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.

2013 - Year of Mercenaries

I decided that 2013 would be the year I would focus on my Mercenary collection. I've had my Mercenaries for a long time now and it started back when Mk. II was still really fresh and I loved the idea of the Broadsides Bart theme force - a bunch of Mariners with their ship guns blazing away was just too awesome to pass up! I shelved them for a while and later picked up Fiona because I thought she was cool and I thought that she'd be quite powerful if I focused my efforts on her. Last year I came up with a list I was pretty proud of and playtested her a little, but she never got the focus she deserved. I decided at the end of last year that I would focus on my Mercs for 2013 and that I would further keep a log of my games so I could accurately reflect back on my gaming experience for the year. Well, it's been 3 months so far and I figured it was time to analyze my results so far.

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.

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!

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 Army Deals: Mercenaries

Today I want to continue my series on Summer Deals for those wishing to go beyond Privateer Press' 25 Point Summer Deals.  While the deals they offer are nice, for those who are willing to spend a little more $$$ for effectiveness, I've decided to craft 35 point lists for each faction that I hope will both be a good starting point for building a collection with that army, while also being fairly effective and/or fun!  Today I will be creating a list for Mercenaries (specifically, the Four Star Syndicate) that clocks in at only $221.88 retail.  The added benefit here, of course, is that Mercenaries can be taken with other factions and so I purposely chose some models that I feel will both be effective and useful in other factions.  Without further ado, let's look at the list, breakdown of cost, and briefly how one can use the list to be most effective!

Steamroller Prep: 25 points - Mercs

Today is the third and final part of my Steamroller Prep articles for the 25 point "Ambush" Steamroller event at The Battle Standard in Manchester, CT.  I currently own 3 main factions right now: Cygnar, Circle, and Mercs and in the first two articles I discussed some lists worth considering for Cygnar and Circle.  Today I wish to present the lists for my final faction: Mercenaries.  Unfortunately, I only own a select few Mercenary models, and only 2 of them are warcasters, so my options are somewhat limited.  The fortunate thing about owning Mercenary models, however, is the utility of using them in other factions as well, so it's a bit easier to build up a Mercenary collection on the side!  In fact, many of the models that I'll be using in today's lists I picked up for their utility in other lists - notably for Cygnar.  So what warcasters am I bringing?  First is my favorite underdog: Fiona the Black.

Warmachine: Colossals Consolidated Spoilers! [UPDATED 6-3-12]

Today I have something special for you all.  With Lock n' Load starting yesterday, I managed to scour the interwebs for everything that I could find on this event (since I couldn't make it myself).  Not only do I have pictures for you but some awesome spoilers on some of the new models coming out!  If you were following the Facebook page yesterday then some of this will be old news for you (lesson: like us on Facebook!) but there will be some new stuff that I've compiled from the Privateer Press forums for you all.  Let's start with some pictures and then I'll head right into rules!

[UPDATE 6-3-12] - We also have one of the spoiled cards for the Trollbloods Mountain King!  This answers a lot of questions that I had about how these Gargantuan warbeasts would function.

Thinking Cap: Privateers

I love my pirates and now that the local Warmachine/Hordes league is winding down, I'm really excited to get back to painting these guys (although I have to finish grading first...).  Lately I've been poring through the Mercenaries book trying to find some hidden gems that I might not have noticed before.  My studies have been focused particularly on building synergy for my Fiona list, to see if there are any ways in which I can tweak it and make it stronger.  Ideally, I'd love to use this list in a tournament but character restriction makes it difficult for me to take models that I might want to take in another list instead, and that has made decisions more difficult.  One of the reasons is that the privateer models are notorious for their potential synergy with all of their solos.  Each solo is respectable on their own but the fact that they all offer some benefit to other models is what makes the pirates competitive.  However, I've brought up before in my list building that I think that Press Gangers are superior to Sea Dogs in many ways and today I want to illustrate why, by looking at some of the synergy 'packages' offered to them.

A Simple Buccaneer Conversion

I don't remember where I saw it, but a while back I saw a simple idea for a conversion for the Buccaneer warjack.  Seeing as I really love these warjacks and one is an important part of my Fiona list, I figured it was worth attempting myself.  This was a fairly simple conversion in theory, so I wanted to take a stab at it and see if it was as easy as it looked.  The idea is simple: use the top of Fiona's trident and do a swap with the head of the Buccaneer gaff pole!  Here's my attempt at it.

Showcase: Fiona and Taryn di la Rovissi

 It takes me a long time to get models painted.  It's not that I'm a slow painter.  In fact, I think that I paint models fairly quickly.  No, it's that I am obsessive about finishing the model and since that takes around 3-5 hours, and I have a job that consumes most of my time, that means that even when I get bit by the painting bug, I still can only get a couple of models done per week.  Last weekend I was inspired by my recent successes with Fiona the Black and I decided that I should just sit down and get painting.  The most daunting part for me, was trying to nail down a paint scheme.  Why was this so difficult?  It's because I have such a hodge-podge of models that I use with my Mercenaries, including the recent addition of the pSkarre theme list.  This means that I want my models to blend with Cryx, but I also want them to make sense if I want to play the Highborn Covenant mercenary contract.  This left me with some difficult decisions for my palette, but ultimately I decided to use two of my favorite colors: purple and green, accented by white.

Mercenary Unit Attachments: The Lists

In the first two parts of my series on Mercenary Unit Attachments we looked at what each unit attachment offered their charges and then we looked at all of the warcasters for each relevant faction and their feats, spells, and abilities which would affect these Mercenary units once they were considered faction models.  For today, I created three lists that feature these mercenary units and their attachments and I will focus on how each mercenary unit and MUA features in each list.  Again, I make no claims on the power of each individual list, but merely am focusing on how a mercenary unit will offer something unique to the particular warcaster that normal faction models might not.  Let's start with Cygnar.

Mercenary Unit Attachments: The Warcasters

Yesterday I wrote about the ever-rare Mercenary Unit Attachments, a recent addition to the game introduced in Warmachine: Wrath.  These attachments allow an attached mercenary unit to count as friendly faction models, as well as giving them some other abilities which I discussed.  While there are only three of these MUAs available, they are not seen often on the tables from what I've seen, and I wanted to discuss their merits.  For today, I will be looking at the various warcasters which could make the most use of these MUAs and their charges - often because they'll have a feat or spells that only affect friendly faction models.  This is a long post, so I'll wait until next week to look at some sample lists which feature Mercenary units and their MUAs.  Let's look at how each warcaster in each faction could take most advantage of having new friendly faction models.

Mercenary Unit Attachments: The Officers

Something that I have found interesting lately is an apparent lack on the tables of one of the new rules in Warmachine: Wrath.  With the release of this book there were some exciting new additions to each faction, but the most notable were of course the battle engines.  There were some other new additions, however, that I'm shocked have not seen more use on the table or mentioned in Warmachine articles, and I figured I would give these guys some attention (which they rightly deserve!).  Granted, there are only three of these guys to choose from, so if you're a Cryx, Retribution, or Mercenaries (duh) player, this article will not apply to you, but seeing as Cygnar, Khador, and Menoth represent some of the most popular factions on the tables, they deserve some attention given to their wonderful Mercenary Unit Attachments.

The Adventures of Fiona the Black

So I've been trying to get as many games as possible in with Fiona now that I have some models to work with.  Each game has been very close but even those where I've lost, I've had a really good chance at the win, I just forgot about a particular rule (beware a satyxis captain keeping Skarre from getting knocked down!).  Today I want to share the list that I've been using and reflect on what I've learned about Fiona the Black - the least liked of the privateer warcasters.

Debriefing: Fiona

Yesterday I wrote up a battle report for my first time playing Fiona.  It was a lot of fun and was a really close game considering that I was matched up against eHaley, who is traditionally considered a top-tier warcaster for Cygnar.  While there was a couple 'Oops' moments we realized after the game where both me and my opponent forgot some rules (that you can't headbutt a larger base, Storm Striders have 360 LOS, etc.) the dice were really on my side and I shouldn't have won.  Even still, the experience itself was valuable and I was able to reflect on the list as a whole and how to use it in the future.  So now I'd like to debrief the battle report and reflect back on what I learned from the experience.

Battle Report: Fiona the Black

I finally got a game in with Fiona the Black!  I've had the model for over a year but I've finally had the opportunity to play a game with her, after all of the list-building I've been doing.  It was against a friend of mine and he has been playing around with the list he brought but he admittedly jumps around between armies fairly often (it's a local joke that we all buy his stuff on clearance).  This was the first time that I have played with Fiona and I had a really bad match-up against me, but my army performed quite admirably.  Without further ado, I will share the two lists and then as close as I can to a blow-by-blow of the battle.

Fiona the Black - 35 points

I've been on a pirate kick lately.  This always seems to happen when I play my Circle too much.  Don't get me wrong, I love my Circle army and I love the way they play!  I just feel the itch to play my pirates because they bring back something... a childlike nostalgia.  I loved pirates when I was younger and loved drawing pictures of pirate ships and the like.  One of my favorite computer games growing up was Pirates Gold!, a game for Windows 3.1 where you would assemble a crew, hunt for treasure, capture other ships, and it was a blast to play, but I digress.  I'm feeling the pirate twitch once more as while my usual standby was Broadsides Bart, I never seemed terribly satisfied with him and always seemed to have a more difficult time than I should.  I wanted a shooty pirate list and you'd think that Bart would be good at it, but 6 POW 14 AOEs can only take you so far when most of the lists you face are warjack or warbeast heavy.  Naturally, I've gravitated towards Fiona the Black.