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.

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.

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.

List Building: Amon Ad-Raza - 35 points

I'm really excited about the new store that I've been attending.  Everyone has been really nice, cool, and I've been able to get a couple of games in against some great dudes.  This has also been great for me getting more excited about Warmachine lately, as I've mostly focused on Hordes for the past couple of months.  Today I want to share with you all some recent thoughts that I have had regarding a particular warcaster: Amon Ad-Raza.  Did you know that there are only two warcasters who do not have steam-powered armor?  I want to talk about Amon because he seems to be another one of those warcasters that is often overlooked for his more "tournament worthy" brethren, and Amon has a special place in my heart because he piqued my interest back in Mk I when I originally played Menoth.  While I don't play Menoth, I do try to stay aware of every faction's abilities and capabilities and it's a good exercise to do list building for another army, so here we go!  This time we'll start with Amon's feat.

Editorial: Character Restriction

So recently I've been reading a lot of chatter about the new SteamRoller 2012 tournament rules.  These rules have not been finalized yet, but they are certainly causing a stir for one big reason: character restriction as a standard.  What does this mean?  Well character restriction already exists in SR 2011, and what it means is that model that is FA:C can only appear in one list if there's a multiple list format.  This also means that you cannot use the same warcaster/warlock in multiple lists, but in the SR 2012 format, you can have a prime and epic version of a caster in two of your lists.  So if I wanted to run pBaldur and eBaldur, I'm totally allowed, but I can only take Megalith in one of the lists since he's FA: C

Showcase: Two Player Box

I received the Two Player Box for a couple days now but I've been waiting until I got home to open it up and see what's inside.  I am not disappointed!  There is TONS of stuff in this box, and certainly well worth the $100 retail pricetag.  Even though other starter boxes or other games (like the Isle of Blood or Battle for Black Reach) have more models, Privateer Press made sure that this box provides everything you need to get into the whole hobby, and not just the game.  Anyway, instead of writing 15,000 words, I'll just give you 15 pictures (that's what they're worth, right?):