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| Weeblokes |
In Warmahordes you have a lot to consider when you're writing your list. Amusingly, it's 2 Warmachine factions that factor more into list consideration than anything else when I build an army. I just kind of take Hordes as it comes. In this article I'll be going through (in my opinion) the "Big Five" things you should be worried about when constructing an army list, and how this should affect other lists you bring.
So, lets get the ball rolling. The first one, and this is fairly notorious to be honest, is high defense. Not Def14 or 15, Def 17 or 19. Yes, I'm looking at you, Khador. This is a problem for a LOT of factions. Most notably, in my (un)biased opinion, the Skorne Empire. Until recently Skorne had no real feasible way to deal with Def 19 Kayazy. Now they have eHexxy who has Ashes to Ashes, which is... better? I guess. Still not great, but it's better than slamming your own models through the little buggers. High defense is hard to deal with because, obviously, you can't hit it without some (or a lot of) luck, under normal circumstances. So these high defense models can get in amongst your lines, Jamming you the hell up and forcing you onto the back foot before ripping the throat out of your army, or your warcaster. How do we deal with it? Well, a last resort I guess is slamming your own stuff through it. But most factions have a more conventional means of dealing with it. There are some exceptional casters (pKrueger for example) or models (Thunderhead and Bile Thralls), but generally anything that hits automatically is a good shout, as well as boostable sprays (Legion). MAT/RAT buffs are good, as are DEF debuffs that don't have to hit (Incite and the Megalith's Animus for example). You want DEF debuffs that don't have to hit because well, the whole problem in the first place is the stupid DEF of the models. Also something of note is electro leap. This is a fantastic rule for clearing out these irritating models, as well as sniping (eEiryss) annoying solos.
Next up, and fairly obviously after the last consideration, is high ARM. No not, you Ol' Rowdy. I mean stuff like The Avatar or Tiberion with Defender's Ward. Terminus on his feat turn. Karchev, Venethrax, hell, all the campers. Xerxis' entire army list (or my Rasheth army, but sh, that's sleeper powerful). That kind of thing. Factions that struggle with this would be something like say, most Cygnar lists, and some Circle lists too (bring a Gorax!). Factions that find this outright impossible would be non-Gorten mercs, and Minions. High ARM is a fair bit simpler to deal with though. If you can't take it out of the game (high ARM stuff tends to be low Def, but not always) through means like Domination/Rampager or Force Hammer or Telekinesis or whatever, then you need to have a high enough P+S to deal with it. For most factions (notably not Cryx), this means a heavy warjack/beast of some description. With at least (in my humble opinion) P+S20 being possible through some means or another. Or a bunch of Weapon Master infantry. If you don't have this and somebody throws a Defender's Warded Tiberion at you, then you're in trouble. Whilst P+S20 isn't always possible (poor Mercs), it's definitely something I like to have in at least one of my lists. That said, this isn't even a worry when I'm playing Skorne, but as Circle? Definitely a consideration.
Incorporeal. Even the word brings terror to the minds of certain factions. Winter Guard quiver in fear at the thought of Blackbane's pirates checking them for the whole game, making it so they can't move. Trolls toss and turn in their Kriels, having feverish nightmares of eDenny blatantly overextending, but them not being able to punish her for it. Yeah, Cryx is definitely the biggest offender here, but it's not like other factions don't have at least access to the rule. It's annoying. Very annoying, if you don't have a way to circumvent it. A few important things to remember about Incorporeal. It goes away if the incorporeal model makes an attack. It does not give you immunity to feat damage. While Incorporeal models can indeed charge through other models, they still need line of sight. This is why Marked for Death on eDenny is scary as hell if she runs the Incorporeal crew. Skorne, Khador and Trolls can all struggle with this. This can be just as crippling as not having anything above MAT6 against an army with Kayazy. Basically there's only one way to deal with Incorporeal models. Make sure you have the magical attacks to deal with them. There's really nothing else you can do. Bring something magical. Or do the Xerxis. Be so bricky that you don't care about no stupid pirates, and keep on a' walkin.
Next one is magic Denial. From Choirs to Kromac, this is annoying as hell if you play (eKrueger) an army that even partially relies on magic. Rahn, Bethayne, eKrueger, you're benched for this round buddy. Ok, it's usually not that severe, but it's definitely irritating. Solution? I find this is one that can be dealt with partially by list selection to be honest. But short of that it really is just "don't make your list so that it cannot function if it cannot target enemy models with magic." DMYLSTICFIICTEMWM for short.
And infantry spam. Blah. This is one that gets on my nerves as both Skorne and Circle. Basically, this can be hard to deal with in list construction, because there's no guarantee they'll bring their infantry heavy list (unless all their lists are infantry heavy). How do you deal with lots of infantry? Simple, be pKrueger. That man has a problem with infantry. Alternatively, models with Thresher help, as well as Berserk, sprays, electro leap and quick work. Also, high RAT/Magic Ability pow 10s and 12s tend to help. I personally don't rate aoes. The only time I find aoes useful are after a bunch of infantry have just murdered a heavy. That's the only time they tend to be bunched up, at least in my experience. Finally, if you're infantry heavy yourself, you're unlikely to have much issue with lots of infantry.
So, that's the 5 things I personally consider when building a list. A few people shouted stealth at me, but I find that it's dealt with by melee usually. I dunno, bring the Black 13th and don't play Retribution. Next article, I'll consider how to practically factor this into lists you'll be bringing to events and why bringing "An anti heavy list and an anti infantry list" isn't a good thing.
Hope you got something from reading this.
