Tharn Archers

Tharn Archers that are coming out next year. They'll be interesting especially as circle has some of the best ranged units in the game as it is (blood trackers and the shrimp), I expect them to do something funky.

Pirates (and zombies)

So I love pirates so I tend to keep a look out for pirate lists. There was one mentioned on Muse on Minis which I liked. I made a few little changes to it but the base of the list is the same:

Mercenaries
Highborn Covenant
PCs: 50 / 50
50 models

[00] Captain Damiano (0 / 6 WJ remaining)
[09]  >> Gallant
[02] Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
[03] Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
[02] Bosun Grogspar
[02] First Mate Hawk
[02] Doc Killingsworth
[02] Master Gunner Dougal Macnaile
[02] Lord Rockbottom, Expedition Financier
[06] Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
[02]  >> Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer
[05] Alexia Ciannor & the Risen (9)
[08] Sea Dog Crew (9 grunts)
[02]  >> Mr. Walls, the Quartermaster
[03]  >> Sea Dog Crew Rifleman (3 Riflemen)
[06] Press Gangers (9 grunts)

I don't think I've mentioned it before but I like Gallant with Damiano (for sure foot) and Rocinante with Constance (she needs her jacks to stay back and Rocinante is the best of the shooting jacks, Guard dog helps keep her alive too). Feels a bit weird not taking the steelhead heavy cav with Damiano and means giving up money shot (great name for an ability) but I can see how the list is supposed to work and it looks fun. The original list had a Nomad instead of Gallant and Gorman and Reinholdt. I like Gallant better and I have the jack so it needs to go in someone's list. The fact that this list combines pirates with a zombie horde also appeals to me.

So what does it do?

Well for four focus you can deadeye 7 shots from the gun mages with a great critical effect (either an extra dice damage or knockdown) and 14 of the 15 shots from the sea dogs. The list is mostly immune from knockdown, 4+ tough and any guys that die come back as zombies. You also have the abilities of Hawk and Longbottom which mean that in melee you are rolling 3 dice to hit as well and against warrior models an additional dice damage (from the hand weapons but not from the pistols) and your shooting is at POW 12 RAT 6 (Dougal gives you an extra 2" range too). One unit will have +2 MAT and vengeance (hilarious on the zombies late game). This list will rip apart any infantry on the table.

What doesn't it do?

Armour. The only damage buff is the feat. As you have pirates the +3 ARM isn't going to help you (they go up to a spectacular 15) so you can focus on using the feat for a strength buff. It still gives you only POW 13s and 14s, so your sea dog crew, press gangers and zombies (at a mighty POW 10 under the feat), lacking reach or multiple attacks that can benefit (point blank is a melee attack but does not use strength) still face an uphill battle to kill heavies even with the feat. Gallant too is only POW 17 which is where the Merc Heavy Jacks top out (excepting the dwarf Rockram). But you do have the gun mages, as long as you aren't facing a Colossal or Tiberion you can jam the zones with pirates and push any enemy models out to win on scenario.

Good Match Ups 

Khador (Sorscha, Irusk, Old Witch...): Gun mages will shoot stealth Kayazy apart at RAT 7 + boost (or even RAT 9 if they aim). DEF 17 is irrelevent when you are Mat 9 boosted. Everything but the conquest can be pushed out of the zones, you have a lot of shooting to threaten khador's casters and plenty of living models to be recycled into zombies.

Ret - Everything is advance deployed, fast and you can outshoot and outfight Ret. Ret does not have a lot of great Jacks so more living infantry for you to kill. Watch out for Ravyn and her Mage Hunter Strike Force. If Damiano is within 22" of that unit they will kill him but you can snipe you gun mages with deadeye and kill enough of that unit to allow you to have a game.

Trolls (Madrak1&2, Doomshaper1 (but not 2), Borka, Grissel1, Jarl)  - Lots of medium based multi wound warrior models. This list excels at taking them down. It can't deal with lots of troll heavies but trolls have some really excellent infantry and the casters I've listed love their infantry. Madrak2 in particular is a great match up for this list.

Bad Match Ups

Menoth - The jack faction. Menoth will out shoot, out melee you, be immune to your shooting, be to high ARM for your melee attacks, enliven away from any charge and will have no trouble getting through an infantry swarm. Menoth is a nightmare for this list. Only thing worse than Menoth has to be

Everblight - Not only will you be facing an army of heavies but Scytheans have take down. No tough rolls and no corpse tokens for Alexia. There is a trick you can do with Scytheans against tough troops, you make your first attack, if they make their tough roll then you use their animus to get take down, auto kill the guy and then get a free thresher against everything else in 2". They also have typhons sprays which will shred an infantry swarm and Ravagores can easily kill with blast damage, leave templates that you can't walk through, and set your guys on fire if they make their tough rolls. You can also shoot your own heavies with a Ravagore shot, if you don't have reach you have to take a point of damage if you want to get in melee range and nothing in this list has reach except Gallant. To make matters worse it would take a while for the everblight player to destroy your swarm so the game would be a long one too.

Conclusion

It's a skew list, designed to tear up infantry but terrible against a lot of heavies. This is not unusual for pirates. It's looks like a good list in a friendly game when you know your opponent isn't taking Menoth or Everblight but I probably would not take it to a tournament. The problem is that what this list does well Mercs in general do well. All the top tier Merc casters can shred infantry. You can create a less skew list by taking the Steelhead Heavy Cav and some Halberdiers. The Cav shoot at POW 14 with money shot and with flank either get 2 weaponmaster attacks one at POW 13 or a weaponmaster attack at POW 13, a POW 14 gunshot and a pow 10 mount attack. It gives you more versatility but you lose the strength of this list against infantry. I have to admit I like the skew list more but I tend to like skew lists. Also I like pirates and zombies.

Jam

Firstly plastic stormguard!

Stormguard are Cygnar's best in faction jam unit (though still by comparison a pretty shit jam unit) and a necessity for eHaley so I've been looking at them for a while but previously they only came in the 6 man box and places were always sold out... Anyway I thought this might be an opportunity for me to talk about the jam.

So what is the jam?

To put it simply it involves sticking stuff in key locations, either engaging ranged models or blocking charge lanes or gumming up scenario zones. There are a couple of things you need to make a good jam unit, you want it to have reach (in order to engage more stuff, add some threat range to your jam and make more of the board susceptible to free strikes) and it needs to be cheap or have some tricks to keep it alive (as you generally have to run these units and often their main contribution to the battle is to die). They also need to be able to do something when they aren't jamming. They need to have some damage output, whether it's what they do after the turn they jam or what they do when you can get the jump on your opponent or when you opponent is able to ignore them for some reason.

Some examples

Haley2 and the stormguard is a special case so I'll give some more relevant examples.

Everblight and Legionnaires - Of all the units in the Legion of Everblight the crappiest one is the one that sees the table the most because while beasts can fight and shoot they are less than ideal for jamming. With Vayl1 (my favourite Legion caster, possibly my favourite caster in the game) her feat lets you move things after the end of your turn. This means you can retreat all your beasts back and shove a cheap jamming unit in the way, they engage the ranged units and block off charge lanes to your more expensive beasts.  She also has chiller which drops DEF by 2 if you are within 2" of any model in the unit so I can use the unit as a chiller delivery system. I have killed casters with this method (although generally late in the game you end up using a shredder). It works well with other casters too I use them in about half my lists. Kallus in particular loves this unit and his feat and abilities are geared towards the jam tactic.

Mercenaries and Steelhead Halberdiers - Another unit that is perfect for jamming. They may not have vengence but they have set defence (+2 DEF if you charge them) and have a point of DEF better to start with which really adds to their survivbility (which is great in a jam unit). They also have an extra point of SPD so can run 2" futher (and still have reach from there). They have an extra pow as well which is marginally helpful, it makes free strikes a little deadlier. These get used with Magnus1 (who has a feat vaguely similar to vayls (at least in application) but also Ashlynn at higher points (to protect your shooting) and of course with Constance (when she is a Merc caster) who absolutely loves the shit out of this unit.

Trolls don't really have a jam unit, much like Cygnar they have units that can do it but do other stuff better and so you pay the points for that. Minions are in the same boat but while I think the lack of cheap throw away troops for Trolls and Cygnar is deliberate and characterful minions just don't have very many units, they only became a faction with the dawn of MKII so they haven't been around for very long. They might get something in a few books.

I'll metion two more factions because they bring up some interesting points.

Menoth have the Temple Flameguard which could be a great jam unit but don't often get used as such. Menoth has access to vassals which can give their jacks enliven (when you damage them they can walk away) and the choir who can stop you shooting at their jacks. They have defensive tricks without jamming, they still do use a unit to block charge lanes but it's usually exemplar errants. They get into position and shoot (with the jack happily shooting from behind them) and when you try to remove them they self sacrifice, if you want to kill that one model blocking a charge lane you have to kill all the other members of his unit within 3" before he will die.

Skorne technically have the Karax as their standard 4-6 point unit with reach but they are MAT 5 P+S 10 and don't have abilities to increase either of those (like combined attack or powerful charge). That means that while they can jam they can't do much else. Most skorne lists that I have seen jam with Nihilators. They cost more but they have tough (which is painful on a jam unit) and they are a good unit in their own right.

Anti Colossal lists

So these will be from factions I play as those are the factions I know. I can give half arsed advice on how to build an anti-colossal list with the other factions and casters but it's going to be just something I saw someone else make work or stuff I don't really understand.

So a quick run down on casters I would take and how I'd use them.

Seige and two defenders (one marshalled) or colossal and defender, Reinholdt, rangers, Journeyman  warcaster and Eiryss. Jr puts arcane shield on Seige because he has to get forward for this. Run a ranger up to within 5" of their caster. Put foxhole on the colossal (or whatever else is screening the caster), Feat, Shoot twice with boosts with siege (Reinholdt lets him shoot the second time), shoot with Eiryss (if camping or using a defesive upkeep), then plough in the shots from the defenders (again with boosts) and then if it's more than 25 points you'll have some other shooting you can unleash. With his feat bonus this is pretty darn deadly. I might even throw in an Avenger and trencher master gunner in order to knock a caster down (why not?).

Fiona the Black. Long gunners, Galleon, Taryn, possible Eiryss again (though as in the above list she is generally surplus, something that doesn't quite work with the other stuff you need to do but in the right situation could make the difference), Dougal Macnaile. The idea here is to cycle nonokrion brand, Dougal adds range to the Galleon and adds accuracy. Taryn gives you extra opportunity to shoot through stuff, she is there mostly to give LOS to Eiryss. Rocinante might make this list as well because I have been playing him with Fiona and because you have the focus to give out if you are just going for the assassination (with wyshnalyr, who should always be in her list, she has essentially 9 focus).

Durgan, Kayazy, Rocram and a driller. you can cycle redline on the two jacks to great effect but the real kicker here are the Kayazy. They can go through the colossal to kill your opponents caster or they can get through to your colossal even if you put a jam unit in front of it and even though they are armed with daggers when they strap some explosives to those daggers they become colossal killers. As you already have Dougal in any good Durgan list you can also add Gorman and black oil the colossal out of the game for a turn or two.

Rhyas. This one relies on her feat. Her feat allows you to place anywhere b2b with the first model you damage. So take a Nephilim Soldier for massacre (charge for free, if you kill charge target move an inch and make another attack for free), a Scythean (your assassin, put Rapport on it to take it to MAT 8), Proteus or a shepherd (extend your crappy control range to include your teleporting scythean). Take a Seraph too just to move your threat range up to a million. (actually it's 6 + 3 (charge) + 2 (reach) + 2 Slipstream + 4 (base + reach again when you are placed) + 2-6 (the base of the thing you hit, + an inch if you kill it) you can push it too for an extra inch. So 20 odd inches but most importantly your front line + 4-5 inches (from the back of the bases of your front line).

Haley2 - yeah OK, everyone hates her. I have stopped taking Haley2 in friendly games which actually means that I haven't played her in over a year (and only then a couple of times). That said she can neutralise shooting to some degree and she can send a Stormwall hurtling up the field with an extra attack and 4 focus. After softening the colossal up with some shooting first and being safe from retaliation because of her feat.

Lylyth2 - Yeah OK I picked the other caster everyone hates as much as Haley2. You can't deal with colossals in this list but everything has stealth so the colosssal can't shoot at you. Most colossals rely a lot on shooting and when they automatically miss you and only scratch your beasts with blast damage they don't do that much. Besides you can damn well kill everything else in the army. Actually you can probably kill the colossal too, two ravagores and two bolt throwers with pin-cushion on feat will deal out quite a lot of damage. Then you can shoot it again next turn because your threat range is stupid long.

Absylonia - Blight field means no focus for your colossal. You can also jam a Gargantuan and achieve the same effect with that spell. She has a strength buff if she needs to kill the colossal and a way to make an Angelius DEF 17. Once your colossal is relegates to only it's inital attacks and no boosts she has the ability to tear apart the rest of your force. Quite a few armies will actually find the DEF 17 Angelius more difficult to kill than a colossal.

Doomshaper2 - The real advantage you have here is that you can refuge one of your beatsticks. So send in Mulg (with rage), beat it almost all the way to death and then refuge him back 7 inches and put a wall in front of him then send in an earthborn or mauler and finish the job. You'll lose that beast but Mulg will be relatively safe, you end up trading a 9-10 point model for a 18-20 point one.. Also you have massive threat ranges here on your beasts so you can get to the colossal. Just watch out for jam units and upkeeps. Upkeeps could be a problem here.

Madrak - He can add a damage dice to any unit and his feat gives everything another attack. Pretty much anything in his army will kill a colossal. Fennblades will kill a colossal with their POW 12s when they suddenly become weaponmasters. It's got to be the long riders though that will be the most feared. on they charge they will pack 2 POW 14s with 4 dice each + the feat attacks. The full unit is only worth 11 points.

Vayl1 - Catch a colossal in Incite, hit it with two scytheans (who are now POW 19) watch it die and then retreat back to safety with your feat.

Nemo1 - can give a jack 5 focus and a strength boost. And has access to eiryss (no upkeeps) and Cygnar shooting which can put a dent into it first. He also has his thunderhead assassination bullshit. I would not use the storwall for this manoeuvre. It can't use the out of activation movement to make up threat range (and change up charge angles) and it can't have arcane shield and the strength boost.

Stryker2 - Can use positive charge on a warjack (probably a stormclad) and charge the colossal. Then send in sword knights. They are suddenly POW 12 weaponmasters. They can then use reform (Runewood should almost always be in his list) to move in front of the warjack and give it a meat shield to protect it from some retaliation. Main problem here will be delivery as you can't do much to increase their threat ranges but 10" stormwall and 9.5" for the sword knights is not terrible.

Damiano - Deadeye, money shot (for steelheads) and Taryn di la Rovissi. Great thing about this is you can deadeye your gun mages and your steelhead riflemen, money shot the steelheads and still have 2 focus left over for Rocinante. Taryn shadowfires whatever is screening the caster (particularly if it's a colossal), gun mages can knock down anything else in the way or just blast away at the enemy caster. Riflemen do the same but with POW 13s or 5 POW 15s if your caster is a little higher ARM. To hit is boosted, from deadeye and they are both RAT 7 to start with (from moneyshot and gun mages are just awesome like that). Gun mages also will crit brutal damage 1/3 times so are quite useful in that regard.

Anyway that's enough for now. I hope I've kind of explained the way I approach colossals and given some understandable examples of the different ways I'm thinking about them and the way I would deal with them.

Dealing with Colossals

Trying to put together lists just now for the casters I haven't used and I'm remembering why I haven't used them. Not sure I'm going to be able to stick to my resolution to bring two new casters (especially since I can't fit the Stormwall into Threemos list at 35 points). Might try one new caster and one old favourite I haven't played for a while or two old favourites... I gave Rhyas a crack against Uli, lost that game although Rhyas was not completely without hope. I didn't get to try the dodgy 19-22" assassination bullshit that list can theoretically pull but I'm not convinced it will work if I do get to try it out.

Anyway some thoughts on dealing with colossals since someone seems to be playing one a fair bit lately.

1. Ignore it. The colossal has super high ARM and a bijillion damage boxes, your opponents warcaster has significantly less damage boxes and much crappier ARM. Lets start with the obvious stuff too, as it will kill those pesky mechanics that tend to follow colossals around as well. Ashes to ashes, eruption of spines, chain lightning, electro-leap, the colossal is easy to hit and the mechanics need to be in 5" if they want to repair it. Haley1 needs to be near the colossal for the additional dodgy bullshit she has. Other warcasters will often use it as a screen which is where stuff that lets you shoot through it like it isn't there comes in handy.  Ghost shot, foxhole, shadow fire, phantom seeker (mage hunter strike force = bullshit, just saying), birds eye, Nonokrion Brand and awareness all let you shoot right through it. Backlash and feedback let you attack the colossal and do damage to the caster, you won't kill the colossal but it may be a way to assassinate an unwary caster. Most warjacks simply don't have enough damage boxes to live long enough for this trick to work, colossals do.

2. Minimise it. Again not trying to kill the model just take it out of the game. When 20 points of your opponents army can't do anything you can use that to get a pretty good advantage over them. So how do you do that? Gorman is the obvious choice (black oil) but expect a shield guarding Bokur to dive in front and take the hit (while yelling NOOOOOOOO!) (according to another recent ruling you can still shield guard black oil). There are other ways to do it too. Crippling grasp hurts colossals a lot. Blight Field stops you from allocating them any focus. Pistol Wraiths can hold them in place as can shadow bind. Anything that prevents forcing or allocating focus is going to hit them hard (remember they can't be disrupted), they really need focus/fury to function. Also don't underestimate the power of the jam. Particularly on colossals that need to fight in order to make their points (Mountain King, Woldwrath, Krakken and maybe the Judicator and Conquest), put some cheap infantry in their way and they will really struggle to get to the targets they need to get to. While someone like Terminus should be quite afraid of colossals his army will also have a horde of cheap troops with tough who can ensure a colossal never gets near him.

3. Kill it. The swing at 35 points when you lose an 18-20 point model is huge. Most of the time losing a colossal means losing the game. At 50 points it's not as bad but it still hurts. So how do you kill one? Well first off you need something that I probably should have talked about for the other two catagories too: upkeep removal. Whenever someone takes a Colossal they will almost certainly be looking at spells and abilities their caster has that can make it awesome. A lot of these will be upkeep spells. Arcane Shield is an upkeep spell, Hot Shot (Bart - Mercs) is an upkeep, spiny growth is an animus, Death Ward is an upkeep, Hand of Fate, Superiority, Infernal Machine... You really need to get the defensive upkeeps off a colossal before you try to kill it and if you can force your opponent to recast their offensive upkeeps you cause activation order difficulties and deplete their resources. Purification is ideal for this but there is also epic Eiryss, hex blast, unbinding, blood weavers, Chasten, The Blood Hag and Gravus. Next you should be looking to debuff it, with colossals debuffs are generally preferred to buffs as you will generally need more than one model or unit to kill it, in addition to debuffing spells (parasite and crippling grasp being the two best) Gorman again rates a mention (rust) but also look out for Aiyana and Holt, Ragman and the Black Frost Shard. Failing that force wide buffs also work really well so feats like the Butchers feat, Ossyan (who will shoot your colossal dead). If you can't do that then buffs are the next thing in line, buff up your own models and send them in, obviously strength/melee damage buffs are ideal. What models should you use to kill a colossal? Well if you are Menoth or Ossyan you can just shoot them to death and you should but everyone else you are generally looking to piece trade something worth a lot less than a colossal. Even a troll heavy with rage and the krielstone strength buff will still struggle to bring down an ARM 19 colossal by itself let alone one with ARM buffs. An enraged Bronzeback can (P+S is one lower but it has 2-3 extra attacks) or if you don't want to send in two heavies then you need some shooting. If you can scratch it up put 20 odd damage on it first then go in to trash it you can generally do it with one model. You also need to be looking at delivery, how are you going to get your colossal killer to the colossal it needs to kill. Haley1 brings a lot of denial, no charging, two templates with pow 12 and she can stop you from casting any spells on the colossal. Haley2 and Broadsides Bart have their feat and your opponent is likely to jam or try and alpha strike anything that can take out their colossal so you need to think about that too. Beasts/Jacks are generally preferable as there are more ways to stop infantry than beasts jacks. You are never going to get infantry to the stormwall with the POW 12 templates it can drop every round. You want a caster that can add threat range to your beasts and you want to make sure your list can clear a troop jam.

All factions have the tricks both to kill colossals or to otherwise deal with them. I don't think every caster can kill a colossal but I do think most can deal with them in some way. There are clearly some stand outs, I have seen a Deneghra1 have a unit of sea dogs shoot a conquest dead (Parasite + Feat + Rust = ARM 13 conquest). Absylonia has blight field so your colossal never gets any focus and a damage buff (once she has the Archangel too she will become much more popular edit: Oh, the optimism of my youth). Butcher, Sorsha2, Ossyan and Carver can pump out the damage (and quagmire is a pain for colossals too).

Flanzer's Trolls at GENCON

My brain is fried so I'm going to take a break from uni shit and think about warmachine. In particular I've been meaning to analyse Flanzer's lists from GENCON. Jason Flanzer is one of the top players in the US, he changes factions pretty regularly and of all the players he's the one I look out for the most becausse he tends to play very different, very interesting lists. He definitely did that at masters taking a mountain king into the final. He lost but the fact that he made it that far with a mountain king tells you that it can be made to work. So lets have a look at his list:

Trollbloods
Runes of War (Hoarluk Doomshaper)
(Tier 4)
PCs: 75 / 75
34 models

[00] Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls (0 / 7 WB)
[20]  >> Mountain King
[12]  >> Mulg the Ancient
[10]  >> Earthborn Dire Troll
[09]  >> Dire Troll Mauler
[06]  >> Troll Axer
[03] Janissa Stonetide
[02] Troll Whelps
[04] Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (5 grunts)
[01]  >> Stone Scribe Elder
[03] Trollkin Runeshapers
[03] Trollkin Runeshapers
[03] Trollkin Runeshapers
[03] Trollkin Runeshapers
[03] Trollkin Runeshapers

So first thing to note. ARM buffs, this list has them. With the Earthborn, Janissa and the krielstone the MK will be ARM 23 most turns without using his upkeep slot which  means you can then throw banishing ward on him. That means no enemy spells may be cast at him which makes it very hard to drop his ARM unless you have purification. The wall from Janissa also helps to keep him safe. Still you're starting off with 10 less health than a regular colossal and the wall can't completely protect him and the DEF bonus it gives isn't really going to help. While your earthborn hides behind the wall only reach weapons can hit him and he's DEF 14 if they do. MK behind a wall is DEF 11 in melee swinging over the wall or you can just go around/over it. I suppose the key here is that the earthborn, krielstone and Janissa are already in the list so you that ARM buff was already there.

Offensively - You have fortune which helps both his MAT and RAT and with a 10" spray that's actually pretty useful. You've got rage to take him to P+S 22, rush to give him 12" threat and the strength bonus from the krielstone if he needs it. The key here is the runeshapers. They bring a shitload of knockdown to the table. They can make sure he actually hits his targets. 

So add all this together, does that make the mountain king worth taking. Almost definitely no but talking this tier list at 75 points, then yes he's worth including. Not an auto include but not silly to take either. Quick explanation: The benefits of the tier list are fantastic but it is really restrictive, you can only take two units: the krielstone (and only one unit of krielstone bearers) and Runeshapers. There are already 5 units of runeshapers, that's not only a lot of models to buy but they all do the same thing and that's put out short range shots and knock down stuff. They are only middle of the range in melee, doomshaper needs his beasts to really tear things up in melee but he's only fury 7 and in his 50 point list he already has 3 heavies and a light (it's this list minus the mountain king, a unit of runeshapers and whelps). He'll struggle to take two more heavies, even if he takes a bunch of whelps his fury management is going to be really difficult. The mountain king won't do as much as two heavies but it also is easier to manage the fury from. And it will do slightly more for it's fury than a beast that is not Mulg. 

His other list:

Trollbloods

Family Reunion (Borka Kegslayer)

(Tier 4) 

PCs: 75 / 75

39 models

[00] Borka Kegslayer (0 / 5 WB)

[00]  >> Pyg Keg Carrier (Companion)

[09]  >> Dire Troll Mauler

[02] Stone Scribe Chronicler

[03] Trollkin Champion Hero

[03] Trollkin Champion Hero

[03] Trollkin Champion Hero

[03] Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (3 grunts)

[01]  >> Stone Scribe Elder

[05] Trollkin Champions (2 grunts)

[09] Trollkin Champions (4 grunts)

[09] Trollkin Champions (4 grunts)

[03]  >> Skaldi Bonehammer

[09] Trollkin War Wagon

[09] Trollkin War Wagon

[03] Gudrun the Wanderer

[09] Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (9 grunts)

Another theme force, another fantastic list. This one is surprisingly fast, is full of weapon masters, everything is really hard to kill and it has a lot of ranged threat as well. Great complement to the first list as it really does play quite differently. The first list is more defensive and attritiony, this one wants to get to get up in your face and does so quickly. I suppose the only surprise to some would be that Borka only has one beast. He only really needs one, the mauler stays back and is there almost entirely for his animus. Troll infantry is good enough that quite a few lists scrape by with only one beast.

GENCON stats

Saw this and as a stats nerd wanted to jot down a few thoughts about it.

Stuff that I expected:

Warmachine is still outperforming hordes. Mostly because they have more options. Warmachine factions are able to build more varied lists in a multilist format and have slightly more broken stuff that has managed to slip through from MKI. It's not a big difference but you see it whenever you see data for these things. It's also more noticeable at higher points and this was a higher points con than normal.

Menoth dominated. They are the best jack running faction and the meta is shifting towards jacks. They've always been top tier but the new releases are helping them edge up even further. Still 7/16 players who qualified for masters (so 7 of the top 16 players for the weekend) were menoth players, that's a lot. They also took out masters.

Trollbloods did well. They can crack ARM and though they are the most infantry heavy of the hordes factions their infantry is generally high ARM not high DEF so the new infantry removal stuff doesn't work so well on them.

Circle did well. They struggle a bit to kill colossals but with circle's tricks they don't need to.

Legion did not do particularly well. Not particularly bad either but Legion is generally a top tier faction. That said they don't really have a way to kill colossals and stuff that can kill colossals will obliterate Legion heavies, I expected them to drop down a bit in the standings.

Mercs, Minions and Ret still struggled. Mercs are actually really really good at low points. At 35 points Mercs are top tier. At 50 they struggle, most events were 50 points and masters was 75 points. Minions and Ret just lack options.

Skorne did average. Skorne is a hard faction to get around but the top skorne players do win a fair amount of tournaments (unlike Cygnar which has not won a major tournament in mkii).

Stuff that was different than I expected:

Cygnar did terrible. Cygnar normally struggles a little bit, the faction used to have some problems that I believe the stormwall goes a long way to solving. I expected a lot better out of Cygnar, will need to wait for more results to see if Cygnar are still going to struggle or if the Stormwall really does push them into the top tier.

Khador did really well. Cryx did well too (though not quite as good). I had expected both factions to drop down the standings now that the meta was shifting towards jacks. These two factions are the infantry factions, I expected the amount of stuff out there to deal with infantry would push them down a notch. Again it might just be that the new stuff hasn't made it into everyone's lists yet.

The player who came second played a mountain king. At masters. At the final at masters. It was Flanzer so I don't know if that counts. I want to go through his lists (I have them) when I have time.

Stuffs

So there is a couple of things. Today I actually had some free time and so I wasted it on warmachine (as I tend to do). Noticed some discussion on the Krakken, a few of the top Cryx players have been saying that it is better than they had originally thought. The thing they found is that you don't need to load it up with corpse tokens, for example with Asphyxious1, put scything touch on it and it is P+S 20, put parasite on what you want it to kill and it is P+S 23, get a bane thrall on the target and it is P+S 25. With Asphyxious3 it can get Scything touch (P+S 20) carnage (+2 to hit) and Mobility (which increases speed so works with colossals). You have hex blast so you can remove any upkeeps on your target and of course you can still take Bane Thralls and the other cheaty stuff cryx has. eSkarre is still a great caster for the Krakken too, she has an armour buff which is especially awesome on something with as many armour boxes as the Krakken (more than the Stormwall has). She has seas of fate which lets her and her warjacks boost after rolling (awesome ability). She can't feat on the Krakken but she can feat on any Titans, Dire Trolls or Warpwolf Stalkers that happen to be within charge range of it. And if your opponent has a colossal you can put another warjack you have feated on between their colossal and the Krakken and they will not be able to get to it. (though with the krakkens 4" threat it will still be able to attack).

I don't know who else uses FCU army builder for warmachine but PP have asked them to stop sharing details of theme forces so the creator has removed theme forces and left a little tutorial on how to create them under the current system. I understand in version 3 there will be a more user friendly mechanic for making theme forces but for now its not especially difficult to edit the XML files but it does take time. I've finished Cygnar, Trollbloods and Legion and done a fair chunk of Mercs. Minions is next and then I'll move onto factions I don't play. No time frame on this, I don't have a lot of time at the moment. Anyway link to finished files is:

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BzsN5VV3K7CuM0FNdEY2NVVCRlU/edit

Just click on use custom contracts, change the location to another folder (so it does not get overridden when update the program) and copy these files over the existing files.

Lastly I've resolved to take two casters I have that I have not played before, the list is:
Trollbloods:
Grim Angus
Epic and Prime Grissel

Legion:
Rhyas

Cygnar:
Nemo3
Caine1
Darius
(I played Caine1 and Darius in Mk1 but they were pretty different back then. Darius got hit with the nerf stick pretty damn hard)

Mercenaries:
Bartolo Montador (waiting for Galleon for this one, he kind of blows at the moment but will be almost top tier when the Galleon comes out)

Gators:
Calaban

Almost universally these are casters that I picked up in batch sales on ebay that I don't particularly like (at least in theory-machine) and 2 new casters I picked up recently (Nemo3 and Grissel2). That said Darius and Grissel1 have made their way back into favour as I recently saw how good Grissel1's theme force is (I had wrote it off as it had no heavy warbeasts) and Darius might be good with the Stormwall and I know a lot of good players swear by Grim Angus so I will have to try him eventually.

EDIT: Had an idea for Rhyas. Uses the Proteus too which is another model I really wanted to be good but which isn't. Nice to find a way to use him both of them. Not sure it will work though, basing a list around two of the crappiest models available to Everblight may not be my most genius plan.

EDIT2: I've played Darius quite a bit in MKII. Was I asleep when I wrote this?