On Colossals and Gargantuans

My experience against Colossals and Gargantuans has been somewhat limited. I think as a model design decision, they have proven to be quite interesting and surprisingly well balanced (with a couple of exceptions), but also have provided a hard meta-skew effect towards big anti-armor, thereby giving Cryx Bane spam more love and the middle finger to Gators. If Rask had not come out, Blindwater would truly have been in the hole in 2013 where they would have an extremely hard matchup against any Gargossal + repair lists, and I probably would have picked up Skorne (since Gatormans are Skorne's best infantry, and Skorne has some of the best beasts and support around).

The main thing with Gargossals is that they more or less force you to bring Rask to deal with them - Calaban sucks (1), Maelok's anti-ranged tech isn't reliable enough to play him far back and his anti-ARM tech (Malediction) is just too risky against a huge wall of damage boxes, and Barnabas doesn't offer enough punch. Having said that, each caster DOES have some game against Gargossals, which usually relies on ignoring it in some way or another. Playing smart, in other words.


What do Gargossals have in common?

• ARM 19+ - remember that sweet spot of Gator douching? There it is.
• Crapton of damage boxes - usually needs two jacked up heavies to one-round it. Or a Bronzeback.
• Very high POW melee attacks
• Focused high POW ranged attacks - usually a huge gun of some sort.
• Spray/Large AoEs/High Volume of attacks - usually to kill infantry. Think 2d3.
• Cannot be thrown, placed, moved, KDed, stuff into a turkey, etc. - basically, the old "throw jack into shallow water" trick doesn't work.
• Pathfinder - can't be slowed by Swamp Pits, Inhospitable Ground, and so on.
• Easy to target with ranged attacks
• Can't be disrupted - Rask is sad.
• Can be Black Oiled - Warmachine is happy.

Warmachine

Stormwall - This thing is monstrous. The reason it is so insanely good for Cygnar players is that it is literally a few Defenders, Cyclones and Stormclads voltron-ed together into this mass of steel, with some very potent electric infantry shred added in. Seems legit and balanced, right?
One good thing for Blindwater is that the covering fire templates are only POW 12, so are very unlikely to kill a Gatorman (our primary infantry), and are unlikely to be positioned as to hamper ambushing Bog Trogs.

Take in the despair.

Conquest - This jack is serious business, mostly because it has naturally high ARM and lots of boxes. Which means you need to throw a serious amount of damage into it, and with Gators low DEF values, if you don't kill it in one round, it will demolish anything in melee (see pro tips below).
Its ranged capability, in my opinion, is not of serious threat to Gators. The Secondary Battery is basically a funny joke, and we have enough anti-ranged tech to stop getting assassinated by the Main Guns at range, and it is unlikely to kill more than a single Gator a turn - just spread your Posse a bit and put Spiny Growths on your beasts. It could get nasty if it shoots into melee clumps, but at RAT 4 and needing to directly hit for the crit effect, not a huge deal.

Judicator - Similar to the Conquest, this thing is pretty tough, hits very hard and quite accurately in melee and has a negligible ranged capability.  Unlike the Conquest however, it has access to crazy jack support and ARM buffs, so having a fishman with a ranged dispel is pretty good.

Hyperion -Again, high POW melee is serious business, and it is reasonably tough. The gun also can seriously damage warbeasts or unprotected casters, so make sure those Spiny Growths/ Swamp Pits are up. Its 2d3 attacks at POW 12 aren't really a concern. If you can hit it hard enough in one round to take out its 'S' system, then it can just kill you with its fists rather than shoot you through the universe, which is probably a plus. One Fury-ed beast should be able to do that.
The crit effect on Starburst is mostly irrelevant, since our only small based models are Bog Trogs, Croaks and Gobbers who would die to the blast anyway.

Galleon - Bart with Galleon is serious business, and is probably not really beatable with Rask, which means the rest of your options are also screwed. Your best bet is to hope to soak Hot Shot AoEs, and get around the Galleon(s) to the squishier backfield, which isn't so hard to do with Maelok.
Galleon without Bart is still reasonably nasty, as several Merc casters can give him really good buffs, however it is not an invincible armor wall.

Kraken - I don't really expect to see this as long as Satyxis and Banes exist and Cryx players don't really have a good reason to try out new playstyles. Although it does seem pretty good, and is definitely not vegan. Same deal overall - tough cookie that is hits pretty hard and has negligible ranged capability in regards to dealing with Gators.

Hordes

Mountain King - I've yet to play him, but I have seen it played a few times. Whelp Shedding could be an issue if used cleverly to block charges from a second heavy coming in (since our heavies only have reach on their weaker attacks), but if you play smart with attack allocations it shouldn't be a big deal. Not as terrible as he is made out to be (few things are), but still pretty bad. MAT 5 vs MAT 6 makes a big difference when faced with an Iron Flesh Gator pit, for example (10s to hit vs 11s). I remember a lot of my feedback during the Hordes Mk2 Playtest was on the significance of MAT 5 vs MAT 6 on melee warbeasts.

Take in the tragedy.

Woldwrath - I have not really been super impressed with this thing so far. Granted, the time I played against it, it never used its ranged attack (which seems pretty decent and could kill a Gator or two) and the list was not built around the animus (which seems to be its raison d'etre). Even if it were, Circle magic attacks usually aren't that damaging (just annoying). But it is still a big, hard hitting monster, with a decent gun and naturally high ARM.
Spell Ward kind of works both ways - it can't have its ARM buffed, but you can't put debuffs on it either (sorry, Parasite users). In the end, just skews some matchups a bit.

Mammoth - Looks pretty insane and easily the most potent of the four Gargs. Fortunately Gators can survive its blast damage quite handily, so all you need to worry about is its huge melee POW and ability to Bulldoze all your stuff away. Bulldoze, huge melee/speed buff potential and good survival is really the ballbreaker on this one for Blindwater - a good bulldoze move combined with an accuracy buff and a sweep means a lot of dead Gatormans.

Archangel - Wrastlers and Snapjaw remove from play, which nerfs the best thing about this guy (pThag's feat). You should have a Wrastler or Snapjaw in at least one of your tournament lists. He has the highest potential DEF of all the Gargossals, but fortunately he is living so Gatormans + heavies should mess him up good, even without Fury. Which is good, since Rask is not the best matchup vs Legion.

Pro Tips:

1 - Rask
Rask's gun has the solution to most things, and Fury is the solution to everything else. AND you've got Boundless Charge for that extra fury worth of attacks, and a feat to protect you from getting shot until you engage. Boom. He will be one of your lists, and is likely to be THE list if you're facing a Gargossal.

2 - Swamp Horror 
Critical Catastrophic Damage. This ability is ok vs Colossals but AMAZING vs Gargantuans since they still only have 6 huge branches. So you can do ~10 points of damage on the crit alone. All you need is a little luck, and on 5 attacks chances are you get one crit in there somewhere. Worth keeping in mind, or boosting hits in desperate circumstances. Fortune favors the bold!

3 - Ignore it
Just move around it. Kill everything else. Feed it some guys so it leaves you alone. Remember that Gargossals cost a crap load of points!

Of course, this is easier said than done since Gargossals usually end up squatting in a scenario zone, and have a very large footprint  on the table.If you can win on scenario or assassination by ignoring a huge chunk of your opponent's army however, that can be an unexpected but efficient way to win.

4 - Spirit World
In the spirit (pun intended) of pro-tip #3, use Maelok's feat and run/charge a big chunk of your army through it to mess with stuff in the backfield.  Risky since you're putting less things between your caster and the huge P+S 20ish tower of power, but if you can make your opponent crap itself at multiple Gatormans swarming his backfield and caster while keeping Maelok somewhat safe, or killing the opposing caster, then it's the right move!

5 - Spiny Growth
I've found after sending a heavy or two into a Gargossal, it sometimes survives with a few damage boxes. A colossal will usually kill a Gator heavy in 3-4 hits, which means another 4d3 damage on it. It's enough to make your opponent reconsider a few of those attacks or his order of activations, usually to your benefit. If you're going to die, bring the bastard down with you.

6 - Iron Flesh Gator Mosh Pit
When life gives you lemons, put 3-4 DEF16 Posse around a Colossal and force it to spend focus to kill you. Might buy a turn or two, and is a reasonably legit tactic with Barnabas.

7- Voodoo Doll
You know what really isn't that sweet? A Gargantuan without its Spirit, or Mind. Wrong Eye is a pretty excellent at making this happen. RNG 8 is a bit short, and may result in his death, but with either Submerge + a screen or two transfers, he is likely to live through possible return fire (no need to boost vs DEF below 10).

(1) Ok, Calaban has Parasite and would do pretty well against low model/high ARM lists, but I still see no reason to play him over Rask. Although I am still wishing for some Calaban love, hopelessly. Some day....

Confidence!

I just wanted to share this (hilarious) post by one of my regular opponents:

http://retributionofcyryst.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/update.html

CONFIDENCE

This is what happens to you after you face Rask one too many times.

Blindwater Painting tutorial - feat. Rask

I had a request a while back from one of my favourite readers for a painting article. I had to wait until I actually had something new to paint before making it, but here it is.

I must admit that I am far from the best technical painter around, and my Gators certainly do not demonstrate the peak of my technical painting abilities due to some aesthetic decisions I made when starting the faction, namely that I would go for a very dark, muddy and dirty look on every model. As such, detail doesn't really stand out under standard lighting and in no way looks crisp, but it looks good anyway.

One of the most valuable things I learned in secondary school was the importance of colour selection. I learned this in a computer art class, where the teacher took the time to tell me that my colour selection sucked, made me run to the art department to pick up colour theory books, and took 10 minutes to demonstrate that good colour choices can have a huge impact on a work of art. So a big thanks to my computer art teacher from Form 6/Year 12 (1) for giving me the knowledge needed to paint nice cohesive armies.

The army as a whole uses only earthy base colours - dark olive green, bone white and earthy brown. For shading, I primarily use Devlan Mud and Badab Black GW washes. Washes works great for that messy dirty gritty look, despite being a bit of a cop-out technique for a lot of people :)

I also have two 'theme' colours for my Gator army - bright red and turquoise blue. I use these two very sparingly on most models in the army to give some cohesion and spice up the models a bit. Red is easy to throw in since carnivorous Gatormans spill a lot of blood, and the turquoise blue colour is found mixed in the basing colours if nowhere else.

The Process

Essentially, my painting is pretty mechanical and follows a step-by-step process. This is probably why some have referred to it as 'soulless':

1. Undercoat
2. Base Coats
3. Shade/Ink/Wash
4. Highlights
5. Details

That's about it. Here is an explanation with pictures (mistakes and all!):

Step 0 - Model Preparation

This is the stage where you take the model out of the box, check you have all the pieces, hypothesize about how they all fit together and then clean them. I use a really old toothbrush and some warm soapy water and scrub every piece. This is to clean off any metal dust or oils that have gathered on the model as a result of the molding or packaging or transport processes. I find that this step makes a big difference when you get to gluing the model together and it will stick together a lot better.

After scrubbing everything, I'll look over the model under a bright light with a hobby knife and a few different modelling files and remove any flash and mold lines. After that, I assemble it, sometimes leaving a piece or two off to be painted separately and attached later.

Step 1 - Undercoat

I currently undercoat everything by hand - lighter areas like skin or beige cloth would get a white undercoat, metallics and darker colours get a black base coat. This is one reason I don't really like plastic models - I just undercoat with standard paint, which works fine on metal models but ends up streaky on plastic/resin models which require a proper gritty primer undercoat to look best.

For Gators, I undercoat everything in black for the aforementioned dark look. This gives even the brighter colours (like Blood Red and Bone White) I use a darker tone.

Step 2 - Base Coats

I base coat the entire model - basically at this stage it is good enough to be played in a hardcore format and looks decent from across the table. This also allows me to review the overall colour scheme and make any changes before getting to detail work.

For Rask, I decided to paint him like an albino (2), which means he would be predominantly white. In my colour scheme, that means a lot of bone white. I chose to paint his fins bright red to make him stick out, and his bone armor a dark grey to contrast with his lighter skin. His bracelets and loin cloth were painted brown, and the gun and spears painted with dark metallics (silver and bronze).

Step 3 - Shade/Ink/Wash

After the base coats are done, I apply the shading.  In the past I've usually just mixed darker layers of the base coat and watered it down a bit for shading, which looks much cleaner than a wash (worked great on Skorne armor for example), but for Gators I took the easy route of GW washes.

On Rask, I took a bit of extra care with the Devlan Mud wash, making sure that it accumulated in places I wanted darker and was evenly applied otherwise, especially to the scales on his back. I used Badad Black for the brown and grey sections of the model. I also apply a mix of brown and black inks to the metallic pieces - unlike watered-down paint, inks won't fog up the sheen of metallic paints.

Step 4 -Highlights

Highlighting is pretty simple - mix the base coat with a lighter colour (usually some shade of beige or white), and apply to the raised sections and edges. The aim is to make the detail stand out and give some impression of lighting. This requires a fine detail brush, slightly watered-down paint, and a lot of patience.

For Rask, the important details where the scales on this back, his face and the muscular parts of his arms and legs. I used a half drybrush technique to pick these out while maintaining a messy look. The red of the fins were approached in the same way. The bone armor was highlighted in two stages, the second lighter than the first and only on the edges. The metallics were highlighted with a bright silver, giving them a scuffed look. The browns were highlighted with a mix of brown and bone white.

Step 5 - Final Details

This is where you give the model a once-over check, fix up any mistakes, paint eyes (which I don't usually do on models), finish the base, apply seal or gloss, and paint the front arcs.


And that's it. The entire painting process for a well-detailed model takes about 90-150 mins , 2 or 3 extreme metal albums worth of time.

(1) He also taught me that Macs are the best for computer design and art, and PCs are better are everything else.
(2) Fantasy fiction has shown me that albinos all have superpowers relative to their pigmented counterparts.

Rask - Bastard of the Bog

Overview

Rask is the fourth caster available to the Blindwater Congregation, and unlike the other three, is not a Gatorman. Instead he is a Bog Trog, and an honourless bastard.

What a douche.

Stats

Largely unremarkable stats, besides his good RAT. Same SPD as the average Gatorman and Bog Trog is a little surprising, but I guess he struts more than walks. Defensively, both his DEF and ARM are squarely in the middle of the pack when it comes to warlocks. His most surprising stat is his CMD, which is as dismal as you would expect from such an untrustworthy slimy fishman.

Spells

His spell list has been described by one of my regular opponents as "Khador's dream spell list" - with the notable absence of Iron Flesh, of course.

• Admonition - one of the best defensive spells in the game, an allows target battlegroup model to advance 3" in response to an enemy model ending its movement within 6" of it.
• Boundless Charge - seen on several Khador casters, makes things charge further, for free, and through rough terrain.
• Fury - another Khador staple, makes things hit hard. Really hard. The downside is -1 DEF, which is not really a problem for Gators.
• Inhospitable Ground - usually assigned to tactical warmasters like Xerxis or Irusk, Rask likes to turn large areas into swampy bog.

Note the lack of magic nuke, which is made up for by his potent magical spear gun.

Abilities

• Call to Sacrifice [Bog Trog] - it's like the Errant Seneschal's ability, except in a much smaller area. And on a warlock.
• Ammo Types:
  This is practically like having an entire spell list of really good magical nukes at your disposal, except they are free:
  - Paralysis: aka Krea/Argus gun, lowers a living targets DEF to 7, and stops them running/charging.
  - Energy Siphon: aka. Kaelyssa gun, steals a fury/focus from the target on hit.
  - Arcane Interference: aka. eEyriss gun, strips upkeeps, removes all focus and disrupts jacks.

Feat - Dark Waters

While in Rask's control, friendly faction models cannot be targeted by anything from further than 5" away. No shooting, no spells, no charges... a very potent defensive feat that fits in well with the Gator's "no shooting" shtick.

Thoughts

Damage

His personal damage is almost negligible. P+S 11 non-reach melee weapon with a low MAT is downright crap. Its good enough to kill a trooper or two, but beyond that you want to keep him out of melee and in a clear support role. His harpoon gun is hits as hard as a hand cannon, so not too bad there.

Fury, on the other hand, turns almost anything in Blindwater into a killing machine. P+S 19/16 Totem Hunter? P+S 16 Posse? P+S 20/17 Wrastler? Yes please. This is the caster you want to take when facing heavy armor, as Fury combined with his harpoon gun (see 'utility') gives you the tools you need to take those heavies down.

Coincidentally, 'poison' looks very similar to the French word for 'fish'.
The more you know.

Survivability

He is a support caster, but a support caster that needs to be quite far up because of his short spell ranges (6" for most), and the dependence on his sweet gun (10" range). Fortunately, he has respectable (though not fantastic) defensive stats in a faction that does well at stacking defensive buffs. I usually take a unit of Swamp Gobbers with him to provide concealment or block LoS to him, and Spiny Growth is always useful. I prefer the Swamp Gobber cloud to a Boneswarm's animus here since:

1. Rask usually isn't too scared of melee attacks on account of Admonition and his feat (which is usually followed by a wall of jamming Gatormans).
2. Bog Trogs also benefit greatly from the cloud on account of Camouflage. 
3. Boneswarms are bad. I'd rather have a Snapper/TH/Croctor + Gobbers 99% of the time.

The thing that really pushes him over the edge in this department is his Call to Sacrifice - [Bog Trogs] ability. It more or less means that he is extremely difficult to assassinate if your opponent does not kill everything else in the army first, and bring enough guns to snipe out the pathetic Trogs near him.

Utility

This is what Rask does best. He has the tools to get the job done. His spell list, as mentioned, is rock solid:
Need extra hitting power to crack hard targets? Fury on a heavy beast or a charging Posse will do it.
Need to protect yourself from melee alpha strikes? Admonition.
Fighting an opponent without much pathfinder? Inhospitable Ground to jam them up.
Need to charge over that Janyssa wall, get a few extra inches of threat or save some fury on your beasts? Boundless Charge!

It's like a wish list of Domination-era Blindwater. And then he has three different types of ammo on his gun (which is practically a second spell list of awesome spells) so as to make him at least very useful in any situation.

Playstyle + Tactica

Despite his annoying tricks, Rask seems less predisposed to play the attrition game than our other warlocks. Fortunately, he makes up the difference by being pretty decent at assassination. He can make stuff hit hard, make stuff charge further, and remove buffs/focus/fury. The Totem Hunter is almost an auto-include for a Rask list, as the threat of a MAT 10, P+S 19/16 getting to your caster or valuable pieces is very viable. It's a bit like having Fury-ed Eliminators in a Khador list, except he won't die to blast damage. There's also the Flying Gator trick, which just gets better with more damage, more range and more pathfinder.

His gun is also possibly the single most powerful weapon in the game (besides Lola, I would think). It's almost an entire spell list on its own, each of which provides assassination and control potential:

• Paralysis can help get an assassination on high DEF casters like Shae, Ashlynn, Morghoul or Amon. With a RAT of 7, Rask shouldn't have too much trouble hitting them, reduce their DEF to pathetic, and win. It's also useful to lower the DEF on warbeasts so your gators don't have to use their re-roll on living prayers (where you'd rather use Pathfinder or Dirge).
  Paralysis is also a way to shut down slow living melee beasts like Bronzebacks for a turn (just be sure not to boost the damage roll and trigger Hyper Aggressive!).
• Arcane Interference is also pretty damn sweet. Its most potent use is to remove focus from enemy warcasters. This is a huge deal for Gators, as a lot of warcasters could just camp a handful of focus and be nigh immune to anything we could throw out.
  This ammo type will also disrupt warjacks (very useful control) and remove upkeeps from both enemy and friendly models - great for dealing with pesky Crippling Grasps, Arcane Shields and Polarity Shields!
• Energy Siphon is the least powerful of the three effects, which isn't really saying much. In terms of assassination, stealing a fury from an enemy warlock and using that same fury to boost a POW 12 against them is pretty douchy (aka. characterful). You can also use it to steal fury from non-living beasts and make their warlocks cut themselves to make up for it. It's better than nothing, and you have an extra fury at the end. Finally, I don't remember how many out-of-turn focus-powered effects remain in the game (eSevvy's jack bond?), but you could steal focus from jacks to stop those effects happening. Or steal focus off the Avatar for lolz.

The feat Dark Waters is usually used first or second turn - basically the turn where you would get charged, or shot up. It will allow you to get the alpha-strike a lot of the time, which for an attrition faction like Gators is very significant. Note however that there are a few ways around it for your opponent - they can trample in with a heavy and buy additional attacks, they can run a few models in a unit into your guys and charge their own guys to kill them then use non-charge attacks on your models (which usually isn't a problem for ARM 18 Posse or beasts).

One interesting aspect of the feat is that it also pretty kills arcing spells, because while the source of the attack is the arc node, the model making the attack is usually further than 5" from his target, making the attack illegal.

I find the feat to combo very well with Inhospitable Ground - you cannot be charged, and if the enemy doesn't have pathfinder, they usually won't even be able to walk into melee with you. This also shuts down mass pathfinder spells like Killing Ground. You will usually have plenty of fury to cast I.G. on the feat turn as well, since you won't be doing all that much else before lines engage. In general, I.G. is a very potent but very matchup dependent spell - if you're playing Circle for example, you will rarely cast it. If you're playing Protectorate, it's likely to be up all the time.

Fury is self-explanatory - apply to thing, then get thing to charge and kill enemy thing. I like to put it up on a Posse on the feat turn, so I can hotswap it to another target after that Posse has charged. Rask will usually be activating amongst the first few models most turns anyway, since he sucks in melee, will rarely need to move forward much, and almost everything he does focuses on support or denial.

Admonition is a trickier spell to use. Often it best serves being put on a heavy melee beast early on to serve as bait and cause headaches to your opponent. Later on in the game, you can switch it to Rask to make any potential assassination attempts even more difficult. Either way, make sure you use a visible token so you don't douche your opponent out of a good plan!

List Composition

One of the interesting things I found about Rask is that he does not demand a Bull Snapper like the other Blindwater warlocks do. He is so aggressive that you will usually end up getting the alpha charge with your heavies (which will die to the counterattack, Spiny Growth or not), and Fury allows the Posse to do such ridiculous amounts of damage on the counter attack that you'd be foolish not to use them. Most of my lists run with only a Wrastler and a Swamp Horror (who does amazing things with Fury, and brings reach on a stick) and I've been doing fine with that, never lacking for fury or transfer targets. Most people don't even consider assassinating Rask if he has a fury or two, and a few Trogs/Shamblers hanging around. Saying that, a Bull Snapper is still probably the best beast available to us, so why not take one?

Otherwise, he works quite well with everything in Blindwater. Just be sure to have a unit of Trogs around him to bring him from 'average survivability' to 'damn hard to assassinate'. Shamblers are especially good at this since they are cheap bodies and benefit nicely from Rask's toolset.

Weaknesses

Rask's main weakness (besides being in a young faction) is that he himself is a wuss, and he doesn't make his stuff harder to kill. You have to make sure to hit hard and fast, while trying to protect your army using his control tricks. If you can get controlled and grinded down, then you're in trouble since Rask's wussiness means you lack endgame credit.
Secondly, he is also somewhat prone to assassination if you can deny him transfers and healing (ala Grievous Wounds, Entropic Aura, etc.). He needs to be a bit further up to have a meaninful impact on the game due to his short spell ranges, RNG 10 gun and Inhospitable Ground, so he can be sniped off quickly if your opponent has the pieces to deny him his defenses, or push him away from his Trog friends.
Third, unlike Barnabas with Warpath and Maelok with Revive, he does not provide unpredictable threat angles out of turn (except perhaps Admonition).
Fourth, he is vulnerable to FU auras of anti-spell. I discovered this recently when I played against Kromac and his Bestial spell. Having to be a bit further up the table and unable to cast spells really sucks bad for the little fishman. Other similar effects include Mage Blight, Lamentation, Circle Druids or the Book of Menoth.

His other big weakness is that he kind of forces you to bring Bog Trogs, who are good if and only if they ambush into the enemy's backfield. If they don't, then they are just overpriced crappy infantry. Furthermore, his CMD of 5 in no way helps the Trogs crappy CMD of 8.

Conclusion

Power Level:
Assault Kommandos|---------------------------------[9k]----[Rask]---| Rask's Gun

The best thing about Rask is that he more or less invalidates any reason to play Pigs at present, other than perhaps against a weapon master swarm matchup. No need to play Carver lists for tournaments just to deal with armor lists anymore. Gators are the complete Minions package until PP decides changes their approach to Farrow.

I hate to say it, but Rask pretty much replaces Calaban in every way (except maybe Carnivore), and then some. He is arguably the best caster available to Blindwater, giving Barnabas a serious run for his money and an excellent partner in a 2-list Steamroller format. He also works pretty well alongside Maelok, switching the grind for the punch. His gun is absolutely insane, and his spell list is all A-list spells, and he has something meaningful to do every single turn.

I think if I ever attended a Hardcore event with Gatormans, he would be my go-to caster without a doubt. While Barnabas has more good matchups, Rask does not initially appear to have any bad matchups not shared by other Gator casters.