Round Six of the New Church League

With EvilFuzzyDoom

These posts document the NEW CHURCH LEAGUE (named after our regular gaming venue, affectionately nicknamed "the Church"). The NCL has ten participants, and will take place over nine two-week, Round Robin rounds with elimination finals for the top four players. Each player picks two casters for the duration of the League. The match-ups, scenarios and any special rules are posted at the outset. Scenarios are from the PP Official Steamroller 2011 Rules. We should be wrapping by about mid-march.

My Warlocks for the League are pMadrak & pGrissel.

This Round, I played against Cygnar!

Read more here!

Hardcore First Test

Today I managed to get in my first playtest match in the buildup to the Hardcore Tournament last weekend of November, Madrak1 (gotta get used to using that system) versus Kraye.

Madrak Ironhide................Kraye

> Mauler............................> Centurion

> Earthborn........................> Hammersmith

> Mulg...............................> Defender

> Runebearer......................> Cyclone

Min Fennblades..................> Hunter
> Officer and Drummer.......> Hunter

Min KSB and Scribes.........> Charger

> Elder...............................> Sentinel

Min Burrowers

Min Bog Trog Ambushers

Fell Caller

Mercs and MKII

So here's the deal, Mercs, they aren't fantastic in MKI and they look like they have stayed that way in MKII. Being a Troll player and looking for a second faction, Broadsides Bart immediately caught my attention for one reason only. With the right Merc jacks Bart can lay down some serious ranged AOE action, Troll can do nothing of the sort, so Bart became my second army. Honestly, the whole Focus thing always messes me up, Fury really is much easier to deal with. So I dusted off my Merc army for some MKII playtesting yesterday. Both armies looked something like this

Bart
Mule
Mariner
Mariner
Solos and other Crap.

The first game went pretty good actually, I played against Menoth at 25 points and cleared out most of his stuff pretty easily, except the danged Avatar. Now you would think that two Mariners and a Mule could take on the Avatar... needless to say in this game they couldn't. The Avatar rolled three sixes on damage on a charge, then on two more bought attacks rolled boxcars BOTH times. Yeap thats right SEVEN sixes in a row for damage on dice plus 3 or so kills two Merc heavies pretty quickly.

The Second game didn't go much better but largely due to mistakes and not knowing my Mercs as well as I do Trolls. You can find that battle report over at HaleyCasstsTBYouLose

So my initial reaction to MKII is this.
Jacks are indeed much better.
Units and Solos haven't changed much except because Jacks are that much better, the units and solos die much more easy.
AOE's aren't what they used to be. With the new unit formation rules it is much harder to catch too many guys in a 3" AOE, 4" or 5" gets more but they are no longer devastating. Most units that bunch up now have high armor.
Merc Breakdown, from what I played
Broadsides Bart - Lost a spell nobody ever used and stayed otherwise dang good. GRAVY!
MARINER - I'll miss the reach, but with Thresher changing I can see why it has gone increased RAT by one makes a huge difference.
MULE -Crit is cleaned up and much faster to figure out, but it loses some effectiveness for it. Reach is actually pretty nice on him.
I tried out Boomhowler and found him to be almost exactly like Kriel Warrios with their own Fel Caller and a really bad ranged attack. The Fel Call to force the command check and lower Jack stats is pretty nice.

So Fiona looks wicked good, purchasing her has become a priority and Searforge is getting more appealing too. MKII is definetly streamlined and faster but it feels like something is missing. I'll have to get a few more games under my belt with the new rules before I decide.

Only two games played with my Merc army and already my Trolls feel lonely.