Lists Galore!

2013: The Year of Mercenaries continues! This weekend is going to be my first 35 point tournament with my Mercenaries and I'm really nervous. I already have my Connie list playtested and ready to go but I'm nervous about my options for my second list. There are a couple of models that I still need to find (look for an asterisk * for models I don't own yet) but I'm confident that I can get what I want for Connie, not so much for my other options for lists. Today I'll share the Connie list that I want to run with a brief justification about some of the changes I've made recently, and then I'll share a couple optional lists in order of likelihood of running. To keep things fairly brief I will include a quick pros and cons of matchups for each list so you can understand my misgivings and why I'm not exactly excited about any particular list. Let's start with Connie:

List Building: Ashlynn D'Elyse

As I have said before, I'm trying to make 2013 the year of Mercenaries for me and so the faction is receiving all of my attention. While I've loved playing with Fiona in the past, I'm afraid that with the meta changing she's not quite able to keep up with the tools at her disposal right now, and so I've been looking for a new tournament caster to replace her. I've had lots of success with Connie so she'll be my first list tournament caster, but I'm in the market for a second. Consequently, I've started looking at Ashlynn D'Elyse again because her feat is kinda similar in effect to Fiona's but with an offensive component to it too, so I feel like her playstyle might be a little similar but a little more aggressive like Connie since Ashlynn is both difficult to assassinate and offensively scary for an opponent to deal with. Ashlynn will also compliment my Connie list well, where Connie will be great at dealing with a lot of Hordes lists with her volume of attacks, I'm going to build Ashlynn to deal with lots of high-ARM as I believe her feat and her spells allow her to deal with these types fairly well. Let's start by looking at her feat: Roulette.

Thinking Cap: Reeves of Orboros

I know what you're thinking. Anyone who's played with Circle has probably looked at Reeves, thought they were neat and then laughed when they saw the cost of the unit. Furthermore, anyone who's actually played with the unit will probably even agree that they are difficult to use effectively at best or lackluster at worst. They have some neat tricks with War Wolves but the synergy can be a bit off (if a War Wolf charges a target that you shot at, you'll have a hard time shooting that same target again to get another War Wolf in there to trigger Gang Fighter). Indeed, even the UA doesn't seem to offer much as Ranked Attacks is not as helpful when a ranged unit is the one that has the ability. To top it all off, they're pricey and if you really want to max out all of their synergies you're looking at 17 points (full unit + UA, 3 War Wolves, and the Reeve Hunter). That's a lot of points for a bunch of models which will still have a hard time. So I got to thinking and I may have found someone who could make them far more effective: epic Morvahna.

List Building: Constance Blaze

I've been buying and collecting some models for the past 6 months but I have not done a lick of painting. Between school and planning for the wedding and new computer/video games, I've been so distracted from Warmachine/Hordes. I have been playing games, though, and even gotten some prize support at tournaments so I've been collecting models nonetheless. Yesterday I spent a good couple of hours putting some of these models together, followed by some list building. In the next couple of weeks I plan on sharing some of these list ideas as this year I want to focus on playing with Mercenaries! Today I want to share a list I created for using Constance Blaze as a mercenary warcaster and I have to say, I'm pretty amused by it. I will also share why I like taking the idea of taking Connie as a Mercenary warcaster instead of a Cygnarian one.

Challenge Accepted: Nemo

Nemo is one of the few warcasters out there who has been lucky enough to have 3 different versions of himself.  He's always been one of my favorite warcasters conceptually and his models (at least the newest versions) all look pretty great - dynamic while maintaining his character and personality.  While I began playing Cygnar with his epic form, I've recently been revisiting the idea of playing with the prime form: Commander Adept Nemo - one who is mostly considered one of the worst incarnations of Nemo, let alone the worst Cygnarian warcaster.  Naturally my response has been, "Challenge Accepted!" and so I've decided that I want to make him work.  It also helps that I already have a solid tournament warcaster for Cygnar in Kara Sloan and so I've been looking for a good, complimentary warcaster to run in a 2-list tournament with her, so maybe with some time and practice Nemo can make the cut!  Let me share my list with you and some of the justifications, as well as some other ideas I've tossed around and potential tweaks I might make if playtesting doesn't go so well.

Mercenaries? In a Tournament? With Character Restriction!?

My post earlier this week on Gorten got me to realize that I've always wondered how my Fiona list would do in a tournament setting.  She's a fun warcaster and she brings some interesting tricks to the table that most people wouldn't be used to seeing all in one package.  I like the list I have for her but there are a lot of specific synergies and I worry that any other 'competitive' Mercenary build would miss out on some of the elements I include in her list - most notably characters that I'd like to take with Broadsides Bart.  Bart was never really a strong list for me anyway, and seeing as they're really the only two mercenary warcasters I owned, I didn't give tournament dreams much of a thought (Fiona is too time-consuming for Hardcore).  Now, with Gorten, I can build two lists that I like but without the usual concerns about character restriction which will undoubtedly be in SR2013.  So let's say I'm going to attend a SR2013 tournament, at 35 points.  What lists would I actually bring?

New Project: Gorten Grundback

I have a problem.  Whenever I start a new faction I tell myself that I'll "only" play a particular warcaster/warlock... then maybe just a couple... then I end up owning most of the faction.  This happened with Cygnar, this happened with Circle, and now it's happening with Mercenaries.  Please, can someone take my Legion off of my hands so I don't get tempted to do it again?  I originally just got my Mercenaries to play with the pirates, in particular: Broadsides Bart.  It's a fun list but I just never really got it to a point where I was really happy with it, you know?  Then I expanded a bit and decided to try Fiona the Black.  She's an underdog and faces a lot of criticism, so I decided to try her out to prove people wrong.  After a lot of tweaking and playtesting, I've found a good list for her that I like.  Now, after some list building with a fan of the blog, I broke down and decided to try out Gorten Grundback.  Before you get all excited about Rhulic dwarves, I'm sadly not going to be playing with the Searforge Commission (yet), but rather sticking with the Highborn Covenant.  It makes sense, after all, since I play Fiona with the same contract and I already own lots of Cygnar models, so I might as well, right?  Well here's the list that I've put together:

Highborn Covenant 35 points
Gorten Grundback (+7)
- Basher (7)
Alexia and Risen (5)
Forge Guard (full, 8)
Gun Mages (6)
- Officer (2)
  - Mule (8)
Rhupert (2)
Ragman (2)
Gorman (2)

Not a lot of moving parts in this list but I like it.  I'll need to play around with it to decide what I want to tweak, but so far I really like it.  This list brings a bunch of bodies onto the field and some cleverly disguised hard-hitting.  My favorite part, though, is the shooting potential of the list.  While the meta is changing, shooting is still very effective if you have the right tools.  While Gorten doesn't inherently offer much synergy to shooting armies, I think this list will take advantage of what Gorten does have to offer rather well.

The first thing to note is the number of bodies hitting the field.  Forge Guard are some great high-ARM troops which pack a serious punch but can die easily to weapon masters or charging infantry.  Having a nice and squishy screen of risen in front of them, however, will mean that my opponent will have a hard time getting to the forge guard, allowing me to deliver their counter-punch most effectively.  Even if my opponent does kill some forge guard, they'll just add to Alexia's number of risen, so it's a great cycle of annoyance.  Rhupert, of course, is there to give out Pathfinder as needed, but also to make the risen Tough, which can take a normally annoying unit to hilarious levels of being annoying.  Even if my opponent wants to remove Alexia directly, the Tough rolls on the risen can be used on her "transfers" so she'll be even more difficult to remove.

Behind the forge guard and taking advantage of their Ranked Attacks, the Gun Mages and their Mule will be about to reach out and shoot the crap out of enemy models as they get close.  Sure, the risen can still get in the way, but if I'm really worried about it, I'll gladly trade a risen to a free strike if it means killing enemy infantry.  The Mule will be able to do some serious damage while he's marshalled by the Gun Mages and it helps take the focus load off of Gorten who has only 5 at the best of times to use.  The Mule can do all kinds of fun shenanigans and, again, I'm not afraid to shoot my own risen in the back (they'll be DEF 12 even if engaged! hahaha!) if it means clearing out a charge lane.

Toss in Ragman and Gorman for some improved damage, and we have ourselves a party!  Gorman will be sitting fairly safe behind all of the risen and can naturally Black Oil those pesky Colossals/Gargantuans or Rust Bomb a warjack if I'm worried about it.  Ragman, of course, will turn those risen into a slightly greater threat (especially if I'm shooting them while they're engaged) and he turns the forge guard into serious damage potential.  If I can tag a warjack with a Rust Bomb and get Ragman in range with his Death Field, even a Khador heavy at ARM 20 will crumble to merely 4 charging forge guard! 

KAPOW!

So what does Gorten bring to this party, anyway?  I think I can sum it up with two things: his feat and Solid Ground.  Gorten has an amazing feat that is well known for it's tournament winning potential.  While he has a small control area, the rest of this list and his naturally high armor mean that he'll be quite comfortable sitting pretty close to the front lines anyway.  His feat not only pushes models back up to 8", but it also offers a very useful SPD, DEF, and RAT debuff (although the RAT debuff is rarely important).  This means that even if my opponent decides to just run in and engage my models, I can simply pop feat and push them all back while my ranged attacks shoot them down.  The DEF debuff means they'll be much easier to hit and even if they try to come at me again, the SPD debuff will make it difficult for them to even run to get close again.  In essence, Gorten does support a ranged force by allowing them the opportunity to get basically 2 extra shooting 'phases'.

The second (arguably most important) piece of support Gorten offers is his spell Solid Ground.  Don't get me wrong, Rock Wall is pretty awesome too, but for such a low-FOC 'caster, Solid Ground will provide more benefits for upkeeping it (I'd even be willing to pay the double focus to upkeep it if someone makes me do that).  The spell offers two important benefits for this list: no blast damage and friendly models can't be knocked down.  Those are huge benefits!  Sure, small control area again, but keeping everyone standing is great for Tough, thanks to Rhupert as well as keeping Gorten alive longer since DEF 13 is hardly unimpressive as it is.  I think the immunity to blast damage is probably the most important, however.  With the exception of the forge guard, the rest of the warrior models in this list are fairly low in ARM values and are very susceptible to blast damage.  Gun Mages are only ARM 11 so even some of the weakest blast weapons are able to clear them out with ease.  Suddenly with Solid Ground, not only does the opponent have to get through a wall of forge guard, but they can't even hope that blast damage will remove some of those gun mages.

Just thinking about all of this makes me giddy and eager to try this list out!  I've also noted that there are no FA:C models in this list that I'd want to use with my Fiona list.  Could this mean that I have some tournament potential here???  We shall see!

Steamroller Prep: Escalation Tournament

So there's an Escalation Tournament on December 9th at The Battle Standard in Manchester, CT that sounds really interesting.  Unfortunately, I'm on duty that weekend so I will be unable to attend *shakes fist* but in case I can get someone to switch duty weekends with me, I still would like to prepare for it.  What will be interesting about the tournament is that there will be 4 rounds and the points values for each round increase, so you'll play at 15 points the first round, then 25, then 35, and lastly you'll play at 50 points.  Where it gets most challenging, however, is that you must keep building on your previous list.  In other words, the models in the 15 point list must be present in your 25 point list and so on.  The other major challenge is that your 15 point list is warjack/warbeast only (although you can be 3 points down).  That's where things get tricky because it means infantry warcasters will have a tougher time first round, and so the event as a whole will likely favor warjack/warbeast-heavy lists.  So what would I be bringing?  Well I first had to start with looking at viable 15 point lists, since those elements will carry forth into the later rounds.  Here's what I considered:

List Building Advice: Fiona

I recently received another request for some list building advice on the facebook page, this time regarding Fiona the Black.  I love Fiona and if she didn't require such specific synergies and characters, I would bring her to more tournaments.  I always have fun with her when I play her but she's missing something to make her more of a tournament-viable warcaster.  That said, I was eager to provide some advice on building a list with her since I've spent many hours playing her and building lists for her.  While I'm satisfied with the list that I play with her, it's nice to design a list for someone else.  In addition, this particular person wanted me to work within the models in their collection, which I'm always happy to do.  Here was the message:

35 point Fall Steamroller Results

Sunday I played my first tournament in well over 2 months and it felt great!  While I was definitely pretty rusty, I found myself in my element and on my game, for the most part.  There was a little issue in the last game because me and my opponent were pretty tired and forgot that scoring for Incursion meant scoring each turn instead of round, but we were able to retroactively determine that I did, in fact, win the scenario.  He was a great sport and we had some good laughs afterwards about how tired we were.  So let me share the lists that I finally decided upon and then I'll briefly break down my games.

List Building: pKaya 35 - Griffon

It's been a long time since I've done some list building.  Perhaps it's been because I've been extremely busy.  More likely, it's because I don't have many opportunities to play games as it is and so I don't play around designing lists when I won't be able to test them.  Today I want to share a list I came up with that I want to try with pKaya.  I've always been an outspoken supporter of pKaya (and indeed, a lot of under-appreciated warlocks) and I think the recent release of the Griffon will allow a lot of flexibility for pKaya.  Admittedly, with the recent errata ruling that medium bases cannot use their full range of power attacks against larger bases (throws, locks), the Griffon will have more limited usage in many lists, but I still think he's useful for an assassination tool - especially with pKaya.  Let me share the list and then I'll break it down.

Recent Games and Reflections

September is the craziest time of year for me.  Coming out of the hibernation period that is the summer and being dropped right into a full boarding school teachers schedule is a bit intense.  Now I remember why I didn't start The Steam-Powered Gamer until October (OMG ALMOST A YEAR OLD!) - I was far too busy in September to do it.  Things are starting to calm down here a bit now 0 well, actually, I think I'm just getting into my groove.  Anyway, I have still been trying to be productive when it comes to Warmahordes stuff and I've managed to get a couple of games in at the local club.  Now that school is back in session some of the regulars have been coming back to the game club so I can at least get a game of Warmahordes in on Friday nights (typically).  That said, 2 games in the month of September is still not that great, but let me outline quickly how those games went.

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.

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:

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.

Steamroller Prep: 35 points

There's a 35 point Steamroller this Saturday at Pandemonium in Cambridge, MA.  While I've known about this event for a couple of weeks now, I actually forgot about it until last week when my fiancee reminded me (she's the best!).  We weren't sure if we were going to make it but since she wants to see her best friend in Boston this weekend anyway, I get to play in the tournament!  Hooray!  So today I'm going to look at my two favorite options again to see what I want to bring with me.  I learned some lessons at the NETT and I want to re-evaluate my options.  Naturally, I think I'll bring my Circle to this tournament just because they're my best faction.  I've been trying to give my Cygnar some experience too, but I'm not ready to bring them to a tournament yet.  I might play some games with Cygnar today just for some practice, but I'm 80% sure that I'll bring my Circle.  There are two warlocks that I want to playtest, if possible, before the event on Saturday so hopefully I can get some games in tonight at the Battle Standard.  Who am I considering?

List Building Advice: eCaine 35 points

The Steam-Powered Gamer received a message last night from a fan asking for some advice:

Hey! Love your blog. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about list building - I'm just starting out, going to be playing eCaine, and I like both Alexia models. At 35 points, how would you try to build an eCaine list which also contained one of the versions of Alexia?

(If you don't answer specific questions, I totally understand that, but I figured I'd ask.)

Well, fortunately, I'm willing to answer specific questions!  eCaine is a great warcaster to start out with.  He's fairly simple to use while still maintaining some depth and useful options for a variety of situations.  We'll start by looking at what eCaine has at his disposal (starting with his feat) and then I'll share a list that I created.

List Building: Goats! Er, Satyrs!

Last night I was playing around with some lists, trying to mix things up a bit.  I strive to keep myself fresh with ideas to prevent the game from getting stale and boring.  I commented to a friend last night that one of the things I love about Warmachine/Hordes is that I can totally get by with just two factions (let alone the 4 that I own) because of the variety of builds that can be made within the same faction.  I've played a lot with my Circle but, admittedly, many of my builds are similar and feature the same things.  Last night I decided to play around with some ideas and I came back to an idea I've had for a while: a Satyr list.  Now, I've owned 2 Gnarlhorn Satyr models for some time now and I've just been waiting for a Shadowhorn for what seems like forever, but I finally found one and so I've been tossing around ideas of incorporating him.  I decided to just go all out and build a list with Satyrs, and not a single warpwolf.