Post by gdnerd on Nov 8, 2017 19:58:19 GMT
Hey All,
Now that Northkin models are finally out and big tournaments are over for the end of the year, I've set my sights on mucking about with Madrak1. I think def skewing trolls can lead to some interesting list chicken scenarios where your opponent struggles to put a good front against (and of course I love me some good assassination jank). After mucking about I settled on the following list as a starting point:
Trollbloods Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm of the North
(Madrak 1) Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain [+29]
- Glacier King [35]
- Troll Axer [10]
- Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress [4]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max) [9]
- Northkin Elder [3]
Northkin Bear Handle & Battle Bears [10]
Northkin Bear Handle & Battle Bears [10]
Northkin Fire Eaters [7]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]
- Skaldi Bonehammer [0(5)]
A lot of people have been fixated on double Champions, and it might be good, but for those of you who have seen my rants in the past know that I have a pathological need to hit first. Bears and Fire eaters are just far faster, and their AD lets them project super hard.
The Glacier King is a perfect support piece here. It provides a concealment bubble for your Bears ensuring that they can bully from the middle of the board with relative impunity. The gun allows for triage of pieces you don't want to deal with as well as ranged assassination options. The animus allows you to limit the amount of jam your opponent can do / punish them for trying to kill the GK and failing (also gives you easy targets for Madrak to blood boon / ricochet off of). On top of that, lategame it's an amazing melee assassination piece. For those of you who don't see it:
1) Runebearer casts Guided Hand on the Glacier King
2) Axer casts Rush on the Glacier King
3) Stone turns on for speed to Northkin models
4) Glacier King runs 14", bulldozing whatever it needs to out of the way to land on their caster
5) Madrak casts Jackhammer on the Glacier King whose attack is boosted to hit due to Guided Hand, and it causes auto-stationary
6) Repeatedly pummel their warcaster/warlock with auto-hitting pow 19s. Even if you fall short, your opponent still has to deal with a Glacier King in melee with their warcaster/warlock
You can also do it to heavies you're afraid of hitting the glacier king - 6 pow 19s will kill or cripple most heavies out there. It's an amazing all around piece with Madrak in SotN.
Lanyssa is... interesting. Her prowl and cold immunity means she's a perfect solo to hold a flag inside one of your snow banks. Her Ice Bolt goes from amusing to deadly when you realize that the Krielstone Cold Buff doesn't require faction to benefit. She also helps eke out extra threat onto enemy models in a pinch.
I played this twice last night at my FLGS.
First game was into Helynna double sentinel in Dawnguard theme. I won the roll-off and was a huge bully on the board. He feels forced to feat first and I counter-feat. He does a good job of boxing in my champs/fire eaters with covering fire and minifeats with both sentinels to prevent a nasty alpha. I felt pretty good about attrition but instead decide to go for a ranged assassination in the interest of getting a second game. Second boosted shot from the GK crits Helynna and Madrak finishes the job with a Ricochet. I still had a single Fire Eater I could have gotten onto her with some path clearing by axer and champs. If I had played for attrition I am highly confident that I could have killed 90% of both of his units of sentinels and walk him down from there.
Second game was into ET drudge spam. We had to call this on time as the store was closing but it was... interesting. My opponent was forced to play VERY scared of assassination but wasn't that bothered by attrition. I made a positioning mistake on feat turn and let him kill my objective and clear a zone. I put myself vulnerable to an assassination attempt that fell short. By going hard for the assassination I believe that a full game would have seen him cede attrition to me and ultimately scenario. I made a lot of positioning and play mistakes this game (not taking full advantage of Jackhammer to clear a path for my models to hit better targets, not realizing I could have used hunter's mark to clear out a mind-bender cephalyx with my Fire Eaters) and I feel like there's a lot of room to improve with this list. I'm unsure if this is just due to playing two infantry heavy lists but I felt like my volume of attacks and projection was not as high as I'd like for this list. I think I might try something along the lines of the following in the near future:
Trollbloods Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm of the North
(Madrak 1) Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain [+29]
- Glacier King [35]
- Troll Axer [10]
- Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Eilish Garrity [5]
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew [2]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max) [9]
- Northkin Elder [3]
Northkin Bear Handle & Battle Bears [10]
Northkin Fire Eaters [7]
Northkin Fire Eaters [7]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]
- Skaldi Bonehammer [0(5)]
As amusing as Lanyssa's properties are, I think Eilish for upkeep hate / puppet strings is superior. Also the bears while amazing hard hitting pieces seem a bit redundant in a list with a full boat of champs and a gargantuan. It could just be initial bias but I'd rather have the volume/spread of Fire Eaters in this getup. At that point I could also see replacing the Axer with a Pyre Troll and "upgrading" the bellows crew to a Northkin Shaman. Makes the melee output of the GK a lot worse but helps me leverage the Fire Eaters better with a reliably non-lethal enabler for them (it can get risky to spray my own models on the charge, especially if they're not in stone aura at their landing spot).
If anyone else has been tinkering with Madrak1 I'd love to hear your findings/thoughts in building him!
Now that Northkin models are finally out and big tournaments are over for the end of the year, I've set my sights on mucking about with Madrak1. I think def skewing trolls can lead to some interesting list chicken scenarios where your opponent struggles to put a good front against (and of course I love me some good assassination jank). After mucking about I settled on the following list as a starting point:
Trollbloods Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm of the North
(Madrak 1) Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain [+29]
- Glacier King [35]
- Troll Axer [10]
- Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress [4]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max) [9]
- Northkin Elder [3]
Northkin Bear Handle & Battle Bears [10]
Northkin Bear Handle & Battle Bears [10]
Northkin Fire Eaters [7]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]
- Skaldi Bonehammer [0(5)]
A lot of people have been fixated on double Champions, and it might be good, but for those of you who have seen my rants in the past know that I have a pathological need to hit first. Bears and Fire eaters are just far faster, and their AD lets them project super hard.
The Glacier King is a perfect support piece here. It provides a concealment bubble for your Bears ensuring that they can bully from the middle of the board with relative impunity. The gun allows for triage of pieces you don't want to deal with as well as ranged assassination options. The animus allows you to limit the amount of jam your opponent can do / punish them for trying to kill the GK and failing (also gives you easy targets for Madrak to blood boon / ricochet off of). On top of that, lategame it's an amazing melee assassination piece. For those of you who don't see it:
1) Runebearer casts Guided Hand on the Glacier King
2) Axer casts Rush on the Glacier King
3) Stone turns on for speed to Northkin models
4) Glacier King runs 14", bulldozing whatever it needs to out of the way to land on their caster
5) Madrak casts Jackhammer on the Glacier King whose attack is boosted to hit due to Guided Hand, and it causes auto-stationary
6) Repeatedly pummel their warcaster/warlock with auto-hitting pow 19s. Even if you fall short, your opponent still has to deal with a Glacier King in melee with their warcaster/warlock
You can also do it to heavies you're afraid of hitting the glacier king - 6 pow 19s will kill or cripple most heavies out there. It's an amazing all around piece with Madrak in SotN.
Lanyssa is... interesting. Her prowl and cold immunity means she's a perfect solo to hold a flag inside one of your snow banks. Her Ice Bolt goes from amusing to deadly when you realize that the Krielstone Cold Buff doesn't require faction to benefit. She also helps eke out extra threat onto enemy models in a pinch.
I played this twice last night at my FLGS.
First game was into Helynna double sentinel in Dawnguard theme. I won the roll-off and was a huge bully on the board. He feels forced to feat first and I counter-feat. He does a good job of boxing in my champs/fire eaters with covering fire and minifeats with both sentinels to prevent a nasty alpha. I felt pretty good about attrition but instead decide to go for a ranged assassination in the interest of getting a second game. Second boosted shot from the GK crits Helynna and Madrak finishes the job with a Ricochet. I still had a single Fire Eater I could have gotten onto her with some path clearing by axer and champs. If I had played for attrition I am highly confident that I could have killed 90% of both of his units of sentinels and walk him down from there.
Second game was into ET drudge spam. We had to call this on time as the store was closing but it was... interesting. My opponent was forced to play VERY scared of assassination but wasn't that bothered by attrition. I made a positioning mistake on feat turn and let him kill my objective and clear a zone. I put myself vulnerable to an assassination attempt that fell short. By going hard for the assassination I believe that a full game would have seen him cede attrition to me and ultimately scenario. I made a lot of positioning and play mistakes this game (not taking full advantage of Jackhammer to clear a path for my models to hit better targets, not realizing I could have used hunter's mark to clear out a mind-bender cephalyx with my Fire Eaters) and I feel like there's a lot of room to improve with this list. I'm unsure if this is just due to playing two infantry heavy lists but I felt like my volume of attacks and projection was not as high as I'd like for this list. I think I might try something along the lines of the following in the near future:
Trollbloods Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm of the North
(Madrak 1) Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain [+29]
- Glacier King [35]
- Troll Axer [10]
- Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Eilish Garrity [5]
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew [2]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max) [9]
- Northkin Elder [3]
Northkin Bear Handle & Battle Bears [10]
Northkin Fire Eaters [7]
Northkin Fire Eaters [7]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]
- Skaldi Bonehammer [0(5)]
As amusing as Lanyssa's properties are, I think Eilish for upkeep hate / puppet strings is superior. Also the bears while amazing hard hitting pieces seem a bit redundant in a list with a full boat of champs and a gargantuan. It could just be initial bias but I'd rather have the volume/spread of Fire Eaters in this getup. At that point I could also see replacing the Axer with a Pyre Troll and "upgrading" the bellows crew to a Northkin Shaman. Makes the melee output of the GK a lot worse but helps me leverage the Fire Eaters better with a reliably non-lethal enabler for them (it can get risky to spray my own models on the charge, especially if they're not in stone aura at their landing spot).
If anyone else has been tinkering with Madrak1 I'd love to hear your findings/thoughts in building him!