Woldwrath!

 I told you it'd be coming!  It's been a busy week but I finally got the Woldwrath assembled!  It actually didn't take that long to assemble and was probably a bit easier than the Stormwall, but it took a while for me because I've been busy working on wedding stuff with the fiancee, in between planning out Cygnar lists.  At any rate, he's here now!  The only problem is that his right-thumb is missing (it's in my fiancee's car - long story) so I can't begin the priming/painting process yet like I had wanted to.  Oh well, I can still get him primed tonight and maybe get him basecoated in time to show him off at the Battle Standard tomorrow... we'll see.

I still need a good Cygnar tournament list - Part 2

After Sunday's relatively poor tournament performance I've been pondering what kind of list I should build to make up for my poor performance against Warmachine armies.  My Sloan list has been perfected to deal with Hordes well and now I need to find something to deal with Warmachine, since pStryker and pHaley have let me down.  It's not just losing games with them that has been the problem, but an overall shift in the Warmachine meta, that leaves me needing to change up my list.  Like I said yesterday, it's less common these days to see high-DEF low-ARM models out there since everyone seems to have a solution to them these days.  No, the Warmachine meta has shifted to high-ARM models instead.  Suddenly it seems everyone is bringing infantry with Shield Wall and/or ARM 16+ to counteract all of that lightning out there these days.  Yesterday I shared a pNemo list that I think might be fun to try but today I have another list that I wish to share.

I still need a good Cygnar tournament list - Part 1

Okay so, as expected, yesterday's performance with pHaley was not so great.  Not so surprising, I guess, considering we have the "Andy Rule" on the Regular team after our first NETT appearance where Andy played eThagarosh for the first time and got rolled.  I posted some general results on the Steam-Powered Gamer facebook page.  I wasn't taking this tournament too seriously anyway, so it's not the end of the world that I broke the rule.  Well, it just goes to show that it's a good rule.  I still went 2-2 and my Sloan list continues to make me happy, so now I just need to find a replacement list based on some information I did gather from my 2 games with Haley but also couched with my experiences with pKrueger against Warmachine.

Stryker's Replacement

I've been working on assembling the Woldwrath and I plan on painting it within the next week.  For now, I'm focusing on Cygnar again in preparation for this upcoming tournament.  I managed to play a game with pStryker on Thursday and my woes with the warcaster continued.  He's great and all, but I'm not sure I'm playing him as aggressively as I should.  I normally don't do this, but I think I'm going to change up my decision to play with pStryker in the tournament on Sunday.  Like I said, I normally would strongly discourage this, but since I can't seem to align myself with Stryker's playstyle, I instead think that I will replace him with a warcaster that will probably better fit my style naturally.  It might totally backfire on me since I've never played with his replacement before, but I think her playstyle will better match my own and require less of a learning curve than if I continued to play with pStryker.  It's with a heavy heart that I must admit, I'll be playing with pHaley.  I know.  I'm the guy who keeps saying I think she's overrated, but I think in this case, she'll be a good alternative.  Let me explain.

Showcase: Black 13th, Reinholdt, Pendrake

So I've been pretty busy painting the past couple of days because I want to have at least one fully-painted list for the tournament on Sunday.  The challenge, of course, is that I still haven't decided on what I want to take for my reinforcements and so until I decide what I want to bring along, I might as well get the other elements of my list painted up until I finalize my decision.  Today I'll share some photos of what I've accomplished so far.

Sloan Tournament List

So I've had the opportunity to play quite a few games with Sloan at this point and I finally got a model for Viktor Pendrake and am very pleased with his addition to the list.  Indeed, since I intend this list to be used regularly against Hordes opponents, his usage specifically against warbeasts is hardly a limitation.  As such, I feel very confident with the list that I have developed for 35 point tournaments... for the most part.  I am fairly comfortable with the list and I have already begun painting the models that needed to be finished so that I can compete with it this weekend, if I can make it to The Battle Standard's tournament.  I'll quickly share my finalized list and expand on some of my rationales for the choices made and at the end I'll share my only apprehension for the list: reinforcements.  Let's start with the list:

Gencon Masters Results

Menoth isn't a good tournament army?  The Mountain King
is overpriced and terrible?

Today's post will be pretty quick.  For those unaware, something like 8 of of the 16 players in the Masters tournament were apparently Menoth players - a surprising demographic considering that about the same ratio of Cryx was present at the Templecon Masters.  Perhaps Privateer Press is better at crafting a well-balanced game than some give them credit.  What was perhaps more surprising to many, however, was that Trolls had a great showing, with Flanzer getting defeated in the last round with his Trolls.  What was most surprising, however, was that one of the lists contained the Mountain King.  That's right, a list featuring pDoomshaper also sported the Mountain King - despite all of the cries of its uselessness by Trollblood players.  Granted, the Gencon Masters tournament this year was a 75 point event, but I still derive some amusement that such a "terrible" Gargantuan was not only present at Gencon in the tournaments, not only was it in the Masters, but its general almost achieved first place!  Now there are two things that I'd like to point out as a result of these tournament results.

Surprise! Also Templecon Prep (yes, already)

So a couple of good friends are going to GenCon this weekend (jealous) but guess what they've graciously agreed to do for me?  Getting me a Woldwrath!  That's assuming, of course, that they'll be able to snag one before they sell out, but I'm really really excited to get my hands on this model - especially before the normal release date.  While I won't be able to use him in tournaments, I'll be eager to get him painted up in the style of the rest of my constructs and get him onto the tabletop soon so I can start playtesting him in preparation for Templecon this year.  Oh yeah, it's only 6 months away and I want to see if it's worth taking the giant rock-ape!

Thinking Cap: Farrow

I've been going to The Battle Standard in Manchester CT for a couple weeks now and I've had some great conversations with the guys there.  One of the topics that has come up is Dr. Arkadius - one of my favorite warlocks.  Unfortunately, the good doctor has some serious drawbacks and problems and I've discussed them before, notably what he needs to compete with Carver.  Any competitive player will see that Arkadius - and the Farrow in general - have some challenges that need to be overcome in order for them to be successful in a tournament setting.  I've already discussed in the past what Dr. Arkadius needs to make himself a little more competitive, but today I want to look at some ways of giving an edge while still keeping them unique on the scene.  First, we need to discuss what makes Farrow interesting and different from other factions.

Woldwrath preliminary thoughts

The stats for the Woldwrath were spoiled on the forums a few weeks before the No Quarter issue was officially released.  Some individuals had their own copies in advance for some reason, so I've had some time to reflect and collect my thoughts on the highly anticipated Circle Gargantuan.  While some mock the appearance of the Woldwrath (notably it's massive shoulder blades), it's technically the oldest of the gargantuans since we've had pictures of it from the original Iron Kingdoms RPG, before Warmachine even existed!  I'm eager to purchase my own model and I wish I could justify spending the money right now to have a friend pick it up for me from Gencon.  I've already commented on the viability of Gargantuans, in general, and specifically with the Mountain King, so where does that leave the Woldwrath?  It has some of the same challenges which face the Mountain King but it also has some different ones.  Let's take a closer look.

pStryker and the Stormwall

I've been playing around with the Stormwall for some time now.  While the model is hardly rare on the tabletop anymore, it's most often seen with either of the Haleys, despite having some solid synergies elsewhere.  Frequenters of my blog know that I've had great success with the Stormwall under Sloan and I think I've finally found a comfortable list with her, but I've been searching for a 2nd list to run next to her, and I think I've come back to Commander Stryker, with whom I've had some great success at tournaments so far.  One of the features of the list, of course, is the Stormwall and pStryker has some solid synergy with the Colossal that many will often overlook.  Today I will breakdown why I love the Stormwall so much with the often underrated pStryker.

War Room: A history and review

So I posted on the Steam-Powered Gamer facebook page this morning that I will be going on hiatus this week due to a last-minute move between apartments, but something special happened today that I had to break my hiatus for:
Pretty much everyone in the Warmachine/Hordes community should be aware by now that War Room has officially been released!
There's been a lot of drama swirling around the War Room release and the numerous delays.  Well, the wait is over!... sorta.  Let me provide a brief history for those who might not be aware of what has happened leading up to this historic release and my impressions of playing with the application itself for the past few hours.

New Poll: Points

It's a new month and that means it's time for a new poll!  Our last poll looked at the perception around Colossals.  With the arrival of the Stormwall the entire meta changed almost overnight and the model has seen a surge in usage in all kinds of competitive events.  The interesting thing, however, is that even with the infamous eHaley + double Stormwall list, we're not really seeing the Stormwall winning major events.  Does it make an impact?  Absolutely.  Does it make a player automatically top-tier?  Absolutely not.  I think this is a great thing and Privateer Press should be recognized for making a model that seems OMG BROKEN!!11! on paper but is not a "win button" when actually played on the table.  I think our last poll reflected the same attitude amongst players and I'll analyze the results more in-depth after I introduce the new poll.

The poll for this month is a little less controversial than some of the past polls:
What size games do you typically play?
10-15 points
25 points
35 points
35-50 points
50 points
75+ points






Note that I included the 35-50 point range because I believe that there are some differently-sized games common in Germany between the 35 and 50 point ranges.


I'm curious to see how popular certain levels are in various metas because I think there can be some model/faction choices that change depending on the size game (I think Gargantuans will be way more viable at 50+ points).  Now let's look at the results from the previous poll.

Pro Tip: Misunderstanding Rules

Even the most skilled and experienced players misunderstand rules sometimes.  While Privateer Press does a great job writing their rules with various specific phrases, sometimes we miss out on certain qualifiers.  I'm no grammar expert and I sometimes misunderstand a rule because I missed one key work or phrase in the description of said rule.  Sometimes as players we get really excited about a certain tactic or possibility that we get "tunnel vision" where we focus on trying to do something so badly that we forget one word that actually means we can't do what we want.  Similarly, when playing against other players we can make the mistake of not seeing that same key word and it suddenly means the difference between safety and assassination.  Today I want to share some words that are often mistaken or accidentally ignored that you should look for carefully.