First Minions Podcast

Tired of having your faction of choice (or circumstance) dismissed out of hand on every Warmahordes podcast, blog, forum?

Did you as a Ret player live through the experience of continuously losing to Rask, only to have your experience denigrated by your fellow elves?

Do you love playing highly limited and highly restrictive forces, and/or building deep affections for crappy warlocks and models?

Do you like playing the game on hard mode, and/or sexy Swedish accents?

If you answered yes to any of the above, do we have something for you!

A Matter of Pact is an all Minions, all the time podcast that will satisfy these forbidden urges, and more. The only downside is that it will make you want to buy Pig models.

Link to Website

Link to Facebook

 Link to a relevant Exhumed song

First episode features discussion of the Efaarit Scouts, Gobber Raiders and Croak Raiders. Check it out.

Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer

Overview

Jaga-Jaga is Blindwater's 5th warlock. Her nickname is Death Charmer, which means she charms Death. That can be either really cool or really creepy, depending on how you think about it.
In any case, she is a great support warlock, featuring a good dose of Blindwater's beloved douchiness and warlock survivability, while also bringing a range of tools unavailable to other Gatorman warlocks.

Stats

Her stats are very similar to Calaban - good for a spellcaster, and about average for a Gatorman (aka. good). SPD 6 is great when almost all your other stuff is SPD 5, especially when you have a reach poison weapon (more on that later).
Her combat stats are pretty average, and her defensive stats also about average for a warlock.

Finally, she is our second Fury 7 casters! Yay! And our first +5 WB caster! Boo!

Spells

Where her bread is buttered, her cuckoo slapped, her cheese melted:

• Deadweight - a Cost 2 POW 12 nuke with a nice added benefit that allows you to 'attach' the corpse of the model you just killed to a nearby model, forcing that model to sacrifice movement or action next turn. Nice denial, but RNG 8 and no arc nodes makes it quite situational.
• Escort - +2" movement for your beasts and +2 ARM for your warlock? In Blindwater? Yes please.
• Ghost Walk - Allows target model/unit to ignore free strikes and terrain for the purposes of movement. VERY good in a melee centric force (aka. Cryx), and a way to grant pathfinder to Gatormans without praying for it. Awesome since we can't take the Manliest Man on Immoren (Saxon Orrik).
• Grave Wind - a really sweet single-target defensive buff, grants +2 DEF and Poltergeist (knockback d3" whenever you miss the target model with an attack).
• Spellpiercer - Jaga Jaga's signature spell, this grants magical weapons and Blessed to your entire army. Yowza.

Abilities

Gatorman. Warlock. That is all.

Feat - Legion of DEATH!

Enemy non-construct dudes killed in Jaga's control area become friendly zombie versions of themselves and gain Dark Shroud. Right after becoming zombies, they can make a full advance (immune to free strikes) and cannot activate but otherwise keep all their abilities. Lasts for a round after which the zombies are RFPed (unless destroyed again prior to end of round).

Thoughts

Damage

Certainly not a melee monster, but Jaga-Jaga can deal a good chunk of melee damage to the right targets thanks to Chain Weapon and Poison on DEATH SNAKE (1). This means she can kill most living models singlehandedly, do some nasty damage to shield-wielding beasts like the Cyclops Brute, and has some late-game assassination power if it comes down to it.
The abilities on Death Snake also combine quite well with her feat if you want to kill a bunch of shield walling guys like MoW, Cetrati, Iron Fangs or whatever - charge in and kill one to get that Dark Shroud debuff, kill a few more, and you've got yourself a nice little bubble of tough zombie infantry surrounding you.
The one weird thing with DEATH SNAKE is that it is not magical. I highly, highly doubt that it would have been broken or OP in any way had it been magical baseline rather than needing to cast Spellpiercer, but alas PP doing what PP does. Apparently magically reanimated Tazelwyrms are a mundane occurrence in the IK.

Aside from her personal damage output, granting Blessed every round to her army is a good effective damage buff against the right opponent, and there's also the Dark Shroud factor on her feat which is nice.

Survivability

Despite lacking any form of anti-shooting tech, she herself is quite survivable thanks to Spiny Growth and her two defensive buffs. With Escort and a Snapper nearby, she will usually be sitting at 14/20 which is tanky as hell for a warlock (Xerxis2, as a comparison, is 15/21 vs ranged attacks with Krea animus) . If you choose to go with Grave Wind on her, you can be 16/18 instead. On top of that, she has 7 fury and will usually be camping 1-2, not to mention being pretty far back thanks to the big control area and no real incentive to get into the fight early/mid game.

Overall, not quite Rask-level of resilient, but comparable to Barnabas/Maelok.

Utility

 Despite being no slouch in melee vs the right target and being pretty tanky, her strengths definitely lie in the spell casting department and solving problems for the Gatormans. Given that she has no special abilities to speak of, all this goodness comes from her spells and feat.

She excels at 'leveling the playing field' in more ways than one:

•  Spellpiercer is a unique spell which grants Blessed and Magical Weapons to all your dudes on all their attacks for a round. This negates enemy buff spells, which helps deal with stat skews in terms of DEF and ARM. In terms of DEF, this means Gatormans with re-rolls should be able to semi-reliably hit any unit in the game (ie. Iron Flesh Kayazy), and in terms of ARM means that even heavies stay within killable range for a few charging Gatormans and/or a heavy (especially if you throw in the Dark Shroud debuff from her feat). It's about as good as upkeep removal, since it is very resource and space efficient, but won't remove enemy upkeeps on your guys.
  Secondly, Spellpiercer also gives all your stuff Magical Weapons, which means Blood Witches, Blackbanes, Wraith Engines, Pistol Wraiths, Void Spirits and all those other ectoplasmic parasites can die in a fire. A glorious magical fire of cold steel.
• Ghost Walk allows you to walk through any piece of terrain if needed, on top of being immune to free strikes. Now I know what a Bane Knight feels like. Feels good, man.
  Ignoring terrain is always sweet, especially walking through buildings and such, or giving effective pathfinder to a heavy. It also allows you get pathfinder while still praying for rerolls or Dirge of Mists. I also had a wonderful experience where I realized Ghost Walk entirely bypasses pBaldur's feat. It tasted like Cryx - thick, meaty, succulent carcinogenic deliciousness... I guess exactly what a KFC Double-Down "burger" tastes like.
  Being immune to free strikes in Gators is probably not as big a deal as it is in Cryx, because of the medium bases and the immense tankability meaning that if you're in combat you're likely there until something dies, but in terms of assassination potential, being able to walk a couple of Gators or a Wrastler out of combat with a heavy or weapon masters to kill a caster is pretty sweet.

She has a denial effect attached to her token magic nuke:

• Deadweight is also a pretty cool undispellable denial effect, allowing you to hamper big scary targets like casters, heavies and Gargossals for a round.
  You will rarely be casting it because she prefers to stay back safely, but it is a great late-game spell since it can shut down that one serious remaining threat on the table when she starts to move up, if it comes to that. The RNG 8 is a bit of a downer, but if you manage to pull it off, you are probably quite safe next turn.
  Plus, it's her only magical attack. POW 12 magic missile on a FURY 7 caster ain't terrible, right?

And finally she can tank up  and deliver our heavies with her two upkeeps:

• Escort is competing with Rift to be PP's favourite MkII spell, with every second new caster having it on their spell card. The effect on this one is two-fold:
  First, it makes your beasts faster. +2" faster to be precise, which is pretty damn good. That's almost like a Boundless Charge. Wrastlers walking 7" and throwing/deathrolling and Spitters threatening 18" is also pretty sweet. Unfortunately it doesn't affect Snapjaw since it is battlegroup only, but you probably want Snapjaw with your other list anyway :)
  Secondly, it gives Jaga-Jaga +2ARM if a beast is within 3" of her. When you have Bull Snappers in your list, this is really easy to do. It also makes her effectively +4ARM with Spiny Growth, which is pretty monstrous. Throw in some concealment and you've got a 16/20 caster with transfers.
• Grave Wind is (at the time of writing) Jaga Jaga's second unique spell. It is a single-target buff that gives +2 DEF and Poltergeist (if a model misses you with any attack, you may push it d3" directly away). This is a really good defensive buff, because it can mess with your opponent's plans pretty bad at little cost to you. Even with our low defensive stats, here is what you can do with the spell:
  - 14/21 Wrastlers with Spiny Growth. That's a 7+ to hit for even a Bronzeback Titan or Warpwolf Stalker, and if he fluffs a single attack roll, he could just get pushed out of melee range and do nothing the rest of the turn. It effectively forces a boost, which effectively boosts survivability more than 'just' +2 DEF.
  - DEF 16 Totem Hunter... who is also super mobile and can do some serious hurt with the Prey bonus and Dark Shroud.
  - DEF 16/18 Spiny Growth Jaga, and with those transfers you're going to need a lot of attacks to hit. Would be a shame if you missed an attack and got pushed just out of melee range of that Fury 7 warlock with the Poison Reach weapon, wouldn't it?
  - DEF 15 Dirged Gatorman. Have a single Gator holding a crucial spot on the table? Why not buff him up some? 15/20 Spiny Growthed Gators are no joke. It's no Iron Flesh but it's still pretty sweet.
  
  At worst, this spell will often force your opponent to use his upkeep removal there rather than on Escort.

Finally, her feat: Legion of DEATH! (emphasis on DEATH!)

This is a great matchup fixer vs Cryx and other hard-hitting infantry swarms, thanks primarily to its jamming potential. The dream would be to get the alpha-strike with your Gators on their front line while the feat is up, jam their second line with the feated models so they either do nothing useful or die to free strikes, kill a heavy with your heavy thanks to the Dark Shroud debuff, and then clean up the rest next turn.

Pros:

• It has a freaking sweet name (comparable to the greatest spell name in Warmahordes ever, Glory of Everblight)
• It counters infantry swarms pretty hard, especially melee infantry swarms.
• It brings a very valuable ARM debuff to Gatormans. It is a janky way to get it, but free ARM debuffs are like gift horses.
• It RFPs when all is said and done. This is great 98% of the time for you, and sometime very bad for your opponent.
• The feated models keep all their abilities. This means the Blood Hag and Gallows Groves maintain their Entropic Aura (jankiest way to get anti-Tough in faction), Mage Hunter Assassins keep Weapon Master, Decapitation and Arcane Assassin on their 1/2" free strikes, Jannisa keeps Force Lock and Tough, and all those Doom Reavers keep Abomination and Reach. So many opportunities to douche people.

Cons:

• It is pretty match-up dependent, much like Calaban's feat (2) but quite unlike Rask's (alpha strike is always good), Maelok's (incorporeal and extra ARM is always good) or Barnabas' (except when you have mass anti-KD auras). The closest comparison would be Hexeris1's feat, except more emphasis on denial and board control and less on just killing stuff.
  Naturally, if you come up against some Godzilla beasts list or whatever list with next to no infantry, your feat does nothing. Yay.
• It is janky. This is because mind control effects in Warmahordes are janky at their core - there are a ton of effects that get weird when the model's controller switches around, interactions get confusing, and also people don't usually like it if you touch their models because of the emotional investment they have in them (as a cold-hearted beast, I don't mind so much if you squeeze my lizard).
• It only RFPs if the feated model is not killed (again) after becoming a zombie. This means notorious RFP haters eLich, eMorvahna or Goreshade2 will just focus their turn on killing all your zombies, which I guess isn't a bad thing for you either... just not the best. Against these casters however, you might just want to move your zombies as far away from them as you can to get as many RFPs as possible.

In summary, the feat has tons of potential and can win you a game (on scenario) almost by itself. However against most capable opponents who know how to stagger unit formation, position well and know to drop more balanced lists against her, you will probably get average disruptive effect out of it, make life a little difficult for your opponent and probably have less overall impact that Maelok's feat. If it granted guaranteed RFP I think it would be quite a bit more generally effective without necessarily being more powerful.

She stands a full head taller than Barnabas.

Playstyle + Tactica

List Composition

Posse. Lots of them, likely three full units but at least two. This is because the matchups in which you ideally drop Jaga Jaga will be infantry heavy, not too many guns, and low to mid ARM, and you will drop Rask against everything else (or Maelok/Barnabas). And as we know, Posse are freaking amazing in those conditions.
 
For warbeasts, Spitters are really good, as they benefit largely from Escort, and also Dark Shroud - even if you're shooting into combat, a boosted POW 16 deals some sweet damage. As always, they suck badly in melee but the gun pulls its weight in helping those 15 Gatormans do what they do.

Wrastlers are neat as well, also as a target for Grave Wind. They also remain our heaviest hitter, and with Dark Shroud and favourable melee attack rolls should be able to reliably kill any other heavy short of an Imperatus or Tiberion. Thankfully in the matchups in which you drop Jaga-Jaga, those things will not be as common (the worst is likely to be something ARM 19/20 like Ghetorix or a Deathjack). I find being able to walk 7" with Escort is also a sweet spot for the Wrastler to maximize his damage / power attack potential. Since her assassination potential is pretty crap, scenario/attrition play is the name of the game and power attacks help out here immensely.

Swamp Horrors bring some natural shooting protection and are pretty decent against infantry-heavy matchups when given a speed buff. Generally solid, but otherwise probably has the least synergy with Jaga-Jaga compared to our other casters.

Bull Snappers are a must, if only to just give you access to Spiny Growth. They are also pretty good at triggering the +2 ARM of Escort since they usually hang around your caster anyway. DEF14/ARM20 caster is pretty good. Also DEF14/ARM21 Wrastlers.
Also with Escort they will passively charge 13" for free against living warrior models. To put that in perspective, that is almost Jaga-Jaga's control area. The Snapper can just hang out near Jaga-Jaga, drinking tea and talking golf and giving her +2/4 ARM, and then spot out some annoying OP 2pt solo miles out and torpedo sink it.

In terms of solos, you are more or less in the same boat as with other casters. Witch Doctors are very useful against Cryx specifically and with multiple Posse in general, Croak and Totem Hunters are good at clearing lanes and countercharging, Pendrake helps against Hordes and to KD heavies, etc. etc.
The one point of difference in choosing solos is that Grave Wind is a pretty useful on a higher DEF solo like Pendrake or the Totem Hunter. Pendrake can jam beasts like a boss at DEF 20 + pushback, and a DEF 16 Totem Hunter with reach can do a good job tying up flanking infantry.

In terms of battle engines, the Sacral Vault is probably an ok choice. And by ok, I mean really good.

Playstyle

In terms of playstyle, I would describe it as "Fundamentally Gatorman".

• Barnabas would be "Denial Gatormans" between his survivability, board control and attrition. 
• Rask would be "Assault Gatormans" with his highly aggressive, alpha striking assault style. 
• Maelok would be "Gator Harder" with his recursive tanky undead Posse spam. 
• Calaban would be "Cocoa Butter Gatormans", "Gator-Aid" or whatever sounds cute.

Jaga herself likes to play like most Warmachine power casters - find some terrain and spend the whole game near it while casting your one OP spell, throwing out a few buffs where needed and upkeeping things. If things get a little uncomfortable, she can deal a good amount of damage against living targets thanks to DEATH SNAKE and Deadweight for some protection.
She doesn't so much do anything as just allow you to do what you want to do normally with Gatormans, which is grind and trade effectively.

Strengths:

• Ghost Walk - granting immunity to free strikes is a very potent mid to late game ability for Gatormans. After engagement and having killed most of your preferred targets, this allows you to ungrind a little and prioritize more important targets. It's not as good as Maelok's feat, but it's a decent part of it, every turn you need it.
• Spellpiercer - this is basically Jaga-Jaga in a nutshell. She hard counters incorporeal spam, and shuts down defensive buffs to reinstate Gatormanic physical superiority over the other inferior humanoid races, leaving the Gatormans to manfight everyone on equal grounds, where Gatormans usually win because they are OP (except in the fluff, where an entire Posse has trouble killing a sissy like Rutger Shaw).
• Fast(er) beasts - Barnabas can also do this via Warpath, but Warpath is nowhere as consistent or effective a speed buff as a straight-up 2" extra movement all the time. 
• Solutions for most situations - like Calaban, Jaga-Jaga is solutions-oriented rather than problem-oriented. Unlike Calaban, she does it effectively. As a result of this, she has very few straight-up bad matchups.

Weaknesses:

• No anti-shooting tech - this is what personally bugs me the most about her. Even Calaban has Occultation! Maelok also lacks hard anti-shooting, but at least Maelok can Revive Gators to make up for some of the lost attrition, as well as buff Posse armor on the advance. Jaga-Jaga does nothing at all in the anti-shooting department, which is my favourite aspect of Gatormans.
• Low(er) attrition/grind potential - ok, I will grant that the feat in the right context can provide a sizable attrition swing by forcing your opponent to kill all the stuff you just killed and achieve nothing special for a turn. It is probably comparable to Rask's level of attrition between being functionally immune to non-Butcher3 assassinations, his feat and spamming Inhospitable Ground.
  But it's really hard to compete with Maelok's Feat+Revive+Death Pact and Barnabas' Iron Flesh+Feat+Terrain Creation on the attrition side of things when you're running lots of Posse. And since Rask is your first list, you will likely want the grindier second list.
• Matchup dependant feat - this is one of those feats that either does nothing, or almost wins you the game by itself. The difference is something like 25% playskill/ 75% opponent's list, which makes her feat quite matchup dependent. At least it's a matchup Gatormans have had some trouble with in the past.
• Feat administration time - Legion of Death becomes an increasingly bigger logistical nightmare the more effective it is. If you manage to take out 20 Banes with the feat, that's effectively adding in 20 solo activations (movement + attack) to your turn, plus having to put tokens on everything to remember what is feated and what isn't, plus making all those free strikes (enough that the clock will probably get flipped to you on each one) and remembering those models' specific rules..... In timed turns, it's probably even more time intensive than Butcher2's feat. In Deathclock, it'll be rough enough that you need to have LOTS of practice with the list against a wide range of opponents before doing it in a tournament.
• No "surprise!" assassination factor - other than arguably Ghost Walk and the feat turn, most of what she does is predictable, which makes assassination much harder to achieve against a wary opponent. Rask can stack threat buffs on different beasts and turn anything in his list into a killing machine, Barnabas has Warpath and pop'n'drop, and Maelok is the sneakiest of all with Revive and feat shenanigans. Basically, Jaga-Jaga is a static caster, which isn't bad in itself and works well with Fury 7, but is a lot less excitingly explosive than her counterparts.

Conclusion - Calaban 2.0

Jaga-Jaga is a well designed caster that provides Gatormans with answers to one of their harder counters, and is a welcome addition to the faction.
She is optimally designed to deal with melee infantry spam, incorporeal models and moderate levels of ARM. In other words, Cryx. But her toolbox allows her to do well against everything that isn't naturally ARM heavy (ie. lists with lots of heavies and/or heavy infantry) or features a lot of high POW shooting - coincidentally, this is where Rask excels, so she theoretically pairs really well with him.

While she contests Maelok or Barnabas for that second/third list spot, she lacks the grind and assassination potential of the former and the control and defensive aspects of the latter, but still manages to hold her own thanks to an excellent spell list and matchup-fixing feat. Spellpiercer is basically a great summary of why you take her - denial of any enemy advantage allowing Gatormans to more or less beat everything in an even fight.

Is she "better" than Barnabas or Maelok? Maybe. Time will tell. My experience with her has shown that she is at least as good. She provides a more passive, solution-oriented toolbox playstyle as opposed to the aggressive, involved and problem-causing playstyle of the 3 other primary Gatorman casters. In that sense, I see her as similar to Calaban but playing her doesn't make me want to repeatedly insert metal blades into my thighs, so in my book that is a definite improvement.

I think in my lists she probably does not overtake Maelok/Barnabas for my second list, primarily because the Sacral Vault helps with mass single wound infantry.

Fun Factor:
[Figurative Opioid]------------X--------------------------------[Malaria]---[Calaban]




(1) What a name for a weapon... DEATH SNAKE. I like to pretend that she just has a huge machete and calls it Death Snake because that's a bad ass name for a knife. At worst, it is definitely the name of the snake - Death Snake, the dead reanimated non-magical snake.
(2) Even comparing Jaga's feat to Calaban's feat makes me feel dirty. I hate him so much.

Jaga Jaga + Exigence info

Yay, a thing. Or two things.

Jaga-Jaga has risen to prominence as a high priestess of the Blindwater Congregation. In her talons writhe the spirits of death drawn from the swamps, each eager to comply with her designs. She is an enigmatic creature, whispering into the darkness to converse with ravening things of shadow. Around her the unseen spirits bubble close to the surface, drawn to her as leeches are drawn to disturbances in the water.

So the model looks pretty nice. They've tried to accentuated the femininity of the model by totally covering the space where her mammaries would be (if she were a mammal) and generally made her more slender and less bulky than her male counterparts.

As for rules, we get basically nothing. As far as I can tell, the blurb text may as well be describing the latest cheesy black metal album from Dimmu Borgir, Cryptic Doormat Extinguish. Let's hope she doesn't suck.

UPDATE: TO RELEASE IN OCTOBER 2014.  Woot.


Then there is the blurb for Exigence:

HORDES: Exigence brings you the next thrilling chapter of the HORDES saga. Hold nothing back in your fight for survival with:
•  New warlocks, including new epic versions.
•  Three new character lesser warlocks who bring even more furious support to your army.
•  New units and solos to expand HORDES armies with new strategic possibilities.
•  New narrative fiction picking up directly after the harrowing events of HORDES: Gargantuans.
•  A painting and modeling guide to help you prepare your forces for battle.
•  Theme Force lists for each new warcaster, which allow you to create armies based on specialized forces found in the HORDES world.

There's some fluff stuff beforehand, but I will safely assume that not much happens, nobody anyone cares about dies, nobody feels strongly about things, and the realm is safe for another year.

What is really interesting with the blurb is that it does not mention ANY new beasts. If the "real" factions hadn't received 1-2 new beasts each already, I would probably break out in hysterical laughter as Pigs get screwed again. At this point, I can only hope.

However, you do get a Theme Force list for each new warcaster. I don't expect any new warcasters in a Hordes book, so I will say no new Theme forces. GG PP.

Ides of March 2014 - How 42pt makes life difficult

I have a relatively huge 42pt tournament coming up in a couple of weeks. I say relatively huge because this is probably the biggest Warmachine tournament in the NZ calendar, and it happens to be local. Yay!

This tournament is run by Soulless Dave, who enjoys the following things:

1 - Running sweet tournaments, which he can't play in otherwise he'd probably win those too.
2 - Giving me beer mugs.
3 - Shamelessly relishing how OP Cryx is.

Quite the gentleman.

Anyway, I have been told that Gator list building is faceroll and requires no decision making at all, and that playing Gators for so long has erased my ability to write "good" or "sound" lists for other factions. In light of these comments, I thought I would write a post about my list writing process for this 42pt nightmare.

First, I must admit that writing lists are the part of the hobby/game I enjoy the least. This could do with the fact that Gators have way less options than everyone else, or it could be related to how writing lists for my previous factions (Khador, PoM, Skorne) used to remind me that I would have a much better chance of winning games if I just bought X unit or Y solo for this specific list, or it could be related to how I would rather the game be as well balanced as people claim and lists had very little impact on the outcome of a game rather than a sizable one. But then I accept that a lot of people really enjoy the meta-game, and I too see the appeal in it, I just don't really experience the enjoyment of it too often.

Secondly, 42pts is a kick in the nuts, especially when you play Minions. Unlike most of the fleshed out big boy factions, it is very, very difficult to build 2 lists that answer enough matchups sufficiently. 3 lists might be alright, but two is very tight. In Minions, this is primarily a result of our casters being so dominant and being the primary "solutions" to problems we face. Factions like Legion, PoM or Cryx don't really have trouble making 2 lists that can more or less deal with more or less everything, simply through having a wide range of beasts, units, support and niche-filling mercs. That's not a luxury Minions have.
The higher the points, the more balanced the game is. That's been my experience in the past year anyway. I really think the meta would benefit on the whole from a push up to 60/65 pts, but that's another post altogether.

The Proto-Lists

These are the lists I started with, and I would have to choose 2 of these:

List 1: Rask

Spitter 

Snapper

5 Gatormans
5 Gatormans  
5 Gatormans
Min. Trogs
Gobbers  

4pts for "support"

3 Posse version. I take a Spitter in this list because the entirety of the damage potential of the list comes from cycling Fury on Gatormans and shooting off defensive upkeeps. High skill plays right there, woo! Anyway, having a Spitter is nice to clear jams and soften up targets at range. I guess he can also do stuff in melee with Paralysis and Fury and Boundless Charge and all that. Maybe.

The min. Trog unit and Gobbers more or less make Rask invincible, which either will result in my opponent wasting attacks on Rask, or ignoring Rask and his fish friends entirely so they are free to wreck havoc as they please. Either way, points usually well spent.

So the two questions with this list are '2 Posse, or 3 Posse?' and 'What to do with those 4pts?'

List 2: Barnabas

Wraster 

Spitter
Snapper

5 Gatormans
5 Gatormans  
5 Gatormans

Feralgeist

I would really, really like to throw in some solos like Croak Hunters, a Thrullg or Totem Hunter in there to give the list some flexibility, but 42pts! I think the beast composition is pretty fixed - without any Croaks, you really need a Spitter for some ranged presence, and Bull Snappers are too good to pass up between their sweet man-eating abilities and Spiny Growth on Barnabas.

The Wrastler could be changed for a Horror, however. More on that later.

List 3: Maelok

Bull Snapper
Bull Snapper
5 Gatormans
5 Gatormans  
5 Gatormans

Witch Doctor

Witch Doctor
 +9pts

Max Posse, the two Croctors I own, and 2 Bull Snappers to use up those beast points. This is pretty much the Maelok list I used at Battlecry this month (minus Pendrake), and does what you want Maelok lists to do - get a big unpredictable feat turn, then tank up and grind your way to victory.

The only real question is what to do about those last 9pts?

THEORYMACHINE TIME!

Some things are a given:

1. I have to play Rask to break ARM, and doubly so post-Colossals. Also he's like one of the best warlocks in the entire game, so there's that going for him too.
2. I have to bring at least 2 units of Gatormans per list, because 2 Posse is better than every other alternative in almost every situation. 3 Posse, in my opinion, is not a certainty however. 
3. The tournament is mid-March and has a fully-painted requirement, so I am unlikely to have Shamblers ready by then.

Because the field is so big, every faction is likely to be represented in some capacity. Except Pigs, since the only guy I know who plays Pigs told me he'd be playing Gators because his Gators are fully-painted (but really, he's just sick of Pigs).

Factions I don't really have to worry about in general:

• Skorne - any Rask list does great to decent here. There are of course builds that will hurt like Xerxis Cetrati brick or Zaal attrition, but in general it is not something I can really list tech against heavily.
• Retribution - Similar to Skorne. I think Rahn and eVyros Griffon spam can be a real worry, but not something I really have to tech for. As long as it's Rask, and perhaps Barnabas, we're alright. Gators shred infantry, and Fury kills heavies.
• Protectorate - similar to Skorne but more annoying. The Errant/Piper/Book combo is also cryx-level, jigglypuff-in-a-vaccuum-cleaner type of retarded, but since I have no anti-tough, I cannot do a single thing about it or the Gorman hiding behind them chaining Black Oils onto my stuff. They also usually have lots of magic weapons to skrew Maelok's feat.
• Circle - Most Circle stuff is squishy and dies to Gators. Gator casters are also real tough to assassinate so they lose that gameplan.
• Legion - a fair matchup for Gatormans, so it mostly comes down to how I play. Usually Legion has trouble dealing with so much ARM and anti-shooting. Note the comment on Vayl below however.
• Cygnar - Cygnar does Cygnar things. I have pretty good anti-shooting tech (which Siege ignores), but otherwise there's not much to specifically worry about. Rask is pretty good most of the time here.
• Trolls - For the most part, Trolls are like Gators except with crappier troops but way better lists, if you catch my drift. They can bring some problematic lists like Runes of War and eDoomshaper heavy spam. But I think it more or less comes down to two things: good play, and the troll player rolling 5s when he needs them.
• Mercs - Infantry dies, bad jacks are bad. The Merc Colossal skew can be a problem though, but overall the faction isn't really problematic.

Factions I have to worry about in general:

• Cryx - my arch nemesis. Infantry that destroys mine for half the cost + all undead and all that. Stupid. Does it with pretty much any caster.
• Khador - these guys are tough in a multi-list environment because they will always hit really hard in any list, but the possibility of IF Kayazy is quite a list-chicken problem for Gators (to Barnabas or not?). I don't think I have problems with specific casters as much as their general options and the many, many mercs they are sure to bring. It's like Cygnar, except it actually hurts.

Casters/builds I have to worry about specifically:

• eMorvahna - Maelok does so much better than Barnabas here on account of his feat and assassination potential. Barnabas does ok, but he does better than Maelok vs most other Circle stuff.
• Harbinger - Awe is public enemy number 1. MAT 5 is terrible. Of course I can make the Gators undead, but then I have to use 3pts down on a Croctor or two in the Rask list, and at 42pts that's a big support investment for only one caster. The alternative is to drop Maelok and hope like hell the second list isn't some jack spam list (which is a tall order).
  The feat is nasty as well but usually I can get in the zone after that and stay there till the end. She also brings the Errant tarpit up to mega-powered Ben Stiller fully retarded.
• Vayl - Incite, her feat, Dark Sentinel and Rampager can be really problematic for my lists. She is also a pretty popular caster around here. I do not like her, Sam I am. And there's not too much I can do about it. Barnabas is probably the best bet due to Pits + Iron Flesh + feat.
• Terminus - if I don't have a Thrullg, I probably lose. Sweet. People like Terminus as well so he's very likely to be pretty well represented in the field. Because hard skewing is fun for everyone.... said the guy playing 3 Posses.
• Bart/Galleon - this is a tough cookie. Theoretically, if I can shoot off Spiny Growth and cycle Fury, I can probably 1-round the Galleon. However every single other thing in the Galleon list is made to stop that happening and I get grinded out as Galleon gets repaired up every turn. So I probably drop Maelok or Barnabas, ignore Galleon and go for everything else, and hope it's a 2 zone scenario?
  I guess Rhulic casters with the Pooper Scooper also fits in here, but again, there is a near total lack of quality experience against quality lists on my part.
• Haley/Denny/hard control casters - The great thing about this is I can worry all I want, but can't really do jack about it. So I suck it up, hope the feat turn goes ok for my opponent while he timewalks over my play time, and we move on if I have anything left.

Decision 1 – Barnabas or Maelok?

The Barnabas list is a pretty good all around list. It does "ok vs Cryx" due to many Posse, his feat + Spitter. It does pretty well against Circle and Legion, even without Pendrake. I am also quite a bit better at playing him than I am at playing Maelok, which counts for something.

Maelok is much better vs Cryx, ok vs Circle (great against eMorvahna), ok vs Legion (mostly because I am not so good at playing him) and also has some game vs jammy infantry Zaal Skorne and most Trolls (even with the anti-incorp aura - if the Troll player is using it, then he's not using +1 STR and you live longer to grind).

Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Both feel a little gimped by 42pts rather than 50pts, Barnabas probably a little less. There is no real alternative (Calaban is a bad dream and Pigs are Pigs) outside these two for a second list. So I guess it just comes down to how I feel on decision day.

Decision 2 – Rask with 2 Posse, or 3 Posse?

The 2 Posse alternative involves dropping one Posse for WE+ Snapjaw (since he is probably the best combat heavy we have and does bad ass things with ALL THE BUFFS), and the Spitter for a Swamp Horror, since the Horror brings Elasticity for the two big Crocs and does some really good damage with Rask.

For the way I play, 3 Posse is better against Trolls while 2 Posse is better vs PoM and Skorne. This is from 50pt experience, where I will usually have Horror+Wrastler+Snapjaw in the Rask list and can blow stuff up with only a tiny charge lane by spreading the triple-heavy threat and then stacking buffs on the chosen heavy when the opportunity presents itself.

However at 42pts, you have a bit more space on the table and the 3 Posse skew can be really problematic for your opponent (a.k.a. skewy as balls). On the flipside, taking 3 Posse is also a hell of a lot less interesting for me tactically since it basically removes Boundless Charge from Rask's spell list and power attacks from mine. I do love me some power attacks... damn you Colossals. Damn your stupidity.

Thus it comes down to what I can expect to play against, and whether I will hate myself for only taking 2 Posse when I get dropped against Trolls 3 rounds in a row.

For Barnabas and Maelok, I play 3 full Posses by default. If Gator beasts hit harder/more accurately than a full unit of Gators, this probably wouldn't be the case, since both can do pretty good things for Gator beasts - not as much as Rask of course, but a lot nevertheless. But as things stand, I have found that playing three Posse with these two is much preferable to taking two (I played two Posse with them for almost a year before getting a third).

Decision 3 – Rask solos

In any case, I have 4pts left over in the Rask list (5pts if you discount the Gobbers). These are going to be used for solos.... a sort of "support" allocation, one might say.

I've given myself 3 options here:

1. Two Croak Hunters - these guys are mediocre as hell, but when they are one of your only ranged attacks, you learn to value their input. They can hold zones about as well as the other two options, they can unblock Gators, they are two independent activations and are really sweet at countercharging.
2. Totem Hunter + Feralgeist - the Totem Hunter is a lot like a Croak Hunter on steroids but without a gun. His stats and mobility are almost better than a Croak in every way, but he relies entirely on proccing Sprint to unblock Gators. This has led to bad things in my life. But he can also sometimes break games open if used patiently, and does work at all stages of the game. Finally, he is also a character so putting him in this list means he isn't in my other lists, and I do love him vs Circle to snipe out Shifting Stones.
   Feralgeists are 1pt zone holders/contesters 99% of the time, and sometimes take over beasts to annoy people (primarily me).
3. Croctor + Feralgeist - This would almost be purely for the Harbinger matchup alone, because the stuff I drop Rask against doesn't usually care about Undead and Tough on Gators is mostly a non-issue.

 

Decision 4 - Barnabas asks "Wrastler or Horror"?

Another tricky question revolving entirely around one beast selection:

• On one side, the Wrastler is SPD 5, reasonably tanky (especially with Spiny Growth), and is P+S 17. He can do respectable, although not great damage. He also keeps the 'Rise Missile' threat alive, which is the one thing people seem to know about Gators. Being able to independently knock heavy targets down following a charge is also pretty neat. His weaknesses are lack of reach and an extra point cost relative to the Horror.
• On the other, the Swamp Horror has really good protection vs shooting, can do work against infantry, has built-in reach, can give reach to other things (mainly Barnabas or some random Gatorman), benefits a LOT from Warpath since it is slow, and also costs 1 less point than a Wrastler, allowing me to level the Feralgeist up to a Croak Hunter for that extra ranged attack. Its weaknesses are being squishy as balls in melee, and being 1 less POW and 2 less STR than a Wrastler.

Decision 5 - Maelok's last 9 pts.

Unfortunately Posse are (only) FA:3 in Blindwater. Sad face. That means I have to take other things.

• WE + Snapjaw - Usually in a Maelok list, you want to have Wrong Eye around to put up another 2 Spiny Growths a turn. And you also get a sweet heavy to go with it. However, at 42pts, that's not really a luxury we have. But you still get a pretty good heavy and solo with solid animi.
• Support solo staff: TH + Thrullg + Pendrake + Feralgeist - This gives a little more flexibility to the list. Thrullgs are good against Cryx, the Totem Hunter can also be super scary with incorporeal charges followed by a Sprint away and 15 Gators in your grill, Pendrake makes Gators much better vs beasts (so they can Dirge or Pathfinder on the charge if needed), and the Feralgeist gives you specific zone control potential. But, you don't have a heavy hitter outside Malediction (which you really don't want to be using as a core ARM crack strategy).

So there you have it - how faceroll easy it is to chose Gator lists, why I don't have to worry about list chicken because all my lists are the same and why I am so bad at making lists for other factions.

What did lists did I go for in the end? Stay tuned for exciting revelations in March (after lists have been submitted to TO)!!

Battlecry 2014 - 35 pts + Moar Cryx hate

aka. How to Write Stupid Lists at 35pts

Step 1 - Choose casters

I went with Rask and Maelok. Calaban can only "really" be played with his tier (note that unlike Runes of War, this does not make him really baller, just makes him less bad) and the tier is not great at 35pts. He himself is not really that sweet at 35pts, or ever.

Rask is good because he does Rask things. Combine this with 35pt foolishness and you have a pretty strong skew. I usually play Barnabas as my second list and wanted a change, therefore going for Maelok (the only other alternative).

Step 2 - Choose to skew or not skew.

I decided to skew one, and then skew both:

Rask
Snapper
Snapper
3x Gatorman Posse
Min Troggs

Feralgeist
Croak

This list is pretty stupid. I called it "GOING FULL RETARD", which it was. 3 Posse at 35pts is the kind of skew that makes games uninteresting, but hey, why not do it if they're not going to fix it. 
If you ask me, I think we should move to 60 or 65 pts as the new tournament standard as it'd make factions like Cryx, Circle and Legion a little weaker, Trolls a little stronger, and everyone else more or less the same. And include 15 pt Specialists on top of that. Boom.

The Maelok list was the same as the Rask one, except switching Feralgeist and Trogs for 2 Witch Doctors, and the Croak for Pendrake. Pendrake did nothing good in any game - he is the king of the sideboard.

 

Behold, this zoological majesty!

A very short summary of my games

1- Luke H w/ eDoomshaper, Mountain King, Earthborn, Krielstone and Scouts. 
Incursion.

His second list was eGrim with 2 shooty heavies and the Krielstones UA. Despite this (the Incorporeal destroying Stone UA), I had a nagging feeling I should have picked Maelok, but I pushed this out of my head and picked Rask. This was a bad choice as eDoomshaper's feat is "+3 SPD, full stop, bitches!", not "+3 SPD if charging or slamming" as I had first thought, meaning his entire pathfinder list responds to my feat by jamming me with tramples and killing my stuff.
As expected, Luke's response to me popping Rask's feat was jamming me with everything in his list, including the Scouts to block charges to the MK. I wasn't able to get enough damage on the King because of some fortunate tough rolls on his part (ie. 4 in a row on the same damn Scout), so he healed to full and kept swinging.
Luckily Rask is basically immune to assassination with Trogs around, so I ran him over to the right flag over 2 turns, where the Croak Hunter had been parked since turn 2 and won on 5 CPs. A stolen game I should have lost on account of getting outplayed and outlisted, but managed to take advantage of his skew list's small footprint.


2. -  Paul H w/ Hexeris2, Bronzeback, Gladiator, Krea, Nihilators, Incindiarii, Nihilators, Paingivers. Process of Elimination

I was forced to pop my feat turn 1 as I had ambushed my Bog Trogs and only had Rask on 2 transfers - had I not used it, Hexeris would likely have spelled me to death using his feat. This was a planning mistake on my part as it otherwise only blocked 2-3 Nihilator charges from happening (which likely would have been stopped by Inhospitable Ground alone). So, I more or less played without a feat.
Otherwise it was mostly a matter of charging Furied Gatormen into things and trying to keep Rask alive with Admonition and transfers alone, which worked pretty well. I ended up assassinating Hexeris in the end after he decided to YOLO charge some Gators, then got hit by 2 Furied Gators (from different units), a charging Croak and died to a Bog Trog hook in the back.

Rask is pretty good against Skorne.

3. - Dave S w/Skarre1, 30 McThralls (that's 15 pts, btw), 10 Bloodwitches with UA, 2 Necrosurgeons, 2 Helldivers, Min Blackbanes. Destruction.

Dave said he took this list just to play against me. Thanks Dave. You are too kind. His list writing took my 35pt motto "GOING FULL RETARD" to heart, and managed to out-retard my list - proving that only Cryx is capable of giving 110% retardation by simply Cryxing harder.

Basically the game was a huge grind where I popped my feat on my second turn and killed like 22 guys but none of the Necrosurgeons, then he popped his feat and got boosted-to-hit POW 20s everything (cause Cryx). In the end I mistakenly assumed Skarre was SPD 6, when she is in fact SPD 7, so she just walked over to Maelok and easily killed him with her 11 focus (all in the name of balance). Thus began my downfall.

I think overall we both played quite well with some minor mistakes here and there to even things out. The only huge mistake in the game by far, on both our parts, was when I cast a boosted Venom at a Necrosurgeon hiding behind a wall, and Dave called Sac Pawn to a Stitch Thrall. We got into a short debate regarding Sac Pawning sprays and agreed that you could, when in fact we should have been focusing on the fact that Venom is a spell, not a ranged attack! If that Necrosurgeon had died (very good chance - need 7s on 3 dice + Corrosion), the game would have played out very differently I think, with that flank collapsing much faster and Maelok being entirely unthreatened and able to pull back and stay much safer while simultaneously pushing me forward in attrition. Basically a massive boost for me. Alas, you live, you learn, you continue to hate Cryx.

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MINI RANT OF THE WEEK:
Skarre1 and McThralls are straight up OP, and where probably designed in the midst of a really dark LSD trip, overflowing with hatred of the world. Here is how you fix them:
Skarre - Remove Ritual Sacrifice entirely. Dark Guidance is not a choice when you have 10+ focus at next to zero cost (like losing one of your 45 small-based models matters), and non-choices are the antithesis of games design and competitive play. And who the hell thought it was a good idea to make it a d6 roll? Going from 1 more focus to 100% more focus seems legit, right?
I'd say make her focus 7 to compensate but her feat is also simply stupid (it is literally pStryker's feat + a 100% denial of eStryker's feat - all for 5 life points) so I wouldn't want more stuff affected by it, but it's probably the simplest way to do it. That or +1 ARM.
McThralls - MAT 4 -or- no combo strike. You shouldn't be able to hit an average heavy on expected dice if you cost 0.5 points and hit at P+S 15 completely independent of buffs/debuffs (of which there are PLENTY in Cryx). HALF. A. POINT.

Easy. Too bad it's not going to happen since PP are scared shitless of balancing anything post-release :) 

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4. - Nikola w/Vayl1, Typhon, Seraph, Scythean, Raek, Shredder, Shepard, 2 Deathstalkers. Some scenario (Incoming?)

Nikola played actually really well and I played really bad. Like, really really bad. I think Rask was a way better matchup here, but I dropped Maelok again for practice since I realized that the prize pool didn't include mugs, and mugs are the only thing I care about in NZ tournaments (I have 4).
Basically I ran stuff up way too far, Typhon and Scythean one-shot like 9 Gators under Incite, then I tried to assassinate Vayl with feat + Revive BS, got cock-blocked by Dark Sentinel and forgot to move my unit leader so the Revived guys couldn't even make attacks. What a muppet. Got steamrolled and outplayed and basically put up the worst match one can imagine. Much like the last time we played. I am guessing his total nice guy approach disarms my asshole WAAC ethos, making me play like a complete ballsack.

Usually I consider myself 50/50 against Legion and it is one of my fairer matchups, but this time I really wasn't in the right mindset. I need to practice more with Maelok, as I play him far too aggressively, which gets him killed. He's tough but he's not Barnabas sitting in Swamp Pit with transfers and Spiny Growth tough.

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Dave came 1st, Paul placed 2nd and Nikola placed 3rd, giving me officially the most ball-busting schedule in the tournament.  I'm guessing I placed something like 8th or 9th out of 17. Overall nice tournament, thanks to Darryl Painter for organizing and running it!

Some thoughts

• I don't like 35pts much as I dislike skews and list-design having that much impact on the outcome of the game, but I really like one-day events so that worked out alright in the end. Came home to a nice dinner of salad + fish. Good stuff. Cryx is OP.
• I should probably practice with Maelok more, but our local Ret player is about to get his new caster Tinkerbell in the mail, and I think she will totally steamroll Maelok. He will probably still refuse to play Rask :(
  I don't think Maelok is as good as Circle/Legion matchup as Barnabas, but he's the better Cryx matchup. It's the eternal question in a 2-list format.
• I think my all-star picks in the Rask games was the Croak Hunter. Despite their mediocrity, as I have gotten better as using them they seem like a worthwhile addition to most lists given then ability to clear jams and charge lanes, or countercharge like mad, or just go for scenario points. He pretty much single-handedly won me my first game by just being a solo with Stealth, and did a crapton of damage on Hexeris in the second game.
• Yeah, I am totally mad about Cryx. Deal with it, because I can't (at least until my Battle Engine loaded with anti-incorporeal, anti-tough and anti-undead tech is released).