MI Cup Recap

The Michigan cup tournament was a week and a half ago and I did well.

I took Constance Blaize in tier and haley2 with a stormwall and good Mercs.

Round 1 I played against a minions player who had rask and maelok. I decided Constance could bully either matchup and went with her. My opponent went first but allowed me to go so he could take the side with the wall. The scenario was ammunition run.

I expected my opponent to take the objective in the middle of the board on bottom of two. I had my feat up to counter his bottom of one feat. Instead he killed a handful of knights and set up for a vicious alpha strike.

With Constance having extra focus I blew up both my scorable objectives and had Blaize herself flashing blade his two heavies off the table while she camped 5 with arcane shield.

He tried to shoot me with rask's gun to pull my focus and strip arcane shield, but gallant was standing nearby and shield guarded it.

After that it was a matter of clearing away gators while protecting Constance. I killed rask with stormwall on round 5 but my opponent had done a great job of denying me further control points.

Round 2 I played Haley versus lich1 in process of elimination. I went first. My opponent was screwed by my feat and stormwall killed two ogres and blew the cortex out of malice. He shuffled around but crucially failed to kill an objective by rolling snake eyes on a hellfire.

I took that objective and then jockeyed for table position the turn following. I did some more work on his army but left a bile thrall alive.

His retaliation kills my stormwall, many good solos, and most of my nyss. I'm low on models suddenly. I decide to try a shot at lich with cylena and if she spikes damage I will have the b13 take a crack at the lich. Cylena hits but fails to wound. I have Haley camp and run to the far zone while my hammer dorfs kill the second objective and malice. I'm up 4 points to 2 now.



He piles into Haley with a lot of attacks and hits every single one, but his damage is middling and she's left on 3 wounds. I win on scenario.

Game 3 is kreoss1 v Constance in incoming. It's a scenario with close domination scoring so I plan to turtle on my side and contest his. He doesn't contest my zone much (he could have but doesn't) and it costs him the game. He makes a last ditch effort at Constance with his knockdown feat but I'm hiding her behind stormwall and not much connects.

Round 4 I played haley2 v doomy2 in supply and demand. I'm worried about cracking his armor but I decide to just control the hell out of the game. I go first and run up, he advances conservatively. I feat over everything and he has to sit out a turn while my feat is going. I manage to kill a storm troll with two shots from stormwall (hot dice).

On top of 3 I kill his objective with stormwall guns and dominate the zone. Anastasia gets espionage to go off and Gorman black oils two heaves. My hammer dorfs largely bounce off the axer. The nyss kill janissa. I get 3 CPs. He has to contest to avoid the loss.

Mulg manages to feat/trample/goad to Haley, but he's out of attacks. Stormwall kills mulg and I get my last two CPs.

I manage to get to the finals and decide I'm more comfortable with Constance than Haley. My opponent is the JVM; who is playing vayl 2. He outmatched me in a number of ways.

I lost the roll and he moved up a bit. I moved up and feated bottom 1. After the game he said he thought I feated early. That might be right, or maybe I should have run full out more.

Either way I'm on the back foot from word go. I can't seem to jam my guys into him due to spacing and scather templates. I contest the zone well until turn 3 or 4, but his ranged superior has turned into a heavy trade and I'm given many bad options to choose. The ones I choose don't work (probably by Jvm's design) and I flail until he wins on control points 5-0.

The scenario was into the breach.

I might have been better served with haley2, but I feel like vayl can straight murder Haley with icy grip plus boosted oblits rather easy. Ah well. I'm going to try and give that guy a game one of these days.

-Merlin out

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Hordes: Gay WarMachine

So I wanted to play a Hordes army to complement my WarMachine forces, as much to learn the Hordes game mechanics as feed my consumerist addiction for buying shit I don't need.

Hordes is a "sister" game to WarMachine, with most of the same statistics in place, and many shared rules. However, there are some significant differences, most of which relate to the Battlegroup rules.

Instead of a warcaster who gains X focus per turn and then allocates to their warjacks, a Hordes chess-king is called a warlock (apologies to Charlie Sheen) and their battlegroup consists of monstrous warbeasts instead of mechanical warjacks. Warlocks have fury instead of focus, which can be spent in mostly the same ways as focus for warcasters. However, fury works differently in its replenishment mechanics. Warlocks don't automatically regain their fury each turn. Instead they leech fury from their warbeasts. If there isn't enough to fill their fury to capacity, they can regain fury by wounding themselves on a point-for-point basis, but otherwise they're boned. Warlocks begin the game with max fury.

Also, warbeasts aren't allocated fury each turn. Instead, they start with zero fury on the first turn and they can be "forced" to do extra awesomeness by their warlock, gaining fury. They gain fury at roughly the same rate warjacks would spend focus. So while a warjack needs to be allocated 3 focus to work at maximum efficiency, draining the warcaster's resources, a warbeast can spend to capacity. Capacity is dependent on the beast in question. Most heavy warbeasts have a 4 fury, and most lights 3. There are exceptions, but that's the baseline.

The catch is this: if a warlock doesn't leech all the fury off their warbeast(s) each turn, the warbeast may fenzy and maul whatever is next to them instead of doing something more directed. More importantly, warbeasts can't be forced when outside their warlock's control area, so warlocks need to be played closer to the front than warcasters.

In a game which often ends in assassination of the king-piece, being forced to play further forward can be a serious disadvantage. Further, unlike the focus from warcasters, leaving a few fury on the warlock does not provide extra armor. Instead, warlocks can spend fury to transfer damage to one of their warbeasts, which also adds a fury to that warbeast.

Anyway, I don't want to invest in a huge army for my hordes force. I had to choose wisely, and decided that since I already have a mercenary unit that will work for two hordes factions I would look hard at those. The mercenary unit is the awesome Nyss Hunters.

The hordes factions are:

Skorne: a militaristic, ancestor-worshipping, sadomasochistic, aggressive society which is somehow aligned with the deposed monarch of Cygnar, Vinter. Their themes are powerful beasts and hurting their own forces to gain some buff. The Nyss won't work for them.

Circle Oroboros: Druids. Who have aligned with the "devourer worm" (werewolf: the apocalypse anyone?) and a group of atavistic cannibals. Their themes are Werewolves, beastmen, Druidic animism, and lightning attacks. Lots of pathfinder units and forest-using shenanigans. Nyss will work for Circle.

Legion of Everblight: a group of blighted elves who have been corrupted by a dragon named Everblight. Their themes are powerful souless beasts with wings, fire attacks, and speedy assaults. The Nyss won't work for them, but as a faction Legion is quite strong.

Trollbloods: a group of racially-linked humanoids with a tribal structure and an underdog, everyone's-out-to-take-our-land feel. Their themes are literally Tough troops, hungry beasts, and lots of synergistic buffs to help melee troops out. Nyss work for Trollbloods.

Minions: Minions are the Hordes equivalent of "mercenaries" from warmachine. They break down into two subfactions: pigs and gators. Nyss might work for minions, but not for pigs or gators (I think?).

I don't want to play minions, despite the fact that they are inherently a smaller faction with less for me to collect. I wanted a faction that will work with Nyss, so that puts Skorne and Legion out. I leafed through the Circle and Trolls warlock sections, to see which ones might actually support Nyss (many hordes buffs only help faction units). The Trolls had a few 'locks who help Nyss. In particular Grim Angus looks like fun.

I swear his name is "Clint".

So I picked up some Trolls. Unfortunately my Grim Angus list doesn't use the Nyss until 50 points. At 35 it's much more streamlined.

-Merlin


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