Lock and Load prep, part 2 - with lists!

Lock and Load is coming up in a little over a month, and I've been so busy playing around with the new toys from Gargantuans that I haven't really devoted much time to prepping for 'Con season. It's probably a good thing I didn't end up doing Adepticon this year, since I would have gone without really knowing what I was going to do. To make things worse, I went and played the Mammoth with every Skorne caster and reminded myself how fun some of the less common ones are.

I've finally started cutting down the lists and picking out what casters and lists I want to use at Lock and Load. It's hard to pick in a faction like Skorne with a ton of caster styles without really having a top 3 that are just flat out better than others (Haley, Haley, Caine? Again?). I have a lot of casters I like, and most of them are competitive, if not top tier. After talking myself in circles over the course of 2 or 3 weeks, building lists, playing random casters and hammering out tons of theories, I finally decided I just needed to stop, pick 3 casters and run with it. So for the next 6 weeks, I will approaching casual games like steamroller games. I have my three lists, and depending on opponent faction I will pick the one I think will work best. that way, if I do find holes in my lists I can possibly change my mind, but otherwise I'm locking in.

Lock and Load prep - Part 1

We're going to take a break from your regularly scheduled blogging this week. Unfortunately, I wasn't actually able to get down to the gaming store this week to continue my Mammoth battle reports. So I guess you'll just have to wait until next week to see if I can manage to essence blast a Mammoth all over an enemy caster.

With all these fun new releases coming out, and all my playing with proxied models, I haven't been focusing very much on my competitive lists. I've been dabbling with Ret, and playing a lot of my casters that are more fun to play, but not really the ones I reach for in tournaments. Unfortunately, that got me a bit rusty with my standard casters (as evidenced by my pMorghoul and eMakeda battle reports...). And with Lock and Load coming up in a mere two months, I need to start focusing a bit.

Over the next two months, I will be trying to nail down some choices on what casters and lists I want to use for Lock and Load (and WarGamesCon the very next weekend). And of course once I get my casters picked, I need some serious practice with them. I'll be talking about my lists and prep on my blog as I go.

Zombies!!

So recently someone posted a challenge on the Privateer Forums. The challenge was to make a 50 point list that could handle a 150 point list consisting of nothing but Mechanithralls. That's 300 mechanithralls. Obviously this was meant as a thought experiment, but I took it a step further and put it together on Vassal.

I won't give a step by step "battle report", but I did take screenshots of the vassal game as it progressed. I think just the pictures and some captions will be enough to get a feel for how the game went down. 

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.

Domination Release Event - Battle Reports

This weekend I went down to San Antonio with a few other austinites for a Domination release event. Actually ended up being a lot of people from austin, but I did get to play some new opponents as well. it was an interesting tournament, using one scenario all day and cramming in as many rounds as possible during the day. you got points for playing, more points for winning, with bonus points for playing against new factions and players. and then there was a whole list of other bonuses you could get once per tournament. so in the end winning the games wasn't worth a whole lot compared to all the other points you could get, which made things interesting (in a good way).

I'm reconstructing my rounds from memory, some bits might be missing. Warning, this is going to be a rather large post, so if you're not really interested in a bunch of random battle reports, you might want to just skip over this one. I enjoy writing reports, though, as it helps me process my games and think about what went well and what I need work on.

The Eldar Go To War (GamesCon)

It’s been a while since my last update. Real life and other projects keep getting in the way. Hope I haven’t been disappointing all 2 of my followers J

I have not been playing my Harlequins a whole lot since Adepticon, unfortunately. After playing them nonstop from December to April, I was ready to let my other armies out to see the light of day again.

Tomorrow is the third annual WarGamesCon (third if you count BOLSCON). This year I will be playing my Harlequins alongside a force of craftworld elder in the 40k team tournament. 3 rounds with 2000 points per side.

Road To Adepticon - And 'Ere We Go!

Adepticon kicks off tomorrow night. I am finally finished painting, basing and packing my models, my lists are printed and triple-checked, and everything is in the car ready to go. tonight we will be on our way to Chicago for the biggest tournament I have ever played in. I've never been to Adepticon before, so I am super pumped about it.

On top of that, I actually managed to get everything finished. There were a few spots in there where it looked like I would run out of time, and I was worried that a squad or two would have to make do with little to no detailing just to get a legal fully-painted army on the table. Somehow I managed to build, convert, paint and base an entire 1850 point army in 3 months. Sweet! and on top of that, I painted up the last 15 or so models I needed for gladiator, should I lose on Friday.

with that said, I wanted to post some pictures of my army I took last night as a finished project. I am also putting up my finalized list for the championship tournament. Enjoy

Road To Adepticon

This year I will (finally!) be making the trip up to Chicago for Adepticon. This will be only my second GT, so I am pumped! When Adepticon signup opened, I registered within the first week. At the time my Harlequin army was still little more than an idea, and I only had a handful of assembled models. It seemed almost impossible to get all of that done before Adepticon, but I made it my goal anyways. A month out and suddenly things look much better! Assuming I don't run into huge problems finishing my army out, I should be able to field a fully painted, fully based, all Harlequin army! After the jump I will talk a bit about my progress and list