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.

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.

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. 

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.