Hey all, this battle report is was against Jacob running his Crucible Guard last week. We were getting some last minute games in before the Sherwood Team Tournament (which I’ll do a separate post on). I brought my Bethayne1 list from previous reports alongside a classic Kallus1 PT list. Jacob had Sylvestro and Mackay both Prima Materia. I hadn’t played my Kallus list yet and wanted to get a game in with it before the event so I chose him. Jacob picked Sylvestro.
Kallus1 – Primal Terrors
– Ammok
– Blightbringer
Thagrosh0
– Golab
Hermit of Hengehold
Forsaken
Warmongers
– Gorag
Warmongers
Rotwings x2
Sylvestro – Prima Materia
– Alyce
– Vindicator x2
– Suppressor
– Vanguard
– Liberator
Railless Interceptor
Ascendant Mentalist
Trancer x2
Mechanik x2
Failed Experiments
Containment Operatives
We generated Split Decision and I won the roll off. I chose to go first, Sylvestro can be hugely aggressive with a high quantity of attacks, and I wouldn’t like to have to feat on my first turn. I deployed the Blightbringer centrally with the Kallus and Thagrosh. Gorag’s unit went on the right side with one unit of birds, mirrored on the left with the other units. The Hellmouths deployed ahead to be able to contest his flag on the left and sit in the zone on the right.
Sylvestro deployed centrally with containment operatives, Vindicator and Vanguard. The Railless, second Vindicator and Suppressor took the left flank. The Mentalist, Failed Experiments and Liberator took the right. Both Trancers deployed ahead.
Legion Turn 1 – Not much to say here, basically everything ran. Kallus put up Ignite on the left side Ogrun, the Blightbringer put up Dragon’s breath and everything ran up pretty much as far as it could go. Thagrosh put up Fog of War and a free animus mutation whilst Golab rushed up behind the building. I offered up a few tentacles to see if I could tempt out some early attacks.
Crucible Guard Turn 1 – Sylvestro used Super Stealth as he didn’t need the speed or free spells. He put Transmute up onto the Experiments and Admonition onto the Suppressor. Everything else more or less ran up, respecting the threats of the Hellmouths. Once Trancer moved up behind the building and the Mentalist used Force Aura to cover the Experiments. The Railless put a good shot into the Rotwings on the left and killed 3 before Repositioning to safety.
Legion Turn 2 – Jacob had very selfishly not ran his gunline into any of my threat ranges so there wasn’t a great deal of decisions to be made here. The left Hellmouth could put a tentacle onto the Suppressor, which unsurprisingly used Admonition to not be dragged in. The Blightbringer moved up and put a shot into the Suppressor for decent damage. Kallus upkept Ignite and moved up behind the building to feat. I then jammed as many bodies forward as I could, running some Rotwings up to engage the Supressor and the Experiments. I tried to leave the Ogrun in a position to Vengeance through gaps. Thagrosh upkept Fog of War and cast Blight Burst to try and control the battelgroup. It scattered onto the Liberator. The Forsaken, Thagrosh and the Hermit all moved onto the Flag.
Crucible Guard Turn 2 – If you’ve not experienced a Kallus1 Feat turn yet its surprisingly miserable to go into. Jacob took some time to consider his response before upkeeping Transmutation and allocating to the Suppressor and Vanguard. Sylvestro feated and cast Admonition onto the Suppressor again before moving onto the flag. Jacob needed to get rid of both Rotwings and their Incubi to free up the Suppressor which he eventually managed with the Vanguard, Containment Operatives and Railless. Under feat the sprays from the Railless were particularly effective doing swathes of damage. Combined with both Vindicators shooting he managed to kill all of the left side Warmongers and all but one Rotwing, with 5 Incubi remaining. However an unlucky spray clipped the leftside Trancer causing it to blow up onto the Suppressor.
On the left side the Mentalist put up Psychokinetic Shield whilst now effectively Def 17 Experiments killed a couple of blue Rotwings. Because of the feat however they couldn’t trigger Berserk from models that became Incubi. The Liberator also moved into the zone to apply Ashen Veil into the mix. Importantly, one Operative took a long shot at Gorag and did 4 boxes, but triggered Vengeance on that unit.
At the end of Round 2 the score is 1-1 and tied.
Legion Turn 3 – My left side was devastated but the right side was holding strong. Importantly I could deploy a tentacle on the left side Hellmouth in range of the Suppressor, which as it wasn’t an advance wouldn’t trigger Admonition yet. The remaining Warmongers Vengeanced forward but did no meaningful damage to the Liberator thanks to its crazy defence. Kallus cast Dark Guidance and moved across to keep the building between him and the Vindicators. The Hellmouth then dragged in the Suppressor next to the Rotwing and Incubus. The Blightbringer boosted a shot into the Vanguard to get down a Dragon’s Breath AoE and I used the Rotwing and Incubus to pin in the Suppressor before it could Amonition out of threat ranges. Thagrosh charged into the Vanguard and quickly took it down as a Pow 13 Weaponmaster before casting Lightning Strike for free to sprint back to the flag. This cleared the space for Golab to charge the Suppressor and finish it off before sprinting back behind the building. The Incubi remaining ran to contest the flag and block in the Railless a little more.
On the right side things didn’t go as well. Even with Dark guidance and Gorab the Failed Experiments were took hardy to get through. All in they did about half the boxes on the Liberator and killed an experiment. I did run up Ammok behind the central building which would be relevant next turn however.
I scored my flag to bring the total to 2-1 to Legion.
Crucible Guard Turn 3 – Sylvestro upkept Transmutation, cast Admonition on the front Vindicator and used a Revive to bring back a Failed Experiment, then took out the contesting Incubus using his grenade. The combined fire of the Vindicators, Containment Operatives and Railless managed to take down Golab but not contest my flag again. On the right the Experiments and Liberator took out two Warmongers and a handful more Rotwings in a glorious meatgrinder.
We both scored our flags bringing the score to 3-2 to Legion.
Legion Turn 4 – With the left side coming apart my best option ahead was to try and lock down scenario. Ammok moved along the building to get within 5 of an Experiment and used unbinding to remove Transmutation. This combined with Dark Guidance and a Blightbringer AoE left the Warmongers and Rotwings finish off the Liberator and two more Experiments. On the left side the Hellmouth tentacles moved to block in the Railless more and an Incubus took out another Containment Operative. Unfortunately I had to use the right to finish off an Experiment, meaning I couldn’t score the flag in the zone.
I scored my flag again to bring the score to 4-2 to Legion.
Crucible Guard Turn 4 – I hadn’t remarked earlier but Crucible Guard had almost no clock left, it had taken a huge turn to clear through Kallus’ feat. The last Operative killed the contesting Incubus and Rotwing. The Railless bulldozed the Tentacles about and through sprays and a Vindicator shot managed to take down the Hermit and Thagrosh, but crucially not the Forsaken still holding the flag. At this point Jacob timed out, leading to a Legion Victory by clock with a final score of 5-2 to Legion.
This was a real grind of a match and not one I would try to engineer in a tournament. We discussed afterwards and thought that Legion could probably swing scenario pretty hard next turn. If I could clear the zone the next turn I could score 3 points which is probably too much of a lead to pull back from. Had Sylvestro gone first with Super Fuel he could be threatening from the middle of the board, possibly forcing a Turn 1 feat which he could have backed out from and swept up after.
That being said I was impressed with Kallus for holding up into this matchup. I really like being able to bring Thagrosh and Golab in, it gives the list some versatile pieces that traditional Kallus lists haven’t had access to. I’d like to try another Forsaken in and just load them up with fury to be fantastic combat solos.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this one. The next post will be a summary of the Sherwood Team Tournament followed by trying out Lylyth4. Cheers!