Release the Kraken!!!

Why would you have an amphibious colossal stay on the deck of your ship? For the sake of consistency on the bases, that’s why!

Yesterday I finished painting my own colossal the Kraken. Normally I hate painting models of this size but this time I managed to finish it before growing bored with it. The quality of the paintjob suffered a little due to my unwillingness to repaint anything on the model but I am happy with the result anyway.

 

I have been playing with the kraken for a while now and I have used the following casters:

1)      pGoreshade – offers Shadowmancer (buff: dark shroud), Hexblast (Offensive: Dispel) and the Deathwalker (breathtaker: living models gets -2 STR -2 DEF). Against those models where it matters it is quite possible to gain dark shroud by applying bane thralls reducing the relevance of shadowmancer. Hexblast and breathtaker makes it possible for the kraken to take out some high DEF infantry even with a DEF buff.  Poor choice for your kraken.

2)      eGoreshade – Offers Phantom hunter (Buff: Ignores LOS, concealment and cover) curse of shadows (Debuff: -2 ARM, can advance through enemy models, cannot make free strikes) and Hexblast (Offensive: Dispel). This enables the kraken to take out important soloes and try for the enemy caster. Curse of shadows combined with dispelling of potential buffs and a well-placed bane thrall makes the kraken able to take out enemy colossal. Curse of shadows can also be used to get out of a tar-pit and into a caster without having to miss out on its initials. Performed well – needs more research

3)      Witch coven – Offers Infernal machine (Buff: +2 MAT, +2 SPD), curse of shadows (Debuff: -2 ARM, can advance through enemy models, cannot make free strikes) and their feat: nightfall (Debuff: -2 MAT, -2 RAT, LOS reduced to 5). This increases the krakens threat to 14 inch, and with nightfall you can place it quite aggressively without fear of too many charges. The increase in MAT brings the kraken to a solid MAT 8 increasing the efficiency of Sweep. Nightfall is also the only way I have found in which you can deny line of sight to a colossal. Curse of shadows is even better with the movement increase offered by infernal machine. A good choice for your kraken.

4)      eSkarre – Offers it Death ward (Buff: +2 arm, I pick column), Seas of fate (Passive: boost after seeing result) and black spot (debuff: - 2 def, kill gives additional attack ignoring ROF). This makes the kraken mode focus efficient, able to take more punishment and a beast as a ranged model. Hypothetically it can get 6 shots with its Hellblaster (range 16, AOE 4, POW 14) as each successful shoot from its flayer against a unit hit by black spot grants an additional attack, but not necessarily from the same weapon. This is a good choice for your kraken.

I have found a few tricks that I would like to share with you about using the kraken.

1)      Keep it second wave most of the time – The Kraken is an expensive model and losing it early will cripple your army.

2)      Stay away from weapon masters – These models, when getting the charge, can take out big chunks of your kraken. It may look tasty to get some corpse tokens, but it is rarely worth it if it leaves you open to more than 3 weapon masters.

3)      In any list, no matter the caster, use both shooting and melee to get the most of the Kraken.

4)      When going into melee with a different colossal, stay more than 2 inch away from it. Then run infantry in base to base with the enemy colossal to keep it in place. This forces the enemy to spend a load of resources removing these infantry models before it can strike back. A favorite is satyxis raiders since shooting them will be close to imposible, and if they place models in melee to take them out, they will likely stand in the way for the lesser colossal and its melee potential.

5)      It is okay to sacrifice the kraken to win. When people see a Kraken within reach of their caster, it is easy to forget about the mission objective and focus all of the power they have on taking down the big guy, leaving you with a sweet win out mission.

6)      Use it to control zones. With a 12 inch long zone just place the kraken on your edge. It is quite hard to remove it, and if they put anything into the zone to contest, you know the kraken can charge it with its 12 inch charge range.  

While I still need to tryout more casters and play styles with the kraken, I find that it offers some something that I missed before getting it. It is by no means an auto include but can (in my local meta) be used competitively. So Cryx casters, take out your krakens for a spin, I know I will.