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.
Showing posts with label Tactics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tactics. Show all posts
Monday, August 12, 2013
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
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).
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).
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