As an absolutely notorious faction/caster/list hopper there’s one thing i suck at - sticking to the same casters and lists!
As a challenge, i’ve decided to lock in 2 interesting lists and practice with them. Would anyone be interested in battle reports for each of these games posted here or elsewhere? Would you be interested in locking in for the 30 game challenge yourself?
Rules:
I can only play a single caster twice in a row before having to play the other caster
I can only change the lists every 5 games with that caster.
a. When changing the lists, I can do approx. 25pts of changes
b. 25pts isn’t a hard cap, if there’s a really good change for 26 or 27 I’ll do it. It’s a guideline
c. It has to be 5 games with that specific caster. I can’t play 5 games with Caster 1 and get to change Caster 2’s list.
I have one emergency veto change that lets me change up a list at any time just to make sure I don’t have a potato list I have to lose with for a while.
My Initial Impressions
Aiakos is such a cool caster and list, but wow, 13/17 on so many jacks is spooky. I’m also concerned at how well it can face infantry.
Rahera seems like she can face just about anything, but requires some big brain thinking to properly maximise her feat. Looking forwards to getting some games in there too.
This is a neat idea and reminds me of how I approached learning Trollbloods casters in mk3. Once I get my Orgoth expansion box, putting each caster through their paces will be on the agenda!
I’m liking the idea, I’ve been playing a single list and only making one change each time i want to mix things up.
I’m keen to see your thoughts on dirge seers, I haven’t found a good use for them so I’m happy to steal ideas from others.
Dirge seers? I could sing their praises for hours. They are probably the best 3-model empower unit in the game. Their one drawback is their arm 11 which can get the whole unit killed to a blast fairly easily.
Empower is already fantastic - means Aiakos can function, Rahera can save her stack so she can get in, get bloodboons off and get out with camp, Skarre3 can have fully loaded leviathans and only care about herself etc.
What sets them apart from other empower units is:
MAT 7 with a weapon that auto wounds living models. There’s a lot of living single wound infantry they can kill and then battle wizard their above average Hex Bolt (AAT 6 POW 13!) to kill more. Late game surviving dirge seers often clean up a whole units worth of models for me.
Guidance. Most factions get guidance as a 1-of on a character solo, maybe 2 on FA:2 solos, or not at all. But having up to 6 models that can grant eyeless sight and magic weapons is fantastic. Completely takes away Cryx’s fear of stealth, clouds or incorp. Very key for models like Rahera who want to use Hunters Mark potentially on a stealth model.
Practical example of 2 - if your enemy has any access to clouds you can guidance the front model in a unit who will do the charging, and that has the same effect as the entire unit ignoring the cloud since the model will charge and bring the others with it.
Last, but not least, at the end of the day they are also 3 bodies at the back of the army who will be Sucker! targets to dissuade your opponent from shooting your caster. They often won’t bother because of the existence of 6+ sucker targets, so the dirge seers never have to die for this job.
(Beware Skarre3 though. At DEF 12 sometimes people deliberately shoot her to make her sucker onto targets with higher def than herself - such as dirge seers. Sucker is non-optional.)
Empower makes a big difference, I’ve only used them in MKIII and was trying to use the cloud effects to shield advancing trolls.
sacking off that plan makes things a touch easier
Little update on how this is going - although i haven’t updated the game record just yet i’ve been playing the pairing in the June wartable league organised on discord.
So far Aiakos has been solid, but Rahera has felt like the star of the show.
I had another game vs Wolfe in my last round and it just really exemplified everything great about her. She killed nearly 2 units of infantry across the game by charging in, making kills and sprinting out. She spends an average of 8-10 focus a turn if you include her blood boon benefits.
I had one particularly big turn where i activated, pulled 1 from a misery cage, played power swell, and got both bloons off. I ended up camping 0 behind clouds, so that was a ‘14’ focus turn!
That game went the distance, full 7 rounds of warmachine, and it ended up with 94 army pts destroyed. Wolfe had 1 mechanik and 1 solo left.
I still need to dial in the best infantry choices for her after blood witches and the smog belchers. I think i want to find space for a unit of gunslingers. They are glass cannons, but they take the feat really well.
