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I played Warmachine for the first time this weekend with frightnight and another friend of ours.

We played 350 point Mangled Metal games; straight killing. My army
Darius
Centurian
Centurian

It's a pretty simple list to play. Full Throttle forward, keep Fortify on one of the Centurians.
I played three games. The first was against my friend Wolf, who played with Gorten, three or four Gunjacks, and a single Driller. I pasted him pretty badly - the Centurians made short work of the Driller and then started disassembling Gunjacks and hitting Gorten. The highlight of the battle was him popping Gorten's feat and sliding Darius right in front of the little guy. "So, I hear you were making short jokes, were ye fatty?" was Gorten's comment before he started to lay the pain on Darius, reducing my roly-poly warcaster from full health to only about four wounds (or whatever they're called remaining). Fortunately the Centurians had worked Gorten over and Darius was able to smoosh him with a Quake Hammer ftw.

The second game was against frightnight's Khador list - two Destroyers and Vlad. Vlad was walking through some ruins when he smelled the familiar scent of boiling lard. Moments later a turkey fryer landed in the grass nearby and started to shake and shudder ominously. Turns out Cygnar's Captain Darius was having a picnic in the neighborhood! Frightnight's got a nasty list - Vlad's Wind Wall means that the list is basically immune to being shot and Vlad is, of course, one of the nastiest characters in the game in combat. That goddamn blood of kings spell is brutal - it means that the Centurians and Darius need a 13 just to hit Vlad in melee; that's less than 50% odds on a boosted roll.

Fortunately it seemed my Centurians were up to the task. I had one pin a Destroyer with the magna shield and start pistoning. The other engaged Vlad - and managed to hit him. Boosted damage roll came up 6 - 6 - 6, which was enough to reduce Vlad to only a single damage left.

And yet frightnight won. Vlad simply disengaged from the Centurian, ran down Darius, and started wailing on him. Even with both Darius and my Centurian swinging they weren't able to hit Vlad before he took Darius down. Vlad is sick in a 350 point game.

after that we dorked around a bit, experimenting with how to kill Vlad. We did a game of Vlad vs. my entire wargroup; and while I won Vlad did some serious damage and I actually think that well played he could concievably destroy me.

The third game was a three-way. Gorten and his jacks advanced to take a hill at the center of the table, Vlad moved toward him. I held back, playing cagily - then I managed to get a slam off that sent one of the Destroyers careening into Vlad. While laying dazedly on the ground Vlad ate it from Gorten's Gunners, who destroyed him and then turned their attentions toward me. I'd overextended on the slam to take out Vlad, and he was able to pull the now stranded Darius down. The highlight of this game was me magna-locking the Driller; I figured once I'd pulled that off I'd have a shot - I could drop the driller on the next turn, then my two Centurians (backed up by halfjacks and Darius's feat) could easily deal with Gorten and the four Gunners. Wolf had another idea; he picked up the magna-locking Centurian and threw it, managing to send it careening into its partner and sending them both to the ground in a twisted heap of metallic limbs. Darius then ate fire from Gorten and four gunners - game over.

I really like Warmachine. 350 points is a bit limited; the lists have a paper-rock-scissors quality to them it seems. Vlad is nearly unstoppable by my list.
We're planning on playing a few more 350 points games just to get a better handle on the rules (a lot of the power attacks still require referring to the book) before graduating to 500 points games. I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with Captain Fatty at 500 points or switch gears and play with Stryker.

I think Slamming one of the Khador jacks into Vlad is usually your best bet if he's pulling that Wind Wall trick. You don't have to hit his Defense, and then any attacks you make against Vlad that turn are against Defense 8 (if you're shooting) or auto-hit if you're in melee with him. If you can get it set up right, you should be able to kill him right there.

Mannahnin: yeah that's pretty much what I"ve concluded. Interestingly frightnight also concluded he needs to make sure that there's no way for someone to Slam a jack into Vlad - basically positioning them relative to my 'jacks so that one jack will hit another before it can hit Vlad.

I'm also thinking of throwing down Stryker with a Lancer. When the Lancer uses its arc node to cast quake - can it target itself? Cuz I might just have a lancer run up to Vlad and quake itself to knock him over. Of course the Lancer goes down too, but who cares - like you said if I knock Vlad over I can probably win the game right there.

I've had my share of games against Vlad and I play Stryker myself. Earthquake does very nice against him, but there is no need to quake yourself, just quake Vlad, or the jack right near vlad.

Get the lancer close enough so that the scatter distance is short. At range 5" or less the earthquake can't miss it's intended target.

Knocking Vlad down is the way to go, esp. when he's running with signs & portents & blood of kings.

Good call Russ - I totally forgot that on a miss all that happens is that I scatter.

I didn't realize scatter distance scaled with range - how's that work?

A template can't scatter more than half the distance between the shooter and the target. So if you are 5" away, the template can't scatter more than 2.5". [insert evil laugh here]

Thanks Russ!

Stryker can still cast spells off a Lancer that ran, can't he?

JD

Stryker can still cast spells off a Lancer that ran, can't he?

Oh yes. But you do end up loosing the Lancer 9/10 times.

If you're stuck fighting Vlad or Sorcha or other High Def model in MM it's well worth it to slam one of your own models into him/her.

In your army: Pop out a halfjack and run/walk it in front of Vlad. Then Slam it with one of your centurians into it and charge up with your other two models FTW. KD means he's autohit in CC. Even BOKs vlad can't survive being stomped on by a cent.

hahahahahahha

Dammit Achilles, I totally forgot about the halfjacks!

And that's the perfect use for the little guys too. Especially since they're fast (run without focus). Means I don't even have to depend on my opponent putting Vlad in a slammable situation.

JD

It's a very common tactic in non-mangled metal games.

Cryx will VERY often do long range KD's when the caster isn't denny (she can just scourge) using McThralls and a bonejack. The bonus is you can backstrike slam your own guy (+2 Mat, smaller base = straight up to hit roll) into the opposition and then Arcing Fire/Shoot the crap outta it.

I use it with Kovniks and my Destroyers too.

Of course, if you move some Jacks within 3" of the enemy with Vlad's feat, even if you miss the charge or whatnot, you still can negate this tactic to a large degree.

Add to this Vlad's 14.5 charge threat range that ignores obstacles and terrain (BoK + Boundless Charge) and he just seems to continue to waltz all over the average army at 350 pts.

As frightnight intimated, we played another game.

"What's that smell?" Vlad mused aloud. His question was answered promptly by one of the warjacks stumbling over a used turkey fryer, filled with blackened fryer grease. "Darius.... you really are a revolting man!"

"Mmphg Vlmmd" said the roly-poly warcaster, crumbs spewing from his mouth as he waved to the Khadoran warcaster. Vlad stood patiently as Darius chewed and chewed - a minute later he downed a coke and was capable of speech again. "Sorry Vlad! I put peanut butter on the fried chicken and boy it sure makes it hard to talk!"

Vlad just shook his head in disgust as the two battle groups started to close...

So yeah, Vlad kicked my *donkey*again. This time I got aggressive - running the Centurians toward him instead of holding back and trying to make him come to me so I could get a better charge. As frightnight indicated, he moved to within 3" of me to cut off any likely slams. He was also careful about not letting me line a halfjack up with Vlad - instead keeping his warcaster safely screened by the Juggernaut and Destroyer.

My strategy kind of worked - I pretty much annihilated his warjacks. The juggernaut managed to toss my Centurian, but Darius was able to run forward and pick it up so it could return to the fight - charging the Jugg again and pretty much destroying it. I pretty much completely leveled both of his Warjacks.

And yet he still won. Vlad's goddamn spells let him move 14.5" and ignore terrain. I can't imagine how the hell I'm supposed to deal with that; the fact is if he's anywhere near my warjacks and they're in my control radius he'll be on Darius within a round. Darius cannot survive more than a single turn of combat with Vlad; and the fact that I need 13's to hit him means that I'm basically screwed.

I really don't see how Vlad is beatable with Darius in a 350 point game. So long as Vlad's player is being smart there's just nothing to be done.

Make sure about how he is using the 'ignore terrain' spell. That one says a model can charge and ignor terrain in its "NEXT" activation.

So, vlad would have to cast it on himself in one turn, but wait until next activation to use it. Should give you warning.

Yes, he is correct that I didn't do that (first time using it on Vlad).

But from the setup that we had on the board at the time, there really wasn't anything he could do to stop me from charging Darius as he thought the terrain would stop me.

Or as Vlad would say, "Ztop zis, Fatty!"

I am corrected for next time, though.

The warning thing is handy to get a jack between you and Vlad. And, since none of his spells have upkeep, he'll have to keep moving and casting that spell, while you keep a jack between you and him.

Hrm one thing I'm curious about - it has to be a charge over terrain right? You can't do a normal movement with that spell?

If so it's less powerful given that charges have to be mostly a straight line. Like you pointed out Russ, you can just intercept it with a Warjack. Or a Halfjack; they're good for that.

Nope, it says you CAN charge over terrain, not that you have to.

Also, you have to remember that charges in WM are not shortest to shortest like 40K. Blocking a medium base with a small base is not as easy as you might think...

What I meant was - it has to be a charge move; you can't do a normal move.

And yeah, blocking bases isn't easy but its straightforward. Basically it's a matter of geometry - if I wasn't so lazy I could tell you exactly how far away from the target model the blocker has to be.

Actually now that I think about it that might not be a bad thing to know..... sigh, I'm going to have to dust off my geometry skills.

Bah. Bring out your slide rules and your compasses for measuring angles. I will still beat you because I will play like I have a pair, and you will cry like a girl.

And your warcaster is a fatty.

Charges are straight lines, though, and working your way around an enemy to
get behind him subjects Vlad to free attacks. So a roadblock like a halfjack or
a single trencher may not be so great. But a paladin or other melee monster
and you're suddenly taking risks.

A neat trick someone did on me that I never thought of was Vlad using mimic
to gain reach for his sword. Kind of evil.

No free attacks on Vlad as he has the Parry ability.

Charges are straight lines, but Jeff's been having trouble remembering that you can charge off to the side of the model then turn to face, unlike 40K where it's a direct line.

And yes, using the mimic on reach gains him a 16" uncaring-of-terrain threat range.

Also, charging requires LOS.  So if you get a medium or large base between your caster and Vlad.  No chargie for you.

Cutting the angle of a charge is easy, its like hockey or soccer.  Come out of the net to reduce the angle.  i.e. move your jack closer to vlad. 

It is actually extremely easy to prevent a charge in WM, assuming you are not badly outnumbered or completly out flanked. 

Yeah I never thought cutting off the charge would be difficult. Like I said - a halfjack will do the job, just get the distance right.

Honestly the main problem I have is hitting him - he's effectively always got a DEF of 18 and all of my warjacks and casters have a MAT or RAT of 5 or maybe 6 on a good day. Even boosted those aren't great odds. So yeah - gotta knock him over.

JD

Remember also that the other victory condition in Mangled Metal is to total all your opponent's jacks. You can do that instead of killing Vlad.

Whoa are you kidding? I thought it was just kill the warcaster.

Jeez if that's the case I can probably beat frightnight's 350 list pretty easily - the Centurian is just a brutally efficient warjack killer!

Oh yes, jack killing is the way to go against Khador. They like to pretend that option doesn't exist because they have some of the best hth combat casters in the game. Hunter Jacks are particularly good at this.

Yeah, though my particular problem is with Vlad - at 350 his battlegroup is basically immune to being shot.

IF you truly want to beat down Vlad in MM just grab the nromal BB. Earthquake will ignore windwall so long as you get close enough (if it can't scatter off him he's still hit).

Darius is good.... but you've got other options in your army.

Achilles: I know - I've got most of the warcasters. But Darius is my guy - and besides which the jokes that frightnight makes about him and his weight are worth the beatings.