WMH WTC

Before the WTC

My family and I had been planning a trip to visit Slovenia for a long time, and I had kept sporadic contact with my Warmachine friends in Slovenia since I had moved back to NZ. They had also been talking about going to the WTC for a year or two, but didn't quite have the numbers since their scene had shrunk quite a bit in the dying years of Mk2.

Early in 2016 however, we just decided to make the trip and time it around September so I could attend the WTC. I had more or less quit playing by this point so I had no hopes or aspirations whatsoever other than enjoy myself and hang out with old friends. Everyone was fine with this.

Our final team was thus decided:

• Captain Baffo, of Muse on Minis conversion articles fame
• S'tan, Slovenia's PG who had been living in the UK for the last 3 years or so
• Weef, the only legit Warmachine player in the country
• JS (me), the godfather of Slovenian Warmachine, now its pariah/traitor
• Maks, a Slovene native who usually lives in Poland
• EFEORA, the little Mazda that could

Here is a video that provides a summary of the team experience, despite many technical issues among the way:

My lists

The original plan was to have me play Lylyth2 cancer and Thag1 theme with Archangel cancer and put me up first round to draw out counters, then have fire-heavy lists (PoM/Circle/Trolls) as the other pairings.

Then Mk3 was announced and that plan went down the drain. The next plan was to have me play Cygnar, because they had a bunch of painted Cygnar (remember that I had sold my Gators by this point so I could only borrow models - besides I was travelling with family and wasn't going to waste valuable luggage allowance on carrying a shitload of metal figures - only brought a Guild Ball team with me).
Then the guy loaning me the Cygnar got a hard on for Caine2 in Mk3 and wanted to play him, so I said I'd play Protectorate, the other available list.

I played Durst and Kreoss1. Both the lists were shit and do not bear much discussing. Suffice to say that the model pool available to me was made up of things that were good in Mk2 but not so hot in Mk3.
In terms of casters, Durst is legit bad in this meta, although Kreoss1 is good as ever, if perhaps not skewy enough for what the game is these days.

Here is what we played in the end. Most of them were pretty shit, although mine were by far the worst.


The roadtrip

The plan from Day 1 had been to roadtrip from Ljubljana to Amsterdam, where we would meet up with Maks flying in from Poland. Stan drove us in his heavily modified Mazda RX-8, which managed to make good time driving a nice ~180-240 km/h in Germany while guzzling gas.

The main problem on my end was that I got food poisoning from ice cream a couple of hours before leaving Slovenia. Fortunately this only manifested in upper half of my body, or else the trip would have been a practical impossibility given the cramped conditions within the car. I threw up 5 times total on the way, completely emptying myself of all food and water.
At around 4am on the Friday, the crew stopped to sleep for an hour or two and get some McDicks. At this point I was a complete wreck, almost completely dehydrated and incapable of consuming any food or water without instantly throwing it back up violently.
In my pathetic state, I hobbled over to nearby gas station, bought a bottle of Gatorade (no pun intended), walked back to the car, and told them that if I threw up one more time, I should be taken to a hospital.

Fortunately from that point on, I fell asleep for a few hours and spent the next ~8 hours of the trip to the Netherlands slowly sipping my Gatorade and lamenting my predicament and the current state of Warmachine.

After some navigational correction and 19ish hours, we got to the venue and proceeded to check out the place and set ourselves up for tomorrow. I didn't get to do as much socializing as I had planned as I fell unconscious early evening and slept 11 hours straight.

The things I do for this game.....


The event

Not all that much to say about the event itself, other than it was amazing and I would gladly do it again. The loose schedule and social aspects easily make up for my negative feelings and general apathy towards Warmahordes. Of course no serious team would have someone like me around, but the WTC is majority non-serious teams (ie. teams that don't think they have a chance of a top 3 placing).

The venue was a massive resort with a water park, restaurant, stores... everything. It was pretty nice. The only huge complaint I have is that soap and towels were not provided by the resort, which at a nerd convention is a crime against humanity.
Apart from that, my sensitive stomach and general weak composure prevented me from enjoying some of the finer benefits of the Netherlands. Alas.

Some shots of the room:

Pond out back. Mosquitos were HUGE but seemingly harmless.

Fireplace, dishwasher, but no towels or soap.

Team Slovenia was the only team there without team shirts, which shows how prepared we were. Which is to say, not at all. I think between all of us we had less Mk3 games than any single member of Team Germany. I myself only had 6 games, tied for 4th on the team.


Some personal highlights:

• Meeting and talking with Rickard from Sweden for a little bit, since we had talked Gators a lot back in the day and I've always liked hearing his insight on Minions. This time we mostly discussed Swedish linguistics and how much of a disappointment NZ is in reality vs fantasy.
• The guy from Team Austria who was smoking outside the restaurant Saturday evening (sorry didn't catch your name, guessing Laszlo as the only Austrian Minions player?), and took the time to say he liked my writings and talk Minions for a bit.
• Hugging Chad from Muse on Minis. You are a rainbow and a river, Chad. Also cheers to John for talking to me about the Guild Ball tokens they have in the works (looking good).
• Meeting all the cool people and sharing thoughts about the future of the game, not just my opponents but also random people from all over Europe who just randomly fell into conversations that were happening.
• Spending time with the awesome guys on my team and nerdgasming over matchups and stuff. It was a lot more fun than I expected, but then again Warmachine is well designed to be a fun game to talk about.
• Playing a game of Guild Ball on the Saturday evening.
• Not really a highlight or low point, but at a Warmachine event of this calibre I was quite surprised to hear the number of people that were generally apathetic about Mk3 (contrary to my expectations, but in line with my personal perspective). It's like you get tied into a community through the game and you just keep playing because of the people rather than because you derive enjoyment from the game.

Here's a summary of my games/opponents and other highlights:


Round 1 we played vs Australia Echidna (eventual winners). Being put up first, I got to pick to face either Tom Guan or some other name I didn't look at because it wasn't Tom Guan.

Either way it was a horrible matchup for everyone on my team so I played the role of the martyr, given how bad I am at this game. I dropped Durst, he dropped Wurmwood. I learned the Piper doesn't work on jacks anymore (errata from 4 months ago or something? I dunno.). I basically just turtled and dragged it out so I could talk about stuff that isn't Warmachine. In the end Durst got punched in the face by big things after his jacks were Hellmouthed away.

TL;DR - Got Tom Guanned.  Team goes 0 - 5.


Round 2 we played Greece Epic. I got dropped into Skorne because for some reason nobody in Slovenia plays Skorne and my whole team wanted to avoid them the whole tournament, which is odd because they are indeed quite weak as a faction.
It was Kreoss into Xerxis. I forgot to active the Choir before one of the heavies and failed to kill Tiberion by 4 boxes (including 3 attacks by that unbuffed jack), who then killed 2 heavies by himself and that was basically the game.

Good game anyway, cool opponent. Talked Guild Ball for a while.  Team loses 2 - 3.


Round 3 we played one of the Dutch teams. I got paired into Xerxis again. Pretty much the same list. I messed up something with facing and engaged something I shouldn't have so failed a pretty good assassination run and then lost. My opponent was getting pretty frustrated with his faction and himself, which we did turn into a laugh.

Good times .Team loses 2 - 3 again.


Round 4 (day 2) we played vs Czech White. I got paired into Haley3, who I had never played before. Basically I shoot some rockets past the smoke wall and get a few scatters, then he tries to assassinate me but screws something up and I pop and drop Haley.

Fun game, cool opponent. Also gave me his team shirt after hearing my sob story about food poisoning and travelling 6 million hours with infant twins to be here for my 3rd to last game of Warmachine.

Thank you Joza, I will treasure it forever. Team wins 3 - 2.


Round 5 we played vs one of the Welsh teams. Again I get put up first, and get given the choice of Bart Galleon (super hard counter to both my lists) or Ret. My team dislikes the Mercs more so I get given that. It's pretty much a 5% chance to win for me but we play it through anyway. I accidentally power attack throw with a broken fist, to my eternal shame. Basically nothing of interest happens otherwise.

After losing Kreoss I shook my opponent's hand and said "I won't say good game, but I will say well played". Which says it all really. Warmachine.

Team loses 2 - 3 with game 5 going down to sub 1min on deathclock.



Round 6, my last game of Warmachine for the foreseeable future, we played vs Czech Red. I didn't get dropped first this time, so got paired about midway through the process vs Madrak2. Basically I shot some Redeemer rockets that killed a few troopers, then he feated with Madrak and killed all my TFG and camped his zone, then I managed to assassinate Madrak as he made a mistake and didn't put enough guys around him (1 more would have done it I think). I only realized midway through the assassination that Madrak2 is even more survivable than in Mk2, which to be honest is complete horseshit. My opponent was pretty upset about his mistakes but was super cool to play against otherwise.

Team wins 4 - 1, with our only loss being Caine2 dying in like 5 mins to Issyria and 3 guns. S'tan - what a scrub.


In the end, we went 2 - 4, only getting wiped off the table by the #1 team, and several close losses. Basically if the team had a good player instead of me, they probably place in the top half. If they drop S'tan on top of that, they probably also place above the USA teams.


Here are my last 6 opponents of Warmachine, who each kindly indulged me in a picture for the memories: Tom Guan from "Australia" - The Alpha Meme, Andreas, Maarten, Josef, Scott and Lukas. Could not have picked better opponents to be honest.

The aftermath

I am thus officially retired from Warmachine after god knows how many years. It's been fun, but all things come to an end. And to end it on the best note possible leaves me with no regrets.
My only minis game at the moment is realistically Guild Ball, as I don't really have the time nor money to commit to other interesting games at the moment. It is my hope that the game will do well here in New Zealand or RIP my social life.





Final shot - the World Trade Center in Almere, just outside Amsterdam, as seen just before I got on the train for the airport:

Post Mortem

Like all good death metal, a post from beyond the grave.


No, I haven't started playing again. Well, sort of.

Here's a summary:

• I sold all my Gator stuff a little while before Mk3 was announced. No regrets.
• I got pretty hyped about Mk3 release, almost entirely because of the super fresh memes that were created, including leading the Memesider Committee. Good times. Also Hungerford is single-handedly carrying that company on his back in terms of PR. What a boss.
• Upon release, I was pretty disappointed, and didn't have my hopes up too high to begin with. Mk3 addresses the stale meta issue and the living updates issue (both pretty well, in theory anyway) but not the other problems I have with the game . Circumstances around the release have also made me generally pessimistic for the mid to long-term health of the game. 
• I've played maybe 5 games of Mk3 now, and it is very much the same game. Needless to say I didn't really enjoy any of them.
• If you really liked Warmachine before and have lots of disposable income, you'll love Mk3. If you're like me and that bus has passed you by, then you look elsewhere.

No matter. There are plenty of fun minis games out there to play, and my life is plenty busy between family, work and other hobbies.

In terms of minis games to use up my limited free time, I've picked up Guild Ball (to the best of my knowledge the best competitive minis game on the market at the moment) and Infinity (perhaps the best mass-produced models out there, and a fun and cinematic albeit not super tight/competitive game experience). IMO both have significantly better quality models and fluff on average than present day Warmachine, and produce fun gameplay experiences for entirely different reasons.

TL;DR

The main reason I am posting here is to say that I will be playing in the WM/H World Team Championship with my old friends on Team Slovenia. I am borrowing some Menoth for the event and fully expect to go 0-6. Given that I started playing in Slovenia with these same guys almost 10 years ago, I thought it a fitting end to my almost decade-long Warmachine "career".

So if you happen to come by this post AND you're going to be in Amsterdam for the WTC, drop by and say 'hello', maybe buy me a quality european beer or six. I can regale you with nostalgic tales of old, salty tales of the present, and nihilistic tales of the future.

Cheers!



PS - I think Minions are one of the better Hordes faction in Mk3. 

Swansong

Soles no longer has power over me, and I can fly free once again.

It seems my last post was on 20 October 2015, just over 5 months ago. According to Iron Grudge (great little app), the last game of Warmachine I played was on 22 October 2015 using Calaban and a proxied Blindwalker against Shae and a Galleon. I remember I won the game convincingly, even considering the extra unit of Swamp Shamblers I'd placed on the table...

What I do remember however is how much of a negative play experience this game was. It was maybe my 3rd proxy game with the Blindwalker and my first game with Calaban in a long time. I wrote up a large, very negative article about the Blindwalker following this game, as well as a "Calaban 2.0 - Post Blindwalker" article.
However I can't bring myself to post them. I don't know whether it's because I don't want to be crushingly negative without some follow-up in terms of constructive or positive thought, or because I just don't really care about Warmahordes Mk2 anymore.

The Mist Weaver spoilers made it quite clear to me that I am not going to be playing Warmachine again until at least Mk3 (with one notable exception).

There are a lot of deep systemic and meta issues in both the game and Privateer's game development/growth model that has finally reached a boiling point for me after seething for so many years, as anyone who has read this blog can attest. While I think rage and whining are part of the lifeblood of competitive gaming, there is cause to pause for thought when passion turns to apathy.

Coming back to the Mist Weaver, ignoring the fact that it is a very weak Minion model outside Gators (the ever-present Minion power problem), it has also put the nail in the coffin of Gator design and given me late-Mk1 Skorne flashbacks, when Skorne went from slowest grind/denial faction with no pathfinder and limited ranged power to fastest faction with great assassination tools and pathfinder everywhere in the space of a single book.
I started Gators when power attacks were necessary, when they had basically no guns and made up for it with some anti-ranged tech. Now you have almost no power attacks, and you have a gunline to rival Legion/Cygnar as a legit list build featuring arguably the best ranged unit in the game and arguably the best battle engine in the game, all backed by a bevvy of Eyeless Sight/Magical shooting. I loved the Sacral Vault as a game piece, but with the Croaks and now this Mist Weaver (plus that useless medium based Bog Trog guy), we're too far gone. This approach to PvP games design is not for me.


There remains little flavour (thematic or strategic) in the game's design - just skews and SKUs, and a game which has meant so much to me over the last 10 years running on auto pilot.


See you on the pitch.

Blindwalker Sculpt preview

Trapped in a box!

Hopefully the final model looks less derpy.

EDIT: It doesn't.

The Slow Death of Power Attacks

"You're playing with power now. Don't be afraid! Few things are more satisfying than slamming your opponent's warjack into a unit of soldiers and watching them fall over like bowling pins...Try picking up the enemy warcaster (with a warjack, of course) and throwing it across the battlefield! It's almost more fun than you should be allowed to have in a miniatures game."

- Page 5, Warmachine Prime Mk1 (2002)

Blindwater pre-Colossals

One of the things that attracted me to Blindwater initially was the importance of power attacks to the playstyle. In my very first post on this blog back in 2012, I described Gatormans as "tactically strong, strategically weak". In other words, Gators were a faction that usually did not come to battle with a hard set plan and relied heavily on adapting to the table and opponent in order to achieve victory. This is what power attacks are all about.

One of the major issues Blindwater had was dealing with enemy heavies:

• Calaban had Parasite to kill one a turn, maybe two if the stars aligned and you got a working feat turn, although it would usually leave him exposed and dead next turn. 
• Barnabas' only viable answer was shallow water, namely throwing heavy jacks into Swamp Pits, which he was quite good at thanks to Warpath, or just slowing them down with rough terrain. Jamming heavies with Iron Flesh Dirged Posse was also sometimes a viable tactic.
• Maelok relied on jamming, ignoring or sandpapering heavies down over time with multiple Posse charges. 

In any case, it wasn't easy, and you had to play smart to win games. This all changed with the release of Colossals.

Colossals & Gargossals

I often say that Gargossals as a model type were the single worst thing to happen to the game. I believe this because while I think they are quite balanced in terms of competitive power, they significantly flattened the tactical and strategic depth of the game.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of how you could deal with a heavy in 2010:

• Arm Lock
• Throw it away (into shallow water, behind a wall, behind a forest, into another heavy...)
• Slam it away (see above)
• Black Oil!
• Disrupt / Paralyze it (KD + Thrullg against non-reach warjacks was sweet)
• Focus/Forcing denial (ie. Absylonia1's Blight Field, Hypnos' Void Lock, Wrong Eye's Voodoo Doll)
• Shadow Bind
• Jamming (esp. with medium bases)
• Control it with terrain if no pathfinder
• Kill it

Here is how you can deal with Gargossals today:

• Kill it
• Focus/Forcing denial (ie. Absylonia1's Blight Field, Hypnos' Void Lock, Wrong Eye's Voodoo Doll)
• Paralyze Gargantuans?
• Jamming? (given that they can shoot while engaged, it's nowhere near as potent).

That's it. Following the nerfs to Shadow Bind and Black Oil, that is all that remains. The tactical options are laughable compared to what they once were, especially when viewed in the context of board control and scenario play.

From a Blindwater perspective, given the lack of high POW attacks in faction, we were left with a few options - play Calaban with Hex Blast & Parasite and go all in and die next turn, jam Gators into an impregnable iron wall to buy time or play Carver with his garbage beasts. Neither option was great.
Then we got Rask a few months before Gargantuans release, who both solved almost every problem presented by Gargossals and made me a weaker player almost over night despite winning more games.

What concerns me is that this process of removing power attacks as tactical options has reared its ugly head prominently in the last two expansions - Reckoning and Devastation.

Cornerstone & Implacability

First, Reckoning brought us Anson Durst, Rock of the Faith and Summoner of Dank Memes. Of relevance is his Rampart Guardian Stance, which allows him to sacrifice movement/action to gain Cornerstone and grant it to all b2b models (Cornerstone = cannot be KD/placed/pushed/made stationary, ie. can only be thrown or slammed).
While it does reduce the chances to use power attacks against Durst, it is limited to him and models immediately next to him, and it doesn't eliminate the two movement power attacks. I am ok with this given its limited scope.

Second, and most significantly, we have Devastation's most powerful warlock, Doomshaper3, and his spell Implacability. For 2 fury, Doomy stops all models in his battlegroup and 14" control area being KD, placed, pushed or moved by a slam (ie. can only be thrown and made stationary).
Unlike Rampant Guardian Stance, I am not ok with Implacability on this warlock, primarily because a) it is in Trolls, one of the tankiest factions with multiple high ARM heavies and b) it combos stupidly with his feat that grants an effective ~5 ARM to his battlegroup (on top of boosted attack rolls, but let's not go there) and c) it affects EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE (almost).

My initial reaction to such a feat is to KD & control since the battlegroup are otherwise invulnerable. Implacability shits on that. Not only does Implacability remove a lot of options for dealing with his super tanky, super hard hitting, goading warbeasts, but the huge amount of ARM on the table every round, and the nigh-insurmountable amount of ARM on the feat turn, drastically reduce your tactical options that turn to a degree comparable to Haley2's pre-nerf feat.
That's a bold statement, so let me phrase it another way for dramatic impact: if you do not have access to very select tools, such as focus/fury control or stationary, you have basically no option that turn but grin and bear it. That is basically a timewalk feat, and given Troll ARM values outside that feat turn, the timewalk seeps into every other turn as well unless you have significant POW values.

Conclusion

The game is moving more and more towards ARM skew / POW overload at the cost of power attacks and board control, and I am not sure I like where things are going.
It seems PP have forgotten a key tenant of their original Page 5 manifesto, perhaps the only part of the document that was uncontroversial and can truly be said to have excited players of all persuasions about the game - heavy warjacks and warbeasts fighting like pro wrestlers.

I guess that in the end they did decide that power attacks were in fact more fun than you should be having in a miniatures game.

Devastation Review

So it seems that the text-form spoilers that hit the internet recently are very close to accurate, following this BOLS video showing Hoarluk's page for 10 mins and then skimming the rest of the book in the other 10 mins:

As is semi-traditional for me, I am doing a write up to help process the information through my game membrane, and to provide something to look back upon and laugh about how wrong/right I was about certain things. To spice things up and give everyone a chance to nod in agreement or tableflip in disagreement, I will assign an arbitrary grade/value of some sort out of 5 for each model.

Trolls

Doomshaper3 - a pretty cool new iteration on the old Troll beastlock. Hyper Regen is a legit battlegroup ability (source: Syntherion) and he brings quality variants of his old spell toolkit - Repudiate being the new less OP version of Purification, and Unminding being a new way to screw Hordes over. Admonition is decent defensive tech although he will still probably want Janyssa to babysit his poor defensive stats.
I hate Implacability - power attacks are one of the coolest thing in the game (tactically and thematically) and have already been pushed out of the game dramatically with huge bases. Now we have this douchebaggy spell version of Durst's b2b abilityto further cement it.
Th feat is stronger than the average Trollblood feat, and really pushes you to take a few high ARM, high wound beasts (Gargantuans and Mulg? Load up that theme list!) and maybe even a few tanky lights. It's like getting an effective ~+5 ARM on every model AND boosted attack rolls.
Scroll Bearer is cool - dunno why this is a unit rather than a solo like Borka's Keg Carrier though. No punishment for killing him means he will have a sniper's target on his head at all times.

Glacier King - Significantly better than the Mountain King. Good melee with the Freeze fists, a gun so excellent it wouldn't look out of place on a Cygnar or Retribution model, useful support with the concealment and an animus that lends itself to grindfests due to it's 3" extent. Throw in a hefty amount of Troll buffs, and we're cooking with.... frost... fire. Frostfire. So cool it burns.

Dhunia Knot - Neat support unit. At first glance they seem bland (as most Troll things tend to) but then you see "Puppet Master" and then you see 3 guys and think "interesting". Basically Puppet Master bots who will occasionally be called upon to stop frenzies or heal a thing. Seems to help the beast heavy Troll lists a bit. If I were a well rounded Troll player I would probably have a strong favourable/unfavourable opinion on this, alas I am but a mere mortal.

Pyg Bushwhacker UA - I don't really get why there's a mortar attached (at least it's not light artillery) but the officer brings some cool buffs to the unit. Combined Arms is excellent since the best use of the unit was already doing 5x 2-man CRAs, and Slip Away partially stops enemy models running to engage you, as you can just walk past them and snipe out their support! Very nice addition to the faction.

 

Circle

 

Kromac2 - Basically the Circle Butcher, Kromac2 sacrifices subtlety and denial for being a mushroom-fueled, blood crazed berserker. He gets to melee, he melees accurately and he melees hard. He also makes Undead even better with a slew of powerful living-only abilities. Oh, Soles. You sly dog, you.

Storm Raptor - Holy infantry shred, Batman! This MAT 5 Gargantuan basically just shits out lightning attacks and acts as a giant tesla coil: buffing lightning attack hit and damage rolls nearby, and frying stuff that attacks it with Plasma Nimbus. If you have no lightning damage, then it's not particularly synergistic, so I'm guessing it's a sign of Krueger3 to come.
I think it's interesting enough as a release and will do nice things for Circle, bringing in some meaty boxes and P+S values along with the characteristic infantry shred.

Blackclad Mist Riders - Classic Circle - fast, high DEF, low ARM, total BS. With Blizzard up they are DEF 18, which is pretty hard to shoot, while blocking LoS with the cloud. Yay cloud walls - gotta systematically buff those Assault Kommandos while buffing all Legion at the same time! Making clouds at will is great for Circle and its many Prowl models.
I think the low MAT is the only issue but Circle has a million ways to squeaky shine it to excellence. Super mobile cloud wall + high potential of annoying, long range slams = douche city.

Blood Weaver Night Witch - Enemy of the Day Witch! Basically two things jump out about this model - first is Grievous Wounds on a SPD 7 stealth pathfinder solo which can also boost attack/damage rolls, meaning Circle's assassination game against Hordes got a lot better. Second is granting Killing Spree (basically Madrak1's feat) to Bloodweavers, a very good utility unit that was already pretty baller at killing infantry with a POW 6 5" AoE. I guess the free move does help get gang bonuses and a little mobility is always nice. Oh, and it also has Killing Spree itself, which means it can kill lots of infantry... typical Circle.

 

Legion

The Twins - Two pretty decent solos were given a spell list and made to work together under unit coherency rules. Despite some technical hangups, I think this warlock can actually be really powerful following enough practice. Saying that, the technical aspects make them difficult to use (ie. highly constrained) in several situations and therefore less powerful than several of their solo counterparts. I would not be surprised to see them do well in tournaments though, since the difficult technical aspects for you are also confusing for your opponent.

Blight Bringer - SPD4 beast in Legion?! The sky must be falling. In any case, this seems like it would fit right in with the grindier, infantry-focused Legion that has been filling up design space as of late. You get pretty decent artillery support with a 5" AoE that stays in play and provides FU effects to the enemy, along with good melee punch (crit poison POW 18 tail - ouch) and some good short range support/denial tools. Exactly the kind of thing you want to bring back with pThags!

 

Grotesque Banshees - Mmmm... not entirely sold. Silencer is potentially a really powerful ability that can hurt casters and several solos significantly, however it is only on a direct hit and with RAT 5, that's not going to happen too often outside say Lylyth1's feat.
Basically you have several SP6 POW 12s, which is a good tool to have in a jam to hit many things (see: Reciprocators in CoC - which don't hit your own guys), and Flight allows you to walk over your own models to position those sprays better. I guess in the end I don't particularly understand what Grotesques are supposed to bring to Legion.

Grostesque Assassin - Another mediocre Legion melee solo. Actually this one is a little nicer than mediocre in that it has Sprint and multiple attacks (or a P+S15 combo), and if for some reason you wanted to run Grotesques, they can now get there without dying. Neato!
I think its best use is to Desperate Pace the Banshees, as high advance values on spray-toting units is legit. Then late game you can get in some opportune kills due to Flight & Sprint.

Skorne

Zaal2 - It's like Zaal got downgraded but his Skornergy went epic. He seems to want to hearken back to the (very cool) Mk1 Skorne design of "getting stronger as your stuff dies", but Skorne has moved so far away from that playstyle in Mk2, and the pieces that made it work aren't really there anymore (AGs got nerfed to crap compared to what they could do with souls in Mk1).
Most Skorne players seem to dislike him as well so either he will turn out to be super amazing and annoying, or completely unplayed.
Fundamentally, it seems like a warlock that scales well above 50pts where he can get both disposable infantry AND a good selection of warbeasts in addition to his constructs. At 50 or below, he is a warlock who can do many things but only gets to do one of those things depending on how you build the list, and that's not very interesting.

Desert Hydra - This thing can deal monstrous damage against a variety of things in a variety of ways. It's a bit like Typhon on crack, with a much better animus (would be great on warlocks like Makeda3). If you can keep it alive, it can deal out a lot of pain. Nothing especially new for Skorne, but I feel it's a Gargantuan that is different enough from the Mammoth to have a reason to exist.

Immortals UA - Pretty good UA that against pays homage to Mk1 Skorne. I think if you want to take Immortals, you can spend 2pts to get a) an excellent ranged weapon, and b) some cool abilities - both of which have great synergy with Makeda1 (fortunately the Skornergy with her feat prevents it from being over the top).

Legends of Halaak (character unit) - well, this is out of left field. Basically a unit of capable combat solos who flank with each other and have 3 granted abilities - Side Step, +2 DEF when B2B, and Relentless Charge. One of them has reach and def strike, one has two swords + combo, and one has two mauls + combo.
They are basically the Great Bears' evil cousins. I think the Great Bears are better (Tough+Steady OP!), but that explains the point differential!

Minions

Now we get to the highly critical and introspect part of this summary :)

Battle Boar - Take a Gun Boar, remove the gun, reduce the PC by 1 and give it Rabid (force for +2SPD, Pathfinder and fully boosted melee for a turn). Also give it an equally bad but situationally useful animus (basically a RNG 6 spell that grants injured warbeasts RFP).
Overall, not terrible, which for Pigs is a huge win. I'd put it on par with the Razor Boar in that it's a throwaway meatshield that can do a little bit of damage, cause a little chaos and screen the rest of your stuff before it frenzies/dies. Will be good with Carver.... like everything else in the game.

Splatter Boar - This beast may actually be the only legitimately good pig beast. That means a lot coming from me!
First, it's a Gun Boar with a useful animus - from the Slag Troll (+2 to melee damage, immune to Corrossion and Crit Corrossion on RNG 6). Very useful in general to buff one of your terrible heavies, or more useful to buff Maximus or a Slaughterhouser. Probably worth taking one in an Ark list just for this reason.
Second, it's a Gun Boar with a good gun! You'll almost never directly hit anything with it, but the three ammo types are all legit. Acid Bomb for a 3" POW 12 Corrossion AoE (ala Gorman) to wreck Shield Wallers, POW 14 Fire Smoke Cloud to be annoying (or give stealth to Brigands with Warlord ZOMG), and an AoE that causes Command and Frenzy checks on HIT. I was super surprised this wasn't on direct hit, given that it's a Pig model which are consistently handicapped. You spam out three of those a turn and it's a pretty skewy list vs Hordes/non-fearless infantry.
Third, it actually fits my idea of Pig design - barely controlled chaos and randomness. A design approach that would make Pigs somewhat unique and interest and has been dabbled in but definitely needs more emphasis for them to stop sucking balls.

Brigand Warlord UA - Take a decent 2pt solo, make him cost 3pts, and attach him to a mediocre deadweight of a unit granting them some good but uncoordinated abilities. What a missed opportunity.

Blindwalker - After some consideration, I think this is the worst Gator release since the Boneswarm.
Which isn't too bad considering that our releases since the Boneswarm have been Maelok, Witch Doctor, Swamp Horror, Rask, Shamblers, Sacral Vault, Jaga and Croak Raiders!
Basically it's ok but not great. It is a meatshield that positions around the battlefield to use its two useful abilities - arcing spells and Shield Guarding as needed, and then dying unceremoniously when it's usefulness has been outlived.
Its main redeeming features in this role are ARM 20 and PC 7. Its damage output is pathetic for a heavy at 2xP+S 14 (non reach) and MAT 5. It does have two open fists and STR 11 so should be ok at doing power attacks in the few circumstances were those have any remaining value (ie. throws, occasional arm locks).

I can absolutely see it played with Calaban (which is the main benefit this model brings), since it provides both valuable tools for Calaban and another channel to spend his fury if he gets too much on his feat turn.
You might see it with Jaga, you'll never see it with Rask, and I would also be surprised to see it regularly with Barnabas. With Maelok it has low potential, which would have been significantly increased had this model been Undead (theme list, feat).

Croak Raiders - the best release in the book. The amount of damage these guys can deal at range is just stupid. The Oil Gourd being a scatterable AoE and the debuff lasting a round is especially stupid, and the fact that they AD on top of a pretty independent and accurate 16" threat range which ALSO cause fire is madness.

M-A-D-N-E-S-S!

Lynus & Edrea - where the hell did these come from? Apparently they are supposed to be Pendrake's students, which explains the animosity with Saxon Orrik. This also makes them idiots, since Saxon is the man.
There are two sides to this nitwits - first is the synergy they have with other models via a special action that grants a friendly warrior model a boost on its first attack roll. Note this is a BOOST, not an additional attack die. As such it's not worth that much on warlocks outside a little fury efficiency, so is mostly useful on solos like Alten Ashley, Totem Hunter, Maximus, a Posse member and so on. Not bad, but not great either.
The second thing is the Applied Knowledge ability, which allows them to take a second action each turn IF they made a regular attack during their combat action. Basically this means you will move up, shoot with each of them (they have RNG 10 POW 11 rifles and Ebrea has True Sight, but also only RAT 5) and then either make another shot or use their special actions: for Lynus, that's the attack boost buff and for Edrea that's either Arcane Bolt, Zephyr or Wind Wall (or unit equivalent). You'll need the later two abilities to keep them alive because at 14/12, they will die to strong opinions.
EDIT: ROF 1 weapons = 1 shot each max! Things Applied Knowledge actually allows:

• Rifle -> melee,
• melee -> rifle and 
• melee -> melee
• Edrea can also go melee/rifle -> arcane bolt

I am thinking they might be ok with Calaban for the boost (useful for even a Croak Hunter), and multiple attacks potential.

I think if Croak Raiders hadn't come out, these guys would have been pretty good as ranged support (potential 4 guns shots is nice, especially if you get to aim) for Gators, and the boosted hit buff can be neat. I probably won't buy them.

Hutchuck (Ogryn Bounty Hunter aka Hordes Gorman) - what a name. Ambush, Take Down, and a solo version of Hog Wild. His main thing (outside those manly Ogrun stats) are his three alchemical grenades - Rust, Brain Damage and Quake. All these are 3" POW 12 AoEs with RAT 6.

Like most Hordes versions of OP things (ie. Thrullg, the Hordes Eyriss), he is significantly more balanced that his Warmachine counterpart:

• Brain Damage must cause damage for its effect (no casting spells, upkeeping spells or using animi) to trigger, so unlikely unless directly hit.
• Quake is a 3" AoE, but only triggers on a direct hit.
• Rust is Rust, -2 ARM to warjacks.

Furthermore, unlike Gorman, he is a medium base with no special defensive tech so can be killed by conventional weapons. Overall I think he is cool, despite not working for Minions and also working for Cygnar & Khador.

Gremlin Swarm - This model is just dumb. Why did this have to exist? Not only does the model itself look like ass, but the rules make me want to stick it up someone else's ass.
Basically it does two things - one is be incorporeal AND stealth while moving between 8" and 14" a turn. This means it is difficult to spell it to death, so you have to either get close or melee it to death with magical weapons, or shoot it with magical stealth ignoring guns. These things are not common outside Cygnar. As such it is awesome at scenario play just by existing.
Second, it fucks with warjacks, based on a random roll and not player decisions. Did we really need more models that specifically make warjacks less rewarding to use, and also grind the game down further?
As a final straw, it doesn't even work for either Minion Pact.
It's not even that good, it just seems like such a pointlessly negative games experience.

Summary

I feel this was a decent book with an overall good quality of releases, but not as good as Exigence. The new Gargantuans all look better than the last lot (which isn't hard) and probably make me less angry about their existence as well.
Croak Raiders are very likely to invade every Hordes player's lists at some point, and hopefully nobody ever plays Gremlin Swarms.
If I had to pick a winner and loser for the book (ignoring Croaks), as is customary in the community, I'd put Trolls as winners and either Skorne or Legion as losers. If it weren't for the Blight Bringer, who I feel might finally make infantry-grind Legion a competitive choice, then Legion would be clearly at the bottom.


Best Caster: Doomshaper3
Worst Caster: Zaal2

Best Beast: Blight Bringer
Worst Beast: Battle Boar / Blindwalker

Best Warrior Model/unit: Croak Raiders
Worst Warrior Model/unit: Farrow Warlord

The Cryx "Total BS" award: Gremlin Swarm