|
Post by ForEver_Blight on Jul 6, 2017 18:14:32 GMT
Karchev, the Terrible.
I'm actually at a loss for ideas. I've been setting up test games at home to try and engineer a list and game play. I have so far been terribly unsuccessful.
I've been trying to put Kallus 2 on the table to out threat and make pow 17 weapon masters. But it's literally fallen apart at the seams every time.
If I try to hang back and use Kallus' feat to out threat, he sits with countercharge waiting. If I move in to push scenario, Road to War easily lets him close in a handful of jacks.
I really thought that using war spears, with prey, and the blight bringer, would make for some devastating damage. Which it pretty much is. 4 Warmongers without a charge or prey, but with battle lust and BB aura, clean up a Juggernaut. But I can't set up a situation where I can actually get the feat charge off. Going first or second. (Maybe its a case of literally being the other player so I know exactly what to do and not to do)
So yes, it's likely the caster falls short of the intended purpose. But I was wanting to run with the idea that weapon masters were the answer to armor. Nothing else I've got experience with hits as hard as the Kallus list can. Not even the Abby 2 that I run. Mainly because it's damage potential is turn-by-turn. I mean Kallus himself as a pow 17 WM is freaking great.
But it's Karchev's tool kit that ruins counter play. Bringing two Devastators he can easily trigger RtW. Counter charging Orgun means they are near auto-dead (Can often get into back arcs.) I tried to use double hellmouth to get a good bubble of drag threat... But it turns into RtW targets.
TLDR: What the heck do you put on the table to deal with Karchev specifically?
|
|
unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
|
Post by unded on Jul 6, 2017 18:45:51 GMT
Twins is my answer.
Blightbringer variant, min swordies, max raptors, go wild.
If that doesn't suit your preference, you could easily go Absy2 or Fyanna2, both should fit the bill nicely.
-und_ed
|
|
Whiskie
Junior Strategist
Posts: 288
|
Post by Whiskie on Jul 6, 2017 20:56:59 GMT
The answer definitely doesn't lie with Ogrun. They're way too expensive and squishy to be viable against Karchev and by the sounds of it you're not facing the really absurd version of the list with 10 heavies that just drowns you in armor and boxes.
Kallus2 is not remotely equipped to deal with Karchev levels of armor/box spam. He doesn't have a built-in damage buff for beasts and infantry won't survive long enough to be of much use. Kallus2 is a caster that can handle medium levels of armor at best, you need to rely on one of our faction's real heavy hitters to have a chance.
I've found two things that have a fighting chance - Fyanna2 in Oracles and Thagrosh1 abusing Hellmouths and resilient warbeasts like Carniveans, Typhon and Proteus. Nothing else brings the combination of damage and resilience that you need.
I complain exceedingly rarely about the game and try to armchair game design even less. But there's a problem with the cost of the lower end Khador warjacks relative to their ability to both output and absorb damage when compared to many Warbeasts across the game. The Marauder is dumb, dumb, dumb for 10 points in its current state. Killing one, two or even 4-5 isn't so much a problem. But when your opponent brings between 7-9 of them and they each cost just under half what a Carnivean does while the Carnivean has to be lucky to one-round the Marauder it's a serious issue.
You can't try to fight Khador in a straight up, fair fight. They'll win that sort of contest every time. Instead you need to be sneaky and find ways to cheat piece trades. Fyanna2 in Oracles is really good at it. An Angel charges in and armor pierces a jack, then a Neraph finishes the job and sprints to safety while the Angel that originally went in has Admonition and the Feat to keep it alive. You can pretty easily kill four heavies over the course of two rounds with this trick and it's at that point that you're forced to start actually taking losses, but fighting 6 or fewer heavies on even grounds is a lot easier than 10.
|
|
|
Post by ferran on Jul 7, 2017 9:13:52 GMT
Kallus 2 CoTD with swordmen, Bfs and raptors can deal with jack spam very well. At least in my games. Better to fight with Fyanna 2 or Abssy 2, but I'm not sure about these lists in SR 2017...
|
|
|
Post by snotling on Jul 7, 2017 10:26:05 GMT
They actually got better (imho), because you are not forced to engage in something like harkevichs feat.
|
|
|
Terrible
Jul 7, 2017 11:56:45 GMT
via mobile
Post by W0lfBane on Jul 7, 2017 11:56:45 GMT
Absy2 20 shredders
|
|
|
Post by ForEver_Blight on Jul 7, 2017 12:14:01 GMT
No I am not running 10 Marauders. To me, besides being brain dead stupid, it's not the most efficient for his tool kit. 2 Devastators can easily move up 2 or 3 other jacks in RtW. 4 Juggernauts in the list is stupid amounts of damage with the extra die on damage. Then 2 Berserkers because I didn't remember his feat got changed. but w/e it still works.
Kallus 2 doesn't have s Str buff for beast, no. But the point wasn't to rely on beasts. Warspears can get to pow 17 with prey and the BB aura. Add Battle lust and the charge is 17 +4d6. That's a boat load of damage. With his feat it was supposed to give the range necessary for the orgun to Alpha. It has worked against CoC (another arm/box skew i have trouble with). But again, Karchev has better tools at his disposal.
I don't like the prospect of Abby 2 because her damage buff is only a single turn. After that, at best, you're dice off 2 (not the worst, but that's a single beast out of the whole stable). Don't get me wrong, I think Abby is amazing. But she is not good at armor cracking. Just like Kryssa isn't. They can both have really good feat turns. But beyond that our stats fall short for the price and we just cannot make up the difference. In any other situation that would not be the case. But to take the guns with enough damage to "soften up" Khador heavies, we sacrifice too much melee damage.
I will try a game or two with Fyanna. I don't see it going well but it's worth a try. Pow 19 weapon masters that can just boost to hit does not sound like something our Flyers can survive. Feat or not.
|
|
|
Post by Wanderer on Jul 7, 2017 12:37:06 GMT
You could try swordsmen and Raptors. That's what I first thought when you mentioned weaponmasters: adding an additional die to attacks that are already weaponmasters.
I play Twins in CotD with all the weaponmasters into 7-8 jacks, and generally win on attrition without a damage buff other than Kiss of Lylyss (unless you count Rhyas as a damage buff).
|
|
|
Terrible
Jul 7, 2017 21:24:55 GMT
via mobile
Post by cainuslupus on Jul 7, 2017 21:24:55 GMT
No I am not running 10 Marauders. To me, besides being brain dead stupid, it's not the most efficient for his tool kit. 2 Devastators can easily move up 2 or 3 other jacks in RtW. 4 Juggernauts in the list is stupid amounts of damage with the extra die on damage. Then 2 Berserkers because I didn't remember his feat got changed. but w/e it still works. Kallus 2 doesn't have s Str buff for beast, no. But the point wasn't to rely on beasts. Warspears can get to pow 17 with prey and the BB aura. Add Battle lust and the charge is 17 +4d6. That's a boat load of damage. With his feat it was supposed to give the range necessary for the orgun to Alpha. It has worked against CoC (another arm/box skew i have trouble with). But again, Karchev has better tools at his disposal. I don't like the prospect of Abby 2 because her damage buff is only a single turn. After that, at best, you're dice off 2 (not the worst, but that's a single beast out of the whole stable). Don't get me wrong, I think Abby is amazing. But she is not good at armor cracking. Just like Kryssa isn't. They can both have really good feat turns. But beyond that our stats fall short for the price and we just cannot make up the difference. In any other situation that would not be the case. But to take the guns with enough damage to "soften up" Khador heavies, we sacrifice too much melee damage. I will try a game or two with Fyanna. I don't see it going well but it's worth a try. Pow 19 weapon masters that can just boost to hit does not sound like something our Flyers can su9lrvive. Feat or not. I'm sorry but I completelly dissagree about Abby 2 not being good into armour. Her Feat is used to set up attrition advantage but looking only at it is IMHO mistake. After around hundred games with her I can safely say she has what it takes to deal with armour. Alpha Hunter. Free charges IS damage buff and she gives it every round to whole BG with +2 Str on top. Also obnoxiously high Mat makes you miss only on double 1's and makes Ravagores monsters in meelee, so I don't see this sacrifice you're writing about. Proteus gives you options to use damaged jack as a shield blocking charge lanes. It's not TheoryMachine, I've done it multiple times against Khador. It works especially good if you can use some kind of obstruction to block LoS to him completelly. You should use some kind of unit (HH or Wasps) as jammers. With SR17 value of Abby2 will only go up. Lot of terrain and obstructions help her deliver and cheat trades even better than before. What she is affraid of is Winterguard firing squad and Sorscha1. Kharchev is OK right now. I've played tons of games against Khador since it's popular in my meta so maybe that's why I had to learn how to deal with them. Right now I don't see them as being outside our reach. Now onto Ogruns... It's frankly very bad idea. They are bad for their points - period. You're far better off with Legionaires in CotD with free Farillor. Or Hexhunters with free Bayal. Other options consists of Swordsmen (duh!) and Raptors. My current setup is full Swordsmen, Hexhunters with free Bayal and Legos with free Farilor. Going out of theme for Ogruns is double gimping your lists. They're not worth it before themes hit the shelves and now you shouldn't even consider them. Only CiD can save them.
|
|
Whiskie
Junior Strategist
Posts: 288
|
Post by Whiskie on Jul 7, 2017 21:31:58 GMT
@cainuslupis Out of curiosity what sort of Karchev lists are you playing against with Abby2? Anything like the crazy 10 Marauder builds or something else?
|
|
|
Terrible
Jul 7, 2017 21:45:27 GMT
via mobile
Post by yourmumrang on Jul 7, 2017 21:45:27 GMT
Focus firing jacks on the way in helps your melee alpha a lot.
|
|
|
Post by chillychinaman on Jul 7, 2017 21:47:34 GMT
Now onto Ogruns... It's frankly very bad idea. They are bad for their points - period. You're far better off with Legionaires in CotD with free Farillor. Or Hexhunters with free Bayal. Other options consists of Swordsmen (duh!) and Raptors. My current setup is full Swordsmen, Hexhunters with free Bayal and Legos with free Farilor. Going out of theme for Ogruns is double gimping your lists. They're not worth it before themes hit the shelves and now you shouldn't even consider them. Only CiD can save them. Do you have any particular plan for the Legionnaires? I don't see what they do better than another unit of Swordsmen so I'm curious if there's a trick I'm missing with them. Would love to put them on the table again.
|
|
|
Terrible
Jul 8, 2017 7:12:32 GMT
via mobile
Post by cainuslupus on Jul 8, 2017 7:12:32 GMT
@cainuslupis Out of curiosity what sort of Karchev lists are you playing against with Abby2? Anything like the crazy 10 Marauder builds or something else? I was playing against combination of Mad Dogs, Berkserkers and Juggies before nerf. Right now I've played against Harkevitch with Marauders, Bombardiers and Juggies, Butcher3 etc. Kharchev right now is not so popular in my meta, but I've played against him non stop when he was broken. Now when we have Oracles I feel we have all the tools in SR 2017 (I've played multiple games against Khador in CiD). Not saying it's favourable matchup but it's OK. I've played against Khador for so long I've learned some tricks. Dictating time and place of engadgement is one of them and Abby2 excells in it. Staying one inch outside LoS blocker with Bracered Protheus, projecting 16" threat is not something Khador likes. I can then Feat, drag one/two heavies and beat them up (with some help from shredder) and with Crawling Chaos use them as (barelly) live shields. It may sound as theory machine but I've successfully pulled it off multiple times. Bonus points if you can block LoS to you and forcevthem to do some weird stuff to gain it. Do you have any particular plan for the Legionnaires? I don't see what they do better than another unit of Swordsmen so I'm curious if there's a trick I'm missing with them. Would love to put them on the table again. It's test version and I'm not saying it's optimal or even good. Whole idea is using Legos as screen for Swordsmen. Kallus2 Feat and Vengeance gives them 16" non-linear Weaponmaster threat. Not going to lie, I'm kinda sceptic on this one but still they're better than Ogruns because they're in theme and you can deliver them.
|
|
blight
Baby's First Wargame
Posts: 9
|
Post by blight on Jul 8, 2017 13:05:05 GMT
Triggering Alpha Hunter with Abby 2 against a 8+ heavy Karchev list is hard because of few eligible targets for Abby to kill easily and the Forge Seers and other solos, mechanics etc. usually being played way back to deny the Abby player easy application of Alpha Hunter (or at least making it very dangerous for Abby to try). In my games with Abby against Karchev I have been able to successfully deny him use of Road to War because of conservative placement of the only really easy targets for it in Abby's list (Shredder, Forsaken, Hellions) but have also had similar difficulty in applying Alpha Hunter. That said, the matchup is entirely playable (especially with multiple Carniveans in the list and of course in Oracles).
|
|
|
Terrible
Jul 8, 2017 23:51:41 GMT
via mobile
Post by cainuslupus on Jul 8, 2017 23:51:41 GMT
Triggering Alpha Hunter with Abby 2 against a 8+ heavy Karchev list is hard because of few eligible targets for Abby to kill easily and the Forge Seers and other solos, mechanics etc. usually being played way back to deny the Abby player easy application of Alpha Hunter (or at least making it very dangerous for Abby to try). In my games with Abby against Karchev I have been able to successfully deny him use of Road to War because of conservative placement of the only really easy targets for it in Abby's list (Shredder, Forsaken, Hellions) but have also had similar difficulty in applying Alpha Hunter. That said, the matchup is entirely playable (especially with multiple Carniveans in the list and of course in Oracles). In Oracles you drag one/two jacks with Proteus and soften them up, then kill one with Abby to proc Alpha Hunter and reposition 5". If you need it, of course. Outside Oracles you can do similar trick with Hellmouth(s). Using terrain to your advantage is a must. Your beasts are flying, their jacks - don't. Also - Slipstream. Using obstacles, forests etc. is crucial. Whether you have Hexhunters or Wasps in your list - they can buy you some time bogging down jacks.
|
|