Mammoth Conversion

Mammoth Conversion there is a small story about it at the link.

Epic Asphixious Conversion

Mammoth model

Looks Mammothy. Sadly I don't see myself getting the archangel, at least for the moment but the Galleon is coming, he and Stormwall can be friends. I could even take both in a two caster game, Bart Galleon and Haley Stormwall. I know that seems like the worst thing ever but think about the smile on my face.

New Stuff

http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/units/tempest-blazers - Cygnar gun mage cavalry, not sure if I'm sold on the sculpt.
http://privateerpress.com/hordes/gallery/minions/warlocks/midas - Minion warlock (pigs). Rask looks awesome. Midas may end up being really good too.
http://privateerpress.com/hordes/gallery/skorne/units/cataphract-incindiarii - Skorne heavy ranged infantry. Looks very interesting.
http://privateerpress.com/hordes/gallery/circle-orboros/warlocks/morvahna-the-dawnshadow - Epic Morvhana. She's riding a goat. I like the model. No clue on the rules.
http://privateerpress.com/hordes/gallery/skorne/solos/mortitheurge-willbreaker - Skorne solo.

Wild speculation o'clock

Tempest Blazers - it says they have rune shot but from the little fluff blurb it doesn't sound like it is the gun mages push abilities. I would guess they have blessed and magical weapons. Sad face, unless they also ignore stealth then I will be smiling again.
Midas - Guessing he will collect corpse tokens and have Revive or a feat that brings dead models back. It also says he is able to consume his foes to gain their power and knowledge so I'm assuming a unique spell or ability there. 
Incindiarii - a ranged unit with medium bases. Every model that far released with that description has been disappointing but sounds like they will have high ARM. I do predict RAT 5. I also predict that PP will have learned from the other medium based ranged units and make them good.
Morvahna - Light cavalry warlock. That alone is stupidly exciting. She has the ability to run away after shooting off spells built in. Sounds like she has a unique ability to do with hurting friendly models. I have no idea on her abilities here but the fact that she is light cavalry already makes her awesome.
Mortiheurge - Sounds like Influence and another ability. Influence is OK but not spectacular, though he sounds like a 2 point solo so he couldn't be too ball breaking. 

Kreoss3

Nearly a week after he was released Kreoss3 is finally up on the PP site
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/the-protectorate-of-menoth/warcasters/intercessor-kreoss
I have it on good authority that he is a lot of fun to play.
The Galleons release date has been pushed back to February. I think you may see me playing with a Galleon that looks suspiciously like a Stormwall before then.

Assassination

List Building
Every assassination list has a core of models that are required to get the assassination off. A good example is Siege. You rush up rangers for +2 to hit, move up, drop foxhole to get line of sight to the caster, feat, shoot twice (second shot coming from Reinholdt), eiryss shoots off any focus on your caster and then you plough all your other boostable guns into the caster as well, generally a Stormwall, a Defender marshalled or controlled by jr. The most important thing in most assassination lists is a DEF debuff or hit buff, knocking down the opposing caster is best but failing that you want something else that will make the caster easier to hit as that is generally the biggest obstacle in killing a caster. The other thing you need is threat range. You are't going to be able to walk over a beast/jack and headbut your opponents caster until you have fought through their entire army. They are going to be keeping their caster somewhere far away behind their models where they think their caster is safe. You need something that can reach out and touch a caster from a massive distance, the longer the better. Anything that allows you to move your opponents caster is tremendously valuable, particularly if you can move that caster without rolling (like for example Hellmouth). You can pull casters out of terrain, away from cover, out of auras (or move the defensive Aura) and it can make a very big difference.

Here is a circle assassination list from Warmachine Weekend (Craig Conroy).

Krueger the Stormlord

• Woldguardian
• Woldguardian
• Woldwarden
• Woldwarden

Druid Stoneward and Woldstalkers
Druid Stoneward and Woldstalkers
Shifting Stones

• Stone Keeper

Shifting Stones
Gallows Grove
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

The important thing here is that Kruegar has telekinesis. Both Woldwardens can use geomancy to cast that spell for one fury and then Krugar can channel it through the gallows grove 3 times (or twice boosted), this lets you move things out of the way so you can get to the caster and move the caster up and turn the caster around so you gain +2 to hit. You also have Eiryss there to shoot off any focus or defensive buffs on the caster. The other thing this list has that is important is two units of shifting stones. One of which will be on the edge of advance deployment and the other around the Woldguardians. The Woldguardian can then be teleported to have the back edge of his base just within the stones and then teleported again by the advance deploy unit for 20" of teleportation shenanigans + 10" of telekinesis shenanigans. The woldguardian is a great assassin because as soon as it hits your caster is knocked down and the rest of the attacks hit automatically. You can also see that if this attempt fails you've given your opponent a free heavy beast and you don't have your other beasts in position to strike or go for scenario since they moved in order to cast telekinesis. There are two Woldgaurdians in the list but only one can participate in the assassination so if you are waiting till turn 2 or 3 to assassinate (which doesn't always happen) you can use the heavy as bait.

Playing an Assassination list
Know your threat ranges. That has to be the biggest key, know how close your opponent needs to be before you can kill him. As above you need a massive threat range and this normally puts the turn 1 assassination on the table. Ask your opponent haw far they are moving their caster. Know exactly how far they need to move to allow you to assassinate. Know the odds of the assassination, against what DEF or what ARM will your assassination start to become less likely? If you can't use one of your key pieces for some reason how does that change your odds. If you are playing the Siege assassination list and your opponent has blocked off your rangers this turn but is within the 19" you need to get the assassination off you need to know whether you can still make that assassination without the rangers or whether you need to throw away some models to allow you to reposition for the assassination next turn.

It's a different way of thinking about resources too, when you are playing assassination the only resources of your opponents that count are those that can stop you from successfully assassinating and the only resources of yours that count are those that you need to assassinate. The fact that you are thinking about the game this way can allow you to make very good trades that also look advantageous to your opponent. Generally you want their caster to spend resources, be on less focus or fury, you may also need to bait out key pieces like Mulg or a Bronzeback (protective fit and counter charge respectively). You can use things you don't need for the assassination to bait those models out or tempt your opponent in to spending focus or fury.

Charge/slam your own models. It's pretty basic positioning advice but if you don't know it you won't get assassinations to work.


Playing Against an Assassination List
Keep your caster back. Nothing protects quite as well as distance. Be aware of non-standard moves that extend threat range. I have seen a caster stay just outside of 19 inches away from siege only to have a heavy push him an inch and bring him into assassination range. Know the threat range of the assassination attempt and try to stop your opponent from being able to access key pieces. Be aware of how the assassination is going to come at you, there are tricks you can use to stop it. Caine2 will struggle to kill you if you are in cover and he can't use his rangers. If you opponent is relying on pushes to get the job done you can armlock with your beasts/jacks that have open fists (neither model in an armlock can be pushed). If you are playing Magnus2 you can have a Vanguard headbut him every turn (still love that idea). There are always ways to take the assassination out of the game, most assassination lists rely on you not seeing the assassination coming or underestimating the threat range of it. Camp focus or fury. As much as possible. Most importantly kill the threats to your caster as quickly as you can so you can get your caster back into the game. Most casters don't like being in your deployment zone for the entire battle.

I'll finish off with a list of assassination casters (almost certainly not exhaustive) and how they accomplish their assassination so you can be aware. I've included threat ranges, these are standard threat ranges (measured from the caster unless otherwise noted), you can increase them with things like push or slipstream. I've also listed the key pieces to make the assassination work so you know what you need to kill or otherwise take out of the picture to be safe. I'm also not counting casters who have a very good assassination run (Caine1, Lylyth2) but who's lists are generally attrition lists until the assassination opens up. These are casters you often see in builds that do nothing but gun for your caster right from the get go.

Kreoss1 - He'll knockdown your army and your caster and then shoot you to death (your army no longer blocks LOS).
Threat Range: 22"
Key pieces: Redeemers, choir, vassals,

Krueger2 - Telekinesis + stone double jump. In tier (as above) it will be a teleported WoldGuardian (but you gain Eiryss), out of tier it will be a primaled Ghetorix or Stalker (which is better but no eiryss).
Threat Range: 20" Teleport + Telekinesis.
Key pieces: 2xShifting Stones, Heavy beast with auto knockdown or reach (not colossal), Eiryss or Gorax.

Cassius - Combination of Hellmouth, often double hellmouth, curse of the shadows and the stone double teleport (Stalker with Primal). Don't feel safe just because the tree has no souls, he can kill his own guys to load up as he pulls off the souls during his activation not he control phase.
Threat Range: 19" (to hellmouth target within 3" of warcaster) 20" double teleport.
Key peices: 2xShifting Stones, Heavy beast with reach, Gorax, bone grinders.

Lylyth1 - Feat gives an additional dice on attack rolls, she can boost on top, shoot you, auto hit with parasite and then shoot again. Then Typhon can gunfighter charge and spray through to your caster from insane distance. She does need LOS to your caster but with SPD 7 and slipstream she can usually get it. Typhon does not require LOS.
Threat Range: 19" (21" Slipstream which she normally has).
Key pieces: Typhon, Seraph

Rhyas - Feat lets you place B2B with the first thing you hit, Rapport makes your scythean hit very accurately (MAT 8) and you can massacre it for another attack or wraithbane it to avoid defensive spells.
Threat Range: 4" from anything with 11" of a scythean (up to 20" with a colossal or battle engine).
Key pieces: Proteus or shepherds, Scythean, Nephlim Soldier or Naga Nightlurker

Seige - Rangers run into position to give a RAT boost, Siege drops foxhole to clear LOS, feats  to increase damage output and shoots with a lot of boostable guns.
Threat Range: 19"
Key pieces: Rangers (only need 1), Defenders or Stormwall, Siege, Reinholdt, squire, Eiryss2

Caine2 - Rangers run into position to give a RAT boost and caine shoots your caster to death himself using his feat (he can kill a lot of casters without the feat too). In his assassination lists (he's also a great attrition caster) you'll also see gun mages and an Avenger to knock stuff down or push them out of the way.
Threat Range: 19"
Key peices: Squire, rangers, reinholdt, Avenger, gun mages, trencher master gunner, Eiryss2.

Makeda2 - Molik Khan. Leash, Road to War and Rush or Train wreck. he can move around stuff in the way and still make it to your caster with 5 fury (initials required for side step) and all boosted attack rolls from the feat as a POW 15 weaponmaster.
Threat Range: 22" (from MK)
Key Pieces: Molik Khan, Beast Handlers, Gladiator or Bronzeback.

Asphixious2 - It's the feat. You can still curse with your temporarily returned to life Tartarus. Again it needs LOS (but from 3" from asphixious after he has charged) and a charge lane but you are bringing 10 guys back to life, they can't all make it to the caster anyway so you can easily clear out a lane.
Threat Range: 24"
Key pieces: Tartarus, Bane Knights, Bane Thralls. Special note here, killing them does not prevent him from using them to assassinate you, you need to remove them from play. Especially Tartarus. Even this doesn't work as if you start doing this an assassination minded player will just kill his own stuff so he can feat it on you and that still works. Really you need something that prevents charges or takes you caster to very high DEF.

Vlad2 - Feats on Kayazy Eliminators and regular kayazy who killstroke. They charge straight through your army ignoring models and hit your caster at MAT 12 POW 14, 2 attacks, they can boost using your caster's focus or combo strike for POW 18 and two of them gain an additional dice on attack and damage discard lowest. The regular Kayazy have only 1 attack at MAT 12 but POW 15 and can all do the extra dice discard lowest spell. Oh and they are DEF 20 after they finish attacking.
Threat Range: 13.5" with 2 attacks on the caster or 15.5" with one attack, measured from the eliminators
Key pieces: Kayazy Eliminators

Magnus2 - It's a bad seeds list (though I believe this can be done outside of his theme forces and even with Magnus1). Renegades are the key. With rangers and the trencher master gunner you are RAT 10 and if the first shot hits the caster is knocked down (you may then be able to arc Calamity on to them as Renegades are also an arc node, if not Calamity then Obliteration). Renegades have arcing fire so ignore intervening models not within 1" and will happily shoot those models anyway to knockdown most casters. You then hit them with the other Renegade boosting damage (pow 16) and a boosted damage defender shot.
Threat Range: 19" (from renegades)
Key pieces: Rangers, Renegades, Defender, Trencher Master Gunner.

Ravyn - Known as "snipe feat go". Ravyn will feat to giver her mage hunter strike force boosted attacks and put snipe on them for extra range. They advance deploy, move 6" and shoot 16" meaning that if your caster moves 3" or more from the edge of your deployment they will pretty much auto die. They are only POW 10 attacks but they ignore anything that adds to defence or ARM and there are 11 of them boosted to hit. They also ignore LOS so you can't hide. You have to run.
Threat Range: 22" from MHSF
Key Pieces: Mage Hunter Strike Force

A lot of the best assassination casters also make very good (I would argue better) attrition casters but that's a topic for another post. Also there are finally pictures of Kreoss3 available, Alzer on the PP forums bought the model and assembled it.

Attrition, Assassination and Scenario

I'll start by talking about Kreoss3 (Threeos?). The model releases today but literally the only picture of it is this one from Matt Wilsons's twitter.

Weird. 

EDIT: As of 4:15pm still no pictures of the model anywhere on the internet. The Menoth forums are pretty funny at the moment, quite a few people have the model but no one has posted a photo of it together yet. 

There are really only two ways to win a game of warmachine: assassination and scenario but there is a third way to approach the game and that is attrition. This post is going to be part of a series of posts, I'm going to go into detail about the three styles of play, I want to organise my thoughts on the subject as much as I want to share them. This first post I want to give a broad definition of the three different types of playstyle so you can understand why they are different.

Assassination

An assassination playstyle is focussed solely on killing the opponents caster. Generally in order to get an assassination to work you need to sacrifice models the turn before (you often have to bait out other models or make a caster spend their resources) and then if you fail an assassination the models you used for that will generally die too. You can generally build an assassination with a high chance of success but if you fail you have lost the game. At the very least your games are quicker. Distances are very important for assassination players. If I ask you to tell me how far your caster moves turn 1 (something I am allowed to do) there is a minimum number I'm looking for, anything more than that and the assassination is on. There are quite a few casters who will assassinate on the first turn if they have gone second. This is really not my playstyle but it is a lot of fun. Probably not so much fun for the other guy.

Scenario

There are some similarities in playing for scenario to playing for assassination. The biggest is that you are willing to throw away your own models without killing things. In an assassination game you do that to increase the odds of assassinating, in a scenario game you do that in order to score a point. Invariably if you are playing for a scenario win you will lose the attrition war. You almost always sacrifice the alpha strike in order to control the zone and often you're using significant resources just to hold a point when they could be killing enemy models. Attrition players will often let you score a point in order to kill more of your army rather than wasting models contesting. Control casters are particularly good at scenario, anything that allows an opponent to slow down your models, or stop them from moving to or to allow you to move your opponents models is huge for scenario. While I can play assassination and do really enjoy it my attempts to play scenario style lists have thus far quickly degenerated into attrition. When I have won by scenario it's been because my attrition list is also good at scenario play (this may be why I have problems with Grim Angus).

Attrition

This is the way I generally play. To play attrition you need to keep in mind that you need to win via assassination or scenario so you need to keep those options on the table, you list must be able to do as least one of those. Generally though what you are doing is looking each turn to concentrate your force, remove important models and stop your opponent from doing as much damage as possible on their counter attack.

Galleon Model Is Up

http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/mercenaries/colossals/galleon

It looks a little off to me. I think it's the harpoon. I like the gun ports, and the claw looks what you'd attach to a giant robot to load cargo. Might also be the thing on top of its head.

Archangel

Another photo from twitter. It's so pretty, terrified it will suck (though people have figured out how to make even the mountain king work in some lists). This comes from Matt Wilson so expect an insider with the archangel or something similar to pop up on the site soon. 

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.

Judicator

Fully assembled this time. It might be as pretty as the conquest.

I thought I'd elaborate a little on what I think of it. It's got 60 damage boxes, ARM 19 and Menoth have some ARM buffing spells (defenders ward, inviolable resolve) so it can get up to ARM 21. Menoth have the choir (so you can stop your opponent either shooting at it (no Gorman black oil) or casting spells at it (no crippling grasp) or give it +2 to attack and damage. That gives it two RAT 7 sprays (that ignore nearly all defensive bonuses and allow you to shoot screened models) at POW 14, it puts the blast damage of the 4 AOEs this thing puts out a turn at POW 9, it picks up a focus for free and perhaps most importantly when it starts swinging its fists in close combat the choir takes it to MAT 8 P+S 22. With a Vassal of Menoth it can take an extra swing with those fists or drop two more AOEs or another flame thrower burst. I don't think you can argue that the thing is bad, even if it's main guns the POW 14 (16 with choir) which scatter an additional AOE have inaccurate (-4 on attack rolls). With the choir it's back to -2 (or RAT 3) and Dougal MacNaile it's back to even (RAT 5) and he lets you reroll the secondary scatter if it isn't hitting anything.

That said it can't use enliven, if you haven't played much against Menoth you may not have had the chance to grow to hate enliven. First time you damage a jack it can make a full advance and not be targeted by free strikes, if you don't arm lock it or something along those lines it will simply walk away from the thing that charged it after the first hit (not as good as Admonition). If you shoot it with something to damage it and take away enliven it can often walk out of range or behind other models/obstacles. It comes from the Vassal of Menoth so there are two in pretty much every list. The flame throwers and fists mean it has to get forwards but it is trivially easy to slow down a colossal. Put a cheap model or two in front of it and you have to task shooting from the rest of you army to destroy it and the colossal base blocks off a lot of shooting. Cheap tarpit units can hold up a colossal very easily (trampling is hard with a large base). This is not an issue for the Stormwall which wants to stand and shoot but makes life difficult for the more melee centric colossals. While they can do this to a heavy jack as well due to the base size you need less models to block in the colossal and it's worth twice as many points. Lastly Menoth jacks are really good. The Reckoner is probably the best non-character heavy jack in the game and the rest of their jacks are not far behind. Considering you get 4 choir in a min unit (so that's 4 jacks you can effect) you can often get more out of taking two heavies than taking a Judicator. Menoth don't generally have a big focus problem either, with wracks and reclaimers getting extra focus is not especially difficult.

To summarise my opinion is that it is good but that I think you can do better in most lists (in particular outside of epic Feora) by taking smaller warjacks.

Menoth Colossal and Ships in the Night

First pretty pictures:

I don't know why they don't have a completed one, clearly if it's being painted then the model has been finalised. Maybe the painting just didn't get finished in time for GENCON but I doubt it.

Ships in the Night:

Tier 1	Army only consists of: Cryx Non-Character Warjacks, Black Ogrun Boarding Party, Revenant units, Skarlock Thall, Warwitch Sirens, Undead solos with 'Jack Marshal (Iron Lich Overseer). Benefits: Non-character Sea Dog units, Freebooter warjacks, and Mariner warjacks these are now friendly Cryx models.
Tier 2	Army includes 1+ Revenant units Benefits: Revenant units/models gain advance move.
Tier 3	Army includes 3+ bonejacks with pathfinder or flight. Benefits: Bonejacks with pathfinder/flight (currently Scavenger and Stalker), gain advance deploy.
Tier 4	Army includes 3+ or more Sea Dog Units Benefits: Reduces the cost of Sea Dog units.

It's another weird one. No solos for the sea dogs and no Walls (monkey guy - he would make the sea dog unit a character unit). I still don't think it's terrible, the mariner offers you some shooting that cryx really lacks and the freebooter is a 6 point monster against anything that has been knocked down and pretty focus efficient (they run in Skarre's battlegroup). The sea dogs become cryx models so benefit from the feat and Skarre's spells. They'll still tear up most infantry they have just lost their defensive tricks and the ability to tear up heavy infantry. It's not a super competitive list but I think it will work.

Archangel

More from Matt Wilson (one of the founders of PP), work in progress painting the archangel. 

According to Will Shick (director of Business at PP) - I saw this in person today and sweet zombie Jesus its amazing!

New Stuff on PP site

Lots of new models are up:
Khador Demolisher - Part of a new multi part plastic kit like the Avenger (Cygnar). Also Makes Devastator and Spriggan jacks.
Retribution Hyperion Colossal
General Ossrum - New Rhulic (dwarf) mercenary caster. Like the model, like the rules for this one.
And the Assault commandos are now available in a full unit.

Spriggan still looks ridiculous, which is sad because it's one of khador's better non-character jacks. Though the Conquest is probably the best looking model in the game and is very good too so I'm limited in my sympathy. I'm not sure about the new devastator, it's more characterful, you can see where the armoured shell rule comes from but I think I like the shape of the old arms better.

Trollblood Gargantuan

Drool
http://privateerpress.com/community/privateer-insider/insider-4-19-2012

Part of the diorama at Adepticon