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Post by macdaddy on Apr 24, 2018 13:10:43 GMT
So I was actually considering running this on vassal because it looks hilarious and super fun to play. conflictchamber.com/#cb201b_-0P454cjQjQjMjMjWj_jRfFjXhYhYMinion Army - 75 / 75 points [Theme] Will Work for Food (Calaban 1) Calaban, the Grave Walker [+29] - Blackhide Wrastler [16] - Blind Walker [10] - Blind Walker [10] - Ironback Spitter [14] - Ironback Spitter [14] - Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)] Bone Shrine [2] Longchops [0(5)] Swamp Gobber Chef [1] Boil Master & Spirit Cauldron [5] Meat Thresher [16] Meat Thresher [16] Its fast, can remove a heavy off the table with thresher shooting and longchops alone. (Pow 18 hailers) and most importantly it runs double threshers, because I like to be a snowflake
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Post by Azahul on Apr 24, 2018 14:17:29 GMT
So I was actually considering running this on vassal because it looks hilarious and super fun to play. conflictchamber.com/#cb201b_-0P454cjQjQjMjMjWj_jRfFjXhYhYMinion Army - 75 / 75 points [Theme] Will Work for Food (Calaban 1) Calaban, the Grave Walker [+29] - Blackhide Wrastler [16] - Blind Walker [10] - Blind Walker [10] - Ironback Spitter [14] - Ironback Spitter [14] - Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)] Bone Shrine [2] Longchops [0(5)] Swamp Gobber Chef [1] Boil Master & Spirit Cauldron [5] Meat Thresher [16] Meat Thresher [16] Its fast, can remove a heavy off the table with thresher shooting and longchops alone. (Pow 18 hailers) and most importantly it runs double threshers, because I like to be a snowflake The fundamental problem with this list is that you're running Meat Threshers with a Gator Warlock and not bringing Elasticity...
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Post by macdaddy on Apr 24, 2018 14:24:44 GMT
Azahul I know...I really need it. But I was just going to try it out without elasticity because puppet master and the extra arc node seem like its worth losing it. I can always drop the pot and replace a walker with a swamp horror.
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Post by apoc2148 on Apr 27, 2018 12:52:33 GMT
With my breakdown of Calaban's spells and abilities complete along with a handful of lists to try, this thread now moves into the experimental phase. Time to get some games in and see how the theories hold up.
Stay tuned, first games should be next Monday with reports following shortly thereafter!
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Post by apoc2148 on May 1, 2018 14:09:38 GMT
First game with Calaban was last night vs Seige 1 SoT list using SR17 the Pit 2 scenario. The lists: (Calaban 1) Calaban, the Grave Walker [+29] Blindwater congregation Theme (proxy by blindwalker brew lady) - Blackhide Wrastler [16] - Blind Walker [10] - Boneswarm [7] - Bull Snapper [0(5)] - Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)] Bone Shrine [2] Bone Shrine [2] (proxy by spawning vessel) Gobber Tinker [2] (proxy by naga) Boil master and spirit cauldron [0(5)] Croak Raiders (max) [16] Croak Raiders (max) [16] (proxy by hex hunters) Gatorman Posse (max) [16] Sacral Vault [17] Cygnar: Siege1 -Triumph -Hammersmith -Hunter -Ironclad -Squire ATGM+UA+Hunter ATGMC ATGM Rifleman B13 Fawk Alton Ashely Deployment: Cygnar won the roll and chose to go first, I chose the side at the bottom of the pictures. Directions are from my POV. Cygnar deployment: Gator deployment: Round 1: Cygnar: Most things run forward, siege puts explosivo onto the gunmage capt and drops a foxhole for the ATGMs to hide in and advances forward. Alton advances forward and kills a croak, I elect not to suck up the soul. Hammersmith/ironclad/hunter all run towards the left zone with the ATGM+UA+hunter head towards the right. B13, Falk, ATGM CPT and rifleman head towards the center with Triumph in tow. Right hunter advances up and pops the right bone shrine for 3 points. Minions: After looking at the board I placed things completely out of position. My wrastler is on the right side when it should be on the left, blindwalker should have been on the right side, my left bone shrine was a just out of range of Calaban. Still knocking off the rust after not playing for a couple months and it shows so I do my best to get things back in the right spots. The right croaks advance forward and one pops a shot at Watts and manages to hit and kill. Left croaks run up and spread out. GMP prays for concealment and runs into the center zone. Calaban activates, puts stealth on the left bone shrine, carnivore onto the GMP and spiny growth onto himself. Blindwalker and wrastler run into better positions. BM/SC activate and advance forward, season the pot for 2 corpses and hands them over to the bone swarm. Bone swarm runs into the woods. Vault generates 2 souls and runs up behind the croaks with the tinker following behind it. Bull snapper spiny growths itself and advances up to the wall, soul slave advances up to the wall as well. Round 2: Cygnar: Seige upkeeps explosivo, drops foxhole and pulls one off the squire. This turn was a ton of shooting, most of it under Siege’s feat. I don’t remember exactly all what happened but the jist was that all but 2 of the GMP were killed by GM CPT, falk, ATGM rifleman and triumph, 6 of the right croaks were killed, both the wrastler(nothing knocked out) and blindwalker (spirit knocked out) suffered about half their boxes, boneswarm got it for a bit but nothing knocked out. Left croaks suffered a couple losses from the hammersmith. Left hunter and ironclad run into better positions for next turn. Siege drops a foxhole for triump, B13 and himself to hide in. Alton hits wrastler with grievous. Cauldron is filled, vault is filled. Right Bone shrine was killed by the marshalled hunter. (Picture was taken a bit late, I had activated the GMP and killed one B13 member and Falk before I remembered to take the picture of his turn.) Minions: I drop occultation and upkeep carnivore for free. GMP charge and kill Lynch and falk, with re-roll prayer, and snack Lynch to gain 2 hp back. Calaban moves up and feats, arcing parasite onto the hammersmith, boosts a hex blast onto his objective doing 10 damage with a high spike. Shoots a ATGM and turns it into an arc node with grave door. Vault activates and aims and between 3 shots and deathly dominion kills 5 ATGMs and the UA, netting Calaban 3 fury with he uses to put rage onto the Bone swarm. Right croaks finish off the ATGMs and deal decent damage to the hunter, knocking out its axe. Cauldron puppetmasters the bone swarm and fills it on corpses. Left croaks kill the objective and deal about 10 points to the hammersmith and a couple to the ironclad and set both on fire, Calaban puts SG onto himself. Soul slave tries to hex blast triumph, hits for a couple points. Boneswarm charges and kills the hammersmith using puppet master on the last damage roll to finish it off. Wrastler, blindwalker and bull snapper all run to block LOS to Calaban since he is way out in front. I gain 2 cps: 2-0. Round 3: Cygnar: Drops all upkeeps. He puts all his shots into killing the Wrastler, bullsnapper and dealing 10 damage to Calaban and forcing 1 transfer. Ironclad kills a GMP and knocks down the GMP leader and a nearby croak. Minions: Calaban drops his upkeeps and cuts for 2. Vault activates and put its first shot into Siege which gets shield guarded, 2nd shot goes into Watts, killing her and dominating her to walk back and shoot Siege in the face for a couple points, 3rd shot misses siege. Cauldron puppet master’s calaban. Calaban then pulls 1 off the shrine and doesn’t get cursed, advances up to the building in the center and hits Siege with parasite, hex blast and a bone shaker dealing some damage and forcing 2 focus off of him using the puppet master re-roll for a damage roll. Soul slave advances and with metal force hits siege with a hex blast forcing him to use his last focus to reduce the damage to a couple points. 2 of the right croaks advance to oil Siege and miss a dart while the other two aim and whittle him down to about 4 hp left. GMP runs out of the way to engage the rifleman. Left croaks advance to get 3 in range of Siege needing 10’s to hit. The last one rolls the hard 10 and hits Siege doing just enough to kill him. Assassination victory to Minions! Thoughts on game: Apart from some really bad deployment issues this game went alright for the list. Some decent spikes on my end and some bad dice on my opponent’s feat turn left more alive than he would have liked. The gobber tinker didn’t do anything this game, but the Vault didn’t really go up against much that could have hurt it. It was just outside of Siege’s feat and the hunter on that side was concentrating on killing the bone shrine. The Vault got to live the dream and shoot 3 models to death and kill another 3 with the deathly dominion. This was my opponents first time running the Siege1 list and I’m sure he will have some alterations to it after this game. Thoughts on list: Probably going to drop the tinker and a bone shrine for Kwaak & gub. Except for the Boneswarm, my beasts did literally nothing but soak up bullets the entire game forcing me to choose between healing them or slinging spells. Calaban really wants to hog all his fury for slinging spells so the addition of Kwaak should help with that issue, not to mention a MA 9 (7+telemetry) dual venom spray could clear out lots of models. Not sure how this list will fair into a dedicated shooting list, Haley3 gravediggers springs to mind. The Vault can help deal with the trenchers by seeing through the cloud wall along with the Blindwalker.
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Post by apoc2148 on May 7, 2018 12:44:14 GMT
I got a second calaban game in last week, just felt too much like crap during the end of last week to post a report about it. It was a Pit II scenario featuring Calaban in WWFF vs Heretic in Bump in the Night. Lists are below:
Calaban WWFF: Calaban -Soul slave -Swamp horror x2 -Bone Swarm x2 -Wrastler -Blindwalker Full Nyss Hunters Hutchuck Kwaak Lynassa Bone Shrine Boil Master and Cauldron
Heretic Bump in the night Heretic BITN Theme: -Cage Rager -S&M -Gorehound Witchwood x2 Hollowmen+Lantern Full DreadRots Cask Imps x3 (6 in total) DeathKnell Lord Longfellow Full Piggybacks
I wasn't able to get any pictures of this battle but I will sum up each turn. Grymkin won the roll and chose to go first, and I chose side.
Round 1: Grymkin: Everything runs foward, two cask imps roll a 6 and explode on his front lines damaging one witchwood, the S&M and death knell. Everything moves up out of my threat ranges. Minions: Nyss get stealth cause they are headed towards the hollowmen (I forget they have eyeless). Everything else spreads out and runs foward pushing hard for scenario and staying out of his charge ranges.
Round 2: Grymkin: He shuffles things around this turn, since he can't really get much onto my first line without it being set up for my second wave. Hollowmen kill a couple nyss, everything else shifts around for next turn. A flame wall is placed down to help protect his dreadrots.
Minions: Calaban activates, pushes forward and feats. Arcs a bone shaker through the bone shrine to catch a cask imp, walks it back into the pack of dread rots and kills 3 with only 1 toughing. Swamp horror on that side kills more dread rots and the objective. Nyss kill most of the hollowmen with calaban slinging spells through the blindwalker. Rest of the beasts spread out to deny scenario next turn. I gain 2 points controlling the left rectangular zone and killing his objective.
Round 3: Grymkin concedes. I've placed my models such that anything that gets into the zones next turn will either be thrown out or killed. Both of his units have been completely decimated with little hope of retaliation.
Victory to Minions!
Thoughts: Going into this game Calaban already had an advantage. With two units of low arm/def units I had lots of supply for fury on feat turn. During that turn I think I cast 2 boneshakers, rage, and a hexblast for free. After that my opponent was pretty flabbergasted and really didn't know what to do. He was counting on his units doing most of the heavy lifting and with both of them getting wiped off the table really set back his plans of how to deal with the 5 fresh heavies on the table, not to mention two fully loaded boneswarms. This list performed well, the +2 spd during the first turn really helped everything push really hard into scenario and set up my alpha on my second turn.
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walden
Junior Strategist
Posts: 136
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Post by walden on May 8, 2018 2:46:48 GMT
My buddy played wanderer infantry swarm into caliban once. Everytime I bring a new warlock he asks "Is that the one with all the spells?".
He was tilted as hell. Essentially don't drop any infantry into caliban.
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Post by apoc2148 on May 8, 2018 11:53:00 GMT
My buddy played wanderer infantry swarm into caliban once. Everytime I bring a new warlock he asks "Is that the one with all the spells?". He was tilted as hell. Essentially don't drop any infantry into caliban. Honestly this was the most I've seen an opponent get bent out of shape over a game. In his defense, he has only played the Grymkin list about 4 times and I found out that night that the local game shop has never even seen Blindwater before. I did make sure to tell him about all my models and he could see them all on his warroom. But yeah, I essentially gained close to 10-12 fury on my feat turn, which is up there with Gaspy3 levels and proceeded to shred all of his infantry. Caliban does love to see him some infantry across the table, especially low def/arm infantry like Grymkin. I will say that using bone shaker to walk a cask imp back into his own lines was pretty hilarious though.
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Post by apoc2148 on May 9, 2018 15:51:45 GMT
I've been having an internal (and slightly external) discussion about Jaga Jaga vs Calaban or S&P vs toolbox kit. I was curious about the dice manipulation statistics for S&P so I threw together an excel sheet and thought I would share the results. -With 3 dice dropping the lowest, the average roll increases from 7 to 9, not an insignificant difference. -% Chances of rolling higher also shifts up which was expected: Standard 2d6 roll: Roll total
| Frequency of roll
| % Chance
| 1
| 0
| 0
| 2
| 1
| 2.77777
| 3
| 2
| 5.55555
| 4
| 3
| 8.33333
| 5
| 4
| 11.11111
| 6
| 5
| 13.88888
| 7
| 6
| 16.66666
| 8
| 5
| 13.88888
| 9
| 4
| 11.11111
| 10
| 3
| 8.33333
| 11
| 2
| 5.55555
| 12
| 1
| 2.77777
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2D6 roll with S&P: Roll total
| Frequency of roll | % Chance
| 1
| 0
| 0
| 2
| 1
| 0.5
| 3
| 3
| 1.38888
| 4
| 7
| 3.2407
| 5
| 12
| 5.55555
| 6
| 19
| 8.962
| 7
| 27
| 12.5
| 8
| 34
| 15.74
| 9
| 36
| 16.6666
| 10
| 34
| 15.74
| 11
| 27
| 12.5
| 12
| 16
| 7.4074
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This arose from reading threads online and when I build a list for Calaban, it could also work for Jaga-Jaga (-2 pts from WBP difference). So I would like to start a discussion about why one should be taken over the other. I'll expand on the pros/cons of each once I get it all compiled.
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Post by Gaston on May 9, 2018 16:29:17 GMT
IMO, Jaga > Calaban, for a much wider toolkit, even beyond Signs.
But to be constructive regarding Calaban, I am surprised no one has mentioned Croak Trappers for KD with him, or Dracodile for Blind as a way to better support the Croak Raiders.
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Post by apoc2148 on May 9, 2018 19:16:22 GMT
But to be constructive regarding Calaban, I am surprised no one has mentioned Croak Trappers for KD with him, or Dracodile for Blind as a way to better support the Croak Raiders. I've mentioned a bit about trying to include the Dracodile into his lists, may not have directly stated him blinding things though. Just can't settle on a list that I like. Losing the volume of attacks going from 2+ beasts to the dracodile seems counter intuitive for Calaban. You also lose out on army footprint on the board going to the Dracodile vs 2 heavies. The croak trappers I personally don't have and am not sure I will get. If accuracy-fixing is an issue for Calaban than taking a unit that has a lower rat (than croak raiders) and needs to directly hit to knock down doesn't seem all the advantageous. IMO, Jaga > Calaban, for a much wider toolkit, even beyond Signs. Let's break down Jaga's toolkit briefly: Spells: Escort: Threat extender for battle group plus ups caster arm. -Threat extensions are always welcome, extra arm is good. Deadweight: Destroy a living/undead enemy model to force another model within 2" to forfeit action/movement at controllers choice. -Might see more use now that we have bone shrines. Ghostwalk: Ghostly for model/unit. -Nice way to deal with terrain, could be sneaky with it to get models into the back field for feat targets. Gravewind: +2 def and poltergeist for single model. -nice def boost for solos or a first wave beast or battle engine. Signs and Portents: Additional die, drop the lowest. -Averages out to about +2 mat/rat/damage on 2d6. -Jaga has 2 spd manipulation spells (one battle group only), 1 def buff, hit/dmg buff, and a nuke. -Calaban has 1 ranged def buff (occultation), 2 nukes (one with dispel), arm debuff with a caster arm buff, melee hit buff vs living. Pros: -Both casters have ways to increase damage, hit chances. -Jaga's def buff is a straight def buff. -Calaban's def buff is only against ranged/magical by giving stealth. -Jaga has personal threat extenders and terrain mitigation. Calaban would need to include a witch doc and Lanyssa to even come close to competing. -Calaban's feat can be more versatile than Jagas and can be used both as offensive and defensive. -Jaga's feat sacrifices ff models to do direct magical damage with RFP. Can catch opponents off guard when used on ambushing models. Requires more thought to pull off successfully, but ghostwalk can help for getting feat targets in range. -Calaban has 2 more WBP, negligible for this conversation but worth mentioning. Cons: -Jaga has no way of dealing with up-keeps (excluding thrullgs) -Jaga has limited magical damaging abilities, almost to the point of requiring a mist speaker (or armory objective) to be included in her lists. -Calaban has no way of personally extending threat ranges or mitigating terrain. -Calaban suffers harder from spell hate. Both warlock does what the other one cannot. Jaga-Jaga probably has fewer bad match ups due to not being so reliant on offensive spells. I'll have to build a lists that would work for both and pilot it with Calaban for one game and then Jaga-Jaga for the second. Side note: I like Jaga-Jaga and am currently painting her so I can get her back on the table.
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Post by chocobsessed on May 9, 2018 19:28:52 GMT
Ooh, ooh! Pick me next!
IMO, Maelok > Calaban.
Maelok brings a defensive spell that works on his entire army, actually wants to bring thrullgs to deal with upkeeps, his offensive debuff can be cast multiple times and by the soul slave (plus it works on defense for guns and stops healing too). Oh, and he has Calaban's feat on one melee unit every turn (upkept for free from the soul slave). Also, Maelok is extremely survivable, generally sitting at 14/21.
But I've never played Calaban, is there something I'm missing in the comparison?
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Post by apoc2148 on May 9, 2018 19:37:57 GMT
Ooh, ooh! Pick me next! IMO, Maelok > Calaban. Maelok brings a defensive spell that works on his entire army, actually wants to bring thrullgs to deal with upkeeps, his offensive debuff can be cast multiple times and by the soul slave (plus it works on defense for guns and stops healing too). Oh, and he has Calaban's feat on one melee unit every turn (upkept for free from the soul slave). Also, Maelok is extremely survivable, generally sitting at 14/21. But I've never played Calaban, is there something I'm missing in the comparison? Enthusiasm is appreciated . However I don't think Calaban would want to pilot list built for Maelok and vice versa. Jaga-Jaga and Calaban can be built with almost identical lists, so the comparison is a little closer. Maelok is the 2nd list that would be brought along with a Jaga-Jaga or Calaban list. This is determining which caster would have an advantage over the other., apart from personal preference and play style.
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Post by chocobsessed on May 9, 2018 20:02:15 GMT
Enthusiasm is appreciated . However I don't think Calaban would want to pilot list built for Maelok and vice versa. Jaga-Jaga and Calaban can be built with almost identical lists, so the comparison is a little closer. Maelok is the 2nd list that would be brought along with a Jaga-Jaga or Calaban list. This is determining which caster would have an advantage over the weekend other., apart from personal preference and play style. I'd argue that Maelok would run any of the lists you posted better than Calaban would, especially the blindwater and battlegroup-heavy WWFF ones, that's why I brought it up. When you compare Maelok ability for ability to Calaban, the only advantage Calaban has is occultation, which is only marginally better than a widespread arm buff (and I even forgot that death ride increases the threat range of almost the entire army by 1). I'll grant that there are more optimal Maelok lists (Valkyries in WWFF especially), but I think he's just a better Calaban.
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Post by danfromchicago on May 9, 2018 21:35:28 GMT
I think dark power is relevant. He has a gun with benefits; creating arc nodes is relevant. Native upkeep removal is excellent. Soul Hunter is good, but Calaban's feat gives out OoA debuff opportunities and you get the fury immediately, meaning you can spend down to nothing then get fury to camp with.
If nothing else, you can spell assassinate with Calaban a lot easier.
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