The Road to Smogcon

In what seemed to be a serendipitous chain of events I find myself putting pen to paper for the first time in years.  During my first 18 months of warmahordes gaming I have drawn great inspiration and many a tactical tip from tournament reports and blogs, posted on the wide range of gaming websites I frequent whilst avoiding teaching the youth of today.  It has also been an extremely long time since I have exercised my much unpracticed passion for writing. So, with a mighty fanfare of self indulgent trumpets I have decided to launch an assassination run on two birds using only one stone (whilst cutting myself for emo fury).  I will be documenting my progress throughout 2012, attending as many tournaments as allowed by my much suffering better half and exorcising my writing demons all within one little blog.

No journey can truly be considered a failure without some overly ambitious goals that I dramatically struggle to meet in what I imagine will be a disappointing and slightly lacklustre finalẻ.  To this end I am setting myself the following targets for the next 12 months:

To win a Warmachine/Hordes tournament (any)

To finish in the top 20 at the UK Masters Event

To play Trollbloods for the entire year.

To completely paint the 3 lists I settle on.

Before I go any further it is important for me to make clear my expectation is that none of the above will happen.  These goals are deliberately ambitious and an attempt more to focus my mind than based on any real expectation.  I think the more realistic expectation is that I will learn my faction much more thoroughly than I know it now, paint a few models and have lots of fun losing hard.

Choice of Faction

Having had some minor success with my Cygnar over the past twelve months it was a tough decision to drop them for my Trolls.  I had invested time in learning to maximise the strengths of EHaley (not the most challenging task I hear you cry...) and had practiced not getting ECaine killed turn 2. This had started to pay dividends, I found eventually I was losing less and winning more but, critically, I was bored.

It was about this time that I started discussing the character restrictions being implemented in SR2012 with Jamie Perkins and Max Horseman.  Jamie, being miles ahead of the curve as usual, was already designing lists for Templecon, had quietly invested in a huge Circle Orboros collection and was preaching the virtues of Hordes over Warmachine in a 3 list, character restricted meta.  The release of Domination had only strengthened his argument as Circle, Skorne, Minions and Legion (note the key omission) had all gained faction changing new pieces.

Without wanting to spend a huge amount of time debating the merits of Domination vs Wrath I figure that this is my blog and so I can indulge myself in a short rant.  For me, Wrath was uninspiring, it didn’t make me want to play my faction more than before its release.  I wasn’t crying out for overpowered stuff, a new uber unit or caster, I just wanted something different, something that offered genuine alternatives for lists that needed to run in a competitive tournament environment.  This was Domination’s greatest success in my mind, new models that were not necessarily overpowered but opened up new avenues for their factions; the Archidon and Tibereon for Skorne, Gallows Grove for Circle, the Nightlurker for Legion.  I must profess to some disappointment in the Troll releases; whilst I love the Storm Troll and Rok  I consider them niche releases in a faction that was crying out for something different (please lord, a RAT buff…).  I don’t believe the Troll selection had the variety or new flavour that other factions received but I still believe the book to be far superior to Wrath when viewed as a whole.

It was a combination of these factors that led me to unpack the trolls that had last been seen 12 months ago.  SR2012 has dramatically increased the power of Hordes factions as they are on the whole less reliant on character models than Warmachine.  My Cygnar lists felt crippled by the lack of Arlan, and The B13 and I am not above admitting that I was struggling without these crutch models.  Trolls in contrast felt fresh, I hadn’t used them in a while, they had a number of different builds available to them and they felt like could be competitive with some practice.

‘Lock and List Selection

Calandra

Calandra has always been my favourite troll ‘lock, she is incredibly forgiving with ‘Star crossed’ making up for many of my noobish mistakes.  I make no apologies for stealing the core of this list from ‘Sevwalls’ article ‘The Burrownomicon and would like to thank him for his work (read ‘evil genius’)

I always find I struggle horribly against Legion; it seems they are the ‘bandwagon’ faction of choice currently and Saeryn seems to be every Legion player’s 'go to' ‘lock.  A bad thing for melee-centric troll lists.  In a 3 list, masters environment I want one list to be specifically anti-hordes, with a side order of anti-legion.  Putting Saeyrn to one side, Legion are always mobile, have a lot of high def beasts and have an effective ranged and melee game.  In my experience they are vulnerable to a massive ‘alpha strike’ and it was this I had in mind with Calandra.  It seemed to me that If this list could deal with the cookie cutter Saeryn/Vayl/ELylyth lists out there then it would probably function quite well against Hordes in general.

3 List Masters Environment

Calandra

Dire Troll Bomber

Dire Troll Bomber

Troll Impaler

5 Gatorman Posse

10 Pyg Burrowers

10 Fennblades plus Officer and Drummer

 Victor Pendrake

(Reinforcements: 5 Gatorman Posse and a Feralgeist)

I will freely admit this is pretty one dimensional, if you look below you will see a much more well rounded force for use in 2 List tournaments.  The idea is simple.  You will virtually always pop Calandra’s feat turn 2 and use the burrowers and bombers to remove your opponents key heavies.  Between Pendrake, the Fellcaller and the feat your Burrowers shouldn’t miss.  If you are facing an ‘immune to melee’ Saeryn Feat Turn then you have two choices, use befuddle to turn the Angelius around and walk them backwards towards your burrowers who aim and shoot them up the arse (effective RAT 8 re-rolling 1’s and 2’s). Or bring your burrowers up in safety, save your feat, drop bombs where you can and use star crossed, the fenns and the gators to ‘Jam’ the board until the feat has expired.

2 List Steamroller Environment.

Calandra

Mulg the Ancient

Dire Troll Bomber

Troll Impaler

3 Gatorman Posse

10 Fennblades plus Officer and Drummer 
10 Burrowers

Fellcaller

Janissa

(Reinforcements: 5 Gatorman Posse and a Feralgeist)

I can't afford to be quite so limited in scope in standard steamroller; with only two lists to play with Janissa and Mulg become available  (as my EDoomy list is reluctantly retired) and make a much more multi-purpose Calandra list. The principles are largely the same but this list has a little bit of everything and a much more well rounded late game with Mulg mopping up after the Burrowers have done their evil work.  Janissa gives Calandra some much needed protection and between a wall, Bulletdodger and Girded she becomes incredibly hard to touch from range. This is probably my favourite list but sacrifices have to be made to make it work when 3 Lists are required.