Kovnik Komuniqué - The Iron Fist of Khador

Hello again, Komrades! Last time, I head a good deal of calling for a battle report featuring Strakhov. He's the leader of Khador's Black Ops squad, a total badass, and probably one of my favorite warcasters. He's a ton of fun to play, and hopefully this battle report will show you that he means business when he takes on the Circle Orboros.

Kovnik Komuniqué: Battle Report

Khador: Kommander Strakhov vs. Circle Orboros: Baldur the Stonecleaver

This battle report was a scenario battle against a friend of mine at our FLGS. We played a Steamroller 2014: Balance of Power. The map is pictured below, and it's first to five wins as usual with the following scoring opportunities:

• Friendly Flag: Dominate = Opponent loses 1 CP before players score CPs this turn (minimum = 0)

• Zone: Control = 1 CP, Dominate = 2 CP

• Enemy Flag: Control = 1 CP, Dominate = 2 CP

(No death clock this game; we were keeping things casual)

The Army lists were as follows:

Khador (Played by Dan):

Kommander Strakhov (*6pts)
* Beast-09 (11pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Black Dragon Officer & Standard (2pts)
Fenris (5pts)
Goblin Tinker (1pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Kovnik Andrei Malakov (3pts)
* Spriggan (10pts)
Man-o-war Drakhun (without dismount) (4pts)
Manhunter (2pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

Circle (Led by Paul):

Baldur the Stonecleaver (*6pts)
* Megalith (11pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
* Druid of Orboros Overseer (2pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Nuala the Huntress (2pts)
Lord of the Feast (4pts)

The Battlefield:

We set up a rather balanced scenario bord. The flags were near forests, but not so close they could be abused. There were also hills in the opposite corners, and linear walls just outside the zone. Again, so they couldn't be abused by toeing the zone and getting cover.

Setup:

Circle won the go ahead roll (bad news for Strakhov), and decided to go first. This is always something to watch out for when playing against circle. Many of their models and units get advance deploy. So, not only is it easy for them to counter-deploy against you, but it also means giving up the first turn will see Circle swarming the scenario zones before you can do much of anything about it. During regular deployment, my oponent deploys a whopping four models including his Warlock:

I used to own a circle army, and I don't like his deployment because I know the druids and bloodtrackers are going to be in my face faster than you can say, "Damn Treehuggers!" :P

In almost complete contradiction, most of my troops go down on the regular deployment step:

This was meant to highlight Strakhov, so I'll be a little more descriptive about the early steps: Strakhov goes down right behind the flag. And all his viable upkeep targets go near him: Beast-09, Great Bears. The Caster support goes directly behind: Sylys, Reinholdt. My Dragoons deploy on very wide flanks. The pikemen and the Iron Fang Kovnik take up the vanguard position as I plan to jam the zone with them early on and use them to clear charge lanes in later turns. Malakov and 'Rustputin' (My rusty, old, Spriggan model. One of the first in my collection) take up the other flank, and the Gobber Tinker is right behind.

Now comes Circle's AD, and I'm already sweating:

My AD was a single Manhunter on the left side in front of Fenris. I didn't bother with a Picture because the placement was simple. The Bloodtrackers declare Prey on the Great Bears and off we go! 

Circle Orboros: Turn 1:

The Bloodtrackers run to jam the zone good and hard. The druids run to the wall. The Stalker, and Pureblood run to take up position just outside the zone. Measuring control, Paul determines that Megalith would be too far away from the BloodTrackers to give them Stoneskin via Geomancy, so he just runs. The stones teleport into place, threatening to tele-drop any one of his heavies into the zone if I put anything valuable too far up front.

Baldur activates, and my Paul informs me he'd made a mistake waiting so long. If he'd activated Baldur (Or even Megalith) before the Blood Trackers, he'd have been able to put Stoneskin on them this turn in preparation for dishing out some nasty damage next turn. Now, however, he was too far away. Baldur simply advances, and places Stoneskin on the Stalker. The lord of the feast runs into the forest and looks quite menacing.

If you didn't believe me before about Circle's ability to really threaten a scenario jam if they get the first turn, maybe this visual aid will help. This is why I wanted to go first!

Khador: Turn 1:

Paul's put me in a bad spot. I consider my options and actually discuss a turn 1 feat. Ultimately, I decide that's a bad idea. His heavies are well protected. A turn 1 feat just wouldn't quite get me the damage that I was looking for. I decide to bide my time and begin making other plans.

It's apparent that if I don't get something into that zone right now, I may not be able to do it at all. So, I decide to give up the Iron Fangs. That's what infantry's for isn't it? No need to Shield March, so I save the Kovnik's activation for later. The Brave Black Dragons declare Iron Zeal and make a run for it! They manage to engage the first few Bloodtrackers. Just what I wanted. This would make them a pain to dislodge!

Their Kovnik follows up behind them and makes it to the wall. The Great Bears run to the treeline near the flag. The Drakhun hugs the table edge and threatens to charge the druids next turn if they don't do something about him. Fenris takes up a vantage point on the hill. The manhunter makes a mad dash for the Lord of Feast's forest, declaring it to be Khadoran land. Orboros be damned!

Malakov casts Redline on Spriggan and moves off to the side. The spriggan runs for free and gets his toes behind the wall. The Tinker gives him a hug!

Strakhov finally activates. He casts Superiority on Beast-09 and Occultation on the great bears. Then advances to the flag. Reinholdt gives him a hug and sylys dances a jig.

The board after the first turn:

Circle: Turn 2

Paul, ever the optimist, tells me that he thinks his Bloodtrackers are screwed. He takes a few minutes to look over the board and decides he has a plan, and upkeeps Stoneskin on the Warpwolf Stalker.

The druids activate. A few use clouds, the leader puts up anti-magic, and the UA decides to cast the devouring on an Iron Fang Pikemen, who Paul woefully discovered was engaged, making him DEF 17.

The devouring missed, scattering back into the lines of the IFP, claiming only one life instead of three. The final few Druids tossed out a few force bolts to minimal effect. All of them maintained their defensive position behind the wall.

The lord of the feast activated. He walked through the forest to just outside reach distance of my Manhunter and let loose his crow. It missed. Things weren't going well for Paul's plan!

And then, this happened:

With some of the best shifting stones placement I've ever seen, he gets the stalker in between two of his blood trackers. It looks like he was REAL close to nudging models from the picture, but trust me, I checked. Twice. His Warpwolf entered the fray with barely millimeters to spare. I had to applaud him there. It looked like my jam tactic was about to come apart at the seams!

The stalker unloaded on my Pikemen. He claimed the lives of Four Khadoran troops (using his animus for sprint somewhere along the line) before turning on the two brave Bloodtrackers he'd teleported next to. Sprint saw him shuffle to one side to engage what was left of the Black Dragon's front ranks.

Later, Paul admitted this was another mistake. He determined the better play would have been to use sprint to push the Stalker forward so that it engaged with my Spriggan and the Black Dragons hanging behind the wall.

Next up was Megalith, taking a hop skip and a jump around one of the shifting stones as if it were a maypole, the druidic monolith spread peace, love, and Stoneskin among the Bloodtrackers. He'd managed to disengage the majority of the unit. However, he didn't like their chances of hitting the BDP behind the wall (even aiming, they'd need 9's to hit for an above average chance to kill at P+S 11 weaponmaster against Arm 18). He opted, instead, to devote half the remaining Bloodtrackers to take out the Black Dragons remaining mid field. The remaining 8 Bloodtrackers and Nuala managed to kill a grand total of two pikeman which the Stalker had left behind. The pureblood advanced, and sprayed through the gaps at the ones behind the wall, catching just 1 BDP in his 10" spray (but no friendly models either). The fury mechanic sealed his fate.

Baldur activated, advanced, and placed a forest in front of him as a LoS blocker. Then, Baldur ended his activation. Remember this moment. We'll come back to it later.

Here's the board at the end of the turn:

Khador: Turn 2

It's turn two, so we'll begin calculating Control Points at the end of the turn.

It was now, or never. The all important Strakhov feat turn.

Control phase: Strakhov drops Occultation, and upkeeps Superiority for free thanks to Sylys Wyshshhshnlllhhllyyyylrrr and his goofy socks. Malakov upkeeps Redline. Both warcasters load up their respective warjacks to the max.

I always like to get the easy things out of the way early when it's my feat turn. The Manhunter, who wouldn't need the speed boos from the feat charges, and kills the Lord of the Feast. "My Forest!" he says.

The Gobber Tinker sat and repaired last turn's damage from Redline on the Spriggan bringing it back to full.

Now the difficult part. I wanted to activate Strakhov. But I couldn't. The trick to playing him is to hold the feat as long as possible during your turn until your important charge targets become clear, and you've identified beyond all doubt, what specific model will be your warjack's Overrun Trigger. That means, I had to clear some charge lanes before he could activate.

The Iron Fang Kovnik sits behind the wall and declares that the Black Dragons Shield March. The Black Dragons activate, and damn if they don't get work done! Ordering for Shield Wall, the three in the center press as far forward as possible while remaining in the melee range, and LoS of the Stalker. The ones on the left traipse toward the left side of the zone to engage the Blood Trackers on the left. And the Iron Fang officer follows up the ones in the center flank. 

This very specific movement wasn't without forethought mind you. Let's take a moment to talk about why I'm doing this. It's a Strakhov battle report, after all and this activation was likely the most important one of the game for me. Take another look at the board:

To the left of the stalker are five Bloodtrackers in a triangle formation. The two at the back I don't care about. The three that make up the front of the triangle (the ones circled in the picture) absolutely have to die right now. Only then, will Spriggan have a charge lane to Megalith. But perhaps even more importantly, I have to eliminate those models while keeping that future charge lane clear of my own models.

The Black Dragons make fantastic use of their CMA ability. On the right, there are two CMA's (the second one originating from the Unit's Officer) where the Black Dragons need 6, and 5 to hit respectively. I roll a six. P+S 15 kills automatically. I roll a five. P+S 15 kills automatically. Then on the other side, the pikemen ignore the far left Bloodtracker and CMA the remaining lane blocker. I need 6 to hit the last all important attack roll. The dice come up 3, and 3 causing me to breathe a sigh of relief.

One last piece of bookkeeping: Reinholdt activates, uses Spyglass on Strakhov and he measure's the distance between the Spriggan and the Pureblood (I can't quite see Megalith, otherwise I would have used him). I know that Spriggan will have a 15" threat range after the factoring in Strakhov's feat and Redline. The Pureblood is about 12" away, and using that educated guess I am sure that I'll have the distance I need to charge Megalith.

Now, it's time.

Strakhov activates and declares that it's time to show the enemy the Iron Fist of Khador! But again, the trick to playing Strakhov is identifying the key targets before you pop your feat. First and Foremost, I know that Beast-09 is going to be my Overrun trigger, killing the Stalker to make Strakhov back peddal at the end of the turn. That means Beast-09 needs to activate last, and I need to leave the Stalker alive until he does. Measuring control, I know that the Great Bears will have the distance they need to charge the Pureblood, but I need to clear that lane still. Spriggan will have Megalith, of course. And Strakhov? He's eyeing that Bloodtracker in front to trigger his Sprint ability. If everything goes my way, Paul won't have any beasts left at the start of his next turn! Now the hard part: Actually pulling all that off.

Strakhov starts his activation with 3 focus. Two of it immediately goes to casting Overrun on Beast-09. Then, Strakhov charges the Bloodtracker, staying on the right side of it to avoid the Stalker's reach threat. He boosts to hit, and connects, giving the Bloodtracker it's well deserved comeuppance. Strakhov pops his feat, and ends his activation. He retreats just enough so that he doesn't block the lane for either the Great Bears, or Beast, and yet can still tag Megalith with his Feat. He ends up about midway between my flag and the Stalker. But we're not out of the woods yet.

Spriggan takes off like he's shot out of a gun. Poor Rustputin's gears begin screeching and grinding under that strain of Redline. He barreling across the field shrugging off a free strike from the Bloodtracker on the left. Skewering Megalith with the charge, he pauses to bash another Bloodtracker with his shield. Then, I buy an attack on the shifting stone. Because in the off chance that I can't quite kill Megalith with a few more P+S 20 hits, I want to make absolutely sure that Paul can't send him halfway across the battlefield with his damn hippy magic. The stone dies, and Rustputin delivers two more punishing blows to Megalith after that. I botch the damage roll on my first bought attack, rolling only a four. The last attack puts another decent wad of points on the construct, but leaves him at one single box! No!

Malakov saunters up the the wall, but can't quite reach Megalith with his gun, so he takes a pot-shot at the Pureblood and misses.

The Great Bears activate. I quickly notice that even though I cleared the Bloodtracker out out of the way, the Stalker's line of sight is going to be a problem. Yarovich takes one for the team an charges the Stalker such that the back half of his LoS gets blocked, and the lane becomes freed up for his brothers in arms. Volkov and Kolsk both take the initiative and move 13" downfield to give the Pureblood the business end of their sharp pointy objects. Yarovich nearly gives me a heart attack, rolling almost max damage against the Stalker almost killing it on the charge attack. If he had, Beast-09 would have not had anything to attack, and Strakhov would have been left hanging in the winds. The other two make short work of the Pureblood.

The Drakhun crashes into the druids. The clouds prove effective causing both of his impact attacks to miss, but the charge attack lands, taking of their leader's head. Fenris activates, and charges the one Bloodtracker remaining on the left that had taken a free strike at Rustputin.

Beast-09 finally activates, charging the Stalker, and taking it apart with the first swing. That's three wasted focus on him, but you can never be too careful when you absolutely have to trigger Overrun. The spell goes off, and Strakhov backpeddals to just behind the friendly flag, dominating it (just in case).

Unfortunately, my last activation: Sylys isn't enough to dispatch the last few Bloodtrackers in the zone, for Control points, so I just keep him safe behind me and end my turn.

Circle: Turn 3

Paul, gracious as he is, decides to call the game. He's down, but not out, but doesn't feel the need to let the game drag on. He didn't expect Strakhov's threat ranges to be quite so long as they were! We shake hands, clean up our models, and part as friends.

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Now, remember that moment I said I'd come back to later on?

The next day, I received a text message from Paul: "I forgot to feat! I just realized it! God damn!"

Sounds like Paul should be listening to more of a certain podcast! But yes, if Paul had used Baldur's feat during turn 2, it certainly would have been a game changer. The stalker probably still would have died. But Megalith would certainly be right as rain, and I might not have killed the Pureblood either!

Lesson learned, Paul, don't forget to feat!

Until next time, Komrades!

A Kovnik's Kommuniqué

Greetings Tovarishch,

This is an old blog of mine that was loosely associated with gaming in the first place. But now, I'm re-purposing it. After months without updates, I am going to start using this as a place to post battle reports for Khador. Many of these will be from Steamroller events that I attend. I'm hoping I'll remember to take pictures of them all, but if not, I'll try to verbalize them if possible.

They won't all be winning battle reports. In the games I lose, I'll try to report on the things I did right and wrong. Not just what got me killed, but the mistakes that I made that led up to that point.

Now, without further Ado, let's start it off with a win for the Motherland!

Kommunique No. 1: Forward Kommandor Sorcha Kratikov vs. Hoarluk Doomshaper & The Runes of War

Steamroller 2014 Scenario #6: Two Fronts

Trollbloods:

Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)

(During Deployment, my opponent places the two wall templates shown in the picture below thanks to his tier benefits).

Deployment:

Khador:

Forward Kommander Sorscha (*6pts)
* Conquest (19pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts) Added from Specialists; Swapped for Widowmakers
Winter Guard Field Gun Crew (Leader and 2 Grunts) (2pts) Added from Specialists; Swapped for Koldun Kapitan Valachev
Alexia, Mistress of the Witchfire (4pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

Deployment:

(Thanks to Forward Kommander for the easy to copy and paste lists!)

I won the roll and elected to go first. My opponent chose the side of the table he was already on because my he was trapped in a corner and didn't feel like moving (the terrain was rather balanced with obstacles on both sides so it really didn't matter which side I deployed on).

Khador Turn 1:

Control Phase: Sorcha Allocates 1 focus to Conquest.

Boomhowlers Run. Nyss Hunters Run. Conquest Runs. Aiyana & Holt Advance and get stealth. The Field Gun Runs to take cover behind a small house. Alexia Runs to support the Boomhowlers. Sorcha advances, to a central location, puts Iron Flesh on the Boomhowlers, and sits on the rest of her focus. Great Bears sprint up the right board edge and start yelling nasty things about Hoarluk's mother.

Trolls Turn 1:

Most everything on his side runs to take cover under the walls he's placed. The EBDT tosses out it's animus on Doomie, and charges. Doomie puts Fortune on Mulg, and Banishing Ward on himself (My opponent explains that he's afraid of eSorcha's threat range with Freezing Grip) then charges the Conquest to make it within an inch of the wall.

At the end of round one the battle lines are beginning to take shape. (I forgot to take a photo at this point. The next visual aid will come at the end of my next turn).

Khador Turn 2:

Control: Sorcha upkeeps Iron Flesh (for free), and puts 4 focus on the Bonded conquest keeping two for herself.

Boomhowlers move into position and begin shooting at the Runeshapers that are trying to take ground. eAlexia casts hellfire hoping to terrorize one of the units. The Field gun takes a shot at something. Overall, minimal casualties are suffered. on this side of the field, but Alexia does claim two souls for her trouble.

Conquest unloads on the runshapers upfield but fails to crit for the devastation like I'd wanted. Nyss hunters advance and take a few shots. Not much gets done on this side of the field either. This is starting to look like it will be a drag out attrition battle!

The sneaky Great Bears wander up behind a house to take cover from any Runeshaper spells, and still threaten a charge on the following turn.

Trolls 2:

Attrition it is. Runeshapers fight a losing battle with my Iron Fleshed trolls, but manage to contest the zone on the left. Runeshapers on the right fail to remove many of the Nyss Hunters. My opponent brings in mulg to chow down on some Nyss Hunters. He lines up a Wall in front of Mulg with Janessa in order to try protecting him from another Conquest Critical, but he leaves the back door open to a few great bears. His only protection in the form of a few Runeshapers that are giving the bears funny looks. and blocking charge lanes.

Khador 3:

Control: I consider my options on an assassination run, but decide I'm winning the attrition war and there's no reason I should risk it all on a half baked attempt to kill a well guarded troll. Sorcha loads up conquest again, and upkeeps for free. I decide that it's time these Trolls felt Winter's Chill. It's feat turn for me!

Sorcha activates early in the turn, pushing forward, popping her feat, and using Cyclone to get the heck out of dodge. She ends her activation somewhere behind the objective on my side of the board.

Boomhowlers, Alexia, and the Field Gun clean up on the left, also putting some damage on the objective. Unfortunately, the few Runeshapers on the left that were outside my feat prove difficult to kill, and I can't control the zone.

A&H Advance, Kiss Mulg, and take a few shots, but overall don't accomplish much. Conquest unloads, but fails to crit once more. Nyss hunters decide it's time to jam. They charge ahead to take advantage of weaponmaster on my feat turn, also because there's so few of them left their foot print on the board won't last much longer and I want to cause as much of a nuisance as possible. Hilariously, one of the Nyss hunters cracks the objective open for a controll point, and a second one half shots the EBDT!!! I manage to sneak two of them in next to the wall and Doomshaper and put a few points on him too. Great work, guys! The Great Bears decide they've waited long enough. Two charge Mulg (the Runeshapers that were in the way were removed by my previous activations). Thanks to double 1's on one of the charges, and some of the worst damage rolls I've ever seen them make overall, Mulg Survives. The one that ran ends up behind the obstacle near the back edge of his board. It's potentially threatening some of his important models in the coming turns.

I realize that with his increased speed from taking damage, Mulg has a possible charge on Conquest. He's lacking at least one spiral, but that's nothing Doomie can't help with. If he can disengage the great bears, I'm potentially looking at a dead colossal! I clog his charge lane with Reinholdt! Hilarious!

Score: Khador 1; Trolls 0

Trolls Turn 3:

It's a short turn for him since he's running out of models. Doomshaper upkeeps and cowers behind the wall.

Janissa decides to push the Great Bears away from Mulg. This is an ability that I didn't know she had and didn't see coming! Mulg decides to go for it. But with Reinholdt and a Nyss in the way, his only option is to trample. Despite Fortune, he can't land enough hits on Aiyana, Holt, or Reinholdt to make his way via Doomshaper's Goad to Conquest. He finally gets there on the last of his Fury, but is out of attacks.

He manages to pick of the rest of my troublesome Nyss Hunters, but can't sneak any additional models into the left zone. He's more worried about clogging up the great bears in the backfield with his Krielstone Bearers.

Khador Turn 4:

Control: Conquest gets another load of focus. 

Conquest moves to the left, in front of my Objective to make sure my opponent can't blow it up. Conquest spends the turn using it to destroy the stationary Mulg. I'd hedged my bets, so I ended up wasting two of the four focus I'd allocated to him to get it done. Still, you can never be too sure with Mulg. I wanted that tree swinging beat stick dead dead dead.

Great Bears spend the turn chopping through trolls in the back, not getting much done. A few good swings brings down Janessa, though.

Trolls and Alexia finally manage to clean up on the left and control the zone. Alexia even has some time to conjure up some thralls to harass the EBDT. But it turns out that's not going to matter. With our deathclocks getting low, I decide to cyclone Sorcha into the left zone and start really racking up points. A Domination this round brings us to... 

Score: Khador 2, Trolls 0.

Trolls 4:

Another pillowfisted turn, ending with only 16 seconds remaining on my opponent's clock. Doomie is still behind a wall, but can't dominate because Conquest has his toes in the zone. Leaving the left zone empty allows Sorcha to dominate again, bringing the score to...

Khador 3; Trolls 0

Khador Turn 5:

I've got about two and a half minutes to play. Time to apply some pressure and force my opponent's clock. Sorcha drops all upkeeps. Loads up Conquest with 3 (I'm rushing, and forget bonding allows an extra). She casts boundless charge from where she is thanks to Sylys extending the range of her spells. She sends conquest in, and he starts beating on Doomshaper. A few solid hits (all of which are transferred), I end my turn with only 16 seconds to spare on my own clock. Sorcha dominates again.

Khador 4; Trolls 0

At this point, my opponent decides to throw in the towel. Technically, it's a win by assassination as he lets his deathclock run out. As soon as that triggers, we check for control points again. Sorcha is still dominating bringing home a control point shut out for the Queen.

Decision: Khador

Score: Khador 5; Trollbloods 0

Please feel free to comment. I prefer constructive criticism, of course. Any input you have on the game, or on the report is welcome. Other than my obvious need to take more pictures, of course!

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Until next time, Komerade.