Fundamentals - Part 4 - The Basics of Guns

With ranged attacks there are a few different basics we need to cover. First I'll define the different types of ranged attacks available to us. Then go over combinations of ways to use them to it's full effectiveness.

Art by: Hollowpointhell

Basic -The basic ranged attack that requires your RAT to hit a target.

AoE (Area of Effect) Attack - An AoE requires your RAT to hit, but if you miss can scatter and potentially do damage to targets.

Spray - Spray attacks which place a template based off the range of the attack. SP 6/8/10 typically that you need to use your RAT or magical value to hit models underneath the template.

Template - These are very unique style attacks that you place on the table and roll to hit any model under the template. Siege is the most famous model with this attack.

CRA (Combined Ranged Attack) - This is a basic ranged attack that gives you a +hit/+dmg modifier for every additional model shooting in the attack.

The greatest thing about ranged attacks is you can apply damage to or kill models from afar. When you have superior shooting then your opponent you get to force your opponent to come to you. Shooting also significantly helps you with scenarios like destruction while typically making you weaker at holding objectives since shooting units don't tend to be durable.

There can be three styles of armies in Warmachine/Hordes. Combined arms forces of shooting/melee, gun line which is heavy shooting and a heavy melee force. Overall if you have a combined arms or gun line you can control the flow of battle vs. heavy melee forces, forcing them to come to you. Heavy melee forces usually take heavy losses early which can be demoralizing but once they get into the opponent they can turn the tides of battle. It typically depends if you can do enough damage before they get to you.

One of the more powerful things about ranged attacks is assassination vectors are easier to achieve. You can clear a LoS lane to your target with knock downs or repositioning your self. When you have seasoned opponents this can cause them to brick up models in front of their warcaster or keep their warcaster very far from the battle.

When dealing with lots of infantry its commonly better to have lower power ranged attacks but much more plentiful. While POW 10's by the truckloads might be the trick vs. infantry means very little when going up against beasts/warjacks. This can typically be the biggest issue for gun line armies. They need to bring enough of a mix to deal with both or can have very bad match-ups.

This brings me to my next point. The biggest issues ranged armies have to deal with.

Stealth - This one is pretty self explanatory if you know the rule. Attacks auto miss if too far away.

Stealth has a few counters vs it for a shooting army.

1. True sight ignores it
2. Enough AoE attacks will still scatter onto them and if they are low enough army can be killed
3. Spray attacks ignore stealth
4. Mage sight - special note for this spell.
5. Eyeless sight - because legion cheats

High Defense - This one can be a hard issue for some factions.

The best counters vs. high defense that I've used are.

1. Rangers for Cygnar
2. Kovnik Joe for Khador
3. Aiming - Go +2 rat!
4. Boosting - sometimes this isn't enough to help Khador RAT
5. CRA's
6. Thunderhead/Phoenix - not really a ranged attack

High Armor - Most ranged attacks cap around POW 15. This makes armor 20+ targets hard to take down with ranged attacks.

The best shooters to deal with high armor in my opinion.

1. Defenders - Cygnar
2. Ravagores - Legion
3. CRA's
4. Behemoth - Khador
5. Reckoners with Choir - Menoth
6. Woldstalkers - Circle (bleh imo but best option)
7. Mage hunters vs 'Jacks - Retribution
8. Poor skorne
9. Bomber - Trollbloods

Being engaged - Models without gunfighter cannot shoot while engaged.

Best way to deal with this.

1. Gunfighter
2. Parry

Shadow Pack - While this is stealth, this spell needs special recognition.

Best ways to deal with this.

1. Any of the above stealth options.
2. Kill the warcaster/warlock
3. Purification

Now that I've gone over the basic attacks, the basic weaknesses and different army styles I'll end this with a few ranged lists. I'll give a few gun line lists I've found effective and a few combined forces lists.

Captain Kara Sloan (*6pts)

* Cyclone (9pts)

* Defender (9pts)

* Triumph (11pts)

Storm Strider (9pts)

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)

* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)

Stormguard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)

Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

50 pts.

Tiers: 4

Captain Jeremiah Kraye (*6pts)

* Hunter (6pts)

* Hunter (6pts)

* Sentinel (4pts)

* Centurion (9pts)

* Cyclone (9pts)

* Hammersmith (8pts)

Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)

Rangers (4pts)

Rangers (4pts)

Gun Mage Captain Adept (2pts)

50 pts.

Grim Angus (*6pts)

* Troll Impaler (5pts)

* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)

War Wagon (9pts)

Kriel Warriors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)

* 3 Kriel Warrior Caber Thrower (3pts)

* Kriel Warrior Standard Bearer & Piper (2pts)

Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes (3pts)

Fell Caller Hero (3pts)

35 pts.

P.S. Blog post number 42! Best post ever.

My complete collection of WARMACHINE/HORDES

I'm moving soon to a new place still in Orange County and decided to spend a day reorganizing all of my models. Thought it would be fun to get it all together and take a picture.

Close up of minions

Close up of Circle

Close up of Skorne and Retribution - Nicole's forces

Close up of Mercs

Close up of Cygnar - cut off some Rangers and Kraye

Close up of Trolbloods

This showed me two things.

1. I'm crazy.
2. I have lots of painting to do.

Wrath/Domination Event!

Going to do this post a little differently then my past one's. I'm going to mainly leave the space for pictures and leave writing to a minimum. Though I'll help the story arc with captions. Though overall I played 6 games in 6 hours and had a blast. Found both the scenarios really should've been tested further and were very open to exploitation. Since it is a one off event that isn't competitive it didn't ruin my fun at all. The players were a real joy and no weird rules disputes or unclean play to be seen from my opponents. Overall I had a blast! Now to the pictures.

Khador and Cryx set up for battle in there first game!

Two entertaining lists battle out in the Domination scenario.

Trollbloods go up against one of our 3 Legion players, the most played faction that day.

pStryker vs. Kaleyssa - wow Jay had spent some serious time on figuring out how to 2 turn win this one. :P

Barnabus charges across the no mans land into incoming Legion forces!

This is me pondering if I could kill Mortenebra with only electro leaps. Go double strider lists!

Rhyas is moments from decapitating poor Sorscha with a 26 damage after armor roll!

Mike's awesome painted Legion.

Constance slams into the Trollbloods!

Look at the Thunder pig on the left and ignore Stryker being eaten on the right!

This is me finally being fed up with losing with pStryker and cheesing the scenario for a win on turn 3.

Merc's being lead by our Press Ganger Doug.

Few dice down games at the end of the day.

Awesome paint job by Steve. Such an amazing tongue! Keep staring until you get it.

List Dojo

I haven't played Cygnar in quite awhile but I have a fun event to play this Saturday. We are doing a combo wrath/domination event which will be fantastically fun. I had originally wrote up a full boat of Circle lists to play in the event, and they are still my back up but without representation for the boys in blue I'm preparing some Cygnar lists for the event.

Event Rules - for this event you can get a lot of scenario points based off of your list construction. My main goals are to get full amount of the limited points in as few lists as possible.


• Play with a fully painted army: 1 point
• Bring a fully modeled HQ trench: A player who builds a piece of terrain to match the HQ trench
requirements from the scenario is awarded 2 points.
• Win with a ’caster kill: 1 point
• Win with scenario victory: 1 point
• Play with five different warcasters: A player who plays five games, fielding a different warcaster each
time, is awarded 2 points.
• Play with only a battle group: A player who fields an army in which all the models comprise one
battlegroup is awarded 2 points.
• Play with a tier 4 theme list: 1 point
• Play with a Wrath warcaster: 1 point
• Play with two battle engines or two character warjacks: A player who fields an army with either two
battle engines or two character warjacks is awarded 1 point.
• End a game with no friendly models on your half of the table: 1 point
• End a game with no enemy models on your half of the table: 1 point

Cygnar Lists


Major Victoria Haley (*5pts)
* Thorn (8pts)
Storm Strider (9pts)
Storm Strider (9pts)
Storm Tower (2pts)
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Stormblade Infantry Storm Gunner (2pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

This list takes care of the tier 4 theme list, 2 battle engines. Time to build my second Strider.

Captain E. Dominic Darius (*5pts)

* Centurion (9pts)

* Hammersmith (8pts)

* Thunderhead (12pts)

* Triumph (11pts)

This list is terrible, but takes care of the whole battle group version. I can jam into them and camp my focus and hopefully just beat my way into their caster.



Commander Coleman Stryker (*6pts)
* Lancer (6pts)
* Defender (9pts)
* Hammersmith (8pts)
* Ironclad (7pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)

Edit: Sylys didn't count for battle group, and thanks fully my buddy Jay let me know before the tournament so I could edit the list!

Since my Darius list seemed just awful. I feel obliged to at least look at some more lists to cover the all battle group option and the Kraye lists could potentially work but then I realized Stryker might be my boy. Now I'm not referring to epic, I'm talking my old school classic.



Constance Blaize, Knights of the Prophet (*6pts)
* Gallant (9pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Captain Jonas Murdoch (2pts)
Sword Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Sword Knight Officer & Standard (2pts)
Sword Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Archduke Alain Runewood (3pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)

This finally takes care of my wrath caster list. I actually have been wanting to try this list for awhile. I think it has a lot of potential. Jam you with the sword knights pop my feat and get ready for burly dwarves on the following turn.

Baldur2 vs. Harbinger

I played a fun game this weekend vs. my buddy Greg. He brought Harbinger and I brought Baldur2. I am a pretty big fan of this style of match up for Circle since I run mainly construct style units with Baldur so I get to ignore awe and reckoner cloud making those amazing jacks Defense 14 vs. living targets.  Here is the list break downs of our 50 point battle.

The Lists

Baldur the Stonesoul (*5pts)
* Ghetorix (11pts)
* Megalith (11pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
Celestal Fulcrum (9pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Stoneward and 5 Woldstalkers (5pts)
Stoneward and 5 Woldstalkers (5pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)

Harbinger of Menoth (*5pts)
* Reckoner (8pts)
* Reckoner (8pts)
* Hierophant (2pts)
Avatar of Menoth (11pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer (2pts)
High Paladin Dartan Vilmon (3pts)
Paladin of the Order of the Wall (2pts)
Paladin of the Order of the Wall (2pts)
Reclaimer (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)

This is his classic Harbinger list which is a little abnormal to the elists without the book and a few other normal choices. I am still trying to figure out Baldur2 and haven't really locked in a list that fits my play style yet. 

This one was an attempt to break out of my first list I had made with him which was a tier list. Going to spend a bit of time breaking down some of the elements of the list and why I thought they were a good idea. If you just want the battle report skip to the "Battle Report"section.

Megalith is an auto include for Baldur in my opinion. With his self damaging +strength ability the counter healing Megalith brings is amazing. On top of this Megalith is easily the best warbeast in the faction and I would include him in almost every list without character restrictions.

Ghetorix is very efficent killing machine. With mat 7 pow 19 reach attacks he can easily remove models from the table. That coupled with unyielding bringing him to armor 19 then adding roots of earth throwing him up to armor 22 in combat makes for a very hard to deal with warbeast. The biggest issue with having him in the list is that I'm committing both named warbeasts in the faction to 1 warlock.

Woldguardians are amazing scenario pieces with the ram rule. Letting me move things out of zones.

Celestial Fulcrum offers some amazing infantry clearing capabilities and with Baldur can get to armor 21 which allows it to live longer.

Gallows groves really help Baldur spread out the +3 armor buff he has and crevasse is a pretty effective infantry kill spell as well.

Battle Report

We randomed a scenario and got Supply and Demand. If you don't know the scenario here is where you can find it http://privateerpress.com/organized-play/steamroller-tournaments. I won the dice roll and decided to go first.

Baldur2 Turn 1

Ran the battle engine forward along with my beasts. Megalith and Woldguardian ran into my circle while Ghetorix and a unit of woldstalkers moved forward to threaten my opponents circle and objective. Gallow groves took flanking positions on both right and left side to help set up +armor buffs later in the game.

My first mistake was putting +3 armor on the battle engine instead of the Woldguardian who was up front. As the battle engine is immune to fire and wasn't going to take reckoner damage anyway.

Harbinger Turn 1

The paladins ran into his circle. Avatar run up the middle of the battlefield. Both reckoners ran forward and shot the woldguardian for about 8 damage. The errants ran toward my circle and threatened to contest it on turn 2 for a capture point. Harbinger moved forward and popped her feat.

Baldur2 Turn 2

The celestial fulcrum started this turn off with a bang killing 8 errants with his spray, 4 inch pow 15 aoe and the leap from the lightning bolt. The lightning bolt did some damage to the reckoner and disrupted it. A nice side bonus from a crit. The woldstalkers (lovingly nicknamed shrimps) on the right side took a few shots and killed another errant. Ghetorix scared of Harbinger's feat and avatar counter charge decided to run back behind the battle engine getting ready to counter punch anything that attacks it. Looking at you Mr. Avatar. Baldur moves up and feats giving everything +3 armor.

Harbinger Turn 2

Avatar rolls a 2 and generates 3 focus. Avatar then charges the battle engine killing it with the final blow, the avatar is enlivened at this point. One of the reckoners charges into the Wold Guardian failing to kill it at armor 23. The paladins move forward to the front the circle threatening to counter anything contesting the objective.  Reckoner is contesting the zone so control point for Menoth.

Baldur2 Turn 3

I need the Avatar dead and with enliven I need it to not run away after the first hit. I decide to teleport Megalith next to the Avatar and 2 hand throw him back toward my army where Ghetorix is waiting to crush him. The throw succeeds and Ghetorix then moves up to the knocked down avatar and proceeds to maul it. I move my left flank of shrimp into the control zone and contest his objective while taking shots at some of the vassals who are martyred. The right unit of shrimp put some damage on a reckoner. The rest of the errants are punched to death by the Wold Guardian. This was a mistake that I was forced too by recasting Roots of Earth on him without realizing he wasn't in melee range of the Reckoner who was in reach range.

Harbinger Turn 3

The paladins charge into Megalith who is currently armor 22 and rolls incredibly high putting him at 10 hit points. The reckoner who isn't engaged (doh!) charges Ghetorix but fails to do anything noticeable. The Harbinger then charges a shrimp and cataclysms to others clearing the objective. Menoth is now at 2 control points.

Baldur2 Turn 4

With pending objective win for Menoth I knew I had to get a little risky. I teleported gallows groves next to the paladins. I then attacked the reckoner with Ghetorix who fails to roll anything noticeable with lots of 3's and 4's for damage. This now threw me into a little bit of a pickle. Baldur then charges Vilmon crushing him with strength 18 due to wurm tokens. Harbinger can't martyr him due to Gallows Groves heal prevention. The last remaining shrimp on the left takes a shot at Harbinger and does 9 damage to her. Doh! Should have taken this shot before I activated Baldur, because now a spell assassination was viable. Megalith was still engaged with 2 paladins, so he tramples over both next tot he objective to prevent an easy Menoth victory. In the process he kills one.

Harbinger Turn 4

As this turn starts I notice the biggest mistake so far. I filled up Ghetorix and with Megalith at 13 due to some healing my 4 transfers that were meant to protect Baldur from dying as he's in the middle of the table is bad news. Harbinger activates and drops a boosted pow 18 cataclysm on Megalith killing him. Then a full focused choired Reckoner walks up and brains Baldur.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this game. Overall I think Baldur2 isn't a bad match up vs. Harbinger but that scenario is tricky. I made some mistakes that hopefully I can learn from. Ghetorix is hard as nails with Baldur2 but I'm not sure if I'm willing to commit both character beasts 2 one list. Gallows groves worked perfectly and the battle engine did what I brought it for. Greg is getting pretty proficient with his Harbinger lists and can really capitalize on situations making him a great practice opponent. Thanks for the game! The shrimps bring some solid shooting, but I'm still not in love with them. I'm tempted to try Bloodtrackers, because even though on feat turn they'll still die to any normal hit they will be relatively safe from blast damage. I'll have to mess around with some more lists to figure it out.

Super Painting Weekend!

This weekend started off very slowly. I played a quick 35 point game of Trollbloods (look at last post for list) vs. a new Khador player. Then my wife and I had a mellow dinner Friday night and went to sleep at a decent time.

Our normal gaming day of Saturday was slowed to a crawl with one of our regulars being sick, his brother who usually comes with him didn't come by himself, we lost another gamer who was committed to finishing his Legion battle engine this weekend 

and then Mass Effect 3 claimed another. My wife and I found ourselves with a very slow relaxing Saturday with nobody over. What to do?

Paint! Nicole my wife had finished converting up her Archidon last weekend and decided to start painting it. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some work done myself and grabbed my paint brush.

These pictures are of her beautifully painted and converted Archidon. She did an amazing job, you can't even tell that she's relatively new to the hobby with about 3 years of off and on painting. She used the new gallows grove branches to help convert her nest. I love how this came out.

With that model coming out so well she was inspired and quickly grabbed another model. She had her Razor worm since it first came out, and now finally threw some paint on it. Her paint scheme for the skorne has been blue's and purples with some great transition work. Since she had decide to commit to fully blue on the Archidon she decided to do the opposite on the Razor Worm.

I really enjoy how she uses Chinese lettering to mark the models facing.

 Next on the chopping block was the Ironback Spitter. We both love this model for it's goofy yet impressive battlefield presence.

I really enjoyed the natural color scheme she went with him. Works really well with the rest of the gators.

With him out of the way she decided to do some basing work on completed models. Gundrun is a model painted by a friend of ours as a gift. So we decided to base him real quick too.

The boneswarm proved to be the next target, and quickly grabbed a paint job. Simple bone job for the model before she moved onto the final model for her this weekend.

The final model Nicole finished this weekend was her Eyriss. This model had been started about half a year ago, but never found the inspiration to finish it. I requested her finish it though as I wanted to run the model for the new Krueger2 tier list from NQ.

 Before I talk about the models I painted this weekend I had finished up this troll during the week. Real quick job, but I like the scheme and matches the rest of the troll army.

The first model I decided to paint was a pair of gallows groves. I like how they play with Baldur2 and have been looking forward to them coming out. I painted up a 3rd, but during the pictures the last one was missing some dry brush work.

Then I grabbed my Gorax. Now I really don't like this model. I was going to buy the rescuplt but didn't like him either, though he was an improvement.

I decided to experiment on him with a painting transition. I did a simple grey base coat across the model then applied 3 different washes from the base being brown to black to blue. In the future I should really water down the washes. Then I applied another grey dry brush and picked out the details.

Didn't come out as well as I hoped, but the paint job was clean and out of the way.


Baldur2's list being almost completely painted now with the gallows done meant I needed to get to him done sooner rather then later.

I miss the epic bases they used to give models so I did a very simple conversion with his base to call out his rock manipulation abilities. The rock comes from the Earthborn model. I was happy with the quick conversion and still think he's a great model.

I had really hoped to get a solid list ready for strategicon but ended up with running Baldur1. I do feel confident in taking him to Kingdom con though.

At strategicon I played Morvhanna for 3 rounds of the tournament. I really enjoy her unique play style, and just need to avoid upkeep removal lists. Her list is getting close to painted and decided she has earned her paint job.

I wasn't sure how to paint her and decided to use her name as inspiration. I went with yellow and orange autumn colors to stay true to an Autumn theme. I really enjoyed how vibrant she came out.

I haven't painted this much so quickly in awhile. I really enjoy putting painted models on the table and can't wait to field my newly painted models.

Troll War Wagon Lists

I am really enjoying my distraction of trolls lately. It all started with my buddy buying me a Troll War Wagon as a gift. After I cranked out the model I went on a bit of a painting spree painting up a Bomber, Mauler, Impaler, Grim Angus and Trollkin Champion Hero. I've also been getting quite a few games in with Grim and Jarl. I'm really loving both with the battle wagon.  Here are the two lists I've been playing with. ( Grim is 35 pts, Jarl is 50pts)

Grim Angus (*6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
War Wagon (9pts)
Kriel Warriors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* 3 Kriel Warrior Caber Thrower (3pts)
* Kriel Warrior Standard Bearer & Piper (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes (3pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)

The main goals of this list is to abuse knockdown as much as possible. Clear a lane and assassinate the Warcaster. Bonus side affects is 3 great aoes to clear low armor infantry. I went with Kriel warriors since they are a great cheap tar pit unit that supports the knock down theme. Use a caber tosser with fell caller to get mat 9 and knockdown high defense models. Then use the knocked down model as a great target for War Wagon. The pow 8 aoe can potentially kill the Kriel warrior, but with Krielstone getting them up to armor 17 its unlikely. The list proved simple but effective.

Jarl Skuld, Devil Of Thornwood (*6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
War Wagon (9pts)
Kriel Warriors (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
* 3 Kriel Warrior Caber Thrower (3pts)
* Kriel Warrior Standard Bearer & Piper (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
Trollkin Long Riders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (11pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Horthol, Long Rider Hero (5pts)

This lists goals are very similar to my 35 point version. I went with Jarl instead because I felt less need for the Grim feat. The tuffalo are great to slam targets into a direction I need a 5 inch knockdown. Jarl offers more ranged punch for the assassination, plus tuffalo in clouds make them Def 14 for a round making them a vicious road block, after they slam some targets. It is really hard to protect casters from assassination with so much knock down. Once I finish polishing these lists I'll have a great supplement for my Madrak2 list.

Troll Mauler

When I first got into trolls I purchased an army from a buddy of mine. His army was cool looking, but didn't fit my theme. I've started to repaint some of his models and his preference to not fix every little bit of the model is obvious on certain spots. Overall though I think the paint scheme came out really cool. Let me know what you think!  Experimental paint schemes seem to be my thing lately, so much fun.

Troll Bomber

This is easily one of my favorite beasts in the troll faction. Thematically he is hilarious with the concept of a crazy torch wielding whelp is hanging for dear life just to light powder kegs so the bomber can hurl massive explosive devices. On the table top being able to throw two pow 16 shots is amazing, especially in a faction with so much knock down.

I experimented heavily with this guy, so please let me know what you think. I don't typically repaint anything but advice will influence future models.