New Khadoran Technology

Khador players received four new warjacks in Reckoning. Let's have a look-see...

Mad Dog

The first of the new jacks based on the Berserker chassis, the Mad Dog has exactly the same stats as it's predecessor whilst costing one point less. It has two hammer spikes rather than war axes, losing two power and the chain attack benefit.

It retains the Berserker's characteristics of Aggressive and Unstable, meaning it can run or charge for free, but if it spends focus, it has a chance of blowing up.

It also has two additional rules on the card. Jury-Rigged allows it to spend one focus to gain +2 SPD, but take a point of damage to its movement system at the end of activation. Crusher gives free trample attacks and an additional die to trample attack rolls.

Khador warjacks are renowned for being slow, but Mad Dog joins the growing list of jacks like Grolar and Ruin who have inbuilt speed buffs. Coupled with one of the many Khadoran Warcasters who have mechanisms to speed up our jacks, Mad Dog can be a fast and focus-efficient addition to the forces of the Motherland.

A Mad Dog run by Andrei Malakov can be a very effective flanker. Cast Redline and then upkeep in subsequent turns for +2 SPD and STR and run it down one of the two sidelines. It can quite happily operate independently for the rest of the game, running, charging, and trampling for free. Trample whenever possible, ideally through backline support; with an additional die on trample attack rolls it should hit most small based models.

If you need extra speed for an especially long trample or charge, couple with a caster with Boundless Charge and give it a focus for Jury Rigged. It can now charge thirteen inches, or run sixteen. Of course there is a one is six chance that it will blow up, but that's Khadoran engineering for you.

At five points, the Mad Dog is very good value, and will start to be seen in quite a few different lists, particularly if it comes in a multijack kit that can be magnetized with...

Rager

Another new warjack based on the Berserker chassis, Rager is the first Khadoran jack with Shield Guard. Again boasting the Berserker stat line and the prerequisite abilities of Aggressive and Unstable, Rager is an in-faction alternative to other mercenary shield guard solutions previously used by Warcasters requiring a bullet magnet to stand next to them.

Rager is equiped with a Gladius, giving it a P&S half way between a Berserker and Mad Dog, a Shield (of course) and a Shield Cannon. Although it's priority is unlikely to be offence, it can certainly come into play late-game, and is as focus efficient as it's two brethren.

The only reason you'll be taking this jack is to provide your caster with a shield guard, a job it fulfills admirably with 31 damage boxes and the addition of a shield taking it up to armour 20. Compare this to a Vanguard who loses a point of armour and five damage boxes or a Bokur with three less armour and only has eight health, though obviously at half the cost. The big selling point is that the meagre 6 points you have to spend can come out of your warcaster's jack allowance, and being a non-character faction warjack it is allowed in most tier lists.

Ruin

With increased point cost comes increased killybility, as Uncle Pete used to say. Now that the bargain basement jacks are done, we move on to the big boys. Ruin is the character warjack of Orsus Zoktavir in all his incarnations. If you're running any flavour of The Butcher, chances are you'll be taking Ruin with him.

Based on the Kodiak chassis, Ruin has much the same statline but with greatly increased MAT and slightly lower RAT. In terms of armament, he still has one open fist, but clenched in the other is a Black Iron Mace featuring +2 POW, reach, magical weapon, and dispel! That's quite a package right there. Gone is the heavy boiler and steam attack, but Ruin has plenty of other rules to make up for that. If in Butcher's control area he gets Boundless Charge for free. He carries an Orgoth Seal which decreases the range of magic attacks against him and inflicts damage to the caster on successful attacks. Note this is not the same as Doom Reaver's Spell Ward, meaning Ruin can be targeted by friendly spells.

The final ability is without doubt the best. Soul Taker means that Ruin gains souls, up to a maximum of three, from enemy models destroyed within two inches of him. These can be spent that turn (or saved for later turns) to buy or boost attacks. They are in addition to focus, so Ruin can have three focus and three souls at the same time. These souls can come from Ruin's own attacks, or those of friendly models, as long at the enemy model that was destroyed was within two inches. This provides some great synergy with Butcher 3, who can use Impending Doom to drag enemy models within range and preload Ruin with souls before his is activated.

Ruin is an incredible warjack for the same points cost as a Spriggan, with the ability to put out serious damage on both multiple infantry and heavies or collossals. The combination of dispel and souls means that whatever ends up within 2 inches of Ruin is unlikely to survive.

Victor

And so we finally come to the really big boy, our new collossal, Victor. I'll be honest right from the start here, I'm conflicted over Victor for two reasons. Firstly I really dislike the notion of casterkills by lucky deviation, especially if they take three turns of continuous fire to achieve. To me, that isn't the Khadoran way. Secondly I've spent so long getting Conquest into a viable list, it just doesn't seem fair that the new kid on the block so quickly resigns him to the dusty top shelf of the game room.

Victor is very similar to his other brother Conquest, with identical stats and costing one point less. Melee weapons are the same, whilst the ranged weapons have changed dramatically. Instead of the Main Guns and their critical knockdown Victor is primarily armed with a Siege Mortar. On the plus side, five inches more range, arcing fire, an inch larger AOE, and three special effects to choose from is very nice. Unfortunately a minimum range and innacurate means it won't be hitting much, especially if it's standing on the doorstep. The special abilities are varied. The most obviously useful is continuous fire. Flare gives models hit -2 DEF, and crater creates an area of rough terrain, both of which could be useful situationally, but not that often. Secondary autocannons lose two inches of range, the AOE, and the barrage ability, but gain D3 shots and Flak Fire, which gives an additional die when trying to hit flying targets.

So Khador now have the ability to set things on fire. I'm sure Victor will see some play, as it loses nothing really when compared to Conquest and is a point cheaper. He certainly allows Harkevich to run a three collossal list which will look incredible on the table, and should be lots of fun to play!

Tuffalo Tales

So continuing my discussion with my newest Troll additions, I recently played my first game with these guys.
Playing Captain Winter (from this very blog) I had taken a 50 pt Tier 3 EBorka list, with full Tuffalo and Horthol vs a tier 4  PSorscha Khador list (we were both practising for an upcoming tier tournament, full report will follow).
The game started with typical running, Khador mortars running to the light artillery boosting objective, full Winterguard and Joe running down one flank shadowed by Widowmakers and Beast 09. Two more kahdor heavies and a load of mechanics ran down the other flank heading straight for my objective. Borka feated and waited, not wanting to make the entire Khador army stationary Sorscha had her army take potshots at the approaching Trolls, mostly lobbing mortars at the Kreilstone unit behind the wall of beasts. Next Troll turn there was a couple of slams and a Winter Troll's spray (yay it did something!)which cleared the way to Sorscha. Borka was just within 12" and that was that (I think the fact Borka2 had pathfinder caught out Captain Winter as Sorcha was hiding behind rough terrain trying to avoid kill box), but how did the Tuffalo do?
They had snow shroud upkept then formed a wedge around Horthol, stopping them outdistancing the kreil aura was annoying but they need that ARM 19. Line breaker and bull rush was awesome, boosted impact hits and slams on annoying Winterguard was great, I didn't really have anything else to deal with that amount of high def (maybe a primaled axer). Did they earn their points back? nearly.
Horthol slamming Beast 09 helped set up the assassination but he didn't do anything else (other than bring line breaker for the Tuffalo). So they had an important impact on the game. Potential pitfalls? Lack of pathfinder but that's why we have the Fell Caller Hero.

First Legion List!

Now that I have all the minis for my first Legion list done I can get down to some serious practice for upcoming events:

 

 

 

So there we have pVayl Winter Storm Tier 4 which points up like this:

pVayl +6
- Ravagore 10
- Ravagore 10
- Scythean 9
- Seraph 8
- Shredder 2
- Succubus 2

Min Hex Hunters 5
Min Hex Hunters 5
-Bayal 0
Max Spawning Vessel 3

2 Shepherds 2


So far I have played one game with the list against Sherwin's experimental Morghoul2 Hit Squad list, it was a bit of a learning curve for both of us but was enjoyable in that I could get a feel for what Legion beasts could do (Scythean without incite killed a Rhinodon and a Archidon and nearly another Archidon in one activation!), and also trying out some theorymachine tricks I had thought of.

Im certainly impressed thus far with how Vayl plays, turbo charging beasties is certainly my favourite aspect of the game and Vayl could rival Lord Carver as my favourite warlock in the game in that respect... Legion beasts are certainly better than Pigs so there is no need to turd polish haha.

I am looking forward to trying it out against a force that the T4 benefit will hamper more than Hit Squad, they lacked the shooting or massed AD for me to hamper or shoot with my leased/Slipstreamed Ravagores so that is still ahead of me.

I plan to main list this force and have an eVayl Machinations of Shadow Tier 4 list as the back up to cover any weak match ups. This force is nearly finished too, just an Angelius to complete then im tourney bound!

 



Hi, I'm Dave. I like cats, sunsets, long walks on soft summer nights... no, wait, that's an intro for a different kind of site.

Hi, I'm Dave. I like Cryx, salty tears, and grinding my opponents' bones to make my bread. Sometimes this seems at odds with my role as Pressganger to the masses, but what makes a new player better if not a baptism of fire (or in this case corrosion)?

I've been playing Warmachine for about three years now, first with Menoth, then Cryx, and with a few forays into Trolls here and there. I'm fairly active in and around Essex, I try to get to most of the local tournaments and I run about one a month at our LGS. Having attended SmogCon the last two years I'm starting to look at attending more national - and maybe even international - tournaments. So hopefully soon I'll get to play and meet more people from even further afield.

I'll most likely be posting about Cryx - how to lose friends and cast Influence on people - although generally I find applying Banes to face works well. A Bane in the eye is a pretty effective deterrent to many things your opponent may be planning.

Learning Runes pt1

I want to learn how to play 'Runes'.

"Fuck that guy!"

That's what I would say if I saw a Runes of War player while using Ret. I feel The Retribution of Scyrah lacks the punch to kill big scary trolls. I believe this is because they are not trying to kill our Gods, invade our lands or sleep with our maidens.

Since seeing them everywhere at Smog Con (2015), I have been playing trolls again and have had some success with Madrak2. However, I thought it was time to try the big boy (old man) of the faction; Hoarluk Doomshaper's Runes of War theme force will be my focus for the next few months as I try to master one of the most common taunament lists in the game.

I am hoping that playing 'Runes' will provide me with a denial option that Madrak2 cannot offer. While I am in love with what him and Rathrok can do (especially on feat turn) I have found I struggle against gun lines and have been repeatedly smashed by Kruger2. Hopefully 'Runes' is the answer.

So, a few weeks ago, I ordered the two Runeshaper units and Doomy1 to complete the list. Yesterday I painted them. On here I will record the lessons I learn and the mistakes I make. The list may be the same as every other 'Runes' list but I hope that tracking my journey will provide some extra tips you cant find on Battle College.

I mean, how powerful are a few walls and some big green trolls?

Hello to you all.

Hi all,

 

My name is Matt. I dabbled in MK1 many years ago , just myself and a friend. He gave up and I had a barren few years, with nothing but my dreams of world...or at least tabletop... domination to comfort me. I then bumped into a friendly Pressganger and came back into the game in Mk 2. 

 

As many of us do, I started one faction (Khador) before deciding it wasn't for me and so moved onto another. My true calling...the SKORNE EMPIRE! .....via the Legion starter box. I have played Skorne for the last few years and have recently decided to branch out into a Warmachine faction. I now have some Cygnar and Cryx to keep my plans of global domination in full swing. Though Skorne will remain my true calling.

 

The only downside is.....I am pretty average at the game but the important thing is that I enjoy playing the game. Also through the game  I have met some great people, such as the ugly bunch that are also writing on this blog. I do play the occasional tournament and try to play as much as I can at the local club.

 

In the blog I hope to cover general pieces about the hobby in general, Skorne and Cygnar. Hopefully I can cover some of the Skorne bits that Sherwin doesn't, such as Molik and the Fist. I have played them both, though I used the Fist later than most probably do in their Skorne careers.

 

That's enough of my ramblings for now and I hope you enjoy the content on the Blog.

 

 

 

Realistic aims in Warmachine/Hordes: Faction collecting.

Evening all,

Here is my first article and some musings I have for the benifit of newer players to the game. Realistic aims in this case faction collecting going to main and minor factions.

Steamroller 2015 has put down that all events (Aside from Iron Guanlet, played in it, recommend it) state now that they are at most 2 list events. So the critical cynic would say that collecting anything beyond 2 lists is a waste of money as its not necessary. Well no decent kleptomaniac hobbist is going to stop at 2 lists but I would say that before you spend all of your dollar you consider what you are aiming to do. I will use myself as the example.

My main faction is Cygnar. In our group no one was playing them originally and there are the good guys. Since I invented the colour blue it was a natural choice for me. It also plays to my mentality. Melee combat is messy, unsophisticated why would I want to do that and risk my precious neck when I could shot the enemy from afar and not get by lovely boots dirty? Of course I would not I hear you say. So I have the whole range of Cygnar. Everything by that merc in disguise Constance Blaize. Bonus lesson. Never play her in Cygnar. Its with my main faction I can do such things as ADR (Which is a great format and a future article). But you can't play the game seriously and never try using the other stuff, if for nothing better then to learn how to shoot it more efficiently. Most events I play in will be Cygnar either in cool Tiers or more recently non tier.

So to the other stuff what am I aiming for with it? Do I want to use the same boring power stuff other people use? No I don't. Perhaps a controversial statement but I am not a fan of people playing a new faction and doing the same warcasters/warlocks that are always used because they are considered the best. Epic Haley being the main culprit of this. I have never read the 'forums' it doesn't feature in my mind to use someone else's list. I want to use my own. Make my own mistakes and play what I think is good. Equally how far am I taking playing out of my main faction? I can't go to far without it becoming my new main faction, and I like my current one.

So recently I have gotten some Khador and very recently some Legion. I am a big fan of being that special snowflake, no one wants to play the same thing 3 times in and event. I will use Khador for my example. I did a poll to my friends of the warcasters that are never seen on the table, chose 4 of them, which I have tried and sold off down to 2, got good 50 points forces for them and stopped. That's it, its my minor faction. I won't buy more. The 2 I have is Zerkova and Prime Sorcha to play Crix. If I want something more I will seriously consider selling one of these. Epic Zerkova looks great, I will look at this new release and consider selling Prime Sorcha to buy her. Unless Epic Zerkova has no game against the Crix dude spam when I guess I am forced to have 3 lists. The Khador were gotten in 2014, when you could use 3 lists, the legion I have gotten has gone firm at 2 lists.

My next event will be Dave's Tier event at 4TK July 11th, early on I identified the aim to play Khador for it, and am painting up my forces for it.

Anyway I encourage new players to recognize the concept of 'main' and 'minor' collections idea, to take identity from it and save money. Or is you got too much sell it on! I have sold everything I have wanted to so far.

Kromac round two, with added cursed axe!

Hello all! Today I am going to breakdown Circle Orobos new metal head, and go over my thoughts and opinions on our newest warlock, Kromac, Champion of the wurm. Kromac has always been the tharn king, and a bit mental. He is the closest we had to a front line warlock, though many games you would go without a feat and his yoyo game was carried him through. Rifts could slow down your opponent why you scalpel models with stalkers, and ghetorix and via lightning strike and warpath retreat to safe distances to rinse and repeat. Wild aggression and warpath made that game very viable and often very focus efficient, who knew a warbeast who charges for free, can warp for berserk and has boosted attack rolls was any good eh? The permanent 13'5" threat was always really a side gimmick that never would normally land a kill, unless a mistake was made.

He newest incarnation is a lot less, finesse and much more axe - face, in a literal sense. Lets take a look at his raw stat line and his feat before moving onto his spells and innate abilities.


A point worth mentioning straight off the bat is, this guy is HUGE. He stands at all as Ghetorix and has been put on a large base which is one bigger then his prior incarnation. He has terror, which is fairly standard on a guy looking as he does. I mean, if he told me he is now champion of the wurm with blood dripping off Rahtrok, I would be inclined to agree. Pathfinder is a great rule to have so we can hide behind walls, and then charge over them!

So lets start with the speed, SPD 6 is pretty much what we all expected, so nothing to mull over here.

A base strength of ten, paired the mighty axe Rathrok makes for a base P+S 17. This is very, very good for circle. 17 Threatens most warbeasts, and most warjacks to a extent.

Mat 8, the same as his Mat in his prior beast form but can cast spells? Sign me up. 

Rat 4, well we have no ranged weapon so again, nothing much too speak about.

Defense of 14,  considering the big K went to a large base over a medium base this is very fair, we went up a base size and dropped one defense, but in turn we gained some armor.

Armor of 18, again this is pretty darn good for a circle warlock, and our highest base armor so far. It means those pesky pow 10/11 guns won't bother us without a boost, and low pow charges of 10-11 should not threaten him in a huge way.


Now lets move onto the feat, BLOOD LUST! A primal, without frenzying! This feat is pretty damn tasty. Why writing that statement; Please appreciate i realize this is no Kreuger2 feat, ect ect but we only take models on the merits, never on what they do not supply. Okay, this feat does not supply board control, it does supply any help in scenario play and neither will it stop our paper thin armor on infantry being melted.

But, it does a hell of a lot and we should appreciate what it does do. +2 STR and +2 ARM on our living warbeasts, this is fantastic! Ghetorix stands at ARM 21 when being engaged, a riphorn stands at ARM 21 all the time and kromac gets thrown up to ARM 20. Okay this ARM won't stop you from being one rounded by 2-3 warbeasts, or a raged mulg ect. However it does help you stand there a little longer, and it will hurt a scythean, suddenly -4 rather then -2 is a big deal on ghetorix for example. Throwing Kromac up to ARM 20 is getting to be very tanky, so this should allow for some aggressive scenario play for dominating a zone turn 2 and being able to survive the round after. If you pair this with the winter argus winter coat (+2 armor and immunity: cold) we go up to 22, which is pretty sweet. +2 STR on all living warbeasts is fantastic, and may be a list (I will be trying for sure) that allows us to run 2-3 heavies without a gorax. The feat puts all our warbeasts which crack armor pretty well upto higher standards, and if necessary paired with a gorax to ludicrous amounts of STR. It also puts Kromac up to P+S 19, this is very good. This paired with his base high MAT means he will threaten anything within his 11" threat range, and may stand there next to turn to well.. kill some more!

The last part of the feat affects all living friendly models, and it grants your charge attack rolls to auto hit. This is also, pretty good! Auto hitting blood trackers? They will do some quick work (The puns) indeed! Skin walkers damn why are you mat 6? Boom, auto hit. Tharn ravagers are going to charge at mat 9 and kill a model and get a token and kill and ohhhh.. I missed. BOOM! not anymore. The feat is a great tool to use on those low MAT units that always epically fail, well not any more boys!


With his feat, and raw stats looked at, lets take a look at his spells and innate abilities.


Heart eater? Pretty fitting for tharn king. The cool thing for kromac is we can use the tokens to boost magic attack / damage rolls. All in all, as expected.

Life drinker is pretty neat. If post feat turn, we have taken some damage, we have a way too heal up the damage we have taken. Not game changing, but for the aggressive play style I think we're going to have to play to make most out of Kromac, it's neat.

Spells! Spells, spells oh spells. Kromac has a long list of spells, and it seems one for every occasion!

Lets start with aggravator, Hyper aggressive for your battle group. When i first read hyper agrssive on a bronzerback, I was like - OMG THIS IS CRAZY! People shoot me, and i go closer? How do you kill this thing! Then, i had a few games with ghetorix, and now I've had a lot. The rule is neat, however far from practical. The full advance, directly towards the source of damage is hindered by a lot of things.

A) You bump into models, a lot!
B) People will shoot you, wanting you to hyper agressive to lure you into a charge lane, ect
C) You might just get shot, and die by shooting anyway!

With that being said, it has some use. You may gain a few inches of movement which doesn't lead to your demise, you may be able to advance and engage a enemy model to protect your self from shooting. All in all, not a bad spell to cast and fail charge turn one, but not hugely game breaking.

Awakened spirit, a free animus each turn. This is pretty neat and we have plenty of good targets for it, namely lightning strike and bulldoze. By up keeping you effectively save two fury somewhere else on the board. Useful, but maybe on the turn Kromac2 wants to go in worth dropping for another attack.

Carnage? How about yes! With fury 7 it's very viable to drop down carnage, which is amazing for stalkers, ghetorix, riphorns, anything that uses MAT as it's primary mechanism. Kromac being mat 10 isn't so shabby. All in all, very good.

Primal Howl, a bit of a corner case spell. Giving this guy has a CMD of 4, it won''t be cast every turn. I can see it being used the turn you go in with kromac, if playing against living threats. The -2 CMD is great if you can make a key unit run away, but the spell won't be used every turn that's for sure.

Primal shock! This spell is good, a great spell to snipe out a solo post charge with a warbeast? Neat spell but not a huge amount to say about it. A reason to play a worldwrath maybe?


With that being said, what sort of list can we expect to see? Well i have wrote my own and here it is:

Kromac, Champion of the Wurm
Druid Wilder
Winter Argus
Warpwolf Stalker
Warpwolf Stalker
Riphorn Satyr
Blakclad Wayfarer
Tharn Bloodtrackers (6)
Nuala
Druids of Orobos
Druids of Orobos Overseer

So here it is. The plan is to throw awakened spirit on my winter argus, use my druids for force bolts and or potential clouds to protect kromac after going in. The trackers under feat will deal well with any infantry and will help my list play any scenario which requires a splitting of forces.

Sadly ghetorix will be in my other list pairing, but the stalkers being mat 8 will instantly solve one of there problems, and the feat allows to crack some real armor without auto frenzying. The wilder will help fury management, and the black clad will allow free charges out side of my fuel cache and extend my threat ranges.

Very excited to test the big guy, will keep you all updated!

Trying The Tuffalo

For a long time these have been lauded as the premier heavy cavalry in warmahordes, I just got me some. Over the next few weeks I will playing these alot in the various Troll lists I build and I will report back my experiences.

Looking at them they bring decent speed for Trolls but not great when compared to other cavalry models. Decent enough elites level attacks, ok infantry level armour and boxes, with troll defence. So what do I see them doing with my warlocks?

My bear is getting painted, so I will be playing them in Borka 2, in tier. Sadly I don't have the party bus so will be stopping at tier 3. Borka 2 has nothing then to help their speed. Snow shroud I think realistically won’t really make much of a difference to their defence. My plan of attack revolves around the feat so the tuffalo won’t be out pacing the army so should have healthy armour as they should not really be leaving the stone aura. Run up, feat and counter with a ton of beasts supported by the tuffalo/Horthol on the flanks. The points discount for them is great.

Jarl Skuld is another lock I use and the speed buffs he brings I think can make the tuffalo more dangerous, quicken is great on anything but I think the star spell here will be tactical supremacy, the 3" reposition will be great for trying to set up the bull rush. Jarls feat may provide interesting opportunities for using the tuffalo as a second wave, using quicken and clouds to get through the trolls who have held the enemy front line in place to clear them with slams, then having the front line (something fighty like champs) leap frog back through the tuffalo to re-engage the now slammed enemy. Will it be complicated as hell to pull off? Yes! Will I still try it? Yes!

Madrak1 is another lock I intend to put the tuffalo to work with. I play a beast brick with Madrak but I find taking and contesting the objectives with this list sometimes a struggle, the tuffalo will be a flanking support element so I'm not sure how they will be benefit from Madraks spell list, sure foot will be no where near them and they hit pretty good anyways without carnage. I’m unsure what kind of mileage they will get out of the feat, as they are all about the rush, but free hits is free hits.

I pretty much play Borka 1 exclusively in family reunion so I don’t see a place for them here, but out of tier? The feat helps for a little extra movement but iron flesh stops them bull rushing and they will probably be knocking down things on their own so won’t need the help from mosh pit. Wind wall seems pointless with them as well as that would mean they are in the centre of the brick, which would limit there manoeuvrability. So probably no for Borka 1.

So am I expecting great things from them? Sadly no, I don't think they can have the impact on the game that justifies the cost, when I play against trolls I don't often see them, but hopefully I can report back soon how wrong my initial assessment is.

Hit Squad - Tyrant Mantooth's Musings

..so, lets talk Morghoul2's new tier list, Hit Squad. 

Hit Squad was spoiled this weekend just been at Lock and Load, the day that the internets exploded with talk about an invincible Menite, a Retribution guy that didn't get the memo about wearing white, and a time traveling version of everyones favourite negative play experience.

But for me, the real news was Privateer's latest attempt to fix an old, much maligned veteran.

Poor Morghoul2 took a real bump all things considered, coming over from Mk.I to Mk.II. Probably the most galling is the feat, or more precisely what the feat was before it went away. All enemy models suffer Blind? I have no idea what crack someone was smoking when they came up with that one, but pass from the left hand side please.

But I digress.

Sadly, the new Theme Force does that same thing (that I can't quite get behind) which we saw in Conquest and Victor. Its the old list, but better, because the old one wasn't working. Sure, Imperial Assassins is fun, but it doesn't exactly do much to help out Morghoul2's plight really.

I guess we should just be happy its not another attempt to fix the Siege Animantarax, which has been the bane of the last three Theme Forces.

You know that using the Tier System to fix models is flawed, Privateer Press

So what does Hit Squad have to offer? Well, to start with you can take the same suspects as usual (Paingiver units, Paingiver Solos), with a little more freedom on Warbeast selection (all non-character Skorne Warbeasts), and a nice little bonus or two - namely, the Agoniser, and Minion units that can be subjugated by the Skorne.

For your pains, you get four levels which are extremely easy to achieve, and offer some solid advantages, along with one big change. The big change is what comes first, and has only the requirement that you don't break Tier. Namely, this is the upgrade to your Paingiver Bloodrunner Master Tormentors, whom gain Shadow Whip on their melee attacks.

Shadow Whip is  a new rule (I believe) which allows you to immediately advance a friendly faction model in their command 3" if the Master Tormentor hits one or enemy models with an attack. Its basically Warpath, but limited to the two models that just became mandatory in your list. Interesting? Certainly. By my estimation, any one thing in the army just extended its threat range; Morghoul himself now boasts a non-linear 15 and a half inch threat in any one turn, but don't stop there - your Archidon can now enjoy the same with Rush (now included past Tier Two, unlike Imperial Assassins), and your other heavies a staggered increased threat. The interesting part here will be keeping the Master Tormentors alive, to keep the ability in play. More on that later.

The second  level is really for the trolls out there (not to be mistaken for the Trollbloods) - the enemy army loses all trace of Advance Deployment (with added confirmation from Infernals that it cancels out any AD gained by any means). Fairly situational, some armies won't care at all, others will loathe this. The most immediate advantages will be the enemy having to clump up to begin with in most cases, and losing those valuable AD ranged units, with an added aside that you should have a greater control to see where the enemy is placing their models before you place your own AD models. This should help maximise the fun that your BloodRunners will have at least.

Tier 3 is pretty legit - all heavy warbeasts are one point cheaper. To get there, you have to include three in your Battlegroup, but if you're looking to reach this level, then you're clearly trying to push as many bonus points into your list as you can, so I doubt you'll struggle. Archidon's are an obvious choice, but the lift of Imperial Assassins SPD restriction really opens up the field to include Titans and pack a little punch to your force that might have been missing before. And don't forget my favourite, the noble Rhinodon. A six point enraged Rhino with Grevious Wounds, Reach, Amuck, and a threat of 15" on a thresher attack is the bane of Trollkin Warders and Bane Thralls alike.

Finally, the last Tier is Fury management for the Agoniser, with almost laughably easy to achieve goals. Include an Agoniser? Well, considering the tier benefit directly affects the model, that much is obvious. Include a unit of Beast Handlers with a Fury 5 Warlock? Go home PP, you're drunk. In all seriousness, this isn't quite the game changer that Tiers 1-3 offer, but it does give our Fury starved Lord Assassin a preloaded Agoniser, by starting the baby elephant with a token per Paingiver unit.

So, how to run it? Good question. I'm going to enjoy playtesting it, especially with a Tier Only tournament on my horizon next month. The most obvious requirements I can see will be two Master Tormentors, which interestingly will need a little tech to keep them in play. Stealth will help with most things for obvious reasons, as will Sprint, but actually might encourage the use of the little known Razor Worm, who can give out Girded as usual (immunity to blast damage).

I trust you guys can see how serious I am here about this list by now. Morghoul2, Rhinodons, Razor Worms? Bringing my A Game to a table near you..

Otherwise, a Cyclops Brute is typically a must have with Morghoul, as will be Beast Handlers, and an Archidon for Sprint. If you want to hit Tier 4 (I'm not sure that I do, we'll see), then that's another two points. Otherwise though, you're left with a huge selection. Personally, I'm tempted with two min units of Bog Trog Ambushers, to really pressure my opponent away from the edges and into the middle of the table, where Morghoul can have some fun. I don't buy the Gators I don't think, especially at the 11pt price tag with the Paingiver Task Master.

I'm pretty sure that at least one Titan Gladiator is the usual must, if nothing else for Rush, meaning that a Cyclops Shaman becomes even more viable for then casting either that, Safeguard or Lightning Strike as a utility beast. The other choices would be Aradius, but we'll have to wait for that one..

More another time, once I have some games under by belt. Until then, Sherwin signing off.

Forces of Distinction is available for general release next week.

The best (only) Ret player in Harlow.

Hi, I'm Dan and I'm a big deal.

Well actually, I am a very small pathetic fish in the ocean that is the warmahordes community. I play Ret and Trolls; I have a thing for pointy ears and blue skin. 

My introduction to the system was with trolls, then I wandered into Khador. Then, after a few months, Sherwin said he was selling some elves that loved killing casters and fucking shit up - how could I resist? Since then, I have predominantly played Ret for the last year and a half.

I try to attend as many events as I can; however, I have only played in one Masters event (South East Masters 2014 where I came last). I love the system and ret as a faction. Vyros2 theme force is my main list but I'm exploring options to pair with him. Eventually, I am looking to get myself off the synergy addiction. 

I'll be discussing ret, trolls, painting trolls (I do prefer them to ret) and my general play as I attempt to become the "big deal" that I was obviously born to be.

Croak Raiders and Me... a love story!

Welcome to my first article! This sacred text is some thoughts of mine on the latest minion unit to be released by PP, the Croak Raiders:

Now being primarily a Minion player I shall be focusing most of the article of their uses for the Blindwater Congregation but will offer some speculation at the end to using them with Legion as that is my latest project.

If you haven't seen them before, here are the cards for the Raiders as spoiled from LnL by Chain Attack (Missing is the cost at 5/8 and FA2):

Stat wise they are pretty quick and are decent shots but otherwise it's victim all the way. Gang and Vittriol are abilities taken from the Croak Hunter Solo, as is Advance Deployment and Immunity - Corrossion.

These are all nice but on one wound troops you are going to need a Witch Doctor to zombify them for tough to get use out of Vitriol... This is a sound plan but will then run counter to using them as a source of souls and corpses for your Sacral Vault or Swamp Shamblers as Undead denies these tokens. PP giveth and PP taketh haha so make your choice dependent on the lay of the land so to speak!

Advanced Deployment though is money on a ranged unit, it gives them 30 inches of threat at T1 with the Gourds and 32 with the Darts if you go second so you're threatening enemy AD troops or if you go first your crazy frogs are running over the halfway line ready for a strike next turn yeah.

Each frog gets to throw a single weapon; either a Gourd or a Dart due to the cumbersome rule. The trick is to lob those Gourds first to cover quite a few enemy with the oil then light them on fire with a couple of darts, then lob another Gourd at more of the enemy unit rinsing and repeating till they are either dead or on fire. Now the Gourds do no damage by themselves but will auto boost the damage rolls of the darts or any other fire based attacks that effect the oiled models... Nice! The real touch on this is that the oil lasts a ROUND so the roll for continuous fire is also boosted, this is big, this can end warcasters right there or murder shield wall troops hahaha.

In the Congregation each of the warlocks can get some use of the Raiders, most notably Barnabus and Calaban:

Barny offers swamp pits to make them immune to return shooting, Iron Flesh to bump their DEF up to a usable 16 and his feat knocks down enemy non-amphibious models making them far more likely to connect with the flames. Setting Barny up with a proper gunline is now a realistic proposition and not just a couple of Spitters.

Calaban is a surprise choice but I feel they buff his game so much! Calaban is best in tier which means no Vault so his only real source of guns to maximize his feat was Ironback Spitters... Now he has a cheap source of multiple ranged attacks that also AD and if he can land a parasite on their target it's POW15 flames and continuous fire ftw. Calaban also brings occultation which will grant stealth, great for a shooty skirmisher unit like the Croaks and when combined with tough from a Witch Doctor gives them a fighting chance. You can be doubly sure and have them wrap around an Ironback to grant them girded and immunity to blast damage as a fallback but it's often not going to happen.

Yes they provide similar benefits to the other 'locks but these in my eyes are the biggest and and most game changing... Barny gets a game plan to create a new cryx or doomreaver drop and Calaban gets a game fullstop!

There has been some talk of taking these in Legion with the new Saeryn/Rhyas unit to abuse marked for death which definitely has game, but most armies featuring a lot of fire based attacks such as Ravagores, Seraphs or Typhon will enjoy the extra layer of fury management provided by not having to boost on blast damage shots. 

So for a summary, in my eyes these little frogs could possibly be the best unit in Minions, a tough order given the already excellent Posse but time will tell whether this is true or not!

Thanks for reading,

Rid

If only I had knees I would be famous!

Hi All,

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to read our rambling thoughts on all things Warmachine/Hordes.
My name is Tom, I have been playing Menoth for a little while now and was previously fighting the good fight for the Motherland (Khador).

My hobby history is a short one. I didn't start playing table top games until my mid 20's when a serious knee injury had me laid up for a good few weeks. This meant Sherwin had a captive audience to teach Bloodbowl...this eventually led onto Sherwin buying me a Khador starter set for Christmas one year (I can see a Sherwin theme here*). The rest has been a haze of dice and a hell of a learning curve!

I'm loving the game and tournament scene at the moment. I have met some really nice people at events up and down the country. I am looking to change jobs very soon, which will hopefully give me my evenings back so I can start a Rocky style montage and get back into winning ways!

Who knows what I will be blogging about on here? I don't. I intend to share some of my thoughts on events, some painting stuff so over time you we can all learn from my mistakes and maybe even spoil some of my super secret Menoth tech...I promise it will be mostly stolen and refined from better players, so it should actually not include an Amon Dervish spam list.

I look forward to posting up soon and opening some discussion on random topics. Feel free to comment/message me. I'll always do my best to reply as soon as possible.

Let the Fun begin,

Tom

*its always his bloody fault!

Intro

Grandad here, mostly an Omnipotent but I have dabbled in everything. Working on my second faction at the moment which is Trollbloods, so I guess I will be talking about 'dem Trolls. Working on a Borka 2 Tier list, building tuffalo and finding out that painting a polar bear is hard......

A little long in the Carnivean tooth

Greetings one and all,
                              I'm Rodders and have been playing Warmachine/Hordes for nigh on 10 years now. I started waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay in mk1 back not long after Hordes was first released. I never liked the look of Warjacks at first and played the game with 2 other friends at a local gaming club who sold it to me as "like wrestling with giant steam robots".  After a game of battlebox mangled metal I was initially put off the game and thought it lacked strategy (oh how wrong was I?). I paid a visit to another reasonably local club with my best mate Dave (we all have a mate called Dave right?) and saw Hordes being rolled out for the first time and Warmachine played with units and thought to myself "Now I see this game has legs". I bought the Legion Battle Box and a Nephlim Soldier The next day and was hooked from then on playing solely Legion thoughout the entirety of mk1.

Most of my play up until the release of mk2 was friendly play with stuff we liked the look of rather than things that have good synergies. However Since mk2  I have played in a more competitive manner along with dabbling in a bit of Retribution of Scyah, Cryx and Khador for a time but am now faction monogamous with my first love Legion (for now).

Expect to see some painting articles from me as I'm currently repainting all the Legion I own which is a lot. There will also be musings on tournaments and list building.