Preamble: Still figuring out the whole blogging thing. At the moment, I am blogging on a mobile device on the bus. It makes formatting a bit tricky. I might just type out the ideas; email them to my work address and then do the formatting quickly there (should only take 5 minutes). The plan is to add pictures and other stuff in the future but that will probably wait a week or so while I figure everything out.
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Even though Wintercon is a good 4-5 months away, I've been thinking of what lists to take. The reason for this is that I want to play painted and, given how slow I paint, I need to ensure that the stuff I paint is stuff I'll use. Of croutes, it hasn't even been announced the format but I am assuming a 50 point event probably with two lists. It might be 35 and, if it is, that should be no issue either.
The list I am happy with is pSorscha. I don't play her very much but every time I do I spend a third of my turn thinking "this is so cool". I guess I just like Wind Rush since it opens up so many options. pSorscha has a couple of pretty decent assassination runs by herself but she can't do much for her army. All of which leads me to design a list for attrition, play for scenario and look for assassination. This list has a good vibe (I seriously have trouble playing a list if I don’t like the vibe) but I am sure there are lots of changes to be made that could augment it.
The List
pSorscha
- Beast 09
- Sylys
Winter Guard (Leader and 9 Grunts)
- Officer and Standard
- 3 Rocketeers
Kovnik Joe
Widowmakers
Doom Reavers
- Greylord Escort
Rorsh
- Brine
Madelyn Corbeau
Saxon Orrick
pEiryss
Reinholdt
The Cog
- Sorscha is obviously the start and I think she has a much underrated spell list. A lot of people summarise her as Feat + Wind Rush. This is pretty unfair. She can do a lot of things but probably only one of them per turn.
- Part of the reason I want to play her is the joy of Wind Rushing around in BattleBox games. I also really like the idea of utilising Fog of War. The feat can be used to assassinate but I think attrition with it will be better. Stationary is such a powerful rule. There are also a couple of sucker punches that use it (Turn 1 Feat + Disruptor Bolt being the obvious one).
- The Skornergy of Fog of War does play a bit in list creation. While getting defensive buffs onto all the infantry is nice, it does make ranged units less powerful since Fog affects friendly and enemy alike. I don’t want to overplay this because you can always just drop the spell if you need but I do feel you need to be careful putting certain types of models in. Widowmakers will often be shooting out of the bubble since they have the 14” range. The winter guard are accurate anyway (Joe) but also can spray.
- Part of the reason I want to play her is the joy of Wind Rushing around in BattleBox games. I also really like the idea of utilising Fog of War. The feat can be used to assassinate but I think attrition with it will be better. Stationary is such a powerful rule. There are also a couple of sucker punches that use it (Turn 1 Feat + Disruptor Bolt being the obvious one).
The Core
- Beast 09 and R&B. These are the heavy hitters. Brine is a bit pillow fisted but there is some nice stuff you can do to use him as the assassination piece and 10" move followed by double handed throw wins games. R&B also offer a second heavy without taxing Sorscha’s focus. Beast is good with Sorscha because he can do stuff with or without focus.
- WGIDS, Doom Reavers, Widowmakers. These are the meat of the list. All have scary offensive output, all have some nice surviability (tough, camouflage etc). Doom Reavers in particular are brutal with pSorscha. You can feat to ensure they get there, you can Fog of War to keep them alive, you can let them engage, feat, snipe the dudes locking down the lanes then charge deep, deep, deep into enemy lines. Also, they are a nice tar pit and having them screen the WGI vastly improves the Deathstar's output.
- pEiryss. Most Khador players reckon eEiryss is better. First, you can only run eEiryss in one list. Secondly, I disagree anyway. The argument tends to be that eEiryss is better against Hordes. Well, there aren’t that many animi that you need shot off in your turn (though Spiny Growth is a pain). When Disruptor Bolt hits it is ball busting and the threat alone plays havoc on any Warmachine players mind. She also offers a nice answer to the book (which is handy for Sorscha).
The Support
- Saxon, Madelyn – Enabling the Army. Both ensure mobility and mobility is pretty prevalent with this list. Madelyn is as good as your imagination permits her to be. I am looking forward to the day my opponent thinks that Doom Reaver is out of charge range of Tartarus or something.
- Joe is Joe. Best two points in Khador.
- Reinholdt and Sylys – Enabling Sorscha. To me these are essential to running a more flexible, dynamic pSorscha. Without Sylys you can literally cross Freezing Grip and Tempest off her card. Reinholdt (for a measly point) opens up a much more reliable ranged assassination. Reload, Walk 6 (wind rush if applicable), feat, shoot, shoot, razor wind, razor wind, razor wind (if no wind rush required). Having Sylys makes the razor winds range 12 which is coincidentally her control and hand cannons range.
The Stuff that Didn’t Make the Cut
- Behemoth. Behemoth is awesome on pSorscha and by himself enables the pop-n-drop. Give 2 to his subcortex, 1 to his main, fake charge, wind rush, feat (27” Feat TR). Then Behemoth tramples and puts two boosted POW 14s straight onto the enemy casters head (21” TR). There are four reasons I didn’t take him.
- Two points is a lot.
- The Pop-n-Drop is well known and one dimensional (I dislike 1D – the band as well)
- Behemoth always wants at least 1 focus. There will be turns I want to Tempest/Freezing Grip and Wind Rush out. With Big B, I just cannot unless I also include the Koldun Lord. I don’t think it is worth it.
- I would prefer him with eVlad, pIrusk, pButcher, eIrusk, Old Witch, pVlad, Harkevich or Strakhov (i.e. all the casters I am actively considering for my second list).
- Two points is a lot.
- Aiyana and Holt. I like A+H but I have not included them (yet). Finding 4 points is a bit of an ask and; with 9 points of dedicated support in the list, I am not sure bumping this to 13 would be beneficial. A+H are badly affected by the Fog of War Skornergy. Since they sit backfield they become effective RAT 6 and Magic Ability 6 (this is the kicker). At Magic Ability 6 I am no longer confident of hitting DEF 12-14 (I can drop Fog if needed though). Since I have Doom Reavers, I do not feel I need the Magic Weapons spell.
- Nyss Hunters. The main reason I haven’t picked Nyss is that I don’t own them. Nyss are actually awesome with Sorscha because they have Hunter, pathfinder, decent ranged weapons and weapon master. I wanted Saxon anyway for the Doom Reavers so the pathfinder is less a deal. The offensive output of Nyss in combat is a big deal though. However, the reason I picked Winter Guard over them (at this stage) is that; while the difference between DEF 15/17 and 14/16 is significant, the difference between ARM 11 (no tough) and ARM 13 (tough) is quite significant. I am running a high DEF against shooting (though ironically not against Gun Mages or Nyss) list. One obvious answer to this is AOEs. POW 5 blasts shred Nyss.
- I could see a variant of my list with Nyss instead of WGI. That would save 3 points, then cut Saxon (2 more points), then cut Widowmakers (4 points). Put in Gorman, A+H, Dougal and find a few points somewhere for Herne and Jonne (Doom Reavers for Bears or something). Sorscha doesn’t actually do anything specific for faction models.
- I could see a variant of my list with Nyss instead of WGI. That would save 3 points, then cut Saxon (2 more points), then cut Widowmakers (4 points). Put in Gorman, A+H, Dougal and find a few points somewhere for Herne and Jonne (Doom Reavers for Bears or something). Sorscha doesn’t actually do anything specific for faction models.
The next post I will detail
