Dice Rage

What's up Everyone?

I am back with a new army for myself and thus a new list I tried out. I again was able to get two games in this week, one against Legion and one against Skorne both with close to the same list and both I won. I even won one by scenario and one by assassination. Are you excited to find out what I was playing, I bet you are....

Picture probably ruined the surprise didn't it? Oh well. That's right, I inherited a Cygnar army. It is currently in pretty rough shape but should be easily fixable, if I can get myself to start painting again. I was even able to get a Stormwall in trade for some old Warhammer 40k stuff so it was pretty awesome all around. Now down to my first Cygnar list. 

My group and myself are working on getting better at Steamroller 2013. In my older playing days, I was so focused on caster assassination that I would often lose on scenario and it has cost me higher placings in tournaments as well. So what did I play?

Captain Jeremiah Kraye - WJ:  6-    
Squire-2
Stormwall - PC: 19-    
Centurion - PC: 9

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist - PC: 2
Gun Mage Captain Adept - PC: 2
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 3
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 2

Field Mechaniks - Crew Chief & 3 Grunts: 2
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team - Lynch, Ryan & Watts: 4
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages - Leader & 5 Grunts: 6
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen - Alexia & 9 Risen Grunts: 5

This was my first go around with Cygnar. For the most part I enjoyed it greatly. Even though I misplayed a lot of this list, I'll learn, I was still able to assassinate Bethayne once more. I won't write out the entire Bat Rep but basically, I moved up my Stormwall up and shot a bunch of stuff, then my full tilted Centurion walked in front of the storm wall, being about 2 inches in front and did his "Polarity Shield" with the idea of hopefully keeping my stuff from being charged. What ended up happening is Bethayne, moved up, Gallowsed my Centurion up to his Scythean and killed it. I was fine with this as it meant Bethayne, who was sitting on two fury, only had one model in front of her. On my next turn, I cleared out the model and unloaded shot after shot from my Stormwall into her. I won on turn three I believe. 

I completely misplayed Alexia and her Risen, they were all just obliterated. I also found that both Arlan and my Mechaniks did absolutely nothing which was just because Stormwall was never hurt and the Centurion was destroyed all in one turn. The other issue I had was that I was against a full unit of Hex Hunters. Not only did I not have the Gun Mage Attachment so I could help ignore stealth, I failed to realize Kraye also had Mage Sight which would have helped greatly. Obviously I did ok, but it would have been a lot closer had my opponent not taken the Centurion bait.

My next matchup was again against Skorne. I played against the same fellow with a similar list to last time. This time he thought he had refined his tactics. My list was mostly the same with one change.

Captain Jeremiah Kraye - WJ:  6-    
Squire- 2   
Stormwall - PC: 19-    
 Centurion - PC: 9

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist - PC: 2
Gun Mage Captain Adept - PC: 2
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 3

Field Mechaniks - Crew Chief & 3 Grunts: 2
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team - Lynch, Ryan & Watts: 4
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages - Leader & 5 Grunts: 6-    
        -Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer - Officer 2
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen - Alexia & 9 Risen Grunts: 5

I dropped Arlan and brought in the Gun Mage attachment. This time my Mechaniks did a lot of work and thus Arlan probably would have as well, that being said, the Mechaniks did fine. This time we played Scenario 11 from Steamroller 2013 which was Process of Elimination. My opponent went heavy on one flank and I chose to sort of split my forces. I was able to keep my opponent stuck on the left side while I claimed points on the right. On my final turn, needing three points to win, all I had to do was kill the Bronzeback in the zone and destroy the objective. The Bronzeback ended up being the easier. After killing the Bronzeback, I brought the Centurion over, with two focus, and attacked the objective, when it was all said and done, it still had 8 points left on it, yay dice. I then charged Kraye in, using two focus, I was able to destroy said point for the win.

I played my second game far better than I played my first, that being said, I am sure I can still make some changes. I am not sure I like using Alexia as my tarpit unit so I may have to explore my options. All in all though, I am liking the difference in style of Cygnar compared to my Farrow, Menoth and Circle. I will have to keep tweaking this list and decide who my next caster will be. I have a lot of options.

Feel free to check out my gaming blog where I will also be talking about MTG, board games and of course WarmaHordes:

http://turn1gaming.blogspot.ca/

Till then, thanks for reading and please feel free to comment on my list or if you have any ideas of what I could change for the better, I would be glad to hear it.

- Rob

With my return to WarmaHordes, I have been playing my original faction, Protectorate of Menoth. Generally I play for fun and not competitively so I rotate my factions and lists every game. As of late however, I have focused on one list and improving it. I am also using models I was not very fond of in the Exemplar Vengers who are made much better by using Intercessor Kreoss. He plays quite a different style than the other two Kreoss'. Here is the list I started with.

Intercessor Kreoss +5

Reckoner -8
Reckoner -8
Fire of Salvation -9

Vassal of Menoth -2
Vassal of Menoth -2

Choir of Menoth min squad -2
Choir of Menoth min squad -2
Exemplar Vengers max squad -11
Temple Flameguard max squad - max squad w/ attachment -8

High Exemplar Gravus -5
Kell Bailoch -2

When I first made the list, my main goal was to try and make the Vengers as useful as possible. First thing I learned and really already knew, Gravus is not worth his points. To the newer players who do not know, they will try and target him, which is a good thing, other than that, I have not been able to get any use out of him. Second thing I learned about the list, even though they are a decent tar pit, the Flameguard are too slow in the list. I have never been a huge fan of them anyways, but in three battles against two different factions, they never pulled their weight. Kell Bailoch was in the list so I could try him out. He was fine but really depended on what I was up against. He is pretty excellent at solo hunting. I ran with two min choirs as it gives me more maneuverability. Also depending on what I am up against, I am able to keep one unit further back and safer and use them later in the game.

Reckoner's are by far my favorite Menoth warjack. They have been since mark II. They synergize well and are one of our quicker warjacks. They hit hard enough in melee when I need them two and their assault charge is very potent. The Fire of Salvation is another piece I was using to get more experience out of. He hits very hard and can add a little more movement shenanigans in the right circumstances. When I could get him delivered, he will kill most things fairly easily. While I don't hate the jack by any means, I did not find a effective way to get him going. Probably just need more practise.

I really like Intercessor Kreoss but the one thing I found is I use a lot of his focus upkeeping spells. This means less focus for my jacks. I like to give my Reckoners 2 focus each when they are shooting at different targets. That and Kreoss upkeeping 2-3 spells means no focus for the Fire of Salvation. While I did win my games against Legion andRetribution, winning one by scenario and two by assassination, I was not liking how some of this played out. Changes needed to be made. Here is list two.

Intercessor Kreoss +5

Reckoner -8
Reckoner -8

Avatar of Menoth -11

Vassal of Menoth -2
Vassal of Menoth -2
The Covenant of Menoth -2
Gorman di Wulfe -2

Choir of Menoth min squad -2
Choir of Menoth min squad -2
Exemplar Vengers max squad -11
Daughters of the Flame -5

The daughters make an excellent tarpit in their own right and they are incredibly quick and can be severely annoying as they can get in the back ranks with ease. The Avatar fixes my focus issue has he is self sufficient. I added Gorman in lieu of Kell in case of running into any Gargantuan's or Colossals. He also adds some defense for The Covenant of Menoth. I added the Covenant for all around annoyingness although I may still switch him out.

I was able to get two games in against Skorne and even was able to face off against its Gargantuan. We did not play a scenario on the first game. I lost the roll and was forced to go second. Now bare with me as I am not fully fluent in Skorne stuff yet as I have little experience fighting against them. To my knowledge my opponent was playing Tyrant Xerxis, Cyclops Raider, Titan Gladiator, some Cataphract Cetrati, some Cataphract Incindiarii, Paingiver Beast Handlers, a Mammoth, and Mortitheurge Willbreaker. I think. I could have this wrong so don't hold me to this. He actually took this list to a tournament in Calgary and only lost to the eventual winner. Not bad for someone who just started with Skorne.

He moved his Skorne in a brick formation and it was a pain, luckily he made a tactical error and got himself stuck in some terrain, with my help. Here is my general plan. I start by putting Holy Ward on the Daughters and Ignite on the Exemplar Vengers. I used the Vengers as an extreme flank, the Avatar on another flank. I ran the daughters right up into the brick and with Def 17, they are hard to deal with. I ran the book and two Reckoners right up the gut and floated Kreoss in the back putting him where I needed him. The Vassals followed closely to the Reckoners. My other mistake was keeping Gorman too far back and thus he did nothing all game.

So without going into too much detail, I was able to keep his brick stuck, picking things off with my Reckoner and Vengers. While the daughters did not do much damage, they did exactly what I needed them to do and held the brick in place. Eventually I was able to make a hole and kill Xerxis with 4 well place Reckoner shots.

Game 2, I had the same general game plan. We rolled a scenario this time and got capture the flag. My opponent learned from his mistakes and did not get himself stuck. I won the roll and chose to go second which was my first mistake. My second mistake was even trying to go for the scenario. This just slowed me down and I did less damage because of it. This time I did sneak Gorman up more and the Covenant was very useful even after almost being dead by turn 3 do to concentrated attacks and fire. When it was all said and done, I was able to kill the Mammoth with some Vengers, and a Reckoner charge. This opened up the massive hole to Xerxis where I again had some good rolls and completed the assassination.

Overall I prefer the second list a lot. My one issue is not having pathfinder which was hugely detrimental in my first game. I have thought about putting in Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord for some pathfinder but I feel as he may have issues keeping up. Other than that I am happy with this list so far but will need a few more games to see how it progresses. As for ThreeOss, he is a lot of fun. He makes the Vengers worthwhile although I still think the Vengers are a bit over costed. I have also not had any luck with putting up warpath so I need to work on that.

- Rob

In this Episode we catch up on our current projects, put some lists through the Theorymachine Dojo, and discuss our recent gaming adventures.

Here we're documenting the bonding of some Mercenary WarJacks after playing in a campaign game.

PREMIER EPISODE: In this first Episode of DICE RAGE LIVE we talk about Warmachine and Hordes different factions and speculate on the new Convergence of Cyriss faction for Warmachine.

This is the seventh Warmachine/Hordes Battle live on YOUTUBE!!! This Battle report has two armies in it, Khador and Trollbloods. Anyway there's no scenario this week so it's a straight up grudge match to the DEATH. Hope you enjoy this battle report DON'T FORGET TO LIKE THIS VIDEO AND SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL!!!! Lee

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MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE:
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This is me reacting to the news of WARMACHINE's exciting new faction. What does a guy who calls himself "The Tinman" think about an army of Steampunk Robots?

In this installment of the Miniature Minute we take a look at one of my favorite non-character solos in the game of Warmachine: Cygnar's Stormsmith Stormcaller. Why is it my favorite, and what use it to a non-Warmachine player? Watch this video and find out.

A recent adventure at our local annual Anime Convention here in Bakersfield, Ca. I mostly spend the day running Warmachine demos in the Gaming Room, but when I wasn't doing that I checked out the rest of the convention. We interviewed doll maker and fashion designer Miss Carlyfornia Love, professional cosplayer Ivy Doomkitty, and we got a demonstration of Dragon Song Forge's Samurai Swords. We also enjoyed the cosplay fashion show where local anime fans dressed up as their favorite genre characters.

A new show from SteamPoweredTV... This is the Tinman's Miniature Review Show! Each week, or every other week, we take a look at what's hot in the world of Sci-Fi and Fantasy gaming miniatures.