A Change Of Plans

Change of plans.  I'm not going to do the worst of yet because as many of you know MKII rules hit the scene in only a matter of days.  I just can't justify writing a critique for each sub par fig when everything I say could possibly be debunked after this weekend.  

So what I do have which is relevant is my LGS is sponsoring yet another Warmachine/Hordes tournament starting next week.  The game set up is about as simple as it gets.  350 Mangled Metal (MM).

MM is frustrating for me.  Mostly due to the fact that Cryx isn't known for its amazing jacks and equally powerful jack casters.  The one jack caster we do have, Mortenebra, is nigh useless vs other jacks.  Her two most powerful spells, death race and terminal velocity either activate or proffer bonuses to the jacks when targeting living models.  

Ultimately I'm left with a decision between four casters:

Asphyxious- Parasite and hellfire are the two spells I'd plan on using the most. I'll use the jacks to block Gaspy's advance towards the caster for an assassination run.  Part of my problem with him is that he doesn't have a ton of synergy with the jacks.  Sure the cankerworm has an affinity for him but with no bile thralls there is an apparent lack of corrosion.  I could toss in a defiler or two but that leaves me lacking sufficient points for anything but nodes.  I could omit the worm and toss in the Deathjack with a bunch of nodes.  Of course this leaves me vulnerable to anything which can take out the DJ.  Mostly anything which can screw his cortex.  I'm looking at you Haley and Darius.

The Coven- These ladies have quite a lot of synergy and I am really thinking about running them.  My main theory is to use imprison to keep them safe wile I advance forward to unload some auto-boosted Stygian abyss's.  Cheese you say?  Well I say "Dammit I want to win!"  Ahem, back on topic.  They can boost a jack's speed, block charge lanes and make jacks stealthy.  Auto lose to Haley though. Hmm.... Next.

Deneghra- She doesn't boost the jacks but she sure as heck knocks our opponents down a level. 

She's stealthy, the cankerworm is stealthy and the nightmare is stealthy, the only jacks left for the other guy to shoot at are my def 15 bone jacks.  I like them odds.  Feat turn will be sick and if the caster isn't killed outright most his battle group is worm food.

Mortenebra- She rocks! I love her and I want to run her so badly.  But death race and terminal velocity are only effective vs. living models.  She does have a nifty spell which keeps jacks from being allocated focus, that'd be helpful.  I'd also get to bring a Skarlock which would be hot.  The problem is that at 350 I don't have a decent combination of jacks to put together an effective battle group.  We'll see. 

See my problem?

Here's what I'll be dealing with.

• Kraye or Haley (because he's scared I'll bring the coven lol.)
  
• Grim Angus or Borka (I hope Borka, Grim is tough and the Borka-bomb can be avoided.)
  
• Deneghra or Goreshade (I hate mirror matches.)
  
• Legion - Not sure who but most likely Thagrosh.
  
• Kaya and her stupid yo yo and teleport assassination. 
  
• Khador is a wild card, probably Vlad though.
  
• Menoth will be a no show because he's out of town. 
  

This will be a great tournament, fast paced and furious.  I'm not sure if the TO will try and set some scenario conditions, either way I plan on going for the throat.  We're Cryx after all and that's what we're good at.  

Cryxian Outcasts

John the Mennite and Dallas a.k.a. "Troll-Scum" are focusing on the units in their army which have received a lot of hate from the forum-ites and their like. I want to play too. My main problem is that I don't really own much, if any, of the crappier units. So this is mostly theory machine mixed with my own tactical genius.

THE CRYXIAN OUTCASTS

Here they are in no particular order. Each will get its own special write up to ensure that even though we hate them, they fell a little love. (Drum roll)

• Lich Lord Terminus (Yes he looks great, yes I'll get a lot of flack but I think he's poo.)
• The Slayer
• The Reaper
• The Stalker
• Black Ogrun Boarding Party
• Cephalyx & Drudges
• The Necro Surgeon
• Satyxis Raiders
• The Undead Pirates, yes, all of them.
• Bloat Thrall
• Machine Wraith

It really didn't take much thought to put this list together. Just simple mathematics. Math?!? What the deuce? Yes math. Warmachine and Hordes is a game based on math. We're given a certain amount of points from which we can construct our lists of doom and destruction, or fail if you're a Mennite. All this is important because an effective list will maximize the damage output per points. Simply said, why would I spend so many durn points on a Slayer when I could simply include the cankerworm? Why would I run those stupid looking priates when I could run Bane Knights or Bloodgorgers? Get my meaning?

So get ready, next post will be "Why Terminus Sucks."

-Cheers-

Ahhh Crap...

So you know there are moments in your gaming career which send shivers up your spine. Moments which when other gamers hear about it they shudder to think about it happening to them. Yes, I'm talking about having your open case fall from four feet onto tile floor.

Epic fail.

Paradigm Shift

When I said that I was bored of playing my Cryx army I meant it.

So in order to revitalize the game some players in my group decided to take me up on my "King of the Hill: random army" game.

We decided that due to certain time constraints we should limit the game to 350 "anything goes." Lists were created by their respective faction oweners then thrown into a hat, the only rule being that you couldn't play your own list.

I draw Menoth
John = Cryx
Dallas = Cryx
Shaun = Trolls

Here's what I had to work with:

Reznik: Possibly my least favorite caster from PoM, yeah he's good in combat but.... But honestly if your caster is in combat it has sure as hell better be the last turn of the game with your side about to win. Yes, this is my opinion, but warcasters do not belong in the fray, unless they are like Asphyxious and can open a can of whoop-ass then teleport away.

-Castigator: A nice jack if you ask me, Menoths' only two-handed jack and fairly interesting to play. Nothing special really about this jack, but it does have pretty good armor and a huge damage grid.

-Blessing Of Vengeance: I'm a fan of this little arc node, I so wish that our Cryxian nechrotechs would figure out the bennefit of a shield and halberd. Why are all my nodes just giant chickens? Would it really be so hard to, I dunno, strap a node to a reaper? That'd make me buy him in a second. Back on topic.

Hierophant: He's a nice little warcaster attachment. I've seen better, I've seen worse.

Eiyriss: Overrated, though I must admit I was somewhat pleased to be able to use her, even though she died turn one. Ah well.

Reclaimer: Waste of points, especially at 350. It gains soul tokens for every FRIENDLY Mennite which dies within 7". That's great except the only living models I have at present are my choir boys and I'd much rather have them protecting the battle group from spells and ranged attacks than feeding the Reclaimer. The Reclaimer did kill a Pistol Wraith though, that should count for something.

Choir Boys: Running jacks? Yup. Next purchase, choir boys. Pretty much a vanilla staple.

While fun to play I'm sure, it lacked on many levels.

1. In a multiplayer game the ability to stay alive is a big deal. Damage prevention, resurrection, healing and tough to name a few. This army had none of the above.
   
2. Mass infantry. For pete's sake there were going to be two cryx armies, right away the need to take care of mass infantry should have forced at least a unit of zealots or a redeemer into the list. (sigh)


3. The oh so famous "Oh Shit" factor. I see the Testament of Menoth, the Deathjack, Bile thralls, I make the usual explative. I always try to add as much "Oh Poo" to every list I can. Where was my poo? No poo, at least not in the pants of my opponents. Well, maybe Eyriss caused a little pebble.

Here's the bonnie list I provided:

Gaspy: Amplifies the destructiveness of the Bloodgorgers
Deathripper: Every good general needs an arc node.
Skarlock: Free spell? Yes thank you.
The General: He's big, he's bad and has great armor with a ton of wounds and tough to boot.
Bloodgorgers: Multiple attacks, great MAT and damaged when ganging up on something plus tough on 4+ after only killing a few two living models. Talk about survivability.
Bile Thralls: Infantry? What infantry?

In all I felt this a solid list. I'm on a Bloodgorger kick though and have them in every list I've made so far. Imagine this though, parasite on the BG's target and scything touch on the BG. Whatever they swing at vay-poo-rizes.

On to the game.

King of the hill. Cryx on both my left and right with a fierce looking group of troll warbeasts accross from me. This is not going to be a good day for menoth.

The Legos were a nice touch I thought. The crotch on the left is John the Mennite and Trem Shaun is across the table.

Notice the 3" AoE in the middle of the table. That's the mark. The toy tambourine in front of my Mennites is a regular hill. The little Legos next to the mark is a simple wall. The other Lego structures are hills and i think the big brown circle was a hill too.

Dallas (to my left) won initiative and went first. He ran forward, blasted Eyriss and killed her outright. I cheered that the Iosian bitch was frizzle fried until I remembered that she was actually on my side for once. Doh!

My turn next. Moved forward, beat up an arc node, cast a spell. Not much else to do. EoT.

John: Moved Deathjack (DJ) onto the mark. Took a shot at Reznik with his pistol wraith. Advanced the bloat thrall and skarlock. EoT. One VP for controlling the "hill."

Shaun: Moves forward, shoots some stuff, Earthborn dire troll charges the DJ and tears an arm off and beats the DJ with it. Not a good day to be the DJ.

Turn 2: Dallas charges the EBDT with the BG's and inflicts a ton of hurt. Too bad for him he forgot to take a look at Asphyxious' spell list and failed to 1) Parasite the EBDT and 2) cast Scything touch on the BG's. Oh well.

Moves the bile thralls forward and purges with one or two of them killing my choir boys and corroding Reznik, the reclaimer and both my jacks. Relaimer gets a fist full of souls. Yay.

My turn. Castigator throws the deathripper and nails slaughterborn knocking him down and totalling the node. The BoV takes out a few bile thralls, the reclaimer blasts a pistol wraith and Reznik holds pretty.

John's turn: Bloat thrall drops a bomb on the big group of trolls battling it out in the middle of the board killing a few blighted trollkin. Runs the Deathripper onto the hill and the Skarlock does something.

Shaun's turn: EBDT unloads on the BG's but not before his impaler frenzy's due to a failed threshold check. The EBDT snacks on the blighted bodies of its twisted cousins. Eww. Grim shoots some stuff and the axer charges killing a few more BG's.

Last turn


Dallas purges and fails to do more than a few pips of damaged to my node. Gaspy charges the BoV and ruins it then shadow wings away. Slaughterborn stands up and the BG's finish off the EBDT.


My turn: Castigator advances towards the bloat thrall, picks it up then throws it at the nearst troll. The durn thrall doesn't die. Reznik climbs the tamborine, i mean hill and then zaps the thrall with a spell blowing it to smitherines. Yay.

John's turn. Gaspy charges and kills some stuff, wins another point then due to time contraints wins by VP. I dunno, it all adds up somehow. Either way it was a lot of fun and really helped me to appreciate the awesomness that is Cryx.


Here's how it looked at the end. Now that I look at the picture I'm sure I missed a turn. Basically on one of my turns Reznik charged the last BG, killed it, wracked it, put the wrack next to Slaughterborn and with his last attack blew up the wrack killing slaughterborn who failed his tough roll.

GOOD GAME GUYS! Until next time. Back to Cryx and teh winz!