What I Learned on the Forums This Week 59

Man this has been a hectic week for me so we’re having a bit of a rush job this week. Apologies in advance as my usually appalling spell checking abilities will be even worse. Due to my busy schedule I didn’t get to read the Forums with the regularity that I usually do so I missed some great rage arguments you may have heard about. I missed some asshole calling Tom Guan, and all top players, cheaters with a reputation for palming dice and nudging tables for their advantage. The Mods got to it before I did, probably for the best, but that’s a thing that happened in case you also missed it. Below, however, we have the threads I did manage to read. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Finding Feora

The Seven-Month Itch

My name is Siskey and I am a Kreoss player. Any kind of Kreoss, it doesn’t matter( there are only three…Ed.), I’ve played him lots of times now. I’ve used every spell on those cards, feated, charged, whiffed, been assassinated and assassinated others. I’ve done it all, with those three. In the run-up to the Irish Masters this year, I decided to play the three incarnations of Kreoss and so played nearly nothing else for four months. Now, with the World Team Championships looming close, my natural choice for lists has settled on my two most familiar casters. It helps that they’re very good in their own right.

But as a Protectorate player, I’m feeling limited. Committing to playing nothing but Kreoss in competitive play has started to grate a little. The High Exemplar and the Intercessor are great, don’t get me wrong. But there are twelve other warcasters out there that I haven’t played in a serious game in months now. I’ve begun thinking of the aftermath of the WTC as my post-Kreoss phase.

Hacking the Cortex: Stuck in the Meta with You, Part 2 – The Cryx Drop.

 

Thanks to our most prolific of commentors, Josh Simpson, I have a focus for this weeks’ article – The fact that it’s often very easy to identify “The Cryx Drop” in someone’s list pairing, and the implications that has for List Chicken and List Building.

What I Learned on the Forums This Week Gen Con Special!

It’s Gen Con weekend which means spoilers and spoilers mean Forum Rage! Honestly this wasn’t quite as bad as I expected, it was no Templecon for example. Xerxis2 had a surprisingly positive reception, probably the most positive for a battle engine war-noun, which I did not see coming. The Neraph had no complaints and the majority seemed to like Abby2. That said, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine and you certainly didn’t come here for that sort of content. You want to see the shit, and I gladly provide it! Hope you enjoy!

What I Learned on the Forums This Week 58

Alright folks, its Gen Con this weekend and that means new spoilers. New spoilers means new forum rage and stupid entitlement. That often means enough content for a special edition of On the Forums! I’ll be reading those threads over the next few days and probably sharing my opinions on them with the rest of you guys in due course. This has resulted in this weeks edition being slightly shorter, though. For now lets look back on the pre-Gen Con forum arguments, many of which will include discussions of models that will likely already have been spoiled by the time you’re reading this! I’m so cutting edge on my reporting. Truth.

Hacking the Cortex: Stuck in the meta with you

The wider warmachine meta keeps on widening. As books release and factions get more and more tools, every non-minions faction is reaching a point where they can build a competitive list that utilizes any strategy you can think of. I’ve seen people “Cryxing” with Trolls and Menoth, and I’ve Cygnar’d with Cryx. Can list chicken be avoided in a world such as this? If it must happen, how do we mitigate it?

There’s skews to the left of me, weirdness to the right.
Here I am, stuck in the meta with you.

Nordicon Tournament Report Part 4

Game 4 vs Mat playing Skorne – Zaal

You know you’re playing members of a different meta when you set your army down and their reaction is unexpected. For a little while I was the only player playing Protectorate in Dublin, and I am not one to strike fear into my opponents’ hearts. So when I put them down and Mat’s reaction is “Oh great, Menoth!” it’s a bit of an eye-opener. We haven’t met before so we have a little talk. Mat is from the North, and plays Skorne and Protectorate, and is thinking of playing Convergence. Today, though, it’s Skorne, which is not a faction I have much experience against since all our local Skorne players keep selling off the faction wholesale to each other every three months.

Nordicon Tournament Report Part 3

Game 3 vs Adam playing Minions – Rask

Adam is one of those players who switches faction quite often but always gravitates back to one, and in his case that’s Minions. I’ve played against Minions a handful of times – always Blindwater Congregation – but it’s a different warlock every time. His pair is Barnabus and Rask, neither of whom I’ve faced before. I have a look at my little green book and it says Kreoss1 for Minions. Also Adam asks which of my lists have magical weapons, so all signs point to Errants and Vessel and Aiyana and Holt! Still, I’ve heard Rask is pretty nasty, I’m starting to think a dance-off for the game might be a better idea.

Nordicon Tournament Report Part 2

Game 2 vs VagrantPoet playing Protectorate

The the major downside of winning your first round, in the second round you have to try to do it again, and against someone you know was good enough to win the first time! At least I had a whole lunch break to decide what I was going to put on the table for this game. VP was playing Feora2 and the High Reclaimer.

The Feora2 list has the Judicator, a Reckoner, a Vanquisher and a Devout, Rhoven & Co and some Zealots and support elements including a maximum Choir. The High Reclaimer list includes Bastions, Idrians and lots of other nasty surprises. The way I see it, my Kreoss3 list should do well against his Feora2, and my Kreoss1 list is necessary if he puts High Reclaimer down. If we mix and match outside of these two match-ups, things could get real messy. In the end, however, I consult my little green book and I see that neither of these warcasters are the Harbinger of Menoth (it’s always worth checking), and so it says Kreoss3. I bite the bullet and put him down, figuring that I need the heavy-hitting either way.

Et voila! It’s Feora2 versus Kreoss3.

Nordicon Tournament Report Part 1

Heading Beyond The Wall

On this Emerald Isle of ours, conventions are most often run by college gaming societies, with some notable exceptions. These have great advantages to them, they can often get a space for less than the going rate, and they have a ready stable of volunteers to help run the thing. The risk with them is that priorities and expectations among the organisers can change. Up in Belfast, the Queen’s University convention is called Q-Con. Back when I went to it first in 2007 it was mainly a gaming convention, but with quite a lot of anime and cosplay going on. Last year, the convention had grown but only in terms of these two elements. Wargaming in particular as a space-heavy pastime was feeling marginalised. So they broke away and formed their own convention just for them, called Nordicon. It uses the same amazing space as Q-Con, but instead of people in Sailor Moon costumes it’s exclusively wargamers.

As a member of Team Northern Ireland for the upcoming WTC, it was my duty and delight to attend. Bright and early on Saturday morning, Stu Who Learns From Forums and I were collected by Noel and we began the journey. Talk on the way up was about the Northern Irish meta, what lists we were bringing, and previous misadventures regarding the North. We got up to Belfast in good time, and then proceeded to drive at random (I had unwisely proclaimed I knew the way to Queen’s) until we found our location. Convenient parking and a short walk brought us to the fantastic Student Union building, and we were ready to go!