Post 100 - Acknowledging our "special" cousins

Yay.

To celebrate this monumentous occassion, I thought I should do an utterly biased/brutally honest review of our sister sub-faction, the Thornfall, in the style of this grading article. Please don't expect anything of serious value :)

Overview

Pigs have been pretty terrible thus far. I would argue they are the worst "faction" in Warmahordes. This is mostly because Pigs (like Gators) are super restricted, but unlike Gators don't have access to Posse. You can take Rhulic/Pirates casters and jacks in Highborn/4-Star with good troops/solos.
Pigs beasts are really bad for their cost, their infantry options are limited and in no way compare to Gatorman Posse as a faction backbone, they lack a strong sense of in-game faction identity and they are pretty much worse or equal to Gators in 95% of matchups.

Recently however, they got a few good releases that could improve to their viability as a faction: the Arkadius theme, Maximus, the Efaarit and the Meat Thresher. If things keep going like this, they might catch up to Gators within 2 releases cycles (circa 2017!)

Pigs' greatest strength at the moment is that nobody expects them. And Carver's massive balls.

Casters

Lord Carver - 9
Potentially one of the best warlocks in the game. Incredible spell list, very solid feat (damage boost + infantry shred in one package?), very survivable and good personal damage output.  He brings much destruction - one could argue the most destruction, in very large quantities. His biggest weakness, is of course being in Pigs, which keeps him chained down at a solid 9.
He is one of the best Who's the Boss casters out there, where he gets bumped up to a hard, highly overpowered 10 with almost any balanced Hordes list. At my last Who's the Boss tournament, I managed to get a free pick and chose Karchev because everyone always thinks Unearthly Rage with beasts is totally insane. It is indeed nuts, however the downside is you have Karchev as your caster (who sucks more than ever in a meta where lists have to deal with Colossals). Next time, I will not hesitate to take Carver, a man's pigman.
He even has his own tax, applied to Pig heavies and lights - the Carver tax. Ruthless imperialism has its downsides.

Arkadius - 8
A really good beast spamming warlock who finally got his time in the sun with a tier list that makes up for his garbage warbeasts by reducing their PC by 2 across the board AND giving him access to an even better version of one of the game's best light warbeasts.

PP: Pls buy plastic War Hogs, we will be nice from now on :(

Arkadius makes warbeasts grind hard and often. He also happens to have one of the most overpowered spells in the game (Crippling Grasp), which has made people believe he sucks because he doesn't have an arc node, rather than because his beasts are garbage.
Solution? The Ark's Ark, the best thing Pigs have received since Carver. The good thing about the list is that it specifically names out the 3 current Pig beasts for the discount (allowing for new, less garbage pig beasts in the future) and still takes a lot of practice to use effectively due to his very chaotic, frenzy-heavy playstyle.

Midas - 6
Midas does some cool stuff and has very solid spells. His tier is also sweet in that it gives you good Boneswarms and most of a heavy warbeast for basically nothing (at least pre-Efaarit and Meat Thresher).
His downfall (other than being in Pigs) is that he is skewed towards Hordes matchups due to his anti-beast abilities, and has no defensive tech to speak of yet needs to get up in the fray to have an impact (ie. mostly casting Calamity, Curse and using his feat). Not to mention that he wants to spend a lot of fury to cast his sweet spells in order to carry his army.
If the Bone Tokens gave him some defensive tech (ie. Ancient Shroud effect per Bone Token), he might be Carver-levels of legit since his spell list really is that good and he can grind pretty effectively (mass RFP not withstanding).

Sturm & Drang - 3
I love the design on this guy. He looks so fun. But.... he  actually kinda sucks to play and feels incredibly limped dick - again mostly because of his crappy beasts.
Sturm can do cool stuff with TK (one of the best spells in the game), his neat spray and his defensive spells. Drang brings really good bonuses to melee warbeasts.
But they are both polishing turds - badly. Sturm has lots of defensive tech, but none of it really stands out as serious playmakers with his current model pool. Drang only has access to craptacular heavies that are not even a quarter as good as Mulg. Not to mention they are on a medium base in a primarily small-based faction with no worthwhile anti-shooting tech and are SPD 5. WHY SPD 5? If they had SPD 7 with Ride-By, they could do a lot more stuff and not need to worry about constant death.


Helga - 7?
I haven't seen Helga played much yet. I think she seems at least as good as Midas and her feat can be really devastating, especially against medium-base spam like Gators. Like most Pig casters, her spell list is incredibly solid. Dash, Defender's Ward, Distraction are easily top tier spells, and Cyclone + Muzzle are pretty close too. Her passive beast bonus is also really legit (especially since she also benefits).
The main issue I see is not being able to speed up beasts, or buff the damage of her troops. Again, another story of a good caster with a good feat and excellent spells, but is probably carrying too much.

Beasts

War Hog - 3
The War Hog is across the board a crappy heavy. Its one redeeming feature is being able to hit somewhat hard, and a crit KD initial attack. Apart from that it is slow, costly, not that survivable, has a bad animus and is not generally fury efficient. Pigs make do with what they have, and this subpar beast is it. You take it because you have to.

Bebop also does not understand why War Hogs are so bad.

Road Hog - 5
The Road Hog is also pretty lame. It is expensive, has bad base stats, and hits like a wet noodle. However it does have a somewhat useful animus, a speed buff, a pretty decent ranged weapon with auto-fire, and can offer an element of surprise - none of which the War Hog has. I think at a point less, it would be solid, but 9pts for a heavy with no real damage output is hard to stomach.

Gun Boar - 5
Useless animus, bad stats... the pig story. However it gets at least mediocre because it can two-handed throw and it has quite good defensive stats for a light. Also, has a gun.

Razor Boar -7
Pigs' best beast IMO. The animus costing 2 makes it basically blank which frustrates some people, but if you think of it as a really tanky 2pt solo that benefits from battlegroup buffs and doesn't really care about frenzying, then it's pretty legit.

Midas Boneswarms - 7
Boneswarms how they should be - starting with 3 tokens! Makes it a very tanky light, well worth the cost. The animus is also somewhat useful to Midas in cornercase situations since he doesn't have unrestricted access to Spiny Growth like the Gator Master Race.

Arkadius' Goraxes - 10
Holy shit, these are totally insane. Goraxes by themselves are probably 8s, and these have Shield Guard as well (big deal for Arkadius), and the animus does HUGE amounts of work since the downside (auto frenzy) is really an upside in Pigs. Also you can autoplink them in the ass with Arkadius for a free charge before buffing them up to the gills and sending them to one-round a heavy twice their cost.
And the best part is these Goraxes alone were not considered enough to make up for the pig heavies and light, you also have to include them in a tier with -2PC on your other warbeasts and some aggro deployment bonuses.

Troops

Brigands - 4
Mediocre in a nutshell. Have a lot of potential and Hog Wild is a pretty good rule, but bad base stats, pretty high cost, and no really defined role in Farrow (are they tarpits? counter-chargers? how do they trade?, etc) makes them not so great. They are quite a bit better with Carver due to CRA increasing their flexibility a lot.

Slaughterhousers - 6
I quite like these. Bring anti-tough/RFP and a good counter charging toolset. However they don't have access to a great tarpit in Pigs, so don't get to shine as much as they would behind a row of Gators in Skorne.... other most other factions for that matter.

Bone Grinders -7
Sweet unit. Very cheap way to get an accurate magical missile, save animi after beasts die (would be excellent in Gators), boost caster spell range - solid, no real downside other than horrible stats, but for that cost, who cares. They make Calaban less terrible too :)

Razorback Crew - 5
Phew, I almost forgot about these. I graded them very average because it kinda depends on the terrain and the rest of your list. It is a RNG 14, POW 15 AoE3 gun which more than likely gets to AD due to the Thornfall Pact. That's not too terrible for 3pts if you get to make at least 2 shots with it, which you are likely to do if terrain is in your favour. If you don't, then it's not really worth it. Still one of the better artillery models when it gets to AD. Without AD, forget about it.

Solos

Gudrun - 5
This guy would be really sweet if he had Perfect Balance or some other ability that lets him stand up for free so he could deliver himself effectively after getting shot or whatever. I am guessing he will also be pretty legit with Helga + Defender's Ward as a Turn 1/2 tarpit. Aside from that, I have never seen him really pull his weight despite his pretty solid base stats - when he dies, he just gets killed again.

Maximus - 7
I like this guy a lot, and it mostly revolves around him being like Gudrun, but better, for a point less. Basically just the unmounted version of Fenris, but trading a little bit of damage output for survivability and Pathfinder charge (excellent way to protect himself on the advance). Great raw combat solo.

Efaarit - 8
I am really tempted to give these a 9 because they are so good - basically a free, accurate, no consequence ARM piercing every turn on a really fast pathfinder solo. However, I will stick with an 8 because Pigs don't really have much good ranged support to really push them over the top.

Saxon - 8
Saxon would be worth his 2pts without the ability to give something pathfinder. Great stats, good survivability, and some good combat potential. But on top of that, he can also douche warbeasts and give pathfinder to your Slaughterhousers (one of their biggest drawbacks as counter chargers). I am probably slightly biased about how sweet he is, because he is the manliest man on Immoren. Also, his book art makes him look a lot like our favourite Slovenian Press Ganger :)

Alten - 6
It's hard to say really bad things about a RAT 8 RNG 14 hand cannon shot with AD, Camouflage and Swift Hunter. And he gets some free damage against beasts on top of it. Basically a better Widowmaker Marksman (the archetypal mediocre ranged 2pt solo in my book), minus the Stealth.

Pendrake - 5
Ha, I didn't even grade this guy in Gators (would be a 6). Usually Pigs will want Saxon over this guy (as they are mutually exclusive), but Beast Lore can do some cool stuff for your Slaughterhousers, which means they can shred high DEF warbeasts. Aside from that, meh. In Gators he is a bit more valuable because guns are so rare, which isn't really a Pig problem.

Targ - 4
 The only Farrow solo, and he wears their trademark crappiness with pride. He can heal, he can Anxilliary Attack. Wow. Again, polishing turds. Herding does help with control area, but that isn't a problem I've seen Pigs have. Since his special abilities only work on Pig beasts, I assume he was supposed to be a tag-along for Brine in other factions, while also giving those other factions Herding?

Rorsh & Brine-5?
You only hear about them in super janky theorymachine because they are hypothetically able to go super fast. Can do cool stuff but I literally cannot remember a time I have seen them played in Mk2 :(

Raluk Moorclaw also goes here, but I will continue to pretend he doesn't exist. Hypothetically best in a Sturm&Drang list with a marshalled Vanguard so he can repair your BE and Shield Guard for your caster.

Battle Engine

Meat Thresher - 7
I like it. It's not the Gator BE but it's still one of the better battle engines in the game. Again, a good counter charging model in Pigs with no good tar pit in front of it. It is DEADLY in melee with Trash and auto-KD - it basically one-shots Gatormans reliably, which is scary. Not to mention boosted hit rolls against small bases. Bulldoze is also one of the best abilities in the game, and having it on a huge base is really good. It doesn't quite make up for the lack of reach, but it comes close in a lot of situations. The gun is also pretty decent, despite the targeting restrictions and low RAT.

Conclusion & Discussion:

Can you win games with Pigs? Absolutely. I'd go so far as to say that if you are a player with sound fundamentals, you can even win the majority of your games with Pigs in a casual setting. However, if you were put in a situation where there was big money on the outcome of a game (ie. a serious competitive situation), Pigs are very likely the very last lists you would reach for, regardless of familiarity.

As you can see, Pigs do have access to some good models, especially in the warcaster and solo department. Where they fall down is crappy warbeasts, lack of consistent engagers and lack of an effective tarpit. The best tarpit they have at present is a swarm of Razor Boars, which is just a tad expensive, and small bases without reach don't take up enough of the board to really jam up. It seems to me that if the beasts were cheaper on the whole, they could be used as good frontline models..... and lo and behold, the Ark tier (one of the two good Pig lists). I guess this is also part of what makes Carver so good (the other good Pig list) - making heavies fast and high ARM allows them to take the initial hit and/or engage.

There are many perspectives on what Pigs as a "faction" are supposed to be, since PP has certainly not made it obvious over the years. Many believe they are a combined arms factions - if that is the case, they are a really bad one as Cygnar and Khador both do that significantly more effectively even at only their Prime release level. By this reasoning, Pigs are then purely aesthetics.

Others, like myself, believe the primary design of Pigs is supposed to be chaos, frenzy and gambling: their warlocks are built heavily around improving warbeasts (two of which have random, self-damaging mechanics); they have no fury management to speak of (one warlock actively encourages frenzy); and their beasts are mostly crap and work best when thrown away to frenzy and hope to get lucky.
The latest wave of releases confirms this approach between:

• Maximus (literally: a Pig Doom Reaver, just because) 
• Meat Thresher (a crazy Mad Max contraption) 
• Helga (slams everywhere, fat Valkyrian lady singing)
• Arkadius tier 

Let's see if the design keeps going this way. If Pigs get a few more releases in this style, they will develop enough of an identity and tactical niche to make them a viable competitive choice over Gators in the realm of Miniondom. Right now, they still suck and are mostly just things for Carver to carry on his manly back and look neat. Sorry, Bacon lovers :)

Also, gator meat tastes better than pig meat. Sjakk matt, griser.

Extending an olive branch

In the meantime, if anyone wishes to contribute Minion-themed quality guest articles, please get in touch. I'd be happy to discuss it! I made this blog primarily as an easily accessible, semi-permanent (1) depository of Gator information for players interested in playing the faction, and I have more or less kept it up to date these past years despite lulls of interest and long periods of no gaming activity. Especially with my tournament attendance about to take a massive nose dive for the next year, and only getting one release in the next ~18 months, there won't be too much to write about.

However it'd be really nice to have a foreign and/or Farrow element to the website: either stand-alone tactics articles, fluff articles, hobby articles, you name it. So if you know your stuff and can write nicely, leave a comment or send me a PM on the PP boards (Yertle4 - the guy who only posts in sarcasm).

Article on the Sacral Vault will be posted when the model comes out (late 2015 is likely!).

Also thanks to anyone who takes the time to comment or let me know they value this site, your comments and opinions are appreciated.

(1) Unlike the PP forums, I have control of what gets posted here and can be as critical or expressive as I want :)

Drafting in Warmahordes

I love drafting. Doesn't really matter what shape or form it is in, I just think drafting is a great meta-game. Perhaps the greatest metagame. It adds a huge dimension to any complex game.

When I followed NHL hockey, I was a big fan of the pre-reason draft, and the totally heartless denial strategies employed by these equally heartless mega sports franchise organizations, which no longer in any way represent the regions in their name, like they did in the times when the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup every 3rd year.

I also love watching pro DotA, listening to draft analysis and seeing teams organize their skill + items builds to match their team draft and their opponents' team draft. What is also great in DotA drafts is the ban-draft cycle. It greatly increases competitive game balance to allow each team to progressively ban out 5 heroes which they do not want to be involved in the game at all, and how bans play into the draft strategy:

Here is an explanation video of a DotA Captain's Draft from a team captain's perspective (the drafting process has changed slightly since then, for the better):

If you're not familiar with DotA (or its MOBA progeny), the details might be a little confusing, but suffice to say the draft format requires pro DotA players to be quite flexible in playstyle and have a large pool of heroes they can play well, and also requires team captains to be very flexible in terms of overall strategy since the opposing team can always draft hard counters or ban necessary support heroes before you get to pick them. You also have to be really up to date on the current metagame strategies and combinations. A good draft can greatly increase your chances of winning, and a bad one can make life very difficult for you - much like listbuilding in Warmachine or deckbuilding in card games.

The biggest difference of course, is that in games like DotA everyone has access to all the heroes all the time, whereas in Warmachine you are restricted to your faction and your finite wallet (or rather the function of money/time for most gamers). The one exception is the Iron Gauntlet, where you can have lists from different factions, but because of no other restrictions it basically ends up being a dickslapping match between the 10 or so strongest casters in the game and their toughest lists. I am of the opinion that the intention behind the Iron Gauntlet format was to have list construction have as small an impact on the outcome of the game as possible, thereby leaving dice and player skill to be the biggest factors in the game. The reality however, is quite different given the balance issues in the game (1).

DotA has like 105 unique heroes available, but even within the game there is a limited Captains Draft mode where the hero pool is limited to a third of the total, an even more limited individual Single Draft mode where each player only gets 3 randomized heroes to choose from, and even a completely unbalanced but mechanically interesting mode called Ability Draft mode where you get given a hero + their core stats but have to draft your skills alongside the 9 other players! It is basically a draft heaven game.

Drafting is possibly the only part of Magic: the Gathering I find interesting, since deckbuilding Magic is only balanced at the highest levels (which is stupid expensive), or the pre-made starter decks, on account of the rarity/collectible system leading to a huge gap in the power level of individual cards. Drafting leads to some really interesting deck builds, highly unpredictable deck designs and in my opinion a game experience that puts more emphasis on a player's understanding of the game mechanics and play skill than on "deck piloting". My favourite deck building card game, Android:Netrunner as also just introduced a draft format, so looking forward to trying that someday.

What makes draft formats sweet

1) Zero sum game

If you get something, someone else doesn't get it. You not only have to worry about the options you are taking, but the options you are giving to your opponents.

2) Uncertainty

You can't prepare ahead of time as well as you could with a constructed format, because the specific framework and pieces of the game aren't fully determined until the draft is over. However, this uncertainty is still somewhat in the player's control, since decisions during the draft stage affect the final format.

3) Invisible Hand of Balance

It's a bit like cutting a cake. How do you get a cake cut into completely equal pieces? Assuming self interest, you ask someone to cut the cake and tell them they are getting the last piece.

Drafting works a little bit like Adam Smith's free market theory in that way. Assuming every player is trying to win the game, they are trying to get the strongest draft they can, meaning they will take the strongest hand they can, or at least try to make their opponents' hand weaker than theirs. Individual actors following their self interest eventually leads to an equilibrium, which will lead to a state more balanced than if you randomly gave players a bunch of cards/heroes/models/whatever, and assuming balanced inputs, will lead to a pretty balanced outcome (at least relative to the 'core' constructed format).
Due to the ultimately limited pool, there is more potential for abusive combos since certain counters may be absent, leaving OP options unrestrained, but overall the balance issues are not as steep as you'd expect and things run pretty efficiently.

Drafting in Warmahordes

How do you apply this to Warmachine?  

First of all, you have the Spell Draft format that Privateer Press cooked up. That seems about as balanced and fair as the Ability Draft in DotA, which is to say not in the least bit. But it's fun and allows you to look underneath the hood for a bit. Apart from that, a highly limited and very gimmicky mode, good for a laugh and to break your usual thinking patterns for a while.

The last small Who's The Boss/Beermachine event we ran locally in early April had a really cool limited-drafting mechanic which I enjoyed greatly. Here is how it works:

•  All the available caster cards are shuffled together. The two matched-up players sit down at a table opposite each other, and the TO puts down a caster card in front of each player. 
• This is repeated three times, so each player has the option of three different casters to take with his list that round.
• Each player then 'bans' out one caster from his opponent's pool, leaving the choice of two casters. Each player then chooses one of the two for their next game against each other, then you repeat the draft process each round.

That's it. It was a ton of fun and the drafting rounds where probably even more fun that the actual games as everyone trips over themselves trying to give advice to the players and thinking about list combos and all that (2). I found this even better than the standard Who's the Boss wheel, because it has a level of player interaction and choice in it that the spinning wheel doesn't have, not to mention it is WAY easier to implement.

Next time, I'll see how a full-blown army draft goes - including warjacks, warbeasts, units, UA/WAs and solos. I think the best way to do it would be to have all the available cards laid out on a table by category and then use a snake draft system until all players have drawn all cards. You'd probably have to limit the pool in some way so that it doesn't take forever if your playgroup has an asston of models available like mine does.
Each player then puts together a 50 point army list using their selections. After that, you do the warcaster limited draft as mentioned above and go nuts with some really mental lists. 

I don't think competitive WM really lends itself to drafting due to the rather strict army design rules and synergies. Drafting/banning doesn't really make sense, and is pretty unexciting, when you have a only a tiny number of permutations (ie. a handful of fixed list matchups) to work with. Also it's not a zero-sum game. So basically, this post has doesn't really have much to do with SR Warmachine :P

Framtiden

I have a tournament at end of June where I am subbing in for someone else who wisely decided to leave this country for the experience of a lifetime. I will probably play really badly and rage about it/the state of the game, so tune in then to hear more whining and complaining (see footnotes below for an appetizer).


(1) There's an oft-repeated line about Warmachine that says the 'game is balanced'. It isn't. If it were, we would see a much greater diversity in army builds than we currently see. There is a decent amount of diversity, but relatively speaking it is very small. If we want an interesting metagame, someone will always have an advantage in matchups, but that advantage shouldn't be as great within factions as we currently see.
What we should be saying is that out of all the competitive miniature wargames, Warmachine is the most balanced, and is in my opinion the best one. That doesn't mean it can't be better, and there is always room for improvement.

(2) Also because I was feeling pretty low in Warmachine at the time and decided to make a Blindwater list with no Posse. That list sucks cloacas dry btw, never do that to yourself. That and I spent most of my first 1.5 rounds drinking gin&tonics and imported beer, and most of my last 1.5 rounds drinking water, so either way spent more time thinking about my bladder than I did thinking about how utterly shit my lists were.
I still went 2-1 over the 3 rounds since I managed to pick up Kreoss3 in Round 2 (total boss) and Goreshade1 in Round 3 (amazing caster that nobody gives credit to because he is so boring). My first round was Naaresh, who sucks incredibly badly outside Skorne, and sucks normally within Skorne. The design is cute but it's tuned way too loose, making him all limp in the nether regions.

Nerdycon 2013 - Who's the Boss?

This past weekend, NZ held its (to the best of my knowledge) first "Who's the Boss?" tournament in Auckland.

Who's the Boss is a casual tournament format where you come prepared with a single faction list +5 WJ/WB points, and your caster is randomly allocated to you before each tournament round via use of a giant spinning wheel of fortune featuring the name of every caster in the game + some bonus surprises, such as:

• Free spin (like a reroll for the wheel, in case you get a bad caster first time)
• Bankrupt (lesser warlock)
• Jackpot (choose ANY caster you want outside your faction)
• Dealer's Choice (TO gets to screw you over by picking your caster)
• Free spoon (literally, a free spoon to take home)

My list was basically a standard Barnabas 35pt list, with the substitution of a Swamp Horror for a Spitter (I thought giving reach would be sweet) and a Feralgeist/Swamp Gobber team instead of the usual Totem Hunter or Croctor:

MYSTERY CASTER +5
Wrastler
Horror
Snapper
2x Full Posse
Feralgeist
Swamp Gobber

The Horror was good on the grounds that it had a crapload of initials and never seemed to take any damage since it was usually hanging around infantry, the animus didn't really come into play as much as I thought it would. The Feralgeist was a very useful scenario piece as usual, and I even remembered to take over a dead warbeast once!

A crapload of casters

Game 1: Wrong Eye vs Ret (Shae) - Close Quarters

CASTER (*5pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (7pts)
* Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Mage Hunter Commander (2pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)

I was unlucky enough to be the first of two people to roll Bankrupt! on the wheel during the day, resulting in being given either the Journeyman, Dahlia + Skyryth, Rorsch + Brine or WE + Snapjaw (Brun+Lug were unavailable). Fortunately for me, the dice decided on Wrong Eye, which I had in my case fully painted and know how to play very well.

My opponent was Luke, who is a pretty experienced player and general all-around classy guy but was just starting Ret so wasn't 100% familiar with his stuff, so getting a totally new caster on top of that helped even things up with my lesser warlock.... although Shae with Ret is patently unfair. Shae with almost any melee infantry is patently unfair.

My first turn I put Submerge on WE, Spiny Growth on a Wrastler and charged up behind a wall. The rest of my stuff ran up (Snapjaw submerged)..... and I ran the Wrastler barely outside my 8" control area. Super sweet start. On Shae's turn, he put Storm Rager on a Mage Hunter Assassin, feated and I got charged by said Storm Ragered MHA from 17" away. He passed the Terror check due to the surrounding Dirge Gators, and hit Wrong Eye (needing a 5, since I am DEF 12 + wall bonus), and by the grace of Kossk at dice -6 rolled a 1,1,2,5... leaving Wrong Eye on 2 boxes. Yowzer.

The Wrastler with 1 fury outside my control frenzied, killed a Gatorman... then the Posse proceeded to eat all the Ret infantry while Wrong Eye sat behind his wall with Submerge and 2 transfers. The beasts understandably didn't do much, although the Horror did some heavy lifting with its many initial attacks, tying up a clump of MHSF.

I managed to live long enough to see the end of the game through WE's healing (Life Drinker on his Bite + Bond with Snapjaw) and some transfers. He healed up to 5, then went back down to 1 thanks to some Halberdier charges. Eventually Luke deathclocked himself (same thing happened last game we played) and I won a game with a lesser as my warlock.

Game 2: Lich3 vs Ret (eMagnus) - Outflank

CASTER (*5pts)
* Hyperion (18pts)
Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
* Banshee (10pts)
* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard (2pts)
Arcanist (1pts)

This game was against a newer player I hadn't met before named Lance, who had a really nicely painted Hyperion, crisp white and everything. It looked amazing as a centerpiece.
This game was a significant step up in caster power and got Lich3, who is pretty damn strong in Gators with the fury mechanic. He has one of the best rounded buff lists in the game, is very survivable, and comes with a free arc node/soul collector. Probably one of the best casters I could have received.

He deployed Hyperion on my right flank, and the rest of the list to the left. The Banshee was being marshalled by the Sentinels, which I don't think I have ever seen, but as far as jack marshalls go Pronto is a pretty good drive so the Banshee can Pronto up, aim and boost damage (or boost both with Arcanist focus).

I used a Swamp Horror and 1 unit of Gators with Scything Touch to deal with the Hyperion, the Wrastler in the middle to go either side, and the rest of my list (featuring Ashen Veiled Posse) to deal with the Sentinels and dominate the left zone.

I don't remember the game in too much detail, but he feated turn 2 which allowed him to grab a control point in the Hyperion zone after shooting 3 Gators to death, and getting a few melee swings on my Wrastler with the Banshee. eMagnus' feat turn is pretty bad when you have no guns at all and your arc node is held back. Next turn I managed to almost scrap a Hyperion by charging it with a the two remaining Gators and a Scything Touch Swamp Horror under Mobility, and the Wrastler wrecked the Banshee thanks to some beasty damage rolls. Lich3 also Bone Shakered some Sentinels that were blocking my Gator charges, leading to a lot of dead elves.

Next round the Swamp Horror died on Hyperion's last attack and was then taken over by a Feralgeist who managed to finish the Colossal, and Lich3 finished off the rest of the Sentinels, sitting in the zone with 4 fury + his feat (aka. utterly unkillable) and a Wrastler ran 14" up into Magnus' face. 5CPs to me, and I lost about 5 Gators in the process. Not really a fair matchup, but probably fairer than Rask vs Retribution in general.

Game 3: pGoreshade vs Circle (pHaley) - Incursion

CASTER (*5pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Nuala the Huntress (2pts)

This game was against Big Luke (who is physically smaller than other Luke but is a big shot tournament player so it increases his stature), who managed to get pHaley with Circle. That means TB + army at full efficiency. Fortunately for me, I had Mage Blight to force him back to the edge of the Kill Box and a Deathstalker to buff my armor even more against those Stalkers.

I actually really quite liked pGoreshade in Gators. The Deathstalker made quite a difference throughout the game, giving Goreshade an additional pseudotransfer and debuffing Stalkers. Shadowmancer is also a really cool spell for pillow-fisted Gator beasts, and giving your caster stealth never hurts. Here's hoping for that spell on epic Calaban, the Unsuckened. Mage Blight made a pretty big difference in this game, but to be fair to Cryx, I do not understand how this thing can cost 5 and Purification cost 3.

The play in this game was pretty bad overall, but far worse on my part. I made a few colossal mistakes that should have lost me the game, such as forgetting that Wrastlers can't charge over linear obstacles, and forgetting to pop Goreshade's feat. How the hell do you forget to bring in 6 Banes for nothing? Nobody knows.

Anyway, the flag to my left disappeared and we had my Feralgeist and his Gobbers hang out at the right flag the whole game, making scenario a non-issue. Basically, Haley cast TB every turn so was 100% safe from Gators who spent their time slowly chewing through squishy infantry, and he got 2 legit assassination attempts on Goreshade, which all failed:

1. Early teleportation of a non-Primaled stalker on a clump of Gators, killing three of the four within melee range (thanks Deathstalker!). I spent my whole turn figuring out how to get my Wrastler to kill this Stalker since the area was very cluttered with models and a wall. I failed to execute anything in a sensical order and did basically nothing that turn, even forgetting to put Spiny Growth on Goreshade which would have made a huge difference.
2. Same Stalker, now Primaled, managed to chew through all of Goreshade's transfers but 1, and kill the Deathstalker.
3. Last ditch attempt with Haley charging a Gator to get within 5" of Stealth Goreshade, who was now on 1 box with 1 transfer, and missed the second Arcane Bolt which would have certainly killed him. Next turn the Wrastler deathrolls Haley and a Posse member kills her.

Sad, sad example of a Warmachine game, but sometimes you luck out.

Game 4: Makeda3 vs Ret (pKreoss) - Process of Elimination

CASTER (*5pts)
* Banshee (10pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)   (super sweet Phoenix wielding his sword with both hands - looks way better than the usual pose)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Mage Hunter Commander (2pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)

This final game was against Chris Baker, who in the past has had a bad rep for being a douche in game, but to be honest the last two games I have played against him since he started shaving his head have been clean, fun games with zero drama. I even gave him my best sports vote, because someone has to, and it was probably my most balanced and enjoyable game of the day.

Pregame, I rolled Lich1, who wasn't available for whatever reason, so I eventually ended up getting pKreoss, which is nothing to complain about. On his end, Chris managed to roll the wheel about 400 times, getting a bunch of respins, a Double Cross, eventually landing on Makeda3. He decided to use his double cross because pKreoss with fury, Purification and Lamentation against Makeda3 in Ret would really suck. I think this probably worked out in my favour either way since without a damage buff I would have a hard time killing a DEF 15/ARM 19 Makeda camping on a few focus along with a pair of heavy jacks, meaning I would have to grind it out on scenario by throwing things to die at Makeda's feet to keep her in place.

Makeda3 is an interesting caster in the same way that she is incredibly boring. She does absolutely nothing for her army outside her feat (which in this case was nothing since I don't have Molik or Bronzebacks) and making Skorne troops fearless (the only Skorne troops you see are Fearless anyway), and is not really a competitive caster in the current format because she MUST get up close in melee to have any impact on the game - either that, or sit back with Sunhammer and do about 1/8th of what she is capable of. While I do like casters that can get their hands dirty, my favourite casters are the ones that actively power their army through synergies and buffs while also being able to do work and not die to a strong breeze ie. Barnabas, Butcher2 or Gaspys123. Makeda3 does little but charge in, blow stuff up, face-tank and hope her insane defensive stats keep her up.

Anyway, there was a large hill in the middle of the table and a bunch of other terrain on the sides that made no difference at all the entire game. I ran some stuff up, he feated early to knock down all my Gators, denying them the +2 ARM which I think was probably the best use of the feat given that Makeda with a few transfers is very unlikely to die to MHSF, Spiny Growth or not, and the Gators are very unlikely to die to MHSF at ARM 18. The Strike Force manage to kill about half the Gators on the table with charges, and he jams both his heavies in front of Kreoss to protect him from a potential Rise Gator Missile.

Fortunately for him, the Horror is 4.75" away from the Wrastler so too far to throw him forward. Hence I spend my turn destroying an objective with Makeda, forgetting to activate the statues in her unit, killing a couple of Defender's Warded MSHF with Gators (DEF 16 is balls, but rerolls are legit), and fluffing boosted attack rolls with my beast under Makeda's feat (which basically means "free boosts if you can hit!" in this army). In retaliation, he kills my Wrastler with a Banshee and some monster damage rolls. I then charge said Banshee with Makeda and her Statue Sisters, managed to kill it handily, and kill Eyriss and a few more MHSF with Gatormans. I then do my only pro move of the entire tournament, which is to run a Feralgeist right in front of Makeda such that the Phoenix isn't able to walk up and engage her without taking two free strikes from Gatormans.

He attempts an assassination on Makeda with Kreoss, purifying off Spiny Growth and doing a decent amount of damage, following it up with 2 Mage Hunter Assassins (they could see her as she was on the hill) who fluff their rolls and a Phoenix with some focus, but she lives with a few damage boxes and 1 transfer, which I use to transfer away the continuous fire damage roll from the Phoenix and then kill Kreoss.

Thoughts on the format

So there you go, I went 4-0 during the day and became The Boss, and got this super sweet trophy:

Not a mug, but I'll take it

First, I got a bit lucky in the draw playing against Ret three times since I play against them so often I know what all their stuff does and Gators chew through living infantry like nobody's business. I realize that Gators with Rask or Barnabas usually just steamroll over Ret in general without breaking a sweat, but one has to keep in mind that I didn't have either of those casters available so my Gators were as prone to getting shot as any other infantry and my opponents also had access to casters that are far better than usual Ret casters. So while I did get exceptionally lucky a few times in game and in the caster allocation, I like to think I ultimately won the games I did due to being very familiar with my faction's abilities and general knowledge of the game rather than facerolling over Ret like I can with Rask. Better lucky than good, as I was told.

I don't think Gators are a spectacularly amazing list in Who's the Boss - I mean, it's not like I couldn't run pretty much the exact same list in Skorne and Legion with far better beasts in a standard format. Ashen Veil and Scything Touch (or Fury) are both friendly buffs, not Faction specific. The only "non-standard" thing really was getting battlegroup buffs like Shadowmancer, Makeda3's feat and Mobility on Gator beasts, which isn't that much scarier than getting those on good heavies .
To me, the strength of Blindwater is their really survivable casters who allow Gatorman Posse to reliably get across the table and do their thing while controlling your opponent's response. Without that, it's basically just a Faction X force with mediocre beasts and a lot of Minions.

Second, the format was also not as broken as I had expected. Other than getting lesser warlocks or a Jr as your caster, I didn't experience any huge power spikes that felt different to a usual game of Warmachine. The strongest caster I played by far was Lich3, but basically any time I have played with or against Cryx, it seems like that level of power if you choose the correct list. Lich3 with a Deathjack, some Banes and some Black Ogrun would have been just as potent I think. The format is understandably too random and with a lot of potential for unmitigatable skew in matchups to be taken seriously as a competitive format but nevertheless, on the whole it still seemed less broken than Mk1 :P

Third, playing Hordes in this format is also clearly far, far better than playing Warmachine. If you get a WM caster with your Hordes list, you are basically doubling up on resources and getting OP spells and feats with little downside. Whereas spells like Mage Blight or Temporal Barrier take up a massive portion of your resources in WM, leaving your warjacks to flap their dicks in the wind for most of the turn, they are relative freebies in Hordes. If you have a Warmachine list and get a Hordes caster, chances are you're probably not going to get anything amazing.... like getting Arkadius in your 1-warjack list.

Fourth, I finally discovered a benefit to Minions being deemed a "complete faction" - playing Gators negated me from getting crappy Pig casters (besides Carver, of course). Woot! It didn't save me from lessers since basically all of them are Minion/Mercs though.

Finally, Who's the Boss? is and was a lot of fun. Although I am a pretty average player, I really like thinking about systems and how things interact and how changing one part of the system completely changes the whole. Warmachine is a really good game for that, and Who's the Boss? gives you a whole new mental dimension on the game. Having everyone anxiously staring at the wheel seeing what caster you're going to get each round, and sharing in your pain when you get a lesser warlock provides a really chilled out fun atmosphere to a tournament.

Thanks to Damian Caulfield for running a really nice casual event and for putting together an awesome caster wheel! Looking forward to the next one :)