Core Concepts: Strategy, Tactics, Placement.... Part 1

Hello and welcome to the Scrumcast...

Oh crap, sorry about that. Sometimes I just miss those corny intros.


Intro

So way back I wrote about different strategies and tactics I would utilize to try to get the most effectiveness out of my army. I wanted to bring some of that back but start with a broader topic about the fundamentals of this game.

Now for many of you the topics covered in this article may seem rudimentary. I would urge you to not dismiss them because of this. Knowing these things and executing them in each game, turn, and move is completely different. Doing these things in a timely manner is to master the basics of this game.


Define it for me

So let's jump in by defining what I mean by strategy, tactics, and placement. Strategy is your over all vision of how you see the game playing out. Tactics are the means to which you achieve the milestones defined by your strategy. Placement is how you enable yourself to execute the tactics you are planning to utilize.


Let's Strategize

So once you know the scenario and opponent you are facing you should begin thinking about your path to victory. In this game we have a few paths to victory; Scenario, Caster Kill, and Clock. Now I know someone out there is going to start yelling about their screen "ATTRITION!!!". So let me explain, attrition is a means to any of those victory conditions. If attrition is as deep as your strategy goes, what will you do when you hit end game? For example when you finally choose scenario as your path to victory, will you have the pieces available and in place?

Of course you cannot expect everything to go as planned, after all your opponent has a brain too. So when working out your strategy it is key to identify the pieces that enable your path to victory. If you lose those pieces you need to have a back up plan. This may seem like I am telling you to be precog, but really with some experience you can identify the general flow of the game. And if something does happen that you never expected, in future games you can account for it.

The last piece for working out a sound strategy is identifying the pieces your opponent has that will hinder your path to victory. Again this takes experience and knowledge of your opponents army, so in each game you will be better able to do this. Sometimes you may even have to choose a different path to victory due to certain problem pieces. Identifying this before deployment is key to a winning strategy.

If you can come up with a basic strategy before deployment starts you are on the path to giving your opponent a great game. To wrap up this article lets try to lay out a very basic game plan.


Example???

The scenario is close quarters and I am playing Grim Angus vs. Cryx. I determine my best path to victory is scenario via dominating my flag. I set up 4 milestones;

Score turn 2 and contest the opponents flag
Clear my flag on turn 3 to score again, contest enemy flag, make Grim difficult to kill.
Clear my flag again turn 4 using feat for back to back points.
Clear my flag turn 5 for the win.

I know based on my milestones Grim and my flag cleaners are the key to victory. I can sacrifice much of my army as long as I have enough attacks to continue clearing my flag off. As for my jammers, I just need enough bodies to prevent my opponent from scoring back to back multiple times. Looking at my opponents deployment and army list I can determine the issues they will present and roughly what turn I will need to deal with them.

If I were to lose Grim, its game over, but if my opponent is able to swarm my flag or remove my enough of my flag cleaners I can attempt to audible to a caster kill. Because of the scenario and my mad grab for control points, my opponent is more than likely moving their caster forward to grab points of their own. If all hell has broken loose and there is no chance of getting their caster I will grab as many control and kill points as possible to help my tie breakers.

As for identifying the problem pieces my opponent has we know Raiders jamming into my flag can be a problem. As can a bile thrall getting too far forward and removing my flag cleaners. We won't dig much deeper than that for the sake of simplicity.


Next Time

That's all for part 1 of this series. Next time I will attempt to tackle tactics and give some examples from a game on vassal.

Thanks for reading,
-nosrek

List Creation Process and Tournament Performance - The Basics

                                 

  I have been really busy with current painting projects, that I haven't had a chance to actually write something for the Scrum; Even though my page is part of the Scrum. I just want to take a small break from writing painting articles, and try a different variety.

  I also saw that Removed From Play did a podcast with a section on this similar topic. I haven't had a chance to listen to it, but I don't want to intentionally steal their thunder. This is something that I feel inspired to write.

  Recently, I played in the largest tournament that Utah has to offer, the Intermountain Cup. I prepared a few lists, but had little time to play them all thoroughly, due to a busy work schedule. It was a full house! I believe there were 35 people at this tournament, and all the factions were represented except for minions and mercs (oh and please correct me if I am wrong). My only complaint that I had at the tournament was, that there were no chairs for the main tables. For those who don't know, I totally destroyed my knee when I lived in Switzerland, and it has never been the same. Anyway, I didn't do very well in the tourney, as I went 2-3 for the day. There were times of frustration, and also down right anger. I made a lot of mistakes, and thinking on it now my behavior was not at my best. My learning experience was not deterred, and I still had a lot of fun playing one of my favorite games.

Yeah....this was my inner dialog after game 2

ScrumCast Episode 8

We're Locked and Loaded, listen on for this Lock and Load Primer with a few small goodies for some select few attendees that play games against us.

Go listen on our SrumCast page HERE

Colossals and Gargantuans - Game Changers?

So it has been quite some time since my last blog post here on the Scrum, and even though I have always had ideas about to write about, I feel that I owe it to the Scrum followers out there to put out a post that not only gets across certain opinions of mine but also brings up food for thought, makes people think and hopefully sparks debate.  After all there is no such thing as a right or wrong opinion.

I had been brewing on the idea of the topic of this particular post for quite some time, but it was not until I basically walked Goris through my thought process that I was convinced that I was onto a winner.  Essentially this post will be all about why I think that even though Colossals will be well balanced by PP, they will still be game changing pieces on the battlefield for anyone who can afford them.

Essentially if you want to prevent an opponent from killing a valuable piece in your army there are three ways to do it: prevent him from targetting it at all (block LoS, stealth, keep it out of range, etc), buff up its DEF to a value where most enemy models will find hitting it to be extremely difficult, and finally buffing up its ARM to make damaging it just as difficult.

We know already that the first method will be impossible for Colossals (and Gargantuans but I will continue to use just Colossals for the rest of this post) thanks to the most recent NQ explaining that they have the same targetting rules as battle engines (ignore clouds and forests, can't benefit from cover or concealment and no penalties to shoot at them in combat) but in addition they also cannot benefit from stealth.  It remains to be seen if the Choir for Menoth will actually work on the Adjudicator to protect it from non magical shooting, technically however they are Warjacks so this might be the only such protection I can think of that will actually work.

It remains to be seen whether or not Colossals will be any harder to hit than Battle Engines (which are universally DEF10), but even if they are and have typical warjack DEF stats that isn't much to work with especially considering that they can never benefit from cover or concealment.  Actual DEF buffs that can be directly (or indirectly) cast on them are largely restricted to Cygnar, Menoth, Retribution and Skorne through spells such as Blur, Defender's Ward, Deceleration, Krea's Animus and Force Barrier.  These range from +2 to +3 and only Skorne have the ability to stack two of them.

ARM buffs on the other hand are widespread and available to every faction.  It is common knowledge that the more damage boxes a model has the more effective an increase in ARM becomes.  There are several factions out there as it stands who struggle to take down an ARM26 Centurion for Cygnar (easily possible with eStryker, pNemo and eHaley), especially at range before it can be delivered into melee combat.  Some factions (and warcasters/warlocks in particular) are extremely reliant upon their ability to decimate an army at range before it can get into melee combat with them.  I will spell out a couple of scenarios:

eLylyth vs Trollbloods:
Often this is a matchup that Trollbloods massively struggle with, they are not quick enough or have a high enough DEF to close the gap on eLylyth before she either obliterates the battlegroup or just opens up a hole and assassinates the warlock.  The only weapon that Trollbloods have against this is the Pyre Troll who can give immunity to fire to one model within 6" as his 2 fury animus.  The problem with that animus is casting it on several models immediately becomes a massive strain upon the warlock's fury resources (something that Trollbloods are not great at under the best of conditions).

Now let us introduce the Mountain King: judging by the teaser video's glimpse at the damage boxes on the Galleon we are talking at least 50 damage boxes and I cannot possible envision him having less ARM than a regular Dire Troll, so we are talking at least ARM18 (but for the purpose of this example we will use ARM18 as a conservative estimate).  I would seriously consider assuming unlimited resources a list with two Mountain Kings, eDoomshaper, a max KSB with Elder, Runebearer and a Pyre Troll.  We know all colossals will be in the 18-20 point range, so worst case scenario we have spent 41 points, still leaving enough points to add in a unit plus another solo or two for contesting objectives.

The traditional eLylyth lists with 2 Ravagores, 2 Nephilim Bolt Throwers will suddenly be left facing two blocks of 50+ health which are immune to fire, can't be pushed, slammed, thrown, knocked down, etc with an ARM of 20 and immunity to fire.  There is simply nothing that eLylyth (who typically is more interested in assassination than scenario victory) can do to take the Mountain Kings down before they can get into melee combat, and in eDoomshaper the Mountain Kings have access to all the warbeast support they need in the form of his feat, Wild Aggression and Goad, and will almost certainly have a STR even higher than Mulg, turning eDoomshaper into a perfectly viable spell assassin.

Cygnar vs anybody but Retribution:
Straight away just by looking at the Stormwall we know not only that he has guns, he is positively bristling with them.  We know that he has at least four guns (2 chain guns and 2 cannons) plus the as of yet unknown funtionality of his super structure which fires Lightning Pod solos onto the battlefield.  So not only is he formidable in melee combat (all Colossals have reach and can make a quadrant based thresher power attack) but he has guns enough to almost certainly be just as dangerous at a distance.  Again working off the theory that there is no way his ARM will be less than a Cygnar jack, we expect him to be at the very least ARM18 and with roughly equivalent damage boxes to the Galleon.

Cygnar do two things brilliantly, shoot and buff.  Taking the humble pStryker for our example, we have a warcaster with access to Snipe, Blur and Arcane Shield (plus of course Jr who can throw up a second Arcane Shield).  First turn casting Snipe on a Stormwall giving his small army of guns +4RNG, second turn allocating him focus and leaving two focus free on Stryker to cycle Arcane Shield.  Your Stormwall (who presumably ran 1st turn) now has at least 4 guns who I am certain will all be at least RNG10 and focus to burn.  He walks up and fires away into your army, he may be close enough to counter charge in your turn but wait, Stryker now activates next and casts Arcane Shield on him and pops his feat.

Suddenly you are facing a massive block of ARM26 with 50-odd damage boxes and lets face it, not even Trollbloods (with the best melee buffing of any faction) can take down that level of ARM and health.  You can't move him, you can't kill him and in his turn you know he is either just gonna shoot you again or start churning his way through your troops.  And he is still at worst a mere 14 points out of Stryker's 50pt list.  The introduction of the Colossal gives Cygnar something that they have always wanted, something durable enough to make the maximum use out of the multitude of ARM buffs available to them as a faction.

Conclusion:
Now I am not saying that Colossals will be the be all and end all of the game once they come out, I am certain that over time strategies will form that will help minimise the impact that a Colossal can have on the game until it has been slowly ground down and taken out.  However even if they were simply big jacks with more guns but statistically similar to for example the Ironclad, the very fact that they possess a literal half ton or more of damage boxes makes them game changers.

I am somewhat fortunate I feel in that my two factions are quite possibly the two factions best equipped to deal with Colossals.  Retribution have a widespread access to weapon master, blessed and arcane assassin (which eliminates most ARM buffs), and Trollbloods through their naturally synergistic playstyle are capable of buffing models/units to ungodly levels of damage which previously was simply overkill.  Now they might find themselves facing things where that insane level of damage output is actually required.

Know Your Opponent: eHaley

Phreaker187 here once again welcoming you back to the wonderful world of Know Your Opponent;  this week starring everyone's favorite time mage, eHaley.  Now that I thing about it I'm almost positive that I named my first article "Know Your Enemy" hmm, maybe the mods thought it was a little to controversial. Anyway let's jump right into the meat of the article, the list.

Keep in mind that to effectively work eHaley needs to be played at a minimum of 50 points, luckily for us Cygnar players that's pretty much the tournament standard.  So here we are...

Major Victoria Haley +5
Stormclad  -10
Thorn  -8
Squire  -2
Journeyman Warcaster  -3
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages  -6
+Officer  -2
+Defender  -9
Eiryss, Angel of Lame  -3
Strangewayes  -2
Stormguard (max) -9
Stormsmith -1

Totaling us out at exactly 50 points of "turn back the clock" goodies.   First up for analysis:

Know Your Opponent: eStryker

     Good evening folks Phreaker187 here once again talking about a subject that I'm much more familiar with than stinky trolls, that would be killing trolls.  As primarily a Cygnar player and to a lesser extent a Minions player I like to think I have the inside edge on all things swan related, and Troll players should too.

     How many times have you lost a game because you weren't familiar with your opponents army?  I know I've lost many a game after asking the same question, "You can charge how far?"  I'm going to write a few short articles on on the ins and outs of playing against Cygnar and hopefully make you more aware of how to beat me... wait a minute... maybe not.


First things first let's start with a typical tournament 35 point list.

Breast Cancer Brawl ~ Phoenix Games & Comics

Phoenix Games & Comics in Logan, UT

will be hosting a Breast Cancer Brawl Tournament for Warmachine & Hordes players to kick off our Breast Cancer Brawl!!!

Thursday January 5th at 6PM MST

All proceeds will benefit the Huntsman Cancer Center in Logan, UT

Warmachine & Hordes Events

Raffle - Pink Magnus Battlebox - fully painted by our own Sid will be raffled using BCB tokens $1 per token.

Silent Auction - We have found a Breast Cancer Surviver that wants to fight for you.  Pink Thrullg to be auctioned online at Trollbloodscrum.com painted by Skywise.

Prizes - 'Pink' Warlock/Warcaster cards, Pink Paint and other prizes for those participating in the tourney.

Paint em Pink - Paint a 'Pink' themed peice from your army to enter in the painting contest. 

Brawl - Play Games, Save Boobs!  25 point Steamroller Tournament $10 entry.  $1 BCB tokens for in game benefits.

All this and much more will be available.  Who knows, it might even be a Pink Pyre Troll.

Constance and her warjack Gallant not only fight for the might of Morrow, she also leads the battle against Breast Cancer.  Keep and eye out for her appearance.

Take it big ~ Our Brawl is being extended to most of the big games being played in our lgs so players from all walks can participate.  From Magic The Gathering to Warhammer to the Board Game Club we're going all in.

Stay Tuned here at The Scrum for more info.

What to do when your plan rolls a double 1

I'm sure we have all been in the situation where you miss that critical double handed throw or your Mauler looses his Mind aspect due to free strikes on that all important trample.Dealing with that situation can be hard in some cases so here is how i usually handle it.

First thing to do is take a step back and not panic! It is incredibly easy to enter a state of panic when you see that Trample distance die just tip over onto the one eyed side.  This is perfectly natural, your plan failed and your in a bad spot,  but to make sure you dont do something hasty and loose the game, its so very important to just take a step back from the table and let that feeling of panic pass.

Resurgence @ Phoenix Games

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Saturday April 24^th @ Phoenix Games and Comics Phone: 752-6648

3PM to 9PM.  Three army lists required 25, 35 and 50pt levels.

See Resurgence Rules packet HERE for all the details

Prize pins, best Warmachine Faction pins, and other prizes awarded.

Sign up at Phoenix Games. All lists must be turned in prior to the event start time.
Hordes Players will follow the same upgrade Rules for Character Beasts and Epic Casters
(Hordes rules still being finalized as this is a Warmachine Tourney)
Contact the Press Ganger for questions.

Ten Tons of Assassination

Ten Tons of Assassination

Thursday March 18,

@ Phoenix Games and Comics.

72 West Center Street

Logan, Utah 84321 6pm to 9pm MST

We will be playing 25 point games in the Mangled Metal/Tooth & Claw format.

(Warcaster & Warjacks or

Warlock & Warbeasts only)

Sign up at Phoenix Games. 

$3.00 entry fee.

 

Point Of Order

This post is more a request for discussion/clarification than a proper Thought.

When he was introducing me, our gracious host thegreatblah said:

"I have always thought Cryx to be the army that is most like Trolls, though many will say it is Menoth or Khador."

I'd be interested in knowing more about the thought process behind this idea. I can certainly see parallels - both factions have a definite close-range tilt and are somewhat light on the conventional ranged attacks, although I'd argue that Trollbloods have access to more 'standards' (that's 'standard' in the sense that 'House of the Rising Sun' is a 'standard' song, appearing in the repertoire of many performers) in this field than Cryx, or at least more pieces which are taken because they have a ranged attack. Both factions punish you for engaging them - Trollbloods by hitting you back, harder, and Cryx by getting back up or walking through whatever just engaged them to get at the squashy bits behind.

I'd still be interested to know where else this came from, though.

Ave! duci novo, similis duci seneci...

Hello.

My name is Von, or at least I answer to that name on the Internet, and I'm a recovering Trollblood hater. I used to play Trollbloods (back when Primal first came out... ahh, the memories) and quite enjoyed throwing down with the battlebox, but I fell foul of the received wisdom that said you had to take the same boring, stodgy, slow-moving army in every game and fell out with the faction for a while, somewhere between Evolution and Metamorphosis.

What I've seen of Mark II has convinced me to come back. The Whelps, the Thumper and the Pyg Bushwhackers have convinced me that there's enough viability in running more warbeasts and ranged pieces around the mutually supportive melee core. I'm not going to pretend that the Trollbloods are a 'ranged faction', but I'm not going to bore myself by taking only melee pieces and spending the first three rounds of each game slogging forward and removing casualties and doing nothing else either.

I'm determined not to play the Trollbloods the same way I played them last time (Champions + Krielstone + Impaler + Axer + Mauler + Fell Caller + a warlock of my own choice, the only thing in the list that ever changed), and to actually learn how to paint tartan this time.

While I'm here I'm going to be writing about: my fonder memories of the Trollbloods from Mark I; my long-standing love of trolls and trollkin in the IKRPG; experiments in colourschemes and the like; eventual reports on actual games and the transition into Mark II; and other stuff. Stuff tangentially connected to Trollbloods in some way, shape or form.

Let's see how this works out.

Arc-Nodes ~ Part 2

So the poll results have been in for a while.  According to the 24 that voted, the best arcnode in the game is Thorn with nine votes.  Second place belongs to the Revenger and Deathripper and third is owned by the Phoenix.

Being a numbers guy, using the MKII pdf all the Warmachine arc-nodes stats were put on a spreadsheet so I could rank them.  My criteria was simple, offense was unimportant to me as I wanted to analyze only their effectiveness as an arcnode.  So I ran the numbers under three different base attack numbers and ranked them according to their ability to take a hit and still be able to function as a node.  Again I did not take into account any offensive abilities only defensive, and I did not take into account that the node can't be used in melee.  After I did that I compared to point cost to arc-node survivability to see which one was the best for its points. Here is what I found.

1 ~ Pheonix ~ Rebribution
2 ~ Lancer ~ Cygnar
2 ~ Revenger ~Protectorate
4 ~ Chimera ~ Retribution
5 ~ Deathripper ~ Cryx
5 ~ Nightwretch ~ Cryx
7 ~ Thorn ~ Cygnar
8 ~ Renegade ~ Magnus Mercs
9 ~ Blessing of Vengeance ~ Protectorate
10 ~ Defiler ~ Cryx
11 ~ Guardian ~ Protectorate

What it boiled down to was whether or not the arc-node could stand to take much of hit and/or stay out of harms way.

Take a good hard look at the Phoenix folks, its a monster, due to its force field you can't take out the node with one well placed hit... just not gonna happen so you'd better have a couple attacks ready to finish the job or it will finish you and then get channeled through again.

In the percentages the Phoenix only barely, and I mean barely beat the Lancer.  While Thorn is essentially the same, when you factor in point cost, if your just looking for a node there is no comparison.  Cheap and maneuverable the Lancer plays its role as a node quite well, along with Set defense and quite good armor with its shield.

Other nodes of note, and Many Cryxians would agree their nodes are not the best.  They are far from the worst however.  Unless of course you look at the Defailer!  Seriously though, out of all the factions Cryx is still most likely to bring them just for the node over anyone else which makes their middle of the road place in the line make them Cry.  Out of all of the nodes they are among the hardest to hit and the cheapest to field but if you do hit one, its lights out.  The only reason the Defiler is so low on the list is becuase of the cost.  I ran one sheet putting the Ripper at 3 instead of four and I can see why Privateer Press didn't do it.  But that is a flaw in thier new point system more than anything else.

Bottom of the Barrel as far as nodes are concerned, yup Protectorate's own Guardian.  The Blessing of Vengeance was quite low too, but lets face it, the BOV has some serious offense to offer any Menoth player.  The Guardian on the other hand with its high cost isn't really a good choice if your bringing him for the node.  Protectorate players would probably be better off bringing the Revenger for a taste of a good arcnode.  But if you like the Guardian, like the BOV, the node is more of a perk and not the reason you bring them.

For a numbers guy this one was fun do to, someday I will figure out a way to factor in offense of the jack along with the usefulness of the node but its a bigger fish than I have time to fry.

PP forums discussion can be found HERE.  For a lengthy spreadsheet pm me on the forums.

Sevwall, Reporting In!

Hello, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Sevwall over at the Privateer Forums. I tend to write big long articles about casters, and slightly shorter (but still long) articles about the rest of the models in the faction. I will be contributing Material here for the foreseeable future.

I'm not positive, but I may also post a big long compilation of the Feedback that I send in at some point, so that may be the next you hear from me. Talk to you later.

Teach me to paint.

This Decemberl, Thursday the 10th we will be joining all the miniature gamers in our area for some painting tips. Bring your paints, brushes and figs. Come share and get advice on Priming, Washing, Detailing, Assembly, Basing and much more.

We will also be doing Warmachine/Hordes Demos on the 10th as well so if you are interested or need a refresher on the new MKII rules come on in to Phoenix Games & Comics

Steamroller 4 Results

Fast paced tourney with three rounds ended up with a decent turnout.

Here are our results

1st - McCryx - Cryx
2nd - Jefferson - Legion
3rd - MikeO - Cryx
4th - CB - Cygnar
5th - Taylor - Circle
6th - Adam - Khador
7th - Dustin - Khador
8th - AC - Circle

This January we will start our league, and for the Holidays we will be doing a figure exchange. I will keep you all posted.

For those of you looking for a spectacualr battle report. I will have one for you after this weeks gaming night.

Arc-Nodes! Part 1

Being a Trolls player my desire for arcnodes are huge. Seeing as how Hordes players don't have them. As a Trolls player an arcnode of anykind would be downright fantastic with some of our shortrange and pretty awesome spells, ManTrap with an arcnode... yes please. So in my first of two posts about arcnodes I will make a spreadsheet comparison of all the MKII nodes. My primary focus stats will be DEF/ARM/SPD/COST and secondary focus stats will be MAT/RAT/ATTACKS assuming zero buffs outside of what they give themselves, throwing in caster buffs is far more than I can handle at this point, maybe its something for in the future. I will not conjecture and theorize specific situations but will focus on general ability to function as designed. For now I will leave you with a poll on the left.

Demo Day Flier