Minions 2.0 - Episode 2: The Empire Strikes Back

It seems Exigence has turned my Warmachine life upside down - Pigs actually got good models instead of being a joke for the 3rd time in a row, Troll players are somewhat happy with their releases, Legion not so much and I actually feel like writing things in this blog (a feeling that will surely pass once I hit 100 posts :P)

One thing that is always certain though - Skorne will take Minion stuff and do it better. I am of course talking about the new Skorne Aradus bug heavies.

Aradus Soldier - Swamp Horror 2.0

The Aradus Soldier is basically an improved Swamp Horror, with some minor differences. Let's compare the two.

• Mobility: SPD 3 vs SPD 4, but the Aradus has AD, Pathfinder, and is in Skorne. Huge advantage Aradus.
• Steadiness: A very important category. Both are Steady. Nil.
• Power Attacks: 0 open fists vs 3 open fists. Point Horror.
• Survability: 11/19, 29 boxes vs 10/17, 27 boxes (but access to Spiny Growth). Slight advantage Aradus.
• Ranged damage reduction:, +4 ARM vs -1 die damage, and the Aradus' Carapace also works against backstrikes which combos great with Reach+Pull weapons. Point Aradus.
• Melee output - non-Reach weapons: POW18 vs POW16 Critical Catastrophic Damage. Situational, but slight advantage Aradus.
• Melee ouput - Reach Pull weapons: 2xPOW15 vs 3xPOW12. Situational, but slight advantage Aradus.
• Animi: "RNG6: warbeast gains Snacking" vs "RNG6: model gets reach". Situational and factional differences, but advantage Horror.
• PC - Aradus is 9, Horror is 8. Point Horror.

They are very similar in design - both resistant to ranged damage, both have Pull Reach attacks and a hard-hitting non-Reach attack - essentially in terms of combat they do very similar things. The Aradus wins in most categories (it is a point more for a reason) and is generally a better beast. However the Horror does grant Reach to things which is pretty amazing and the critical effect on the beak can wreck huge bases with a little luck.

Aradus Sentinel - Ironback Spitter 2.0

The Aradus Sentinel is basically an improved Ironback Spitter, with some minor differences. Let's compare the two:

• Mobility: SPD 3 vs SPD 4, but the Aradus has AD, Pathfinder, and is in Skorne. Huge advantage Aradus. If I learned anything from Calaban's Theme Force, it's that ADing Spitters is pretty good.
• Steadiness: Aradus is Steady. Point Aradus.
• Power Attacks: Both have 2 open fists, but Aradus is MAT6/STR11. Slight advantage Aradus.
• Survability: 11/19, 29 boxes vs 10/18, 27 boxes (but access to Spiny Growth). Slight advantage Aradus.
• Anti-free strike mechanics: +4 ARM against free strikes vs attacker takes d6 damage after free strike). Huge advantage Aradus, especially for a ranged beast who wants to disengage from combat.
• Ranged damage reduction: +4 ARM vs Girded. Huge advantage Aradus.
• Melee damage: 2xPOW14 @ MAT6 vs 1xPOW15 + 2xPOW13 @ MAT5.
  Advantage Aradus.
• Ranged damage: RNG10 POW13 AoE3 Non-typed Poison weapon with Arcing Fire @ RAT5 vs RNG 12 POW14 AoE3 Corrosion-typed Cont:Corrosion @RAT 5. 
  Situationally different, but I think the Aradus will have a significant advantage most of time time due to AD, lack of damage type (it can kill Gorman!) and boosted blast damage vs most models is better than 2/3 chance of auto-plink in the majority of circumstances. Point Aradus.
  Also the weapon is called VENOM BLASTER. That's metal as f*ck.
• Animi: Swarm vs Ornery.
  Swarm can be useful if you end up getting jammed up and makes it DEF 13 (respectable). I have never cast Ornery in all my years of playing Spitters - as far as I am concerned the Spitter has no animus. Point Aradus.
• PC: Both 8pts. Nil.

Again, very similar beasts in design - not great in melee, have some free strike protection, some ranged protection, and are primarily about their really good gun. The Aradus Sentinel however, is better in almost every way and clearly a better design. If the Spitter had a really good animus it might be able to compete on some level, but it has no animus.


TL;DR - The Skorne Empire releases Minions 2.1, now extending their improvement of Minion models to heavy warbeasts.

Basically, more reasons to make me sad about Minionhood and make me want to play Skorne who just keep taking Minion stuff and doing it better. I read a good post on some forum a few days ago about Rasheth being the 4-Star of Minions - very accurate!

However I just think about all the baggage playing Skorne entails, with their huge backlog of models and the slippery slope waiting there, and the desire quickly goes away. Plus I hate getting shot :)

Jaga-Jaga Theme Force - Voodoo Dolls

With the book now officially out, and 100% confirmed only two Gator releases, I thought I should put up this theme list with some completely hypothetical and untested thoughts, together with some ruthlessly sarcastic analysis:

The list

Beasts = all current beasts
Units = Bog Trog units, Gatorman units
Solos = All current solos but Pendrake, Raluk and Totem Hunter
Battle Engine = Sacral Vault

So it's like Blindwater minus Swamp Gobbers, Pendrake, Totem Hunter, Raluk Moorclaw, and -1 FA on Gatorman stuff. Nothing too exciting there. At least you don't have to pretend like the swamp templates matter.

Tier Bonuses

Tier 1 = Reduce PC of Sacral Vaults by 1 (8pts)

This is neat. They are FA:2 so at most you will save 2 pts. That's a single free Croak Hunter! WOW.
A better way of looking at this is that it gives you the free Feralgeists you need to achieve the Tier 2 bonus.

Tier 2 = 3 or more Undead models/units -> Undead models gets advance move.

Currently there are 3 Undead models available for this list - Boneswarms, Shamblers and Feralgeists. It's not entirely unreasonable to take one of each in this list, especially with Posse being FA:2, you will probably take a unit of Shamblers. And a single Boneswarm isn't terrible for the animus and the fury if you are otherwise running beast light...


This is similar to the Maelok theme Tier 3 bonus, which I used almost exclusively to move Maelok up so that he would be able to Death Pact something and then walk comfortably behind a wall. However this bonus is much better than the Maelok one because it allows all the Swamp Shamblers to get an Advance Move (not the Bokor, as he is not an Undead model). So neato, I guess, especially with the Tier 4 bonus. 

In a scenario like Incursion, it would also help your multiple Feralgeists to rush to the side flags to hopefully get you an early point.

Tier 3 = 2 or more models/units with Magic Ability -> Start with all upkeeps in play

Models with Magic Ability = Shambler Bokor, Gatorman Witch Doctor (I don't think Wrong Eye counts).
This tier is super easy to achieve since you are taking at least one unit of Shamblers for the previous bonus, and Witch Doctors are great with Shamblers because Tough on cheap garbage throwaway models is the height of tactical brilliance.
However the bonus is negligible since Jaga-Jaga only has 2 upkeeps (Escort and Grave Wind) which are very easy to put up and then charge forward if you want to be really aggressive (which with Jaga herself you don't really want to be).

Tier 4 = One or more Sacral Vaults -> 2" extra deployment.

Other than the Advance Move on the one unit of Shamblers, there's no reason to play this tier other than the cheaper Sacral Vaults, so this bonus is almost automatically achieved. Basically it means after your first turn, you should have Shambler grunts at or slightly past the midway point of the table. Cool.

So your list could look something like this:

Voodoo Dolls #1
Points: 50/50
Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer (*5pts)
* Bone Swarm (4pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Blackhide Wrastler (9pts)
Gatorman Bokor and Bog Trog Shamblers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)
Gatorman Witch Doctor (3pts)
Thrullg / Gatorman Witch Doctor (3pts)
Sacral Vault (8pts)
Sacral Vault (8pts)

You could probably drop the heavy for a unit of Posse but with two Vaults you will have a lot of infantry killing already, and a heavy gives Escort purpose.

My initial impressions are bleh. It doesn't seem that playing 2pts up and getting advance move Shamblers is worth giving up a 3rd Posse (or second unit of Shamblers!).

I think the Tier 2 requirements are the downer, since either you take a Boneswarm (a pretty bad model) or you spend points on Feralgeists who are neat models but it is basically just eating up your 2 free points to meet this requirement.

You could change the above list slightly by removing the Boneswarm to get:

Voodoo Dolls #2
Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer (*5pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Blackhide Wrastler (9pts)
Gatorman Bokor and Bog Trog Shamblers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)
Croak Hunter (2pts)
Croak Hunter (2pts)Gatorman Witch Doctor (3pts)
Sacral Vault (8pts)
Sacral Vault (8pts)

Which is probably better than the above. It could be further modified by trading Vault + Wrastler for 5 Posse + Spitter if you only wanted to run a Single Vault (also decent):

Voodoo Dolls #3
Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer (*5pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Ironback Spitter/Swamp Horror (8pts)
Gatorman Bokor and Bog Trog Shamblers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)
Thrullg / Gatorman Witch Doctor (3pts) (you could keep the 2 Croak Hunters from above if you wished by dropping a Geist)
Gatorman Witch Doctor (3pts)
Sacral Vault (8pts)

 
Alternatively, if you just want to play 2 Posse, 1 Vault and no Totem Hunter/Gobbers, you just take this list at tier 1 and essentially get a free Feralgeist rather than the Blindwater templates (very good deal IMO). I think that's where the list is best to be honest, because at present only having 3 models to fill the Tier 2 requirement to get what the list does best (jamming with tough Shamblers) is a bit of a downer.

If it is ruled that one unit of Shamblers fulfills the Tier 2 requirement by itself (which would mean the rule is horribly written), then the list would have a little more flexibility and be quite a bit better.

TL;DR version:

• Give up +1 FA on Gatorman Units, Solos and BEs + Totem Hunter
• Get 2" extra deployment and Advance Move on Shambler grunts

Safe, uninspired theme force that mostly exists just because there is an unwritten rule that every warlock must have a theme force. Not really bad but not really good either.

The main benefit is basically better jamming with one unit of (tough) Shamblers, which also comes with the requirement of 3 undead model/units. 2" extra deployment in general is also neat for melee lists, but you have to meet Tier 2 to get there.

The jam can be pretty sweet if your opponent has no guns or competent infantry clearing or if you're a skilled player and make lots of tough rolls. If you keep the Bokur safe, you can hopefully wrack up some corpse tokens to make more Shamblers. Then you follow up with dual Vaults and get souls and shoot things and laugh and then play another list. I think she just works so well with 3 Posse and the tanky Totem Hunter that light Shambler jam doesn't really make up for it, but we shall see how big an impact the Vault will have.

Goddamn, does War Room eat up your phone battery or what....

All the Gatormans

Here's all my stuff painted as of today (actually 6 something months ago, since no Shamblers):

Click to enlarge

I think I took this picture as an example of the base markings I use to differentiate my 3 Posse units. Just thought I should put it up on here for future reference.

A short article on Piece Trading

 I made this pretty good post on the PP forums a few months back about piece trading and thought I should archive it here. The question posed was "explain piece trading to me". Here is my response:


I think piece-trading is one of the fundamental concepts of Warmachine. It is one of the pillars of an attrition-based strategy.

One of the first things I try to impress upon new players is that some or most their stuff is going to die almost every game (a lot of people have a hard time with this concept because they get emotionally attached to their models and how cool and badass they are supposed to be, and forget their opponent's stuff is also cool and badass). What matters is what you get in exchange for it on the following turn(s). You should always expect stuff to die, but you should likewise always have a plan for what you can get in return for something dying.


For example, as a Blindwater player, good piece trading is how I can beat Runes of War. That's fundamentally what that matchup comes down to for me.
If you as the Troll player lead with the Runeshapers, then I can just kill them with unbuffed Gators (assuming you don't pull out high-skill, uncounterable plays like making lots of tough rolls), and in return I lose a couple of those Gators in exchange for your heavy, and generally don't have to worry about the heavies as much if they are in the back and just exposing themselves to kill a few Gators.
This pushes you to lead with beasts instead and make good use of the walls to mitigate my charges. Because I have longer effective threat ranges on my heavies with Boundless Charge + Reach (not to mention Rask's feat), and they hit really hard with Fury + Rask's amazing gun of wonder, I can probably use one of my heavies a turn to kill one of your heavies and initiate the trading. That heavy will in turn be killed by another of your heavies. Something like this:

Wrastler (+a few extra damage points) kills Mulg -> Earthborn kills Wrastler -> Swamp Horror kills Earthborn -> Mauler kills Swamp Horror -> Furied Gators/Snapjaw kills Mauler -> I have Snapjaw + a lot of Gators and you have Runeshapers that although really good will have trouble dealing with that much ARM and attacks, and Horluk without transfers easily dies to a Gator or two.

Horluk's feat can potentially be a problem of course, that's like the ace in the hole for the Troll player and makes for a real good game.


Doom Reavers are a good example of a piece-trade oriented unit because when used effectively they force a choice - if your opponent ignores them, they get charged by MAT 7 POW 13 reach berserk weapon masters. That is not a sweet for them, and super sweet for you. However, if you opponent uses attacks on killing the Doom Reavers, then they aren't damaging your other stuff. The key to using Doom Reavers effectively is to make sure that choice exists. If you throw them out front and they get shot without consequences, then they accomplish nothing. If they get shot at, and in doing so means your other, potentially more important pieces get where they need to be (all it takes is one Reaver to force command checks and tie up stuff), then that could be worth 6 pts in itself.

Likewise, I've won a lot of games because I was able to just throw a crapload of troops in my opponent's face to stop him getting into a zone. Jamming, as this is called, is basically trading models for control points/board control. It doesn't matter if you give up 25pts of your army in one turn if you can win the game next turn.

In terms of factions, Cryx is really good at the piece-trade game because they can trade cheap garbage for your expensive stuff in almost every list using all their crack-fueled buffs/debuffs and mildly OP troops. That's why it's really important to take out the lynchpin models like Necrosurgeons, the very last Bile Thrall, Tartarus or whatever to reduce the impact of their retaliation OR, more effectively, just shoot them from a distance where they can't really hit back. That's why Cryx doesn't do so well vs ranged factions like Ret, Cygnar or PoM and curbstomps melee-centric factions like Trolls, Skorne, Gators, etc. It basically comes down to piece-trading.

------------------------------------------------------------

Building up from there, I would expand on the Runes of War matchup by looking at the Nilsson vs Flanzer matchup that took place at the 2013 WTC. This was Maelok with 3 Posse, 3 Croctors, 3 Bull Snappers and WE + Snapjaw vs the standard Runes of War list (with Axer).

Flanzer realized that if he lead with the Runeshapers, as one often does with Runes of War, they will simply get killed by unbuffed Gators and not kill too many of them in return. The heavies might then kill a couple, but by then, Revived Gators would have infiltrated the rear ranks, started killing the Krielstone and probably would have gotten to Doomshaper. This would be quite bad for the Troll board position.

Instead, Flanzer decided to put his heavies up front. He realized that Gators without Rask suck at cracking ARM 19+ really bad and he was rocking ARM 21+ due to walls, Krielstone and animi. No problem. As a result, he was able to cockblock Maelok's feat using Mulg's magic stick as well as the anti-incorporeal aura at a safe distance and just slowly grind the Gators down by throwing them away and plinking them off with Runeshaper AoEs, giving almost nothing up in return.

Despite officially being the (Kanye-approved) Greatest Minion Player of All Time, Rickard was not able to trade the Gators for anything given the board position. Beating on the heavies was a highly unlikely proposition for him, and his only real chance in the matchup was to push aggressively for the assassination, which is really tough given Runes' defensive layers.