Tarpit Tactica: Kriel Warriors

By Nosrek

A Foreword

For those who have followed "Opening Strategy: Parting The Red Sea", you know I have not been following through with my promised content. However I wanted to try to give you and other troll faithfuls a little something that will hopefully help you make better use of your Kriel Warriors. Somnicide is helping me refine/edit some of the original content I spewed on the subject, so this post will evolve a bit over the next week or two. My hope is that it will become a good bit of reference material for future troll players.

General Overview

I recommend players begin using a min unit of KW's with 3 cabers and the unit attachment. This is a much easier unit to marshal and all of my examples will be using this size of a unit. In the future I will update the post to include the full unit.

This tactica is based on 2 main theories;

1. Jamming 101
2. Caber Delivery System (CDS)

Combining these two strategies will help you get the most out of your KW unit, lets get into some basic deployment.


Deployment

Ok the gist here is the 3x3 deployment with the unit attachment hanging out in the back, pretty standard. However, I want you to pay special attention to the position o the caber throwers. This is important for success with the CDS, this deployment will facilitate your turn 1 running and ensure your cabers are delivered.

Turn 1

Oso what am I doing here? Well I am maximizing take up, your grunts exist to one day become a caber, this is Kriel Warrior tactics 101. Your front caber has three grunts ready and willing to die for the caber cause, this formation/strategy has proved time after time to ensure my leading caber is ready to charge turn 2. There is nothing quite like making your opponent kill one guy 4 times (oh and they get tough rolls). The two cabers to either side are roughly 3-4" behind the leading caber, each have their own grunt ready and willing to die for their cause (this is my precautionary tactic because there is not point losing a caber to a stray shot). The leader is roughly 6-7" behind the leading caber, he and the piper will counter charge he who strikes down the mighty caber. The standard is simply collection buffs and keeping everyone steady.

Final Thought

Using a min unit with 3 cabers and the UA is pretty easy when you are going about it like this. However you really need a second infantry unit to soak up some attention. Some examples of a good choice for that secondary unit would be; scouts, burrowers, long riders, fennblades, etc.

This post will hopefully give you an idea of how to put it all together. This is also a taste of the evolution of the red sea strategy.

Basic Deployment

Consider your terrain and scenario requirements, and then determine roughly where your caster needs to be to support his army and have an effect on the battle field. Here is an example of how I am running my current Prime Madrak 35 point list. Burrowers act as flankers and they cover my right side. My kriel stone unit will also be covering my right side, along with the Pyre to ensure Madrak is covered. On my left I the rune bearer and fell caller positioned to support Madrak and the Kriel warriors. Next is my KW’s, this formation optimizes take-up and alpha/counter striking. The Earthborn is on the far left, almost at the edge of Madrak’s control area. I have really liked this positioning, I use it to ensure good use of elemental communion (as people tend to put terrain on the edges instead of in the middle) and it will make it difficult for your opponent to get your heavy, as well as ensure a caber is close at hand for adaptation goodness.

Turn 1

(Note: the earthborn is the one with his art turned off)

Now turn 1 we want to move into a jamming position, get our caster roughly 8-9” up the table (especially with KW’s you want to only be moving your caster 8-9” max) and try position our army to take up lots of space and make the opponent feel your presence on the table. With burrowers I try to do a turn 2 burrow as much as possible, I find they do a great job staying above ground turn 1, the stone helps them not hate blast damage so much, and the chronicler gives them a little extra survivability. Plus they are a great threat and if my opponent chooses to focus on them, then hey my KW’s are untouched and ready to unleash the pain. Now much of this is specific to my army, but you should see the concepts I am using here;

1. Spread out and cover all your bases, we have medium bases and pretty big command ranges, take advantage of it and you won’t be tripping over your own dudes as much

2. Don’t worry about covering your warlock so much turn 1, especially if you have found some terrain. Even without terrain your caster can handle a few pot shots, sometimes not even be scratched by them, each bullet spent on your caster is one less taking out your infantry.

3. Keep your support up front and in the game, some people will opt to cap what support you have, let them. I always have more than one way to skin a cat, losing one piece does not make or break my list (except for the caster of course) and you only need support pieces for the first 3 turns usually. The fell caller is the only piece I will actually try to protect (with this list I have sure foot and the stone, which is enough usually), however if I over protect him, he loses his usefulness, keep this in mind as its a difficult balancing act.