Is Yana a good caster when she has no Initials?? Yana vs Shadowtongue 100p on Battle Lines

[stiff trellis]

(New -- i bet there's a huge amount of cross-pollination between servers but i'll put my Battle reps from now on here as well)

The showdown with Shadowtongue!

Yana has been on the backburner for me because i kept promising myself i'd play her 'When she's released' because her model is going to be GORGEOUS. I kept considering her, and then getting disappointed by some comparisons, and then remembering i like her way more on the table than in my head.

Getting that out of the way and getting some sage advice from Jamie P on some unique angles to try, i dove into a match with a lovely repeat opponent who was learning Brinebloods.

Yana 1.0
Khador - Winter Korps
Grand Melee - 100 pts
PC      CARD
        Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy
            SPELL - Avenging Force
            SPELL - Superiority
10          Dire Wolf 1
  1             HEAD - Shield Guard
  5             RIGHT ARM - Long Axe
  4             LEFT ARM - Plow-Shield
10          Dire Wolf 2
  1             HEAD - Shield Guard
  5             RIGHT ARM - Long Axe
  4             LEFT ARM - Plow-Shield
9           Dire Wolf 3
  1             HEAD - Shield Guard
  4             RIGHT ARM - Ice Hammer
  4             LEFT ARM - Plow-Shield
15          Great Bear
  2             HEAD - Aggressive
  7             RIGHT ARM - Battle Mace
  6             LEFT ARM - Heavy Cannon Shield
17          Medveditsa
                HEAD - Medveditsa
                LEFT ARM - Left Bear Claw
                RIGHT ARM - Right Bear Claw
5       Krueger, Wrath of Blighterghast
2       Winter Korps Officer 1
2       Winter Korps Officer 2
2       Winter Korps Officer 3
4       Arkanists 1
4       Arkanists 2
6       Winter Korps Infantry 1
            WEAPON SUPPORT TROOPERS - Auto Cannon
            WEAPON SUPPORT TROOPERS - Auto Cannon
1          Winter Korps Standard 1

6       Winter Korps Infantry 2
            WEAPON SUPPORT TROOPERS - Auto Cannon
            WEAPON SUPPORT TROOPERS - Auto Cannon
1           Winter Korps Standard 2

4       Winter Korps Snipers
1           Winter Korps Hunting Dog

PC      COMMAND CARD
        Blessing of the Gods
        Careful Reconnaissance
        Old Faithful
        Power Swell
1       Savagery
TOTAL POINTS  100/100```


Yeah i know - that probably hurt you as much to read it as it hurt me to write it. There's a lot of off-beat, unconventional choices in here. But lets see how it shakes out.

My opponent's list:

Theater Kid
Southern Kriels - Brineblood Marauders
Grand Melee - 100 pts

PC      CARD
        Captain Shadowtongue
            SPELL - Perdition
            SPELL - Rough Seas
13          Deepborn Dire Troll
  3             HEAD - Cantankerous
  1             FIN - Minnow
  6             RIGHT ARM - Anchor
  3             LEFT ARM - Shark Skull Gauntlet
12          Vorogger
3       Booty Boss 1
3       Booty Boss 2
20      Carver Ultimus
            War Boar MMD47

3       Madame Moriarty
2       Pyg Dirge 1
2       Pyg Dirge 2
2       Pyg Dirge 3
2       Pyg Dirge 4
8       Fire Spitters 1
8       Fire Spitters 2
6       Marauder Crew 1
1           Marauder Crew Tapper 1
6       Marauder Crew 2
1           Marauder Crew Tapper 2
4       Spirit Shamans 1
4       Spirit Shamans 2

PC      COMMAND CARD
        Blessing of the Gods
        High Alert
        Hit & Run
        Power Swell
        Put the Fires Out

TOTAL POINTS  100/100```

Rack and Roll-off

I racked Avenging Force and Superiority. This is the 'Default' rack choice for Yana for me, and unless i see a whole bunch of heavy ARM that i can out-threat naturally with just Conferred and and Avenging i don't feel too much of a need to deviate.

My opponent racked Rough Seas because i have a non-zero amount of guns and Powder Keg because fun is a finite resource and brineblood players are determined to have all of it.

We tied twice on the roll off, and then i won on the third roll. I opted to go first.

Pretty standard deployment. i opted to place Krueger on the opposite side of the table from Big Pig becuase he's one of the main things that could make an early krueger kill apart from arced spells.

Both(!) Spitters ambush, and prey my snipers and Krueger

I put superiority on one of the long-axe Dire wolves, put up avenging force, dash, and run. Yana is just edged into a dust devil, but she wasn't in range of any guns anyway.

Krueger nestles into the nice spot behind the building.

The WKI block some gallows lines since that threatens ridiculously far (Propelled 10, then repo 3, then 10" = 23"). While its not impossible to pull off now and try to pull a dire wolf into Big Pig range it'll cost him an avenging force trigger and probably a feat to pull off.

FWIW - if AF is procced then technically Yana is 4" out of threat on Shadowtongue in deployment. She's fast with AF.
Rough seas goes up, and everything moves up. The left Marauders are (mostly) stealthed from Prowl + Big Pig. As is his caster. His heavy is standing 0.1" of threat outside my Great Bear's threat without superiority.

did i mention i love how fast Yana's list is?

Nothing was attacked on my side. He parked his Vorogger in a dust devil too.

God i really should have spread out my battlegroup more.

So i started the turn with two optimistic handcannon shots from my officers at the right marauders and they just.. killed both models they shot at. Okay - good start!

That made me get a bit greeder, so i popped Krueger out and he took out the Tapper and the Dirge.

My WKI advanced up to create a bit of a blob since i reasoned that his volume of attack was plenty diminished now so to get work done he had to send in heavies.

They took off something like 10 boxes or so on the Vorogger with their auto cannons, a bit of chip damage on the deepborn, and killed some more of the marauders.

Medvedista is positioned to take advantage of Avenging forcing through the forest and suddenly gaining LOS on everything.

**Curse powder keg. **

So he crashes into me, ambushers flooding on from the sides to contest. I lose most of a WKI unit and one member in the other unit.

From a cheeky powder keg through one of the marauders, Medvedista, Yana, a Dire Wolf, and the flag bearer all lose their initial attacks.

he goes up 3CP to my 0 CP.

A big counter punch from the list with no intitials left. My great bear moves up into threat of Big Pig with Avenging.

Krueger immediately teleports over, toughing two marauders and killing one. His debuff is applied to Big Pig, as well as the Vorogger.

Medveditsa wanders over and buys three attacks to kill a marauder. The other toughs and stumbling drunks away.

Yana pops feat (yes. For pathfinder. For one model. For the bear. You heard me right.) and moves up, putting the savagery card on herself and buys an attack (WHY POWDER KEG WHY!) on a marauder, killing him, she overtakes and cleaves, killing the other, then overtakes and repos back behind the forest.

My WKI aim, and with krueger debuff they kill the vorogger from 15 boxes to dead. Remaining shots wound the deepborn.

The bear goes, and with superiority, blessing of the gods, and an arm debuff on big pig i take him down to 2 boxes. On average dice i had him, but i really whiffed the charge. Like a 4 on 3 dice at dice+1. Ouch.

My snipers were kind enough to finish big pig off since he had 2 boxes. Common Sniper W.

With the benefit of Conferred rage my dire wolves and officers run around smashing up spitters.

I score 3 to 0 tying us at 3-3. We actually remember the scenarios are meant to move this time.

he powder kegs Medveditsa, Yana, and a dire wolf again

🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️

His turn is mostly spent trying to remove that Great bear up in his face. Unfortunately for him, its a 'Great' Bear, not a 'Mediocre' Bear and he fails to kill it.

Now realistically, he should have and it was a minor efficiency error on his sake that cost him the kill combined with bad dice. Shadowtongue used 2 ghost walks and a boosted keg for 8 fury instead of 1 ghost walk, Rage, and a boosted powder keg.

He smashes it up with the anchor, gets 3 non charges with the spirit shamans, then 3 charge swings all with stir. Then a full carver. never got the shield, crippled nothing. Rough.

Well, the fire on the bear does nothing, and Great Bears really don't care if you're engaged everywhere.

But a bit of housekeeping first. Yana avenging forces up, charges (and has to BUY. Damn you powder keg!) on a dirge, kills it for conferred rage, and battle lusts the WKI next to her.

The WKI charge the deepborn and just kill it. They absolutely crank it. i was saluting the screen the entire time. Their average output isn't that bad, its average 4 damage per swing that hits, normally with 6 models if they all hit you get close to killing an ARM 19 heavy. I was -1 member, and i missed once, and one of my rolls did no damage. Meaning i largely killed it with 3 swings.

For those of you at home not counting, that means this WKI unit has now killed its second heavy

I then arrange the meeting between the bear and Camp 0 Shadowtongue. Not 1,1 to hit, Dice+3. Thems some good odds.

Shadowtongue then in a shocking twist of fate just gets smashed into a fine paste by a great bear that tanked technically the better part of 40pts (if you count Carver as 20, as he canonically is worth that in terms of AP destroyed).

Victory to the Winter Korps!

So post-game thoughts.

With slightly adjusted play that bear probably did die to what was sent into it, but at that point the deepborn still dies to the WKI on the rolls that happened, the last of the spitters are cleaned up, and im in a dominant position scoring scenario with Yana and 4 heavies vs nothing that can really threaten Yana anymore. So she had dealt a death blow on attrition even if dice sped the situation up.

I think the list demonstrated a lot of the things it was trying to do well. Medveditsa was sitting just behind a forest threatening to avenging force through and go for caster kill (or assassinate a key enemy heavy etc). Yana was a big mean bully face. The WKI did a lot of work.

Obviously the game would be a bit different if battle brigs were involved meaning i lose my WKI a lot faster, but the spitters on the flanks drew 2 heavies out of the main fight. Had those spitters not been there i would have had 2 extra heavies in the fight so i think it's really potent having that much ARM 21 and 22 beef.

**I hate that i feated pretty much exclusively for pathfinder on 1 model and that was game winning 😂 **

[spark dragon]

Lol

I still am of the opinion that Infantry and Rough Seas for Shadowtongue is a trap

Powder Keg is good, but after that you want to look into other good spells like Fortune, Fortify, Perdition especially

I like Carver with Shadowtongue as a concept, and if he didn't ambush his Fire Spitters he could have used Exhaust Fumes for lots of Stealth which might have been nice.

Or just Prowl from Booty Bosses for it

I like the Medveditsa with Avenging Force tech, thats strong

[stiff trellis]

I'm still rough-seas pilled myself. I can see the infantry being take it or leave it because shadowtongue's a very flexible caster without a super specific incentive on what to take, and then if your BG is mostly battlegroup stuff yeah rough seas isn't as good. But any amount of infantry it feels like the lifeblood of your list is trying to get hit a bit less.

Although i think brigs are pretty high priority since they are plan A for his random assassination if perdition isn't on the table or working out.

I think it also probably depends on what kind of shooting you're going into though. i think rough seas is particularly good into the mediocre accuracy i had outside of the auto cannons.

( @lusty quarry - some brineblood chatter re: your list)

[stiff trellis]

She still annoys me in some comparisons but avenging through a forest is something that can't be replicated by Yana great bears and is quite strong. I don't mind the additional shield guard either - having 4 shield guards makes Yana feel safe and also lets you scatter Big Pig's shots between your heavies

[lusty quarry]

lol I literally reached for perdition at one point mid game forgetting I had racked rough seas instead. I definitely was feeling the lack of threat, but would've used it primarily to make the vorogger more annoying. I think there's an optional game plan where I wrack perdition and fortify, just to make frog something semi-nontrivial to deal with

[lusty quarry]

He's there for three reasons;

• Like you said, exhaust fumes. Just didn't take advantage of it this game because I wanted to see what double ambush felt like.
• 1 pt torments on feat turn
• Cost efficient output (which feels weird to say for a 20pt model, but well I probably don't need to explain my reasoning on that with where they are right now)

I'm sitting on my one-game throne with the idea that shadowtoungue likes having infantry, both for scenario reasons and for arcing. Rough seas on a 16in Ctrl feels like decent tech to have available towards that end, and while I don't feel it was done well this game, being able to revive chain a unit to the other side of the board feels like good rainy day tech to have in your back pocket

I had a crazy idea after the game that he's in a good spot, flexibility-wise, but I'd love to drop hex blast for another rack slot. I say hex blast, because we've now got a 4pt unit that has access to that x3

[lusty quarry]

My next iteration of this list drops one each of the frog units in place of battle brig and the lunker fin

[stiff trellis]

https://tenor.com/view/scares-me-i-fear-no-man-gif-21507033