daveg
Light Addition
Posts: 67 
|
Post by daveg on Aug 21, 2017 22:53:40 GMT
Intro:
I’ve liked Grayle since he was released back in Dominion. Sadly, he wasn’t a particularly strong caster but I happily made my last Mk2 tournament a single list event with Grayle. Mark 3 saw a huge number of small buffs to Grayle personally and the army I currently take with him. I believe SR 2017 also has been a change that favors him. To be fair, I haven’t had the opportunity to get to a major con yet this year so this is based on my local meta. Your use and efficacy may vary.
Grayle’s stats will come up as I try and discuss his strengths and weaknesses. Please check out his card on Warroom or PP’s site.
Style: Grayle is a mid-ground caster that darts in and out of the fight to chip-in or finish off various pieces of the enemy and reposition back to safety or to claim an objective. That whole wolf-pack thing actually expresses pretty well here in that regard. I think there are a lot of interesting options and plays that can be made with Grayle and a Grayle list. Baldur2 tends to play in a static game plan. In contrast, Grayle has to change game-to-game depending on what he is facing, terrain, scenario, etc.
Strengths of Grayle:
1) Survivability: I think this is a highly underrated strength. Perhaps, almost certainly, you are a significantly player better than me and never make a mistake or understand your opponent’s assassination options perfectly. Or perhaps you play in a meta that doesn’t feature some significantly long threat ranges. But I make those mistakes or it also lets me play Grayle into those long-range assassination threats.
I’ve also found this is a bigger boon in SR 2017. Grayle can be up claiming flags and zones.
2) Personal Mobility: Grayle has great personal mobility. This in combination with his survivability allows him to play in that mid-line position. Three of the Mark3 changes are important here:
a. Tactician (Wolfsworn)/Grayle is now “Wolfsworn”: Being able to run through your front lane, stab a dude, and run back behind your team is really good. It’s a compounding rule that contributes to his survivability and his personal efficacy.
It also saves brain drain or “cycles” in positioning and order of operation problems. These are really under-valued especially in long 4-6 game tournaments or con weekends.
b. 1” melee range: Not as impactful as tactician perhaps but sneakily good. It certainly does improve his threat range but more importantly allows him to pinball to more interesting places and often get better pin-ball movements. It can be an effective 1” increase to his threat range on that second initial (0.5” increase on 1 dagger + 0.5” increase on 2nd dagger). For me, this is significantly clearer via play experience than by written description.
c. Side-step: This is the only noticeable “quality of life” change that goes against Grayle. Side-steps now allow free strikes. As previously mentioned, he’s survivable but a Satyxis getting a crit KD on a free strike is very bad or even a heavy getting a free strike on your caster isn’t the best.
3) Personal Efficacy: Grayle is personally excellent at murdering a solo or a couple of infantry. He’s also solid at finishing off a wounded heavy or finishing a caster kill. He is not to be confused with Butcher or one of the other world enders. I was a little confused by this at first. His fluff has him being an assassin but compared to other assassins (Garryth, etc) he’s just not that great. I know this is the internet but try not to go off the hyperbole mountain. He’s good, not great at heavy/caster killing.
a. Hitting: On the plus side, he hits things, pretty damn reliably. In my list he sits with Storm Rager and often near enough to Morraig. Mat 10 is nifty! (The damage is the part where he just doesn’t get it.
4) Army Mobility: This is one of those categories that got a bunch of buff’s through a variety of changes in MK3 and SR 2017.
a. Feat: Didn’t change a bit. Still reliant on one thing killing something to get another thing to move. Can be awesome, can be not depending on what there is to kill and trigger the movements. It does however provide some options, threat extension, hit and run, and general out of activation movement shenanigans.
b. Death March: Vengeance is new and is another out of activation move. Vengeance triggers off of being damaged and not murdered. There is a nice interaction with Death Wolves and heart tokens here.
c. Gallows: This isn’t technically his own army mobility but I count it. Grayle had it before of course, but now he has a +1 to hit with Morraig standing around. A base of 7 is significantly nicer than 6 on that to-hit roll.
d. Tactician (Wolfsworn): See brain-drain above. But also realize allows screaning, order of operation changes, Morraig to get to good places, and a variety of other things that normally doesn’t happen.
e. War wolves: They trigger off all wolfsworn now and reeves are worthwhile in this edition. Definitely an upgrade.
f. Ambushing Wolves of Orboros: This is one of the keys to getting the most out of this list. Using them to attrition or threaten a caster or claim lightly guarded zones are all possibly important. Having terrible defense stats matters less when you can magically appear on the side of the board at some later time. It’s pretty swell.
Weaknesses of Grayle:
• The model
• Personal threat-ranges: 11” of direct charging threat isn’t great. Better than unbuffed slow things, sure but in the context of the game, not great. This is the part where you say “but side-step” and you’re correct to an extent. Side-step does extend your threat and let you get neat places. The catch is two fold with side step:
o Your opponent has to leave stepping stones for you to use. This does happen some of the time but can’t be relied on at high levels of play.
o How much threat do you have left after using two attacks, one of which was a charge to side step? Threat-ranges as I use it, isn’t just being able to show up next to the thing you want to hit. It’s being able to injure or kill the thing that makes it “threat”-range and not just range.
• Lack of clear win condition: In my opinion or at least current experience, Grayle is a ‘lock that has an okay assassination, an okay scenario game, and an okay attrition game. Figuring out the correct win condition early and playing towards it is important. It’s important for all games but particularly important for Grayle. I’ve listed this as a weakness because it will cause a lot of losses with Grayle until you understand him. I personally think it is fun and a strength. But to each their own.
• Has to play mid-ground to contribute: He’s survivable sure but when you’re up on scenario or attrition, your opponent will go for assassination. Even if the odds are poor, sometimes it goes through.
Current List:
I use this list as my all comers list. I have no Cryx in my meta currently but I wouldn’t want to take this into ghost fleet. Axis w/ two TEPS and some Cygnar builds are probably getting skipped. I’d probably try playing it into just about everything else. Honestly, it probably pairs well with Baldur2 double Harambe but that list just makes me sad.
Grayle:
- Feral Warpwolf
- Shadowhorn Satyr (Judo Goat)
- Riphorn Satyr (Punch Goat)
Wolves of Orboros (max)
-UA
Reeves of Orboros (max)
Warpborn Skinwalkers (max)
-UA
Morraig the badass Wolfrider
Reeve Hunter
War wolf x 3
This is my first try at a tactica. I’d rate myself as an okay player but not amazing and I’m happy discuss (civilly) different ideas.
|
|
|
|
Post by macdaddy on Aug 22, 2017 2:35:29 GMT
Nice write up  I have had an eye on grayle for a while. This makes me want to give him a shot |
|
|
|
Post by Forsaken on Aug 22, 2017 5:14:53 GMT
I really like Grayle too. I haven't used him competitively but I do find him fun. Good job on the tactica but perhaps you could discuss his spells and preferred units in more detail. For example: Do you find it better to move Morraig before Grayle so he can more easily gain the mat buff or after so Morraig can get the flank bonus?
|
|
|
|
Post by Dave G on Aug 23, 2017 11:36:09 GMT
I'll work on some model selection and I tried to weave spells in with interesting interactions in the tactical proper. I'll try to think of a way to cover it more interestingly. I'll try to get a battle report with pictures. That might help explain some things in context a little better. "Example problems" from when we learned math concepts in school.
To your specific question, I often find I don't need to move Morraig to get Grayle in his Veteran Leader bubble. It depends of course on situation and if I positioned correctly.
I almost never use Grayle to trigger Morraig's flank. I want to last hit with Grayle when they're tag teaming something so that I get Sprint activated. I can imagine a situation at the end of a game post attrition where Grayle and Morraig tag team to end a caster. Then I would activate Grayle and then Morriag.
The "When do I activate Grayle and Morraig?" is an example of why this list is flexible but difficult because the answer is "it depends on what I'm trying to do at that moment in the game."
Does that make sense even if it isn't particularly helpful?
|
|
|
|
Post by Forsaken on Aug 24, 2017 4:44:21 GMT
Thanks. Couple other questions: Do you find the stealth aspect of his feat to be a reliable counter to gunlines? Also, the Death Wolves seem like an excellent pairing with Grayle, have you found that?
|
|
daveg
Light Addition
Posts: 67
|
Post by daveg on Aug 27, 2017 14:29:31 GMT
Forsaken,
1) Stealth: I generally find it doesn't stop losing some of your dudes/taking some damage but it does pretty severely limit how much you lose. One of the battle reports I'll write up today features a defensive feat. Overall, the feat in combination with Ambush and increased terrain leaves me feeling significantly less threatened. Some gunlines will have all the answers/very strong answers (Legion specifically). In that case, I will hold the feat and try to use terrain. Depending on my other list, I'd probably try to not get in that matchup to begin.
2)I don't use the Death Wolves in my current list. I've only tried them out a few times and had mixed success. In my Wild Hunt version of Grayle they seem to bring infantry killing, then post infantry killing some survivability, and Caleb's magic weapons. They cost 9 points and would count towards free stuff. I could try to fit them in but I already have those things built into the list already and I'd have to give up flexibility or different capabilities to squeeze them into the list. I'll try to show it more clearly when I break down my list in the next chunk of the tactica. I don't think Caleb's magic claws are enough of a benefit to get them into the list. (I have several Grymkin players in my meta and one of them is really good. The gremlin swarms are a positional problem.)
I do think they are very interesting if you were to run Grayle in the Tharn theme list. Starting with hearts makes them significantly more interesting.
Does that make sense?
|
|
daveg
Light Addition
Posts: 67
|
Post by daveg on Aug 27, 2017 17:08:17 GMT
Battle Reports from 26Aug17
I forgot to take pictures. I know they’re helpful. My apologies for being terrible at this. Both of my opponents yesterday are old hands getting back into or playing the game some more. Several of us in meta are trying to regrow it back to Mk 2 levels. Take what lessons you can from these games.
Game 1:
My opponent’s army is pretty. His painting on Loki and the Pureblood is a reminder why I started circle in the first place. It’s the original Pureblood howling sculpt up on a rock and that sculpt is still one of my top 10 in the game.
All descriptions are based on looking at the board from my side of the table.
Scenario: Standoff
His List:
Tanith:
-Loki
-Pureblood
-Woldwyrd
-Woldwyrd
Celestial Fulcrum
Sentry Stone
Sentry Stone
Shifting Stones
Reeves w/ UA
So, it’s a gun line. Most of it ignores everything but hills for terrain mitigation and the sprays don’t care about my stealth.
Terrain: There is a house in the middle of the table. Everything else 6-8” from the house and oriented in reference to a clock:
12 o’clock - wall
2 o’clock – rubble
4 o’clock – Forest
6:30 o’clock – Hill
8ish o’clock – Forest
10ish o’clock – Forest
Right outside his deployment zone- Rubble
He wins roll and decides to go first. I choose the side with a hill. I can park either my feral or Grayle up on the hill and claim the CP for my zone pretty safely.
Pregame thoughts: I’m probably going to use my feat defensively this game. Stealth and decent placement will limit how much of my infantry he can thin out on the approach. The Big shrimp, reeves, and Loki all need line of sight. If he wants to get the Pureblood or Fulcrum up far enough to do real damage on my feat turn, I’ll gladly trade some infantry for either of those. I think my primary win condition is through scenario/attrition.
Deployment:
Tanith: He deploys the reeves on the left to shoot through the forest, battle group centrally with shifting stones up on the AD line in front of them and the Fulcrum/Wyrd package on the right. One sentry stone goes on each side. He chooses
Grayle: I get to choose matchups or delay his forward progress while he switches positions on the board at least.
-Skinwalkers go down across from the Reeves. This is a good matchup because of the armor/HP. I also want to but Death March on them which would make them good prey for the Wyrds which would be bad for me.
-Reeves go against the Fulcrum/Wyrd package. He has no ability to heal the Wyrds and a couple of decent size CRA’s will take out important aspects.
-Battle group goes left centrally. I’m intending on using the house as shield for my Judo Goat. He can stand on one side and just jump over it and threaten throws/face beating. Morraig hang’s out near the battle group. I very much don’t want to lose him to a random spray I didn’t see.
-Reeve Hunter gets AD forward into a Forest. Two war wolves go on the right side, one goes on the left.
Turn 1:
Tanith: Run. Runny, run run run. I’m frankly surprised by how much table space he chews up on the first turn. Importantly, all three stickmen on the right are within the range of my Reeves and the wyrd’s are within range of war wolf sic’ em charges. Wyrd 2 is toeing into the bottom right corner of his rectangular zone almost into the circle zone. Loki and the pureblood are within the shifting stones and directly behind the central building. Tanith puts up Admonition on Loki.
Grayle: I run both war wolves to within 10.5” of one of the Wyrds. The Reeve unit move up and kill all three stickmen on the right with CRA’s.
I want to call out this as a method to fight Sentry Stones. Killing one stickman is effectively helping your opponent’s damage output next turn because he’ll be able to position the recurring stickman in the best possible place. Killing all three is a major downgrade to his damage.
The reeve hunter is sadly 10.5” away from Wyrd2, so instead of getting a Mat 8 Pow 11 Weapon master charge to proc sic’ em, I aim and shoot Wyrd2 to proc Sic’ Em. The two war wolves charge in and take out the mind and body of Wyrd2. One of the wolves also gets in the way of Wyrd1 and the Fulcrum. Just to reiterate, I did 5/6 of a 9 pt beast’s hit points with 4 points of my army from something like 21” away. They also, annoyingly jammed.
Skinwalkers run up with the front three keeping LoS around the forest and toeing the zone. Judo goat gets up behind the house preparing for his Death from Above maneuver. I carefully pre-measure and make sure Punch goat stands at the front of the hill and more than 11” from Loki. The feral stands on behind Punch goat on the hill.
Grayle goes to 0 fury by putting out Death March on the Skinwalkers and Storm Rager onto himself. He feats and I keep him back out of the various threats.
Turn2:
Tanith
Turns out I herpa-derped. Did you know that shifting stones teleport things? I guess my mind had written them off as useless after the double port nerf of Mk 2 and then the completely within nerf of Mk3. I reset the “Turns without a derp” counter to zero.
Tanith moves up, feats, and puts scything touch on the left sentry stone unit. She then arc’s affliction onto my Skinwalkers. He’s excited to do some serious pinging me to death with Reeves. Tanith is hanging out on 2 fury but she’s only spent 3 by my reckoning. Not sure where the extra one went.
He moves the left stickmen up to spray down skinwalkers with one of them getting positioned to apply the scything touch debuff to where Punch goat will be dragged. (Premeasuring is so nice, I personally love that change to Mk3.) the ones that can spray do some minor damage to my Skinwalkers.
In the main action, he ports Loki within 5” of Punch goat up to the spot we made sure would work earlier. Loki warps strength and boosts his thrown hook since he needs an 8 to hit my goat on the hill. After dragging the Goat in, Loki and his sweet paintjob proceed to beat the crap out of my unpainted punch goat. He only needs one additional attack to get the job done. Loki then cast’s elusive on himself.
For my part, I don’t go on tilt. Big improvement for me in mental state. I had a pretty big herpa-derp against my own faction where I know what the units do and then my opponent’s dice spiked hard. There is not a small chance I would have begun operation Code: Whine annoyingly and I didn’t. Woot for improvements!
My opponent proceeds to minorly herpa-derp back and moves up the reeves to within 12” and try to shoot the stealthed Skinwalkers.
On the right side, the single stickman spawned walks up and sprays. He misses the Reeve Hunter, a reeve and then uses the Sentry Stone’s fury to get 3 damage on both Morriag and Grayle.
The Wyrd2 the crippled tries to clear out the war wolf blocking up the Fulcrum and Wyrd1 unsuccessfully. The Pureblood sighs and shakes it’s head at the big shrimp and kills off the little puppy solo.
Grayle’s stealth feat comes in big here as well. Wyrd1 can’t get anything done and the Fulcrum launch’s a Fireball that scatters and landing on the stickman and my Reeve Hunter. The boosted damage roll on the hunter is an impressive total of 5, just lighting my solo on fire and burning the stickman to a crisp. Critically, he doesn’t get into the right zone at all.
Grayle turn 2:
Let’s discuss the spell Admonition and the mechanics of forfeiting your movement. It turns out that you can only forfeit your movement to gain an advantage or if you’re forced to do so such as being ported by shifting stones. Even if you move 0” it still can trigger Admonition. Death march triggers during the maintenance phase before I get to choose whether to upkeep it or not. Basically, he’s going to get a chance to Admonition no matter what I do. Annoying but better to learn about in a practice game rather than a tournament.
Death March triggers and I kill the three stickmen in the left zone. He doesn’t Admonition. That’s probably a mistake. I forget to ambush in my Wolves of Orboros as I learn about the above Admo interaction. Grayle upkeeps both Death March and Storm Rager. Fire doesn’t go out on the Reeve Hunter and leaves him alive on 1 hp.
Now to the heart of the turn, the Skinwalkers get the press forward order and the first one runs to cut off the path of retreat for Loki. If he had admonitioned earlier, I would have used Judo goat to jump over the house and throw Loki back into the open so I could kill him. I wasn’t letting that wolf get away from me. I get a total of 3 skin walkers into Loki while leaving room for other charges. One skinwalker goes into the left sentry stone not quite killing it and one murders a reeve. They all heal to full and use their mini-feat.
The three Skinwalkers that attack loki do some damage but one missed (needing 4’s, yuck). Unfortunately for him, I’ve bound him in pretty well and his 2” move will only get him closer to the things that will kill the Shield wolf.
Morraig charges in and does some work before Grayle charges into finish off Loki with a double knife to the chest + 2 Fury (bought attack, boost damage). Grayle then sprints far away enough to not be threatened by the Pureblood spray. This kind of play is normal for Grayle. I pick out the biggest threat and keep that at bay, hang on to a couple fury because I just assume my opponent will find some way to get some attacks on my caster and claim a control point.
The right side works the way I had expected. I use the CRA’s, a charging Reeve Hunter and the surviving warwolf to kill Wyrd1 and take Wyrd2 down to 1 health.
The Feral for his part cast’s primal on Judo goat. Judo Goat walks up leaps over the house and boosts two fists into Tanith. Hitting both, chain attack throw triggers but he misses it. The horns attack hits and does solid damage. All told, Tanith uses both transfer putting 20ish damage on the pureblood and has 6 damage on herself.
I score two points, 1 from my rectangular zone and 1 from the right circle.
My opponent concedes as he needs to go get his dog and I’m up really far. I’d advocate finishing games as much as possible. For instance, I know that I’m never letting Grayle have less than 3 fury on him as his only out is to assassinate me and I know that I should just keep grinding and claiming control points. Assasination is dicey and I’m only ever taking it if it costs me very little to try and failure doesn’t hurt me.
Aftergame:
Hopefully, this rambling report is helpful to y’all. I realize it isn’t the top end competition, honed lists that really help but I think there are good learning points none the less.
I don’t think his list is functional in SR 2017 and we did discuss changes after the game. Both of us are excited for the Wold CID currently ongoing even though I continue to preach patience on expectations until we see the final rules.
This game did demonstrate a couple of the points I think are really important in this list:
1) Flexibility of Grayle’s feat: As I mentioned in a previous post, sometimes the stealth is great against gun lines and sometimes not. In this game, it kept my skinwalkers alive and in conjunction with hyper-regen completely healthy when they got into Tanith’s reeves.
It also encouraged Loki to overextend to get my Punch goat. I wouldn’t have been able to shield the drag with skinwalkers as that one would have been murdered by Reeves. If Loki could have stood an additional 3” back and hit me with a grappling hook. I’m not killing him or at least it gets significantly harder.
The Reeves and the Reeve Hunter both get torn up by even 1 Wyrd and the Fulcrum.
2) Grayle did work: He finished off Loki (Def 14, Arm 19 heavy) and then got out of dodge. He also only took 3 damage from the random spike on a stickman. If he’s arm 15 or 14 that’s 6-7 damage or half of the caster’s health. That would make you play your standard or old-man caster even more safe, especially with all of his random deeply penetrating sprays.
3) Movement shenanigans:
Judo goat: This dude just continues to impress me. The center terrain lets him do so much random crap. He effectively did 20 damage to a pureblood while standing very menacingly next to a caster. He did that through a building. If things go slightly differently, I need him to get Loki back out and exposed in front of my army. I wasn’t a fan for a long time because he is “pillow-fisted”. But he continues to give me great trades, utility, and often enough some damage.
War wolves: 24.5” non-linear out of activation threat. I think I need to start experimenting running them as three instead of splitting out 1 of them on the other side. They give me nice order of activation freedom and unpredictability.
This took a long time, so I’ll skip writing up the 2nd game from yesterday from now. Hopefully it’ll help exemplify some of the points about Grayle and my current list.
|
|
|
|
Post by Forsaken on Aug 28, 2017 4:08:58 GMT
Sure, that makes plenty of sense.
Thanks for putting up the battle report.
|
|
|
|
Post by rezfon on Aug 28, 2017 13:22:42 GMT
Adnomition requires you to end movement within 6" AND advance. You count as advancing if you make any sort of voluntary movement, including changing facing. So as long as you don't advance, change facing or if you forfeit to aim (which specifically says you can't advance), you won't trigger adnomition. Moving 0 and not changing facing means you don't count as advancing.
It's why other rules also differentiate, some ask for only starting or ending movement in their effect but don't require an advance.
Not moving and not changing facing counts as not advancing.
Adnomition would trigger if it was only finishes movement as the requirement.
|
|
|
|
Post by shonkhor on Aug 29, 2017 10:35:56 GMT
Great writeup. I've been playing lots of Grayle in prep for WTC and could not agree with your assessment more. I think his personal survivability, flexibility and forgivingness are excellent in SR2017 and the current meta. I put a Woldwatcher of Gnarlhorn in my list for Earths Blessing just to make him even more resistant to assassination and misplays.
One play I have not decided on is whether to put Storm Rager on Grayle from the start, or to stick it on Morraig until he dies and then switch to Grayle. SR is a great buff to Morraig and really helps him do things like clear flags, reposition back onto them and have a good chance at surviving. The problem is when it is time to get Grayle stuck in he often want to use his fury for killing stuff/casting gallows, so you need to anticipate putting SR on him a turn prior. Sometimes this doesn't work out, so it might be best just to have SR on him from the start.
It might be nice to add some of his typical assassinations in (e.g. feat/gallows shenanigans)
|
|
daveg
Light Addition
Posts: 67
|
Post by daveg on Aug 30, 2017 10:39:01 GMT
Adnomition requires you to end movement within 6" AND advance. You count as advancing if you make any sort of voluntary movement, including changing facing. So as long as you don't advance, change facing or if you forfeit to aim (which specifically says you can't advance), you won't trigger adnomition. Moving 0 and not changing facing means you don't count as advancing. It's why other rules also differentiate, some ask for only starting or ending movement in their effect but don't require an advance. Not moving and not changing facing counts as not advancing. Adnomition would trigger if it was only finishes movement as the requirement. I went back to the rule book and did some reading and asked my friend who was formerly a Judge when that program existed. It's a reminder that in a tournament, ask the organizer/person making rule judgments. I don't believe your "Moving 0 and not changing facing means you don't count as advancing." statement is correct. If you can find and quote a place where it says that, I'd appreciate it. My current understanding: - Vengeance is a "can" rule. I don't have to take it. In this case, I wouldn't take it. However, if I was to take it, I can't forfeit the 3" of movement. Forfeiting movement is a specific rule on page 30 of Primal. -I'm still not sure if you are allowed to Forfeit movement for any reason you deem is beneficial. This is confusing because on page 29 in the first sentence after the heading "Forfeiting Normal Movement or Combat Actions" it says "Some rules require a model to forfeit its Normal Movement or Combat Action or allow it to do so voluntarily for some benefit." -You can forfeit your Normal Movement (assuming you're not in combat) to aim regardless of you actually possessing a melee weapon. In general, I enjoy that Warmachine/Hordes rules are so clear when compared with other game systems. This is the first time, I've had to do a deep dive and seems unclear or janky at best. Ugh. |
|
daveg
Light Addition
Posts: 67
|
Post by daveg on Aug 30, 2017 10:58:14 GMT
Great writeup. I've been playing lots of Grayle in prep for WTC and could not agree with your assessment more. I think his personal survivability, flexibility and forgivingness are excellent in SR2017 and the current meta. I put a Woldwatcher of Gnarlhorn in my list for Earths Blessing just to make him even more resistant to assassination and misplays. One play I have not decided on is whether to put Storm Rager on Grayle from the start, or to stick it on Morraig until he dies and then switch to Grayle. SR is a great buff to Morraig and really helps him do things like clear flags, reposition back onto them and have a good chance at surviving. The problem is when it is time to get Grayle stuck in he often want to use his fury for killing stuff/casting gallows, so you need to anticipate putting SR on him a turn prior. Sometimes this doesn't work out, so it might be best just to have SR on him from the start. It might be nice to add some of his typical assassinations in (e.g. feat/gallows shenanigans) Thank you! I've thought about his battle group a fair amount and I'm not against either of those but it seems like additional points that I don't want to spend on something I can more or less control with good play. I'd want to play both the watcher and Slam goat as forward/initial piece trade models. Watchers also represent zone holding potential which I don't need in this particular list. I'm admittedly probably pigeon holing them without enough testing. We'll also see where they end up after CID. My opponent from the last game was advocating Storm Rager on either Morraig or the Reeve Hunter to start. In MK 2, I used to put out SR on a different solo and move it over to Grayle but the cost is now 3 and I have a second useful upkeep. If I hot swap it, Grayle is sitting on 1 that turn which gives me too little redundancy. For instance, in my last game Grayle provided the killing blow on Loki. As a refresher, Loki had elusive on him and Grayle already had SR on him. Grayle left Loki on 3 hp due to some low DMG rolls throughout the turn. I needed to spend 1 fury to buy an additional attack and I choose to spend 1 to boost the damage to increase the kill chance. This left me on two fury making me essentially invincible to a goofy Sentry Stone/Pureblood jank spray assassination. I couldn't do that if i had to hotswap SR. I generally find Morraig doesn't get in the business and the associated danger until turn 2 or 3 when I want Grayle also up in the business. Further, the changes to Cav to give him boosted charge attack rolls and the plethora of ways to get Flank make him accurate. Mat 10 is just fine. The damage part is only effectively 2 as anything that is dying in one swing to trigger cleave likely didn't need the additional +2 (not always true but in general). The arm portion might keep him alive and Morraig is certainly valuable but you'll probably need a heavy to get him, at which point I've probably traded up Morraig for your heavy. And finally, Grayle not dying is so much more important. If I was going to use those three fury, I rather use them for a Gallows assassination/piece trade or Wind Blast for the many wind walls in the meta or to stop shooting. It is much easier to predict where guns will be with more terrain funneling pieces. This might not be the best line of play but is my current reasoning. |
|
|
|
Post by rezfon on Aug 30, 2017 14:11:17 GMT
I went back to the rule book and did some reading and asked my friend who was formerly a Judge when that program existed. It's a reminder that in a tournament, ask the organizer/person making rule judgments. I don't believe your "Moving 0 and not changing facing means you don't count as advancing." statement is correct. If you can find and quote a place where it says that, I'd appreciate it. My current understanding: - Vengeance is a "can" rule. I don't have to take it. In this case, I wouldn't take it. However, if I was to take it, I can't forfeit the 3" of movement. Forfeiting movement is a specific rule on page 30 of Primal. -I'm still not sure if you are allowed to Forfeit movement for any reason you deem is beneficial. This is confusing because on page 29 in the first sentence after the heading "Forfeiting Normal Movement or Combat Actions" it says "Some rules require a model to forfeit its Normal Movement or Combat Action or allow it to do so voluntarily for some benefit." -You can forfeit your Normal Movement (assuming you're not in combat) to aim regardless of you actually possessing a melee weapon. In general, I enjoy that Warmachine/Hordes rules are so clear when compared with other game systems. This is the first time, I've had to do a deep dive and seems unclear or janky at best. Ugh. Aye it'll differ from judge to judge unfortunately on the day. The table next to me once, had to get advancing and movement cleared up (not for adnomition) before and I've been playing based on that ruling. On page 30 there is a two part clause. It says "advancing refers to movement a model intentionally makes". It was ruled on the day that the model had not advanced as it didn't physically move. It then goes on to clarify "Changing facing by rotating in place is still advancing even though the model's position on the table does not change" which was argued that line confirms an exception to the rule (probably as that can bring models into melee range). There was also a thread on the PP forums that came to the same conclusion, I can try dig it out. This is purely for advancing, which is a required part of adnomition. Edit: found it, DarkLegacy (Infernal) confirmed movement: "A model can voluntarily forfeit movement or action. A model that doesn't move and doesn't change facing is not advancing. A model that changes facing and moves 0" is advancing.". privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?256976-forfeiting-movementLooking at the comments of where i found that link, the confusion happened because of mk2 rules where moving 0 counted as advancing, but this wasn't the same in mk3. |
|
|
|
Post by Dave G on Aug 30, 2017 20:42:12 GMT
Sweet, thanks for the reference! It'll be a lot easier to clear up with my opponent next time I see him.
Hopefully they'll errata that clear description into the rules.
|
|
|
|
Post by shonkhor on Aug 31, 2017 8:33:37 GMT
Thank you! I've thought about his battle group a fair amount and I'm not against either of those but it seems like additional points that I don't want to spend on something I can more or less control with good play. I'd want to play both the watcher and Slam goat as forward/initial piece trade models. Watchers also represent zone holding potential which I don't need in this particular list. I'm admittedly probably pigeon holing them without enough testing. We'll also see where they end up after CID. I find good play hard! In seriousness, as Grayle is often mid-line I was finding he often had things slammed over him or thrown at him, or an arc node could get within 5". Earths blessing lets me be more confident about playing Grayle aggressively in more matchups. I've settled on a woldwatcher. He just sits around being high armour, sometimes taking a potshot, until it is time to move into and score a zone. My opponent from the last game was advocating Storm Rager on either Morraig or the Reeve Hunter to start. In MK 2, I used to put out SR on a different solo and move it over to Grayle but the cost is now 3 and I have a second useful upkeep. If I hot swap it, Grayle is sitting on 1 that turn which gives me too little redundancy. For instance, in my last game Grayle provided the killing blow on Loki. As a refresher, Loki had elusive on him and Grayle already had SR on him. Grayle left Loki on 3 hp due to some low DMG rolls throughout the turn. I needed to spend 1 fury to buy an additional attack and I choose to spend 1 to boost the damage to increase the kill chance. This left me on two fury making me essentially invincible to a goofy Sentry Stone/Pureblood jank spray assassination. I couldn't do that if i had to hotswap SR. I generally find Morraig doesn't get in the business and the associated danger until turn 2 or 3 when I want Grayle also up in the business. Further, the changes to Cav to give him boosted charge attack rolls and the plethora of ways to get Flank make him accurate. Mat 10 is just fine. The damage part is only effectively 2 as anything that is dying in one swing to trigger cleave likely didn't need the additional +2 (not always true but in general). The arm portion might keep him alive and Morraig is certainly valuable but you'll probably need a heavy to get him, at which point I've probably traded up Morraig for your heavy. And finally, Grayle not dying is so much more important. If I was going to use those three fury, I rather use them for a Gallows assassination/piece trade or Wind Blast for the many wind walls in the meta or to stop shooting. It is much easier to predict where guns will be with more terrain funneling pieces. This might not be the best line of play but is my current reasoning. You have me persuaded. I am going to try this out for my next few games with Grayle. My list for reference is: [Theme] The Wild Hunt (Grayle 1) Grayle the Farstrider [+29] - Gorax Rager [7] - Warpwolf Stalker [19] - Woldwatcher [9] War Wolf [2] War Wolf [2] Wolf Lord Morraig [8] Reeves of Orboros (max) [16] - Reeve of Orboros Chieftain & Standard [0(4)] Warpborn Skinwalkers (max) [15] - Warpborn Skinwalker Alpha [0(4)] Wolves of Orboros (max) [11] - Wolves of Orboros Chieftain & Standard [0(4)] Wolves of Orboros (max) [11] - Wolves of Orboros Chieftain & Standard [4] So a few more bodies and less beasts. |
|
I have had an eye on grayle for a while. This makes me want to give him a shot 
