How to beat a defensive Circle Part 2

That list doesn't look very impressive into Legion to me.

It has a problem cracking armour, so carniveans / Typhon can trade up solidly, and it's survivability is off the back of roots of the earth, so the Naga (Wraithbane) cripples the list's primary gimmick. I don't really feel like you need a specific caster to counter this - just make sure whatever caster you enjoy the most has the right tools available.

-und_ed

Baldur asks a question. Pick a legion caster who has answers and make sure they have a Naga. Both Thagrosh1 and Abby2 have damage buffs, and while abby alphas, none of those beasts hit hard enough to crack thags. Realistically, beast list plus Damage buff plus naga and seraph should give u a game into baldur2. Remember, wraithbane ignore baldurs feat too.

As already said in the last thread, eBaldur is one of tougher caster for us. Luckily this isn't a double Wrath list and quite manageable. So let's pick its capabilities apart.


Melee
This list has only linear charges and Hunter's Mark as an extender. So moving behind any obstruction is going to stop their charges - so try using those terrain pieces, especially our high SPD and flying beast profit from that.

Megalith: 9" / 11" with HM
Woldwarden: 9" / 11 " with HM
Baldur: 10" /12" with HM

Compared to Legion's threat ranges that's laughably low. Parking beasts that close to the opponent and not expecting a charge would be very shortsighted.
Our flying beast have higher natural threat ranges and our walking beasts can utilize a Seraph and/or any threat extender (depending on caster choice) to stay out of their charge range and still be able to charge them.

The lists melee P+S is overall quite low, but I still recommend not to expect any of our beasts to survive charges, as long as you don't stack serious buffs (e.g. pThags + Carni, Fyanna feat).


Shooting
Most of its shooting is SP range, only power 12 and the RAT rather low, not very dangerous even for our beasts. The Fulcrum has a POW15  AOE but that's just one shot per turn. The amount of sprays still means you have to be careful with infantry, spread them so they can't get to many models at once. Use only high-DEF infantry in the frontline (and only if you're okay with getting them killed anyway), valuable hitters like Swordsmen should stay behind until some juicy target presents itself, don't be greedy with them but patient instead.


Defensive
This list has only a few hitters, which they need to win games (Mega, Warden and partial Baldur). If you get rid of those it's your game. Most of this lists tools try to make that as hard for you as possible.
Feat: take a Naga and ignore the feat. Wraithbane is a game winner in this match-up.
Healing: don't leave beasts half damaged, if you try to remove something than don't do it half-assed, depending on your list you'll often have to plan to attack not only with one beast but a 2nd one or some other stuff. If you're lucky and kill a heavy with one beast, you can still divert your attention somewhere else. Just don't expect it.
Rock Wall: we have enough beasts with 2" RNG to hit over walls and Wolds have such low DEF that the bonus isn't that important. Here you can also use our superior threat ranges (spells + seraph) to charge to the left/right from the wall, luckily our beasts are packed with pathfinder so they don't get blocked by walls.
Teleport: Sentry Stones are a high priority target early on. If you can kill one, do it. As soon as a units lost one stone, they can't teleport anymore and your job with them is done.


General gameplan
To use all those forest creation abilities and Sentry Stones this Circle list is quite slow. Therefore quickly move forward turn 1-2 to pressure scenario. Of course stay out of their 11" (or 9" if you already dealt with the Blackclads) threat range - and ALWAYS check this distance. Seriously, ALWAYS  check the distance to EVERY of your important models (e.g. ALL of our beasts).

High priority targets during early game are Sentry Stones, Shifting Stones and Blackclads.
Sentry Stones are most likely the easiest to get to/shoot at, no secret here. Just don't waste expensive melee models for them... Do it with guns or some cheap melee sacrifice (usually it's the first anyway due to higher threat ranges).
To remove one Shifting Stone per unit is, as already said, very important. They are the only models that enable the "run" in "hit'n'run" for this list. Of course your opponent knows this too and will protect them as best as possible. So getting damage in against them can be hard. But as long as you position your models (especially those with guns) in a way which hinders the Stones to move safely forward, your opponent might not be able to use them to their full extent - which is already a (small) win for you.
Blackclads have 16" HM threat, if your opponent keeps them further back (behind forests) you can measure which of your models are posible targets and which aren't. If they're positioned aggressivly, they are easy targets for any of our guns. 


Your main tasks during mid and late game is removing the heavy beasts. Without them the list has no significant punch left. The better you did your job removing support pieces earlier, the easier this will be. Utilize all the tips I gave earlier to do it.

The Fulcrum I would ignore mostly btw. For its point cost it produces not enough attacks to be of great danger. If your opponent dumps a lot of fury into it, that's still okay - this  means less spells/healing you have to worry about and a caster with low transfer fury is always something Legion likes to see. 



What list would I play into this? Well, a lot is possible here....  heck, I've even played Lylyth3 into something like that and she's usually not good against high ARM. Guess the mentioned pThags beast bunker would work, thanks to the low damage output of the Wolds.
But thinking about the casters you have available I say the safest bet is eFyanna. The common Oracles list as you can find everywhere on the net will play very well into this Circle list.

Don't underestimate that Fulcrum Falcen - it's got a boostable POW 15, a boostable POW 14 and a boostable POW 12 spray. It's the biggest threat in that list imo.

As far as Baldur2 being a tough match for Legion... I just don't see it. He relies so heavily on his big ARM surviving a punch, and wraithbane just ends that whole plan.

Again, I want to know which caster he prefers and then I can give more constructive advice. I'd recommend someone with a non-targeted damage buff in case the circle list mutates to Woldwraths, but as it stands almost any Legion caster will do.

-und_ed

Hmm, interesting.

At my last big event I had the twins with a Naga, and the circle player actively avoided dropping eBaldur into me, precisely on the grounds that the Naga removes his entire feat. I'm curious why you find the double Wrath difficult - as long as you can get 2 beasts on to a given wrath, I think baldur is in deep trouble.

The fulcrum is a fascinating piece, though. I'm trying it out with almost every circle caster. It's basically a better ravagore, at the same price (but with no melee component, which I confess really hurt when facing Gunnbjorn). I have so much respect for that thing, can't get enough of it.

-und_Ed

On the note about finding someone else to play, I would LOVE to, however as of late the other players havd been quite busy, and lately its just been me and my friend. I've actually won against seasoned players before, I just haven't been able to play anybody lately, abd its only been him.


I will try to post a battlereport, tonight, because I more than likely will be playing him tonight (again).

Alrighty, let's try to work with this.

In the current form of the list, Lylyth1 is actually pretty solid (if he moves on to using woldwraths, then you'll need to rethink this).

For the list (I'm not too fussed about an exact list) the ingredients I'd like to see are:

Carnivean
Naga Nightlurker
Seraph
Typhon
Succubus
Nephilim bolty

Fill the rest to your preferred models. something long-ranged like a ravagore wouldn't go amiss, you could go heavy into multiple bolties, you could happily run a Scythean, you could spread into raptors... basically choose your favourite flavour of Legion. Make sure you have some FURY management while you're at it.

Your playstyle is going to be dancing around him, using your superior threat ranges to pick at him until he commits, being careful to measure threat ranges to your own beasts. His beasts do not have the damage to one-round Typhon or the Carni with an animus up, so you can let one beast charge either of them, but never 2. Your first shooting priority are the sentry stones, as the forest wall blocks your LOS. Remember that the fulcrum is immune to fire, so you're not gonna get much shooting on to it.

His favoured game plan is to feat and shove his army down your throat. Thankfully, that doesn't work into Legion since you can just throw wraithbane on to a melee beater and go to town. if you're nervous, wraithbane is also really effective on Typhon's sprays. The seraph's flare can be a life-save on your FURY management, since typhon won't need to boost to hit (although against Wolds you don't need to anyway).

From there go nuts. You have the assassination threat advantage, you outrange him and you fight better in melee. Just remember to kill whatever you start to hit, because if you spread your damage out the healing will drag you down.

hope that's a little more helpful.

-und_ed