Battle Report: Makeda 1 vs. Kaelyssa (75pts)

Hey everyone!

I've played a bunch of Cryx lately, but I haven't neglected Skorne.  I'm super excited about all our new themes, and I thought I'd give one of them a try last weekend.  Here's what I took:

Archdomina Makeda (*29pts) - Masters of War
*Molik Karn (19pts)
*Titan Gladiator (15pts)
*Scarab Pack (10pts)

Tyrant Rhadiem (9pts)

Cataphract Cetrati (Leader and 5 Grunts) (18pts)
*Command Attachment (Tyrant Vorkesh) (0pts - Theme Benefit)
Praetorian Ferox (Leader and 4 Grunts) (20pts)
Legends of Halaak (8pts)
Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer (0pts - Theme Benefit)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (5pts)

Theme Benefits
*+1 to the starting roll
*Free Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer or Command Attachment for every 20pts of Praetorian or Cataphract models/units.
*Melee attacks by warrior models ignore Tough, and a model boxed by those attacks is removed from play.


This seems like an amazing theme, and I'm very excited about this list.  It seems like it will attrition and assassinate very well, and the Feat can be great for scenario with really fast units like Ferox jamming the opponent out of zones.  It's well balanced for any type of scneario, and threatens a truly ghastly range with Quicken on top of Rush and Push to the Limit.  It only has 2 heavies, so its ability to deal with serious heavy spam will be limited.  We'll see how it holds up.

I was playing against Caleb, who's just picking up Retribution.  He was playing:

Kaelyssa, the Night's Whisper (*29pts) - Shadows of the Retribution
*Phoenix (18pts)
*Hydra (15pts)
*Manticore (14pts)
*Sphinx (13pts)
*Chimera (8pts)

Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (0pts - Theme Benefit)
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios (6pts)
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress (4pts)
Arcanist Mechanic (2pts)
Arcanist Mechanic (2pts)
Arcanist Mechanic (2pts)

Mage Hunter Strike Force (Leader and 9 Grunts) (16pts)
*Command Attachment (Strike Force Commander) (4pts)

Theme Benefits
*+1 to the starting roll.
*Free solo or Command Attachment for every 20pts of units.
*Melee attacks by warrior models ignore Tough, and a model boxed by those attacks is removed from play.

An interesting Kaelyssa build.  She does some good things for the Shadows theme, namely giving her army more time to leverage its shooting elements before getting into melee.  This list has a lot of shooting from various sources, and hits hard with the heavies.  It may be a little unfocused, and may have trouble clearing jams with a low number of quality melee attacks.  People are playing Shadows as a counter to Ghost Fleet's recursion, so I'm interested to see how it does against a very different kind of list.

It's also pretty neat that the theme benefits for Masters and Shadows are almost identical, but the lists tend to be super different because of the difference in the factions and allowed models.

Scenario and Deployment

We ended up playing Recon II, which has 2 rectangular zones 12" from each table edge.  Each zone has a flag on one end (making it easier for the nearer player to score that flag).  Each player also has an objective.  Score any scenario element or destroy your opponent's objective for 1 control point.  Warbeasts/'jacks and Battle Engines can score rectangular zones, while solos can score flags.  Warcasters/Warlocks can score any kind of scenario element as normal.

For my objective, I chose Stockpile.  Makeda would be taking a bunch of damage on her Feat turn, and it'd be great to have that little trickle of healing afterward to help keep her safe.  I could also use it to keep my Beasts topped up since they'd be taking a lot of bullets for the infantry.  Caleb picked Fuel Cache to give his Warjacks the Pathfinder they'd need to get through the big central forest.

I won the roll-off, and chose to go first.  I put my Ferox and Rhadiem on the left flank where I had a flag closer to my deployment zone.  My plan there was to get Rhadiem to the flag and use the Ferox's speed and my Feat to kill off the Mage Hunters and jam Caleb out of the zone starting on his second turn.  I put the Cetrati on the right flank to contest the zone with the flag closer to Caleb.  They'd be tough to remove, and I just needed to stop Caleb from scoring over there.  I put Makeda, the beasts, and the support elements in the middle.

Caleb weighted his deployment toward my right flank.  The Hydra was approximately in the middle, but all the other 'jacks were deployed closer to the right zone.  The Arcanists went behind the 'jacks, and the Mage Hunters, Eiryss, and Narn went in the middle.  Caleb's plan looked to be to flood the right zone with armor while using the Mage Hunters and Warjack shooting to whittle me down in the center and the left.

We played on a slightly short table, so our deployments are a little crowded, but the measurements are accurate.


Skorne Turn 1

Makeda put Quicken on the Cetrati, and the Tyrant Commander put Push to the Limit on them,, and they Shield Walled up 9".  Everything else moved up pretty cautiously.  I had superior melee threat range here, so there was no need to rush.  I tried to get good coverage for Shield Guard with my beasts, and set myself up to grab the left zone next turn.

Retribution Turn 1

Kaelyssa allocated a bunch of Focus to the Hydra since it would keep it over time.  She also cast Refuge on the Hydra, and popped her Feat, preventing me from charging in.  The Warjacks ran up.  The Mage Hunters advanced, and did a lot of shooting at the Legends of Halaak, but even though they rolled very well, I was able to Shield Guard all the hits.  Caleb decided to hold Eiryss back this turn.

I had a chance to do a lot of damage this turn.  I couldn't charge, but all my Ferox and two of my Cetrati had the chance to get into melee, and I needed to make it count.


Skorne Turn 2

Makeda upkept Quicken on the Cetrati.

The Tyrant Commander put Push to the Limit on the Cetrati.  They Shield Walled forward, and killed 2 Mage Hunters.  Makeda advnaced, popped her Feat, switched Quicken onto the Ferox, and cast Carnage.  This left her on zero Fury, so I made sure the Scarabs were all bunched around her for Shield Guard.  The Gladiator and Legends moved behind the Cetrati to make a supporting charge after Caleb's Myrmidons had banged them up.

Rhadiem moved to control the flag in the left zone.  The Ferox advanced, and jumped into the Mage Hunters, killing 6 more, and leaving just the Officer and one trooper.  They repositioned to block access to Makeda and engage Eiryss in melee.  Molik ran to control the left zone.

I'd been very effective at taking out Caleb's screen, and I'd put myself in a good position overall.  Makeda's Feat would let me get through Caleb's turn with most if not all of my infantry intact, and I was in a very strong position on my left side.  The trouble was on my right side.  After this coming turn, the Cetrati would almost certainly be overwhelmed by Caleb's heavies, and I'd need to play a good game to keep scoring while dealing with them.


Retribution Turn 2

Caleb let Refuge expire, and allocated 2 Focus to each to the Phoenix and Sphinx, and one to the Manticore.  The Fuel Cache gave the Manticore pathfinder.

The Arcanists advanced, and put Concentrated Power on the Phoenix and Sphinx, and used Empower on the Manticore to give it a 3rd point.  The Phoenix advanced, and used Combustion, setting all the Cetrati on fire and doing enough damage to take a few of them out.  I saved them by taking damage on Makeda.  The Phoenix and Sphinx did a bunch more damage to Makeda by disabling Cetrati, and I allowed the Chimera to finish one off.

The Manticore attacked the Ferox and did a little more damage to Makeda, and the Hydra vaporized a chunk of the Gladiator's health with a shot from its energy gun.  Kaelyssa shot the Fury off the Gladiator, and did a little more damage.

Narn charged Molik and contested the zone, but I used Intuition to force Narn to reroll his attack until Molik was at full Fury.  Narn ended up hitting anyway, but Molik killed him with the Retaliatory Strike from Makeda's Feat.  Then Eiryss walked into the zone (the Ferox engaging her missed its Free Strike), and calmly shot all the Fury off Molik again with Disruptor Bolt.

Finally, Lanyssa advanced, and used Winter Storm to deny Pathfinder to the Ferox.

I scored 1CP for controlling the left flag.  I was still in a good spot, although Makeda would have to damage herself some more to leach back to full Fury.  I had a reasonably good chance to take out the Phoenix, Hydra, and Sphinx and put myself solidly ahead on attrition.  I could easily kill Eiryss, and get up a couple more points on scenario too.  However, I also had a good shot at taking out Kaelyssa with the Ferox.  I'd try that first, then see what else I needed to do.


Skorne Turn 3

Before I could start my assassination run, I had some unpacking to do, but even before that, I had fire checks.  Two more Cetrati died to fire, the Stockpile healed Makeda for 2, and Makeda dropped Quicken from the Ferox.

The Cetrati advanced in Shield Wall, and poked at the Warjacks engaging them a bit, and did a little damage.  The Tyrant Commander put Push to the Limit on the Ferox, and advanced.  The Scarabs ran forward.  Makeda put Rush on the Gladiator, advanced to the point where Kaelyssa would barely be in her CTRL, and cast Carnage.

The Legends of Halaak charged in, Valgesh and Cidaar going after the Chimera, and J'Deth charging the Phoenix at an angle.  Valgesh and Cidaar easily killed the light warjack, and J'Deth used Combo Smite to slam the Phoenix into the Sphinx doing massive damage to the Phoenix (and nothing to the Sphinx).  Now that the Gladiator could take out both Retribution heavies, I could focus on my assassination.

The Ferox advanced as far as they could, and jumped in around Kaelyssa.  Four CMA mount attacks later, and, well....

Victory to the Skorne!


Thoughts

I played a really good game for me.  My positioning with Shield Guards was solid, and I was planning for everything, including my caster's safety (which sometimes eludes me).  I don't think I made any major mistakes, although maybe I shouldn't have bunched my Cetrati so closely on turn 2.  If I'd sent a pod of 3 forward and held the rest back, I would have had at least a few that weren't on fire.  Caleb also rolled a lot better than I was expecting on those fire damage rolls though - I'd expected very little damage to get through arm 20, and instead I wound up losing 2 to fire and taking a lot more damage on all of them.

This list was amazing.  I've taken Makeda 1 out a couple of times since the January 2017 errata, and this is by far the best I've felt about a list.  Masters of War gave me that little extra bit of support that I need to make the list really go.  I was easily able to control the game, and the lack of a bunch of heavies to oppose Caleb's ended up not being a big deal.  I'll have to try this list against real Arm skew at some point to see if it holds up, but for now I'm really liking it.  I'm not 100% sold on the Cetrati.  They certainly did their job this game, but they still feel a bit like they lack the damage or durability to make up for their cost.  Time will tell.  Caleb's dice this game were really... on fire?  Eh?  Eh??

Anyway.

Caleb is still pretty new to Retribution, and ended up in a pretty bad matchup for his list.  His choice to overload the right side of the table and let me claim the left more-or-less unopposed would probably have put him on the back foot in the long run.  He also left Kaelyssa hanging without any Focus camp on his second turn - a temptation I'm very familiar with.  She can do a lot with her Focus, but she's actually quite fragile, and Caleb really needed to make sure she didn't die to Ferox first, and worry about Fury-stealing shenanigans second.

I'm not completely sure about Caleb's list.  I feel like the Strike Force aren't a great screen, but that might not be such a bad thing.  Kaelyssa doesn't need a screen as badly as a lot of 'casters, because her Feat helps her get a convincing alpha and a leg up on ranged attrition.  It does take some thought to get the most out of it, however.