Rask's model

Here he is:

 "Rask is a mighty bog trog warlock who has traded his people’s freedom for some degree of personal autonomy from the bloodthirsty gatormen. Cold and calculating, Rask is a formidable hunter, a skilled warrior, and one of the most ruthless and self-serving creatures in the Blindwater Congregation. Rask prefers to bring his enemies low through a combination of potent sorcery, peerless knowledge of the terrain, and a host of devious trick and obfuscations. He typically avoids direct confrontation with powerful enemies, preferring to use his abilities to tip the scales in favor of the lesser creatures that serve him. However, once his bog trogs and warbeasts have weakened an enemy, Rask claims the honor of the killing blow with a well-placed bolt from his harpoon gun."

You can see a 3D spinorama version HERE.

Cool things about the model:

• Despite being a goofy-looking Bog Trog, does not look that goofy
• Sweet quiver made out of Gator skin
• Cool P+S 11 bone knife hanging over his crotch
• Looks pretty similar to his cool art

Also, despite what the blurb says, I doubt Rask will ever activate last in a turn or get the killing blow on anything tougher than an Assault Kommando.

I will probably paint mine as an albino. So cute.

Bloody Barnabas - ascension through bloodshed

Bloody Barnabas is freaking sweet. This is the Gatorman behind the Gatormans. He was the main catalyst in getting me to play Gators after coming back to the game following many months of abstinence - I just loved how menacing he looked with the cowl over his eyes, wielding a huge, bloody, notched cleaver. Kind of reminds me of somebody that I used to know....

Hokshi'shan!

Overview

Stats

Good Gatorman stats - he has 1 more STR, DEF and ARM than a Posse member, which are respectable caster stats. Not Terminus or eLich great, but not bad either, especially for an old man.

Like Maelok, he also has three base attacks - P+S 12 with his tail, P+S 14 with his bite and P+S 14 reach with his cleaver.

Spells

• Flesh Eater - 3 cost magic nuke. RNG 10, POW 13, and can heal up warbeasts in your battlegroup. Can save a few fury that way if you plan ahead.
• Swamp Pit - Barnabas's signature spell, because nobody else is awesome enough to have it (yet). Others have Rift instead, which costs more and sucks more.
• Iron Flesh - Classic spell, not broken good  in Gators due to low DEF values but still very potent.
• Warpath - Allows beasts to move 3" outside activation if anything in your army kills anything else. Gold, or solid gold?

Abilities

• Unyielding - This is a big part of what makes Barnabas such a tank. ARM 19 when engaging + Spiny Growth + Iron Flesh = tough cookie.
• Counter Charge - very useful ability, especially when combined with Unyielding. Keep in mind you can't charge with Iron Flesh on you, and you don't want to charge forward to get killed easier or charge out of a Swamp Pit which is protecting you.
• Blood Boon - very useful ability that allows you to throw out a free Flesh Eater, Spiny Growth, Swamp Pit or Iron Flesh. So many options!
• Tough - why not?
• Crit Consume on his bite - because again, why not? He's eaten a lot of people. More of a fluff ability than anything else, as there are very few cases where a POW 14 won't easily kill a non-caster small-based model (ie. warlock solos, Covenant, or ARM 17+ models).

Feat

Black Tide - Non-amphibious enemies in his CTRL are KD. Basically a straight-up worse version of pKreoss' feat. Of course, Warmachine has evolved greatly from its early days of pop n' drop, so there are a lot of answers and preventive measures to this feat (Steady, Lash, huge FU auras of no-KD ala Covenant), and Blindwater doesn't have jack-all ranged options. Therefore although the feats are objectively almost identical, they are subjectively somewhat different.

Obligatory pic of my model.

Thoughts

Damage

This is where Barnabas hurts the most. He has zero damage buffs for either himself or his army. His personal output is respectable for a caster, and in one-to-one he should be able to kill most casters in the game and some lighter armored targets, but it's still more dice-dependent than one would like. Of course, he brings one of the best DEF debuffs in the game in the form of reliable KD (and a lot of less reliable KD in the form of beast power attacks), so the sheer volume of attacks at a decent P+S is to be respected.

Survivability

He is a tank. His base DEF of 13 is not especially flash, but Iron Flesh can certainly help. ARM 17 base is already quite good, and he is likely to have Spiny Growth on him most of the game. Throw in Unyielding and Tough, and you've got a hard nut to crack. Remember also that he is a warlock so he can transfer! Certainly not the hardest warlock to assassinate, but he is up there.

And of course, he can be immune to all direct shooting thanks to Swamp Pits (which I must add, do not work against magic attacks). That can screw a lot of lists pretty hard (ie. Ret).

Utility

Barnabas has utility in spades!

• Swamp Pits are useful on multiple levels:
  - First, most obviously, they can be used to just protect your models from all direct shooting. Just park your stuff in there and it simply cannot be targeted. Note that your opponent can target something behind them with a spray, and still make attacks against them that way.
  - Second, each Pit is a 5" rough terrain (for non-amphibious models) AoE for 2 fury! You can just place them around the table to slow your opponents or put them in front of heavies to stop them in their tracks. Just watch out for pathfinder-granting models like Saxon Orrik or spells like Easy Rider.
  - Third, the AoE is shallow water. This means you can place the AoE and then KD a warjack in it to effectively take it out of the game for at least one turn. It's one effective way to deal with heavy armour.
  The only thing to keep an eye on is that the template cannot be placed in such a way that it touches any bases. Since they are not upkeeps, it means you will have to cast them each turn before moving into them.
• Warpath is a fantastic spell that allows your relatively slow beasts to get unpredictable attack angles, threat range or retreat back to a safer location.
• Iron Flesh works great on a Gatorman Posse when combined with Dirge of Mists. DEF 16, ARM 18 Gators are hard to dislodge once in combat. I sometimes deal with high ARM targets by just putting a full Posse with Dirge + Iron Flesh around them, so they can't do much without dice. Works even better if you disrupt them first.
• His feat can be great at dealing with high DEF models such as warcasters or Kayazy Assassins, as you'd expect. 
• Last but not least, always remember Blood Boon and access to all your animi! Blood Boon allows him to basically cast any of his spells or animi for free. That can mean 4 Swamp Pits, moving Iron Flesh around, Elasticity or an extra Spiny Growth on the table. You can also get pretty good assassinations by charging a living model, popping your feat to catch the enemy caster, and then get three Flesh Eaters or two boosted Flesh Eaters thanks to Blood Boon.

Playstyle

Barnabas plays a less grindy game than Maelok, but still relies heavily on the physical superiority of Gators to win out on attrition in the end. He has a very solid spell list and feat, which allows him to control the board quite effectively. He is also tanky enough to be played effectively mid-field. In some earlier games I recklessly threw him forward to do something cool, expecting him to die, and he managed to squeeze out another few turns of game time simply by refusing to die (and some lucky dice).

He synergizes very well with most of the models from the Minions forces book and those in Domination (1). He just makes everything amphibious work better - beasts benefit hugely from Warpath, Posse from Iron Flesh, everyone from Swamp Pits... I'd recommend two full Posses at 35pts and above, along with a Bull Snapper and Blackhide Wrastler. An Ironhide Spitter is quite strong with Barnabas on account of his feat and having 2 open fists allows it to effectively throw warjacks into Swamp Pits.

Early game you'll want to keep Barnabas back-mid, sometimes within a Swamp Pit, and let your spells, feat and army do the work.  Don't be afraid to move up to maximize your feat usage, assuming you protect Barnabas effectively with Spiny Growth and Swamp Pits. Late game, you should feel reasonably safe getting Barnabas involved and killing things to clean things up or set up an assassination.You don't get to live to old age as a Gatorman by letting other people do all the killing!

His primary weakness, like most of the faction, is the lack of really powerful combos, character warbeasts and damage buffs leaving his forces vulnerable to ARM 19+ models. Just like Circle however, this will be solved when we get an auto-include heavy beast like the Stalker. Only a matter of time...

Conclusion

Epic Awesomeness Potential:

eKreoss|--[eMorg]---------------------[eThagrosh]--[eButcher]-------X| eBarnabas

Barnabas is a very strong and very fun warlock who plays well with almost any balanced army composition, is one of the hardest to kill, has an awesome model, and exudes menace. Make sure you bring some heavy hitters though!

His epic incarnation will make Leonidas look like a cookie-selling boyscout.

(1) Even Boneswarms, although you'll probably prefer something else at 50pts and below. It can be nice to park next to Barnabas to make him DEF 18, ARM 21 vs living melee attacks. Plus transfers. Neato.

Review - Blindwater 25pt holiday bundle

Privateer Press is selling some 25pt army Holiday Bundles for Christmas, one for each faction. Except Minions, who get two bundles - Blindwater and Thornfall. Funny that.

The list

So let's assess what you get:

• Bloody Barnabas - the man, the legend. An excellent competitive caster with a variety of tricks, relatively simple to learn and difficult to master. Definitely the best choice of the three current Gatorman casters for a new player or veteran player moving into the faction.
• Bull Snapper - One of the best light beasts in the game, and a backbone of the Blindwater Pact.
• Blackhide Wrastler - Hardest hitting model we currently have at the moment, so with Barnabas' lack of damage buffing, this guy is a must-have in my opinion.
• Swamp Horror - Not a bad beast but I'm surprised this was put in instead of a Spitter. It is able to kill a bit more infantry and control the board a bit better, but a powerful AoE gun at low points size is so good! I think this was put in here more for the ranged hate aspect - you can have Posse, Wrastler and Barnabas safely in two Swamp Pits, and your Horror can stay outside it without too many worries thanks to Impervious Flesh. He also hits harder than a Spitter, although not by much.
• Gatorman Posse (max) - Wooooooooo. Legit. Survivable, great synergy with Barnabas, crap ton of quality attacks. Best medium infantry in the game?
• Pendrake - Mmmm... cool I guess. The nature of Blindwater lists always tend to leave annoying list gaps like this, and Pendrake is probably as good as anything else to fill the gap.
• Mini rulebook + tokens - Neato. I'm very anal when it comes to tokens so including tokens in starter sets is a pro move in my book. I personally prefer white squares with the spell written on them (easier to read), but the PP tokens are also pretty nice.

The cost? 161 USD. Doesn't seem like a stellar deal, when you could buy it for about 155 AUD from Defiant Gaming, without the mini rulebook and 'special ornament', whatever that is. Some of the other bundles seem to be significantly cheaper - so if you can just buy this list by itself cheaper, why not?

Overall I think this is a good starter list for 25 pts. I personally would swap out the Horror for a Spitter in order to provide some ranged support and a stronger assassination angle with Barnabas' feat. You lose a few reach attacks and a little punch, but gain some ranged game. I have played this list with a Spitter instead at 25pts competitively and it did reasonably well. It almost plays itself. You could switch out Pendrake for a Croak Hunter, or Feralgeist + Swamp Gobbers for models that you will probably use more in the long-term than Pendrake.

Good combos

Interested in getting into a new faction at the same time as a friend, or getting a friend into the game? Here are my opinions on the best/most fun match-ups for the Gator bundle, as well as the worst/least balanced match-ups. As you can see, Hordes tends to play better against Hordes at low point values, but I tried to vary things a bit.

Top 3 'best' match-ups

1.  Skorne - Naaresh, Gladiator, 2x Savage, Min Paingivers, 10 Nihilators, Marketh
   This one would be a good old slugfest. Iron Flesh troops and casters would be a problem for most armies, but with Posse and a KD feat, you have an answer. I think the Gator player probably has a slight advantage in the match-up as Naaresh usually needs either more support or light infantry to kill to really shine, but it's balanced enough that the better/luckier player should win.
2. Trolls - Grim Angus, Pyre Troll, Impaler, Bomber, 10 Fennblades, Fell Caller
   It was a toss-up between Trolls and Legion, I think both are well-balanced. This list is quite ranged heavy so make good use of your Swamp Pits. The Fell Caller is also a key support piece, being able to give Fennblades Pathfinder and remove KD - if you can somehow take him out quick, the game gets much easier for you.
3. Cryx - pSkarre, Slayer, 2x Deathripper, Defiler, 10 Satyxis, Skarlock, Satyxis Captain The only really ball-busting thing here is that the Satyxis Captain more or less negates your feat vs Skarre and troops, so kill her quick. Skarre's feat giving +5 ARM to all her stuff is rough, but most of the stuff there is pretty low ARM anyway so it's weatherable. She also doesn't have the focus factory and no Necrosurgeon to heal up, so it's almost.... balanced? Also, Satyxis without the UA are killable and won't completely destroy the Posse and your beasts.

Top 3 'worst' match-ups

1. Khador - pVlad, Destroyer, Juggernaut, Full Demo Corps, Widowmakers, War Dog
   I think pVlad by himself can pretty much beat the Gator list... Blood of Kings + camp 3 focus over 50 turns, then he eventually wins. Two Khador heavies is also really hard to kill. Basically you have zero chance in a game of attrition at this points size, outside insane luck on damage rolls.
2. Cygnar - eStryker, Ironclad, Lancer, Charger, Full Stormguard, Squire, Journeyman
   eStryker? Wow. The problem here is mostly that Arcane Shield on either the Ironclad or eStryker with a few focus means those things are not dying. Stormguard + Arcane Shield are not a problem at all for Gators. But the combination of Rebuke and Tremor will take care of the Posse (Iron Flesh or not), then he spend his time lolerskating around till he one-shots your caster or a heavy. Again, armor is the main problem, and there is very little chance of killing Junior as he will hide on the back table edge.
3. Circle - pBaldur, Woldwarden, Woldwyrd, Wold Guardian, Wold Stalkers, Shifting Stones + UA
   All non-living models with decent ARM? Having no feat due to Solid Ground? Forests everywhere blocking LoS, forcing you to run to engage Woldstalkers, just so they Zephyr away and shoot you in the face? Awesome. The Circle player has the tools to basically just run around and pick off things, and slow the rest of your stuff down. Best chance for you would be a straight assassination if the Circle player is careless with Baldur (and he really doesn't have to be).

Bog Trog Ambushers - RwlRwlRwlRw!

The way I look at Bog Trog Ambushers is Blindwater's answer to squishy backline models, alongside the excellent Ironback Spitter. The Pact is quite weak in terms of ranged attacks, aside from the aforementioned turtle, and Ambushers do a decent job of patching this up.

Overview

Mediocre stats for light infantry. SPD 5 is a bit slow, but they do have a decent P+S reach Fish Hook. Why fishmen need fish hooks, I don't know. You'd think they'd get along with each other, since there's plenty of enemies out in the swamps.

Fortunately they have plenty of very nice abilities to make up for their mediocre numbers - Pathfinder, CMA, Ambush, Camouflage and Powerful Charge. Do these make them worth the 5/8pts?

Damage

CMA, Reach, Powerful charge. Not bad, and quite useful at taking out low-to-mid ARM models and solos (which is most things in the backfield), and put some serious hurt on a lights and some of the softer heavies (Seraphs, Angels, Warpwolves, and Cryx jacks if those existed). Basically this means that they can put out a decent amount of damage on the charge on a variety of targets, and after the charge.... well....

Survivability

Pretty craptacular - DEF 12/ ARM 14 and usually being far away from your support means they die easier than henchmen in an 80s Schwarzenegger film. They do have camouflage however, which can help them survive an extra turn to deliver the payload if they can find some cover or concealment on the way (pathfinder helps). Their ARM is just a bit too low to reliably soak up most blast damage, so you need to spread them out if that is a threat.

There's no defense like distance - and being off the table is pretty far. However, once they engage, they are most likely to either die very quickly, or stay alive the entire game. Either result is not especially bad for you, since them being dead means attention was taken off more important things, and them being alive means they can clean up or tie up more stuff.

Utility

The Bog Trog's utility lies entirely in their Ambush special rule. Without it, they are just crap overcosted fodder troops. With Ambush, they become unpredictable, dangerous to support, and even threatening to enemy warlocks and warcasters. Use this mobility and element of surprise to your full advantage.

Fishmans - a novel concept.

Tactica

I use a min or max unit at 50pts and occasionally a minimum at 35pts, to help harass backline support (Choir, Paingivers, Focus Boosters, Mechanics, Gorman, etc) or tie up things like Defenders. They can also be useful at taking out those overpowered stealth solos that like to hang out on their own on a flank (ie. Eyriss). I like them a lot as tactically useful pieces but they aren't core to a list strategy which is why they aren't seen too often at lower points games or why I don't usually find the need to take a full unit when I could be getting a 3pt solo for the difference.

I don't see the point in taking them unless you're going to ambush, but this could depend on the scenario. If they don't ambush, you will have to be careful that they don't jam up your lines and not to lose them to weak ranged attacks or blast damage. You might even have them hug a Spitter for Girded early in the game! Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I put them on the side of the table before the battle starts and remind my opponent before and after deployment that they are ambushers. That way I get the psychological advantage of them not wanting to deploy anything close to the sides, so they bunch up in the middle and deploy a little more clumped up than optimal, making things easier for the rest of my melee-heavy force. Even if they don't care so much about the Ambushers and just play/deploy as they normally would, I can always choose to ambush much closer to my lines or hold them for turns 3 and 4.

The most important decision you will make will be when to bring them on. This will come with experience, but remember that earlier is not always better, especially in a grindy faction like Gators. Sometime bringing on a fresh unit out of nowhere Turn 4 or 5 can make the difference between win or loss, and is far better than losing them for nothing Turn 2 if you are playing a cagey opponent.

Their biggest weakness, other than being fragile little flowers that you always forget to put into play, is that they somehow always manage to fail CMD checks and wet themselves continuously (which I guess is how they manage to survive so long on land). Zombify is the only way we currently have of dealing with this, but is unlikely to ever be used on them if they are ambushing. Sometimes you just have to take your chances, and have a good laugh when they fail an Abomination check.... again and again.

Conclusion

Comedic appearance:

Piece of Granite|------------------------------------X-----------------| Immortal

Fishmans look like they suck but are in fact really useful. While not being as useful as having units with guns, they do provide a respectable alternative for dealing with support models, or making up distance. Their biggest downside by far is forgetting to put them on the table, and they are kind of stupid-looking.