Gary
New Member
Posts: 48 
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Post by Gary on Aug 14, 2015 20:07:53 GMT
The question is whether it ever begins!
Between wanting to promote variety of armies in the club, taking an online "which faction should you play" quiz 3 times, and Tom U strongarming me a little ...by which I mean dangling models in front of me and repeating "shiny toys" a few times, I have fully caved and have well and truly committed myself to the faction of Orboros, and the institute of miniature gaming.
The Circle Orboros (not of, we really hate when people use "of", apparently) are a peaceful, nature loving ...wait, wrong game. They're anarchistic pagan druids who like to charm the wildest of beasts and bend nature to their will, and in general their will is to destroy pretty much everything touched by any form of civilisation. I'm on board so far.
So I said I caved, and I have caved hard. Having negotiated for a large chunk of Tom's Circle army, including the battlebox set, I've also picked up the all in one box this evening because new toys! First impressions, haven't delved deep enough to find all these mold line issues but that's largely because I opened the box, was quite overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in there, went through each model in awe and in terror of the number of pieces to some of them, and packed it all up again. So glad we're doing this tale thing so that I can feel better about building a model a fortnight...
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Post by tomu on Aug 16, 2015 20:17:24 GMT
Happy to enable you mate  |
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stevo
Junior Member
Posts: 66
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Post by stevo on Aug 17, 2015 10:54:02 GMT
Good choice Gary... Kromac from the all-in-one box is a fantastic caster - very powerful but also a lot of fun (for you, not your opponent!) Let me now if you have any Q's.... The answer is usually "Shifting Stones + Warpwolf Stalker" though! |
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Gary
New Member
Posts: 48
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Post by Gary on Aug 17, 2015 11:03:33 GMT
Have to say that part of the attraction was the play style of, as someone put it, solving an intricate puzzle in some tangled way that usually results in a warpwolf to the face.
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jackh
New Member
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Post by jackh on Aug 17, 2015 12:26:46 GMT
Great choice Gary! I started learning the game with Kromac, I can definitely recommend him as being very powerful and great fun.
Definitely a faction for someone who likes solving puzzles, the puzzle usually being "how can I eat their warcaster with my Warpwolf Stalker?!"
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Post by alec on Aug 18, 2015 6:59:24 GMT
The all in one box was a fantastic deal with excellent choices, perhaps maybe less so the blood pack but down to personal preference Can't reccomend using magnets enough to get the most mileage out the multipart kits. It's really worth the time invested to get it swappable for when you feel like shaking things up a bit. Kromac people love and the support he can give out to the army is amazing (skinwalkers with +2ARM in melee you're looking at Khador jack type armour!) and has a nice assassination run abilities with his feat and pesky jump. Don't underestimate Kaya though, she's really overlooked yet so useful, that +2 to hit in melee is better than a boost in most cases. Any questions just ask I'll tell you how I lost with what you're asking about so avoid that  |
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Gary
New Member
Posts: 48
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Post by Gary on Aug 22, 2015 13:39:43 GMT
Since we're getting on with the pledges (I think?) and I'm going to be out of the country for all of this first two weeks (woo!), I'm going to make a wimpy pledge to build at least Kaya and her Argus...es? Argii?
In hopes of making it up a little bit, I thought I'd add some battle reports from the games I've played so far.
First week of play started out with a Circle battlebox vs a battlebox point level Retribution army fielded by Matt. Matt seems to think there was inherent imbalance between battlebox army vs custom army at matching points level, and while that may be an issue I also know that I wasn't playing to my army strengths and being far too cautious with my warpwolf. This basically ended up in me trying to stay out of range of his guns until I could find an opening, and being shot to bits in the meantime. A charge or two later and it was all over. Lesson learned: play like you've got a pair.
Second match was against Chris and his Skorne battlebox - this one felt a lot better for me, with my an early charge from my Feral and an Argus taking out one of his Cyclops Savages and then being teleported away. Still need to practice that though, as it didn't make them nearly as safe as I hoped. A Titan Gladiator was only too happy to slam the argus, follow up, and beat it to a bloody pulp of fur and shattered bones on the ground. Morghoul followed that up by charging my Warpwolf and buying attacks attempting to drop the fury on it to reduce Kaya's power next turn, and throwing his feat to stop me forcing my beasts. The downside to that was that I think he only hit one attack, and left Morghoul in a position that Kaya could walk to get LoS on him, have enough fury to pew pew him with her Spirit Fang spell, feat for an extra 6 fury and throw a few more fangs at him. Result, dead Skorne warlock. Lesson learned: Warlocks are squishy, probably a good idea to leave a fury on them.
This Thursday my first matchup was a 15 point skirmish against Mike's Khador. I took a Feral Warpwolf, Gnarlhorn Satyr and Lord of the Feast, thinking that LotF would be a good infantry chewer and leave my beasts to team up on getting rid of his jacks. Mike took a Spriggan and a crapload of Winterguard including a UA and rocketeer WA, which, as it turns out, are not the sort of infantry that LotF can handle very well when supported by a caster that can make them DEF17! I started a little too cautiously again, wanting to try to get the alpha strike on his Spriggan with my wolf, or to bait him into getting counter-slammed by my satyr. Neither worked, the Spriggan got into range of my wolf with the wolf blocking LoS to the satyr so no slam, then destroyed the wolf in 2 attacks.
That left me fairly desperate, as with only 1 beast I'd be fury starved, and it pushed me to go for the throat. LotF did his raven thing to teleport into the middle of the Winterguard, actually managed to kill 1 of the 4 he attacked, and that was basically his contribution to the fight. Kaya dashed over towards them too (more accurately, ran away from the Spriggan), and used spirit door to pull the Satyr over too, leaving Mike's Spriggan with no available targets. Phew. The Winterguard made a hefty dent in Kaya on Mike's next turn, leaving her on 5 health, but a trample from the Gnarlhorn got it in range of Sorscha and buy just enough attacks to finish her off. Lesson learned: Winterguard are awesome Hail Mary plays are valid, games really can come down to the wire no matter how bad it looks.
Finally, a 35 point flag-based steamroller match against Tom U and his pyromaniac Menoth. I took Kromac and his pet wolf Ghetorix for this one, along with a WW Stalker, Gorax, unit of Woldstalkers and 2 sets of stones. Tom played Feora and lots of things that sprayed fire, but I can't can't you the full list mainly because as he explained what his army did I could only hear a list of things that countered my stuff! Setting up, I dropped a couple of sets of stones in my advance deployment in front of my main forces, walked my wolves into them and teleported them forward, brought my Woldstalkers up and started picking off a unit of things that suicide to stop me killing the thing I killed. No matter, stuff was dying, it felt good. Then the revenge came, and it came with flames - Tom's jacks started firing AoEs that weren't too bad on their own, but set everything they hit on fire. I lost about half my Woldstalkers and my beasts took a few wounds but nothing too bad.
Next turn though, the flames cleansed my stone keeper right off the battlefield, and with his unit of stones now out of command range, they were all but useless. Bit of a drawback to immobile stuff... Did my best to regroup, scored a point for Ghetorix controlling the opponent's flag but then lost him in Tom's next turn. Decided to try to teleport one of my useless stones with my other unit of them to get back in formation, but was running out of time by this point so decided to try for another Hail Mary play - Kromac went into his beast form at the start of the turn with the intention of getting to Feora, but it turned out he couldn't make it, so I forfeit on the assumption that Kromac was far enough out there that he'd be burned like the heretic he proudly is...
Lesson learned: hard to say on this one as I got worried about having to leave and would've played the last turn a lot differently with more time, I think I could possibly have gotten the Warpwolf to the face having looked back at the board state, which would've turned out much better for me! The main thing I've taken away is that I need to practice with the Shifting Stones, as right now I'm not seeing the power that most Circle players rave about, even discounting the pickle I was left in with them.
I'm having great fun with it so far, learning a lot as I go and expect to continue for quite a while!
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Gary
New Member
Posts: 48
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Post by Gary on Sept 7, 2015 13:55:26 GMT
Pledge #1 scrapes through as a success I think, definitely have 2 Argus shaped models and a Kaya at least! Probably going to have to learn to mess around with green stuff though, as despite epic amounts of shaving and filing the Argii simply refuse to put their heads together and both have slight splits down the middle of their neck.  For the next pledge, a little vague but I'd like to play a few more games at middling points values (25-35) using the shifting stones to see if I can figure out what all the fuss is about. |
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Post by alec on Sept 8, 2015 13:07:04 GMT
Aye them argus are horrible models to get sorted. For some reason the PVC resists mould lines being removed, but likes you to think you succeeded until you start painting them too.
With the stones they must shift to command range though for their next turn, so shouldn't have been left useless as its an "on activate" thing, not a command they get from the keeper. They are really tricky to get the hang of using need to think where do they need to be in a couple of turns and why, which ofcourse isn't guaranteed unless you can see someone committing to a scenario usually. Huge downside to the stone is most player will go out their way to ping one off the table so no more shifting, but remember they are useful for blocking charge/slam/trample lanes, healing a little and always in your control phase may remove a fury off a beast within range of one or more stones.
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Post by tomu on Sept 8, 2015 17:08:06 GMT
How are they able to shift? Its a special action isnt it? You cant perform a special action if you arent in command range?
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Post by alec on Sept 8, 2015 23:06:18 GMT
Not a star action, it is at the start of the units activation choose one of the three options. Otherwise the UA is more a hinderance than anything. As a unit they need to just shift to formation as their activation.
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Gary
New Member
Posts: 48
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Post by Gary on Sept 9, 2015 22:04:25 GMT
Ah, I just read up in this and the answer is surprisingly clear! Shifting states that models in formation may be placed etc. So in the case where my UA died, even if the stones are all outside 4" of each other then the leader stone can shift towards another until that one is in formation and then both can shift towards the last one.
I think the confusion we were having is that not all 3 stones need to be in formation to give the shifting order, but only those in formation can shift.
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Post by tomu on Sept 10, 2015 9:02:51 GMT
Ah yes! That makes much more sence
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Gary
New Member
Posts: 48
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Post by Gary on Sept 21, 2015 22:22:19 GMT
Right, this fortnight I are been mostly learning shifting stones. Partly by playing games, mainly by reading forums and guides.
Actually made more progress than I expected, and the first part of that was in not playing against pyromaniacs. Turns out that stones are pretty resilient to most things, but oddly have a weakness to being on fire. Stealth and 18 ARM keeps them reasonably safe when AoEs only do half damage rather than causing a POW 12 damage roll every turn...
That aside, I do also feel like I've improved with them and, while they haven't won any games for me, I feel more like they could, particularly in the last game I played vs Chris and his Skorne. I got over eager and launched a wolf forward onto his Aradus on turn 2 (which ended very badly for the wolf) where ifdI'd moved the wolf and stones up and been patient, it could've been launched at Morghoul instead the next turn. As it turns out, Kromac doesn't need stones to get into the face of something 13" away so no harm done (except to Morghoul!).
Also had a game vs Tom's Cygnar where I was getting more utility out of them, a bit of fury management, a bit of healing and a teleport over to where the action was.
Finally I feel like I can have some sort of strategy in mind when deploying them rather than just randomly throwing them in open space, so overall I think I've gotten a better grasp of them amd will continue to do so!
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Gary
New Member
Posts: 48
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Post by Gary on Sept 26, 2015 14:07:29 GMT
New pledge, rather late partly because of forgetfulness/business but also partly because hobby stuff scares me. Which leads to my new pledge, rather than just keep promising to build a new thing every time, this round I'm going to do some proper research into how to paint and base things in a pretty way.
No promises that anything will actually get painted, but I hope to have a better idea of what I plan to do with the models so that I don't feel like putting them on bases is going to ruin any basing I might want to do, or like putting them together will make my painting life harder.
Essentially I pledge to overcome the competing need for perfection and lack of modelling ability that mean I can never start any modelling without knowing it'll go right!
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