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Wednesday, April 3, 2013

We can Rebuild Him! Mercenary theme list league and painting blog. Part 1: First Colossal match, Renegade conversion

Next week, the FLGS will be starting a theme list league, so, well, I felt kind of obligated...

It'd been close to a year since I last played Magnus. I took a break from Warmachine due to general exasperation with the company and burning out on the system, then played Malifaux and Sedition Wars, and somewhere in there got back in to PP's line by playing Grim's league, which I haven't finished writing about.

Last Friday was an open gaming night, and I ended up playing with a colossal (I still wince inside every time I write or say that word... the noun form of colossal is colossus... you know, the thing that the word describes).

I played a Galleon in my list against two Stormwalls in my opponent's. Suffice to say, I wasn't happy with them.

...If that doesn't suffice, I'll go into a little more detail: when they came out, I was unhappy with that much offensive power being put into one piece. Defensively, sure, they were about twice as tough as a warjack half their cost, no biggie. Offensively, that wasn't the story: The Stormwall (previewed first, I believe) had
- the offensive power at range of three warjacks (two Defenders and a Cyclone) plus
-the highest power melee weapons available to Cygnar, and
- two of them, and (!)
- some kind of super thresher... and (gasp for air)
- reach, pathfinder, steady, immovable, extra power attacks built in and (pant pant)
- an auto-hit anti-infantry disruptor attack that ignores LOS and synergizes with more anti-infantry and disrupting attacks that don't require traditional hit rolls and don't require LOS... that could also block charges.
Well, my opponent was a nice enough guy who I'd played before, but that list made me want to ragequit, which was one of the only times that ever happened...
The experience, which I was later told was pretty anomalous (one of very few times people will use double colossals, and probably the best combo of them), still got me thinking about switching around my army and generally ready for a league of testing new things with Magnus.

 Goals for this league:
-work with new list composition: use models I haven't used much, use proportions I haven't used much

-Magnus's spell list: I feel like I've gotten complacent with which spells I like, and just use those. Every game, I want to use a spell I don't like at least once, preferably cast unloved spells 2-3 times

-finish painting my mercenaries: most of my unpainted mercenaries are able to be fielded with Magnus. I want to paint all of these, and have an army actually 100% complete. This is rare for me, so a lofty goal. I probably won't have time to paint stuff I don't intend to field. Life and comissions may get in the way of this one...

-do some cool conversions: the Renegade above is my first for this set, but I have several more under way.

-overhaul the Magnus, the Patriot tactics article. It's showing its age, and most importantly was written in a pre-Colossals time.

-play at least two games a game night: last league, I was getting back into the game, with a new caster, and a system (fury) that I wasn't that familiar with, and I played conservatively much of the time, so I often got only one game in a night. This league, I want to push that speed up to a better level, to both get more into the flow and get more games in...

-(bonus): explore other Merc theme lists, including the much-reviled (by me) Magnus' Agenda theme. This'll only happen if I have time, etc., but I'd eventually like to be able to write at least a bit on all of the interesting theme lists...


A week and a half away, then it's time to break out Magnus's rebuilt battle group.

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