Legion of the Noob Part 5: The Problem with Lylyth......

Is that I am struggling to get enough work done on Feat turn.

Sooo sexy, yet soooo frustrating

After a couple of games with eAbsolonia, I am feeling pretty comfortable with her. As I have said before, she plays a lot like Mortenebra and I like Mortenebra. (The first tournament I ever played with Morty, I went 3-1 and played a grand total of about 40 minutes of Warmachine for the day).

Now I need to get comfortable with Lylyth. This is a whole different ball of wax. Coming from Cryx, I know nothing about running a gunline and will probably take some time to get the hang of target priority and when to pop her feat.

This has been evident in the 3 games I have had with Lylyth in the Dojo so far, all of which have felt terrible.

My list is:
eLylyth
  Ravagore
  Ravagore
  Zuriel
  Naga Nightlurker
2 x Shepherds
2 x Deathstalkers
Forsaken
Spell Martyr
Strider Blightblades
Incubus pack
Objective: Bunker

The first was against Dave, sporting Lich3 with 30 Bane Knights and Blackbanes Ghost Raiders. Going second, I feated on the bottom of turn 1, killing 12 Bane Knights and blocking thier lanes with scather templates. I moved Zuriel too far foward and he got smashed by the Bane Knights on the following turn. I ended up getting swamped by Bane Knights and with Gaspy camping at ARM 27 after his feat, there was no way to pull any sort of last ditch shenanagins and ended up losing on scenario, although he could have assassinated me just as easily.

My second game with Lylyth saw me paired against Nick and his Miserable Meat Mountain. Lylyth is NOT my troll drop, but as I am just trying to get a handle on what she does I played into what can be generously termed a pretty bad matchup. With a wall of meat running straight at me and a feat that meant that meat moved closer to me when I damaged it (Hyper-Aggressive), I decided I may as well try the long range Lylyth assassination. Nick had Grissel behind a Bomber and a Kriel Stone Scribe that were standing B2B sitting on two transfers, instead of behind the wall 2 inches to his left (I think he believed it was out of the killbox). One of the Deathstalkers sniped out the Kriel Stone Scribe to clear line of sight and Lylyth managed to arc Pin Cushion onto Grissel before punching some damage through with her bow. Then the Ravagores opened up, taking both her transfers and leaving her on a couple of boxes (1 ravagore managed to miss his second shot). Zuriel could not get close enough so it was up to the Naga to finish the job. Despite Grissel making her Tough roll after the first shot, the Nagas feat shot finished her off. And thats how Lylyth works.

My third game with Lylyth was against Peter and a standard eLich list. It was not pretty and I made a number of mistakes, the worst of which was letting the watch-machine players in the cheap seats goad me into taking an assassination run that was never on. Needless to say, I lost, badly. But this game in particular taught me a number of valuable lessons.

1. If you get to choose tablesides, make sure you take a good look at the terrain. In this game, I just went with the side I was sitting on at the time (as many of us lazy ass gamers do), gifting my opponent a convenient linear obstacle to hide his caster behind. As opposed to the side I decided to stay on, which had no cover for a caster to hide behind.
2. Remember your ambushers. This has been a major problem so far. I only deployed them this game because one of the spectators reminded me, then I forgot to move them. 
3. If you have a plan, stick to it. Don't let other people talk you into doing something you feel is less optimal. While this is not a problem I will have during a tournament game, it is one I need to remember anyway. 
4. Don't hold the feat looking for the "perfect" shot. Too ften I found myself waiting till I can get three sprays off with Zuriel under the feat. This is pointless. While the extra spray is, in theory, nice, it is a waste of the board control/delay the long range scather barrage can bring. Using the feat bottom of one/top of two gives me more time to thin out the infantry before Zuriel mops up.
5. If you have a clear shot at the caster, take it. It's what Lylyth does best. 

So, some lessons learned, we will see if we can put them to use next time. Having decided to take Legion to the upcoming Ides of March, my practice time has been drastically shortened, so my next few games will require me to make some major advances or I may end up one listing Abby all weekend instead.

Legion Record: 3-2

Legion of the Noob Part 4: Bradpocalypse Now....

Auckland Anniversary Weekend saw the most excellent Mr Stent open his house up to all and sundry for three days of Warmachine goodness. Unfortunately, work and family commitments meant I could only make one of the three days but I still managed to get a couple of games in.

My first game of the afternoon was against a fairly standard Bradigus list. I pre-organised this game, becuase I wanted to A) see what all the fuss was about and B) see if eAbsolonia had game against it.

I got first turn and we both ran at each other turn 1. On my second turn my Ravagore and Seraph managed to each break a set of Shifting Stones, while Fortify and Spiny Growth went on the Carnivean and Spiny Growth also went on the Ravagore and Scythean. The deathstalkers shot down some twigmen. On his turn, Brad feated and slid everything foward 5 inches and engaged a number of my beasts killing both the ARM22 carnivean and the Ravagore. However, the extra armour on the Carnivean meant that it took a lot more than he expected to kill it and recieved a lot of Spiny Growth damage in return. A watcher also engaged my Naga, but failed to kill it while yet another Wold destroyed my Objective.
In response, Absolonia feated and charged a stone, destroying it and triggering Conferred Rage, before teleporting back out of the way. The Scythean then flew into the gap left by the dead Carnivean and proceeded to destroy the two lights and the heavy grouped there with a fury to spare. This cleared the lane for a Rabid, Feated, Conferred Raged Shredder and the Seraph to charge Bradigus (on 4 transfers) and drop him to 1 health. Brdigus replied by killing off both the Shredder and the Seraph and a Watcher shot my Forsaken creating a forest which handily blocked LOS, stopping his Warden from using Battering Ram to push my Scythean away.  This left the Scythean just within charge range of Bradigus and after triggering conferred rage off of another stone, the Scythean finished Brad off.

So what did we learn about the Bradpocalypse?

1. Killing stones is important. Even after the recent errata nerf shut down the ridiculous triple-port assassination option, the stones are still super important to this list. With a single 'port, Brad still has a 17 inch threat BEFORE he starts to beatback. This list also runs a lot of fury on the table, which makes the stones extra important as fury management. Because Wolds don't frenzy, they keep all fury on them until it is removed by an outside source. Getting rid of the fury management drastically hinders the lists output. They are also the only way outside Brad himself to heal Wolds, which is also big.
2. While the list has a decent threat range on the alpha, the little wolds are kind of pillow fisted until the synergy chain gets going. They are also MAT 5, so if you can boost your defense in anyway, it can make it hard for them to get the Synergy chain started without boosting. If they have to charge as well, it means no Stone Form, which increases your ability to retaliate.
3. Any sort of "nickel and dime" damage you can do to the Wolds is worthwhile. Losing an aspect is huge to Wolds, as they cannot be forced to heal. Any sort of chip damage will add up and may take an aspect if you're lucky.
4. The forest wall is a problem for most factions. As a Legion player however, I give exactly zero fucks about it. Sucks to be the rest of you.

This list is hard, no doubt about it. I do feel however, that it has a steep learning curve. (Although that has been lessened with the loss of the triple-port). Things need to activate in a certain order and a certain degree of spatial awareness is required to see all the angles Brad can manage, even with only a single port available. Therefore the danger is mitigated by player skill level. In the hands of a good player however, this list will be horrendously hard to face.  I am certainly glad I am currently playing Legion, as I feel they have the most game against this list.

.

Legion Record: 2-0

From the Workbench - January

Greetings all,

January has proven to be quite a productive month in terms of painting. Having a target to work towards seems to have helped a lot, as does some vague kind of plan.

Without further ado, here is this months progress:

Lylyth 2

Absolonia 2

Forsaken

2 fully magnetized Heavy Dragonspawn kits.

And as promised last time, pics of the Shepherd and Strider Deathstalker I painted in December.

A good start to the year and I feel like I am on target so far. I still need to buy the remaining bits for my third list, but I am feeling quietly confident I will get everything done in time.

Februarys plan is: Blightblades, Incubi (x5), Zuriel, Naga, Spell Martyrs, a second Deathstalker and a second Shepherd although some of this will probably bleed over into March.

Till next time....