Sensible Lists played Senselessly - I Hate You Guys: My Month of Xekaar, Part 3

Got another 2 games in at the FLGS last week on Monday night (the 5th). I have another 3 in the pipe to write up, but figured I'd get these done first. These are the first 2 games I ran after spamming Archidons for the sake of spamming Archidons, and while the lists are a little more sensible, I did pretty poorly if I do say so myself.


THE LIST! (for game 1)
https://conflictchamber.com/#c9201bg2eG4x4y4ygl5G6N6vfF5U

Skorne Army - 75 / 75 points

(Xekaar 1) Beast Master Xekaar [+31]
 - Aradus Sentinel [16]
 - Basilisk Krea [7]
 - Cyclops Brute [8]
 - Cyclops Brute [8]
 - Desert Hydra [38]
 - Titan Gladiator [15]
 - Aptimus Marketh [5]
Extoller Soulward [3]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]

Game 1

Playing into Farrow, opponent is running a bit of a silly list with WE&SJ and a swamp horror, Helga, and a meat thresher for elastic meat thresher slams. Also, y'know, defenders warded Nyss with star crossed are there, too.

Round 1

Stuff moves up quickly, me throwing up a variety of defensive spells and hoping for the best. We both work to avoid being in threat range for anything, because we're lame like that.

Round 2

My opponent moves up to contest a little bit in every zone save the far right circle. Star crossed goes up with WE hanging out behind the Nyss pile.

I jam my brutes in, throw up defensive abilities (Swarm, Krea, Sand Storm covering Xekaar), and pop feat. Marketh snags me a point on the open zone to the right.

Bepop and Rock Steady being jammed by a single brute under Xekaar's feat

Round 3

Helga counter feats, slams my shit all over the board, and with the help of elasticity on the warhog he dirtnaps Xekaar using a brute as for the KD.

Breakdown

Yeah that was dumb. Access to safeguard means I shouldn't have gone down to slams. Well, I actually think this list was okay, but boy did I do poorly.

Game 2

THE LIST:

https://conflictchamber.com/#c9201bg24v4xhG4y4y4y4y5G6N7yfs5V

Skorne Army - 75 / 75 points

(Xekaar 1) Beast Master Xekaar [+31]

 - Basilisk Drake [8]

 - Basilisk Krea [7]

 - Chiron [19]

 - Cyclops Brute [8]

 - Cyclops Brute [8]

 - Cyclops Brute [8]

 - Cyclops Brute [8]

 - Titan Gladiator [15]

 - Aptimus Marketh [5]

Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [5]

Legends of Halaak [8]

Paingiver Beast Handlers (max) [7]

Preamble - My opponent is pretty new to WM/H, though has plenty of tabletop gaming experience. He's getting pretty good at finding new ways to confuse and impress all of us, and Thagrosh1 in Oracles has been uniquely annoying recently.

Thank god for Mortality.

Round 1

Defensive stuff goes up, and I run forward.

He counters by likewise moving things forward, using defensive stuff and things.

Round 2

I fan out my army a bit, pop defensive abilities, and feat to cover most of the zones and beyond for the next turn.

My opponent responds offensively, and wipes out Cidaar and... sword guy from the Legends. Typhon and the Scythean come in as well and put some damage on my front, though it is heavily blunted by the feat.

Round 3

Chiron puts some damage into the Scythean that hit me. Marketh pops the hex hunters with mortality. Xekaar pops mortality onto Typhon. The drake pops lurker, sprays down some hex hunters, and walks over to Typhon. An enraged brute puts some hurt on Typhon, and finally the krea gets a free charge with enrage up to rip him to shreds. Brute and maracas take out some hex hunters.

Angelius and Scythean rip into my lines, dropping Chiron and putting the hurt in onto my basilisks. Typhon comes back...

Round 4 -> ????

At this point the game turned into a slug fest. I didn't keep too good of track of what happened, but I know Typhon died again - mostly damaged by a Krea but I think Marketh beat him over the head to seal the deal, and eventually we wound up with very few models left - though I still had 3 brutes and a gladiator at the end. Finally ends when a mutagenesis assassination fails and Xekaar + a gladiator drop Thagrosh.

Afterthoughts:

Okay, this felt like a game at least. I didn't fall into any of the innumerable traps that get Xekaar killed in most of my games, and the brutes really sang with this list focused on attrition. Sure, they didn't really do much, but they were there throughout, and that has to count for something, and when the model count was low they helped me get a scenario edge. His feat is still amazing, and Mortality is a fantastic spell, but damned if Xekaar doesn't just feel like a worse Morghoul2 at this point.

This was the first time I got serious melee work done with a krea, though, and it is something I'm going to try and let happen more often. I could actually see bringing a second one with him, just for the potential threat vector. Plus Brutes with a krea bubble make an amazing anti-ranged screen, in addition to being ball-busting on feat turn vs melee.

Anyway, I have another 3 reports to write up, all three of them with more infantry focused lists. Not sure that I feel one way or the other about him with a bunch of infantry, but at the very least the Legends fill an important role in any list that might take too many brutes. It probably says something, though, that those three games are all wins while I'm 1-4 when I bring more battlegroup or balanced lists.