Welcome; after an
8 month blogging hiatus it is time to revisit the musings of 2011/12 and begin
a newer, bolder, more prone to failure adventure in the wonderful world of
competitive warmahordes.
I never quite met
my goals in the ‘Great Troll Smogcon Adventure’, an enforced tournament absence
from February to Sept meant that I missed out on the Welsh Open, Masters and
the ETC. As all good gamers know, don’t
get married, it really cuts into your playing time.
Strange though
how serendipitous this 6 month sabbatical was; I had really worked hard on the
Trolls, I had a Grim Angus list I was extremely happy with and a Calandra list
that was certainly nearly there. At
Smogcon myself and Max had met in the final game of the 50pt Steamroller Friday
night qualifier (with him progressing to the final) and then again in the top 4
on the Saturday (this time with me progressing to make the Sunday final). Unfortunately we both fell at the first
hurdle on the Sunday, Max handing PVlad to Rich Jennings on a plate with a full
lubricated back passage and open invitation to enter (despite being totally in
control of both the game and the scenario). I suffered the same fate at the
hands of an Austrian gentleman, my own dice and an interesting moment involving
some accidentally disturbed models. It
was clearly not to be and we both headed home from Wales disappointed in our
final performance.
What struck me
though in early March was that over the months I had been practicing, taking
notes, improving my game and applying a level of focus that was totally alien
to my usual gaming habits, I had never felt that the Troll lists had put me
totally in control of games. This is
probably because PP has done a very good job of balancing the Troll ‘locks and
units and they are one of the rare ‘fair’ factions that few people ever
complain about. The problem was that at
the top end of competitions I was playing against the stuff that was a little
‘beyond the curve’. The Cryx all star
caster line-up, Khador high def infantry spam o doom and the Legion of
Everbroke (Saeryn, Lylyth I am looking at you).
I am not in any way complaining about this, anyone who reads this blog
knows I am a competition player and I fully expect every opponent to bring
their faction’s top tier casters and units.
I just wanted to be part of that club; I wanted to feel like I was
operating at the same power level as my opponents and the trolls simply weren’t
doing it for me.
So, there I am,
planning a wedding, busy at work, bit disillusioned with the Trolls. I needed a pick me up, a tonic to reignite my
enthusiasm for the game. It was like
someone at PP had read my letter to Santa; giant stompy robots with ridiculous
potential for destruction. Colossals
were released and in a quite discreet corner of my mind a guilty little voice
crossed its fingers and wished, over and over again that the Cygnar one would
be a little bit naughty, a little bit under costed, something, just something
to get us back in the game. Enter the
Stormwall.
The Stormwall was
everything my inner demon had been praying for. It was a Cyclone, 2 Defenders
and a Stormclad rolled into one. Oh, and
it had storm pods and could put own covering fire and be bonded. Now, I like to consider myself an honest man
and there are many, many people I read arguing on internet forums that this
model is fine, balanced and in no way totally OP. They are wrong, the Stormwall is bent as
fuck, it is hilariously powerful and outclasses all other Colossals and
Gargantuans released so far by a country mile.
But hey, I have had to spend 2 years dealing with 'apply moar banes',
'iron flesh spam' and pretty much any legion model shitting all over the rule
book the rest of us have to abide by so I am pretty comfortable with this.
Now, this is not
to say that the Stormwall belongs in every list, but it has altered the way I
build lists. More accurately, I find myself constantly asking the question 'am
I sure this wouldn't be better with a Stormwall in it?' This question has a common follow up which is,
predictably, 'Am I sure this wouldn't be better with 2 Stormwalls?'
Thus transpired
my return to warmahordes. Wedding dealt
with, happily married, new job for the wife, bit of bonus spare time and a
ridiculously over powered model that might just put Cygnar back into the top
tier. Next instalment, casters and
lists...where did I leave that EHaley model....
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