Lock and Load is only a couple weeks away, and I’m excited. Excited to play in the Iron Gauntlet, excited to meet up with a bunch of people I know only through facebooks or by listening to their podcasts, excited to visit PPs own convention and see what they do with it.
One of the biggest things I’m excited for though, is the Journeymen. See, after the Khador CID, we had a short CID cycle to test models for the 15th anniversary of Warmachine. The result was some pretty exciting models for the original 4 factions. Caine 0 for Cygnar, Severius 0 for Menoth, Deneghra 0 for Cryx and, most importantly, Sorscha 0 for Khador. Accompanying the testing for Sorscha 0 was a couple of changes to our theme forces. After the update goes live (assuming nothing changes), we will be able to take “solos with the battlegroup controller special rule” in Winter Guard Kommand and in Jaws of the Wolf. For those of you not paying attention at home, this means that we will be able to take both of our journeymen warcasters (Malakov 1 and Sorscha 0) in our Jack theme!
So why is this a big deal to me? Well, for starters, it brings up some interesting list building options. The ability to take some other Warjack controllers and shunt jacks on to them reduces the focus burden on our Warcasters, though this does come with the downside of those jacks losing out on Battlegroup bonuses. This is great for some of our casters, including: Sorscha 1 and 2, OW 2 and Strakhov 1. Another part of this being a big deal is that it gives us access to some spell support that we haven’t had before. Lets get into some nitty gritty.
SORSCHA 0
SPD STR MAT RAT DEF ARM CMD FOC
6 6 5 5 15 14 6 4
Weapons: Rng 8 Pow 12 Blunderbuss, Rng 1 Pow 12 Magical Axe
Abilities: No Sleeping on the Job (winter guard), Immunity Cold
Spells: Boundless Charge, Fog of War
Assuming Sorscha 0 comes out of CID unchanged, she is looking like a great piece. Bringing several support abilities and spells to the table, she is a fantastic support model for any caster looking to run a bunch of jacks that doesn’t already have access to Boundless Charge. Being able to stack Boundless with the host of other speed buffs we have in faction is a really big deal, make no mistake, as it gets our jacks up to the threat ranges where they are threatening the entirety of zones (as well as giving us trivial access to Pathfinder). In addition to that, she brings with her some interesting defensive tech. Being inherently immune to knockdown is fantastic, especially when you combine that with a high basic defence and reasonable armour. Add in Fog of War and her Powerfield, and you have a model that is def 17 to shooting, can’t be knocked down and will usually be armour 19 to whatever attacks do manage to hit her. That’s pretty hard to kill for a 4 point solo, making her great at surviving to camp flags or cast her spells.
Malakov 1:
SPD STR MAT RAT DEF ARM CMD FOC
6 6 6 4 14 13 7 4
Weapons: Rng 12, Pow 12 Hand Cannon; Rng 0.5, Pow 11 Magical Sword
Abilities: Sucker
Spells: Redline, Razor Wind
Malakov hasn’t changed in the Journeyman CID, apart from one thing. He can now be taken in Jaws of the Wolf (for free no less!). This makes him interesting for a couple of reasons. He wasn’t particularly compelling in Winter Guard Kommand primarily because he both wasn’t free, and because you aren’t particularly encouraged to spam jacks there. Jaws is a different beastie. He isn’t as compelling as Sorscha is in a lot of lists, but has some interesting synergies with other casters, particularly with casters that have non-battlegroup speed buffs already, such as any of our Boundless Charge casters (Witch 2 in particular) or Strakhov 1. He is also interesting as he is difficult to kill for a lot of lists, between Sucker, Power Field and not particularly needing to come forward, whilst also contributing a bit more than Sorscha, due to his hand cannon and magical nuke (even if both are rolling off of rat/focus 4). This means he can help contribute to situations where you need magical attacks. Overall, he’s nowhere near as impactful as having boundless charge on a stick, but still has a place in list building.
Lists:
So in addition to discussing these journeymen and what the changes are bringing, I wanted to discuss a couple of lists I’ve been dojoing. There are quite a few, so I thought I’d look at a list with just Sorscha, 1 with just Malakov, and 1 that can run both well. Lets start with Sorscha.
Khador Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Winter Guard Kommand
!!! Your army contains a CID entry.
[Butcher 3] Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed [+22]
– Juggernaut [13]
– Juggernaut [13]
– Marauder [11]
– Marauder [11]
– Ruin [17]
Kovnik Apprentice Kratikoff [4]
– Rager [10]
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich [4]
Winter Guard Mortar Crew [0(5)]
Winter Guard Rifle Corps (min) [8]
– Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6]
So this was a toss up between Butcher 3 and Karchev. I decided to go with Butcher mainly because I’ve played him more. I also wanted at least one of these to be in WGK.
Butcher 3 has some very interesting interactions with Sorscha 0, as he is probably the only caster to take advantage of every one of her abilities. A large part of playing Butcher 3 is projecting and managing threat with him, often using jacks to trade for everything that can actually kill him, before getting butcher to run the table. Sometimes this manifests itself as an attrition advantage, sometimes as taking a part of the table and killing everything that comes near (like a couple of scenario elements for example). Sorscha helps with every part of this. Butchers package as a jack caster is also lacking certain elements, and again, Sorscha helps out here. Providing boundless charge to the list is a big deal, as it means that Butcher’s jacks can threaten 12 inches, a pretty big leap from 10 inches as well as providing your jacks with a source (a Sourca, hehe) of pathfinder and free charges, which means that your long range threat is not solely projected by Butcher and Ruin. It also pushes Butchers personal threat range out to 14 inches, before vengeance and impending doom, which is further than most heavies in the game threaten (barring certain cases like Kallus 2 or Strakhov), helping him to project his personal threat. On the defensive side, she provides concealment if relevant, getting Butcher to def 16 to shooting, whilst also stopping the Winter guard he is Sac Pawning to from being knocked down (such as when they tough).
This particular list is a variant of something I played last year, and is interesting enough to re-visit with the new tools Sorscha provides. The list was predicated on the idea of playing a trading game in the early turns, before committing Butcher to irrevocably collapse a flank. It brings a few guns to help deal with infantry and ding up enemy heavies for trading is valuable, as well as for the defensive aspect of the theme making Butcher a pain to kill from range. In addition, the Advance move helps more with Butchers particular game plan than the benefits from Jaws. Sorschas presence turns most of these elements up to 11, for the reasons mentioned above. Overall, Sorscha 0 could be the shot in the arm that Butcher 3 needs to get back on the competitive scene.
Khador Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Jaws of the Wolf
[Old Witch 2] Zevanna Agha, The Fate Keeper [+27]
– Juggernaut [13]
– Kodiak [13]
– Spriggan [17]
Greylord Forge Seer [0(4)]
– Behemoth [25]
Greylord Forge Seer [0(4)]
– Rager [10]
Kovnik Andrei Malakov [0(4)]
– Marauder [11]
Battle Mechaniks (min) [3]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]
So this list will look pretty familiar to regular readers of my blog. I’ve only talked about it for the physical age of the universe (or so it feels by this point). Regardless, I’ve been testing this variant of it, with an aim of taking even more jacks out of Witches battle group. The more I play Witch, the more I realise that making her list more efficient pays dividends. The previous incarnation of the list could, on feat turn, fuel 4 jacks and boundless charge all of them, so long as you did nothing else. Shifting the Marauder onto Malakov gives me the flexibility to maintain or even increase that level of out put, whilst giving Witch more options with her focus. On top of that, being able to stack Redline and Boundless charge gives me a jack that threatens 12 inches (as well as the other benefits that being speed 6 brings) as well as another damage buff. The marauder in question only really loses out on in activation allocation (which is corner case) and re-rolls to hit (which is compensated through the increased damage and ability to fully allocate every turn if necessary).
The loss of the Marksman in return for Malakov is not trivial, as having a pathfinder stealth solo that is high rat is useful, especially as I can throw him away if necessary. In addition, rat 8 base is still probably better than a boosted rat 4, especially as the Marksman can usually aim. However, the efficiencies and buffs that Malakov brings makes up for that. In addition, whilst Malakov is not quite as trivial as the Marksman to throw away (a jack going inert is pretty terrible), his jack will usually be one of the first casualities of the list, wanting to be the first jack to go in and, thus, the first to die. Once unencumbered by a jack, Malakov becomes a def 14, arm 13 solo with a range 12 gun, sucker and Power Field, which is a fine stat line for sitting on a flag. Witch is also very good at protecting her back line pieces with Windstorm making it difficult to get shots that deep, and Sucker combined with Power Field makes Malakov fairly likely to survive the kind of attacks that would kill the Marksman (blast damage, sprays, etc). Overall, while there are some disadvantages to dropping the Marksman, Malakov feels like he brings enough benefits to the list to warrant the change.
Khador Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Jaws of the Wolf
!!! Your army contains a CID entry.
[Strakhov 1] Kommander Oleg Strakhov [+28]
– Behemoth [25]
– Berserker [8]
– Juggernaut [13]
– Juggernaut [13]
– Marauder [11]
Gobber Tinker [2]
Greylord Forge Seer [0(4)]
Greylord Forge Seer [0(4)]
Kovnik Andrei Malakov [0(4)]
– Juggernaut [13]
Kovnik Apprentice Kratikoff [0(4)]
– Beast 09 [18]
And so we end on a list with both Journeymen. I don’t think it’s a good option for a majority of lists, but Strak 1 is probably the biggest exception. Strak 1 is a caster that hasn’t been seen a huge amount, mostly because he doesn’t fit well into most of our themes. Jaws was always the closest fit, but was kind of a struggle because Strak is an Elite Jack caster rather than a Spam Jack caster (by which I mean he takes a couple of jacks and makes them do a lot, rather than leveraging lots of cheap jacks like Harkevich or Karchev). Because of this, he can really struggle with actual getting full work out of more than about 2 jacks a turn. The difference here then, is that a lot of the actual fuelling of jacks is taken over by support staff.
Straks other problem has always been damage output, and alot of this list taken up with solving that problem. Malakov is an obvious increase, but there are also multiple pow 19 heavies here, along with Behemoth and free charges outside of the feat turn. This also includes the shear level of focus this list can put out in a turn if it has too (there are far worse feat turns this list can have other than just allocating fully to 6 jacks and having them charge). The Journeymen, in particular, feel like the missing piece that Strakhov needed (especially because Superiority is not battlegroup dependent), providing fuel and a touch more threat range. On feat turn, both of the Journeymens jacks can charge 15inches (threatening to 16 and 17 inches depending on reach), which is a pretty ridiculous distance, whilst Strakhovs jacks can potentially get out to 22 inches. This threat range means that the list can comfortably alpha into most enemy lists with 4-5 fully fueled jacks on turn 2, with all the connotations that brings. Add in overrun shenanigans, Occultation, high mat Berserkers and decent threat ranges outside of the feat turn Even the Journeymen jacks are still threatening 12-13 inches outside of feat, and you have a list that flings Khador jacks at your opponents like rifle shots. Just remember: screaming “Heavens Piercing Spear” when you get the full speed combo on a jack is mandatory.
Conclusion:
The journeymen update adds some very interesting dimensions to our jack lists, due to the support they bring and the age old problem of Khador casters not really having enough focus to fuel battle groups properly. Sorscha 0 is the more impactful of the 2, as it enables a lot of casters to extend their Jacks threat ranges out to at least 12 inches through buff stacking, but Malakov is also interesting in a number of lists. The effect that access to these 2 will have on our list building looks to be interesting in the next few months (from whenever PP decides to release them at least).
For the Motherland!
Cheers to Jon “I am become Barry, Destroyer of Worlds” Williams for proof reading. Check out his blog at http://tobarry.blogspot.co.uk.
Avatar Of Slaughter 