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.