Warmachine Batrep #22: 50 Points Circle (Krueger2) vs. Skorne (Xerxis1) (with pictures!)

Xerxes, not Xerxis. Spelled it wrong up til today!

Howdy, folks! Another day, another report! Today I faced off against Leighanna (did I spell it right? My spell check says that I am clearly trying to spell "Ghanaian" haha) and her Skorne. She's still somewhat new to the faction, but has been playing for far longer than I have! Her stuff is getting painted at a pretty brisk pace, and I was excited to play against Xerxis1 again - he's a fun caster, and he does some pretty cool stuff.

In preparation for the upcoming tournament this weekend, I played Krueger2 again. I don't know if you've noticed, but he's been my go-to caster for a while now. Lots of fun to be had with him for a guy like me who loves scenario play. It may sound a little crazy, but I honestly feel like he might be a stronger overall caster than Morv2, due to the fact that he doesn't have any awful matchups. Time will tell if this is correct of course :)
My List: (50 points)

Krueger2

-Ghettorix
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Gorax

Tharn Bloodtrackers
-Nuala
Druids of Orboros
-Druid Overseer
Stoneward and Wold Stalkers
Shifting Stones
-Stone Keeper

Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer

Leighanna's List: (hopefully 50 points)

Xerxis1

-Gladiator
-Bronzeback
-Bronzeback
-Krea

Nihilators (max)
Pain Givers (max)
Venator Reavers (6 of them - is that max?)
-UA
Tyrant Commander

Extoller Soulward

Mission: Close Quarters (Control enemy flag or Dominate own flag for 1 CP, Dominate enemy flag for 2 CP. KILLBOX)

**I won the roll to go first, and took it

Pre-game thoughts:

I hadn't played against two Bronzebacks before, and had heard of the Reavers, but not actually played against them. So, a few new elements for me. Xerxis1 can run a ridiculous Tier list, but it's expensive (in real life money, not points), and you end up seeing a lot of random stuff being taken with him. Leighanna was excited that she had a new unit (Reavers) and wanted to try them, though I doubt she will want to keep them in this list in the future, as Xerxis doesn't do too much for them.

At any rate, I also don't think that this is the optimal Circle drop, unless the Skorne player thinks that I'll go heavy army skew (Baldur2 Tier, Woldwrath, etc.), but Leighanna vetoed me dropping Morv2 against her, and to reciprocate, I vetoed her dropping Makeda2.

Anyways, on to the game. I knew that one of the Bronzebacks needed to die, ASAP. If they were allowed to go on a rampage, it was going to go very poorly for me. At the same time, I recognized that Leighanna hadn't taken any sort of defense against Krueger's feat, which would really hurt her ability to threaten me on my feat turn. Essentially, my goal was to sneak in a few early control points and drag one of the Bronzebacks in with Druids, kill him with a Wolf or two, then pop my feat to ensure there wasn't much in the way of counter-attacks, putting me up in attrition.

That was the plan at least :)

Circle Turn 1:

I ran my stuff up. I had put Prey on the Nihilators, since they seemed like something the Bloodtrackers could finish off in a couple turns, then go to threaten the rest of that flank.

Bloodtrackers ran up, and went a little closer than they probably should have, as you'll see.

Druids advanced and popped some smoke, for some reason.

I put up Storm Wall for no apparent reason.

Pretty standard formation for me :)

Skorne Turn 1:

Xerxis immediately put up Defender's Ward on the Nihilators, which cancels out their Prey bonus exactly.

Everything ran up, and a few of the Nihilators were able to engage my first rank of Bloodtrackers, which was a good move by Leighanna (she took advantage of my sloppy miscalculation).

She was also wise, and kept all her heavies behind the wall, so that I couldn't really drag one to its doom :)

Time to see if I can kill some Reavers/Nihilators.

Circle Turn 2:

My goal was to kill 3 models this turn. Oh wait, my goal was to kill 3 or 4 Nihilators, and 2 or 3 Reavers, as well as the TyCom banner.

First, the Wold Stalkers (Shrimp henceforth) moved up 6" and shot at Reavers. The plan started off well, and I hit with my first two shots, killing Reavers. The others missed their shots, and I used Zephyr to go back into the forest.

Bloodtrackers went, and in a combination of awful rolls and a couple timely tough rolls, I managed to kill all of ONE Nihilator. I had one guy knocked down, and I was foolish enough to use my reform move to engage him for some reason. Need to get better with Bloodtrackers :-/

Druids went, and I tried to use their push/pull attack to drag the TyCom banner in. They needed 5's or 6's, but missed 3 rolls in a row. Druid Overseer tried to shoot his awesome blast shot that I never remember to use at a nearby Nihilator, but it scattered off. Two Druids popped smoke to protect the others in their party.

So, what happened was that I killed 3 models this turn. Failure in execution on my part. :-/

Also, I forgot to rile my Gorax for 1, meaning I would need to cut Krueger for 1. Heh.

Skorne Turn 2:

Leighanna needed to make sure she pressed her advantage - she had gotten somewhat lucky that I missed as much as I did, but if she had an equally poor turn, the advantage would be mine once again.

So, she upkept Defender's Ward on the Nihilators.

Nihilators charged some Bloodtrackers, and through a slew of really great rolls, managed to kill 7 of them.

TyCom tried to kill a Druid, but failed. Standard Bearer also tried to kill some Druids, but needed a "10" to hit, and missed.

Reavers popped their mini-feat to get snipe (+4 range), and aimed at my Shrimp, killing 3.

Finally, Leighanna put a bunch of buffs on a Bronzeback, who charged a Druid and killed him.

Pretty good turn, all things considered.

Lots of dead Bloodtrackers - I wasn't sure what to do over there.

Circle Turn 3:

Leighanna wasn't as aggressive with her heavies last turn as perhaps she could have been - that wall next to her flag is great protection, but against K2, it would almost be better to be on the near side of the wall to me, so that I couldn't push with my feat.

I decided this was the turn I should make my move. I'm still experimenting with Krueger and exactly how bold he can get in scenario play. In this case, I decided to be extremely bold.

First, the nearby Bronzeback needed to die.

Blackclad Wayfarer went first, and shot the Bronzeback with Hunter's Mark to give me a free charge.

Shrimp went next, and one of them was close enough that the Bronzeback got a free counter-charge on a Shrimp. He missed his attack, surprisingly, but did manage to change the charge lanes a little bit. Not too much though.

Next, Gorax went and put Primal on the Stalker.

Stalker charged the Bronzeback and killed him with 2 Fury to spare. Hm.

Krueger went next, making use of his "flight" rule and charging the TyCom flag guy, but also coming into base contact with the enemy flag. I boosted his attack roll, hit, killed the TyCom flag guy, then popped my feat, pushing all but 2 Reavers and 2 Nihilators backward 3" and more importantly, reducing their SPD by 2. He then used Telekinesis (TK) to face himself forward again, and camped 4, just in case.

Druids went and shot up two Paingivers who were contesting the flag. Another one popped some smoke for Kreuger to sit in, and another one killed a Nihilator.

Stones teleported Ghetto within range of the TyCom and two Nihilators, and he killed all three of them.

Bloodtrackers went and killed a few more Nihilators.

Krueger dominated the enemy flag for two CP.

Score: 2-0 (advantage Circle)

Not an awful turn for me, though I honestly don't know how safe Krueger is right now. I *think* he's pretty safe, but Skorne is always surprising...

 Skorne Turn 3:

Leighanna spent a long time trying to decide how to kill Krueger. First, she boosted her Krea's shot at Krueger, needing an 11 to hit, and got it, paralyzing Krueger.

Her plan then slipped a little, as she realized that even with rush on her beasts, she wouldn't be able to get to Krueger. Reavers went up and shot at my DEF 5 caster and let him transfer some damage to the Gorax.

Nihilators were able to kill a single Bloodtracker.

That was pretty much it. Gladiator ran behind the wall, while the Bronzeback ran to try to engage Krueger, but was just outside of 0.5".

Extoller Soulward walked up and shot Ghettorix, who was engaged, needing a "13" to hit. Leighanna used a soul to boost it, and spiked a 13. She then put like 13 damage on Ghetto, which knocked out his mind.

Score: 2-0 (advantage Circle)

This is just a little bit into my own turn - Stalker's frenzy had already been finished.

Circle Turn 4:

Now was time to be a little sneaky. I wanted to kill the Bronzeback, and score another point this turn, possibly two.

Stalker frenzied, and Leighanna had put one of her Reavers close to him, and he tore it up easily.

Gorax also frenzied and killed my Blackclad. Ha.

Krueger walked backwards 6" (again, using flight), then TK'd himself into the Stone's teleport circle.

He also TK'd Ghetto (via Gallows Grove) closer to the Bronzeback.

Stones then teleported Krueger into B2B with my own flag.

Bloodtrackers charged the Nihilators, killing all but one of them.

Druids went and push/pulled the Bronzeback a little bit, hoping for a lucky knockdown, but it didn't work.

Ghetto went next and warped to Regen himself (Krueger should have remembered to just heal him for one instead, but... didn't.) He advanced into B2B with the Bronzeback, but left it on 4 boxes.

Shrimp, who had been waiting to run up and hold the enemy flag, instead just sat there and did nothing. Actually, they aimed and tried to kill the Bronzeback, but instead succeeded in knocking out Ghetto's mind again. haha :)

I dominated my own flag for another CP.

Score: 3-0 (advantage Circle)

Poor Ghetto, since the Bronzeback is still alive.

Skorne Turn 4:

Krea advanced and paralyzed Ghetto with a boosted 14. ha!

Leighannna then had the Bronzeback kill poor paralyzed Ghetto. Her remaining Nihilator managed to kill two Bloodtrackers, leaving me on one.

Not much else happened. I think a Druid or two was murdered.

I scored another CP, essentially winning the game, since I'd be able to score in my own turn as well.

I was about to be in some real trouble, attrition-wise.

Results: Win to Circle via Scenario!!

Post-game thoughts:

Well, Krueger isn't good at attrition. At least, I haven't figured it out yet anyways :)

But, I am getting better and better at scenario play. I was happy with how I played him, though I'm sure that sounds a little cocky. His feat is pretty ball-busting against certain armies, and the fact that Leighanna's whole army was within 6-8" of him without being able to do much says something about how destructive that feat can really be. Other lists don't care as much, but this time, it was money.

I need to get better at recognizing how much I can push with Krueger - this was an example of me recognizing that I was actually going to be safe, though I'm fairly familiar with Skorne at this point. If I tried that against, say, Menoth, I don't think I'd live to regret it.

I'm happy to say that I mostly followed my plan, though the Bloodtrackers really struggled against those Nihilators. Need to keep executing well, and hopefully I will start to see some tournament success :)

At any rate, I'm happy to say that I think my own skills with Krueger2 are coming along. I think that after the three tournaments this weekend (Hardcore, Steamroller, Who's the Boss), I will probably try to get in as many games with Cassius as possible. If I want to do well at the IMC, I really need to make sure I know how to use my 3rd list.

Not sure if I can stay away from playing Krueger2 in that span though - he's looking more and more like my #1 caster.

At any rate, I'll be taking pictures at my tournaments this weekend, and will also be trying to give updates on how I've done via Twitter. Follow me (@xaereth) if you're interested :)