Saint Vierzehn

Plastic orc spearmen. No painting required, and they're a good addition to just about any army list. -StV.

My Crusader force was as follows: Troop 1: Sir Brannor Sir Damon Templar Knight x 3 Templar Ironspine x3 (w/ unit standard) War dog x 3 Troop 2: Sir Brannor Templar Knight x 3 Templar Ironspine x 3 Troop 3: Sir Conlan Templar Ironspine x 3 Troop 4: Sir Conlan Templar Knight x 2 Templar Ironspine Troop 5: Sir Conlan Templar Ironspine x 3 Troop 6: Sir Conlan Hospitalers x 4 Troop 7: (merc contingent) Calindra Silverspell Merc crossbow x 2 Merc warrior Luckstone Round 1: Spies among us. My opponent, Wowahboy, played a Crusader list sporting 30 ivy crown archers, Valandil, and Kristianna dressed in bondo gear. Fear the nuns of the heinous djabouti! Trying to protect your spies from a pair of spellcasters and a swarm of marksman 2 archers is a nightmare. I managed to do it by pulling them back behind my lines and marching them the long way around the board, with knights and a conveniently placed hill covering them. The hill and the woods across the middle of the map definitely played in my favor. I sent my mercs and Sir Damon to pick at his spies, but didn't manage to bag any. End result: we both got all of our spies off, and didn't kill too much of eachother's stuff, and neither of us scored very high in the first round. But in the end, we both managed to place in the tourney. Round 2: The swamp. My opponent played Nefsokar. He had a big unit of Ammat devourers, a big unit of mummies, a couple of big melee characters leading them, a wizard, a cleric, a scorpion, and a dust devil. We both had hills in our back fields, but I had shooters and he didn't, which proved to be a significant factor. His wizard and cleric died early, since I was able to shoot over the heads of the troops that would otherwise be screening them. Sir Damon's unit got stuck in the mud 3 out of the 5 turns, and my other unit led by Sir Brannor got stuck for 2 turns. The Nefsokar didn't fare much better - the devourer unit got stuck at least twice, both at critical points in the game. The mud definitely dominated this game. I slowly picked at his units, using my healers to keep my guys on their feet as best I could. His low number of initiative cards hurt him - he ended up splitting the devourer unit to contest to control points. When all was said and done, I controlled four of the five control points, but three of those were hotly contested and it was a very near thing. The fact that I got the last move on the last turn was significant... but that's one of the advantages of swinging 7 initiative cards to 4. Round 3: Ravilax. My opponent played an elf list sporting Argyrian, about a dozen centaur warriors (ouch!), a handful of archers, and a small unit of swordsmen. I've faced that list before, and don't recall ever having beaten it. Turn 1, I spread my troops out to minimize the effects of Argyrian's lightning blast. Due to terrain, my shooters didn't have a target other than Argyrian on turn 1, so I took those 3 crit shots and scored a 10 with one of them. On turn 2, Argyrian and his centaurs went berserk. Argyrian attacked a unit of my auxillairies and knocked most of them down, but my healers mitigated a lot of that. The berserk centaurs crashed my right flank, and that side of the map got progressively more bloody for the rest of the game. The elves targeted my hospitalers whenever they were able, and I don't think I had any of them left by the end of the game. My last hospitaler went berserk at one point and died swiftly to a convenient centaur. I swarmed Argyrian and put him down. Both I and my opponent were in our third day of intense gaming, and by the end of round 3 on day 3 we were both exausted and making mistakes. At the end of the game, I had racked up a higher body count than he did - barely. I really wasn't expecting to win that round. Anyway, ReaperCon was awesome, and I'm already looking forward to next year. -StV.

When I first picked up this game, I had someone walk me through a tutorial using a list very different than one I've ever played since. After that, I sat down with the rulebook and chose the troops that I wanted. Then I walked into my first real game - and my first tournament - and went 3 - 0, and took first place. I was able to do that because I am able to judge lists before I play them. I've very nearly done that with Crusaders, of all things. Crusaders do reward good play. But I loaned my Crusaders to someone once, and they lost horribly. Have you seen the conversations about "that Rach list" on the CAV forum? That list was mine. I brought that list to the tourney for two reasons. One, because I was convinced that I could have fun playing it and win with it (and I was right), and two, because I thought there were some significant issues in CAV that I would like to see addressed. It looks like that's going to happen, too, and I'm glad of it. You might want to be careful about throwing those sorts of requests my direction. I do take them up every once in a while. That said, I don't owe this community, or Reaper, or the general well-being of the game, or you, any community service. This game is my hobby, not my job, and when I play a list, it is because it is the list that I want to play. A friend of mine played an Overlords list at the tournament that I helped him construct. It's an awesome list, more than equal to the one I played myself. But he didn't execute well, and so didn't score well. He's new to Warlord, though, and used to a different game system. Anyway, here's the mountain sublist force that I've been considering. It's rather simple, straightforward, and effective. Folks who are familiar with how I play know that I generally favor combined arms. That this list has no need of combined arms is really all that needs to be said of its playbalance. Troop 1: Skadi Valkyrie x 10 Margara, counterspell x 2 Troop 2: Valana Valkyrie x 8 Troop 3: (Merc contingent) Calindra Silverspell Bowsister x 3 1500 points even. -StV.

Stubbdog took first in Warlord. -StV.

All that will put a few valkyries down tough, sure enough. Assuming, of course, that I don't bother taking one of those non-unique, tough mages with counterspells that the mountain list sports. I've been debating whether a pair of dwarf mages are a better buy for the list than a merc contingent of tough bowsisters. Hard call, that one. But after you've charged and knocked a couple of models down tough, I"ll get to respond with 15 other warmaster healers and Skadi. That's more than enough to pull the stunned ones out of combat, spank your heinous djabouti, and hand out enough patch-up healing to put the few stunned models I've got back on their feet. I've been through that routine many, many times with my Crusaders, who aren't nearly as efficient about it as the mountain valkyries. Objectively speaking, there's just not any way to consider the mountain sublist properly playbalanced. -StV.

Nope. I'd much rather have them occupy table space and staying alive. That's what wins most scenarios. Those were the key factors in all 3 Reapercon rounds this year. Killing stuff is a secondary concern. Besides, I don't have to use my valkyries in melee. With 3 MAV 5 attacks plus warmaster, my opponent will be using them in melee for me. Offense is something valkyries do in their spare time. And that's part of what makes a combination of warmaster + DV + healer on non-unique models a very bad idea in this game. Once I've chosen and occupied the ground I want with the valkyries, my opponent must either concede that ground to me (in which case I win), or try to engage me on it, in which case I beat him up with warmaster and heal up on my activation (and I win). There's no significant skill involved in building the list, and no significant skill involved in playing it sucessfully. -StV.

I guess there are a lot of dwarf playing half-wits . Oh, I don't think I would say that everyone who plays the Mountain sublist is a half-wit, as you've implied. But I'm quite certain I could find at least one person who is. One of the flaws in Reaper's point costing model is that it does not take into account synergistic effects of SA's. Healer SA is especially susceptible to that, since its usefulness is largely dependent on the other models standing next to the healer. A healer in a goblin list (where all the models have one damage track and no toughness) would be pretty useless. But a healer on a list where everything has 4 damage tracks, good DV, toughness, good melee attacks, warmaster, and healer... well, that's another story. In the current game economy, valkyries are priced about right when they're not carrying healer SA. Add healer SA, and they're undercosted about 25 points each. Put 18 of them on a list, and you've effectively boosted the point value of your list by about 450. That's disproportionate, and the result of bad design of the sublist. -StV.

The Mountain God sublist requires little skill to build an effective force or to play it successfully. Any half-wit who can figure out that 53 points for a 4DT model with DV 12, 3 MAV 5 attacks, warmaster, toughness, and healer is a good deal can be successful with the list. I really wish I had not been so distracted by hammering the BSG's back from the abominations that they were during playtesting to pay a little more attention to other lists. One unit of a dozen valkyries on a list might actually require a little thinking in execution to win with. But two? You would have to be a total idiot not to give at least an adequate performance with 20 tough, high-DV, good-at-melee healers. It's the sort of thing that many good players would shun simply because it doesn't give a good opportunity to differentiate a really good player from an average one. -StV.

The point costing model tends to produce aberrant results when dealing with low damage track models (especially if they have lots of special abilities) or with really powerful models. I hope, going forward, that the designers will make models with 3-5 damage tracks and only a few special abilities the required backbone build of all armies. Either that, or the entire point costing model will need to be reconstructed. -StV.

Interesting. Logically, that would follow... not that my say-so carries any official weight. I don't see why Mercs shouldn't be able to use the +mercs rule the same as anybody else. It is equitable, if a bit obtuse. -StV.

Since the chian of command rules apply separately, would it be legal to field a faction captain and two merc captains, with no warlord? -StV.

I wish my Mercs had gotten to bump heads with you, Merlon. I would have liked to see your army in action. Maybe we'll see eachother at ReaperCon. -StV.

How do mercenary warlords/captains/sergeants count towards command structure requrements? Since the rules don't specify any exceptions, I assume they count towards command structure restrictions without differentiation between faction commanders and non-faction commanders. For instance, it would not be legal to field 3 captains unless you also fielded a warlord, even if one of the captains was a mercenary and the other two were factioned. Likewise, it would be legal to field a mercenary captain and up to four faction sergeants. Is there any other official word on this? -StV.

Wrongo. The good ones are usually the first ones in. -StV.

In other words, it's no longer a sanctioned option. Which suits me fine, since they've added a bunch of faction data cards and +mercs, so now you can field faction armies that aren't handicapped due to lack of troop options. -StV.

Get some of the Nefsokar cav models, putty on some pointy ears, and proxy them for centaurs. -StV.

Is freelance still a sanctioned option? Last I checked, freelance was leaving the game. -StV.

You need to be careful about bonusses/penalties that carry over between fights. If someone wins big in their first two fights, they might turn into an unstoppable juggernaut for the rest of the campaign. It can also lead to situations where one player will be at a disadvantage because his opponent fought a softie in the last round. It's ususally best to keep those sorts of bonusses/penalties small, and not have them carry over for more than one round. -StV.

I like it. I'd love to see a proper campaign kick off. -StV.

That conversation resulted in dialing back the very worst of the abuses on the BSG list, but didn't go far enough. 33 points for a MAV 5 model with 3 attacks and warmaster and good DV is insane. And the charnel grub is still just plain whacky. Reaper did a rush-to-production on the BSG's. and that shows in the quality of the end product. -StV.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hope one day you'll show up on the other side of my game table, and we'll get to test your strategic planning and tactical play against mine. I don't build lists to take on a specific army build. So far, every list I've ever put together for this game is intended to be a general purpose tournament list. If you think you need a few extra tricks up your sleeve just to deal with a specific faction, then it's time we start talking about playbalance. -StV.

You'll have plenty of points to add in Kurand, as the Grub won't lose Unique, (as of the final Rage Chronicles, which will release within the next 24 hours) so you can only take one of it. Then I'll probably end up with a "both... and". Dropping two grubs, I'll pick up Kurand, another matron, a handful of scrubs, and keep the captain's troop. Or some close variant thereof. I'd lose one activation but pick up another spellcaster. I think I could live with that. It's always good to be able to pack an extra counterspell in an army of 2 damage track models. I'm not sure I'm going to actually field a BSG army soon (I've got my fingers in too many pies already), but I am going to look at putting some tunnel knights in my Merc army with change of heart. New rules, I gotta retune everything. -StV.

And give up both hospitalers and mercy? No thanks. I'll stick with the basic list. Templars only get 1 defensive strike, and it's reasonable to assume that the BSG's would get the charge on the heavy melee engagement. And we haven't even begun to talk about what the Tunnel Knights will be doing... *shudder*. The only edge that I think the Crusaders would have is that they could take & hold tabletop area more effectively. The BSG's would tend to be less mobile than Crusaders. Other than that, I wouldn't want to play range games or go toe-to-toe against the BSG's with any army. -StV.

Hard to say. My Crusaders have more healers, but the BSG's hit a LOT harder and should get the first charge and are pretty much invulnerable until they commit. I've also considered swapping out the captain and the priest for Kurand, which would allow me to throw ice blasts at those juicy Crusader hospitalers standing behind the templars. If I were going to tweak the BSG's specifically to mess up the Crusaders, I would definitely make that change. -StV.

Whoopsie. I misread that bit of fine print. What do you think of this revised list? The same tactics apply - advance pinners and priest underground, pop up the shooters and the wiz, leave everything else buried until I draw my opponent into a favorable charge, and then sandwich his forces front & rear with knights and pulgers. Troop 1: Kordtok (captain) Pinner x 7 Priest: Counterspell, Ice Blast Luckstone Troop 2: Naklak (sergeant) Tunnel knight x 9 (mob) Pulger x 3 (mob) Matron Troop 3: Naklak (sergeant) Pulger x 5 Matron Troop 4: Naklak (sergeant) Pulger x 3 Matron Troop 5: Charnel Grub Troop 6: Charnel Grub Troop 7: Charnel Grub -StV.