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Post by finnigan2004 on Dec 1, 2017 13:01:32 GMT
Hey all. Just checking in, after having left the game quite a few months ago. I am (was?) a player who had quite a few different factions for both systems, and had played for quite a few years. I left just when the MK. III field test, sorry, CID was just getting under way. Probably my greatest disillusionment with the new edition was that Hordes factions seemed to start most games on their back foot, in my opinion (remember-- I have factions for both systems). I remember the last tournament I went to, facing a Warmachine army that spammed jacks against my beast heavy Circle. I found that my heavies were literally outnumbered three to one, and then he had Butcher to deal with. At the entire tournament, it seemed like everyone had gotten the memo-- there were seventy or so people there, and maybe half a dozen brought a Hordes faction. I went to play some watchmachine this time the tournament was on (as a break from playing a little Blood Bowl). The numbers remained really skewed.
Since then, I have played some other game systems, and am happy doing so-- there was a large exodus of players with the new edition in my area, so we just found other stuff. That said, I am thinking about coming back, but wanted to ask what people think now. Can Hordes be competitive with Warmachine these days? Can Circle? Does it feel like a super uphill battle every game? Can a beast heavy list work? I'm not looking for perfect balance-- I play other systems that are not perfectly balanced either.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690 
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Post by zich on Dec 1, 2017 13:25:28 GMT
Hordes factions can compete, but usually not by playing beasts. Especially not overpriced melee beasts.
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Post by macdaddy on Dec 1, 2017 14:48:24 GMT
Yes hordes factions can compete in the current meta. The advent of theme-aggedon has really revitalized the meta in a pretty good way. Interestingly, thanks to Ghost fleet and dark host you do not see lists with more than 4-6 jacks now a days. This was always a massive issue in early mark 3, as jacks were normally half the cost of warbeasts and just as effective in the trade match. Despite what you see on the legion forums, they typically fair well with oracles of annihilation which is a very beast heavy theme. Skrone are probably the best faction in hordes right now and they compete well due to layered buffing, and really powerful model synergy. Trolls have had a few CiD changes that have revitalized the faction. IMO they are close behind skorne in power level. Minions are ok, and grymkin are amazing. They all have a place in the meta now. Circle has a limited but effective stable as well, we normally are playing an uphill battle and a lot of games with come down to how skilled you are. Normally if your opponent is equally skilled as you, and playing a list with lots of pathfinder, or a crap ton of jacks, your going to have a bad time. The Call of the wild, Bones of Orboros, and Devourers host theme are excellent. People on here are desperateley trying to get secret masters to work, one guy even won with a super janky secret masters list at a 3 man tourney....but I am still not convinced  and wild hunt is...ok. We typically always need to bring a dedicated gunline drop just in case, as we are horribly allergic to boosted shooting, and we struggle to play scenario without losing on attrition. We also have some amazing nonlinear threat ranges. We can get to really uncomfortable positions and force our opponents to make hard choices. Its this aspect of the faction that is our strongpoint. Asking hard questions and demanding immediate answers. I would rank the factions as such: Cryx (may change post CiD changes) Cygnar Ret Khador Skorne (arguably better than khador) Grymkin (arguably better than khador) Protectorate Convergence Trolls Mercs Circle Legion Minions (may change based on CiD changes) There is still a discrepancy for sure. But if you practice and are familiar with the meta you are playing at, you can win with any faction IMO. |
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Post by bloodhawk on Dec 1, 2017 19:18:38 GMT
Macdaddy, I am curious what your thoughts are on how PP could change Circle to bring them back towards the top? Personally I think that we need a CID to adjust the roles of some of our infanty, adjust a few of our casters, and most importantly re-price the Warpwolf Chassis. Special mention to giving pathfinder to some living circle heavies, or giving us a way to pass out pathfinder at will in a non caster dependent way.
I am right there with you though thinking that any faction can compete, which is a testament to PP and their success balancing the game. In my local area we have several players having great success with Minions, for example.
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Post by macdaddy on Dec 1, 2017 19:42:50 GMT
Macdaddy, I am curious what your thoughts are on how PP could change Circle to bring them back towards the top? Personally I think that we need a CID to adjust the roles of some of our infanty, adjust a few of our casters, and most importantly re-price the Warpwolf Chassis. Special mention to giving pathfinder to some living circle heavies, or giving us a way to pass out pathfinder at will in a non caster dependent way. I am right there with you though thinking that any faction can compete, which is a testament to PP and their success balancing the game. In my local area we have several players having great success with Minions, for example. I do not want to derail this too much but Ill go ahead and give as concise an answer possible. I honestly do not know what the necessary fixes are. I think a start is repricing the warpwolf heavies. Believe it or not I do not think the feral, ghetorix, or the pureblood need native pathfinder. But I would like an option for pathfinder in faction preferably as an animus. I do think the goats need native pathfinder. Give them pathfinder and I think people will take them a lot more. They already can hit really hard with the right caster and fulfill niche rolls. (the gnarlhorn could use a new animus like rush...oh yes puhlease...) I hate our reliance on primal but that mostly stems from my utter loathing for primal. It just does not give enough benefit for the cost of an entire activation....Our faction is designed as if all our beasts are always affected by primal...at least the designers seem to think so based on insiders and such. And I think that combined with highly costed warpwolves, has caused our living heavy beasts to really fail in the attrition standpoint of things. I hate how little mat 7 we have in beasts in faction. I feel like the stalker should have it (19 points for goodness sake....) and I would Like to see the riphorn gain it. Right now I find myself needing to cast primal just to reliably hit higher def heavies and that is a really big problem....Sure we have mat fixers in faction like Una2, kaya 1,2 and 3, and kromac 1 and 2 as well as tanith, but I think hordes in general has a overal lack of mat 7 that is causing discrepancy in the systems....or maybe warmachine just has way to much mat 7.... Our infantry needs a lot of work. We need better ways to support them or they need to become more self sufficient. I have found all the infantry in wild hunt to die to a stiff breeze outside of skinwalkers who need an arm buff to be worth their cost as a speed bump,roadblock. I think if either our infantry became more self sufficient, or if we got a few changes to some of our infantry casters (Morv 1/2, Grayle) I think we have potential to run our infantry themes better. Overall I find our infantry all across the spectrum of usefullness outside of a few options.. Having said that I think the following units are fine: wolves of orboros, reeves or orboros, bloodweavers, trackers, ravagers, manikins. I think units like the death wolves, skinwalkers, blood pack, and woldstalkers need help. I really think the best solution to our infantry conundrum is just to make our infantry casters better.... I think circle has an excellent stable of lights (outside of the winter argus and rotterhorn) and we have an amazing stable of construct warbeasts. Our themes have a lot of potential (though I personally hate the design of secret masters but some people are using it) I think the best of our themes in order are: 1: Bones (perfect) 2: Devourers Host * 3: Call of the Wild 4: Wild Hunt * 5: Secret Masters ** *infantry caster changes would potentially move these themesup. **this theme seems incomplete and future releases may make it worthwile...maybe...hopefully...** Hilariously if secret masters allowed wumrwood I would play it, because my favorite wurmwood list fits into it perfectly. But darn you PP! I don't expect or think all these changes should happen at once or need to all happen. Honestly, re-costing warpwolves, and giving us some better infantry support may be all we need. |
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Post by bloodhawk on Dec 1, 2017 20:13:24 GMT
Thanks for the feedback macdaddy! I think you hit the nail on the head with your suggestions. Isn't it ironic that practically 99% of Warmachine Jacks are Mat7 (hyperbole). I tend to agree with you on the pathfinder. If we had Rush as an animus I would be happier than a pig in sh**. The nice part is that the faction is certainly playable as is, but if we get a few tweaks we could be really good. I have gone on a bit of a hiatus recently playing Legion for a while and then some Cryx, but I find that I have the most fun with Circle and have been moving back to them recently.
Speaking of the original topic I definitely agree that hordes factions can be competitive. When Mk3 came out I recall the huge debate surrounding whether power up was too powerful and if Jack spam would forever rule the day. As mentioned previously Cryx came to save the day on that one, and I personally have seen much more balanced lists since Ghost fleet entered the meta. I have always been of the mind that Cryx being the top faction is actually good for the game as they help keep Jack Spam in check. As a Circle player I always feel like I have the ability to play into Cryx dude spam armies, given the heavy amount of infantry hate we can field. At the end of the day, if you love Circle you can play the faction guilt free and have plenty of success. I feel personally like the wold CID has improved our overall standing in the game significantly, and when we get our living model CID I see no reason we can't be in the top 4 factions of the game once again.
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Post by wolfchild on Dec 2, 2017 12:31:12 GMT
The Steamroller 2017 packet did a LOT to rebalance Mk3, with the scenarios demanding a mix of units and solos as well as the warmachine spam.
Add in theme-aggeddon and it’s fairly balanced.
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Post by macdaddy on Dec 2, 2017 14:43:29 GMT
The Steamroller 2017 packet did a LOT to rebalance Mk3, with the scenarios demanding a mix of units and solos as well as the warmachine spam. Add in theme-aggeddon and it’s fairly balanced. Kind of. Most good jack/Beast themed allow the inclusion of a unit for scoring. Your still gonna see 7-10+ jacks every once in a while. All SR17 did was make Gunlines less potent and made scoring more dynamic. Cryx is what has scared jacks away. Because it’s a faction with cheap infantry that removes heavies. Contrary to what you’ll see people say on the internet about cryx infantry being unable to crack Arm. If cryx ever preters out, well see more jack spam again. |
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Post by finnigan2004 on Dec 2, 2017 16:53:47 GMT
So, Cirle is always my first choice, but if I want to play beast heavy Hordes, what is the best non-Legion way forward? Trolls, Circle, or titan herd Skorne are all acceptable.
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Post by Fudly on Dec 2, 2017 17:26:31 GMT
I think Circle is heaviest on beasts. Circle has 3 good themes. 2 of them are beast themes. I'm currently pairing Kaya3 with Bradigus.
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Post by macdaddy on Dec 2, 2017 17:46:18 GMT
So, Cirle is always my first choice, but if I want to play beast heavy Hordes, what is the best non-Legion way forward? Trolls, Circle, or titan herd Skorne are all acceptable. I 100% agree with Fudley Circle gets the most work done with it’s beasts. You’ll typically find our units struggle to kill anything that isn’t light infantry. I have only ever seen minimal BG in Devourers Host and even then it’s normally a workhorse Heavy like stalker/ghetorix And a gorax for primal. |
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demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649
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Post by demonic on Dec 3, 2017 21:10:35 GMT
if you're going beast heavy, specifically, you'll want to wait until the warpwolves get a CiD or stick to the bones theme. Trolls are your major gargantuan lean, but Skorne's beast bricks can really wreck house, especially alpha turn. Take a look at Imperial Warhost and see what you can do  Warpwolves are overpriced mainly because they take into account all 3 buffs that the warpwolves have, yet forget that they can only use 1 per turn. Basically, they are like menoth crusaders (10 pts) with a choir on their back (7 pt) yet they forget that there is only 1 member of the choir on the crusadar's shoulders (a little more than 1 pt) so before counting their animi, they should actually cost 11 pts x.O; An animus like primal I can see increasing their cost by 2 or 3 but that's still not even bringing them up to 15 pts. So, essentially, warpwolves are 15 pt beasts that we have to pay 17, 18, or 19pts for. The fact that our infantry is lacking really isn't circle's fault, tbh. Prices match up pretty well when you spread them throughout other factions. The issue comes with the fact that the way OUR infantry gets up the board is through high defense combined with concealment, cover, and stealth. This means drifting AoEs can pretty much wipe out all of our infantry and ranged attackers that ignore def buffs will also chew us up. TBH, if we just had access to girded you'd probably feel quite the sting when it came to our infantry. Our lights, all of them, have fabulous animi when used properly, but they are lacking a bit of a punch. I'd like to see them get a bit faster and a bit more powerful to make the Kayas suddenly become super valid again. Right now, they are all right on the edge. Give them a push PP!!!! |
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Dec 3, 2017 21:18:04 GMT
So, Cirle is always my first choice, but if I want to play beast heavy Hordes, what is the best non-Legion way forward? Trolls, Circle, or titan herd Skorne are all acceptable. Grymkin, no question there. |
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Post by macdaddy on Dec 4, 2017 0:22:11 GMT
demonicSee I think the only 2 lights that need changes are the roterhorn and winter argus. Literally every other light has a place and is powerful. Primal is actually excellent for our light beasts. Consider Kaya 3 can make Argi Hit at Pow 17 Mat 11 with primal. That’s Pow 21 with a combo strike...pretty darn impressive if you ask me...don’t get me started on Scarsfells. 11 Point Warpwolves?...what? Stalkers just need Mat 7 I think that would make them worth 19 points. Ferals need to be 16 points. Purebloods need to be 15 Ghetorix should probably be 20 and gain relentless charge. 11 Point Warpwolves is just stupid overpowered haha.
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Post by kuririnad on Dec 4, 2017 0:31:06 GMT
Comparing warpwolves to crusaders is like saying Molik Karn is just a slightly better druid Wilder. Like, waaaaay too many dimensions of difference to even begin a comparison.
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and wild hunt is...ok.
