Trying out new things

I hope everyone had a good long weekend (at least for those of you in North America). I had a very good weekend, which will probably be one of the last I can play away from home in a bit, as my wife is about to "pop" with our second child. And I admit, I'm a little late on this post, as it has been very busy in the hustle and bustle leading up to his arrival.

On the long weekend, though, I got a night and an afternoon of gaming, each time trying out casters I don't usually use. Friday night, after being issued a challenge from a friend who wanted to see a Cygnar melee list, I wrote up a small list with eStryker. Monday afternoon, I was over at a friend's place where I played two 50 point games with a Kara Sloan Trencher list. Both were interesting. For the first list, it was 25 points a person and it was a team game. Now, while I wanted the two Legion players to team up, we did it randomly, and the Legion players were on opposite sides with myself (playing Cygnar) and our fourth friend playing Trollbloods.

My teammate Legion player, played with Lylyth (Shadow of Everblight), while my opponents played with Jarl Skuld and Thagrosh (the Messiah). It led to some interesting rounds of combat. Jarl magic bullet'ed poor Lylyth to death through her warbeasts early on, which lead Lord Commander Stryker to attempt to tank both our opponents. He almost got an early charge off on Jarl using his Velocity spell to move him forward 2" per focus, however, I forgot that Skaldi had counter-charge. Thus, the moment I moved forward, he charged me. But, he was in range of Ol'Rowdy's counter-charge, so I charged
him back. This lead to a Stryker ultimately smashing Skaldi and then popping his feat to move himself back and advance his army up to provide him cover. The next turn, Jarl killed Lylyth, but it left him exposed to another charge from Stryker. This time it was successful; the Lord Commander took his head clean off with a nice bonus 11 strength from Overload. Thagrosh then charged Stryker taking him to his last health box.

And this is why I really enjoy Warmachine. You can end up with nail-biters like this. Stryker just has to kill him this round, with no use of his Overload. And I almost succeeded. Stryker brought Thagrosh down to HIS LAST BOX. And then Thagrosh poked Stryker and it was game.

On the Monday, a friend hosted a "WarmaHordapalooza" at his place. I brought out a Kara Sloan list using all trenchers that I had been mulling over over the course of the weekend. The only trencher models I own I didn't get into the list were the commandos and Jonas (since I didn't have a merc unit). It wasn't a bad list, but I did see it's flaws.

I got two games that day. The first game was against Legion. It started out very good for me, however, I found out the trencher range isn't the greatest if you don't kill things. It was almost a win for Cygnar on Kara's feat turn, with so much being shot down range and clearing decent lines of sight thanks to Taryn. Unfortunately, his caster survived the barrage of lead (his warbeasts, however, is another story). Once again it was Thagrosh who struck down my caster is a blaze of glory, after I attempted to get shot him (and having my trenchers throw grenades at the backs of other trenchers just outside Thagrosh's reach so that the blast killed my trenchers in his engagement zone, so I didn't have to deal with the defense bonus of him being in combat). Sadly, it failed and I hadn't planned my line of fire correctly. So Thagrosh simply charged with his reach and smited down Kara where she stood.

My second game was against Circle. This game went much better for me. Having learned what works and doesn't in my first game, I stayed strictly within what I knew worked. My cannon, hunter, minuteman andd Kara focused on taking down the Wolddwardens and Megalith, and Baldur, with the aid of Lady Aiyana, Holt and Taryn, while the rest my army dealt with the rest of his. And it work the way I planned. Turn two I had everything of mine (and he was in a position favorable to what I wanted). Kara popped her feat and she and her battlegroup unleashed hell on one of the Woldwardens and Megalith, enough to destroy both and still have enough shots to continue through into Baldur. The rest the army took out a good chunk of his druids and the UA to one of his unit of stones. On his turn, he came out swinging, taking out my stormcaller, some of the trenchers and punching my minuteman into the ground. Kara, with the help of Aiyana and the Hunter that Baldur fell.

Overall, with both games I learned a bit more about casters I don't usually play. I'm definitely playing more eStryker. And Kara seems to need a bit of finesse, and careful planning to execute properly (and the list I had wasn't great against higher armour things). I've been thinking of trying out a suggestion I've seen quite a few times as a way to prep for tournaments and using eStryker as part of it. The plan is to select three casters and play the crap out of just them, each time using different things, testing and refining the lists. This is also so those three casters are understood fullyand are used when it comes to multiple list style tournaments. Caine is a my favourite personality within Cygnar (especially after reading his book from Skull Island Expeditions), and I just have to decide whether I want to use pCaine (support) or eCaine (assassination). Something to think about on my end.

On a side note, I've been distracted with trying to finish off some 40K armies. As a preview of my next post here's what I've been working on.