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?