Just got one of these giant pretties and had my first game with the Kraken. Honestly I utterly failed to use it properly and it really just amounted to a 19 point paperweight. I won the game by applying Skarre to Karchev's face, but it was against a T4 Karchev list and those have a hefty handicap already built in.
Here's the list:
eSkarre +6
Kraken - 19
Deathjack - 12
Deathripper - 4
Necrosurgeon & Stich Thralls - 2
Satyxis Raiders - 8
:: Sea Witch
UA - 2
Satyxis Sea Captain - 2
Gorman di Wulfe - 2
Ragman - 2
Warwitch Siren - 2
Necrotech & Scrap Thral - 1
eSkarre seems like one of our best casters for the Kraken. Death Ward buffs it to a respectable 21 armor and I get to select the row on its lovely grids to keep the Hell Blaster alive. Black Spot is insane with this beast. A free Hell Blaster shot every time it damages the Black Spotted target? This seems like it can be absolutely absurd. Two melee swipes, between two and four POW12 12" shots, and the initial
HB shot, and potentially another free
HB shot from Kill Shot activated by the melee swipes. You're looking at a theoretical 6-8 shots with the Hell Blaster! Of course I'm sure actually getting that many will be a rare occasion, but multiples per round is definitely doable.
In today's game, I went down a line of Mechanics with four shots from the Flayer but had forgotten to Black Spot the Mechanics before doing so, AND killed off the living models that were in Kraken's melee range before I activated it. Those were five POW17 Hell Blaster shots I didn't get to unload into Karchev.
Deathjack is eSkarre's best friend. Cycling Black Spot can be a lot of fun and using Perdition to shove the DJ into your opponent's face has won plenty of games. He creates a very significant threat and everyone knows it. Hopefully he will help keep some heat off the Kraken or severely punish anyone who leaves a hole open.
I am heavily, heavily torn on dropping the Raiders in favor of Bane Knights. The Captain would stay either way since 2pts for anti-Knockdown attached to a weapon master with Sprint and a ranged attack is too good to drop. The Knights would do a solid job of removing anything that could threaten the Kraken and are quite killy on their own. Add in their ability to apply a POW16 hit to high defense solos and I'm even more torn.
On the other hand, my Raiders have never failed to contribute to the match in one way or another, and with Black Spot shoring up their
MAT and granting free attacks, they can really clear out infantry. Even more, if my opponent decides to bring a Colossal of his own I can run them in with Backlash to combine with their Feedback and grab a caster kill by poking the Colossal to death. I think I'll keep them in the list for now and see how they do.
Gorman is amazing and I have a hard time not taking him. Skarre at Def18 against ranged or flat-out cannot be targeted behind the cloud, Black Oil on important models, and even protecting my own Colossal from enemy Gormans by dropping Black Oil on my model during my turn.
Ragman is there to help with high armor. In this game he dropped Karchev down to ARM17 which really helped Skarre chew through all those boxes. I'm not quite certain how to keep him alive though. If Gorman is nearby and otherwise unoccupied, I can drop a Rust bomb for another -2 armor and really make people sad.
The Siren is great for general utility and letting the bone chicken run without taxing Skarre's focus. In this game she sprayed down a line of Khadoran Pikeman and a Grey Lord Turnion, so more than made her points back even without taking the bonus focus into consideration.
