..overcoming Faction Purity in the cold light of day.

I'd start with an apology of sorts, for my absolute lack of updates on Imperishable Dominion for the past few months, but for the simple fact that I doubt any of our readership missed me. I'm nowhere near pretentious enough to consider otherwise. Nonetheless, there it is. For those of you new to the blog, an introduction. My name is Sherwin, and I play Skorne; nope, that's Convergence; wait, that should be Minions. Or Convergence.

Maybe both.

 Time now for a boring personal history lesson, and then a guy taking himself waaay too seriously

I've played Skorne since the inception of Mk.II, back just after the field tests, and they were the first Hordes faction to receive a 'Forces of..' release. Back then, our local area didn't have a Warmachine scene at all, beyond a couple of older gamers whom had tried starting up at some point and given up due to lack of both store and gamer support.

My first Warlock was Tyrant Xerxis, for whom I dutifully made the obligatory Tier 2 Fist list after a handful of psuedo-battlebox games (to this day I've only ever used the actual Skorne battlebox for a game around three times); after that as our scene began to flourish, I continued to play with the Skorne. I am without doubt in the camp of those fiercely dedicated players that champions a single faction above all others, and comes to identify with them in the local meta. 

I enjoyed moderate success at a local level with the Skorne, and even some success at a national one (although of course, no titles), placing fairly respectably with them. But I found that whenever I would try my hand at an alternative faction, I'd reach about four games in at most before simply shaking my head, putting the models back in the case, and reaching for the Master Race once again. Any other faction just couldn't sway me from my first Warmachine love. 

 This guy changed it all

But then finally I became mechanized. Around six months after their release, a friend was selling off his Convergence of Cyriss models, which I duly came into possession of. I thought that they'd be an interesting painting project and then I'd sell them on eBay. What actually happened was that I fell in love with the first model I painted, a Cipher. Something about the aesthetic just appealed I guess. That afternoon, I vowed that I would use the models I had for games, and that I wouldn't touch the Skorne for a whole year, thus avoiding the typical circumstance of returning back to my beloved Titans after a handful of games. 

Playing Convergence was a massive eye opener, and something which I can absolutely attest to being the moment that my game stepped up to the next level, whether it be list construction, strategy, understanding of the core mechanics, or of tournament play. I couldn't say whether that was down to the faction or not - certainly there was initially a frontier feel to them back then, with only three Warcasters, no Corollary, Enigma Foundry, second heavy jack chassis, or battle engine. Perhaps that restriction focused me, perhaps not.

I returned to Skorne after Smogcon 2015, as promised. And, as you'd expect had a great time during the honeymoon period. I came to dominate the local meta with Xerxis2 paired with Zaal1. But for all that I was enjoying my games, I found the same unease that had begun to creep in during the latter part of my first run with the Skorne. Everything was the same. Very little had changed. Granted, the Aradus provided something a little different, but not a dynamic alteration. The faction felt stale. 

Enter the Minions. I'd owned a growing horde of both pacts for years, as allies for the Skorne, and then as painting projects, and always sworn that I would try them for a decent run. They became my new Convergence, starting so far with Thornfall.

And, for those of you still reading, here's the point of the article, the discussion.

Having a new faction to test expands your gaming horizons, and keeps the game fresh. Learning the synergy of a new faction or how the interactions between new models and abilities work is the best way to force you out of old habits, and keep you evolving. Playing Convergence certainly taught me that very quickly, as have the Farrow. But the flipside is that initially at least, you have to reset the learning curve. And for some, that's the killer.

I love the Thornfall Alliance models. Each of them has so much character, and is so thoroughly engaging to paint, even down to the lowliest grunt. They are, without doubt one of the best examples of how Privateer Press have taken a fantasy trope, mixed it around a little and made it their own. But every game is a struggle; they're deliberately balanced as being difficult. Players using Minions don't expect or even hope to win events. That some do is tribute to their ability of course, and once the new Light Warbeasts arrive, things will change. But by taking a Minion army, you are significantly putting yourself at disadvantage to the other players.

For the moment therefore, I've been forced to ask myself the question of how much I want to win. That sounds absurd to write, but I believe that its a question at the heart of all of us, the elephant in the room that few of us like to address directly. In a meta which looks down on 'powergaming' or those too invested in their games are decried as tryhards, at what point do you look at yourself and admit that you are using the best options available to you, because crucial to your enjoyment is victory?

For me at least, its a tough one to realise. I've always championed love for the game itself, and the models over the rules; I've never once fielded a list based upon what I read online or saw that did well somewhere else. I even stopped using the Fist after I came to the conclusion that it was fast becoming so commonplace once the Incindiarii were released. But losing with Minions has taught me that luxury is simply not one that I have with my new faction. 

Our in house artists impression of how the war for my faction purity was lost

And that's why I have at last overcome my faction purity, and broken free of what feels like the last hurdle in that step up which began with playing Convergence. I am a Convergence player, and a Minion player. Because, for better or worse, I am too emotionally invested in my games to not be it seems, to have one faction for events and when I want to win, and one for when I just want to play random games - or, until they get a release that brings them up to a standard which makes me feel more confident of success.

I'll just have to live with that I guess.

Ramblings of the Reformed

..so, after bursting out of the gate with a mission statement regarding our man Morghoul2 and his delightful new tier, I've been silent for a few days. More than a few indeed. "Aha," you say, "clearly the man has been playtesting!"

Well.. about that.

Not so much. Sadly, real life has conspired to steal my opponents, and left me without games, or time to play them. That, and painting. But like any decent Warmachine player, I've been making lists, and checking them at least twice. The few games I've managed with Morghoul have taught me some interesting lessons - and now, we're onto a new approach, which is to try him as the worlds most unlikely Brick Warlock. More on that once I've manged a handful of games with him. To be honest, I might not stick with it, but something calls me in a list with three Gladiators, and two max Gatormans, especially with Grevious Wounds on tap.

Which leads me, in a mildly convoluted way, to a confession and the real focus of my ramblings today.

Yes, despite my previous mission statement, I played the Fist at an event. I played the Fist, and remembered all the reasons why I liked it, and the compelling reasoning as to why I came to loathe it.

For me, the Fist was a great way to begin my faction. I've never been able to get along with Morghoul1, and the artwork for Xerxis1 is cool. So cool in fact, that I took one look at him and stopped searching for another Warlock. For about three years.

 The Chuck Norris of Warmachine

Back then, our meta was kinda small. No one had really explored the idea of spamming models via tiers into their armies. We were all so jaded from being burnt by 40K, that Warmachine was our escape back into the wilds, where we could find our love for wargaming again. Playing the Fist in this environment was crazy fun, as I'm sure you can imagine. Before long, I was the guy to beat, with the silly list, where everything had weapon master or crazy strength, pretty much everything had reach, and everything had both more armour and more boxes than god.

The trouble is, once you start being that guy, you don't stop being that guy. The pressure gets to you, and you become both a negative play experience for other people, and a douchebag that desperately needs the win to keep the reputation. You don't in reality of course - but that's exactly how it feels, no matter how small or inconsequential your meta is.

Before long, I stopped even considering taking other lists to events, or building pairs that were not around the Fist, and its few shortcomings. It's an extremely potent list, which requires careful planning on the best way to beat it, and which some armies simply don't have. Any time I considered the possibility of playing without it, I just got stuck in the mindset that to not take the Fist was the height of lunacy.

This is where, in my opinion, Warmachine players can go wrong some times, and what lists like the Fist, along with the other potent net decks represent. I'm not against powerful lists, and players choosing lists that are similar to other peoples, and nor am I scornful of people that want to do well at events. We all do, obviously. No one enjoys playing games they don't win. But often in my experience, those same lists come with expectations, and (unintentionally) bad intentions and experiences.

Now for me, the mission statement of playing games is simple. Fun. Waramchine is my social outlet, an evening hanging out with my opponent, my weekend away with the guys, or my chance to meet new, likeminded people. I've made a lot of friends that way, and kept in touch with more, and have stories to remember and tell of the events I've been to for later years. By no means am I most the best player in the world, and never will be. And I'm not about to start playing a WTC winning list just to try and reach a few steps further up the ladder.

So that means that netdecks are out. Being a negative play experience becomes something I don't want to touch at all. I played Convergence for a year exclusively, spending seven months of the year eagerly waiting for Father Lucant - only to drop him after a handful of games because I saw how much he worked up my opponents. If there is a trap in this game, it is that we find something strong that works, and then get too scared to step away from it, because we might start losing again.

That's all wrong.

And that's exactly what I felt playing the Fist at a Journeyman In a Day event I went to last weekend. I played tight, cagey games, which were mostly very one-sided. And whilst wiping 50pts of Menoth off of the table in one turn during the last game was fun of sorts, I really didn't like the unease at remembering what it was to be that guy.

And there you have it. My confession. And the reason that I rarely, if ever, play with Molik Karn in my army.