For the Greater Good

Many of my lifes favorite things have come through gaming. I read old D&D books in the library growing up. I played many games, and countless puzzles and brain teasers. My best friends and I role played and munchkin'd it up. I fell in love with my wife years ago over a game of Monopoly (which amazingly is still a game I hate).

So what. Games are something we do for fun and to relax. Or could they be more? I learned to calculate odds on the fly playing war games and poker. I have been a thief, a psion, and countless other people interacting with worlds with rules different than our own. I have worked on my thought processes with set, word recognition and spelling with boggle and scrabble. I have been part of a team and a betrayer.

The point of all of this is that I am a better person for having rolled dice. Games have kept me, and other people I have known out of trouble growing up, it has helped my friends autistic children to grasp concepts and connect with their peers. Games can be a connection point and a way to reach kids who otherwise couldn't be.

People always ask what would you do with your life if money wasn't a thing. For a while now I have had the idea of starting some kind of non-profit that just went in and gave kids the chance to play and learn about games. Supply models/books/games etc, teach them strategy, logic, underlying mathematical principles. Don't know if I could make a living at it though...

Of Gilded Pork ~ Thoughts on Midas

Starting to get more games in again... and managing to stick with minions for a bit in spite of my faction ADD. Thought I would put down some of my initial thoughts on Midas.

First thought: OMG his tier is AMAZING for who he is and what he wants to do. I love having bonegrinders hand out free charges from the get go every game (sprint could be awesome as well, but seems to defeat some of my further thoughts on how he works, more on this later). You lose some AD and access to pathfinder, but Roadhogs have pathfinder built in and his tier grants advanced move to his beasts. All and all a wash.

Onto the meat and potatoes of Midas. As far as I can tell, he is meant to be played in waves. Start by sending in your beasts to die, take their bodies to fuel the spells that make your infantry better, when the infantry start running out, feat and bring back the beasts again. Target things that want to drop heavies and problem characters, and try to ride out the storm a second time.

I think that getting the most out of him will involve mastering the timing of these waves and in the knowledge of getting the most out of each group. In general I am coming round to min units of bonegrinders (more magical zots, more advanced move; drawback being if they are benefiting from Battle Lust, you get slightly less out of the spell). I don't think I would ever take brigands with him either, as they don't do all that much for him. End of day, a couple of units of Slaughterhousers and a million bonegrinders should probably meet all your infantry needs with him.

Beasts I have been running something along the line of 4 razor boars, 2 road hogs, and 2 warhogs (one living, one dead in theme force). This seems to give me a pretty good mix of things, although I may try to work in a gun boar at some point just to see what is up.

Perfect game with him I see trading razor boars for position and any solo they can get their tusks on, Roadhogs try to hit infantry as hard as they can with flaming sprays. In general, you want things to die so you can fuel your later turns. I also tend to not respect fury at all in the early stages. I run everything really hot and let things frenzy or die... is a weird place to be in for me as I am used to trying to preserve at all costs.

If the 2 games I have played so far with him are anything to judge by, I need to work on getting the most out of my slaughterhousers... I am just not there yet in the rhythm of the game yet. Also the fact that bonegrinders have the potential to be late game melee beaters is pretty hot (given they cost the same as McThralls and have an accurate ranged attack).

I will also say that by default his feat seems to feel defensive to me... at least on the turn you use it, but putting a bunch of beasts back down on the table feels really powerful. Don't know if it is true or not, but seems like a good attrition thing.

Faction ADD is fun

Unless something weird happens, I am officially done with new armies in warmachine and hordes. I would like to slow down and think for a minute about the odd and winding road that got me here.

Way back when, one of my friends discovered stomps elephants in samurai armor and was sold right off the bat. He came to me (as he is oft to do) and quickly talked me into playing the game. As I dug through the books figuring out what I wanted to play a couple of things stood out.

About the only guys I liked in protectorate of menoth fluff wise were the Paladins of the Wall... Religious douche bags really didn't tickle my fancy at all. I tend to also shy away from undead, so cryx was out. Mercs still weren't really a faction yet (although they were tempting). That left Khador and Cygnar, with trenchers and winter guard being a tie in my book (for some reason I tend to love jobbers), Cygnar pulled ahead on the strength of a teleporting gunslinger.

Hordes seemed cool, and if I was going to play it was going to be trollbloods, but the swan had stolen my heart.

Then my car blew its head gasket and things went on hold for a while.

I moved up to Portland, and went from a meta that had no Cygnar to one that seemed to have it everywhere. What's a good general to do? I branched into mercs. I ran with them for a while and bounced between them and Cygnar.

Some part of me wanted to see how the other half lived, and so I decided to play minions because: 1) there weren't many models to buy 2) war hogs are fucking bad assed. This of course led to gators...

Fast forward a bit, and some locals were getting out of trolls... I got into them at rock bottom prices and wheeled and sealed a bit to help them pay for themselves. Work was also picking up at this point and I had far more money than time so things kept getting fleshed out.

Now we enter the omg twins part of the conversation... I now have 2 amazing babies but realized that would put a damper on playing some of the other systems I had gotten into over the years... Some how that process ended up with me getting a boat load of Skorne.  

For those of you following along... That puts me at: Cygnar, Mercs, Minions, Trollbloods, and Skorne.

Holy crap what is going on.

This beings me to what should be the end of the road and in many way full circle. Due to other circumstances and ebay gods smiling, I am starting Khador. Trying to figure out how to get stuff painted and all of that is interesting, but 3 hordes 3 warmachine. Balance to the force. Now to focus...

Are you Skorney baby?

So Flames of War is out, long live the Skorne. Long story short, I now have twins, and have thus limited myself to one game system (or two but who's counting). My British forces are now in the hands of a capable commander down in California, and I now must look to expand the Skorne Empire. This is my 5th faction (Hello, my name is Byron and I am an addict), but a lot of it is painted already, so that is a first (I can actually play it painted in 2013... weird).

That being said, I have spent some time in the dojo with Skorne already, but there are some lists I really want to mess around with, and some troops that may have gained some in the evolving meta.

First off, the sudden rise of AoE's everywhere means I will probably be picking up Karax once they have their own box set (or run out of things higher up the purchase list). Their ability to passively shield against blast damage may make the fact they are a shield wall unit (something I tend to avoid). At 4/6 they seem to be a highly expendable delivery platform to get other squishy things past say... galleon.

Next up are the immortals, who have always looked awesome to me, but have never been very far up the list of awesome due to their slow speed. I am going to bank a bit on the fact they have a natural armor of 17, which again gets you through most blast damage and pow 10 shooting. I may be wrong, but such is life.

I am pretty excited about the following list idea:

Lord Assassin Morghoul (*6pts)
* Cyclops Shaman (5pts)
* Cyclops Brute (5pts)
* Archidon (7pts)
* Archidon (7pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
* Aptimus Marketh (3pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Gatorman Witch Doctor (3pts)
Paingiver Task Master (2pts)
Mortitheurge Willbreaker (2pts)
Mortitheurge Willbreaker (2pts)

This list is pretty much all about just getting in peoples faces... At this point I really want to abuse Morghoul's ability to:
1) Give others the ability to ignore free strikes.
2) Pow 15, undead, tough gators who don't fall down and have grevious wounds seems pretty hot as well.

It is also tweaked to try and work around his horribly low focus of 5. Marketh, the Gladiator, and the Shaman all spread around spells and animi for Morgoul.

The 2 Willbreakers are there to expand Morgouls limited control bubble and let the Archidons charge 12 and still be forced.

Went with a gator man module as it really doesn't need Morgoul to function, anything he gives out is just a bonus really (ignore terrain and free strikes or grievous wounds). They also block tramples/LoS in general.

I also want to look at Zaal and Mordikar, but haven't thought through those lists as much.

Caine1 Vs Vlad ~ Tournament Practice

Played a game tonight with the first in my quasi experimental lists

From my end I was bringing:
Faction: Cygnar
Points: 35/35
Lieutenant Allister Caine (*6pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Stormclad (10pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard (3pts)
Archduke Alain Runewood (3pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)

From the North, the hard charging Vlad 3

Faction: Khador
Points: 35/35
Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey (*5pts)
* Behemoth (13pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Fenris (5pts)
Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount) (5pts)
Manhunter (2pts)
Manhunter (2pts)
Yuri the Axe (3pts)

All and all a fun game, and unfortunately I ended up de-toothed and dying to a death bolt.

That being said, 18" threat on Stormblades with dead-eye and snipe worked out well, but is kind of a one trick pony. Need to remember to keep the Officer alive to keep up the assault order. Failure to kill Eyriss1 meant I was disrupted most of the game. All and all list did most of what it was ment to, but I never was able to create the opportunity to stack debuffs onto what needed a debuffing (AKA the behemoth).

I am seriously thinking about switching the 2 jacks for the stormwall... not sure but the longer ranged threat projection should allow me to hit further out and keep the stormblades back for a while.

Trying to hard?

Thinking through many of the support options in this game. For Cygnar in particular given the elite nature of our units, we tend to want to baby them into delivering their payload. I am not 100% sure that taking JR, the piper and devoting caster resources to keeping things like stormblades alive.

Thinking through things, if you are trying to survive charges, you either need good defense (generally MAT + 8 or so to start to be safe) or really high ARM (if my thinking is correct then you want about POW + 10 against your opponents pow). 

In game terms this seems to imply that you want to be in the realm of def 14-15 and the realm of ARM 19-20. There are other modes of defense such as tough that give you a chance to stick around longer than you would otherwise.

My I guess my thought process goes along the lines of:

How much is it worth to try and keep things alive in a game where you can be buffed, de-buffed and generally kicked in the teeth, where is it best and is it best to focus your efforts in support. 

In general, I find myself taking Rhupert more for pathfinder than for any of his defensive buffs... they are useful but pathfinder tends to be the primary reason. That being said, when playing Mercs, I often find Saxon being more useful than Rhupert as he can contribute offensively as well as providing buffs.

Not sure if I have a point, but I am willing to lean toward the idea that buffing offense is probably more powerful than tying to keep things up... also having more troops may be better than trying to get 110% out of one unit that will probably get feated off the table.

List Thoughts

So 35 point tourney coming up, and it may be my last chance to get a bunch of games in before the babies come and I go into dojo machine mode fairly indefinitely .. That being said, I am trying to put my money where my mouth is and continue to think my way through competitive Cygnar...

This list kind of builds itself with the only real though going into where to spend the 10-12 points that aren't in use anywhere else (tier IV requires 28 points to reach). Basically we are playing the I really hope lightning hits a lot of dudes game.... there are all of 12 models in this list. It also lacks some basic buffing (ie arcane sheild) that most of these kinds of list bring. Without further ado:

List 1:

Cygnar - I like Haley 2 Tier IV ~ I like Huge Base Light
40 / 40 (35 5)    Warcaster(s) : 1/1    Warjack(s) : 2    Battle Engines : 2    Solos : 2    Units : 2
Major Victoria Haley - WJ:  5
-    Thorn - PC: 8
-    Centurion - PC: 9
Storm Strider - PC: 9
Storm Strider - PC: 9
Stormsmith Stormcaller - PC: 0
Stormsmith Stormcaller - PC: 1
Stormsmith Storm Tower - Leader & Grunt: 2
Field Mechaniks - Crew Chief & 3 Grunts

Lots of ranged, possibly hosed by stealth (although running storm smiths could help with that, will have to see).  All and all I really just want to see what 2 giant lightning spewing walkers are capable of on the table top :).

List 2 that I am thinking of right now is:


Cygnar - Caine with blades
41 / 41 (35 6)    Warcaster(s) : 1/1    Warjack(s) : 2    Battle Engines : 0    Solos : 3    Units : 2
Lieutenant Allister Caine - WJ:  6
-    Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker
-    Stormclad - PC: 10
-    Ol' Rowdy - PC: 9
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios - PC: 3
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist - PC: 2
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord - PC: 2
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt - Lady Aiyanna & Master Holt: 4
Stormblade Infantry - Leader & 5 Grunts: 5
-    Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard - Officer & Standard Bearer 3
-    1 1 Storm Gunner's: 1

First off, this list is playing off of the fact most of the lists I have played over the years have had a hard time dealing with high armor... also two heavies with Caine1? Madness!

There are two "free" focus on the table (Ol' Rowdy being awesome in general, Stormclad stealing batteries from the blades), which should get people where they need to go until I need to give out focus to kill something big, Caine can not be a super solo for a turn I am pretty sure.

Caine1 for my first brawler list in while? Madness!

Logic is as follows:
~ Crowd control, Caine1 makes the pew-pews like few others, 4 shots a turn + a million on his feat turn (which can see squishies behind huge bases), means that he pretty much is this lists ranged game.
~ Board control, THUNDERSTRIKE at 15 inches is pretty awesome (doubly so with roll an extra die and drop the lowest, thanks for nailing my wishes). Also the possibility of punishing the "run your army forward types" is pretty hot.
~ Snipe and dead-eye means I can put shots from the stormblades on targets, and that gorman probably doesn't need to get as close to be magical.Trying to play up assault with some heavy hitters, don't know how well that will work... we will see.
~ Blur on stormblades is OK to get them across the board, don't love it, don't hate it 15/15 is pretty good in my book.

Beyond that trying to stack de-buffs a bit, trying to skew toward making people deal with heavies, and trying something different :).

One of the things I have been going back and forth on has been Runewood vs. Rhupert as the support for the Stormblades, fearless and +2 Mat on the charge, vs some extra defenses leaves me at a bit of a wash. Make take him because he is fairly useful on his own (extra pow 12 handcannon and pow 12 magical weapon master).

Pretty sure things are going to die, and not sure if the extra bit of survive that the piper brings our weighs the extra offence... will probably end up going with Runewood as I don't think I have gotten him on the table yet.

Closing thoughts:
Biggest fears I have currently are Ret, and any of stationary/fire lists as both my casters are pretty squishy. I may also turn to Darth Stryker to be my second list, but then I am playing two of the Cygnar super casters in a friendly tourney, and I also really want to see if I can make assault do something useful, but I am not 100% that the stormblades will get anywhere un-molested...

Thoughts on ranged Cygnar

Starting to thing (or rethink) the whole idea of Cygnar's ranged superiority. The more I did and think through things, they have a lot of ranged assets, but lack the terror inducing superiority that a Lylyth2 list brings to the table, or Bart + Galleon, or some of the other "Meta-Benders" that exist out there. Cygnar is probably second to none for effects that allow them to shoot accurately and ignore targeting, but rarely do we have the ability to hit with a POW greater than 10 (prior to CRA's).

This leads to an interesting dilemma, we don't have the out right destructive power at range to crush an enemy army without fear of retribution, but the heavy emphasis on ranged seems to scream that we need to soften up targets to reduce the impending onslaught.  We have a lot of tricks to get around things (anti stealth in particular) but nothing that ignores pretty much everything. For example some of the other meta-benders in the ranged game:

• Lylyth2's ranged game ignores: forests, concealment, clouds and stealth (eyeless sight)
• Ravyn's Snipe feet go ignores: LOS in general, magic buffs, animi, cover, concealment...

We also lack the staying power of something like:

• Bart + Galleon: 4 focus a turn for armor 22, fully boosted ranged damage (with between 3 and 7 attacks a turn).

As Cygnar it often feels like we show up to the battle field and face teleporting assholes who ignore all the rules we have to follow. We don't have a heavy stealth caster, we lack the ability to counter a lot of upkeeps and the like within faction (and even outside of faction we have Eiryss for upkeep removal).

This is not a Cygnar mweh article however, it is simply looking at what our enemies have (stealth, cheaty rules, and oddly more armor buffs etc). With all our ranged superiority how do we start to look at taking advantage of it.

First of one of the other things Cygnar does well (in my opinion) is board control. We can dictate where large portions of or enemies cannot go, or force them to play our game. We can spam reasonably high powered templates that stay in play and do damage, not only that we get to place them in larger numbers than most people get (off the top of my head placeable POW 10 from Trencher Chain Guns and Longgunners, Placeable POW 12's from the Cyclone and Stormwall). 

We also have access to probably the second best defensive buffs in the game (blur and arcane shield are good, defenders ward is ridiculously awesome...), but having it on a 3 point solo is pretty bad assed as far as keeping our stuff up and going. We also have Stryker1 who gives your entire army +5 ARM for a turn. All and all we can put up some decent meat shields.

Add a dash of either Haley ruining peoples days with Temporal Barrier or Haley2's feat and time bomb, you can stretch out the pain for as long as possible. 

At the end of the day (as it is getting late and I am totally rambling), I think we as Cygnar have a strength in ranged attacks, but I think that we lack some of the tricks that allow other faction to seemingly dominate at ranged. I am pretty sure I am stuck in a bit of Cygnar, I am doing it wrong...

I think we may need to look into combined arms over straight up pew-pew and accept that skew lists will be hard for us to pull off... With work killing me and twins on the way, Dojoing will abound for a while, but I am pretty sure the Swan I have loved since MK I is more of a Phoenix, but only time will tell (or Flanzer playing Cyngar ).  

Rules Exploitation ~ Collateral Damage not an attack

Not really an exploit, but an interesting little section of grey area. Collateral damage (off the cuff models hit by a slammed or thrown model). This little rule interaction totally gets you around abilities that trigger off of enemy attack or enemy damage rolls.

This has the kind of bizarre side effect of allowing you to do things like:

• Throw/Slam grim salvation targets into Madrak, keeping him from shunting the damage onto another target.
• Prevent Brine from going all pigheaded by killing Rorsh or finishing off Brine with a throw/slammed model going into him.
• Get around things with relentless advance, sanguine bond, holy monolith, and possibly impervious wall... generally things Menoth likes.

Long story short, only the initial target (the model thrown or slammed) is attacked, all the other models just take a damage roll.

Wonky. 

09/01/2012 Notes on 35 points Kraye Vs Butcher

Played Butcher1 Vs Kraye tonight, nothing much to report but some thoughts on the game.

 His List (unfortunately missed his name)

System: Warmachine
Faction: Khador
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
The Butcher of Khardov (*6pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard (2pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)
Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount) (5pts)


My List: System: Warmachine
Faction: Cygnar
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Captain Jeremiah Kraye (*6pts)
* Minuteman (5pts)
* Minuteman (5pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Ogrun Bokur (3pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

I also slightly and was 1 point over (had a third Stormsmith by mistake).

All and all, I got some milage out of Guided fire (probably could have gotten more if I had used the metal storm guns as metal storm guns). I am still not sure it is not a trap. If I could have kept both minutemen in command (Jesus Christ 6 inch move + 5 inch jump + 5 inch move after activation = OMGWTF BBQ), I may have gotten more play out of it as well.

All and all the list did OK, but lacked staying power, at 35 losing the Stormwall is devastating, as it is literally half the points in the list. JR for an amour boost? Maybe min mechanics instead of Arlan? Also in this list, the sentinel may be of more use than the bokur (although he done good for himself as well) if I am trying to exploit the guided fire. All and all, Kraye makes the stormwall really accurate and that could be good, not sold on it without the accuracy buff though.

Possible revised list:
 System: Warmachine
Faction: Cygnar
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Captain Jeremiah Kraye (*6pts)
* Minuteman (5pts)
* Sentinel (4pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Field Mechaniks (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

This trades out some of the craziness with the 2 minutemen for another body on the feat turn and 1d6 boosted shot if I guided fire. Alos the addition of JR should bring Stormwall up to ARM 22 which should make it slightly more survivable. Lose out on some free focus (pulling Arlan) for the Mechanics more chances/higher repair chance. Still feel like this list is lacking in magic weapon availability, but I am not sure how to fix that at 35 points (and in multi-list formats as A&H can only be in one list). I think that is all.

Is This Your Card?

Or the fine art of the force.

I was watching one of the more competitive players at my LGS play a Mordikar Skorne list and was mildly enlightened by him talking through his thought process while playing. He totally possessed a tool I was missing. In the same way a magician can force you to pick the card he knows, the Skorne player called his turn...

You will kill 5-6 swordsmen, 2-3 Accurii, and hurt (but not kill) the Rhinodon. He even called it out and watched as it all went according to plan. I came to realize I was missing a tool, the ability to "force".

Knowing pretty much at all times what your opponent can kill and knowing how to maximize on those losses (which for some casters is easier than others), was a new way of thinking about the game that I hadn't actively thought about yet. I am used to doing all the calculations separately (threat range is X, damage output is Y, etc.), but watching him basically dictate his opponents turn was a bit disconcerting.

All and all I know he is a bit out of my league (he has placed highly in several major events), but the glimpse into his mindset for a moment showed me the next level of the game that I was only vaguely aware of previously.

Being a generalist in a specialists world

I tend to find by self drawn to the jobbers in any given army. For IG I love the grunts, Ork's the boyz, Cygnar the trenchers and so on and so forth. I have noticed that many times these generalists tend to be glossed over more often than not, as they are over shadowed by a unit that specializes in one thing. Often this seems to transpire for many reasons; specialists have a clearly defined roll,some systems charge more for the ability to do many things alright as opposed to one thing well, and they tend to get taken out if they try to play someone elses game.

With so many cards stacked against them, why would anyone in their right (OK maybe this doesn't describe me) mind want to play generalists? I have personally found their flexibility to out weigh their "limitations". In Warmachine, I love me some trenchers. Are they going to crush my enemies while I listen to their women lament... probably not. However, on any given turn I can:
* have a guy pop smoke
* shoot someone
* assault to get 2 attacks on the charge
* assault to extend their ranged threat range.
* fire off AoE's in hopes of a good scatter
* dig in to help them against enemy shooting and blast damage.
* dig in to remove them as a LoS blocker
* advance dig in and make a combat action
* CRA to put some hurt on a larger target

With the exception of the 2 orders (assault and cautious advance), I will often do some random combination of all of that when I have the trencher module going. Admittedly this works better in Warmachine than in 40K, given the way that unit activations work. But for the most part, generalists in my experience can try and play the counter point to the strategy on the other side of the table, or do their own thing.

No Retreat Baby, No Surrender

I have noted that in the last couple of games I have played that there came a moment where the odds seemed daunting, and (once for me, and once for my opponent) thoughts of throwing in the towel started to emerge. At the end of the day, the person with their back to the wall (again once for me, once for my opponent) pulled out a win.

The first time I actually saw the shot and walked him through the kill (he had wanted to give up at the end of my turn). I know Warmachine can be a discouraging game, and when in one turn you lose half your jacks and the other half are knocked down or autonomous, one can have a hard time seeing the outs. Long story short(ish) he ended up adding a notch to Caine's gun belt, and Durgen went off with some new battle damage in his armor.

Last time game I played I found myself in a similar situation. The only reason I even made it into the next turn was a missed scatter roll keeping Thor alive with 1 point of damage (but on fire). Start of the turn Thor put himself out, slammed with the avalacher, knocked everyone down, the lone remaining forgeguard got a charge off, and Durgen finished him off with a boosted pow 14. If I hadn't rolled that out and stuck with it, I would have lost.

The Art of War talks about the idea of dead mans land (or some such title) the idea that if your men have nowhere to retreat, they will fight to the last. In a similar vein when you are down to a hail mary (something that works better in some games than others), play it out. At worst you made a gallant last stand, at best you have one of those "there I was surrounded by..." stories that make those of us of a mathematical persuasion cringe as you beat the odds.  

Advanced Deploy - Are you doing it wrong?

Many games have a rule that lets you setup your little dudes on the table at some point after your opponent. On top of that there tends to be some kind of addition to your deployment area dependent upon the game you are playing.

From a Warmachine perspective most people seem to only view this as an extra 6 inches that your men have to move first turn and leave it at that. This seems a bit short sighted to me and often gets your scouting forces killed early (this can also hold true in 40k with infiltrators). I often see bemoaning posts about how I deployed my guys way out there, and they got killed. They will then often go off about how unit X is a bad unit. Often (as I have learned from personal experience) the fault lies on the Gigantic side of things, not the little.

Often we, as the leaders of hordes of plastic and metal armies, seek to maximize an "advantage" to the point it is detrimental to the fictitious lives of our charges. I would like to wax philosophical a bit about what goes through my mind when I look into pushing guys into no mans land.

I am not left handed... (or getting to deploy once you have seen some of your opponents strength)

This is the biggest strength (IMHO) of an advance deployment, you get to place your models after your opponent does. WHAT?!?!?

In my mind and experience, the ability to deny a flank, take an objective early or that will be hard for your foe to get to, and/or show up to the party with all your friends is a much bigger part of the ability than just the extra deployment. Several armies across game systems use this strategy well and often.

In the 40k universe Deathwing and drop pod armies actually are toward the top of this list for me. Not only do these guys deploy after you, but they do so during their first turn. How many of them do so is up to you. In Warmachine, the ability to set up in cover, on a hill, or overlooking an objective or choke point can be the difference between victory or defeat.

You should be aware of the counter to this mentality "I am not left handed either". This is basically where your wily adversary has units he gets to deploy after you... the big thing here is to not over extend yourself and leave some easily exploitable weakness for someone to exploit.

Location, Location, Location

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. This builds on the logic above, once you know where your opponent is and how you are to crush them, look at the terrain. Can you set up where you aren't walking into a death trap? Even better can you deploy somewhere there is a strategic advantage? Are you denying some thing, threatening something, or just there because it is 16" out?

Basically, wasted movement is bad, make sure you have a reason for what you are doing.


A little bit of real estate

Finally we come to the first thing people think of, so it will probably what I talk about the least. Hey look I get an extra X" of deployment... IF your army consists of blood thristy savages who's soul purpose in the universe is to get into hand to hand as quickly as possible (Doom Reavers spring to mind), by all means deploy as close as you can to your opponent and run screaming into their lines. I would like to point out however, that this is using both countering your opponents deployment (GAR ME NO HAVE TO GO AS FAR TO SMASH) and probably location (GAR MUD ICKY AND SLOW ME DOWN... NO KILL FAST).

Rooting for the Underdog

How competitive is competitive? I tend to be a bit frustrated with the forums these days as there are a few very vocal members of the world who instantly and loudly let the opinion be known when someone is playing a "sub-par model" (or over priced or crappy or anything but playable). I started Warmachine in 2008, when my buddy started Skorne. We both chose army's based solely on the way they looked. At the time nothing in Hordes really called out to me, and I started poking around in the magic land of Warmachine. I was quickly drawn to teleporting gunslingers and the trenchers (come on how can you hate anyone who's nick name is the Gravediggers).

Fast forward a couple of years and some fortunate turns of events, and I started expanding into merc's to diversify the scene my LGS a bit. In all that time I continue to be drawn to playing the models I find the coolest more than the most competitive. I will be the first to admit that I may not be the "Man to beat" at the gaming store, but I seldom have trouble finding a game, and at least in my opinion I tend to give as good as I get. That being said, I have gotten millage out of models often overlooked by Cygnar players (most notably Trencher Infantry) and find it tragic that people shut things down so quickly.

To kind of riff of my earlier posts, The Book of Five rings has a couple of ideas that I think can apply to playing with some of these less desirable models.

1. Keep your foe off balance. For all the cry's that half the world has hunter and sprays, I have not met a single list designed to counter dig-in, and unless pigs and trenchers take over the world you are not going to. I also am a big fan of what I think of as the trencher shuffle. They can do so many things well that I often find myself changing gears at random and going in a different direction with them then what my opponent expects.
2. Don't deny yourself a weapon. Musashi was all about having a sword in both hands and using them both to overwhelm one's opponent. Trenchers may not be the sharpest sword for any one thing, but damn are they pretty good at most of them. Assault in and of itself means they make 2 attacks on the charge. Once you add in snipers, grenades, the ability to move dig-in and shoot their abilities (in my bizzaro land of playing under powered units) start to shine. Add it the fact that with a bit of support (from casters and other solo's), the things they used to be pretty good rapidly start becoming really good.
3. Practice with the tools you have. You are not going to get the most out of anything you don't play the hell out of. When you can do 8 different things at the same time, knowing the when and where to do them becomes critical. Trenchers are prime example of this. When I was playing them more often (have switched mainly to Highborn, which doesn't let you take them), on any given turn I might:
1. Push one grenade porter forward to fire an aoe
2. Have a couple of guys pop smoke to block Line of Sight to stuff behind them
3. Have a couple CRA (Combine Ranged Attack) to pick off a model that got to close
4. Dig one or two to clear LoS

I suppose I have rambled about Trenchers enough. The moral of the story is if you like something play with it, figure it out, and use that to put up the best fight you can. I would try to listen to more to the people who try and make the best of things when you ask for help making things work, and less to the people who say it is not worth playing out of hand, and refuse to think out of the "competitive" box.