Coming Back To Warmachine

Things have been quiet on here due to life in general and also because I had been playing a lot of Guild Ball instead of Warmachine.  What's going on right now is that I've started to really miss playing Warmachine and am going to start up again – though I'm going to try and keep playing both games fairly regularly.

It's only been a few months since I last posted about playing Guild Ball, so what happened?  

Besides feeling the Guild Ball itch there were a few developments that changed things up for me that made Guild Ball my primary game: 

• ·         Our Warmachine community has shifted to play mostly in a Scrum League, and ironically I can't afford to play in that with my work and family situation. 
• ·         One of my best friends picked up the Guild Ball Kick Off set, and would come over to play when my wife would have a girl's night out.  It was very easy to play him while also taking care of the kids, also only having 12 models max on the table made it easy to get a game in under 1.5 hours.
•  ·         My wife started playing some Guild Ball herself, and we got a bunch of games in as well.

I should point out that the Scrum league isn't really a problem, it's not hard at all to get matches for Warmachine, it's just a little different to setup when I'm not in the league.  

Other things are changing now as well: my youngest daughter is now big enough where I can't just strap her to my chest to play wargames. She wants to be out and about, which requires a lot of supervision on my part. So gaming with friends while my wife is out isn't as much of an option.   

Also while my wife did enjoy playing Guild Ball, my youngest being more active means that we are more tired at the end of the night once both girls are in bed.  Plus if she does get time to relax, she'd rather do her actual hobbies.

What has been odd this whole time I've been playing basically Guild Ball is that I've never stopped liking Warmachine. I've still followed what PP has been doing via CID and I think they're doing an amazing job.  

It's weird because while our Guild Ball group has grown it's cannibalizing some of our Warmachine players or at least some of them are down on WM but up on GB. I'm certainly not in that category, I see both games as a bit distinct with advantages and disadvantages to both.  I can certainly say that after probably 3 months of near exclusive Guild Ball play I'm really missing WMHD.

So now I want to get back on the WM train and though I've had a bit of faction ADD (I also own/play Legion and Khador, who also just got CID's) I've decided to get back on the Troll Train and continue my Tour of Trolls. 

I've got my eyes on Borka2 to give a try, though the last game I played with him using a Hooch Hauler in Storm of the North didn't work as well as I'd have hoped.  In fact both times I've tried a Storm of the North list with the Raider+Hauler package (Full Northkin Raiders, Hooch Hauler, Full Stone + UA) it hasn't worked out well – the Raiders were too short ranged and were able to be shot down before I could really get work out of them.

Part of the problem in those cases could have been the list not being a good drop vs. my misplay into a list that had more shooting than I did.  My gut tells me that the place to really make the Raiders + Hauler shine is with Snipe, aka Gunny or Grim2.

That said, I have to admit that I'm very tempted to steal Tim Banky's tournament winning lists for Madrak1 and Borka2, especially his Borka2 list. It strikes me as very weird to play, but as a beast brick it's highly intriguing:

Borka2

-Runebearer [0]

-Rok [19]

-Mulg [22]

-Earthborn [14]

-Earthborn[14]

-Axer [10]

-Storm Troll [9]

Whelps [0]

Whelps [0]

Stone + UA [12]

Swamp Gobbers [2]

It feels strange to be playing without Rage, but Primal should be able to do most of the work while also giving a nice hit buff.  I believe I'll give it a go, even though I'm tempted to run a Pyre instead of the Storm troll to give Borka a damage buff to put his personal output into "I definitely kill a heavy" range without having to get damaged first.  As I understand it, the Storm Troll is there for lightning immunity vs. Cygnar.

I will be getting my first game in some time in tonight and I'll be looking to pair a different Band of Heroes list with this and see how things play out.