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.

You build it, I'll play it.

Last week I saw an entertaining post on the trollblood forums, where a player asked the community to construct a list that he would then play - the aim of the game as far as I could see, was to have a sort of "chinese-whispers" approach to list building, people taking turns to suggest model/units, but with the consideration that there must be at least be some reasoned argument for the inclusion of the unit. This should result in a list that most would not regularly consider, and hopefully expose some interesting interactions and unit combos.

The rules for the full process can be read here.

The final list that was decided upon was:
Rasheth +5
- Aradus Sentinel - 8
- Aradus Sentinel - 8
Zaadesh - 3
- Raider - 5
- Scarab pack - 5
Ancestral Guardian - 3
Extoller Soulward - 2
Max Unit of Immortals w/UA - 10
Max Unit of Croak Raiders - 8
Max Paingiver Beast Handlers - 3

So the first part of this process was a success - now to test this bad boy out.

I wanted to try and set up a game that wouldn't be too one-sided. Naturally, I line up a game last night with a Cryx player :| At least my opponent Peter was trying things on with Deneghra3, and things didn't feel too stacked against me, but I at least put the hammer down and demanded we not play a killbox scenario. It seemed obvious to me that all Denny had to do in that case was run up the guts of my army at full camp, and wait patiently till she could just jab ol tubbo with her pig-sticker.

Peter brought: Denny3 with two Helldivers, Skarlock, Darryl, two Soultrappers, Wrongeye and Snapjaw, Bloodwitches with UA, Nyss Hunters, Soulhunters and the Withershadow.

We draw Incursion, and winning the roll, I elect to go first and we setup thusly^^^. Swamp Shamblers are standing in for the Scarab pack, and the Keltarii leader is subbing in for the Extoller Advocate.
I have vague notions that the Croaks would be a decent counter to the Soulhunters on that flag, being able to ignore the water feature, and contest the flag while pelting them with darts. I had an idea of putting the Scarab pack into the Nyss, and have everything else in the middle working its way up. Tubby will spend most of the time next to the tower assessing the local property values.

First turn I run the scarabs thinking I needed to get the distance up the board. Things shuffle forward, and Rasheth puts Carnivore onto the Immortals. Much moaning about Croaks.

Cryx does things - Helldivers disappear and stay gone till the end of the game. Denny feats and wanders up - Blood witches run up and mini-feat. Peter face-palms at this point realising that he wanted to advance up his Soultrapper first for what is about to follow; the Nyss advance and pop three of the scarabs who were loitering around the flag. I can't really feel all that sorry for him though, having stuffed up myself, thinking it was ok to run the Scarabs up that far. Other stuff durdles around, one Soulhunter runs to engage the Croaks.

Turn 2 Immortals kick things off, one managing to get reach on the Soul Trapper in the forest, and three others dropping Blood witches. Raider and Zaadesh drop Snipe onto the bugs. Left Sentinel gets the nod from the Extoller, and drops his juices over 6 Nyss including Cylena. Much joy. The Croaks get cheeky and try to drop an oil onto Denny, and miss two shots to set her on fire seeing she had not been Gravewinded yet. Pete's butt muscles relax. Three other croaks try to gang up on the one Soulhunter, and scratch him for some damage, other Croaks move up and spray darts around to no effect. The right Sentinel ineffectually drops a shot into the Withershadow because ahh, reasons? Should have tried a direct shot into Darryl instead. Rasheth himself launches his juices at the Blood Hag, arcing a Breath of Corruption through a Croak. Last Scarab squats behind the flag, and Digs in with its animus, because I'm a lousy cheater and forgot he could only be forced for 1 being the last remaining bug of the pack.

Cryx turn 2 and stuff dies. Last Scarab bites the dust to Denny's melee prowess, so that's 5 points that did sweet fuck all. A Withershdow also lined up the Extoller UA and Dark-fired his proxy'ed butt, so no chance of seeing that guy in action either. Various Immortals get shanked after Denny puts Mortality on them, but one remains in contesting range of the flag.

On the right side, the Soulhunters see a nice line of croaks in the water, and after getting Ghost Walk, they charge in wiping out most of the unit. This is a placement lesson I seem reluctant to learn. The unit breaks, reminding me of the discussion as to whether to take an Extoller vs the Taskmaster. Le sigh. Wrongeye and Snapjaw advance forward, looking cool.

Skorne turn 3, and Vengeance moves allow the four remaining Immortals to cricket-bat  Nyss and Blood Witches. Carnivore is paying off. They subsequently finish off the Nyss, with some help from the charging Ancestral Guardian who also goes B2B with the flag. The Sentinels try to get the drop on Darryl, able to arcing fire over Denny, and de-horse him (DARRRRYYYYLLLLLL). Everything else pisses about, solitary Croak fails to rally, so Rasheth burns him as an arc-node to spite him. Tubbo also feats, and Beast Handlers run interference because reasons.

CPs: Skorne -1, Cryx - 0

Soulhunters merk the beast handlers converting them into tasty-tasty souls. Wrongeye takes a point of damage to B2B the flag. Denny 3 flaps over to the Ancestral Guardian, taking ineffectual free-strikes, and stabs fools. She Mortalities the right Sentinel and Snapjaw has a go at om-noming him. Under the feat and the Swarm animus, the Sentinel is barely tickled. Withershadow, Darryl and others put the kaibosh on the rest of the Immortals.

CPs: Skorne - 1, Cryx - 1

We chat for a bit about my options and it seems assassination is my best option. I start with Rasheth as my turn rides on him getting Bloodmark off, so him hugs the building more to block LOS from Denny and arcs through Zaadesh to stick the spell. From here, its about positioning and stopping push-back from poltergheist: The raider runs so he can stay in melee with Denny, and provide a pocket for Zaadesh to get jammed into. He flies in and scratches Denny for about 6 odd damage. An enraged Sentinel goes in next and drops her down to 5 remaining boxes. I get tunnel-vision at this point and send in the second Sentinel to try and get that last bit of damage onto her. She instead misses her attack and gets bumped back. Better play here would have been to focus his attack(s) onto Admonia, to get Unbinding off the table.

CPs: Skorne - 1, Cryx - 2

I missed out on taking a photo of Cryx turn 4, but the pic above changed little from his turn to mine. Pete tries to setup a Helldiver to fling into Rasheth, and Denny continues jabbing fools, taking a soul from the empty Zaadesh. He checks with me to see what Bloodmark does and takes note that I can kill Denny with the transferred damage, before activating the Withershadow and using them to cast Darkfires to blast apart my last remaining Beast Handler and Extoller. I sit very quietly. He removes the one Sentinel I can transfer to, before moving round and noticing the red Bloodmark token. Bugger. He switches gear, briefly considering if he can nickel-and-dime Rasheth to death without hitting the magical 5 damage I needed to kill him with, but instead decides to jam me up and run the Helldiver to instead block the Sentinel. He ends his turn going to 3 CPs, and come my turn I try to jam my Sentinel with my wild Raider, but I fail to gauge the distances properly. When the ensuing free-strikes take out its mind. my missed attack pushes me out of CC range, and Cryx go to 5 CPs .

Overall, a fun game with a new list produced by the forum community. The list had some decent legs and tools, and even with the inclusion of Zaadesh, it felt like it had options. Got to say the Immortal + Carnivore combo was great. I haven't played that unit all that often, so it was nice to have them accomplish things on the board and get involved. Sentinels did what they do, and even my problems with target-prioritisation, I still felt I got decent work out of them with Rasheth.

Pity about the Extoller UA. And the Scarabs. And my misplaying of the Croaks. And losing. At least I can also point at Pete's lovely bunching of the Nyss, and him forgetting to Unbind Bloodmark. I wasn't totally alone in with my brain-farts.

Rallypoint

This is going to be quitea long post to collect the entire event here in one summary, so I hope people don't find it too much of a chore to read. If it is, feedback would actually be appreciated, and I can cater post length or content for readers.

Apologies to those I played, I'm racking my brains to remember the names of everyone, and the names of teams, so I'm likely to get some wrong. I should really have taken a photos of the score sheets at the end.

The final list I decided on was:

Pirate Queen Skarre - WJ: +6
- Skarlock Thrall
- Helldiver - PC: 3
- Cankerworm - PC: 5

Satyxis Raider Captain - PC: 2
Bane Lord Tartarus - PC: 4
Saxon Orrik - PC: 2

Satyxis Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch - Satyxis Raider Sea Witch 2
Satyxis Blood Witches - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
- Satyxis Blood Hag - Satyxis Blood Hag 2
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls - Necrosurgeon & 3 Grunts: 2
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls - Necrosurgeon & 3 Grunts: 2
Bane Knights - Leader & 9 Grunts: 10
Mechanithralls - Leader & 9 Grunts: 5
- Skarlock Commander - PC: 1

The main reasoning behind this list, as discussed in the last post, was to have something that I could push into armour skews, beast and jack heavy lists, multi-wound infantry, colossals, that kind of bag.

ROUND 1: we faced a team that featured Rahn, Haley3 and Severius1; so no armour skews to roflstomp. We let them choose the first match because we figured that we'd be able to arrange the last two choices to guarantee at least two favourable games. In the end, they put their Menoth player into Greg's pHaley, and I elected to push Luke into Rahn, wanting to avoid any janky assassnations.

My opponent Mike didn't seem to have too much experience playing against Skarre, so I was able to bump and grind to an assassination on Haley. Luke also won his game, and Greg closed things out on the Severius player when he apparently accidentally started to kill him with blasts and electro leaps.

ROUND DOS: was against Dan, the organiser's Bye-team that consisted of himself and one other player, meaning one of us had to sit out. With Dan running a Lucant list, and his buddy sporting the new Legion twins, I elected Greg cheerlead us from the bench as I pushed into Lucant, and Luke into Legion. I ended my game on a scenario win in Incursion even despite my best efforts to fail, trying to out attrition Lucant on his feat turn.  Luke seemed to also comfortably push Runes into the Legion force, allowing us to advance.

Ol' Dan Shaky Hands. The vibrating maestro

ROUND TROIS: saw us play into another team of Hamilton locals - I recall Luke got to face Jason running an eXerxis list with gun bugs and drakes, whereas I got put into Brendon running eLylyth. Greg rounded things off going into Casey's Rask list, so I believe we all got the match ups we wanted In my mind, I didn't particularly want to go into Lylyth, but I spent the first couple of turns squatting in my own deployment zone so it wasn't like it mattered. My Satyxis Raiders tied up his Ravagores, knocking them down and wiping out their spirits. Brendon had a good go at untying himself in the bind I put him in, but accidentally kill boxed himself to keep Lylyth out of engagement, and vaped one of his knocked-down Ravagores by accident, trying to shake off the raiders. From there, Skarre decided to make her presence known by tenderly moving up to score and close the game for me. Luke was having some trouble playing into Jason, with a stray shot nabbing Janissa early into the game. In particular, a cheeky feralgheist was doing the rounds, jumping in and out of Troll beasts, and while Luke was up on attrition, he was starting to get low on the clock. In the end Xerxis himself was sent in to do some work, and was subsequently squashed. Over on Greg's table, things weren't shaping out that well; Casey had done a great job of grinding Greg's list down, and won in scenario with seconds to spare after Greg ran out of things to contest with.

I neglected to take many more photos at this point because I am scum.

But we got the wins we needed to win the round, and advanced to face on o the other 3-and-oh teams, Finding Nemo; a team consisting of Mitch Cowan, Nikola Jaksic and Joshua Warne, all sporting one of the Nemos. Their approach to the event and the way things played out for them was both inspiring and hilarious; and also the reason why I've rambled so much about practice and preparation. Here you have three guys playing the same faction with a caster that is hardly considered worthy in competitive circles, and with little-to-no practice; just a quick and rough idea of how to make Nemos 1, 2, and 3 work with particular lists, and with very little practice beforehand. And then you have us, Team Ninja, trying to pick a combination of the most broke-ass casters out there, drawing up little charts detailing match ups, guessing and second guessing what people will bring.

ROUND QUAD: Anyways, we elected to choose the first matchup, and I pushed Nikola's Nemo2 into Luke's Trolls.  I had played against his list prior to the event, and he was able to tear my force to shreds with ease. I figured I wanted to make sure we had something to take out his Stormwall, as that was the only colossal in the three lists. I ended up facing Mitch with Nemo1, and got a sharp lesson in getting my shit handed to me again; the opening rounds he was able to drop heaps of my supporting pieces. I was feeling pretty crap about my chances at that point, but switched gears to push hard towards his objective and feat defensively. This created this high-armour lump parked right up on Nemo's doorstep, and it may have won me the game too... if I had the foresight to clear one cheeky Risen that was stopping me from scoring on his flag. From there, Mitch switched things up himself, protecting Nemo and bleeding my army till I had nothing left. In the end he had to race to remove a contesting Cankerworm, but was able to do this and score enough CPs to win. This game was a real nail-biter, and easily my favourite game of the weekend with how huge the swings were in terms of trying to get one up on one another. Love your work Mitch.

Luke finished up Nikola with little trouble, but Josh being the more experienced Cygnar player ground out Greg. We finished the first day with a score of 3-1, feeling rather battered after that last round. Nemo = OP.

ROUND CINQ: Rolling onto Sunday, we paired against a fair group of Wellingtonians hell bent on achieving the fastest assassinations possible; Mike Snook with Mortenebra, Chris Ford with Lylyth2, and someone else with Rahn. Luke was the first to drop, getting assassinated by an Overrun Nightmare on the 2nd round. Blimey. I ground Chris down, with the same tactic I employed above, of Skarre runs away while the rest of her army runs forward. Worked a treat a second time. That meant the round rested on Greg's lofty shoulders; we figured he'd be ok time with a greater number of shots going into the Ret army, and Arcane Vortex serving to protect her from any nasty Rahn surprises. The actual match ended up being a real grind, with the Ret army edging up on attrition. In the closing minutes however, with everyone watching, the Ret player pushed Rahn out into the open to sling spells and clear the zones. Greg sauntered Haley up for an assassination run, banking on two boosted Arcane Bolts to finish Rahn. Casually, he decided to roll the hard 11 needed to smack Rahn with her hand cannon. The following Arcane Bolt also landed and that was game, with a scant few minutes to spare. My anus was puckered to hell I tells you.

It was interesting to see teams members pounce onto both the players of that game to figure out what the heck was going on through their minds in those closing moments.

ROOND 6: We were matched against familiar faces from my lil gaming Shed, Robert Power, Chas Roberts, and Dan Lister, making up Team: Why So Serious? It was meant to be Why So Issyria, but nah lol. Winning the roll off, we elected to pitch Greg into Chas who was running Scaverous, thinking that no matter where the next two match ups went, we'd be able to squeak out another win. Rob was running Issyria and Dan Lylyth2 and upon reflection this was a hard choice for them to make; Rob could potentially go into Runes and Dan go into me, to give themselves a couple of yellow match-ups. It wasn't a choice guaranteed to produce a win, but I feel it would have been the best one to wrangle two wins if Chas was going to go down to pHaley. Instead, Rob elected to face me giving him a safe game. He proceeded to tear my army to shreds, with Halberdiers and two squads of Invictors reaching out and touching me in all the wrong places, and a Hyperion that wouldn't quit producing crit-consumes. There were a couple of tense moments, particularly as I overheard Dan exclaiming about some quad-sixes he rolled on damage, but ultimately Luke closed his game. Greg did as well, sniping Scaverous with Eiryss and assassinating the Cryxian head-librarian. At this point, I threw caution to the wind, feated with Skarre, and sent her into he Hyperion to finish it off for lols. After cutting herself down to 2 boxes to finish off the Colossal, Rob finished her off with an 8 man CRA to her face. RIP Skarre.

Which brings us to our seventh and FINAL ROUND. Revenge match v Finding Nemo. We got stung once, twice shy. How will we possibly manage to beat all 3 Nemos? This is bullshit. Well, we used our team feat at this point to choose the match ups: we again plopped Luke into Nikola (much groaning) to deal to that pesky Stormwall, and I chose to face Josh this time after the butt-whuppin' Mitch gave me. Josh's list was far more friendly to me; Thunderhead and Dynamo with that battle engine swanning around. Very little massed, long ranged infantry clearing. Josh went first in our game, and with the scenario being Destruction I pushed hard at the bottom of two to go up 3 CPs. Josh's response was to try to kill Skarre sitting around ARM24. And he got damned close to it too - after the dust had settled Skarre was left on 1 box, after which Josh conceded. Unraveling my tightened butt for the second time that day I checked on the other two and finally remembered to snag a photo

Greg's looking a little too casual. Mitch pretty much had things well in hand, grinding down Greg's force, and chasing Haley around the board with his Blazers. Things were pretty hairy over on Nikola and Luke's table, where Nikola was going for an assassination on Doomy with various shots and angles and whatnot, but it was pretty much a foregone conclusion; Mulg hit Nemo, and Team Ninja won Rallypoint. Nikola seemed miffed at having to play into Runes twice over the weekend, and to be honest I was being way too wary of his list. Not knowing what the other lists could do, his Stormwall was the focus of my match-up decisions. In discussion with him afterwards, he stated we should have tried to arrange the match-ups by aiming to put me into Josh. This was a green match for me that I didn't recognise, and Luke could comfortably go into any of the other two lists. Just goes to show how much I can get railroaded into a particular way of thinking and completely miss other opportunities and options. We got there in the end though, and I'd like to think it wasn't purely through luck or the strength of our lists/casters.

Its still hilarious to consider the amount of close calls we encountered, and times where we got thoroughly out-played, whilst running arguably some of the strongest warcasters/locks in the game. But my thoughts on this will have to wait. I've been siting on this post for almost two weeks as it is :)

Prep, practice and rallypoint

Token statement about time, commitments, psychological anguish (my own).

But I've been itching to write about a local teams event I attended recently; teams were 3 people, one list per person, with a simple match up process of roll-off get's to decide whether to choose the first, or last two match-ups. Me and the two guys I played with won the event, but before I discuss that I'm keen to first write about the preparation process leading up to Rallypoint (if you can call an extended facebook chat and 2 games prep?).

With me, Luke, and Greg, Team Ninja formed once again, a name forged through a process I wasn't a part of so I don't know how to explain it, but what ever; ninjas are well known for their team work or something.

Preparing for Rallypoint became an exercise between the three of us, deciding what was the strongest combination of casters we could bring from our available collections, and balance out our weaknesses in preparation for what we expected to face. I went with my Cryx and pSkarre because fair and balanced. Luke has had much practice running Runes of War, so we determined that as our 'armour brick'. Greg had recently acquired a bunch of Cygnar, so he was lumped with the burden of pHaley as our Cryx drop. With casters in mind, we built rough lists (so much variety to consider for RoW) to begin practice with and see if we actually were able to counter each others' weaknesses. I had a rough go at making a grid for ourselves in terms of covering opposing factions;

Yerp, crude as flip. This was all largely theory as well; my own experience with Skarre was playing her in a couple of tournaments when I was green as all heck a couple of years ago, and Greg had only just started with Cygnar. I can safely say we were banking  hard on the obvious strengths of those warcasters to carry us through our games if we got the match-up process right. Looking at the chart above, we assumed that we would have a hard time into Ret, particularly in relation to Rayvn's tier, but again; this was all theory and conjecture.  It made a bit of sense to try and practice our lists. Right? Right.

First, me and Greg played into one another essentially to test the theory that pHaley > Cryx, photographing the game on a turn by turn basis and let Luke know how we did and expose ourselves to sideline ridicule. After my second turn I had the pace to push up through Temporal Barrier. I had most of my force occupying the mid-zone, and was feeling good that I'd have sufficient resources to attrition Greg out of the game.

Then Cygnar things happened:

Fuck.

Ok, hypothesis holds strong. pHaley can remove single wound infantry pretty trivially. This was also a lesson for myself of when to time Skarre's feat; I've been stung before feating defensively, but against a list like this, it definitely would have been the right call.

Unfortunately for Greg, there was also a lesson to be learnt about standing to close to the Helldiver's burrow token:

In the end I had the feat and Dark Guidance up, and BARELY enough resources to clear the jamming Forgeguard to allow the Helldiver to walk into Haley. Greg tried to block the real estate around Haley, but those burrow rules are hard to plan around. Apart from those complications, it otherwise felt like Greg's list fit into a nice slot in our team, and I got to experience the joy of pushing a single wound infantry melee hoard into what felt like a 2 hour dick punch.

In a couple of days, I had a follow up match against Luke's Trolls, to test the theory behind my list: Skarre plus dudes > Armour. And that's essentially how the game went, being able to trade small models for larger pieces, and Luke not having sufficient infantry removal to clear everyone out. Things did get hairy though, when the Earthborn trampled and goaded over to where I thought Skarre was safe behind her wall

He whiffed his attacks, but it was certainly a lesson on needing to keep her safe. Otherwise I felt my list was humming; it was skewed the way I wanted it to sit, and was able to be trotted out against the armour heavy lists I anticipated to see at Rallypoint the following weekend.

Check in

I mumbled in previous posts at how busy I'd be over this year, and true to my word, I've been wrapped up in several university commitments, which have left little time to keep adding updates for this blog. I'm determined to keep plugging away at this blog though, I still have multiple ideas of topics to muse on, and there will be all the reveals and excitement of Lock 'n' Load to get swept up in next week.

So what's happened since my last post in April? The Auckland Open was the first 3 list event in New Zealand I've attended, and allowed for some interesting list construction exercises. Particularly as I used the event as an exercise to be "devious" by actually bringing Cryx instead of Skorne. Through the lead up to the Open, it felt like a strange and somewhat egotistical thing to do; I deliberately put on the act of playing Skorne, hinting that I was going to persist with using the faction, whereas privately I knew I was going to bring Cryx. I had romantic notions of people at the event crying to the heavens in despair when I made the big reveal. But I also had thoughts of what the point of all this was; questions of why other's opinions was so important to me as to what I played at a tournament. I also just stood back and realised that what was truly important was recognising that I was having fun playing the game, and fuckit, I had Cryx lists I wanted to play. Playing my eXerxis and Mordikaar lists into the lead up to Ides had actually become quite stale, so I was fiending for a change.

So I went into the Auckland Open with a 3 list combo consisting of Denny2, Terminus, and Scaverous. The latter two casters I wanted to revisit as my safety blanket, being the guys I started this game with. I also had the idea that Denny would be my main list, Terminus could cover the bad gun line/ranged match ups, and Scavs would have the mirror match. My theories worked somewhat, but my lack of practice with the lists was pretty obvious. The one game I dropped Terminus was into Rahn, which resulted in my first tournament tantrum; I failed to totally cover the big guy and let him get Rahn'ed well and truly. Sigh. I thought I only needed the Rahn lesson once, but obviously not. Much apologies to my opponent and friend Luke H.

My two games with Scaverous into Cryx lists were interesting exercises; the first game saw me pitched into Dave Stent's 3Gaspy list. He wrote a more comprehensive breakdown of our game here, but I just wanted to mention that I kinda had all the tools I needed to pick him apart, except I tried to spread out to take on his infantry horde and found the list couldn't spread to cover the board. A total misplay on my part, and I subsequently went down like a sack of shit. But it taught me lessons to take into my game against Mike Thorn's pDenny list. I managed my threat ranges and priorities better here, with fewer fuck ups (pro-tip; remember to stay away from Orin Midwinter), but Mike reckoned he had a few decent early chances to get a pop and drop assassination on me. As it was, I got up attritionally, forcing Mike into TWO turns of trying to kill Scaverous. Oosh, I was lucky he didn't quite have enough gun to finish the job, before Tartarus sidled up and ended Denny.

Now Body & Soul; hooooo boy that list is juicy. So much fun to play, and so many options to work with on the table. I went into the event with only one practice game under my belt, and while she did go down to a cheeky fire roll in one game, the list just dominates. There's been plenty of discussion to date on what she can do in that theme, and I have nothing new to add, but I'm keen to continue playing it in the future. It was nice to just go into my games feeling a sense of control and having options again, something that I struggle to find at times with Skorne.

Speaking of Skorne though, my little soiree with Cryx has left me feeling some what refreshed and keen to play around some more. With the latest ADR roster and an upcoming Masters-styled event in July, I'm getting amped practicing with eXerxis again. I've essentially worked with the list I've mentioned in previous posts, except with more beef in titans. The sideboard has triple Drakes for infantry worries, and I'm excited at how having these options will play out in my games. The second list looks set to be pMakeda, and she's one that I've only lightly dabbled in, but have been keen to explore more. Her use as the off list came from discussion with Adam Oakson as to her as the Cryx drop. Besides that, Ive had fun just trying my list out, seeing what Defenders Ward'ed Keltarii are like (fucking awesome) and yo-yo'ing Rhadiem with a 22" threat range.

Amongst all this various friends went to Australia to compete in the Australian Team Championships. While the posts by Mitch below give a great blow-by-blow of the event from the NZ North team's perspective, what isn't mentioned was how hungry we were back here in NZ or info. Scrambling for any scrap of info from various tweets or the odd post here and there. The excitement distracted me from writing an assignment for uni, and the desire to participate was so raw and fresh. I am really keen to try and make it to a team event next year, it really does just seem like such a blast and an experience unlike any other.

So that's the jist of everything that's been happening for myself of late. I essentially fell off the Skorne bandwagon, to hop back onto it yet again. All the while with the support of great friends:

<3 Thanks Chuck

Stickier fruit

Following up from my last post, I realised that while I was waxing lyrical about the things I refused to take, I maybe neglected to discuss the things that I enjoy bringing, and find are performing in ways that surprised me. Also, I was trying way too hard to make a bad fruit story analogy stick. But that just allows me to write another post, so wahey win-win.

I'll just collect a broad bunch of thoughts that encompass both individual units, as well as lists. I'm wary to just talk about units alone, as the lack of context means I'll be telling people absolutely nothing about how they perform - but I'll try to elaborate as much as possible.

First to the block, from my most recent games with Skorne, is the humble Cyclops Brute. I used to hate this guy, a situational 5pt sink that did a terrible job at protecting anyone, and would otherwise flail wildly in the wind whenever I needed it to do anything. Then I brought THREE of the bozos to the table, and boyoboyoboy do they do work. I really feel they are a sum greater than the individual parts, surviving for far longer than they have any right doing, tying up units, and smacking over things they shouldn't be hitting either. Largely, this is due to the maneuverability eXerxis gives them, as well as the hit/damage fixing they get from his feat. But beyond that I see potential running the Brute Gang with Naaresh, Mordikaar, pXerxis, eMorghul, eMakeda, Rasheth, ahhhh just anyone who either tips their defensive schtick over into the obscene, or bumps their hitting power up just a tad.

<3 nice one Florian

Credit to David Potts from the Wargamerau forums for suggesting this - he was using the Brutes with Zaal, theoretically as a Legion drop to trade 5pt beasts for 9+ pt heavies by putting Last Stand on them. Its an idea I like, but have yet to try.

Further for Skorne was my developing love for the Drake - this is something that is still being fostered, as I have yet to assemble my third Drake, and have only run a single one in a couple of lists, but that spray is pretty obscene. I can only dream of what it would be like when it's spammed.
I'm beginning to appreciate ranged games more and more, having only played Skorne and Cryx, and therefore been limited to what I can bring that is ranged. Obvious place to put him would be with eHexeris, trying to trigger off 6 sprays with Black Spot sounds like a hoot. The other place is with eXerxis, where there's been talk of putting out 10, and still having room for Molik Karn, Beast Handlers and maybe even Willbreakers. Graus. I feel  have mentioned this list several times, but just to make sure, full credit of it goes to Nikola and Chas.

Its interesting seeing that people overseas have also made similar conclusions where there's a list doing the rounds with 7 drakes and 3 Kreas I believe. Its far more tool-boxy, and isn't as stylish as 10 Drakes, but I'd be damned interested to see it played. Here's hoping someone's filmed it in action.

Another consideration I want to explore further is Rasheth out of tier. Ol' tubs is seen as best being run with Chain Gang, and its a list that just doesn't work for me - the beef is actually countered fairly trivially, and all your threat ranges are pretty well projected with Rush as your only speed buff. Conversely, I get far more excited at the idea of running him in a gun line. His feat, coupled with Blood Mark allows for a decent ARM swing on living models, and even blast damage will sting a fair bit more. Admittedly, this is a match-up dependent scenario, where it works best against a lot of single-wound infantry with mid-strength armour. But I still think pushing Rasheth out there with the full Mammoth package (mammoth with Raider, Krea, Extoller and Willbreaker in tow) is worth exploring. I began to, but got caught up trying to learn Mordikaar and the Xerxis'ss's. Additionally, I feel Incindiarii would be marvelous with ol' tubs behind the wheel; effectively POW14 (or even 16 on that one target with Blood Mark) fire damage on your feat turn? Sure, why not? Then there's the Aradus Sentinels coming along to spit AOEs all over the show too, so conceivably there can be a gunline Rasheth list that has a core of 2 full units of Incindiarii, plus two Sentinels and a Raider, with the rest to shore up the gaps. Just need to get those damned bugs, which don't look to be dropping till at LEAST August #@$!@#$%.

Skorne stuff aside, looking back I tried to apply some sort of hipster logic to my playing of Cryx too; my first warcaster was Scaverous, and holy shit that was a tough learning curve. But I keep going back to that guy, and love using him in so many different match ups where his toolbox just provides me so many options turn-to-turn. Even going back to play him from time to time has been a rewarding experience and he in no way feels lacking. One would expect the opposite according to the odd post on the PP forums, and I can understand how developing play experiences with eGaspy or other Cryx casters could lead people to consider Scaverous as being meh. My experience just happened to occur from the opposite end.

Of course, its rather self-focused and myopic to think that I'm the only person that has come to these conclusions. And I hope it doesn't come across that way, these are things/units/lists/casters that I've discussed with friends at length, and have also read about on occasion on blogs and forums. I'd just like to think that these summations I've made have taken on board others suggestions, as well as my own hunches, to then go on to try things on the table top. My thoughts are strictly anecdotal and circumstantial, but I don't think this discounts them as being credible and viable sources of information to take to the tabletop.

All else aside, its the Auckland Open this weekend, with a core group of 20 players coming to play 7 rounds of 3-list, D'n'C(1). I've been reluctant to write anything on the process of choosing the three lists, as I find that I can work myself into a frustrating circle of thought, both in list-formation as well as trying to write about it. I'm keen to just chuck some lists down, make amendments should I feel like it, but not wrack torture myself about it too much.

I'll leave that to David Stent to do, here and here ;)

Got Game? Pt.4 - dance partners

Sweet jangoes, but do I love the formats for Warmachine/Hordes events. The simple matter of having at least two lists that you can use over the course of your games simply blew my mind when I first made the transition from 40K - it was such a simply allowance, that enabled players so much freedom in list creation, as well as adding an additional layer to the game in the form of list-chicken with your opponents. Varying points levels, formats, and all the varied types of events that you can play (Who's the Boss, Foodmachine, Beermachine, Spell Draft, and I'm sure the list goes on), the game is constantly encouraging players to switch things up. And not just necessarily with how they build their lists, but also how they play.

Or at least, that's what it feels like here in New Zealand. I rarely see the players here necessarily relying on net-lists exclusively. There's the odd person (myself included) who may copy the typical eGaspy or Kromac or eGrissel Meat Mountain list as seen internationally, but that tends to be the exception, not the norm.

ugh trolls so meaty, so miserable

That aside, a big part of this game for me extends beyond the development of a single list and game plan, but to how I will pair my lists to elicit favourable matchups at events. Obviously, this is more important for competitive events. WM/H is still played as a more casual, bung everything together affair with friends on a lazy afternoon. But for myself, playing competitively is a very important part of this game. Even the casual games I play I have a default attitude that this is practice for a more competitive setting. 

So, list pairings. To date, the WM/H events I've attended in New Zealand have been two-list affairs. The points levels may vary, but two lists makes things easy for most contenders to travel with, and prepare for most match ups. I had some difficulty deciding my list-pairings. Initially, this was due to lack of models, but I don't have that excuse now - I've just been playing and buying models without fully considering how particular pieces will sit in concordance to two-list events. There were vague ideas that I could build one army that could deal with a high armour skew. Or for masses of infantry. What if someone skews for stealth? Or incorporeal? Gunline? Control casters? Or build something to deal with Cryx. But I was playing Cryx, so what should I do then? Guh.

To give an example of how I used to approach list pairings, I'll use my Terminus and pDeneghra pairing. The Terminus list I explained at length in a previous post here, and was designed to be my main list. I wanted to use that list, with the plan as explained by Lamaron, but I didn't know what to pair Terminus with. I decided on Deneghra for no other reason than people complaining about how nuts she was. I did not know what would be a bad match up for Terminus, or in what situation I'd prefer to use pDenny over Big T. And part of the problem I had going into this was thinking I had to develop both lists to be of equivalent strength. There was no real plan beyond that as to how the lists would even compliment each other; just build them to stand on their own and have at it. At this point I had tried to figure this stuff out predominantly by myself, looking at the odd forum post, but not really consulting the local players here.

Since then I've realised designing a list pairing also requires a type of focus. Where building a single list means assembling units to compliment and synergise with one another to achieve particular in-game goals, design of a list pairing has to step back and consider a series of games and potential match-ups. If you have only one list you try to account for that as best as possible. this was the attitude I had coming from 40K. Listening to an interview with Will Pagani describe his list design where he built an 'off' list to directly address the weaknesses of his main list. And it is this concept of having a 'main' list that I had been missing; make one list that you will generally use against the majority of games, where the 'off' list would be designed to counter those bad match ups.

With my main Terminus list in mind, how would I do things differently now? Speed seems to be a problem. Terminus has a decent threat range, facilitated by the presence of Darragh and Madelyn. Canny opponents have targeted them early in the game due to how they add to Big T's game. The other units in the list also have quite predictable threat ranges. From my perspective, Terminus will have some trouble dealing with control-casters, the likes of the Haleys, eDenny, and Harbinger to an extent. Also MMM Troll styled lists will give Terminus issues with the difficulty getting souls off multi-wound models and the lack of decent landing zones to place Big T. Its not that he doesn't have game in these matchups, but I feel this is where considering building a second list specifically to cater to these issues takes advantage of two-list formats.

Instead of pDenny, I reckon eDenny would be better suited in this pairing. Really, I'm of the opinion that on the surface level they're both damn good to counter issues of speed and control. But eDenny has a better feat for pinning models in place. Around her I'd want to develop a list that uses the fastest units in Cryx; Soulhunters, Bane Riders, Satyxis Raiders and Witches. For 'jacks I'm thinking Nightmare (he'd actually be the slowest thing in the list, outside of Prey buffs), or Deathjack for giggles, maybe a couple of arc nodes, points allowing. A further bonus to this pairing is the lack of character cross-over between the lists. Darragh Wrathe aside, eDenny doesn't want any of the characters Terminus demands. I could even switch things up, consider the eDenny list as my primary list, and consider how Terminus will serve as an off-list; eDenny doesn't like getting caught out by sneaky spell assassinations or getting shot to shit, things Terminus typically looks at and laughs.

shooting?

With Valleycon fast approaching I'm going to have to figure out what my second list is going to be. Writing this post is partly me figuring out my process of choosing who will compliment my main list. It should be obvious by now that I'm going with a version of pXerxis and the Fist of  Halaak. The list is solid, has multiple tools to deal with multiple match ups (particularly tier match ups), and should be forgiving enough for those opponents I'm unfamiliar with. What are the FoH's weaknesses then? Well, maybe speed and control again? Getting jammed or locked in place, not having the threat ranges to take out pieces that can yo-yo into my lines. But this is tricky, because Skorne doesn't really have any solutions for this. Or at least any solutions that are necessarily better than what the FoH has; absorb the hits, then hit back harder...

Obviously the solution to my problems is blind optimism, 

while everyone else looks on in horror. Thanks Coach.

I've tried out Zaal, eXerxis and Rasheth tier lists, and to date nothing is sitting well with me. I've chronicled my games with the former two, and recently I played a game into Matt Bissel's eBorka with a Rasheth Chain Gang list, and was left wanting. It's not that the list was necessarily terrible, it just didn't feel exciting to play. Overall, the lists I've tried haven't performed all that well, and there were no situations where I thought I would prefer to use those lists over FoH. This tier restriction is really doing my head in.

For now I'm going to and idea that Mr Bissel pitched to me a while back, but I've been hesitant to follow up on: a pMorghul Big Game Hunters tier list. On paper there's a bunch of stuff there to make a fun beast heavy Skorne list; extended deployment range, free pathfinder, points reduction on titans.. My main reservation was needing two units of Arcuarii to get to the later tier levels. I wasn't ever planning on having two units of those guys for anything else, but running Fist of Halaak means I'll be using two min units now. So that argument kind of goes out the window now.

From here I'll be playing around with the list and giving it a go. Going back to my other posts on list construction posts, I think I'll have something developed that has a very straight forward game plan in mind - speed up the table, form a bunker around Morghul and feat. Stop any sort of reprisal with the feat and have a bunch of melee beasts ready to wreck face. This sort of dictates the type of match-ups I'll drop this list into; Beast and warjack heavy lists. I'll give it a go, I do like playing with pMorgs.

Moving on through the calender year, we're blessed here in NZ to have a bunch more events; February has a one-dayer run by Big Daryl Painter at the weekend nerd-fest Battlecry, with a simple 4 round, 2 list format. This is where I'll have the chance to fall back in to the warm and comfortable embrace of Mordikaar.

always Mordikaar, always <3

My list choice here feels so damn easy; Mordikaar happily goes into being my Cryx drop and facing down a bunch of other lists too. The only real issue would be heavy armour skews, or MMM style lists. Enter pXerxis, who will happily cover those match ups all day, every day.

From there, the Ides of March is next. At this stage I'm sure it will look like I'll run the same pairing. There will obviously be the need to see how it performs and if there are any glaring holes in my plans that need attention. But come April is the Auckland Open, and the first 3-list event I'll have attended. This is where I can see the ranged Skorne gunline lists coming in to play. so far, I've played it with Rasheth, and had good fun. I reckon the ranged game Skorne can bring presents an interesting question to opponents, even with out the Aradus Sentinel being available. I know they will swiftly be incorporated in a bunch of my lists once they come out. I will also have to consider how this type of list sits with the other two. And which warlock will even drive the list best. Currently Rasheth, eHexeris and eXerxis all look to be likely candidates.

Another part of the whole list selection and pairing game that I haven't discussed is the whole Divide and Conquer element that is often present at these events. I've already rambled long enough about this topic, but this element will probably feature in several of these events. In which case, I need to manage my match ups and try to build the lists to stand on their own as best as possible. I think I can do that, but this 3 list thingy happening April will be the real challenge.

An old ex and other things

Last Thursday I followed up on the promise in my last post to give Scaverous a spin. Like hooking up with an old ex it seemed like a good idea at the time, the familiarity of rolling about in the sheets having a certain nostalgic appeal. But getting all pelvic with an ex usually means you're either left with the regret of being reminded of why you left the relationship, or you're pining for the one that got away and this quick fling has only reminded you of what you can't have. My game was a little bit of the latter.

Such a caring and gentle lover

Scaverous was the first Warcaster I bought and the one that made me pick up Cryx. Coming from 40K, I was making my WM/H decisions based upon aesthetics, not gameplay. I inadvertently chose one of the deepest models in the game to learn up on, which was a bit derpy on my part. My first few games saw me constantly getting my arse handed to me, but were fantastic learning experiences where I was able to manufacture all varieties of in-game maneuvers and get to grips with how the game mechanics allowed for various synergies to be formed.

For shits and giggles I ran Scav in tier:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous 
- Skarlock Thrall
- Deathjack 
- Ripjaw 
Warwitch Siren 
Warwitch Siren
Pistol Wraith
Pistol Wraith 
Necrotech 
Necrotech 
Iron Lich Overseer 
- Harrower 
The Withershadow Combine 
Mechanithralls 
- Skarlock Commander 
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls 

This list runs solo heavy to take advantage of the tier2 benefit as much as possible. My thinking was that the ILO starting with a soul on it, along with the Harrower, made for a tight little package that would be able to put out a fair amount of damage. There's also plenty of boostable magic shots on the board.

And then I ended up facing Matt Bissel's Calandra tier :| playing the Destruction scenario no less.

yuck

Can't remember the exact numbers, but there was a slew of Storm Trolls backed up by two Slags, two Pyres, and a Winter Troll with misc supporting elements. I was envisaging just rolling under the bus and getting roflstomped.

Most of my army bought the farm pretty promptly. I decided to just camp with Scaverous and throw him into the thick of it. With Deathjack on the flank as well, I have two models over ARM20, and I figured getting stuck in was better than trying to hold Scavs back. There was no real plan here, I just thought it's probably better being up in the guts staying alive, instead of holding back (which I sort of did turn 1).Everything else pretty much rushed in over two turns, putting some damage out here and there, but otherwise doing jack-shit.

Under Calandra's feat my McThralls weren't long for this earth, and the Harrower and ILO went down not too longer after that. Those things dying aside, instead of going under the bus the game had turned into more of a tickle fight:

Between the Deathjack getting stalled and Scaverous unwilling to spend any of his stack, I was unable to really put out much damage on Matt's beasts, and in turn the trolls were barely able to scratch the paint on my key pieces. This was all a sideshow however; Matt had the numbers to go up 3 control points, poised for a scenario win. The rest of my army tried to contest but Matt had me pretty stitched up, with only 7 small based models needed to be ground into dust to scoop the win. Except Admonia managed to survive on 2 boxes allowing her to continue to contest.

Nikola had been complaining a couple of days prior about how bullshit it was that the Withershadow were ARM161. It certainly came into play here. I feel Matt did most things right to clear the zone. The only mistake I thought was that he opted to shoot at the Pyre Troll engaged with Admonia, figuring he would be easier to hit and bounce electro leaps off. I would have just shot at Admonia anyway, and if he missed he'd have the chance to connect with the Pyre anyway. In any case, he managed to hit his Pyre both times, but wasn't able to get the damage he needed nor the number of leaps to make it to Admonia.

Matt was expecting to clear the zone, and he really should have. Calandra was now camping nothing, having opted to spend her fury for rerolls, with no Star-Crossed either. The Scaverous Rube-Goldberg started cranked into action, parting the Red Sea of Matt's trolls - feating and TK'ing a path to Calandra for Deathjack to charge her in the back. Rolling a casual 17 at dice +2 for the charge attack and Calandra was laid low in one hit.

Now there was a lot about this game where I look back and see how lucky I was - Matt definitely had the more powerful list.something that I think would make a fantastic Cryx drop in general. It was interesting thinking that my best option was to massage one flank with my two hardest models and hope for the best. But I've been thinking with my foray into Skorne that this is an option I can't afford with Skorne Warlocks. They lack the ability to get to that high an armour level, or camp enough transfers to really make it worthwhile. I'll be looking for these sort of options however, as these were the ideas I had for running Xerxis 2. Beyond that, having the chance to manufacture an assassination with multiple TKs was a lot of fun again. I'm still determined to continue running with Skorne next year, but it was nice to have this brief flirt with the cold, soulless embrace of Scaverous.

In other news, I've unpacked and assembled a slew of Legion models and misc Mercs for Nikola. Being on holiday from my studies have meant I got the time to write this blog, paint models, fart around on the Xbox, etc etc. It's been fun putting together models from an entirely different faction, and I can empathise with the sort of reluctance Nikola may have had to assemble a mass of models, many of which were for the second time. I missed my opportunity to sabotage these fellows, as I'm sure several people are not looking forward to being on the receiving end of multiple Ravagores, Saeryn, pVayl and the like, but c'est la vie.

1 There were further complaints at the Warwitches being ARM13, when a troll threw Scaverous into one and she survived. lulz

Got Game? Part 1 of a few

I'm currently entertaining several thoughts on how the game of Warmachine and Hordes can be approached after those last two posts on my games. It has been helpful to reflect on my process through recalling how the games went down and already I feel I can approach things differently, not just feeling frustrated that I'm going through the motions without having much influence on outcome.

But in order to further contemplate this I want to actually dig a bit deeper and examine the process I undergo before the game and in the beginning stages. I can't help but feel I am missing something here, where the opening moments of my games follow a fairly typical process of running units up and occupying real estate, with little plan in mind as to how I will proceed from there. I play chess in a fairly similar way, where I move pieces and up with little plan, but actually RELY on my opponent to make the first commitment (barring any sort of naive moves where lack of experience may have left pieces exposed) before I can start to pull together a plan of action. Thinking on the fly like this can be a good skill to foster, but the problem is I have to work from a position where I am behind. And I play in a gaming group that is experienced enough to not allow that to happen often.

So in order to put this under the microscope further, I want to do a couple of posts on army lists that I feel have "worked" for me in the past, and really see what it is about the list and the faction and my own process that both lent to me feeling comfortable while playing, and actually led me to win several of my games.

First up, I want to talk Terminus

rawr

In 2013, I faced a dilemma in that I felt I should know the game well enough to start winning more games. I was playing a faction (Cryx) that everyone was moaning to me that was over-powered, yet I kept throwing myself under the bus in my games with little to show for it. Then I came across a very handy article on a certain Danish blog and everything seemed to fall into place. Here was a Warcaster I loved the model of and had been told was hard as nails (a claim called into question when I got him killed way too many times), and now I have a breakdown of what enables him, and how his game should look like on the table.

Using Lamoron's guide, I made the following list:

Lich Lord Terminus 
- Skarlock Thrall
- Erebus 
Bane Lord Tartarus 
Darragh Wrathe 
Warwitch Siren 
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist 
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan 
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
Max Bane Thralls with UA
Min Bile Thralls 
The Withershadow Combine 

Everything in the list is there to keep Big T safe, contribute to his feat turn, and/or to hasten his delivery. I was still playing in a pre-Butcher 3 world, so there were few Warnouns that could match his threat range, hitting power, and durability. The first and last turns of the game should be the only turns Terminus ever has to spend focus, leaving him to camp his stack, march up to the middle of the board, let the feat turn T up to 11

Something something it's over something

A plan so simple it was idiot proof - I remember one game where Terminus was on fire, corroded, and left on 2 boxes after a chips-in assassination attempt. After the fire went out, he healed back up, feated, gorged himself on souls and had a leisurely stroll around the board chasing the opposing warcaster. I also recall Garryth killboxing himself to stay away from the big man. Terminus just asked such a big question, was very forgiving when I left him slightly exposed, and gave me all sorts of Machiavellian joy when I plonked him on the table and basically dared opponents to try and box him.

But further to all this, this experience with Terminus was my first time working with a list that had elements that had very deliberate reasons for being there, and with that also came a very clear plan of play, particularly for the opening moments of the game. Deployment would consist of Terminus placing centrally, biles often beside him to try and get to clumps of infantry, and banes opposite the big targets that would pose an actual threat to Terminus. The first turns of the game would follow from there, with the units moving to counter their chosen targets, and Terminus gaining board space to get his threat range working. EVERYTHING in the list was expendable, barring Big T himself. And perhaps this is where i may have learnt some bad habits.

Going back to the beginning of this post, learning to play with a caster that was so forgiving, meant I wasn't able to properly gauge how to trade units and models in the game appropriately. While Terminus did not give too shits if Erebus died, Tartarus was gone, and the biles all sniped off the table, other casters would need these elements to gain attrition advantages, or to keep a threat present to be able to control parts of the board. Throwing my units haphazardly at my opponent's army only worked so far, as it help distract from Terminus' assassination run. This is a luxury rarely afforded.

There were still some valuable lessons to be learnt from using Terminus last year though; my list composition vastly improved, I was able to eke out a few more synergies that I had previously over-looked. The importance of a plan to the initial deployment and turns of the game also became apparent to me, thought this is the main lesson I want to work on and develop from here.

Last musings; Since last year, I promised myself that I would remove the training-wheels that was Terminus and take what I learnt to other lists and casters/locks. This was partly because my practice games with friends were met with some resistance, but also because there were other toys I wanted to play with. And also I thought I was a big boy now. This resulted in a bit of mixed bag - I was regularly placing around the mid-teens to 10th at events, not breaking onto the podium. A sign that I had moved on from wallowing in the bottom half of the results table, but not quite reaching the lofty positions of wargaming glory.

Not quite 9000

Recently I've adapted my Terminus list some what, too mix things up a bit and utilise new toys:

Lich Lord Terminus 

- Kraken
Darragh Wrathe 
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan 
Bane Lord Tartarus 
Warwitch Siren 
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist 
Min Bile Thralls
The Withershadow Combine 
Min Satyxis Blood Witches with UA
Min Bane Thralls 

The idea is to use the Kraken as another massive and hard to kill threat. Also as something that can actually stand in Terminus' way to block LOS etc. In that way it serves a similar roll that the Bane Thralls used to, with some added pros and cons. Its also fun to use colossals. Everything else is just Terminus' delivery system, as per usual. I've only managed to bring it out for a spin once, and my opponent was not too pleased about it - Gaddamn, I love that big limp-wristed twerp.