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Post by sand20go on Jul 23, 2017 3:12:44 GMT
Well if you don't like playing factions that say "no" get ready for unhappy days. This won't be a full battle report but more of some impressions that you might want to consider when thinking about are you covered. Moreover, since the faction can be played a number of ways and the arcana alter stuff there is unlikely to be one way to play it. But there are some things to keep in mind that are worth considering.
My list - played a variant on the Chris Davies list with Zerkova 1 and 2 full shock boats. Why? cause I wanted to get 2 full shock boats out. 2 Drakhuns, widowmaker boat.
His list - Heritic, 2 full hollowmen, 2 units of crows, 1 min unit of ponies and 2 lights and then 4 rabbits. Longfellow was in there as well, a tree, and then some other solos.
Scenario was the one with a LOT of scoring (this will be a big feature of 2017 and we probably need to start thinking about it.
His theme gave murder crows ambush.
Well it wasn't pretty. The crows ambushed hard into my stuff and contested and tied down the drakhuns. That allowed him to score on his flag and square zone so as to really get up. That force the shocktroopers not play to their grindy strengths and so it was pretty all over.
Some thoughts.
First - crabbits are going to be RIDICULOUS annoyoing. They were used for great effect to help deliver the niegh slayers. ARM 12 with 13 boxes
Given their cheapness (and then the strength of the Grymkin infantry I think you are going to see value in our spray dudes - from WGI to Torch to Ternions/Ponies to even the lowly AKs. You do have to worry about the Wanderer (Starcrossed) but generally our sprayers will be in decent shape and no shield guard on sparys. Thnk about how you can deliver your spays to the fight spot. There are some irritating arcana (there is one that a model's effort to cast a spell is negated) but I would strongly recommend thinking about you can fit in sprayers into your army to avoid the most irritating aspects of the Crabbits.
Second - Hollowmen are GOOD. I don't know if they are Joe+WGIRC good but they are very good because of CRA, Eyeless sight and the the latern. In my game the lattern was used to move the Drakhun to a place that the Neighslayer to get LOS to it and thus a dead drakun. I guess their MAIN weakness is RNG 10 and RAT 5 but it is likelyly you can going to see CRAs and then possible a glimmer imp to solve the def problem. Probably more than anything you want to find your guys a Wall or cover.
I probably will come up with other ideas but those are my initial impressions. Wish I had brought the B3 WGI theme - I think it would have done much better as I think I could have gotten the drop of the Nieghslayers and the rockets would have hurt the Crabbits enough to put a ding in them. The arcana that allows a beast to be placed could have been a MAJOR problem for the Battle Engine when it did its thing but c'ect la vi.
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Post by smoothcriminal on Jul 23, 2017 22:23:11 GMT
I played Grymkin myself and tried building lists for them, so from perspective of Khador what I think:
- the important part I think is to order play differently. You need to have your most valuable activation happen first and see if they ruin it or not, then work from that fact. Arcanas can seem strong but you have to remember they all work both ways (i.e. they screw your turn, but you also can play your turn differently with less losses if you bait it early) and Grymkins can't fire two arcanas in a turn.
Don't bother playing around the arcana by not fulfilling the conditions, they are all extremely easy to fulfill, might as well sit in deploy all game.
- bunnies read better than they are in practice. Have you played against other massed shield guard like Troll Warders or all jack themes with it? Well, bunnies are worse, spike damage on rocket or boosted bombard can kill the bunny. Just point and shoot your guns at intended target, bunnies will be over quite fast.
- kill their carriage as soon as you can. It's the most important model after caster in their army and it's rather brittle for a huge base.
As far as list recommendations go. Their infantry list is like a worse Cryx (they have way worse assassination game, worse stats, less recursion, but more bodies), their beast list is like Trolls x Circle (long threats, hard hitting, can heal themselves, can do def skew, no significant move shenanigans).
Melee infantry list like LoS is free corpse buffet for them, bring wgk or jacks instead. Rfp is very desirable. Magical weapons aren't needed since they only have gremlin solos for incorp and caster can take care of them. Grievous is nice to deny heals on beasts.
Armies relying on special rules like incorp, tough, regen, etc. will have a hard time against Grymkin since they can counter pretty much every single special rule in the game, but most Khador lists isn't like that, we deliver old-fashioned axe/rocket to face.
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Post by sand20go on Jul 24, 2017 2:32:18 GMT
I played Grymkin myself and tried building lists for them, so from perspective of Khador what I think: - the important part I think is to order play differently. You need to have your most valuable activation happen first and see if they ruin it or not, then work from that fact. Arcanas can seem strong but you have to remember they all work both ways (i.e. they screw your turn, but you also can play your turn differently with less losses if you bait it early) and Grymkins can't fire two arcanas in a turn. Don't bother playing around the arcana by not fulfilling the conditions, they are all extremely easy to fulfill, might as well sit in deploy all game. - bunnies read better than they are in practice. Have you played against other massed shield guard like Troll Warders or all jack themes with it? Well, bunnies are worse, spike damage on rocket or boosted bombard can kill the bunny. Just point and shoot your guns at intended target, bunnies will be over quite fast. - kill their carriage as soon as you can. It's the most important model after caster in their army and it's rather brittle for a huge base. As far as list recommendations go. Their infantry list is like a worse Cryx (they have way worse assassination game, worse stats, less recursion, but more bodies), their beast list is like Trolls x Circle (long threats, hard hitting, can heal themselves, can do def skew, no significant move shenanigans). Melee infantry list like LoS is free corpse buffet for them, bring wgk or jacks instead. Rfp is very desirable. Magical weapons aren't needed since they only have gremlin solos for incorp and caster can take care of them. Grievous is nice to deny heals on beasts. Armies relying on special rules like incorp, tough, regen, etc. will have a hard time against Grymkin since they can counter pretty much every single special rule in the game, but most Khador lists isn't like that, we deliver old-fashioned axe/rocket to face. Great insight! Seems absent the Wanderer Strak1 could be a tought matchup. They will want infantry or at the very least something that should be relatively east to trigger overrun and then send in the holy speak (or axe or hammer) of death. Transfers but still. Wanderer would be a problem with his get out of free card. I also think Hark would be more than solid. I would assume even with the three corpse tokens S&M is dice minus 4. Take those odds, with mechanics, and having cheaper (much) jacks than he does. Heretic a problem (Fury) but hot swapping it gets it on two max. Kharkev and counter charging jacks also seem decent - but would want to have SOMETHING to keep the infantry in check (WGI theme with some mins)? |
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Post by skathrex on Jul 24, 2017 8:40:45 GMT
I played Grymkin myself and tried building lists for them, so from perspective of Khador what I think: - the important part I think is to order play differently. You need to have your most valuable activation happen first and see if they ruin it or not, then work from that fact. Arcanas can seem strong but you have to remember they all work both ways (i.e. they screw your turn, but you also can play your turn differently with less losses if you bait it early) and Grymkins can't fire two arcanas in a turn. Don't bother playing around the arcana by not fulfilling the conditions, they are all extremely easy to fulfill, might as well sit in deploy all game. - bunnies read better than they are in practice. Have you played against other massed shield guard like Troll Warders or all jack themes with it? Well, bunnies are worse, spike damage on rocket or boosted bombard can kill the bunny. Just point and shoot your guns at intended target, bunnies will be over quite fast. - kill their carriage as soon as you can. It's the most important model after caster in their army and it's rather brittle for a huge base. As far as list recommendations go. Their infantry list is like a worse Cryx (they have way worse assassination game, worse stats, less recursion, but more bodies), their beast list is like Trolls x Circle (long threats, hard hitting, can heal themselves, can do def skew, no significant move shenanigans). Melee infantry list like LoS is free corpse buffet for them, bring wgk or jacks instead. Rfp is very desirable. Magical weapons aren't needed since they only have gremlin solos for incorp and caster can take care of them. Grievous is nice to deny heals on beasts. Armies relying on special rules like incorp, tough, regen, etc. will have a hard time against Grymkin since they can counter pretty much every single special rule in the game, but most Khador lists isn't like that, we deliver old-fashioned axe/rocket to face. Interestingly that goes almost absolutely against my experience playing against them and talking about it. Have you played many games with them yet? Because what you describe was similar to what I thought BEFORE facing them. The first part I agree with. You have to prioritise your game and do what you have too first and watch out not to get caught. Until you have played a good amount of games into Grymkin there will be a lot of Gotcha moments. The carriage may be important, but that depends on the list. The more Beasts/tanky stuff they bring the more important it gets. I actually lost a game because I commited to much into killing it Turn3 when it wasn't relevant anymore. All it needed to do in that game was transferring 3 corpse tokens onto a Skin&Moans. With mostly infantry on the board the armor wasn't important after that. But when they have more beasts the carriage becomes more important quite fast. Same goes for the the melee infantry. I don't see grimkin having a problem supplying themselfes with Corpses without the opponent, so i don't see melee infantry as a problem into them. Oh and yes Hollowman are a real pain. Especially if you bring clouds or stealth |
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Post by Netherby on Jul 24, 2017 8:45:56 GMT
Basically from what I'v seen the Death Knell is the linch pin of any Grymkin army and should be in every list. It should also be the first thing you kill when possible.
If a Skin&Moans has to collect corpses on its own... Well it's pretty screwed into Khador. Arm16, Pow16, basically completely useless!
The Arcanas are going to take a bit to get used to and get your head around though. I think that is the biggest advantage they have right now. So many Arcana options that opponents are going to get caught off guard a bunch.
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Post by smoothcriminal on Jul 24, 2017 12:30:07 GMT
The problems with melee infantry are:
- grymkin can ignore tough which fangs/kayazy are relying on in several popular lists
- grymkin have more arcana against melee than arcana against shooting. I think there's only 1 anti-shooting arcana (Stealth) and several that absolutely wreck a melee unit's perfomance (no order, place acid bath/forest, place a beast, -2 spd)
- you're getting in range of aiming hollow men and every single other trick they have really. Meanwhile Grymkin can't do much at long range
- their beasts can heal d3 off each living model they kill in melee
I see only downsides to using melee infantry against them and no real demand for pow 12-13 weaponmasters here since their beast bricks aren't that durable.
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Post by sand20go on Jul 24, 2017 13:29:35 GMT
The problems with melee infantry are: - grymkin can ignore tough which fangs/kayazy are relying on in several popular lists - grymkin have more arcana against melee than arcana against shooting. I think there's only 1 anti-shooting arcana (Stealth) and several that absolutely wreck a melee unit's perfomance (no order, place acid bath/forest, place a beast, -2 spd) - you're getting in range of aiming hollow men and every single other trick they have really. Meanwhile Grymkin can't do much at long range - their beasts can heal d3 off each living model they kill in melee I see only downsides to using melee infantry against them and no real demand for pow 12-13 weaponmasters here since their beast bricks aren't that durable. Good observation about the arcana! Hadn't sat down and just thought about that. Here is another. Melee may have a hard tiime getting out of starCrossed bubble under the Wanderer (which stacks frustratingly with "Ill Omens" for -1 to attack). Heretic has one wall he can put out for cover. No such problem for MOST shooting armies. If you can afford it on scenario - nudge back a bit and shoot away! The MAIN thing about that strategy (which I think is fine) is the irritating presence of the crabbits. That said, I am pretty sure watching now some grymkin armies going at it I am going to be fine with by Butcher3 WGI theme list. Gun Carriage is going to LOVE to see that much massed infantry on the board (7 CMD across the board for infantry). Limited access to pathfinder fixes (nieghslayers have relentless charge) so dropping out rough terrain pieces seems pretty "dope" to quote our early adopter Grymkin player. You will likely want to have the Ragman "fixer" for Butcher since with him and Silence of Death you can be dice -1 against a fully buffed Skin and Moans. Main issue for Butcher3 is to avoid getting "tricked" by the arcana "Pandemonium" which means no orders and which would then mean no charging for our big guy....and with lots of fury 7 casters that is a big bubble of "no". And of course WGI theme means sac pawn which helps both with Hollowmen AND lord longfellow. Seems, as they say, legit ;-) |
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Post by Netherby on Jul 24, 2017 13:36:26 GMT
The no orders Arcana doesn't work on warcaster/warlock units.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Jul 24, 2017 14:36:04 GMT
Basically from what I'v seen the Death Knell is the linch pin of any Grymkin army and should be in every list. It should also be the first thing you kill when possible. If a Skin&Moans has to collect corpses on its own... Well it's pretty screwed into Khador. Arm16, Pow16, basically completely useless! The Arcanas are going to take a bit to get used to and get your head around though. I think that is the biggest advantage they have right now. So many Arcana options that opponents are going to get caught off guard a bunch. Most likely it will be P&S 17 base as it can start with 1 corpse from Dark Menagerie, Karianna Rose adds enrage for +2, then there are a myriad of other buffs the casters can provide
Child - Abuse Heretic - Fury Wanderer - Manifest Destiny King of Nothing - Scything Touch
You are correct that P&S 16 is mopey against Khador, but even with only 1 corpse Grymkin can hit hard
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Post by Netherby on Jul 24, 2017 14:43:48 GMT
I would consider Pow17 to still be very bad. Sure, they have damage buffs. But that only gets it into acceptable power levels and it's only one model. If you can't get corpses onto your S&M before it goes in, you are pretty sad!
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Jul 24, 2017 15:15:39 GMT
I would consider Pow17 to still be very bad. Sure, they have damage buffs. But that only gets it into acceptable power levels and it's only one model. If you can't get corpses onto your S&M before it goes in, you are pretty sad! It is not necessarily one model, Enrage can only be used once, but Abuse can be cast more than once in a turn, Manifest Destiny affects Everyone, Scything Touch and Fury can be cycled, or scything touch can affect multiple things if it gets into melee with more than 1 model.
Also shooting the Death Knell to death would be a challenge I think, arm 20 against range, shield guard the high value shots to crabbits who die and provide more corpses, that then get dumped on Skin & Moans
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Post by smoothcriminal on Jul 24, 2017 15:21:00 GMT
Their stock Child beast list can send at least 4x 12" threat, 6 attacks at pow 19 at you in one turn. That's with zero corpses gained during the game.
We can win on piece trading though since we can bring 8 jacks and they can't.
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Post by Arjac Ironside on Jul 24, 2017 15:57:45 GMT
Basically from what I'v seen the Death Knell is the linch pin of any Grymkin army and should be in every list. It should also be the first thing you kill when possible. If a Skin&Moans has to collect corpses on its own... Well it's pretty screwed into Khador. Arm16, Pow16, basically completely useless! The Arcanas are going to take a bit to get used to and get your head around though. I think that is the biggest advantage they have right now. So many Arcana options that opponents are going to get caught off guard a bunch. Most likely it will be P&S 17 base as it can start with 1 corpse from Dark Menagerie, Karianna Rose adds enrage for +2, then there are a myriad of other buffs the casters can provide
Child - Abuse Heretic - Fury Wanderer - Manifest Destiny King of Nothing - Scything Touch
You are correct that P&S 16 is mopey against Khador, but even with only 1 corpse Grymkin can hit hard
Sadly its far worse than that... If you bring one unit of the pumpkin 🎃 guys they each start with a corpse token and can hand them out turn one. That's 10 more corpse tokens to give out like candy. |
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Jul 24, 2017 16:09:50 GMT
Most likely it will be P&S 17 base as it can start with 1 corpse from Dark Menagerie, Karianna Rose adds enrage for +2, then there are a myriad of other buffs the casters can provide
Child - Abuse Heretic - Fury Wanderer - Manifest Destiny King of Nothing - Scything Touch
You are correct that P&S 16 is mopey against Khador, but even with only 1 corpse Grymkin can hit hard
Sadly its far worse than that... If you bring one unit of the pumpkin 🎃 guys they each start with a corpse token and can hand them out turn one. That's 10 more corpse tokens to give out like candy. I am fairly sure the theme corpses are only for beasts and the knell, but with have to double check Warroom when I get home |
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Post by sand20go on Jul 24, 2017 16:30:08 GMT
Most likely it will be P&S 17 base as it can start with 1 corpse from Dark Menagerie, Karianna Rose adds enrage for +2, then there are a myriad of other buffs the casters can provide
Child - Abuse Heretic - Fury Wanderer - Manifest Destiny King of Nothing - Scything Touch
You are correct that P&S 16 is mopey against Khador, but even with only 1 corpse Grymkin can hit hard
Sadly its far worse than that... If you bring one unit of the pumpkin 🎃 guys they each start with a corpse token and can hand them out turn one. That's 10 more corpse tokens to give out like candy. OK. So lets assume that they are fully loaded (which seems a decent assumption). I built just for theorycrafting a Child List with 3 S&M, 1 rattler, one cager, 3 crabbits, Death Knell, Rose, Full Dread Rots and 3 swarms Some thoughts there. First, as others have pointed out we are probably eating a pretty serious alpha. Not necessarily but with an easy threat of 12 (5 base plus Abuse) we are looking at a pretty serious alpha opportunity. You also have to figure that at least one of those S&M will be a god. 3 corpse tokens + Abuse + Enrage for a POW 23 beast with likely Fury 5 stats. Mulg on that!!! Now one thing I am confused about above is how the Pumpkin heads START with a token. Warroom for Dark Menagarie (their beast theme) specifically says "non trooper models) so while the Death Knell and the S&M in the above build start with a token that is it. Now he CAN kill off (though tough) his own pumpkin heads to generate additional corpse tokens I am not sure that is the best move. Please correct what I am missing. But lets say this plays out. The four heavies go in and murderate stuff. It is 60 points of commitment potentially against all of 40 points of Maurders. You SHOULD be able to murderate them back even at ARM 19 with any sort of decent khadorian POW buff (Karchev, Butcher1, Sorsha2, Vlad (especially 1), Ragman, Gorman, etc. etc. etc. At that point I like our chances. The GSwarms will be exceedingly irritating given our general lack of magic guns (see below) but otherwise...... Seems to me we have a pretty standard khadorian strategy here. Go WGI theme. Pending CID squeeze in A&H. Bring WGI rather than that rifles. Accept the Alpha from the Beasts but not pumpkin head weaponmasters if at all possible. Try to minimize the numbers that they murderate. Probably your most important target on the approach is the Rattler as he is the one that can remove any screen you have. Next turn look to remove his beasts in a variety of ways. Avoid a frustrating arcana that would stack with the swarms (like the minus -1 from Attack and Damage which could potentially make the S&M effective DEF 16. He also lacks mass cloud removal (as far as I can see) so it would seem that you could play the Hark game. 9 walking threat vs. 10/11 inch threat for us. Main problem? Not getting locked out of scenario game. And there is always Karchev for countercharging to present serious challenges and the dangers, even at ARM 21, that you could zap out a key spiral on a S&M committed in (if not the sheer joy of crit'ing. Thoughts? |
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