Cryx: The Kraken Do’s and Don’ts!
4 Minute Read
Nov 1 2012
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Hello everyone, Caldera here to talk about the amazing Kraken from Privateer Press. I have had a few weeks to play with this awesome Colossal for Cryx and I have to say that I am very pleased with it. Very much so that I am squeezing it into every list I play now. I just can’t help myself, it’s too awesome not to play with it!
So what I want to share with you are the things I have found out by playing with this new model for a while now. I have had quite a few things catch me off guard about the use of this colossal.
- First thing to remember, always use Kill Shot when it becomes active. Warmachine is a pretty precise game when you get down to it, so when you kill something in melee and you have the opportunity to use Kill Shot, do it. The reason for this is, well if you miss with the next swing and it happens to be your last swing or you then swing at things that are not living you have missed your only chance to use it.
- You can charge a fairly long range with The Kraken but your charge lanes have to be very open for it to go off right. Being on such a big base hinders how far you can actually go.
- Kind of in the same category are tramples. I have often found myself thinking ahead to the next turn and saying, you know I think I can fit in there but this one guy is in the way. I will just trample over him and kill his caster. Well it turns out I couldn’t because the angle I needed to do it would not clear the base of another model. So keep those things in mind when playing with a huge base. It is a bit unwieldy until you get used to it.
- The range on the big cannon is VERY nice but don’t get caught up in using it every turn. I did that the first few games, commonly making the joke, “Look at my 19pt cannon!” While it is very nice, it is not the only thing that makes the Kraken awesome.
- Even though Colossals are immune to disruption there are still a few things that can make your Kraken not eligible for Focus allocation. Eiryss 2 comes to mind as well as some feats and solos like Agonizer.
It’s not all bad though, there were a couple of things that I had to learn the hard way. When I did though I started to really enjoy this Colossal. Here is a few things I found out I liked a lot about it.
- Epic Skarre + Black Spot + Kraken = win! If you haven’t heard or read about it yet, she is the only caster Cryx has that has this spell. It effectively lets the Kraken shoot it’s guns A LOT at a unit that now has less defense. If you roll well, get good rapid fire roll on the Flayer and hit/kill with each one, you can shoot the Hellblaster a total of 6 times in one round! That is devastating if you can pull it off, but don’t count on it.
- I finally, after a few games, got over the Colossal having a big gun and started shoving the monster down my friends(enemies!) throats. I found that using its awesome reach and ability to get stronger in melee via Corpse tokens was a great boon. It meant I would only be getting meaner as the game progressed. Once you learn how to protect your Kraken and get him into melee, he is a huge pain for your opponent to deal with.
- This applies to all Colossals but the fact that you have such a huge threat on the board means your opponent has to focus on killing it or let your infantry get free reign. If they focus on the infantry then you have a full Kraken roaring at you. The Cryx specific here is that since we have such good infantry at our disposal, this is a very hard decision to make.
- It’s durable. Even if someone manages to take out a whole side of the Kraken, he is still a major threat. Nothing is taken out except for one arm if that happens. I look at it this way, in a normal situation that was a dead jack. Since the damage is spread out on the grid though, this means I haven’t really lost much. The Kraken can lose a lot of boxes before going ineffective.
- Scenario play is pretty interesting with the Colossal. Being able to contest multiple objectives or zones with one model is a very nice asset to have. I played a game where I was both contesting the central objective and holding my zone while being a threat.
I absolutely love what the Kraken has done for my fledgling Cryx army. I play pirates and the Kraken just fits so well with my play style and theme. There were a lot of naysayers when this piece came out but I think some of them have come around to enjoy it. Our local Cryx player, Spiderbite, was averse to it at first but I think I talked him into it somewhat. Now we are both terrorizing the local populace with our Colossals and having lots of fun doing it.
If you are still holding back on picking one of these bad boys up, think about it again. It’s so much fun!
Author: Guest Columnist
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