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Hey! For a while now I've been considering to get into WarmaHordes, as there is apparently a growing scene in my local area, and it seems fun to expand the range of games I play. I initially bought a few Cryx units (the starter kit, lich lord terminus as a stand-in daemon prince, withershadow combine), but the more I look at their models, I realize that I'm not a fan of the bulky machines with tiny legs, and I'm tired of infantry-heavy armies (as I play Renegades&Heretics in 40k and Empire in fantasy). Therefore, I've changed my mind and decided to go for Skorne! Elephants, weird monsters, sadistic crazy guys from a desert - yeah, that's cool

I've been reading up on some various forums to try getting an idea of how the army plays (apparently pretty straight-forward and melee-focused?), what units that go together, etc. I bought some Paingiver Beast Handlers as my first unit, and next I'm looking at some bigger monsters. So here comes my basic questions:

-What are the best warlocks for running a beast/monster-heavy Skorne army?

-Are the "weird" monsters as good as the typical elephant-looking ones? I've heard about Bronzebacks, Gladiators and those elephant guys being very strong, and while they do look really cool, I love models like the Aradus Sentinel, the Reptile Hounds, the Scarab Packs, Praetorian Ferox, Agonizer etc. Which of these are considered the most powerful/competitive choices, and how do they work together?

-Is Skorne a competitive army? I know WarmaHordes is said to be more balanced than many other miniature games, but I heard Cryx can be pretty brutal. I like the competitive aspect of games, so if there is a huuuge power gap between Skorne and Cryx, I might just stick to my original undead guys.

-What are some of the best and worst match-ups for a Skorne army?

-What's the cheesiest thing I could do with this army? (I'm a nice guy, I promise, I just tend to play in competive metas and its what I enjoy too)

-How is the competitive scene like, internationally? Are there any blogs/players/sites that stand out from the crowd? What are some of the big tournaments, and where can I read up on them? I think most competitive 40k-players know who people like Nanavati, Kopach, the FLG-guys, etc. are, and are looking at lists and results from big tournaments and how they were used. If I get into WarmaHordes I'd like to keep myself updated on things like this

- How viable is it to run some Minion units? I like the Gatormen Posse

-What are the cheapest and most reliable online stores to buy PP products from? Preferably in Euope or with cheap shipping offers to Europe.

I know most of these questions are probably asked and answered in here all the time, but I just prefer having a thread all to myself over lurking through tons of threads to get the information I want

Finally, and bear in mind that I've never played this game or built a list to it so I have no idea what I'm doing, would a list with the following things in it be possible, functional and effective?:
Some warlock, 2-3 elephant monsters, a scarab pack, 1-2 sentinels, an Agonizer, paingivers and gatormen posse. I think something along those lines would look really cool, but I don't want to collect a bunch of models that I can't play with

Thank you very much in advance!

-What are the best warlocks for running a beast/monster-heavy Skorne army?

pMorghoul and Rasheth are the stand outs as their theme forces give a point reduction in beasts. But most 'Locks have a few tricks like eHexy with a the Mammoth, and eMakeda with Molik Karn and the Archidon.



-Are the "weird" monsters as good as the typical elephant-looking ones? I've heard about Bronzebacks, Gladiators and those elephant guys being very strong, and while they do look really cool, I love models like the Aradus Sentinel, the Reptile Hounds, the Scarab Packs, Praetorian Ferox, Agonizer etc. Which of these are considered the most powerful/competitive choices, and how do they work together?


Aradus Sentinel and the Agonizer are amazing. The Sentinel is set to change up a lot of Skorne lists, whilst the Agonizer is a staple of most Skorne lists. Reptile Hounds and Scarab Packs are situation, but not universally good like the previous two. Ferox aren't beasts, they're cavalry, and whilst they're cool looking they're probably nott he best choice.

As to how well they go together the Agonizer works well with everything.

The reason you haven't seen much on the Sentinel is that it's a new model and hasn't had the chance to make the rounds yet.

Also the Agonizer is a Solo not a Warbeast, but according to fluff it is a baby 'Elephant-looking' warbeast.

-Is Skorne a competitive army? I know WarmaHordes is said to be more balanced than many other miniature games, but I heard Cryx can be pretty brutal. I like the competitive aspect of games, so if there is a huuuge power gap between Skorne and Cryx, I might just stick to my original undead guys.

Yeah... not really. While WarmaHordes is balanced, Skorne is on the low end of the scale. They're not the worst factions in the game(Farrow), and as much as I like Skorne they are probably in the bottom 4.


-What are some of the best and worst match-ups for a Skorne army?

Match ups in this game are more about the warlock choice and army composition than actual army. Faction X doesn't beat Faction Y.

-What's the cheesiest thing I could do with this army? (I'm a nice guy, I promise, I just tend to play in competive metas and its what I enjoy too)

eMakeda with Molik Karn and an Archidon has one of the hardest assassinations to defend against. Molik Karn with eMak just mulches infantry as well.

Naaresh theme can get your entire army something like 28" up the field at the top of turn 1.


-How is the competitive scene like, internationally? Are there any blogs/players/sites that stand out from the crowd? What are some of the big tournaments, and where can I read up on them? I think most competitive 40k-players know who people like Nanavati, Kopach, the FLG-guys, etc. are, and are looking at lists and results from big tournaments and how they were used. If I get into WarmaHordes I'd like to keep myself updated on things like this

Huge, the World Team Championships with over 50 teams of 5 players apiece from 20+ different countries. There are a lot of podcasts, look up the Muse on Minis network as they have podcasts from the U.S., Canada, Ireland, the U.K. and Australia, with guest hosts from Germany and Scandonavia. Last years official Warmahordes champion, Jay Larson has a podcast called Chain Attack. And the Removed from Play network has a lot of good podcasts as well, including an all Cryx podcast which contains some of the best Cryx players in the U.S. You may not be interested in it as it's Menoth focused, but Creators Wrath is run by arguably the two best Menoth players in the U.K. and is a lot of fun to listen to.

Also if you can speak German, Page Five is supposedly amazing, but as I don't speak German I can't answer to that.

- How viable is it to run some Minion units? I like the Gatormen Posse

Gatormen Posse are amazing, they're some of the best medium based infantry in the game. The newly released Croak Raiders are brutally good as well and work well with both Rasheth and eHexeris

-What are the cheapest and most reliable online stores to buy PP products from? Preferably in Euope or with cheap shipping offers to Europe.

Discountgamesinc does 30% off retail and has reduced shipping for orders of $50 for international shipping.

Finally, and bear in mind that I've never played this game or built a list to it so I have no idea what I'm doing, would a list with the following things in it be possible, functional and effective?:
Some warlock, 2-3 elephant monsters, a scarab pack, 1-2 sentinels, an Agonizer, paingivers and gatormen posse. I think something along those lines would look really cool, but I don't want to collect a bunch of models that I can't play with

Yes. It's a fairly basic list but it would work with a number of casters. I personally wouldn't start out with a Scarab pack, but they're not bad. Just not great.

Additional resources check out http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/Skorne and http://www.discountgamesinc.com/tournaments/tournaments/search/s:Skorne

Thank you very much, jeratoll! That's very helpful A bit bummed that Skorne are a low-tier army though.. Have they won any larger tournaments recently that you know of? Is WarmaHordes balanced enough for them to be able to compete at all at the higher tables? Coming from 40k I get really happy when I see Orks make the top 10 at LVO/BAO, just showing that it's possible to win with an underdog army. What I've heard about WarmaHorde's balance and tournament-compatibility is a large part of what has attracted me to the game.

I'm very glad to hear that several of my favorite minis are pretty solid though (Gatormen, Agonizer, Sentinel)

What are the wrost Skorne choices? Things I should just stay far, far away from.

Low tier is just relative. Skill is 90% of this game.

If you follow th second link I gave you, you'll find major tournament results sorted by faction and daTe. For example Martin Hornecheck won The Irish Masters last March with Skorne. Again this isn't like 40k where your army plays a major part in winnin tournaments, it's player skill. One of the reasons Skorne hasn't won any major tournaments is that like Retribution of Scyrah not a lot of high skill players play Skorne. If say someone like Chuck Elswick got the itch to play Skorne I'm pretty sure he'd win just because he's one of te most feared players in the game despite not having as strong of a win record as say JVM.

As to bad models to stay away from do not buy a siege animantrix or Morghoul2. Since you mentioned Ferox, I'd probably stay away from them for a while until you're more familiar with the game.

If you're looking on which models to buy go to the discountgesinc link I gave you and look at the lists of a warlock you're interested in
And try to find the common models, but don't just copy and paste their lists and expect to win as netdecking doesn't work in Warmahordes.

If you want to play lots of beasts and gator men posse I'd suggest Rasheth.

GrafWattenburg wrote:
Is WarmaHordes balanced enough for them to be able to compete at all at the higher tables?

Yes. Players win games, not factions.

This is not 40k.

There tends to be a lot of statistical analysis on games/Tourneys. Only one faction can come first, but all factions typically have win rates of 45-55%.

It's not perfect.there are outliers. But while pp aimed at balance with a head shot and missed, they did tear out its throat with thst shot.

Long story short - skorne are just an army, how well they play depends on the player. Like every other faction.

Looking through some of the lists in the link you gave me, jeratoll, I really like the Rasheth list of Peter Lipphardt from Kingdomcon Masters. Model-wise I'd rather run Sentinels than titan sentries, but because I have no clue as to what the units actually do yet, I don't know if that would be a viable choice.

I guess Rashesh, an Agonizer, a Titan, some Gators and a Sentinel will go on my list of things to purchase once I get some cash to spend. Then learning how to actually build an army and play the game...

Again, thank you for your help, it's much appreciated

Actually I have some bad news, you can't run the Sentinel in Theme. You can still play roughly the same list, you just have to play around with points a bit as you won't be getting the discount on points. I can't remember the Sentinels point cost, but as it's 8 points compared to the 9 points of the Sentries in that list you're talking about, you shouldn't have much trouble with it.

In case you don't know theme forces dictate which models you can take and give you certain bonuses for doing so. Not all theme forces are created equally, and Rasheths is one of three that regularly get played in Skrone(pXerxis and pMorghoul being the other two). In his theme he's restricted to bringing non-character Basalisk and Titans(the elephant looking beasts), agonizers, a few units like Paingivers, and Minion units that work for skorne.

GrafWattenburg wrote:
So here comes my basic questions:

-What are the best warlocks for running a beast/monster-heavy Skorne army?
pMorghul, but he will need handlers for fury mgmt. Dmonar resheth also works well. I have heard good things about eXerxis, though I do not play him myself.

-Are the "weird" monsters as good as the typical elephant-looking ones? I've heard about Bronzebacks, Gladiators and those elephant guys being very strong, and while they do look really cool, I love models like the Aradus Sentinel, the Reptile Hounds, the Scarab Packs, Praetorian Ferox, Agonizer etc. Which of these are considered the most powerful/competitive choices, and how do they work together?
Bornzebacks are the best non character beasts in the game. Reptile hounds I have never used. Scarab packs are pretty good. Mainly they are the best box/pt model for transferring dmg. Agonizer is a staple support piece that works some nice debuffs and is a fury bank. I personally love ferox, however they are over costed for how frail they are. They should be 8 dmg boxes as they are heavy cav.

-Is Skorne a competitive army? I know WarmaHordes is said to be more balanced than many other miniature games, but I heard Cryx can be pretty brutal. I like the competitive aspect of games, so if there is a huuuge power gap between Skorne and Cryx, I might just stick to my original undead guys.
Yes they are. There really ins't a huge power gap between factions but it comes down to list. eMakeda is generally much more competitive than Naaresh who is considered very weak (likely our worst caster). Cryx are brutal because of their debuffs & their recursion. Skorne are brutal because a bronzeback can one-round a colossal, consistently, from 12" out.

-What are some of the best and worst match-ups for a Skorne army?
It comes down to personal playstyle. I myself wreck Khador every time I see them, but I find I struggle a bit against legion.

-What's the cheesiest thing I could do with this army? (I'm a nice guy, I promise, I just tend to play in competive metas and its what I enjoy too)
Molik Missile assassination top of turn 1 if your opponent isn't careful.

-How is the competitive scene like, internationally? Are there any blogs/players/sites that stand out from the crowd? What are some of the big tournaments, and where can I read up on them? I think most competitive 40k-players know who people like Nanavati, Kopach, the FLG-guys, etc. are, and are looking at lists and results from big tournaments and how they were used. If I get into WarmaHordes I'd like to keep myself updated on things like this
It's pretty good. But don't net-list in WM/H. It doesn't end well. You can draw inspiration from them but if you try & copy-paste a list someone else uses you WILL lose a lot f games because you don't know all the intricacies it uses.


- How viable is it to run some Minion units? I like the Gatormen Posse
Very. Take a paingiver taskmaster.

-What are the cheapest and most reliable online stores to buy PP products from? Preferably in Euope or with cheap shipping offers to Europe.
Can't help you there, 'MURICA!


Finally, and bear in mind that I've never played this game or built a list to it so I have no idea what I'm doing, would a list with the following things in it be possible, functional and effective?:
Some warlock, 2-3 elephant monsters, a scarab pack, 1-2 sentinels, an Agonizer, paingivers and gatormen posse. I think something along those lines would look really cool, but I don't want to collect a bunch of models that I can't play with

It'd be tough, but it is doable... let me rough it out for you.

pMorghul, Gladiator, Bronzeback, Sentinel, Scarab Pack, Agonizer, 2 units of Max beast handlers and Max Posse with task master is exactly 50 points. It's not a great list as you struggle against hordes of infantry but it is a usable one.

@Jeratoll "eMakeda with Molik Karn and an Archidon has one of the hardest assassinations to defend against. " Why an Archidon? I find I rarely want one, the points are better spent elsewhere.

I took an Ardhidon with her because immunity to free strikes on a flight model is great for the assassination run when they've blocked off Molik with tough models, or collossals. You can defend against Molik or you can defend against re Archidon but it's extremely hard to defend against both. As you spread out to defend against one and clump up to defend against the other.

Plus giving her sprint makes her a bit harder to pin down.

Here is a link to all the major tournament results

http://www.discountgamesinc.com/tournaments/

 jeratoll wrote:
I took an Ardhidon with her because immunity to free strikes on a flight model is great for the assassination run when they've blocked off Molik with tough models, or collossals. You can defend against Molik or you can defend against re Archidon but it's extremely hard to defend against both. As you spread out to defend against one and clump up to defend against the other.

Plus giving her sprint makes her a bit harder to pin down.

How is it getting immunity to free strikes?

Makeda 2's feat makes her army immune to free strikes, among other things.

eMaks feat give no knockdown, immunity to free strikes, and boosted melee attack rolls.

Leash, road to war and rush gives the archidon a 17.5" threat, not quite the 21" of Molik Karn. But it ignores intervening models and instead of needing sidestep, all you need is a spot to park a large base.

Since I'm also new to Skorne probs best to piggyback this thread rather than have two very similar threads up simultaneously.

I play beast heavy Morghoul. While I am learning and becoming familiar with the rules, I want to run as few infantry as is needed to make a big pile of elephants work. My games are mostly against Legion, and so far have all had one consistent theme though - attrition. Namely, my beast runs in and kills his, then his next one counterattacks mine and kills it, then I charge one to kill that... until someone runs out. What I want to find is ways to win this attrition fight, either by becoming impossible to kill, or by being able to stay out of reach of the big monsters that are doing the countercharge.

So far I know of Morghoul's Admonition, Tiberion's Bump, Molik's Fatewalker (great for exactly two models in your army though), the Agonizer (stop a warjack buying attacks, or -2 STR *might* see your monster live - though I highly doubt it), and of course Sprint from the Archidon.

~Sprint looks too damn good not to take in my army, but the Archidon just looks too damn puny for its points. If it was another Titan and a bit more expensive it would be an autoinclude alongside the Gladiator and Bronzeback (not leaving me with many points...). This caster assassination strategy is the sort of thing I want to see as a way to make the Archidon decent. Are there any other good uses for this thing?

~We can get Sprint through another method if I've got my minion rules right, but I bet its a bad idea. That Farrow lesser caster/beast combination + a Road Hog is like 18 points, but thats two big beasts and a dude. The Road Hog in particular looks cool and I absolutely love these Ork/Duke Nukem throwback Farrow dudes. The cost is real high, however given my percieved low value of the Archidon monster itself outside its animus so it almost feels like I'm buying two more solid beasts for 5 1/2 points each. I'm wondering if anyone has tried or seen something like this and if so, did it work, or was it just too many points?

~Outside of what I've listed, are there other ways to seriously improve Morghoul's attrition game?

~What would be Skorne (and of course Morghoul)'s best ways to deal with Heavy Infantry? I ran into them, specifically those badass looking Legion Ogres, the other day and they crushed me in one game and got dogpiled by titans on the second. Morghoul tried and failed to kill one as he is wont to do with anything that isn't paper thin light infantry, and while heavies can obviously beat these guys like a redheaded stepchild, doing so requires that they get close and therefore opens them up to a counterattack from enemy heavies. Wondering what other good methods we've got for this?

~Finally I'm wondering about Minion attachments in general for Skorne. What is typically considered useful for the Skorne (namely Morghoul and Rasheth), and what is avoided? I know Gatormen are cool, and I'm not opposed to using them, but I prefer those pigs and would rather take Pig troops if they are viable. I saw those Farrow Bone Grinder guys, that would be pretty solid - low cost, can snipe dudes early game with a rather high "RAT" magic shot and then cast an animus from your beast when it inevitably dies, plus its like six bodies to chaff up the table with. Is there any other gems that I am missing? And is there a rule preventing both pigs and crocs in the same army, I think I heard of one but I can't see it anywhere.

Cheers for any advice!

Never underestimate the power of -2 str. Thats effectively +2 armor. Either way, that means each attack your titan takes is doing 2 less damage. Over the course of 4-5 attacks that is 8-10 more health your titan has.

Sprint isn't really worth it on spd4 beasts. Really you aren't taking an Archidon to give your titans sprint. Its usually there to give it to your warlock, or to be a Crit Pitch bot. Charging something to crit pitch it back towards your other heavies.

One thing to do with pMorghoul is to learn how to use his feat. Remember you can use it defensively as its an "Aura" type feat. Have it just covering your own beasts as you advance and your opponent can't charge them or he'll only get his initials. Or charge your opponent, get a round of attacks off, then feat to deny him a turn of counter-punching.

You will want some infantry of your own however. Some Nhilators are good as they are self-sufficient. They'll also do a good job of screening your titans, and they're strong enough to punch holes in Ogrun Warspears.

Yeah, when I first started I thought most buffs and debuffs were pretty lame. Most of them were only one or two points.

However, in a 2d6 world that can shift odds tremendously at times. The difference between needing a 6 to hit/wound vs an 8 is quite a bit. Roughly 72% vs 42% (if my math is right)

Also, a lot of buffs/debuffs can be stacked. Suddenly a 3-4+ point swing is huge.

If you doubt the powers of buffs/debuffs play with or against pDenny. When you start stacking on multiple debiffs things get messy fast.

Never underestimate the power of -2 str. Thats effectively +2 armor. Either way, that means each attack your titan takes is doing 2 less damage. Over the course of 4-5 attacks that is 8-10 more health your titan has.
...
However, in a 2d6 world that can shift odds tremendously at times. The difference between needing a 6 to hit/wound vs an 8 is quite a bit. Roughly 72% vs 42% (if my math is right)

I'm sure you guys are completely right. From my limited experience when a heavy starts punching another heavy its going to kill it. Gotta give Agonizer a go, as well as any other STR/ARM modifiers I can find (suggestions?). The sheer troll factor of surviving on 1HP is worth the investment and with any sort of resilience buff it can get hard to put that last 1 DMG on with infantry etc.

Sprint isn't really worth it on spd4 beasts. Really you aren't taking an Archidon to give your titans sprint. Its usually there to give it to your warlock, or to be a Crit Pitch bot. Charging something to crit pitch it back towards your other heavies.

With Morghoul they're almost always SPD8, or SPD10 for a Cyclops. I reckon that can get you out of heavy charge range pretty easy unless the beasts are right next to each other - in which case its a Beatback Bronzeback doing the attacking and it has enough damage output to floor them both!

For some reason I remember the Archidon as Fury 3 and POW 12 on its attack. Fury 4 and POW 15 (+4 because skorne) is a lot more impressive. The odds for a double on three dice is apparantly 44%, minus a bit for those doubles that miss (even 2-2 should hit most beasts) and it looks like the crit pitch isn't a freak occurance. I'm starting to see it as a 2pt upgrade on a Savage than a 1pt downgrade on a Gladiator.

One thing to do with pMorghoul is to learn how to use his feat. Remember you can use it defensively as its an "Aura" type feat. Have it just covering your own beasts as you advance and your opponent can't charge them or he'll only get his initials. Or charge your opponent, get a round of attacks off, then feat to deny him a turn of counter-punching.

Yeah his feat is nice. In the early days of beast heavy games it pretty much denied a turn. Even now I seem to be pretty good at judging the turn my opponent was going to strike, and delaying it with the feat is good stuff.

You will want some infantry of your own however. Some Nhilators are good as they are self-sufficient. They'll also do a good job of screening your titans, and they're strong enough to punch holes in Ogrun Warspears.

I'll give them another go. Was disappointed when I first ran them because they died when stuff attacked them, but this is WMH and gak dies all the time. Self Sufficient is worth paying 2 points for as Morghoul can't do jack for them. If they can hurt Ogres then thats another reason to try them again, plus they're nice for Rasheth who is my current second caster (maybe a bad idea but I want to run Baron Harkonnen)

Cheers for the advice

They're not spd8 on the sprint though. You can't have 2 animi on a beast, so no Rush+Lightning Strike. So at best its a 6" move with Abuse.

Yeah I was under the impression that because they become spells they are no longer animi. Thats going to seriously change up my game plan - how often do I want beat back at the cost of rush etc.

Makes Morghoul more valuable, but also seriously weakens my playstyle (mega roid one beast and charge) and I already lose over 75% of my games. At a bit of a loss of what to do listwise now

Other than Posse, look at Croak Raiders they're the new hotness and are worth every point and then some.

One trick you may not have seen yet is if you take a Feralgeist with Rasheth you can arc through it, and as the Feralgeist is incomporeal It doesn't take any damage from being arc'd through. Plus he's only 1 point and helps keep your beasts around a bit longer.

The reason you don't see it that often is you can't take it in theme, but as you can't run the sentinel in theme either I think you may see a remergence.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Yeah I was under the impression that because they become spells they are no longer animi.

The rules for animi are quite explicit on this. They do become spells, but they are also Animi at the same time. And follow all rules for both.

Only way to have your cake and eat it too with Rush and Beat back is the Bronzeback. You Rush the Bronzeback, he charges forward, benefitting from Rush, then before he makes his first attack you cast his animus on himself. This removes the older animi and replaces it. Then you can beat back away to your hearts content.