Warmachine "Greenmachine" Tournament Reports

After my first tournament this past Saturday, Warmachine remains a very interesting game to me.  On the one hand, I enjoy the game mechanically and from an intellectual standpoint.  On the other hand, however, there is a bit of a "nasty surprise" aspect to the game, and I'm not sure the local scene is quite for me.  I'll try and illustrate using the tournament. 

My list for the tournament was (25 Points Mangled Metal):

Goreshade the Bastard
Helldiver
Deathjack
Reaper
Seether

Goreshade's feat creates a six strong unit of Bane Thralls as well.  The idea of the list was to use the Bane Thralls as assassins against enemy casters by throwing them forward on the feat turn, and to use the Reaper to drag enemy Beasts/Jacks away from their owners and then murder them with the Deathjack and Seethers.

My first game was against pThagrosh, with a Carnivean, Angelius, Shredder, and Seraph.  My opponent had obviously had a similar thought to me in list creation, in that Thagrosh can reincarnate a Beast as his feat, effectively giving him a bigger list.

He ran his army up the first turn, and left his Carnivean forward.  I used the Reaper on my turn to drag the Carnivean in, and then killed it with Deathjack.  I then feated with Goreshade, leaving the Banes in the backfield, and used Goreshades teleport to move the Reaper and Deathjack back into my backfield and out of range of his army.   He moved his army around the next turn and returned the Carnivean to life in his backfield.  I ran up the next turn, and then he killed my Banes with shooting and charges in his turn.  Unfortunately, his Angelius frenzied, and so was unavailable to him, and his Beasts were now in the charge range of all my Jacks.  I killed the Carnivean and Seraph in my turn, and my opponent conceded. 

I went into round two having a good time.  My opponent was a good friend of mine, and was a brand new player as well.  He brought Karchev, two Kodiaks, a Destroyer, and a Berserker.  With a huge charge range, I was a bit nervous, but it was a short game.  My opponent came forward, casting Tow to move all his Jacks.  After the first turn, I was able to use Mage Blight to shut down any chance of Karchev's feat or spells.  My opponent then upkept Tow and moved his Jacks, but left Karchev up in front of his Jacks.  I then moved Goreshade up, feated, and used the Bane Thralls to kill Karchev. 

My opponent was a bit upset after the game, because he thought my list was nasty, and decided to take a walk.  I can completely understand his frustration.  What was really awful was the T.O. then coming over to me in order to tell me how much of a "douchebag list" I had, and how she wished she had a "douchebag stamp" to stamp all over lists like mine. 

Let me put in my side here.  The first game of this tournament was my fifth total game overall.  While I can appreciate that the Goreshade list is hard, I thought I had come up with a clever list for a tournament, not something that required a T.O. to tell me about what a horrible person I was.  I suppose I was suckered in by a lack of experience with the game, and the idea that Page 5 had some small meaning. 

In the third game, I played another friend with his Circle.  My heart wasn't really in it, and he assassinated Goreshade using eKaya's feat and a Ghostly Warpwolf. 

Somehow I won first place in the tournament, and with zero product prize support (despite an entry fee) ended up with a Steamroller Coin.  My friends with Circle and Khador ended up with second and third, respectively. 

So, Warmachine.  I really enjoyed my first game.  I can understand my opponent being upset and surprised in the second round from the Bane Thralls, and wish that I had thought to explain that the Thralls could activate after being summoned.  I knew that my opponent had studied my caster prior to the tournament, and honestly thought he knew they did so.  However, I hated that the T.O. come stuff her face in a few minutes later and publicly berate me.  If my list was too hard, it sure as heck wasn't from my masterful understanding of the game and evil genius, and it sure could have been handled either before or after the tournament in a tactful manner. 

My only other experience with the local crowd, a couple weeks earlier, involved my opponent being friendly when he thought he was getting an easy league win out of a new player, and then turning surly and rude when I unexpectedly won.  I have had good game experiences with people that I've known from Fantasy and 40K previously. 

I want to like this game.  I like the miniatures and painting potential, the base rule system, and the Privateer Press customer service philosophy.  While I would in now way push the idea that Privateer Press players are anything but top notch, I fear that the local crowd may put me off the game. 

Swatting at Bees - The Art of Swarming the Enemy

Hi, my name is Ben, and I play swarm.


Now, a lot of people will define swarming (in terms of wargaming) in what I consider the typical sense; that is, in terms of how you do it. You need a lot of cheap, expendable units, outnumbering your opponent by multiples, and heading accross the board in vast waves designed to drown his or her army by sheer weight of numbers. Typically, this is done by the usual horde army suspects, such as Skaven and Vampire Counts in Warhammer Fantasy, Tyranids and Orks in 40K, and Legion and Cryx in the Privateer Press Games. It's also not how I play. Side note: Why are most of these armies kind of gross and slimy? Weird.


I prefer to define swarming not by the method, but by the objective. A swarm overwhelms its opponent, providing him or her with too many confusing options. If your opponent attacks Units A and B, then he must ignore C, D, and E, which remain threatening. Likewise, if C and E are attacked, then A and B are still around and deadly. Of course, in a typical swarm of, for example, Skaven, there will be far more than five options. In overwhelming your opponent with choices, the idea is to promote bad decisionmaking. Like a man attacked by hundreds of bees, your opponent should swat around in a panic. Maybe you'll lose a bee or two to the swatting, but your opponent's confusion will let you eventually bear him or her to the ground. His guns might be bigger and better, but they're nothing if he can't make proper decisions on how to bring them to bear.


Vast, horde armies are a mainstay of modern wargaming, and they have the aforementioned strengths. They usually have typical weaknesses, such as lower leadership troops and lynchpin units or models that hold the rest of the army together, sometimes literally like with Vampire Counts.


The type of swarm that I prefer might not be as numerous, but it accomplishes the objective the same. In my current Dark Elf army, I like to run plenty of Dark Rider fast cavalry, some harpies, and perhaps a unit of shades or two. Using this setup, I can force an opponent to make multiple decisions in the first and second turns. He or she is generally unable to focus enough attention on the big hitters coming down the table, as they have to protect their weak bits against these fast units that are up in their face.

Like a typical horde, this army forces opponents to make decisions that have negative aspects no matter what, hopefully forcing a panicked "swatting" at my army. Weak spots like warmachines are taken out quickly, assassination runs can be taken at key enemy units, and hard hitting units like Knights can be pulled out of position. Disorganization and panic reigns while my heavy hitters (Cold One Knights, Black Guard, perhaps a Hydra) come in unmolested to finish the army off. I once had an opponent end up turning his two flanks, still on his side of the table, completely sideways to face one another in order to deal with all my little biting units. Realizing what he had done soon thereafter, he conceded the round.


All in all, we look as good generals to make an opponent fight the battle on our terms rather than theirs. Swarming them with confusing decisions, be either method, is a great tactic for doing so.