Charge angles, melee ranges and king hits

Just wanted to collate some brief thoughts about the changes on melee ranges and LOS and the like in relation to model placement and the opportunities to proc certain abilities.

Up until the ruling was made in October, I was adhering closely to Mk2 WMH conventions; ensuring models I charged into remained in line of sight, maintaining a tight eye on arcs, or at least accepting my opponent's correction when I would fuck this up, and pull models back to the appropriate position to make a 'legal' charge.

Initially, during my early days as a fledgling WMH player, I was getting whacky as heck charge angles, sending 2" reach models off in all sorts of directions to allow room to get more attacks in on a beast or warjack. That initial assumption, that seemed so natural at the time, has come back. Something seems to have been missing in my reading of the Mk3 ruleset, one of those cheeky re-wordings or omissions that I skipped over, because the clarification by Privateer Press was to confirm that the rules for melee ranges never actually were bound to a model's line-of-sight, and that several rules actually proc off the condition of the distance of a model's melee range, which seems to have been always intended to be applicable from any point on a model's base.

Now goofy charges and the like are opened up all over the show again. The implications of this was pretty apparent on the forums, with incorporeal models being able to charge through to reach opponents' back-arc. Other applications were noting effects such as Gang, Flank and Dark Shroud, all extend around the model's base. In my own games, lots of fun little interactions started to reveal themselves; playing Helga into Caine2 for example, I could charge a Slaughterhouser up past a Ranger to then slam it into Caine at the right angle.

boosh

The idea of Feralgeists charging through heavies to then slam them forward into my lines is another option I've been floating. In another game, it meant I could charge Gerlack past his target to position better for his overtake run, something that previously couldn't happen, particularly with his shorter melee range.

So in application, this wee rule clarification has opened up to me further options that would otherwise not be present, or at the very least be extremely limited. It is these sorts of changes and shifts in the game system that I've grown to enjoy in WMH, where some times the refining or adjusting of the rules opens up a slew of play options and experiences on the table

Cumquest

Another post, another tourney report; the past weekend was spent in Christchurch at the annual Conquest event. The title of this post is perhaps more disrespectful than intended, and simply reflects the level of maturity we're cultivating around these parts; the event itself was a smoothly managed 6-round steamroller, run by retiring PG Adam Oaky-Doaky Oakson. The pressures of working in the brutal Cantabrian salt-mines had got to the poor guy, and after years of battling chlorine allergies while scraping together a living for his wife and seven kids, he's decided its time to hang up his press-ganger shirt following this event, to focus on his other passion - macrame.

Glad I could attend Adam, its always been a pleasure having you Chch fellas up in Auckland events, so it was good to come down and see how you southern boys do it.

As for games themselves, I'll just run through some stray thoughts and observations I gleaned from my experience; I ran with Cryx due to my chronic faction ADD and desire to suss out what Scaverous could do. It was an exercise of dipping my toes back into the pool of the undead following the beating they took transitioning into MK3. With a 3-3 record, I think my toes got a bit chilly in said pool.

Going through a few dojo ideas, I concocted a couple of combos that I wanted to test out. This included recognising the interactions between Bloodgorgers, Gerlack, Telekinesis, Soul Harvester and Knowledge of the Damned. Theoretically, I could set up some decent soul-trains, hurtling either Gerlack or a single Bloodgorger a distance of 13" to pacman through units, gathering souls for Scaverous, and off-setting misses and fail damage rolls with KotD. In testing, this worked beautifully, where Gerlack whiffed his first attack (typical), landed the re-roll, and then promptly ate a unit of Sentinels and Lanyssa. I decided on a min unit of Bloodgorgers and Gerlack for pulling off these tricks, and managed to get it off a couple of times over the course of the tournament.

The other package was the jack-marshalled Seether - this little guy was so much fun, and always surprised people. Over the course of the weekend, he ate over half an Arcane Shielded Stormwall, two Drillers and a Gun bunny, and 1.5 Menoth jacks. He usually has to do this over the course of a turn, before opponents scramble to end this ridiculousness, but its fun.

I filled out the rest of the list with misc stuff - Satyxis Raiders, Deathjack, Withershadow, that sort of noise.

I paired this list with a Skarre1 concoction, with the idea I could potentially muscle through gunlines with a feated Kraken and choice models. I put the Aiakos1 and double Stalker package into  this, and had a great assassination package running around. Again filling out my points with Raiders and Soulhunters to taste. Playing the list, I think the Soulhunters were a wasted inclusion - they never seemed to have the opportunity to face against their ideal targets, and I found myself mis-using them as jam/interference. Would have prefered Blood Witches instead. I also left the Skarlock at home, determined to try and make Ritual Sacrifice work off the back of Skarre alone. It didn't. Or rather, I had to choose to cast the spell at times, which I suppose does not necessarily mean the lack of Skarlock is a mistake. It still feels a crime to spend points on something that casts one spell a turn, and often it wasn't that Skarre was particularly in danger anyway. Will mull this over some more.

Notable moments with this list, included assassinating Ossyan with a feated Stalker top of 2. Not bad. I also attempted a two-attack, 4-dice-to-hit Kraken assassination on Caine2 after I got ground out on attrition. Landed the first attack to put Caine to 2 boxes, whiffed the second attack by 1. Ouch.

Then there was this:

In that nice open space where Skarre is situated in front of is where a Mountain King used to be. My kraken isonly sitting on 4 boxes after getting its shit pushed in (completely blanked about the Axer and rush, when I was trying to gauge threat distances from a Mountain King). So Skarre up the front there just one-rounded the Mountain King on her lonesome. Pushing through that glass-ceiling. Toruk, equal-opportunities employer, making Immoren great again.

Following that I expected to be continuously ground out. However, my opponent David Cameron Sir Lord Reagent Duke of the United Kingdoms, attempted an assassination trying to leverage off a knockdown on Skarre, not realising the Raider Captain was just up there preventing this from happening. Assasination foiled, the Stalkers truffle-shuffled over to Ragnor and put him in the dirt with spikey dice. Ole.

Anyways, other things I learnt over the course of this tournament:

1. Don't engage with Constance Blaize's force on her feat turn. Or rather, identify the appropriate activation order of your stuff. I tried something new for me, where I marked out on tokens an order of activation, to try plan in a more efficient and timely manner. While this is cool, I got the order wrong, where I needed to get my Bloodgorgers with Soul Harvester going first, to give Scavs resources, and deny souls to Constance. Instead Gerlack and crew just bounced off the Percursor Knights like pinballs.
2. Properly identify unit match ups - against Scott who was running Ossrum, my Raiders would have been better off facing his Nyss and Deathjack, going into his heavies. While I wasn't deployed appropriately, my first turn could have been a big ol switcheroo, which I don't mind doing. I could also take this lesson to consider the importance of deploying certain units (Raiders) more centrally, to be able to respond better to their chosen match up.
3. Holy crap Cryx stuff is delicate. I had to coddle my pieces SO MUCH, to try and maintain threat, scenario relevance, and not just lose key pieces. This is a reason I see a lot of people not liking Deathjack, but it feels there's a lot of points that goes into building decent synergies and then something like a Charger can come along blow it the fuck away. I dunno, there's also space to just GIT GUD SCRUB, but sweet jeebus.
4. Minions look so grand right about now.

So that's it for my thoughts right now on Conquest. It was an enjoyable event with fantastic games all-round (including my losses, the games against Josh and Scott were definitely two of my favs), and mad thanks go out again to Adam for hosting me. My goals are firmly set around developing my skill with Minions, particularly in prep for Cancon next year, and this will mean focusing on getting some painting done adn seeing what the heck I can wrangle with a Minions ADR. Rask plus Helga is looking pretty gas at the mo.