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Hi Dakka,

So, my brother and I have just started getting into Warmahordes and he managed to track down a box full of stuff for a very reasonable price. Amongst the Khador, Cygnar and Mercs there sat some Circle stuff.
After a quick confab, we decided to sell the Khador and Cygnar stuff and keep the Circle and Mercs. I chose the Circle. The minis in the box are: Baldur
1x Feral Warpwolf
Nuala The Huntress
Megalith.

What's next Dakka? Clearly it's to be a unit, and I'm thinking Tharn Bloodtrackers as I already have Nuala to go with them.

Mostly I'll be playing against Mercs and Skorne, although after a few games I'll be playing at a club in the new year and I have no idea what the meta there is. Just a quick edit, I would like to get a good 25pts list together before I start buying more stuff.

So, any ideas Dakka?

Cheers in advance!

WarpWolf Stalker.
Shifting stones @ UA.
Actually this may help
http://www.beastsofwar.com/hordes/battlebox-circle-orboros/

First thing to do is pick a warlock. If you go with Baldur he likes different stuff in his army than say Morvahna.

Once you pick your warlock your list of other models will narrow considerably.

If you're planning on learning PBaldur your next models are going to be Shifting Stones with UA and a Woldwatcher, the Stones are the core utility unit in Circle and the Woldwatcher opens up options for PBaldur's movement shenanigans and helps with general field control. If you decide you don't like the stone men build and would prefer the lightning-fast werewolf army you were promised go for the battlegroup and learn PKaya.

 sarpedons-right-hand wrote:
Hi Dakka,

So, my brother and I have just started getting into Warmahordes and he managed to track down a box full of stuff for a very reasonable price. Amongst the Khador, Cygnar and Mercs there sat some Circle stuff.
After a quick confab, we decided to sell the Khador and Cygnar stuff and keep the Circle and Mercs. I chose the Circle. The minis in the box are: Baldur
1x Feral Warpwolf
Nuala The Huntress
Megalith.

What's next Dakka? Clearly it's to be a unit, and I'm thinking Tharn Bloodtrackers as I already have Nuala to go with them.

Mostly I'll be playing against Mercs and Skorne, although after a few games I'll be playing at a club in the new year and I have no idea what the meta there is. Just a quick edit, I would like to get a good 25pts list together before I start buying more stuff.

So, any ideas Dakka?

Cheers in advance!

tharn ladies (bloodtrackers and wolf riders) are really solid, especially with Baldur. you cant go wrong with the usual circle utility pieces (stones etc) and in terms of warbeasts, Baldur loves his wolds, but you cant go wrong with a warpwolf or two either. id also mention a gorax as an almost autoinclude because of its animus.

Gorax is definitely core if you like living warbeasts but PBaldur is far from the optimal caster to include him with. If you want to go down the wolf route battlebox, Gorax, and Shifting Stones/UA are your starting models.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Gorax is definitely core if you like living warbeasts but PBaldur is far from the optimal caster to include him with. If you want to go down the wolf route battlebox, Gorax, and Shifting Stones/UA are your starting models.

Curiously enough we discovered a Gorax lurking amongst the minis I'm in the situation where I can write a few lists and proxy stuff that I don't have to try it out. But the Bloodtrackers are going to be first, mostly because I love the models. If I don't get on with pBaldur then I'll get my grubby mitts on a battlebox, maybe the two player box instead? I had read that pKaya is a better caster to learn with, but again, I'll try some out via proxy.
I'm interested in trying Cassius as well, again because the model really appeals. Thanks for the replies guys, when I get around to painting some I'll stick them on here for young perusal..

Two-player box is always a good choice, Skinwalkers are our general-purpose heavy infantry where Tharn Ravagers require more support, and you'll use the Winter Argus a lot more than the normal Argus. Cassius is one of three Circle warlocks I haven't played with so I don't know much about him beyond that he's complicated and you should read his rules very carefully if you're planning on playing with him, and his spellcasting role makes Gallows Groves good with him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you're going to get Skinwalkers make sure you have the UA.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Two-player box is always a good choice, Skinwalkers are our general-purpose heavy infantry where Tharn Ravagers require more support, and you'll use the Winter Argus a lot more than the normal Argus.

Having started about a year ago and gone for the two-player battlebox, I'm not sure do I agree. Neither Argus is really worth their points. Skinwalkers are useful (once you have bought the UA), but IMO Stalker is far better than Feral in most cases, so you will need to buy another Warpwolf in any case.
tl;DR: Arguses are bad purchase, pKaya I didn't like playing too much but YMMV. So unless you can get someone to pay fair price for the Legion parts, you will be paying a lot extra for models you will most likely use only few times.

For starters, I'd start with Shifting Stones and UA: no matter what list you're playing, they're good. If you want living warbeasts, Stalker+Gorax combination is really, really good toolbox for handling multitude of problems (and you can easily magnetize the Warpwolf kit, though be warned: while it has 3 pairs of arms, it only has 4 hands).

Luide wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Two-player box is always a good choice, Skinwalkers are our general-purpose heavy infantry where Tharn Ravagers require more support, and you'll use the Winter Argus a lot more than the normal Argus.

Having started about a year ago and gone for the two-player battlebox, I'm not sure do I agree. Neither Argus is really worth their points. Skinwalkers are useful (once you have bought the UA), but IMO Stalker is far better than Feral in most cases, so you will need to buy another Warpwolf in any case.
tl;DR: Arguses are bad purchase, pKaya I didn't like playing too much but YMMV. So unless you can get someone to pay fair price for the Legion parts, you will be paying a lot extra for models you will most likely use only few times.

Stalker is more versatile and has one of the best Animi around, and if you're going to play with a limited quantity of warbeasts (a Morvahna list, for instance) it's probably your best choice for a lone heavy, but the Feral can be faster, hits armour harder, can take more damage if it needs to, has better MAT, and if you're playing against Hordes you can utterly screw up someone's battle plan with him. As for the Arguses the standard ones aren't all that good; there are a few cases in which I'd recommend having one as a utility piece in large games to deal with the fact some of our heavies actually don't have native Pathfinder, but otherwise they don't do much something else doesn't do better and you're never going to want two. The Winter Argus, on the other hand, comes with a much better Animus and some powerful general-purpose ranged attacks (something our warbeasts usually lack); it opens up options outside what our arsenal of lights can normally accomplish and mitigates some of our Warlocks' normal piss-poor ARM stats. As to Kaya she's a one-trick pony, but her one trick is a damn good one and running five warbeasts hot with no frenzies is fun, even if you won't be bringing her to tournaments (she doesn't do well at scenario).

Keep in mind that this isn't Warhammer. You won't usually be finding one optimal army list and fielding that every game because it lets you win, how you play the game is at least as important as what you brought. Some models (Stalker/Gorax, Shifting Stones) will find their way into a lot of lists because they can handle a lot of different situations pretty well, but that doesn't mean you absolutely have to have those or you can't win.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Luide wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Two-player box is always a good choice, Skinwalkers are our general-purpose heavy infantry where Tharn Ravagers require more support, and you'll use the Winter Argus a lot more than the normal Argus.

Having started about a year ago and gone for the two-player battlebox, I'm not sure do I agree. Neither Argus is really worth their points. Skinwalkers are useful (once you have bought the UA), but IMO Stalker is far better than Feral in most cases, so you will need to buy another Warpwolf in any case.
tl;DR: Arguses are bad purchase, pKaya I didn't like playing too much but YMMV. So unless you can get someone to pay fair price for the Legion parts, you will be paying a lot extra for models you will most likely use only few times.

Stalker is more versatile and has one of the best Animi around, and if you're going to play with a limited quantity of warbeasts (a Morvahna list, for instance) it's probably your best choice for a lone heavy, but the Feral can be faster, hits armour harder, can take more damage if it needs to, has better MAT, and if you're playing against Hordes you can utterly screw up someone's battle plan with him.

Realistically, the Feral is not that good. You're basically saying that Feral with all Controlled Warpins is better than Stalker with none. MAT 7 is an advantage, that much I'll give, but let me address rest of your points:
1) When Warping for Speed, Feral has only 0.5" higher threat than Stalker (assuming no rough terrain). Reach is very, very good ability. Now, if you have pKrueger that can grant Feral Reach, things change. Feral can run farther, but so far in my experience I rarely run with heavies outside first turn.
2) Warping Strength, Stalker with PS18 wins on Feral PS17. So patently false.
3) Feral Warping armour is ARM18, Stalker is ARM17. I admit, it is useful against ranged attacks, but then again, Stalker can Warp Prowl for Stealth.
4) Baying of Chaos won't ruin anyones battleplan:at best, you'll be forcing the warlock to take few points of damage for getting full fury, at worst, you'll be giving him more transfer targets. As far as 2 point Animi goes, it is basically useless. If enemy warbeasts could be affected by multiple Bayings, things would be different, but when we compare Animi of Feral and Stalker, it is obvious which one comes first.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
As for the Arguses the standard ones aren't all that good; there are a few cases in which I'd recommend having one as a utility piece in large games to deal with the fact some of our heavies actually don't have native Pathfinder, but otherwise they don't do much something else doesn't do better and you're never going to want two.

I admit, one might be forced to include Argus if planning for army that can create lot of rough (like Inhospitable Ground) and one is using heavies without Pathfinder, like Feral or Ghetorix. But the price is very steep, I'd be hard pressed to say it is in no way optimal combination.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The Winter Argus, on the other hand, comes with a much better Animus and some powerful general-purpose ranged attacks (something our warbeasts usually lack); it opens up options outside what our arsenal of lights can normally accomplish and mitigates some of our Warlocks' normal piss-poor ARM stats. As to Kaya she's a one-trick pony, but her one trick is a damn good one and running five warbeasts hot with no frenzies is fun, even if you won't be bringing her to tournaments (she doesn't do well at scenario).

Winter Arguses Animi would be good if it was not Self. Same would apply if he wasn't RAT4. Having tried him few times, so far I've found that there are always better uses for 5 points in my lists.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Keep in mind that this isn't Warhammer. You won't usually be finding one optimal army list and fielding that every game because it lets you win, how you play the game is at least as important as what you brought. Some models (Stalker/Gorax, Shifting Stones) will find their way into a lot of lists because they can handle a lot of different situations pretty well, but that doesn't mean you absolutely have to have those or you can't win.

Oh, I understand very well that there is no optimal army lists: in fact, WarmaHordes doesn't really support TAC type armies at all. My point is that as far as units go, there are better and worse ones. Stalker being one of the better ones and Arguses the worse ones. Of course one can win while still having them and it is possible to create specific scenarios where they have use, especially for skilled players. My point is: Starting player should not handicap themselves by using sub-optimal or skill intensive unit choices.

Other point being was that when comparing utility vs money spent, 2-player battlebox provides pretty poor value, unless you can offload all the Legion to someone for good price.

Luide wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Stalker is more versatile and has one of the best Animi around, and if you're going to play with a limited quantity of warbeasts (a Morvahna list, for instance) it's probably your best choice for a lone heavy, but the Feral can be faster, hits armour harder, can take more damage if it needs to, has better MAT, and if you're playing against Hordes you can utterly screw up someone's battle plan with him.

Realistically, the Feral is not that good. You're basically saying that Feral with all Controlled Warpins is better than Stalker with none. MAT 7 is an advantage, that much I'll give, but let me address rest of your points:
1) When Warping for Speed, Feral has only 0.5" higher threat than Stalker (assuming no rough terrain). Reach is very, very good ability. Now, if you have pKrueger that can grant Feral Reach, things change. Feral can run farther, but so far in my experience I rarely run with heavies outside first turn.
2) Warping Strength, Stalker with PS18 wins on Feral PS17. So patently false.
3) Feral Warping armour is ARM18, Stalker is ARM17. I admit, it is useful against ranged attacks, but then again, Stalker can Warp Prowl for Stealth.
4) Baying of Chaos won't ruin anyones battleplan:at best, you'll be forcing the warlock to take few points of damage for getting full fury, at worst, you'll be giving him more transfer targets. As far as 2 point Animi goes, it is basically useless. If enemy warbeasts could be affected by multiple Bayings, things would be different, but when we compare Animi of Feral and Stalker, it is obvious which one comes first.

1) It adds versatility to the model. I will concede it doesn't have higher threat range but you can get it more places faster if you screwed up your deployment or need to get around something and you can get it close enough to power attack more easily if you need to.
2) The extra high-POW initial (freeing up more Fury for boosts) is what makes it effective. After Primal we're talking POW 20 versus POW 19 here, but the Feral can toss out six POW 19s versus five POW 20s from full Fury, mathematically you're doing more damage to anything below ARM 22 and your plan doesn't get futzed with by the occasional double-one nearly so much. The Feral also has two open hands and higher Strength for power attacks if you need them.
3) I've won games with a heavy with one or two boxes left. It may not seem like much but every point matters, especially if you're fighting Hordes (which tends to rely on volume of attacks over high-POW from the heavies).
4) You force the other guy to plan around it and cut for Fury/take Frenzy rolls. It depends on what you're fighting (Legion up and won't care, but you can have a 'Beast-heavy Skorne army tearing its hair out) but it's far from useless.

I'm not saying the Feral is an all-round better choice than the Stalker, I'm saying there are matchups in which I'd prefer having a Feral to having a Stalker (fighting anything self-repairing that you absolutely need to overkill out (PAbby, Cyriss, Imperatus), fighting high-DEF low-ARM 'Beasts/'Jacks (Circle, Cygnar)) just like there are matchups where I'd take the Stalker every time hands down (fighting infantry-oriented or range-oriented factions, playing in a game with lots of terrain-generating stuff on my side, fighting low-DEF high-ARM 'Jacks (Khador, Menoth)).

The Feral is still a good thing to have. Its just not as important as the Stalker.

It has 1.5" less threat then the Stalker due to not having reach.

A good rule of thumb is that if you need to warp for speed to get to a target you will likely fail to kill it. Speed should only be warped on turn 1 when you are running to get into position. After that, you'll be warping armor/Prowl OR you will be warping for strength and killing stuff.

Its actually fairly rare for a wolf to use its movement at all when its killing stuff, you'll be getting teleported by Stones and then sprinting away OR you'll be getting Primal'd and getting sent on a suicide run.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
4) You force the other guy to plan around it and cut for Fury/take Frenzy rolls. It depends on what you're fighting (Legion up and won't care, but you can have a 'Beast-heavy Skorne army tearing its hair out) but it's far from useless.

How exactly are you forcing the enemy to Frenzy? Baying only removes Fury from enemy warbeasts, you cannot use it to give Fury to them. If you could, then it might see some use., but now it is a Animus that costs 2 Fury to use, that at best will force enemy Warlock to take 1-3 points of damage (more than 3 is not possible in any realistic circumstances).



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Feral is still a good thing to have. Its just not as important as the Stalker.

I agree. I didn't say Feral is useless, it is just that Feral is IMO a poor choice for first heavy (and in many cases, second).

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its actually fairly rare for a wolf to use its movement at all when its killing stuff, you'll be getting teleported by Stones and then sprinting away OR you'll be getting Primal'd and getting sent on a suicide run.

My experience so far seems to be same. This is another point where Reach >> one extra initial at PS15 base (17 with Warp, 19 with Primal)

Indeed. Reach is probably the most powerful ability in the game. Especially on a model that can have Berserk.