Warmachine Day One
18 Jul 2013With the “help” of my friend Frozenfoxx I’ve gotten into the tabletop wargame Warmachine and today was my first outing with my 28 point army (22 points after Coleman Stryker’s 6 jack point discount). It’s a retarded army value, but that’s what I get for running the Cygnar battle box more a single heavy jack kit.
The exact list I was running:
- pStryker
- pCyclone
- pDefender
- pLancer
- pCharger
The trick to this list, it seems, is exceedingly careful positioning. Warmachine is played on a 4’x4’ table on which most pieces start 7-10” in from the edges. This means that by turn two, without infantry support my very shooty composition will be forced into a grand melee with my opponent’s pieces. This may not seem like a big deal in a melee oriented game, but this list’s potential advantage is largely the ranged damage output of the Cyclone and Defender models. Depending on the deployment of enemy forces, this means that my second turn going into my opponent’s third it is crucial to deny any board momentum gains by employing Stryker’s “feat” (feature ability) to buff my ‘jacks armor just as my opponent enters charge range.
Turn two is also the real win window for this army, because if through careful placing in turns one and two I can deny the inevitable charging assault until turn three the shooting abilities of my Charger, Cyclone, Defender and even Stryker himself could bring down or cripple an enemy jack granting me a neumeric advantage when the grand melee is joined.
All in all this is a shit list… I look forward to swapping out my Lancer or Charger for a unit of Trenchers or Storm Swords. The critical failure of this list is that while it may seem to have high damage potential (and it does), it also has no meatshields for either my commander or my heavy mechs who must be positioned to take advantage of their big guns. Replacing one of the light jacks with infantry will give me exactly the screening force I desperately need.
My focus management skills still need major work tho, and I may be building a program to help me strategize my focus allocations / odds.
^d