Here's a battle report of my first game with Zevanna Agha. The first part is copied from the CID forum. I have added some additional thoughts at the bottom on tactics and list tech.
My list was:
Old Witch 2 - WJ: +29
- Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator - PC: 4
- Behemoth - PC: 25 (Battlegroup Points Used: 25)
- Grolar - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 4)
- Juggernaut - PC: 12
Winter Guard Gun Carriage - PC: 18
Battle Mechaniks - Leader & 3 Grunts: 3
Winter Guard Infantry (min) + 3 Rockets: 12
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt: 8
- Koldun Kapitan Valachev - PC: 4
My goals for the list: Stack ranged armor de-buffing to support a long-ranged assassination threats on a knocked down caster. I wanted enough of a ranged game to be able to remove one heavy or a fair chuck of infantry before serious piece trading begins. I wanted enough beef in my army to survive an initial assault so that Behemoth and Zevanna would get a second chance at assassination if the first didn't work. Key pieces - Behemoth, Grolar, Gun Carriage, Aiyana (and Valachev), Rockets.
My opponent brought:
Calaban
Blackhide Wrastler
Blind Walker
Swamp Horror
Sacral Vault
Bog Trog Mist Speaker
Lanyssa
Brigands & Warlord (max)
Gatormen Posse (max)
I won the roll and decided to go first.
Scenario: We played the new SR 2017 scenario which was spoiled at Lock & Load. Large circle (warrior zone) oriented in the center of the board, flanked by two square zone (jack/battle engine zones). Anecdotally, I'll add that we played our test game on a busy game nite at our LGS, and *everyone* wanted to see our new scenario. It caused a lot of buzz. (Let's see if this works...I uploaded a photo of our game at the bottom of round 1).
Terrain: My side had shallow water, a long lateral trench penetrating the central zone, a house, and a forest on the right side of the board. My opponent had a forest to my left, a central wall, and a hill penetrating the central zone. He opted for that side of the board in order to get the wall and hill.
Deployment
I deployed the old witch (proxy base) and gun carraige in the center of the board. Behemoth, the Juggernaut, and A&H were to my left. The winterguard package and Grolar was to my right. My opponent counter deployed his posse against the Grolar and winterguard. His Brigands were deployed against my jacks. He put his caster, vault, beasts and support in the center.
Turn 1
I ran my stuff up. OW put Reconstruct on Behemoth. The Behemoth and Ayanna, Holt and Valachev got into the trench. I put down some rough terrain with the gun carraige to try to slow down his posse and beasts, and positioned the Old Witch to the left of the house so it could use it as an intervening obstruction to his counter deployed posse. He moved up his brigands and got them dug in. He put occultation on the Sacral Vault and Concealment on the gators. He got 1 soul on the vault. He advanced his Blind Walker out beyond the wall to threaten the zone. We discussed this later, and he admitted putting this out in order to bait me in.
At this point we realized that Calaban was a strongish counter to the Old Witch. The Sacral Vault would be hard to remove, and the 3" Arcane Vortex could keep him protected. His other defensive tech would limit the brutality of my shooting.
Turn 2
I advance A&H up just far enough to put Kiss and 2 gunshots into the Blind Walker. All hit. They zepher back into the trench. I would like to move the Old Witch next in order to stick Curse onto it, but realize that I'm going to have major placement and order of activation issues now (and later in the game) with a big obstruction and huge based caster. This may be working as intended. I charge the gun carriage up to knock down the blind walker, and put 2 shots into him. I repo the gun carriage back, and put the blind walker down with the 3 rockets. Reinholt gives the OW a second shot. I move the Old Witch up and realize I can't get Curse onto anything at all useful because of the Arcane Vortex on the Sacral Vault. So, I take a couple of crow gunshots and get lucky scatters onto the swamp horror and a gatorman on the hill. She puts up Windstorm and camps the rest.
The remaining winterguard combine for 2 CRAs against posse, and take 2 off the board with average rolls. I advance the Juggernaut into the left zone, put the Grolar into the right zone where he takes shots at the gators (missing on average rolls), and slide Behemoth up the trench so he can make distance on the blind walker and gators. He puts one shot into the Swamp Horror, and the boosted blast puts some damage into Calaban which he doesn't transfer. He puts his 2nd shot into the gatorman on the hill (thanks to net -2 DEF from the crow gun). My opponent's counter attack is fairly brutal. He advances Calaban and feats. He puts parasite and hunters mark on my gun carraige. The swamp horror charges it, and is able to take it off the table. Parasite moves to the Juggernaut, who is Pray for the Brigands. The Brigands advance, and prepare to take shots at the Juggernaut.
I remind my opponent of windstorm, and he finds 5 of his 11 models are inside my windstorm . We allow him to rewind, and with some careful measuring he's able to finesse 7 out of 11 shots. We realize that if I'd been more careful with the juggernaut, I might have denied him perhaps 1 more shot but not more if I wanted to contest the zone. His brigands leave the Juggernaut on 1 box, and Calaban is able to spell assassinate my jack. At this point we discuss whether it would have made a difference if I had put reconstruct on the Juggernaut. We agree it might have helped suck fury off his caster, but Calaban could have taken a second shot and gotten the same result so we let it go.
He moves his Vault up and starts killing winterguard and collecting souls. Windstorm is effective at somewhat disrupting his plan though. I think he wants to keep the vault close enough to Calaban to use the arcane vortex, but he can't do that and get range on the rockets. Windstorm costs him an important inch which will win me the game on turn 3. He ends his turn by charging his remaining 2 posse into my winterguard. I end the turn with 3 trooper left, and no rockets.
Calaban ends the turn with a little damage on him, but with 5 transfers and 2 beasts to absorb damage.
Turn 3
This turn, I want to feat, and focus my energy on killing calaban. I drop Reconstruct. I allocate 1 to Behemoth and begin my assassination run. She is able to land Curse, Scourage, and a Crow Gun shot on Calaban. She puts boundless charge on the Grolar (he's my backup plan if Behemoth doesn't get the job done). A&H and Valachev zepher and advance up, and stick Kiss, 2 shots and a spray on Calaban. Behemoth moves up and takes 2 shots. After the 1st shot, he's out of transfers. I land the 2nd shot and kill Calaban (who is -4 ARM, and already damaged). If the 2nd shot hadn't landed, I would have been able to use the Grolar (because he has dual shot).
If Calaban had been within 3" of the Sacral Vault, my assassination attempt goes from 90% to...maybe 33%. I would have had to charge the Grolar at the Sacral Vault, and if the Grolar doesn't finish the job I'm going to need to use Reinholdt to remove occultation and land 1 or 2 bombards on it, and suddenly I probably don't have enough shots to get Calaban dead with 5 transfers. We discuss whether it would have mattered if Calaban had put occultation on himself, and decide not since I have Reinholt.
**Red or Orange**
Nothing. The Old Witch's ranged assassination game is really good. We discuss whether its overpowered against other ranged casters and agree that it's good but not OP. There are a lot of tools opponents can bring that will shut her down unless or until dealt with -- stealth, Arcane Vortex, etc. My opponent thought the caster was pretty well balanced, and fun to play against. He felt like he definitely had a chance in this game, and that Minions has the tools to go to war against Zevanna.
**Yellow**
Crow Gun. We discussed the carrion crow gun at length. I brought Reinholt over Sylys to try and abuse it. My opponent thought it was effective, and annoying, but not overpowered. He was expecting me to take shots, so his stuff was never clustered up. The beasts were able to shake. Troopers getting gunned is nothing new. Also, the -4 DEF is really only -2 against any ranged threat that can't see through clouds. Casters should have some good stuff, and this played out as good stuff.
The piece that needs more testing and probably reconsideration is not allowing the crow gun to work against constructs. Against hordes, the gun has a fair mount of utility. It seems like it would still be balanced against warmachine armies. You're taking a pretty important part of her toolkit off the table against warjack heavy armies. Recommendation: consider allowing the crow gun to work against constructs. This seems more consistent with her concept write-up. Thematically, it seems appropriate that magical swarming crows would make it hard for warjacks and battle engine drivers to see.
We discussed her Arcane Machinery and Feat at length as well. We agreed they were definitely not OP. Divinator was not a useful tool outside of feat turn - it adds nothing. It seems you're not going to use it over Arcane Calibrations or the Range Amplifier. Her spell range is really short. Using Arcane Calibrations is essential if you want to cast offensive spells, and Zevanna wants to cast spells. Once you're in melee (or want to get into melee), you're going to want cheaper spells. Also, you need to allocate focus in order to maximize the use of the Divinator, but I found I never had more than 1 to allocate. Recommendation: consider changing Divinator to another ability - perhaps something like giving one focus to each member of her battlegroup. Or, for a more limited effect, keep Divinator as its, but allocate one focus to each member of her battlegroup as part of Hour of Reckoning on her feat turn, .
Also, Grymkin has an arc node. We discussed whether it would be OP if the Old Witch had an Arc Node, and agreed it might be workable if you had to pay for it. Recommendation: consider amending Reconstruct to add an ability that makes the affected warjack and arc node. This is interesting since if you put it on a high value jack (say, Behemoth), you need to put that jack out into harms way. If you put it on a melee beatstick (say, a Juggernaut), then you're limiting that jack's ability to engage in melee and remain a viable arc node (and then you need to recast a Cost 3 spell to get it out).
The caster being on a huge base with SPD 5 is rough. Her mobility is greatly constrained. Recommendation: consider adding Reposition 3", and/or allowing her to Trample. She is riding a colossal...
**Green**
The spell list is good to go.
Her other stats seem good to go.
- RAT 5 is annoying but her crow gun probably gets OP if you bump the RAT up.
- DEF 12 is annoying but her survivability is probably too good if you bump the DEF up.
- MAT 5 is annoying and greatly constrains her ability to get any work done herself in melee. That may be by design.
- ARM 19 and 20 boxes seems to provide enough surviability.
- 29 WJP seems OK. In list building, out of theme anyway, you want to dump a lot of points into support to get her toolkit to work so this is a bit of a balancer.
**Tactics and List Tech**
- The Aiyanna and Holt +V package is endorsed for use. Expensive, but worth it if you're playing a ranged game.
- The ranged assassination threats is credible. Even if you're playing a melee centric army, I think you want enough high powered ranged support to keep a credible assassination threat.
- Behemoth against stuff with -4 arm is sick. I had stopped using him after he went up to 25 points in favor of Destroyers. Now I want both.
- The Grolar tech turned out to be non-essential, but if things had played differently he could have been a champ. Per the batrep, if I'd needed to get in some spot removal on Sacral Vault, he could have boundless charged in, gotten melee work done, and then pumped in 3-5 POW 12 (but effectively POW 16!) shots.
- I would have loved, LOVED to have the Koldun Lord and need to figure out how to fit it in.
- Gun Carriage played a role but in this set up is potentially replaceable.
- Reinholt is essential for stealth denial for a ranged assassination list. The fact that she will be ADR may cause me to dump both B3 and Karchev and pick up a 2nd ADR caster so I can hot swap in Sylys for the extended range thread and extra focus.
- At this point I feel like the Grolar or Gun Carriage (or both) could be swapped for a Destroyer + Koldun Lord.
- The Juggernaut could be downgraded to a Marauder. Maybe.
- The rockets are pretty great, and it turns out that 3 man CRAs with WGI get work done, and then you have cheap tarpit bodies.
- Orin. I didn't have him in my list. I feel like I will want him if I want to drop OW2 into anyone with a brutal spell list.
So... I am trying to figure out whether it makes ANY SENSE AT ALL to try to build around a colossal using Ragman as support. It might be a neat trick (ARM 27 fists...with Divinator...is an interesting gimmick).
That said, I'm leaning towards more destroyers.
A potential new build to test. Help me finish this list!
- OW, Reinholt, 3 Destroyers, Behemoth, Koldun Lord, A&H, Orin...and 12 more points of stuff.
> Min and 3 rockets
> Min unit of Uhlans or Outriders
> Battle Mechanics and a cavalry solo (either Fenris or MOW Drakhun)
> Double eliminators and a Tinker
> Swap in a Grolar, mechs, Kell. Drop one Destroyer.