Testing….Testing I, II, III

Well, it happened. As per the usual, a gigantic leak happened and showed all the cards for the upcoming MK III faction decks. Now, as with any leak, this info is highly suspect and should be taken with a massive grain of salt. I don't believe it was a total forgery, but some of the cards do contradict the confirmed stuff we have from PP and some of the cards match dead on. It's more than likely an early playtest version of the new rules. So, what to do with this info. Well, I took what I did know to be true and built an army with that info and played a game of "early MK III" Here's what I took:

Gunnbjorn
Bomber
Dozer and Smigg
Pyre Troll
Storm Troll
Rune bearer

Trollkin sluggers
Dhunian knot

This was a 50pt MK III game which is the new 35.

Some of the changes to the trolls have been huge, both good and bad. They were particularly good to Gunny who got an actual feat now which makes friendly faction members in his control range immune to ranged damage, immune to knock down, and gives them all cover. He also now has Field marshal: Kill Shot which lets you shoot at something after you've boxed a model in melee. Now, I'm not a huge fan of my gun line beasts getting into melee, but it's cool to know it's there. The bomber stayed about the same, he changed out his animus for the new Far Strike which costs 1 and is range self now. Dozer changed very little, going up a point in MAT, STR and AOE 4 on his gun now. Sluggers now no longer need to stand still to get their d3 shots and under snipe from Gunny, RNG 14 POW 13 shots are pretty strong. Especially when you can get up to 15 of them. I always thought they were cool, just didn't work well. Now they work well and will be finding a place in my lists. The elemental trolls changed as well. They gained a point of RAT and 2" of RNG but their animi are now all RNG self. All that info was confirmed by privateer press in the troll insider and the official answers in the forums. They were identical to the leaked cards.

My opponent brought Menoth
Harbinger of Menoth
Vassal
Templar
Avatar of Menoth
Choir of Menoth
Holy Zealots
Wracks

I'll spare you most of the boring details, but here are the highlights as they pertain to the new rules. Pre-measuring, is awesome and a blessing to someone like me who can't judge distance to save their life. I was able to skirt around control ranges, correct what would have been a failed charge, and measure optimal distance for my guys to shoot and not get charged. We were not on the clock however, and I don't know how much it slowed me down. The Power Up rule for 'jacks works really well. The spirit bond rule for beasts, eh, not as good. The rule that really got me (and the one that won me the game) is the change to overboosting on warcasters who camp their focus. Before you could just add the amount camped to your armor and it never went away. Now, you spend a focus point and it prevents 5 damage. He had Harby on full focus which would have made her ARM 24, under the new rules she was at ARM 14. I shot once with the bomber at POW 16 and rolled 13pts of damage. He took off 5 and that let 8 get through. Under the old way, it's only 3 pts getting through. I roll the second shot and do 15 and he can only take off 5. Harby dies from 2 shots. Before hand, she would have only taken 10 points total, not 18. It's going to make a huge difference in the game IMO.

So, there ya have it. Game one of MK III (kind of) in the bag and it's a win for Gunnbjorn. Can't wait till June 12th to start playing actual games in this new era of Warmahordes.