SeBM
Junior Strategist
Posts: 102 
|
Post by SeBM on Jan 25, 2018 19:32:04 GMT
Hey guys, I'm currently playing Retribution, but I am getting bored with faction at the moment and can't get myself motivated to paint anything.
I'm thinking of getting into Circle, but I'd like to know your take on the faction state, as no one plays them regularly locally.
How's the list diversity and caster bench?
How does Circle fare in the current meta?
What are the worst match ups for Circle?
What are the best match ups for Circle?
Anything I should know about Circle?
|
|
|
|
Post by macdaddy on Jan 25, 2018 20:10:08 GMT
Ill try to give a concise crack at this based on my expereicne: Overall Circle Ranking in the Meta? I would say about on par with the average factions but just below factions like Cygnar, cryx, and Khador. Caster Bench: Great actually. The top level ones IMO and Experience are: 1:Wumrwood 2:Una2 3:Krueger 2: All the rest of the casters are about middle of the road. Morcannahs are meh and Kromac 2 has some deliver, competition issues but otherwise our caster stable is pretty good. List diversity: Its ok i guess. Could be worse, (like legion is currently) Our best themes are Bones, Call, and Devo Host. Youll Mostly see a lot of scarsfells in call of the wild and almost every single good devo host list will have 2 boats of ravagers. Bones lists vary based on caster and design intent. Ill give us a B on list diversity. Worst Match ups? Anything with High arm Skewed heavies that also have pathfinder. Anything that ignores our defensive tech light most of retribution. I would sya our problem factions are Retribution, Khador, and Trolls. Retribution ignores our tools, and Khador and trolls force us to fight fair. Best match ups are for certain: Cryx (IME some may disagree), Cygnar, and Any infantry list that exists. We mulch infantry of all types but can struggle into High arm box skew lists like Maelok with all the possy, or impending Man of War spam depending on how horribly the khador CiD goes. (I have low expectations) As far as other general advice: Be aware that we don't fight fair, and its going to seem at first that every fight is an uphill battle. Our faction typically rewards high skilled players and we can get really really janky with casters like Wumrwood or Kruger 2. We don't exactly use blunt force and We typically have bad staying power. The learning curve is really high so be ready for that. The best theme we have right now IMO is Bones of orboros, but if you don't like rock creatures I would say Una 2 in call of the wild and some other caster like Krueger 1 in Devo Host is a fine enough pairing. If you are into the sticks and stones side of circle, well...we can go into that more after you answer  Primal can be a trap so its going to take a lot of practice figuring out when and where to apply it. Normally its safe to apply it liberally to light warbeasts, but our heavies...don't really like losing an activation. We will be getting a tharn based CiD sometime this year (possibly summer or fall) so be prepared to have some things change around then. Finally, welcome to the faction  |
|
|
|
Post by maplewhisky on Jan 25, 2018 21:31:34 GMT
Hey guys, I'm currently playing Retribution, but I am getting bored with faction at the moment and can't get myself motivated to paint anything. I'm thinking of getting into Circle, but I'd like to know your take on the faction state, as no one plays them regularly locally. How's the list diversity and caster bench? How does Circle fare in the current meta? What are the worst match ups for Circle? What are the best match ups for Circle? Anything I should know about Circle? Mac gave a good answer, I'll offer my opinions: List diversity is pretty poor compared to some of the top factions. We haven't been given a once over since mk3 (which kind of broke Hordes) and as a result we only have one "fully functioning" theme, which is Bones of Orboros. Outside of Bones diversity is basically Kaya3/Una2 Call of the Wild, some strong delivery casters / Una once again in Devourer's Host and then after that it's a bit snowflakey. One thing I will say though is our bottom rung isn't nearly as bad as people say it is. I've seen things like Wurmwood Wild Hunt win games consistently, it just struggles once you start playing against the top of the meta. For tournaments you'll mostly see Bones, CotW and DH. In terms of our most competitive casters, I would rank our faction something like: Una2 > Krueger2/Baldur2/Wurmwood/Kaya3 as our top, but our stable is actually pretty good after that. The difference in strength really isn't that much outside of the tippy top, and even then if you know what you're doing there can be good reason to play other casters. I expect our stable to open up again in a big way with Dev Host CID in Q3~ this year. Now, this is a bit weird. In the current meta, we have great matchups into Cryx, Grymkin and Cygnar, these are very popular tournament factions and it definitely gives us a solid leg up. Where we tend to fall down is in the mid tier. The only "Big Boy" meta bully faction I think we have a really hard time against is Skorne, just now. But there are some weird holes in our matchup coverage a lot of the time and sometimes you can run into some random lists that just totally blindside you. Multiwound infantry with good rebuke tech are an excellent example of that. Contrary to Macdaddy I actually find Khadoran armour skews mostly dealable with (he needs to use disruptostick some more), although Harkevich is a lot more difficult than Karchev because he has Pathfinder, Jump Start AND repo on his warjacks, which makes them a lot more resilient to our control shtick. Worst matchups? Serious multiwound infantry can be a problem. Right now we crutch hard on Una to deal with srs armour, and flank makes our griffons quite inefficient vs multiwounders. As a result you can try to brick past them or control them, but if the infantry bricks have tech to deal with it (Ammok in Primal Terrors looks terrifying for this reason) then we're in real trouble a lot of the time. Also, Amon has most casters in the faction by the balls. Una2 is the only reliable solution I've found to him, but there are probably some -really- shooty Bones builds out there that can do it too. Rasheth is also exceptionally difficult. Best matchups are probably Cryx in general, if not then it depends a lot on your pairing. If you play a lot of Una2 then you just crush a lot of battlegroup lists, if you have Baldur2 then you can arm skew some people out (also things like Maelok Posse Spam that relies on debuffs to kill high arm targets), if you have Krueger2 then you get to laugh at ret and low armour infantry swarms etc. Overall if I had to pick a best matchup it would probably be Cryx then maybe... Ret? I play a lot of Krueger2 though and he's VERY good against Ret. Macdaddy covered most of the other stuff I'd like to say! |
|
demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649
|
Post by demonic on Jan 26, 2018 20:35:12 GMT
they covered most everything... Bones does a good armor break, but is out-threated by skorne whenever they play a speed boost caster; their aggy is also a pain.
We probably have the best animi, overall (no, we don't have rage, lucky shot, etc), but you shouldn't get hanged up over them. As they were saying, primal might be awesome for an alpha but it leaves your beasts useless for a turn. Using the wild argus, we can negate all high defensive units, but you can't take them in bones or with Brad.
Our average def is high, we only have 1 beast with movement 4 (yes, even the stone beasts with 20 arm def 10 move at 5), and terrain is our biggest ally. If you play in a meta that uses a lot of random terrain, you can expect a larger win ratio than in metas that prefer to play using a flat plain. tbh, I've been having issues going back to my other two factions due to them not being able to simply walk through forests and receive a buff from it x.O; We also have great LoS blockers who can spawn forests in the middle of nowhere.
As was mentioned, Circle is a faction that highly benefits skilled users, and will teach you how to play skillfully as well. Learning all the janky techniques we have at our disposal can really allow you to control the opponent, his options, and even the board itself... OH we also have a caster that negates e-leap lists (kreugar2)
|
|
