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.

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Legion Record: 2-0