I brought this one on myself: Cygnar vs. Skorne

Given that after a long night of college work I've finally gotten the time to toss this post together at the blissful hour of 7am, I hope that it turns out for the best. Sorry for the rough lack of posting or comments or any such things. I've been adjusting back to college, and getting settled into the Nova Nomads meta in Fairfax while trying to actually learn from my opponents beyond getting curbstomped.
Speaking of Curbstomp: eHaley. As my send off game in the league I was apart of in my home city of [REDACTED] I had decided to see how one of the worst casters to go up against, reputably, one of the most nonsense control casters just to see what happens.

To make things simple, I did well. Better than I expected. I nearly won. If I had thought to boost a damage roll, this would be a hilarious success story against impossible odds. Sort of like the every sports film but backed by a team of task masters, wearing a lack of compassion with pride. Fully overworking and marginalizing their center pieces while expecting no dissent and fantastic consistent performance. Huh... so like the dark truths behind every actual professional sports career.

Anyway, I was resigned to loss this game, because she's a power caster. I had recently assembled my Cetratii at this point and wanted to give them a test run as best I could. So I was running a 35 point list of eHexeris, Bronzeback, the Pinball Wizard Molik Karn, a Drake (Bonded), Max. Cetratii, Paingivers, and an Agonizer, and a Feralgeist to fill me out a point. The Feralgeist contributed nothing as he got stabbed by Morrowans.

My thought behind the Drake as my Bond beast is to have him be able to Bushwack to get to where he needs to go and untarpit himself and still deal with key pieces with the fun use of POW 14 SP8s. He never did that trick, so I still want to see how it holds up outside of the Dojo.

My opponent was running the Cygnar Battle Engine, eHaley, Stormwall, a max unit of Morrowans and UA, and a Squire.

The entire match consisted of me weathering a storm as best I could, while being very overly defensive of Molik Karn, by hiding him off to the side out of fear of losing him to big gun shots. The Bronzeback just trundled forward, screened by the Cetratii and the Drake hanging to the side.

I never really tossed the Cetratii into shieldwall, as I wanted them to get the momentum they needed, so I decided to stupidly not have them just walk forward 5 and do the weather the storm strategy.

The Cygnar player pretty much tried to shoot anything he could off the table, which he really didn't/couldn't.
Doing some heavy damage to my Cetratii who were charged by Mini-Feat Morrowans and curtly quickly removed from the table in a very sanctimonious huff on the part of the Morrowans.

At about 2 turns in, I looked at the table and realized the fallacy of all people who play against eHaley. "Oh on my next turn this will go really well for me". Going against eHaley, without her feat, would be actually remarkably okay, just because I managed to set myself into an okay aggressive position. However, he popped feat and made all my dreams disappear as my pieces were ridiculously ineffectual. Except for the Drake. He chose the order my pieces would activate wrong and chose the bonded Drake that was surrounded by two Morrowans to activate before my caster. Letting me clear them out, and toss ashes to ashes onto the battle engine. I did this after wasting 3 Fury hellfiring the battle engine.

I'd have killed Haley with POW 10s if I'd have boosted the last damage roll, which left her with 2 boxes, and if I hadn't wasted a round trying to toss Hellfire at the Battle Engine like it really mattered.

But she had two boxes left, there was a hole in my defenses and she had killed the agonizer last turn, gave the Stormwall focus, backed up and away from the battle engine, and proceeded to kill my Caster on Dice +4.

This one slip up in my opponents turn, is what gave me the chance to nearly win. This shows the thing with control casters like this, you need to know a lot about your opponent and the core constructs behind the games mechanics to be able to get a lot out of that feat. Otherwise, chains just show up you didn't think of, and then your caster has two boxes left after eHexeris pops feat and blows up stuff.

If I had known that the real fear of the list was the SPD 9 POW 20 Colossal I'd have played a lot differently. The electro-leaps on the part of the battle engine weren't the major issue and if I'd just bricked up a little more and started walking 12/20s up the board, I'd have been a lot more stable. I also could have played Molik Karn a little better, by having him be aggressive and on the side of the field away from the colossal so he wouldn't be easily reached. Electroleap isn't a big deal if your caster is in the back, so bunch up your ARM 20s, Box cars only happens 1/36 times, so he probably won't kill shield walled multi-wounds with some Static Cling.

But to be fair, I didn't find her that much of a problem beyond the feat and -2 SPD Debuff. What that does show though is an important rule of the game. You can play defensively by just pushing hard on offense, so powerful moves are used as a defensive strategy. If I had forced her to feat while I had more pieces on the board, odds are I'd have been more successful as time went on,, and still been able to do a ridiculous amount of damage and hopefully clear out the Morrowans with Molik Karn instead of him being a wasted 11 points.

You also definitely need to learn the threat ranges of your opponent, and on gauging those, play as aggressively as is reasonable. They're two important rules to learn, because if Offense is the best Defense, and a pretty good offense, you never go really wrong with pushing ahead and carving out some space on the board.

So, the easiest strategy to recommend, but the hardest to learn was just in Page 5. Play like you've got a pair.

Cetratii and eHexeris at 35 points: Thoughts

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of posting lately. I just got back to school and I've been trying to find time to post up my last battle report, which I think will be pretty exciting.

I had a thought today after running a vassal game last night and finally beating a newer players Armor Skew of Menoth. It concerns Cataphract Cetratii. We Love 'em. We love their reach, and their 20 ARM in Shield Wall. We love how they operate, and how they can kill on contact. We also Love eHexeris. Mostly. Kind of. He has good spells, some jack of all trades-y spells and can mow through Infantry heavy lists which is nice for us, as tarpits are never fun to deal with.

However, maybe I just need to learn how to play Cetratii better, but I have a feeling that eHexeris really doesn't get much use out of these Reach Weapon Masters without the Tyrant Commander + Flag waver.

His spells don't really help them out to be honest. Ashen Veil makes them Def 14 vs. Living models. Only living models. Any gun line worth their salt is going to have SOMETHING to deal with Concealment anyhow. Black Spot can help them deal more damage, but Cetratii want to be more defensive.

This is the big problem. We have no way to boost their speed without paying for a 3 point speed booster. So, if you want them to move up the field at a decent pace, we need them to be able to Run/Charge. If we want them to be really survivable we need Shield wall so under eHexy they are walking 5". You are then paying 14 points for a unit that moves 7" at ARM 20. Maybe it's because I'm playing 35 points mostly right now, but that's about half a list donated to this one trick. If the TyComm gets killed, the unit slows to a relative crawl.

I am not decrying Cetratii only their place with a caster that focuses on more abstract buffs rather than Xerxis1 or pMakeda. These two casters, from observation purely, look like they can do beautiful things to Cetratii that eHexeris can't do until he gets to bigger points costs.

When I'm running eHexeris I'd rather screen with Nihilators, and toss in one or two support pieces and a bunch of big beasts so he can work his fury stat to the max. eHexeris is no beast caster, but with that much FURY he needs to have at least 3 beasts with him.

So, until I get enough points to run 50 points of eHexeris, I probably won't be setting down the very expensive Cetratii, except to just learn more how to use Cetratii in their own right.

If you have any thoughts on how to use Cetratii well, or fun tricks feel free to post it in the comments.
If any other new Skorne players have thoughts on the subject, and their stories about using Cetratii put it down there too.

I'll hopefully be updating more frequently now that I'm starting to get into the scholastic rhythm.
As always, Hell Hath no Fury, like a player Skorned.

Skorne Leakage!

Exigence is just around the corner, and only NOW is Skorne getting any real mechanical leaks about what might be coming out in the book. Insrtead of doing a battle report this exact week, I feel like talking about the rumors about the Keltarii and what I think they should/will have, and an analysis of the eXerxis leak that was put on imgur.

With the Keltarii what I would honestly want to see out of them is not AD like everyone else suggests, just because AD doesn't automatically make it great. In the Scenario game if they crumple to a stiff breeze they wouldn't make a good tarpit unit. I'd rather have AD Nihilators so they can be nearly as good as Doom Reavers. Then they can move farther, quickly position/hold zones, and with Reach are able to threaten and hold zones easily. This is not about the beauty of Nihilators and their latent potential, this is about the hypothetical stats of Keltarii. 

These are still Praetorians so they'll probably have Weapon Stats and are probably not getting weapon master. By the screams of all of Rasheth's Agonizers there will never be a day when Praetorian grunts will get Weapon Master. And now I'm going to be disproven at some point and this will be both wrong and outdated. 

Let's see how PP described them:

 The keltarii wield their double-bladed glaives with unsurpassed speed and precision, able to deflect incoming projectiles as easily as they slice through flesh and steel.

Every other Reach SPD 6 Small Based unit seems to have CMA. So let's just assume they have that due to the established precedent. Speed and Precision and ranged deflecting gives us Blade Shield for DEF 15 vs. Shooting. The big question would be a hypothetical third rule. Set Defense is obvious, but does greatly invalidate Karax more than they already are. What I'd hope for more than anything is Reversal or Beat Back. Beat Back to just be able to push, given that pHexeris has Beat Back on his Skorne like weapon, but Reversal makes them a very good unit at just defensively holding a line. Combine this with either Mordikaar or eHexeris and the unit becomes deadly and mean. 

It'll probably be Set Defense though if they play to the defensive angle. If it's to the aggressive angle, maybe they'll have AD. 

Personally though, I'm going to be hesitant as I'd rather see some UAs over a new unit. Unless this unit is particularly good and is at the very least surprising, I'll reserve my judgment.
Something I'm keeping in mind looking at these Keltarii though is the interaction with the Warbeast Pack Skorne is destined to have. The tools introduced in the new book are just as important in what the Keltarii will have as the models themselves. As a whole though, I don't want to be too excited as I anticipate that either PP will surpass themselves and give us something great, or just another anti-infantry unit we don't need. Though we have heard nothing on what the Bug Men do so far, which may be what we really need. Though part of me still prays for 4/6 reach Weapon Masters

eXerxis is kind of dull on first glance. Huge Base = Easy to shoot and Hard to position. His Stat line is decent, and his DEF/ARM is nice against shooting. The Krea was recommended with Xerxis for a long time and is absolutely mandatory now. His spells are pretty decent and just like old Xerxis is born for running a lot of infantry. He suffers slightly from the issues of Huge Base casters of a lack of defensive abilities, and he lost a bit of character that he had when he could walk. He no longer has the orders to give like he used to, and the lack of ballet Cataphracts makes him less able to do movement shenanigans. 

His feat works very well for infantry spam and Ignite will be a fun spell to toss on a lot of units. His feat and Ignite allows for a lot of Crit Fire. However, if your big plan is to light everything on fire you really aren't using his feat right. The infinite control area is absolutely AMAZING, allowing for a hard alpha strike and allows for all of our movement shenanigans to work amazingly well for us. Him with Molik Karn will be nice and silly. This also gives us something interesting: We no longer have to worry about bringing Gladiators in every list for our beasts to have Pathfinder. This gives us a lot more list design space, and combine this with a Ty-Comm and we can get Pathfinder Infantry, and Pathfinder Beasts making our threat ranges all the better.

His Bond is pretty interesting, as it allows us to save on Fury and get more work out of our beasts. What would be interesting is a Mammoth and Raider and Cannoneer with him and some good Melee infantry to let his feat do some crazy stuff with to Hit rolls with some Incindiarii, Cannoneers, and a Mammoth. 

All in all, eXerxis has potential, and I like him, but by no means does he match the hype. He can tank pretty well given the buffs/debuffs Skorne has, but there is an intense risk to having him join the melee. When you can take that risk though, it will be amazing. There will be a lot of experimenting we can do with him, which is always fun. 

If you have any thoughts/theories, toss them in the comments!

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust: Convergence vs. Skorne

This game was my first try at scenario, and one of the few games I came close to winning. I managed to cleverly use one of the spells I'd never thought I'd be able to get any good use out of, and managed to play scenario decently despite a good deal of mistakes that I've made mostly for being still relatively new.
 Had I been a bit more creative, more experienced, and had better rolls I'd have had the game. However, it was a nice optimistic push, as I've been feeling cynical about my capacity to do well recently. A series of tabling losses and defeats give a certain set of expectations that don't breed confidence. However, each one is a learning experience and I hope to eventually post a win for all of you to read.
However, I hope my losses make winning easier for everyone else. This match was close, fun, and showed the power that scenario has to balance the game. It also teaches some good lessons to try to find ways to look for answers in your lists if you don't have an easy answer planned in for it.


25 points of Convergence vs. Skorne

Scenario: Outflank

Convergence:
Warcaster: Syntherion
Monitor
Cipher
Assimilator
3 x Elimination Servitors
3 x Attunment Servitors
Optifex Directive


Skorne:
Warlock: eHexeris
Bronzeback
Titan Gladiator
Cyclops Savage (Arc Node)
Max. Nihilators

One of my problems with Skorne list building wise has been to try to fit in support units. It always seems so difficult to fit them in at low points costs. Skorne also has a problem with trying to find space for it's support due to it being both equal parts necessary and at the same time detracting from the capacity to put in work units. We aren't like Trolls where the supports are absolutely necessary, or like Legion where the Supports can also put in work over an extended period like Foresaken. So, for this list I decided to just not put in any support pieces and have everything do something important.

At the start I was worried about the Elimination Servitors, since if those stayed alive, I'd be losing a lot of Nihilators and slowly lose scenario, and his gun line would eat through most of my big stuff. So already I came in skeptical and nihilistic, but as the game goes on I get to do some clever tricks and take advantage of some fun positioning later on.



Deployment


This game is my first time ever playing scenario so my deployment may seem funny, especially to me. I was mostly concerned about getting my infantry set up well. I didn't. What I should have done is solidly kept them on one side of the board. I was allowed to go first by my opponent forcing me to choose sides awkwardly. I set my heavies on the right, and my Nihilators kind of to the left. I didn't know how he'd deploy his anti-infantry so I just set my Nihilators close to the middle. I knew they would have been gunning for the left zone, but I wanted to be able to respond to later threats. This gums me up a lot later on, and screws over my game. I knew I'd be camping eHexeris behind the wall and letting the arc node join in with my Nihilators to give them some supporting meat and to tag them with various spells/reach his "infantry" with spells to support the Nihilators as needed.





Turn 1

 First turn, I run everything up, and spread everything out as I can to be able to move things where I must. However, I still feel like I made some mistakes concerning not giving them the focus they needed toward the left zone. Hexeris walks up and starts laying down some magical power, giving Ashen Veil to the Nihilators, and spreading around Animi as I need. Rush went onto the Bronzeback, and the Gladiator stayed slightly back because I wanted to keep Rush on the table for as long as possible.
 I figured out early on that he was running a gunline and wanted to avoid it for as long as possible. I've gotten incredibly paranoid recently about my heavies and this game is a bad example of me being incredibly conservative and nervous game play-wise.





He walks some jacks forward, runs his Servitors toward the walls, and lays down some Rough Terrain templates to clog up the Nihilators who'll have to take a hard left toward the left zone. He's not in range to shoot anything this turn beyond the AoE'd Nihilators.  He tosses Syntherion's big healing spell on the backmost Vector.


Turn 2

This is the moment I realize how bad my picture taking skills are as I seem to forget the causality of my photos and realize I forgot to take one. The important principle of this turn is that I realized that I can start having my Nihilators (now in the Zone) that I can start getting rid of his Servitors due to Ashes to Ashes. I target his heavy that is in the middle of the board with Ashes to Ashes, and it gets 5 nearby enemies in 5" clearing out all but one of his Servitors. I charge it with my Nihilator, realize he is out of formation, and feel incredibly stupid. Somewhere he killed some of my Nihilators and ran them off to the side.

This is also the moment I realize that I am terrible at taking pictures at the time of writing.

My Nihilators unfortunately split themselves up due to my terrible understanding of positioning and stupid decisions. One of them tried to charge the heavy to get some damage on it and couldn't attack due to formation separation. Then my Cyclops charged at it, and wiffed miserably on the attacks doing minimal damage. Then, in fear of an assassination attempt, I block up the pathway with my Bronzeback, and hide the Gladiator in cover for fear of getting torn apart by bullets. POW 12 Bullets. Or charge attacks. Those are also scary.


















If I could have turned the clock back here, I would definitely be more focused on actually keeping the zones better occupied and getting some use out of my Bronzeback. Who accomplished very little so far, and will continue to be nothing more than a threat. He ends up moving his Heavy jack over toward the left zone to keep me from gaining any contest points. This next turn is also part of the plague of bad playing and shows the important gap between experienced players, and new players.

He moved the Optifex Unit toward the middle of Zone, seeing my Heavies near by the Zone. This causes me to reconsider the idea of charging an exposed heavy, and making the attrition game go well for me so far, as I'll now have to trample through and probably not make it through. But, I also realized I can get some interesting things done with the Cyclops I realize on my next turn.


Turn 4



















What I realized was that I could Arc Ashes to Ashes into the Right Zone at the Optifex directive by charging his caster with my Savage. Then, I'd be able to charge the Gladiator in no problem with Rush. What the Problem is though, I had an obstacle. The Bronzeback was positioned to be where my Caster had to be. So, in my brilliance and not realizing that the wall to my right was a run-overable linear obstacle, I had him run to the left, into the Zone, rather than over the wall to engage something, and score up on Scenario. Instead, he ducked left, because since it was a Heavy in my left zone I presumed it was a god-like infantry killer or could just trample through my Nihilators.

Anyway. I Have my Bronzeback duck left. I have my Caster walk up, and Arc through.
Hexeris Misses. So I burned 4 Fury, for a miss. I pop feat. Get it back. Hit this time. So I burned my feat for this. Then, I have the Gladiator put Rush on himself and charge at the far right Vector, and don't do as much damage as I should.

The Nihilators charged at the Heavy and did some damage, bringing him down close to dead.

Here's what I SHOULD have done:
Have the Cyclops put Future Sight on Hexeris, and Charge Syntherion.
Hexeris Charge at the Bronzeback to get in Range for the Arc Node. Arc Ashes to Ashes through.
Kill All of the Optifexes. Charge the Bronzeback over the wall at the Left Most Vector, and have the Right Most Vector get charged by the same Gladiator strategy. If I have to, pop feat to put Rush onto the Gladiator to clear a zone.
That's not how it happened though.

What happened lead to my opponents turn getting me a Counter Charge with my Bronzeback onto the Vector in the left zone, and giving me a wreck marker to work around. He killed my Savage with his caster.
He then killed my Heavy, and Dominated the Zone for 3 thanks to Syntherion casting Synergy.

Turn 5:
I couldn't get my Nihilators over to his zone to contest, leading him to Contest the Zone for a total of 6 points, winning him the game.



End thoughts:
This game was equal parts frustrating and empowering. I felt clever for some of my positioning and like a downright novice for all of the silly mistakes that I made over the course of the game and the fact that I'm still terrible at putting my pieces in a degree of calculated risk.
This was another battle where I had to take the pieces I had and somewhat improvise a use for them, as at the time I didn't see eHexeris's actual Anti-light infantry capacity as all I'd seen where the larger styles of infantry or jack/beast heavy against him.

This also showed me how much easier it is mentally to play scenario and how the game fits into a smoother pace when there is a sense of direction beyond caster kills.

I need to learn how to treat my infantry better and treat them with more awareness with the introduction of terrain into a lot of situations.

This game was one of the more optimistic learning experiences I've had and one that I'm glad to get in as it shows me more options for down the line play.



As a side note: I've recently gotten involved with a Warmachine League at the local gamestore (Scars of Scaen I believe), and while I missed one week's worth of pictures from that, I'll be sure to be more dilligent in the future. I get to caught up in the games to take pictures some times which can lead to problems.

Amnesia and Armor Skew: Menoth vs. Skorne.

Once again, I have a limitless capacity to remember to take pictures, so I won't have all of them again, but I still have a few. This is against the same person just getting into the game with a fantastic record for kicking my ass. I lost one of the games before this one because of a bad roll not finishing off his bastions. This one however, ended pretty interestingly to say the least.

15 points: Menoth vs. Skorne
Menoth:
pKreoss
Revenger
Crusader
Max Bastions

15 points of Skorne:
pHexeris:
Bronzeback
Cyclops Savage
Min. Nihilators
Feralgeist (proxied by sole Swamp Gobber.)


Deployment:

He sets his Bastions in the middle, His Crusader by the forest, Revenger to my right, and Kreoss by the Wall.

I set my Nihilators in the middle, Bronzeback on the right-ish, and Cyclops on the left-ish. The Bronzeback is my Arc Node. In hindsight, since the Cyclops has better range he would have made a good Arc Node in comparison to the Bronzeback. I thought I'd tie up the Crusader with my Savage, but that was ridiculous and I should have known better.



We'll see what happens as the game goes on.

Turn 1:

Everything runs forward on both sides.

He runs his stuff off to the side  He set it up so that the Crusader can easily get rid of one of my Light Beasts as the game goes on. I can see that he is trying to lock me in with a sort of pincer formation coupled with the armor skew forcing me to choose targets poorly. pKreoss is a good caster with simple strategies, making this kind of a tough match-up for me, but I have a good suite of useful spells.
Fortunately, he never uses Purification in any of the games we've played so far.
I toss the Nihilators forward as far up the board as possible. The  precise positioning still gets to me looking back at the pictures. What I should have done is spread them out a little more towward the right, and space them so any AoEs aren't an issue. However, I left them like the picture, thinking one could deal with the Crusader as a roadbump or something. The Bronzeback runs 8", and the Savage Runs 12".

I should have moved the Savage closer to the right to help out the Nihilators. Then I could have set the Bronzeback near the back of the forest letting his mobility tricks take care of the lack of Pathfinder.

 I Arc Ashen Veil onto them, and toss Arcane Reckoning up on my caster sitting comfortably in the back.


Turn 2:
He walks up his Crusader, positioning it outside the forest, and he spreads out his Bastions as best he can.The Revenger walks up toward the wall, and arcs a Cleansing Fire onto my Veiled Nihilators, deviating over, and killing a guy on Blast damage.
My Nihilators Run and Charge around looking to engage some things, block some lanes, stab some guys, and so on. I have 3 of my Nihilators gang up on one that they could charge toward, taking him out despite not getting much in the way of charge
The Bronzeback runs forward, looking to get rid of the Arc Node in a turn or two.

This is where I run out of Photos, and my memory runs thin. As the game goes down, the game slowly grinds down to a few key pieces.
He pops feat to make sure my Nihilators don't get much work, but as time goes on I manage to whittle down his Bastions.
I have issues with the Repulsor Shield as time goes on, delivering my Bronzeback to that right side of the table to get rid of my fears of spell assassination. The way that it went is that he pushed me back an inch, I push him into the wall, and then advance back an inch, so I stay in melee range.
With the Bronzeback I forgot Hyper Aggressive a lot, but it's a damned good ability.
At the end though, we had it in a Cold War where Kreoss was screened by his Heavy with both in the woods, and I was behind a wall with only my Bronzeback.
Since it would be a long, grinding, series of turns we declared me the victor and shook hands at this point. What I'd have done is arced Hellfire onto his Heavy, and since his charge threat is still ridiculously reduced I'd be able to have my Bronzeback walk forward an inch, and then initiate a charge, eat his heavy alive and then try to arc hellfire onto his caster, stupid though that may be. Then, either he tries to kite around my heavy for a turn, while trying to toss fire on my caster.

As said before, total nightmare, but it got me a win!

It also taught me the value of scenario to prevent nonsense like that.

this also shows that I really do hate armor skew, and that I really hate Bastions.
I feel to combat elite infantry is to start trying to invest in my own. I love Nihilators. They have Tough, Reach, good Speed, and drown stuff in bodies, and can toss around some damage. However, they aren't as good at dealing with Bastions as I'd like. While they become nigh invincible with Ashen Veil, except against sprays, they don't do enough damage tor really deal with Bastions under D-Ward. Especially due to the lack of Knock Down tech that I have at this point in the list. I might invest in a Task Master and Gators, or Cetrati, or both! I feel that it is a good way to deal with this Armor skew that can shift damage by dealing a lot of damage everywhere, and risking my Heavies to do that isn't a good idea.

This round though, I just need to put better work out of my beasts and remember my basic lessons of not spreading out so far. If I hadn't charged in with my Savage, his Crusader wouldn't be horribly useful as it would only kill one or two Nihilators rather than a whole beast.

This match showed that I have a lot of issues with piece prioritization, and don't focus on the important pieces at times, and try to scatter out and cause mass damage, rather than focused strikes. If I keep the important pieces near the Forest, I wouldn't have had to worry about the Crusader. I would then have probably killed the Bastions sooner. Then I would also have more Nihilators. Then I would still have gotten rid of his light jack, and secured half of the board, and been able to whittle down his Crusader without as many lost pieces.


As a whole, I need to take the lessons I give to heart, and focus on the biggest pieces on the table, which so far tend to be Heavy Infantry. The Meat Mountain is in full swing at my tables, so I have to build up to represent that.

Pauldron Problems: Heavy Infantry

Today, supplementing the usual battle reports I produce once a week, I have decided to try to delve into an issue that might be present to some more recent players into Warmachine/Hordes, and Skorne in particular if you've followed a buyers pattern similar to mine. Heavy Infantry. If you don't have any Multi-Wound Infantry, how do you deal with Multi-Wound Infantry? Specifically, High ARM Multi-Wound infantry.

These are a unit type I've had particular problems with in a lot of my games, and at low points levels, they are typically more efficient than large blobs of infantry. They are more survivable, meaner, and with a lot of UAs and solos that increase their hitting capacity/survivability it becomes a train wreck. One of my Orboros matches vs. eBaldur was completely obstructed by poor positioning of my Nihilators, my Gladiator, and the high ARM of his Skinwalkers. My many matches against Menoth are difficult against Bastions, as he still easily has full units when he should be down 4 or 5 men in the Unit.

Sadly, as I am yet to own Cataphracts of any kind, I have no strategy that involves fighting fire with fire. This is one of the simpler strategies. You have ARM 18 Weapon Masters? Well, I have ARM 20 9 inch Walking threat range Weapon Masters.

But for those of us not yet running Xerxis and his wall of Cetrati, I'll break down some of my thoughts on how we can deal with this problem unit type.

1. Shoot it off the table. This is more of a Cygnar/Legion strategy at it's core, but we have uses for it, and ways to do it. Cannoneers have healthy POW 15 guns, sure it turns into Blast Damage for everyone not in that central unit, but it can be a good way to disrupt shield walls if you aim it right. Couple it with a Cyclops Raider, you can shoot them before they even get near the center line. Couple this with a max Squad of Reivers + UA and a series of CRAs, there are going to be some dead infantry on the table. Use the Mini-Feat turn 1 along with the Cannoneer, and you will at least soften them up before they get to your melee center.

2. Continuous Effects: Yes, this is typically for light infantry, as it will lead to them dying in droves, but anything helps when they have 8 boxes to chew through and your Bronzeback, no matter how many he pushes around, can only be in threat range of a well spaced 5 man unit for so long. Venator Slingers are a good idea here, as they can lay down some early turn Corrosions, and can be easily tossed away due to their cheap 6 points for a max unit, letting us get in some shots and cause a road bump in the center line after laying down some more light damage to soften up Multi-Wound Meat Mountains. Incindiarii could also fulfill this role well, but due to still having to roll at dice mins 6 means that it is less reliable.

Now, combining these above 2 would be incredibly taxing on points, costing you around 28 points for a lot of whittling down effects, leaving your core less versatile than it otherwise would be, so this is something to consider more lightly than the other options, though when focused well, can create good effects on the battle field. I'll be looking to try Venator Reivers soon with eHexeris. It seems like a good way to harm D-Warded Black Spotted Bastions in CRAs. Groups of 3 Reivers CRAing at something, for dice - 4, if aiming needing only 4's to hit, inflicts a good bit of damage, gives out about 3 Damage per Bastion on average. This, gives you more points to build a center around, and is a good way to weaken Bastions or other Heavy Infantry before they become a problem, and if the Venators survive, they can be useful in taking down 'jacks also if they survive the coming onslaught.

With the above strategy being more difficult to implement points wise and not in Skorne's mentality of "Kill, Crush, Destroy" we have to consider other options if we have no Heavy Infantry of our own.
If we throw our beasts at Heavy Infantry poorly, they're doomed. Weapon Masters, and durable infantry are a death trap for beasts consigning them to uselessness, or death.

So, the other option I give is

3. Find a way for the positioning to render these units useless. Against some armies, this isn't that good of an idea, Circle comes to mind, but against slower Heavy Infantry, we can try to take advantage of Skorne's capacity for surprising movement to change our place on the battlefield and force them to choose bad targets/not move very far. This is more of a vague and personal way of analyzing the problem, but we do have some tools to ensure that we can divert their attention. Molik Karn can do good Hit and run strikes on these Multi-Wound Reach Units, with the benefit of things like Rush/Abuse to get into Melee, killing one or two, and then Side Stepping back, and using Fate Walker to get out of easy reach. Followed by having the rest be forced to deal with a tarpit unit, so they'd be forced to take Free Strikes if they diverted their attention could be clever. However, Molik is the easy response to give to these questions. The Archidon provides a similar role with Flight and the Lightning Strike Animus allowing for it to be a good way to kite heavy infantry, and maneuver as needed, and also to force the infantry to choose what threats to consider.

In the maneuverability department, I'd also say that other than pMorghoul with the delicious spell Admonition, I support that Mordikaar is for all of our "I'll move where I want" casters. With Ghostly, and a defensive feat that allows you to Push targets out of melee threat, and revive models to move into good positions to take down big targets. All this makes him great at avoiding danger, heavily influencing the enemy to make their big meaty infantry not as dangerous.

A way I'd find to deal with this all on a strategic level would be a sort of reinforced flank maneuver depending on your force composition. Particularly this works if you go second and your opponent tosses his Heavy infantry on a flank.

My final piece of advice would be to save your heavy or light beasts until the infantry are already engaged in melee, say with Nihilators, and then take advantage of their relative proximity to implement these other strategies by picking off ones at the sides, kiting them in, or even shooting them before they become engaged, or any that had just become unengaged, and so on.

Eventually, we'll cave and get Cetrati, but for lists that don't include those the Meat Mountain is a particular way of doing Armor Skew that we need to think about and how to deal with. When killing a players models is so intensely difficult that we can't take much damage without fear of never reciprocating said damage then things become difficult for us Pain Givers because we love inflicting damage.

If you have any ideas, toss them down in the comments, and play well, play hard, and play Skorne.

Risk and Reward: Mercs vs. Skorne

This week I went up against Mercs again. I'm glad to show you my newly purchased Nihilators finally on this page, but also to give you a bold realization I've had. Something that probably has been holding me back on a more subtle level than my lack of experience.

Mercenaries vs. Skorne 25pts.
pMagnus
Nomad
Renegade
Mangler
Buccaneer
Freebooter

Reinholdt Gobber Speculator

eHexeris
Titan Gladiator
Basilisk Krea
Cyclops Savage

Max. Nihilators
Min. Beast Handlers

Aptimus Marketh

As I'm typing this, I just realized I was down a point. For some reason I'm terrible at accounting with eHexeris...

Deployment:
As always, I lost the go first roll.

He covered all of his jacks pretty straight forwardly, the light was on my left, pMagnus in the middle, and his heavies near by. I was immediately nervous about all the Knockdown effects that seemed to be everywhere here as I have no real responses to Knockdown.

I set the Nihilators in the front, and was nervous about how I'd move them around the board. The Gladiator is to the right next to the Krea, and the Savage takes left. eHexeris sits in the back of it all, with the Aptimus next to him, and the Paingivers spread out pretty well.



 Turn 1:
He tosses Blur onto pMagnus, Snipe onto the Buccaneer, and runs things forward.

I run my Nihilators up 10" (more or less), and everything runs up. Aptimus tosses Ashen veil onto the Nihilators, and Hexeris tosses Arcane Reckoning on himself as he has nothing to really toss around. Magnus is really well shielded this turn due to the wall, and my offensive spells are out of range.


The Krea has it's Animus up because the less chances I have for him to tie up one of my beasts or my 'lock I can give the better. I leave Hexeris screened Hexeris well, but I left my right flank a little expose, and didn't move my Nihilators up far enough. However, I did get them all in the tiny 7" command bubble, so I made an improvement there.




Turn 2:
He misses on most of his shots that he tosses around, and shuffles around a smidge. He blocks off a charge lane to his caster with his Nomad.
I have the Nihilators run/charge and do their best to block lanes and to try to get to his caster. None of them manage to hit his ridiculous defense through the Cover. Most of them spread around and kind of clog up my Titan.



I managed to still keep Hexeris well protected just by these two light beasts. I upkeep Arcane Reckoning on Hexeris. He had set Reinholdt off to the side and I killed it with a Nihilator which I quickly realized is a waste of time/points. My Savage runs off into the woods to give more control to the left flank.
I quickly realized at this point I should have concentrated more on the right as that is where more of his jacks were. I spread out too far over the course of this game not allowing me to get any holes into him.


Turn 3:
He has to pop feat to get at my caster, which I take as a compliment to how I kept him hidden. However this means I have to deal with a Freebooter behind my lines who wants to hogtie my caster and toss him onto that rotisserie spit of a spear he has. This causes this next turn to be incredibly flubbed. He also moves over his Buccaneer to knockdown my Titan. Which I'll force back to normal on my turn.



I used my Nihilators terribly so I was wasting 8 points a turn. Anyhow, he popped feat to maneuver his stuff around, and failed to knock down my Titan again. He shielded his caster over on the right side of the field, which left my Cyclops pretty useless, as it had been all game. I have it run across the board to try to block a charge lane.

This next moment is me auto-piloting through, so I have to apologize for the absolutely titanic stupid I was operating on. The Titan tried to slam and was half an inch shy of actually getting the charge benefit on the Buccaneer and I bought a boat load of attacks which did functionally no damage. I couldn't quite figure out how I was going to deal with this thing. What i should have done was used Hexeris to get toe to toe with the jack, along with the Krea. Instead, I had the Aptimus toss down Hellfire on it, have the Krea start hitting it, and then waste piles of fury on Hellfire as he moved into difficult terrain which I thought would have given me cover.




Turn 4:
Since I messed up that turn beautifully, he has me dead to rights. He uses the Obliterator Rocket to knock down my caster, has the Buccaneer kill my Titan, and then has the Free Booter hit me for more attacks then I can transfer to my beasts.




 I mismanaged a lot of pieces. I thought that covering the board would be my path to victory, when in fact it's about making a series of strong decisive moves over board presence. I over estimated how much he'd use the pieces he'd have on my left side of the board. I was most of all frantic over how I'd make the Nihilators useful, largely because I underestimated the value of charge attacks at 3d6 - 6 on his heavies.

 He used his low model count to force me into the encounters he wanted. I was distracted by pointless pieces and fear of AoEs. I was also scared of the imaginary threat of a deadly trample to my caster.  In this match I find that I don't move far enough up the field, and I try to play incredibly conservatively rather than taking risks.

So my big revelation is to take Risks, and invest all your pieces to all capacity without fear. Stupid risks are one thing, but well backed risks are different. I valued my Nihilators and didn't find a use for them due to skepticism and not having the right match up for those pieces in particular.

On a positive note, if I had scooted the Nihilators slightly to the right, I was still good at denying shots to my caster, and will need to walk away with a lesson on how to keep him from being targeted.