Zaal, Ancestral Advocate (*6pts)
*Tiberion (11pts)
*Basilisk Krea (4pts)
*Basilisk Drake (4pts)
Cataphract Cetrati (Leader and 5 Grunts) (11pts)
*Tyrant Vorkesh (3pts)
Nihilators (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Venator Slingers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer (3pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Hakaar the Destroyer (4pts)
This is my starting point with Zaal 2. I'm mainly thinking of leveraging the infantry and Transference for damage, but I still wanted a heavy hitter, and Tiberion is self-sufficient, hard to kill, and has Reach and Shield Guard, and can't be pushed off scenario. There was also some talk on the Forum about combining Zaal's spell Vision (cancel the first hit the model suffers, then Vision expires) with Tiberion's animus Bump (the first time the target suffers damage from a melee attack, the attacker is pushed 3" away). The Basilisk Krea is there for a little more defense against shooting, while the Drake is there for the great spray, and to make the Krea hit like a heavy with Flank.
The Cetrati are another really durable unit. Their job is to ferry Zaal around until the late game, when he'll need to take a more active role than providing Transference boosts for the infantry. Speaking of Transference boosts, Cetrati themselves are a great unit to benefit, since they can hit with 4 dice and still be in Shield Wall. The Slingers and Nihilators are mostly there to provide Souls, but both units can get work done. Slings are surprisingly effective, especially against low-def infantry and Warjacks, and will do wonders against infantry spam type lists. Nihilators will be a lot more dangerous than normal with access to Transference to boost their attack rolls. Boosted Mat 7's will be a huge improvement against some of the targets that give Nihilators trouble.
Finally, Hakaar's in the list because he's a powerful model that can use Souls, benefits from Transference, and takes advantage of Zaal's Feat. Boosted Mat 9's is great, but Arm 26 when loaded up with Souls is the real selling point. He'll be very hard to take down on the Feat turn, and be ready to do even more damage on the next turn.
That's the theory anyway. Here's how it went down on the table.
I played 2 games against Sam, one of the Legion players who comes to Tower most Tuesdays (and my opponent in two recent tournament games with pZaal). I'm only going to report the first one, because that's the one I took pictures of.
Sam has been focusing on eVayl and Saeryn for a while, and wanted to play pVayl for a change. His list was.
Vayl, Disciple of Everblight (*6pts)
*Typhon (12pts)
*Scythean (9pts)
*Angelius (9pts)
*Seraph (8pts)
*Naga Nightlurker (5pts)
*Raek (4pts)
*Shredder (2pts)
The Forsaken (2pts)
Strider Deathstalker (2pts)
Strider Deathstalker (2pts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd (1pt)
I don't remember playing against pVayl before, although she's very good, so I may have. In any case, this list has a fair amount of flexibility, and a lot of hitting power. Incite can make all the Warbeasts extra powerful.
Scenario and Deployment
We played Incursion. There are 3 flags spaced evenly across the table's center line. Control or dominate any of them for 1CP.
Sam won the roll-off, and decided to go first. He deployed his beasts in a line more or less in the middle, with the Angelius and Seraph more toward the left, and Typhon more toward the right.
I deployed the Cetrati and Tiberion in the middle with Zaal in with the Cetrati, and Hakaar next to Tiberion. The Nihilators went next to Hakaar, and the Slingers went next to the Cetrati. The Basilisks went behind the Cetrati with the Paingivers, and the Tyrant Commander went behind the Slingers.
Legion Turn 1
He mostly ran forward. The Deathstalkers got into good sniping positions in the forests, while Typhon, the Raek, and Scythean, and the Angelius all crowded onto a hill in front of Vayl, who put Chiller on the Angelius, and gave it even more extra movement with Leash. The Seraph didn't go quite as far, having used Slipstream to get the Angelius a little further upfield. The Shredder advanced behind Vayl, and the Forsaken advanced, and took a Fury from Typhon.
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| The Angelius is the Large Base marker on the front of the hill because those metal wings make it very tippy. |
Skorne Turn 1
I ran the living infantry into a screening mob in front of the Cetrati, who advanced to a low wall in the center of the table. Zaal put Transference on himself and Vision on Tiberion, and charged up, while the Warbeasts moved in behind the Cetrati. Hakaar ran to the same level with Tiberion. The Tyrant Commander and Paingivers brought up the rear.
Legion Turn 2
Vayl upkept Chiller. Vayl moved up to put some of my models in Incite range, cast Incite, and used her Feat, Cat and Mouse. At the end of the turn, one model in her army would be able to make a full advance for each of my models in her CTRL.
The right Deathstalker killed one Nihilator, while the left Deathstalker killed 2 Slingers. Typhon advanced, and sprayed down a few more Nihilators, and put 4 damage on Hakaar. The Angelius charged Tiberion, and did some serious damage with its tail. The Nightlurker advanced, and killed another Slinger with its poison spit. The Seraph put a little damage on the Cetrati with shooting.
The Raek jumped into the cluster of Nihilators, and killed one more.
At the end of the turn, Typhon and the Seraph retreated, while the Scythean moved into a better position. The Angelius slid in front of my Cetrati brick to pin them down, and the Raek moved a bit to jam my Nihilators better.
Vayl's forces hadn't hit particularly hard, but my infantry force was being depleted, and her Feat had allowed most of her list to escape retaliation. I'd need to deal with the beasts jamming me, then hunker down for the next wave.
Skorne Turn 2
Hakaar took his Righteous Vengeance move, and attack the Raek. Zaal leached, converted his 10 Soul Tokens to Fury, and upkept Transference. The Drake Sprayed at the Angelius, and then the Paingivers removed Fury from the Drake, and healed Tiberion. Tiberion advanced, and tried to take out the Angelius, but flubbed most of his attacks.
The Cetrati Shield Walled again, and finished the Angelius off, while the Krea walked up and protected them some more with Paralytic Aura. Zaal advanced, and Feated, which healed Hakaar to full, and gave both Zaal and Hakaar +5 Arm for the round. Hakaar killed the Raek, while the Nihilators ran up to screen him a bit. The Slingers took some perfunctory shots at the Nightlurker (they did no damage, but did inflict Corrosion), and gathered round the left flag.
The Tyrant Commander hurried around the back of my formation to help the Nihilators stand up with Reveille if necessary.
I'd accomplished what I needed to by killing the two jamming beasts, and I was reasonably well set up to take the Legion's counterattack. I had also put scenario pressure on Sam with the Slingers. He'd have to commit to melee, and hopefully I'd be able to gain the upper hand there.
Legion Turn 3
Vayl didn't have anything to upkeep.
Sam focused on my infantry for the most part, since there wasn't much of a shot at Hakaar or Zaal. Typhon and the right Deathstalker killed a few more Nihilators, reducing the unit to just 2, and Typhon used his animus to gain Excessive Healing (whenever it's damaged, it heals d3 after the attack is resolved).
Vayl cast Incite, and advanced until only the very back of her base was still on the hill. The Seraph and Scythean charged the Cetrati and Tiberion respectively. The Scythean killed Tiberion and two Cetrati, and put damage on several more with Chain Attack: Bloodbath. The Seraph killed another Cetratus.
The Nightlurker and left Deathstalker killed off a few more Slingers, reducing that unit to 3. The Forsaken and managed Fury, and Vayl and the Shredder got Tenacity onto both the Scythean and the Seraph. (The Shredder got one, and Vayl shot the Shredder to arc through it for the other).
Sam had put a definite dent in my list, but I was in a pretty good place to either play attrition, or go for an assassination on Vayl. Since Zaal would be on 17 Fury again, I decided to go for assassination.
Skorne Turn 3
Zaal and Hakaar took their Righteous Vengeance moves. Both moved toward Vayl, Hakaar getting charge range, and Zaal getting line of sight around the Cetrati. Zaal upkept Transference.
I wanted to clear things up a little for Hakaar, and force Sam to use Vayl's Dark Sentinel ability (when an enemy model ends its move within 6" of Vayl, once per turn, one of her beasts can move and attack) on something else, so I had the Nihilators activate. One was knocked down, and just moved, but the other charged the Forsaken screening Vayl. Sam was too clever for me though, and moved Typhon into Hakaar's path even though he knew it meant getting no attack on the Nihilator.
The Nihilator slaughtered the Forsaken, and took its Berserk attack into Vayl, but missed (despite the boost from Transference). Next up, I had the Drake spray the Nihilator in the back to get Vayl out of combat, and tried to tag her with Paralysis from the Krea, but missed.
Finally it was Zaal's turn to go. After the first few Sunder Spirit's missed, I decided to hold onto his remaining 5 for so Fury. He charged the Seraph at an angle to put him back behind the Cetrati, but missed since I was saving his Fury for Transference. The Cetrati and Tyrant Commander put some damage on the Scythean and Seraph, but didn't have the weight of attacks to finish either. Hakaar dished out a lot of damage to Typhon, but didn't take out any aspects thanks to Excessive Healing.
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| This was taken early on Sam's turn, after he'd activated the Nightlurker and left Deathstalker. |
This was a pretty bad spot for me, but overall I was glad I'd tried the assassination run. It's a legitimate threat, and a good thing to keep in mind, but in the future I won't play for it unless I know the odds are better (Vayl was Def 21 on a hill with Concealment from her Snow Wreathed ability and Tenacity). It would have been a much better move to play for attrition. With the Drake, Krea and Zaal helping out, I'd probably have been able to kill the Seraph and Scythean, which would have given me a solid attrition advantage going forward.
Legion Turn 4
Sam didn't waste much time pressing his advantage. The Seraph and Scythean killed the Tyrant Commander, Vorkesh, and two of the 3 remaining Cetrati, while Typhon killed Hakaar and the Basilisk Drake. The Nightlurker and Deathstalker on the left finished off the Slingers, and both Deathstalkers got to the flanking flags and scored.
Skorne Turn 4 and Legion Turn 5
I tried to kill off as much as I could with the few models remaining to me, but that was very little indeed. On Sam's turn, an Incited Seraph smashed Zaal into tiny little chunks.
Victory to the Legion!
Thoughts
I had a lot of fun. Sam is always a good opponent, and I enjoy playing against Legion. My big mistake this game was going for the spell assassination when Vayl's Def was so high. I also made some positioning and activation order mistakes that I'm sure I'll get better at with a little more experience with this list. I activated Hakaar before Zaal on Zaal's Feat turn, so I didn't get automatic boosts, for one thing, and seriously underestimated what Dark Sentinel would do to my assassination run for another. If I'd gotten Hakaar in on Vayl, and weathered Typhons fully boosted attack at Arm 21 with 10 boxes, Hakaar would have been much better at finishing the job than Zaal ended up being with Sunder Spirits.
Epic Zaal is a very cool 'caster, though I have a lot of work to do if I want to be good with him. It's hard to overstate how strong Transference and Reclaim were together. My whole army was able to boost attack and damage rolls at will, and the Cetrati in particular hit very hard while keeping in Shield Wall. He's being touted as a Cryx drop, and given that he wants a lot of infantry rather than heavies, and has ways to ignore Stealth, I can certainly see playing him into Cryx. He doesn't have the attrition and denial game that Mordikaar has, or the explosive damage output that pZaal has, but he'll keep his troops hitting hard and accurately for a long time provided I'm good at positioning them so they don't all die at once.
One thing eZaal is really missing is some decent way to use his Feat. I didn't opt to run Immortals with him, because I wanted to try the Cetrati brick as a way to deliver him, and too many Ancestral Guardians means fewer Soul Tokens for Zaal. Even running Immortals means fewer tokens for Zaal, since they're taking up points I could spend on living troops. However, his Feat gives a big armor bonus and boosted attack rolls to Contructs for a round, and I really like to play around with that more. I will try running Immortals with him (especially now that the Ancestral Advocate has been spoiled), and I'll even try putting a couple more AG's in the list, since the boosted attack rolls should apply to Defensive Strikes as well as regular attacks. What I really hope for, though, is more contruct units and solos I can use to take better advantage of the Feat, or even a Construct Warbeast (although it would probably be Zaal's character beast).
Sam played a pretty good game with pVayl despite not playing her much recently. I'm not enough of an expert on pVayl or Legion to say what he could have done differently, although he wasn't too happy about how he used his Feat. I was able to kill his Angelius and Raek, which I'm sure he didn't want, but he had opted to jam me with them rather than give me more access to the table, which did cause problems for me. I don't know that he could have gotten them to safety with his Cat and Mouse moves, and I think he made the right call sacrificing them. His Deathstalkers took a huge toll on my infantry as usual, and really make me want to go back to dropping beast bricks against Legion (of course, that's what Vayl wants! :O)
As I mentioned at the top of the post, I did play a second game, although it was pretty anticlimactic. Sam played eAbby, and after a turn of trashing my list, didn't take Zaal's Righteous Vengeance into account when positioning Absylonia, and Zaal got to her with 19 Fury to buy attacks. Even though it was a mistake on Sam's part this time, I think Righteous Vengeance adds a fair amount to Zaal's late game, when charge lanes aren't as easily avoided and scenario pressure is really on.
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