butcher2, but it's still got a lot of fast, accurate jacks and will be fairly difficult for a Warmachine list to go up against if they've got multiple warjacks.

  The wrench in the plans is colossals, of course.  An eHaley list will make it cry, though a Stormclad/Ironclad combo might possibly be able to handle one of them.  If I tournament this list, I'll probably bring Ayaina and Holt instead of the B13, and leave them in my eCaine list.  This will focus the list a bit more towards Higher Arm, but that might be what it needs anyways.  PS21 Stormclad, anyone?

  Incidentally, the Avenger is in my eCaine list...  I can't help it.  KD is such a great thing.

Playing Kraye, Cygnar's cowboy

   I've got 2 batreps against Circle to get posted, including one 2 caster 75pt game in preparation for a friend taking his Circle to WMW in St. Louis.  That's a lot of pics though, and it's been a week or so since the last post.  Life, you know?  So let's hit a topic real quick.  I see a lot of posts on PPforums where someone decides they want to try Kraye.  General consensus is that he's a decent caster (E.G., better than Kara and Darius, but not as good as Siege), but doesn't do anything for infantry, and really struggles in the SR2013 format.  Let's look into him a bit, shall we?

  When I climbed out of 40k and dropped into the World of Warmachine, I watched some batreps, scrolled through the forums, realized I thought that Legion looked ugly as sin, and Khador are the badguys.  Cygnar looked pretty cool though, and rolling through their caster page on PrivateerPress, I saw this awesome looking guy riding a horse.

  Enter Captain Jeremiah Kraye.  The model sold me.  When I got into this game, I ordered a 2 Player Battle Box (the 2player kit with Games Workshop was always a good idea, I assumed it would be here too as well), the Cygnar Battlebox, because that's the faction I wanted, and Captain Jeremiah Kraye.  And a Squire.  Idk why I got a squire.  Someone said it was a good idea.  It was, but anyways.

  Kraye looked like fun.  He looked awesome, as a model, and I thoroughly enjoyed painting him.  In fact, I'm sorely temped to buy him again and apply new painting/modding/basing skills and paint him again.  As it is, I modded him with my first foray into greenstuff, and modeled him a wide flat-brimmed Australian Outback hat, and it turned out reasonably well.  The paintjob is dated, but I'm still proud of the hat.

  The first thing we'll notice is that he's one of Cygnar's large based casters, something we don't have many of.  This makes him really hard to hide.  Your first impulse is to bring a 4pt Sentinel to hide him behind for Shield Guard.  Try it, but generally, at ARM17 with 18 boxes, I find that Kraye weathers most ranged assassination attempts.  He's my go-to caster against eLylyth, in fact, though his ability to launch jackbullets into her early game assassination setups helps too.

  His stats are otherwise fairly normal outside of his SPD8.  He's fast for a caster, but he's riding a horse.  That's to be expected.  More on that in a minute.  RAT6 isn't amazing, MAT isn't inspiring either, DEF14 isn't bad for a large base, but against anyone determined to hit you at range, it's not going to convince them otherwise.  On a horse though, this gives him a lot of neat options.  Ride-by attacks.  Move up 4'', cast spells, get behind the wall.  SPD8 gets him where he needs to be pretty quick with some room.

  Pathfinder is neat too, helps him out.  Parry is fantastic.  When that melee assassination fails, you can walk away.  His gun's a POW11 ROF2, which is handy, and his sword is a PS13.  At MAT6, SPD8, he can get 11'' across the board on a charge, so in a pinch he can do some work, but you're going to want his Jacks to do that really.  

  His abilities are where it gets nice though.  It also makes using him a convoluted mess.  For one, it gives all light jacks light cav rules.  This gives them impact attacks and a 5'' move after their activation.  This is as handy as I'll get out.  Using hunters?  Hop the barricade, shoot, get back.  Easy peasy.  

  Heavy Jacks get heavy cav rules.  Now we're talking Ride Bys with Stormclads, impact attacks with Centurions, Tall in the Saddle (Melee attacks ignore intervening models.  Hello screened caster), and +2 to charge attacks because Heavy Cav has brutal charge.  MAT9 Stormclad with PS21 on the charge?  Yes, please.

  Feat turn is terrifying.  All Jacks stand up, can turn, charge for free, gain and extra 2+ SPD on the charge and all melee attacks are boosted.  This is incredible.  A fully loaded Stormclad can make 5 boosted-to-hit attacks, not including tramples, or impacts.  Factor this in with Full Tilt (Kraye's signature spell) which gives 2X base spd, we can put a Stormclad 15'' up the board with 2'' of Reach for a total of 17''.  This has caught a great deal of my opponents off guard.  

  Speaking of spells.  Full Tilt, we just touched on.  I like to cast it on a minuteman, turn 1.  It's an upkeep too, so keep that in mind.  I like to go second with Kraye usually, because my opponent will take the chance to run his infantry as far upfield as he can turn one.  A full tilted minuteman with a focus will go 17'', including the jump, and flakfield.  This puts a light jack in the middle of a group of infantry, and kills a good chunk of them.  Can't handle those Nyss?  Worried about that tarpit coming your way?  Autohitting POW12 handles a lot of that.  Light cav for another 5'' and you're 22'' farther on turn one than when you started.  Your opponent has to deal with your jack now, and that ties him up.

  Guided Fire.  All Jacks in the battle group gained boosted ranged attack rolls for a turn.  This is a neat spell, but doesn't mesh well with the rest of what Kraye can do.  At 6 focus, he doesn't have enough to smash things, AND shoot them.  It's one or the other.  If I'm running a Stormwall, Guided Fire happens a lot.  4-8 boosted POW12/15s?  Sure thing.  Otherwise, Guided fire doesn't see much use at 3 focus.

  Mage Sight.  2 focus to see 5'' of stealth, forest, whatever.  Neat, situational, and expensive.  It's nice to have, and I'm glad Kraye has it, but it's somewhat limited at Battlegroup only.

  Pursuit.  Situational, but handy.  Land it on a target warjack and a battlegroup model gets to move if the other model moves.  Kind of a poorman's admonition.  At RNG8 though, it doesn't see much use from me.  I wish eStryker had this spell though.  23'' threat range!  But no.  Maybe 3Stryker?

  Arcane Blast.  Bet you've never heard of this one.

  Easy Rider.  All friendly faction units in Kraye's control area gain Pathfinder for one turn.  Kinda neat, but most of what you bring with Kraye either doesn't care, or has it already.  And it's expensive.

  What we notice here is that Kraye likes his jacks.  General consensus is that he's Cygnar's best Warjack caster.  I don't doubt that.  Darius is probably the next best thing, but even then, I like Kraye.  The downside to all of this is that he has little to no support for infantry.  A case could be made for Easy Rider, but Cygnar already has plenty of options for getting Pathfinder to our troops if they don't have it already.

  This limits Kraye considerably as to what he can bring.  You'll never see me bring Stormblades with Kraye.  He just can't take care of them.  And they're slow.  Kraye's a fast moving battlegroup, and he needs his units to be two things.  A) Fast to keep up, and B) Self-sufficient.  If they can contribute, that's fantastic, but they need to be able to take care of themselves.

  Rangers and Kraye are a happy couple.  These guys will negate you ever needing to cast Guided Fire with their +2 RAT against targets within 5'' of them.  They have prowl (poorman's stealth), and on top of that, 5pts for a 6man unit with accurate POW11s is handy.  I'll take these guys toe to toe with MHSF any day.  

  ATGM.  They don't need his help, they're plenty accurate on their own, and if you brought Rangers, they're really happy. On top of that you have an excellent Jackmarshal in the ATGM UA.  *Gasp* no, JM in a Kraye list?  Well, sure.  Does Kraye have Snipe?  Gee, no he doesn't...  Wouldn't it be nice to have a shooting jack that has Snipe?  I like the Avenger with his Knockdown ability on the ATGM.  18'' threat range can get anything that the 17'' Stormclad can threaten.  Boosted melee attacks are great, but DEF17 hordes caster laying down on the ground at DEF5 are even better.

  The Tempest Blazers.  These guys have breathed new life into this caster, especially since they are in tier.  They keep up, they don't need help, they can handle infantry by themselves, and take down bigger stuff if needed with the brutals.  These are also my counter to stealth usually.  They're fast enough to get in and get out and survive it.

  That's really the only units I bring.  The Nyss and Boomhowlers both are fairly self-sufficient, and need little to no support, especially the Boomhowlers.  If you really feel like you need a tarpit, these guys will work for you.  Outside of that, Kraye makes his money with his Jacks.

  Centurion.  Generally one of the favorite Jacks to take on Kraye.  With Full-Tilt, he'll move 8'', and then drop Polarity shield, which is mean.  He's got a threat range of 15'' on feat turn, so that's nice too.

  Ironclad.  Cheap 7pt Heavy jack that hits hard and goes 15.5'' on feat turn.  Nice for piece trading early on, setting up a tremor, or just generally having along.  I don't usually get one into my lists, but they're a decent option.  Spamming them might be a thing.  That's one of those things I want to try, but not by buying six of them and deciding I don't like it.

  Stormclad.  My go-to melee jack on Kraye.  17'' threat range on feat turn.  Unless you've played Kraye before, you don't see this guy coming.  On top of that, he's got a RNG8 POW14 gun that I've fried more than one warspear with.  Don't forget the eLeaps either.  I generally have this guy and blazers in my army.  My favorite thing to do to armies with a Hi-DEF/Lo-ARM caster and a colossal is shoot it with eleaping blazers and jackbullet the Stormclad into it.  10 autohitting pow10s (assuming the caster is the closest model.) ends most lo-arm casters fairly easily.  Number 1 reason I love the Archangel, right here.  DEFbillion caster hangs out next to her favorite dragon, who proceeds to ground out through her left leg and fry everything involved.

  Hammersmith.  If you're going to bring him, Kraye's the one to bring him on.  He's only got 13'' threat range, but with his follow-up attacks and chain attack, he can get considerably farther.  Decent for infantry mulching.

  Nomad.  No, I'm kidding.  I wish.  SPD5 with Reach and PS19 for 6pts?  I'd spam these guys all day.  Foodmachine tournaments are expensive for me.  "Yes, I brought 800 cans so that I can field 6 Nomads on Kraye."

  Gallant.  The only other SPD 5 with Reach.  The upsides to this are that you can bring Harlan Versh, and get a focus every turn on this jack, which helps out Kraye's reserves considerably, on top of providing Shieldguard.  He's also a point cheaper than the Stormclad.  Downsides are no ranged attack, no electro leap, and PS17.  I tried it, don't much care for it, but it's a neat option.  And Harlan Versh will pull his weight on his own too.

  That's the main ones for the melee jacks.  As far as shooting goes, there's a few solid options.  I love the Avenger for KD.  Makes for a surefire way to shut down enemy hordes casters for the assassination.  On Kraye, he does ok, but generally, I bring ATGM and marshal the Avenger to them for an 18'' KD threat.  Otherwise, on Kraye, he's a SPD4 jack that can get up to 13.5'' on feat turn.  At PS18, that's not a bad thing, and don't forget the psuedo-disruption Stall blade the Avenger has.  Works on Colossals too.

  Cyclones are fun.  They can Full-Tilt, AND do their covering fire, but generally, I don't have enough room for these guys.

  Hunters.  I'm a hit or miss kinda guy with these dudes.  I hate them on Vassal, respect them on the table lately.  They're fast, get the light cav move with Kraye, don't need a whole lot a help, and generally cause the opponent all kinds of problems.  They work fairly decent in pairs, but that's a 12pt commitment and that's the selling point I'm not quite into.

  Chargers.  Way too much focus needed for these guys on Kraye.  Move along.

  Sentinel.  Not bad.  4pt Shieldguard if you need it.  Don't count on the Strafe though.

  Minuteman.  We reveled in his glory a minute ago.  Take this jack.

  Stormwall.  I don't use the big guy on Kraye often, unless I'm going to run a shooting game and do guided fire every turn.  Otherwise, he ties up too many points for melee or shooting, when with two jacks, I could do both.  He's got a 17'' threat range for charging on feat turn with Kraye, and that's kinda scary, but it's not very often that you're going to have a clear charge lane for a base the size of the deathstar.  On the plus side,  he fits in Tier.

  There's a few solos out there to think about as well.  Squire is generally a must unless you're running tier.  Sylys is an option, but I find that I cycle full-tilt too much.  Generally, if solos tag along, it's a Squire, maybe a Journeyman, Harlan Versh occasionally, and more often than not, a Trencher Master Gunner for Artillerist on the Avenger.  Arlan's not bad, but really only for powerbooster or evasive.  Otherwise, it's not very often that he gets to fix a jack that charged 15'' up the field.  I tried Lanyssa, and using Hunter's Mark, trying to get a few more inches out of my Stormclad, and that hasn't happened yet, so I'll probably stop.  It's not very often I need a Stormclad to go 19'' anyways.

  In summary, Kraye's a solid jack caster with nearly 0 support for infantry.  If you want to run Warjacks, he's your man.  He'll play a solid gunline until you need to apply a jack to your opponent's face a long ways away.  Some play him as a gunline only, some play him as melee only.  I struggle with using him as a scenario caster, simply because he has a hard time filling zones up and hanging on to them.  I play him for more aggressively as an army, and do better that way.  At the end of the day though, it depends on you.  I hope I've pointed you in a decent direction to begin with and pointed out some decent synergies.  Otherwise, ignore everything I said and play eHaley.

35pts Dominar (Skorne) vs. Kraye (Cygnar)

  Running around on Vassal the other day, I got a game in against Skorne, for the first time.  My standard list against Hi-ARM is eStryker, but I was on a Kraye kick, and every once in awhile, I like to dump myself in a bad matchup, or at least one I wouldn't prefer.  

  This, however, wasn't a typical Skorne list.  For one, it was Dominar Masheth, not Makeda or Molik.  Just a giant dude being toted around on a bed.  I felt like I was up against Jabba the Hutt's entourage.

Dominar Masheth

*Titan Cannoneer

*Cyclops Raider

*Krea Drake

*Krea Basilisk

Gatorman Posse

Willbreaker

Willbreaker

Beast Handlers  

Feralgeist

Extoller Soulward

  Kraye's list has changed a bit in the last couple of weeks.  I've slowly transitioned away from the Blazers as much and gone more for the ATGM with the ability to give Snipe to the Avenger when Jackmarshaled.  It's a bit unnatural to jackmarshal in a Kraye list, but snipe is worth it, it seems.  

Captain Jeremiah Kraye

*Stormclad

*Minuteman

*Squire

Trencher Master Gunner

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages 

*UA

*Avenger

Rangers

  I don't remember who rolled higher, but I got to go second, which is what I prefer with Kraye anyways.  I picked bottom (So I don't have to rotate models lol) and we began.

   Here's the part where we realize that Jedi started using the log ability that Vassal has.  The Gatormen moved up, and then Rasheth activates.  He drops the Krea's animus of Paralytic Aura, which gives a DEF/ARM bonus against ranged attack, and a DEF debuff against enemy models.  He then gives Carnivore to the Gatormen, which grants +2 to melee attacks against living models, and heals the caster d3 for each model it boxes.  He then camps the rest of the fury.

  The Cannoneer runs, the Raider runs and the Krea moves up as normal and casts its animus, the Paralytic Aura we saw earlier.  The Drake ran, moving to the right.  All of the solos run as well.  Beast handlers advance and one conditions.  Then it's turn and I'm up.

  

  Stormclad gets a focus, and Kraye keeps the rest.  Rangers move forward to take advantage of the woods.  One chances a shot at the Raider behind cover, but doesn't roll the 11 needed to hit.  The Avenger takes the Jackmarshal point and runs forward.  Kraye activates and moves in behind the barricade, then gives Full Tilt to the Minuteman.  Of course.  The light jack activates and tucks into the woods with the Rangers, and the Stormclad runs forward.  The Trencher Master Gunner and the Squire join Kraye and the ATGM run forward.  And that's turn.  

  

  Incidentally, we were playing scenario, and it was Incursion.  We rolled and the left flag disappeared.  Dominar begins his turn by upkeeping Carnivore on the Gatormen, who move up and pray for Dirge of Mists.  Feralgeist runs.  Dominar moves up, and casts Paralytic Aura again.  He then throws Far Strike (Essentially snipe, but it's the Raider's animus) on the Cannoneer successfully.  He tries it on the Raider, casting through the Feralgeist, I think.  That's what he measured from anyways, and was shy of it by an inch.  The Krea moves up an does his animus again by Dominar, the Paralytic Aura.

  The Cannoneer moves up, and shoots at a gunmage.  Needing an 11, he boosts.  It still misses, and deviates for no damage.  The Soulward moves up and guess what?  Gives the Raider eyeless sight.

  Dangit.  I thought I'd gotten away from that, no playing against Legion.  

  Anyways.  The Raider casts his farstrike animus on himself, boosts and shoots at the minuteman.  Happily, he misses, rolling a 6 when he needed a seven.  The willbreakers move up.  If you're not familiar with these guys, they're basically Vassals like in Menoth.  One gives Ancillary attack to the Cannoneer and the other does the same for the Raider.

  Personally, I wish I'd brought Tempest Blazers.  Electro leap loves itself some support solos.

  Anyways, Cannoneer shoots again.  He shoots at the Rangers this time, but since he, for one, does not have eyeless sight, misses.  The deviation is still POW8 and kills two of them.  He manages to do one damage to the minuteman, but nothing big.  The Raider though, takes another shot at the same jack.  He manages to do 7 damage to my 4 on the poor guy.

  The Drake runs way far right, looking for the flag.  The Beasthandlers move up and condition, and that's turn.

  

  So that went ok.  Kraye upkeeps Full Tilt, takes a focus from the squire and gives two to the Minuteman.  The ATGM activate and move up to the first flag as I pretend to play scenario.  They open fire on the Gators at DEF14/ARM18, needing 7s to connect.  I throw thunderbolts at two gators and the Canoneer and push them all back a few inches, but fail to kill any of them.  I rolled sevens to hit quite easily, but failed to ever roll higher than 8 to break ARM.

  The four remaining Rangers moved up and fired at the Raider.  Needing only fives, two hit, and one managed to do three damage.

  The Trencher Gunner gives Artillerist to the Avenger, and he moves up.  He then snipes at the Raider, but is out of range, even at 14'', so it deviates.  At first it lands on my rangers, but the rerolls from artilerist save them and it lands harmlessly beside them.

  The Minuteman activates, moves up in front of the Raider, and then jumps behind him, B2B with the Cyclops and Soulward.  He only manages to do four damage to the Cyclops with the Flak, but kills the Soulward.  The Willbreaker takes one point of damage as well.

  Then I swing at the Raider.  I miss once, hit the second time, and boost damage at dice -7.  I proceed to roll 1, 5, 1.  Welcome to Vassal.  Then he light cavs back into the Willbreaker and Beasthandler, and ends turn.  One control point to me.

  

  Dominar drops Carnivore, and the Feralgeist runs.  Arcing through the guy, he casts Blood Mark on the Minuteman.  This lowers his ARM by 2.  Then he drops Farstrike back on the Cannoneer and hangs out.  The Raider walks up, punches the MM twice, boosting to hit and boosting one damage.  Then he gets an ancillary attack from the Willbreaker, and tries to hit me again, but misses.  He has, however, eliminated both arms and the cortex.

  The Canoneer advances, fires a shot at the DEF15 ATGM and deviates off to the right, but still kills two of them.  Then the Gators charge.  Two get the charge, the other three run.  The charge kills two more.  Then the Drake runs again, looking for that flag once more.  The Krea moves up, drops his aura once more and the Beast handlers advance and condition and that's turn.

  

   I allocate three focus to the Stormclad, pull one from the squire, and don't upkeep Full-Tilt on the minuteman.  I activate that jack first, and flak-field.  I do boxcars to the Raider, which doesn't kill it, and don't manage to kill the other two.  With both arms gone, I can't hit anything, even with a six, so I lightcav, and he dies in the freestrike.

  Now that the Raider is no longer in melee, the Rangers move up, and open fire.  They kill it fairly easy, and the Feralgeist inhabits the dead beast.  At first I was annoyed, but then realized that that really doesn't help him much.  Unforceable beast way off in the corner, I'm not worried.

  I turn my attention to the ATGM who passed CMD checks successfully against the gators.  One's engaged, the other one moves.  Both fail to do any damage.  But I move the unengaged one out of the way, hoping to get a charge with the Stormclad into the two gators on either side of the fence.

  The Trencher Master Gunner artillerists the Avenger, who shoots the center Gator with a crit brutal.  I actually crit, and didn't realize at the time that boosted my shot, so that was dumb, but I still KDed the three Gators in the center.

  Kraye gives the Clad full tilt, moves up, and shoots the leftmost KD gator.  Two shots later, and it's dead.  The Stormclad charges.  This is where I screw up.  He gets the charge, impacts both the ATGM and the gator, kills the ATGM, does 2 damage to the gator, and then kills it with the initial swing.  However, I wasn't far enough forward, and the gator on the other side of the fence is out of melee range.  I should have shot the center gator with kraye, and charged further, where I could have got most of them, and cleared them from contesting the flag, but I did not.  So the last gator is right there, out of reach, and contesting the flag.  I'm not horribly worried because I think Stormclad can survive a round, but it is a little irritating.  I end my turn, and my opponent gets another CP for the flag on the right.

  

  So, Skorne begins.  Blood Mark goes away, and the Willbreaker casts Puppet Master on Rasheth.  Beast handlers advance up, and the possessed Raider aims at a ranger, and misses.  Rashet then moves up, and arcs Blood Mark onto the Stormclad through a beast handler, who dies.  

  The Canoneer then opens fire on the Stormclad.  Boosting to hit and boosting damage, he does 11 damage to the 3...  The Ancillary attack does another 7.  The Gators pathfinder, charge, and kill what's left of the Jack.  So much for that plan.

  Krea moves over, does his Aura again, and that's turn for him.  He takes another point, for a total of three.  The ATGM is still contesting.

  I'm toast.  The ATGM proceed to fail CMD to Terror, and Rasheth is sitting on five fury.  His ARM/DEF sucks, but he's got 20 boxes, and each is minus -1 than normal.  He's pretty much un-assassinatable at this point, and I don't have a lot of options.  Looking back, I might should have just gone for it, shot him a bunch with rangers, the Avenger and Kraye, but I don't think it would have done it, and especially at 5 transfers and 3 beasts to send it to.  

  I flee my remaining ATGM, and he dies on the free strike.  I artillerist the Avenger, who's probably Autonomous now (The ATGM UA is still alive, but in a failed CMD, so IDK what that does), and he aims into the Gator's back arc.  It KDs them both, and kills one.

  Then I realize I should have moved my Avenger.  See, I can charge Kraye and kill both gators, and take the point for 2 CPs, and maybe run something to contest the flag by the Drake, but it's a long shot.  But I can't even get the charge with the Avenger in the way.  So Kraye rides in, shoots him twice, casts Arcane Blast and finally kills the Gator.  The Rangers all run and engage the Cannoneer and the Krea, so they can't get in and attack Kraye, and that's turn.

  

  But it's also game.  All he has to do is end his turn for the 5th CP, and that's it.  So he does, and Victory to Skorne.

Thoughts:

  1. I bungled the charge with the Stormclad.  I could have taken the CP, and that would have been another point for me, and I would have had a much better shot at dominating next turn.  If I had focused on killing the center gator instead of a different one, I think the game would have been a bit closer.

  2.  Running the Rangers to engage was a good idea, and I might should have done it a turn earlier, instead of trying to kill the Raider.  The Canoneer did 18pts of damage to the Stormclad, just shooting.  Bloodmark didn't help, but yeah...

  3.  Support.  Hordes likes their support, be it Circle, Legion or Skorne.  I haven't played much against Trolls, but they're probably the same way.  Legion and Skorne definitely though.  Blazers... might have been better than ATGM, but a sniping Avenger has pretty much got me sold...

  Overall though, good game, and I thoroughly enjoyed it to the last.

Kraye (Cygnar) vs. Rhyas (Legion)

  My frequent opponent has a tournament coming up, 50pts tier.  He's been tossing around a lot of list ideas and one of them he wanted to test out was Rhyas's tier.  We met up at our LGS (I haven't decided if it's friendly or not) and set up our lists.

  Scott's looked like this:

Rhyas
*Ravagore
*Typhon
*Seraph
*Shredder
*Shredder
Swordsmen w/ UA
Swordsmen w/ UA (I think.  Tier bonus, I believe)
Warspears w/UA
Warmongers (Proxied by the Warspears on the right side when you see the picture)
Warmonger Solo
Succubus

  Of my two main casters, eStryker and Kraye, I generally have better luck with Kraye against Legion.  He matches their speed, brings accurate shooting or accurate melee, and can change it up midgame.  My normal list has Kraye, Minuteman, Avenger, and Stormclad, Rangers and Blazers.  Lately though, as much as I love the Blazers, I've been swapping them for the ATGM.  Three reasons.

  1)  Main reason is the threat range on my Stormclad is 17'' with reach, full tilt from Kraye, and feat.  The setup key is the Avenger.  On a direct hit, he knocks down a 4'' AOE, which is great.  You might say that the Stormclad is already boosted to hit though on everything, because of Kraye's feat.  That's true, but on a caster kill, I really like the caster down so hits are pretty nearly automatic.  It also makes it much easier to shoot the target if that's needed as well.  The maximum range on the Avenger though, is 14'', including moving him.  Jack marshalling him to the ATGM though, gives him Snipe.  Now we're at 18'', and we can still boost to hit.  Plus, I normally bring the Trencher Master Gunner for Artillerist, and any Ranger bonuses.  That makes a normally RAT4 jack pretty accurate, even shooting at a DEF16 caster.  Toss in Snipe so it can aim, and we're talking.  Normally though, the Jack doesn't get to aim.  It's got to move 3'' just to reach out and touch what the Stormclad wants to kill.  Before I marshalled to the ATGM, that couldn't happen.  The Gun Mage UA solves that.

2)  Scenario's pretty rough on Kraye, and five models from a normally fast unit like the Blazers doesn't help too much.  I haven't decided if the ATGM are better for Scenario or not, but they seem like they could be. 

3)  They're two points less than the Blazers, which lets me fit a Squire in.  If I want.  With the Avenger Jackmarshalled, Kraye only has 2 jacks, and 6 focus generally works for that.  Seven focus is better though.

  So, my list was the following:

Kraye
*Stormclad
*Minuteman
*Squire
Rangers
ATGM w/ UA
*Avenger

  I just realized I brought a 35pt list to a 50pt game...  I'm not even kidding.  I don't know how I messed that up.  We got there, and he wanted to do 50pts, and I knew it, and I grabbed my Kraye list off of Warroom and went at it.

  Nevermind the fact that it said 35pts at the end.

  I feel like an idiot.  Welcome to the first batrep of a new blog, everyone!  Wooohooo, Jedi's a moron.  Yeah...

*sigh*  Here's a picture...  I didn't have my Sony, so the pictures aren't quite the quality that's the norm for me.

  Gee, I just feel brilliant right now.  Anyways, we'd rolled off, and he won, so he elected to go second.  The Rhyas Tier is really nice because if gives his Warnouns AD.  For a slow unit (Compared to the rest of Legion), that's really nice.  The Warspears, in particular, are annoying with the ability to Prey, and assault.  They preyed my minuteman, Scott being fully aware of what that guy can do under Kraye.

  So, turn is to me.  I'm looking at the board, and absolutely nothing is amiss.  It's completely normal for Kraye to run 1/3rd the number of the opposing force.  I'm a little bit concerned, but it's a lot of models to deal with, I've never played Ryas, and that's a lot of 8 wound medium based units to deal with.  On the plus side, I have a lot of guns.  My main concern is that I'll move up, he'll move up, I spend a turn shooting down a unit, won't kill all of the Warmongers that'll beserk and kill most of my infantry, leaving me just a battlegroup to handle what's left of his warnouns, the caster and her battlegroup.  Hopefully the Minuteman can get a unit of swordsmen.  We also chose incursion for a scenario, but we don't have the flags in place yet.

  I roll off.  Stormclad gets a focus, and that's it.  Avenger runs up, Stormclad runs up, Kraye gives the Minuteman Full-Tilt and he runs for free way way away from the Warspears.  I can't get into their lines turn one with him, but maybe turn two if he can survive.  So I hide him behind the "forest" on the right.  The Rangers move up to hug the hill, ATGM spread out, everything kinda wary of Typhon's spray.  Kraye camps three focus.  That's turn for me.

  Pretty standard, really.  I hand back the tape measure (I'd forgotten mine) and he runs everything up.  He asked what the threat range was of the Stormclad, which is 17''.  He kept his Warmongers back a little, guessing, but moved his Warpears just as far.  In fact, they assaulted my Rangers.  Most were out of range, and at DEF17, were having a hard time hitting, even with the +2 RAT from the Warmonger Solo.  They killed one Ranger on the hill and that was it.

 The Swordsmen all ran and stationed themselves behind the warnouns, making me wish I had enough points to fit Electro-leaping Tempest Blazers into the list...  Rhyas moved up and tucked in behind the Warmongers, and leashed Typhon up behind her.  She then cast Occultation on the Warmongers.  The Seraph gave somebody an extra 2'', may have been Rhyas, I'm not sure.  Shredders moved up on the flanks and Scott gave me back the tape measure.

  That's a lot of models to deal with.  Full Tilt is still on the minuteman, and if I give him easy rider, he can wander through the forest, jump, and definitely hurt some troops, maybe even Rhyas, because she's awful close...  In fact...  

  I measure control range.  The Warmonger directly in front of Stormclad is 14'' from Kraye, tucked in behind the Warjack.  That's 12'' from Stormclad.

  I asked Scott how many Fury Rhyas had on her.  Five, he said.  There probably wasn't a chance of me killing her with Stormclad.  Not with four attacks and five transfers.  However, dice plus 5 damage was probably the best chance I was going to have at his beasts.  High enough rolls and I could easily kill two, maybe three beasts this turn.  Even if I lose Stormclad, that's a pretty decent trade.  Kraye drops the Full-Tilt upkeep on the Minuteman, gives Stormclad 3 focus and keeps the other four.

  The rangers move up.  One runs, so nobody shoots.  He sprints across and lands near Typhon, trying to be 5'' from the Warmonger you see right behind the purple upkeep token.  Right behind him is Rhyas.  The ATGM move up, and five of them are within range of the same Warmonger, who, incidentally, is 5.5'' from the Ranger.  Dangit.

  But, at RAT7, the ATGM hit him four times, and one crits.  Which is exactly what I need.  See, I'm trying to set up an easier shot for the Avenger.  Unfortunately, four shots kills the Warmonger, and the Avenger has to hit a standing one.  Great job, guys...

   Kraye drops Mage Sight out there, and full-tilts the Stormclad.  Then he rides up, shoot Rhyas with a Ride-by and gets behind the forest.

  The master gunner artillerists him, and I use the snipe shot from the Atgm.  Happily, the Warmonger to the left is in range, and in Mage Sight now too.  RAT4, +2 for aiming, +2 from the Artillerist, aaaannd +2 from the Ranger who's actually close enough to mark this one.  I need not snake eyes.

  I roll a one, and a four.  A hit.  KDs Rhyas, Typhon, and the Warmonger.  I boost damage on Rhyas, and get four, five damage.  Typhon shrugs it off and the Warmonger survives.

  The Stormclad, however, charges.  I don't even Feat Kraye, I'm saving that in case the Minuteman needs to do something next turn.  Kind of an insurance plan.  Stormclad travels 13'' and tucks right into the bases of the two Warmongers and easily has reach on Rhyas, who is KD for DEF7.  Not snake eyes to hit.

  Stormclad does Impact attacks to the Warmongers, then swings at Rhyas and hits.  Dice +5 and does fourteen damage.  Enough to kill her.  She transfers and kills the Shredder with points to spare and takes them back on her for a few more points.  The Focus he had comes back to her, so she transfers the next damage to Typhon, which hurts him considerably.  I use the shield on the KD warmonger and kill him, and buy another attack with the blade.  It hits, and again, does enough damage to kill Rhyas.

  Scott looks up.  "Good game, I screwed that up." he says.

  "I thought you had five fury on her." I said.  

  "I misunderstood.  I had five fury out there on her beasts.  Rhyas only had one."  

  Heck, that's even better.  With two more attacks, I definitely would have killed another beast, if at the very least the Shredder.  Both the Seraph and Typhon would have been hurting.  I still would have been in trouble though, with that much infantry.  So I'm glad it happened how it did, but none theless...

  Thoughts:

  1.  I think the ATGM are going to stick around.  A 18'' threatrange on the Avenger is incredible.  I love it.  It really makes this list shine.  It also handles stealth much better instead of relying on Mage Sight for everything.

 2.  Stormclad is awesome.  I didn't even do the Electro leaps.  It would have probably killed the Warmonger next to her and some of the Swordsmen behind her, but it didn't need to, Stormclad handled her just fine.

3.  I can't believe I forgot 15 points...

4.  Scott was way far up, but even if he'd been back two inches, I had Kraye's feat to go yet.  He needed to be back about three or four to really be out of range.  At the very least, Rhyas needed to be back an inch or two.

  Overall, pretty happy with the game, though it was really short.  I kinda felt bad because Scott didn't really get in the Tournament practice he was looking for, but at 35pts... probably wouldn't have gotten it anyways lol.  I'm a moron.

  Tune in some more!  I've got a couple of Vassal Reports and some painting progress in the next few days.  Hope to see you guys around!