Reflections, Rallpoint, Rask, and Rebalancing

Yay alliteration! Usually I struggle to title my posts, so I'm feeling overly proud of this one.

The title does hold relevance to what I want to write about too; I feel just reviewing my games at Rallypoint would be a tedious exercise, though the setting and games do provide the context for what I want to muse over, which is what playing Rask is like. Rask I think presents a particular example of how the game mechanics interact, so by extension, hopefully my experience lends itself to concepts I would like to apply to the game in general.

First of all, the list I was using;

Rask
- Targ
- Wrastler
- Ironback Spitter
Lanyssa
Mist Speaker
Dahlia & Skarrath
Rorsh & Brine
Wrongeye & Snapjaw
Bokor and Swamp Shamblers

This was by no means an original list, where it was hard to miss the general discussion on Rask running "all-the-lessers" and throwing snakes around etc. You have that basic concept in mind, and the list largely builds itself.

I paired this list with my own concoction of a Maelok list, which I was relatively proud of, because it felt largely a construction of my own design. I won't get into detail on it however, because I ended up only playing Rask all 6 rounds of Rallypoint; while I felt my Maelok list was decent and played a damn good game, Rask far out-stripped him.

Playing Rask also includes such benefits as;
finishing games early to goof around and pester teammates 

So what is it about Rask? Well, its obviously not just him, there's also the the multiple layers of play that the lesser warlocks now bring with them. But just focusing on him for a moment, one of my biggest lessons was that the damage swings he now brings easily mitigates one of the problems that tends to exist within the game today. The ease with which one can apply Rage & Fury to magically just add +6 meant most single heavy targets evaporated when I could get to them, and this has been discussed ad nauseum. Pointing this out though is to highlight that my in-game decisions then only had to focus on two things; making sure I could hit my targets, and how to deliver them.

Now Rask has solutions to both of these issues; with the afore-mentioned throw shenanigans (which I never got around to doing) and his paralysis shot gun on living targets to address the to-hit issue. His feat obviously helps deliver the army, as well as having Boundless Charge and Veil of Mists on his card. But its great that theses are mitigated due to his Fury stat, where his ability to hand out these abilities quickly becomes a matter of prioritising your resources. The damage-swings are exempt from this, due to the Wrastler being able to also hand out Rage itself, alleviating The pressure on Rasks's Fury.

Then the lessers and other elements of the list come to the foray; Wrongeye & Snapjaw present a package that can also deliver themselves due to Submerge, and them along with Rorsh & Brine also present their own solutions for threat-extension and delivery. Added to that, Dahlia & Skarrath also have in-built to-hit mitigation, and when it presents itself, Dahlia also serves as a control piece, denying infantry the charge, and essentially crippling certain units just by standing there (Iron Fang Uhlans are not happy about her). At times I was also able to use the Bokor and Swamp Shamblers as a control element, usually just to occupy board space and serve as blockers, but the cheeky stationary shot the Bokor can put out was sometimes clutch, where combined with a Disruptor shot from Rask, would switch off a warjack a turn. Even Lanyssa would get lucky, landing a crit-freeze on the occasional model (especially vs Legion, remember those double boosts).

Overall, playing the list 6 times was hugely rewarding, due to the continuous layers to explore in resolving the problems presented, when playing an attrition game. However, my initial statement about Rask solve for damage (combined with the feat to deliver pieces), also allows a pretty massive margin of error. As I explored the applications of Veil of Mists and Brine's movement tricks, I would often make mistakes in my games, but never felt that penalised for them. The ability to either mitigate mistakes, or even just ignore them, is what makes Rask and his list quite unfair. In one of my games I missed scoring opportunities on scenario that would have handily given me the game, yet I could shrug it off because I  YOLO-SMASH-FACE'd instead.

To me, there's something a bit off when that happens. This isn't to say I steam-rolled my opponents either; they played great-games, and I don't think there were too many instances where the game felt completely lop-sided. The layering of tools and options that Rask (plus lessers list) has makes for a fantastic play experience, and should stay that way. However being able to just negate armour the way he does tips things to a point I feel adjustment is required. For him, it may be to lose Fury. That can perhaps mean replacing it with an offensive debuff, where he needs to actually land the spell, and consider spending extra resources to secure it. Actually, just taking Fury off him may be fine too.

Rallypoint was a fun weekend spent with the boys in Hamilton. Shout-outs go to Casey for running the whole thing, and resolving last-minute technical hitches in a way that did not impede our play-time. Props also to him for running Rask, and killing my heavies by trampling through my feat. Cheers to my team-mates Pete and Dave, and thanks also to Dan for putting us up at his place, and providing sweet sleeping arrangements.

erotic

Rask is ok? I hear

Further to my faction hopping soiree, I got my hands on a bunch of Greg's Minions models. The idea was that I'd have a go at giving them a spin since people are raving on about them a bit, so with the existing minions I had bought for my Skorne, I could start adding the odd unit, beast or warlock to ease into yet another faction.

Instead I got handed all of Greg's pigs and gators and so I'm currently a kid in a candy shop full of options.

Naturally I start playing with Rask, because someone, somewhere, they mentioned, yeah, he's meant to be a thing. Playing around with lists, I went with the ideas that were bouncing around the interwebs with Rask running all the Lesser Warlocks, as he delivers them so damned well. I also thought Maximus would do great in there, being able to charge up under feat, standing at spitting distance from the opponent without fear of reprisal. It didn't quite work out that way though, and he got dropped for Targ, to bring some much needed healing and that juicy ancillary attack.

I also tried lists without Dahlia & Skarrath, lacking those models; I had a good time chucking the Swamp Horror around for a bit, beginning to learn how abusable the throwing rules are with him. But the control Dahlia could bring to the table was tempting me, and having run her now, I see how frustrating it can be to have her forced down the throat of a melee army, without any hope to respond. The accuracy of the snake also left me aghast.

Overall, I began to play with a list that felt all sorts of right. In it, I ran Rask with Targ, Wrastler and Ironback Spitter, with Wrongeye, Rorsh, and Dahlia bringing their respective beasts. As support I had the Bog Trog Mist Speaker, Lanyssa, and the Bog Trog Shamblers led by their Bokor.

The pic below shows me using an earlier iteration of the above list, where I still had Maximus durdling in the wings, missing his initial attacks. The pic also features Greg's stylish skull. Whomever it was, I'm sure they deserved it.

The game was against Caine2, and served to show how much flex the list had. I pretty much cleared out his army with ease, however Caine doesn't need an army to win, and has all the tech he needs to bypass Rask's defences so YOLO.

Still. Rask is stronk. I've loved playing this guy, and will write about my 6 games with him at a recent teams event, and probably muse some more about what I want to do next with Minions (probably something swine).

Tournament report dumpipost

Its been a few weeks since I attended Lords of Ruin in Wellington so I better collate my thoughts before the whole event becomes even more of a distant memory. I'll just drop some photos I took, along with my thoughts of my games. The event overall was a straight out hoot, with about 45 attendees, and faced by the ever-effervescent Sean Lincoln and Jimmy Braid. Big ups to those guys, and to the Wellington gaming crew, its always a good time in the capital.

Especially considering how close butts were during the rounds

Overall I felt I had made a sort of break-through during this event, in terms of making plans for my lists and responding to what my opponents dropped into me. I find this kind of funny because a few days before the event I was telling my flatmate how I appraised my ability, where I tend to just throw shit at my opponent, and then work to dig myself out of whatever hole I found myself in.

My first game illustrates my feeling that I had progressed in some way:

Along with a pair of glorious thighs, my opponent Scott Avery sported a pair of Galleons in his own Magnus2 list. Instead of dropping into auto-pilot and sending off my Croes up a flank as per usual, I instead ran them up the middle, pushing a couple into each Galleon to force them to trample should they wish to advance further up the field. I was almost undone when Scott's Orin Midwinter tried to zap the butt of one Galleon, but he missed on a double 1, so yeah. Dice. From there I was able to take off one Galleon, and after a small to-and-fro I got a bead on the enemy warcaster with a Renegade rocket and Harlen Versh ended it.

My next game was into Chris Ford, who dropped Ossyan into my Thexus list. No photos to document the exchange, but I wrangled a scenario win in Outlast, feating to push models out of zones, tying up his troops with ambushing drudges, and slamming jacks around etc. He tried for an assassination attempt, getting dangerously close to ending Thexus with arced spell nukes into Thexus, but otherwise the amount of control and dude-swarm I had him stitched up.

The third round was against one of the local PGs Chris Otton, bringing his Coven list into Magnus. I got to say that Chris was an absolutely gracious opponent during our game, where it seemed there were instances where he forgot to make certain actions during activations, yet insisted we continue play. Bloody champ. For myself, this game provided me a lesson on threat ranges and scenario, where I wanted to remain out of range of an Infernal-Machine'd Kraken, but threaten the central flag on Incursion. With the Coven's feat denying LOS too, I wanted to make sure I could contest the flags, stay out of threat ranges, but also ensure that I had a walking threat into whatever he would send into to either claim the flag or contest it. Above, you can see Chris has pushed his Kraken into the Mangler I dangled out as bait, but forgot to feat afterwards allowing me to trade up significantly.

Day 2 and round 4 saw Richard drop Sorscha1. Below you can see where I got to, having cleared the zone on Recon, and have feated to prevent the juggernaut and iron fangs from coming into the zone. Richard spent some time figuring out how to draw a bead on Magnus, as assassination was his only out. After failing that, Richard only had 5 available Winterguard to rush the zone, which all got stomped on.

Round 5 was where all sense decided to leave me. I drew against Nikola, and as soon as he started describing what he needed to drop into me, and what I in turn had to drop into him. I had no clue. I pretty much followed what he said like some sort of Moccachino Pied Piper. I dropped Thexus, pushed my models forward without any real thought, and proceeded to get pulled apart by Nikola's Kallus list

I've included an obligatory photo to document my shame, and to remind myself of these instances where my thinking seizes up. Its happened a few times in the past, though this is the first time I really recognised it as it happened, so this is something to continue to reflect upon.

With my chances of taking first place being dashed (gratz to Peter Williamski taking first, and one-listing the whole event with Gorten), I was paired against Adam Oakson, one of Christchurch's brightest and finest. The match up was Vlad1 vs Magnus in Take and Hold. Here my brain decided to kick back in. Sort of. We started with mandatory running up the board on the first turn, and I measured to remain out of the 12" of Behemoth and one of his juggernauts, should be alright, we have the same threat ranges right? Not recognising Vlad has Boundless Charge saw me lose my Mangler and Nomad top of two. However, my feat meant I was able to hold things in place and take pieces back for no reprisal. I also recognised that a cheeky Black Oil from Gorman would also take Adam's battle engine out for a turn. The Croes also got to work chipping away at Adam's Riflecorps and the attrition battle started to swing my way. After I managed to get up on Control Points, and further piece trading, the board was pretty bare,and Vlad started to bully his way into the centre of the table with Blood of Kings up. In the end, Adam decided to push Vlad all the way in, and I was faced with either scoring my last two CPs to win, or live the dream charging Magnus into Vlad's back-arc.

Holy crap that was glorious. Even with Vlad being Def 18 I had 4 dice to hit, 4 to damage, the first attack being armour piercingffffffffuu

That was all a bit gratuitous, so massive thanks to Adam for humouring me in doing this.

And thus concluded my Lord of Ruin. A nice 5-1 run with Mercs. I learnt heaps in my games, and by running different lists and factions. Next, my faction ADHD leads me to Minions, so the next post or two will document my soirees with them. following that, there may need to be further divergences into Cryx again.