Can’t you see my death-fear?
I can hear her voice
Shoutin’ everywhere
Who knows what I’ve done
It must be so bad
That a witch does care…
Who fancies a walkthrough of a Warmachine army list? I hope it’s you, because that’s what you’re getting. If you’ve sat through my boring video you have some idea of how the rules work, and if you’ve encountered the Warmachordes community before you’ll probably know that we’re a very game-focused lot. That’s not to say that we don’t care about background at all, but when it comes to the crunch we’re not here for the fluff.
Anyway, the next stage in this ‘explain Warmachordes to Corehammerers’ endeavour should probably be something to do with actually putting together an army and slapping it down on the table. This is a basic, no-frills version of a moderately filthy list – it hurts like having scalpels jammed down both ears, but the low model count forces me to play fast and dirty and not ponce around hiding behind walls like some sort of Trollblood player.
System: Warmachine
Faction: Cryx
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Warwitch Deneghra (*5pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Defiler (4pts)
* Stalker (4pts)
* Leviathan (9pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)
Gorman di Wulfe (2pts)
I’ve picked a 35 point army because 50 points generally puts a bit more stuff on the table than I’m comfortable with managing – also because 50 points is the standard tournament game and I feel obliged to offer something a bit different. It’s also unusual in that there’s no infantry involved. Infantry generally make me play like a proper moose and so I avoid them unless there’s something specific that I want to achieve by taking them, like jamming up the middle of the field with bodies, and this list isn’t about that – it wants space to fan out and open up as many routes to the enemy warcaster as possible.
I have a few different ways to get the kill and take the game here. The first is the spell assassination. The two Deathrippers and the Defiler both allow Deneghra to project her nasty, nasty spells into the middle of the enemy army without risking her spindly goth ass, and the Skarlock can chuck another one out there. What generally happens: the Skarlock casts Ghost Walk (Deneghra’s ‘move through terrain and run past other models without getting hit’ spell) on one of the little fellas, a Warwitch Siren puts a focus point on it, and it pelts into a place from which I can make enemy casters go boom. Then Deneghra activates, moves upfield until she’s juuust about clipping the enemy caster in her control area, uses her feat (a horrible “reduce all the enemy’s stats by two” number) and chucks three castings of Venom (her acid-flamethrower spell) into the target’s face.
The ranged assassination is a variant on that approach, in which Deneghra stacks her feat and Crippling Grasp or Parasite on the target, and then the Pistol Wraiths and Leviathan open up. People don’t rate the Leviathan, you know, but a 13″ range gun on a reasonably tough platform, firing three shots with bonus damage against big stuff, ain’t easy to come by down Cryx way.
Finally, there’s the melee route, via the two Wraiths (who can fire their guns in combat), one of the Deathrippers (which only need to hit you once to keep hitting you automatically) and the Stalker. What generally happens with the Stalker is that people either ignore it (because they’re focusing on the arc nodes) or know how nasty they can be if they get near a warcaster and make an effort to avoid or neutralise it. Most casters don’t like to eat five melee attacks that ignore all their fancy-dancy defensive tech, after all.
Getting there is where Gorman di Wulfe comes in. This naughty little mercenary chucks around nasty little gas bombs that leave their target stumbling around blind or clutching at its trousers as its armour starts rotting off. Together with the two Pistol Wraiths, whose guns can force their target to forfeit movement or attacks in the next round should they both hit something, and Deneghra’s Crippling Grasp slowing down a key enemy unit and removing a lot of attack options, Gorman allows me to deal with the enemy’s biggest threats by crippling them long enough for something else to peg it into place and seal the deal.
If I fancy changing things up a bit, there’s a more melee-focused version of the list, which swaps out the Leviathan for Nightmare and the Defiler for a second Stalker. Nightmare is Deneghra’s special super friendly warjack – a melee monstrosity that walks through terrain and can’t be hit by most shooting save at point-blank range, and can nominate one enemy target at a time for special attention that makes it hit even harder and move even faster. I generally find that having three arc nodes is pretty important in a Deneghra list, since she’s so dependent on her debuff spells to get the job done, and I like having the Leviathan’s actually-quite-good gun as an option, but Nightmare is always an option.
The last tweak that I often make is to field the whole shebang as a Theme Force. Basically, this means giving up some options and obliging yourself to choose particular things in return for bonuses – either gameplay advantages or adjustments to the army selection rules. I really like Deneghra’s Theme Force, since it’s basically the same stuff that I’d normally be taking (minus Gorman and with no access to Nightmare), and it gives me extra Warwitch Sirens (mini-Deneghras who hand out extra focus and squirt acid on people), a slightly better chance of going first, and a free bonejack (I generally take the Defiler for free unless I have an odd point to fill, in which case it’s a Stalker instead). The Theme version of the list shifts into a higher gear, with the option of using the Sirens to clear out enemy infantry or tie up hard targets with their saucy melee attack.
Basically, it’s a whole bunch of goth witches, murder robots and ghost gunslingers, plus a zombie wizard and a nutter with a gas mask. Right up my street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CtDErVTsoA