Game 11-14 Local Steamroller

   So been it's been awhile since my last battle report. But seeing as how I haven't been able to play as much I'm going to start logging them again. 

This is mainly for my own benefit and hopefully some light entertainment for anyone reading it.

We had a steamroller at my LGS the day after themes dropped. So everyone was playing new lists and new themes.
Before themes dropped I was planning on running 2una in devours host paired with wurmwood in wild hunt.
With the themes being released I really wanted to try out a kaya 3 list I built. I ended up pairing it with Greg Collinson's Baldur 1 list which I've played before and enjoyed. I wanted to bring tharn but not double up on griffons so 2una was out.

The lists were:

Kaya 3

Theme: Call of the Wild
3 / 3 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army
Kaya the Wildheart - WB: +27
-    Scarsfell Griffon - PC: 8 (Battlegroup Points Used: 8)
-    Scarsfell Griffon - PC: 8 (Battlegroup Points Used: 8)
-    Scarsfell Griffon - PC: 8 (Battlegroup Points Used: 8)
-    Scarsfell Griffon - PC: 8 (Battlegroup Points Used: 3)
-    Scarsfell Griffon - PC: 8
-    Gorax Rager - PC: 7
-    Warpwolf Stalker - PC: 19
-    Warpwolf Stalker - PC: 19
-    Wild Argus - PC: 7
-    Wild Argus - PC: 7

Blackclad Wayfarer - PC: 0
Blackclad Wayfarer - PC: 0
Lord of the Feast - PC: 0

Shifting Stones - Leader & 2 Grunts: 3

And

Baldur 1

Theme: The Devourer's Host
2 / 2 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army
Baldur the Stonecleaver - WB: +31
-    Ghetorix - PC: 21 (Battlegroup Points Used: 21)
-    Feral Warpwolf - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 10)
-    Shadowhorn Satyr - PC: 12

Bloodweaver Night Witch - PC: 4
Tharn Ravager Shaman - PC: 0

Death Wolves - Skoll, Tala & Caleb: 9
Tharn Bloodtrackers - Leader & 9 Grunts: 16
-    Nuala the Huntress - PC: 4
Tharn Ravagers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 16
-    Tharn Ravager Chieftain - PC: 0
Shifting Stones - Leader & 2 Grunts: 3
Shifting Stones - Leader & 2 Grunts: 3

I didn't take any pics at the event so this is all from memory. Sorry if I miss anything. In future bat reps I plan to have turn by turn pictures and better descriptions of what happened and my thought process behind it.

We had 11 players at the event. A lot of new themes and lists. Some new and returning players. All in all it was a decent turnout and we all had fun.

Game 1

I was paired against Nick playing grymkin. He brought a Child beast brick and infantry spam lead by the wanderer. I've only played into grymkin once before and it was the child. I had no idea what most of his stuff did and so decided to test my kaya 3 list. He dropped the wanderer.
I believe his list was skin and moans, gorehound, some crabbits, twilight sisters, 2 of the tree solos, double hallowman, double pumpkin heads, Longfellow, and some other stuff I don't really remember. 🤔 In bump theme. I also believe he has only played the wanderer once or twice before this.

Scenario was recon 2. I won the starting roll and chose to go first. There was a big forest in the middle and I wanted kaya behind it. I was a bit worried about veil of mists creating Los so I was keeping her well out of threat ranges.

Turn 1
I ran everything up the board.

Nick moved everything up and put up his upkeeps. Staying out of my threat ranges unless I landed a hunters mark.

Turn 2
I couldn't reach him and with basically no guns, I positioned to be close enough to bait some of his guys in and set my self up to clear zones and flags. All the griffons put up dodge and kaya feated. She Put up synergy because hallowmen have eyeless sight negating fog of war.

Nick
Nick wasn't sure how to approach and took some shots and left Lord of the feast on 1 and missed the black clad. He move up slightly to contest. I think he was planning on waiting out my feat but he didnt move far enough forward to stay in scenario. Passes turn and we both go to 1.

Turn 3
Pretty sure I can't kill all the guys and definently not going to get a decent assassination on the wanderer so I go for scenario. Kill the gorehound in the left zone and position a Griffon with dodge up 4" from his flag. Send a Griffon in to kill his flag and another into a group of pumpkins to jam them up and give them something to chew on for a bit. I then proceed to clear the right zone with my stalker, blackclad spray and a Griffon. Another Griffon goes into the pumpkins in front of skin and moans as a decoy.  I pass turn and score 3. Score is now 4-1.

Nick tries to hit griffons but is only able to kill the one in front of skin and moans. Kills off lotf with hallowmen. Passes turn and no points are score.

Turn 4
I only need 2 points to win and the right zone is barely contested. I clear the zone and end the game at 6-1.

Not much to say. First game jitters and new lists.

Game 2
Paired up against Joe playing Abby 2 Oracle's and thags 1 in the new ogryn theme.
This was his first steamroller and I knew he was going to play Abby 2 all day and only brought the thags list to have a second.
Baldur 1 has no feat into Abby so I decided to drop kaya again. Abby greatly out threats me so I needed to use the house in the middle to help screen my models and feat defensively to deliver my beasts.
Joe's list was Abby 2 with seraph, neraph, proteoss,  sythean, 2 raeks,  2 forsaken, 2 blightwasps, naga and I think that was it.  Scenario was  the pit 2. He won the roll and went first. I choose the side with rubble and a wall to help hide kaya.

Turn 1
Joe ran up and flanked wide with his raeks. The rest of his BG moved up to his zone and positioned to threaten the central zone.

I deployed right central and had most of my griffons walk 7, dodge, then repo 3 forward. I used the house to shield kaya and support. Lotf was flanking hard left to try and contest his zone later if I needed it. The rest of my group moved as far forward as I could and not give up all my models to the alpha. Kaya feats.

Turn 2

Joe is unable to get any targets for Abby to proc alpha and debates using his feat. He decides to save it. Proteoss gets a Griffon. And he sends the wasps in to jam my griffons.  One raek tries to kill lotf and fails, bad dice. The other raek moves to contest my zone and puts up countercharge.
Everything else moves up behind the house.

I notice most of his stuff is now in my threat range. So it's go time. Gorax starts off synergy by killing 2 wasps. Blackclad clears the rest. Argus charges into proteoss, Doppler barks and then hits him with a combo strike. The other Argus on the far right charges the raek threatening my zone. Killing it and putting synergy at 3. Two griffons fly in and finish off proteoss. Stalker charges and kills one of the fliers. Sprinting back and toeing his zone. Another bird moves to kill the Naga. Lots of stuff died. I scored my zone.

Turn 3

Joe attempts to salvage what he had left. Scythean attempts to kill a couple griffons and 1 dodges away. (Free elusive is amazing!)
Abby spends her full stack killing the Argus that repo'd into her. Raek flails at lotf and fails. The raek was full on fury but passed his fury check. Kills another Griffon with the other flier. Passes back to me unable to do much. I go to 2.

I proceed to kill off everything except the raek fighting it out with lotf and Abby herself. Both stalkers sprinted to engage her.
I pass turn and go to 4. Score is 4-0.

Turn 4

Joe decides he wants to try and kill a stalker. He goes after the one with 2 fury on it because he gets to leech it away. Kills the stalker on his last attack which clears his zone. Passes turn and I go to 5 winning the game. He hadn't been able to score any zones.

Joe had been out of play for awhile and greatly underestimated the griffons damage output. I think Abby 2 in the future is going to be a really hard matchup for kaya 3 because of how much Abby's army can out threat mine.

Game 3

Round three was against Justin playing kraye and siege.
Going into this match I was planning on dropping Baldur 1 because I was afraid of kaya getting assassinated. But minimal guns and no good stealth out I decided on kaya. He dropped kraye.
At this point I remembered that kraye made all of his jacks cavalry and he had some nice speed buffs. So kraye out threats me, has a better repo and free boosted to hit on the charge.. great...   

Scenario was spread the net. The forest was off to the side near the flag and a small house was opposite that.  I won the roll and decided to go first. He picked the side with the forest thinking he could hide behind it and then remembered tracker during deployment.

Justin was playing 2 stormclads, Hammersmith, ironclad, centurion, sentinel, jr,  strangeways, min long gunners and squire. Oh and a firefly which he forgot to deploy.

Turn 1

My goal was to push hard on the right side and use the forest to force his position into my favor.
So everything ran. Kaya put up fog of war and 85 percent of the list is now stealth.
Lotf was sent to score my flag on the left.

Justin

All the heavies moved up the center of the table and around the forest. One stormclad took a shot at a wild argus and hit with lighting arcing to my black clad. Bad damage roll left the blaclclack alive. The sentinel, jr, strangeways and longgunners came around the right to hold his flag and threaten my zone.

Turn 2

Time to smash some jacks.  They are clumped up in the middle and I am able to Doppler bark 3 of the 4 jacks.  Repo is amazing here. After each activation you can reposition to open charge lanes for your other models.  One of its best perks.  Argus,  4 griffons, and a stalker kill the Hammersmith,  centurion,  and the stormclad.  Stalker sprints to engage the stormclad that got away with admonition.  The rest of my forces jockey around and I forget to leave a beast in my far right zone.  Oops. Stones port kaya behind the small house. 

Justin didn't realize how much damage griffons could do and was a bit surprised.  After studying the table for a bit his only play was scenario with no chance of killing kaya that turn.  Strangeways takes the right flag.  Sentinel runs to my zone. The ironclad kills lotf. Squire runs toward the flag to get in position for next turn.  Kraye takes Some shots at the Argus and moves deep into the left zone.  Stormclad attempts to kill and tie up what he can.  Cygnar goes to 3 and I have 0.

Turn 3

1 Griffon and the stalker frenzy from primal.  I'm able to finish off the stormclad.  And an Argus and Griffon kill ironclad.  Gorax and a Griffon kill the sentinel.  Another Griffon kills strangeways and repositions into the long gunners. I contest his zone and phase jump a black clad to my flag.  I go to 3.
3-3

At this point he has nothing left and I beleive he just concedes.  There is no way for him to kill kaya and no chance on scenario. 
Knowing what he knows now.  I beleive this will be a tough match for kaya 3. Those jacks threat so far and the free boosted charge attack is bad news for griffons.

Game 4

Last round. Finals table. My opponent was playing doomy 2 paired with gunbijorn. I didn't really look at his lists too closely I was going to drop kaya regardless because I wanted to test her in the troll matchup. He went with doomy because of all the stealth, gunbijorn would struggle.

The scenario was standoff. He won the roll and went first. There was a giant forest in the middle and a large house in one if the circle zones. I picked the side that would allow lotf to hide behind the house and contest the zone all day if need be.

His list was doomy 2 in power of dhunia theme.
Mulg, 2 earthbornes, 2 maulers, axer, 2 of the winter shamans, krielstone and think that was it.

Turn 1

Adam ran everything up the center of the table and behind the forest. His threat ranges were incredibly long with feat, rush, and earthbornes getting terrain perks.

Anywhere I moved to i would be in his threat ranges. The forest would at least force him to trample thru to get to me. But if there were enough juicy targets he would make it happen.
I tried to stagger and screen my heavies with griffons and argii. There was no way to not get alpha'd. All the griffons did the walk, elusive, repo and kaya feated.

Turn 2

Mulg gets loaded up and comes barreling down on me. I forgot his beasts gain overtake from doomy as well. Mulg has chiller and wild aggression so my def is not that big a deal. He crit smites the Argus into a Griffon and kills another Griffon then overtakes in and kills the knockdown Griffon and Argus.
Then he loads up the mauler with chiller and wild aggression and he just comes in thru the forest and luckily he misses an attack and the Griffon dodges out of threat range. He does kill a shifting stone tho. Everything else sorta jockeys into position to counter.

I kill mulg and the mauler. Send an Argus in to Doppler bark his 2 earthbornes. Send a Griffon in to start killing krielstone. I'm trying to position around the forest to stay out of threat ranges and stay a threat of my own. Lotf tries to fly in and kill some krielstone but the first model toughs and stops it there. Lotf contests and I score 1.

Turn 3

One earthborn kills the Argus and the other one is loaded up and comes in and kills my stalker. Doomy kills lotf and aggitates my battlegroup.
Mauler moves to screen doomy a bit. And the axer attempts to hit a Griffon who dodges away.  He contests my zone with the mauler and scores his zone. 1-1

Pretty sure I'm behind on the piece trade and as the game winds down I'm going to struggle to kill heavies without building synergy. I measure the stalker to doomy is exactly 13". But 2 griffons, krielstone, whelp, and possibly the mauler are in the way.
Between the 2 griffons and the stalker there was 5 fury and I could only pull 3 with kaya. So I pulled from the griffons and the stalker passes his frenzy check. Kaya has to move passed the earthborn in order to primal the stalker and one Griffon. She takes the free strike and transfers to the gorax. One Griffon goes in and cleans up the krielstone in the way. I make a choice here, the Griffon can get to doomy instead of the stalker but would take a free strike from the axer in the process. So mat 11 pow 23 stalker goes for the axer and nearly one rounds it on the charge. The Griffon then charges doomy and with no transfers he puts doomy down.

The damage out put this list can generate is pretty ridiculous.  With synergy and primal even the griffons hit pow 17 with their beaks.  I definently enjoyed the list. I'll be interested in testing it out more especially now that my opponents have an idea of what it can do. Keeping kaya alive is going to be the hardest part. Her 12" control is difficult to manage sometimes and forces her to come a bit farther forward than she would like.

One possible change to the list I'm considering is dropping lotf for a druid wilder. Even for free he is still Lord of the shelf. Too unreliable. It was nice using him to camp flags and not care about him.
Another option I'm considering is dropping a stalker for a gnarlhorn and 3rd wild argus. This gives kaya earth's blessing which can be huge in keeping her alive. The gnarlhorn is still a cheap beater and more Doppler bark is always good.