Post by Trollock on Jul 19, 2017 16:56:51 GMT
This is just a quick thought exercise i did earlier today. I have heard on many occasions that there are currently only 2 bogeymen in the meta: Denny 1 (Ghost Fleet) and Fyanna 2 (Oracles). By "bogeymen" here i mean that they bring lists that are strong and are strong in such a way that if you did not bring special tech against them, you will have a VERY hard time beating them. If you are up against Ghost Fleet and you did not bring RFP (that works on undead) or magic attacks, you will pretty much have to kill Denny or lose. Killing Denny is very hard for most lists, and thus you probably need to bring RFP and magic attacks to have a reasonable chance. The same goes for Fyanna 2. If you do not have a way of dealing with her feat, you will most likely play an attrition game that you will lose. She yanks a heavy forward and kills it with no reprisal. Then she alphas hard and feat. You do nothing and she keeps on killing your stuff. It is almost impossible to come back from that.
So, i sat down and thought about what lists we have that can be good in to BOTH Ghost Fleet and Fyanna. If you have one list that is tuned especially for those guys, your off list can be something you are interested in playing in general, right? We are pretty good at building lists that have game against a variety of lists but that struggle in specific match ups. It could be a way of allowing you to play basically what ever list you want and then pair it with the list specialized for Ghost Fleet and Fyanna. If you can come up with a list that has a fair chance against GF / Fyanna (i mean like a 50/50) i think you should be pretty happy. No need to try and make a "silver bullet" list that ONLY covers this match up though, because you may still have to play it against other things, depending on what "main" list you brought alongside it.
My first answer here was Gunnbjorn. He is a no-brainer agaisnt Ghost fleet, but i think he can have an OK game against Fyanna as well. Here is what i came up with:
Trollbloods Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm of the North (CID)
(Gunnbjorn 1) Captain Gunnbjorn [+28]
- Dozer & Smigg [18]
- Glacier King [35]
Northkin Shaman [0(4)]
Troll Whelps [4]
Valka Curseborn, Chieftain of the North [0(6)]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min) [6]
- Northkin Elder [4]
Northkin Raiders (max) [15]
- Trollkin Sorcerer (1) [3]
Hearthgut Hooch Hauler [18]
Thoughts on the Ghost Fleet match up
For Magic weapons i have brought a Sorcerer for the Raiders as well as Explosivo. I also have Valka and the Shaman to round things off. Magic weapons do not solve the match up, but if you have none of them, you will be in trouble.
For mass infantry Removal i have Dozer who is very good, especially if he can get in to melee and trigger kill shot. I also have the Raiders and the HHH who can dish out a lot of blasts and sprays. The Shaman could snipe a guy or two as well, and the GK does a bit of work. I can think of many lists that kill infantry more efficiently, but this is OK if they do not have the bonkers recursion.
Speaking of which, Explosivo on Dozer or the GK will be really good to deal with the recursion. If you did not know how this works, if you Remove From Play on the unit leader of the pirates, he does not replace one of the grunts, but he actually goes away forever. A grunt is promoted to unit commander, but the pirates that return have to be placed near the unit LEADER and he no longer exist. Yes, that is actually how that works! Shoot the leader with explosivo, he goes away and no pirates in that unit can be returned ever again. You still have to kill the others, but you only have to kill them once. Arcing Fire and Dual attack combined with the long range of Dozer means that it will be very hard for the opponent to hide the leader models and still be relevant. If he finds some super forest that he can hide behind, you will have to make due by RFPing the normal pirates one by one. You can also cycle Explosivo around to get more shots. The GK is no bad target for it either. Rember that his push happens before the model dies, so you could push one pirate in to one or two of his friends before it explodes, making for a more efficient use of the GK.
You also have a dangerous amount of magical shooting with the GK and Dozer. It is POSSIBLE though not guaranteed that you can shoot down the Wraith engine at range. I do not think the WE is super key against your list, but it cant hurt to kill it, right?
Finally you have your feat to help you survive the shooting for a key round. This could easily delay his feat by a turn, and by then you should have murdered more stuff, making his feat less awesome. Just be careful about the assassination. If your feat is not up, you are at mortal peril until the Arc Nodes are dealt with. Camp and use terrain (helps against the Scourge) to stay safe. You have Rock Wall and Gunny could be DEF 21 against the Scourge if you find a hill.
Bringing huge bases against Denny is usually not optimal, but the GK is more for Fyanna. The feat will help him a LOT though to survive the small arms fire. You GK will have Parasite/Crippling Grasp the whole game, but you just have to play it like that tbh.
Thoughts against Fyanna
The GK is a superb piece here. It threatens his beasts from far away (you may snipe it in this match up) to either kill a beast before it gets to do things, or force a defensive feat. If he feats BEFORE he alpha strikes, you have a real chance at winning imo. Once he does go in, the GK is hard to one round (block landing zones so he can not get more than 1-2 beasts on to it) and if he survives he can boost attacks at his beasts to stationary them. Your other models can easily finish off what he stationaries, so do not keep attacking the same guy. Use bulldoze to get to as many beasts as possible and freeze them. The Shaman can help you with -2 DEF if you are lucky, and then you can usually stationary a couple of beasts and the match up becomes MUCH easier after that.
Valka is very high MAT and POW and he could help you dish out serious damage against their elusive heavies. The HHH and Raiders will wreck what ever they can hit, but that pretty much requires Stationary first. On non-feat rounds, the Raiders can do MAT 7 charge attacks against DEF 13-14 though and that adds up.
The GK is the linchpin of this match up though. He needs to do work for this to work. Protect him any way you can. Block landing zones, cast Rock Wall or just keep him far back (doing work with Snipe) until it is time.
Thoughts against normal lists
I just tweaked one of my "normal" that i dojoed when the CID started to be slightly more adapted to these opponents. The basic thought behind the list was that Snipe on HHH followed by switching it to the Raiders would be sweet. Gunnbjorn also has access to the Rock wall, and i think that is one of the best spells in the game. The skill cap on that thing is insane. I think that if you really grind Gunnbjorn (i have not) you can get a huge advantage in most any match up thanks to this spell. It is one of the best conTROLL elements we have in our faction. My point is, this list can probably play well in to a variety of opponents. You can pair it with something you like particularly much right now. Maybe Doomy 2? or Borka 2? Who knows? The sky is the limit!
Thanks for reading
/T
So, i sat down and thought about what lists we have that can be good in to BOTH Ghost Fleet and Fyanna. If you have one list that is tuned especially for those guys, your off list can be something you are interested in playing in general, right? We are pretty good at building lists that have game against a variety of lists but that struggle in specific match ups. It could be a way of allowing you to play basically what ever list you want and then pair it with the list specialized for Ghost Fleet and Fyanna. If you can come up with a list that has a fair chance against GF / Fyanna (i mean like a 50/50) i think you should be pretty happy. No need to try and make a "silver bullet" list that ONLY covers this match up though, because you may still have to play it against other things, depending on what "main" list you brought alongside it.
My first answer here was Gunnbjorn. He is a no-brainer agaisnt Ghost fleet, but i think he can have an OK game against Fyanna as well. Here is what i came up with:
Trollbloods Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm of the North (CID)
(Gunnbjorn 1) Captain Gunnbjorn [+28]
- Dozer & Smigg [18]
- Glacier King [35]
Northkin Shaman [0(4)]
Troll Whelps [4]
Valka Curseborn, Chieftain of the North [0(6)]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min) [6]
- Northkin Elder [4]
Northkin Raiders (max) [15]
- Trollkin Sorcerer (1) [3]
Hearthgut Hooch Hauler [18]
Thoughts on the Ghost Fleet match up
For Magic weapons i have brought a Sorcerer for the Raiders as well as Explosivo. I also have Valka and the Shaman to round things off. Magic weapons do not solve the match up, but if you have none of them, you will be in trouble.
For mass infantry Removal i have Dozer who is very good, especially if he can get in to melee and trigger kill shot. I also have the Raiders and the HHH who can dish out a lot of blasts and sprays. The Shaman could snipe a guy or two as well, and the GK does a bit of work. I can think of many lists that kill infantry more efficiently, but this is OK if they do not have the bonkers recursion.
Speaking of which, Explosivo on Dozer or the GK will be really good to deal with the recursion. If you did not know how this works, if you Remove From Play on the unit leader of the pirates, he does not replace one of the grunts, but he actually goes away forever. A grunt is promoted to unit commander, but the pirates that return have to be placed near the unit LEADER and he no longer exist. Yes, that is actually how that works! Shoot the leader with explosivo, he goes away and no pirates in that unit can be returned ever again. You still have to kill the others, but you only have to kill them once. Arcing Fire and Dual attack combined with the long range of Dozer means that it will be very hard for the opponent to hide the leader models and still be relevant. If he finds some super forest that he can hide behind, you will have to make due by RFPing the normal pirates one by one. You can also cycle Explosivo around to get more shots. The GK is no bad target for it either. Rember that his push happens before the model dies, so you could push one pirate in to one or two of his friends before it explodes, making for a more efficient use of the GK.
You also have a dangerous amount of magical shooting with the GK and Dozer. It is POSSIBLE though not guaranteed that you can shoot down the Wraith engine at range. I do not think the WE is super key against your list, but it cant hurt to kill it, right?
Finally you have your feat to help you survive the shooting for a key round. This could easily delay his feat by a turn, and by then you should have murdered more stuff, making his feat less awesome. Just be careful about the assassination. If your feat is not up, you are at mortal peril until the Arc Nodes are dealt with. Camp and use terrain (helps against the Scourge) to stay safe. You have Rock Wall and Gunny could be DEF 21 against the Scourge if you find a hill.
Bringing huge bases against Denny is usually not optimal, but the GK is more for Fyanna. The feat will help him a LOT though to survive the small arms fire. You GK will have Parasite/Crippling Grasp the whole game, but you just have to play it like that tbh.
Thoughts against Fyanna
The GK is a superb piece here. It threatens his beasts from far away (you may snipe it in this match up) to either kill a beast before it gets to do things, or force a defensive feat. If he feats BEFORE he alpha strikes, you have a real chance at winning imo. Once he does go in, the GK is hard to one round (block landing zones so he can not get more than 1-2 beasts on to it) and if he survives he can boost attacks at his beasts to stationary them. Your other models can easily finish off what he stationaries, so do not keep attacking the same guy. Use bulldoze to get to as many beasts as possible and freeze them. The Shaman can help you with -2 DEF if you are lucky, and then you can usually stationary a couple of beasts and the match up becomes MUCH easier after that.
Valka is very high MAT and POW and he could help you dish out serious damage against their elusive heavies. The HHH and Raiders will wreck what ever they can hit, but that pretty much requires Stationary first. On non-feat rounds, the Raiders can do MAT 7 charge attacks against DEF 13-14 though and that adds up.
The GK is the linchpin of this match up though. He needs to do work for this to work. Protect him any way you can. Block landing zones, cast Rock Wall or just keep him far back (doing work with Snipe) until it is time.
Thoughts against normal lists
I just tweaked one of my "normal" that i dojoed when the CID started to be slightly more adapted to these opponents. The basic thought behind the list was that Snipe on HHH followed by switching it to the Raiders would be sweet. Gunnbjorn also has access to the Rock wall, and i think that is one of the best spells in the game. The skill cap on that thing is insane. I think that if you really grind Gunnbjorn (i have not) you can get a huge advantage in most any match up thanks to this spell. It is one of the best conTROLL elements we have in our faction. My point is, this list can probably play well in to a variety of opponents. You can pair it with something you like particularly much right now. Maybe Doomy 2? or Borka 2? Who knows? The sky is the limit!
Thanks for reading
/T
