The Necrotechs Workshop XXI – Power Couplings

 

I’ve been playing an awful lot of Coven lately. All of the facets aligned to make me bring them out of retirement in MK 3, and now that I’ve played for longer than a month or so, I’m enjoying how the play and their general prominence in the Cryxian lineup. I’ve only got two tournaments under my belt, but I’m looking to get a few more here over the winter, to which they figure to play a prominent part.

That said, I really need to settle down on a pairing for them. I have a few ideas that I want to try out, one of which, Feedbackapalooza, I’ve already started playing around with. Lets see what my brain is crunching on!

 

With Coven, I want to chomp into melee and combined arms, but often I’ll suffer a bit against a solid armor skew or a solid ranged skew. Both of those ends can cause problems, and I want to have a pairing that either

A: Scares that list off of the table, or
B: Solves for it regardless if they put it on the table.

However, I don’t want to lock myself into a situation of list chicken. I hate list chicken so much. This leaves me in a pretty tight situation. I need a list that can both crack armor without really breaking a sweat and can survive a million rounds of shooting.

The Current Boogeymen that the Coven Don’t really want to see

Karchev
Kara Sloan
Caine 2
Ossyan

Feedback

First, I do want to talk about feedbackapalooza, because I think its a pretty strong answer to a few solid lists.

Skarre (1 or 2)
-Barathrum
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
Satyxis Raiders (10)
+Satyxis Sea Witch
Satyxis Raiders (10)
+Satyxis Sea Witch
Bane Thralls (6)
Bane Thralls (6)
Satyxis Captain
Satyxis Captain
Gorman di Wulfe
Machine Wraith
Machine Wraith

Skarre 2, I think, does a bit of it. The only problem with the list going into guns is that it has a lot, and I mean a LOT of vital pieces. Satyxis Captains, Machine Wraiths, Sea Witches and Gorman are all extremely likely to be folded neatly in half by a good gunline. Thankfully, with the new Force Barrier Prayer, I’m not as worried about the losing the Sea Witch as the first model being as devastating as it was in MK2. I can, if I push forward hard and fast enough, get Skarre 2’s feat off against some of the forward enemy models. The hope, I think, is to play scenario, find good terrain, and make it very hard for them to shoot me off the table.

When it comes to Cracking armor, I really see no problems. I have Bane Thralls and Gorman to make the whips do their job, getting feedback up on a number of targets, hopefully one with backlash, and call it an afternoon. I don’t need to go into armor when I can simply fry their brain from across the board.

I think the list has play, but its much more into the scare factor than I like to be. Its a solid skew, with some really neat tricks but that can, under certain circumstances (Deadeye, god that spell!) just fall flat.

So, While I like it and need to get reps in with it, it wasn’t going to work for what I wanted it to do. So, I set out to the drawing board again.

Flooding the Field

So, the next direction I went was a simple and uncomplicated concept.
Lets play MKII.
I know that PP went out of their way to encourage warjacks in MKIII, but I am just not feeling it with Cryx. Their Jacks, even with power up and points reductions, still suck. Making something cheap does not, in and of itself, make that object worthwhile. That is really how I feel with many of the jacks in the faction. While are jacks are cheap, and the faction is festooned with debuffs, it is a huge opportunity cost to bring 10 points of Slayer even over a min unit of Banes, no matter the type. The Slayer takes less hits to kill, can kill less models, and has only a slightly higher MAT with a lower damage output, especially on the charge. So, with Cryx Heavy Warjacks once again relegated to the dustbin, let me try to play a different game. Let me see if I can just flood the field with infantry and prevent Caine, Ossyan and Sloan from being able to kill all of them.

Satyxis Raiders x10
-Sea Witch
Satyxis Blood Witches x10
-Blood Hag
Carrion Thralls x10
Carrion Thralls x10
Coes Cutthroats x10

50 models, with only two that are critical. I’d really want a caster that can hide in the back, behind all of these small bases, and make sure they got a ton of work done when the few that got there, arrived. The first Caster I wanted to run this with was, surprisingly, the Coven. Three Stealth units, three speed 7, Blessed, Feedback, everything was there. Sadly, the Coven already had a BFF in the Kraken.

I decided I wanted to try and get as much out of this army as possible, and Denny 1 stepped up to the plate first. With Innate stealth on herself, as well, I’d have a solid line of infantry to stand behind without exposing myself too much. Small based, Stealth, High defense. Low armor hurts, but hopefully they never get a shot off at me while I’m tearing apart their army. P+S 18 blood witches ignoring buffs is pretty solid!

the list looks something like this:

Deneghra 1
-Ripjaw
-Ripjaw
-Nightwretch
-Nightwretch
Satyxis Raiders x10
-Sea Witch
Satyxis Blood Witches x10
-Blood Hag
Carrion Thralls x10
Carrion Thralls x10
Croes Cutthroats x10

Honestly, I like this a lot as a general army, something that can deal with mixed forces and even a lot of guns lists, but also has enough bodies to overwhelm the target. I don’t think, though, that I can keep Denny alive against either Caine 2 or Kara Sloan long enough to take advantage of her strengths. I thought that Bane Witch Agathia could run the list, giving it Stealth and Ghost Walk on the vital feat turn, but I’m not convinced its enough. I would like to play both versions, someday, but we will see. In the end, though, I thought my caster was to vulnerable and I wanted to be able to not rely on a single misplay to end me the game. So, I tried again.

Choke on the Dead

The third list I came up with is, thankfully, my second favorite caster in the entire field of Cryx. Able to deal out and eat in return a fair share of attacks, all the while helping his army deliver and being a simple point and shoot cannon, Lich Lord Terminus fit the bill. I even wanted a list similar to the one above, one in which I can flood the field with models, but also have a strong, in your face, come within 11″ of me and I’ll kill you type of warcaster.

Terminus
-Inflictor
-Inflictor
Machine Wraith
Soul Trapper
Bane Warriors x10
Bane Warriors x10
Carrion Thralls x10
Carrion Thralls x10
Mechanithralls x10
Necrosurgeon
Necrosurgeon

This list simply absorbs gunfire all day, while threatening Terminus from the word go. Simply cast Malediction, upkeep it, and camp 5 on the way in. Pop feat when you can get 4-5 souls or more, and call it a game. Let tough help who it can, often using them for an additional Sac Pawn targets and filling up the Necrosurgeons. The Banes get up there, when they nice and lightly get around to it, following the Carrion Thralls, and try to level any of the heavies or heavily armed troopers, while the Carrion Thralls can try and get there first and get into the high defense targets.

This list is, in theory, strong because it can take ~8 shots to Terminus before suffering a single casualty. Trick shot will either ignore tough or kill another model, and both are valid, but I like having the opponent have to make the option.

Lastly, with this list, I like the the Bane Warriors are 17 points. Blood Witches + UA, Revenant Pirates, Bane Knights and blackbanes are all 17 points as well, enabling me to switch it up. In this instance, I traded a third (!) unit of Bane Thralls for Carrion Thralls, A Necrosurgeon, and the two solos. Given a good enough argument, I could fiddling with that a bit.

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what list I should be trying out next, what lists look good into the covens boogeymen. Let me know!