Legion of the Noob - Part 3: The third list conundrum.

So Auckland Open is 3 lists. This means I need to figure out a third list. Given my limited experience with the faction, this is bad.
Auckland Open is also D&C 1, which means I actually have to play the third list at some point, rather than just writing down some evil looking thing that will scare my opponents into favourable drops while never actually seeing the table. Given my even more limited budget and timeframe, this is even worse.

As discussed earlier, picking my first two casters was easy. A third list requires a little more thought. Luckily, as a truck driver, I have plenty of time to think about Warmachine and run lists in my head. A number of casters have presented themselves as options, many of them the result of conventional, internet thinking.

Saeryn: Has the obvious benifit of not needing to buy a lot more models, maybe a pair of Angelius and the caster herself. The downside is she seems at first glance kinda boring.
Vayl: Either version is super tempting, but in reality probably require more time than I currently have to even get remotely comfortable with due to thier depth.
Kallus: The "Miserable Ginger Mountain" appeals to me but probably has too much infantry to paint for the time I have available.

Having gotten exactly nowhere thinking in terms of casters, I then switched to thinking about matchups and whether my two list pairing had any obvious holes. The immediate problem list that has sprung to mind is Meat Mountain/Fist of Halaak style lists. While Absolonia has some game against MMM, it seems, in theory at least, to be restricted to using her feat to clear a lane to the caster before something vaguely dragonshaped eats said casters face. A fun and simple plan to be sure but it doesn't seem very reliable.  And poor Lylyth2 has exactly zero game against MMM. What I need is a list that can spread a decent number of high power attacks around, with a better than average chance of killing any Warder/Cetratii it makes contact with.

Enter the Blighted Ogrun Warspears. Thanks to the UA, they go to Mat 9, RAT 7, P+S15 vs thier Prey target, with effectively two attacks thanks to assault. This seems like a good place to start. Black Frost Shard adds another 2 points of damage to that equation. I still need a caster, but it seems pLylyth (Parasite) or pThagrosh (Draconic Blessing) will both turn these guys up to 11. Lylyth does have the added bonus of already being painted and I figure that the Prime and Epic versions of Lylyth play very similarly so I can play both lists and effectively double down on the learning.

To this end, I have come up with the following list:

pLylyth
  Succubus
  2 x Ravagore (because...Ravagore)
  Shredder
2 x Spell Martyrs ( to get Parasite where I need it)
Forsaken
Strider Deathstalker
Shepherd
Blackfrost Shard
Blighted Ogrun Warspear w/UA
Blighted Ogrun Warspear w/UA

Some testing is obviously in order, but luckily, the Dojo is swimming in Troll players, so finding a Mountain o' Meat to proxy this list against shouldn't be too difficult.

Now, get off my lawn.

Legion of the Noob - Part 2: This Legion Shit is Easy

Two posts in a month, truely inspiring.........

Tuesday saw me in the Dojo to play my first ever game with Legion. While Chris and Nick played a game of "who can Deathclock first" (Axis tier vs MMM), I found myself against Matt and the pThagrosh list he has been testing for Ides.

Matts list was:
pThagrosh
2 x Scythean
2 x Throne
Carnivean
Black Frost Shard
Succubus
2 x Shepherds

I decided my first game should be with Absolonia (because I had to proxy less stuff for her list). My list was:

eAbsolonia
Succubus
Shredder
Naga
Seraph
Carnivean
Scythean
Ravagore
2 x Shepherds
2 x Strider Deathstalkers
Forsaken

I won the roll to go first and everything moved up at a good clip, with the exception of Abby, who cowered behind a convenient wall. The 3 Dragonspawn finished up in B2B for some fortify goodness and they all got Spiny Growth. The Deathstalkers moved around the flanks, hoping to pop his support. Matt moved everything up aggressively, with his Carnivean stopping to spray one of my Deathstalkers.

Turn two saw me make the noobiest of noob mistakes and completely forget about the scenario and hang back out of the zone in some sort of attempt to avoid the alpha strike. The Seraph, Naga and Ravagore all put shots into one of the Scytheans doing a chunk of damage and the remaining Deathstalker failed to hit the Shepherd behind a wall. In response Matt charged my Carnivean with both Thrones, but failed to kill it (ARM 22 is a thing). The undamaged Scythean killed my objective and the damaged one ran up to engage my Scythean and generally be a pain in the ass. Thagrosh moved up into the butt crack of the two base to base Thrones to dominate the zone and go up 3-0 on CPs.

With things not looking particularly good on the CP front, I decided that the best course of action was to kill Thagrosh. To do that, I had to get rid of the damaged Scythean and at least one if not both of the thrones in order to avoid giving away freestrikes on the way to Thags. The Forsaken activated first and did a little more damage to the Scythean. Abby then popped her Feat, charged the Scythean and killed it, triggering Conferred Rage, before teleporting to the corner of the zone. Free of  Matts Scythean, my Scythean then charged the Thrones destroying both of them with a Fury to spare. From there it was pretty much academic. The Ravagore charged Thagrosh and left him on 3 boxes and one transfer before the Carnivean finished him off.

In the post game analysis Matt pointed out I probably didn't need to kill the Thrones as they have Reach and 360 LoS, meaning they wouldn't be getting free strikes as my beasts flew over them. But lets face it, killing them both was always the more enjoyable option.

In my own post game ruminations, I have quickly realised that Absolonia probably works best moving foward aggressively and presenting a strong posture. The threat of her feat is significant and anyone who knows what it does will be rightfully wary of it, which in turn will let me exert scenario pressure and force my opponent to move into my threat range. I probably don't need to keep my beasts B2B for the fortify benefits unless my opponent has things like Drag and the like.

Only having 13 models in the entire army also scares the bejeezus out of me. Coming from the dude-spam of Cryx, having such a compact force is almost a complete 180 from what I am used to and will take some adjustments in thinking to get the most work out of each model.

So one game down and lessons learnt. I am looking foward to getting a lot more games in over Auckland Anniversary weekend at the Dojo, in what Dave is calling "Not-Valleycon". Reports will be forthcoming (in theory).

Now get off my lawn......


Legion Record 1-0

Legion of the Noob - Part 1

So, New Year, same old resolution to blog more consistently. Same limited chance of success, but we will see how it goes.

My last few games of Warmachine before Christmas have seen me trying out new things, mainly with the Witch Coven in preperation for Ides of March. Unfortunately, nothing seems to have really geled for me and I find myself drifting back to my old crutches - pSkarre, eGoreshade, Mortenebra et al.. So, feeling jaded and slightly bored with Cryx I have decided to mix things up a bit by playing something completely different.

Enter the Legion of Everblight, winning friends since forever. While I was originally going to slow build a couple of Troll lists to play with this year (and in fact already own a complete 50 point eMadrak list) I quickly realised I would never get that much medium base infantry painted in time to use this year so switched to Legion instead due to their low model count armies and large amounts of model-crossover between lists. While I don't think I can get the models I need brought, assembled and fully painted in time for Ides, I feel like I probably have a shot at getting them done in time for the Auckland Open in April so that is my current goal.

Choosing my first two casters has been relatively easy: Epic Absolonia is one hella sexy biatch, turns her beasts up to 11 and seems to play a lot like Mortenebra, which I like. Epic Lylyth I like for the simple fact she makes people cry, and I am a terrible human being. And while I like the idea of Abby for her similarities to one of my favorite Cryx casters, I also like Lylyth because the whole uber-gunline thing is completely different from anything I have played in Cryx. I have no idea on a third caster yet but I have time to figure that out. First priority is to get some games in to figure out how this whole Fury thing works so I will be a regular at the Dojo in the weeks to come, as well as any other games I can squeeze in.

 Fun times ahead to be sure.