Crippled System Movie Pain Train

I thought I'd post that their Robocop review is up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUlfTGpUaI0

Eiryss2 is a Boss

After a couple of games with my Mercs after playing mostly Circle and Legion this year I'm realising how much I missed her. It's not just the upkeep removal she does so many things and I don't think a lot of new players see the full potential of her. A lot of times I see her run forwards, ping off an upkeep that's not particularly important and then die. I decided to try and write a primer on her for newer players or at least players who are new to her.

Read the Card

Almost every rule on Eiryss' card has the potential to win games and there are a lot of them. Lets go through her abilities.

Abilities
Stat Line - Mat 6 with two melee attacks. You should never be using them. Her DEF and RAT are massive and she actually has not terrible ARM taking into account those things. With ARM 12 and 5 boxes she can often survive unboosted blast damage. Really though you want to avoid even that. Lastly she is RNG 12 and SPD 7 so without any other range enhancers or movement shenanigans she can attack a target up to 19" away.

Advance Deployment - This can be a trap.

Fearless, Pathfinder, Stealth, Camouflage (increases her already ridiculous DEF even higher, she's DEF 20 in a forest, 22 behind a wall and you have to be within 5" to have the shot).

Arcane Interference - Her key ability. When she hits a model with a ranged attacks she removes - upkeep spells, animi and focus points. She also disrupts jacks she hits.

Sniper - She can do an auto point of damage and picks the columns that the damage goes into.

Technological Interference - This one can screw over bad players but is actually a great offensive ability. Non Myrmidon (Ret) Warjacks within 5" of Eiryss cannot be allocated focus or channel spells. That last one is particularly great when combined with:

Whiplash - If you miss her with a spell the model casting the spell is hit instead.

Deployment
First and most importantly advance deployment here is not a tool to get Eiryss further up the table. You should not be using Eiryss to buy table position or to vanguard your force. Instead use the advance deployment rule to place Eiryss away from your opponents best tools to remove her and across from the models she needs to affect.

Have a look at your opponents caster card. You'll generally see very obvious targets for their upkeep spells. Defenders Ward is probably going on Tiberion or the Avatar or maybe the unit of Cetrati, Admonition is going on your opponents most dangerous heavy (at least in the early game), Iron Flesh on those winter guard. Eiryss needs to be in a position where she can knock off the upkeep you are going to struggle the most with on the turn you it will matter the most. Or in a position where she can remove said upkeep and remain safe. Generally you want to look for terrain for her to hide in. Forests are ideal because they can completely block LOS to her and she can easily move through them to get LOS to the model she needs to shoot at. Buildings or other obstructions are the next best bet. You want to completely block LOS if you can because your opponent will put a lot of effort into removing her.

Importantly KEEP HER AWAY FROM YOUR JACKS. Remember she has a 5" bubble around her in which (unless you are playing Retribution) you cannot allocate focus to your warjacks.

Using Her Abilities

1. Remove enemy upkeeps on your own models. Crippling Grasp, Fear of God, Icy Grip, Blood Mark etc can be devastating however Eiryss can remove the upkeep allowing you to play normally. However be careful doing this to your warjacks because they will still suffer disruption. 
2. Remove enemy upkeeps on enemy models. The reason this is a seperate catagory is because to do this you will generally have to expose Eiryss. She can easily shoot the furthest back member of your unit to allow them to charge despite Fear of God but shooting even the closest enemy model in a unit will still generally mean putting her in a position where she may die. So before activating Eiryss ask yourself - Can she do this and stay safe, is she likely to be shot at or engaged and if so is the removal of this upkeep worth the risk of losing her. If not then keep her back and weight for a better opportunity. A lot of times there is one important thing Eiryss will need to do in a game, shooting a critical upkeep off a heavy/colossal, in those games she needs to stay safe but threatening right up until you are ready to deliver the killing blow. After which it is less important. You can lose Eiryss if it means your opponent loses their colossal.
3. Disrupt enemy jacks. Some of the best use I have gotten out of Eiryss has been in destroying one enemy heavy and then having her disrupt the other one to ensure my models remain safe. Again since you are shooting at an enemy model make sure that the risk is worth the reward.
4. Put her within 5" of multiple enemy jacks to deny focus. The no focus allocation bubble she produces is actually rather large. It's generally very difficult for your opponent to stop you from getting multiple jacks if they have them. This will almost certainly get Eiryss killed. It is however sometimes worth it. If your opponent is playing a high focus caster with a number of warjacks (or perhaps a colossal or two) then sometimes Eiryss can buy you almost a timewalk. 
5. Knock focus off a warcaster. This ability will win you games but generally only happens late game. This is one of her most powerful abilities and it requires you to keep her alive to the late game. It's one of the reasons that you should be playing Eiryss conservatively. Increasing worth late game is a theme with Eiryss, getting the most out of her means playing her very conservatively until you hit the point where she can do the most damage. Watch out for shield guards or sac pawn and again don't waste the ability if that's the only attack you are getting on the caster. Use it at the start of an assassination run.
6. As a scenario piece. If you are playing her right she will often be alive at the later stages of a game. This is important because this is when the scenario very strongly comes into play. Eiryss is DEF 16 which makes her very difficult to remove and SPD 7 and has pathfinder and stealth. There are a large number of games where I have put Eiryss into the zone late game and my opponent has been unable to spare the attacks to remove her. Tips for this run, get her into your opponents back arcs (no aiming and less models can reach her than if they could charge). Abuse terrain in the zone, abuse stealth and whiplash by staying as far as you can from enemy models. She is also very good at clearing that last enemy model from the zone. 
7. Abuse Sniper. She can pick columns and do an auto point of damage. I almost didn't put this one on here but it is something I do fairly often. Often you will find yourself leaving a model with 1 point left either in total or in a vital system, generally this is a larger base so Eiryss can shoot at it from behind a wall of your own models and her RAT is high enough that she often does not care about shooting into combat. That or she can pick out a model in shield wall (or just kill an important high DEF solo, though that's her RAT not sniper). She can kill the last model contesting your zone or the only model your opponent has B2B with their flag. This is the crappiest use you will get out of Eiryss. Don't do it unless you are confident you can do it and be safe. 

Playing Against Her

Get her off the table as soon as possible. She becomes more and more powerful as the game progresses. This is often easier said than done. Shooting AOEs at her is a good start, you'll miss (stealth) but 1/3 she gets caught in the scatter and you just boost blast damage. Magic Bullet and other abilities that jump or auto hit can be useful but they require your opponent to put her in the game. They do nothing if she is standing behind a forest just outside of your opponents deployment zone. If I have the totem hunter in my list killing her becomes his purpose in life. Sometimes though you just have to suck it up and wait for her to pop out.

Do not shoot spells at her. With stealth and whiplash and her high DEF there is a super high chance that spell is coming back into your casters face. Don't send jacks after her. Be aware of her DEF, if you run to engage her do it with something that has a danger of killing her with the free strike. One MAT 5 or 6 model engaging her is not going to cut it. Even if your opponent can't free up something else in their entire army to kill that one guy she will generally survive the free strike.

Bait her out. Put a juicy upkeep in her range but out of range of the rest of most other things. I have for example run a unit of bloodtrackers with regrowth on them straight at her. It hurt to recast it but I killed Eiryss and lost only 2 bloodtrackers that turn. Had my opponent held her back and waited until he could have killed half the unit that would have been much more painful.

Don't forget where she is. Eiryss will spend most the game hiding behind a terrain feature waiting for her opportunity. Often this means you can't physically see her. Make a note or mark it if you think it will be a problem. It's a mistake I've seen very good players make so don't be afraid to put something down on the table so you remember.

I think that's it. The most important thing with using any piece is just to play it. Put her on the table, get a feel for using her and the different styles of using her. Play against her and see what is the most effective way to remove her and see where she is the most help and where she causes the most problem for your opponent (or for you for that matter). 

Borka2

BEEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I like Bears)

also doompig for those who missed it:

I also like Fellblades

Ramblings

I'm currently writing an article on playing against newer players, there is a little bit of advice for the battlebox level (i.e. take Deneghra1 out of your battle box, put Asphyxious1 in) but mostly it's about moving them beyond that up to regular play level. At that level you are still trying to learn the basic rules of the game and there are things you can do to facilitate that and things you can do to make it harder. At the same time you want players to learn about the army you are playing too and they won't do that if you take an army of Stormblades and Darius. No idea when I will get through that, I am also working on some articles aimed at beginner players on how to use some of the pieces I see most regularly misplayed (Eiryss2, Aiyana and Holt, Boomhowler and the ones I have on the list at the moment). I also have some thoughts on breaking the mould, why you should and why you should not.

I wanted to mention for Ed that the Goreshade sculpt is up: 

http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cryx/warcasters/goreshade-the-bastard-deathwalker

The turn around on that was much faster than I thought it would be but then again it's a metal model and PP issues with production have been mostly in plastic models. 

I have my swamp shamblers now and I have been playing the crap out of my pigs to see if I can get a Cryx match up out of them. So far... there is a lot of potential there but I am dying for more options. Some things:

Carver + Road hogs is amazing. Full boar and Mobility both add to speed so you move 9" back when you sprint. However Charge = 1 fury, Full Boar = 1 fury, Lightning Strike = 2 fury and that's all my fury, and I need fury in case I miss with the one melee attack this allows me to trigger sprint. That means I need another 9 point beast to do this trick with my first 9 point beast. It's not too bad, with a 10" spray I can spray with the first one and still cast lightning strike on hog2 so he gets some work done. Also Carver spends all his fury every turn, a decent assassination list will drop him or force me to ditch a lot of his tricks. 

Sturm and Drang also seem to have potential - With telekinesis I can do a similar trick and get Sturm and Drang way forwards to take advantage of Watcher since Cryx lacks a volume of guns. The problem here is that they don't have a damage buff. So if you need to play against a heavy with an ARM buff or a colossal without one you are just straight boned. I play double war hog and double slaughterhousers but you need either two war hogs or a war hog and a unit of slaughterhousers to kill a regular heavy without an ARM buff. 

Arcadius - I'm not sure this guy is a Cryx drop but I do want to say something about him. He has - threat extension and/or fury management (feat), a defensive buff and a damage buff - (Forced evolution) and offensive hit, damage and control spell (crippling grasp with +2") and heals the damage the stupid dials do to his beasts. He's awesome and 90% of what I see about him is that he is unplayable without an arc node. In the stupid caster poll (god I hate stupid caster polls) he was voted worst in faction. If you listen to Overload On Air Stu had some really good points about what makes a forum useful and what does not. I'd like to see that added as a sticky to the top of every PP forum. Also that it would help if you actually played the game in a competitive setting. Not everyone has to be competitive but if you want to talk about the competitiveness of models or give advice to that effect then yes, you do have to be playing competitively.

Edit: MenothJohn recently described the Indictor (the new Menoth jack) as situationally horseshit. This is now my official opinion. 

Guild Ball

A shout out to some UK people I haven't talked to in ages, they are starting up a kickstarter for their own game called Guild Ball.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1248312770/guild-ball-a-tabletop-medieval-football-game
My plan at the moment is to pick up two teams and see how much I like it. I will say some things - Mat Hart is one of the guys behind it and he is fastidious about models so I expect them to be quite good. These guys are warmachine players and I could see it in the rules, there is a lot of similar ideas in the rules set.

Anyway anyone interested check them out.

Chain Attack Live Stream

Just wanted to point out this:

http://www.twitch.tv/chainattacktrev

Chain attack are live streaming games, they have a chat window so you can criticise people in real time. I enjoy watching live stream games.

Also another crippled system video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U0RX04d7Sp8

I'll also mention that they are doing a review of Robocop (spoiler they hated it) which I will post for Ed when released. 

Clarification on Unit Subtypes

Today on the PP forums something happened:
http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?193102-Clarification-Request-DC-s-revelation-on-Subtypes&p=2541172&viewfull=1#post2541172

A clarification was issued on unit sub-types in order to have a clear and unambiguous and standard definition across all spells and abilities. If a unit contains a model with X subtype the unit has that subtype. So for example The Hunters Grim is a unit made up of Grim Angus and two pygs (Muggs and Krump). As Grim is a trollkin and Muggs and Krump are pygs the unit is both a trollkin unit and a pyg unit. This has some consequences so I'm going to go through them in no particular order:

Finn
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiFinn
Finn had two problems. Firstly he was a trencher and he suffered from the too many rules disease that they have. You have to pay for those all of those rules even if only a few are relevent. His second problem was that his two main abilities Veteran Leader and Desperate Pace only work on trenchers and trenchers are awful. However Cygnar's ranking officer is a trencher model so when you attach him to a trencher unit that unit can now be affected by desperate pace (but not Veteran Leader, Veteran Leader works on trencher models so it will only work on Murdoch, Desperate Pace works on trencher units so it will work on any unit which has Murdoch in it).

So first off don't take Murdoch + Finn if you weren't taking either of them before. 5 points for desperate pace is too many points. Where I think this is a good idea is if you were previously taking Murdoch and when you have a way to get Finn to do work. I think 3 points for desperate pace might be too many points (at least in general) but if you have a caster like Stryker2 or Haley1 where Finn can really benefit from their abilities I believe that the combination is a good one. I like Nyss Hunters, Forge Guard, Press Gangers and Alexia and the Risen for the combination. So far the only list I have even attempted to rewrite is Stryker2 but I see it being something I will use in other lists.

Shifting Stones and Morvahna1
If you add the UA to shifting stones the unit becomes a living unit so you can now regrow stones. The unfortunate part is that you will have to place the spell on the unit the turn before it becomes relevant and it takes the ability away from your front line unit. However I still believe it is a really strong tactic, you can take bloodtrackers and regrow them most turns but when you need to get quite aggressive with your unit of shifting stones and then as long as one is alive be able to place any destroyed stones and get a very good teleportation off. I had previously been putting a Woldwrath in my Morvahna1 list but I have now redone the list with Stalker/Gorax (and druids currently though I am not sure about them).

Hunters Grim
You can now client a Sorceror to the hunters grim. I'm not sure it is worth it but it will allow you to remove any upkeep spells from your warlock.

Rhoven and Honour Guard
These guys are now allowed in any theme force that allows exemplar units even if not specifically named. I can't think of any good ones that do that but it's still a change.

Alexia and the Risen
I got nothing here, I can't think of any spells/abilities that work on living models/units other than regrowth but since this is the main other unit that has two different subtypes I'll whack them here anyway and update if I figure out anything.

Charsaug - Scoreboard

League Points

Opportunists
Harry 29
Me 28
Ed 24
Theo 6

Purists
Graham 26
Uli 7


Special notes - This league will be extended through April, double all the time periods.
Opportunist Ritual 2 is being changed to turn up and play every guild day of the league.

Also note: there are hobby points:

Paint a solo or lesser warbeast 1
Paint a unit (up to 4 models) 2
Paint a unit (5 or more models) 3
Paint a light warjack or warbeast 2
Paint a heavy warjack or warbeast 3
Paint a huge-based model 4
Paint a warcaster or warlock 2

Kromac - Blood Trackers

First my event has been posted:
http://www.thehallofheroes.com.au/event_details.php?event_code=299
Should be the funnest.

I think I'm ready to make a determination on them.

Strengths:
The list is a lot stronger in scenario. It's a lot more flexible, the blood trackers can jam, screen or shoot and reform back. In order to be relevent in scenario they end up being a bit of a melee unit which they can do.

Weaknesses:
No magic attacks. Cryx has a lot of incorporeal stuff and while I still have the pureblood having to wraithbane is incredibly painful because it means that I cannot sprint. Also you are forced to make a choice, whether you want the scenario presence or whether you want to kill models because you can't do both. Also the list is less good against heavies, even with prey. The theoretical damage output is the same or better with the bloodtrackers but the 3" less range is important because your opponent can and will put other models in the way. You have to choose to prey those models and be able to kill them or be trying MAT 6 POW 9s on models that engage/block off the bloodtrackers to get shots at the heavy you want to kill.

Conclusion:
Blood trackers are a great option if you want a Kromac list you can drop against almost anyone, however as a Morvahna2 pair I want to kill heavies and Cryx so I'm going to have to learn the Woldstalker list (BOOO!).

I still intend to try the double winter argus and Skinwalkers lists as generalist lists and give my opinion on how they match up with the bloodtracker list as a generalist list. I also still intend to play the bloodtracker list with Kromac just not as a Morvahna pair. I think it makes quite a good Commanders Crucible package.