50 points witch coven army list

Last Tuesday I wanted to tryout kraken and coven combination so I build this list around those two choices.

The Witch Coven of Garlghast (+5)

Kraken (19)

Death Ripper (4)

Death Ripper (4)

Necrotech with Scrap thrall (1)

Necrotech with Scrap thrall (1)

Full unit of Bane thralls with UA (11)

Minimum unit of Bile thralls (5)

Full unit of satyxis Raiders with UA (10)

The coven offers the kraken Infernal machine giving it a ranged threat range of 23 inch and a melee threat of 14 inch. It also ups the MAT on the kraken to 8 making its sweep attack much better. The coven needs an arch node to get of curse of shadows, which can increase the krakens chance of one rounding heavies. Their feat is as far as I can tell the only way to give my kraken a round where the enemy is unable to target it with ranged attacks and charges making them a great fit. I enjoyed using this against a galleon, which turned out to be loosing the gunfight between the two. This was done by using curse of shadows and a running bane to reduce its armor to 17 (it had an ARM buff) and dealing 26 damage in a single round of shooting, after which it would be unable to strike back due to the covens feat. The Necrotechs helped repairing most of the damage it had sustained from the galleon gaining the first round of fire. I added those to the list for that exact reason (as well as fixing any lost aspects).

While the coven has an ARM debuff but with the many colossals I am fighting in my local meta I still needed another strong option apart from the kraken to take out these, and that is why I added my bane thralls. Banes are however not the best at taking out infantry, especially not without tarterous, so I went to the bile thralls to take care of this threat. Finally I got a unit of satyxis raiders with UA. This unit gives me a zone/objective because of advance deployment and melee threat 12. In my second game I fought a dwarf player (seerforge) and because of this unit he felt it necessary to advance in shield wall from turn one. In his second turn he had to use his jacks to contest the objectives. In my turn three I had killed most of his infantry with the satyxis raiders, his driller and two gun bunnies with the kraken and his last heavy with the banes. The biles never made it close enough to do a difference (due to smart targeting by my opponents ranged weapons). It was the fact that most of the game got to be on my opponents table half that won me the game, and that was due to satyxis raiders.

In both games the kraken did great, not just because it kills stuff, but the threat of a colossal forces the enemy to hold back much of his army or lose it. This means that I experience winning on the objective, which is the first tiebreaker when attending tournaments because of the krakens huge base and threatening attitude.

With regards to the coven, I have experienced making a turn 1 caster kill with their offensive spell stygian abyss. This is done by putting infernal machine on a death ripper. It can then run 18 inch. I can then use its archnode to cast 4 stygian abyss spells with range 10 and pow 12. You need a warwitch siren to give the jack a focus to make the run, so for a 6 point investment you can take out most light casters in turn 1 if you go second and they are unaware of the danger of this 28 inch assassination threat.

With this list I have enjoyed putting occultation on my bile thralls making the entire army hard to get with ranged attacks. I bought them to counter pHaley/stormwall and I believe that they can do so with much success. I have tried twice and won one of the times, so better than usual when facing that combination.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, but both the coven and the kraken are WIP, so they will have to wait until later.

50 point Goreshade the bastard army list

 

I have been playing with Goreshade the bastard, just because I love his fluff. I am drawn to the sad story that he wishes to help his people, but in the process of helping his people he forgets about ethics and is shunned as a monster when he resorts to extreme measures.

As a warcaster he is not the easiest to get started with. He has a great feat in that he summons a minimum unit of bane Thralls. He has 5 spells, but I rarely cast more than hex blast, mage blight and Shadowmancer. He is a 7 focus caster, but with expensive spells (3,5,3). I know that he is considered one of the “lesser” cryx casters, but I have played him for a while and my last 4 games has been with this 50 point list shown below.

This is an explanation of the choices I made while list building.

I will start with my choice of warjacks.

I picked deathjack first. This is not only because he is a hard hitter but also because he can cast spells. As I mentioned above goreshade has a five focus spell, mage blight, and this leaves him with less focus than what is needed to cast hex blast. By allocating 2 focus to deathjack, I can boost a hex blast and still be able to keep up mage blight. This makes deathjack a great spell buddy for goreshade. Beyond that, death jack is almost always able to show off by killing a jack, beast or even hurt a colossal.

Next up, I wanted an arch node to get hex blast on the opposing flank to the death jack. I am a big fan of the Defilers spray as I can use its attack while using its arch node. That is, however, just my personal opinion, and I know people who swear by different arch nodes. Goreshade offers stealth and Darkshroud which arguably is better on melee oriented bone jacks, but if my arch node is in melee I just lost the reason why I brought it.

Since one of the spells I use the most offers buffs that fit melee jacks rather than shooting jacks I wanted to bring an additional one of those. Goreshade is a little starved for focus, so seether was a logical choice. On its early turns, it needs no focus, and when it goes crazy 2 focus is enough to fill it up.

Next up, my choice of soloes.

I bring 2 pistol wraiths. These are good objective grabbers, but are quite expensive. The shooting can clear some charge lanes, but I bring infantry that can do the same. They are rarely what wins me the game, but my opponents play their soloes more carefully and on the random occasion getting a colossal to forfeit movement or action they pay back their point cost with interest.

I bring Bane Lord Tartarus to increase the impact of Goreshades feat. Goreshade charges forward, uses his feat to create 6 bane thralls as far in front of him as possible. Then I activate Tartarus and hopefully charge a unit of living models close so the target of my banes. On my best day he created an additional 4 thralls with his thresher while being able to curse a colossal. They where then able to charge and kill the big fellow. I have used just getting him close to the enemy caster for the curse. This gives Goreshade a 23,5 inch threat on his banes. Love this guy with Goreshade.

I also bring my Styxis Raider Captain. I have used this model for some 50 games and I use it to clear charge lanes by charging and killing an annoying model and using sprint to get away. I always play it behind my front line, because she has no survivability and it is always good to be able to run 14 inch and claim an objective. For the first few rounds I use her to buff satyxis raiders with desperate pace.

Finally units

As Goreshades lacks defense debuffs beyond the fragile Deathwalker I like to include bile thralls. Their purge ability makes to chances to get a caster assassination with his feat much larger as well as gives you a great options for taking out Iron Fleshed Winter Guards. Just about one purge will probably payback your point investment, while giving loads of great options for the rest of your army.

I see a load of units with tough standing between my hardest hitters and the target I want to get. To overcome this I bring a minimum unit of blood witches with UA. With ethereal they can also be combined with bile thralls, as they become immune to purge.

To get a unit to give me the alpha strike and force my enemy to stay on his side of the board I bring Satyxis Raiders with UA. This unit can cover a flank, take out soloes, harm hard model/units with UA mini feat, and can run and engage models within 18 inch to reduce the impact of ranged models. Goreshade gives nothing to this unit, but it does okay (read awesome) on its own.

The List looks like this

Goreshade the Bastard (+6)

Death walker (0)

Deathjack (12)

Defiler (5)

Seether (9)

Pistol wraith (3)

Pistol wraith (3)

jBane Lord Tarterus (4)

Satyxis Raider Captain (2)

Min size bile thralls (5)

Min size Satyxis Raiders with UA (7)

Satyxis Blood Witches with UA (6)

And on a picture something like this:

 

But don’t forget that with his feat you will also get these

 

And with this guy, I have had them almost double in numbers on a single turn.

 

I always preffere to play with painted miniatures, but deathjack still needs some finishing touches. I am extremely happy about how the freehand turned out, and even with colossal all over the place I hope it will make him stand out as a centerpiece for any army that includes him.

Before I made this list I played some 5-10 games with Goreshade, with decent outcome (more win then loss). Since I made the list I played with it against eStriker (in this game mageblight was key to winning) Irusk with colossal (Shadowmacer until feat turn for win) Vyros with two colossals (all feat, turn 2 attempt, dice raped – luckily opponent made a ballsy call and failed his assassination run by 1/8^th of an inch so I got a second chance. This time I did not fail) and finally Zaal (won due to Seether, feat and Goreshade who destroyed an objective and cleared a flag).

He may be among the worst casters cryx has to offer, but he still manages to pull some wins against the best in my local gaming environment and had fun while doing it.  I can hardly wait to try out his epic version, but before I get to that I have this urge to use my kraken more, as well as my witch coven and it looks like they might go together due to infernal machine.