Sunday, April 26, 2009 

MKII Tournament


My FLGS had a small Warmachine MKII tournament today, just to provide us with an opportunity to get a few more games in and to try out the new rules against a variety of armies. It was arranged with short notice, and the crowd was small (only six players), but that was okay by me. The people that did show up were all really great folks, and it made for some very enjoyable games. As far as factions, we were well representated, with everybody but the Protectorate making a showing. We had two Cygnar armies (my Seige and a Nemo), two Merc armies (Bartolo and Gorten), a Goreshade/Cryx army, and a Sorscha/Khador army.

The tournament was a 30-point event, and I wanted to bring a list that would play fast, furious and in your face. Win or lose, I didn't want matches going past turn 3. I'm not a great list-maker as it is, and I spent the night before wracking my brain. I had originally thought about running a Stryker/Stormblades list, but he's a little more defensive-oriented than I wanted, and the Stormblades and all their AOEs can bog your turns down. I finally settled on the following:

Seige's Rocket's Red Glare (30+6pts.)
  • Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane
  • Squire
  • Lancer
  • Defender
  • Reinholdt, Gobber Spectator
  • Journeyman Warcaster
  • Sword Knights (10)
  • Sword Knight Officer & Standard Bearer
  • Rupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
  • The Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team


The idea behind the list is pretty self-evident. The Sword Knights would charge forward to tie up my enemy's lines, killing as much junk as possible. I don't expect to need an arc node, so the Lancer's job is really just to hang out with the Sword Knights and set up Flank. Junior will put Arcane Shield (gasp!) on them, while Rupert will play Heroic Call to make them tough and fearless. The Black 13th provide the list with some ranged punch, and can negate Stealth with Fire Beacon. Reinholdt is there to give Siege the extra shot via Reload, making Siege and the Defender the assassination squad. The idea is to use Foxhole when necessary to create LOS, pop Siege's feat (halving armor for the first damage roll they take this round), and then hit them with two boosted POW14 rockets and a boosted POW15 long barrel. I figure that should be enough to get the job most of the time.

So, how did it all work in practice?


Game 1: vs. Gorten Grundback (Searforge)

Gorten was running a Driller and a gun-bunny (I don't know if the gun-bunnies were Blasters or Gunners - they never got a shot off), Thor Steinhammer had a Rockram and another gun-bunny. There was a small unit of High Shields and a small unit of Forge Guard, and Herne and Jonne mixed in. Somehow that doesn't quite feel complete, but being the first game, that's all I remember off hand.

Early in the game, Jonne managed to deviate a shot onto Lynch, and kill him, which made me sad. To get revenge, Ryan killed him dead, but unfortunately, she hit him too hard and killed him before she could get the chain attack off. I misjudged my range on the Sword Knights' charge, and they fell short, failing to engage the Forge Guard and High Shields. The next turn there was a big scrum in the middle of the field, which lead to the deaths of some Sword Knights, but ended up being to my advantage as it bottled up Gorten's jacks in his backfield. Gorten pulled back, but not far enough, and at the top of turn three Siege was able to pop his feat and hit the little guy with a pair of rockets, ending the first game. 1-0.


Game 2: vs. Sorscha (Khador)

Khador scares me. They always have, and especially Sorscha, although her feat is a lot less painful in MKII thanks the "Shake Effect" rule. This particular list included a Behemoth, a Devastator, a unit of Iron Fang Pikemen with the UA, the Wardog and a unit of Widowmakers. Needless to say, that Behemoth made me nervous. The trick to beating this one would be two parts: 1) survive Sorscha's feat, and 2) ignore the Behemoth and go straight for the kill.

The game started as most games against Khador do - slogging through incoming mortar barrages just trying to get there. The Black 13th were able to set up shop in a forest to take advantage of Prowl, but they didn't do much else besides distract the Widowmakers for the rest of the game. My opponent got a lucky deviation early, managing to kill Junior and make Arcane shield go away, which in turn made my Sword Knights a whole lot squishier. Now I really had to hurry.

Siege cast Explosivo on himself and the Defender, and together they managed to kill off all but a couple of the IFP, which made me feel a lot better. It also opened things up considerably for the Sword Knights to charge forward. This actually worked out well for Siege - I had a good screen of SKs to block LOS for Sorscha's feat, but I could easily move them around and open up shooting lanes on my turn. Sorscha tried to kill them off and open up some lanes, but some seriously unlucky rolls left her poorly positioned at the end of her turn. On my next turn - you guessed it - Siege feats, boosts the rocket, gets extremely lucky on the attack roll, and lands 30 points of damage against her armor 8. Sorscha goes down! 2-0


Championship Round: vs. Goreshade (Cryx)

The Goreshade army intimidated the hell out of me - it was huge. Besides Goreshade there were two Seethers, a Pistol Wraith, a full unit of Mechanithralls with two Brute Thralls, a full unit a Satyxis with the Sea Witch, a Machine Wraith, a Necrotech and a Necrosurgeon. Of course, as soon as Goreshade pops his feat there will also be a unit of Bane Thralls to contend with... I knew that I didn't have a chance if I tried to kill off the entire army. I needed to go for the throat early or die trying - this game would definitely end by turn 3.

I ran forward, bravely into the fray, and the Cryx came rolling forward like a putrid, black tide. I learned that Satyxis are really, really fast, and that every time they hit a jack they hurt your warcaster just a little. I also learned that on a full charge they are more than a match for ARM19 Sword Knights. By the top of turn 3, both armies were fully engaged, and my Sword Knights were starting to get depleted. I needed to do something fast. Goreshade was within striking distance of Siege, but was protected by Stealth from Shadowmancer.

I put a plan into motion that I knew to be a desperate gambit. Lynch descended from his hill into the snarling horde of undead. He closed within 7 inches of Goreshade and shot off his Fire Beacon. It automatically missed, but still managed to deviate onto Goreshade, neutralizing Stealth. Watts hit, but couldn't beat the armor. Ryan missed her first shot, but hit solidly on the second. This was an unfortunate turning point and the ultimate unraveling of the plan, as I needed the Chain Attack Mage Storm to take out the Deathwalker so Goreshade couldn't sacrifice her to save himself. Unfortunately, that wasn't meant to be...

Siege feats, and sends a boosted rocket into Goreshade, but my dice fail me, and I leave 1 wound on the warcaster. The second shot (thanks Reinholdt!) boxes him, but that just takes the deathwalker out and brings him back with one wound. Even Jr. steps up, ready to be a hero, and takes a shot. He hits, but doesn't lay out enough damage to bring him down. Epic fail.

On my opponents turn the Satyxis run around the flank at their amazing 14 inch speed, and Goreshade soulgates in a Seether right next to Siege, ending the warcaster's reign of rocket-delivered terror in a gooey, bloody mess. Game over, 2-1.


Wrap up

When it was all said and done, I didn't even take second place - I ended up with third thanks to the other 2-1 guy losing less points than me along the way. Oh well. It was still a great day of really enjoyable gaming with really good people. I feel like I'm getting consistently better with my army, and I really like where MKII is going. In three games I didn't spot any egregious rules issues, although the Seether felt like it may have been a little cheap, while the Highshields felt a little... well... sucky. All in all, the game remains intact, and I'm actually really excited for where it is going. For me, it's going to be hard to go back to MKI for the next 8 months while we wait.


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8:40 PM | |

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 

MKII: Stryker vs. Bartolo

As promised earlier in the week, here is my first Warmachine MKII battle report! This game was really all about getting a feel for MKII, and to help that along I wanted to play a list that I already had experience with, just to see how different if felt. I went with my Stryker “Sword and Storm” list, which I’ve played a couple times over the past few weeks and had good luck with. We decided on a 50 point game, which meant that I was able to fit a couple of additional models in over the old 750 list. In this case I chose Strangewayes and a Charger, not because of any great synergy they offered, but rather because I just wanted to see what they could do in MKII. In the end, the armies looked like this:

My Cygnar Army (50+6 pts)
  • Stryker (prime)
  • Squire
  • Lancer
  • Centurion
  • Stormclad
  • Journeyman
  • Charger
  • 10 Sword Knights + UA
  • 6 Stormblades + UA
  • Strangewayes
  • Black 13th
Jen's Mercs (52+5 pts)
  • Capt. Bartolo
  • Nomad
  • Nomad
  • Vanguard
  • Dirty Meg
  • Nomad
  • Mangler
  • Reinholdt
  • Dougal McNaile
  • Herne & Jonne
  • Aiyana & Holt
  • 10 Precursor Knights + UA
  • Eiryss

First thing: Notice that my opponent is a dirty cheater! Two points over! Hah! Seriously, not a big deal - You have to expect these kinds of small errors with a new ruleset. Anyway, on to the game... Deployment was pretty standard, with only Eiryss advanced deploying on the same side as the Black 13th. That should be fun to watch.

Deployment Deployment. Every model but one (Strangewayes) in my army painted!

Turn 1: Jen won initiative, and went first. For the most part turn 1 was uneventful, both armies running out toward the inevitable collision. I kept the Stormblades back a little bit to make sure I’d get a chance to lob some lighting before we closed into melee range. I really didn’t like the idea of Dirty Meg’s Nomad and Mangler charging me at the top of turn two, so I used Bedivere (the Lancer I have embedded in my Sword Knight unit) to drop an earthquake right on their heads. Junior cast Arcane Shield on the Sword Knights, because that’s what he does.

End of Turn 1 End of Turn 1. Everybody runs.

Turn 2, Jen: Jen advances her Precursor Knights and they shield wall. Holt shoots one of the Sword Knights dead from his hiding place behind the Precursors, and opens up a lane to assassinate Jr. - but he misses! Jr. empties his pant load. McNaile grants artillerist to Herne and Jonne, who then pound the Sword Knights with an arquebuss barrage, but thanks to Defensive Line and Arcane Shield they were mathematically impervious to the max 19 damage. Eiryss moves up and murders Lynch before Bart's heavies move up to surround her.

Top of Turn 2

Top of Turn 2. Eminent Bloodshed.

Turn 2, Me: My Lancer advances to engage Meg’s Nomad and Mangler, and pokes the Nomad. While the damage was inconsequential, the real value is in setting up the Flank for the Sword Knight charge that is about to happen. The Sword Knights charge the two heavies, laying out a respectable amount of damage. Here is the first place MKII was different – with Dismember and Sword Master under MKI, I would have thrown two POW 10s and 9d10 of damage. This time I only got one attack at POW10+4d10. While part of me misses all that extra damage, the other side of me realizes how absurd it really was. Even under the new rules I was able to take out more than half of each jack, disabling their main weapon systems.

On the right side, the Stormblades receive the assault order and smash into the Precursors with lightning and blade, utterly decimating them. One of the Stormblade’s AOEs manages to take out Aiyanna on a lucky roll. The charger steps up and takes a shot on the standard-bearer, but misses. The Black 13th shoots up the Nomad on the far right, ending with Ryan getting off her Chain Attack Mage Storm and catching Eiryss in the AOE, killing her. Finally, Stryker hides behind a tree like a bitch so Holt wouldn’t shoot him in the face.

Bottom of Turn 2

Bottom of Turn 2. Ten dead Precursor Knights.

Turn 3, Jen: Meg fixes the Mangler’s nasty flail, and then it makes a thresher attack, taking out two Sword Knights, while the Nomad takes out a third. Herne and Jonne score a direct hit on another Sword Knight killing him, but his buddies are still effectively immune to the blast damage. The Nomad and Renegade on my right flank advance into the Stormblades, killing only one of them. Bart moves up into the middle of his army and pops his feat.

Top of Turn 3
The top of turn 3.

Turn3, Me: I’ve never played vs. Bart before, and it occurrs to me that I have a couple of choices – I can either pull back to avoid the next-turn knockdown or push in and just deal with it. It would have been a harder choice if I wasn’t playing Stryker, but his feat counters Bart’s nicely… Sure, I was going to be knocked down, but I would still be damn hard to kill. So, Stryker abandons his hiding spot and moves up to mid-field make sure he has everyone in his control area, and then pops his feat. He also takes the opportunity to lob another earthquake onto Herne & Jonne, and manages to catch McNaile and Holt in it as well. Finally, he puts Arcane Shield on the Sword Knights (and Jr. re-casts it on the Stormblades) just to make sure we were maxed out on the armor for the knock-down turn.

I take advantage of a very exposed Bart and use my Stormclad to give him a full measure of lightning, boosting the damage and putting 8 points on him - and as an added bonus, the lighting bounces and kills Reinholdt. Next, I try to slam the Nomad back into Bart with my Centurion, hopefully causing some nice collateral damage and knocking more stuff down. Unfortunately, I only roll a 3 on the attack roll. The Stormblades attack the jacks and shoot lightning at the Precursors, but thanks to a string a bad rolls they are mostly impotent. The second wave of Sword Knights charge Meg's jacks, managing to scrap the Nomad, and damn near take out the Mangler.

Bottom of Turn 3

Bottom of Turn 3: Preparing to get knocked down.

Turn 4, Jen: Most of my right flank is knocked down this turn from Bart's feat, making them easy to hit, but Stryker's feat has their armor up to astronomical levels. The Precursor Knights pop their mini-feat and attack the Stormblades, killing two. The Vanguard goes after the officer and but can't get through the 23 armor, while one Nomad mixes it up with the Centurion. Herne and Jonne take a shot at Stryker, but miss. We didn't even roll for deviations because the blast damage couldn't touch anything with the armor, although the Mangler does manage to kill another Sword Knight. Bart takes a play out of Stryker's playbook and hides behind a tree like a bitch, pulling his other Nomad as a bodyguard.

Top of Turn 4 Top of Turn 4: Trying to get through Stryker's feat.

Turn 4, Me: There is always that point in a game when you can smell the blood in the water and you just look at the table and think, “Okay, how can I get this done right now.” This was that turn. I took advantage of the new Shake Effect rule to put my Charger, Stormclad and Centurion back on their feet during the control phase, and then I start working through my kill options.

First I would try the Black 13th – Watts was knocked down, so he just stands up and shoots a jack, but Ryan was out of Bart's control range, so she could run in and take a shot. She manages to land all both shots and the chain attack, but only puts four more wounds on Bart. Next the charger wades into the fountain at the center of the map, boosts, and drills the dirty pirate for another 4 points (BTW, spending one focus to boost both attack and damage is sweet!) At this point Bart is hanging on by a thread, but I don’t have anything else that can get to him turn… Or do I? The Stormclad advances just into range and targets the Nomad that Bart pulled back to be his personal bodyguard, and lets the lightning fly! He hits, and the lightning bounces to Bart on the bank shot - It’s only a POW 12 vs. Armor 19 (with Batten down the Hatches), but boosted, I manage to land 2 points – which is just what I needed. The dirty old pirate goes down, and that’s the game.

Bottom of Turn 4 End of the game. Death by Bank Shot.
Wrap-Up

So, that was my first MKII experience, and all in all, it was a good one. The changes to the units were noticeable, but everything still felt useful and appropriately costed. More importantly, contrary to all the grumbling, I didn’t feel like my army lost any of their fine Cygnaran flavor. It was still all about making your opponent slog through arcane shield while you shoot them in the face with lightning. Jacks felt far more solid– we had only lost one at the bottom of round 4, and they could actually hit things without boosting. Shake Effect is a great new rule – it still gives you a chance to wail on a knocked down opponent, but it doesn’t take away their entire next turn. I am definitely in the camp that is completely excited about MKII. My biggest complaint at this point: No pictures on the stat cards made it a bitch to find the right one during the game. For this weekend’s field test tournament at my FLGS I think I’ll draw stick figure versions of all the units on their cards…

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8:35 PM | |

Sunday, April 19, 2009 

Black 13th, MKII

I finally finished painting up the Black 13th this weekend. I had Lynch and Watts painted last week, but I didn't get back to Ryan until this weekend. I'm pretty happy with the way the turned out, considering I hated the models when I first saw them. To be fair, the models themselves aren't bad - in fact they have a fantastic amount of detail - but they just don't share the same chunky "heroic scale" aesthetic as the rest of my Cygnar army. That, and they are so thin that if they turn sideways they almost disappear (that must be where the Prowl ability comes from...) The good news is that a little paint makes them pop, and they seem much more three-dimensional now that they have color on them. The bad news is that Eiryss still looks like she has 30 pounds on them.

The completed Black 13th, now shooting you in the face in technicolor.


In other news, I made it into my FLGS today to play my first Field Test game of MKII. All in all, I was ambivalent. I don't mean that in a bad way - I just mean to say that really I don't know what all the fuss is about. It still felt like Warmachine, it still played like Warmachine, and I still had every bit as much fun playing MKII as I ever did playing MKI. Of course, that doesn't mean that every time the dice didn't go my way, I wouldn't yell "This stupid game is borken now!"

I truly play games to have fun. I'm not super-competitive, and I'm not an elite tournament player. I'm just a guy who enjoys the fluff, the mechanics, and his weekly game. So, it's less important to me that I have the uberest stats and abilities, and more important that the game is balanced, tactically diverse, challenging, and offers off lots of interesting choices. I hate games with widely known unstoppable combos... using them doesn't make you brilliant, it just means you can read forums too. I'm not saying Warmachine was there, but it was certainly getting closer.

So yes, I could feel where my units had been "nerfed." The Sword Knights are far less frightening than they used to be, but they are still plenty frightening considering their cost (they can still completely scrap one heavy, and damn near scrap a second in two turns.) While still nasty, the Black 13th has had some of their reach taken away, but they have also become much more straightforward. The Stormblades/Stormclad combo worked together very differently, but still felt very synergistic and perfectly effective (and much easier to run). Oh, and now the Charger can be really nasty under the right circumstances. All in all, I am very happy with where the game is sitting - my weak units have become more potent, while my stratospheric units have come back down to earth a little bit. In all, it just feels... well... more balanced.

From a rules standpoint, the impact of the changes was less dramatic than I expected when I first read them. The formation rules ended up not mattering that much, as I still ran all of my units inthe same way I would have under MKI, and never had a out-of-formation issue. It was nice to not worrying about spacing between each model ("Is that more than three inches?"). The new "Shake Effect" rule came in handy, allowing my to bounce back after Bart's feat, and set up the assassination run on my next turn. The rules around Warjacks and disabled systems were much improved, and for me it made the game more fun, as 'jacks felt far more resilient and dangerous.

So, yeah, it's different, but I'm okay with it. After a couple weeks of letting it sink in, and now getting a game in, I'm really starting to shift my way of looking at it - I'm starting to look at the game more as a whole system rather than a collection of individual units. When you look at it that way, you realize that while some of your units may have changed, the game on the whole still plays an awful lot like it always did, and in many ways, even better.

I'll will post a battle report with pics and all of the gory details of my first MKII game within the next few days so you can get a taste of how it went for me. Until then, get out and play.

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9:55 PM | |

Monday, April 06, 2009 

MKII: First Impressions


Like everyone else in the Warmachine universe, I was tuned into release of the new Warmachine MKII rules first thing after work (yeah, I’m guessing many of you dug in at work… you know who you are.) Before we get too far, let me say I have not read them cover-to-cover by any means yet, but I have managed to give it a good cursory read, and kudos to Privateer Press for giving us such a polished and professional document for a field test. (BTW - do yourself a favor and go to Kinko’s an have it printed and spiral bound for $11. Money well spent!) Now, on to the first impressions.

First off, I was happy and relieved that it still looked like Warmachine. I opened up the stat cards first, and found that they were immediately understandable (with the exception of new damage type/immunity system, which, oddly enough, reminded me of the old D&D miniatures skirmish game.) The idea of the immunity system seems nice– at least now my Stormguard can bounce lighting around without accidentally hurting the Stormblades. It was reassuring to see that from a stat-block and layout standpoint, not much had changed. It appeared that Privateer Press kept their promise - Warmachine is still Warmachine.

As I dug into rules, the first thing to catch me off guard was the new point system. Almost everyone I had talked to expected the point system to expand into a wider range, offering more granularity between point values. I was very surprised to see it go in the other direction, with points values contracting massively. A 100-point game is now equal to the old 1,000-point level. I can see the appeal in the simplicity of it, but I also think it will put a lot of pressure on the designers to have a model’s abilities tightly tuned. It would seem that it makes the game a little bit more fragile, but to be honest, I can’t really wrap my mind around that one until I get some play time in.

I was also surprised how the “Warjack points” work. Warcasters are now free (again, meaning they will need to be finely balanced and roughly equivalent) and each one comes with a set number of points that can only be used to take warjacks. It seems like kind of a ham-fisted way to get warjacks into play (Hordes integration of Warbeasts with the Fury mechanic is still far more elegant) but to be honest, I don’t care –big stompy robots are what attracted me to this game, and anything that gives me more full-metal mayhem is okay by me.

I was very interested to see how formations were handled, and was somewhat surprised to see them handled much like a warcaster’s control area. Under the new system, any model in CMD range of the unit commander is considered “in formation.” Logic says this will make for much tighter clumps of troopers to keep them in formation, but at the same time the “out-of-formation” penalty is lessened, so maybe we won’t feel as compelled to be in formation. Once again, it’s hard to gauge what the actual impact of this change will be until I get some play time in. I do know that under the old rules, trenchers with a UA and could be spread out across 36 inches of table and still be in formation. Under the new rules, they would all need to be inside an 18-inch diameter circle! One possible outcome of these rules could be people fielding less full units, trading out instead for multiple small units… Dunno.

As I looked through models, I was surprised to see Sorcha’s and Kreoss’ feats unchanged. I was certain they would have seen some tweaking – that is until I saw that both Warcasters and Warjacks have now picked up the ability “Shake Effect." Basically, for one focus point they can stand up or cause stationary to expire during their control phase (after allocating focus). So, while those feats still have their intended effect on the player’s turn, at least as an opponent I don’t have to lose my entire next turn being neutered by their feat.

Of course, I also took a quick look at the four main warcasters I’ve been playing as of late. Here is a quick summary of what I saw (at least in terms of spell lists and feats):

Commander Coleman Stryker: seems to be the least changed of the four warcasters I’ve been playing. The one obvious change is that Snipe has been reduced to a fixed +4 range. This seems to be a theme, as the Long Shot ability on the GMCA has also been toned down to +4. I will miss putting +7 snipe on Stormblades.

Captain Victoria Hailey: The biggest change is the toned-down Temporal Barrier, which no longer halves movement, but still delivers the -2 DEF and prevents charges and slams. Temporal Barrier is also back to being an aura rather than a pulse, meaning models moving into the control area are now affected.

Siege Brisbane: The new Siege seems seriously toned down from the old incarnation. Ground pounder now has a 3 inch AOE rather than the old 5”, and Higher Ground is gone – No more Tower of Power! Illumination is replaced my Mage Sight, which seems a little more straightforward.

Commander Adapt Nemo: Nemo has long been one of my favorites from a fluff and “cool” perspective, and now he is much more of a badass. Moving ball lightning from the spell list to a ranged attack is a welcome addition. Blinding Flash has been replaced by Deflection, and Disruption Field got a +1 STR boost. Most importantly, Nemo’s Electrical Storm feat now effects warbeasts, meaning it now works against hordes equally as well as Warmachine!

Anyway, that’s just a start, but so far so good. Given what I’ve seen, I’m still excited. To be honest, I am struggling with the point costs more than I am the changes to model abilities, and I really need to see it in action before it will click. At first review, it’s still very much Warmachine, and I don’t see anything that ruins it for me - In fact, I see a lot that I like. It is amazing how this new incarnation is both very much the same and very different. Looking forward to play-testing the hell out of it.

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10:38 PM | |