My first game with the Kharadron Overlords
I played my first game with the Kharadron Overlords today,
here’s a write-up of how the game went, and some reflections on how I found
them.
I played 2000 points vs Seraphon, in the Battle for the Pass scenario. My
list was:
2 Grundstok Gunhaulers
10 Grundstok Thunderers
20 Arkanaut Company
10 Arkanaut Company
6 Endrinriggers
6 Endrinriggers
Aetheric Navigator
Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit
The Seraphon list was Kroak, a lot of saurus warriors (a big
unit of 40 and two units of 10), a carnosaur, 10 skinks, 15 chameleon skinks, a
skink priest, a saurus sunblood, and a saurus astrolith bearer.
I don’t think either are the strongest possible list, and both of us were new to the armies, so it was a fairly casual game.
Here are my Kharadron lining up for a pre-game photo shoot.
Deployment
Battle for the Pass is a lengthways deployment with 24 inches between the armies. It has four objectives, one in each player's deployment zone which are worth one point to the player whose territory it is and four to the opponent, and two on the centre line (one on either side of the board). It's one of my favourite scenarios, particularly in the latest General's Handbook (GHB20) since the deployment zones have changed and are easier to measure out now.
My opponent set up his big unit of saurus in the middle, with
Kroak and the other heroes wrapped up in it or just behind. The skinks were
covering his back objective, and the two smaller units of saurus were on the
flanks. The carnosaur was on the left flank.
I put the 20 arkanauts on my home objective, and then put
the boats behind them. I deployed the thunderers in one of the frigates and 10
arkanauts in the other, and each gunhauler had 6 endrinriggers with it. My loose
plan was to use the gunhaulers and endrinriggers aggressively to focus on any
weak spots in his line, use the frigate with the thunderers to put some damage
on Kroak if I could, and use the other frigate more defensively.
Here's a picture of the Seraphon deployment.
First turn
He had the choice of first turn and chose to take it (which we decided after discussing at the end was probably a mistake, if he’d given me the turn I’d have to make some tough
decisions about whether to come forward into Kroak’s range). Kroak put some
damage on both of my heroes with his board wide mortal wound spell. Most of his
army ran forwards, with one unit of saurus hanging back. The chameleon skinks
came on at the back of my deployment zone, and very nearly succeeded in sniping
my endrinmaster, leaving him on one wound. He capped both side objectives, getting 5
points.
I decided to focus on taking out his smaller units, so I jumped
one gunhauler and its endrinriggers escort behind his lines to focus on the ten
skinks, and jumped the other over to the right side to focus on ten saurus
covering the right hand objective. One of the frigates moved up to get into
range of Kroak, while the other hung back. The endrinmaster moved in on the
chameleon skinks at the back of my deployment zone.
The shooting phase went very well, I was able to take out almost
all of the unit of ten saurus on the right, the skinks, and the chameleon
skinks. I also put one wound on Kroak, though the unit of thunderers managed to
do precisely zero damage to him. All the remaining skinks ran from battleshock.
Overall I was pretty happy with the turn, I’d taken a lot of
lizards off the board, and while I’d only scored one point (for my home
objective) it was going to be hard for him to cover all the objectives with his
remaining units. I was threatening his home objective, so was well placed if I
got the double turn, and was reasonably protected from his units if he got
priority.
Second turn
My opponent won priority and sensibly chose to take it. Kroak managed to kill both my heroes with Comet’s Call, and also put some damage on a frigate, one unit of endrinriggers, and the thunderers
with Celestial Deliverance.
The carnosaur was stranded over on the left flank and was
out of charge range of anything, so he brought it back towards his back
objective. The forty saurus on the left moved sideways towards my forward
frigate – this was scary because it meant the frigate was likely to die, but
good in that it meant there wasn't anything posing any kind of threat to my home
objective. Kroak stayed near the middle of the board with the other heroes.
The forty saurus managed to charge the frigate, and took it
down to one wound (I used its aethergold share to reroll saves, which proved
key to keeping it alive).
He scored both side objectives and his home objective again,
taking him to ten points.
On my turn, I used the Barak Zilfin once per battle move a
boat in the hero phase ability to move the gunhauler and six endrinriggers on
the right over to Kroak’s exposed side, and then moved the endrinriggers in in
the movement phase so that they were three inches away. The other gunhauler and
endrinriggers behind his lines moved up to threaten his home objective (he had
some saurus within range, so I needed to kill a few of them to make sure I took
it). The frigate in combat retreated out, again towards his home objective; and
the other frigate moved up and dropped the arkanauts on the right hand
objective (I was using the battalion that lets them disembark after the frigate
has moved).
In the shooting phase, I shot as much as I could into Kroak,
and got him down to 2 wounds. He wasn’t benefiting from ‘Look out sir’ any
more which made a big difference. The Seraphon did have an ability that reduced
all my damage by one though (to a minimum of one), which reduced the damage from the frigates’
guns. I should note that I got very lucky in this shooting phase, and all my sky
cannons rolled 6 for their D6 shots, which was useful! The thunderers once
again failed to put a single wound on Kroak. I also took out around half of the
unit of ten saurus at the back, and a few of the unit of forty saurus.
I realised after the game that I messed up here, I forgot that
one of the frigates had retreated, and still shot with it. I can’t remember
exactly what it did, but potentially it killed a couple of saurus and did a
wound to Kroak, which would have made a difference to the game.
I then charged the endrinringgers into Kroak, and they
managed to do exactly the amount of damage they needed to kill him. This left
me in a very good position, I was holding all four objectives, my opponent only
had two units left with potential to deal significant damage (the large unit of
saurus and the carnosaur), and my home objective was unthreatened.
I won the priority for turn 3, and we called it at that
point – I was going to be able to score all four objectives again, and I’d have
probably been able to put enough damage into the forty saurus to stop them
being a meaningful threat, which would have left my opponent with very limited options.
I don’t
think it would have affected the result if I hadn't made the rules error mentioned earlier. Potentially Kroak could have survived
into round 3, and I might not have scored my opponent's home objective in turn 2 (neither
of us could remember what the frigate’s shooting achieved, so I don’t
know for sure what the impact was). I would still have
been able to kill Kroak in the top half of turn three though, and I’d still have been
able to take all four objectives in turn three. It's always hard to say how things would have gone differently in these circumstances though, so definitely my bad for making the mistake.
Overall it was a fun game. It was both my first game with the Kharadron and my first time playing against Seraphon since their new battletome came out, so it was good to see what both armies can do. Kroak is pretty scary, he can take out small heroes very easily, and is a lot harder to kill than his seven wounds suggest. If he’d had some saurus guard to pass wounds onto I think I would have struggled to take him out. I did wonder whether I should have focused on killing the skink priest and the astrolith bearer instead, to reduce his range. I think my list probably worked out a bit better than my opponent's on paper, and I also had the better dice luck overall, so my win probably owed more to that than any tactical brilliance.
I enjoyed playing with
the Kharadron, their mobility gives them a lot of options which meant I had to
make a lot of decisions about how to use them. It was certainly a very different experience from playing with fyreslayers (the army I've played the most with). I need to get better at knowing weapon ranges and
being able to factor them into movement decisions, and at target priority and
knowing what order to shoot my units in. I also wouldn’t be at all surprised if
I made other rules errors I haven’t caught yet, or forgot about some abilities,
but given it was my first game with the army it was probably inevitable that
there would be some mistakes. I’m looking forward to playing some more games
with them. Arkanaut Ironclads came back into stock at Games Workshop this week after being
out of stock for ages, so hopefully I’ll have one of them soon which will give
me some more list options (my currently list consists of almost every Kharadron I own, so it's not very finely tuned).
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