Thinking Cap: Initial thoughts on the Woldwrath

I think I inadvertently creating a shooting list with eBaldur.  I got to play with the Woldwrath for the first time a couple of weeks ago against a Cryx player at the Battle Standard.  He usually doesn't play in tournaments much but it was my first time with the Woldwrath anyway so I have no allusions that it's OMG BROKEN or anything but I do want to share my brief insights on the model.  I wanted to try out a 50 point game because Templecon is coming up soon and I need some practice.  I crafted a 50 point list for eBaldur a while ago but I finally got to try it out and so I need to share my findings.

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:

List Building Advice: Gorten 50 points

Continuing from Friday's post, a fan had messaged me through the Steam-Powered Gamer facebook page asking for some advice with building lists in preparation for Templecon.  My disclaimer is that I admit I'm not some mastermind player but I do enjoy the theory and building lists with particular goals and restrictions in mind.  If anyone wishes for advice on building a list, I'm glad to offer some feedback and I will rarely suggest an alternative warcaster (unless that's a flexible criteria).  I understand that not everyone has lots of money to drop on a brand new list (I'm no exception) and so we enjoy working with the collections we already have.  Fortunately, this particular individual has been investigating lists via Vassal and hasn't purchased anything yet, so there's a lot of flexibility in the list design.  I have to admit, I'm probably the most proud of this particular list, even if he ultimately decided to go the full Khador route (although not with the Harkevich list presented on Friday).

Here's the list that he was looking at for Gorten Grundback:

Searforge Commission, 50 points
Gorten: +7

- Driller: 6

- Rockram: 8

- Rockram: 8

- Avalancher: 9

10 forgeguard: 8

6 forgeguard: 5

10 high shields + UA: 11

Thor: 2

My feedback:

As far as the Gorten list goes, I do have to ask if it has to be Searforge? Unfortunately, Searforge is a very limiting contract and I think I could come up with an interesting list if you took a Highborn Covenant list instead. Mercenaries can have VERY different looking lists and the Rhulic 'casters are no exception. Here's the list I've come up with using the Highborn Covenant:

 

Gorten (+7)
- Basher (7)
Gun Mages (6)
- Officer (2)
- Mule (8)
Hammerfall High Shields (full,
- Officer and Standard (3)
Master Gunner Dougal Macnaile (2)
Thor (2)

- Rockram (8)

Rhupert (2)
Rorsh and Brine (9)

The problem with Gorten is that he has so little focus so you basically just have to rely on getting him far upfield to make the most of his feat - and that means making sure he camps as much focus as possible so you can keep him alive. Rock Wall and Solid Ground help keep him alive and are really fantastic for units like Gun Mages since they're so vulnerable to blast damage. I like the Highborn list the best because it's such an awesome shooting list (I'm biased about shooting, despite what the meta says).  The High Shields can trod upfield while in shield wall shooting stuff while the gun mages sit behind them taking advantage of Ranked Attacks, safe from reprisal!  The Gun Mages will have a marshalled Mule to stick with the ranged theme without putting more of a focus drain on Gorten. Even if your opponent gets close enough to disrupt your shooting abilities, you pop feat, push everything back and slap them with a DEF penalty so you can shoot them even more reliably and the SPD penalty will prevent them from simply charging at you next turn.  You effectively can have multiple rounds of shooting and mitigate one of the biggest weaknesses to shooting in Warmachine/Hordes. 

The Mule can also push stuff around if it scores a Crit but also sports a wonderful POW 15 and an AOE 4 and the Basher will have fun slamming things around and exploding all over their face while the rest of your troops laugh at blast damage (thanks to Solid Ground). Brine is also around for some heavy hitting without an increased focus load on Gorten and he's a slamming machine. Him and Rorsh offer great support on a flank since they're so fast and Rorsch can feel comfortable chucking dynamite or using diversionary tactics near the rest of your troops since, again, Solid Ground will protect them from blast damage.  In essence, you can take full advantage of fantastic blast weaponry to deal with targets both near and far without fear - and that's huge for a shooting list.

Rhupert is around for giving Tough to the high shields - making them even more annoying to deal with (especially with Solid Ground keeping them standing) and as if you need more shooting support, Dougal can pop his mini feat early to give +2 RNG to all ranged attacks and he will consistently throw Artillerist on the Mule to make it hit even more reliably (at least until he wants to shoot stuff with his quad iron or chuck some grenades).  Lastly, we have to include Thor because he's an awesome 'jack marshall and since he can marshall Rhulic 'jacks, we should give him the Rockram to take the most advantage of his and its capabilities.  The Rockram is solid and will be capable of providing solid shooting support with the rest of the army, but can also hit hard in melee if it needs to - again, without requiring any focus from Gorten.  And even if you're worried about a 'jack marshall dying, the High Shields officer is around to pick up the slack if needed.

What you get is a list that literally pushes around your opponent all across the board and is incredibly resilient. It's a solid tournament list, in my opinion, but it would need some practice.  Fortunately, however, there aren't a lot of complex synergies that require specific activation orders, so that should make using the list fairly straight forward to use.  You just have to make sure to upkeep Solid Ground and maybe throw out Rock Wall where/when you need it, but otherwise you should have a fairly easy time using the list.  Rorsh and Brine take some getting used to, but they provide a fast moving element to the list that can protect a flank from getting overrun and keeping your backfield safe.

In fact, if I didn't have to spend so much money buying so much of the list, I'd probably try playing it myself!  Maybe if they release a plastic Rhulic 'jack kit...

List Building Advice: Harkevich 50 points

I understand that I'm not the best player out there for Warmachine/Hordes but I do love building lists and working on theory.  Recently a follower of the blog asked me for some feedback on a couple of lists and I was more than happy to oblige!  Today I'll look at the first of the lists presented and give some feedback.  I'll share the other list next week.

If anyone wants some feedback on lists just feel free to head over to the Steam-Powered Gamer facebook page and send me a message and I'll be glad to take a look at it.  Since most of us have our own limitations on building lists, I do take into consideration issues like the size of a collection or the amount of money you can spend on tweaking a list, so don't be afraid to ask for advice.  Also, I have one hard and fast rule and that is that I will not tell you which warcaster/warlock to play (unless that's the feedback you want).  I think it's rude when someone says "well your first mistake is that you're not playing X warcaster/warlock."  We all have our reasons for choosing particular models to play and I like giving feedback that meets your own criteria.  If you want to make a particular model work, I'm glad to toss around ideas with you to see what we can do!

Without further ado, I'll share the original list that requested feedback and then I'll share my feedback for Harkevich.

Road to Templecon 2013: List Building Part 2

Like I said on Monday, now that the Templecon Team Tournament has been confirmed as 50 points, 2 lists, and Divide and Conquer, I have some decisions to make.  I already looked at using pBaldur vs. eBaldur and I'm genuinely torn between the two and will need to playtest the lists thoroughly.  Today, however, I want to look at my other two options to pair up with whichever Baldur I want to take.  Fortunately, the 50 point level means that I have more options to play around with and I'm more motivated to use warlocks that I have a hard time justifying at 35 points.  So which lists am I considering?

Team Tournament Prep: 50 points

I've certainly distracted this week from Warmachine/Hordes.  First, I've been distracted due to orientation week for work, with various meetings and classroom prep.  Secondly, I've been getting ramped up for Relic Knights since their Kickstarter has almost ended.  I've been trying to shift gears, though, since even when the Kickstarter ends, product isn't expected until May (yikes!).  Alright, so it's time to start preparing for Templecon in February and start getting into tournament prep and playtesting mode.  I had hoped that this summer I could get lots of practice in with my Cygnar as a potential option, but I've since decided that I should stick with what works: my Circle.  So today I revisit my Circle in preparation for the tournament.

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.

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!

List Building: Ships in the Night Revision

I posted my pseudo battle report the other day on my first game with Cryx and my first game with the pSkarre Ships in the Night theme list.  It was a fun game but I also learned a lot about the list.  I also made an error during the game: I assumed that if a warjack could get focus via a warwitch siren, that it could still spend that focus even with a busted cortex.  While this ended up helping me put some damage on Durgen, seeing as I won by scenario, I don't feel like a complete jerk.  Part of the reason why I played with my particular list, however, was due to a lack of models and so now I want to reflect on an updated list based on the suggestions and my experience with the list the other day.

List Building: pSkarre Ships in the Night

With the last two weeks consisting of theater technical directing and this week final exams for the term, I've been so busy that I couldn't find time to write articles the last two days and I apologize.  To make up for it, I will share the unabridged version of an article which will later appear on 3++ is the new black.  Today I wish to discuss an interesting warcaster who is often known for her Great Rack (it's the name of one of her weapons!).  That's right, today I wish to discuss Pirate Queen Skarre.  I know, I know, Cryx is dirty and they're no-good jerks.  In the Master's tournament at Templecon 5 of the 16 players brought Cryx armies to the tables.  Have no fear, however, as those dirty Cryx players didn't win this time, so I have no qualms introducing one of my favorite Cryxian theme lists today from the pages of No Quarter 37: Ships in the Night.

Road to Templecon 2012 - Standard Issue Tournament

Lately I've been really busy with work (hooray real world) and so I haven't devoted as much time as I should to coming up with effective lists for Templecon.  While I've already discussed my team tournament lists here, I'm faced with a different challenge when it comes to the Standard Issue tournament which takes place Saturday afternoon into the evening.  While I have no allusions of being a a top tournament player, I want to try my best and my goal is to at least make it into the top 25%.  While I had some success over the summer at the NETT, I need to focus my lists more than I did for this tournament.

Road to Templecon 2012: Final Team Tournament Lists

So the Regular Team has gone from being super exciting to super dull for me.  Mostly it's because where I am makes it very difficult for me to play games of Warmachine/Hordes at all, let alone at a tournament standard.  The few games I got in were good and I've been getting better with timing my turns appropriately, but I'm not nearly as confident as I should be.  Oh and Skyrim eats away at my soul.  Seriously, for someone who's obsessed with completing every little quest like myself, this game is destroying every minute of my free time.

That makes me laugh every time.
I digress.  I have my lists finalized for the team tournament, and seeing as I'm not terribly confident with my abilities anyway, it's not like I lose much by posting them up on the internet for global scrutiny.

List Building: eVayl

It's been a while since I've done ye-olde-fashion list-building, so I figured I'd satisfy the itch today and discuss another warlock that's on my docket after Templecon: Vayl, Consul of Everblight.  Ever since I saw the artwork for her primal form, I was interested in Vayl.  She's such an interesting character for the Legion of Everblight and I seem to gravitate towards the spell-slinging types.  Naturally, Vayl is an interesting character to me, and when she went epic... hooo boy I was sold.  Not only is her model better-proportioned, but she has come to epitomize spell slinging.  Today I will be looking at her tier list, as I think that it is very strong and I believe it gives her access to all of the tools she needs for a brutal alpha-strike.

Cost of starting a new army

We've all seen them.  Price comparisons between Warmachine/Hordes and 40k.  However, since I am currently building a Trollbloods force, I am hyper-aware of how much a full force costs.  Granted, there are lots of sites out there that offer discounts or buyer-rewards programs, but at the end of the day, it's still quite expensive to start a new faction for any game system.  This has also become even more apparent for me as I pondered updating my Tyranid force to playable strength, thinking that Mawlocs might be a wise investment for dealing with tanks.  At any rate, today I wish to compare the cost of the 50 point Trollblood I will be starting, and a 1750 point Tyranid army - both of which I believe are the most expensive armies for their respective game systems.

List Building: Fiona the Black (50 points)

One of my other factions that I play is Mercenaries.  Specifically, I play the privateer mercenaries, and I started with Broadsides Bart.  There is one warcaster who has always piqued my interest and that is Fiona the Black.  She's a badass goth pirate chick that's not Skarre.  I love her artwork in the Mercenaries book and I love the idea of a manipulative denial warcaster, but I have struggled for a long time to figure out how does she win?  I have not played her yet because I have not felt confident in a list yet.  Her tier is kinda "meh" and I don't think it takes advantage of the many tools she has available, and the benefits from her tier list don't make up for that, in my opinion.  Last night I had a revelation, and I began building based upon my other list building articles, and I think I have a list that makes me feel a bit more confident.

Road to Templecon 2012: List Building

So if you have not had the opportunity to read my two articles on List Building, you should check them out in the Learning Center (the links towards the top left of my blog).  In those articles I discuss what kinds of things you should be considering when designing a good list.  While having fun is first and foremost, the best way to have fun is to make sure that you aren't screwed by a particular playstyle of something that you "totally forgot about."  It happens to the best of us, and bad match-ups will always be a part of the game, but this is why multiple-list tournaments are so popular.

Today I will be discussing a couple lists that I have been considering bringing to Templecon 2012 this year, to play in the team tournament (also mentioned in my last Road to Templecon article here).  I have four lists on the chopping block, and I'm only allowed to bring two.  I already have a good idea of which ones I want to bring, but I won't tell you, so that I can keep the surprise ;-)

Faction Loyalty

After yesterday's great Domination event (which you can read about here) I realized that I really love the Hordes side of Warmachine/Hordes.  After the conclusion of the event, several of us local players sat down and talked shop, discussing options for Templecon, discussed some theories about combos, and heard some tales of the playtesting for Domination (a bunch of local players are PP playtesters).

Throughout the conversation I kept coming back to the realization that I really enjoy Hordes factions more than Warmachine factions and one of my buddies from Regular Team agreed with me.  While we maintain our first Warmachine factions and are still pretty attached to them, we find Hordes to be more fun.  Perhaps it's the fury mechanic, perhaps it's the originality of each faction, or the unique nature of warbeasts over warjacks, but I find myself having way more fun managing fury than focus.  This got me to thinking about something I've been considering for some time: trading away my privateer mercenaries.

Domination Release Event! (Updated!)

So today at my LGS there is an event celebrating the release of Domination and I most certainly will attend!  So the deal is that you try to play as many 50 point games as you can and you earn points once you achieve a "glorious deed" or other such conditions are met.  There will also be a new scenario, which I briefly playtested the other day against my Troll buddy, so that will be fun too!  The rules for the event can be found here and I plan on playing all day!  I will try to update my blog over the course of the day to let you all know how I'm doing and how the event is progressing, so make sure to come back and check up on how I'm doing.  Here are 3 lists I'm going to run (at least):

Road to Templecon 2012: Team Building

I'm so excited for Templecon this year!  I wrote about Templecon already here, and how I was excited to be not only attending this year, but participating in a couple of the tournaments.  When I attended last year I played exclusively for fun, playing only on scenario tables in the Iron Arena.  One of the tournaments I'm most excited for is the team tournament, so now let's discuss my adventures in finding a good team for the Templecon Team Tournament.