Zeykk
Junior Strategist
Posts: 135
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Post by Zeykk on Jan 18, 2018 15:29:18 GMT
Prospective Dorf player here. Is there a consensus on if Gorten is playable in SR17 and does he appreciate Hammerfall more than Irregulars? I imagine he might, but I'm coming from the hordes side of things and low Fury isn't quite the same as low Focus. I'm not asking if he's optimal, he isn't, but he's the caster that tickles my fancy just now. I might pair him with Ossrum in Irregulars, or someone else, not sure. Just looking at whether following this flight of fancy will be more pain than it's worth. He's very playable, and my most successful caster in SR17. I know a couple others that have had success with him or are currently having success with him as well. I play him in Hammerstrike, and have yet to play him in Irregulars. However, many will tell you he will be more optimal in Irregulars. He's my favorite caster. shoe I'm curious what your Crosse2 Llaelese list is, currently I've only been tinkering with him in Irregulars and Ashlynn in The Resistance. However, I think that would belong in a different thread. Would you see yourself using Crosse2 against Cryx, as I'm currently still trying to develop a Cryx drop I like for double riders Dark Host. Been looking for that pairing for my Hammerstrike lists for a while.
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shoe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 706
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Post by shoe on Jan 18, 2018 17:53:08 GMT
Prospective Dorf player here. Is there a consensus on if Gorten is playable in SR17 and does he appreciate Hammerfall more than Irregulars? I imagine he might, but I'm coming from the hordes side of things and low Fury isn't quite the same as low Focus. I'm not asking if he's optimal, he isn't, but he's the caster that tickles my fancy just now. I might pair him with Ossrum in Irregulars, or someone else, not sure. Just looking at whether following this flight of fancy will be more pain than it's worth. He's very playable, and my most successful caster in SR17. I know a couple others that have had success with him or are currently having success with him as well. I play him in Hammerstrike, and have yet to play him in Irregulars. However, many will tell you he will be more optimal in Irregulars. He's my favorite caster. shoe I'm curious what your Crosse2 Llaelese list is, currently I've only been tinkering with him in Irregulars and Ashlynn in The Resistance. However, I think that would belong in a different thread. Would you see yourself using Crosse2 against Cryx, as I'm currently still trying to develop a Cryx drop I like for double riders Dark Host. Been looking for that pairing for my Hammerstrike lists for a while. Well we could move it to another thread but this is the only one I am not currently trolling. I tinker with him in Resistance myself. My Crosse2 Resistance list changes weekly but is currently 3 Nomads Buc Max TLG/UA Max Trenchers/UA/3 WA Blythe and Bull Gibbs Taryn Eilish Ragman Gorman Reinholdt The idea being to use beat backs, Shadow Fire, ghost walk and a puppet mastered Buc net to kill the other caster while still having strong attrition. Lifebound on Trenchers. Dauntless on TLG so they are blast resistant even after minifeat. I have not tested this as I am preparing for a Con and Crosse2 did not make the cut as much as I wished it. The TLG used to be Storm Lances, which was okay but they have underperformed so far. I don't love Crosse2 into Cryx due to the lack of living models on the other side, and the Wraith Engine being a tough out, but my theory is he can run pretty much the same list Damiano does in Irregulars (has Aiyana and Holt) and do fine into most of the same things as his personal contribution offsets Damiano's massive army support. So far, this theory has proven incorrect but possibly because I'm playing against Kolgrima too much.
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Choco
Junior Strategist
Gorten, best feet in the game.
Posts: 571
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Post by Choco on Jan 18, 2018 17:58:17 GMT
Prospective Dorf player here. Is there a consensus on if Gorten is playable in SR17 and does he appreciate Hammerfall more than Irregulars? I imagine he might, but I'm coming from the hordes side of things and low Fury isn't quite the same as low Focus. I'm not asking if he's optimal, he isn't, but he's the caster that tickles my fancy just now. I might pair him with Ossrum in Irregulars, or someone else, not sure. Just looking at whether following this flight of fancy will be more pain than it's worth. The dwarves are a funny bunch. Ossrum is overwhelming our most used caster, he is just *that* good in Hammerstrike or Irregulars. My personal opinion on Gorten is that he has the most powerful feat in the game, but it's on a SPD4, FOC5 caster, so it's pretty easy to play around unless your game goes really deep into the round. I still love him and have been using him as one of my armor cracking casters (in Irregulars you can give a jack a +10 damage bonus against another jack, +8 against everything else, and a +6/+4 for all your other models). He takes some time to really figure out properly, but he's lots of fun to play. I haven't played him in Hammerstrike yet, I feel he misses out on important tools that fill his obvious gaps. My list I am running right now is an armor cracking list with 7 heavies in it, which is by far not the norm with him. I don't run a single gun bunny in it either (I know, blasphemy!).
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shoe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 706
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Post by shoe on Jan 18, 2018 18:06:28 GMT
Prospective Dorf player here. Is there a consensus on if Gorten is playable in SR17 and does he appreciate Hammerfall more than Irregulars? I imagine he might, but I'm coming from the hordes side of things and low Fury isn't quite the same as low Focus. I'm not asking if he's optimal, he isn't, but he's the caster that tickles my fancy just now. I might pair him with Ossrum in Irregulars, or someone else, not sure. Just looking at whether following this flight of fancy will be more pain than it's worth. i dunno. 20 tough no kd hammer dorfs that get 2d3 models back every turn seems okay. super slow but okay. u can put a rock wall in front of them. bring spray bunnies for dat feat. i would be skeert of losing on cps in the busier scenarios
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Jan 18, 2018 21:43:56 GMT
I tend to agree ; speed issues notwithstanding, if there's a caster to play with Hammerstrike, imho its gorten. Not the strongest thing in the world but there's plenty of lists out there that will have issues dealing with that configuration.
Of course to do that, most of the list builds itself with 20 x forgeguard and 2 x crawlers, but i mean, its hammerstrike, that's what you're going to spend the majority of your points on anyway to trigger free stuff anyhow - sure there's different configs you can to max out free takes, but in this case with gorten, i think double FG, double crawler is pretty solid. That'll give you 3 freebies, and 38 points to play with (31 of which are WJ points).
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Zeykk
Junior Strategist
Posts: 135
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Post by Zeykk on Jan 18, 2018 22:34:07 GMT
I've tried the double Forgeguard and double crawler configuration with Gorten, but it's really hard to make it work in my meta at the moment. This might just be my poor luck in round draws at tournaments or whom I have to play regularly against on open nights, but I haven't been able to handle dark host (or any Cryx), Maelok with 40 Posse, to name a few. I've been getting better against Legion with it.
I tend to be a more grindy attrition/scenario player anyway so Hammer Strike works well for me in that way. And Gorten takes that play style up another notch and I love it.
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Xintas
Junior Strategist
Posts: 824
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Post by Xintas on Jan 22, 2018 14:50:04 GMT
The lists I've had success with when fielding Gorten (this is a bit outdated now, more from the beginning of mk3) tended to be more along the lines of Irregulars than Hammer Strike. I find that I want to run dorfs with Ossrum and high def, mobile, and relatively self sufficient things with Gorten. I've always liked running him with a good chunk of the "superfriends" as they alleviate his focus strapped nature, and he can make it easier to deliver a lot of traditionally squishy infantry.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Jan 23, 2018 0:15:39 GMT
I think most people prefer Irregulars to Hammerstrike. I think the tangent we got on though was that IF you were going to use Hammerstrike, who's the best into it ? I think arguing Gorten is fairly compelling from that starting point. I'd rather have Ossrum in Irregulars for sure, and while i like Durgen (i know opinion is mixed on this) i definitely want him in Irregulars too. I just don't see too many compelling reasons to play anyone in Hammerstrike except Gorten and even that's a toss up.
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shoe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 706
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Post by shoe on Jan 23, 2018 0:56:03 GMT
Well Kayazy Assassins are poo, Eliminators play on the flanks, and Croe's are niche (and not Gorten's niche), Nyss are overpriced crap and Idrians already have blast immunity so I'm taking Gorten in Irregulars for Aiyana and Holt's magic weapon because Gorten already has a damage buff. Meh.
You take Gorten double Crawler, double tough FG because the respawn goes 10" out front of your crawlers, which helps the scenario issues. Then you play with your bunnies and Drillers to go up on attrition and keep charges on the Crawlers blocked. If the Crawlers don't get all shot off the board, or your FG don't get snacked by trollies it's solid.
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Xintas
Junior Strategist
Posts: 824
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Post by Xintas on Jan 23, 2018 14:38:45 GMT
I think most people prefer Irregulars to Hammerstrike. I think the tangent we got on though was that IF you were going to use Hammerstrike, who's the best into it ? I think arguing Gorten is fairly compelling from that starting point. I'd rather have Ossrum in Irregulars for sure, and while i like Durgen (i know opinion is mixed on this) i definitely want him in Irregulars too. I just don't see too many compelling reasons to play anyone in Hammerstrike except Gorten and even that's a toss up. Totally makes sense. My point, if poorly explained, was that I have not tended to have as much success with Gorten in Hammerstrike style lists as I have in Irregular style lists in the past. I don't think he necessarily does fantastic things for dorfs, but dorfs with siege crawler are self sufficient in a different yet equally effective way as the lesser warlocks. My very limited contention was that Gorten isn't really doing anything for Double FG Double SC that any of the other Rhulic casters also aren't doing, he just has equally little to offer most other things. Caveat: He was my first caster, I understand how good his feat is, and I personally think he is wonderful. He just isn't offering a lot in the way of spare focus or buffs (really just buff, and that's going to go on the same target whether you play Irregulars or Hammerstrike).
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Jan 23, 2018 21:46:37 GMT
I think most people prefer Irregulars to Hammerstrike. I think the tangent we got on though was that IF you were going to use Hammerstrike, who's the best into it ? I think arguing Gorten is fairly compelling from that starting point. I'd rather have Ossrum in Irregulars for sure, and while i like Durgen (i know opinion is mixed on this) i definitely want him in Irregulars too. I just don't see too many compelling reasons to play anyone in Hammerstrike except Gorten and even that's a toss up. Totally makes sense. My point, if poorly explained, was that I have not tended to have as much success with Gorten in Hammerstrike style lists as I have in Irregular style lists in the past. I don't think he necessarily does fantastic things for dorfs, but dorfs with siege crawler are self sufficient in a different yet equally effective way as the lesser warlocks. My very limited contention was that Gorten isn't really doing anything for Double FG Double SC that any of the other Rhulic casters also aren't doing, he just has equally little to offer most other things. Caveat: He was my first caster, I understand how good his feat is, and I personally think he is wonderful. He just isn't offering a lot in the way of spare focus or buffs (really just buff, and that's going to go on the same target whether you play Irregulars or Hammerstrike). So, I sort of disagree. I think gortens kit is what makes him takeable-ish with hammerstrike. Hammerstrike makes dorfs tough and surefoot keeps tough persistent. If you need to widen your footprint on approach such that a squad of gorgeguard is out of the surefoot bubble, you can throw out a rock wall to boost defense and other applicable shenanigans that walls do. The feat plays equal parts threat range mitigator, zone chicanery, and general stat debuff Firetruckery we all know and love. No doubt you can do gorten in irregulars, and succeed with typical gorten strats, but i think hammerstrike plays to a higher degree to what gortens kit offers than the other two options comparatively. Ofc your personal mileage may vary. I only disagree with your self described limited contention, to be clear.
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Xintas
Junior Strategist
Posts: 824
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Post by Xintas on Jan 24, 2018 14:54:21 GMT
Hammerstrike makes dorfs tough and surefoot keeps tough persistent. If you need to widen your footprint on approach such that a squad of gorgeguard is out of the surefoot bubble, you can throw out a rock wall to boost defense and other applicable shenanigans that walls do. I think is the part we disagree on. I'm sure you are probably correct in practical application (the majority of my Gorten experience is a year behind me), but the concept doesn't make as much sense to me. Maybe if I can articulate it, we can figure out what I'm missing. Boosting defense means that we are likely dealing with methods of attack that rely on hitting a single target (as an AoE only has to hit one and will aim for something else in your blob of 20 forgeguard) or a spray. If it is the former, than we aren't likely to lose too many models, as the volume of those type of attacks are generally lower with a higher pow (e.g. Warcaster hand cannon) or a higher number of shots with a lower pow (e.g. Long gunners). Low number and high pow we can assume forces a tough roll each time and we pass 1 in 3. The long gunners remove a forge guard on 9s (when Wall of Steel is up) and lets assume they roll 2 attacks each. Roughly 25% of the time they'll get a kill and we pass a tough roll on 1 in 3. With both (Lets say 2 from the warcaster and 3 from the unit), we are still well within the amount we would return with 2 Siege crawlers. The surefoot bubble has a similar "issue" in that we are doubling down on not losing models even though we can easily return a fair number. The obvious counter to the above logic is that its a single unit or a single shooter with a couple of attacks, but I would argue that Gorten Hammerstrike should always be the "wrong" play from your 2 list pairing into a gunline. All in all, I totally get that surefoot tough is great and being able to boost defense at a moments notice is good, but I don't think it is really offering much that we aren't covering with the 36 points we are investing in Siege Crawlers. It feels like overkill that could be better spent.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Jan 25, 2018 0:18:07 GMT
Fair points, though, again, I don't think either of us is saying that Gorten is "better" in Hammerstrike, but rather if you're set on Hammerstrike, Gorten's kit of your three options is probably the best of all three.
That said, what you're calculating as overkill to me is called layering up on benefits. Consider:
ARM 18 Forgeguard who, via Sure Foot, cannot be knocked down and thus gain persistent Tough due to the theme. Forget the blast damage immunity, its basically irrelevant. So what this means is in the sure foot bubble I have Forgeguard who 33% of the time they otherwise would die maintain 100% fighting effectiveness against anything that doesn't ignore Tough. ALso don't forget that you can cluster up your blob in 3's (really pairs, but that makes it trivial to "unzip" the armor bonus) to minimize impact of AOE's with on hit triggers if you're worried about that. I'm not terribly worried about AOE's in Hammerstrike because between the Crawlers passing out girded, Surefoot's footprint doing essentially the same, and the high nature of the armor, i pretty much don't care about blast damage other than on-hit or on crit-hit triggers.
I'll ignore for the moment the obvious downfalls forgeguard have from such things as anatomical precision which both bypasses this defense mechanism and autoplinks even if it fails to get through armor. Even worse is Sniper / Deadly Shot models. We can basically 100% agree that these are ubiquitously shitty for the Rhulic player to see across the table, and even with the recursion engines running are losing prospects due to the ease with which they hit. While i'm sure there are others, if you play Foreguard and you see Eliminators, Kayazy assassins, or Widowmakers across the table, its going to suck until you can mitigate such things (thankfully they're all fragile AF, and you've got 4 good sized pie plates and hopefully a blaster or two along, but i digress).
So, returning to the first paragraph and obvious pitfalls and counters nothwithstanding as noted, i'm maintaining effectiveness against incoming damage 33% of the time longer. Put another way, each attack that connects (lets face it, not hard) and gets through the armor (not as hard as in some lists, but 18 armor is respectable), i'm reducing the effective successful output of attacks by a persistent 33%. That's not insignificant - fluky dice happen, and this 33% will stack with fluky misses and fluky low damage rolls, because its denying a 33% statistically of the SUCCESSFUL attacks. I know we all know how No-KD Tough works, but i'm belaboring it on purpose to illustrate the worth. That's one layer and its decent-ish, because Tough is fickle even with no KD, we all know that. It's why i never understood the massive brouhaha in MK3 about downgrading it from MK2. My suspicion is it stems more from Trolls having a few decent-ish to great skew lists and Tough just became the icing on that particular shit cake that became popular to rail against (MMM, EE, etc).
Here's the second layer. As you're reducing your opponents output effectively by 33% on successful DEF/ARM checks, those denied casualties are maintaining 100% combat effectiveness if they are in the surefoot bubble. If they are not, they are still mobile if they survive and there's no successive attacks they cant' soak. So inside Surefoot there's zero loss of fidelity. That attack has been negated en toto. No list, gunline or otherwise, likes to see their attack output economy reduced by that rate with zero loss of fidelity to the other side.
Lets look at the other ~66% where you succeed. Third layer, your recursion engines are replacing at a potential rate of 2d3 a turn. So on top of the 33% negation (which stacks on top of flukey dice on both DEF and ARM checks - small, but still, worth mentioning), you are now replacing successful casualties (and it should be noted at a loss of fidelity, which is far more important late game than in early game), which means a further reduction of attack output economy (albeit, not quite as impactful to the attacker as a passed Tough Check under Sure foot, but still - models can still move, which is at least somewhat useful, and if not killed again, its a model that can attack the following turn). Your recursion engines it should be noted are not insignificant resource wise to remove (in that i mean its not trivial to one round a crawler - that takes a plan and dedication of some resources, and you have two of them).
This can be a slog to plough through. On top if you need to spread out, you can give a few of your trio bubbles of Guard outside the Sure Foot Bubble a fairly decent defense, and the fun shenanigans an obstacle with reach infantry can provide, and all the fun Gortens feat presents.
In this game, to me, when it comes to things like this there really isn't "overkill". If you have a combo that takes up 68 points of your list, the more layers of combo i can double or triple up on to make that combo more effective, then hell yes, bring it on. Again, in hammerstrike you sacrifice a lot. A real lot. And i basically cannot concieve of it being worth it with Ossrum or Durgen. Gorten i think though, if you're hell bent, dead set on playing Hammerstrike brings some interesting durability that while maybe its not an ideal trade off for the things you trade for in lieu of Irregulars, but you at least get some neat stuff back at the cost of making a decent list playing to the themes strengths with Gorten means essentially your list builds itself with almost no variation.
To me the whole reason why playing Gorten in Hammerstrike isn't completely awful is the layered interaction between 2 crawlers and 2 units of forgeguard with Gorten's kit. Take out any of the three pieces of that equation, and its not worth it to play it in Hammerstrike no matter what it is you effectively change. Change caster, forget it, to me go irregulars. Take out 1 or both units of forgeguard, then why bother with the crawler, and at which point, why am i playing hammerstrike? Take our the crawlers, and i lose my recursion engines, which has a direct impact on the effectiveness that Hammerstrike granting Tough in conjunction with Surefoot offers.
So for me, the tripartite effect of having super durable zero fidelity loss models coupled with those that i do lose coming right back (albeit combat-action-less for one turn) is actually the real draw of Gorten in Hammerstrike.
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shoe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 706
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Post by shoe on Jan 25, 2018 0:49:18 GMT
so much sense being made!
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skormedlover87
Junior Strategist
Desperately searching for days off to game...
Posts: 517
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Post by skormedlover87 on Jan 25, 2018 1:40:06 GMT
Fair points, though, again, I don't think either of us is saying that Gorten is "better" in Hammerstrike, but rather if you're set on Hammerstrike, Gorten's kit of your three options is probably the best of all three. That said, what you're calculating as overkill to me is called layering up on benefits. Consider: ARM 18 Forgeguard who, via Sure Foot, cannot be knocked down and thus gain persistent Tough due to the theme. Forget the blast damage immunity, its basically irrelevant. So what this means is in the sure foot bubble I have Forgeguard who 33% of the time they otherwise would die maintain 100% fighting effectiveness against anything that doesn't ignore Tough. ALso don't forget that you can cluster up your blob in 3's (really pairs, but that makes it trivial to "unzip" the armor bonus) to minimize impact of AOE's with on hit triggers if you're worried about that. I'm not terribly worried about AOE's in Hammerstrike because between the Crawlers passing out girded, Surefoot's footprint doing essentially the same, and the high nature of the armor, i pretty much don't care about blast damage other than on-hit or on crit-hit triggers. I'll ignore for the moment the obvious downfalls forgeguard have from such things as anatomical precision which both bypasses this defense mechanism and autoplinks even if it fails to get through armor. Even worse is Sniper / Deadly Shot models. We can basically 100% agree that these are ubiquitously shitty for the Rhulic player to see across the table, and even with the recursion engines running are losing prospects due to the ease with which they hit. While i'm sure there are others, if you play Foreguard and you see Eliminators, Kayazy assassins, or Widowmakers across the table, its going to suck until you can mitigate such things (thankfully they're all fragile AF, and you've got 4 good sized pie plates and hopefully a blaster or two along, but i digress). So, returning to the first paragraph and obvious pitfalls and counters nothwithstanding as noted, i'm maintaining effectiveness against incoming damage 33% of the time longer. Put another way, each attack that connects (lets face it, not hard) and gets through the armor (not as hard as in some lists, but 18 armor is respectable), i'm reducing the effective successful output of attacks by a persistent 33%. That's not insignificant - fluky dice happen, and this 33% will stack with fluky misses and fluky low damage rolls, because its denying a 33% statistically of the SUCCESSFUL attacks. I know we all know how No-KD Tough works, but i'm belaboring it on purpose to illustrate the worth. That's one layer and its decent-ish, because Tough is fickle even with no KD, we all know that. It's why i never understood the massive brouhaha in MK3 about downgrading it from MK2. My suspicion is it stems more from Trolls having a few decent-ish to great skew lists and Tough just became the icing on that particular shit cake that became popular to rail against (MMM, EE, etc). Here's the second layer. As you're reducing your opponents output effectively by 33% on successful DEF/ARM checks, those denied casualties are maintaining 100% combat effectiveness if they are in the surefoot bubble. If they are not, they are still mobile if they survive and there's no successive attacks they cant' soak. So inside Surefoot there's zero loss of fidelity. That attack has been negated en toto. No list, gunline or otherwise, likes to see their attack output economy reduced by that rate with zero loss of fidelity to the other side. Lets look at the other ~66% where you succeed. Third layer, your recursion engines are replacing at a potential rate of 2d3 a turn. So on top of the 33% negation (which stacks on top of flukey dice on both DEF and ARM checks - small, but still, worth mentioning), you are now replacing successful casualties (and it should be noted at a loss of fidelity, which is far more important late game than in early game), which means a further reduction of attack output economy (albeit, not quite as impactful to the attacker as a passed Tough Check under Sure foot, but still - models can still move, which is at least somewhat useful, and if not killed again, its a model that can attack the following turn). Your recursion engines it should be noted are not insignificant resource wise to remove (in that i mean its not trivial to one round a crawler - that takes a plan and dedication of some resources, and you have two of them). This can be a slog to plough through. On top if you need to spread out, you can give a few of your trio bubbles of Guard outside the Sure Foot Bubble a fairly decent defense, and the fun shenanigans an obstacle with reach infantry can provide, and all the fun Gortens feat presents. In this game, to me, when it comes to things like this there really isn't "overkill". If you have a combo that takes up 68 points of your list, the more layers of combo i can double or triple up on to make that combo more effective, then hell yes, bring it on. Again, in hammerstrike you sacrifice a lot. A real lot. And i basically cannot concieve of it being worth it with Ossrum or Durgen. Gorten i think though, if you're hell bent, dead set on playing Hammerstrike brings some interesting durability that while maybe its not an ideal trade off for the things you trade for in lieu of Irregulars, but you at least get some neat stuff back at the cost of making a decent list playing to the themes strengths with Gorten means essentially your list builds itself with almost no variation. To me the whole reason why playing Gorten in Hammerstrike isn't completely awful is the layered interaction between 2 crawlers and 2 units of forgeguard with Gorten's kit. Take out any of the three pieces of that equation, and its not worth it to play it in Hammerstrike no matter what it is you effectively change. Change caster, forget it, to me go irregulars. Take out 1 or both units of forgeguard, then why bother with the crawler, and at which point, why am i playing hammerstrike? Take our the crawlers, and i lose my recursion engines, which has a direct impact on the effectiveness that Hammerstrike granting Tough in conjunction with Surefoot offers. So for me, the tripartite effect of having super durable zero fidelity loss models coupled with those that i do lose coming right back (albeit combat-action-less for one turn) is actually the real draw of Gorten in Hammerstrike. And here I was, just happily thinking to myself "Dorf dorf dorf". Hoping the pain of buying, assembling and convincing my friend to paint them wouldn't leave me with a useless shelf warmer. But now I'm inspired. Tally-ho! Er, whatever the Dorf equivalent of Tally-ho is!?! Beer Run!
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