Hordes MKII

Well, I had the opportunity to join a Grow League for Warmachine/Hordes MKII here in Fort Collins, and I decided to jump on it. I haven't painted too much of my Circle of Orboros army yet, and you get (a lot) of points for painting, with battle points being less than half of the total amount earned.


My first (and only so far) game was against Jason's Everblight. I had just recently read through the new rules, and the new rules for the different units, and decided to take the following list for my first 'round' of the league at 25 points:

Primal Kaya (gives you an extra 6 points)
Pureblood Warpwolf
Feral Warpwolf
Gorax
10 Tharn Bloodtrackers
Swampgobber Bellows Crew
(total of 31 points)

I'll give a (short) battle report first, then outline what I thought of each unit. As a sidenote, regardless of what I think of various units, I'm still 'forced' to play this list for the next 4 or 5 weeks, until we 'grow' to 40 points.

The Report:

Jason's list was a really shooty Legion of Everblight Hordes list. He had two units of 6 shooter infantry (not sure what they were called), a warlock (duh), 4 Shredders, and a Carnivean. After deployment, I declared one of his infantry units as my Bloodtrackers' 'Prey'.

The first few turns we simply advanced, and I got lucky and was able to advance close enough to my 'prey' with the bloodtrackers, that even though the shooty infantry squad had DEF 15 AND stealth (holy shite!), I was on a hill (which helps shooting now) and was able to snipe 5/6 of his shooters. +2 for Prey and +2 for being on a hill helps a TON with shooting, lol. In fact, after they killed that unit, a few still hadn't thrown their spears and decided to throw them at a Shredder, killing it as well.

In the same round, I was able to give all of his beasts an extra Fury via my Feral Warpwolf, ensuring that at least a few of his Shredders would have to take threshhold checks.

It worked like a charm, and 2 of his Shredders failed their 5+ threshold check. He kept taking potshots at me with his warcaster and remaining infantry, and the carnivean flamered ALL of my bloodtrackers, eventually. But, the bulk of his line failed to do much, really.

He then moved his Warlock backwards, out of control range of ANY of his beasts. It was then that I decided to be a coward and pull back, making his creatures attack eachother for a turn. My warpwolves were able to concentrate on some of his remaining squad, and killed 4. The other two ran away.

After his beasts attacked eachother, he moved his Warlock in closer, and I decided to go for a caster kill with Kaya. I moved the Gorax close to the Warlock, and Spirit Doored Kaya, but only after killing a Shredder (or maybe two). Big mistake, since even though Kaya got lucky and knocked the warlock down, he reaved all the extra fury and had 4 fury to allocate to the nearly undamaged Carnivean.

After killing all but 1 life off of her Caster, popping Kaya's feat, and such, the carnivean was still also barely alive. He did a lot of damage to Kaya, and I was forced to allocate damage to the Gorax, who died horribly to the Carnivean's hitting.

In my turn, a warpwolf frenzied and nearly killed his friend, but I was able to kill the carnivean. At this point, I had two warpwolves with 3 life each, Kaya had 2 life left, and my gobbers were still around. He had his caster and 3 infantry total.

In his turn, he killed both wolves of mine, and ran away with his caster, leaving me with a caster and the gobbers. I shot a desperate spell at his warlock from the hill, barely hit, and ended the game. A VERY close game, and one of my favorites I've played of ANY wargame so far in Fort Collins. The ending was totally epic, and I'd gladly play Jason again.

Here's the analysis of the units thus far:

Primal Kaya

I thought she was cool. Last edition I didn't like her very much, since the bigger the games got, the less the 'yo-yo' trick worked with all the different beasts. (The Yo-yo trick being charging something with a beast, then casting Spirit Door on them to make them come back to your area) This edition she gives all the warbeasts in her group +2 to their MAT, which makes the Warp Wolves 8 MAT. Awesome.

Kaya this game was fun, helping me kill Jason's Warlock at the end, when we each only had a few models left on the board.

Feral Warp Wolf

This guy rocks more than he did last edition for sure. With 8 MAT and the ability to give EVERY enemy beast an extra Fury (or take one away), he can overload the enemy, making them frenzy. In Combat he pretty much rocks as well.

Pureblood Warp Wolf

He's also pretty good. The ability to ignore LOS to charge, and be able to go THROUGH models makes him quite the valuable asset. Also rocks in combat.

Gorax

I don't really see that they changed anything this edition about him. His animus seems pretty handy sometimes, though I was somewhat underwhelmed by how he did overall. I think next game I play with him, I'll just use him as a beacon for Spirit Door-ing things around, or use him for his +2 STR +2 MAT animus.

Tharn Bloodtrackers

Last edition they rocked. This edition, they seem to rock as well, though I'm wondering how well they'd be able to bring down a big Warjack/Warbeast, even with prey. I'll have to play more games with them to see exactly what I think of them. So far I'm happy enough with them, though.

Swampgobber Bellows Crew

Well, they didn't really do much this game, since Jason's guys were so good at shooting. I sort of feel like thats how it's gonna be for most of my games- if it's a pure melee army I'm facing, they won't get ANY use, but if it's a pure shooty army, they'll be good enough at shooting that adding +2 DEF to all my guys won't really do much. Still, at 1 point, I can't really complain. They'll likely stay in all my lists, unless I really really WANT something else.

And thats it. Any thoughts? By now, I've likely bored everyone away from reading to the end. Ah well.