Kreoss1

Early in MkII Kreoss1 enjoyed great success as one of Menoth's best casters. This success came largely from the pop and drop tactic. It was pretty simple. You brought Kreoss, Eiryss and 3 Redeemers. Once you had your opponent's caster in your control area you purified (if they had a defensive spell that could hamper your assassination, like sure foot) feated and then shot the knocked down caster to death (first with Eiryss then the redeemers). If you did not need to purify you could give all 7 focus to your redeemers otherwise 4 focus would also get the job done. With 7 focus you could then hit the knocked down caster with 11 POW 14s (with 16 inch range too, 3 from each redeemer and two from ancilliary attack from your vassals, you could even boost one of the damage rolls). With 4 focus (purification) you could still hit the caster with 9 POW 14s. The enemy caster would not be able to camp any focus as Eiryss would remove it. And of course if you had any other shooting in the army you could pound the unfortunate caster with that as well, though even an ARM 19 caster was unlikely to survive even the 4 focus assassination attempt.



After a while though this stopped being effective in a tournament setting. Casters with large control areas could stay well back making it very difficult to get them in feat range at least making you fight through most of their armies before that was possible. Steady models began seeing play, particularly models that could grant your caster steady or screen your caster well. Mostly though people learned to keep their caster back for a few turns (even if they were a midline caster and wanted to get forward) and to jam the shooting hard with troops. Redeemers are light jacks, the can't take a lot of damage even basic infantry can take them out. Now of course you can add using colossals to the list of ways to get around the feat as colossals cannot be knocked down.

Initially Kreoss took a pretty big hit but he was back on the competitive scene in short order. Knockdown is still very very good even when it isn't being used for an assassination. So the new way Kreoss is being played is by trying to maximise the number of attacks that can be put out on feat turn. This has seen models like Idrian Skirmishers and Errants becoming more popular in Kreoss lists as they can both melee attack and shoot in the same turn. Against knocked down infantry you can expect to kill with both attacks.

Now in tournaments the two most popular Menoth casters are Harbinger (she is very, very good) and Severius1 (I may write about Sev1, he has the arc node dilemma although I may just make a post about that) but Kreoss is a strong contender for third place. The reason for this is the upsurge in the Menoth gun line. Kreoss' is a great caster to run a gunline with, he has purification so he can get rid of most of the things that would put a hamper on a gun line and his feat is made for shooting. It removes LOS issues so you can shoot whatever you want and you hit everything without needing to boost.

Here is my 35 point Kreoss list.

Protectorate of Menoth

Standard Army

PCs: 35 / 35

26 models

[00] High Exemplar Kreoss (0 / 5 WJ remaining)

[08]  >> Reckoner

[08]  >> Reckoner

[06]  >> Redeemer

[02] Vassal of Menoth

[02] Vassal of Menoth

[01] The Wrack (3)

[02] Choir of Menoth (3 grunts)

[06] Temple Flameguard (9 grunts)

[02]  >> Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard

[03] Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

I like this list because it's a good example about what I've been saying about balanced lists. It doesn't have the ideal models for Kreoss because I can't fit them in at 35 points and still have a balanced list. The idea here is to put the cheap Flameguard in front of my jacks with defenders ward and then shield wall and iron zeal making a fantastic tarpit that will take my opponent many turns to get through while my jacks sit back and shoot whatever they want to death. I force my opponent to advance into my feat and then kill everything. The tarpit is good enough that I can hold off on popping my feat if I think the caster kill is on the table (and I can still put out a lot of shots and have Eiryss) also I can use the reach on the Flameguard to be safe from retaliation when I feat (non reach models can't attack them if the Flameguard engage them from further than 1/2 an inch). I'm still not sure if two Reckoners is better than two redeemers and Rhupert (to make my Flameguard also tough) but for now I want the additional ability to kill heavies and I don't think the Redeemers manage it. In a steamroller setting I'd be tempted to take two Redeemers and a second list that could handle ARM.

In my 50 point list I'm able to take a lot more of the stuff I want:



Protectorate of Menoth
Standard Army
PCs: 50 / 50
41 models

[00] High Exemplar Kreoss (0 / 5 WJ remaining)
[08]  >> Reckoner
[08]  >> Reckoner
[06]  >> Redeemer
[02] Reclaimer
[02] Vassal of Menoth
[02] Vassal of Menoth
[01] The Wrack (3)
[03] Choir of Menoth (5 grunts)
[08] Exemplar Errants (9 grunts)
[02]  >> Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard
[06] Holy Zealots (9 grunts)
[02]  >> Monolith Bearer
[02] Gorman Di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
[03] Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Adding in the Errants this list now has the ability to crank out a ridiculous number of attacks. It absolutely slaughters infantry, the combination of fast reach troops and the volume of attacks on knocked down models means that you should be able to table most infantry armies on feat turn. The assassination is still on the table with the Reckoners and Redeemers (though again I want another Redeemer). This list has lost its balance though, if you come up against an army with a lot of heavies, the amount of heavies you could reasonably expect to see in a 50 point Skorne or Legion army (or troll brick) then this list is no longer capable of dealing out enough high POW attacks to take them down. It still does retain the assassination though which then has to become the crux of your game plan. EDIT - noticed I had the wrong list here. I switched out the Temple Flameguard for zealots. This lets me put defenders ward on the Errants and use the Zealot minifeat to tarpit instead. Zealots like being able to lob AOEs at knocked down models. I can also bring in Gorman so I can black oil a heavy that I can't kill with my Reckoners.

Playing against Kreoss
Spread out your models frontways (is there a term for this? there should be a word, although I'm not going to stop my tradition of making up words). Make it hard for your opponent to get to everything on the one turn. Spread out sideways as well because there are going to be a lot of AOEs. If you have steady stuff you want to use it so that you maximise the opportunity for free strikes. Make your opponent kill as many as possibly before they can kill anything important that has been knocked down. Alternately if your steady model is key to your plan then put a wall or knocked down stuff in front of it and make your opponent wade through it. Put your cheap stuff forward and otherwise set up your army to take a turn of punishment. Keep your caster way back until the feat is gone, way back. Make your opponent cast purification, I know when you put out upkeeps and just lose them it hurts but you want to force your opponent to spend the resources. If you don't that's three focus more that's going to the Menoth jacks and Menoth jacks are good, if you can force your opponent to cast a 3 focus spell to get rid of a two focus upkeep you can get ahead. In my list 3 focus when casting a spell is actually 2 less focus allocated (because I'll keep two and pull one of a wrack) but that's either two more shots for the Redeemer two boosts for the Reckoners. If you rely on defensive upkeeps cry.