Everyone knows pKreoss' feat. His feat gave rise to the term "pop and drop". Thus, it is widely accepted that pKreoss' feat is an assassination feat, a game-ender. I want to suggest something else in this post. I believe that pKreoss' feat can also be an insurance policy. It allows you to play your army aggressively and then retract before a decisive counterattack can occur.
Let me explain by telling you what happened in my last pKreoss game. I was playing a Circle player who was running pKrueger. He had several feral warpwolves, shifting stones, gallows grove, and wolf riders. After only a turn or two, we had begun to engage with me really making the first concerted effort towards hurting his army. It was at this point that I realized that I was a bit overextended. I did this because I felt that he would be on me the next turn if I didn't try to bloody his nose and blunt his assault quickly. Thus, I moved pKreoss up and popped my feat. In doing so, I knocked down the vast majority of his army. This immobilized the wolf riders and knocked down two warpwolves among other things. In his turn he had to expend quite a bit of fury to get his warbeasts up and then to get their animi cast and them attacking. This in turn meant that while they did some damage, it wasn't nearly as bad as what they could have done had they not been hindered by the knockdown effect that I threw out.
So, my question here is, can Kreoss' feat be used defensively? Is it possible to use it to invalidate the efforts of your opponent in one turn and then use that chance to continue to build momentum and bull doze his army?
I agree that the straightforward nature of Kreoss' feat lends itself, without any imagination, to getting that caster kill, but I think it can also be used defensively should you find yourself overextended and needing some way to soften the impending blow of your opponent.
I would love to hear some people's thoughts on this subject. Maybe I'm just a noob and completely inexperienced, but this seems like a valid, though less optimal, tactic to be used.
Here are some other Warmachine articles:
Warmachine the Way I See It: Warcaster Study, pKreoss
The Harbinger of Menoth: Model Review
How Important is the Front Arc, Really?
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