Sacral Vault Battle Engine spoilers

Finally, something actually Gatorman related to write about...

From War Room Beta spoilers:

SPD: 4
MAT:0
RAT: 5
DEF: 9
ARM: 20
CMD: 10
20 health boxes / 9pts

Gunfighter, Eyeless Sight

Ranged Weapon: Spectral Fury
Range: 12, RoF 1, Pow 13
Magical Weapon
Rapid Fire [d3]
Deathly Dominion: Costs 1 soul for the Bone Shaker effect on each ranged attack.

Abilities:
Crypt of Souls: Gain 1 soul for each living model that is destroyed in its command area. If no souls are on it at the beginning of your Control Phase it gains d3 souls. Souls can be spent to boost attack and damage rolls.  (Supposedly 5 souls max)

Arcane Vortex: Spend a soul to negate a spell targeting the Vault or a model within 3'' of it.
 
Soul Sacrifice: Warlock can remove a soul to gain 1 fury point...[then the image cuts off].
 
Soulstorm: While this model has 1 or more soul tokens enemy models entering, or ending their activation within 2'' of the Vault take 1 damage.

Source

The Good

• It's a huge base with a good boostable gun
  Huge bases are not usually good without guns, for logistical reasons. Boostable guns are  very good, because they kill many things from far away. RNG 12 POW 13 is a pretty good weapon for sniping out things
• That boostable gun is magical and has Eyeless Sight
  This allows it to kill incorporeal models and shoot Menoth jacks. This is very nice. Blackbane's will still be a pain in the ass, but now you can just snipe-out Blackbane himself and then stand in front of the rest of them with Soul Storm and be a douche.
  AND IT ALLOWS YOU TO KILL TARTARUS AND GORMAN AND THE BLOOD HAG AND DENNY AT RANGE WITHOUT SACRIFICING YOUR WRASTLER OR SPENDING 3 FURY ON FLESH EATER ONLY TO FIND OUT THE HAG HAS STEALTH. FU CRYX DIAF Aaaaarghhhhhhhh...... *ahem*.
• Soulstorm
  This ability is AMAZING. Probably the best rule on this thing, besides Eyeless Sight. Especially on a huge base, that is a huge FU bubble to small based melee infantry (lol Cryx), and at ARM 20 it doesn't really care about small-based ranged infantry either. Especially since you can probably put it in a Swamp Pit (assuming amphibious) or Spiny Growth it or whatever.
• Always has some souls, and gains them within a large radius
  Very nice - PP seems to have realized that the Skorne BE is a total piece of crap mostly because it doesn't start with any tokens and will die by the time it gets any. The free d3 also helps slightly vs Cryx, which has less living models, and when you want to Zombify all the things for Maelok's feat.
• Gives fury to warlocks
  This is neat for the Maelok Posse spam list, since if for whatever reason one of your Snappers gets killed, you have a little backup plan. Or just in general, free fury when you need it can be better than cutting for a point (like when you are at one box of life left).
• Very large anti-magic bubble
  Again, the huge base is put to work with Arcane Vortex. The thing I like about this ability is that it is preventive as much as it is reactive - if your opponent knows you have it (and you should probably remind him at the right time), then it just messes with his plans.
• I can use my Soles tokens every game!

The Bad

• d3 shots at RAT 5
  RAT 5 isn't that big a deal since at RNG 12 and a desire to get souls, it will probably be quite far up and thus able to sacrifice its movement for the aiming bonus when it actually wants to shoot stuff. Plus it can boost.
  1d3 shots however is a bit of a dick punch and a little too random for my taste. d3+1 would have been quite a bit more reliable for a gun platform. Therefore, what this indicates to me is that the Sacral Vault's primary purpose is not really to be shooting stuff, but to be a huge Soul Storm / Arcane Vortex construct and pseudo-fury battery.
  The gun is to be thought of as a single shot you get to do for free every turn to snipe out an important thing or two, and a way to spend "uneeded souls" if you happen to get extra shots (via the Bone Shaker effect). Keep those souls for the Soul Storm, and situationally the Arcane Vortex, unless you are going all in sniping out that Gorman or Tartarus.
• Does nothing to help vs ARM for non-Rask casters, or buff beasts
  One can dream, right? Maybe we'll get a beast that can actually deal damage later on. Or the new caster can mix-up our list pairings a bit.
• Huge base, gets shot and killed.
  Oh wait, I forgot I play Gatormans, and don't usually get shot. Very nice. ARM 20 is also pretty sweet. Just don't let heavies get to it.

The Other Stuff

If these are correct, which seems likely barring the fine details, then it's a very nice but not fundamentally game changing piece for us Gatormans - just game changing at the non-Rask level. I like it a hell of a lot more than Shamblers anyway, with which it can combo pretty effectively (double dipping on souls/corpse tokens for every living model death).

It helps the Cryx matchup a lot in providing a large anti-magic bubble and a magical gun, as well as stealing their souls and screws over small-based infantry with Soul Storm. I think it'll do some really great things with Barnabas and pushes him up quite a bit as a Cryx matchup, even perhaps taking the place of one Posse unit. Plus, another boostable gun always helps in that old-school KD assassination.
I've always had a slight preference for Barnabas over Maelok as my second list (I like rough terrain creation and I hate getting shot) and this model would certainly push me further towards our patron future god in a two list format. Not to say that Maelok doesn't get a lot from it as well.



I think my Rask lists will remain mostly unchanged, since the tankier factions I bring Rask against (and Ret, because they just can't handle the Jewfish) won't care as much about the Soul Storm or the Arcane Vortex. Unless of course one brings a shooty Rask list with 2 Posse, 3 Spitters and a Sacral Vault. That might be pretty legit.


Summary - would likely buy this model when it comes out in 5 to 11 months. Would be mildly disappointed if the spoilers weren't legit.

Drafting in Warmahordes

I love drafting. Doesn't really matter what shape or form it is in, I just think drafting is a great meta-game. Perhaps the greatest metagame. It adds a huge dimension to any complex game.

When I followed NHL hockey, I was a big fan of the pre-reason draft, and the totally heartless denial strategies employed by these equally heartless mega sports franchise organizations, which no longer in any way represent the regions in their name, like they did in the times when the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup every 3rd year.

I also love watching pro DotA, listening to draft analysis and seeing teams organize their skill + items builds to match their team draft and their opponents' team draft. What is also great in DotA drafts is the ban-draft cycle. It greatly increases competitive game balance to allow each team to progressively ban out 5 heroes which they do not want to be involved in the game at all, and how bans play into the draft strategy:

Here is an explanation video of a DotA Captain's Draft from a team captain's perspective (the drafting process has changed slightly since then, for the better):

If you're not familiar with DotA (or its MOBA progeny), the details might be a little confusing, but suffice to say the draft format requires pro DotA players to be quite flexible in playstyle and have a large pool of heroes they can play well, and also requires team captains to be very flexible in terms of overall strategy since the opposing team can always draft hard counters or ban necessary support heroes before you get to pick them. You also have to be really up to date on the current metagame strategies and combinations. A good draft can greatly increase your chances of winning, and a bad one can make life very difficult for you - much like listbuilding in Warmachine or deckbuilding in card games.

The biggest difference of course, is that in games like DotA everyone has access to all the heroes all the time, whereas in Warmachine you are restricted to your faction and your finite wallet (or rather the function of money/time for most gamers). The one exception is the Iron Gauntlet, where you can have lists from different factions, but because of no other restrictions it basically ends up being a dickslapping match between the 10 or so strongest casters in the game and their toughest lists. I am of the opinion that the intention behind the Iron Gauntlet format was to have list construction have as small an impact on the outcome of the game as possible, thereby leaving dice and player skill to be the biggest factors in the game. The reality however, is quite different given the balance issues in the game (1).

DotA has like 105 unique heroes available, but even within the game there is a limited Captains Draft mode where the hero pool is limited to a third of the total, an even more limited individual Single Draft mode where each player only gets 3 randomized heroes to choose from, and even a completely unbalanced but mechanically interesting mode called Ability Draft mode where you get given a hero + their core stats but have to draft your skills alongside the 9 other players! It is basically a draft heaven game.

Drafting is possibly the only part of Magic: the Gathering I find interesting, since deckbuilding Magic is only balanced at the highest levels (which is stupid expensive), or the pre-made starter decks, on account of the rarity/collectible system leading to a huge gap in the power level of individual cards. Drafting leads to some really interesting deck builds, highly unpredictable deck designs and in my opinion a game experience that puts more emphasis on a player's understanding of the game mechanics and play skill than on "deck piloting". My favourite deck building card game, Android:Netrunner as also just introduced a draft format, so looking forward to trying that someday.

What makes draft formats sweet

1) Zero sum game

If you get something, someone else doesn't get it. You not only have to worry about the options you are taking, but the options you are giving to your opponents.

2) Uncertainty

You can't prepare ahead of time as well as you could with a constructed format, because the specific framework and pieces of the game aren't fully determined until the draft is over. However, this uncertainty is still somewhat in the player's control, since decisions during the draft stage affect the final format.

3) Invisible Hand of Balance

It's a bit like cutting a cake. How do you get a cake cut into completely equal pieces? Assuming self interest, you ask someone to cut the cake and tell them they are getting the last piece.

Drafting works a little bit like Adam Smith's free market theory in that way. Assuming every player is trying to win the game, they are trying to get the strongest draft they can, meaning they will take the strongest hand they can, or at least try to make their opponents' hand weaker than theirs. Individual actors following their self interest eventually leads to an equilibrium, which will lead to a state more balanced than if you randomly gave players a bunch of cards/heroes/models/whatever, and assuming balanced inputs, will lead to a pretty balanced outcome (at least relative to the 'core' constructed format).
Due to the ultimately limited pool, there is more potential for abusive combos since certain counters may be absent, leaving OP options unrestrained, but overall the balance issues are not as steep as you'd expect and things run pretty efficiently.

Drafting in Warmahordes

How do you apply this to Warmachine?  

First of all, you have the Spell Draft format that Privateer Press cooked up. That seems about as balanced and fair as the Ability Draft in DotA, which is to say not in the least bit. But it's fun and allows you to look underneath the hood for a bit. Apart from that, a highly limited and very gimmicky mode, good for a laugh and to break your usual thinking patterns for a while.

The last small Who's The Boss/Beermachine event we ran locally in early April had a really cool limited-drafting mechanic which I enjoyed greatly. Here is how it works:

•  All the available caster cards are shuffled together. The two matched-up players sit down at a table opposite each other, and the TO puts down a caster card in front of each player. 
• This is repeated three times, so each player has the option of three different casters to take with his list that round.
• Each player then 'bans' out one caster from his opponent's pool, leaving the choice of two casters. Each player then chooses one of the two for their next game against each other, then you repeat the draft process each round.

That's it. It was a ton of fun and the drafting rounds where probably even more fun that the actual games as everyone trips over themselves trying to give advice to the players and thinking about list combos and all that (2). I found this even better than the standard Who's the Boss wheel, because it has a level of player interaction and choice in it that the spinning wheel doesn't have, not to mention it is WAY easier to implement.

Next time, I'll see how a full-blown army draft goes - including warjacks, warbeasts, units, UA/WAs and solos. I think the best way to do it would be to have all the available cards laid out on a table by category and then use a snake draft system until all players have drawn all cards. You'd probably have to limit the pool in some way so that it doesn't take forever if your playgroup has an asston of models available like mine does.
Each player then puts together a 50 point army list using their selections. After that, you do the warcaster limited draft as mentioned above and go nuts with some really mental lists. 

I don't think competitive WM really lends itself to drafting due to the rather strict army design rules and synergies. Drafting/banning doesn't really make sense, and is pretty unexciting, when you have a only a tiny number of permutations (ie. a handful of fixed list matchups) to work with. Also it's not a zero-sum game. So basically, this post has doesn't really have much to do with SR Warmachine :P

Framtiden

I have a tournament at end of June where I am subbing in for someone else who wisely decided to leave this country for the experience of a lifetime. I will probably play really badly and rage about it/the state of the game, so tune in then to hear more whining and complaining (see footnotes below for an appetizer).


(1) There's an oft-repeated line about Warmachine that says the 'game is balanced'. It isn't. If it were, we would see a much greater diversity in army builds than we currently see. There is a decent amount of diversity, but relatively speaking it is very small. If we want an interesting metagame, someone will always have an advantage in matchups, but that advantage shouldn't be as great within factions as we currently see.
What we should be saying is that out of all the competitive miniature wargames, Warmachine is the most balanced, and is in my opinion the best one. That doesn't mean it can't be better, and there is always room for improvement.

(2) Also because I was feeling pretty low in Warmachine at the time and decided to make a Blindwater list with no Posse. That list sucks cloacas dry btw, never do that to yourself. That and I spent most of my first 1.5 rounds drinking gin&tonics and imported beer, and most of my last 1.5 rounds drinking water, so either way spent more time thinking about my bladder than I did thinking about how utterly shit my lists were.
I still went 2-1 over the 3 rounds since I managed to pick up Kreoss3 in Round 2 (total boss) and Goreshade1 in Round 3 (amazing caster that nobody gives credit to because he is so boring). My first round was Naaresh, who sucks incredibly badly outside Skorne, and sucks normally within Skorne. The design is cute but it's tuned way too loose, making him all limp in the nether regions.

Gatorman Bokor & Bog Trog Shamblers

Here's another great reason to play Gators - your releases are 15 months apart. So. Freaking. Awesome. Anyway, I've had this written up for a while so figured I should post it after I finally got my hands on this mini-swarm and painted them up. I'll update later if needed.

The Shamblers are the latest (and fourth) unit available to the Blindwater Pact. It consists of a Gatorman Bokor wielding some sweet voodoo magics, and (beginning with) 10 really crappy zombie Trogs under his command. This unit would probably be 3pt in Cryx, it is twice that much for us Gatormans. Minion tax and all that.

Damage

The Shamblers themselves are MAT 5, P+S 8 - not that impressive. They do have CMA however if you buff them up with Fury then they can get a nice damage output, effectively hitting at MAT 7, P+S 13.... the same as a Gatorman.... without reach or rerolls.

The Bokor with his Death Magic rule is the star here however. Death Magic allows the Bokor to RFP a Shambler in his CMD range to boost an attack roll, boost a damage roll or buy an extra attack. Therefore if you somehow get 20 Shamblers on the board, this guy can get 7 fully boosted POW 12s by just walking into combat with the target. If the target is a warcaster with average ARM, that target is dead. If the target is a light warjack or warbeast, that target is dead. If the target is a warlock, that target is most likely dead. Basically, necromantic sacrifice magic means big damage output potential - but it is situational and largely nonthreatening to ARM 19+ models in true Gatorman fashion (excluding Fury, of course).

Survivability

On the surface, this unit looks as squishy as Bile Thralls - 10/13 dies to almost anything. The Bokor has a standard Posse defensive statline so is a little tougher.

However, the key to this unit's survivability, and its ability to tarpit, is the Bokor's Raise Dead and Death Magic rules. The former grants the Bokor a corpse token for each living model that dies within 8", and each corpse token becomes a fresh (or not so fresh, as the case may be) Shambler during your next control phase. The latter rule allows the Bokor to shunt off damage he suffers to Shamblers in his CMD range, at the rate of 1 damage point per Shambler.

What is really stupid about this rule, is that if you make the unit tough, it essentially gives you a tough save against every damage point the Bokor suffers, since the damage shunted occurs before the disabled -> boxed -> destroyed step. Bring those Witch Doctors along - even if the unit gets nothing from Undead, it gets a LOT from Tough (as I have always said, making 10-man units tough is stupid).

In summary, the Bokor is respectably hard to get rid off, whereas the Shamblers themselves die in droves. It's good you can make more to replace them though, which allows them to tarpit well against lists that lack ranged removal (ie. Cryx, Gators, most Skorne)

Utility

Besides their ability to recycle dead enemy and friendly models (primarily friendly - I have learned that there is quite a practical difference between the Bokor's CMD 8 and Alexia's CMD 9) and act as a tarpit somewhat comparable to Gatorman Posse against the right target (ie. small-based weapon masters), the Gatorman Bokor also has Hand of Glory, a RNG 3 stationary-causing magic attack. Given that Death Magic also allows the Bokor to boost attack rolls, this can be a pretty sweet ability. However, one must keep in mind that it is still a magic attack and it can be shut down by anti-spell mechanics like Banishing Ward or Bestial. Furthermore, it suffers the penalty for spellslinging into melee and walls and all that jazz if you don't get in combat with your target (which if you do, you may also want to consider just killing it by Death Magicking all your Shamblers). Basically, the ability is sweet but much less sweet than it initially appears.
But it can be a nice boost for warbeasts to not have to roll to hit other DEF 12+ warbeasts or warjacks. It is also pretty sweet if you make a warjack stationary and beat up on it a bit, then follow up with a Thrullg disruption so it cannot shake.

Tactica

First of all, make no mistake - this is a straight up worse, non-character version of Alexia and the Risen for 1 more point. Now that we've cleared that up.....

EDIT 2015: If I were to summarize primary Shambler strategy in one line, it would be: Gatorman Bokor and Bog Trog Shamblers.
The Bokor is basically a super solo that can boost a lot thanks to his disposable Shamblers. You keep him back for late game, gathering corpses as you go and occassionally throwing out a few Shamblers. When you have a nice glut of corpses and some savoury charge targets, you charge in with the unit, make all the Shambler attacks and then sacrifice the majority of the Trogs killing a fresh heavy or something. Shamblers as a frontline unit is probably only worth it against a wave of fast weapon-master infantry that can alpha your Gators, or to jam up things on a flank somewhere. Otherwise they'll just get in the way.

In terms of support spells, Iron Flesh or Death Pact will not do a lot for the unit since their stats are terrible and they are already undead. Save those for nearly any other model in your list. Fury however, is pretty baller since CMAs now become MAT 7 POW 13s (just like Posse!!!) and the Bokor becomes P+S 15, which means he can really blow shit up with his boosts and additional attacks.

For warcasters, these do pretty well with Rask (who doesn't) as they provide him with an excellent and cost efficient ablative shield of Call of Sacrifice targets, who despite not hitting as hard as Ambushers late game, can still do some respectable work. They benefit from Fury well.

Barnabas can protect them with Swamp Pits, or else they will get shot by any guns. Those weeny POW 10 shots that your Posse mostly laugh off will completely shred these guys. They also provide a cheap tarpit to help you on scenario, and some reasonable damage output from the Bokor in case you really need it.

Likewise, giving them Stealth (with Calaban) will allow them to run across the field to jam and do their part.Whether you give stealth to these guys or you other models depends on the strength of shooting/spells on the other side of the field - if it's all POW 10s, stealth the Shamblers since they get shredded by POW 10s and the rest of your force doesn't care. If it's mostly higher POW, boostable guns, stealth your beasts, Calaban or Posse and let the Shambler eat the shots (or just play Rask and deliver it all intact).

Maelok can buff them a little with his feat but otherwise would probably rather just have more Posse, beasts or solos than these dudes. The few times I've played them with Maelok I haven't really gotten much out of them, and they tend to just trip over themselves. This of course could just be down to my inexperience with small-based infantry. Furthermore, Maelok usually likes having his Posse Undead for a really strong feat turn so you're unlikely to be getting corpse tokens from them.

Having said that, the Shamblers have good synergy with the Witch Doctor. Sure, granting them Undead is almost entirely redundant (afters one model - they are a living and undead unit!), but making 10+man units tough can really be quite ballbusting. Additionally, their ARM is respectable enough to be used as Sacrificial Strike fodder since, unlike Gatormans, their unlives are almost entirely worthless.

Summary

On the whole, I believe Shamblers are a nice unit to have but don't provide enough different playstyle options to justify taking them over more Gatorman Posse or warbeasts most of the time. I believe they will prove to be more worthwhile in Skorne where they can get the +2 STR/No KD tough all the time in combination with a lot of sweet Skorne buffs like Last Stand or Fury. They could probably also do some cool stuff in Trolls, playing as the second wave behind a wall of living Trolls and keeping the Bokur hidden behind a wall of rocks, or in Circle for the 'Morvahna Regrows Bloodtrackers -> Bloodtracker dies -> Bokur gets a corpse token -> Bloodtracker comes back next turn -> repeat -> trololol' trick.

Also if, like me, one of the main reasons you play Gatormans is because you dislike 10man small-based infantry units, this unit is like an uppercut to the nuts.

"Conan, what is best in life?"

#swag