Beasts from the East – One Man And His Lord Tyrant

As well as running a friendly, well-stocked brick-and-mortar and online shop (for all your guilt management needs), the good people at Dark Sphere Games have a rather spiffy gaming space that’s half an hour’s walk from my place and draws a decent Warmahordes crowd of a Monday night. It’d be churlish of me not to give it a go, really, and so I’ve popped up and been rocking the Skorne for a couple of games. One of these was my first with the good Lord Tyrant Hexeris since, umm, actually since I acquired him two and a half years ago, and it proved to be a strange experience after Morghoul.

WM/H: A Nice Change

D’you know what I find interesting?

Everyone who commented here said swapping factions might be worth a go. Everyone who commented on TWF took it as read that I’d be sticking with my Cryx and offered advice for such. I don’t know what, if anything, that signifies, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

However, given that I’ve had the drabs for eighteen out of the thirty months I’ve been doing this blog thing for, a change is probably a good as a rest. Most of the Cryx are now resident with Mr Bandwagon, and his Mercs and Skorne (formerly known as my Skorne) are now with me. This state of affairs will continue until Live And Let Fly in three months’ time, and if neither of us hates the way things have turned out, will become permanent.

Here are a few lists I’m considering trying out. Still quite fond of Morghoul,for playability reasons as well as for all this. I had conveniently forgotten that I got a load of Mark I cards with these originally, never had one for Hexeris and had been subsisting on printouts from the starter set for all my battle box stuff. Will have to look into that.

System: Hordes
Faction: Morghoul – Big Game Hunters
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Tiers: 4
Master Tormentor Morghoul (*7pts)
* Cyclops Brute (5pts)
* Cyclops Savage (5pts)
* Titan Gladiator (7pts)
* Titan Gladiator (7pts)
Cataphract Arcuarii (Leader and 3 Grunts) (6pts)
Cataphract Arcuarii (Leader and 3 Grunts) (6pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor (2pts)

System: Hordes
Faction: Skorne
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Lord Tyrant Hexeris (*6pts)
* Cyclops Brute (5pts)
* Cyclops Savage (5pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
Cataphract Arcuarii (Leader and 5 Grunts) (9pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Agonizer (2pts)
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor (2pts)

Still messing about with the Mercs; I have the bits for most of these lists, though, so I’m likely to give them a try. Why not?

Also, you’ll doubtless have noticed that there’s a second author ’round these parts. Y’see, I am disconcertingly busy at this time of year anyway, even when I’m not moving house, and I would ideally like to remain disconcertingly busy (because that tends to mean that life is being lived, rent is being paid and fun is being had) after I’ve moved. It’s all part of the ‘less blogging about things, more DOING THINGS’ endeavour, you see.

However, I do want to keep the blog active and regular, like the bowels of a healthy elephant, rather than scatty and infrequent as it was in the early days. Lexington, bless him, has very kindly (with the minimum of devious manipulations on my part, and a poke from a moderately sharp stick at worst) agreed to join me for the duration, and will be taking over every third post to transmit his deviant thoughts and fancies down your word-reading organs.

Uncle Von Asks: Time To Say Goodbye To Cryx?

Shiny: The merits of euthanising your Cryx force? Let’s see. There are, as I assume you have already noted, the matter of freeing up space and a possible conversion into money for your use.

Then there are other considerations, for which I will need additional context. I know you are occasionally given to frustration with Warmachine. Is it that you are quitting the game, or are you abandoning the Cryx for something you find easier to use?

Von: Abandoning them and taking up the Skorne again.

Uncle Von Asks: What To Do With The Werewolves of Thornwood?

It’s been so long since I did one of these that I’ve had to go archive trawling to remember how I do them…

System: Hordes
Faction: Circle Orboros
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Tiers: 0

Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris (*3pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Feral Warpwolf (9pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)

Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Tharn Wolfriders (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)

This ‘ere’s my go-to Circle Orboros list, which was built out of the stuff Mr. Bandwagon swapped me for my Skorne back when.  It’s very much a ‘do the best you can with what you’ve got’ list that I’ve been slowly adding more bits and bobs to in order to try and do better with (vis. Gorax and Stones).  However, I have as yet only won one game with it despite having been playing it or variants on it for a while now, so I thought that breaking it down and seeing what does what and talking about it might help me think about it and work out what I’m doing wrong.

Warmahordes: It’s Been A While

What with actually running the Dark Ages Vampire game (it’s going well, thanks, although there’s no interesting meta as yet and so I’m observing the First Rule of RPG Club), painting up Lizardmen and trying out Lord of the Rings, I haven’t been talking much about Warmahordes – or playing that much either, as tight financial circumstances and am-dram commitments have kept me out of the loop for October and most of November.  Doesn’t help that The Von Show takes most of a day to script, film, edit, pretend-to-transcribe, upload and format for posting either.  However, I managed to sneak in a couple of games recently and, well, I’m coming to terms with the possibility that I’m a bit crap with the Circle.

While I’m not especially demoralised by having won one game with them since I started playing them, it does appear that the amount of tech available to the faction is baffling my brains a bit.  I keep over- or under-buffing key pieces, or buffing the wrong stuff altogether.  Target priority is a labyrinth that I’m having to negotiate all over again (and frequently find myself lost in).  There often seems to be a crucial element missing from my lists, too.  I’m a great believer that a list needs to deliver damage to a single point, damage across a wide frontage, chaff into the enemy’s grill, additional moves to key pieces and probability control through buffs in order to be a good one, and most of my Circle lists seem to be missing one or two of those key elements, or spoiling me for choice with pieces that perform two or three roles.

This is what I’ve been (mostly) running of late.  I did try out Mr. Krueger the other day and he was a bit fun.  I lost to Nik’s smelly Trolls, admittedly, but it was down to an error of judgement regarding Krueger’s feat and pretty much that alone.  One brain fart isn’t quite the same as a whole series of fatal misplays, which is what the following eKaya build has been inflicting on me…

Points: 35/35
Tiers: 0
Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris (*3pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Feral Warpwolf (9pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Tharn Wolfriders (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)

There are many good components there, perhaps too many – the Stones are helping me keep Laris alive and I’m wreaking modest havoc with Primal, but honestly those things just give me more choices to make and thus more opportunities for misplays.  Thoreau says ‘simplify, simplify’… so how do I simplify this?  Other than by saying “sod this, let’s take Krueger instead?” – because I do like eKaya and I can see her potential and what she can do.  I just seem to be giving myself too much to process in order to make it happen, and I want to take some tech OUT of the list (for the first time ever) in order to refine it and let me focus more.

Also, as I move my shelves around to make room for the new toys (Bloodgorgers, Rengrave, pSkarre and, at last, a proper Raider Captain), I’ve noticed that my Cryx are gathering dust.  DUST!  Shows how long it’s been since I last disturbed the dead from their slumbers.  They’ll have to get an outing in the new year.  I keep looking at SmogCon and thinking “if there are any tickets left after the December work lull is over, and if I actually have any money to commit to hotels and food and such, I should take some Cryx down there.”  Current plan is to take a variety of pAsphyxious Tier lists and just play SmogPit games until my eyes bleed.  Nik reckons I’ll get bored and he may be right, so perhaps eSkarre and her Shooty Solo Spam should do the rounds in one of the tournaments too?  I haven’t really tested that list in any sort of ‘les affaires seriuse’ context yet, after all…