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.

eZaal; malaise du jour

oooooOOOOOOooooooo

I feel hesitant to write something about eZaal, as so much has already been written, with the various online Skorne communities collectively shitting the bed over the reveal of his rules. People got their first glimpse at what Skorne's next warlock can do, and it seemed there was a lot of expectation and anticipation invested in what he could do. I largely stayed out of the conversation as I felt I had nothing alternative to say to what was already being said, and would only add to a process I will illustrate with gifs, as is the way and laws of blogging

First people be like

Then other people be like

and the first people are all

But since the weekend, we are already getting more stories and instances of people actually trying on eZaal and giving him a go, a more accurate picture is beginning to emerge of how he and his abilities can synergise with the stable of Skorne units and beasts. One decent thread was started by one of the Enter the Crucible guys after he used Zaal as one of his lists for the Iron Gauntlet and Masters at Gencon, and to me he brings a nice, concise and easily understood breakdown of his experiences. This brought clarity to a warlock that otherwise looks quite muddled on paper, where people would find problems with using him faster than actually considering what solutions he may have.

For myself, I write this post because I feel I have a way to approach my opinion on Zaal in a variety of domains, as discussing the merit of the warlock himself is dependent on so many factors, its easy to get bogged down in various overlapping arguments. So first, the personal domain, or what my opinion of him is; he intrigues me and  he's disappointed me, he excites me and he makes me want to persist with him. The latter is likely due to being a masochist, I perform modestly with Skorne at best, yet still like the pointy eared pricks. There are also some dialectics at work here: opposing emotional states that meant I did not have a clear idea of what I thought of him, beyond that I want to try him out and see just what would happen with his suite of abilities. I have a genuine curiosity and anticipation of how Transference, Annihilation and Reclaim work alongside the rest of the Skorne faction.

This leads into what I consider the next domain, stepping back and observing where Zaal sits in context of his faction, and in comparison of the other factions in the game. A lot of talk has focused on him not bringing anything different to the Skorne faction, not having the ability to change Skorne's "bad" match ups. Some are making direct comparisons with pZaal, and I think this is a mistake as different versions of a warlock ultimately play a very distinct game from one another. Sure there are themes and similarities, but they only add character and don't seem to define the caster's use on the table.  On the flipside of that, several were looking for something quite different in eZaal, a "control" caster as seen in other factions. But I wonder now if having a caster that has a decisive impact on the game is even part of what Skorne does? It seems to me now that Skorne may have similarities with Trollbloods in that the main strength is in the army itself, with the warlock playing a more subtle support role then just direct buffing and debuffing. So developing a stronger appreciation of the units, beasts and solos may be required of myself, to see just what pocket Zaal sits in comparison with them. There are some great combat solos in Skorne that would benefit from Transference, so that was one of my starting points.

Stepping back again and looking at wargaming as a domain, and where WM/H fits within that context, there were some who were questioning Privateer Press' ability and integrity, in writing rules and communicating with the player base. This was something I snorted at; it really seemed myopic to think that of a company when you can make a direct comparison to the crap that was going on with Age of Sigmar and Games Workshop. Then again, that system and the fans of that company may be able to find some enjoyment and snort in turn at the detractors of AoS. I find it easy to be outside of that process looking in and have contempt for an "inferior" system, but am I also blind to any inherent problems within the WM/H way of doing things? Am I just defending PP out of having invested so much of myself into this game? It's pretty much stating the obvious to say it's all relative then, but I want to be cautious that to boil this down to a discussion of relativity, can shut down further argument. At this stage, I feel PP are an incredibly responsive company, that have a particular design approach in mind that they seem to follow despite the requests of their customers, and I think they are well within their rights to do so. There are creating a fantastic product, with interesting and evocative pieces that generate a lot of discussion - sometimes too much as is probably the case with this post.

What this all boils down to is me having an opinion of Zaal based upon three main factors or domains. There are most certainly more "domains", and further deconstruction may shape my opinion more, but I'd rather put that aside for now because all this writing is making my brain ache.

Also, AoS is terrible. Asshole of Suck more like.

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 ;)

Sticky fruit.

Its feijoa season! I love these tasty little fruit grenades, and the feijoa season typically coincides with me having very regular bowel movements. Fancy THAT.

My sweet little bowel fairies

I used to be quite ambivalent about this fruit growing up however. There was a period of a few years where I'd alternate between having a season where I gorged myself on them, and a season where I refused to touch the fuckers.

I realise the above lead-in for this post is a bit of a stretch, but I'm drawing a link here to a topic that's been doing the rounds among my friends and in head, and that is to do with a certain ambivalence towards units in WM/H. Particularly those units that have a reputation in the broader global WM/H community as being 'must-haves' for their respective factions.

These thoughts have come about as I've deliberately locked horns with people on the Skorne boards, looking to challenge the perceived conventional wisdom of the players there (and to troll to some extent :3). So I'm actually going through a process, like the feijoas, for hating on these 'must-have' units. But unlike the feijoa situation, much of these opinions I have are born from the interactions of other players, the weighing of multiple opinions with my own play time experience. There seems to be a real attachment, particularly among Skorne players, with certain units/beasts, and part of me is wants to go against the tide to be antagonistic, but also part of me is resentful for these group-think for influencing my own thinking into rigid patterns of list-creation.

Much Skorne advice demands players reach for the Gladiator and Krea. I'm currently of the opinion that this is flawed advice. The Gladiator is taken largely because of his animus, and while Rush is great, it only pushes many Skorne warbeasts up to a modest threat-range from an utterly crap one. It is a modest beat-stick in its own right, but I've just found that people can anticipate its threat range all too well, and it either gets taken off trivially, or is never given the opportunity to hit anything of value. In which case I'm left with an 8pt animus. The Krea herself is another animus-bot, where Paralytic Aura is taken mainly for its defensive capabilities - a problem when the enemy doesn't bring guns, or chooses not to shoot the stuff effected by the aura. Otherwise the Krea has little battlefield influence, with a gun that does no damage and a singular nibbly bite. I guess at least its only a 4pt animus.

Now I want to be reflective that these thoughts are both born from my own games and so are very much flavoured by subjective experience. There's also the factor of what is going on in my gaming group and tournaments in general that leads to many of these units or pieces not living up to the hype generated by those on the other side of the world. This last point seems well illustrated by Chas' refusal to take Gun Mages in any of his Cygnar lists; they just did not lift enough weight, and would trade poorly. After being told constantly that they were essential, he decided to go his own way and has subsequently had a far more effective gaming experience.

And while I want to actively challenge consensus that particular units are vital for competitive play, the danger of trying different shit is obviously attempting to be a snowflake just for the sake of being different. And this can lead to negative play experiences too. But that's just another process to be aware of, and to not become too entangled with. Becoming 'unstuck' (psychological terminology here) from a particular thinking process allows one to be more fluid in the way with which they approach particular problems, and in the world of Warmachine and Hordes (where the meta shifts constantly due to player influence as well as the appearance of new units being released) I can see a fluid approach to the game can be beneficial on several levels. Can I see instances where I'd take the Gladiator and Krea? Heck yeah! Those beasts are great! But I refuse to take them simply out of habit.

One more stray thought before I bury this post; relying on internet consensus does mean you get to use someone else's playbook. Mr JS Imbeau pointed out that while developing my Xerxis2 list, I was going to play it heaps to be able to use it effectively and develop the list's game. Using another tried-and-true list does allow one access to the established tricks, which begs the question; how much of the power of these casters/lists is the result of unbalanced rules or of people just having played that list a vastly larger amount of times?

Ides battle reports - Part 1

Come one, come all, partake in this greek tragedy of minor proportions, the trials and tribulations of a befuddled wargamer down under, read the ramblings of a man pissing into the wind.

All aboard for this glorious train ride, the tales of my games at the Ides of March.

To reiterate, I brought along Mordikaar and eXerxis. Both lists of my own design, shaped and chiseled with the help of such luminaries as Chas A Roberts, Chris Baker, Nikola Jaksic and Adam Oakson. Your input and help through this was most appreciated, the dojo'ing of lists always an enlightening and enjoyable process.

Game 1 vs Josh W, facing the eHaley with Mordikaar in Close Quarters.

Josh having 2 Stormwalls with eHaley, I felt I couldn't drop eXerxis. There was past discussion that the amount of shield-guards I have in that list complicates things for him, but I still felt Mordikaar was the better drop, particularly with the agoniser in there. And boy did that mewling little fucker get some work done. After Josh failed to stick any shots onto him, Aggy went on to deny allocation to both colossals for the rest of the game. Things also didn't look too flash when I set Haley on fire with the perfect scatter at the bottom of 1. With Keltarii swarming around the Stormwalls and refusing to die, I got Mordikaar and his Reptile Hound onto the flags to get me the scenario win.

Game 2 vs Louie, Axis tier vs eXerxis, in Recon.

This was one brutal game. I dropped eXerxis figuring that it had the beef to weather the attacks of massed infantry, and in theory, this more or less worked out; even though I barely dinged his army overall, I was steadily claiming control points on my left flag. I did not focus properly on this goal however, and ended up burning through my clock getting too caught up in killing irrelevant stuff. My last seconds were spent using Xerxis *Pitch for the first time ever to fling his jack away from contesting the flag. Such a rad game.

Other notable radness was Rhadiem holding a flank by himself for ages. Remember the rules for Evasive, I was able to duck and weave through the sprays of his Reductors to end up engaging them and preventing further sprays. He's so money, and I'm beginning to think he's actually worth his 5pts more and more.

Game 3 vs the Big D, Daryl Painter and his legion; eAbsylonia vs eXerxis, in Destruction.

This game hinged on me making one vital mistake: running Rhadiem off to the side to allow Abby to proc Conferred Rage. It was a little frustrating that I ran through the math, figured out the threat ranges, sussed out everything academically, but still fucked it up. I think I had a vague idea that getting Abby to Rhadiem off to the side would pull her away from the center of the table and her battle group, but her feat is a pulse anyway and more importantly she has Teleport.

AHURRRRR.

I promptly lost all five of my cyclops' on that turn, and just expected to die after that. Some how I managed to hold on for a few more turns, miraculously destroying his Carnivean, Scythean and Seraph with only my Archidon left out of my battlegroup ( a big part of that was hurtling it into Abby in the attempt to kill her). At the end though, it was Abby and a mangled Ravagore vs Xerxis and some support staff, so big X finally went down.

Game 4 vs the Big Show; Chris T, again running Kara Sloan into eXerxis. Scenario was Incoming me thinks.

After our game at Battlecry where I fumbled things pretty bad, I was stoked to have a chance to make up for the loss. With the speed and shield guards in tow, and no Stormwall in sight, I felt confident Xerxis would be able to bring it home. Going into the tank for a while on my second turn, I decided it was time to feat and get the alpha, removing both his Hunters, and leaving Thunderhead with no arms or cortex. I almost fucked things up though, thinking I had to push my Brutes out the far edge of his zone, but out of shield guard range. But I weathered Kara's feat turn, and the position of the Brutes prevented any of his Murder-ponies from contesting. My following turn was just mop up; killing the objective to make sure I secured the scenario win, before sending in Molik to one-two Kara.

That being the end of the day, a group of us headed back to my place, then back to the Shore to pick up Luke H's keys, then back to my place, where beers, curry and discussion degenerated into how lethal paracetamol is for cats. And perving at Nikola's crotch.

Ides of March prep, and playstyle musings.

All things Warmachine related have started to fade for myself some what. I've been more of a passive participant in this game as university has started back up and I've begun my psychology internship. I'm training to become an over-thinker by profession, so how about that. With the rest of life occupying my thoughts I've largely switched off on the armies I've prepped for Ides; the lists are submitted and now I don't want to worry about it.

The lists being in has allowed Eviler Dave to post up a numerical break down of all the lists on the Thrallblacks page. there's some pretty tasty food for thought there, though I'm unsure how accurate it is knowing there were at least two drop outs; the number 1 taken caster was Butcher3, though his tally should be siting at 3 instead of the giddy heights of 5. That pushes Krueger2 into the number one spot, and hopefully I have the answer to that particular caster in my Xerxis2 list.

The overall representation of factions is pretty broad, with a pretty even split between Hordes and Warmachine, making the playing field pretty diverse. For what looks to be a 50 player event, I'm looking forward to seeing who I draw against, with the hope that the odds of facing someone from my garage nights are lower. It'll be something like 4 or 5 to 1, so still a pretty high chance, but better than the near 2:1 chance there was at Battlecry. The one stat Dave hasn't included is the lesser warbeast breakdown. I just want confirmation that I'm the only person who's bringing a Reptile hound :P

Beyond the whole lead up to Ides, I've been ingesting way too many podcasts. there's been a veritable wealth of stuff to listen to. Arcane Assist, Muse on Minis and Chain Attack, all the Ozmachine Steakhouse stuff, and I'm sitting on the new Thrall Life. What I found most intriguing lately was episode 28 of Ozmachine with Jason Flanzer. They covered a pretty broad discussion on what a playstyle in Warmachine and Hordes actually looks like. Defining their approaches to the game was illuminating in considering the ways I could relate within my own games, and just what I personally brought to the game besides what the game developers had designed themselves.

They weren't able to definitively define what 'playstyle' in WM/H looks like though, instead discussing their own approach to playing,m and how that is enacted through their choices of faction, army list, and activation sequences. So do we as individuals have a particular playstyle that each of us bring to this game? Well I would argue this is something that can be developed over time and with experience within the game. Initially, we have to work within the limitations of what Privateer Press has set out for us, and gather experience on what works, and what doesn't. As that progresses, I suppose a person would gravitate towards a particular suite of choices, or change faction if they do not like the choices presented to them. I see this as being separate from possessing a particular form of analysis of the game that allows you to exert your own agency within the game's rules.

And perhaps this is what they were talking about when they referred to Will Pagani hating the term 'playstyle' in reference to this game; people would like to think they express their agency and an individual approach to the game, but because we all play by the same rules, the same moves/options are available to EVERYONE if they buy the same stuff. That isn't to say that I agree with Pagani that there is no such thing as playstyle, its just that my concept of playstyle can only ever describe the individual choices one makes within the limits of the game.

So what is my playstyle? Or rather, what I should be asking myself is what are choices that I've made in this game that somewhat dictate the ways I play?

And because I've written this with nil pics, here's a kid with a chicken nugget pez dispenser

Gribblies!

Nice to see these guys released, I'm going to have to organise myself to get a couple of packs at some point. At first glance I want to see what I can do putting 2 packs with Zaadesh and subbing something out of my Mordikaar list. Its a module package I'll be interested to transplant around different lists to see what can happen.

Some people have talked about Zaal to chuck Last Stand onto them, and that could be pretty sweet; send them into a beast/jack, with three running just to get the pseudo-gang and Tag Team benefits, and then just buy attacks on the one that charged with enrage. Or try a bunch with eXerxis because YOLO.

M3G4 B4TTTLLZ!!!11! 200pt throwdown

After a couple of years collecting warmahordes, you tend to find you've amassed quite a few models. Particularly as this hobby lends itself to a certainly sort of OCD-level-got-to-collect-them-all mentality. While running 50pt games is the norm in NZ, often times I get the itch to scratch two 'casters/'locks together to see what happens. Probably a hangover from my old 40k days.

So every once in a while, Luke likes to challenge someone to a large 100+ points game, so people have a chance to get all their toys out. Now that I pause to think about it, he's the only I know that bothers to rabble-rouse people into playing games of this size. With the space that I have and still being relatively care-free (fingers crossed that doesn't change too drastically once my internship starts), I should be able to hustle some others into playing a massive meat-grinder.
I understand people's hesitance to take this on though. For many, the appeal of WM/H is that the game actually can be played within a couple of hours, a time allotment that people can generally organise around. Playing these games really does require the sacrifice of a good chunk of the day, as well as a fair amount of patience to wait on your opponent during their turns. But with a bit of organisation and discussion between the two players, there's no reason this can't work.

blargh

The lists are long rambling documents that I won't bother recounting here; you can probably gauge what we had by examining the photo above. Basically we chucked in everything we could stuff into 200pts, and our Warlock choices were pMorvhanna, eKaya, Kromac, and Bradigus for Luke, and Rasheth, Zaal, pMakeda, and eXerxis for moi. Initially, Luke wanted to try play a 150pt game, but I think he hadn't realised how many Skorne models I had squirreled away. And placing the lion's share of my models into a 7" deployment zone highlighted a quality of the Skorne faction; our dearth of Advance-Deploy models. I had to mush everything in there and account for potential traffic jamming. A problem not shared by the opposing Circle force. While we could have played on a larger table, I don't believe this has actually ever really been a problem in previous high-point games. There's actually a sort of simple elegance to how the forces tend to establish themselves into different waves that you send in, rather than peeling off warlocks away from the conflict and essentially having to just play 4 regular 50pt games simultaneously.

Anyways; we agreed on an amended version of Outflank for the scenario, where we could only score 1CP per turn max, for dominating the zones. We started with a 3hr deathclock each, but that graduated to a 4hr deathclock during the course of the game. Setting that time limit is important, else we could play on into the night quite easily. There was just so much shit going on. From the relative orderliness of the above photo, things descended into a messy mash of troops scrambling through rift templates and druid clouds, Circle beasts yo-yo-ing around, and the Skorne military complex slowly trundling forward.

Having pushed up into the middle I thought it was a good time to pop Makeda's feat.
I netted a grand total of two Nihilators to bring back  ಠ_ಠ 

You notice that wee under-coated Nihilator in the foreground? 

They need to label some sort of disorder for warmachine players 

who forget to move models turn-after-turn.

More photos and Luke's synopsis of the game can be watched on the youtubes here. I recommend losing yourself in the smooth silky tones of the VaulSC commentary. Go chuck that stuff into your earholes.

Instead of running through a blow-by-blow of the game, I'll just share some highlights and observations. I'm also reusing Luke's photos that he has posted elsewhere, mainly as ways to illustrate the clutch moments of the game, as well as to actually have pics of models from my actual games for once.

Anywho; highlights.

• Probably old hat for everyone else, but Regrowth on Zombified Bloodtrackers is fucking obscene. Those ladies were responsible for eroding my left flank, and got so much work done. I think by the end they were back to full strength, sans Nuala. Nuts. I would have thought that alone would be reason enough to use Morvhanna1.

• Even without the Sentry Stone bullshit of the Bradigus tier, that boy still has a decent denial game; in the instance there isn't easy access to pathfinder, Rifts can really shut units down.

• Remembering your medium based models block LOS from your Gargantuan to small based models is a thing. Also making sure you examine the board to see if there's other targets of opportunity helps. Still the Mammoth got to gat some fools. I'm loving that model more every day.

• My Mammoth getting stalled by a Muzzle from Kaya, plinking him for a point despite having Inviolable Resolve on him and being at ARM22. hmph.

• Xerxis feat is pretty ridiculous at this level. I popped it in a turn I though I needed to grind things down a bit, so it wasn't like it was used totally optimally, but it still accounted for a lot of stray shots to hit things they had no right hitting and damaging. I think I also got the chance to "choose which dice to discard" in cases where my own Nihilators missed their mates in the middle of berserking.

• Once Makeda's feat was done, Stalkers with Blessed mowed through the Cetrati like they were nothing. Not really used to that :s

• More love to the Gatorman Bokur and Swamp Shamblers. Chucking Ignite onto him, Pain-Driving the unit and slapping on a Blood Mark (arc-ed through the Bokur no less), saw the end to Megalith, in revenge for the Circle heavy fisting Tiberion from behind. After Tibbers had bonked both a Wold Guardian and Wold Warden. Such trade. Much exchange. wow.

Tibbers just after bopping a Wold, but before the Megalith MegafistingTM.

• Bradigus' sweet moves to slam Molik back and open a landing zone for the Wold Wrath to put an end to his shenanigans. That'll serve me to get excited maxing him out on attacks, and forget Fate Walker.

• Mammoth getting revenge for Molik, netting himself a Stalker, Celestial Fulcrim, and the Wold Wrath, under both Rasheth's and Zaal's feat. I forget the Mammoth has Assault yet again. Note to self; Zaal's feat is as nuts as you can imagine at this points level.

• I try to pull off the Krea assault on Ghetorix, having her flank with the Drake under Zaal's feat. That flops spectacularly. Kreas now join Gladiators as being the most over-rated beasts in the Skorne stable. At least the Gladiator redeemed itself by pummeling Ghetorix into the dirt.

• Kromac gets Blessed and charges a Defender's Warded Makeda I had stupidly moved up for no good reason. He hacks into her with reckless abandon, and with no transfer targets and with DW ignored, the Skorne empire loses its Big Cheese. Whoops.

Sorry guys, the invasion is cancelled.

• In retaliation, Rasheth pops Paralytic Aura, moves into range of Kromac, and sticks him with a Blood Mark, leaving Xerxis to go to town him. A knockdown impact attack and two initials gets it done.

• Stacking feats is fun.  

That last note deserves a bit more discussion; If you've watched the video, Luke discusses how this match up wasn't very balanced in terms of Warlock-choice. We tried to mitigate this, where we went through a process of sharing our lists before hand and gauging what sort of game we wanted to play with our respective forces. We either didn't have the foresight, or didn't actually examine closely enough our choices to actually realise what they brought to the table. On his side, he had feats with rather mild movement or denial effects at best. On my side I had feats that stacked hitting accuracy and power, and played into the Skorne attrition game of taking a hit and hitting back harder. This is a format where I guess the latter approach shines as well, something that is making me consider Skorne's relevance at events such as Iron Gauntlet; 75pts for a Zaal or eXerxis list? mmmmmmmmm. NZ pls haz IG and Masters ADR. I digress: the point on our caster-choices shows the importance of communication and openness in approaching games of this size. 

Ultimately, I lost the game when I clocked out. My 4 hour timer was up, it was around 7 at night, and we had been at it for about 7 hours and change. However, I was up several control points and was definitely up attritionally. A lot of fruity stuff had happened throughout the game, and I guess that's the point of it all. Afterwards, Luke and I had another discussion about how playing like this will benefit from having several win conditions to simultaneously work towards, instead of just winning by whoever hits a particular win condition first. Instead of waiting for someone to score their 5th CP, or for their clock to run out, you just time the game, and at the end tally up all those points. It still gives the game a direction, and moves the action into the center of the table, but takes the pressure off trying to 'win'. Hard, competitive win factors mean little in this context, when all you're doing is taking all your models out for a spin, and to spend a day with a pal.

Ahhh bromance <3.

Biting off more than you can chew is actually ok, so long as you have a plate to spit the excess on to.

I should know, I eat a lot of noodles. I've also decided to take on what I guess was my first actual commission painting job, getting Nikola's Legion up to scratch. So far I've managed to nut off the cavalry solo, eVayl, a Naga and Zuriel, and am still deciding whether I'm getting horror flashbacks from when I painted my old Tyranid army, or nestling into the groove of painting flesh and chitin once more.

I actually am enjoying this, and ironically, it's motivated me to paint more of my own models. I've been chipping away at my Mammoth on the side. After almost a year and a half sitting around looking like a brown turd, I've done enough where I'm just finishing off some detailing.

Though finishing off detailing on a Mammoth is pretty much the lion's share of the work, I'm realising. Anyways, I'm going to bring that bad boy with me to Battlecry in a couple of week's time. I've decided to take a rather casual approach to what lists I want to bring, which may very well lead to me being frustrated and annoyed at my army being shit. But I really want to do pXerxis with Mammoth and get that fat bubba to ARM24 (or effective 26 vs Hordes with the Agoniser).

squeee!

Speaking of Gargantuans, how about that Templecon eh? New Colossals eh? I was initially stoked at the announcement, the idea of expanding the range of these big models appeals to me, even if it takes me a year and half to paint the fucking things (I'll get to my Kraken too, I promise). People started theorising pretty quickly about the impact these new models will have, the sort of power they may bring, and then what the projected benefits/cons would be. And in general, people seem to be rather skeptical, or maybe erring on the side of caution. Podcast discussion has touched on what happens to the game when you just have so much focus on these large, lumpy pieces that are hard to remove, and how this may skew things away from the all the infantry choices in the game. Others have discussed that in light of the strength of some of the other Colossals, this new wave may be largely underwhelming. While these opinions have coloured my own thoughts. I think I remain optimistic overall,. There's so little information to go on at this juncture.

But Battlecry! I'm getting excited again, because my second list is actually going to be eXerxis - I've fallen in love with that big lug all over again. After getting over my initial grumbling over him I think I've cracked him. This may be blindingly obvious to others, so please bear with me. I tried building lists with a bunch of shooting that would leverage off his feat, thinking that infantry were probably the answer for eXerxis. But watching games people played with eVayl, I got the idea I could mimic part of her game-plan; the whole hit and run, refuge thing. So I built a list with as many light cyclops beasts as I could have, and that seems to be a decent start. There's been a bit of talk from an Aussie Skorne player, David Potts, about his appreciation of a package of 3 Cyclops Brutes in a range of lists. The defensive stats of these 5pt guys, along with shield-guard, is pretty impressive for such expendable pieces. With Xerxis I put them to work, running all over the show at SPD8. along with the Archidon and Molik Karn, I have movement jank a plenty, and being in that mind-set more than anything else has made me happy to play him. Recognising that I had pigeon-holed a particular play-style with Skorne, based around a powerful counter-punch, meant that it was my thinking that had to change when using eXerxis.

Outside of that, matchups are certainly another thing to gauge. I haven't figured out how he handles infantry screens all that well at this stage, having just come home from a game against Luke Harvey's Issyria. I don't feel confident in this matchup and him getting the first turn sealed the deal. But I still learnt from the experience, both realising that I would probably have gone to my other list in the case of the Retribution match up, or what committed differently if I was to play the game again. On the flipside to all this, I had my first game against Bradigus today as well, and felt confident enough about the match up. I still got assassinated to fuck, but it certainly wasn't as lop-sided as I thought. Just need to shuffle a few things around to get that second Extoller in there.

Hutt Valley Fisting; Post Valleycon (2)

I've had this stuck in my head for the past two days, not really sure why. I guess Eurovision is coming up again within a few months though. Can't wait.

But YES. Day two of Valleycon rolled round on yet another beautiful sunny day in Wellington. The whole week was actually stunning, I may have even gotten a bit of a tan on the walk to the dairy.

Anyways, my first game was against Jarrod Carmichael's Cygnar. As I mentioned in the last post, I ended up running the Fist of Halaak for the whole event. Largely this was due to familiarity, but at times I tried to consider what would work best against my opponent's pairing. Jarrod brought a Siege list with multiple juniors, and eNemo, making things interesting; Siege is known to crack armour, and all the Stormsmiths with eNemo means death for massed single wound infantry. I shouldn't have bothered thinking baout it too much, because Jarrod was going with whatever anyways, and decided on his Nemo list. I dropped Xerxis thinking I had enough beef that Siege would struggle to get through, but facing eNemo made me dance a little inside. I wasn't entirely sure how Nemo worked, but I assumed that he would struggle against moi.

As it was, I got greedy in this game, thinking I could finish two of Jarrod's 'jacks with Molik under feat, to get the attrition advantage. I only got one, and scraped the paint on the Centurion. The correct play here would have been to just waste one jack and fatewalk back to safety behind my Cetratii. I had to just count on the Cetratii giving Molik the ARM boost from the feat to help him enough to survive, and make it to Nemo. Jarrod was still surprised though, not expecting Molik to have the distance to either of his jacks with polarity shield on them.

I took a couple of shots of the game, so here are things part way into his following turn.

My gladiator is pretty close to the action again, and paid for it, again. The Ironclad just off shot a bit got clear of the Arcuarii I sent to jam him, and put what was essentially an 8pt animus 6ft under. Several of the shots from the Stormcallers did a real number on me actually, taking off Incindiarii and Acuarii all over the show. Conversly, Molik barely got tickled by the Centurion and one of the light jacks. He was jammed away from Nemo, but still alive and kicking.

The following turn, and Cetratii bunkered up and stuck their spears into the light jack, before Xerxis ended it with a boosted combo-smite, allowing Molik to side-step around to Nemo, and finish him in two hits.

RIP in peace Nemo. In all this fuzzy photo glory

Jarrod was a great opponent and guy, and this game definitely gave me a lesson in over-extension. It also further deepened my love for the Xerxis combo-smite and Molik combo. That shit has so much legs, either to setup Molik to begin a whack-a-mole on fools, or to clear guys off MK.

The following game was against Mitch Cowan, a guy who I've seen around at previous events, but I don't think we had ever really taken the time to get to know one another proper. He's done well at this game in the past, and I was looking forward to facing his eVyros Griffon spam, and give him a good game. Instead I clear went and derped the hardest I have done in a while. Playing Incursion, I didn't bother to contest any flags some how thinking I had turns to burn, and gave him the win essentially on my turn two.

I honestly am at a bit of a loss how this happen. At the time I was saying I forgot the scenario, and that I had thought scoring started the following turn. But thinking back I remember clearly sizing up whether to contest the flags, but then deciding against it? Fucking shoot me now. Apart from that, it was a silly idea to go second with such a slow list as mine - I was trying to avoid getting the table side that had a big obstruction bang smack in the middle of my path up the table. Instead, I got jammed and barely left my deployment zone. The main thing I can take from this though is that I sure as shit will never do that again. While I should know to go first with the type of list I had in the type of scenario played, this was purely academic knowledge, not first hand experience.

EDIT: I don't mean this to discount Mitch's ability to play well either - on my second turn I had a line to Vyros with Molik, and attempted to clear a path to him. Mitch's skill with the feat was on point and successfully closed all avenues to assassinate his caster. I've only just now thought of a way around it now, so chalk up another lesson learnt, but also bravo to Mitch for thoroughly out-playing me.

I just hope that next time I can give you a better showing Mitch. You may still get a decent fisting yet.

Sitting on a 3-2 record, meant I was going to be fishing around the midfield for my final game. My last opponent for the event was one Jamie Steer;

I tried to get him to make a war-face with Butcher, but my antiquated iphone couldn't handle it.

Jamie dropped a pButcher list with various Man-o-wars, a Juggernaut, Devastator, Berserker, and widowmakers and man hunters for flavour. Xerxis definitely liked seeing a bunch of low-DEF/high ARM targets across the table from, but we still had a game where we jockeyed back ad forth, trading pieces and chatting away. Actually, that'll be Jamie's best tactic, he's got a good grasp on the game and is keen to discuss it. Almost to the point where I ran my clock run down. If he cultivates this skill, he'll be deathclocking opponents left, right and center. I managed to combo smite Butcher out of existence however, and avoided that loss.

So all in all, a 4-2 result was not too bad at all. Being objectively critical about my performance, I don't think I've advanced all that much overall - I made really silly mistakes when it truly mattered, and did not have the oversight to forsee such eventualities. That's a skill I'm definitely going to have to develop. also in terms of list construction, I'm going to seriously rethink my inclusion of the Gladiator. That guy was essentially a whole lot of wasted points, and I barely cast Rush over the course of the event. Skorne players usually swear by the guy, but I'm now beginning to think I can leave him at home. This is particularly so because my lists are increasingly relying on my troops for the start and mid part of my games, where the beasts end up being late-game pieces. By which time, the added range of the Gladiator's animus is hardly needed.

But all-in-all a fantastic weekend. Adam Oakson from Christchurch ended up taking first place, the only other Skorne player, with a Fist and Zaal pairing. Mike Thorn was on second place, having used eDenny's Body and Soul tier all weekend. I'll be looking into getting the pieces for that list, it seems like so much fun :3... And finally, Nikola came 3rd overall, being the undisputed queen of Legion, using eVayl to jank fools. Special mention to him tanking a Rhyas assassination with Vayl, while she was sitting on no camp. Nikola likes to live dangerously.

Once again, thanks to Chris and crew, as well as Charlie and his family, for another great experience in Wellington. I'll definitely endeavour to make it down for Lords of Ruin later in the year, and there was someone mumbling about running a potential masters event; Active Duty Roster FTW. In the meantime, in Auckland there's Battlecry to prepare for, and then Ides of March.

And no more tier restrictions ^_^

Hutt Valley Fisting; Post Valleycon (1)

First and foremost, shoutouts to Chris Otton for being a TO of most awesomeness, Charlie St Clair for housing and hosting my yellow ass, my opponents over the weekend, and the crew from my own little shitty Shed club in Auckland. I had a fantastic time, and I hope I will have the chance to repay you all one way or another. Quick note; I'm an easy lay, so if you're that way inclined then wink wink nudge nudge *smooches* etc

Results for the event are over at Thrallblacks, so spoiler alert; I placed 10th out of 32. While I initially hoped for higher, I'm actually still happy with how things unfolded. Part of that is probably the sledging I copped for playing Skorne and not my better faction (Cryx). While this was all in jest, it did make me realise I was still trying to over-analyse my game, and that there is little point to stress in these circumstances. I want to push myself, sure, but anything beyond that is a waste of energy. As such, I've told myself that I should not hold as strict a criteria for my gaming year as restricting myself to Skorne. I'm happy to renege my initial 'Skorne 2015' stance, and play Cryx again if I so happen to feel like it. At this moment, I'm still having a tonne of fun developing lists and playing my Skorne, but I won't force things if it starts to feel like I'm pushing shit up hill.

Within the context of playing my games over the weekend, I stuck with pXerxis and the Fist of Halaak. It was just the easiest choice to make, in a lot of cases the strongest drop, and once you're in the middle of an event where you don't have D&C conditions, I felt I just wanted to keep with him out of habit. Also, I got to say fist a lot. The games I had over the weekend were a real mixed bag in terms of the results and how they unfolded. My first round was against Tim Ward and his mercs, and he drew Ashlynn. I tried to get photos of all my opponents for the blog and posterity's sake, but forgot to do that with him.

So here's a photo of another Tim Ward:

With Ashlynn, Tim brought along a bunch of light jacks, some heavy jacks marshalled to Gun-mage units, Devil Dogs, and a bunch of misc solos. The match up against Fist was about as one-sided as you can get, and I think Tim admitted not really knowing what my force did. Getting the drop on his gun mages with my Incindiarii really started things off badly for him, with rockets hitting their targets and gutting the units. Shit just kept dying on his side, with very few loses on mine. A Beast Handler even managed to cap Anastasia Di Bray when she tried to ambush into my back field. When Ashlynn blew her stack trying to shank a single Cetratii (and failing), Tim called it. I'd like to say I gave a Tim a decent game, but I know what its like to go under the bus, and its sure as heck not pleasant.

My next game was against David 'Hooch' Brown from Christchurch, playing Legion.

He used his Rhyas tier to fan-fucking-tastic effect, pushing way into my side of the table and jamming me out of the scenario. That was the scariest thing for me, where I started to traffic jam myself in trying to sand paper away at his infantry, and he was up 3 CPs by the third turn. I started feeding troops into the zone, and hack my way through swordsmen, hex hunters and incubii, and made crucial mistakes in being too cagey with my warbeasts. They needed to push up into the zone to contest and tie up Dave's Scythean. Instead I held back and both Rhyas and her beast were able to find gaps to Xerxis to finish him. To date, Hooch and I have played two games against one another at events and he's won them both. I'll get him one day Hoochie boy *fist shaking etc*

While I couldn't fist David, Adam Oakson successfully fisted him the following round.

The following game saw me attempt to not be so timid against Peter Williamson's eKaya list.

The Tharn in that list pack way more of a punch than you'd be led to believe, as does a Feral with Forced Evo on it. Being braver with my Gladiator meant losing him top of 2. Doh. This game was a real grind, with the two of us swinging up opposing flanks to score in each other's zones, and sending in chaff to contest. The crux of the game came down to Peter being unable to finish off a Cetratii stopping him from scoring. I was able to pop his objective and score his zone after clearing it. From there he tried to keep me from scoring further with his Pureblood, a couple of Tharn, and jamming my own beast handlers, but Xerxis put the kaibosh on that by combo-smiting the Pureblood over some models before putting Fury onto Molik and letting him finish off the remainders. It was the closest and most hard fought game I had all weekend. And the one that firmly put to bed my doubts about including Molik Karn with Xerxis. His sheer damage output and his flexibility with side-step makes my loins tingle.

Day one came to an end, Nikola berated the rest of us for scoring 2-1 over BBQ, and I was feeling quite happy about things. Day 2 write up will be incoming soon.

Dance partners redux: The pre-Valleycon list shakedown

I was hesitant about whether I should post my lists here, whether I'd give away any sort of 'dark-horse' advantage I may have by springing something unexpected on my opponents. But then I checked myself; out of those few readers who actually scan this blog, who would actually try to tech for me? And for Skorne in general?... yeesh.

So here are my two tier lists for Valleycon,  giving Skorne a good go at the first WM/H event on NZ's calender year:

List 1

Tyrant Xerxis 
- Molik Karn 
- Titan Gladiator 
Max Cataphract Cetrati 
Min Cataphract Incindiarii 

Min Cataphract Incindiarii 
Min Cataphract Arcuarii 
Min Cataphract Arcuarii 

Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer 

Max Paingiver Beast Handlers 

OBJECTIVE: Arcane Wonder

THEME: The Fist of Halaak - Tier 2

List 2

Archdomina Makeda 
- Molik Karn 
- Basilisk Krea 
Saxon Orrik 
Max Cataphract Cetrati 
Max Praetorian Swordsmen with UA
Max Venator Slingers 
Max Praetorian Keltarii 
Min Paingiver Beast Handlers 
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer

OBJECTIVE: Arcane Wonder

THEME: Army of the Western Reaches - Tier 1

As explained over past posts, Xerxis will be my main drop, possessing the armour and wounds that opponents may have difficulty chewing through, and providing one heck of a counter punch. Again, I can't WAIT to play pXerxis out of tier, if only to get Aptimus Marketh into the mix. Cycling Fury has been a big part of my game, and has led to issues with activations, when a wee 3pt solo with Spell Slave would make life so much easier. As it stands, I often get Xerxis in rather exposed positions, camping only one or two transfers. Several games recently have either left him assassinated, or me with a puckered sphincter after Xerxis barely survives. This will be a case of me not weighing up the risk and reward of particular situations all that well, a skill that would admittedly be valuable to master... I'd rather just not have to think about it and chuck Marketh in there.

Oh ok then.

The Makeda list has only been played a couple of times, but I'm pretty happy with it. It really does set up the Swordsmen and Keltarii as sacrificial pawns, to be bullied and resurrected back via the feat. I'm developing a real fondness for pMak - I've finally clicked onto Savagery being a thing. Cetratii advancing 12" with that and Press Forward into Shield Wall is neat, and to then cycle it onto the Keltarii who can then advance 13" into odd areas is something I want to do more of. Because of the cycling of upkeeps by my Warlocks, I've chosen the Arcane Wonder objective, where I hope to bunker up around it with my force and Warlock, and use the cost discount to get Defenders Ward, Savagery, and Fury around a lot more efficiently. Most of the objectives are positioned pretty close to the center of the board too, where both my armies want to be.

Upon discussion both my lists do pretty much the same overall thing; take a punch and then swing back harder. The pMak list does this with weaker attacks, but the whole idea of that list was to drop it versus pairings that had mass infantry weapon masters; where their damage output is wasted on single wound infantry, and they are still vulnerable to the low P+S of my dudes. I'll have to be mindful if the opponent's other list comprises of armour skews that will render pMak's own infantry swarm useless. Molik Karn has been key in the counter-punch aspect of my games, but I think I've got it to the point where I have been to precious about him. Because he has been so vital, I've often held him back farther than he needs to be, and that needs to change. 

It feels weird to have my lists locked in. There's things I guess I would still want to change about the lists, where I should have tried using Tiberion instead of Molik in the Xerxis list at least once to see how it goes. But apart from that I'm confident that I can give my opponents a game in Wellington this weekend. I am feeling the pinch that my faction probably suffers against several of the other factions out there, and I'm pretty positive I'll have my shit pushed in for several matchups, particularly against Bradigus. I have hopes of doing well, which are some what tempered by how I keep placing around the 10th place spot. I reckon this time I have a far better expectation of how I'll do, and will endeavour to just have fun with my games, while making my opponents work or it.

We'll just have to see how it all goes, right?