Snakes vs. Weapons Masters...

So I play tested my 350 point Butcher list against my friend Jeff who runs the rules ignoring dragon things. His Army looked something like this...

Thagrosh Prophet of Everblight

Shredder x5

Carnivian

Shepherd x2

Standard Legion list. Lots of tiny little warbeasts to pop. My depoyment was a flying wedge of the Butcher, Fenris and Yuri. Manhunters and yuri fully deployed dead center in front of his group (he didn't bring range either yay) and the widowmakers on a nearby hill.

He wins initiative and goes first. Moves everything up, uses some animi and casts blight shroud which gives concealment to everything around Thagrosh. Which pretty much outs the widowmakers. Even Carnivian is sitting on a DEF 16.

My turn. Yuri charges kills a shredder, Drakhun and Fenris run up, manhunters get into position the butcher uses Killing Blow and Iron Flesh on Yuri. The widowmakers sit on the hill and pick their noses at the DEF of the other army.

Jeff again. Carnivian charges, misses with the assault on Fenris and then pummels him off his horse. The remaining four shredders shred Yuri and thats about it. Upkeep the blight shroud.

My turn. Feat! The manhunter charges Carnivian almost kills it, the second one finishes it off. Drakhun charges in rolls a six on flying steel and proceeds to kill a shepherd and one shredder, while critically injuring the another. Fenris charges kills a shredder, berserks into a shepherd, kills it, berserks into a shredder and... misses. Boo. But right now his board is 2 shredder, and Thagrosh.

Jeff goes. Thagrosh walks up knocks Drakhun off his horse, then reaches and kills him. Then Thagrosh Feats, poops out a Carnivian which conveniently blocks a charge lane from the Butcher. One of the shredders charges the widowmakers and shreds them. The remaining shredder moves in the way and blocks another charge lane.

My turn again. The Butcher upkeeps killing blow, charges the Carnivian kills it in two hits and then one shots the last shredder. Thagrosh is open to the manhunters. They charge and almost kill Thagrosh, he has eight wounds and gets hit for eight on the last hit, transfers it to the shredder which now has two fury on it. Now Thagrosh cannot move without taking a free strike.

Jeff's turn. He takes the gamble and tries to move out of combat with one manhunter to smack the butcher. The manhunter hits the free strike and deal 8 damage just enough to kill Thagrosh. Jeff goes to transfer but... his shredder is full of fury no damage tranfer allowed! So yeah I won cause Jeff cant do math.

Legion MVP: Thagrosh He killed Drakhun and kept my widowmakers from picking off his army. Boo.

Khador MVP: Drakhun 3 figs on the feat turn works for me.

Army analysis. So i need to make room for the great bears. I think Drakhun is going to leave his mounted self behind and the widowmakers are going to stay home. My list will now look somthing like this.

The Butchers Buddies mkII

The Butcher of Khardov

Drakhun

Fenris

Manhunter

Manhunter

Yuri

The Great Bears of Gallowswood

349 points

So thats that.

The Butcher of Khardov:

Today I thought that I'd showcase one of the funner caster than I have in my repertoir: The Butcher.

First a bit of back story on the big, angry guy. Not much is known about Orsus Zoktavir before he showed up in Korsk with two old WarJacks in tow, he was quickly signed on as a caster under the command of Vladimir Tsepesci but the prince couldn't stand his crude, but effective, methods.

On his first command Orsus was sent to put down a small rebellion in one of the border towns. The battle was short as the rebels lacked any 'jack support. But even after the men had surrendered the Butcher condemned them all to death for treason and commenced the slaughter. When his own men tried to stop him he turned his axe to them. No one in the villiage, civilian or otherwise, was alive after the massacre. The crown quickly hushed it up and brought Orsus back to the capital.

His axe Lola is rumored to be named for a love that was lost and fuels his rage. In defending the Butcher Empress Vannar said "Zoktavir is a force as wild as Khador itself. Some say his manners and methods are crude and shortsighted, but I ask you, would you deny that he is the personification of victory at any cost? Has he ever failed us?"

Thats all for the fluff, on to stuff that matters. The Butchers stats put him in the melee league with Borka and Reznik.

Stats: SPD 5, STR 8, MAT 9, RAT 5, DEF 14, ARM 18. Twenty wounds.

Weapons: Lola, Reach and weapons master P+S 16. Plus the started bs blunderbuss that almost all casters have, but lets be honest if you shoot with the butcher you're playing him wrong.

Spells of note :

Fury. FOC 2. -1 DEF +3 melee dmg rolls model/unit upkeep

Iron Flesh FOC 2. +3 DEF to model/unit -1 SPD upkeep

Killing Blow FOC 3 double the Butchers Strength for one round upkeep

Retalliation You hit me I hit you back upkeep

The Butcher has a surprising amount of tool box spells for being a melee caster. Iron Flesh and Killing Blow are the two I use the most. I have scrapped light jacks in one hit with Killing Blow. It should its only P+S 24 with four dice on the charge.

Lets get on to the reason anyone plays the Butcher: his feat. Blood Frenzy might be my favorite feat in the game. All Khador Models (that means 'jacks too) get an additional damage dice this turn. Holy Crap!! In a faction where there are more weapons masters than not (I did the math it's true) that's like five dice on a charge. That means Drakhun hits a mighty P+S 14+5 D6 on a charge up to three times!! This feat works wonders with units like Doom Reavers who have berserk, there was a game against trolls where two Doomies took down the majority of a unit of champions on the feat turn. It was sick.

But thats the Butcher: hes a beatstick who has a surprising amount of versatility. Hes a solid caster for Khador just keep the mercenaries away.

P.S. Ten points to anyone who gets the reference in the picture.

Mangled Metal!?
I love mangled metal its one of my favorite ways to play Warmachine. Although at three fifty I will probably only be fielding 3 figs, hooray for heavy 'Jacks. Although I do have some amazing heavy 'Jacks. Lets go over the fatties that could make it into my list.
Beast-09: Anyone who has ever played against me knows that this is my favorite 'Jack available to me. There are so many things it can do! ARM 20, P+S 19, Reach, SPD 5 (stop laughing at me Thorn), Crit Freeze, Thresher, and a whole gaggle of abilities that make him fun. Murderous is one of my favorites, for one focus beast gets a boosted attacks on every living model that he hits this round. Combine with thresher and hes gonna be crit freezing a lot of things in one round. He is also hyper aggresive, meaning if you shoot at him (yeah you Cygnar) he gets to move towards you. All around my best 'Jack.
Drago: Drago is the newcomer to my team, I really havent played him enough to know what he does. He has the potential to do some major damage to a unit or a single target. But the off chance that he blows up with anyone but Vlad almost deters me from playing him.
Destroyer: This is my awesome sauce artillery machine. RNG 14 POW 14 3 in AOE, a P+S 18 with an irrelevant Crit. ARM 20, and SPD 4 makes him just like all the rest of the 'Jack I can field, but his ability to shoot well and mix it up in melee makes him one of the best 'Jacks I have.
Juggernaut: What can I say except that for 11 more points I can run Beast. Beast does everything that Juggy does, only better.
Devestator: Devestator has one awesome thing going for him: ARM 25! With the exception of Cygnars Centurion with Arcane Sheild (puts him at 24) he has far and away the highest ARM in the game. He also has an attack that I dont have to roll an attack roll for. Rain of Death is one of my favorite attacks that I have. A POW 18 to anything in base-to-base and a POW 9 to anything within three inches of me. Oh and I can boost the damage. As long as I can get in base with your caster I'll probably be able to squish it.

That's all the heavies that I have. I think that I will be running Devestator and Beast but that is still up for debate.
As far as casters go there is only two casters that would make the cut. PIrusk and Karchev. PIrusk has a spell that is almost as lame as TB (Haley Sux), called Inhospitable Ground. It turns terrain around Irusk into rough terrain. He also has superiority, it gives my 'Jack plus one to all its stats. Including movement! That means that Beast could move at a blinding SPD 6! (I cry myself to sleep some nights)
Karchev is just a 'Jack casting machine. As he stands he's nowhere near as awesome as Darius or Mortinebra when it comes to 'Jack casting. He has a Tow rope that makes him capable of moving my 'Jacks with him, when i turn on the Turbine he makes my 'Jacks an effective SPD 16 on the first turn. Not too bad. His spell of Unearthly Rage gives my battlegroup (him too) an additional attack and dmg dice and the ability to hit ethereal models and things only effected by magic (that means you Vilmon). Then his feat, Total War: All models in my battle group can run, charge, and slam for free at SPD +5, perform power attacks, and get an additional +1 MAT all for free. He seems good at three fifty.

So the list as it stands now:
Karchev, the Terrible
+ Beast 09
+ Devestator
348 points

I am still toying with the idea of Destroyer. Let me know what you think.

Good Night, and Good Luck

350 Points?

Whos does that? I mean besides mangled metal or tooth and claw? Well ive cooked up two lists that are pretty much the opposits of each other.

Shooty Sorscha

Kommander Sorscha Kratikoff

Doc Killingsworth

Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

Manhunter

Manhunter

Yuri the Axe

Lady Aiyana and Master Holt

Man-o-War Demo Corps x3

Widowmakers.

This army seems to be pretty balanced to me. Its got some ranged goodness thanks the Eiryss, A&H and with Widowmakers. It can also rock the melee with the manhunters and everyones favorite axe weilding psycho Yuri. I'm not sure why Doc is here, he just fit the points. For the most part its pretty blah. A solid balanced list

The next army is almost entirely melee and think a lot more fun to play:

The Butchers Buddies

Butcher of Khardov

Fenris

Man-o-war Drakhun

Man-o-war Drakhun Dismount

Manhunter

Manhunter

Yuri

Widowmakers

I'm not sure that I can make a list capable of putting out more damage at 350 than this list. Everyone is a weapons master including the caster. With the exception of the manhunters everything reaches and has a minimum p+s of 14. With the butchers feat behind them the will be hitting p+s14+5 d6 (yeah 5!!!) There isn't much living through those hits. The butcher himself swings a mighting p+s 24 and has a spell that can make anything in the army hit 3 p+s harder. I like this army a lot, there is a lot of power behind it, the problem: NO RANGED. The widowmakers are there to keep the enemies heads down while my beaters get into position.

Well let me know what you think I'll be expecting feedback.

O and beware Yuri!!

So I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and create a blog for the army near and dear to my heart: Khador! While I'm just following in Cereal John's footsteps I'd love to show my thoughts on this game that we all adore.

This is not going to be this biggest of blogs but i want to say that I had a lot of fun playing the steamroller that wasn't a steamroller. Even if I didn't get to play my favorite caster.

This blog will be for my Favorite Caster the Frozen Bitch herself Sorscha Kratikoff.

She has it all spells for infantry, spells for jacks, knock down AOE's, a feat that is almost (emphasis on almost) as good as EVlad. And she gets the best Khador 'Jack as a buddy. Beast 09. Sorscha will more than likely be my 350 point caster for the upcoming tourney. She's just fun to me.

So tell me what you think, is there room for a Khador blog in this group?