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Learning to play Hordes: Part 4 (Mini Battle Report)

owen — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:30:01 +0000

Okay, this is my last Learning to play Hordes article. Did I hear a collective sigh?! Anyway,I think I’ve got a measure of Saeryn, or at least she’s not a complete mystery to me. I had a game on Tuesday night and everything clicked. My dice luck was poor, but I managed to get a win. Anyway, this article is about that game and some of the hordes tips I picked up along the way. Of course I’m no expert, far from it, but I don’t feel like a complete newbie now!

Lenny had a Haley led force comprising a Centurion, Lancer, Hunter, a full unit of Long Gunners (with UA) and a minimum unit of Stormguards. My army was the same as last time, but I dropped the Legionnaires and replaced them with a minimum unit of Warmongers. I also dropped the Nephilim Soldier and added two Harriers instead.

Here’s a shot of Lenny’s army advancing across the table. He kept the ‘jacks close to Haley accompanied by the Stormguards. The Long Gunners are to the left of the picture.

The next turn was about posturing for position. Haley hit the Carnivean with a Chain Lightning and bounced it onto Saeryn, the Gobbers, a Harrier and a Warmonger. Saeryn transferred damage to the Harrier and the subsequent hit killed it. The Gobbers were wiped out and the Warmonger was winged. He also hit the Carnivean with Hunter and took out one of it’s aspects.

The Striders clipped the Hunter with a CRA, but the action was about the kick off. The Shepherd moved up to heal the Carnivean just before it hurtled across the terrain into the Lancer and managed to knock out it’s Arc Node. The Angelius flew over the wood and managed to swing it’s tail towards Haley who was behind the Centurion. He missed, but at least had her in melee range. No other damage was done, but Saeryn moved forward and feated. This protected the beasts from the Cygnaran backlash.

On Lenny’s turn he moved Haley out of combat with the Angelius, but it missed the free strike. She tried to cast Chain Lightning onto the Striders, but they were out of range due to stealth. My beasts were protected by the feat and left Lenny with few options. The Hunter took a pot shot at a Warmonger and killed him.

On my turn the Carnivean used a two handed throw to hurl the Centurion at Haley, knocking her down and taking a few points of damage off of her. The Striders CRAed at her. Then the Angelius charged over the Carnivean at the downed ‘caster and finished her.

What I’ve Learned…
Saeryn needs her beasts front and centre. She has a spell to debuff her enemies and one to wipe out groups of infantry. The beasts are exceptionally powerful on the feat turn. Immunity to melee attacks makes them practically invulnerable just when it’s needed. It can be used offensively and defensively. Saeryn’s defense itself can be boosted, but she needs the fury on her to transfer damage.

Saeryn’s army doesn’t get a lot of support from her, other than the beasts. If the beasts are the hammer, then the rest of the army needs to absorb and stall the opponent. The Striders are a great harrying unit and the Warmongers can soak up a lot of damage. Both have the ability to deal out a lot of damage to troopers and beasts/’jacks.

The Shepherd, Gobbers and Feralgeist are great supporting solos/units. The Shepherd extends the threat range of the fast moving beasts. The Feralgeist makes it very hard to finish off beasts particularly with Respawn in play too. The Gobbers bring just a little extra ranged protection.

So, I’m no expert, but at least I feel like I can play Saeryn without embarrassing myself. I’ll play her a bit more and then I’ll try some more of the delicate warlocks.

Owen

Learning to play Hordes: Part 3 (Battle Report)

owen — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:30:42 +0000

Last night the talking stopped and the fighting started. There is no better way to learn a game, faction or new warlock than to dive straight in and get some games in. Anthony brought his 35pt Cryx force up to the house. This was my chance to try out the list and tactics I posted yesterday.

Anthony’s army list looked like this -

Warwitch Deneghra

Deathripper
Deathripper
Nightmare

Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls
Soulhunters (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Darragh Wrathe

Anthony won the dice roll, but let me deploy first. I decided to pretty much deploy as planned with Saeryn surrounded by her beasts with the Feralgeist, Swamp Gobbers and Shepherd in close proximity. The Legionnaires would hold the left flank and the Striders would harass the enemy on the right.

Anthony went for a tighter deployment with the Mechanithralls and Deathrippers leading the way. Without access to arc nodes Hordes struggles on ranged magic attacks, so I’d have to close the gap quickly and try to take out the Deathrippers at the earliest opportunity. The Necrosurgeon was going to keep close to the Mechanithralls, so I’d have to find a way to do away with her before I started to turn them into corpse tokens. Darragh Wrathe and the Soulhunters can move ridiculously fast. I had no obvious counter for these guys, but I had to hope that aggressive play would force Anthony to keep them in a defensive mode. All of these threats to worry about and I haven’t even mentioned Nightmare! Anyway, here’s Anthony’s deployment -

The early part of the game was about positioning. I moved everything up pretty fast. I cast Respawn on the Carnivean and Banishing Ward on Saeryn herself. She was kept in a concealing cloud from the Gobbers and usually had Tenacity cast on her too. Anthony’s army came straight forward and the Soulhunters galloped up my left flank. He was pretty aggressive with the positioning of the Deathrippers, so I took the opportunity on my next turn to charge them with the Nephilim and Carnivean. Two wrecked Deathrippers. The Striders shot a couple of Stitch Thralls and Mechanithralls that were too far to yield corpse tokens. Seeing the Soulhunters’ speed I moved the Angelius onto my left and moved the Legionnaires into the centre to offer some resistance against the horde of Mechanithralls. I should have cast Breath Stealer on them. This would have prevented their charge!

The Mechanithralls caused a bit of damage on their charge, damaging the Nephilim, taking out two Striders and a Legionnaire, but it was the Bile Thralls that did the real damage, killing another four Legionnaires, with the final one succumbing to corrosion at the start of my turn. Thankfully the purging Bile Thrall took out two of his own. Anthony knew this would happen, but he needed to position them to leave a charge lane to the Carnivean open for Nightmare. Nightmare lived up to his name and lead to the Carnivean respawning safely out of reach. Anthony pulled his Soulhunters back to block charges to Deneghra.

Now there was an opportunity. Saeryn moved up and feated, granting her beasts immunity to melee attacks for a round. She threw her Deathspur at a Soulhunter who blocked a charge lane to Deneghra, but missed despite boosting! She then attempted to cast Breath Stealer on Deneghra and again missed despite boosting. The Nephilim Soldier charged over the Mechanithralls engaging him to attack the same Soulhunter. Guess what, despite a boosted attack he missed too! Four of the Striders CRAed against the same bloody Soulhunter and, you guessed it, missed again! I should have shot at it before the Nephilim engaged it, but I originally had other plans for them. The turn was falling apart. To salvage something the Angelius charged Nightmare and did a shocking amount of damage. The Carnivean, who was originally going to charge Deneghra had the Soulhunter done the right thing and died(!) charged in and finished Nightmare. At least my beasts (and Saeryn) would be immune to a melee retaliation.

Anthony debuffed the Angelius as much as he could with Deneghra, including popping her feat. He then used the remaining Bile Thralls to massively damage it. Darragh Wrath charged in and finished it (with his magical attacks). He surrounded Saeryn with the Mechnithralls and moved up the Necrosurgeon behind them. The Soulhunters fell back to protect Deneghra.

The Striders took out the Necrosurgeon and remaining Stitch Thrall and Saeryn used Blight Bringer on herself to kill off most of the Mechanithralls. The Nephilim Soldier and Shredder killed off the other two. Things went downhill from here, though. The Soulhunters and Darragh Wrath finished off the Carnivean, Nephilim and the remaining Striders for the cost of two Soulhunters and Darragh’s mount.

This left Saeryn low on Fury, but there was little she could do. The last remaining Soulhunter, who was loaded up on Soul tokens, charged in and missed with both of his melee weapons, but struck with the mount. Saeryn was down to six damage points. She took it out, but in the meantime Deneghra skulked closer and came in for the kill. It took a lot of boosting to finally land a blow, but when she did it was game over. Saeryn was dropped by the Warwitch. Game over.

That was a great game and I think I played pretty well. Deneghra could have been in real trouble had my dice not abandoned me on my feat turn. It was a game of high attrition, but once my beasts were gone I was in real trouble. In retrospect the Carnivean could have finished Nightmare by itself and I could have kept the Angelius back. That and better use of Breath Stealer could have improved things. That said it was still a close game and I’m happy with my progress so far. I might change the list a little for next time. A Harrier would be useful for its animus and I think Warmongers would be more useful than the Legionnaires. At least it’s not back to the drawing board, more subtle tweaks than a complete redraft.

Owen

Learning to play Hordes: Part 2

owen — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:00:40 +0000

From the last post we learned two things – I can’t play Hordes (certainly not using the delicate warlocks) and I can write a lot of Hordes Theory. Now it’s time to go from talking to doing. I have a game later this evening and I’m making up the army list. Saeryn will be my warlock, but what else should be in the army?

BEASTS
I think she can support beasts quite well and I’m considering bringing two heavies. I own a Carnivean and an Angelius so I’ll include them. The Carnivean is a beat stick that would be a great target for Respawn. The Angelius really benefits from Saeryn’s feat as it can fly over intervening models, ignoring free strikes, to get at a targe behind. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Nephilim Soldier (I think it’s a fantastic sculpt). It is quite a mundane beast now, but Reach on it’s weapon and Flight make it useful in a similar manner to the Angelius. For the beasts I’ll round things out with the Shredder. Saeryn has +2 DEF on ranged attacks. Throw in Tenacity (the Shredder’s animus) and she’s effectively DEF 19.

SOLOS
Now I’d like a bit of support for my beasts. The Shepherd is an obvious choice as she effectively allows a longer strike range for the beasts. I can run the Shepherd up just before the Angelius dives in for an assassination. This allows me to ensure it can be forced even outside of Saeryn’s control area.

The Feralgeist is another nice option. Between it and Respawn my opponents will be sick of killing (and re-killing) my heavy beasts!

UNITS
Saeryn doesn’t directly buff her units, so the first unit I selected was one that buffs her – the Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew. The concealing cloud can either completely hide Saeryn or at least give her an additional +2 DEF. With the buffs discussed above that leaves a fantastic DEF 21!

For Leigon units I went with the Striders, as they can be quite disruptive, and the Legionnaires. Defensive line makes the Legionnaires slightly more survivable and I plan to use them as a cheap tarpit. Warmongers may be a better option, but I’d need to find an extra point somewhere.

THE LIST
Anyway, enough talk. Here is the list -

Saeryn, Omen of Everblight
- Nephilim Soldier
- Shredder
- Angelius
- Carnivean
Blighted Nyss Legionnaires (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Blighted Nyss Striders (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
Feralgeist

I’m limiting myself to using models I have painted. Dropping either the Feralgeist or Gobbers and the unit of Legionnaires would allow me to add a minimum unit of Warmongers. Maybe I’ll try that next time.

PLAYING THIS LIST
The VASSAL screen shot above gives an idea of the setup. The Stirders will try to cause a nuisance on whatever flank has terrain for them to hide in. The Legionnaires are tasked with keeping up with the army and providing some kind of speed bump. Saeryn will cast Banishing Ward on herself and Respawn on the Carnivean. She is going to have to keep pace with the army so that her support spells can be effective. The Carnivean and Angelius will run up with the Feralgeist in relatively close pursuit Remember it can take over a dead beast within 8″, so it doesn’t need to be too close. The Shepherd wil be screened by the Nephilim soldier and the soldier will primarily be a speed bump on the right flank. The Angelius is set up for the assassination run, which the Shepherd may need to support. Massacre is a useful animus for it to have cast on it.

Anyway, I’m playing later, but you know what they say about best laid plans!

Owen

Warmachine MkII Project: Privateers

owen — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:26:11 +0000

This painting project is starting out a little strangely. About 3 months ago I bought 25pts of partially (some almost completely!) painted miniatures from Ugo to start the Privateer army. They included Shae, a bunch of solos and a unit of Sea Dogs. There were also two ‘jacks, but they were only undercoated. What makes this strange is that Ugo is probably the best painter in our club, so those partially painted miniatures set a high standard for the rest of my army. I’m no slouch when it comes to painting, but this is an opportunity to up my painting skills.

So far I’ve cleaned up and completed the miniatures pictured, the unit of Sea Dogs and two Riflemen. In the process of finishing the (maximum sized) Sea Dogs unit I’ve had to paint a miniature from scratch to match Ugo’s style. Here’s a side-by side photo -

The guy on the right was painted by Ugo and the one on the left by me in the last day or so. I think they are of comparable quality, but my guy is slightly darker (obviously with the flesh colour, but also with the duller colours). Ugo uses brighter highlights than I’m used to, so I’m on a learning curve. So far so good.

The 35pt list I want to complete is -

Captain Phinneus Shae
Buccaneer
Dirty Meg *
Mariner *
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
Press Gangers (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 9 Grunts)
2 Sea Dog Crew Riflemen
Mr. Walls Sea Dog Crew Quartermaster
Bosun Grogspar
Doc Killingsworth
First Mate Hawk
Lord Rockbottom

The miniatures in bold are finished. Grogspar is next on the painting table and then the ‘jacks.

Owen

750pts Khador Army (Epic Irusk)

owen — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:59:47 +0000

I had a great 750 point game against Phil’s Protectorate of Menoth force recently which I’ll post photos from in the next few days. I wanted a chance to field Epic Irusk as I’ve only had a couple of opportunities to use him before. He is still an excellent troop ‘caster and his abilities are geared to buffing his own army and controlling the battle field. In his non-Epic form I’m a big fan of Inhospitable Ground and I was initially disappointed that he didn’t retain it as a spell. That was until I read Artifice of Deviation! At a focus cost of 3 I can cast it up to twice per turn and not only hinder my opponents movement, but also open up difficult terrain for my own troops to move across. Battle Lust is another great troop spell, as is Tactical Supremacy. His feat is quite good in many situations, but I think his most powerful ability is Martial Discipline. He has to be close (within his CMD range of 10″) to his troops for them to benefit from it, but it stops units of troops from getting blocked by each other. This is essential if you are fielding a large troop army and want to funnel your opponent towards it. Here’s the 750 point list I went for -

747/750 points, 29 VP, 34 models
Warcaster

Supreme Kommandant Irusk

Battlegroup

Troops

Solos

I only went with one ‘jack and I think Fire For Effect is a great spell to put on the Destroyer, with his first (and only) ranged attack auto-boosted and the blast damage boosted. This is a devastating combo for even well armoured enemy troops. The War Dog is something I quite new to and it’s role is primarily to screen the warcaster and help hinder anything nasty that gets close to him.

For me the IFP and UA are an auto include. The are fast, can charge across (even if slowed) rough terrain and have 2″ reach. Couple that with Battle Lust and Artifice of Deviation to open up charge lanes and they are a powerhouse. The Great Bears are again new to me and I wanted to see what they could do. On paper they are excellent troop and light ‘jack killers who work very well with an IFP unit escorting them. I have mixed results with the Shocktroopers and it is their lack of speed that tends to frustrate me. Tactical Supremacy (a free 3″ move after all activations) should enable them to get moving. They are a great tar pit unit and can really hold up an enemy on the flank. The Grey Lords are almost an auto include for me too. They are delicate, but the ability to buff the defence and provide concealment is great (for a faction that tends to have poor DEF). Their Frost Bite Pow 12 spray attack is great for clearing out infantry. I’m usually careless with my Widowmakers as they tend to die early. That said they’ll shoot a good few enemy troops before they die and their high DEF means they are not easy to kill, so they can act as a road block. I had points left over, so the Mechaniks were included. In MkII I think I’ll try to include them in any army that has two or more ‘jacks. In this army the role of the Destroyer is to pound the enemy at range until the endgame, so I hope the mechs won’t be needed. They can act as a cheap speed bump to delay inbound enemy troops or ‘jacks.

For my solos I included a Kovnik, but opted not to have him control the ‘jack. He was going to act as further protection for Irusk. The Drakhun has many functions and a great threat range. His role is to take out light ‘jacks and be a fast moving headache for my opponent. Speaking of headaches both the Manhunter and Eiryss are in the army to harry my opponent by skulking forward and getting near the ‘caster, or in Eiryss’ case taking out unit leaders or disrupting ‘jacks.

Owen