Things I've learned in practicing for KingdomCon

So I've been trying to get in as many games as I can to practice my lists before KingdomCon, usually with timed turns. Bart doesn't usually have any issue with timed turns, but Ashlynn's can be a little rough. That said, she usually does okay, especially now that I've got a few more games in with that list.

On to the stupid little things that I've learned (and the mistakes that I hope to not make in the tournies):

• DEF 17 on Ashlynn is hittable by ranged armies. If Ashlynn is going to be exposed, even on feat turn (unless the models will have to be in your control to shoot her), Quicken should be on her to take her up to DEF 19, which is outside the range of most things to hit even with boosting. Also, kill Rangers and support early if possible to further enhance her survivability against the ranged assassination.

I was retaught this lesson in one of my games against Siege. I managed to kill all his Rangers, most of the Nyss, and most of the Gun Mages. He still had 2 Defenders and his support with Siege (i.e. Reinholdt and Arlan). One doubleboosted shot from an aiming Defender ended her since it was outside the feat. Siege missed, etc, but 4 shots with boosted attacks at RAT 6 and 8 have the ability to hit DEF 17. DEF 19 is a little better. Engaging the shooters is best. This leads in a bit to the next point.

• Models need to be in Ashlynn's control to be affected by Roulette. Don't run Anastasia to the very limit of her control, rather stay 2" inside with her.

This was from a game against eMadrak. I think I won this won by gaming the scenario (Guidons before they fixed it in SR2012 v. 1.3). I ran her up to the edge of Ashlynn's control, about 8" away from eMadrak. He had enough Kriel Warriors plus eMadrak there to easily end her though.

• Anastasia di'Bray doesn't have Acrobatics, she has Parry. You have to open a hole for her to get through. Also, she turns into a 14" threat with Quicken. It's worth the 3 focus if you can get Espionage off.

I found this out in a different game against a strange Siege list, but it turns out you can't just walk her over both armies :p. Regardless, I did manage to hit my first Espionage. It's ridiculous and awesome.

• eAlexia is good for reinforcements. Make sure to get her into melee with something, and bring her in on Ashlynn's feat turn to protect her.

DEF 15, ARM 19 (with 3 souls) is good, but if they have a ranged army, you gotta try and get engaged to take it up to DEF 19. It's going to be a lot harder to take down, even for Siege. Lucky for me he flubbed 2 of his damage rolls (and the fact that she has 10 wounds).

• Flank Deployment is rough with 4 squads of infantry. Be sure to deploy the Steelhead Cav where they will be able to charge the things with the highest ARM.

Nothing particularly of note here other than a lack of familiarity with Flank and Radial scenarios. I just don't have a good idea for how to deploy initially here.

• On scenarios with Reinforcements, don't put any support over there, or they'll get picked off.

A hunter and Aiyana and Holt coming in on Reinforcements just killed eEiryss and Rhupert dead. Can't be having any of that.

• Block LOS to Bart! If he is on a hill, his jack wall needs to be up there too. DEF 13 or 15 isn't out of range of shooting, and ARM 19 is good, but good rolls can make the rest of the game really hard.

I was playing a game against Macbain, and forgot that Bart was standing on a hill. I had him in a pretty tight spot thanks to my feat covering all of the control point (which I think only needed two points to win for scenario). But Bart was on a hill. I was on ARM 19 at this point, so dice -5 there. Good thing he rolled 6,5,5 for 11 damage. He also popped his feat turn and surrounded himself with unkillable Kazazy and flooded the zone with the rest of them. His unit of eliminators sat in the zone and was unkillable too. So since I dropped Rocinante out of my Bart list to put it with Ashlynn, I didn't have any good ranged attacks to drop into Macbain. I killed all the KD kayazy in the zone with my assassins, took his eliminators down to tough, and then ran Bart with 2 focus + BDtH + Spiny Growth (ARM 23) to hide by a wall.

• Bart has tough, and if you make the tough roll with Batten down the Hatches up, you aren't KD!

Same game as the previous point. Rocinante managed to trample to the opposite side of the wall from Bart. Needed 8's to hit, so he bought an attack and saved the last focus for boosting damage. Of course he rolled the 8 on 2d6 to hit, then boosted damage with his last focus (at dice - 6), took me down to 1 health left. 3 jackhammers later, Bart got hit once, and had to tough. I played it as KD because I totally wasn't thinking of BDtH, but he'd still be standing here. Then he took a potshot with Macbain, which missed the DEF 7 from cover and the -2 DEF from BDtH. He would have needed a 12 here, but it's always worth a shot, especially with how his dice seemed to be behaving this game. 2 Eliminators later, Macbain was dead, but I still had a Nomad or two depending on the range, Snapjaw, and some Assassins left to seal the deal.

• Once you've popped Bart's feat, the only reason for him to be at all forward is for his jacks to benefit from BDtH. Other than that, he needs to stay back to avoid being assassinated.

This was a game against pKrueger. He didn't pop the feat early, so my Kayazy were able to wreck a lot of face, and Snapjaw killed the Feral (who had killed the Nomad that his druids dragged across the table. Bart moved up behind his jack wall, but the druids opened a big enough hole for a Stalker to charge in (taking 2 free strikes along the way thanks to reach on all my heavies and no KD from BDtH).

• Beware casters with control wide debuffs and sprays (like Deneghra, Grim, etc) because they can kill Kayazy dead.
  

This was from a game with Bart against Grim Angus and Scattergunners with UA. Even though I had popped Bart's feat, Grim's feat can cancel this out in addition to preventing the Kayazy from charging on the next turn. Scattergunners aiming are RAT 7, to DEF 14 or 15. If the Scattergunners are outside Bart's feat, they can be effective RAT 8 or 10, which isn't too hard to get to 14 or 15. It might be useful to keep back a unit or two of Eliminators just to be able to jump in after the feat turn to engage things and kill others.


Anyways, that's just some of the random thoughts that I've had with my past 10 or so games with my lists (Ashlynn and Bart now if you hadn't caught on that I've dropped Durgen from the lineup). As for painting, Ashlynn's list is all done aside from Rocinante, and Bart's has 14 models left to paint: 4 Assassins, 4 Eliminators, a Nomad, a Mangler, Kell Bailoch, Wrongeye, Snapjaw, and a Bull Snapper. Most of these have some form of paint on them, so I'm hoping to get it all done in the next 2 weeks. KingdomCon here I come!