Friday 4 August 2017

Anatomy of a Warmachine Player

Decided I wanted to put down in text some thoughts about the game I have had for a while, more to organise my own thoughts really but I think it could be a good exercise in learning more about ourselves as Warmachine players, and the things we can do to improve and move to the next level.

Warmachine players come in varying levels of skill and experience, from first game newbies to world championship winners. You see people right across the spectrum, from the new player who's just a natural to the long time player who just can't seem to "get it". In this post I am going to try and dissect the different 'levels' we move through as players and the characteristics required to be better.

The Ultimate Newbie

These players have never seen a Wargame before. Probably been introduced through seeing some models around a friends house, asking about the game and taking an interest in it. In Warmachine, I don't think we have many of these players, I have not met one person who's first game was Warmachine. Pretty much all of us graduated from the GW school of gaming before moving on to more complex and engaging games, like Warmachine & Hordes.

These players will struggle to understand the basic concepts at first, won't know how to build synergies and will often mis-allocate resources, such as using heavy guns to kill infantry. There is the very odd exception where a player will just take to the game like fish to water, however this is very rare for someone experiencing a wargame, particularly Warmachine, for the first time.

The Warmachine Newbie

Pretty self explanatory really, and is one step up from the Ultimate Newbie. A Warmachine Newbie will be experiencing Warmachine for the first time, but has some experience with other wargames. These players can come in many different skill levels, depending on their previous experience with wargames.

Warmachine as a game is a good leveller as the game is more complex than many other games on the market. However, a player coming over from Warhammer Fantasy Battles for example, who played the game at high level and perhaps did well at national level tournaments, will have a much better grasp of the basics of the game. They will understand how to build synergies and have an idea of maximising utility of resources, but they will likely miss the deeper complexities of the game at first.

Mr(Mrs) Average

This spot here is probably where most Warmachine players find themselves, they have graduated beyond battle box games and smaller point games and will be a regular gamer at the club or local store. They may even attend the odd local steamroller or 2 and will generally pick up an average or slightly below average result. These players have a good grasp of the fundamentals of Warmachine and have some level of mastery over their own casters or factions synergies.

However, these players will likely lack the deeper knowledge of other factions to truly compete, they may even struggle to stray too far from the 2 or 3 casters they feel comfortable with. Because of this, they will probably not brave an attendance at national events, not regularly at least and will probably never win a local event.

The Good Player

The next step up is the 'good player'. This player has plenty of experience with the game and probably knows their own faction inside and out. Will have a few casters that they really excel at playing and will frequently attend, and possibly win local Steamroller events. These players will also be regulars at National level events, although will rarely win or even 'do well' in some cases.

A good player will also have a decent basic knowledge of the other factions in the game, they will know the highlights to look out for such as problem casters and common plays but will likely get caught out by more complex synergies that they have either not seen before or didn't fully understand.

This level of player is usually where we start to see carefully constructed list pairs, built to be complementary to each other, sometimes as simple as an ARM cracking list and and anti-gun line list. What will sometimes let them down is knowing the right match ups to drop each list in the pair into, which stems from a lack of deeper knowledge of the other factions in the game.

Nationals contender

These players are the ones that go into larger national events expecting to either win, or come very close. These players are also the ones in which the other 'lesser' players will recognise the names of and hope to avoid to stand a chance of doing well.

Above what a 'good player' brings to the table, a nationals contender will have a much better understanding of every faction in the game and at least a basic idea of how every caster wants to win the game. This comes from a vast amount of practise through regular gaming at a high level and gives them a significant advantage in the list selection phase of a game.

List building will consist of very complimentary lists each with a specific advantage into particular match ups or factions.

Nationals winner

Taking the next step from contender to regular national event winner takes the knowledge of each faction in the game further to the point of having a deep understanding of the meta. Being able to understand and predict what the players from each faction are likely to bring to an event gives a huge advantage when building their own list pairs.

Using this knowledge in conjunction with the ability to predict each match up as it unfolds on the table is what pushes the players skill level to the point of being able to regularly win large national events. These players will often know the exact win condition for any caster in any given match up and will know how to play to counter that win condition.

List building from players at this level is often very reactionary, but in a good way. Players will know exactly what to expect as the 'bogeymen' and ensure they are packing sufficient counters to those problems.

The Trail Blazer

In my opinion, these players are the pinnacle of the game. Above and beyond a national event winner, these are the gamers that create the lists that become 'net lists', they create the lists that become the bogeyman and before people develop a counter they have already moved to the counter to that counter.

A very deep understanding of the game as a whole, know every faction inside out and will know exactly how every caster plays every scenario in every match up. This takes years of very frequent gaming at a high level.

A player who is a trail blazer will not only be able to predict the meta, they will also be able to predict the counters that people will bring for that meta and adjust their own counters accordingly. These are players that will often build lists proactively to create problems no one is planning for and thus start the new meta > new counter cycle all over again.


These are my thoughts anyway, you probably have a differing opinion so let me know if I've missed anything. Hopefully it gives you some insight to the sort of skills required to play at a high level. The thing is, I am not a gamer at the highest level so there are probably plenty of deeper nuances that I am missing, because I am not at that level yet.

Obviously this is written from a competitive play mindset and some will read this and have no interest at all.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Tuesday 1 August 2017

Another step on the Dark journey

This will be kind of a 'Part 2' to my previous post about the new Cryx theme, Dark Host. In the previous post we talked about the generic benefits of the theme and what makes it 'good' in the current meta. Obviously, we never addressed the weaknesses of the theme, something that I will tie into this post here as we are going to discuss the casters that you will likely see, and probably want to bring when running a Dark Host list.

So for posterity, lets remind ourselves of the pro's of Dark Host;

Pro's

Hard Hitting - Dark Host hits innately hard. Bringing weapons masters and Dark Shroud, the list shouldn't be reliant on armour debuffs to get work done. This means we are not tied in to bringing a Parasite caster.

Ghostly - Pretty much the whole list runs Ghostly or Incorporeal. Terrain and free strikes are no issue for Dark Host, this also means we are not tied into bringing a caster with access to Ghost Walk.

Resilient - Between Knights in Wall of Steel or Riders all buffed by the Wraith Engine, the list can be difficult to shift with standard infantry clearing options, forcing opponents to use overkill weapons against our infantry. Cryx doesn't have much in the way of ARM buffs, but with Dark Host, they are not required.

So by looking at what Dark Host brings as standard, we have identified a few things that don't necessarily need to be covered by your caster choice. That is not to say that a caster with Parasite, say Lich2 for example, is bad in Dark Host. It is just that there isn't as much of a pressing need for an ARM debuff as if you were running Satyxis Raiders for example.

What does need to be covered then? Let's take a look.

Con's

Speed - Banes are slow, with the exception of Riders. SPD 5 infantry will always struggle to get where they need to. Dark Host does have the free clouds and Prowl to help Banes get where they need to without too much damage on the way in, but with lacklustre threat ranges it becomes easy for your opponent to play around.

Delivery - Ties in to the previous point really, slow, single wound infantry are difficult to get work from. Dark Host and Banes in general do have built in tech to mitigate this issue but Speed and Delivery are certainly areas the list could do with help from the caster.

Linear - Not always a bad thing but having a list built in a very linear fashion makes you easy to play against. Playing with Banes generally goes turn 1 run, turn 2 run, turn 3 charge. You then either get enough bodies there and win or you've taken too many casualties on the way in and lose the grind. Any caster that can add to the trickery of the list, that can open up non linear plays and angles will certainly find a home in Dark Host.

Hitting - Hitting hard is not a problem for Banes, hitting their target in the first place might be though. BLT helps by bringing Veteran Leader, but he can't be everywhere. MAT fixing is a solution that is very welcome to a Dark Host list, whether you can increase MAT, reduce DEF or add extra dice to hit, Banes love it all.

We can see from the above that we are building up a bit of a picture for what the ideal caster should look like to get the most out of a Dark Host list.

Let's take a look at some options then and assess how each one fits.

Skarre1

Skarre has emerged as a good fit for Dark Host, and it is not surprising really as she kind of slots into the 'turd polisher' category of casters. She has the ability to MAT fix banes through the spell Dark Guidance and certainly cranks hitting power and delivery through her feat. Now, hitting hard is not a priority problem to solve for Dark Host, however, being able to make effective POW18 Weapon Masters is no joke whatsoever.

My issue with Skarre is that she does nothing in terms of threat extension and doubles down on the linear nature of the list, run, run, charge. Skarre has proven to be an excellent choice, but I think she needs a more tailored Dark Host to be built around her. I'd expect a Skarre1 list to lean more towards doubling down on Bane Riders or Wraith Engines as they have the higher natural threat ranges over the Bane infantry options and they also bring multiple attacks to get more benefit out of her feat.

Coven

The Witch Coven are our premier caster choice these days, outside of Denny1 running Ghost Fleet they are probably the best caster we have. But how do they fit in Dark Host? Well they certainly bring a bag of tricks with them, between Curse of Shadows and Veil of Mists they can certainly get Banes into places you opponent definitely doesn't want Banes to be. CoS aso doubles as an ARM debuff which is never not good to have. Infernal Machine is also great for letting 'Jacks push deeper into enemy lines or have Stalkers get to awkward places. They also hugely help with delivery, they bring Occultation to the party as well as an impressive feat which shuts down shooting and long range charges. Coven do have a MAT fixing option in Stygian Abyss but fishing for crit Blind isn't a plan I'd be happy resting the game on.

The problem with Coven, and it's a small one because they are amazing in general, is that they don't offer any threat extension for the Banes themselves. However, with great delivery tools it can let Banes play a lot more aggressively. One other problem I find with Coven is that they are so good, I am reluctant to put them with, in my opinion, the best theme Cryx has. I think that cripples your other list too much if you haven't, or don't want to buy into Ghost Fleet. First world problems and all that. Coven fit almost perfectly for Dark Host, but personally I'd save Coven to run my other non-Dark Host list.

Shade2

This is my money man at the moment. Looking at his cards, he solves every issue the Bane theme has to one extent or another, Delivery, Linear, Speed and Hitting, Goreshade can do it all, in theory. He spell list is phenomenal, and as I have said before in my review of him on this blog here, I think his spell list is probably best in faction. Abyssal Gate fixes 3 problems in one, extends threat on Banes so helps with delivery, let's you turn models around so fixes MAT and adds a bit of trickery and control to an other wise linear list. 3 issues with 1 spell, looking good so far. he also has Curse of Shadows for more trickery and Mirage to further increase threat range and delivery options. Occultation helps with delivery and Hex Blast is another layer of damage or to hit buffing. All in all, his spell list is a symphony of awesomeness. In theory he should make Dark Host sing, and I didn't even mention his feat to bring back moar Banez.

It is not all sweetness and roses though, Shades main problem is being Focus starved, he is FOC7 but his main spells are Cost 3 and will likely have at least 2 upkeeps out all game. He can't pick up souls and can't have Withershadow Combine in theme so he finds himself with an incredible repertoire of options but not enough resource to do them all, you will end up choosing between Abyssal Gate/Hex Blast/Curse of Shadows. He is basically never going to have any camp so he dies if your opponent gets to him, Dark Host clouds help here but can't always be relied on.

Scaverous

Scavvy has some cool tricks, he can help with delivery through Death Ward and can certainly help with threat extension, MAT fixing and trickery with the infamous Telekinesis spell. He does have an expensive ARM debuff but he does struggle to really support Banes as well as you might want. Scaverous can open up a game and can really enable assassination plays though so he is worth considering.

You would probably look to take Bane Riders and a Wraith Engine with Scavvy, they make more worthwhile TK targets than a Warrior or Knight and Death Ward on Riders with the Wraith Engine is just funny. With Scaverous you are probably going to be building a more control variant of the Dark Host list which could work well, but probably needs a more specialist build.

Lich2

Lich2 is an interesting one, he doesn't do an awful lot for Banes when you think about it, but he does have some tricks to help Dark Host tick over. He brings Parasite, so packing a punch is absolutely not a problem for this list, casual -5 to ARM when you need it is just money. The real 1-2 punch, in my opinion comes from Caustic Mist, Excarnate and his feat. I guess that's actually a 1-2-3 punch. Caustic Mist lets you extend the fee cloud wall to have almost complete coverage of your wall of Banes and Excarnate let's you keep adding Banes back to the ranks. A neat trick with Caustic Mist is placing the clouds on top of a Bane unit after it has activated to trigger stealth on them through Prowl, do it right and you can punish anyone that enters the cloud with Corrosion. Lich2's feat is usually held back as a fear factor rather than being actively pursued to win the game, it does however, let your Banes have a final hurrah after absorbing the first wave.

What Lich2 doesn't do is speed up Banes at all, he help protect them with extra clouds but keeps them stuck at SPD 5. The trick will be getting those clouds in a position to let you be more aggressive. Darragh Wrathe is a must with him, as with all the casters without a threat extender. He also doesn't do much to make the list non-linear but his increased personal threat and impact on the game can add another dynamic to consider.


I will call it there, I could go through every single caster we have but these are the main ones I am looking at right now. I am sure you can take the principles discussed and keep them in mind when looking at other Cryxian casters.

Just remember the weaknesses of Banes and unless you are just playing a casual game with whatever you think is cool, try to thing about how your caster supports the Banes in your list. Of course, the specific needs of the list will change as the flavour of Banes gets tweaked.

What casters have you been running in Dark Host?

Until next time.

Friday 28 July 2017

Back to the Dragonfather...Banes are good again?

Wow, didn't realise it had been so long since I last posted...

I have taken a short hiatus from playing Cryx to pick up Cygnar which I played at the ETC recently. I have thoroughly rinsed the swan filth off me in the acid baths and ready to get back to Cryx'ing.

It just so happens that my recursion to Cryx coincides with the official release of the new shiny(?) Dark Host theme. Boy oh boy, this could be a game changer. I have played a few games with Dark Host now, each and every game has resulted in a 5-0 scenario win for the #BaneTrain. It has some serious power, something I will attempt to assess in this post.

First up, lets take a look at the theme itself;

Dark Host

Permitted models
-Cryx Warcasters
-non-character warjacks
-Bane models/units
-Darragh Wrathe
-Machine Wraith solos
-Necrotech solos
-Scrap Thrall solos
-Skarlock Thrall solos
-Soul Trapper solos
-Wraith Engine battle engines

Benefits
-Every 20 points of units and battle engines you can add one command attachment or medium or smaller based solo to the army for free
-Banes gain Prowl
-Place 2 4" AOE dense fog terrain features before deployment within 20" of your own table edge

Now, if you had given me this theme at the start of Mk3, I would have been very disappointed, and i think most Cryx players would have been too. Banes were bad. They were the ultimate bogeyman of Mk2 but became more like court jesters in Mk3. To properly assess why Dark Host has the Cryx juices flowing again we also need to look at the recent changes to Banes as a result of their CID cycle.

Banes

Bane Knights dropped by a couple of points and gained Set Defence and Wall of Steel, 2 very strong abilities to solidify their position as the anvil to the Bane Warrior anvil. However, Cryx players are still looking at Knights as the worst of the 3 flavours. After running 20 Knights in 3 games under 3 different casters (including Sturgis2!) I have to say they may well be the true dark horse of Dark Host. Ha.

Bane Warriors saw an effective 2 point decrease as the UA lost a point as well and the max unit. They also tweaked the UA to make it not suck massive balls so the unit is now how it should of been from day 1. Moving Tough to the standard was a common sense move and making the mini feat not tied to forcing them to kill infantry (which is totally opposed to their battlefield role) was a welcome change.

Bane Riders saw a real shift upwards in terms of power level. A contender for worst cav unit in the game when they had a puny threat of 11" with low damage output, relatively speaking. They were put back to 2" melee range, something they should never have lost in the first place, and also gained Vengeance. Given that I believe the rules for Vengeance changed from boxed to damaged (so even if they don't die they get a Vengeance move) lets Bane Riders get some serious threat ranges and their high natural ARM keep them 'alive' longer than they should.

Tartarus was a mess at 8pts, losing curse is disappointing but picking up Veteran Leader [Banes] and gaining +1 MAT is a nice compromise. He is actually worth his new price tag of 6pts but being free in theme is just gravy.

Wraith Engine. Whilst not a Bane model, the Wraith Engine is a key component to Dark Host and also recently underwent a pretty big change in the Battle Engine CID cycle. Also receiving a reduction in points as well as some rules tweaks to buff it's support presence make it a very strong piece in the Cryx arsenal. Increasing ARM of all undead models rather than just Incorporeal models was a HUGE change for the faction and really helps the Banes ability to play into ranged lists and make it across the table with sufficient numbers.


So, the new theme is also propped up by a buff to all of the core units and solos of the theme. All good news for Cryx players. But why has Dark Host taken everybody by surprise so quickly? After all it won the Lock & Load Masters and was on the final table of the Iron Gauntlet. Everyone I have spoken to that has played the new theme is reporting back nothing but extreme success with it. Surely Banes weren't buffed that much? Let's take a look.

The Meta

The meta at big events has been pretty rigid as of late. Factions that can bring decent heavy spam are bringing it and the factions that can't are bringing their best answers for it. This ended up with a huge hole in the meta for infantry to slide right into. Ghost Fleet was probably the first real highlight of this but Strakhov2 with mass Pikemen and Thexus + Drudges were 2 other examples of successful lists (amongst a few others) that focused on an infantry swarm. The meta being focused on dealing with jacks struggled to deal with the numbers. Then came Ghost Fleet and players had to adjust. Ghost Feet hit the meta like a sucker punch from Mike Tyson, solutions have since been developed but it just rolled people at first play when they didn't understand it.

Lists then changed to deal with the new bogeyman of Ghost Fleet, magic weapons proliferated and ranged RFP became the currency of the land. What this meant was an influx of multi attack models/units that sacrificed POW for an increase to RoF. Enter Dark Host. Dark Host falls into the space in between. Anti-heavy tech is massively overkill against Banes but the standard infantry clearing methods of massed POW 10s or 12s even just doesn't cut it when there is a wall of ARM 20 coming at you.

Attrition

The above point leads me into what I see as the main strength of the Dark Host theme, given the state of the meta as it stands. It attritions frighteningly well. A heavy may come in and kill somewhere between 3-6 Banes from a max unit. The rest of the unit then eats the heavy and mini feats to replenish most, if not all the casualties taken from the heavy. A net trade of a few Banes for a heavy, numbers a Cryx player will take all day. With the right caster, you can rinse and repeat this to remove heavy after heavy whilst barely taking any casualties.

The list has the benefit, if built as such as to have no real 'targets'. The list I am running pretty much has only the Wraith Engine and my caster as worthwhile targets. One is easy enough to protect and the other is immune to most of the weapons brought against it. This makes it tough for the opponent to make reasonable trades with the army.

The changes to Wraith Engine and Bane Knights also mean that you can all but immune to the increase in low POW shooting we saw trickle into the meta to combat an increase in warrior models (due to increase further with SR17 upon us). ARM 20 against ranged and magic attacks is certainly no joke.

Delivery

Previously, delivering Banes was a problem. They were expensive, fragile and as a faction Cryx had very few forms of effective delivery for them. Dark Host, in combination with the changes to Banes in general, certainly helped to combat this issue. First off, you get free clouds which can deploy far enough up the board that you can usually tag them onto a terrain piece for a huge line of LoS blocking terrain. Perfect for defending the approach and protecting your caster mid-late game. Banes also gain Prowl, which in combination with the above mentioned clouds is pretty much perma-Stealth and with Ghostly letting you laugh at forests it can be frustratingly hard for opponents to get work done at range. This plays into the Cryx players hands as it forces the lines to engage, and what do Banes love most? Getting stuck into juicy targets in melee.

Scenario

From the games I have played Dark Host pressures scenario really well, which is usually a byproduct of strong attrition armies anyway. Dark Host usually boasts a few throw away solos to score flags and with the other changes to scoring in SR17, infantry with staying power play a big part in scoring and contesting zones.

I have have also found that Dark Host can pressure scenario pieces very well with a very small part of the army, linking us back to its strength in Attrition. A couple of ARM 20 Bane Knights are not trivial to remove when ran to obnoxious places and in return opponents have to feed heavies to the Banes to contest.

Summary

Dark is exactly what Cryx needed to get some of our staple units back on the table. It was boring to see every pairing be Coven + Denny with Satyxis Raiders and then Ghost Fleet in every single list pairing. Most of us played Cryx because Banes were cool as fuck and couldn't play them even remotely competitively. Not only that I also think it is what the Meta needed to shake the dominance of heavy spam.

It has often been said there is a triangle of power in Warmachine. ARM > Guns > Infantry > ARM was the cycle that keeps the meta in check. Guns shred infantry, ARM nullifies guns and Infantry swarms ARM. For most of Mk3 there was almost no worthwhile infantry options, and the ones that crept through still got ravaged by guns. This let ARM and Box spam reign of the meta and their counters closely followed. With a serious WM Infantry theme back in play (also Exexplar theme could be as popular) it should force a rethink of how people approach the meta and build their pairs. Hopefully this will signal a move towards a more balanced and fluid meta where more options from all factions are viable.

I am loving playing Dark Host as it feels Cryxian, it's so good to have Banes back on the table. I think next time out I will look at some of the main casters to run with Dark Host and start looking at some of the ways other factions can counter it.

Until then, thanks for reading.