Next HORDES book! New stuff! Gargantuans for everyone! Yay!

Kinda.

The much-hyped Smogcon announcement was put up on Youtube today, and as everyone and their dog expected following the Colossals announcement, Hordes is getting more Gargantuans.

Yay.

To be fair, they do look sort of interesting from a design perspective (both model and rules), with a stronger support element in the Troll and Legion ones especially. I won't go into too much detail, you can get all that speculation from someone who thinks Gargossals aren't the worse thing to happen to Warmachine so far :)

On the Minion side of things, we got the following info:

1) We are not getting a Gargantuan. If you expected one, you clearly have not been playing Minions long enough.

2) This:

What this is exactly, only PP and its playtesters know. It looks a lot like Maelok except has a chain of human tiny skulls around its neck, indicating that it is much bigger than Maelok. Thus it is likely a large-based warbeast of some kind. That could potentially be the perfect release for Blindwater, perhaps leading to a plastic Wrastler kit.

It is quite likely to be Undead, or at the very least something to do with passage to the world of the dead. I would then speculate that it has some kind of douchy Cryxian ability like anti-magic, making Feralgeists, magical weapons, going incorporeal, Dark Shroud.... any of that BS. Or probably all of it. That would be sweet, and not completely unreasonable following the Sacral Vault.

I also suspect that it'll have an affinity with Calaban, just to piss me off......

Minions win Templecon Iron Gauntlet

Suck it, real factions.

Äntligen, svensk krokodil powerhouse Rickard Nilsson traverses the Atlantic Ocean to take home one of the biggest warmachine tournaments in the world with Minions, the game's bastard stepchild faction. Stort gratis!

 Rickard's qualifier lists as per his PP forum post:

"Rask
^Wrastler
^Spitter
^Swamp Horror
Posse max
Posse max
Shamblers
Shamblers
Gobbers

Maelok with three of everything

(3 Snappers, 3 Posse, 3 Croctors, WE + Snapjaw + Pendrake + filler)

Carver
^Road Hog
^Razorboar
Brigands max
Brigands max
Slaughterhousers
Slaughterhousers
Slaughterhousers
Rorsh & Brine
Saxon

Stockpile objectives all around. Matchups were Rask against Siege, Carver against Zaal and Maelok against Butcher1 claw theme."

I am a big fan of all 3 lists actually. 

• Rask with 3 heavies and 2 Posse is IMO the best way to run him at present. Shamblers take up a lot of real estate and the Bokur is practically another heavy late game.
• Maelok with 3 of everything is pretty standard Rickard and a good example of Gatoring harder.
• The Pig list is a great choice since it offers the ONE thing in Minions Gators don't have access to, which is anti-tough (also reliable RFP). Between all the Slaughterhousers and Carver's feat it's got plenty of ARM cracking. AND it features Saxon.You can take pretty much every model you could possibly want in a 75pt Gator list in two lists anyway, so having a 3rd list full of models you can't use in the Gauntlet rounds is not really a big issue.

There were no Sacral Vaults as IG is fully-painted and the model was only pre-released on the day. I don't know if it would have changed the lists, most likely would have taken one instead of a Spitter with Rask and dropped the Gobbers.

Stockpile is the objective that removes KD, which is great for Gators because getting KD on Gators sucks and you only have so much Rise to go around. I guess he learned a valuable lesson from Flanzer's Runes of War list.

Both Gauntlet (75pt) rounds were against Skorne, and both times Rask was (wisely) chosen. I'm not sure exactly what was in the 75pt list in either game, but it was similar to the Rask 50pt list + WE&Snapjaw, some Croctors, and probably another Posse.

Rickard won the first game vs Rasheth tier Titan Spam by assassination (his opponent was about to deathclock himself so took a risk and got killed), and the second game vs Xerxis' Fist of Molik list on scenario over 6 rounds (dominating his own Close Quarters flag by playing very cautiously), despite losing 2 and a half Spiny Growth-ed Gator heavies to a single Molik activation and then dedicated 2 heavies and a Snapper to kill him (with the Snapper doing most of the damage).

Meta Analysis

So how does this come to happen, other than a player who stubbornly sticks to one faction for years and masters it as good as anyone can?

Zooming on from the IG final a little bit, we can look at the 4 IG finalists at Templecon: Skorne, Skorne, Minions and PoM. 3 factions that runs medium-based infantry and tanky heavies, and one of the two WM factions that runs a good number of jacks effectively (along with having potentially the best multiwound WM infantry which is not taken anywhere near as often as I would think).

Zooming out further, looking at what is "in the meta" at the moment:  Bradigus tier, Warder Meat Mountains, and as always the typical Legion beast lists. Even Cryx is shifting away from MOAR BANEZ/STATISTIX RAIDERS/MCTHRALLS to playing cavalry and one heavy/huge warjack.

Here's how I think we got there:

1 - PP releases an increasing number of of single-wound infantry shred to most factions (ie. Colossals, AoE spamming, Ravagore scathers, Lich clouds Sacral Vault, etc.)

2 - WM players get their Banes/Kayazy/whatever increasingly shredded and/or get bored after 4 years of the same list and decide to mix it up a bit.

3 - WM players don't really play jacks more (because for the most part, jacks are still inneficient relative to infantry), they just play different infantry. Ok, and maybe one more jack. But jacks are still not great (1).

4 - People start playing multi-wound infantry to not die to mass-low POW attacks and indescriminate auto-plink.

5 - Hordes multiwound infantry is better (Skorne, Gators, Trolls... even Circle (eMorvahna's Skinwalkers) and Legion (warspears+ UA) compared to Boomhowlers & Bastions (the best WM factions have). On top of that, you have beasts instead of jacks (which are on the whole better).

TL;DR: countering small-based infantry counters more Warmachine, and pushes the game to a space where Hordes does it better. Also, Rask is just bonkers.

That's my theory anyway. Banes still OP. Also, Bradigus.

I think this shift is heavily accentuated in the IG format because of the qualifier rounds requiring 3 lists, each of which must be dropped once. This pushes list building away from skews and punishes character dependency - you are almost certainly going to be locked into a list and you don't want that list to be a skew with a gaping weakness.
In a 2-list Steamroller (or ADR Masters) event, this meta shift isn't as clear cut because you can pick your matchups better and tailor lists to deal with problems as they arise, rather than just building 3 relatively solid all-rounder lists.


(1) This is mostly why Khador is in the hole in terms of interesting builds - most of the jacks are bad and their multi-wound infantry is not especially explosive or statistically superior in terms of damage, speed or ARM. 
Except for that Finnish guy that ran Butcher3 with 4 Devastators at WTC 2014 aka. the Perkelinator list. What a hero.

Sacral Vault model

Needless to say - holy crap.

Ouch, right in the wallet.... and the laws of physics.

2015 Tournament Packs and Active Duty Roster

Yes, I am still alive. In terms of WM/H, I've mostly been playing bright pink Skorne. It's like Gators that get shot but have beasts that do lots of work. Otherwise been doing summer stuff like drinking, running, beaches and playing games.

I decided to write this blog post so I don't flood forums and boards with Minion talk which nobody really wants to hear anyway but I wanted to get it off my chest.

Disclaimer: I will probably never play in a Masters event since as far as I am aware we don't use the pack in NZ and even if we did, chances are I wouldn't be able to travel to wherever the event is. So the Masters format will probably have ZERO impact on me directly, except that ADR could be applied to regular SR events - we get no PP support so we do whatever we want.

So the 2015 tournament packs were just released. Just like last year, most of the changes are relatively minor.

Hardcore 2015 is more or less the same as Hardcore 2014. It has its ups and downs, but it fulfills its purpose as being the most basic version of the game - one list, one scenario, heavy focus on assassination and the new meta element of screwing everything up by tanking with ARM and winning on time!

Iron Gauntlet 2015 is also the same as before - 3 lists with the 75pts Gauntlet rounds at the end.

Steamroller 2015 has had some more polishing, and continues just providing a tighter competitive experience rather than trying to shift the meta. Some notable changes include:

• Trimming down to 8 scenarios.
• Objectives are no longer defined by the scenario but included in your army list.
• Deathclock turns are 15 seconds minimum (this is in the Masters pack)
• Terrain placement defined a bit better.

The main thing is here is choosing the type of objective you want in your list. For example, if you take light artillery in your list, you can take the Objective that grants light artillery boosted damage rolls and have it in EVERY scenario that features an objective (5 of the 8).

For Blindwater, a few are almost totally useless (Armory, Effigy of Valor). I think the most useful ones will be the Arcane Wonder (-1 cost to your first upkeep spell is pretty good on Barnabas and Rask) and Stockpile (stuff nearby gets up for free if KD). Otherwise you just default to the one that has Impervious Flesh so it is harder to kill.

Masters is now basically Steamroller with Deathclock baseline (although I haven't attended a timed-turns Steamroller in years) - 2 lists, same scenarios, same deal. But it also features the biggest meta-shift element - Active Duty Roster.

Active Duty Roster

The ADR is part of the Masters format. It is basically a list of 4-casters per faction updated every 6 months, and if your list pair includes only casters on this list, you get the Vanguard bonus. This bonus allows you to take 20 points of Specialists for each list. Essentially, you can fully customize and netdeck against your opponent (they might even be doing the same).

If you look at the list of casters, it is quite obvious that most of the casters on the list are of the crappier variety. For example:

Khador: Zerkova / Harkevich / Strakhov / Butcher1

Mercs: Fiona / Magnus2 / Ossrum / Shae 

Minions: Arkadius / Midas / Barnabas / Maelok

Ret: Rahn / Garryth / Kaelyssa / Vyros1

Skorne: Morg2 / Hexeris1/ Mordikaar / Naaresh

PoM: Reznik2 / Thyra / Testament / Sevvy2

Trolls: Doomshaper2 / Gunnbjorn / Grim2 / Jarl

CoC: Not Lucant.

According to Hungerford, the roster is populated by uncommon casters from previous year's Masters events. So while you might see a baller like Rahn on the list, it's likely the rest of the list will be populated with stuff considered craptacular to "balance it".

It's a novel idea. It serves as a pretty big buff to underplayed casters - perhaps not enough of a buff to some, but significant nevertheless.

I do have some issues with it however:

1) Faction imbalance

Some factions benefit from a 20pt sideboard much more than others. Ret for example loves teching against specific casters and systems. Put MHSF + UA in your sideboard that you can sub-in vs squishy casters and you're home free. Sub anti-Hordes models like Moros in and out of your list depending on the matchup... winner.
Likewise, a faction like Cygnar can also bring boatloads of specific mercs to sub in for their other boatload of mercs in order to deal with whatever problem happens to be prominent. Fortunately character restrictions will throttle this a bit.

Minions and CoC on the other hand, probably aren't going to bring shit. I mean, in Gators you can probably bring a Sacral Vault and a handful of solos (Thrullgs, primarily) to sub in for beasts or whatever. But you're not getting 20pts of efficiency compared to other factions, for sure.

Looking at this season's ADR, you're probably playing Arkadius in tier (since it's the only good ARM cracking of the 3 and Midas is not good with current releases) and one of the Gator casters. Your specialists for the Arkadius list is probably something like a War Hog (to sub in for a Road Hog if there is lot of ARM), and some Slaughterhousers (for anti-tough). Cool, but not too many options.

Your opponent on the other hand gets to tech against Gators/Pigs (specialist selection happens after list selection so he will know what you're bringing) and gets a lot more use out of his 20pts than you do. Remove some of that anti-infantry from his list, add in some weapon master infantry... gg. 

TBH, I don't think it's enough of an incentive to not play Rask given what we have available at the moment, if you're playing to win.

Secondly, some armies like Trolls, Skorne, PoM are much less reliant on casters than Cryx, Minions, or Cygnar since their armies more or less operate by themselves with some caster flavor added. These factions benefit from 20pts of Specialists a lot more than others, and they lose a lot less locking themselves into "weaker" casters.

TL;DR - some factions benefit from it more than others. A lot more.

2) Just make some goddamn errata!

I wish they would just buff crap casters. Even a little bit. Slowly. This Masters format essentially recognizes that some casters are weaker than others, by giving you a significant leg up if you take a pairing of crappier casters. Please bite the bullet and do some errata. Even if you don't nerf anything, just buff crap stuff. There is plenty of data available to make an informed decision.

If you're going to "fix" crap casters this way, it should probably just be baseline for Steamroller every year. There is nothing specific about ADR that demonstrates faction mastery or high-level play (that distinction belongs to the Iron Gauntlet format). 

Anyway that's my rant. I think ADR is an interesting idea but it's not really balanced. If this is the way they are going to make crappier casters more viable, I wish this would just be baseline for Steamroller every year.
The Masters packet is basically just a standard Steamroller with the ADR modification and Iron Gauntlet is the "elite" format which actually demonstrates faction mastery.