HOTT 52 - It's All About The Lines And Remembering The Rules Correctly!

I took a quick moment to knock out another game of HOTT over Friday night/Saturday morning. It was a quick game, as I'm starting to remember how things flow and the combat factors/modifiers. I did have one unique situation come up that I'm going to ask the "experts" on.

I have a whole gaggle of elements for orcs, goblins and humans. From these many stands, I can generate quite a few armies, so I have tables that I roll against. The biggest determining factor is if the army is mostly militia, mostly regular/professional (trained) or a mix of the two. 1d6 tells me who fights who! I also found that the "random" generation of terrain once again was lumping it into one side of the board, but I went with it. I am working on flatter replacements for HOTT.

So... how did this battle go?



Once again, a Human army was defending their stronghold against a force of Orcs and Goblins. The human commander sent their knights dashing to the left around the woods, in hopes to threaten the Bestial's right flank and peel off some of the elements from their long line.



The Orc Warchief had a similar idea and sent his goblin wolf riders dashing past the humans and the rough terrain that was ill suited for the woods-friendly goblins. They had an excellent view of the human stronghold and the human commander themselves!

  

The Orc Warchief details two elements of blades to confront the flanking knights. They are evenly matched and the Warchief prays to Moloch that his "Bloody Fangs" will rend human flesh! Meanwhile, the orc line starts to shift and expand, to hopefully overlap the humans!



The Warchief's prayers to Moloch fall on deaf ears, or the foul God was unimpressed, as the orc Blades fall to the human knights! Meanwhile, the orc line marches towards the humans and falls under their missile fire. Several units recoil from the casualties and the advance is blunted a bit.



Desiring to retake the initiative, the Warchief orders his troops to close to attack! The human commander decides to detail a warband to confront the flanking wolf-riders.



The battle goes badly for the attacking bestials! Orcs fall to the spears and blades of the defending humans and the warband destroys an element of the goblin riders! The goblin warband manages to turn to flank the human line, but the brave archers from a nearby village manage to hold them off! Desperate to regain some initiative, the Orc Warchief closes to give battle to the Knights, only to see his personal bodyguard driven back!



The casualties mount for the Bestials and the Warchief reluctantly orders the withdrawal of his forces from the field of battle. The humans cheer in victory - their losses were light and they'd given the Orcs a Bloody Nose instead of facing Bloody Fangs!

---

The dice told the story of this battle as well. The Orcs/Goblins lost 12 AP and the humans only lost 2 - a resounding victory! I expected the long line of the orcs would come into play, but the knights flanking and some timely shooting that resulted in the orc line splintering really set the tone of the final outcome.

That is something I like about HOTT, getting to the meat of the meal quickly!

My only question was regarding this one situation.



The humans attacked the Orc Blades (outlined in red) in a front/close the door flank attack. The orcs scored VERY well and forced the frontal human spear to recoil.

Now, at this point, I had forgotten about a rule in HOTT which I **JUST** remembered and confirmed right now...



So both the frontal and flanker should have recoiled, but I didn't recoil the flanker!

Instead, I became concerned as to whether the blades should turn to confront the flankers, or proceed forward towards the frontal spears. I made a dice roll and they turned to face the flankers. Who ended up destroying them anyway. So I guess I just answered my own question of which was the right choice in my own blog post.. NEITHER were the right choice. Duh. (smacks my forehead).

This is one of the reasons I'm not throwing in a lot of extra elements like magic, gods and the like for now... I just need to get the basic rules down!

I did get my 15mm Saxons for my human warband elements, to fill those empty Wb stands; they are jumping to the front of the painting line. I do need to buy a 15mm human mage, priest, and make some orc/goblin/human hero elements. THEN move on to more land elf, sea elf, chaos humans, kobold, halfling elements...

It never ends, does it. The madness. The obsession... *happy sigh*

Storium Theory: Inaction In Action

Sometimes, I see players make comments in a game, explaining why they haven't made a move in a challenge so far:

"I don't think this is something my character knows how to deal with."

"I'm not sure she cares about this."

"I think he's just kind of stunned right now.

"She doesn't know what to do."

Sometimes these are indications of a problem in the story - if all of a narrator's players are telling him their characters don't care about the current situation, it is probably time to revise the situation and figure out how to better relate it to the story at hand.

But...more often, they're a statement that is actually pointing directly at a very interesting opportunity for the character: A chance to make inaction your action.

When you're writing the story of a challenge, things are happening, whether your character is acting on them or not. Each move drives the timeline of the challenge forward. When a card is played, something happens, and the challenge moves positively or negatively, or just towards the end of its story.

So...if your character, for instance, doesn't know how to deal with something, and chooses not to act...that's a choice. And that's his "action" for that moment in the tale.

So let it be an action! Make your move! Show your character's uncertainty or confusion about what to do! Show how your character hasn't cared about the situation, if that's the case, and chooses to ignore it! Show how the situation has left your character stunned, or how he's tired and needs rest, or how his injuries prevent him from joining the battle!

Sometimes, those things are treated as reasons not to make a move, but...that's not what they should be. They are, in fact, excellent opportunities to make moves.

Especially...especially...if you have either Weakness cards to play, or a Subplot.

I'm stunned. I'm confused. I'm shell-shocked. I'm injured. I'm exhausted. I just plain don't care about this.

Those are all excellent weakness plays.

When a situation is ongoing and your character chooses not to do anything about it, that's a great opportunity to show what starts going wrong with the situation because your character is not preventing it. Philosophically, there's nothing really different here from if things start to go wrong and your character tries to prevent it and fails because of a Weakness, right? Something goes wrong either way. The difference is just that your character, in this case, didn't do something to stop it instead of doing something but getting it wrong.

What about Subplots? Well, Subplots are great for these situations too! When a character is shocked into inaction, when she finds something she doesn't care about, when he struggles to understand what he's supposed to do in a situation...those are great times to explore the other mysteries in a character's life or the things the character does care about. There are some excellent subplot moves available that show how the character withdraws into themselves, or starts thinking about how all this ties in with their personal problems, or tries to examine where they are right now...and because of all that, something starts to happen in the current situation, and they're not really sure what to do in the face of it...or even if they should do something.

A subplot isn't a weakness play, mind, so chances are nothing ends up going outright wrong right away, but you can certainly hint that something will! While your character is distracted by his own thoughts, or full of self-doubt, or struggling with what he's supposed to do, or disinterested in what is happening, how does the situation evolve?

If your character doesn't seem certain of what's going on, or doesn't know what to do, or just plain doesn't care...don't just drop out of the challenge. Use that to advance the challenge.

Now...one more point on this. Especially in the case of a character that "doesn't care" about a challenge, this can actually be a great way to figure out what would make them care, and therefore explain how a Strength comes into play, or at least how they get involved in the challenge despite their feelings. If you find yourself thinking that your character just wouldn't get involved for some reason or another, put a little time into thinking about what might happen because of that decision.

Then, write a move based on that...and maybe, maybe midway through the move, you'll realize the character now does know what to do, or does care about the situation, as she sees what is about to happen, or starts watching something she does care about slip away.

Maybe that leads to the character using a Strength and turning things around after all. Or maybe the character ends up doubling down on fear or uncertainty, or just takes the wrong action, using a Weakness. Or maybe, the character's Subplot drives him forward, making him engage with the challenge now that he's seen what it could mean if he doesn't.

Now...this isn't something you need to pull in all the time. (And to be clear, if you find yourself constantly trying to figure out why your character would get involved in something, it may be time to talk to the narrator about how to make your character mesh better with the story.) But there are times when an inability to think about something that your character would do can itself be precisely what drives the story forward and makes an interesting situation.

Don't overuse this, but...keep it in the toolbox. It's a handy trick to pull out and it can lead to some astonishingly interesting moments for a character if used properly.

Remember Spider-Man and Uncle Ben...sometimes, when your character doesn't take action, that ends up driving his story more than anything else.

Happy To Say I'm Completely Wrong About Sekiro! (Monday Musings 74)

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Masterpiece?

I am so happy to say that I'm 100% wrong about Sekiro. I watched my streamer friends and the gameplay looks incredible. It has the same meticulous combat as the prior Souls games, and perhaps melee mechanics as complex as Nioh. At that time, I found Nioh actually having better combat mechanics than Souls series, but suffering from graphics causing migraine, lack of level design, limited variety of enemies, and being unbalanced at the last area as described here.

Perhaps the saltiness in my assessment is not only stemming from Activision, the review embargo not lifting until the day prior to release (so if the reviews are negative, pre-orders can't be readily canceled), but I feel my bitterness is mostly rooted in not being able to afford Sekiro at this stage, after doing taxes with my accountant.

What I'm planning to do is to take charge of my finances with All Your Worth by Elizabeth Warren. I recall when I followed her program faithfully, I was able to max out my IRA contributions, having emergency savings, and having fun money to spend on whatever I want!

I will hopefully post a synopsis of what I consider the best personal finance book I've read (and I've read numerous titles), including sample worksheets that the average American will have, such as internet, utilities and food, to see if this book is doable for the average American income at 24K (perhaps 20K after taxes). 

Since I won't be playing Sekiro until much later, given my continued addiction to Assassin's Creed Odyssey, as well as working on my backlog of 100 games, I'm going to wait until the complete bundled edition comes out at reduced price. The benefits of waiting later is further described here.

I'm hoping to finish this All Your Worth post for the next Monday Musings, but for now, I'd like to conclude that Sekiro is exactly the game that I would love and find a masterpiece. 

The How of Happiness Review

A Short Analysis About Gorogoa’s Puzzle Experience

Definitely, the most interesting and thought-provoking game I've played this year was Gorogoa. I experienced the awesome puzzles in the screen of Nintendo Switch and, wow, that was mesmerizing. I followed the whole gaming creative process in social media, but the gameplay surprised me in an epic level.



It's hard to describe the game in few words, but according to the definition from the official site, Gorogoa is "an ingenious, perfectly crafted puzzler". The game creator, Jason Roberts, developed thousands of meticulously detailed hand-drawn illustrations, encompassing the impressive scope of Gorogoa's personal narrative.



Essentially, in the gameplay, you control four quadrants where you must execute a series of zoom in and zoom outs in the images to recombine shapes and create new physical possibilities and structure new scenarios from the most improbable objects. The video below explains the game's main idea:



The great gameplay experience makes me want to write a personal short analysis of Gorogoa (for further consulting in classes) following a model proposed by Tracy Fullerton (2008) in her book Game design workshop.

• Players: single player game; one player against the puzzles
• Objectives: combine patterns to create and recreate scenarios/objects
• General rules: you can point and click in four different quadrants using zoom in and zoom out to connect new possibilities of images
• Resources: colorful images (hand drawn) with a fantasy theme disposed in four quadrants
• Conflicts: how good is your vision and imagination to solve the puzzles
• Limits: four quadrants with limited amount of zoom in/out possibilities
• Results: when you complete a puzzle correctly, the game shows you an animation and a new part of the scenario/narrative to point out your progress

---

Reference:

FULLERTON, Tracy, et al. Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.

#GoGamers

PUBG Mobile Added To All MSSA's Student Championships.

North West University is an active participant in MSSA events.

Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) is the only body in South Africa that currently runs official esports championships for students.

It should be noted that International Esports Federation (IESF), the only global esports body in the world is in partnership with International University Sports Federation (FISU) in order to have esports recognized as a true sport at university level.

Thus while MSSA also has awards for students at all of its Premier Provincial and National Championships, MSSA also runs additional championships for students which allows MSSA to host those esports titles that are only for mature audiences.

Since most students at tertiary education level are of the age of majority, students in these dedicated championships are able to play esports titles which would, otherwise, require additional logistics.

It should be noted that persons who are under age, by law, are not allowed to even watch titles which are not appropriate.

The championships shall allow players not only to earn medals, but also enable students to earn student provincial colours.

The colours shall be based upon residency, so even if a Registered Player is originally from Louis Trichardt, but is studying at Stellenbosch as a boarder, such player may earn Western Cape student provincial colours.

Thus, it is at MSSA's Student Championships that students are able to play esports titles which have 18 age restrictions.

A huge change has been made to the line-up of game titles with the introduction of PUBG Mobile which will open the award of provincial colours to a whole new group of esports athletes.

The titles to be played at all MSSA student specific championships are as follows:

Period/genre	Title	Platform	Age restriction	Players
Shooter	CS GO	PC,	16	5 v 5
	Call of Duty – Modern Warfare	PS4	18	5 v 5
	Paladins	PC/console	12	5 v 5
	PUBG Mobile	Mobile	13	Battleground
Sport	FIFA '20	PC	3	1 v 1
	PES 2020	PC	3	1 v 1
MOBA	Clash Royale	Mobile	12	1 v 1
	Dota 2	PC	12	5 v 5
	League of Legends	PC	12	5 v 5
Fighting	Tekken 7	Console	16	1 v 1

Also read:

• Ensuring gender equity in esports.
• MSSA celebrates its women who have earned Protea Colours.
• Why schools and universities should invest in esports.
• How school clubs affiliate for the 2020 season.
• The various events held by Mind Sports South Africa.
• Why schools and universities should invest in esports
• New National Team Selection Criteria
• Selecting the national Protea teams for Mind Sports South Africa.
• The road to Eilat

The Blog At 400 Posts

400 blog posts?   Have I really written so many?  Blogger says I have, so I'll have to accept that.  I suppose its time for one of those meta-blog entries where I talk about stuff that doesn't fit into a traditional blog post.  So let's start with a revisit of one of the only useful parts of the previous "Blog at xxx Posts" posts, the Youtube channel recommendations list.  I subscribe to many more channels these days than I used to, so let me tell you why you may want to take a look at them as well.  The channels I recommended (LGR, Pixelmusement and PushingUpRoses) in my early blog post remain recommended of course, but let's add some fresh blood to the list.  I will be using categories to help organize recommended channels, but just because a channel falls into one category does not mean it holds no value outside that pigeonhole. 

Read more »

You say "obsessed" as if it is a bad thing.

Download Batman Arkham City On PC With Proof In Hindi (Black Box) [All E...

Monthly Progress Report For My Twitch Channel, FuzzyJCats, Nov 25 Through Dec 24

Twitch Channel FuzzyJCats

During this month of streaming, I continued to work on improving the usual chatting and gaming at the same time, and not using filler words, though I noticed I constantly slip into using a lot of filler words as they help to fill dead air.

I was also trying to find out how we can tell if we're entertaining. Certainly watching your VoDs help you notice if you're articulate or not, if you move around too much such that you're off the facecam, but I still can't tell if my streams are entertaining.

However, I started having an inkling as to what's entertaining to viewers this month. Since the entertainment is in real-time, and people are chatting, like with everything, people find you very interesting if you ask about them and talk about their issues. This is try-hard but cbenni.com can let you review your logs so you can remember what your viewers say, so when they show up the next time, you can ask them about that specific thing. 

For instance, if they mention that they're starting a new job, you can ask them how work is coming along, if they like their new boss, coworkers, and so on and so forth.

So another try-hard method is after each stream, I have been more or less writing these topics to talk about when the viewer shows up next.

Again, this is very try-hard, but it can help not only make your chat more entertaining for specific viewers, but with these topics on hand, it will help reduce dead air.

Aside from the usual goal of chat and gaming ratio, working on dead air, and removing filler words while streaming, improvements to be made is to be more aware of my viewers so I can ask them about issues next stream. 

The How of Happiness Review

(205) Download Limbo Full Game Full Version For Pc

(205 MB) Download Limbo Full Game Full Version For Pc

Screenshot

System Requirements of Limbo

• Operating System: Windows XP/ Windows Vista/ Windows 7/ Windows 8 and 8.1
• CPU: Pentium 4 2GHz processor
• RAM: 512MB.
• Hard Disk Space: 185MB.

All Present And Accounted For

Turns out Friday wasn't a free day after all but the Greys are now done so all is well.

A game was overdue so once I had finished painting, I laid out a One Hour Wargame scenario......

.....but that's a post for another day.

Blender 2.80 Released, Gets Industry Sponsorship

The amazing libre 3D modeling tool Blender needs no introductions at this point. Suffice to say that what began as a humble Free Software alternative to most heavy-duty proprietary 3D software is slowly becoming a new industry standard. The newly released version 2.80 is a testimonial of this.

The new release adds not only a much needed upgrade to the UI, but along comes an improved real time renderer and much more. All new features and improvements can be checked here.

Finally, some of you might have already heard in the past few weeks the gaming industry titans Epic Games and Ubisoft have officially began sponsoring the Blender foundation with grant funds. These are welcoming news since it means Blender will only see better and more regular updates from increased sources of income. Even if the money comes from proprietary software business, libre developers alike can also reap the benefits.

Blender can be downloaded for free on its official download page.

Code license: GPLv2

Via GamingOnLinux.

Got comments? Post them on our forum thread.

This post was retrieved from freegamer.blogspot.com.

Watch Out! Hedgewars Releases Long-Awaited V1.0.0

Have you heard of Hedgewars? What began as a simple attempt to clone Team 17's Worms Armageddon has evolved into one of the most polished and community driven libre game projects on the scene. After more than ten years of continuous development the project is finally celebrating the release of version 1.0.0.

Boasting full campaign support, several online multiplayer modes, full customization, and mod support, Hedgewars is without a doubt an impressive endeavor that rivals its source of inspiration in many levels. So whether you are a Worms Armageddon fan or if you are just looking for some online turn-based fun, we definitely recommend a download.

Code license: GPLv2
Art license: GFDLv1.2 and GPLv2

Comments about this article? Post them here.

This post was retrieved from freegamer.blogspot.com.

Madrak1 - A Tour Of Trolls

Continuing on with my Tour of Trolls I'm going with our post-CID zero to hero star: Madrak1.

Fair warning, this is a long article because there's just so much to cover with this caster!

Pre-CID, Madrak1 was one of the worst casters in the faction. Post CID he's so amazingly good that it seems hard to think of a time when he won't be featured in most Trollblood Steamroller pairings.

He's not quite the (pre-nerf) Haley2 of Trollbloods, but he may well be our Rask.

Strengths

What makes him so good is pretty obvious:

Even Ground gives everything in his control area straight up +2 DEF and no knockdown, and it can be cast by his Blood Boon ability, which can proc off of his ranged attack.

His other two spells are also good:

Guided Hand: An additional dice to hit on a model/unit's next melee attack

Jackhammer: Target warbeast can make an additional melee attack.

Both of these spells are strong, though Guided Hand is really going to shine. Additionally both of these spells can be cast by Madrak1's all-but-officially-mandatory caster attachment: the Runebearer.

If this was all Madrak1 had, he'd still be in contention for a lot of lists, but he's got one of the most amazing feats for Trollbloods:  You can't charge models in his control area and all Trollblood models heal D3+3 damage.

I'll be honest, 99% of the time I've feated purely for the "no-charge" portion of the feat simply to deliver my army to have the alpha strike and it's gloriously powerful.  The healing setup can be a big deal, especially since things like Champions are obvious auto-includes with Madrak, where the feat near guarantees they will be fully healed if they take damage and spread it around via their Sanguine Bond ability.

Madrak1 also has Tactician for friendly warrior models in his CMD range, allowing for an amazing amount of flexibility in order of activations as well as clearing out your own models or unpacking what will inevitably be a troop heavy list.  Tactician in Trolls is simply amazing because of all the space the medium or larger sized based army takes up on the table.

On top of all this, Madrak1 still retains his old MK1 ability to use a scroll once per game that allows him to just ignore a damage roll.  With Even Ground up and under the Stone's Aura Madrak's defensive stats are insane: DEF 16, ARM 19, with 18 Damage boxes, tough with no-knockdown, and he can camp for transfers.

Key Pieces for Madrak1

More than other casters, a Madrak1 list seems to want specific pieces to really function.  Before I go into List Theory I want to lay out the pieces that I feel are must take options for Madrak which will influence what we can do in theory.

The Runebearer – Extending Madrak's control area from 10" to 12" with Arcane Repeater is absolutely necessary to get the most out of Even Ground and Madrak's feat.  Harmonious exaltation is clutch for those turns where you can't reliably proc Blood Boon to cast Even Ground, which allows Madrak to cast it himself for 2, possibly throwing out a Guided Hand if necessary, or just camping Fury.  The Runebearer can also be used to cast Guided Hand on a unit himself every turn if you wished, which helps with Fury management and getting things going before Madrak has to activate.  Suffice it to say you will always be taking the Runebearer with Madrak, but luckily he will be free due to theme benefits.

Bomber or Impailer – Madrak really wants the Far Strike animus to be able to shoot 12" with his axe to proc Blood Boon to cast Even Ground. I've played a fair number of games with Madrak without the Far Strike animus and my conclusions after the fact are that we should always have it.

Eilish Garrity – Madrak1 can make life an utter nightmare for your opponent in a variety of ways: Lots of single wound infantry that suddenly have very hard to deal with defensive stats, Champion bricks that are DEF16 in melee, the fact that you can run into position and deny charges onto your stuff. The way a lot of opponents will deal with this is via control, most of which is delivered via spells: Repudiate to deny a unit orders, Crippling Grasp to reduce their effectiveness, etc.  Eilish solves this problems by removing offensive upkeeps from your models, freeing them up to be able to run or charge in.  If he isn't doing that, then he's busy giving Puppet Master to Madrak who can much more reliably kill a model with his thrown axe to proc Blood Boon.  It's hard to dedicate 5 points to this model, especially since he can't be free as a Minion Solo, but he's worth it to guarantee Madrak can play into a lot of matches he'd otherwise struggle in due to control elements.

Fell Caller – This is more of an honorable mention than a pure necessity, but for most lists I've played with Madrak, you need a Fell Caller.  Most of the time at least one or more of your units will need Pathfinder before they have it (ie. Champs + Skaldi only get it on the charge, Fennblades via mini-feat), or +2 MAT to tackle opposing high DEF models.  I can see a Skaldi+Champs and Double Fennblade list that can play without the Fell Caller, but other builds with a second unit of Champs, or Longriders, or Kriel Warriors are going to want the Fell Caller to at least maneuver around terrain on the approach.

Band of Heroes – This is where Madrak1 wants to be played.  It's arguable that Madrak could be in Storm of the North, but the main benefit from that is getting to upkeep your spells for free on Northkin units, immunity to cold on all your Warrior models, and two snow drifts.  The problem is that Madrak1 has no upkeeps, immunity to cold doesn't really matter, and you lose access to the strongest benefits in Band of Heroes: Remove from Play on all melee attacks, ignoring Tough on all melee attacks by Warrior models, and the extra 2" of deployment for what will inevitably be a Troop based army.   Fennblades seem very strong with Madrak which are only in BoH, but I can possibly see trying to go for a hard DEF skew with Northkin Raiders, Champions, and Fire Eaters in Storm in the North – but it just seems like it's easier to counter.

List Theory

There are so very many ways to build Madrak1 that the mind boggles, and there are some key decisions you need to make which will influence your list:

Double or Single Champion Units? This will strongly dictate which way the list will go.  Double Champion units gives you two problem units for your opponent to deal with, but it's obviously weaker against lists that can easily deal with DEF16 Champion units in melee.  This will dictate what else you can take in the list, since it's mutually exclusive with double Fennblade units, at least if you want to take the important solo's needed to run the list.

Bomber/Mauler or Min Beast Points?  If you're going to use minimum points, the light package with Impailer and 2x 9 Point Beasts of your choice is the safest bet.  In this case I think I'd go with an Impailer, Bouncer, and a Pyre Troll so that Madrak can get up to PS18 under the Strength Aura of the Kriel Stone if he needs to do some heavy lifting.   I'm personally much more of a fan of using a Bomber and a Mauler to round out the beast package, even though it cuts into your unit budget to spend the extra 5 points over Madrak1's beast points.

My List:

I'm going to go through the list I've used for our last Scrum (a Steamroller tournament run 1 game a
week over a month) where I paired Madrak1 with Kolgrima.  This is a list where I tried to squeeze in as much value as possible, but in doing so I went without the Far Strike Animus.  I've come to realize that this is a mistake and so am going to list variants I want to play going forward in another section below.

Trollblood - More is More

Theme: Band of Heroes
3 / 3 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army


Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain - WB: +29
-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 15)
-    Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 14 (Battlegroup Points Used: 14)

Eilish Garrity, the Occultist - PC: 5
Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Stone Scribe Chronicler - PC: 4

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Trollkin Champions - Leader & 4 Grunts: 16
-    Skaldi Bonehammer - PC: 0
Trollkin Champions - Leader & 4 Grunts: 16


THEME: Band of Heroes

The big change I found in this list was exactly how good Kriel Warriors are with Madrak1.  Taking two units of Champions and two units of Kriel Warriors is just too much for most opponents to deal with reliably.  Against many opponents, you can just run in and jam your way to a scenario victory, keeping them out of zones while you rack up points.

Kriel Warriors main problem is having low MAT and POW.  While Madrak doesn't fix their POW problem, he does make them hit very reliably with Guided Hand, which lets them chew through opposing enemy infantry nicely.  The Stone Scribe Chronicler can be very good here, with Heroes Tragedy to knockdown anything that kills one, though most of the time it didn't really matter much.

In the end, what seemed to matter the most with this list was exactly how hard it was for opponents to actually just kill Kriel Warriors.  At DEF 14, ARM17 vs. guns and ARM19 vs. melee, I was comfortably able to just run them into opposing infantry or even put them in walk+attack range while under Madrak's feat and without getting boosted damage rolls, the small amount of attacks that hit just bounced off the armor.

Literally every tough check a Kriel Warrior makes is utterly demoralizing for your opponent, especially if they're trying to just clear them out to score scenario VP's.

The best part was that they're literally there just to jam, anything they kill is a bonus. They deliver the Champions and beasts extremely well, and stop a lot of armies just dead in their tracks.  

My Results

The only list pairs I had to avoid dropping Madrak into during our Scrum was Vlad1 Rockets which has enough volume of attacks to chew through all of my guys. In fact out of all the games I've played with Madrak1 post-CID (with many more lists than the one above), I've only lost literally one of them - it was a case where I made a mistake and left Madrak in range of a teleporting Warpwolf where I could have just moved to the back of a zone, not even cast Even Ground, and won on Scenario.

Madrak is a scenario and attrition monster in this list. You can jam opponents out on scenario AND back it all up with hard hitting stuff that is very tough to deal with for a lot of opponents.  Like all Troll lists, it really likes to go first, but it can handle things pretty well going second.  The extra turn to just dump Fury on the Krielstone and run as far forward as possible with the Kriel Warriors is a big deal: this version of Madrak is much slower than the alternative builds with Fennblades or Long Riders.  Basically I'm trading speed for bodies and having two heavies and two units of Champions.

Future Changes

In hindsight, I've had some games where I got lucky to avoid assassinations, and a lot of this was related to the fact that the list has almost zero ways to reach out and touch people, or deal with any kind of sniping out of problem models.

This is why I intend to switch to the following list now that our tournament is over:

Trollblood - Bombs 'n Kriels

Theme: Band of Heroes
3 / 3 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army


Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain - WB: +29
-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 19)
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 10)

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist - PC: 5

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 5 Grunts: 7
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Trollkin Champions - Leader & 4 Grunts: 16
-    Skaldi Bonehammer - PC: 0
Trollkin Champions - Leader & 4 Grunts: 16
-    Trollkin Sorcerer - PC: 3


THEME: Band of Heroes

I'm not sure about the Sorcerer on the second unit of Champions, but its 3 points left over and fills out the list. It could easily just swap to being a unit of Swamp Gobbers to help protect line of sight to Madrak since the main way he seems to lose in the matches he's targeted for is getting assassinated.

The main losses are 4 Kriel Warriors and the Chronicler to pick up a Bomber and to me it definitely seems worth it.  You still have two screens for the Champs and beasts, and the loss of 4 Kriel Warriors should be made up for by the Bomber and Madrak's improved ranged output.

This all said, I have to admit I may want to swing around and start trying a faster list, akin to what I played when I started Madrak1, before I got a deal from a friend selling his old Trolls to double up on a few of my units where you run one of everything: Longriders, Fennblades, and Champs.  You can squeeze all of that plus Eilish, a Bomber, and a Mauler into 75 points and it worked well enough before I started experimenting in other ways.  I may go back to that if I find being too slow with the Kriel Warriors isn't as good against a wide variety of the field. In fact, if you're coming back to Trolls from MK2 when you possibly didn't own 2 units of Champs, Fenns, or Kriels, this kind of list would be a great place to start.

Conclusions

There are just so many ways to play Madrak1 and he is so incredibly powerful for Trolls as a faction that it's hard to see him coming out of list pairs for both power and fun reasons.  While I think Band of Heroes is his best place, there is definitely a way to run him in Storm in the North or Power of Dhunia, though probably not Kriel Company (which is more a fault of the theme than of Madrak).  The only worry I have is that he may be too good, and may stagnate our pairings a bit. That said, it is nice to always have as a kind of question/answer that can be slotted back into Troll list pairs as we go forward into MK3.