State of the Lists - What I'm Thinking and Doing With Skorne

Hello Again!

I can't make any promises that I'll actually start blogging consistently, as I really don't play all that often.  I've played about 6 games this year, including the 3 I played at the tournament in my last post.  That said, I've been thinking about list building a lot lately, and this seems like as good a place as any to try to organize my thoughts.

I'm thinking about lists mainly in terms of themes.  I can play 3 of our themes, because I only own one unit of Immortals and very few minions.  That may change, but until it does, I'll just focus on the themes I can play: Imperial Warhost, Masters of War, and Winds of Death.

Imperial Warhost

This is old news at this point, but the Skorne command book was pre-released at GenCon, and a new theme was revealed (and added to Warroom): the Imperial Warhost.  So today, I'm going to talk about that, and make a list I think will be a lot of fun.

For this theme, you can take any Warlock and the following:

And Dominar Morghoul Too I Suppose

Eh, he's fine.

Retribution New Toys

All the new Retribution of Scyrah stuff from the command book came out on Warroom earlier this week, and I wanted to put in my share of baseless speculation before I put anything on the table.  I also have a Goreshade 4 list that I'm interested in trying.

Starting at the top after the jump!

Monday Mercenary Mutterings: Mercs State of the Lists 2017

It's been a while since I've done one of these, but I figured it was about due. There have been a lot of changes in the faction since Mk III came out, mainly from themes and couple new models, but also some errata changes.

The biggest change is that you can no longer power attack friendly models - meaning it is now much more difficult to knock down enemy models by using your own models to line up the slam. This is a huge benefit for high-DEF warcasters such as Ashlynn and Constance Blaize, and should (theoretically) let them take better advantage of their rather absurdly potent melee abilities without the constant knock-down assassination run fear.

The next biggest change for my lists is the Rhulic Hammer Strike Theme - it's awesome! An additional +2" deployment zone, free Artillery Corps or Bokurs, and 3" reposition on all Heavy 'Jacks and Artillery Corps. Artillery Corps and Heavies form the core of my Ossrum lists already, so the benefits line up really well.

But enough talk - on to the lists!

Pod Tournament Report Game 3: Master Ascetic Naaresh vs. Grissel Bloodsong, Marshall of the Kriels (75pts)

Hey everyone!  This is the third and final game in the weekly portion of the pod tournament.  I still had my Mordikaar combined arms, Naaresh beast brick, and Xekaar ranged brick for lists.  My opponent this week was Josh, who had brought Trollbloods.  He was bringing Ragnor with a beast brick, Horgle 2 with a Mountain King, and Grissel 2 with a Mountain King and 2 bombers.  My strongest drop into all of them was Naaresh, who had good armor cracking and an Arm buff.  Josh was on the fence between Grissel and Horgle, but went with Grissel.

Pod Tournament Report Game 2: Master Ascetic Naaresh vs Fyanna, Torment of Everblight (75pts)

I played my second game of the pod tournament this past Saturday, and here's how it went down.

Phase 1 - List Chicken

My opponent, Dave, was playing Legion, and had brought Lylyth 3, Thagrosh 1, and Fyanna 2.  I was packing Naaresh 1, Mordikaar 1, and Xekaar 1, and I went into the game at a loss as to which list I should choose.  Naaresh had the best game into Lylyth, being hard to kill, having the option to keep Safeguard up all the time without sacrificing much defensively, and having a lot of Shield Guard in the list.  He also had decent game into Thagrosh - I'd have to play better than my opponent, but it would be a fair fight.  I was really worried about running his brick into Fyanna, who had all the tools necessary to stop him.

Mordikaar was my best into Fyanna.  She didn't have a lot of magic weapons in the list, and Revive and Essence Blast would give me a huge leg up on attrition against her infantry.  I was also pretty confident that if I played well, I could run Mordikaar into Thagrosh and come out on top.  Lylyth was a huge problem though.  Apart from the assassination on Mordi himself, all my infantry would be shot off the table before the game had a chance to go anywhere.

Xekaar was strong into Thags, and playable into Fyanna, but was also weak against Lylyth (standing behind Aradi can only do so much).

In the end, I dropped Naaresh and hoped for the best.  Dave dropped Fyanna.  This was gonna be rough.

Pod Tournament Report Game 1: Beast Master Xekaar vs. Tyrant Xerxis (75pts)

This past Thursday, I played the first game of the multi-week pod tournament that spans the Twin Cities meta.  Since I put myself down as being able to play at any store, I was used to make up the numbers at Fantasy Flight Game Center.  It's not my closest FLGS, but it's a great place, and the local meta includes a bunch of people I've seen around in various places.

I was running Beast Master Xekaar, Master Ascetic Naaresh, and Void Seer Mordikaar.  My opponent, Jeff, was also running Skorne, with Tyrant Xerxis, Supreme Archdomina Makeda, and one other (I forget who).  I picked Xekaar because the Xerxis list looked melee focused enough that I'd be able to grind it down with shooting, and out-attrition it, and I wanted Mortality in the game to stop Stay Death shenanigans from Mak2.  Jeff went with Xerxis because that list had the armor cracking to deal with my bricks, and plenty of its own armor to shrug off Mordikaar.

Monday Mercenary Mutterings: General "Awesome" Ossrum

I've liked Ossrum pretty much since I started playing Mercs, mainly because he reminded me strongly of a more condensed version of Khador's Irusk (1 and 2). He gives a lot of support to the army, whether it's in his spells, his feat, or just outright buffs like tactician.

Mk III didn't change him much, and the ways it did I actually really like. His feat is virtually the same, but now allows him to benefit from the speed portion of it, Martial Discipline is now just plain old Tactician (Rhulic) which isn't very different, and his spell Energizer changed from a variable cost battlegroup movement to a solid cost 2, move 2. Mostly, these changes are just tweaks to make him run more consistently, and he still does what he used to do - but is now LOADS better at it, considering he can take all the Warjacks he always wanted to take.

That seems like a bit of a theme in Mk III, doesn't it? Lets dive in.

Monday Mercenary Mutterings: All This and Magnus2

So in the great headlong stampede of undomesticated equines that is Mark III, it looks like Magnus2 (or Magnus the Warlord, technically) is coming out at the head of the pack for Mercenaries. As is turning out to be the norm with this edition, that's putting a lot of preconceptions from the previous edition a bit on their heads.

Magnus2 hasn't changed a lot from his mkII incarnation, yet the changes he does have are significant - he dropped his warjack bond in favor of Field Marshal: Unyielding (as well as gaining Unyielding himself), and swapped Mobility for Escort, which doesn't grant pathfinder, but DOES give him additional ARM and is an upkeep rather than an expensive drain on focus each turn.

His feat is unchanged and still arguably one of the most powerful in the game, and can flat out deny an entire half or more of the board to an enemy, which I think lets you be more cavalier with choosing models you like and that work with your play style over the generic "best in show".

The important result of the changes, taken with rules like Power Up, is that Magnus 2 can now do what it seemed he always really wanted to do - run a block of warjacks very, very well.

Monday Mercenary Mutterings: Gorten Grundback and the Gunbunny Swarm

At the expense of today's post sounding a lot like a knockoff Harry Potter title, I'm going to take a quick look at Gorten Grundback, arguably mkII's least used Rhulic Warcaster. Also, it's a day late, but that was due to me having second thoughts on the first list I built (see below).

With mkIII, a lot of things changed - Gorten... pretty much didn't. At all. I'm not even joking here, he is almost identical, right down to his feat, spell list, and stats. The only changes to his card (beyond the spiffy new background) is that they threw in a bunch more Warjack Points, Solid Ground is now Friendly Faction, and he gained Tough - 5 minutes with a sharpie and you can keep your mkII card, it's downright unnerving.

However, while he didn't change, it's a lot like the game changed around him, and he is immensely better for it.

Lets take a look.

Monday Mercenary Mutterings: WTC Solo Masters and Constance Blaize

So it looks like Mercs did very well at the World Team Championships, getting 1st, 4th, and 9th in the WTC Solo Masters Report!

That's pretty impressive, but what's almost as impressive was the range of Warcasters used - Bart, Damiano, Constance Blaize, Ossrum, and a pair of Magnus2 lists for the Solo Masters, with a smattering of Cephalix, Drake, Gorton, and more Magnus2 added in for the Teams. That's an impressively broad range of warcasters (yea, yea, except for a small preference for Magnus2), especially considering that Damiano, Ossrum (before Earthbreaker), and Constance Blaize saw very little competitive play in Mk2, with the latter being widely considered the worst warcaster in the faction/game, depending on who you were talking to.

The Blaize list was actually pretty similar to the one I've been toying around with for a while, so that got my interest peaked. After a rather disheartening loss with Borka2 the other day, I think my Trollbloods are going to take a time out for a while, so it's back to Mercs for the foreseeable future, and Constance Blaize is at the top of my list(s). 

More after the break...

Mak3da Musings

I'm trying to try new things with Makeda 3 right now, to figure out what I want to do with her in the new edition.  I've tried the Mammoth build, and couple of heavy beast builds, but nothing has really clicked for me so far.  I've spent a lot of the weekend wondering what I really want from a Makeda 3 list, and I keep on coming up with things similar to the Brute Squad I was running in MkII.

All New War, All New Trollbloods: pt 1, Warlocks

I am quite happy with the new edition - the Trollblood meta changed dramatically, while keeping a lot of the same feel and flavor that I enjoyed in MkII. In my usual fashion, I'm going to ramble in a disjointed and semi-coherent manner while attempting to be amusing and give my two cents.

Warlocks

Even before the end of MkII, Trollblood tournament warlock rankings were in some pretty wacky flux on account of tier lists and erratas - Warder Meat Mountain, Evolutionary Elementalism, and Runes of War were all the Rage and then all the Amuck overnight, but a few staples remained strong and were pretty consistently played - Madrak 1 and Grissel 1 infantry swarms, Doomshaper 1 with or without Runes of War, Grim 1 still did what he did pretty universally, Bearka (yea, no...), and Calandra was seeing play even after the EE nerf.

On the other hand, I hadn't seen Madrak 2 or Gunnbjorn in a tournament in a heck of a long time.

Now, however... Let's take a look.