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:

Arise, Blog!

Hey everyone!

It's been a couple months since my last post, and I've been very busy this past spring and summer.  To be clear, I'll probably be very busy this fall as well, but I'm full of energy and could really use some distractions right now, so let's see how this goes.

I've made a few lists for both Retribution and Skorne, but I haven't actually played either faction all summer, so I'll have to see how they do.  I am very excited for the Imperial Warhost theme and spoiled Immortal Host theme, and I'll talk about those a bit in a later post.  My Ret collection is a lot more diverse, and I'm looking forward to putting them on the table as well.

But what I'm doing right now is starting Cryx.

See, over the summer we decided to have an ultra-casual JML among friends, and I decided to try to play Cryx for the occasion.  I've always thought the Cryx models looked very cool, I liked the fluff pretty well, and finally, I enjoy the eeeeevil debuff-oriented playstyle.  So I got myself the battlegroup, and I've almost got the first 25pts of models painted (I'll post pics soon, but not today).  That means I'm ahead of the curve, because what I mean by ultra-casual is that we're about 5 weeks into week 1 of this JML, and really digging the relaxed pace and chance to hang out.

So in addition to my Skorne and Ret thoughts, I'll have a couple of updates (maybe even battle reports once we reach the 50pt level or so) on this JML with Cryx and where I want to go with the faction when we're done.

Finally, I'll *try* to get back to the Twitter account I created to live tweet Adepticon a year and a half ago.  I'm @pgrexy.

That's it for now.  I have terrific intentions and a fool's hope that I will be able to keep up with the blog this time.  Talk to you (hopefully) later.

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.