Learning Warmahorde.

[Trojankiller]

Thank you for everyone's input and comments. I have played a pair of games and will post about them in detail later.

Now that you've got a taste for the shape of the game with some 25-35 games, go back to the battlebox, or a battlebox equivalent and play about a dozen games. They go incredibly quickly, and will give you the experience you need with Fury management. You are very right that managing your battlegroup is key to Hordes, and this is the easiest way to learn it. The game has too many variables to account for even at 25 points to be learning basics like Fury management.

I definitely need to play more small games that can be more fast pace to get the order of things and how to manage fury. The activate one unit at a time and complete its actions fully still really trips me up. When I am doing things faster I definitely move towards warhammer 40k turn structure by default. So far my friends have been very forgiving but I definitely need to work towards doing everything right the first time or just sucking it up when I make a mistake =P

[Trojankiller]

Game 5: Cygnar vs Trollbloods (35 points)

His Army: pCaine
Journeyman Warcaster with attached Hunter
Gunmages + unit attachment that is a jack marshal with attached Defender
Stangeways (sp?)
Ironclad
Sword Knights (x10)

My Army: eDoomshaper
Mulg (so beefcake)
Dire Troll Mauler
Earthborn Dire Troll
Stonebearers (x6)
Runebearer
Troll Whelps (x10)

Set up: He elected to go first and set up his entire gunline in the middle of his deployment. I set up slightly to the left side of the middle as there was a forest directly in the middle of my deployment with a shallow water piece about 10 inches out of my deployment to the left. I wanted to set up so that my Earthborn would easily have +2 movement for at least the first half of the game. He then placed his hunter far forward and attempted to get a 1st turn armor piercing shot but fell just short on range. My placement to the left just put him out.

Turn 1 for both of us saw us shuffling around a bit as I threw my stuff forward assuming that I had to close quickly with all of his shooting.

His second turn saw him move forward and put on some decent shooting but he failed to disable or seriously harm any of my 3 heavy warbeasts due to some poor damage rolls and my stonebearer protective aura. He managed to push Mulg out of position with his gunmages. My turn 3 was quite exciting. I popped eDoomshaper's feat giving me +3 speed. My opponent failed to account for this and I was quite sure I was in range of his Ironclad. I moved Doomshaper into position to buff my warbeasts and proceeded to put Mauler's animus on the Earthborn and Refuge . I then foolishly drop the rest of my two fury onto my Stonebearers (this gets me killed on turn 3). My earthborn then tosses strength onto Mulg even though he is out of position then charges the Ironclad. Earthborn charges into the ironclad and absolutely wrecks him with 3 attacks even though he missed with his charge and then uses the free move from refuge to engage the hunter (this move takes me out of leech radius though). I then use eDoomshaper's ability to goad Mulg and he charges the Sword Knights. Even with Arcane shield I am still boxing them on a hit and manage to cleave through 7 of the models in the unit and they break. I then run my Mauler up to engage the front line of the gunmages.

His turn 3. This is where my errors come into play. First, I had positioned the Stonebearers to block line of sight to eDoomshaper. I had taken into account that the defender would not beable to shoot my warlock but didn't realize pCaine would beable to clear a lane. I had read pCaine's feat but didnt realize that his shots ignore line of sight. My opponent, sensing a desperate time, moved caine forward into his own gunmages and popped his feat. He was in range and was able to clear a lane for his Defender. One shot from his defender to my warlock with crit brutal from the gunmages saw my warlock dead.

That's it the game was over on the top of the 3rd turn!

What I learned:
1. Understand your opponent's feat!
2. Leave fury on your warlock if there is a chance hes gonna take a big hit. I probably could have also left my Mauler in front of my Warlock.
3. The melee centered Dire Trolls can hit like trucks when you use their animus on each other.

[Mdw005]

Caine is tough against infantry, even Trolls. ALWAYS leave Fury on your Warlock unless you have a really good reason not to. Caine can be a tough matchup for many armies, not just Trolls. If you bring a melee centered army, especially infantry heavy, you are literally bringing a knife to a gun fight.

The best way to deal with Caine is to find a way to knock him down, pin him down, or blast him with AOEs etc. If you can, try to get into melee with him. Caine1 does not have Gunfighter, so being in melee really hampers his ability to shoot effectively without taking a free strike.

-MW-

[Trojankiller]

Caine is tough against infantry, even Trolls. ALWAYS leave Fury on your Warlock unless you have a really good reason not to. Caine can be a tough matchup for many armies, not just Trolls. If you bring a melee centered army, especially infantry heavy, you are literally bringing a knife to a gun fight.

The best way to deal with Caine is to find a way to knock him down, pin him down, or blast him with AOEs etc. If you can, try to get into melee with him. Caine1 does not have Gunfighter, so being in melee really hampers his ability to shoot effectively without taking a free strike.

-MW-

Thanks for the thoughts. Yes, I have definitely learned that some casters are tough against melee armies. I need to think more out of the box and use slams and throws to achieve knock downs and focus the caster. Unfortunately Cain was so far in the back that I couldn't even reach him with all the stuff in the way. When he finally came forward he was just in range to clear a lane to my warlock. It was a huge mistake on my part not leaving the fury. I definitely felt that I had so much of the advantage that I should have won if I had just transferred that one Defender boosted shot.

[Trojankiller]

Game 6: Cygnar (Siege) vs Trollbloods (Captain Gunnbjorn). This was a rematch versus the same Cygnar player from game 5.

My army:
Captain Gunnbjorn
Blitzer x1, Bomber x1, Impaler x1, Pyg Bushwhackers x10, Sluggers x3, Scouts x5

His army:
Major Siege, Squire, 1 pt Goblin dude (forgot his name), Strangeways, Gun mages + officer + Defender, Journeyman warcaster + hunter, Cyclone

Set up: As we both had massive gunline armies he elected to choose the spot with the hill and go 2nd. I deployed my forces across from him and was ready to go at it. He then deployed his hunter forward and I threw my pyg bushwhackers as far forward as possible to try and get the first turn Snipe and full CRA shot off on the hunter.

Summary: This was a massively long game. The introduction of Fox hole + rock wall made both our armies stupidly hard to shoot. Everything worth shooting at usually had cover so it was a lot of misses. When I got some great shots off he would move over with Strange ways and usually roll 5+ for the amount repaired =(

My opponent made some key mistakes that I was able to exploit. I was able to pick off his Journeyman warcaster when he forgot that the foxhole made it so that his gunmages would not block line of sight. One fully boosted shot from my blitzer saw her dead. That made his hunter (already in pretty bad shape) inert so he had to run his gunmage officer over. After reactivating the hunter I threw a bomber shot at the Defender next to the officerm and boosted the blast, killing the jack marshal. Now his hunter was autonomous but we still just continued to slug each other down. He then used Siege's feat but messed up the reading (thought the feat effected his stuff in his control radius shooting my stuff when it in fact effects my stuff in his control radius. Those few inches were key in leaving my heavy stuff out of his feat range.

Eventually we sat there for 2 more turns with the following models in cover shooting at each other. Siege + 2 gun mages in a fox hole on a hill against my Blitzer and captain behind a rock wall. I needed 14+ to hit his caster and even with fully boosted attacks it took a few turns. I finally got 2 back to back hits in two turns with a boosted blizter and captains bazooka to finish the game.

Things I learned:
1. We later learned that hills provided +2 defense against ranged but I don't think it mattered as I rolled really high the two times I hit him.
2. Critical devastation almost lost the game for me. Captain Gunnbjorn's bazooka throws the model 1d6 directly away on a crit. Apparently you have to resolve criticals when they happen so I threw his warcaster out of the range of the rest of my stuff with a roll of 6 =( Fortunately, even though I was out of position (I was going for a kill) he was unable to capitalize.
3. Pyg Bushwhackers saved my butt. Time after time they would shoot a fully CRA shot against a jack and do 5-10 boxes of damage. If it weren't for strangeways they probably would have been responsible for 2-3 crippled warjack systems.
4. Two completely ranged armies with Cover abilities can make for a long game =( I was also scared of getting too close to Siege due to my lack of power in melee with a Blitzer and a Captain.
5. I think I need to run more light beasts cause I was really messed up for fury when I lost my Impaler and Bomber on the same turn.