Tactica: Skorne Battlegroup and the Start of a Journeyman League

MkIII is still a new edition, so I'll give my take on how to run the Skorne Battlegroup, and how to expand your list.  This post will just cover the Battlegroup, and will include a rundown on the models and abilities we start off with, as well as some tips for using them effectively.  In my next two installments, which I hope to have finished by Monday, I'll talk about expanding your forces through a journeyman league and getting started as a Tyrant of the Skorne Empire.

Wednesday Battle Report: Makeda 3 vs. Constance 1 - 75pts

My first battle report of the all new war.  I've played a bunch of games before this one, and I will very likely post the reports.  If I don't post them as full blow-by-blow battle reports, I'll give the short version when I discuss the 'caster or list archetype I used in a tactics post.  Now, on to the report!

Lists and Thoughts

My absolute favorite Warlock in MkII was Makeda and the Exalted Court, a.k.a. Makeda 3 or Mak3da.  She was incredibly fun to play, and performed well against a lot of the lists I went up against regularly.  In MkIII, she's changed a bit, and I'm still playing around trying to find something that really clicks with her.  People online have been talking up Makeda 3 with the Mammoth, so I decided to try out:

What I'm Excited About in Skorne MkIII: Skorne

Hi Everyone!

I've been busy the last couple of months with various things, including a move.  Since we just reconnected our internet this past weekend, I've decided to get settled in by firing up 4+ Tough again.  It's been a long time since I posted, and even longer since I've updated regularly.  However, I'm in a pretty good position to post regularly, and even more importantly, play regularly.  My planned update schedule is currently:

• Monday: Random BS
• Wednesday: Battle Report
• Friday: Tactics
• More Unscheduled Random BS as I see fit

On to the excitement!

There are certainly a lot of legitimate gripes about Skorne right now, and I'll talk about them a bit at some point in the near future.  Right now, though, I want to discuss what has me rubbing my hands together with anticipation about our humble faction.

1)  A little more control.  Skorne has never been the most control-oriented faction, but we ended up getting some fun new tools this edition.  For example, Castigate on Dominar Rasheth got a massive power boost - eliminating all channeling and casting of Animi in Rasheth's CTRL.  Naaresh's Lamentation and Despoiler's Arcane Suppression were both upgraded by the fact that Animi are now spells when a Warbeast uses them.  Some models, like pMorghoul, have much stronger control games now that the meta has more lists anchored by heavy 'jacks.  Of our two standby control pieces, Orin Midwinter is a bit more versatile than he was in MkII, although less of a blanket shutdown, and the Agonizer has 4 really interesting control-oriented abilities (although using Repulsion well is hard on the little critter and risky on a Warlock).

2)  Interesting ranged defense options.  We have two excellent Shield Guard beasts in the faction.  The Brute is an all star utility/defensive light, and the Sentry is nice and tough with the ability to punch back reasonably hard if it survives the alpha.  We have several unit options I feel bring good questions to the table for a ranged game, most importantly Karax, Ferox, and Bloodrunners, as well as the Carapace beasts, which I'm looking forward to trying out in significant numbers.  I'm even starting to come around on the Krea a little bit.  I hated her at first, especially after liking her so much in MkII, but if she keeps performing the way she has I'll have to grudgingly admit that she has a place.

3)  More shooting.  The Cannoneer, all the Venator units, the Venator solo when it comes out, and especially the Mammoth and Siege Animantrax, all have me very interested in our ranged game. Our options are strong enough that we can run a solid ranged element with any 'caster, and a very punishing one with certain 'casters.  It's something I played around with a bit in MkII, and I'm looking forward to trying to puzzle out the perfect balance of shooting, melee and control now that we have a little more shooting to work with.

The Mammoth on the painting table

4)  Murderkitties.  Look you guys.  I'm a crazy cat person.  I really am.  And the overall speed, flexibility, and control that Ferox can bring to the table with the right support has me super excited to put them on the table every time.

The savage Ferox in their natural habitat

That's enough excitement for today.  As always, comments are welcome!  And so are further suggestions for material, since I now have a schedule to be keeping up with.

Thanks for reading!

What I'm Excited About in Skorne MkIII: Mordikaar

I know Void Seer Mordikaar is supposed to be dead, but despite that, he picked up a bunch of fun new tools.  I'm excited for him because he brings a really interesting and strong set of tools to the table, many of which are based on his interactions with other models.

Here's what stayed the same.  His stats and weapons are the same, as are most of his abilities.  Void Lord was replaced with Elite Cadre: Void Spirits, which gives them Killing Spree, which basically turns them into top-of-the-line infantry mulching machines, especially when combined with their Void Walk ability to pop up 8" from their last location when they kill a model.  Mordi's Feat is also the same - a solid buff to Def and Poltergeist, which is very helpful when it's helpful.

His spells are a mix of same and different.  Essence Blast is the same.  Hollow is the same, except that it doesn't grant Tough.  Fair enough when Nihilators have it innately, and Willbreakers can hand it out as needed.  Revive is weaker - no attacking the turn you come back, which brings it into line with most other recursion, but makes 3-9 Fury per turn on that spell less of a no-brainer.  He got two new spells: Manifest Void and Host of Shadows.  Host of Shadows gives Mordikaar's whole battlegroup Ghostly for a turn, which is amazing, especially at 2 Fury.  It opens up a lot of options for Despoiler, who is really good with Mordikaar, and even makes me want to consider the new, lousy Archidons.  Manifest Void increases the cost of enemy spells within Mordi's CTRL by 1, and stacks with Despoiler's Animus, Arcane Suppression.  All the more reason to take Despoiler.

All in all, it's not just a cool suite of abilities.  Void Spirits are terrors.  They get an additional attack and damage die against living models, and all you have to do is kill that one leading trooper with one before it pops 8" deeper into enemy lines, and starts berserking through their infantry.  Despoiler's bond with Mordikaar lets it create Void Spirits when a living enemy model is killed within 5" now too, so the threat of Void Spirits is really something else.  Also, while Revive may have gotten worse, Skorne actually gained a high-threat Revivable unit in the Praetorian Ferox, which are a great complement to those Void Spirits harassing the enemy early on.

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.

What I'm Excited About in Skorne MkIII: The Siege Animantrax

I haven't heard a lot about our favorite turtle-based battle engine lately, but I have to say, I'm pretty excited.

The Animantrax costs as much as a Bronzeback now, but it can do a lot.

First, it's a very mobile gun platform.  With 3 Rage tokens, it's Spd 7, and can Trample and Shoot in the same activation (huge bases still can't find a landing zone when trampling over enemies, but the extra 3" threat on the gun is very nice).  After that, it gets a 3" Reposition.  A 7" advance, or 10" trample, followed by some pretty heavy shooting, followed by a 3" retreat, is pretty good.  The Animantrax can no longer boost its own gun, which is a shame, but on the plus side, that means it won't need to be whipped at all after turn 1 or 2.  You may want to keep Paingivers nearby though, because it can be Medicated, and at 24 hit boxes now, it's pretty likely to survive anything less than a heavy to the face.

As decent as its shooting is, I'm more excited about the Animantrax in melee, where it has a lot of attacks.  How many attacks?  Well, the Animantrax is a Cavalry model, so it gets Pow 15 impact attacks if it charges (and a Pow 15 mount attack if it didn't charge).  It can make impact attacks at people in its way or at everyone around its charge target.  Either way, there's a lot of potential there, since the Animantrax has a huge base.  After that, it gets a charge attack, which is boosted because Cavalry gets boosted charge attack rolls, followed by 3 (if fully loaded) Pow 18 tail attacks, 2 wimpy Pow 11 Spear attacks (but maybe it's attacking infantry), and d3+1 Pow 13-15 depending on the target Double Riever attacks.  That's at least 9 attacks, although some of them are admittedly much better than others.

Also, unlike warbeasts, who need a lot of attention from Paingivers to do everything we want them to, the Animantrax just needs that turn 1 investment of 3 damage from whips (or whatever, but Anatomical Precision is the best way to do damage) to operate at full force pretty much all game.  The only way it spends Rage Tokens is by committing to melee, and once it does, the opponent will either kill it, or fill it up again trying to.  If for whatever reason, they don't attack it, you can fill it up again, or just have it continue to harass them as a mainly shooting model until they do.  Even without Rage tokens, the Animantrax is too much of a threat to ignore completely.

I'm still wrapping my head around who I want to use this turtle with, and how, but so far, I've decided that I like it with eHexeris.  It's probably also good with Rasheth, eXerxis, and Xekaar, since they can buff both its ranged and melee attacks (and Rasheth and Xekaar can give it a big boost to durability too).

What I'm Excited About in Skorne MkIII: eMakeda

MkIII is here for real, so I'll spend the next couple of weeks talking about what I'm excited for, and how I'm thinking of playing Skorne now that so much has changed.

I'll start with one of our 'casters who received a complete overhaul from her MkII incarnation: Supreme Archdomina Makeda, a.k.a Makeda 2 or eMakeda.  In MkII, I wasn't thrilled about eMakeda.  She was certainly powerful, and people did quite well with her, but she seemed pretty one dimensional, and never really sparked my imagination.

Now, she has a whole different playstyle, with a lot more defensive tools than she had before.  First up, Stay Death became a lot more interesting, since it can now be used any number of times per turn, as long as Makeda can pay for it.  Since her other spells are fairly situational, you can easily plan to have Makeda spend between 3 and 4 Fury keeping key models alive, and you can further improve on that with other defensive abilities.  This ability, as far as I can tell, is the core of Makeda's new playstyle, and using it well is what will make or break games with her.

She lost all of her old spells, but gained Deflection, Dash, Storm Rager, and a new spell called Prostration.  Deflection stacks with the new Krea, and is a good way to keep your infantry safe on the approach, and Dash gives her troops a little more speed and, more importantly, the ability to ignore free strikes.  Storm Rager can make one warrior model super dangerous, and Prostration is a decent nuke spell - it will be cast, but not every game.

Her Feat is pretty much the same, and is both a good way to get a turn of extra accuracy, and a good way to keep Makeda on her feet if she needs to get close to the enemy.  It no longer prevents free strikes - you'll need to cast Dash for that.

What I'm most excited about is Makeda's ability to play attrition.  Stay Death combined with other defensive tools is going to let her keep infantry alive in critical places, or force the enemy to expend huge resources killing a couple of models, and she can do this every turn.  Storm Rager is a good piece of tech for improving the damage and accuracy of a couple of infantry models, which is where a lot of our infantry needs help.  I'm really excited to try it on Hakaar, Ancestral Guardians, and the Legends of Halaak.

I've played a couple of MkIII games so far, and I'll have reports up pretty soon.  I'll also post things I'm excited about until I run out of things.  So that's what's coming up in the next couple weeks.