Cryx's Kraken - Initial Thoughts

So, I laid hands on the Colossals book and the Kraken up at Lock 'n' Load, and I gotta say I'm looking forward to painting and fielding the thing.  After I finish up the Extreme Carnivean and Throne and futz around with them for a bit, I'm gonna dive back into the Cryx.

I'm going to devote at least two posts to the Kraken; first off I'm going to evaluate it on its own here and see what it can do, and scratch the surface of what it can do with some casters.  After some practice and/or more thinking, I'll start discussing it in the context of an actual list.

Kraken Basics
First off, it's a colossal. (Yarrgh! I be Captain Obvious!)  This has a few implications.  First off, you deploy this thing first off; it MUST be pre-deployed.  Second, the enemy can't control or disrupt it, or move it.  The only time it's going anywhere is during its activation.  Also, pathfinder.  Which is fun.

Third, it's bloody big and durable and hard to hide.  Like battle engines, it's never gonna hide behind anything or get ANY defensive buffs, and being in melee is no refuge from combined ranged attacks. It's also got 54 boxes on ARM19, so it can absorb some abuse.

Kraken on the Offense
Shooting
This thing brings a pair of guns - the Hellblaster and the Flayer. Both guns can fire through the entire front arc. They're tied to an average RAT5, and the Flayer is spec'ed out as an anti-infantry gun whereas the Hellblaster is a sizeable high-powered blast weapon.  The Flayer's good for d3+1 POW12s out to 12 inches, and Rapid Fire means it can spray those from one end to the other of its range.  The Hellblaster is a POW14, RNG16 AOE4 gun that can go up to POW17 with a full load of corpse tokens (and due to the wording of Doom Driver, the blast damage can get up to an effective POW10).

Also of note is the new rule 'Killshot', which allows you to make a single ranged attack ignoring ROF if you take out something in melee.  Note that colossals can make their ranged attacks while in melee.

Melee
This thing starts with a pair of PS18 'Harvesters', which are Chain Weapons with Chain Strike on 'em, so you can reach out and punch enemies out to 4" away.  With SPD5, you have a base charge range of 12", and you end up 4" away from the target without engaging it at the end of your activation (at least, in theory and in a vacuum).

This model has Collector and Meat-Fueled, which are some of its 'flavor' rules.  If it KO's a living model in melee, corpse token.  +1STR for corpse tokens, to a max of 3.  ALSO, you can remove corpse tokens to give it focus at a cost of one per focus.  It lets you trade off hitting power for self-sufficiency.

Also, note colossals have a few extra power attacks, like the no-move slam and perhaps more amusingly, the 'sweep', which tags everything in 2" of one melee weapon.  Hilarity can ensue, as a good sweep will KO infantry, help with meat-fueled, AND activate killshot.

What Would the Kraken Like?
I can think offhand of two things the Kraken would like:
1) help hitting
2) help not dying

As we're Cryx, we have access to DEF debuffs.  The 'not dying' is very often up to the player to provide by not doing dumb stuff, and also by bringing Necrotechs for repair.  There's nothing quite as obnoxious as the enemy dog-piling the thing and failing to kill it, only for a pair of necrotechs to bring it back up turn after turn.

What Casters Can Offer What Benefits?
Asphyxious1
ARM debuff, damage buff...not bad, but a to-hit buff would be nice.

Asphyxious2
Much the same as Gaspy1, but with more desire for infantry.  'eh'.

Asphyxious3
Hey, we have a to-hit buff and a damage buff.  This guy could make it work.

pDeneghra
Debuff queen to the rescue.  Also, a good feat turn with Scourge and parasite?  Yeah, the Kraken can basically auto-hit with 2-4 POW12s and a POW14+, while the enemy's at -5 ARM.  That will probably do the trick.

eDeneghra
You have a DEF and/or ARM debuff, and a feat for more DEF debuff/positioning fun.  Sadly, Pursuit doesn't work on the Colossal.

pGoreshade
You have a DEF debuff against the living via the Deathwalker, and you can grant it Dark Shroud via Shadowmancer.  Sadly, Soul Gate is unlikely to be much use hwere, and you probably won't cast Mage Blight either.

eGoreshade
You get an ARM debuff, and in a pinch Curse of Shadows can help you disengage.  Perhaps more amusing is Phantom Hunter; now you can't HIDE from the big damn guns.  There's potential here, one supposes.

Mortenebra
She can provide boosted attack rolls vs the living AND +2ARM.  Bring in focus-efficient lights to take advantage of the free slams/charges, and add a unit or two...there's potential here, I think.  And Morty's Repair[10] is solid as well, and in a pinch you can burn through her focus via Interface.

pSkarre
Dark Guidance and the feat are neat, but I think pSkarre still gets more mileage out of melee troopers.  Not saying she couldn't run the Kraken, but I don't think it's optimal, and you're kinda hoping for good Ritual Sacrifice roles to make the most out of it.

eSkarre
At first glance, there are a handful of things that just don't work with the Colossal - Admonition and Perdition are out-of-activation movement that it can't use, and it cannot be directly protected by the feat.  On the OTHER hand, Black Spot can let you rack up a HIDEOUS number of attacks and help them hit, while Seas of Fate helps you make the most out of the focus invested in the Kraken.  Finally, Death Ward gets it up to ARM21 and can help preserve important systems.

Terminus
He can hide behind it and give it Berserk.  Downside is it's expensive, but can make good use of focus Terminus gives it, and let's face it - you have this thing called 'Sacrifical Pawn' AND a CD-sized base to hide behind.  Do you need to camp focus if you'll never get shot?  Plus, berserk on a 4" melee range is hilarious.

Lich Lord Venethrax
Um.  Yeah.  Moving along...all Venethrax likes is hiding behind it, I guess.

Witch Coven
Going up to MAT8 SPD7 is nothing short of hilarious.  Veil of mists can help with traffic control, curse of shadows can debuff ARM, and Nightfall can even protect this thing.  The Coven can also generally feed it AND cycle Infernal Machine with their 9 focus.  There's potential here.

Scaverous
ARM buff?  Check.  ARM debuff?  Check.  DEF debuff?  Check.  You have just about everything you'd want to support the Kraken, it's just a matter of using it at the right time and fueling the colossal.

Overall
On paper, I like the Kraken.  I've played against a couple of colossals and don't find them broken; they're not THAT tough and melee heavies can still sort them out.  Keep repair support near them, and keep away units of weaponmaster infantry.

I plan on trying the Kraken with eSkarre first up, and going from there.  I'm pretty sure the Dennys will be fine, and so will Scaverous.  The Goreshades seem marginal, and Venethrax and Gaspy are just kinda 'eh' for me.

Thoughts on Venethrax

I gotta admit that Venethrax is one of my favorite casters for Cryx in terms of image and general aura of badassery.

Come on, it's a big skeleton waving a sword at you and looking generally angry. What's not to love?

A Brief Look at Venny

Honestly, Venethrax is a selfish guy that LOVES to fight Hordes. How do you know this?

Well, Dragonslayer gives you +2 POW and +2 ARM, but more importantly lets you eat the fury off of a beast and turn it into focus. Therefore, if you can get into a beast and get some reach, MAT 8 PS 16+3d6 base damage into a beast you can probably get its fury, but I'd rather hit a wounded critter. Your other lovely denial spell is Lamentation, where anyone in your 14" area has to pay double for spells/animi. It's a great 'screw you' denial spell in general.

Now, why is he selfish?

Simple. You've got no buffs or debuffs to hand out to any other units on the table. You DO have a nice 3" AOE that hands out corrosion, and youv'e got the typical Hellfire for shooting harder targets. Your one spell you'll cast on a friendly unit is Soul Harvester, which means Venethrax gets the souls they cull instead.

Selfish, ain't it? Well, his feat kind of makes up for that, though at first glance Charnel Flames feels a little bit lackluster when you compare it to out-and-out break-your-opponent's-face feats like eGaspy or eSkarre. For a round, if you kill a warrior model they pop into a 3" cloud that explicitly denies Eyeless Sight. Anyone entering one of these clouds takes a point of fire damage. Basically, if you're running some troops (and honestly, you should consider it) you can make the enemy think carefully how they're going to kill your guys, and in what order. Also, if/when your guys get the charge in, they're buying protection against shooting and charges in turn.

The other note about Soul Harvester: this is a potential assassination setup; Focus 7 means you need to harvest three more souls to get enough focus for two fully-boosted hellfires, which can potentially kill a caster, and if you've wounded them prior...good times.

The Army I've Run

I opted to roll with a Tier 4 list for Venethrax at 50 points. It contains:

Skeletor

-Deathripper

-Deathripper

-Seether

-Seether

10 Mechanithralls

-WA: 2 Brute Thralls

Necrosuregeon & stitch thralls

10 Bloodgorgers

5 Black Ogrun Boarding Party

General Gerlak Slaughterborn

2 Pistol Wraiths

Tier Benefits

1) Seethers cost 8 points

2) I get a 3" cloud to place w/in 20" of my board edge for the first round (before deployment), at one per unit

3) Gerlak & his Bloodgorgers get advance deployment

4) Seethers get an Advance Move

Logic Behind the Army

You want Arc Nodes, because Venethrax is NOT a front-line caster. He can hit and hurt, but unless I'm dealing with hordes I'd rather NOT run the risk of getting up close and popped, because he has to camp focus to not die, being medium-based and having only so-so defense.

Seethers are there because of two reasons: first, the tier likes them, and second, Venethrax likes to sling spells, so the focus-efficient Seethers give me heavy hitters. If I can get them up to the enemy caster, then I can probably stomp on the caster with MAT8, PS 16 hits as well.

The Bloodgorgers & Gerlak handle infantry, especially if they can get Gang up. The Mechanithralls can handle jacks, and if I lead with them, they're wonderful with the feat since they're not THAT hard to pop. Necrosurgeons naturally go where Mechanithralls go. The Black Ogrun are a hefty bodyguard for Venethrax, since they can block tramples and LOS, and can do a reasonable amount of damage as well.

The Pistol Wraiths are some fun denial, and stuff I can TAKE with Venethrax. I'd consider a skarlock briefly, but the only spell a Skarlock's good for is cycling Soul Harvester around, or wandering out and popping an offensive spell before someone decides it should die. Since Venny's tier doesn't give you a heap of anti-jack stuff outside of Seethers and Mechanithralls (the former aren't THAT durable and might be needed for assassination and the latter are not that durable), the Pistol Wraiths provide a way to slow down heavy hitters, and in a pinch can outflank and try to pop shots or assassinate solos.

The Round

I fought one of my buddy's Khador armies. It was something like:

pIrusk

-Devastator

-Spriggan

-Beast 09

Full Winter Guard, 3 Rockets, Standard

Kovnik Joe

Kommandos & a Flamethrower

Widowmakers

Widowmaker Marksman

Man-hunter

Scenario: Killing Field

I made him go first, purely so I could react to the deployment of a slower army. He deployed a little more focused on the side, and basically moved into position on turn one. He experimented with slapping Superiority onto Beast 09, then having the Devastator chuck it downrange. The dice promptly said 'no throw'. This was a bit of a theme on the dice for both of us, though he got the worst of it.

Round one's positioning for the most part. He puts the ManHunter on objective duty on the unused flank, which ends up drawing my Pistol Wraiths off to pop the guy, and then hold onto that objective (only after conceding a point of it to the Manhunter. Damn stealth for making me get within 5" to take the shots). He makes a move to put a Widowmaker Marksman on the other side objective, though a Deathripper wanders over to the objective and arcs a boosted Blood Rain into the Widowmaker's face, which promptly melts off.

Round two is the fine art of making Tough rolls with Bloodgorgers and losing almost half of them, but still making solid tough rolls. Man, I hate Winterguard shotgun + rocket love...

Round tthree is the fine art of throwing my surviving Bloodgorgers (Which make some tough rolls) into his Winterguard (which don't) and Soul Harvest provides Venny with some souls. His Spriggan and Beast 09 move up to the middle to start claiming the middle objective. My Seethers and Mechanithralls move to counter.

I put Seethers into Beast 09, and roll laughably bad on damage. I do manage to get a weapon lock on his Axe of Threshering Your Frelling Skull Off.

He pops feat, and goes into the fray. His dice betray his jacks; one Seether is left with a half-dozen boxes that include the cortexx, leg, and arm, and I have one Bloodgorger left that's on fire, and a somewhat beat-up Gerlak.

I pop my feat, and with 11 Focus on Venethrax I load up the Seethers, drop Soul Harvester, and prepare to go to town. I end up with a nice layer of clouds in front of me, and the Seethers drop Beast 09 and beat up on the Spriggan. Mechanithralls and a Brute put Spriggan into the ground with some spectacular damage rolls on combo-strikes. DEF 10 doesn't stop PS15 combo-strikes, and that PS19 coming out of the Brute Thrall is icing on the cake when it comes up box-cars for 8 boxes off the jack. Too bad I didn't have the charge, thanks to those bloody walls...

The last turn is him making a grab for objectives, but DEF 15 Deathripper manages to NOT get shanked by shooting, charging Commandos. His remaining Winterguard down some Mechanithralls and take a chunk out of my Seether (which Kovnik Joe promptly headshots in its last box, which WAS the cortex), but only have one Winterguard on there.

the last turn sees me with five points, one objective locked down, and a Seether looking at the winterguard on the last objective. The Seether promptly squishes the last winterguard after walking onto the objective.

Game ends; Khador 3 to Cryx 7

Highlights

Neither of us can roll 5's to hit our AOE spells

Neither of us can roll damage against jacks

Kovnik Joe gets the killing shot on a Seether and gives an inspirational speech

One Pistol Wraith pops two shots and fails to kill a Manhunter, so the OTHER one has to do it

Devastator spends most of the game thinking that Death Chill is some crap

Lessons

-Full Bloodgorgers are tough to take down with infantry-grade weapons

-Winterguard Blobs are tough, and massed sprays are sick

-Superiority makes Khador jacks average in terms of defense and speed, which is disgusting

-Beast 09 is a priority target all the time. Big shock.

-You probably won't kill multiple Khadoran jacks unless you get lucky and are willing to sacrifice chunks of your army

-Deploying second is wonderful when you have speed on the other guy

-Assassinating a second-line caster like Irusk means going through his army, OR trying to play Scenario. The latter may get you a faster win.

-Lamentation doesn't do much at all to a support caster when you're not playing from the front (...funny story, I think a Khador jack will hit DEF 15 with a boost and it doesn't need to hit that often...)

-Soul Harvester is good for a few spare focus, but don't expect to get more than a handful with it

-Black Ogrun end up serving more or less as JUST a bodyguard, mostly because the Bloodgorgers and Mechanithralls are rushing to engage. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

-Seethers really, REALLY want to get the first hit in, and Smash & Grab is fun when it goes off.

-Weapon locks may have a use, but if the other guy is stronger than you...may not be so impressive.