Wargaming: And Here We Go

Memorial Day is traditionally considered the start of summer. This summer is going to be a very interesting one on the Wargaming front, so I figured that this week would be a good time to talk about the coming storm. I've been spending a lot of time looking around at rumors, and I think the big picture is looking very interesting indeed. Today I want to make a few predictions and talk about my own personal plans.

Skorne Battle Report - eMorghoul vs Damiano

This report is a little later than I had planned. As I talked about in my last post, I wanted to try out an eMorghoul list using a very defensive army list designed to let Morghoul poke things with his sword. I planned on using the list last week, but last week was the final week for the PP league, and several of us wanted our team game patches, so I ended up playing some team games with pMorghoul.

This week I managed to get in a solid 50 point game with my new eMorghoul list (fully painted too! as of last night). I was playing against a Highborn Covenant army led by Captain Damiano. the scenario was Guidons

Games Workshop Editions - The Good, Bad and Ugly

It's no secret that Games Workshop is about to drop 6th edition 40K on us. The rumors are pouring in now, a month or two away from release day. Some people are super happy about the changes, some are panicking, everyone else is somewhere in the middle. There are definitely some interesting rumors out there. If nothing else, it seems pretty clear that this is going to be a large change to the way the game is played. None of the rumors seem to point to a small fix.

This is not going to be another article talking about the rumored rules, either good or bad. it is not going to be another wish-listing blog post about all the things I think are broken and how I would fix them. If you want an article like that, it won't take you more than 5 minutes browsing through your favorite blogroll. Here's the thing. we can talk about rumors all day, but we'll end up getting all worked up over nothing. you can pull out all the rumors and try to talk about how it affects your favorite army, but if you miss a single rules change, or one of the changes don't end up in the final document, the entire picture changes.

The bottom line is that people get worked up every time a new edition of their game comes out. people start complaining and saying they will just keep on playing the previous edition forever. in the end, we'll all be playing the new rule-set, and will probably get used to it within a year. A few years from now we'll all be worked up about how 7th edition is going to mess up our game. so with that in mind, this article will be about something a little different. I want to talk about previous edition changes GW made and how they affected my experience. Disclaimer: I realize that my experience is not the same as many other players'. Feel free to argue with my reasoning, but I am merely talking about my own experience and thoughts on this issue of updating core rules.

Skorne Tactics - Protecting Your Caster

One of the first lessons a new player learns when playing Warmachine is to protect your caster. it doesn't matter what the rest of your army does, if your caster is out of position for one round it can be a quick game over. Even if your opponent only has a few models left, sometimes your caster will still die. "Protect your caster" sounds basic, but every faction and even every caster has a different way of doing this.

In general, it is a little bit harder to protect a Hordes caster than a warmachine caster. generally our Warlocks have lower stats, and the way the Fury mechanic works (combined with the emphasis on beasts) makes Hordes casters fight further forward on the battlefield. This is especially true for Skorne, IMO, because of our aggressive nature. many of our warlocks (not all, but many) want to be up front hitting things. which of course puts them in danger.

Luckily, Skorne comes with a good number of defensive tricks. In this article, I am going to talk about a few of these little tricks and how they can work together to help protect your caster. I will then be looking at a slightly extreme case in the form of a fun list that I am going to be playing in the next few weeks. Note: this post is somewhat intended for newer skorne players. it could also be useful if you don't play against Skorne much and want to hear about some of their tricks. Veteran Skorne players probably know all of these tricks well, so they probably won't get a lot out of this article, except maybe for the army list at the end.