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?

Happy Spew Years

Ahhh new year, new beginnings. The end of 2014 closed with the typical festive eating and lazing. The last two posts I wrote whilst spending time with my parents, and away from all my hobby stuff. I'm a bit complacent about carting stuff around to paint, especially when I'm usually fishing or chopping wood or doing other manly man things, so I typically don't have the time.

And time is running out, there's three weeks and change till Valleycon, and recent events mean I have a shitload of stuff to paint. But let's rewind a it.

Prior to new years eve Remuera's own Adonis, Chas, opened his house for a couple of days of warmachine and general chillaxing. This gave me the chance to test my pMorghul tier list to see if it would actually cut the mustard. I dropped it against the minions of Lord Regent JS Imbeau, the local minion master and salt factory. The guy really loves Cryx, you should ask him about them sometime. He also has a fantastic blog on his experiences running minions and analysis of the game here.

Rot n Roll graphical representation

JS ran a Rask list, and I guess things went as well as they could. JS quite competently took my army apart, but it was still a bit of a game, when he neglected the scenario a bit and I ended up going up 4 control points. It took a Bullsnapper with Fury on it to one-shot Morghul and give JS the win. Note to self: don't position your warlock in base to base with other models where there is no space to admonition away. Another important lesson was that I had never considered before the importance of anticipating how I will score control points in an efficient manner; I had the option to score my first 2 points with Morghul but opted instead to charge a Gatorman, thinking he could kill him comfortably and sprint into the zone. Instead I barely tickled the fucker and was left only scoring the one point. Had I instead just moved Morgs into the zone, my win would have been assured by just dominating a second turn. Instead I scrambled for points the next turn to get to 4, and needed a third turn to bring home the win.

At least now I've come to the realisation of how to force scenario pressure through scoring; The steamroller pack makes scoring wins a two turn affair - meaning that at the first opportunity to score 2 or 3 points, its generally a good idea, because you can then score the difference in the following round, usually by clearing a zone/flag(s) and/or killing an objective. I guess this is an obvious point to make, and redundant to most people, but this is the game where the point clicked for me.

Right before a Bullsnapper ended me

Beyond that, the following discussion helped me a lot to consider the options for the sort of list I wanted to pair with my pXerxis list. It was considered that the Fist of Halaak would struggle against weapon master spam lists, the sort seen with eGoreshade and eButcher. At first I thought that FoH wouldn't struggle too much, particularly with multiple Incindiarii dropping fire everywhere, but talking more with JS led to conceptualising a list about spamming single-wound Skorne guys to counter the weapon-masters.

This list was born:

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

This list only hits tier one and does not provide any in-game benefits, but does allow me the most choice for selecting a broad range of units. Basic idea; run up the Swordsmen and Keltarii followed closely by the Cetratii and Slingers. Feat, and let them eat a charge if I can't get the alpha. Bring dudes back and go to town with Swordsmen auto-plinking for a point of damage and Keltarii advancing and getting into all sorts of odd places. I'm excited about this list, with all the range I can get out of Savagery for the Cetratii and Keltarii, but also to have Molik there to yo-yo around with. Thankfully Valleycon has lifted the character restrictions, so long as character pieces can fit within the tier lists. I'll probably be looking at having Molik in both my lists, as I love what the guy can do with Xerxis too.

Running the list also has motivated me to assemble the box of Slingers that has been sitting in my cupboard for the past year and a bit. And now I've got a shit load more models to paint than I had originally thought I had.

Balls.