So. Sorry about the delays, gentle readers. Unexpected family visit along with an unexpected hospitalization in the family means not a lot of time for Internet things at night after work, and it's hard to write a thoughtful blog post at work. Things are slowing down now, and I'm left wanting to talk about something with some meat to it. I think I'll try to talk some about Hordes later, with the (IMO) very disappointing Hordes final release. But now, I'm firmly in a Warmachine mode. So let's talk Cryx. With all the Satyxis love going around, and what with my declaration I was going to talk about them, let's do that. This isn't going to be hugely organized.
So. I think where I stand on the Satyxis Raider debate is pretty obvious, what with the title and all. They are awesome. I liked them in Mark I but they were hard to use and so they kind of got overlooked by MOAR BAEN I can't even finish that inane phrase I'm sorry. Whatever the case, they were not well-loved in Mk. I, and there were good reasons for that.
That was then. This is now. The Satyxis Raiders are -fantastic- for Cryx. They have a very valuable role in Cryx - they AD. They're fast. You still have to take the UA, but when you do, you also make your fast unit practically immune to everything but CRAs and spells from range. Most spells aren't scary to a well-spaced unit (except chain lightning, beware chain lightning - it eats Satyxis alive) and if your opponent wants to CRA individual Satyxis Raiders, so long as they're not pegging the Sea Witch, who cares? Let them blow their CRAs on something like that rather than blasting an arc node in the face.
If you're playing reasonable-sized games (35-50 - less isn't fun, more just gets too kitchen-sinky) then, if you're going to take a unit, you take a full-sized unit with UA. I don't think a minimum-sized unit will do much for you - they're hard to kill at range but die in droves in melee, and you want some survivors left to CRA and make use of Power Swell to smash up light jacks. The main use of the Raiders, I think, is to run in and tie up stuff. They do that VERY VERY well. Reach and a 14" run mean that they're almost up half the board with a first-turn run and max AD. You can do this with a lot more safety than you could before, because you have nothing serious to fear from range (note: don't rush Caine, it ends poorly). So you can tie up something ranged relatively early to help your other things advance. This is an important role, and one that I think can't be undersold. Cryx is a faction that's very vulnerable to early game shooting and, by and large, we don't have any answers to that. Yes, yes, yes, we have a unit with Stealth, and one with Incorporeal. But most of the time you're just relying on the poor DEF of your units and the only reasonable DEF of your jacks to stay safe. Satyxis Raiders can help mitigate this. You probably aren't engaging anything first turn unless your opponent is dumb, but you can threaten it second turn, or even a charge - a 12" threat range on a charge is nothing to sneeze at. Yes, they hit like little girls, but they hit hard enough to kill infantry on the charge. Power Swell is for when you see a chance to mess up light jacks or beasts, or heavy infantry.
Backlash is nice and useful for nickle and diming warcasters if they pack light jacks. Without Skarre this isn't reliable for actually assassinating casters (and even with Skarre I wouldn't really count on it - I find the jacks tend to die too fast or else I can't reliably damage it, but an unwary warcaster can be in a terrible position pretty quickly). but a couple points here and there can really make it easier to finish the assassination. I've seen this multiple times, especially against the Retribution - their light jacks are squishy enough to actually damage. All that said - don't make a list based around Backlash. It's doomed to fail. This isn't Prime Mk. I, it ain't gonna happen.
So, who likes them? Well, everyone, actually. Or everyone except Mortenebra. I think all casters can make good use of them. However, to get the best out of them, I think you need a way to boost damage. Either version of Asphyxious, Deneghra, and Epic Goreshade (surprisingly) seem to do pretty well with them. I don't really like them with the Coven, if for no other reason than I don't really need their speed and they don't get much out of Occultation.
My favorite use has been with pGaspy. They are -fantastic- with Scything Touch on them. P+S 11 hits light jacks hard enough to scare the ones without shields, and, as in Mk. I, that's who they prey on - throw Parasite on and you can even scare the big boys without having to resort to CMA. You no longer have to worry about getting them killed by Gaspy's Feat, so the one downside from Mk. I is gone. and all you've got left is awesome stuff. They help mitigate Gaspy's vulnerability to ranged by tying up the ranged units that may shoot him in the face until he dies. I love them here.
Also, Epic Asphyxious likes them. They work well with the Feat - don't scoff! One good critical hit on the caster and the game's over. He helps them hit harder, which means they're very much useful for something besides Feat fodder. My favorite eGaspy list has a unit of them.
So that's the broad outline. They're a fantastic unit that every Cryx player should own.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Back Now
I'm back now. Posting should be more regular. My home computer went down, so the only computer I had access to was at work; hence, no posting. Now I'm back to yelling at clouds.
Working on a Satyxis tactica as I get more interested in Cryx again, since I'm the Satyxis OG and all. Maybe later tonight, if not then tomorrow.
Working on a Satyxis tactica as I get more interested in Cryx again, since I'm the Satyxis OG and all. Maybe later tonight, if not then tomorrow.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Resurgence Followup
So, a quick followup from our Resurgence tournament yesterday:
Went two and two. Quick recaps of each game:
Round 1: Brutal beatdown of a Haley list. A friend of mine pretty much devastated my army with a rain of Chain Lightnings, and then stood Haley too close to Junior with no Focus on her. BoC, BoC, feat, BoC, dead.
Round 2: Versus Garryth. This was the most frustrating game of the tournament. Didn't do anything wrong, but got diced out. My dice were not hot. My opponent's were. Did the best that I could, but no go. I conceded when it became clear the game would come down to Garryth slowly whittling down my army until Gaspy got himself re-perished. Oh well. For the record, Garryth has an absolutely obnoxious Feat against Cryx. No spending Focus in his control area AND no casting would be fine. But no channeling, either? Ugh. Wouldn't have mattered either way - I couldn't roll damage to save my life, while my opponent couldn't miss and couldn't help but kill everything.
Round 3: Versus Reznik. I stole this one from myself, frankly. Fairly early my opponent sent up his TFG in old-school classic shield wall formation. Big mistake. Gaspy moved up and dropped Soul Reaper on top of the squad, then hit them with Death Knell cast by the Deathjack. Got all of them but two. Foosh. Ten souls, one activation. Can I express for a moment the raw sense of power when your caster gets seventeen Focus in one round? It's amazing. Anyway, couldn't capitalize much on it - I made a noob mistake and thought that Fire of Salvation's imprint was still Dispel. Oops. Deathjack got pounded flat. My Satyxis did surprisingly well here - did almost half the Avatar of Menoth's grid, and some not-insignificant damage to Bastions. The Cankerworm ended up finishing the Avatar off - and then grabbed his sword. Oh, what a feeling that was. So, the game was going pretty well for me, but I panicked with the random round time and hung Gaspy out to dry on an ill-advised Feat turn rather than hanging back, waiting until Reznik was out of a forest, and casting Parasite on him, or going after my opponent's zone to win by scenario, or something. I failed to kill him because he was camping a lot of Focus, Reznik cast EoD, and was in range of Gaspy(even with Hellbound up). I didn't make my opponent roll it out.
Round 4, versus Cryx: Barely worth talking about. My opponent threw his Deathjack away first turn (Max AD and ran it as far as he could), I used my Deathjack to kill his Deathjack. Second turn, he moved Terminus up, cast Annihilation, charged with a bunch of stuff, leaves Terminus with no Focus. Boom, six dead Satyxis. Only, Terminus is in 9" of the Deathjack with a nice fat landing zone. My turn, I clear out some Bane Knights, trample through, buy four attacks and rip Terminus in half. That'll learn him.
So, what did I learn? I was basically out of the running after getting diced out (overall winner played Cryx and went 4-0 - VERY impressive with Warwitch Deneghra). I learned that I might be in love with eGaspy. He's utterly fantastic - one of the deepest casters in our faction. LOTS to him. Great spell list, fun to play, I might end up maining him. I have a lot to learn, though. I have to learn when to pop his Feat, mainly. It's such a potent Feat but you have to do it at the right time, and both times it mattered I used it incorrectly. I had some slight issues with casting spells at the right time but overall I did okay for playing a complex caster the first time.
Also, I -hate- the scenario. It's not a good scenario at all. The first time someone gets points for the middle, they win. If you don't have some kind of AD, you lose instantly. And I was right - shooting was -crucial-.
Overall, a fun if frustrating event. I'll have a chance to redeem myself sometime in March when we're running another one at a different store. I'm thinking about taking the Coven. We'll see what happens.
Went two and two. Quick recaps of each game:
Round 1: Brutal beatdown of a Haley list. A friend of mine pretty much devastated my army with a rain of Chain Lightnings, and then stood Haley too close to Junior with no Focus on her. BoC, BoC, feat, BoC, dead.
Round 2: Versus Garryth. This was the most frustrating game of the tournament. Didn't do anything wrong, but got diced out. My dice were not hot. My opponent's were. Did the best that I could, but no go. I conceded when it became clear the game would come down to Garryth slowly whittling down my army until Gaspy got himself re-perished. Oh well. For the record, Garryth has an absolutely obnoxious Feat against Cryx. No spending Focus in his control area AND no casting would be fine. But no channeling, either? Ugh. Wouldn't have mattered either way - I couldn't roll damage to save my life, while my opponent couldn't miss and couldn't help but kill everything.
Round 3: Versus Reznik. I stole this one from myself, frankly. Fairly early my opponent sent up his TFG in old-school classic shield wall formation. Big mistake. Gaspy moved up and dropped Soul Reaper on top of the squad, then hit them with Death Knell cast by the Deathjack. Got all of them but two. Foosh. Ten souls, one activation. Can I express for a moment the raw sense of power when your caster gets seventeen Focus in one round? It's amazing. Anyway, couldn't capitalize much on it - I made a noob mistake and thought that Fire of Salvation's imprint was still Dispel. Oops. Deathjack got pounded flat. My Satyxis did surprisingly well here - did almost half the Avatar of Menoth's grid, and some not-insignificant damage to Bastions. The Cankerworm ended up finishing the Avatar off - and then grabbed his sword. Oh, what a feeling that was. So, the game was going pretty well for me, but I panicked with the random round time and hung Gaspy out to dry on an ill-advised Feat turn rather than hanging back, waiting until Reznik was out of a forest, and casting Parasite on him, or going after my opponent's zone to win by scenario, or something. I failed to kill him because he was camping a lot of Focus, Reznik cast EoD, and was in range of Gaspy(even with Hellbound up). I didn't make my opponent roll it out.
Round 4, versus Cryx: Barely worth talking about. My opponent threw his Deathjack away first turn (Max AD and ran it as far as he could), I used my Deathjack to kill his Deathjack. Second turn, he moved Terminus up, cast Annihilation, charged with a bunch of stuff, leaves Terminus with no Focus. Boom, six dead Satyxis. Only, Terminus is in 9" of the Deathjack with a nice fat landing zone. My turn, I clear out some Bane Knights, trample through, buy four attacks and rip Terminus in half. That'll learn him.
So, what did I learn? I was basically out of the running after getting diced out (overall winner played Cryx and went 4-0 - VERY impressive with Warwitch Deneghra). I learned that I might be in love with eGaspy. He's utterly fantastic - one of the deepest casters in our faction. LOTS to him. Great spell list, fun to play, I might end up maining him. I have a lot to learn, though. I have to learn when to pop his Feat, mainly. It's such a potent Feat but you have to do it at the right time, and both times it mattered I used it incorrectly. I had some slight issues with casting spells at the right time but overall I did okay for playing a complex caster the first time.
Also, I -hate- the scenario. It's not a good scenario at all. The first time someone gets points for the middle, they win. If you don't have some kind of AD, you lose instantly. And I was right - shooting was -crucial-.
Overall, a fun if frustrating event. I'll have a chance to redeem myself sometime in March when we're running another one at a different store. I'm thinking about taking the Coven. We'll see what happens.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Let's Talk Tactics: Upcoming Resurgence Tournament
This Saturday will mark my LGS's Resurgence tournament. I will, of course, be representing Cryx - which is a serious change from my approximate month and a half straight of playing Legion - and, in fact, taking a caster who I have yet to play in Mark II and only played twice in Mark I. I speak, of course, of the man, the myth, the legend, Lich Lord Asphyxious. We're doing a 25/35/50 round scheme, which has earned a special hatred from me and I will discuss in a moment. Some discussion with a fellow forumite who shall remain nameless helped me tweak my lists.
For any of you who aren't aware of the format, it's Escalation-style (meaning the models from your 25-point list must be included in your 35-point list and so on) with three control zones in the middle-ish of the board. You get one control point the end of -each- player's turn for the zone closest to you, two for the one in the middle, and three for your opponent's. First to seven wins, tiebreaker is most control points first, most control points in different zones second (I hate that last one for the record). It's a little bit of a tricky scenario. For my dime, it favors shooty armies. Armies with potent shooting can advance or run into their closest control zone to start getting the easy one-points every round, and then unleash hell on any poor bastard who advances into the middle control zone, while sending forward their own solid stuff (melee units or heavy warjacks) to mop up and start getting bigger points. This can hopefully be mitigated with terrain, but any board without a big fat forest in the middle is going to cause an issue - something to keep in mind when building lists.
I anticipate lots of shooting. There are at least two Cygnar players I know of, and two Retribution players. Two merc players will be there as well with, you guessed it, shooty lists, and a smattering of Khador. Probably not much in the way of Cryx, but you can never be too sure - I know of one other Cryx player right now. Menoth will be there too it seems. Maybe a Hordes player or two as well? Everyone is going to be packing lots of shooting.
So - I think the smart players will be building with plenty of shooting, or with plenty of answers to shooting. You'll also definitely be needing something with threat range to contest or snag objectives, and probably something to either deal with opposing heavy hitters or at least make them go away. Forget this at your own peril - this scenario is the great equalizer. I saw a really good player laid low by someone not up to his level because the lesser player remembered scenario and the first player didn't. I also suspect lots of jack-heavy first rounds - not because it's most efficient, because I don't think it is with most casters, but because it just feels natural to take mostly warjacks at this points level.
I playtested a Mortenebra list at 25 and it just didn't cut it. Dual Slayers, a Seether, a Defiler, and two Necrotechs is okay for just straight caster-kill, but I would've been annihilated by scenario had my opponent not suffered from a rash of bad dice luck that led to Siege getting torn in half. I built the list with Round 2 mostly in mind and got punished for it.
I played around with iBodger during downtime at work and came up with some Asphyxious lists that just weren't working. Then my discussion with the previously-mentioned forumite, and together we hammered out these:
25 point:
Iron Lich Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Seether
Satyxis Raiders(Min) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls(Min)
Total: 23/25
I'm playing down this round intentionally, for more wiggle room next round. Normally I would fit a Skarlock in for the psuedo-free upkeep on Scything Touch, but the Skarlock does nothing for Lich Lord Asphyxious and would weigh me down in the following rounds, so I'm going to suck it up and deal without it.
This list fits in my principles. It's -fast- thanks to the bonejacks and the Raiders. It's not especially vulnerable to shooting - the only thing in the list that care about non-boosted shooting is the Seether. Boostable shooting will present a bigger problem, as ol' Gaspy is pretty vulnerable to that, but that's a risk I just have to take, and ideally their shooters will be tied up with high-DEF Satyxis Raiders anyway. This can be dealt with on the table.
The plan will be the usual for Gaspy - maneuver node into position, BoC, BoC, BoC, fatality. Otherwise, try to Backlash-ping them to death (Raiders with Scything Touch are -hot-) or Seether to the face if they're not careful. I'm not really planning on winning by scenario so much as keeping my opponent from doing so, but anything's possible. I'm actually quite happy with the list, which is strange given that it's the first 25-point list I had that really felt good.
Round 2(and 3 if necessary):
Lich Lord Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Deathjack
-Cankerworm
Satyxis Raiders(Full) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls (minimum)
Necrotech + 1 Scrap Thrall
Total: 35/35
This is where I feel like the list really comes into its own. Epic Asphyxious is practically tailor-made for this scenario. Dropping 3" clouds that auto-kill infantry that enters them or hangs around in them? How beautiful is that? (The answer is very beautiful) He keeps himself safe with them early game, then I can funnel my opponent's objective-grabbers out on penalty of death and feeding the Lich Lord even more souls. Having the Deathjack there (upgraded from the Seether) is a big old security blanket. And I actually love the Cankerworm with Asphyxious, especially in this scenario. He's incredibly fast, immune to shooting, and resilient enough that he laughs at blast damage. Slap Parasite on a heavy and it hits like an Angelius, and add in Dark Shroud for extra amusement. His Feat is also really good at giving you a second shot at clearing out the scoring zones or, like always, killing a caster.
Finally, we come to Round 3 (or 4, or whichever the last round ends up being):
Lich Lord Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Deathjack
-Cankerworm
Satyxis Raiders(Full) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls (Full)
The Withershadow Combine
Necrotech + 1 Scrap Thrall
Bane Lord Tartarus
General Gerlak Slaughterborn
Total: 50/50
Basically, at 50, I finally round out the Bane Thralls, and throw in the characters I couldn't take earlier. Not a huge change, and should play almost exactly like the other list, just with a hell of a lot scarier Feat turn. Two chances for Gerlak to kill an entire unit is pretty amazing.
So, those are my lists and strategies for tomorrow. We'll see if my theorizing will work on the table.
For any of you who aren't aware of the format, it's Escalation-style (meaning the models from your 25-point list must be included in your 35-point list and so on) with three control zones in the middle-ish of the board. You get one control point the end of -each- player's turn for the zone closest to you, two for the one in the middle, and three for your opponent's. First to seven wins, tiebreaker is most control points first, most control points in different zones second (I hate that last one for the record). It's a little bit of a tricky scenario. For my dime, it favors shooty armies. Armies with potent shooting can advance or run into their closest control zone to start getting the easy one-points every round, and then unleash hell on any poor bastard who advances into the middle control zone, while sending forward their own solid stuff (melee units or heavy warjacks) to mop up and start getting bigger points. This can hopefully be mitigated with terrain, but any board without a big fat forest in the middle is going to cause an issue - something to keep in mind when building lists.
I anticipate lots of shooting. There are at least two Cygnar players I know of, and two Retribution players. Two merc players will be there as well with, you guessed it, shooty lists, and a smattering of Khador. Probably not much in the way of Cryx, but you can never be too sure - I know of one other Cryx player right now. Menoth will be there too it seems. Maybe a Hordes player or two as well? Everyone is going to be packing lots of shooting.
So - I think the smart players will be building with plenty of shooting, or with plenty of answers to shooting. You'll also definitely be needing something with threat range to contest or snag objectives, and probably something to either deal with opposing heavy hitters or at least make them go away. Forget this at your own peril - this scenario is the great equalizer. I saw a really good player laid low by someone not up to his level because the lesser player remembered scenario and the first player didn't. I also suspect lots of jack-heavy first rounds - not because it's most efficient, because I don't think it is with most casters, but because it just feels natural to take mostly warjacks at this points level.
I playtested a Mortenebra list at 25 and it just didn't cut it. Dual Slayers, a Seether, a Defiler, and two Necrotechs is okay for just straight caster-kill, but I would've been annihilated by scenario had my opponent not suffered from a rash of bad dice luck that led to Siege getting torn in half. I built the list with Round 2 mostly in mind and got punished for it.
I played around with iBodger during downtime at work and came up with some Asphyxious lists that just weren't working. Then my discussion with the previously-mentioned forumite, and together we hammered out these:
25 point:
Iron Lich Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Seether
Satyxis Raiders(Min) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls(Min)
Total: 23/25
I'm playing down this round intentionally, for more wiggle room next round. Normally I would fit a Skarlock in for the psuedo-free upkeep on Scything Touch, but the Skarlock does nothing for Lich Lord Asphyxious and would weigh me down in the following rounds, so I'm going to suck it up and deal without it.
This list fits in my principles. It's -fast- thanks to the bonejacks and the Raiders. It's not especially vulnerable to shooting - the only thing in the list that care about non-boosted shooting is the Seether. Boostable shooting will present a bigger problem, as ol' Gaspy is pretty vulnerable to that, but that's a risk I just have to take, and ideally their shooters will be tied up with high-DEF Satyxis Raiders anyway. This can be dealt with on the table.
The plan will be the usual for Gaspy - maneuver node into position, BoC, BoC, BoC, fatality. Otherwise, try to Backlash-ping them to death (Raiders with Scything Touch are -hot-) or Seether to the face if they're not careful. I'm not really planning on winning by scenario so much as keeping my opponent from doing so, but anything's possible. I'm actually quite happy with the list, which is strange given that it's the first 25-point list I had that really felt good.
Round 2(and 3 if necessary):
Lich Lord Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Deathjack
-Cankerworm
Satyxis Raiders(Full) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls (minimum)
Necrotech + 1 Scrap Thrall
Total: 35/35
This is where I feel like the list really comes into its own. Epic Asphyxious is practically tailor-made for this scenario. Dropping 3" clouds that auto-kill infantry that enters them or hangs around in them? How beautiful is that? (The answer is very beautiful) He keeps himself safe with them early game, then I can funnel my opponent's objective-grabbers out on penalty of death and feeding the Lich Lord even more souls. Having the Deathjack there (upgraded from the Seether) is a big old security blanket. And I actually love the Cankerworm with Asphyxious, especially in this scenario. He's incredibly fast, immune to shooting, and resilient enough that he laughs at blast damage. Slap Parasite on a heavy and it hits like an Angelius, and add in Dark Shroud for extra amusement. His Feat is also really good at giving you a second shot at clearing out the scoring zones or, like always, killing a caster.
Finally, we come to Round 3 (or 4, or whichever the last round ends up being):
Lich Lord Asphyxious
-Deathripper
-Deathripper
-Deathjack
-Cankerworm
Satyxis Raiders(Full) + Sea Witch
Bane Thralls (Full)
The Withershadow Combine
Necrotech + 1 Scrap Thrall
Bane Lord Tartarus
General Gerlak Slaughterborn
Total: 50/50
Basically, at 50, I finally round out the Bane Thralls, and throw in the characters I couldn't take earlier. Not a huge change, and should play almost exactly like the other list, just with a hell of a lot scarier Feat turn. Two chances for Gerlak to kill an entire unit is pretty amazing.
So, those are my lists and strategies for tomorrow. We'll see if my theorizing will work on the table.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Warlocks Part 3
One more post about warlocks and then on to some other topics.
7) Thagrosh, the Messiah - The main man. His is the model that got me playing Legion (well, him and Typhon). I love his play style - he's good at buffing up his army, but he's also good at charging in and destroying the world in hand-to-hand combat. I found in Mark I he was very solid - definitely beatable, as a large base and only average defensive stats made him pretty easy to shoot or spell to death, and I rarely had more than one Fury to hang onto for transfers. You had to be very careful with him, but he rewarded intelligent play with legendary brutality.
He actually made the transition to Mark II relatively unscathed. He does have the fewest beast points in Hordes, which is painful, but nothing you can't deal with. It means you get Typhon for the same price as an Angelius, as I actually can't imagine running Typhon without Thagrosh (his three sprays at POW 14 are SO GOOD with Manifest Destiny). He's a hard warlock to run below 50 points, as he needs at least two heavies, with one of them being Typhon and the other in my experience being a Carnivean. He can run pretty much any beasts you want, though, and the nice part is that unlike our other beast 'locks like Vayl and Saeryn he gets the job done himself.
Some people will tell you he's overpowered. These people are silly people. He's strong, but keep in mind that a caster with a superior spread of stats and access to Khador infantry has a superior version of Manifest Destiny that affects his entire army for a mere one Focus point more. The Messiah also comes on a large base that's easy to peg and hard to hide.
8) Vayl, Disciple of Everblight - I like Vayl. A lot. But she's kind of boring. Honestly, she has kind of a weak spell list. Hoarfrost isn't that great - 3" AoEs are simply not impressive in Mark II, and you pay a lot for a simple POW 13 with a critical effect. Not a good spell. Malice is simply weak. Rampager has no use against six out of ten factions. So that leaves you with Leash and Incite. Leash is great. It helps you ping-pong her requisite Angelii all over the board and gives you the means to reposition and increase the speed of some scary beasts - Incited Angelii are MAT 8 with POW 16 thrusts. Incite is also great - a little tiny bit tricksy to make sure ranged beasts can take advantage of it, because the target has to be in her control area too, but frankly, anyone who tells you this is a problem for a warlock with a 16" control area is trying to sell you something. It's not significant. Her Feat is also very weak, in my opinion. If you want to get best results, you have to not do what you should be doing, killing enemy models. Don't like it. And without being immune to free strikes during the move, it makes you pretty vulnerable. Okay for a bit of repositioning, but kind of weak. You should probably count the number of enemy models when she pops her feat rather than at the end of the round. It still wouldn't be great, but it would be an awful lot better.
So where does Vayl stand? Because of Incite and Leash she's definitely a tournament contender. You have to be careful with her, because she is the squishiest caster in either game, but a 16" control area makes that a bit easier as long as you don't get her CRA'd. She just feels so limited. She's too squishy to move up front and participate, but why should she anyway? Her spell list is just so bad aside from Leash and Incite. Most of my games involve sending beasts forward, strafing stuff to death with RAT 7 POW 14 Seraphim, and spamming Tenacity. Not thrilling. I really wish she had old Hoarfrost back. It was a VERY good spell, but I don't think too good, and in today's world of unit formations being able to spread out across all creation, it wouldn't be any more powerful than a decent roll on Chain Lightning. It would also give her something to do with her awesome Fury stat.
In closing - I think Legion has a lot of really good, competitive warlocks. I don't want to rank them, because I think rankings are going to depend a lot on how the finalized rules shake out and on individual player preference. That being said, I think you can at least tier them. My tiers:
High: Thagrosh, the Messiah, Vayl, Saeryn
Mid-High: Absylonia, Lylyth, the Herald, Lylyth, the Shadow
Low: Thagrosh, the Prophet, Rhyas
I scored them that way for one simple reason - Menoth. Isn't that sad? I'll touch on the topic later, but the first three have answers for Menoth in general and Kreoss in particular. The mid-tier have problems with Purification - BIG problems. Absylonia lives and dies by her upkeeps, and can't afford to keep recasting them. Lylyth needs Parasite (even though a lot of the time you'll be killing what you cast it on) and Tenacity, as well as Safeguard from the Nephilim Protector a lot of the time. Epic Lylyth absolutely cannot deal with Purification. It completely shuts her down. She NEEDS Shadow Pack and Shadow Stalk. If those go away, she's pretty much doomed to be shot to death by all and sundry. Therefore, upkeep and animus hate hurts her unusually badly, but I'm finding she's strong enough in other matchups to bring as a viable secondary list in tournament situations.
That finishes warlocks. More general stuff later.
7) Thagrosh, the Messiah - The main man. His is the model that got me playing Legion (well, him and Typhon). I love his play style - he's good at buffing up his army, but he's also good at charging in and destroying the world in hand-to-hand combat. I found in Mark I he was very solid - definitely beatable, as a large base and only average defensive stats made him pretty easy to shoot or spell to death, and I rarely had more than one Fury to hang onto for transfers. You had to be very careful with him, but he rewarded intelligent play with legendary brutality.
He actually made the transition to Mark II relatively unscathed. He does have the fewest beast points in Hordes, which is painful, but nothing you can't deal with. It means you get Typhon for the same price as an Angelius, as I actually can't imagine running Typhon without Thagrosh (his three sprays at POW 14 are SO GOOD with Manifest Destiny). He's a hard warlock to run below 50 points, as he needs at least two heavies, with one of them being Typhon and the other in my experience being a Carnivean. He can run pretty much any beasts you want, though, and the nice part is that unlike our other beast 'locks like Vayl and Saeryn he gets the job done himself.
Some people will tell you he's overpowered. These people are silly people. He's strong, but keep in mind that a caster with a superior spread of stats and access to Khador infantry has a superior version of Manifest Destiny that affects his entire army for a mere one Focus point more. The Messiah also comes on a large base that's easy to peg and hard to hide.
8) Vayl, Disciple of Everblight - I like Vayl. A lot. But she's kind of boring. Honestly, she has kind of a weak spell list. Hoarfrost isn't that great - 3" AoEs are simply not impressive in Mark II, and you pay a lot for a simple POW 13 with a critical effect. Not a good spell. Malice is simply weak. Rampager has no use against six out of ten factions. So that leaves you with Leash and Incite. Leash is great. It helps you ping-pong her requisite Angelii all over the board and gives you the means to reposition and increase the speed of some scary beasts - Incited Angelii are MAT 8 with POW 16 thrusts. Incite is also great - a little tiny bit tricksy to make sure ranged beasts can take advantage of it, because the target has to be in her control area too, but frankly, anyone who tells you this is a problem for a warlock with a 16" control area is trying to sell you something. It's not significant. Her Feat is also very weak, in my opinion. If you want to get best results, you have to not do what you should be doing, killing enemy models. Don't like it. And without being immune to free strikes during the move, it makes you pretty vulnerable. Okay for a bit of repositioning, but kind of weak. You should probably count the number of enemy models when she pops her feat rather than at the end of the round. It still wouldn't be great, but it would be an awful lot better.
So where does Vayl stand? Because of Incite and Leash she's definitely a tournament contender. You have to be careful with her, because she is the squishiest caster in either game, but a 16" control area makes that a bit easier as long as you don't get her CRA'd. She just feels so limited. She's too squishy to move up front and participate, but why should she anyway? Her spell list is just so bad aside from Leash and Incite. Most of my games involve sending beasts forward, strafing stuff to death with RAT 7 POW 14 Seraphim, and spamming Tenacity. Not thrilling. I really wish she had old Hoarfrost back. It was a VERY good spell, but I don't think too good, and in today's world of unit formations being able to spread out across all creation, it wouldn't be any more powerful than a decent roll on Chain Lightning. It would also give her something to do with her awesome Fury stat.
In closing - I think Legion has a lot of really good, competitive warlocks. I don't want to rank them, because I think rankings are going to depend a lot on how the finalized rules shake out and on individual player preference. That being said, I think you can at least tier them. My tiers:
High: Thagrosh, the Messiah, Vayl, Saeryn
Mid-High: Absylonia, Lylyth, the Herald, Lylyth, the Shadow
Low: Thagrosh, the Prophet, Rhyas
I scored them that way for one simple reason - Menoth. Isn't that sad? I'll touch on the topic later, but the first three have answers for Menoth in general and Kreoss in particular. The mid-tier have problems with Purification - BIG problems. Absylonia lives and dies by her upkeeps, and can't afford to keep recasting them. Lylyth needs Parasite (even though a lot of the time you'll be killing what you cast it on) and Tenacity, as well as Safeguard from the Nephilim Protector a lot of the time. Epic Lylyth absolutely cannot deal with Purification. It completely shuts her down. She NEEDS Shadow Pack and Shadow Stalk. If those go away, she's pretty much doomed to be shot to death by all and sundry. Therefore, upkeep and animus hate hurts her unusually badly, but I'm finding she's strong enough in other matchups to bring as a viable secondary list in tournament situations.
That finishes warlocks. More general stuff later.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Warlocks, Part 2
So, continuing on with the warlocks...
4) Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight - Sigh. I'm depressed with how she's turned out. Everyone likes Rhyas. I'm including non-Legion players there, too. Everyone was rooting for her. But with how she stands...
Well, she's more playable than she was at the beginning of the playtest. She's definitely a fun caster to play. But competitive she ain't. She's far too easy to shut down - terrain shuts her down. Melee hosing shuts her down. Camping Focus shuts her down. She can kill medium-armored targets, but that's about it. Anybody else pretty much hacks her up or shoots her to pieces, depending on the army. In addition, she can only really shine against Hordes, because she just can't generate enough attacks to close the deal most of the time. Her ability to reave the Fury from warbeasts she kills is nice, but there should be some kind of analogue against Warmachine, frankly (kind of a recurring theme in my criticisms, honestly). As it stands now, though - fun caster to play, not one to play if you care about winning that much. She's just not competitive enough to stand with the big boys in high-level competition.
5) Saeryn, Omen of Everblight - Now here's the stuff. She's fairly ferocious, mostly due to her incredibly irritating level of denial. Her Feat also makes her a pretty good assassin with a couple of Angelii to cruise on over to say hello to your opponent's caster. Her spells synergize with this focus a lot. Apparently she's not much fun to play against. I haven't found that when I've played against her, but there have been lots of complaints about her from my gaming circle. I only really break her out when I need to punish someone. I've proven that I can push her to her limits (or as close to her limits as I can get her and still retain people who want to play me) and frankly, I just don't feel like I need to very often.
She was a little surprising to me. From the sheer amount of complaining that she inspired in Mk. I, she didn't really change at all. I like that, because it shows that PP didn't cave to people being irrational after getting curbstomped. I have a niggling sensation that something needs to change on her, but I'm not sure what you'd change without changing her fundamentally. I mostly get the impression that her Feat needs changed, because of how easy it makes it to slingshot a pair of Angels into somebody's face region, but I don't know what you could change without changing the Feat entirely, which would be a bad thing, as it's part of her flavor. Other than that, I think she's beatable. Very strong, but you just can't depend on your usual tactics to beat her. I've found she's a lot of fun for me to play, but I respect my gaming group enough that I don't break her out very often, as they don't have fun with her. Oh well, I have other casters.
6) Thagrosh, the Prophet of Everblight - Thagrosh1 is a caster I find kind of weird. I REALLY like his spell list - Draconic Blessing is absolutely one of the best buffs in Hordes, and Mutagenesis assassination runs are still as viable as they ever were, which is to say that they work sometimes. But he's totally let down by his incredibly awful defensive stats. DEF 14 ARM 15 is a huge letdown, even considering that Death Shroud is always on now. That just means he's always ARM 17 against melee, which is okay, but not great. It's not melee that you should worry about - he's Thagrosh, man, he WRECKS dudes in melee. Take a Harrier and some auto-hitting POW 16s to the face! Good stuff!
No. Not really. My (admittedly very limited) experience playing Thagrosh involves getting CRA'd in the face and dying horrendously. He's got a weak Feat that looks really strong on paper until you realize that it won't be coming into play until turn four most games. Turn four! Who has four turns in a tournament? Not me in general, because if I've gone to turn four I've ceded my army's biggest advantage, the lightning alpha strike. And worse, it'll be turn five before your beast can even do anything. The ability to bring back Typhon seems really beefy on paper until you realize how limited it is. It may help if your opponent gets freakishly lucky and offs him early, but in general, it's a weak Feat. Tie that in to his awful defensive stats and even with a good spell list and the awesomeness of Rapture, he just doesn't have the juice.
How would you fix him? Good question. Death Shroud in Control rather than Command would help, so that you don't have to mess around with trying to pack all your stuff in his relatively small control area. Either a DEF increase (not likely) or an ARM increase (more likely) would be tremendously helpful. He's a warlock that kind of has to lead from the front, so anything that helps him do that more successfully would be nice.
One more post after this one and then the warlocks are done.
4) Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight - Sigh. I'm depressed with how she's turned out. Everyone likes Rhyas. I'm including non-Legion players there, too. Everyone was rooting for her. But with how she stands...
Well, she's more playable than she was at the beginning of the playtest. She's definitely a fun caster to play. But competitive she ain't. She's far too easy to shut down - terrain shuts her down. Melee hosing shuts her down. Camping Focus shuts her down. She can kill medium-armored targets, but that's about it. Anybody else pretty much hacks her up or shoots her to pieces, depending on the army. In addition, she can only really shine against Hordes, because she just can't generate enough attacks to close the deal most of the time. Her ability to reave the Fury from warbeasts she kills is nice, but there should be some kind of analogue against Warmachine, frankly (kind of a recurring theme in my criticisms, honestly). As it stands now, though - fun caster to play, not one to play if you care about winning that much. She's just not competitive enough to stand with the big boys in high-level competition.
5) Saeryn, Omen of Everblight - Now here's the stuff. She's fairly ferocious, mostly due to her incredibly irritating level of denial. Her Feat also makes her a pretty good assassin with a couple of Angelii to cruise on over to say hello to your opponent's caster. Her spells synergize with this focus a lot. Apparently she's not much fun to play against. I haven't found that when I've played against her, but there have been lots of complaints about her from my gaming circle. I only really break her out when I need to punish someone. I've proven that I can push her to her limits (or as close to her limits as I can get her and still retain people who want to play me) and frankly, I just don't feel like I need to very often.
She was a little surprising to me. From the sheer amount of complaining that she inspired in Mk. I, she didn't really change at all. I like that, because it shows that PP didn't cave to people being irrational after getting curbstomped. I have a niggling sensation that something needs to change on her, but I'm not sure what you'd change without changing her fundamentally. I mostly get the impression that her Feat needs changed, because of how easy it makes it to slingshot a pair of Angels into somebody's face region, but I don't know what you could change without changing the Feat entirely, which would be a bad thing, as it's part of her flavor. Other than that, I think she's beatable. Very strong, but you just can't depend on your usual tactics to beat her. I've found she's a lot of fun for me to play, but I respect my gaming group enough that I don't break her out very often, as they don't have fun with her. Oh well, I have other casters.
6) Thagrosh, the Prophet of Everblight - Thagrosh1 is a caster I find kind of weird. I REALLY like his spell list - Draconic Blessing is absolutely one of the best buffs in Hordes, and Mutagenesis assassination runs are still as viable as they ever were, which is to say that they work sometimes. But he's totally let down by his incredibly awful defensive stats. DEF 14 ARM 15 is a huge letdown, even considering that Death Shroud is always on now. That just means he's always ARM 17 against melee, which is okay, but not great. It's not melee that you should worry about - he's Thagrosh, man, he WRECKS dudes in melee. Take a Harrier and some auto-hitting POW 16s to the face! Good stuff!
No. Not really. My (admittedly very limited) experience playing Thagrosh involves getting CRA'd in the face and dying horrendously. He's got a weak Feat that looks really strong on paper until you realize that it won't be coming into play until turn four most games. Turn four! Who has four turns in a tournament? Not me in general, because if I've gone to turn four I've ceded my army's biggest advantage, the lightning alpha strike. And worse, it'll be turn five before your beast can even do anything. The ability to bring back Typhon seems really beefy on paper until you realize how limited it is. It may help if your opponent gets freakishly lucky and offs him early, but in general, it's a weak Feat. Tie that in to his awful defensive stats and even with a good spell list and the awesomeness of Rapture, he just doesn't have the juice.
How would you fix him? Good question. Death Shroud in Control rather than Command would help, so that you don't have to mess around with trying to pack all your stuff in his relatively small control area. Either a DEF increase (not likely) or an ARM increase (more likely) would be tremendously helpful. He's a warlock that kind of has to lead from the front, so anything that helps him do that more successfully would be nice.
One more post after this one and then the warlocks are done.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Field Test Part 1: Legion Warlocks
I don't think I'm saying anything too controversial when I say that the Legion has the best warlocks. This isn't to say that I think Legion is the best Hordes faction (primarily because I don't) but in general their warlocks are just a touch more powerful than those other factions. Here are my thoughts on how they are turning out as of today, in no particular order. Well. In alphabetical order.
1) Absylonia, Terror of Everblight
As far as I'm concerned, she's the success story of the entire Field Test. Her incarnation in the original rules document was pretty much exactly the same as her Mk. I incarnation except nerfed in a couple of ways, which made her a mess, to put it nicely. She was kind of a melee assassin without the juice to actually assassinate things in melee.
Her updated version is just fantastic. Basically, she synergizes with each of our three melee heavies to grant them something they need, and acts like a beast-booster, until the end when she can finish the opposing caster herself if she has to. Carniveans with Reach (or Typhon, now that he doesn't have it inherently...) and thumbs? Angelii with base DEF of 16 and POW 16 thrusts? MAT 9 Typhon that heals Abby for d3 every time he kills a living model? Yeah, she's got all that. AND free upkeeps for her battlegroup. AND the ability to give herself a free Tenacity or True Strike every round. Throw in warps that she can actually use, unlike her Mark I incarnation, and she's a very solid, very Fury-efficient caster. Don't listen to people who say she's too much - she's not. She is, however, incredibly fun to play, and according to my opponents, to play against. I'll probably
2) Lylyth, Herald of Everblight
Lylyth is my lady. I rarely played the Herald in Mark I, because I found her incredibly boring and one-dimensional. She didn't do much but stand back and pick off support solos such, and didn't support her army in the slightest, a super-solo type of caster like Caine but significantly worse at shooting units to death. Epic Lylyth was so much better at, well, everything, than her.
How things change. In Mark II, she's a remarkably fun caster, and amusingly, all they did was swap out Taint (which was useless) for Parasite (which is amazing). She now supports her army, and unlike most other support warlocks, she supports infantry as well. Essentially, she points at one target, be it unit or single important model, every turn, and she and her army remove it from the board. She can do it from quite a ways out, and with Eyeless Sight it's hard to hide from her. She's squishy and dies to harsh language, but definitely a good caster, probably one of my favorites.
3) Lylyth, Shadow of Everblight
Lylyth is still my lady. I'll be honest: When they posted her new version, I was skeptical. More than skeptical: I thought she was awful. Spell list was unremarkable outside of the amazing Shadow Stalk, and generating only two attacks was pretty rough. Not only that: She had to be immobile in order to do her best trick, and an immobile Legion caster is a dead Legion caster, right?
Well, wrong. She's incredibly mobile - she just moves on your opponent's turn thanks to Shadow Stalk (15"!) and Pursuit (13"!). I saw that in the original rules, but discounted it to some degree. It's hard to discount it on the table, though. Watching her move 14" on my opponent's turn was remarkable, as was how it's started to make my opponents completely shut down. It is a little harrowing to let your opponent dictate how your warlock moves, but if you're even reasonably good at targeting things with Shadow Stalk she's pretty easy to keep safe. I've gotten into a habit that will eventually lose me games with her where I use ALL of her Fury every turn, saving nothing for transfers and depending on Shadow Stalk to keep her safe. This is because I haven't been playing a lot of ranged armies with her or armies that can mitigate or ignore the Stealth she gets from Shadow Pack. Obviously things would run differently against those sorts of armies.
I'm very surprised with how much fun I've had with her. I think she's very close to being perfect. She's a pretty solid ranged assassin, though her army composition fairly dictates itself - dual Angels as spot removers, Striders to help thin out infantry, et cetera. She needs a little tweak, though. Specifically, Lock the Target is not a good spell for her. She's VERY rarely going to have the Fury to boost damage on it, which means that you're probably not going to be damaging the kinds of things that you want the secondary effect of the spell on. I've said, and I've always said, that Calamity would be about a hundred times better, and it would give her a unique role as the Legion infantry warlock. Most of my opponents agree. That being said, if she went to press exactly as she is now, I would still play her frequently. I just probably wouldn't reach for her first at a tournament. I have some real doubts about how she'll perform against Menoth when they can just remove her upkeeps and animi with their best casters then blast her into paste. Nobody's perfect, but Rhoven and company ensure that she'll have a problem.
This is getting long, so I'll finish up in another post.
1) Absylonia, Terror of Everblight
As far as I'm concerned, she's the success story of the entire Field Test. Her incarnation in the original rules document was pretty much exactly the same as her Mk. I incarnation except nerfed in a couple of ways, which made her a mess, to put it nicely. She was kind of a melee assassin without the juice to actually assassinate things in melee.
Her updated version is just fantastic. Basically, she synergizes with each of our three melee heavies to grant them something they need, and acts like a beast-booster, until the end when she can finish the opposing caster herself if she has to. Carniveans with Reach (or Typhon, now that he doesn't have it inherently...) and thumbs? Angelii with base DEF of 16 and POW 16 thrusts? MAT 9 Typhon that heals Abby for d3 every time he kills a living model? Yeah, she's got all that. AND free upkeeps for her battlegroup. AND the ability to give herself a free Tenacity or True Strike every round. Throw in warps that she can actually use, unlike her Mark I incarnation, and she's a very solid, very Fury-efficient caster. Don't listen to people who say she's too much - she's not. She is, however, incredibly fun to play, and according to my opponents, to play against. I'll probably
2) Lylyth, Herald of Everblight
Lylyth is my lady. I rarely played the Herald in Mark I, because I found her incredibly boring and one-dimensional. She didn't do much but stand back and pick off support solos such, and didn't support her army in the slightest, a super-solo type of caster like Caine but significantly worse at shooting units to death. Epic Lylyth was so much better at, well, everything, than her.
How things change. In Mark II, she's a remarkably fun caster, and amusingly, all they did was swap out Taint (which was useless) for Parasite (which is amazing). She now supports her army, and unlike most other support warlocks, she supports infantry as well. Essentially, she points at one target, be it unit or single important model, every turn, and she and her army remove it from the board. She can do it from quite a ways out, and with Eyeless Sight it's hard to hide from her. She's squishy and dies to harsh language, but definitely a good caster, probably one of my favorites.
3) Lylyth, Shadow of Everblight
Lylyth is still my lady. I'll be honest: When they posted her new version, I was skeptical. More than skeptical: I thought she was awful. Spell list was unremarkable outside of the amazing Shadow Stalk, and generating only two attacks was pretty rough. Not only that: She had to be immobile in order to do her best trick, and an immobile Legion caster is a dead Legion caster, right?
Well, wrong. She's incredibly mobile - she just moves on your opponent's turn thanks to Shadow Stalk (15"!) and Pursuit (13"!). I saw that in the original rules, but discounted it to some degree. It's hard to discount it on the table, though. Watching her move 14" on my opponent's turn was remarkable, as was how it's started to make my opponents completely shut down. It is a little harrowing to let your opponent dictate how your warlock moves, but if you're even reasonably good at targeting things with Shadow Stalk she's pretty easy to keep safe. I've gotten into a habit that will eventually lose me games with her where I use ALL of her Fury every turn, saving nothing for transfers and depending on Shadow Stalk to keep her safe. This is because I haven't been playing a lot of ranged armies with her or armies that can mitigate or ignore the Stealth she gets from Shadow Pack. Obviously things would run differently against those sorts of armies.
I'm very surprised with how much fun I've had with her. I think she's very close to being perfect. She's a pretty solid ranged assassin, though her army composition fairly dictates itself - dual Angels as spot removers, Striders to help thin out infantry, et cetera. She needs a little tweak, though. Specifically, Lock the Target is not a good spell for her. She's VERY rarely going to have the Fury to boost damage on it, which means that you're probably not going to be damaging the kinds of things that you want the secondary effect of the spell on. I've said, and I've always said, that Calamity would be about a hundred times better, and it would give her a unique role as the Legion infantry warlock. Most of my opponents agree. That being said, if she went to press exactly as she is now, I would still play her frequently. I just probably wouldn't reach for her first at a tournament. I have some real doubts about how she'll perform against Menoth when they can just remove her upkeeps and animi with their best casters then blast her into paste. Nobody's perfect, but Rhoven and company ensure that she'll have a problem.
This is getting long, so I'll finish up in another post.
The Beginning: What This Blog Is and Isn't
This is my first blog, so be gentle.
What this blog is is a place for me to put out my thoughts regarding wargaming (mostly I'm going to focus on Warmachine and Hordes, as they're my primary games, but I'll probably have things to say about other games as well) and wargaming competitions. I may occasionally have other things to say, but for the most part that's it. No one out there wants to hear about my life, so don't worry about me dipping into reviews or blogging about my life or something. Just wargaming for me, thanks.
What this isn't is a blog intended to be perfectly fair and balanced. I'll do my best to avoid being completely outrageous and rageposting because something beat me, or otherwise completely unreasonable, but these are my thoughts and I don't claim to be perfectly fair.
So, who am I? Just a player. In the interests of full disclosure, I'm a Pressganger for Privateer Press, which for the really uninitiated is a volunteer who helps promote their games. I'm primarily just a player interested in competitive wargaming, specifically regarding Hordes and Warmachine. I'm a pretty decent player, and my record of wins can speak to that, but I'm not a super-player or anything like that. Just a guy on the high end of normal that likes to talk about the miniature gaming hobby. I love to discuss and argue, and I'm blunt, but I rarely try to be rude or insulting. I also intend to primarily discuss the armies that I play from my perspective, because nobody likes an armchair general, but I'm pretty opinionated, so I'll often have things to say about other armies. As I may add other bloggers in the future, I'll encourage them to focus on their armies from their perspectives as well.
My armies for Warmachine and Hordes are Cryx and Legion, respectively, with a tiny bit of Skorne on the side for Hordes. I have a lot of experience playing against most Hordes and Warmachine factions. As I'm still trying to decide where I stand on Cryx, I would consider myself a Hordes-primary player at the moment, but I have many years of experience with Warmachine and Cryx in particular, whereas I'm a newer convert to the Legion of Everblight.
For Warhammer 40k, I play Eldar, Tyranids, Chaos Space Marines, and Chaos Daemons. I'm a repentant Space Marine player.
For Warhammer Fantasy I play Chaos Daemons (boo, hiss) and Warriors of Chaos. Eventually I will probably play Beastmen, depending on how their new book treats them.
The plans for this blog are mostly to chronicle my thoughts regarding wargaming and tournaments. Most of what I'm thinking about right now is the Field Test for Hordes. I intend to put up a series of posts with my thoughts about the Legion and where they stand as the Field Test slowly ramps down. I've been thinking about warlocks most, so I'll start there and work my way down.
What this blog is is a place for me to put out my thoughts regarding wargaming (mostly I'm going to focus on Warmachine and Hordes, as they're my primary games, but I'll probably have things to say about other games as well) and wargaming competitions. I may occasionally have other things to say, but for the most part that's it. No one out there wants to hear about my life, so don't worry about me dipping into reviews or blogging about my life or something. Just wargaming for me, thanks.
What this isn't is a blog intended to be perfectly fair and balanced. I'll do my best to avoid being completely outrageous and rageposting because something beat me, or otherwise completely unreasonable, but these are my thoughts and I don't claim to be perfectly fair.
So, who am I? Just a player. In the interests of full disclosure, I'm a Pressganger for Privateer Press, which for the really uninitiated is a volunteer who helps promote their games. I'm primarily just a player interested in competitive wargaming, specifically regarding Hordes and Warmachine. I'm a pretty decent player, and my record of wins can speak to that, but I'm not a super-player or anything like that. Just a guy on the high end of normal that likes to talk about the miniature gaming hobby. I love to discuss and argue, and I'm blunt, but I rarely try to be rude or insulting. I also intend to primarily discuss the armies that I play from my perspective, because nobody likes an armchair general, but I'm pretty opinionated, so I'll often have things to say about other armies. As I may add other bloggers in the future, I'll encourage them to focus on their armies from their perspectives as well.
My armies for Warmachine and Hordes are Cryx and Legion, respectively, with a tiny bit of Skorne on the side for Hordes. I have a lot of experience playing against most Hordes and Warmachine factions. As I'm still trying to decide where I stand on Cryx, I would consider myself a Hordes-primary player at the moment, but I have many years of experience with Warmachine and Cryx in particular, whereas I'm a newer convert to the Legion of Everblight.
For Warhammer 40k, I play Eldar, Tyranids, Chaos Space Marines, and Chaos Daemons. I'm a repentant Space Marine player.
For Warhammer Fantasy I play Chaos Daemons (boo, hiss) and Warriors of Chaos. Eventually I will probably play Beastmen, depending on how their new book treats them.
The plans for this blog are mostly to chronicle my thoughts regarding wargaming and tournaments. Most of what I'm thinking about right now is the Field Test for Hordes. I intend to put up a series of posts with my thoughts about the Legion and where they stand as the Field Test slowly ramps down. I've been thinking about warlocks most, so I'll start there and work my way down.
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