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!

Skorne Skorne Skorne :D (part 1)

This is going to be long and a little rambly.  My goal is to put up some lists I'm eager to try, and go through my thinking with everything that's changed for the models I'm using.  I also have a tournament coming up.  The games will be spread out over a couple of weeks, which is nice because I'm busy most Saturdays.  So in addition to talking about out most improved stuff I'd like to try, I'll go into my lists for the tournament, and how I'm planning to run them.  If you're in the Twin Cities meta, and you're playing in this tournament, you probably don't need to read about my lists, right?  I mean, who worries about Skorne?

Lists and such after the break!

Changes Are A Foot

I was going to try to go back to tactics posts this Friday, but it seems that might be premature.  The latest PP Insider has revealed that Skorne is going to get a serious second look, and that rebalancing changes will start in the next rules Errata (out in January).  Obviously, I'm pretty excited.  The nature of running a blog means that I talk a lot more about what does work than what doesn't, but I agree with people who've been saying that there were some pretty serious problems with the Skorne range and faction synergies.  I'm very interested to see how PP will address the problems in Skorne, and how building lists and playing games will change when they do.  I have to wait for January for that though.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a bit of a breather, and play some 'casters I don't usually play (in particular, Zaal 2, Naaresh, and Makeda 1 are all 'casters I've been itching to try), and work on my second faction, Retribution, a little bit (and maybe even paint them up a little, so you can stand to read my battle reports).  I'll definitely be keeping an ear to the ground for changes in Skorne, and keep you all posted on what I think.