My chosen eKrueger list for 2012 European major tournaments -please comment

[PG_prkl]

Hi!

I'm planning to attend several international tournaments in Europe. My plan so far is to attend tournaments in Finland, Sweden, Austria, Germany and UK (really would like to visit Poland too!). All the tournaments I've been checking out are 1-2 list 50 pt steamrollers with some kind of time limits. One tournament is restricted to 1 list, but I think I might run only 1 list for some of the other tournaments as well. Am I limiting myself too much? What would complement this list the best if I choose to run a second list?

I'm planning on perfecting a list and sticking with it throughout different events. My candidate list for this is:

Points: 50/50

Krueger the Stormlord (*5pts)
* Woldwyrd (5pts)
* Megalith (11pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Stoneward and 5 Woldstalkers (5pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Lord of the Feast (4pts)

The list can run a decent amount of tricks, but the idea is to apply pressure while keeping everything safe. The list is hard to shoot at due to stormwall, and hard to target with magic due to druids. eKrueger should keep melee armies at bay with his feat. Outside of feat turn he can keep the enemy heavies away by turning them around with telekinesis (1-2 per turn) until my heavies get a chance to whack them.

I won one smallish tournament with this list (with a minor 2 point tweak) and I think it's fairly good. My main issue with the list is hitting power. The stalker is the strongest punch in the list. I might want to change it for a Ghetorix (he's more reliable delivering his punches w/o a gorax), but I'm 1 point short. Also the stalker might be more survivable due to stealth. I don't think I need a gorax, since I hate effectively losing my 9-10 pt heavy for frenzying. To some extent this list is tailored against warmachine (resources to take down 1 heavy jack / anti-upkeep stuff / assassination potential from eKrueger or Woldwyrd) , so I'm thinking of running the second list as anti-hordes.

What do you guys think?

Training game wins this far (12/17):

3/3 vs. Menoth
2/4 vs. Mercenaries
1/1 vs. Retribution
2/2 vs. Trolls
3/6 vs. Khador
1/1 vs. Legion
1/1 vs. Cryx

Wins by assassination: 7
Wins by scenario: 3
Wins by submission: 2

Tournaments this far:

Turku Synergy Open, Finland (50 points, finished 1/18)
Aros Kingdoms, Uppsala, Sweden (50 points, finished 2/32)
Nordic Open, Turku, Finland (50 points, finished 10/24)
European Team Championship, Maelstrom games, Great Britain (50 points, team result 6/54, personal result 28/216)
OETC, Salzburg, Austria (Team result 6/24, eKrueger got 2 wins out of 4 games)

Tournament game wins (12/19):

3/4 vs. Cryx
1/3 vs. Retribution
2/3 vs. Skorne
2/2 vs. Circle
1/1 vs. Minions
1/4 vs. Khador
1/1 vs. Legion
1/1 vs. Menoth

Wins by assassination: 7
Wins by scenario: 4
Wins by tiebreaker: 1

[VagrantPoet]

Its similar to lists I'm going to run with eKreugar, I'm going to take eKaya as my second caster and play the aggressive beast game, while using eKreugar for shennanigans and scenario wins. I don't really see eKreugar as an assassin myself.

[PG_prkl]

In this list eKrueger and woldwyrd can both pull out an assassination all by themselves in the optimal conditions.

To help them there are woldstalkers, purebloods spray and LOTF. If I can land Megalith 5" from their caster some of these elements should be able to make it...

I love it when someone puts up a defensive buff on a caster and you shred it with a woldwyrd + purebloods animus...

[Delrogue]

If these 2012 events will be Steamroller 2012 with character restrictions - you might need to start planning your second list now, because this list has a lot of your meat and veg character models - Megalith and Lord of the Feast.

I think your second list might need to be something that can take on a lot of magic-hate or heavy beast/jack... e.g. Menoth with the Avatar, choir and Book - that shuts down Krueger hard... as would another Circle list with Druids, or a Khador/Skorne/Troll list with lots of heavies or heavy infantry...

Something like Kromac with Ghetorix and a Stalker + Trackers + Nuala would work well in complement to this, as well as use Characters you aren't using in this list (and vice-versa).

[PG_prkl]

Good point, but I'm not too worried about character restrictions. Megalith is the only character I would maybe want in another list but I can work around that.

eKrueger isn't all about magic shenanigans. If magic is blocked via opposing druids or spellward spamming Menoth i can depend on shooting. Sure it blocks force bolts.

Lots of heavies I don't find so bad. The list might not trash everything in a turn, but it has great potential just controlling heavies. I can use my feat to deny them movement or I can turn them around preventing charging. Often this is enough so they can't get to my troops. Against Skorne charge prevention is golden as they can't benefit from paingivers at all.

[PG_prkl]

I agree that the possible second list could be more of a straightforward melee oriented force as this one relies on magic and ranged.

Also this list might be having difficulties against high def targets. In the last list I had 2 units of shifting stones w/o UA that could be used for targeting lightning storm, which helped a lot with high def targets. This list doesn't have a solution for that. Should I think about dropping the stone UA so the stones could be targeted. Their main function is support and fury management.

[PG_prkl]

Played a game against Menoth today. The player was one of the team who won the Austrian ETC this year. He wasn't running his A-game list, he was running Amon. I didn't play the Gallows Grove as it isn't out yet.

I won the game on my third turn on scenario (Incursion). He had all of his jacks close to the objectives. I shifted Megalith to melee with two of them. Megalith attacked a reckoner once for 12 points of damage (!), after which it used Enliven to move 2 inches backwards. I proceeded to hit the light jack for a speed minus and telekinesed it away. After this I moved eKrueger up to take a control point, used telekinesis on two jacks and feated everything away. Druids pushed stuff further away.

I scored 2 points and he gave me the game as he had SPD 1-2 on his whole army and I was one point away from winning at that point. He could have just ran a couple of jacks to contest the objectives but he would've lost on my turn. As a sidenote, the list was quite heavy on spellward.

I think I will keep on updating my training games on this thread...

[The Golden Arrow]

So, you're saying that you faced a menoth player that won the ETC and he didn't sing spell ward for his jacks against Krueger, how did you manage that?

Also, what tournies are you planning to attend in Sweden? It would be nice to meet some more circle players.

[Delrogue]

So, you're saying that you faced a menoth player that won the ETC and he didn't sing spell ward for his jacks against Krueger, how did you manage that?

+1 that situation won't be coming up much - except if he used the +2/+2 the round before....

[PG_prkl]

+1 that situation won't be coming up much - except if he used the +2/+2 the round before....

Exactly! He used the +2/+2 to succesfully trash my WW Stalker, who made the mistake to think he could actually kill some errants and sprint away (but of course they have self sacrifice).. So he did have a genuine reason to not sing spell ward. He did initially have 2 choirs, I think so he could give spellward to the rest of his jacks after the +2/+2, but LOTF killed the other choir.

Menoth players WILL stop singing spell ward at some point and eKrueger can go to town..

As to what Swedish tournaments, it is only Aros Kingdoms at this point. But be sure to come to Finland with Rickard & Co for some tournaments, we have a fairly Circle-heavy meta here..

[PG_prkl]

I played two practice games today. First was a mercenary force played by the #1 ranked player in Finland and our ETC winning team captain. He was a bit rusty and I won it by casterkill. The second game was against Ossyan-led retribution. That was a very close game where I was losing by scenario but pulled a casterkill with eKrueger and Woldwyrd shooting Ossyan. In this game I really thought I might need some extra armor-cracking punch in the list as I didn't manage to do serious damage to the Myrmidons. I'm thinking about switching the Stalker for a Ghetorix, but I have no idea where I could find the extra point.

I'm going to leave you with a puzzle. In the picture below, eMagnus has used his feat and none of my models (except eKrueger) can move towards his table edge or my table edge, they can only move sideways. How do you pull of a casterkill? It's doable, at least I did it..



HINT: You only need eKrueger, Megalith, the druids, and the shifting stones (at the left of the picture, yes they are shifting stones)

[Snowmelter]

Hard to see on the picture whether this is possible, but eKrueger uses telekinesis to place to lower stone 2" forward, moves sideways into telekinese distance of the upper stone, also places it 2" forward. Now Megalith is inside the triangle (this is the hard to see part on the picture), maybe eKrueger has to telekinese him a bit back. Megalith teleports 8"+base forward )+.5" mellee range this should be enough even after back telekinese) and 6 attacks at -4 kills magnus in average. Megalith is the only model with a chance to hurt eMagnus at ARM20.
What did you need the druids for?

[PG_prkl]

Well done!

The problem was that Krueger was 3,01 " from the closest shifting stone so couldn't see it (which of course doesn't show in the pic), so he actually had to move a little just to see the stone and after placing it forward telekinesis himself so he could see Megalith and telekinesis him backwards to the stones. The problem then is that he's a little more than ten inches from eMagnus so either of the two druids needed to roll a 7 to pull Magnus 1 at least inch. The lower druid gets to 10 " by moving directly sideways while still keeping in Wrongeyes melee zone.

The picture is indeed a little bad, but you get the point from it.

What I did was the first druid critically knocked Magnus and pulled him 3". It was quite easy from there.

[Walter]

I prefer a Wold Watcher to a Wold Wyrd, but to each their own, I suppose. That's particularly true if you are having good success with your guy.

Why the wold stalkers instead of Trackers though? That's got me puzzled.

[PG_prkl]

The wold stalkers do more damage than the trackers, and can keep their distance. They need help to hit accurately but eKrueger can help them with that. The woldwyrd is an excellent piece that removes 3 infantry models with upkeeps on them very reliably. Also it can make a casterkill quite easily if an enemy caster has an upkeep spell on him. The woldwatcher has only one shot, and even though the forest generating is excellent I struggle to hit with it. The problem is that if he misses his attack he basicly loses a turn.

In other news, I played two games today. The first game was against the same Retribution list than last time. I made a turn 2 casterkill (I was the starting player so he got only one turn in) with my LOTF (telekinesed, shifted by stones, then ravened) followed by the purebloods prey.

The second game was against Grim's Trolls. He played too far back and I managed to win the game by turn 4 by scenario (he had to run to try to contest my objectives but I managed to remove all his contesting pieces).

[PG_prkl]

I played three more games since the last update. All of them were against a top tier player with a high ARM Khador army. No I mean HIGH.

First list had 2 devastators and a camping pButcher.
Second one had 3 devastators and eButcher (who was not camping so I killed him turn 2)
The final list had 5 juggernauts and Beast-09 with Karchev (and mechanics)

The list's backup plan against seriously high targets is to focus on something else than killing them (utilizing eKruegers incredible spell list). This works great with less than 7 jacks.. I did kill both of the devastators on the first game. On the last game eKrueger charged into combat with 3 jacks, disrupted them all and survived. That was epic and fun!

This weekend is the first tournament outing with the list, we'll see what happens. It's a two list format, but I'm only bringing this list..

[PG_prkl]

Wow, a lot of time since i last updated. Since then, I played a bunch of practice games, AND three tournaments.

The first tournament was Aros Kingdoms in Uppsala. Some ten or so finns decided to attend this tournament and go to sweden by boat which turned out to be very fun, but a terrible way to start a tournament (the liquors on the boat are tax free and sleeping is overrated, 'nuff said). I went 4 wins on the first 4 games and ended up playing the 5th game against Alexander Jegendahl, who after this confrontation I regard very highly.

He played Rahn and Ravyn. They were supposedly decent matchups for me, but I lost against Ravyn (not to the obvious reason). After that the tournament rules required a final table, and as I was the one with the best SOS I ended up playing Alexander again on the final table. He was forced to use Rahn which was my better match up of the two. He ended up assassinating my druid leader with Narn and then proceeded to spell assassinate Krueger which was the first time for me.. Ended up 2nd due to the final table rule.

[PG_prkl]

Onto another tournament. The Nordic Open was played in Turku and had players from Poland and Sweden come over. The Polish were very good and ended up at 2nd, 3rd and 4th places. I played pKrueger as my second list. Nothing too serious to report and my memory doesn't serve me well enough to go into specifics, except:

Being undefeated after 3 games if I recall correctly, I faced one of the Polish players (Jaromir Skirmuntt) for which was to become my most humiliating defeat. He was playing:


Supreme Aptimus Zaal & Kovaas (*5pts)
* Basilisk Krea (4pts)
* Cyclops Savage (5pts)
* Cyclops Shaman (5pts)
* Aptimus Marketh (3pts)
Immortals (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Nihilators (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer (3pts)
Ancestral Guardian (3pts)
Ancestral Guardian (3pts)
Extoler Soulward (2pts)
Hakaar the Destroyer (4pts)
Tyrant Rhadiem (5pts)

I knew I wouldn't want to destroy stuff to give him tokens for his feat but he pushed forward with his immortals, forcing me to handle with them before bringing the rest of his army forward. I was very efficient and got most of his immortals down on the first turns. He took out my flanking shifting stone with Tyrant Rhadeim, which got killed in the process. My problem at this point was that his guardians were still all alive and everything was full on souls and he was looking forward to a crazy feat turn with all his tokens. My plan was to kill everything that can get multiple attacks or buy extra ones as his feat just boosts the attacks he can normaly throw at you, but he can't buy extra attacks with the feat.

I managed to kill all of the guardians + Hakaar on the next turn and feat so I was guite well ahead on the game having lost only a couple of models myself. Zaal came a bit closer as he had to make things happen soon because he had his army vanish before him. I decided I might be able to pull off an assassination even with his 2 fury but I was a little hesitant to go for it. I decided I would try to push / pull him closer from behind the scenario objective he was hiding behind and if that succeeded then go for the caster kill, otherwise just continue grinding his army. The first druid got a knockdown on Zaal, which made me drool with excitement. He was still at arm 16, but got a couple of damage from the druids and a bunch from the pureblood.

eKrueger went up and decided to telekinesis away the Krea so Zaal would be at arm 14 and then just pump 3 damage boosted shots into him followed by Megalith's boosted Gallows and some woldstalker shots and a force hammer from the shifting stone UA. Easy, right?

eKrueger went up, used telekinesis, hit the Krea, got his animus off Zaal... and... then I activated the shifting stones and went for the force hammer. And realised Krueger is in the middle of the field sitting on 4 fury never taking a shot at the knocked down Zaal.

Needless to say the other pieces were unable to either kill Zaal themselves or protect Krueger from assassination so I just went ahead and lost the game.

I'm finally taking some time to make a model for eKrueger (have been using a pKrueger model this far) and I have ordered Zaal's back banner from the PP parts store. My plan is to make the eKrueger model shoot at the Zaal's banner eternally on his base, thus having him never forget the dissappointment which was this game. I went 4-2 on the tournament and would have ended up placing somewhere on positions 2-5 if I would have gone 5-1.

Some kind of report from the ETC last weekend coming up when I get the time. I also challenged some Jamie P guy for a friendly game on saturday evening. Our team finished 6/54 and personally I finished 28/216, which was 2nd best in faction.. If Strength of Schedule would have been considered I would've been best in faction. More on that later...

[brEmSEr]

I like reading your reports - you seem to come around alot.
Your list seems to be pretty viable - though I am no friend of the Wyrd. I favor the Wolves and a Gorax.

I am looking forward to meeting you in Austria in October.

[PG_SFDefender]

In regards to your Magnus game, you cannot tk shifting stones as the immobile rule does not allow them to be moved.

[Gobos]

In regards to your Magnus game, you cannot tk shifting stones as the immobile rule does not allow them to be moved.

Is that so? TK is a placement effect, and the Stones have no rule that specifically says 'this model can't be placed', like Gallows Groves do. I think TK'ing a Stone is legit, and may be a nasty surprise in some circumstances.

[PG_prkl]

In regards to your Magnus game, you cannot tk shifting stones as the immobile rule does not allow them to be moved.

Rulebook pg. 48: "When a model is placed it is not considered to have moved or advanced."

Yes, they can do that, which is a really nasty surprise in a eKrueger list as you can use telekinesis on your beast and your stone to have it in for shifting when it started up to 4" away..

The wyrd is awesome, the "best circle player" in Finland plays almost exactly the same list, but uses a gorax instead of a wyrd. The wyrd really changes the game if there are upkeeps on board. He can very accurately shoot 3 models down each turn if they have any upkeep on or do a casterkill all by themselves from 19" away (TK, move, shoot 2 times with 4 dice on damage).

[PG_prkl]

On to the European Team Challenge 2012:

Game 1 Opponent
Team: Anyone seen my pair?
Player: Andy Garrard
Faction: Circle Orboros
Caster: pKrueger

We had had a look at the team's result last year which was about 12th if memory serves me. That was both a good thing and a bad thing, because first it gives us a good Strength of Schedule for playing against a good team, but second we have to play our A game on the first day after a long trip. We had a straight two hour flight from Finland which is very rare, but we rented a car from Manchester and drove it to to venue in Mansfield, which was nerve wrecking because of the having to drive on the left and having multiple roundabouts which all worked clockwise..

The scenario was Outflank, outfight, outlast (two 12" diameter circles to control in the middle line of the board), with reinforcements. His list was:

pKrueger
-Ghetorix
-Megalith
-WW Stalker
Woldstalkers
Gallows Grove
Shifting stones + UA
Swamp Gobbers
Bloodweavers
Full Skinwalkers

Reinforcements:

3 wolf riders
reeve hunter
Feralgeist
Gallows grove

He went first and had the beasts lined up in the middle with skinwalkers on my right and woldstalkers and bloodweavers on my left. His Ghetorix ran which made me anxious fo my turn with my Gallows Grove opposite him (you need a heavy to advance 9" to reach him with an arced first turn gallows (or two) from eKrueger). Everything else ran also but the Ghetorix would be my target for the first turn. His Gallows grove which I feared placed itself a little to my right (not behind the forest in the middle like I feared).

I hit my first gallows but missed the second one. It could've still be saved except Megalith missed his so Ghetorix was left standing roughly 9" from Megalith who put his animus on to maybe make it harder for Ghetorix. Nothing else much happened on my 2nd turn. I figured if I would've gotten Ghetorix on turn 1 it would change the game guite a bit. The woldwyrd does some damage on the skinwalkers (with lightning tendrils) but fails to kill any. I don't buy extra attacks.

His second turn Ghetorix of course charged Megalith but whiffed on damage rolls rolling 3 on two dice at least twice. Megalith is left standing on 7-8 hp's. The bloodweavers killed my Gallows grove and the reinforcements arrived, with the wolves assaulting a shifting stone and taking it out and a feralgeist taking his position on the left scenario area alongside bloodweavers and woldstalkers. Lightning tendrils goes on warpborn skinwalkers for a reason I still don't know and they take a stand on the right scenario area.

On my turn I need to retreat Megalith so he can heal his damage back, but I also need to take Ghetorix down. His high defense and unyielding is making him hard to kill and his engaging megalith. So megalith uses telekinesis to turn ghetorix around, walks away from him and uses his animus to further lower his defense. NOw my WW stalker has an easy target with back strike on his DEF 12 ghetorix and no unyielding because he doesn't engage anything having his back towards my army. Stalker walks in and makes the kill. Shifting stones heal megalith a little more. The reinforcements come on board. The WoO kill one skinwalker while engaging a couple. Morraig Charges in and easily takes out two more skinwalkers. The woldwyrd shoots (because they still have lightning tendrils) and kill two more with good rolls. The whole tarpit unit is out in one turn. Nice! His Stalker is still in the area so I can't score. eKrueger goes up, shoots one woldstalker and feats, pushing the woldstalkers and bloodweavers together in a nice bunch. LOTF ravens a woldstalker and threshers i think 3 from both units. The bloodweavers might have failed their command at this point. My woldstalkers take out a gallows grove. Druids walk up and protect Krueger who is sitting in the middle of the board.

His 3 turn he has to make some decisions and goes on to attempt a casterkill. He moves up with Krueger, puts up lightning tendrils on Megalith, feats and boosts feat damage on my eKrueger. One of my most awkward moments of wargaming, when I tell him "no damage" when he rolls great on 3 dice. Read your rules if you don't know why.. Megalith walks up to my eKrueger (yes, I left him that close) and misses his first attack because he has to be in a vortex for -2 to hit. He boosts his second attack, hits it and hits 3 more attacks from which I transfer 3 away. I'm still at 1 fury. His Gobbers put a cloud on pKrueger.

He's sitting on 3 fury, in a cloud, but really close to my troops. I put a boosted gallows from Megalith on him, hit and drag him away from the cloud (into a forest, doh!), and make him use his first fury. I put on Megaliths animus for -2 DEF. I shoot him with everything I've got, which is not that much, but takes away a transfer or so. Krueger goes up and puts some melee damage on him. Druids push him a bit but fail to make any significant damage or to knock him down. Pureblood puts up a spray through him but miss. I have my stalker and the wyrd left. I don't know if I can get the wyrd to shoot because of all the models and the forest blocking the way. The stalker walks up, needs 7 to hit, but manages just enough hits (kills pKrueger on his absolutely last attack) to win me the game.

Control points are very valuable as a tiebreaker due to the strange tournament rules but I fail to score any. We go on to win the matchup 3-1 (four players per team) and something like 5 CP. We end up being the only team to win team Anyone seen my pair and they end up being 3rd.

Random image from the head ref's album of some of my pieces:


And yes, the eKrueger is awesome, and no, it's unfortunately not mine, it's on loan.

[PG_prkl]

Game 2 Opponent
Team: Smörgåsbord (Sweden 1)
Player: Pär-Ola Nilsson
Faction: Khador
Caster: pIrusk

Saturday morning's game was against the swedes. We can't lose because of national pride. Finland and Sweden have a long history together and Finland for quite some time was under the swedish rule, before the russian rule from which we finally got our independence in 6th of December 1917. Oh the good old days.. Oh where was I. Oh yes the imperialist swedish and their reign of terror we had to expel. I got matched up against Khador which I thought was a decent to good matchup. His list was (according to his countryman below):

pIrusk
Behemoth
War dog

Min winter guards+ua+3 rocketeers
Full nyss+ranking officer
Full kayazy assassins+ua
Kayazy eliminators
Aiyanna & holt
Kovnik Joe
Saxon orrik

We deploy, with a large hill centered on his side and he goes first. The scenario is explosives cache, aka control the objecitve in the centre and shoot broken 4" AOE auto-KD pow14's out of it. My plan was to gain control of the central objective and keep my control with the AOE and my feat.

He ran everything forward and casts all of his upkeeps. Superiority goes on Behemoth.

On my turn LOTF walks forward and shoots the Behemoth in the middle of his army. I didn't even realise he was on DEF14 sitting on superiority on a hill. I hit (of course..). He gets to attack some Kayazy, the WG officer, Behemoth and is just out of range to attack Holt, which would've been sweet. He fails a bit and only catches the WG officer (not a bad kill though). Everyone else advances and shoot down a bunch of lightning storms to hamper his infantry a little.

He advances on to the zone with Kayazys and the winterguard. The nyss are on my left. Irusk feats giving all of his infantry 4+ tough rolls. The Kayazys make it into melee with some elements of my army.

My turn comes. His army (at least the Kayazys) are all in my face with their hig def and 4+ tough rolls. Except I don't need to hit him with all of my lightning storms and my gallows groves are close enough to deny tough from his closest guys. Sweet! So my shifting stones teleport in the middle of the Kayazys and WG so that each can take a lightning storm on it and catch 3 models under it. I need to roll a 3 to hit. No need to roll for damage, and they don't get a tough roll. Sweet! I think I said that already... In the middle of this run the Gallows groves have to shift forward to deny more guys tough. The Woldwyrd shoots his share down with additional dice from Iron Flesh. EKrueger feats in the middle of the board and forces a couple more helpless guys into the AOE's. I activate the objective which is now enemy free and kill the last Kayazy from the zone. I score 2 control points on my second turn, with eKrueger left standing in the middle of the board on 1 fury. WW Stalker goes down on Behemoth but fails horribly to get him and is left on 4 fury. Krueger is left on 1 fury and there's 11 more on the beasts.

His turn. I'm sitting on the left side zone and the objective with his guys mostly having -2 SPD. He needs to take initiative back and make some decisions or face losing the game on my turn. He more or less goes for the caster kill, with a bunch of people targeting eKrueger. He misses guite much and Krueger loses 5-6 hp and his transfer. The winterguard don't have that much good targets so they shoot at the stalker in the middle of the board, who goes to half health or so. Kayazy eliminators finish the stalker. Now for the crucial mistake. I look at the board. There's Krueger at 0 fury and the rest of the beasts have exactly 7 on them, so I decide NOT to reave fury from my stalker. Perfect, symmetrical, beautiful and all that. I just can't break my mind from counting the 7 to 7 ratio of available fury to fury needed on my warlock.

He activates the last model on his list, pIrusk, who advances and takes 2 double boosted shots at eKrueger, killing him. Hmph.

I am quite confident that I could've scored 2 more CP on my turn as he didn't focus on protecting them that much, if I just would've taken that 4 fury off the stalker. Then again he admitted he made a horrible mistake when he killed the stalker.

This went on to lose us the match. We lost 3-1. If I would've won, we would've gone 2-2 and had enough on tiebreakers to win it. Also if our team captain would've been able to roll 4 on two dice (or would've expoited the current wording on shield guard and taken one specific shot), or our Cryx player wouldn't have had his unkillable Terminus telekinesised out of a control zone (aka he needed to be in the middle of the zone).

It was so close winning the swedes, but it was not to happen. My mistake was the only one which was just a bad decision away from winning so I feel bad for it.

The swedes went on to win the whole event undefeated. Hooray for Sweden!

[The Golden Arrow]

Nice reports. eKrueger seems to be a really good match up against pKrueger.

Here's the khador list btw:
pIrusk
Behemoth
War dog

Min winter guards+ua+3 rocketeers
Full nyss+ranking officer
Full kayazy assassins+ua
Kayazy eliminators
Aiyanna & holt
Kovnik Joe
Saxon orrik

[EccentricLefty]

Random image from the head ref's album of some of my pieces:


And yes, the eKrueger is awesome, and no, it's unfortunately not mine, it's on loan.

Your friend should drop by the forums and give us the step by step some time ^.^

[The Golden Arrow]

I think its eHaley's base and some green stuff to cover the cracks, correct?

[PG_SFDefender]

Ol so I was wrong. Thank you for correcting me. Than opens up some interesting tactical options

[PG_prkl]

Finished report on game 2, check it out above..

Game 3 Opponent
Team: Bazinga
Player: James B
Faction: Cryx
Caster: The Coven

Game 3 was against an all-cryx team. I hate Cryx so much and always seem to lose to them. I had made a conscious decision to avoid them whenever I can, but I had no choice but to face some. They appeared in front of us dressed up in colorful team t-shirts, a balloon hat and a tutu skirt (which were apparently passed around the team after games for most models lost etc.). I think all of them were playing tier lists, with such broken Cryx casters as the Coven, Goreshade, Mortenebra and Skarre (with the NQ pirate tier).

I got paired against the Coven, with two units of soulhunters, who start up on 1 soul each. His list also had a full unit of bane knights, darragh and some other stuff.. (sorry my memory doesn't serve me that well).. The scenario was command and control. I got to pick sides and went with a big forest on my side, with batches of rough going on his.

He went first and ran a unit of soul hunters far on each flank, with his bane knights advancing through the center (almost got to the objective turn 1). Turn two I run and get a couple of lightning storms harrassing his movement a bit. My plan is to score the center area or assassinate at least one of the coven to ease my play significantly.

His second turn he runs his soul hunters more to each flank, making it hard for me to control a flag with my caster. One of them run to engage my wyrd, who of course does have gunfighter. His banes shift sideways a little, having their toes on the area. This was my opponents most crucial mistake, he didn't bring enough stuff to deny me scoring on my second turn.

My second turn I try to come up with a plan on how to both be in the center to feat the pit empty and end my turn contesting the flag to score. I end up charging the soul hunter engaging my wyrd, putting up my stalkers animus and using more fury than I would've wanted, manage to kill the soulhunter. I feated and almost got the area empty by that alone (some banes knights still remained.) Megalith went up, with my pureblood to finish them and take positions to clear the area next turn. Druids put up clouds between soul hunters and my Krueger, who was inside a forest contesting the flag. I scored a point. 1 point more to win.

He apparently didn't know it was enough to contest the flag and not not be base-to-base. He told me that was a big part of his plan.. Hmph.. Well, he ran enough stuff to the zone this time with all of the surviving banes in the zone, and the soul hunters on the other flank charging Megalith. Megalith was left on 1 hp.. Phew!

On my turn, Megalith heals 3, activates and puts up his animus, which gives almost all of the pit -2 on DEF, bringing the soul hunters DEF to a manageable 12. He then goes on to kill two of the soulhunters. My shifting stone UA kills one of the soulhunters (the one I would've had the most trouble with otherwise), yeah! Pureblood kill two more in melee. The stalker goes to town and kills all of the bane knights the wyrd didn't with his berserk and needing something like 5's to hit. All in all very easy clearance of the zone since Megalith was barely alive from last turn. Otherwise it would've been very hard. Also I think I killed someone with every attack I made.. eKrueger took some shots to gain more points on tiebreaker, but I scored my second point and won the game.

My teammates did just as well. We went 4-0 from this round. Tatu's doomreaver horde deserves a mention, as they faced a Mortenebra tier list in an ideal matchup for him. He killed something like 3-4 slayers each turn until they were all gone. Somehow team Bazinga had even envisioned this as a good matchup for them. I think they learned something valuable there..

[PG_prkl]

Game 4 Opponent
Team: Powdered Keg
Player: Gerry Nolan
Faction: Legion
Caster: Kallus

On saturday evening we were paired up against Team Powdered Keg, which we knew was going to be a worthy opponent. When we saw their lists and tried to evaluate them I had a hard time evaluating my matchup against their legion list who had Kallus as a caster. Yeah, Kallus. Kallus who, you ask? Yeah, I had no idea who he is or what he does, so I just put the matchup as 'good/ok' for me, mainly because I couldn't see anything who can do serious damage to my beasts. Of course I ended up playing him and had a second, closer look at his list:

Kallus,Wrath of Everblight +5 points
*Harrier 2 points
*2x Shredder 2 points each
*Stinger 2 points

10Blighted Legionnaires 6 points
*Captian Farilor & Standard 3 points
10Blighted Legionnaires 6 points
10Blighted Swordsmen 8 points
10Blighted Swordsmen 8 points
*Abbot & Champion 3 points
6Bog Trog Ambushers 5 points
7Spawning Vessel 3 points
2xStrider Deathstalker 2 points each
SwampGobber Bellows Crew 1 point

Hmmh.. There was 44 faction infantry straight up, with 6 guys coming from the flank, 4 lesser warbeasts and the spawning vessel making one more every turn. Ok, so some sort of spam list. What does the caster do, then.. Hmmh, a spell that says everyone has their melee attacks boosted (additional die actually)? Right, and the feat? More or less: if a living friendly (faction) warrior model is disabled by an enemy attack it's replaced immediately by an incubi. Also +2 DEF for soulless models. Read it again just to be sure. Yeah.. So I can't kill any of them.. Because incubi are of course very bad, or at least I hate them very much.

My plan was to wait for his feat and then feat back without killing anything just to make sure his models don't turn into incubi, but also won't be able to charge making them all very pillowfisted. My plan evolved a step to where I would place lightning storm AOE's behind as many models as I can and then feat, pushing the poor, helpless infantry into the pow10's which are not enemy attacks at this point so will not trigger the feat. Yeah! So we'll just see what happens.

The scenario is Incursion, which is a very good scenario for eKrueger. I would try to force a scenario victory and got to go first.

In my first ever "everything runs" manouver I tried to get as much ground covered in my first turn as I knew the scenario would be something he would try to go for himself. Also I had to get eKrueger very far upfield for a good possible feat turn on my second.

He runs everything up, which is quite intimidating. Everything is more or less crammed into base to base to get them as far as possible. He's not that worried about me killing his dudes as his feat protects them. He of course, check this out, forgets to feat! That leaves all of his army less than 10 inches from mine, without the feat to protect them. Given the opportunity, I will try to kill as much as possible because later it will get very hard due to the feat. he has two units of legionnaires on the center and one unit of swordsmen (weapon master) on both flanks.

LOTF charges the left unit of legionnaires with the UA and kills the front line with his thresher attack. The back line including the UA goes down to his additional attacks, he got a total of 6-7 guys down. eKrueger kills plenty of the centre legionnaires with his lightning storms and shots before teleporting way back with shifting stones. Woldwyrd shoots 3 swordsmen from the right down (they had ignite on them). Woldstalkers take a couple down. The stalker goes up, berserks some people and sprints back. The pureblood is left without clever targets so walks up and shoots 9 points of damage into Kallus! All in all 31 models from his horde gets killed in this opportunistic strike against them without their feat up. I rolled like a god and when I needed 7's to kill his guys with lightning storms I rolled 6 in a row. I don't think many attacks were missed that turn.

My opponents lost heart a little, but was a true gentleman about it. Many players would've taken the massacre very badly and some maybe would've ragequit on the spot, but he went on with the game, which I appreciate. He ended up charging Kallus into melee with the pureblood, whiffing his attacks and feating to prevent the last turn happening.

I knew I might be able to score a few control points which were really imporant in the tournament, but also Kallus was in the middle of my army with a defense of something like 17 and holding on to 3 fury. I tried to make some kills on the leftmost objective but after failing a couple of attacks it seemed a little desperate so I wanted to make sure Kallus would die to avoid an embarrassing defeat in the hands of a Kallus I let live.

Shifting stones started and placed Megalith on the back arc of Kallus. Megalith used his animus for -2 DEF, and proceeded to hit Kallus (-3 DEF). If I would've had the fury I would've used telekinesis to get the pureblood in his back arc. Megalith used up some of his transfers. The pureblood went for a headbutt and boosted to hit and knocked Kallus down, and proceeded to drain him out of transfers and do a couple of damage more. At this point I shot stuff at Kallus but failed at it. So it's up to the stalker, who needed to trample to get there, and managed to put Kallus down on his last attack. Phew!

Team Powdered Keg ended up 5th, with Gerry being undefeated except for this battle and got the best of faction price for his Legion (which is really nice considering playing a less played warlock).

The thoughts behind his list can be found here: http://legionetctesting.blogspot.ie/...t-etc.html?m=1

He summarized the game on the legion forums as: "eKruger - lost major f up and forgot to feat and lost 31 models. Got Kallus killed to stop him scoring CPs"

Also we were the only team to defeat Team Powdered Keg. They were also tied for the best sporting team. We voted for them mainly because Jaakko had a good time playing Cryx and Gerry took his game losing mistake very well and was a very good sport and a nice guy!

[PG_prkl]

Game 5 Opponent
Team: CGC Turboraptors
Player: Jaden Liu
Faction: Khador
Caster: Irusk

On sunday morning we faced the CGC Turboraptors, who I think were undefeated at the time. We decided to use our team feat for the pairings, which gave us the opportunity to change one pair of matchups to our advantage. The only other undefeated teams were the swedes which we played against already and the germans. We still had a chance to win the tournament, but to do that we knew we would be up against the familiar German team Cunning Stunts (formerly known as Team Sister's ******). Also we knew the germans had already been feated on previously, so if both of us would feat each other, they would get to use their feat last (even to nullify our if they wanted) and our feat would've become void against them, so we feated now. We got guite good pairings as I faced pIrusk (which as a matchup I wasn't so sure about anymore having played a friendly game against Jamie P's Irusk the night before). Our doomreaver and Terminus lists got good matchups due to our feat.

Anyway I was up against Jaden, who was playing:

pIrusk
Spriggan
Great Bears
Winter Guard Deathstar
full Kayazy +UA
3 Iron Fang Uhlans
Man-o-War Drakhun
eEiryss
Saxon Orrik
something

Reinforcements:

full Iron fang pikemen +UA

The scenario was A Flag too Far. Not the easiest scenario to score control points so my options for the battle plan were open. I got to choose sides and chose a side where A) there was a solid ostruction in front of his reinforcements and B) There was a large batch of shallow water centrally, but off to the side near the flag which I needed to control.

He got to start and ran everything up. Iron flesh went to Kayazy and superiority on spriggan.

I activated the LOTF and shot the raven into spriggan and went on to thresher all of the bears, 1-2 WG and put 9 damage to Irusk on what was a feast on dice. The bears themselves need 5 to hit, 8 to kill and have tough, but all went down quite happily, failing all of their tough rolls. Now to activate my 2nd model, Megalith, who tramples up and casts a stray lightning storm, which deviates forward killing three Kayazys! eKrueger puts up two more creating a semi-solid wall of lightning storms hampering the advancing Kayazy, forcing them to bunch up a bit on their turn. The woldstalkers, druids and the pureblood advance on my left ready to take on the iron fang reinforcements and Uhlans and hold the flag.

His turn he runs all over the flag and feats. The LOTF gets brutally murdered. The Uhlans retreat for some reason and the other Iron fangs advance from the reserves closer to the flag.

On my 2nd turn I remember to bring on the reinforcements (Morraig, min WoO and a GG). My plan is to charge the WoO into the WG, forcing them into melee, and maybe doing some odd kills (needing 8's to hit), but fail to kill anything. I charge the Drakhun with Morraig, hoping to force a dismount on my first attack, kill a WG with my mount and kill the dismounted Drakhun on my Cleave attack, but I fail to do enough damage to dismount on the first attack (I needed to roll 16 on five dice, got 14), so he ends up dismounted after 2 attacks (and one dead WG). Gallows groves take tough away from the Kayazy, placing in the midst. I cast a lightning storm from eKrueger, which misses due to stealth (doh!), but land on a Kayazy anyway, taking him out. I cast a second one at my own GG and hit two Kayazy's but unfortunately roll an 11 to kill the GG as well. But there are now 2 lightning storms in a nice line between my beasts and the Kayazy. I activate Megalith, walk to the end of the line and cast lightning storm on eEiryss far on the other side of the table. Why, you ask? Stealth > attack misses > Eiryss' whiplash > I hit myself > nice line of three lightning storms just where I want them. My other beasts go behind this wall of lightning storms to be completely untouchable by his infantry. The pureblood advances contesting the flag, sprays some iron fangs (big whiff) with druids providing vortex clouds to protect him.

Jaden charges the pureblood with his Iron fangs but fail terribly (due to having to take the -2 to hit from the clouds), he gets a couple of druids killed though. Guite an effort is put into killing Morraig, but he is left standing (the Drakhun missed in melee, and after that he had to use pow10 sprays to ignore the melee penalty to shooting. The WoO is shot down to one man, who succeeds in his command check thanks to Morraig's commander. The flanking GG is killed (it was 3" from Drakhun to deny him and some WG tough).

On my turn I telekinesis Morraig out of Melee, kill a couple of guys between the lone surviving WoO and his caster, run the WoO to his caster and eye the straight undistrubed charge lane of Morraig to his caster, behind a flag. I can only get 1 attack since he's behind the flag and there's no one to hit my mount with. I need a 3 to hit and an 11 on five dice to kill him. My hands are shaking and sweating as it still is only one attack I have put my whole turn more or less into. But I make it! That's the game, with unfortunately no control points scored, again..

Jaden's thoughts snatched from their club's forum: "When we hit the top tables our opponents were really good at playing the game. I was shocked again by Circle's (eKruegger) tricks and that game was brilliant. "

The CGC turboraptors end up being 11th, with four wins. I learned this was Jaden's first ETC. He was a really solid opponent and a nice bloke too, so I'm looking forward to seeing him abroad for some big events in the future..

Our other members faired well, gaining a 3-1 win for our team.

[PG_prkl]

What happened on the other tables was that the swedes got a tight win over the germans. Apparently there was some rearranging of terrain by the organizers which took down some of their game time. One or two games ended up on dice down so it might have had an influence (according to the germans, it certainly did), but it wasn't the swedes fault so it was fair game. Maybe Ze Germans should've practised more blitzkrieg before the tournament..

Enough of stupid jokes, what this meant was, that the swedes were undefeated and likely to win the tournament and we were both on one loss with the germans and were more or less playing for the second place. They hadn't used their team feat, which was going to be bad for us. Except if they forget to feat (this is warmachine after all)

Game 6 Opponent
Team: Cunning Stunts
Player: Jannis Jenke (spelling from the official record sheet so could be wrong)
Faction: Cryx
Caster: pDenny

Looking at the pairings we went okayish, until they used the feat and turned 1 good and one ok matchup into two horrible ones. It was up to me and our team captain to make the difference, because the other two would have an uphill battle from the start. I got matched up against a pDenny Cryx, which I hated, because it's cryx, played by a capable player. The player was rumored to be less talented than the other germans, but as the others were really remarkable players (we knew them from last years Austrian OETC), that could mean anything. His list was:

Warwitch Deneghra
*Defiler
*Nightwretch
*Nightmare
*Skarlock thrall
full Cylena & Nyss hunters
full Satyxis blood witches +UA
full Satyxis raiders +UA
Gorman di Wulfe
Warwitch Siren
Warwitch Siren

The scenario was close quarters, which is a very hard scenario to score points. I started and ran everything forward. I got my shifting stones up, knowing i could maybe use them for lightning storm targets against the high def spam which was coming my way. Also I made sure I would get to the zones on my 2nd turn so Denny wouldn't have too easy time claiming the scenario.

On his turn everything ran forward, with the satyxis raiders engaging everything, except they engaged the LOTF and failed their CMD check so ended up engaging nothing at all. Nice! pDenny also advanced to the leftside zone.

On my turn I checked pDennys DEF and ARM and decided to go for a turn 2 caster kill (because I hate playing Cryx and will use my chance of ending the game quickly if given one). Megalith was shifted upfield where he used his animus and failed to connect with a boosted gallows (needing a 9 on three dice). Pureblood went second, hit and did 13 damage on Deneghra! Nice! I was very close to committing eKrueger himself to shooting, but noticed Denny does have stealth, so didn't, feated though to protect some of my pieces. Then I of course shot denny with my wyrd (missed because of stealth, doh!). And shot a support solo with LOTF, missing again due to stealth! How poorly can a guy play, you wonder? Very poorly, considering he's supposed to play for 2nd place in one of the biggest team tournaments ever.

So my guys are more or less left in the middle of the table, with Pureblood behind a wall and only eKrueger playing it truly safe a little back. Well, how hard can he really hit me with no charges and all? pDeneghra feats, giving me -3 DEF and ARM.. after that, my beasts are just assassinated with spells and shooting. And of course the Nightmare scrapping 1,5 beasts by himself. But the Pureblood is left alive. Knocked down and blinded by Gorman, with some branches lost, but alive, more or less. And for some reason (stealth?) my Shifting stones and a Gallows Grove are left intact. And my biggest amazement is that Deneghra is still holding on to the zone with her toes. On 2-3 hp's. Hmph.

On my turn I don't shake my pureblood up. My plan is to shift it next to pDeneghra and then arc 2 lightning storms on my own KO'd beast with -7 to DEF from blind and the feat.. The pureblood is not within the stones though, so the activation order would not work. New plan. My gallows grove happens to be in the back arc of one nyss hunter. So I move my GG up, telekinesis the nyss hunter next to Deneghra. I need 6 to hit, I decide not to boost so I can have a second try if I fail. Hit! Then I proceed to shoot him in the back with a fully boosted lightning storm, which catches Deneghra and ends the game.

My opponents team mates, knowing how often I get a casterkill with eKrueger, supposedly told the guy to keep back with his caster. His response after the game was "You didn't tell me to keep WAY back.."

Anyway, with our other matchups being quite bad and our captain despite having a great start to his game, ended up losing, so we score a 1-3 defeat.

The swedes win their final game to become the tournaments undefeated champions and the germans take the second place. We end up being 6th, with the most scored control points from all teams (33). I only managed to score 5 of them, for which I'm a bit dissappointed. But eKrueger is not a scenario caster so that's OK. I am close to winning the best in faction price, but as they are decided on overall wins, then control points scored I don't. If strength of schedule would have been considered I think I would've won, but no worries.

Our team captains report can be found here: http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewto...?f=22&t=103918

Our team ended up playing the teams positioned 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 11th, and 30-something, so our strength of schedule would've been very strong, but in the end it wasn't used for anything. But at least we got to play some good challenging games.

[Delrogue]

Any thoughts about who you might be pairing with eKrueger for the 2 list events this season?

[PG_prkl]

At 50 points I mostly play Kromac or pKrueger. pBaldur is reserved for 35 points (at least before WoldWrath). Mohsar and Morvahna I have limited experience with, but I'm trying to figure them out.

Lately I've had success with my unconventional pKrueger list, which has been mocked on these forums.. It's something like:

Krueger the Stormwrath (*5pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Feral Warpwolf (9pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
* Woldwarden (9pts)
* Woldwarden (9pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Wolves of Orboros (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)

The WoO could also be a min unit or exchanged for a unit of slaughterhausers. They are only there to be chainlightning targets and to make enemy infantry keep their distance so I can fry them in peace. Also I've been experimenting with changing the stalker to gnarlhorn + blacklad to enable a 17" threat to the feral.

And yes. I've tried changing one of the wardens for full bloodtrackers etc., but they kind of defeat the purpose of the list and also just end up dead in the first turns. The idea of the list is to deny the enemy any soft targets, so a good number of his attacks become void. On the first turns very quickly fry every hard hitting infantry piece and the support pieces for his heavies, leaving the opponents with only pillowfisted infantry and unsupported heavies, which he will have less than me at that point. So late game (turn 4 onwards) is all about winning his 1-3 heavies without support with my 4 + gorax.

pKrueger might not be the best pair for eKrueger, but he is the caster I'm most familiar with. I haven't gotten Kromac to work too well, because his old man stats get him killed every game.

[Der Dexter]

Your friend should drop by the forums and give us the step by step some time ^.^

Yes, that is my eKrueger there. As golden arrow said, its eHaley's basepart, with just work in between. i made a tough bit in the middle with stern putty and heavy pins for added height of about an inch. After that it was only layering tho capes to go from top to bot end, a process of sculpting that lasted for 2 weeks. As i only could do so much at a time, as GS dries for 24 hours, and also theres no spot to hold the mini while it dries, it took about 10 times over to do it all over, but the end result is definitely worth it.
Anyone not confident about sculpting similar stuff, capes are surprisingly easy to do, but this also means you need to file off some of it too, not just adding windy and flowy effects, that cape needs form and detail to look good.

[Delrogue]

pKrueger might not be the best pair for eKrueger, but he is the caster I'm most familiar with. I haven't gotten Kromac to work too well, because his old man stats get him killed every game.

I will be pairing up p/e Krueger for this tourney year, including for the OETC. I don't think they are a bad pairing, especially when you can remove certain hard counters to their magic through the team system.

My Krueger lists differ a bit to yours in composition, but hopefully will be just as effective.

[Delrogue]

I've just had it pointed out by someone that the OETC rules pack has Character and Caster restrictions as an added limitation - so no p/e versions of casters or models across the two armies. So looks like the dream of p/e Krueger for OETC is dead for me.

[H'lingus]

Pottsy id look at maybe, Kro and E or P Freddy. have you guys worked out what matchups you will be trying to pick 'For your lists ?

be interesting to learn your thoughts on that a little more :3


G to the elf.

[Delrogue]

Pottsy id look at maybe, Kro and E or P Freddy. have you guys worked out what matchups you will be trying to pick 'For your lists ?

be interesting to learn your thoughts on that a little more :3


G to the elf.

Gelfy, will put something into a wau thread rather than derailing prkl's thread.