As happens every couple of months or so, this past weekend I had some friends over for a few games of Warmachine. I decided this would be my best chance to trial run an alternate Butcher3 list (one of a few list ideas I've been kicking around) and get some back to back games in with it.
Join me after the break for the list I used, a few SR2015 impressions, and abbreviated reports about how well the list fared.
Of the Butcher3 ideas I've been kicking around, I decided to try out the one that was the most radical:
Butcher3 - Battlegroup:
Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed (*4pts)
* Beast-09 (11pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Kayazy Eliminators (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Kayazy Eliminators (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Tactical Arcanist Corps (4pts)
* Koldun Kapitan Valachev (2pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Koldun Lord (2pts)
The principle behind this list (which is based on similar lists I've read about elsewhere) is to give Butcher3 something to do if he can't/doesn't want to get involved in the game. This typically takes the form of warjacks in some way, because Butcher3 doesn't have any other tools for helping out his army.
In theory, this approach is helpful when facing enemy lists that either a) threaten Butcher3 if he commits early/mid game, or b) trade in anti-spellcasting tech (Bestial, Mage Blight, Orin Midwinter, Covenant of Menoth). Being able to fuel up and charge in warjacks gives Butcher3 a way to cause early game damage, and with the proper trades you can whittle the opponent's army down to the point where Butcher can come in and do work safely.
In the case of heavy spellcasting denial, it gives Butcher3 something to do in general instead of just sitting back and wishing that all of his most potent abilities didn't rely on spellcasting. The TAC allows him to play aggressively while still staying safe (since he won't be able to camp with this approach), and he may be able to still threaten the board in a valuable way even with spellcasting denial in play. In theory, anyways.
We played two games over the course of the afternoon, and both games used the SR2015 beta packet. Without going into too many details, here are some of my quick thoughts about what I saw:
- The idea of being able to pick the special abilities of the objective you have (as opposed to them being determined by the scenario) is very interesting. The choices seem relatively balanced, though I can see a few being clear favorites. I'm interested to see what revisions, if any, they receive between now and the final printing.
- There weren't a ton of scenario changes, but some of the biggest troublemakers from SR2014 are getting some tweaks. I haven't played all of the scenarios enough to know if the changes they've made to some of them will be enough, but I can say (having played it below) that the new Incursion is going to be very interesting to see play out over the next year.
With that out of the way, lets get to the games!
Game 1 - vs. Xerxis2:
Xerxis, Fury of Halaak (*5pts)
* Basilisk Krea (4pts)
* Mammoth (20pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Praetorian Swordsmen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard (2pts)
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer (3pts)
Venators Slingers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Extoler Soulward (2pts)
Mortitheurge Willbreaker (2pts)
Tyrant Zaadesh (3pts)
* Cyclops Raider (5pts)
As mentioned, we played the 2015 version of Incursion for this game. The big differences are:
1) The outer flags never disappear. There will be three flags in play all game long.
2) The outer flags are now 3" closer to the center (so 12" in from either table side).
3) Controlling or Dominating a flag earns 1 CP; now the only way to score quickly in this scenario is to cover ground and own multiple flags.
With those changes in mind, both of our lists were fairly well equipped to handle this scenario from the outset. Each of us had enough models to contest the flags early on, so this game was going to go for awhile. Butcher won the initial roll off and opted for first turn.
The early game saw the Eliminators and Butcher's battlegroup squaring off against all the warbeasts and Zaadesh, with the Slingers going up the middle. The Swordsmen faced off with the Nyss and Widowmakers on the right flank.
By the end of the second turn, most of the Swordsmen and Slingers were dead, as were both of the Juggernauts and one of the Eliminators. Beast-09 managed to get to Xerxis on turn three with Silence of Death, but his assassination run failed due to a couple of missed attacks. Nyss tried to chip in with a CRA, but Xerxis ended the turn with four health remaining.
The Mammoth then killed Beast-09 and the Raider killed another Eliminator, but on the following turn the intact pair of Eliminators kill Zaadesh and force the Raider to go wild.
Butcher spends the whole game hiding behind clouds and further back on the table due to the presence of the Soulward, but eventually the Nyss snake up and pick off the Soulward from behind a wall with a big CRA. This allowed Butcher3 to move over more aggressively towards the right flag behind the cover of clouds, and eventually he scored the first CP of the game using the Nyss to control the flag.
The Mammoth charged into the cluster of models on the right flank killing several of the Nyss, the second of the TAC (the first one died to an early Slinger shot) and one of the nearby Argus. Xerxis attempted to avenge the Krea killed the previous turn by the Eliminators, but he failed to hit either of them.
Butcher then killed the Mammoth, and between himself, the Koldun Lord, and the Eliminators on the left flank, his army was able to control or dominate all three flags. By that point in the game, Xerxis was out of models that could contest the right flank at that point, so the game ends with Butcher scoring the 5th and final control point to win via scenario during Xerxis' turn.
Game 2 - vs. Lucant:
Father Lucant, Divinity Architect (*5pts)
* Corollary (3pts)
* Diffuser (3pts)
* Mitigator (4pts)
* Cipher (9pts)
* Conservator (7pts)
Eradicators (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Optifex Directive (Leader and 2 Grunts) (2pts)
Reciprocators (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Attunement Servitors (2pts)
Attunement Servitors (2pts)
Reflex Servitor (2pts)
Reflex Servitor (2pts)
Note: I didn't realize until typing this up, but my friend's list was 1 point short. I'm not sure if he didn't realize it himself, or if he didn't have any of the 1 point Convergence options available and just opted to play a point down.
This scenario was the 2015 version of Close Quarters, which to my knowledge is unchanged from the 2014 version. Lucant won the roll and took first turn.
Butcher's battlegroup and the Nyss lined up against Lucant and his heavies on the left flank, while everything else was positioned to fight over the right flank.
Early game shooting picked off a number of Servitors, but Lucant's army was able to advance pretty far up the table largely intact under the protection of his feat. One of the Juggernauts slammed an Eradicator into another and the Eliminators ran in to jam up the Eradicators and Reciprocators. The other Juggernaut moved to contest Lucant's flag, while Butcher was able to clear the only model near his flag and begin scoring defensively.
What followed was a fairly classic scenario grind: both sides threw models at each other to contest each flag, but at the end of each turn Butcher was able to clear off his flag and continue scoring (while remaining safe thanks to TAC clouds). This eventually led to Lucant's army being seriously whittled down, and in one of those "screw it, I'm killing something before the game ends" moments, he charged in to kill Beast-09, which left him sitting on zero camp in range of an un-feated Butcher3.
Post Game Day Thoughts:
The first thing that's worth mentioning is that this was a casual day of gaming: no strict time limits, no Deathclocks, everyone trying out lists they either haven't played before or haven't used very much. So I'm more looking at this as a proof of concept for the list in general.
The second thing worth mentioning is that, if we were using Deathclocks, I'd have timed out in at least the first game, if not the second. This list combines two things which usually lead to me playing slowly: a list with precious models (Butcher3 and his battlegroup) and a list that I haven't played before. I think the second game went faster than the first, but not by much. If I was ever going to play this list I'd need more reps with it. This is definitely a list that could be played fast; I'm just not there yet.
With those two things in mind, I think both games went pretty well, and they showcased why this kind of list can be nice with Butcher3.
In the Xerxis2 fight, after turn two or so Xerxis2 was always in a position where if Butcher came in to kill the Mammoth, Xerxis would be able to charge him in response. That's kind of bad to begin with; it gets much worse when Xerxis has Ignite upkept on himself from the previous turn (he would have), the Krea animus is available to drop Butcher's DEF if necessary (it was for most of the game,) the mount can KD him, and Xerxis is in range to charge without needing Mobility (he was).
My opponent also did an excellent job of keeping the Mammoth outside of charge range of Butcher3, forcing me to use Energizer to get into combat (which would then preclude me from using Energizer to try and get out of Xerxis' charge range, or at least force him to cast Mobility).
And on top of all that, the two juiciest targets available were immune to pushes thanks to being on Huge bases, making it much, much harder for Butcher3 to get to them on favorable terms.
Being able to potentially throw the battlegroup into the Mammoth or Xerxis2 gave me a decent option to threaten them without having to commit Butcher, and it also gave them something meaty to chew on (the Mammoth and Xerxis2 were going to be the only thing killing heavies after all the infantry were cleared out).
In the game vs Lucant, having that kind of battlegroup allowed me to easily spread out and put pressure on his flag, while leaving Butcher back to dominate mine and score. Khador heavies can also trade well with Convergence heavies (especially with Energizer giving an alpha,) so its a good way to attrition down his army outside of the feat turn. Having access to slams also helped stall the Eradicators a bit on a turn where I would have had a helluva time killing them.
Noteworthy Model Thoughts:
I ended up liking the TAC with Butcher3 a lot more than I thought I would. They end up being kind of necessary in this list because Butcher is going to want to spend so much of his Focus pool every turn (you're looking at allocating at least 3, and probably casting a full Energizer, so it's not at all unlikely to fully bottom out on Focus). Having a cloud wall to hide behind allows Butcher to still stay in scary positions on the table, without having to do something like pop his feat just to keep up his camp (satisfying and often effective after killing a key enemy model; less so after just allocating to warjacks).
Even without the battlegroup tapping into his resources, however, I could see the value of having TAC around. Butcher3 often ends up having to face tank the opposing army. ARM 24, the War Dog, and a Ternion cloud often put him in a decent place to start, but in order to have good survival odds in a variety of situations you end up building him quite an entourage. The TAC seem to get around that need for so many support models, with the downside being that they're slow.
For that reason, I wouldn't consider them for Butcher3 without Valachev. His ability to give them an effective 7" move before dropping clouds allows them to get in front of Butcher and start dropping clouds on turn 2 without seriously leashing Butcher's ability to move up. Even then, you're still often in the position where your opponent can take shots at the TAC (can't afford to drop smoke then Zephyr back) so you need to be able to put enough resource drains in your opponent's way that it's either not desirable to attack the TAC, or doing so leaves you in a good position to capitalize.
Eliminators continue to impress. They're fantastic flanking models, they do solid melee damage, they're hard to stop, and they require no support from the 'caster or the army to work. They sometimes die to a random high dice roll or something you didn't consider, but other than that snag (which is an issue with many comparable models) I've been consistently impressed with and pleased by them.
Nyss are great, even without Valachev. If I could spare him in this list, I'd put him on them in a heartbeat, but they're a great shooting unit with a solid melee backup. In a list like this one, where I don't have a lot of room for infantry models, it really comes down to either Nyss or WGI. And since they're in Sorscha2's list, the Nyss are a great substitute.
Beast-09 is great. This isn't news to anyone, nor do I have any remarkable insight into how to use him (fill him with focus and charge him in), but he's a great warjack to wash Butcher's focus through. Reach, high P+S, Thresher, and his Imprint all combine to make for a helluva melee platform. Energizer gives him a nice threat extension, and Silence of Death gives him a lot of parity in fights against Hordes.
General List Thoughts:
I'm not sure how much "better" this style list is than the usual "flood of infantry" Butcher3 list, but it certainly seems like an interesting and valid alternate approach. Particularly if you want to try and swerve around what people may be expecting from a Butcher3 list.
There are two big limitations with this approach, based on my brief experience with this list (and inferring from running a similar general style of list with other 'casters):
1) It sort of runs into the Harkevich problem of relying on Khador warjacks, who are sadly not the most flexible or elite. You can get around that by using character warjacks, but that ends up making the battlegroup more expensive.
The counter point to this is that, unlike with Harkevich, the Butcher3 approach to this style of list has a touch more threat (3" from Energizer vs. 2" from Escort,) and it's anchored by Butcher3. Both of those factors make a big difference in the attrition exchange.
2) It leaves Butcher3 wide open. Just allocating Focus for one turn of attacks may be enough of a window for some lists to try and pick Butcher off, and if you bottom out completely almost anyone is going to leap on that opening to try and end the game before ugly things start happening.
If you're going to go this route with Butcher3, you need to have some way of aggressively denying attacks that might be coming his way. One approach is to build a warjack wall and hide behind that, but that approach makes me too nervous; there are just enough ranged/weird angle/special slams in the game that I haven't really felt safe hiding behind a warjack in years.
That mostly leaves something like the TAC, which seems like it works well. The biggest downside to this approach is that it still has large vulnerabilities: anything that can ignore clouds doesn't care, and the TAC are going to be vulnerable if you don't pull them back behind the clouds with Zephyr (which limits where you can put the clouds, which in turn limits where you can safely move Butcher).
It's a big risk/reward tradeoff. The benefit to the "entourage" approach with Butcher3 is that he can very comfortably lead from the front; everyone protecting him is able to do so just by standing near him (or buffing him before he moves) and this allows you to play Butcher3 extremely aggressively.
The downside is, of course, that it leaves Butcher3 open chesting anything that comes his way, with the hope that he can survive it. My concern after watching the meta grow and adapt to Butcher3 is that more and more lists will be able to deal with that approach.
Moreover, the open chest approach with Butcher3 often forces an earlier defensive feat (often after you initially commit him to the fight). Butcher3's feat is most potent when you can use it after crippling your opponent's army (i.e. removing the last thing that could reasonably threaten him). My goal in every game with him is to wait and pop his feat after that moment; anything earlier than that feels like I'm giving up a more decisive, daunting late game presence. So right now the conservative approach with TAC and rolling smoke is probably worth giving up the threat projection. I'm interested to try TAC with a non-battlegroup focused list as well.
Closing Thoughts:
Overall, I enjoyed this list quite a bit. It's another, interesting way to run Butcher3 that can force you and your opponent to re-evaluate a match up you may have thought you had all figured out.
There are a lot of different things to try with this configuration - clamjacks could be fun, as could different character warjacks, and Ruin is coming - and I'm interested with trying TAC with Butcher3 more in general.
For as much fun as this list was, however, I think I'm going to stick with my original Irusk2/Sorscha2 pair for my upcoming Steamroller games. I'd like to get more practice in with Butcher3 in general before taking him to an event (although at the same time, an event would be a great way to get more practice in with him), if nothing else so I can speed up my play with him. Sorscha2 and especially Irusk2 are much more practiced at this point.
Hopefully everyone enjoyed this quick look at a Butcher3 battlegroup oriented list. I encourage anyone who's interested in this style of list to give it a try; it's very fun! I'm going to try and sneak in another game or two with Sorscha2/Irusk2 before my first Brawltimore event (1/10/15,) and if I get the chance to get more experience with either of those lists I'll definitely be back with batreps.
As always, thanks very much for reading!
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