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Post by sand20go on Sept 30, 2019 16:37:13 GMT
Has anyone gotten games in with her recently. She SHOULD work in the current meta (big fast BE oriented Shooting lists as well as anything relying upon Crusaders call to get up the board) better than a lot of our other options but would welcome any recent experiences and builds (especially anyone that has played her in Flames and has brief synopsis of what she did (and didn't do) well.
(Yeah - played another game into "Tons of shooting" (this time Feora3 in Hearts and while I won on clock this weekend it was disconcerted how easy it was for the list to effectively 1 round multiple khador jacks once you get a 3 or 5 point arm swing). I think Khador simply HAS to be able to shut down shooting for at least a turn (though to be fair OW2 would have shut down the Feora3 list very hard - just that she is vulnerable to any sort of spray based shooting - which the feora3 list has A BIT of (not a ton and unclear whether ultimately enough)
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Post by michael on Sept 30, 2019 21:35:26 GMT
Assuming that people are playing against big fast shooty battle engine lists, then yes, I suppose she has a use. Otherwise, Zerkova1 is the same as she always was: “Well, I used my feat. Now what?”
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Post by sand20go on Sept 30, 2019 23:20:54 GMT
Assuming that people are playing against big fast shooty battle engine lists, then yes, I suppose she has a use. Otherwise, Zerkova1 is the same as she always was: “Well, I used my feat. Now what?” Isn't the point with her to play her like the old Haley2 - use the feat as a ball busting way to get scenario presence, clearing zones and winning the "race" to 5-0/6-1. And if you are not playing against big fast shooting Battle engines I envy you. The rest of us are seeing enough Retribution, Skorne and CG to be sick of em. ;-)
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Post by michael on Sept 30, 2019 23:48:53 GMT
Isn't the point with her to play her like the old Haley2 - use the feat as a ball busting way to get scenario presence, clearing zones and winning the "race" to 5-0/6-1. And if you are not playing against big fast shooting Battle engines I envy you. The rest of us are seeing enough Retribution, Skorne and CG to be sick of em. ;-) Zerkova1 doesn’t do any of the heavy lifting that H2 was/is capable of. Outside of [whatever that Oblivion theme is called]: Z1 feats and then she...allocates focus? She runs away and hides for the rest of the game because she’s highly killable at a 15/15 with 16 boxes. Like, Wolves of Winter is probably the best theme force for her because it is full of models that operate without support, but even then we have better casters to run it. So.. I don’t know, man. Z1 has never clicked for me.
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Post by auraco on Oct 1, 2019 3:02:09 GMT
Well, isn’t it a bit early to talk about Zerkova1 when most of the Flames in the dark models are still not released? It’s probably going to be the best theme to run her into the kind of list you want her to run into.
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Post by sand20go on Oct 1, 2019 3:18:51 GMT
Well, isn’t it a bit early to talk about Zerkova2 when most of the Flames in the dark models are still not released? It’s probably going to be the best theme to run her into the kind of list you want her to run into. Z1 (see subject). I highly agree that Z2 is either not really playable in Flames or they are going to give us some serious from left field surprise. This is Z1. Probably in Wolves (see Micheal because of independence and 13 inch threat) as well as the ability to clear like champs after the feat turn stops the army cold. As per Michael also, the advantage of flames is that she can have an arc node, providing her things to do. I agree though also with Michael, the times I have TRIED to play her it was a "meh". Shouldn't be but it is. I am just REALLY sick of getting shot of the board by things that might miss OTHER models but love seeing Def 10 across the board from them and which can shrug off ARM 20 when they only really need to cripple a few systems.
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Post by Havock on Oct 5, 2019 0:01:34 GMT
Assuming that people are playing against big fast shooty battle engine lists, then yes, I suppose she has a use. Otherwise, Zerkova1 is the same as she always was: “Well, I used my feat. Now what?” Ghost Walk, sprays, clouds. She's good. I found that trick was to load up on three cheap beaters so you can just spend your Iron Fangs on stuff that threatens your heavies; two heavies are easy to negate, and the ranged presence two Destroyers -the usual setup- offers is negligible. Three heavies are an issue, and I turned so many games around by dicking around with fully loaded heavies ghostwalking through forests.
Funnily enough she clicked rather well with (proxied) Armored Corps: The army tends to be rather compct; especially the squishier parts and is pretty self-sufficient. Although it does require building something more capable of cracking armor as your second list.
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Post by michael on Oct 5, 2019 0:13:34 GMT
Assuming that people are playing against big fast shooty battle engine lists, then yes, I suppose she has a use. Otherwise, Zerkova1 is the same as she always was: “Well, I used my feat. Now what?” Ghost Walk, sprays, clouds. She's good. I found that trick was to load up on three cheap beaters so you can just spend your Iron Fangs on stuff that threatens your heavies; two heavies are easy to negate, and the ranged presence two Destroyers -the usual setup- offers is negligible. Three heavies are an issue, and I turned so many games around by dicking around with fully loaded heavies ghostwalking through forests.
Funnily enough she clicked rather well with (proxied) Armored Corps: The army tends to be rather compct; especially the squishier parts and is pretty self-sufficient. Although it does require building something more capable of cracking armor as your second list.
Ghost Walk is the only consistently redeemable part of her spell list.
But still...
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Post by Havock on Oct 5, 2019 0:31:34 GMT
Well, she's probably a bit meta-dependant (as are most casters), if everyone and their dog brings anti cloud tech with long range guns she blows, yeah, but against melee or shorter ranged guns or people that for whatever reason do not have easy solutions to her clouds, she is good. The hardest part is often the pair, as she doesn't really fit in a cute category like "ARM skew".
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Post by michael on Oct 5, 2019 12:40:08 GMT
Well, she's probably a bit meta-dependant (as are most casters), if everyone and their dog brings anti cloud tech with long range guns she blows, yeah, but against melee or shorter ranged guns or people that for whatever reason do not have easy solutions to her clouds, she is good. The hardest part is often the pair, as she doesn't really fit in a cute category like "ARM skew". My problem is usually this: “Ha! I can blow ALL of my focus to block LOS to my army with clouds!” ...Oh right my opponent out-threats me in melee, so he’s in my face next turn. That is pointless. “Let’s put this Grave Door gun to work! I can totally do something gross this turn!” ...IF my opponent left a killable living model in the right spot. Well time to try to make this happen with my single RAT 5 no-way-to-mitigate-Tough shot! One to boost the attack, one to boost damage, rockin’, it worked! Now to spray, better boost some of that too...OH WAIT NOW I AM OUT OF FOCUS AND I KILLED LIKE THREE DUDES. or alternatively: Well my stupid short-range gun can’t kill that dude with 8 boxes/Stealth/Shield Guard/Tough/not a living model/bad positioning/pick your reason so if I try this Zerkova1 is hung out to dry next turn. Never mind. Alternatively alternatively: “Sweet, this is gonna be great! Let’s just boost to hit on my RAT 5 gun, and... OH I MISSED. What a surprise because the thing was in cover and I needed a 12 anyway. Now what am I supposed to do with all this focus? It’s too late to allocate. Sigh. Also: “All right, I feated and stopped his shooting and charges cold! Um... so.. now it is next turn. I could put out some clouds? Except he’s already on top of me, it doesn’t matter. Ghost Walk? No, I am not taking free strikes and again we’re already on top of each other anyway. I could try to spray? But it’s going to take a Rube Goldberg play to engineer getting a good target for this out of melee, there’s no sense in doing that when my stuff could just kill more of his stuff. Uh... “ ...I guess I will allocate focus and run away. Gee I am glad I picked Zerkova. THAT IS A LIE, NO I AM NOT. And so on, and so forth.
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sorokin
Junior Strategist
Posts: 775
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Post by sorokin on Oct 5, 2019 16:11:50 GMT
Well, she's probably a bit meta-dependant (as are most casters), if everyone and their dog brings anti cloud tech with long range guns she blows, yeah, but against melee or shorter ranged guns or people that for whatever reason do not have easy solutions to her clouds, she is good. The hardest part is often the pair, as she doesn't really fit in a cute category like "ARM skew". My problem is usually this: “Ha! I can blow ALL of my focus to block LOS to my army with clouds!” ...Oh right my opponent out-threats me in melee, so he’s in my face next turn. That is pointless. “Let’s put this Grave Door gun to work! I can totally do something gross this turn!” ...IF my opponent left a killable living model in the right spot. Well time to try to make this happen with my single RAT 5 no-way-to-mitigate-Tough shot! One to boost the attack, one to boost damage, rockin’, it worked! Now to spray, better boost some of that too...OH WAIT NOW I AM OUT OF FOCUS AND I KILLED LIKE THREE DUDES. or alternatively: Well my stupid short-range gun can’t kill that dude with 8 boxes/Stealth/Shield Guard/Tough/not a living model/bad positioning/pick your reason so if I try this Zerkova1 is hung out to dry next turn. Never mind. Alternatively alternatively: “Sweet, this is gonna be great! Let’s just boost to hit on my RAT 5 gun, and... OH I MISSED. What a surprise because the thing was in cover and I needed a 12 anyway. Now what am I supposed to do with all this focus? It’s too late to allocate. Sigh. Also: “All right, I feated and stopped his shooting and charges cold! Um... so.. now it is next turn. I could put out some clouds? Except he’s already on top of me, it doesn’t matter. Ghost Walk? No, I am not taking free strikes and again we’re already on top of each other anyway. I could try to spray? But it’s going to take a Rube Goldberg play to engineer getting a good target for this out of melee, there’s no sense in doing that when my stuff could just kill more of his stuff. Uh... “ ...I guess I will allocate focus and run away. Gee I am glad I picked Zerkova. THAT IS A LIE, NO I AM NOT. And so on, and so forth. Yeah I'm pretty greateful you can mostly ignore her gun inflames and just use an actual arc-node. Tbh to me there is no contest as to where you play Lady Z: You play Flames, or you keep her on the shelf.
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Post by sand20go on Oct 5, 2019 17:20:11 GMT
Well, she's probably a bit meta-dependant (as are most casters), if everyone and their dog brings anti cloud tech with long range guns she blows, yeah, but against melee or shorter ranged guns or people that for whatever reason do not have easy solutions to her clouds, she is good. The hardest part is often the pair, as she doesn't really fit in a cute category like "ARM skew". My problem is usually this: “Ha! I can blow ALL of my focus to block LOS to my army with clouds!” ...Oh right my opponent out-threats me in melee, so he’s in my face next turn. That is pointless. “Let’s put this Grave Door gun to work! I can totally do something gross this turn!” ...IF my opponent left a killable living model in the right spot. Well time to try to make this happen with my single RAT 5 no-way-to-mitigate-Tough shot! One to boost the attack, one to boost damage, rockin’, it worked! Now to spray, better boost some of that too...OH WAIT NOW I AM OUT OF FOCUS AND I KILLED LIKE THREE DUDES. or alternatively: Well my stupid short-range gun can’t kill that dude with 8 boxes/Stealth/Shield Guard/Tough/not a living model/bad positioning/pick your reason so if I try this Zerkova1 is hung out to dry next turn. Never mind. Alternatively alternatively: “Sweet, this is gonna be great! Let’s just boost to hit on my RAT 5 gun, and... OH I MISSED. What a surprise because the thing was in cover and I needed a 12 anyway. Now what am I supposed to do with all this focus? It’s too late to allocate. Sigh. Also: “All right, I feated and stopped his shooting and charges cold! Um... so.. now it is next turn. I could put out some clouds? Except he’s already on top of me, it doesn’t matter. Ghost Walk? No, I am not taking free strikes and again we’re already on top of each other anyway. I could try to spray? But it’s going to take a Rube Goldberg play to engineer getting a good target for this out of melee, there’s no sense in doing that when my stuff could just kill more of his stuff. Uh... “ ...I guess I will allocate focus and run away. Gee I am glad I picked Zerkova. THAT IS A LIE, NO I AM NOT. And so on, and so forth. This made me laugh. Thank you!!!
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Post by Havock on Oct 5, 2019 22:00:33 GMT
“Ha! I can blow ALL of my focus to block LOS to my army with clouds!” ...Oh right my opponent out-threats me in melee, so he’s in my face next turn. That is pointless. How is this a problem if you play a melee list? :v
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vlad
BattleBox Champ
Posts: 53
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Post by vlad on Oct 6, 2019 0:09:56 GMT
I’ll be playing her in Flames from next month, so I can only share my Theoryhammer (and limited experience in LoS) thoughts about her here.
Zerkova1 does quite a lot after her feat, namely block LoS, provide a DEF buff with the clouds, let your models move freely around the board. What she doesn’t do, is give you a accuracy, damage or threat range buff. Accuracy is rarely an issue in Khador, but lack of a damage and movement buff (and overcosted baseline units) was the main reason she didn’t take off in LoS really.
Enter Flames, with damage buffs galore, and no accuracy issues. Enter Flames, where all units have Vengeance helping you with threat ranges. Enter Flames, where DEF 13 models are readily available, and where there even is a solo that can push that DEF higher VS melee, letting one get to obscene DEF amounts. And of course access to Arc Nodes and decent shooting options.
I think Zerkova1 in Flames will without a doubt be the best Zerkova1 list at the moment, and it will be a strong list. Whether it’ll be a list that fits well within the current meta is another question, but I intend to play and find out.
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Post by michael on Oct 6, 2019 3:16:45 GMT
“Ha! I can blow ALL of my focus to block LOS to my army with clouds!” ...Oh right my opponent out-threats me in melee, so he’s in my face next turn. That is pointless. How is this a problem if you play a melee list? :v Quite often the clouds wouldn’t do anything meaningful. Cloud up, the opponent moves to within their threat but out of my threat, then on my turn my all-melee force just goes “Uh... well I guess I run at you.” But the last few times that sort of problem happened, there were stupid fast cavalry models waiting on me, so something or the other?
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