Let's talk about Tier forces. When I started playing Warmachine, tier forces sounded really neat. As you know if you've followed my blog at all, I used to be a 40K player. "Fluffy" armies always had a strange appeal to me. They might not be as powerful as a spammy netlist, but they were unique and interesting. Other than personal satisfaction, though, 40K didn't offer any benefits to playing fluffy armies. Warmachine, on the other hand has these neat theme forces that reward you for taking things that fit well with a certain caster.
I've always wanted to play a theme force. Unfortunately, most theme forces are really difficult to make, or they just don't do much. Some armies have some really strong tiers (butcher + doom reavers, Jake's eVayl T4, eKreoss infantry swarm, Mortenebra with tons of jacks) or theme forces that open up some cool options (reznik with steelheads, eSkarre with a ton of Satyxis, etc). Unfortunately, I've been pretty discouraged by Skorne's tier lists.
It's not that we don't have any good tiers, they're just hard to build. I'm not commited enough to playing tier forces that I'm going to get multiple units of karax or bloodrunners or swordsmen. I could do Rasheth, but I just don't like his sculpt. I could do Mordikaar, but I would need 2 more void spirits and 2 feralgeists, and not use paingivers. Surely there has to be a theme force I can run when I feel like playing something different, but won't require buying a ton of models that will only be played in that theme force.
My answer (along with answers to a lot of Skorne's problems) came with Domination. Probably the second best thing to come from that book is eHexeris (I pretty firmly believe that eVayl was the single best thing in Domination). Recently I started playing with his theme force, Practical Magic, and have been loving it. It's a bit of a strange theme, but it's deceptively good. And easy to build, which is great for me. Let's take a look at the requirements and my Tier 4 list.
I've always wanted to play a theme force. Unfortunately, most theme forces are really difficult to make, or they just don't do much. Some armies have some really strong tiers (butcher + doom reavers, Jake's eVayl T4, eKreoss infantry swarm, Mortenebra with tons of jacks) or theme forces that open up some cool options (reznik with steelheads, eSkarre with a ton of Satyxis, etc). Unfortunately, I've been pretty discouraged by Skorne's tier lists.
It's not that we don't have any good tiers, they're just hard to build. I'm not commited enough to playing tier forces that I'm going to get multiple units of karax or bloodrunners or swordsmen. I could do Rasheth, but I just don't like his sculpt. I could do Mordikaar, but I would need 2 more void spirits and 2 feralgeists, and not use paingivers. Surely there has to be a theme force I can run when I feel like playing something different, but won't require buying a ton of models that will only be played in that theme force.
My answer (along with answers to a lot of Skorne's problems) came with Domination. Probably the second best thing to come from that book is eHexeris (I pretty firmly believe that eVayl was the single best thing in Domination). Recently I started playing with his theme force, Practical Magic, and have been loving it. It's a bit of a strange theme, but it's deceptively good. And easy to build, which is great for me. Let's take a look at the requirements and my Tier 4 list.
