Rustier Than I Thought

Another game of Warmachine Mk4. I decided Alexia1 wasn't working for me, so I swapped her for Alexia3 and a unit of Mechanics; this would give me repair, shield-guards, and a point left to upgrade my Marauder.
Khador Unlimited 50pts

Strakhov 1
-Juggernaut
-Marauder
-Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
Cutthroats
Battle Mechanics
Ol' Grim
Alexia 3

Blessing of the Gods
Grave Robbing
Hit & Run
Old Faithful
Power Swell

Karas had just aquired The General. He's always hated my snipers, so this game he tried to counter Ol' Grim with his own Sharpshooter.
Storm Legion 50pts

Athena (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-The General
-Stryker (Relentless Charge, Voltiac Javelin, Power First)
Stormblade Legionnnaires
Stormthrower Legionnaires
Arcane Mechanics
Sharpshooter

Careful Reconnaissance
True Inspiration
Hit & Run
Old Faithful
Power Swell

Pre-Game:
We glanced at the Steamroller 2024 document, but all the scenarios seemed quite complicated, and a had a lot of scoring elements for a 50 point game. However Karas had a version of the Mk4 rulebook from 10/01/2024 that included a scenario called "Split Decision", which we decided to use as it was simple and had a more reasonable number of scoring elements. Karas won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I decided Strakhov would live in the forest, giving him constant Stealth. The Kodiak would come out of the forest to threaten the zone, and the Juggernaut would be more central. Ol' Grim would take advantage of the forests on the right. I put Alexia in the center so she could move to get my infantry in her bubble as needed. Support went behind my battlegroup. Karas bricked up in the center of his table. I put the Cutthroats on my left and the Nyss on my right. I believe I declared the Cutthroat's Prey to be The General.

Round 1
The Nyss headed for the trench. Strakhov put Assail on the Kodiak, walked into the forest, and spent the rest of his focus putting Return Fire on himself and a bunch of Nyss Hunters. The Cutthroats stepped into the zone. The Kodiak ran through the forest, while the Juggernaut ran around it. Ol' Grim got a Soul from the Grave Robbing command card and headed to the right. Alexia killed a Mechanic and replaced him with a Thrall... which we later realised I couldn't do, so later on you'll see the Thrall disappear and a Mechanic reappear.

Karas put Hallowed Avenger on the General - which it turns out was redundant because The General already has Righteous Vengeance - and Electrify on the Stryker. Everything moved up in his big brick.

Round 2:
I popped Strakhov's Feat, then pushed him up a little to try to take advantage of the part of his feat that nerfs the enemy's gun's range. I did camp all his focus just to be on the safe side. The Cutthroats shot at the Stormblade Legionnaires, but couldn't do any damage. I spread them out with the Repo move to avoid AOEs and electroleaps. The Kodiak ran in the middle to bully the zone. The Nyss Hunters moved into the trench and rolled like fire, killing five Stormthrower Legionnaires with five shots. Which is kinda insane; these are the guys who almost always disappoint me, consistently missing and dying without actually achieving anything.

Reeling in shock, I left them in the trench to try to push the lines past my flag. The Juggernaut pushed up to stop anything from contesting my flag as well. Ol' Grim moved behind the forest, then spent a soul to shoot at a mechanic with his double-boosted Fantom Seeker shot. Even with a boosted POW 12 damage roll, he wasn't quite able to kill a single mechanic, leaving it on one box. Which is crazy to me. Alexia based the flag.

Thanks to the Nyss' amazing performance, The General was able to take his Righteous Vengeance move and get into charge range of Strakhov. Athena Feated and swapped Electrify to The General, the Stryker killed all my Nyss (and the Thrall that Alexia created from a Nyss corpse), and The General managed to take down Strakhov with his last bit of Focus. The Stormblades could have gotten three or four men into Strakhov too, so it wasn't exactly close.

Post-Mortem:
Funny how my Nyss actually doing a great job was what lost me the game... alright, seriously, my carelessness is what lost me the game. I just kinda eyeballed Strakhov's position and said to myself "That's probably fine". I didn't measure any ranges or anything. And I completely forgot about Righteous Vengeance. I feel like I'm very rusty. I need to start paying attention and trying to remember how to play.

Seriously though, The General is kinda silly; SPD 6 with a MAT 8 RNG 2" POW 19 weapon is already very strong, but then he has a built-in 3" threat extension? Why are Cygnar heavies SPD 6 anyway? And why are Mechanics ARM 17 with 5 boxes? Maybe I need to bring Destroyers or something.

So far I just feel like Mk4 is worse than Mk3. Unit movement is faster... as long as you're not doing anything interesting. The moment your movement interacts with anything on the table, it becomes unintuitive and you have to learn a whole new set of rules that you didn't need to know before. And units have to be so bunched up all the time; I've always liked spreading out my grunts a bit, but now you can't really do that. The legacy themes are boring and extremely restrictive: there's some essential options that are missing from some themes, we barely even get to use any warcaster attachments! Unlimited is better, but all my units are half the size and since I run a lot of character units I can't just double-up. Power attacks were a fun part of the game even if they were rarely worth actually doing, but they've been nerfed so badly that all the fun is just gone. And hell, I can't even attack my own models with basic attacks now! Nevermind that they took a lot of the fun out of my favourite warcasters (Strakhov, Karchev, Butcher2).

I'm not sold on the command cards either. I feel like they de-value a lot of rules: if you expect Stealth to do anything, you probably need to bring a lot of it because just one Stealth model is easy prey. Ditto for ARM or DEF buffs, what with the Blessed command card. And of course rules that counter Stealth or Blessed aren't as useful since you can just bring a card instead. Yeah, the card is single-use, but that could be all you need (if you need it at all). Tough, Repair, all can be covered with cards instead of models.

Also Focus management used to be a core part of the game, but there's so much easy access to Empower now that you don't really need to allocate focus anymore, so managing it as a resource isn't that important. Between Power Up, Accumulator, and mechanics having Empower, the Cygnar heavies technically didn't need any allocation to be at max focus.

I dunno. I'm trying here, but I'm starting to sour a bit on this new edition. Well, maybe dusting off my brain and figuring out how to play again will make me feel better about the game.

He's Not The 'Hoff Anymore

It's hard to believe it's been a whole year since I've played a game of Warmachine. PP has released Mk4 rules for old models since the last time, so list building is a lot more interesting and fun to me now.

For this game I just brought my standard Merc infantry with a couple of cheap jacks and some solos. I did try to prioritise playing models that are actually painted, like Alexia and Sylyss. Also I figured I should really play Old Grim; he's the last WMH model I painted but I never got a chance to use him.
Khador Unlimited 50pts
Strakhov 1
-Juggernaut
-Marauder
-Sylyss
Alexia & the Risen
Cylena & the Nyss
Croe & the Cutthroats
Jolly Ol' Saint Grim
*Blessing of the Gods
*Grave Robbing
*Hit & Run
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell

Karas had picked up the Mk4 Cygnar Storm Legion starter.
Storm Legion 50pts
Athena 1 (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-Stryker (Plasma Nimbus, Voltaic Javelin, Space Marine Power Fist)
-Courser (Shield Guard, Mag-Bolter, Electrified Shield)
Stormguard Legionnaires
-Standard Bearer
Tempest Thunderers
Arcane Mechaniks
Legionnaire Officer
*Hit & Run
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell
*True Inspiration


Pre-Game:
We wanted to get straight into it so we tossed some mousemat terrain on the table, put down a couple of buildings, and settled for a basic caster-kill game. I won the roll and chose to go first.


Deployment:
The buildings essentially split the table into three lanes. I wanted Strakhov to be somewhat central, but positioned Ol' Grim to apply pressure from a flank. I chose to not to ambush my units, relying on advanced deployment instead. After Karas bricked up in the center I kept my infantry relatively central as well. Cutthroats declared Prey on the Thunderers.

Round 1:
Strakhov cast Assail on the Marauder, and Return Fire on himself. I played Grave Robbing on Alexia, who advanced and crafted a Thrall. Everything else just ran.

Karas moved his entire army laterally, hiding behind a forest. Athena put Hallowed Avenger on the Courser, and Electrify on the Striker.

Round 2:
Strakhov Feated and ran. Alexia crafted another Thrall. Everything ran forwards while staying in Feat range.

In true Cygnar fashion, Karas moved all his models backwards.

Round 3:
I pushed further up. Cast Return Fire on Strakhov again. Ol' Grim killed a couple of Legionnaires and claimed their souls. The Nyss killed two more. Alexia crafted a Thrall.

Athena popped her Feat. The Legionnaire Officer killed Old Grim. The remaining Legionnaires put some damage on the Juggernaut, wiping out the Nyss with the AOEs. Something else shot the Juggernaut but finished off the Legionnaires with AOEs or Electroleaps or something. The Courser did some more damage, then the Striker finished off the Juggernaut, and also shot down Alexia. Which was annoying; she had like 6 or 7 corpse tokens on her at this point.

Round 4:
This was the second turn I had failed to keep Sylyss in range to give Strakhov a free upkeep. Oh well. Strakhov loaded up the Marauder, then cast Hand Of Destruction on the Striker with a boosted attack roll and Arcane Secrets. Being under Athena's feat meant I rolled 5 dice and dropped the lowest AND the highest. The spell hit. I then rolled two shots on Strakhov's Riot Gun; with no focus left to boost, the attack and damage rolls were four dice each, dropping lowest and highest. This did some damage, then Strakhov repo'd backwards. After this the Marauder charged in. Because of Electrify's Repulsor Field, I decided to go for the combo-smite. Sadly the Marauder lost the +4 damage on the Combo Smite in Mk4, which... actually kind a makes him a MUCH less attractive choice now than he was before. I boosted the attack and damage rolls, so again I was rolling 5 dice and dropping two. The Striker's left arm was crippled, but that was about it. The Cutthroats charged in, but were only able to kill one Mechanik. This triggered Hallowed Avenger on the Courser, so I ran a Thrall to box him in. The other two thralls moved up to be in charge range next turn, and the Risen put themselves in front of Strakhov.

Everyting piled into the Marauder. Somehow the Courser actually managed to miss an attack...

Still, between the Thunderers, the Legionnaire Officer, and the Striker, Karas killed everything and put 7 damage on Strakhov with an Open Fire shot of the Courser's Armour-Piercing gun.

Round 5:
Strakhov used Power Swell for a focus and moved up to get LOS on Athena. She was in a trench and in base contact with the Courser, putting her at DEF 18 ARM 19. I cast a boosted Hand of Destruction, but it missed. I rolled three shots on the Riot Gun; the first boosted attack hit but was shield-guarded by the Courser. The next two missed. I cast Convection and missed.

Another unboosted Open Fire shot from the Courser did 5 more damage, leaving Strakhov at 5, but a boosted attack during it's activation missed. The Thunderers missed their attacks, and their AOE damage did nothing. Finally the Striker charged in and managed to connect, finishing off Strakhov.

Post-Mortem:
I think we played much better than last time, I felt more confident about my understanding of the rules; I think we still made mistakes, but probably less than last time. Not playing a scenario obviously was an issue, but we both played to our faction's characters: I charged forwards agressively as befits a Khadoran while Karas cowered in the corner like a typical Cygnaran.

I still can't believe how much they changed Strakhov. He's a completely different model now. I don't think he's bad or anything; he has some good tools, and a LOT of rules on his own card. But he's lost a lot of the things I liked about him in Mk2 and Mk3. He just feels a bit boring now; he has a basic warjack speed buff, a single-target debuff, a mostly-defensive feat, and a good gun with some rules and stats to allow him to use it. It's just not that interesting; he doesn't make his army dance around like he used to, he won't wreck face like a Butcher or a Karchev... I dunno. I just don't feal anything when I read his card.

I'm going to stick with Strakhov 1 for now; he'll probably work better when playing a scenario. I'll make iterative changes to my army as is my preference, rather than changing the whole list all at once. This is also partly because I do want to try to put painted models on the table. Unfortunately my painting queue is a little full right now with non-WMH stuff, but hopefully later in the year I'll be able to get some Khador stuff painted and start to run some new lists.\