8th Ed. Karl Franz Ascended

Horros is a no-brainer, but hard to get. You don't really want to rely on a "I might get this" spell, and beast slann isn't really worth it in my opinion. Though I agree on the skink chief spam. You can get quite a few chiefs without hurting your budget all that much.

Good catch on the Featherfoe torc though. Slap it on just 1 guy, and never accept challenges with him. Force karl franz to reroll his hits, which is really the most effective means of dealing with him. Better yet, throw Fencer Blades on one of the skinks to push him to 4s to hit, and then throw a blizzard or to, and he will be hitting on 5s with rerolls. He'll never achieve anything against a unit of, say, 10 chiefs. There is no overbleed between them.

You know, scratch that - you are better off with a huge unit of skink chiefs, and just issue challenges each turn. He has to take them, and it forces all of his attacks on 1 guy. Even with hits on 6s + reroll, he'll likely get 1 hit in, which is instant death. No need to waste points on neither Featherfoe Torc nor fencer blades/glittering scales.

Without challenges, a clever player will just spread his attacks as thinly as possible (5 valid targets = 2 attacks on each, fx), since he just needs to hit, and then the character is dead. Take a skink cohort of 15 (3 full ranks) and throw 5 skink chiefs in there. If he hits this unit, his precious character will be stuck for the rest of the game with no way out, especially if the unit is close to the general and BSB. 275 points to tarpit an 800+ lord indefinitely? Priceless.

If you do go for no-challenges, keep iceshard on him, along with a featherfoe torc, but go with hw+shield on your chiefs. The cheap 6++ save is no doubt worth it, if just to reduce the chance that they will be killed instantly.

Helm of Discord might or might not be worth it, if just for the off-chance that he fails it and has to forfeit his entire close combat phase, and is hit automatically.

 

Again. Instead of thinking ways to deal with the problem, people seem more interested in prove the ones provided false, even without testing.

I gave like 5 or 6 tips for dealing with AKF. Many of them can be put together and doens't affect the balance of your army.

Beast council is subpar? Have you ever tried it? I won two games with it, so 100% success. I have already explained twice in this forum how to arrange the Kadon transformation to be selectable with skink priest. And that is a threat that players should never ignore.
and what about spaming 3 wildforms?. Is curse of Aranheir a bad spell? Amber Spear too?

Have you ever think that behind those skink chief you can place kroxigors? they are equal menace. If you are not ready to fight in his turn, you can challenge. If your champion is killed, you can join another unit with champion into the fray to secure your strategy if the magic phase dont go as you planned.

So instead of thinking about one trick horse. Bring more trick horses. You have 800 points to spare to counter and also I imagine they can perform other taskes aswell.

thanks for Reading

 

Not disproving your ideas, just expanding on them.

If you want Horros, you are using a Slann and several priests, which is an expensive way of getting the spell. It's not that they are bad, per say, just far less flexible than the toolbox slann (WD) or High Lore Slann, without granting much in terms of magic superiority.

And really, is a 275 points skink cohort with 5 chiefs a "specific AKF counter"? Not reallly. I can think of several lords, who cannot join unit, who would be tarpitted just as easily against a unit like this. Daemon princes comes to mind immediately.

 

Liking the Chief ideas very much, Silver. Very cost-efficient. I can attest to the Skink vs. Daemon Prince comment btw. It's typically worked out for me.

 

All this focus on one model . He wont be alone Ive seen a 2000 point list that still has 10 ick ,4 demigryphs ,steamtank and 3x10 archers and a level 3 wizard. I think KFA is better at 2000 points then he is in bigger games. As at 2000 the enemy wont have too much stuff the outnumber the rest of the list. Acept maybe orcs and goblins.

 

So I got a chance to play against Karl in a 2K game. It is for Waagh Paca prep. The comp pack assigns negative fortitude for certain choices including KFZ, Steam Tanks, and great cannons. Fortitude affects 3 scenarios so it is an important consideration. As such it is unlikely when facing Karl at Paca you will be facing a steam tank as well.

I went with a Channel Slann High Magic, loads of skinks and a trio of cowboys. I won by 300.

Mostly I kept the Slann on the back of the board to avoid Dwellers (he had to L2 life mages) and cast through Arcane Vassal. I used high movement to avoid any good targets while threatening his other units with the cowboys. A timely Walk between Worlds got the Slann out dodge when he was finally mouse trapped (though it then brought him in range of Dwellers and he was promptly was Dwellered off a turn later). I did pin KFZ down for a full turn with a timely charge by a skink cohort. I was able to break Ghal maraz but not until the 5th turn. I only managed a single wound on Franz the entire game but took out the entire rest of the army. The game was a slew of Mexican Standoffs until I collected the rest of his units turn 5-6.

I used:
-High mobility army to avoid providing good targets to KFZ.
-cheap static rez units to threaten any landing zones that would lead to trapping my high value models.
-impassable terrain to hide, take away charges.
-Timely Walk between Worlds.
-Focus on taking his other, admittedly tough, units out to score points. OB/Scarvet cowboys + Searing Doom to take on his 1+ AS. Salamanders + massed skinks (hell even a Tempest) to deal with the Halberd block.
-L2 of Undeath. Created a unit of 30 zombies and a unit of 5 Hexwraiths during the game. Both would play their parts.
- Arcane Unforging. Breaking either item earlier in the game (say turn 2) would have changed my tactics and I feel would have put him on the wrong foot. The mere threat allowed me to get other spells off.

I realize that with out either a cannon or Steam Tank, the list is easier to deal with. There was no threat to the cowboys of being sniped, meaning I could be more patient. I would also say that scenarios/comp pack went a long way to limiting his list options. At the and of the day, I feel this is the best way for TO’s to make sure tournaments stay competitive, balanced and interesting in these End of Times.

Hinge

PS
Franz’s bound spell is awesome.

 

what was in his list? ive got a 2000 pt tournament coming up and thinking of taking franz

 

going on memory

Franz
mounted BSB
2xL2 of life-one mounted with CoC
Warrior Priest

8 (?) Inner circle knights, FC, Banner of Swiftness
40 Halberds, FC
4 DemiKnights, std, mus

seems a shockingly small force as I list it. I wonder if he forgot a unit. He put somethign together on the fly with Paca comp for me to test against.

Hinge

PS

second Paca prep game v. Glotkin and a WoC + 2x skull cannon force did nto go well at all. ugh

 

Pro-tip: if you are going to fight Karl Franz Ascended and have him surrounded with all the Skinks and ready to throw out Arcane Unforging, don't leave your Ripperdactyls positioned so they have to take a Frenzy test.

 

Okay I have a few things so here we go;
A.) Chakax, Challenge automatically, makes him strike last! Yay! Also rerolls failed to hits, S7, if he hits roll a D6 on a 5+ you destroy a magic item! Yay!
B.) Just cast like theirs no tomorrow, 'cause if the B*STARD is still alive there won't be
C.) In a 2400 point game you can field 30 Skink Chiefs in a unit! 2 Beasts Slann you MUST have Savage Skinks of Horror (Or Mazdamundi) and buff those skinks! Oh dear, you killed 5 skinks, good for you! IT CHANGES NOTHING 6 STRENGTH 7 ATTACKS TOUGHNESS 6! YAAAAY!

Also you can't attack peeps who are in challenges

 

Or just use the new rules for magic and take a bunch of skink priests. cheaper, and all have automatic access to horros.

Throw them in a unit with 20 or more skinks too, just to make sure you keep your 3 ranks, and put a BSB and general near them, so they get at least Ld8 + reroll.

A light slann would probably be a good supporting choice though. ASF and Initiative 10 (if you are that lucky) will make those Horros boosted hits more effecient.

 

Also Mazdamundi destroys magic items

 

Ok so the problem is how to kill him using less points that he costs right? As long as we keep that balance then we can assume the rest of our army is doing better because of how we are dealing with him, so I propose the following:

Saurus Hero + BSB + War Banner + Cold One
80x Skink Cohorts with Poison + Champion + Standard + Musician

Key notes:
Unit is mixed and so cannot be thunderstomped
Unit causes fear so bloodroar is useless
Hero is at far edge and never comes into contact with Karl
Unit is 10x wide by 8x deep.

On average Karl will do 10*.67 = 6.7 hits
Of these the skinks will parry save 6.7*.167 = 1.12
So Karl will do on average 5.58 wounds each round of combat

On average the skinks will do 19*.33 = 6.27 hits (Of which 3.167 are poisoned so wound automatically)
Of the 3.167 hits left they will do 3.167*.167 = .529 wounds (Plus poison for a total of 3.7 wounds each round)
Of these Karl will AS 3.7*.67 = 2.48 (Leaving 1.19 wounds unsaved)
Of these Karl will WS 1.19*.5 = .595 total wounds each round

With static CR = 3x ranks + 2x Standards + 1x War Banner = 6 + .595 wounds = 6.595 CR
This against Karl's 5.58 means you should win by 1 every round, if you tie then you have a musician to win by 1, you would have to have very poor luck to do worse than tie but even then you are steadfast that round. Until you get into the 6th round of combat which means you lose a rank and will start tying, by the 9th round you will start to lose by 1, all of this is irrelevant with cold blooded leadership 8 and steadfast.

If the game ends up going really long then on average you will kill Karl in round 12 of combat and have about 12 skinks with BSB left alive. Fielding this unit also helps you take out death star units like white lions or chosen along with other large monsters/characters since it wastes all their overpowered attacks. It is also easy to buff this unit to a very dangerous level with just HoG since it applies in and out of combat, combined with Wyssans makes it down right deadly.

 

Has no one mentioned temple guard yet? Forty of these guys with a slann in them would force AKF to have to fight them eventually and depending on the slann set-up you could be bringing them back, make them killier, etc. With the Slann and that many temple guards you would probably be spending more points than he costs through....

 

I fought Him once with 22 Temple Guard. He killed a bunch of them, but I did 3 wounds to him. Sadly I forgot I was steadfast and fled.
A couple of combats might do the trick. If one has points to spare, a character might help, potentially along with a skink priest, to make sure the temple guard does not pursue all the time, and buff the character with beasts.

Maybe banishment could be used to some effect, given he would have to re-roll his succesfull ward saves, and the temple guards could be buffed to strike before Karl Franz and hit on 3's.

 

Sadly your slann is going to die in the 1st round of combat with him, he can direct 10 attacks that need 3's and then wound auto, you have 6-7 you need to save now on 4+ that means around 3-4 get through which turn into 6-16 wounds, heck even two unsaved wounds on your slann and you are going to die. That means your 3 ranks plus standard are losing in CR against his charge and 5 wounds, unless you can cause 4 more wounds on him than his thunderstomp does to your unit.

 

I wonder how many poisoned shots it would take to bring him down in one round ?