World literally collapsing

Holy news spam.

First, and most significantly, we have errata with actual nerfs/buffs:

 - Shake Effects: Blind and Shadow Bind have been added to the effects that you can shake with a focus or fury.

Sizable nerf to Gorman, whose "piece trade" stock was just completely off the charts as you could trade his activation for a Gargossal/Heavy activation almost ad infinitum. No longer - now you just trade it for -1 focus or fury on those things. Still a really excellent 3pt solo for 2pts, all things considered.
This also nerfs Morghoul2, and is therefore my favourite errata of the lot.

The second effect shake is a nerf to Cryx, specifically Denny2 and the War Witch. Still a superb feat, although almost entirely removes that 'insta scenario win' potential. Brings her down a good notch.

-Pack Fury: Brings the warbeast packs in line with warbeasts to prevent you from gaining fury from killing warbeast pack models with friendly model.

I have never seen warbeast packs played in person but I assume this is an actual errata. Neat.

- Major Victoria Haley (Haley2): Changed Major Haley’s feat so that the Haley player no longer chooses the order of activations for models/units.

Probably the most significant nerf in here. I agree it addressed the core problem of player agency, but I don't know if I would have gone that far as to remove that part of the feat entirely. I assume they playtested the shit out of multiple alternatives though and ended up with this, so we shall see how it pans out.
Either way, this will change the meta a lot, which is what I like to see.

- Major Prime Victoria Haley (Haley3): Changed the wording of Temporal Flux to clarify that it grants the unit and friendly FACTION models within 5" of one or more models in the unit +2 DEF.
Changed Time Projection to clarify how Haley Past and Haley Future can allocate focus and use arc nodes.

Mostly a nerf to Acosta, who looked cocoa butter bananas with that +2 DEF. Haley3 is one of the few Cygnar casters that loves Cygnar infantry due to Revive + the smoke wall so the nerf isn't as much a nerf to her gameplan as it is to all the OP 2pt Merc solos that would hang out near her.
The other stuff is actual clarification that we've known about for a while.

- Flank: Fixed Flank on Trench Buster and Sergeant Nicolas Verendrye to prevent them from flanking with themselves.
Another actual errata. Neat.

- Bone Shaker: Asphyxious the Hellbringer (Asphyxious3) and Calaban the Grave Walker have been updated so the wording of Bone Shaker is consistent across all models.
Holy balls, did Calaban just get a BUFF? It seems that when you kill a guy with Bone Shaker during feat, if that zombie dude kills a guy while zombie dude is in Calaban's control area, then Calaban gets a fury from the dead target (still doesn't get one from zombie dude, who gets RFPed at 'boxed')

Still not enough to make him worth playing (getting fury on the feat has never really been a problem), but it's a minor reduction in Skornergy. At this rate, he should playable by 2022.

- Pistol Wraith: Death Chill was changed to stationary to allow a model with Focus: Shake Effect or Fury: Shake Effect to remove the effect.

Another nerf to Cryx. I approve in principle. Pistol Wraiths don't see play so much anymore though, but they should. Or should have, prior to this nerf. 3pts is hefty. Still better than the Brigand UA though.

- Thyron Sword of Truth: Added duration to the feat.

- Mountain King: Gained Assault.

 Most impressive. I think this is the first time a model has gained a full, entirely new rule (Rhyas gained reach, but that's a property of the weapon *technicality*). This opens the door to more aggressive errata in the future, I hope.
Does this make the Mountain King playable? I think it does. Does it make him good? We will see. It's an interesting change for sure and changes his dynamics.

- Siege Animantarax: Rage Tokens can be gained from friendly attacks. Rage Tokens can be used to boost any attack or damage roll.

Sweet buff. This makes the model not as bad, but perhaps still bad. Will this become significant for the developing Skorne ranged game? It could be like a different (and overall crappier) version of the Sacral Vault.

- Archangel: Draconic Aura changed from Righteous Flames to causing Continuous Fire to enemy models within 2”

Cool, the model now has an animus. Situationally good if you can get like 8+ guys on fire for 2 fury.

Also Grotesques renamed, meaning we get more Grotesques in the future! Legion players everywhere rejoice/fall to your knees and weep!

If there's anything that can be learned, it's that if you complain enough, eventually you will get what you want. A valuable lesson for everyone in life.

Notice how the buffs are all to huge based, really impressive looking models? The ones that look cool and you WANT to play them, but then get frustrated when you do because their rules are bad? Then you go on the forums and bitch for 2-3 years about how your huge-based centerpiece isn't even useful as a paper weight because you live in a high wind turbulence area and the resin/plastic components fall over in the face of a strong breeze? Size matters, folks. Maybe when they release a terrible Manowar Battle Engine, things will happen in that department.

The extra shakeable effects is also a systemic buff to jacks and beasts, which I like to see.

Secondly, Core Rules to the game finally made free after many years: http://privateerpress.com/the-rules-are-free

I guess this is the first step towards a "living rulebook", and makes sense all things considered. The business model has caught up, at least partially.


Third, and most significantly, Jason Soles exits from his cave and interacts with the public:
http://privateerpress.com/community/privateer-insider/insider-8-20-2015

My favourite part of the article, except for the fact that it is written by Jason Soles, is that it includes the quote: 
" We do not like to make changes during or right before a major convention or an organized play season."
on a document released literally one day after World Team Championship (probably the biggest, highest profile Warmahordes tournament in the world) lists are locked and released to the public. Pure class.

Hopefully now when I talk about my greatest inspiration, or use my Soul tokens, people will know who I am talking about. Hopefully.

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.

The Cryx Matchup

This is my modest contribution to this thread on the PP boards regarding the Minion matchups for Cryx. Arlaharen and the rest of the Gator folk have already written a good deal of useful tips and tactics in dealing with Cryx (with more hopefully coming), and I thought I should add my own since I like to think about stuff and readers might benefit from my perspective.

In general, I think a well-played Cryx list is still one of the worst matchups for Gators due to mass undead, increasing amounts of tough BS, cheap infantry that hit like sledgehammers and lots of movement debuffs and control.

Importance of melee positioning and "staggering"

Cryx is the best melee faction in the game, all things considered. There is a reason people ALWAYS have Cryx in mind when preparing tournament lists, because if they don't, they will probably lose to Cryx and their "infantry-that-kills-anything spam" skew.
Cryx generally sucks balls at the ranged game (with exceptions like pDenny pirate gunline lists that prove both the rule and that pDenny is the ultimate turd polisher), and their spell assassination is nowhere as good as it used to be in Mk1 (despite being decent, it's not really a core game plan amongst most of their casters anymore). To make up for this, in a straight out melee scrap, Cryx will generally have the upper hand. They will hit more often, harder and for cheaper than other factions for less points and keep doing it until you are dead. How fluffy.

This is why they get hosed by Cygnar, Retribution and PoM, who can play a very good ranged game and can blow them up before Cryx makes it across the field to fight on their terms. It's also why Gators, as a largely melee subfaction, don't do great vs Cryx in principle since you have to beat the masters at their own game, so to speak. Therefore, it is very important if you want to come out victorious against Cryx to at least have good positioning when it comes to melee engagement, whether you are getting the alpha strike or receiving it. Good staggered positioning leads to good piece-trades, which is one of the fundamental concepts of Warmachine.

Let me elaborate on this slightly: Have you ever had a single Doom Reaver run up in front of your bunched-up, flanking Gatorman unit, at max CMD range from his unit leader, and not have any solos or ranged attacks nearby to deal with it? As a result, that Gator unit's entire activation is spent dealing with this one Reaver. They can't really run past him to kill his comrades as they will take free strikes, they can't move away as they will take free strikes. You can probably block some free strikes using 2 Gators to block LoS, but even then you are not in a good spot. That unit will probably in turn get charged by 5 other Doom Reavers, and the Khador player has now traded 1 Doom Reaver for 5 Gatormans. Good trade, wouldn't you say?

Often a good player will put a couple of models a few inches in front of the rest of his unit just to add as an ablative wall to absorb charges, trading those few models for what you charge in there. You can't really get to the back models either, because as a largely melee faction, you might not have the ranged attacks to deal with the 3 guys in front to clear a charge, or reach the guys in the back at all. Whatever is put up front will be traded for whatever you wish to kill it with. This is what I mean by the "staggering" of melee positions. It's like the "waves" of an army, where you have the anvil (tough or expendable units) go in front, followed by the hammer to clean up (hard-hitters who are usually squishier). Except it's all one unit, and all placement skill.

Well, good Cryx players will be really good at the staggering game since that is one of their core tactics. Oh, and Cryx have Ghostly, Curse of Shadows and Ghost Walk, so can cheat the stagger game better than most, making them even better than you in a melee scrap. They can also do stuff like turn your living dudes into their dead dudes and go through your dudes to get at the backfield stuff. Ain't life grand? Fortunately Gators have some such cheating of their own.

It's difficult to write a descriptive tactica about staggering and piece-trading. They are skills and perceptive abilities you will develop as you play the game and a pattern you will see repeated over many games.  The best way to actively develop this is whenever you move a model, try to think one or two turns ahead - if I move this Gator forward, what will threaten him, and what do I have to threaten things who threaten/kill him? And so on, and so on. It's like a dance... OF DEATH.

Importance of attrition + Dealing with Cryx feat turns (armor)

Cryx is also really good at attrition. They can bring their guys back to "life" with things like Necrosurgeons, Death Toll, Goreshade2's Elite Cadre for Banes, etc. They are mostly fearless (except Satyxis!) and have quite a bit of tough. Their crappy 1/2 point models can destroy your 2 pt models on expected dice values with the standard Cryx buffs/debuffs. If you let the fight go on long enough, they will eventually outlast you simply by virtue of having more attacks than you, turn after turn.

They also tend to have OP feats that destroy your will to live along with your army. This can range from really powerful debuffs and denial (ie. Deneghras, Coven, Skarre2) to big burst damage/activity potential (ie. Skarre1, Lich1+2, Scaverous, Mortenebra). Either way, you're going to have a pretty shitty turn. A lot of the time this is no different than the average Warmahordes game and you just grind through and move on. But when it comes to a feat like Denny2's or Lich2's that are really strong against the melee oriented, elite infantry style of Gatormans, then you better have a plan for it or you're going to lose the game right then.

The average 50pt Cryx list. Notice the small number of warjacks
and many small-based models. Source.

Which warlock should I use?

Why Rask isn't great

Rask is a baller. If his testicles weren't internal, he could use them as a seat. He is a little OP, but still has his non-favourable matchups. The typical Cryx list is one of these.

• He has little attrition potential. He can protect himself pretty damn well, and has Admonition for a warbeast, but outside his feat he doesn't do all that much to make his guys harder to kill or stand their ground. Gators are naturally good at attrition, but Cryx are better and Rask doesn't give us the attrition edge we need to hang in the fight.
• Fury is usually not needed to kill Cryx ARM. POW 13 charges are enough to handle even Mortenebra ARM lists - only Deathjack and Krakens might prove to be an issue (and not a crippling one).
• Inhospitable Ground is not as ballbusting against the pathfinder/ghostly stuff you see in Cryx lists as it is against a lot of other hard-hitting melee units.
• Shooting upkeeps off your own stuff is kinda cool though.

Why Calaban looks good, but is bad

Calaban is practically a Cryx caster, except way shittier.

• He can potentially shred infantry with his feat BUT that relies on him using Bone Shakers on Cryx models. As you may know, Cryx models generally have crappy stats and aren't so sweet at killing each other without any of their mental buffs. You would probably get more out of the feat putting Spiny Growths on everything.
• His spells don't really do anything. Carnivore works only against living so does blah (and living DEF in Cryx is not really high enough to worry about for a Gatorman). Parasite does blah since ARM is not a problem. Occultation does blah since they don't have guns, although it could theoretically protect you from an offensive debuff (if only Cryx didn't have cheap SPD 7 arc nodes). The meat node ability on his gun is not only crap, it doesn't even trigger on Undead stuff (thus is very blah).
• His attrition potential is possibly even worse than Rask's, outside his ability to put Spiny Growth on all the things as a result of his feat.
• Generally sucks horse dick.

Why Barnabas is decent

Barnabas is a respectable Cryx matchup. He can attrition reasonably well with Iron Flesh and his feat, Warpath allows you to get beasts into good positions, and he himself is a tough croc able to put some work in. Swamp Pits can also make ye olde Deathjack crap itself.

• His feat helps in slowing down infantry as well as knocking down those Satyxis and DEF 13 warjacks. It's also nice to make all Gator melee attacks pretty much auto-kill since you can't reroll to hit vs Undead and 5s are not as certain as they appear.
• Iron Flesh Posse can be problematic for many Cryx lists to deal with, at 16/18. Just pray the Withershadow and their lol-tastic dispel bot isn't around.
• Swamp Pits as noted helps take care of Deathjacks, and sometimes block up a certain part of the board to force Cryx players to spend the Skarlock's activation casting Ghost Walk (woe unto the Cryx player).
• However, he lacks the recursion powers or the ability to gain the upper hand in the melee staggering piece-trade game that Maelok does (unless you take a lots of Spitters and Croak Hunters, which is not advisable for almost any other matchup for Barnabas since it lacks any kind of punch).

Why Maelok is best

Maelok is a mighty warlock made of rotting flesh and other evil things. He is so evil, he kills baby crocodiles just because some dude said he couldn't do it. Sure showed him. Maelok is the best matchup we have against Cryx and is as close to a fair one as we get if one builds the list correctly.

• His list usually comprises of almost all Undead models, thanks to Death Pact and Witch Doctors (which you take for the strong synergy with his feat and his grindy playstyle). This shuts down a lot of Cryx's abilities and makes Cryx players bitch about Undead being OP.
• He has great recursion potential with Revive. Each Revive is an almost guaranteed 2 dead Cryx models, and an ARM 18 reach model in their face. Bringing 1-2 back a turn adds up FAST as the model count on the table gets lower and lower.
• He has 3 magical melee attacks! That's kinda cool. I guess. And a spray... at Focus 6. It's not that sweet but it can be cute for taking out incorporeal things that hide behind walls and contest zones.
• His feat allows you to cheat the staggering stage hard. So hard that it makes Cryx players jealous. It means that for 1 turn, all the Gatormans get all their attacks and you get in their backfield and cause problems. Not only that, but all Undead models get +2 ARM for that round, making them even harder to dislodge. Throw in a few Spiny Growths and Death Pact, and you've got one of the few lists in the game that can absorb a Cryx feat turn without falling on its knees and cursing the gods and heavens for forsaking it.

Bow before his rotting majesty!

Other cool stuff

• Thrullgs are reasonably sweet because without guns on the other side, they have a good chance of living long enough to do something cool. They have 3xMAT 7 magical melee attacks (only one with Reach despite having 2 long ass arms), cannot be targeted by spells and cause damage to spell casters in their CMD (sweeter vs Circle Druids or Hex Hunters than against Cryx usually, but you never know). He can also hit upkeeps off your dudes, in the rare event that your Gator unit with Curse of Shadows or Crippling Grasp lives longer than a turn. As such, he is best kept back and protected and used as required rather than charging wherever he can.
  Most importantly, he is your ace in the hole vs Terminus because he can strip off Terminus' focus and make him mortal. Well, killable. Again. A smart Terminus player will know this and may be willing to overextend a bit in order to kill the Thrullg, giving you a bit more table positioning. A foolish Terminus player will run in front of him camping focus, proclaim his status as an immortal god and then probably die.
• Croak Hunters are one of the few ranged attacks you have available. They are great for sniping out lone models blocking charge lanes or contesting zones and such. Remember they also have gang fighter, so even without poison can do good damage on the charge.
• Ironback Spitters tend to do pretty well vs Cryx in my opinion. Having a good, reliable boostable gun with auto-Corrosion can do some sweet stuff. They suck in melee and will get shredded by charging infantry but that gun will allow it to make its point back in opening doors for the rest of your list.
• I also quite like the Totem Hunter vs Cryx. He can get hosed by tough, but his very high mobility makes him like a quasi-ranged attack and he can scare a lot of Cryx casters in the mid to late game. He also makes a pretty good trade for Tartarus, or at least force the Cryx player to keep him back.
• Witch Doctors - they make your stuff Undead. Undead is sweet against Gators, but super sweet against Cryx. They also give you the opportunity to fail tough rolls, which you should absolutely not rely on. Tough on a 5man unit is nowhere near as nutstomping as it is on 3x10man units. They also have Dominate Undead which in a blue moon can do cool stuff like turn models around or have Banes kill Tartarus or whatever, but it is generally not as good as making things Undead since it requires a succession of dice rolls to do anything cool. Sacrificial Strike, on the other hand, can do some serious work late game when you want to put the last few points on an enemy caster, clear a charge lane, or snipe out that annoying Machine Wraith that's been contesting a zone all game.

In conclusion:   Maelok > Barnabas > Rask  > Calaban @ 50pts and above. I think at 35pts Barnabas is probably just as good as Maelok since he doesn't need quite the same 'critical mass' to do his thing well.

Other stuff to watch out for

• Bane Knights have Vengeance AND ignore rough terrain and free strikes. Vengeance weapon masters will do some serious, serious damage to Posse units. This means that you must absolutely kill as many as possible in one turn as you can. Try to line this slaughter up with your feat turn.
• Bane Thralls hit ridiculously hard, and pretty accurately when you factor in Tartarus and all that other Cryx stuff. They don't ignore free strikes, nor do they have reach however. You can kind of tie them up with buffed Gators, and often you will have no choice in doing so because they will roll tough 6 times in a row. Try to avoid getting charged as much as you can - knowing your fundamental movement rules and melee ranges pays off here. They are also prone to just running into melee with your Gators, reducing their ARM by 2 so they can die to whatever else Cryx has on the board.
  They also will totally bend you over the table with Goreshade2 if you didn't stock up on Witch Doctors.
• Tartarus must die. So must Gorman. If you can trade pretty much any single non-warlock model for these (including a Wrastler), it is probably a good trade. This makes me very sad but it is the reality of things.
• Satyxis are living. YAY. This means you can hit them pretty reliably. Raiders will usually get the charge on you though, so focus on positioning for an effective countercharge AND avoid getting jammed up by them. Cryx can be pretty good at scenario play, I hear.
• Blood Witches aren't usually something to worry about too much (besides the UA), though they DO have magic weapons... P+S 12 free strikes will probably kill ghost Gatormans.
• Cryx has some of the best upkeep removal in the Blood Hag and the Withershadow Combine. This can suck for Iron Flesh and Death Pact. It is very satisfying to revive a Gatorman and then charge them with Maelok's feat though (if you hit those straight 7s... 14/16 with Stealth and Undead is totally fair game for support models with long-range nukes).
• Mechanithralls hit at P+S 15 and each cost 25% of a Gatorman. They are "only" MAT 5 though, so without a buff/debuff they might miss you. But if they hit, you're probably dead. They also have Necrosurgeons. These are a high priority target who just happened to have Sac Pawn so are hard to shoot (you guessed it, Maelok's feat + needing straight 7s to hit support models).
• Blackbane's Ghost Raiders are pretty terrifying due to our lack of magical weapons. Their DEF of 13 is just high enough to be annoying to FURY/MAT 6 warlocks. Essentially, these more or less go whereever they want and will always get their attacks before you can deal with them. Sucks to be a Minion.
• Deathjack - Swamp Pits / ignore him / throw him around / cup your nuts and charge him with everything you have left. Or if you're playing Rask, a Posse with Fury should do it.

Basically, heaps of infantry that doesn't have too hard a time at killing your infantry/casters/anything at lower cost.

Terminus

Terminus is stupid to the point where I feel I should make a special section for him. He is basically the epitome of rock/paper/scissors in Warmahordes. Do you have enough damage to kill my DEF 14/ARM 24+ caster? If not, you are not going to have a fun time. There are basically three aspects to him that make him suck for Gators:

1) Gigantic "FU" Tough aura

We have nothing to deal with Tough outside Crit Consume on Barnabas. So if the Cryx player keeps rolling 5s, you're not killing anything no matter what you do or how many lambs you sacrifice. Much fun. Such games design. Wow.

2) ARM camp + Sac Pawn

As you may know, Gators of the past had problems with ARM greater than 19. This is because the highest P+S in the faction is 17 on the Wrastler. As a result, Gators would have almost insta-lost any 1 zone scenario against lists with Gargossals.

In response to this, Gators got Rask. Rask has Fury and the ability to remove upkeeps and camped focus at ranged. Rask is pretty amazing. But even Rask cannot shoot Terminus' focus off because he has a neat ability called Sac Pawn [pretty much anything in my list, bitches!]. This ability more or less means Terminus can camp at ARM 22+ or so and tell your Posse and heavies to suck his dust pipe, even if you play Rask (which you probably shouldn't, for reasons described below).

Thankfully we have Croctors who make things Undead and more or less deny him a feat. This is sweet because it makes Cryx players complain about Undead.

I assure you that the limp-wrist is just for show. This dude
will bitchslap the scales right off your back. Source.

3) Flight + hits like a truck

Not only does he camp ARM like a boss, but he will bitchslap you to death from a long ways away since he is effectively MAT 9, POW 18/16 with Malediction up. Oh, he also a POW14 SP10. You know, for lolz.


I don't have any tips other than "take Thrullgs, keep scenarios in mind and play much better than your opponent".

I ❤ Calaban

Not really. But after over 18 or so months of almost exclusive Gatorman play, I have finally played a game with the Calaban tier list. And it was alright.

Shock. Horror. Surprise.

The two good things about it are:

1. AD Wrong Eye and Snapjaw - very decent for scenario play and flanking. Quite self sufficient too when you can throw in a 6pt Spitter or a 2pt Snapper to tag along with them.
2. 10" Bone Shakers and Parasites and 12" Hex Blasts - Craft Talisman makes a really big difference on the feat turn in terms of the threat range and cycle opportunities you have with them offensive spells.

So I can eat dirt a bit and finally say something mildly positive about Calaban on this blog. Although I am not altogether surprised that the two above things are good. I also believe I've stated a few times how awesome I think SPD 6 is on a Gator caster, and having a 14" control area is mindblowing. Plus really decent late game melee presence on a spellslinger/debuff is really cool.

But the status quo remains, where Rask + Barnabas/Maelok is the best tournament Minion pairing, and Calaban remains frustrating as hell in many many matchups that the other three skip their way through. But at least I said something nice about this abomination of a model design :)

The Mk2.5 Balancing drama

There have been a lot of threads recently (last couple of months) about the desire for Mk 3 or Mk 2.5 or some kind of balancing errata so that the meta game can get shaken up a bit and we can maybe play without the absolute certainty that your Cryx opponent will be packing a list with Tartarus and a shitload of Banes, and your Cygnar opponent won't have a Haley list with Stormwall or whatever for a couple of months before the new superpowers settle on their thrones high above and the cycle beings anew. All we know is that Minions will remain the worst faction in the game.

So I decided to think out loud (in written form) and put together a little article about what changes I would put forward for Blindwater under such an update patch. Hopefully this at worst will give people a perspective of how I play Gators and what the meta around here is like. Here are the fruits of my mental labour.

A little theory to kick things off....

There are a few ways to balance things in games.

• Numbers change - you can make something relatively better or worse in some specific regard by increasing or decreasing a particular stat.

This is the most common type of change in a game 'patch'. Numbers (or stats) represent relative things in an absolute way so that we can compare to other similar things in the system. The more stats you have, the more there is to tweak (and also more complicated and detailed gameplay).
For example, there is a sizable degree of difference between MAT 5 (Titan Sentry), MAT 6 (Assault Kommando), MAT 7 (Doom Reaver) and MAT 9 (Vilmon). In relative/descriptive terms, we can say the Sentry is 'competent' in melee combat, the AK is 'trained', the Doom Reaver is 'highly skilled' and Vilmon is 'one of the best in the entire world'. We can encapsulate these differences by assigning those numbers to their MAT, and this will play out in the game via the exciting realm of dice and probability. Thus changing a number makes something better or worse in that regard.

Points Cost is probably the single most important stat because it determines the relative total value of any given model to another potential option. Points are one of the most important resources in Warmachine, and changing the PC of a model (especially in the lower 1-5pt bracket) can make a huge difference to the power of a model.

• Mechanics change - changing one mechanic on a model can change its effectiveness.

Take for example the change to Side Step so that the 2" move no longer triggered upon hitting a friendly model. This reduced the effectiveness of the eMakeda Molik Karn Bullet list slightly so that it became easier for the opponent to not get killed bottom of two.
Another example of this would be the multiple changes to Lich2's feat, from changing the returned models from 'Incorporeal' to 'Ghostly', or changing valid feat targets from 'warrior models' to 'grunts'. The feat does essentially the same thing as it did before - bringing back a bunch of ethereal banes to kill half your army - but certain mechanics of the ability were changed to reduce its power.

• Redesign - some models do not work on the table as intended, or have a role or purpose already fulfilled by a competitive option.

For example, nobody plays Drudges in a competitive setting because Mechanithralls do a very similar thing (potentially hard hitting tarpit) at a much lower cost, greater efficiency and without the weakness of being tied to its Officer to function. Therefore Drudges would need more than just a mechanics change (they don't have many to begin with) or a simple stats change (McThralls are still better at 3/5 PC) but something a bit more involved.
I'd also put Calaban as a candidate for redesign, as anyone who has read pretty much any article on here knows how I feel about playing him, as well as his validity in a competitive setting post-Rask.


Finally, a disclaimer - balance is in the eye of the beholder, much like power. Everything takes place within a complicated interconnected system where changing one small thing can have trigger a chain of events further down the line. Some people have a good sense for this type of thing, while the average player in a game does not. This is why balance decisions are best when they occur as the result of careful statistical analysis and systemic thinking combined with consensus-based discussions of subjective perspectives and values.

In my opinion, Privateer Press has a mixed record on game balancing in Mk2. I like how they have approached Lich2 nerfs with gradual tweaking rather than huge sweeping nerfs (as game companies like Blizzard are wont to do) and have done a pretty good job of quickly fixing core mechanic issues that have popped up like the Shield Guard, headlocks from behind, Cover LoS, Sloan's feat, Backswing, etc. but have been almost entirely non-committal on rebalancing the game in terms of power levels or fixing units that are just plain unattractive (with occasional exceptions like Asphyxious, the Blood Hag or more recently Taryn).

I think there is a lot to gain if a large balance errata were released. It would stimulate the metagame for the better part of 6 months to a year (far more than a handful of new releases), thus getting current players more excited about the game and buying new stuff. There is always the issue that your netdecked list won't be playable anymore exactly as is, or that your beloved OP models won't be as broken anymore, but as long as they don't nerf anything into the ground or make really dramatic changes to models that people currently use regularly, then everyone wins.


On the Gatormans!

---------------------------------------------

Warlocks

Our warlocks are pretty strong on the whole. Rask is probably a little on the powerful side, and Calaban is a little on the never-gets-played-because-he-is-annoying-to-use-and-pretty-much-inferior-to-Rask-in-every-way side.

Bloody Barnabas

+ 1 POW on Bone Cleaver
This just adds a little more warjack/warbeast killing power to Barnabas himself. Too often I charge an average heavy like an Ironclad, Harrower, Banshee, Scythean etc. and fall short of killing it by a few boxes despite charging and spending all my fury. It's a bit of a downer for a Gatorman tank, and I think this change will make a noticeable difference in smoothing out his crippling difficulty with ARM 20+.
I think Blood-Quenched would be an amazing rule on eBarnabas :)
 

Maelok, the Dreadbound

No change. 
I would perhaps make Malediction 'target model in this model's battlegroup' rather than 'RNG: Self', but that would probably make him a bit too strong since it's like giving Gators +2 MAT and POW vs any given large target, thereby almost removing the need to take heavy warbeasts and giving a lot more power to the Maelok + 3 Snappers list (it'd be like Dark Shroud on crack).

I love this artwork.

Rask

-1 WB point.  
He is obviously better than the other Gator warlocks. 1 less WB points usually means you don't get those Swamp Gobbers to give him concealment or a Feralgeist to annoyingly contest zones. I considered also removing his Energy Siphon attack since it's just icing on the cake that can potentially win games for no real reason, but it's not really a huge deal. As long as Gators remain super weak in ranged combat, Rask will refrain from being broken as balls and just remain really strong.
 

Calaban, the Grave Walker

Heavy redesign. 
Rask has taken this guy's previous niche of ARM cracking and just does it way more efficiently and safely. I would like a redesign to emphasize his manipulative voodoo asshole persona, focusing on denial, spell assassination and debuffs. Think of spells like Bad Blood, Breath Stealer and Shadowmancer, or douchy abilities like Harrow (pMorv) and Talion (pVayl). I like the idea of Shadowmancer a lot more than Parasite + Occultation since it gives you an incentive to NOT take 3 full Posse at 50pts, as they will get shot up. Gameplay wise, he could also be designed to do well vs hard-hitting infantry swarms so that Gators can have a 50/50 against it.

Either way he goes, his arc node mechanic (if kept) needs to be less clunky, like straight-up making Spell Martyr equivalent models that can activate that turn (which will only be really strong on his feat turn), or anything I've written on at length previously.

Warbeasts

Blindwater warbeasts are very average. They don't have great stats, are a little pricey, but do come with some neato abilities make all the difference in using them.

Blackhide Wrastler

Change Snacking so that the RFP effect is not conditional upon the heal effect.
I just think it's really annoying and janky to try and get a point of damage on your beast so that you can RFP if you want to. Just have it RFP all the time as the thing gets eaten or ripped up good. This would be a 'buff' to Dire Trolls too... and Shredders (although Shredders should probably lose Snacking altogether).
+1 POW on the claws would be nice but not necessary. The Wrastler isn't great in the scheme of things but does his job well enough if you know how to use him.

Ironback Spitter

New animus.
The Spitter sucks pretty bad in melee, is slow and not particularly hard to kill for something covered almost entirely in a hard shell. Fine, because it has a sweet AoE gun and RAT 5 with 4 fury. That alone is almost worth the admission. However, in well over 100 games with Blindwater, I have never cast the Ornery animus. It is, for all intents and purposes, a total waste of card space for the Spitter.
I assume Ornery is supposed to symbolize the tendency of snapper turtles to ferociously bite down on things in self-defense (since they are too big to fully retreat into their shell), but in gameplay it fails.

I think Locker (from the Titan Sentry) would be an adequate replacement.  Counterblast is the next most logical option since it is Ornery but better, however that animus is also pretty crap.
Or allow it to Stoneform as an animus. That would be sweet and probably not too strong on any caster all things considered (since it doesn't stack with Spiny Growth). Maelok could be ARM 23 for a turn at worse.

Swamp Horror

No change.
They are neat because they have lots of attack and don't die to shooting (but die to everything else). I wish this had been the Gargantuan though, basically the same thing with bigger numbers and an automatic crit.

Bull Snapper

No change. 
They are squishy support beasts that can missile out and kill a thing sometimes. Basically the same deal as a Shredder or Gorax, just more Gatory.

Boneswarm

Redesign.
This thing sucks. I have seen it be decent in Midas' tier list when it starts with 3 bone tokens because it is then quite tanky at DEF 13 ARM 18 (just like a dirged Gator! For twice the cost!), so you park it on a flag somewhere and it kills 1-2 models a turn, healing itself and such. Or it does some decent damage to an enemy heavy at POW 15 and then lives long enough to be annoying. Decent - not great. Basically it needs a sense of purpose which it does not currently have.

Units

We have three units, one of which won't be released until 2017. Gatormans are one of the best units in the Hordes (almost said 'the game'... then remembered Warmachine units) and are the backbone of Blindwater and will probably remain so for as long as the Pact exists.

Gatorman Posse

No change.
Prior to the release of the Warspear and Skinwalker UAs, I'd have said that they needed something to make them less attractive to other factions, but now I don't see Legion or Circle players use Gatormans all that much... or at all. They are still super good but still die rather handily if you know how to do it and have the tools (weapon masters, smart use of heavies, control, etc.).

Bog Trog Ambushers

No change. 
They are kind of costly for their poor base stats really but are a finesse unit with quite a few special rules.

Gatorman Bokor and Swamp Shamblers

Change their status to 'released'. 
Amazing game-changing buff. I still think they will relatively be much better outside Blindwater than within it, unlike the two above units.

Swamp Gobbers

No change. 
1pt for a cloud seems ok, especially considering they do nothing else and die to incidental blast damage.

Solos

We have two distinct Gatorman solos, the Croaks and Croctor, and then have a couple of more general Minion solos to go with the legendary Wrong Eye.

Gatorman Witch Doctor

No change.
I am a little bummed that these guys cost 3pts in general but only 2pts in Maelok's tier list, where they are precisely at their most powerful for Gators, which signifies a Minion tax. However I can suck it up since they are pretty good anyways.

Totem Hunter

No change. 
No surprise.

Croak Hunter

Gain + 1 DEF, lose Vitriol
Ah Croaks.... I have never even seen them played outside Blindwater since they are so mediocre. I have barely seen them played within Blindwater since they are so mediocre. They have done ok for me purely because they allow me to clear single-models here and there without activating a whole unit of Gators or a beast.
My first thought was that Jump will allow them to do this even better. Plus it is incredily froggy. The only issue is that they basically become crappy Totem Hunters for 1pt less, and we don't really want that... or do we.....?
Secondary thought was to make them blow up when they die like Bloat Thralls, because that'd be hilarious. But then they would just run/jam and kill heaps of infantry for nothing and then I realized this would be way too faceroll / Cryxian.
Tertiary thought was to just buff their DEF by 1 so they are less prone to death after they fail to hit something with their spears, and just went with that.
I just took Vitriol off the card because it does nothing and it's just some fluffy ability for fluffers.

Viktor Pendrake

Bow becomes Magical.
This is the most minor change ever and is only a real deal for Blindwater since we are starved for magic attacks. Makes sense though, no? That bow has to be lucky for a reason (and that reason is MAGIC).

Wrong Eye + Snapjaw

No change. 
These guys are great and don't really bust anything in the game outside putting Spiny Growth on Galleon. You could make them 2-3pts more and that wouldn't change though - a hard skew is a hard skew and I am 99% sure this is just something that wasn't picked up in playtesting. Would need a subtype change perhaps, or a change with how lesser warlocks work.

Total changes:

• Barnabas - Increase POW of melee weapon 'Bone Cleaver' from '5' to '6'. (or just give him Dark Shroud, that's probably better :P )
• Rask - Reduce WB points from '+6' to '+5'.
• Calaban - redesign.
• Wrastler - replace the text of Snacking with: 'When this model boxes a living model with a melee attack, the boxed model is removed from play and this model can heal d3 damage points'.
• Spitter - replace 'Ornery' animus with something I will cast at least once in 100 games. Or not.
• Boneswarm - redesign.
• Pendrake - add weapon quality: 'magical weapon' to ranged weapon 'Lucky Bow'.
• Croak Hunter - Increase DEF stat from '13' to '14'. Remove rule 'Vitriol'.

All in all, very small balance changes since I feel Blindwater is in a good place other than the lack of options leading to really bad matchups vs things like weapon master swarms (need some guns/scathers/A2A-type infantry clear) and incorporeal spam (magical weapons).
I would have like to have more nerfs to give the impression that I can have a balanced mindset about things, but to be honest I only view Rask and Gatormans on the really high part of the curve.... this is still Minions we're talking about!

The redesign are for two models I never use because other models within the same faction do similar things in much more effective and well-designed ways. For a thought exercise, Boneswarms at 3pts are still much less appealing than Snappers, and Calaban at +7WB points is still as irritating as groin chaffing and worse than Rask at everything except throwing out POW 12 nukes (mostly because Rask has no offensive spells). This indicates to me that the models just don't really work so need some deeper changes. Some may disagree of course.


In the greater scheme of the game, I think that several models could use small-tweaks in cost or ability use in order to level out power inequalities or obstacles to player engagement. Little changes like:

• Making eMorvahna's rerolls in her CMD rather than CTRL to force her to play a bit more forward, or at least consider order of activations a bit more.
• Smoothing out uber-crippling feats that literally stop you playing the game, like pDenny (ie. remove the -2 FOC and 'no running') or eHaley's.
• Making Assault Kommandos cheaper so they might have a place as meat shields with Strakhov and Vlads.
• Reducing the amount of tough rolls in an average game, or changing the mechanic if they want to keep it at that scale so it doesn't feel like I'm playing 40k.
• Changing Excarnate to basically be Revive attached to a POW 13 nuke - place the model within 3" of its unit rather than the caster and in this model's CTRL (nerf Lich, buff Scaverous = everyone wins).

Others, like Drudges, need some serious redesign. I think they have the data and expertise to do such a 'patch' justice (much more than I ever could anyway), and besides it'd probably only impact 5-10% of the models currently out.

Alas, we will wait and see what happens. I know it's way cheaper for me to play Minions when I know Pigs are really bad and don't bring anything better to the table so there's no reason to buy a Pig list other than lolz :) I will keep playing the same lists for another year or three if need be.

Stuff that sucks

Some models are bad - and that's ok.

That is going to be my post for the week - talking about models considered bad and my experiences with them. It's bound to offend some people, but entertain me.

First, some theory for framing perspective. Here are some reasons why models are bad:

1. Badly costed

Points cost is the single most important statistic on a model's card, especially at lower points levels, as the difference between X and X-1 can be quite significant. Lowering or increasing a model's PC can have a huge impact on whether you see them in a list or not, or if you see 8 or 1. Cryx Stalkers, for example, were PC:3 in the Mk2 Field Test, and Cryx players were spamming those things like crazy. Get a single Stalker with 3 focus on the enemy caster and that was probably game over. Fortunately they were increased to PC: 4 at release and their value relative to Bane and Satyxis swarms decreased and we thankfully don't have to play against 6 Stalkers anymore.
On the flip side, you have Trenchers, where a full unit with all the UAs and support modules costs about 4.2 million points, and is still not as good as the Winterguard Deathstar, buffs or not.

2. Opportunity Cost

A different way to look at the cost issue. Sometime there are just models available to you that do practically the same thing at better value, or bring additional options to the table. Often this will be a merc model, but sometimes within the same faction. That is like the ultimate kick in the nuts.

3. Very situational

Some models have abilities that are extremely dependent on matchup, and their effectiveness is thus dependent on your opponent's list. This is not really a cool place to be, unless you know exactly what you're going to be playing against every time
Take Strakhov for example, who is pretty good against Legion shooty lists because he has Occultation and he is immune to fire. Meaning that Legion has no way to shoot him to death outside Bolt Throwers. And his stuff is really really fast. Sometimes abilities that are fundamental to a model's effectiveness but only work on living models, or warbeasts. As you would expect, these models are usually noticeably less sweet when their preferred targets are not around. This point of course bleeds into....

4. The Meta

What you play against has a large impact on the value of your models. If you expect to play against a lot of heavy armor, as has been the case in a Colossals meta, then armor crackers like heavies and weapon masters are valuable. If you expect to face lots of troops, then models that can generate multiple attacks in a turn and AoEs and sprays are valuable.If you expect lots of tough, anti-healing and Take Down is good. If you expect incorporeal, then magic weapons become more valuable, etc. etc. etc.
Points size is also a factor, as are tournament formats. Character restrictions have made a big difference in model viability by removing the option to take more powerful character choices in every list. Playing scenario vs not playing for scenario makes a huge difference to the power of some models. Some casters and models are much

5. Clunky design

Some models actually do fine in games purely on a capability perspective, but are annoying to play or get to "work" for many people. Sometimes there are too many hoops to jump through, sometimes they Skornergize* with your models, sometimes they just try to do lots of things and suck at them all. Either way, they still suck. In any case, they are just not really enjoyable to use in a real game but usually look sweet in theorymachine.

6. Designed for that annoying tart that wants to make everything work all the time

You know those guys that want everything to work all the time? Yeah. They are the guys that post threads on the PP boards every few weeks about how they've figured out Assault Kommandos and Tharn Ravagers. I admit I am guilty of this type of behavior at times. But I've come around to the fact that some stuff just sucks.... and that's ok. Pleasure from pain. If you still enjoy putting your balls in a vice and spinning the handle at varying speeds in random directions in the hope that you'll find some kind of personal satisfaction or enlightenment, you go ahead and give yourself blue balls.

7. Light artillery

Pretty much all light artillery sucks, except perhaps the Mortar crew. Nobody really knows why, but my theory is that because they can't move and shoot, they lose a lot of tactical depth and become predictable. If you look at the stats of most light artillery models, they are pretty decent and usually straight up better than a ranged solo at the same cost. However they only do one thing, which is shoot AoEs or potentially high-ish POW attacks at highly predictable ranges. They also usually can't boost on top of that, which makes you hate them more and just spend your points on super expensive warjacks with the same gun instead (which are probably worse).

Much like Gargantuans, I can't complain that Gators don't have any light artillery.

8.  Design decisions that err on the side of caution

I think several members of the Warmachine design team engaged in Opus Dei-type self-flagellation as the result of Mk1 brokenness. It is quite clear these days that whenever given they choice, they will choose to make a model tamer and lower on the power curve rather than risk a model winning the majority of tournaments. That would be really horrible. In my opinion, this will often lead to some changes late in the design process that don't get playtested as thoroughly as they should and have a bigger impact on a model's viability than expected.

I'm sure everyone prefers this state of affairs to Mk1 "everything is broken" balance. It is funny how often I hear that MkII is 'perfectly balanced' after hearing the same thing about MK1 for years. PP do a great job of keeping the game balanced, but anyone who has played Warmachine for a few years is aware that balance issues will almost always be present to varying degrees. You can't compare an eLich to a Venethrax, or McThralls to Drudges. There is always room for improvement, not only in terms of nerfs, but also of buffs.

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Here is a small, non-exhaustive selection of models that are usually held up as bad/ crap:

Cygnar:

• Trenchers - They cost too damn much. They can do lots of stuff (not particularly well), but 1pt per guy is a hefty cost, especially when you throw in all the additional stuff. They already have an amazing UA which doesn't fix their standing - I think it's just a matter of reexamining the cost decisions on Cygnar units (who are obviously costed with great shooting buffs in mind). Long Gunners are arguably in the same boat but benefit hugely from Snipe.
• Stormblades - Cost too much for SPD 5, totally average defensive stats, and no reach. Sure, they can hit hard and have guns and tons of gizmos, but what's the point when you can't even do the basics? Again, already have a UA and WA, so I'm thinking either Stryker3 gets Lightning Tendrils AND Deflection/Deceleration or these guys will be coated in a thick coat of grey dust by the time Mk2 Remix hits.

Cryx:

• Venethrax - First of all, he isn't one of the other Cryx casters. Second, he is very skewed towards livings models. Third, his feat ranges from random as hell, to self-defeating, to not doing much at all. It's cute. Unlife in the Cryxian Empire has not been kind to Skeletor.
• Drudges - These are just straight up worse than McThralls for more points. Or worse than any unit in Cryx for any points. And 90% of their effectiveness is tied to one pretty easy to kill model. Like... what? Redesign these so they have flexible weapon modes like CoC infantry and don't hold onto the Mind Slaver for dear life and we might see them on the table.... one day.
• Cryx Heavies - Two problems with Cryx heavies, who for the most part are actually pretty good: One, they are squishy as all hell and have no repair option that can really keep up with them at full speed so losing 3 systems to a boosted Reckoner shot makes you want to just play more Banes instead. Two, you could just take Banes/ Satyxis/ McThralls, who hit equally hard, put out more attacks and need less focus to do it. Opportunity cost at work here.
  Deathjack ADs, has armour and heals itself, so he is immune to criticism and costs a ton.

PoM:

It's hard to find bad things in Protectorate,because the whole faction is based around jerking itself off so everyone feels good and high-fives each other. I mean, Amon is considered bad in that faction, since he has some incentive to not stay 6 miles back.

• Deliverers - Perfectly fine unit. However, nobody takes them because they take soooooooo long to resolve at full efficiency, and don't get all the buffs a Redeemer does. They attempted to fix them in Mk2 by giving them a huge 5" AoE CRA so they can activate faster, but even then Redeemers are better and die slower.
• Paladin? - What happened here? I never see these anymore. I guess they aren't as tough as Seneschals, and only become really great with Vilmon, who people don't take anymore for some reason. Too many magic weapons in the meta I guess.

Khador:

• Zerkova - universally acknowledged as the worst caster in Khador for many reasons. First she is squishy and her defensive tech is bad. Second, she has every incentive to move upfield since her main influence on the game is through offensive spells and her pDenny-style feat. The most effective way to play her would be to take some shield guards (Bokurs), upkeep her spells, feat and then camp focus all the time and hope to live. That is even more boring than eKreoss. Third, no real game plan - everything is reactionary or denial, and not that great at it.
• Decimator- requires wayyyyyy too much focus to make up for his craptastic RAT. I suspect he will come back with Malakov, because that Beat Back POW 15 gun combined with a POW 20 sustained attack melee weapon seems really good on a SPD 6 jack.
• Assault Kommandos - Do like 10 things, and all of them suck. There's no getting past mediocre stats, very low POW attacks, highly situational abilities and a pretty high points cost (except giving them +3 to all stats). Remember how good Trenchers were in Mk1? So do these guys.
• MoW Kovnik - This guy looks like serious business on paper. Problem is SPD 4 and no reach combined with no movement tricks means this guy isn't really getting to hit anything (unless you give him +3 to all stats). Second the emphasis on his jack marshall abilities, in a faction where jacks are focus-hungry, get great battlegroup buffs and have some very impressive buffable troops. And now have Malakov.

The poster boys for failure in JS Land

Mercs:

• pMagnus - great spell list, but no feat. Not having a feat kinda sucks. Imagine how much people would hate pStryker if he didn't have a feat - that's pMagnus. It's not really a matter of terrible as much as lame.
• Devil Dogs - too many hoops to jump through, and other people just do what they do better and more reliably. Charge maybe 7 around a warjack if graced by the favor of God himself, hit maybe the 3rd or 4th net, then get three POW 10 weapon master attacks. Then die. Short ranged guns and no way to deliver.... just legitimately bad.
• Blythe and Bull - WTF. It's like Ayanna & Holt that don't have Harm or Magic Weapons or Stealth and only one big meaty gun. Most obvious IKRPG conversion ever.
• Avalancher - Those Rhulics and their power pieces. I think they should get their own faction. Then Minions won't be the worst faction in the game anymore. This jack just seems like an even shittier version of the Destroyer, which is already a pretty shitty jack. Am I missing something?

Ret:

• Garryth - melee assassination casters don't tend to do too well in the current meta. Garryth would be great if he could keep his army standing long enough for him to get to the enemy caster, but Ret isn't built that way. And his feat being skewed so hard towards Warmachine sucks for him.
• Gorgon - The  Force Lock ability seems really strong. However it is tied to both a squishy warjack with rather crap combat capabilities and a squishy Generator node. It might cause slight activation issues for your opponent, but if that's what you're going for you might as well play this next guy....
• Nayl - Have no idea why people don't play him. As a Hordes player, I find him annoying as hell. Sure, he can screw you over if you place your caster nearby and he gets thrown over there. OR he can get in the middle of the opposing army and take P+S 13 free strikes on everyone since he is way too annoying to deal with and destroys your opponent's time. Guess two points is a lot to give up to completely mess up your opponent's plans for a turn.

Apparently if I ever get a tattoo, it has to be this.

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Trolls:

• Gunnbjorn - he has a sweet gun, pretty good spells but again, no feat. Or a feat that doesn't work for his spell list, since it seems only good for protecting a rampaging horde of rushing trolls on the advance, which will be way ahead of him. Trolls usually have underwhelming spells and feats on paper, but this guy also has them on the table!
• Winter Troll - I haven't had the pleasure to see why this guy sucks on the table. If the animus was RNG: Self, I would totally understand but at RNG 6 it might see some use. Maybe it's the RAT 4 on the spray. Maybe it's the pillow fists when you could be taking some baller Troll Hero or a Pyre Troll that brings +2 damage to said Troll Hero.
• Mountain King- He might be awesome if he came out 2 years ago when people weren't designing lists to 1-round much heavier targets. Alas, people are doing just that. He's also MAT 5 for no reason at all. WHY MAT 5?!?!
• Sluggers - So their stats suck more than the average Troll, for some reason. And if they move and shoot, they really suck. If they stand still and shoot, they get 5d3 RAT 7 POW 13 shots off, which is pretty good with Snipe. But then they are 5/8 for 3/5 guys with 5 boxes each. Why they have boxes, nobody knows. More muscle mass from lifting I guess. But we do know this is the best example of Snipe tax known to man.

Circle:

• Ravagers - It's because they die. Like, really easily. If everyone played in heavily forested terrain all the time, they would probably be legit, but such a thing is rare.
• Sentry Stones - This thing was ridiculously overpowered in Mk1 for doing almost the same thing. Then Mk2 happened and I have not seen one since. Is it the 3pts? The short 6" CMD range? The reliance on enemy warbeasts to do it's thing? I really don't know.

Legion:

• Rhyas - Again, a melee assassination caster that doesn't seem to get love. How odd. I think this is the case of a caster that doesn't do much. She hides in the back, casts Dash and upkeeps two spells. If you play against Hordes you might risk her to kill a warbeast and steal its fury and run away. Her feat is good but kinda reliant on your opponents list and positioning. Also no pathfinder is stupid.
• Grotesques - Not only are they uglier than my ass, they are potentially the least exciting unit I have ever seen. Mediocre to poor stats all around, BUT they can fly, are fearless and gang. That sure makes up for that single MAT 5 POW 10 attack. If they were 3/5, they might see some play. Might.

Skorne:

A fall from grace that would make Satan jealous.

• eMorghoul - A melee assassination caster! Yep, and eMorghoul also sucks to play. In Mk1, he was probably amongst the most OP casters in the game since he was not only an assassin machine with good support spells (same as now), but his feat Blinded your opponent's entire army. That was pretty OP. Anyway, they dicked around with him in the Play Test for several editions until they slapped his current lame-ass boring feat on him in the last release and left it at that, together with passive stealth. Two weeks more/less of playtesting would have made a world of difference.
• Savage - I don't know why I don't see more of these. I submitted so many feedback forms that the animus should cost 1. Now it costs 1 and nobody takes them. FML. More evidence nobody really likes melee lights unless they are spammable, and Savages are not spammable at 5pts. dat animus though...
• Cannoneer - Warbeasts with big AoE guns are amazing since you can boost pretty much everything you need at will. The reason this guy is left on the shelf however is firstly because his animus does nothing. It did nothing in Mk1 and doesn't do much now - the range is too short, and the cost is too high for a warlock relative to two more transfers. Secondly, he is very average in melee and Skorne doesn't stand for that jazz.
• Siege Animantrax - This thing not only sucks on the table, but also sucks on paper. I would have loved to see this thing in playtest, it must have been broken as balls before those last minute tweaks.

Minions:

• Arkadius - People want to cast Crippling Grasp - they miss, they die. On the flipside, pig beasts are pretty crap so his entire shtick is consequentially equally crap. Better pig beasts please.
• Calaban - I like my warlock to do things. If I wanted to just cast one spell, upkeep things and hope like hell I don't die, I'd have played PoM. If Grave Door didn't require 14 hoops to jump through as well as a full tax audit and vetting process, then maybe he might be cool had Rask never come out.
• Brigands - People take these with Carver. They don't take them otherwise. Because giving them CRA and Fearless is a thing when they have otherwise poor stats.
• Boneswarms - I have written on Boneswarms before. They could have three different roles, yet they don't do any of them well. They do the tanky role in Midas' theme list pretty well. Sucks for you, Gator players.

Feel free to share your thoughts. Remember that, at least in this context, 'good' and 'bad' are entirely relative, so it makes sense for every eLich,  Molik, or Satyxis unit, we have an eMorghoul, Avalancher or Grotesques.

*Skornergy, for you young ones, is a term coined by the podcast Focus and Fury to describe the Skorne list design process during the Hordes Playtest. It is essentially synergy that looks amazing but doesn't actually work, or screws itself over at some stage in the process. Lots of Skorne warlocks had this feature.