Know Your Enemy: eStryker

 
 Here's a little write-up I did for the boys over at trollbloodscrum.com.  I figured I've ignored my blog for so many days that I might as well double post for, hopefully, your enjoyment!  :)

Good evening folks Phreaker187 here once again talking about a subject that I'm much more familiar with than stinky trolls, that would be killing trolls.  As primarily a Cygnar player and to a lesser extent a Minions player I like to think I have the inside edge on all things swan related, and Troll players should too.

     How many times have you lost a game because you weren't familiar with your opponents army?  I know I've lost many a game after asking the same question, "You can charge how far?"  I'm going to write a few short articles on on the ins and outs of playing against Cygnar and hopefully make you more aware of how to beat me... wait a minute... maybe not.

Paint It Up!!

So I had a goal once upon a time to have 50 points of my army painted... Well a wife and 2 kids later I am slowly getting within striking distance and I'm pretty excited about it.

My latest quest has brought me to Kraye. I like this fig a lot and I am really trying to do him justice, but he is soooo detailed it's ridiculous. I present to you Jerry Kraye day 729 (give or take 700 or so days.)



He's coming right along and I am mostly happy with him. My gold is starting to dry out and it's clumping a little, but other than that I am all smiles. The rock he is on really looks like stone when you look close.

Previously I painted Gorman and the Cyclone and they turned out nice. The Cyclone was a bit different because it was made of plastic instead of metal like I am used to so the surface was a bit different. Gorman was a piece of cake since he's all black. I added the base of Alexia to him because it looks awesome. IMO All models should have her base.






I love to paint when time permits. I am by no means a great painter, but I try hard and have a good time.

I am a firm believer that even a horribly painted model looks better on the table than a metal/plastic one.

Keep on playing a have a great time!

Local League

A few weeks ago we started a league at the LGS, nothing serious just something to spice up our regular game night. While I was obliterated in round 1 by Legion, I have recovered and rattled off four straight wins in a row.

Last night was a teams game. Teams of 2 "randomly" determined 25 points each, no restrictions on army construction (other than the normal ones of course). I put randomly in quotes because while the teams were random each veteran player was paired with someone that was fairly new to the game. Fortunately I was left out of the draft by accident and was paired with the PG of our area.

He plays trolls and I play Cygnar, I was planning on running in more of a support role and let him do all the dirty work.



I ran:
Siege
Cyclone
Long Gunners (full)
LG UA
Black 13
JWC

He ran:
Madrack
Mulg
Champs (min)
Chronicaller
Hero

Anyway the plan was, I feat with Breach, he feats with Crusher, Mulg wanders over the board under Crusher, good game, we drive home. All the while LG's and the Cyclone block counter charge lanes with suppressing fire.

Our opponents were bringing Cryx and Mercs, both players were quite skilled at their armies and they had a great plan.

Cryx brought:
eDenny
Nightmare
2x Chicken Jacks
Biles
Satyx Raiders
w/ Sea Witch

Mercs had:
Fiona the Black
ATGM +UA
Mariner
Mariner
Doogle
pEyriss
Deck Gun

There might have been some solo's mixed in there I'm not entirely sure. Their plan was to sit back and shell us with range 19-21 shots from the Mariners, then once we were softened up charge in for the win.

The turns were pretty basic, we opted to go first, I moved up tossed out some templates to block Eyriss, all the trolls ran out into the middle. I foxholed all my Long Gunners and sat on my focus.

Their team moved the mariners up onto a hill, fired and missed due to range, ran the raiders and biles out to greet us, moved up 1 node and missed with his spell.

At this point I was a bit worried, but the board was favorable to us with a large trench in the middle to help us ignore the AOE spam from the Mariners. Foxhole was an MVP in the game to because it let us extend the trench an extra 5". I thing they realized this and that's why they were so aggressive with the Cryx portion of the army, we were going to ignore any ranged attack they threw at us.

Anyway Mulg is staring at a thick line of raiders and biles, the B13 are looking at the same bile and they wet their pants a little. I really had to take a wizz so I said "brb, don't lose the game for us." with a little laugh. I come back and he had used Crusher and tried to trample mulg over the raiders. One raider lives, rolls a crit on the free strike and knocks mulg on his butt. lol So there's Mulg sitting there with a stick in his hand laying on his face staring at the nightmare that's in charge range. I was "well that was fun, pack it up." I tossed Arcane Shield on Mulg and hoped for the best. I used a combination of B13 and Ground Pounder to kill off all of the Biles. Suppressing fire templates next to Mulg, hoping for good damage on the Nightmare when he charged in.

Nightmare charged in, didn't take any damage (crap). Pounded Mulg a bunch of times, but didn't kill him, thanks to arcane shield making him ARM 22. That's pretty much when the wheels fell off of the wagon for our opponents. Mulg got up, killed the nightmare, I launched a bunch of CRA's into the ATGM's, killed Eyriss with a Ground Pounder.

The next turn Mulg ate Denny and that was pretty much it. I finished off the ATGM's, the next turn I used my feat, "Rocket Cannon to the face!" on a Mariner blowing out every system, but the cortex, moved up the LG's and POW 21'd the other Mariner blowing his arms off. Then it was just mop up time.

The real difference between winning and losing the game was really the board set-up, the trench was brutal on them, giving us +4 DEF and ignoring blast damage. I am sure, without a doubt, if that trench wasn't there the 2 mariners would of blown our doors off and their plan would of worked to a tee.

Good games all around! Everyone keep playing and having fun!

Nuclear Launch Detected...

Starcraft... What a great game.

So I went up to SLC this weekend to play some WM with one of my best friends, Darknesse. We planned on playing MK2 rules at 50 pts. The rules are still a bit new to everyone so the game went quite long, looking up rules/stats and such.

I played:
eHaley
Thunderhead
Stormclad
Thorn
Squire
Stormguard x10
Stormsmith x1
JWC
Black 13
Strangeways
Sword Knights x6

He played:
eGaspy
Arc nodes x3
Cankerworm
Bane Thralls -- Full Unit
Bile Thralls -- Full Unit
Bloodgorgers -- Full Unit
Slaughterborn
Combine
Tartarus
That seems like all, but there might have been more.

I remember looking across the table and saying, "Holy $@!7 that's a lot of stuff. Are you sure that's 50 pts?" We checked and it was.

I won the roll and chose to go first. I placed the SG, Thorn and the TH on the left flank, Haley and the SC in the middle, and B13 and SK's on the right side. The right side of the map was basically a giant forrest so it wasn't really an issue.

I ran SG up the gut to stare down his Gorgers and Bile Thralls, ran thorn along their flank, Threw up Deflection (in hind sight a mistake since he doesn't have any range), and advanced Haley. I ran the TH up behind the SG, ran the SK right into the face of the Bane Thralls knowing full well they would die in a few turns. Moved b13 up to cover the doomed SK's. I also moved the SC right up the middle so Haley could hide.

He basically ran everything he had for his first turn to move into a good countercharge position. Turned 4 of my SK into a smoking pile of goo, epic fail on placement for me. Luckily they pass their command check and are okay. Gaspy throws out some smoke clouds to mess with my charge lanes, man those are annoying.

I went. Put 3 Foc on TH, charged with my SG where there wasn't smoke and ran the rest. Turned a node into scrap with 2 of them, managed to kill a gorger or 2. I ran the SK's into the Bane Thralls to they would have something to eat, and blasted a few BT's with the b13. Activated Haley, feat, TA on the TH, move away. Put Evasive action on the TH with strangeways (immune to free strikes), wandered the now SPD 7 TH into the middle of his infantry and pulsed. The pulse plus the 3 additional ranged attacks basically wiped out his entire flank. I was quite surprised how brutal that jack can be now.

The rest of the match is pretty scrambled, I remember Slaughterborn living through the purge and killing almost all of my SG, the biles poped and killed the rest of them, the Stormclad went on a killing spree only to be crushed by the new cankerworm. I moved the TH over to gaspy and lit him up with electic coil shots, but couldn't finish him, he feated and killed Strangeways, a b13 member and blew the arms off of the TH. When the TH lived, he had basically given up hope. My turn started, I had moved thorn to the center of the field earlier. I moved up the JWC, rolled a 13 on 3d6 to hit gaspy, then rolled enough to do 9 damage to the wounded old lich. Killing him.

If the JWC hero shot would have failed the had 8 foc and Thorn in range to throw a few arcane bolts into gaspy.

Overview. Cryx is still amazing, anyone that said they were nerfed is full of crap. They have a different play style, but so does everyone else. eHaley's feat is probably the best feat in MK2, basically giving you a free turn to move around and shoot.

MVP's
eHaley for casting TA every single turn and feating.
Thunderhead for pulsing the shoes off of everything.

Surprise MVP's
Black 13 for being good again and droping POW 12 clouds on peoples heads.

New Toys. The Official MKII Cygnar Rules.

Unless you have been living under a rock today (9/21/09) you will have noticed PP released the "Official MKII Figure Rules."

Much talk of "doom and gloom" is around on the Cygnar forums, but I'm not convinced that we should scrape off the blue paint and dress up like elves yet.

One fig that stood out is the new "revamped" Thunderhead. MKII Beta basically made the TH a mobile turd. Wandering around the battlefield taking up 12 precious points that could be spent on something usefull, like the Stormclad. The new rules however, I think, make it worth bringing with a few casters.

SPD 5
STR 11
MAT 7
RAT 6
DEF 12
ARM 19

These stats are really mediocre at best, but with sustained attacks still on the lightning coil, a huge rat buff seemed unlikely.

Lightning Coil: ROF 3, Sustained Attack.
Pulse: (*Action) -- Ranged attack. (electric damage). All models within 6" of the TH are hit and take a POW 12 damage roll. ZOMG! Storm theme army incoming!
Range 10, POW 14's on the normal shots.

Open Fists x2: P+S 16's (not too shabby) and dun, dun, dun... Sustained attack. Finally with 3 FOC on it, the TH can ruin something in Melee.

All systems have Critical Disruption also, which seems moot since we have sustained attacks on everything and won't be rolling to hit very often.

Example 1: eHaley. Allocate 3 FOC to Thead, cast Temoral Acceleration, Telekinesis TH 2 inches, move 7 inches to nearest caster, pulse with a POW12, auto hit, then auto hit 3 more times with POW 14's, one boosted. Add Strangeways to make TH immune to free strikes.

Example 2: eStryker. Slap a Positive Charge on 'Ol Thead, charge nearest beat stick that is threatening you. PC makes TH a MAT 9, P+S 18 with Sustained attacks. That's 5 POW 18 shots, more than enough to make most threats inert. For added humor you could, charge in, 2h throw a jack infront of Rowdy and watch him feast.

Hopefully this is a ray of light that can shine amidst the darkness that has taken over the Cygnar forums.

Let's get out there and play, then if everything is still horrible we can complain.

Breaking News: New Forum Mods Possible NAZI's

So I made a joke on the forums about the elf faction being ghey. The new mod, PPS_Noob, deletes my post (not surprised), and puts me on elevated warning level. Seriously? One more warning and I'm banned for life? What's up with these new moderators?

We want PPS_Kevin back!

Rampage Begins

Summer Rampage... The time when boys become men and the trolls remain women.

With 2 games under my belt I am sad to say that I'm 1-1. As Trollbloodscrum reported, I feated with Siege catching his already beaten up caster, Grissel, cast Higher Ground, and rolled an impressive 3 on 3d6. Yeah, I clutched defeat from the hands of victory.

Second game was v. Circle, I had decided before I came to the shop that I was going to run a pNemo list, and wouldn't you know it I get to play a hordes player, playing Kruger no less. We get the "no need for words" scenario where you need to control half of the board with a jack or beast. I tossed around Chain Lightning a few times and thinned out his troops, killed a beast with with the b13, loaded up a Centurion with Focus and obliterated his heavy beast, leaving him with one. It was impossible for him to win without a caster kill which he nearly did with a well placed tornado knocking Nemo down to 4 boxes.

So far so good, Cygnar has managed to jump up to 3rd after the first four days (after starting dead last, thanks PP). We almost control 3 territories and are in good shape to get our book first. Keep on fighting Swans!