Watery Graves - Rask tier list

I wonder if Rask will have a last name or nickname or other name of some form.

Ah, the latest thing out for Blindwater, featuring our fantastic fishman and his fishy friends. Time for some baseless theorymachine:

The List

So let's see what you CAN take in this list, along with Rask:

• 2 units of Shamblers (this implies they are FA: 1 otherwise)
• 4 units of Ambushers

• All current Gator beasts (Snapper, Boneswarm,  Horror, Spitter, Wrastler)

• Thrullg
• Totem Hunter
• Witch Doctor
• Wrong Eye + Snapjaw
• Croak Hunters

 Here's what you CANNOT take:

• Gatorman Posse!
• Swamp Gobbers
• Pendrake
• Feralgeist

Playstyle

You have no Gatormans! That's a very fundamental playstyle change for Blindwater, since Gatormans are the core attrition piece for the faction. In exchange, you get a crap ton of Ambushers and Croak Hunters, along with heaps of speed for your solos.

As such, I expect this will be an alpha-strike, assassination oriented list. The main strategy will be to run up the table with your main force (under protection of your feat) and push your opponent towards a flank, and then jam that flank with Ambushers, Totem Hunter and Croaks. Then you just hope you can kill enough things to get a solo or beast with Fury on the enemy caster. The loss of Gatormans means you don't have much of a chance at attrition, so you'll just have to sacrifice units and beasts in order to get that assassination run.

Thrullg is a bit redundant in this list, given that Rask can do everything from range with his sweet gun that the Thrullg can do in melee, and is also less prone to death. But who knows.

I'm glad that you can take Wrong Eye + Snapjaw though, since Snapjaw looks insane with Fury + Boundless Charge on him.

Tier Bonuses

- Tier 1 gives more Trogs. 4 min units of Ambushers is pretty scary for the average list, and annoying for a jack/beast-heavy list. We don't know what Shamblers do yet, but at FA:1 they better sh*t rainbows and erase every one of my parking tickets from existence.

- Tier 2 gives advance move to your solos in exchange for taking the Totem Hunter. That's a steep cost to pay if you're not bi-winning. For the rest of us, it's basically a freebie. This benefit will affect Wrong Eye (but not Snapjaw), Totem Hunter, Croaks, Thrullg and Witch Doctor. This means your AD solos will be anywhere from 19" to 23" up the table before the game even starts, and your other solos can get to more advantageous positions (ie. Wrong Eye keeping up with Snapjaw, Witch Doctor moving up to get himself in a better position to Zombify Ambushers). Just watch out for stealth-ignoring guns!

- Tier 3 gives you a free Croak Hunter for every two units. Pretty good deal, since it means you get at least 1 free Croak Hunter for nothing. Croaks seem to be pretty good in this list due to the assassination focus and the model spam means they will usually get their gang bonus. P+S 12/15 weapon master charge is nothing to laugh at!

- Tier 4 gives 2" extra deployment in exchange for taking three warbeasts in Rask's group. This one is also relatively easy to achieve if you take two lights and a heavy. More speed! It makes it easier to push your main force up and get that solo assassination, such as buffing your Totem Hunter so he can safely jump up and stab the enemy caster Turn 2 with some sweet MAT 10, P+S 19/16 action, followed by some crazy gang fighter frogmans.
Totem Hunter threat turn 1 = 9/12" deploy + 7" Advance + 12" leap + 2" reach = 30/33". Not likely to be a caster kill opportunity, but he can likely take out any AD solo he wants or go really wide flank. Then switch prey and kill caster next turn. Booyah!

Turn 1 threat 33". /flex

Problems

•  No Gatormans! As mentioned above, this roughly means your attrition game is crap and you are playing against the clock to assassinate before your entire army of squishy fishmans gets battered.
• Wussy Bog Trogs with CMD 8. This means either your Trogs will need the Zombify buff so they don't run away like little girls when fighting terror/abomination, or they will run away like little girls. At least they can run back towards Rask and be useful as popcorn.

• No Swamp Gobbers means Rask can get shot much easier in later turns - I think it's preferable to force your opponent to try and kill Rask via melee attacks since there are only so many models you can fit around a small base. Can they deliver more attacks than you have Bog Trogs within 5"? Without the Gobbers, including guns in this number of attacks can make the difference between death and almost death (1). At least you can take the Swarm animus for concealment and DEF 17 melee vs living (OMG! A use for the Boneswarm? In Blindwater? No way.)

Conclusion

I think this list will be fun to try out and will catch people out the first few times with its spamminess and speed, but due to its lack of staying power and attrition, I don't expect it to do well long-term in a competitive format - nor would I generally expect a theme list to do so. Except Rasheth's, which is basically the best Blindwater list ever (P+S 15/ no KD Tough Gatormans with awesome beasts and beast support to back them up? Yes please).

(1) 'Almost death' is not that bad a place for Rask to be.

PS - Totem Hunter does not have AD. :(