Circle has the wow factor

[PG_RevGeoff]

Ok, I have faced Circle a couple of time before and not found them to be anything really special (except for those damn druids...FIFA must have been involved in getting them pushed through). Last night I faced eKaya and WOW! Second turn she was just outside my deployment area smiting a knocked down eDenny who thought the pole-dancer was back! Luckily (because I wasn't expecting an assassination run before my second turn even started and I had most of my army between the two of us) I had full focus and eKaya left my poor barbie with a couple of damage boxes. A bit of tense rolling later and the Seether barely managed to squish the tree hugger on my second turn. Of course I still had to pop eDenny's feat and get rid of the damn dog so I could drop her defense from 18 to a 13.

But, things I learned:
1)eKaya tier 4 list at 50pts is very very hard to play against. The actual threat range against a slamming+buffed Gnarlhorn Satyr is more like 16" with his follow-up. And it is amazingly easy for Circle to drop huge sprays/aoes to clear out chaff to get that slam lined up to knock down your caster and then pop in eKaya after running the dog in for the assassination. Wow.
2)has there been any discusion about what we are going to do about pKrueger. His feat is great!!! Drop 3 Aoes in his 14" control for pow 10 boostable hits. Not blast damage of course and they don't have to target something so they will get multiple hits. This can clean out our Satyxis solos/UAs, WSC, Skarlock, Siren etc without a problem. Any suggestions on what to do (I don't expect them to drop the blast on our casters unless we are using Coven...in which case they are dead on average boosted rolls, so as close to an auto loose as we can get with Coven).
3)Has anyone faced pKrueger with Megalith as well? Megie can cast a three point spell for one fury using the 7 fury stat of baldy....but force to boost the attack roll and damage. So baldy's Chain Lightning just received a huge boost.

Anyway, I think we are all going to have to look at Circle and their shenanigans a lot more seriously as one of the next contenders (didn't someone playing Circle win the English Warmahordes tourney?). If anyone has any practical solutions to fight Circle please share...it was easy in the other eKaya thread to say "just do this" but in practice it isn't as easy.

[jonconcarne]

I've been saying that Circle is in a great state since the field test, regardless of what the Circle forums are like right now

Anyways, in answer to your questions, here are some thoughts.

1) Sure, Circle can get some pretty ridiculous threat ranges, but it's a matter of keeping your caster outside the threat ranges of their beasts. It's no worse than keeping your caster outside of eCaine's threat range, or Siege's threat range. Keep in mind we also have ludicrous charge ranges. Satyxis Raiders w/Captain + Sea Witch are putting out attacks at a 14" range. Arc nodes have a 14" run, plus the range of the spell. eSkarre & Morty can both give a jack in their battlegroup a full advance, essentially creating 15.5" threats on SPD6 non reach jacks and a 17.5" threat on the Nightmare. It's not like Circle is the king of long threat ranges.

2) pKrueger is purely anti-infantry. If you're putting your caster inside of his 14" control, you have bigger things to worry about than 3 boosted POW 10's on your caster (of which you can protect yourself by camping focus). The Coven is hardly an auto-lose vs. pKrueger because they should never be in his control. Seems like a non-issue there. The way to deal with his feat is to run jacks, and to spread your infantry the hell out, which is a good idea vs. anybody with lots of sprays and AOE's. eSkarre and Morty can both handle any anti-infantry lists that people throw out with their slew of helljacks, while our arc nodes can generally just run around the AOE's to get where they need to be. What will be annoying is in the solo heavy lists, watching those 3 AOE's all get dropped on Tartarus' face, but there are lots of lists that can pick out our support. The key is to overwhelm them with threats on not just have 1 win condition.

3) So Circle has a similar feature to the DJ in Megalith. Chain lightning has always been brutal against most Cryx lists. Keep your infantry away from anti-infantry threats unless you're killing them. Not like Megalith out-threats much though. Anyways, fairly straightforward there I think.

[Adurot]

Faced pKrueger with Megalith? Pft... When I faced him he had Megalith and THREE Wold Wardens!!!11!!!one! He also had two units of Shifting Stones, which would move up and sit in front of me, blocking my charge lanes, and giving him nearly unmissable targets for the initial target of Chain Lightning. Needs to model lightning rods of those damn things.

[blakeh1]

unfortunatley its not a top tier jack, but the Corruptor is the only way currently Cryx has around Kromac's Bestial and Mohsars feat. Because the model you turn into a meat node is not considered a friendly model, you can get away with arcing through it due to the wording in each that specifies that enemy models cannot be used to arc

as far as Prime Krueger, he's one of the reasons you try to keep a balanced list that contains some jacks and even some multi-wound models like black ogrun rather than cheap single wound infantry spam. There are other casters that will punish you for it as well.

A Mortenebra tier list or jack heavy list for example should not have much to fear from the typical Krueger game

Also his feat has been toned down somewhat since MK1 since he no longer gets to move the AOEs

Orin midwinter can be good counter for Geomancy from the Wardens and can help shut down the druids, the problem is keeping him alive when he drops Stealth in favor of Null Magic.

I think we actually have more to fear from Epic Krueger than his primal incarnation

Cassius/Wurmwood also look troublesome. Epic Deneghra no longer has to market cornered on Hellmouth which has to be one of the best spells in the game. At least he won't be getting many souls from Cryx armies

[blakeh1]

Epic Skarre also has a nice option for screwing over the hit and run attack from the typical Kaya list with Admonition. It lets you put a jack out front that can step away from an slam/charge when Kaya sends a beast to alpha strike it. It could mean the difference between a wrecked Deathjack and a fully functional one.

Also her feat can be used to buy you a turn of virtual immunity to try and close ranks

[Deo85]

I found the best way to handle most circle list for me was taking Asphixios and annihilating there warbeast over there cast. Most matches I can pick out the warbeast and eat it alive with my caster. My cheep infantry mills will either kill or slow down my enemy's who are trying to get to me. Also I may point out that with druids anti magic spell (Talk about a pain in the side unit for cryx to deal with) the one casting anti magic is not immune so kill that and the rest drop the affect asap so kill them off then. I start to field sniping units like Harrower / Leviathan / Malice / pistol wraiths to just take out agitating units on the run that are support based.

Nothing better then popping 4 druids in one turn with a pair of pistol wraiths Some times I will hook line a Warbeast just to pull it into my waiting mob to get torn to pieces from charging thralls or a nightmare / death jack ready for a meal. Keep your casters as FARE back as possibly and only bring them into the fray when your ready to. I started to lean to the Bloodgorgers as anti trample lane / anti infantry units sense they can get ware they need to fast with overtake and gang helps hit those high Def targets...

[Kuwanger23]

pAsphyxious loves to pop his feat and burn the souls of all the female tharn arm 11 or potentially 8 with his pow 5's. It is one of times his first part of his feat really shines.

[PG_69Lazarus]

Epic Skarre also has a nice option for screwing over the hit and run attack from the typical Kaya list with Admonition. It lets you put a jack out front that can step away from an slam/charge when Kaya sends a beast to alpha strike it. It could mean the difference between a wrecked Deathjack and a fully functional one.

Carefull that the E-Kaya player doesn't slam something else through that model instead of targetting the Deathjack itself. I used my Shadowhorn to do this once, with my Gnarlhorn getting a d6+4" (virility / grand slam)) slam on that target for 9" and totally surprising my opponent as I followed up to beat on it while knocked down. More demoralizing was teleporting both beasts back to safety when done.

[Phatheadaf]

I have to admit it's always enlightening to read another Factions forums and hear frustrations about the faction that you play. Typically, as another poster said the Circle forum tends to be a little gloom and doom sometimes, however, as a player that plays both Circle and Cryx, and are the only two factions I own; I will offer this advice:

1. Regarding eKaya, and all Circle lists, as a Cryx player you should really out number your Circle opponent quiet a bit. Circle players do not have expendable units. Their pieces tend to be pricey and they play beast heavy which is quiet opposite to what Cryx has in cheap expendable infantry. Swarm them and there isn't a lot that they can about it, assuming that you don't do anything silly w/ your caster.

2. DEF is all they got, they are completely a glass cannon faction. They really get torn apart w/ any of our debuff spells thar reduce defense and/or buff MAT. If you can us that to your favor, you will mow them down.

3. Their threat ranges are larger than yours, which is hard from most Cryx players to get used to, however that doesn't mean that you don't have respectable threat ranges yourself. See #1 regarding swarming your opponent, that is key to also solving this problem. Giving them waves of attacks mitigates their ability to chew threw the ranks w/ tramples and movement shenanigans.

4. Vennethrax and Terminus are incredibly bad matcups for Circle. They do have a couple of ways to buff/debuff, however, kill the Gorax, and you eliminate the most common denominator that they have. The biggest beat stick single target model they have and his base ST is 15, often overlooked, but with soul stacking monsters like these guys, they aren't going to get it done w/ magic, and will have to get your face. I know your thinking they have lots of ways around it, but trust me, it's harder than you think.

5. Model priority, when your facing the Circle there are a few models you should take note of and try to get rid of immediately as a Cryx player:
Druids: they just need to go, we are debuffs galore, and if we can't target them, it's really bad. kill them dead.
LotF: it's NOT his ability to kill lots of infantry you should really care about, it's his ablity to get into nooks and crannies where he has no place being and taking out your Skarlock, Necrosurgeon, etc.
Gorax: his animus is an end game condition, he's just a light, and is not hard to hit or kill. He's better off not around.
Wilder: this is their Skarlock, he extends their ability to force, and makes them very Fury efficient. If you get a chance to pluck her do it, she's got no natural defenses.
Stones: you need not kill all the stones, just one, that wills top the teleporting, and that is the scariest part about them, to be able to place a model 8" away s really bad for opponents. Just take one out and it's no longer a worry.


Try these things out and you will find they are not nearly as scary as you think currently, however, that doesn't mean that they are not to be respected, there board control and denial makes them a naturally bad matchup for Cryx. They move faster, can get you w/ ranged and in melee, and are hitting accurately in most cases. Just as with us, they are significantly weaker w/o their support models. Keep that in mind and you are a much more formidable opponent.

A.

[SkeletonKnight]

I've been playing against circle for a while now. My bro-ski Ruer-Gief runs a pretty neat Baldur list; shifting stones, druids, some great warbeasts.

I've been completely wrecking him in every game following a pretty simple formula not unlike the previously listed comments. Destroying his shifting stones and druids immediately when the opportunity arrises. Get them on par with our movement, and take away the magic tool box threat and they become a medium speed low ARM opponent. We have plenty of options and advantages at that point.

Circle will eventually be my hordes faction as well ( kromac beast heavy lists ) I'm sure i'll be learning to protect my druids like a champ some day, for now I'm pretty familiar with removing them.

- Skel.

[washout]

Yeah I agree that circle and legion are some of cryx's worst match ups in general. But there are some warcasters that excel against them. So mostly you just need to stick to those casters when playing against them. Morte is really good against both.

I also play Menoth, and have a easy time against circle, still have a bit of trouble against legion, but that's probably just me.