I grabbed Mads at the club since he never has problems facing proxy models, and our games always feel like taking a well deserved nap. Mads is very verbal about his lack of skill, but I'm sure the answer to his many defeats are found in his list construction principles instead, and his "
Trolls that point" list was my favorite.
Today he was working on his Fiona list, and I asked for a 35 point game. His list was mostly what he happened to have in the bag, and it turned out like this.
Fiona the Black
- Nomad
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)
- Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer
- Mule
Herne & Jonne
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
Sea Dog Deck Gun, aka "The Cultist Cannon"
Steelhead Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
First Mate Hawk
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile
The Cultist Cannon has become something of a celebrity in his lists, and always performs better than expected. I will never understand why Fiona is considered a poor caster, because that feat hurts. I was fielding my Mohsar list, which will undergo some serious reconstruction but this was it.
Mohsar the Desertwalker
- Gorax
- Shadowhorn Satyr
- Warpwolf Stalker
Shifting Stones
- Stone keeper
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt)
Tharn Bloodweavers (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Druid Wilder
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
Lanyssa Ryssyll
Lord of the Feast
In hindsight I should have had another Warbeast, but hindsight is always 20/20. I chose to go second again, and the standard turn one running began. The Feral is obviously a Stalker, the Stonekeeper is some old model I had that sort of looked like him, Mohsar is the Druid UA, and the Gallows Groves...
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| Circle deployment, can you spot the Gallows Groves? |
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| Heavy thinking is not recommended, Mercs turn 1. |
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| Circle turn 1 |
One five inch cloud isn't enough to activate prowl and grant concealment to an entire army, so I tried for some Pillars to block the Gun Mages and sent out the trees (because 5" place effects means move or be left behind). The Bloodweavers shifted to the left flank to take care of the Self Sacrificing Halberdiers (They're really really annoying). Mohsar spanked his beasts like crazy and used Maltreatment, but that Fury pool is impressive. I put Mirage on the Stalker and lined up Lanyssa to abuse Hunters Mark, but I forgot the Mule.
The Mule scored a critical hit on the first Pillar of Salt, and sent a Shifting Stone and my Shadowhorn sailing through my lines killing Lanyssa and the Swamp Gobbers as well as pushing the Shadowhorn out of range of everything: epic! Then he used his feat, killed half my Bloodweavers with Herne & Jonne, and I was facing a round of being useless.
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| Fionas feat is hardcore! |
The Shadowhorn managed to take down Hawk despite being within feat range, but that feat is crazy and it took three Fury to kill a single two point solo. Mohsar popped CoS on the Mule since the Stalker was within range and with Primal, Warp Strength, and CoS the Mule should die anyway. I needed 2+ to hit on 1d6, and did 1d6+4 damage with every attack, which should have brought down the Mule but it didn't and the Stalker was stuck.
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| Gallows Groves are slowly getting there! |
Lord of the Feast managed to teleport up and engage the Gun Mages but couldn't hit them since he was in feat range, and the Gallows moved forward again. Mohsar killed a couple of Gun Mages with Crevasse, but I need to find some other way of dealing with infantry. I also used my feat which did nothing at all, and ran the last three Bloodweavers to engage the Steelheads since they were out of charge range.
His turn sees the Nomad head-but the Stalker, and leaves him on 9 boxes but then Dougal MacNaile fires up his gun. He didn't even need the fourth shot to finish the Stalker, and who cares about dice -6 anyway! The Steelheads failed miserably and left two Bloodweavers alive, but Fiona managed to take down another. The Shadowhorn was down to five boxes, and my side of the board was empty as both Groves had unfortunate encounters with heavy objects, but the Shadowhorn was in range, or so I thought.
I decided to play smart for once, and Mohsar put CoS on the Nomad in case my jump would be unable to reach Fiona, and since the Nomad was parked exactly where I needed to be in order to make it, I had to settle for wrecking that instead (
bugger). The Bloodweaver stripped the upkeep from the Steelheads which allowed me to clear a zone that nearly got me the win (
and I was about half an inch away from winning), and the girls continue to excel. I had to tele-frag my own Wilder to get out of dodge, but I knew it was probably going to end there anyway.
Holt decided he would just go shoot Mohsar and did so. Sure Fiona took down the Shadowhorn and left the Gorax on 1 point, but Holt just walked down there and told Mohsar to go bugger himself with that stick of his, which left him on 1 box. Then Jonne shot him with a drifting AoE and it was game over. I loved the game, though it leaves me at with a negative win statistic again.
Things to consider
I need a Guardian or Watcher in the list. Mohsar is very funny, but I need a way to protect him from ranged attacks and another heavy warbeast would be lovely as well, so I'm having a hard look at the Guardian. I don't really need the Wilder with Mohsar since his control area is enormous, and the Gorax never does anything so it might as well generate some fury doing something useful.
The Stalker is just crazy swinging at PS 22, and the Shadowhorn at PS 18 is nothing short of fantastic, so while I actually feel pKrueger is a more powerful choice with Lightning Tendrils I think me and Mohsar will become very good friends indeed.
/Lamoron
It's great that you're experimenting with Mohsar. He's got a huge learning curve, but he's one of Circle's strongest warlocks. He's continually moving upward in acclaim as more and more people slowly figure out how to use him.
ReplyDeleteThere's one rule of thumb that dramatically improved my game with Mohsar (to the point that it's warping my local metagame): don't cast Sands of Fate unless it's an assassination run. It's simply too fury heavy compared to the denial that you can get from casting more pillars instead. Very few casters can warp the board every single turn the way that Mohsar can, but he can't do that if he's spent everything on getting himself there and back again. You've mentioned that pKreuger's impact comes from his feat and his upkeep buff; well, Mohsar is the exact opposite - and it is glorious!
Your third heavy really needs to be Megalith. The animus is an amazing force multiplier and a great denial tool to stack on top of pillars, while Geomancy lets you put Curse of Shadows onto an important target without having to blow tons of resources on Sands of Fate (Gallows Groves should help, but Geomancy doesn't deplete fury that could be spent on taxing your opponent's activations with pillars). I've run Mohsar without any Geomancy and it simply doesn't compare to his game alongside it.
Great call on the Shadowhorn though. I've been wanting to work him into my lists, though I simply can't do it at 35pts. The trick is that Mohsar has a very viable personal assassination run with staggering range (very nearly impossible to avoid altogether) from Sands of Fate - if, and only if, he can score hits. The Shadowhorn is quite capable of throwing something into an opposing caster to negate their defense, letting Mohsar land four boosted POW 10s in melee or two boosted POW 12/13s at range. If they've spent focus on spells to blow up pillars, which is one of the main ways to deal with pillars' otherwise-crippling activation tax, then that's often enough to put their caster into the ground even without considering additional support (it gets even better if you can Geomance Curse of Shadows onto them - boosted POW 12s kill casters). My usual problem is usually getting the initial knockdown, but the Shadowhorn excels at exactly that.
Interesting. I didn't consider Megalith at all, but unlike Krueger I see the point with Mohsar. Since Megalith can Geomancy CoS he can actually destroy other heavies instead of flailing at them with his pillows, and it allows Mohsar to get up all his upkeeps in the first round.
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