Rezfon's Batrep 1: Kromac 2 vs The King of Nothing (Photos)

Thought I'd write up my first ever online battle report, hopefully it might help people so I've put a little more detail into my turn write ups.
I might accidentally miss mentioning a non important activation like a Crabbit or something, but I think I've got everything that matters written.

There is a Steamroller event on the 16th this month and the Scottish Masters event on the 22nd October, so I was keen to trial some lists I haven't played with very much.
I was playing against my friend's Grymkin today, it was my first time playing vs The King of Nothing but I was thankfully fully aware of his tricks, especially as I've played Mohsar a fair few times.

Circle List:

Kromac 2
- Druid Wilder
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Feral Warpwolf
- Loki
Blackclad Wayfarer
Blackclad Wayfarer
Sentry Stone & Mannikins
Sentry Stone & Mannikins
Shifting Stones
Shifting Stones


Grymkin List:
Bump in the Night Theme
The King of Nothing
- Skin & Moans
- Cage Rager
- Crabbit
- Crabbit
- Crabbit
- Crabbit
- Gorehound
Lord Longfellow
Witchwood
Hollowmen Max + UA
Dread Rots Max
Neigh Slayers Max
Neigh Slayers Max

He picked The Shadow and the Sacrifice arcanas to go along with Taste of Ashes.
I noticed that he was 73/75 pts in theme, but he elected not to add 2 cask imps considering the rest of his list.

The scenario we rolled for was Outlast.
Unfortunately when we got our game, there wasn't much varied scenery left as the other tables had it all.
So we had to settle with two towers, hills, a wall and some rubble.

I win the roll off and decide to deploy first.



I deploy Kromac in the centre with a Stalker on each side.
I want to send Loki down the left so I don't need to worry about the tower on the right, so I setup the Feral on the right.

Turn 1 Circle:

I send each Sentry Stone & Mannikin forward towards the zones, each popping a forest, with each Blackclad following a set.
I rile and run Loki after warping preternatural reflexes towards the left zone, warp speed and rile and run the Feral behind the central tower and run left Stalker forward to assist Loki should he pull anything.
Kromac activates, casts Awakened Spirit on the right Stalker, moves up to the left set of shifting stones to get in range of the left Stalker, casts Vengeful on the left Stalker in the rare case whatever Loki pulls survives him, casts Carnage just in case something weird happens.
Right Stalker runs to the right zone, druid wilder follows behind, left side shifting stones teleport Kromac up then the right set teleport themselves to get both Kromac and Loki setup for any shenanigans turn 2.



Turn 1 Grymkin:

He moves his Neigh Slayers up to cover the zones from anything that moves into them turn 2.
Gorehound moves up into the right zone covered by the Neigh Slayers should anything charge it, Witchwood moves up to the central tower, Longfellow moves up and kills one of the Mannikins in the left zone.
Hollowmen, Dread Rots, Skin and Moans, Cage Rager and Crabbits all move up.
The King activates and casts 4 burning ash AoEs to cover the Neigh Slayers on the left.



Turn 2 Circle:

This turn is where I make some really terrible mistakes that can cost me the game.
Kromac upkeeps both spells.
My plan is to use the Mannikins on the left to clear 1 of the Neigh Slayers after stepping into the cloud effect to give a clear drag lane to the Cage Rager for Loki after a shifting stone port, then the Stalker can come in and finish it off then lightning strike away.
Perfect plan!
The druid moves up to the flag to join Kromac.
Kromac casts carnage ready for the melee and shifts around a little bit.
The left Mannikins manage to clear the one they needed after boosting the attack roll. One of the mannikins dies to Longfellow as the spray missed him.
Loki gets ported up into the cloud next to the centre tower.
He warps strength to help get the pull, boosts an attack roll and it hits!

... then here's where my stupid mistake came into play.
I forgot to check the Crabbit ranges...
So the hook gets shield guarded onto a crabbit, leaving it on 3 hitboxes (if I killed it he could have triggered his trump arcana to clear another mannikin and deal damage to Loki).
Argh! So I do what I can and use Loki's animus to give himself dodge.

The left Stalker re-positions himself to deal with whatever charges Loki, at this point Loki is a free kill, then the wayfarer moves onto the hill for the DEF bonus.
The right set of Mannikins activate, two of them charging the Witchwood, managing to kill it while the third has run into melee with the gorehound.

Then I make mistake number two.
I warp ARM on the Feral and move him to the right to give the right Stalker a charge lane to the light beast.
The right Wayfarer moves behind the right tower and tries to hunters mark the Gorehound for the free charge and fails.
The Stalker warps strength then charges the Gorehound, kills it then lightning strikes back again.
My mistake here was the Stalker's final positioning, the Skin and Moans could see it and could get into charge range. DOH!

The other set of shifting stones move around ready.

This turn was painful as I recognised all my problems just after I made them.



Turn 2 Grymkin:

It was at this point my opponent realised he misread the Shadow arcana.
It only brings in a beast if I move a larger based model into melee range of something in the warlocks command range (he thought it was control).
The Kings command range is 1", so he could only pull it off if things went really sour.

Longfellow moves up to control the flag.

This is where I anticipate everything go wrong.

For those those that haven't played vs Grymkin, allow me to explain the pain I'm expecting.
If the Cage Rager gets a corpse token he becomes an arc node and The King of Nothing likes to cast spells ... a lot.

My main hope of Loki surviving is for him to dodge.
A Crabbit activates, moves up then hops behind Loki, then another one does the same but on the other side of him.
If he moves a model up in front of Loki, he can't dodge away anymore.
Then the moment of truth, the Cage Rage activates and charges Loki.

He then proceeds to miss 4 attacks and whiffs his damage rolls for the others!
Saved by the dice!

On the left side of the field, he charges 1 Neigh Slayer into Loki, 1 into the Wayfarer, 1 into a Mannikin and 1 runs up to the centre of the zone to help contest.
He kills the Mannikin, but fails to hit the Wayfarer.
The Hollowmen move up to help contest the zone.

The King activates, casts Scything Touch on the Skin and Moans
Along the right side, the Skin and Moans charges the Stalker and kills it.
The Dread Rots run and charge, killing all the Mannikins on the right and one of them runs into melee with the Wayfarer.
The Neigh Slayers move around so they can charge anything that kills the Skin and Moans.

None of us score as Loki is contesting his flag, and a Crabbit on the other side of Loki is contesting mine.

0-0

(Forgot to take a photo here)

Circle Turn 3:

Ok, so Grymkin didn't manage to do half of what I thought they would, things are looking better.

Plan here is to feat, get rid of both his Heavy beasts, some Crabbits and try and reduce the Neigh Slayer threat (armour piercing hurts yo).

Kromac upkeeps Vengeful on the remaining Stalker.
Before I pop feat I activate the Sentry Stone on the right, one of the respawned Mannikins sprays and kills 2 Dread Rots.

One of the Crabbits is currently damaged from Loki's hook.
If I don't kill it first, he can pop his arcana and heal all his beasts if he wanted. So I need to commit and kill each beast in turn.

Kromac activates and pops his feat, casts Primal on the Feral and Primal on Loki.
I fully expect both to die next turn, Loki is still healthy but hurt and Dread Rots are weapon master.
He walks past the Shifting stones and gets two Crabbits in melee range.
He kills the wounded Crabbit, King of Nothing casts another cloud for free, then Kromac kills the uninjured one.
He lightning strikes back in among the Shifting Stones.

Loki activates, warps strength, then with primal proceeds to crush the Cage Rager in front of him.
The Druid Wilder moves to the other side of the flag so to keep her away from the Dread Rots, as the Hollowmen are probably going the CRA Loki.

The Stalker on the left probably can't do much this turn, so I decide to try clear out at least some Neigh Slayers on that side.
The left Wayfarer moves up to attack a Neigh Slayer and kills it.
The Stalker moves up to get 2/4 Neigh Slayers in range and he kills both of them before lightning striking back.

The Feral warps strength and charges the Skin and Moans completely destroying it, then takes a swing at a Dread Rot, killing it as well.
The right Wayfarer attacks the Dread Rot in melee with him, killing it.

The Shifting Stones re-arrange ready for turn 4.

As the Crabbits died, I score 1 and my opponent scores nothing.

1-0 Circle 



Turn 3 Grymkin:

I expect to lose both Loki and the Feral this turn, hopefully any positioning on the right side gives Kromac a good chance at destroying a lot of them with corpse tokens.

Longfellow activates and injures Loki badly.
The Hollowmen CRA the Wayfarer, killing him, then CRA Loki, leaving him on 1 hp! As Loki will frenzy next turn nothing else gets done to him.
The King activates, sands to one of the Dread Rots, then scything touch on another.
The Dread Rots activate, 1 charges the Wayfarer, failing to hit, 1 charges a Mannikin killing it, then the rest charge the Feral.
They fail to kill the Feral, then the Neigh Slayers charge, half of them missing their attacks, leaving him low on hp, but then a Crabbit bounces behind him for the rear bonus and finishes the job.

The remaining Neigh Slayer on the left charges the Sentry Stone and kills it.

His Crabbit stops me scoring a point.

1-0 Circle



Turn 4 Circle:

Time to start killing infantry!
I want to kill quite a few Hollowmen with the Stalker, but I wouldn't be able to kill the Neigh Slayer, who could become a problem by clearing away Shifting Stones or making it easier for the Hollowmen to CRA the Stalker down.
If I kill half the Hollowmen, then I feel I can handle the CRA pretty well.
My plan is to kill the Hollowmen then lightning strike to B2B with the Neigh Slayer to stop him rampaging. If he hits the Stalker I can vengeful him to death.

I also notice if I clear one specific Neigh slayer, I can position Kromac in a clump of 5 infantry and a Crabbit.
I place a Mannikin in position to do this.

I upkeep vengeful on the stalker and then get to work.

Loki frenzies into a Hollowman, killing it.
The Mannikin sprays and I boost on the required Neigh Slayer, killing it, then the Stone shifts on to the zone.
A set of shifting stones teleport Kromac into the required position.
Kromac activates, casts carnage then proceeds to kill every single model he's engaged with.
My opponent triggers his trump arcana, damaging Kromac, but kills a Mannikin and deals 2 damage to the Druid Wilder.
Kromac consumes a corpse token to go back up to full in case Longfellow decides to go for him, then lightning strikes back to the flag.

The other set of shifting stones teleport themselves to try block the number of Dread Rot charges on to Kromac as I expect Kromac to get hit by scything touch and the Kings -2 ARM aura.

The right wayfarer kills the Dread Rot that failed to kill him.

The Stalker warps berserk, charges a Hollowman, then decimates a good chunk of the unit.
He lightning strikes back into B2B with the Neigh Slayer.
The Druid Wilder decides to move and heal Loki in case Longfellow goes for Kromac, then he might survive a CRA from the remaining Hollowmen.

I score 1 for Kromac's flag, but as Loki frenzied Longfellow scores his flag.

2-1 Circle



Turn 4 Grymkin:

The 1 remaining Neigh Slayer moves in front of the Stalker and attacks, but misses, so I don't get my vengeful.
The Hollowmen CRA Loki, killing him.

Longfellow leaves the flag to shot at Kromac.
I transfer damage to the Stalker so he doesn't hit me harder on the second.
Kromac then gets lucky and only takes 2 damage.

The Dread Rots make a run/charge. Thankfully the stones mean only one Dead Rots makes it into melee.
Two Dread Rots kill the two stones in front of Kromac, 1 stays on the zone and the one that makes it into melee with Kromac misses his attack.

The King of Nothing activates, sands to a Dread Rot that charged a Shifting Stone, then casts scything touch on the one that made it to melee.
After sands of fate is cast, that still leaves the King on 4/8 fury and Kromac is at -4 ARM (so ARM 14)
He casts death to dust but fails to hit, so there's no point in him trying to go for the kill anymore.
He sands to one of the Hollowmen.

He has Dread Rots contesting Kromac's flag and Longfellow moved off to shoot Kromac, so nobody scores anything.

2-1 Circle



Turn 5 Circle:

I have the change to completely clear the right side of the board.
If I spray with a Mannikin and kill two Dread Rots, I can charge with Kromac, kill the remaining Dread Rot then kill Longfellow.

I place a new Mannikin to do this and don't upkeep vengeful.
The Shifting Stone unit with 1 stone heals Kromac to full again.
The Wayfarer chargers a Dread Rot and fails to hit.
The Mannikin sprays, kills 1 and the other passes it's tough check.

Because he passed his tough check, Kromac can't get in position to kill Longfellow.
So instead Kromac activates, casts carnage, charges up and kills the remaining Dread Rots (grievous wounds on Kromac's axe helps a lot).
He then lightning strikes to B2B with Longfellow while still in the zone.

I have a bit of a problem here. There is a Neigh Slayer in the way of the Stalker, which stops him from reaching the King.
I can do one of two things, I can attack the Neigh Slayer with the Druid Wilder and try to clear a path or send the Druid to score the flag.
If I go for the flag, Longfellow will get scything touched as he has gunfighter and the King will attempt to kill Kromac with more fury than last time.
If I go for the Hollowmen and the King, I first need to kill a Neigh Slayer with a Druid Wilder, then charge and not mess up the attack as then the King really can use his Shadow arcana.

I risk it for a biscuit and the druid makes a melee attack vs the Neigh Slayer, hits, then kills it!
Stalker activates, warps berserk and charges the Hollowmen.
The King activates Shadow arcana and bring in a Skin and Moans behind the Stalker.
The Stalker then crushes every single Hollowmen except one, then attacks the King.
King is DEF 14 ARM 14 with 14hp, I make my attack and I hit.
I'm at dice +2, with 3 fury left to spend.
I then roll two 6's to deal 14 damage and kill the King in one shot!

Circle Victory!



Post Game Thoughts

I messed up so badly with Loki, that I can only laugh at myself. Dice weren't on my opponent's side with the Cage Rager, otherwise it would have probably cost me the game.
I also feel disappointed with my play with the right side Stalker.
It ended up being ok, as I know for sure that my opponent would have gone straight for the Sentry Stone with the Gorehound, which ended up being important to give Kromac those positioning requirements.
I also made a lot of order of activation mistakes after when I came under pressure with Loki.
My list used to have a Pureblood and 2 Gobber Chefs instead of a Feral.
I'm never a big fan of Primal as it forces me to frenzy (which I hate doing), but it turned out pretty well in this game.
I'm also never usually impressed with the Wayfarers. Sure hunters mark is fantastic, but my usual opponents have high DEF to stop it in it's track.
As I couldn't get a good mark off, the Wayfarer did pretty well at taking on Dread Rots, forcing them round a corner.

Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable game with lots of ups and downs on both sides with dice rolls.