The Ghostfleet problem

Ok. Ghostfleet has finally got some global interest after Tim Banky took it to some wins over in the US. So I figured its time to take a look at it. And a lot of people seem to have a lot of missconceptions about the list and how to win over it so I will try to put together my thoughts.

First disclaimer: I think the list is VERY strong, probably too strong. However I will discuss how I think it can be beaten, add in some extra thoughts regarding skorne since that is the faction I play at the moment, but expect some hints of negativity 😉

We can start off like this: I have been playing some cryx back in Mk2 and have some of the factions standing around. So when I got a first look at the Mk3 rules I went for some lists that I thought could be strong ”skews” to start get a feeling for the limits of what could be done. I built a Skorne arm brick with the agonizer in mind, we built a forestwall Wurmwood, chargerspam in cgynar AND a denny 1 list with 9 revenant rifles. The though of returning models which can fully activate with a threat range of 20″, disregarding concealment, cover and LoS on top of Denny1s kit which seemed to have stayed more or less the same seemed very strong. I did not end up playing cryx (I ended up with Karchev and 13-15 heavies which WTC teammate Jocke came up with as an even stronger skew and continued to Skorne) and the ghostrifles didnt seem to take hold. 8 months or so later there comes a theme which encourages people to take those 9 rifles by making the recursion stronger and giving out free points for for taking them. The cryx meta at large thought the list wasn’t good enough but people started playing it…

The wins started coming, our local tournament had 2 ghostfleets with 1 loss between them… In the mirror. Steamstorm (aka Slovakian masters) was taken down by ghostfleet, followed by good showings overall in the tournaments I have insight to, both all over Europe and wherever Tom Guan showed up. Tim took the first big win with it in the americas at the SOO and quickly followed it up with a big slam at museoncon, while the same weekend (if I have correct info) it also took Italian masters and Irish masters. So yes, this is good players playing the list, Im not trying to take anything away from them, but the list wins A LOT and with different players.

This is all in SR2016. Ghostfleet is also the list I am aware of that gets the most out of SR 2017. It does not care about more central terrain offensivley but loves it defensivley. And playing more turns overall means the recursion kicks in so heavily that I have a hard time seeing any armies without RFP being able to withstand it over 7 turns. GF also easily spreads out heavily making it easier to both take and contest the zones in SR2017 compared to most other armies.

 

So, I started writing this as an answer to a post in the Skorne facebook group asking ”what is the problem for us with ghostfleet, put part of the following together and realised its not relaly skorne specific, and thos question seem to pop up all over so I decided to make it a blog post:

The list I will focus on looks like this: (there are a few variations, main changes are Wraith engine or Nightmare and som variation in the light jack setup)

https://conflictchamber.com/#c4201b_-0g0x19191h1h2DhC2t2b203g203g203fbB

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] The Ghost Fleet

(Deneghra 1) Warwitch Deneghra [+28]
– Deathripper [6]
– Deathripper [6]
– Stalker [8]
– Stalker [8]
Captain Rengrave [0(5)]
Hellslinger Phantom [0(7)]
Pistol Wraith [0(5)]
Blackbane’s Ghost Raiders (max) [17]
Revenant Crew of the Atramentous (min) [9]
– Revenant Crew Rifleman (3) [6]
Revenant Crew of the Atramentous (min) [9]
– Revenant Crew Rifleman (3) [6]
Revenant Crew of the Atramentous (min) [9]
– Revenant Crew Rifleman (2) [4]
Wraith Engine [15]

First and foremost: Deneghra. Her feat makes her army hit a lot harder for a turn and can shut down retaliation hard. We have a lot of good solution that survives untill denny feats on your army. To top if of she has one of the strongest assassinations in the game (auto KD if you are within 18″ of an arcnode, almsot auto from 24″-ish. To top that of she lowers your casters arm by 7 after you become KDd. I think Ghostfleet out of Denny1 is pretty reasonable, its Denny that turns it to 11 (or GF that turns denny to 11?)

Ghostfleet itself bring heavy recursion, and recursion that does work. Without RFP it is almost impossible to prevent the rifles from getting work done. They threaten 20″ from where they are or 23″ from the leader if they get killed. They have ghostshot so ignore most defenses you can come up with as well as LoS.

To top that of there is 10 incorp infantry, which if you can not take out the leader will make even more incorp models out of your dudes. And of course an Battle Enginge that is also incorp, and can stay incorp whil buffing arm of the cryx models, create more incrop models and debuff your arm. Can also fight if needed.

And as gravy it gets free points in the shape of shooting solos.

The first thing to bring vs Ghostfleet is RFP, and RFP that you can deliver far. If you kill the unit leader via RFP the whole unit loses recursion (due to how promote rules work and the recursion is worded). Without this you will get ground down over the game. In 2016 it might be possible to play without RFP, in 2017 not so much. And if you think you can kill an entire unit forget about it. Any half competent GF player WILL put a model from each unit out of range from everything you can bring. No reason to leave the table edge if you somehow threaten that far.

The second thing is a high volume of attacks that can be delivered further than a majority of GF threats (so ranged attacks) and that is not completely shut down by Deneghra feat. Even if you do pick of the leaders you still need to kill the rest of the army, and it will not stand and look nicely at you…

And the third thing is magic weapons. If you can not take down the incorpreal things they will run all over you. If the CiD is correct you also need magic weapons that crack arm 20 on ranged, or arm 18 in melee (and can actually be delivered there)

On top of this you need a caster that does not die to a KD spell, losing 7 arm and getting shot by 8 ghostshots at pow 10.

And the important things to put this all together is that you need to do all those things after denny feats on you and heavily cripples your army. You brought Aiyana as the only magic weapon solve? Better keep her stealthed and out of 22 of any arcnode at all times or a good GF player will make sure she dies and you have already lost. Multiple sources of magic weapons is recommended, and otherwise pla VERY carefully with what you have. Use it to kill the BE and then Aiyana (Or alan/extoller and similar things) dies? You probably lost the game to blackbanes. And same things goes for RFP. You had Alexia2 that should rfp? What if she dies before she delivers? Especially since she cant cast hellfire if she gets feated on. Or maybe you brought a single arcnode for that RFP spell, can it be delivered if it can no run and has -2 speed on dennys feat? And can it survive all of dennys output if the GF player knows that the game is theirs if it dies?

A key part in lessening the blow for some of this is to make sure you can threaten Denny herself somehow. If she can player far up and easily feat on your entire army you have a big problem. Denny brings a decent statline at 16/14 but tops it off with stealth. And trying to get her during her feat is a big challenge with anything she got to probably not making it into melee and even shooting struggling to get close enough, on top of struggling to hit with their -2 mat/rat. But long ranging attacks that can see through stealth normally means that Deneghra needs to put at least partial consideration to where she can be.

And defensivley, what do you bring vs Ghostfleet to not die too easily? Stealth is probably the best option here. Against stealth models Denny herself needs to start clearing with either venom or Scourge which severely lessens how much she can kill. If you can bring a high number of stalth models GF output starts being manageable. If those stealth models can also shoot you are even better off! After stealth spell protection/removal is key. If she gets crippling grasp on a unit that is supposed to do work you are in trouble if you can not remove it. And that armour that you had some illusion of saving you will not be a thing if feat and parasite is applied. The third things to bring is thighs with decent survivability vs shooting overall. High def and arm vs shooting lessens GFs output. Denny still has her debuffs to apply to bring your stats down but any extra survivability will be needed.

And I dont think I have seen any ”hard cunteres” to GF still. Its in a similar place to where Karchev was where teching full out for it mainly gives you a game, not a certain win. Im sure there are better counters being built all the time now so I have some hope to soon see a GF player be blown off the table by someone.

Some more skorne specific talk:

Skorne has 3 casters with RFP option: Hexy1, Hexy2 and Zaal2. On top of that they have a far ranging caster with spel shut down in form of Rashet that seems ok in 2016 but Im not sure if he can hold it up in 2017 where the recursion comes back after his initail burst of mini feated reiver shooting.

Hexy1 only has RFP on feat meaning a GF player will put the leaders out of feat range (or give away 1) and he also needs to go deep himself which is normally not a good idea. I think Hexy1 can work 1-2 times vs a GF player but after that they will learn how to avoid most of the feat and just fead us the army at a slower pace to lessen feat impact. He does not bring spell protection and no specific threat to Denny. Parasite is overkills vs a low arm army while be does not help ranged accuracy and melee is hard to deliver.

Hexy2 brings what seems to me like a close to perfect package. Arcable RFP over several turns, Black spot to turn shooting up to 11, spell protection, ashes for personal inf clear and killing rengrave.

Zaal2 brings Annihalator as RFP. The problem is he has to deliver it personally. He does bring high infantry survival for one turn though and normally brings magic weapons in bulk.

Rashet shuts down nodes which makes sure its harder for denny to deliver debuffs. He also brings a feat that buffs ranged output heavily.

Outside of casters there are a few key models in skorne:

Shaman brings a combo of magic weapons and upkeep removal. Makes sure denny can not cripple models early or set up parasite for cycling. He can also increase spellrange which is sometimes usefull. The ghostshot allows for good spot removal, especially if comboed with a far strike beast.

Extoller: He brings the magic weapons as well as making the threat to Denny a bit more real.

Reivers: Our only long ranged shooting unit can bring the required volume of attacks while staying out of most retaliation.

Krea: The krea can make sure to limit the impact of the rifles. Protect your caster and key pieces. It can also let shamans put up an extra protection bubble if needed.

Orin: As usual a favourite of mine. Spell protect where needed and can kill d3+1 pirates of your choice when needed. Can be stealthed if needed.

Master tormentor: Fast infantry removal with stealth is usefull.
I went to tackle GF with the hexy2 list I have been playing more or less since last WTC. With Mammoth, Gladiator, Brute, Raider, Scarabs, reiver cannon, willbreaker, extoller, handlers, swampgobbers, chef. Thinking that having disposible arcnodes for hellfire RFP, a spellprotected gargantuan, blackspot and decent shooting, ashesh to ashes and access to both eyeless sight and magic weapons should be good! With the opponent using some pirate to block LoS to the leaders as well as putting the leaders in cover I neded up having to use my feat and my stack to get 2 leaders rfp after most of the other shooting went to clear LoS so no blackspot triggers. Anyway I rfp 2 leaders, all but 1 pirate in one unit and roughly half the other unit. I kill a scavanger (switched from a stalker in the list above) and my spell protected mammoth is only in charge range of 3 or so pirates. Seems like a good start! My opponent responds by charging Denny in on the mammoth, catching most of my army in the feat. Charge in the WE, charge in the pirates that could make it and finnish it of with a stalker. Meaning I lost my mammoth and everything else is feated on. He also cleared the zones and one of them I could not get back into due to my models moving up to 4″ as maximum…. With the mammoth gone I also struggled to have magic weapons to clear the blackbanes that had now ran into my lines. I lost and had to go back to the drawing board.

I think I will need to go for double reivers setup together with a battlegroup of light beasts, raider, krea and fill up with shamans. I think that can give Ghostfleet a run for its money. The problem is that it will bounce on any type of armour. lets just hope they did not bring a kraken in their other list…

The list I am bringing to Finnish masters this weekend will be Zaal2 though due to not having double reiver units or more than 1 shaman. I have some reports of Zaal2 working well even if I struggle to wrap my head around how… so if I run into GF it will be trial by fire ;). The list is Zaal, Krea, Shaman, Cannoneer, 2x max immortal+UA, 2 AG, Hakaar, Max handlers. Another case of missing models though as I would like 30 immortals, but not enough time…

Anyway I think the key to all this is: Try it out vs GF. Theory very often holds untill denny feat and then dreams die fast. And to get proper practise make sure the GF player has some idea about what is going on. If you manage to wipe a unit its not cause you played well but beacause the opponent played bad and even if you have good rfp avialable you should have to work hard to get the leaders, not get them in the open without protection. If the opponent plays well and you manage to win please let me know hoe you did it and what you used, Im interesting in anything that can get a favourable game into it.