Bradigus - First Encounter Thoughts

The newest Circle Orboros warlock, Bradigus Thorle the Runecarver, has made quite an impact on the metagame of Warmachine/Hordes in a short time.

He got his Synergy count up to +6, then beat the meta to death.

Bradigus' initial reveal (i.e. full model rules spoiled) was met with a resounding shrug. His spell list and feat are pretty interesting, but his restriction on only being able to run Wolds left many players that tried him out feeling unimpressed (probably not aided at all by some of the top-flight warlocks Circle already possesses.) Players were more focused on the other warlocks in the book (especially powerhouses like Xerxis2) and Bradigus was sort of swept under the rug.

Then the actual Hordes: Exigence book was released, which contained the theme lists for all the warlocks contained within, and the community exploded.

Players cited different reasons as the weeks went on, but the reaction was consistent: Wold War (Bradigus' excellently named theme list) fixed pretty much all the problems that he had on his own, and rocketed him up from "meh" tier to possibly the best warlock in Circle.

After experienced Circle players worked more and more with his theme list, the evaluation of Bradgius and his theme list shifted (har): when played well, Bradigus is supposedly the most powerful Circle warlock by a country mile, and he's absolutely in the discussion for "most powerful 'caster/'lock". 

Anyone remotely familiar with WM/H's competitive scene should be familiar with Bradigus' recent rise to prominence (and infamy). It's all anyone talked about on podcasts for probably a solid month, and forum threads about about Bradigus' power, "how can our faction handle him", "should he be nerfed", etc. 

I'm not interested in rehashing those discussions or debates; the act of discussing Bradigus almost has a metagame built around itself at this point. What I am interested in is sharing my (extremely limited) experience playing against Bradigus and his theme list. Like many players, I've heard and read a lot about Bradgius and his theme force prior to facing it, so I wanted to share how those expectations compared to actually seeing the list in practice.

Join me after the break for a quick rundown of my thoughts after fighting against Wold War.

Caveats:

A few things worth noting right off the bat:

 1) The guy I played against was a relatively new Bradigus player - I think he said maybe 5 games total with the list - but he is an experienced Circle player. So he's familiar with all of the moving parts, if not how to use them specifically for this list.

 2) Neither of my lists were tooled to be "anti-Bradigus" lists. No signficant forest negation/ignoring abilities, no significant focus on hitting power, no effort to minimize Woldwatcher forest creation, etc.

  3) The scenario we played - SR2015 Two Fronts - is a two zone scenario that requires some spreading out. Bradigus is supposedly at his absolute strongest when scenarios that allow him to concentrate power in a single spot, so my opponent had to deal with that factor as well. I don't think it was a huge hindrance (more on this later) but it would be an additional challenge when trying to use that list for the 5th or 6th time.

Wold War Observations:

With those out of the way, here are my thoughts about Bradigus and his theme list in list form:

 - The list feels nigh-invincible on the approach. My opponent kind of messed up the formation (or at least I'm assuming so, since Woldwatchers ended up outside of forests and not block LOS everywhere,) but even with small openings there wasn't a whole lot I could do. You can't see anything past the forest, and anything you can see is either a) ARM 21, or b) within range to be Shield Guarded by an ARM 21 model. Behind that front line are a horde of Shifting Stones, ready to remove damage and Fury.

It's not impossible to deal with, but it is hard (for some lists, maybe impossible) to do much to that before it's going to start attacking your army. If you weren't prepared for that reality, it would probably be very, very frustrating.

 - It is hard to communicate how durable everything in that list is. The Woldwatchers are the squishiest part of the list (fewest boxes,) but they're also the most likely to be ARM 21 and there are quite a few of them. Killing one, two, or even three over the course of a game isn't that hard, but if you're not prepared that may be all you end up doing. Wold Guardians are "only" ARM 20, but they're also always ARM 20 (whereas the Woldwatchers may end up not in Stone Form at some point, if you're lucky.) Shifting Stones and Sentry Stones are technically easier to remove, but they're still very durable by any standard, and shooting it a tough sell due to the prevalence of Shield Guards and Stealth on the Sentry Stones. 

Mannikins are the easiest thing in the list to kill, and thankfully there's significant value in doing so if you can early. Still gotta get around all those Shield Guards and Girded though.

 - Bradigus is probably the "weak link" in the list, though that's very relative. He'll always be able to transfer to his Wold Guardians (due to Empathic Transference,) the list is loaded with Shield Guards, he can use Flesh of Clay to minimize ranged damage, Mystic Wards can shut down spellcasting (it can be difficult to get to within range of Bradigus if his battlegroup is spread out,) and getting to him in melee often involves having to circumvent a sea of Shifting Stones.

All that said, if you get a reasonable opening on Bradigus, you should probably take it. His stat line isn't super impressive, so if you can get something substantial to him when he's low on transfers you may be able to sneak a win that way. Conversely, I feel that most Bradigus players will know that their best chance of losing the game is by 'caster death, and play accordingly conservatively.

 - Synergy is a big deal. Synergy on models that generate their own attacks and boosts is a really big deal. Even factoring in the hobbled offensive profiles of the Wolds compared to other warbeasts, they can (and often will) outperform any comparable heavy once the Synergy starts stacking up. And with that many models capable of generating Synergy bonuses, it is very, very difficult to avoid giving up some (never forget that the Woldwatchers can Push to automatically generate Synergy for 1 Fury.)

Wold Guardians will kill anything they get a hold of if Bradigus is able to build up any kind of Synergy stack (+3 or +4). Larger targets may require both Wold Guardians (i.e. ARM buffed colossal,) but since one Guardian will give the other a Synergy tick to work with, it's a very safe bet they'll get the job done. Woldwatchers can also build themselves up to pretty respectable numbers, though it feels like its easier overall to manage your Guardians and use the Watchers to hold down scenario zones, make forests, and generate Synergy.

 - Synergy ends up being an extremely big deal with Bradigus because it makes his personal assassination monstrous. It is pretty easy for him to get up to effective MAT 10, P+S 17, and getting higher than that is certainly possible (the only thing that's likely to stop it is either no models are nearby, or the corresponding Wolds are dead.) That melee profile is enough to kill pretty much any 'caster or 'lock in the game without too much trouble unless they're able to get up to very high defensive values (which may be circumvented with higher Synergy.)

The kicker is the range that his assassination has. I ended up on the receiving end of the "basic" assassination: teleport, feat to Push forward, Beat Back to get Sorscha into melee, hit-hit-dead. However, it can get a lot more complicated than that: three units of Shifting Stones are in the list to set up all kinds of different teleports (possibly altering them dynamically by porting Stones and creating new triangles) which makes his assassination vectors very, very hard to see.

Related, and very important: Killbox scenarios are excellent for Bradigus. His personal threat range is high enough (and uses enough janky moves) that there isn't anywhere for a 'caster to stand in the Killbox without Bradigus being able to get to you. Distance is usually the best preventative measure for assassinations (though Bradigus can go far enough to make that difficult) and that option is essentially removed from you in a Killbox scenario. Particularly since you can't afford to give up CPs to Bradigus.

 - Unless you have a very strong control element (i.e. big, nasty control feat,) Bradigus list will get the first hit in on you. The Woldwatchers have guns, which will likely pick off some models on the approach (depending on your list composition.) What is much worse is the fact that the Wold Guardians are probably going to spend most of the early game with somewhere around a 15" threat range - Shifting Stones teleport (includes the base) then Bradigus' feat. That's a long threat range to have on such a potent melee model (at least when Synergy starts stacking up,) and that first 8" hop allows him to clear a lot of potential blockers. Protecting your models from that requires very careful positioning, and very specific models for the job.

 - This list is a scenario monster. It doesn't spread out particularly well, but otherwise it has all the elements you want: very high durability across a lot of models (one durable thing is good; many durable things is even better), boostable ranged attacks (for ease of clearing zones and attacking objectives,) denial (forest generation,) hitting power, and mobility (despite the models being slow, a ton of them are AD, and teleports and pushes abound.)

What feels like the most natural flow for a Bradigus game is that he gets his army in position to contest scoring areas, and then starts the grind. Unless the opposing army is drowning in hitting power, they'll likely start to run out of models before Bradigus does. This will either a) lead to a scenario win, or b) lead to their 'caster moving into the game, which then likely results in Bradigus beating them to death.

I actually think Bradigus' list is at it's most powerful when he's allowed to go second. That puts his force further up the field which allows them to start the attrition grind earlier. Normally starting further up has the downside of being the force most likely to take it on the chin, but with at least one turn of forest wall (two turns if the opponent can't/doesn't kill the Mannikins) he doesn't really need to worry about that. Add all that into being able to score first (and thus drive the tempo of the game) and Wold War going second sounds absolutely miserable.

Tips When Facing Wold War:

Depressing, isn't it? That's why the WM/H internet has been exploding over the past few months. The good news is that all of this theorymachine and play experience has come up with some counter-measures to help out against Bradigus. There aren't many "silver bullet" answers, and how well your faction can do against him varies wildly, but here are some of the things that I found helpful during my game:

 - Flanking helps. Bradigus list plays as a brick list does - albeit a very shifty brick - so the worst thing to do is try to come at it head-on. If you have elements in your list that can get around to the flanks and put pressure on there, it can help you open up lanes to Shifting Stones/Mannikins/Woldwatchers, which can allow you to get some crucial early damage in.

Flanking can also help you out by forcing the Bradigus list to spread out and move in directions it normally wouldn't. Bradigus' army is at it's most potent when it can maintain a very specific formation, so anything you can do to disrupt that formation is useful.

 - Killing Mannikins also helps. Most armies aren't going to be able to kill the Sentry Stones (Stealth, ARM 18 w/8 boxes is a right tough nut to crack,) so the next best thing is to pick off the twigmen they'll be spitting out. The Mannikins have much more susceptible stat lines - DEF 12, ARM 12 - though you still need to get around all the Shield Guards.

Killing the Mannikins before they make any forests is probably impossible, but you can work to minimize the second wave of forests. Even opening up a couple of gaps could give you the opening you need to get a first strike and start putting damage on the Wolds.

 - The list's healing is as finicky as you'd expect from reading all the model rules. Its very easy for it to heal incidental damage in the early game, but as soon as the formation opens up it becomes harder for Shifting Stones to be in position to heal the Wolds (since they need to be in position from the previous turn.) You can pretty much see how much healing a model will have access to when you begin your turn, so try to allocate your offensive resources appropriately. Breaking aspects on Wolds that can't be healed next turn (or would require some effort to get into a healing position) is much better than dumping damage into models standing right next to Shifting Stones. Unless you can kill it, of course.

Don't get overconfident here - Shifting Stones can always teleport other Shifting Stones, etc - but recognize that Bradigus doesn't want damage piling up in places he can't heal. Try to concentrate your efforts on models that will have the hardest time recovering.

 - Two critical things to bear in mind when damaging the Wolds: 

1) Warbeasts without Spirit cannot be forced, which is of course super useful. Wolds without Spirit are only making two initial melee attacks that cannot be boosted, and the Woldwatchers cannot boost their guns or go into Stone Form. 

2) Warbeasts without Mind roll one less die to hit, and (this is the part most people forget) cannot make Chain or Special Attacks, which includes Power Attacks. Synergy helps to get around the -1 attack die bit, but it also may make starting the chain harder. Eliminating Power Attacks is a big deal against the Woldwatchers, as it removes their ability to Push to start/add to Synergy.

If you have any ability to direct damage on warbeasts, make sure to dump as much damage into spiral #5 as possible! Failing that, when rolling for damage make sure to check if you've taking out Mind or Spirit on a warbeast you're damaging. Doing either is a helpful step in cutting down on reprisal next turn, and you have a 2/3 chance of picking off a critical aspect.

 - Also worth noting: the healing from Shifting Stones is actually "healing", so any sort of Grevious Wounds effect should stop it. That does not apply, however, to Bradigus' Shape Stone *Action, as that one removes damage.

 - High DEF is actually quite effective against the Wolds. This is most relevant against the Woldwatcher guns (Synergy helps to offset MAT issues) but in general the Bradigus battlegroup doesn't want to be boosting to hit to take out infantry. High DEF won't save you from the Synergy chain (damn Power Attack Push!) but it can go a long way towards keeping your infantry alive on the approach.

 - Recognize when you have a decent shot at Bradigus, and seriously consider taking one if it comes up. Bradigus' list is a very, very tough list to beat on scenario. You need to hit it very hard early on to be able to eventually come out top with attrition, so unless you're in a very dominant position (good for you!) seriously consider any decent odds run your opponent may offer up. Especially since the Bradigus player is almost certainly going to do the same to you, and their odds will probably be much more favorable.

 - Protect your 'caster at all times, with extreme vigilance! Bradigus has some really, really solid tools at his disposal to facilitate assassination, and since it's Circle you may not always be able to see them coming. Play every turn as if you're in danger of being killed if you make a wrong move. You're probably not wrong.

 - Woldwatchers are easier than you think they are to kill, but also harder to deal with than you expect. To expound: an individual Woldwatcher, even at ARM 21, isn't terribly hard to deal with. If you're at all savvy to the current meta, you probably have tools in your list to deal with high ARM targets. You may even be feeling good about Woldwatchers because you have the tools to deal with multiple high ARM targets.

And that's where the "hard to deal with" part comes in. One Woldwatcher isn't too bad. Two or three are manageable. Six, however (what you can expect from "the" current Bradigus list) is a helluva drain on most armies. Add to that the fact that you'll have two ARM 20 Wold Guardians behind that (or, more accurately, teleporting into your lines while you deal with the Woldwatchers,) and most armies are going to run out of steam before the endgame.

The point of all this is: don't let yourself get discouraged by the initially daunting task of dealing with that much armor, but also don't get overconfident if things initially start off strong. There's a lot of rock on the table to chisel through.

Closing Thoughts:
Bradigus games are a lot like Stephen King's (Bachman's) The Long Walk: you need to survive a long, grueling trial to win, and if you screw up you're dead. Wold War is a very powerful list that scales very well with player skill and experience. You need to understand what's coming at you, and what you can do to try to mitigate it. Part of that comes down to list construction, and part of that comes down to playing against it.

It's kind of a shame that PP may have overshot the mark on Wold War's power level (my gut says that long term play will show it's unbalanced, but that's just my gut,) because the Wold War theme is kind of interesting to think about and fun to fight. If just a few things were less....oppressive?...about it, it'd be another one of those "really strong but with a few key weaknesses" releases that I really like.

I expect Bradigus to be popular during the 2015 competitive season, quite possibly regardless of errata. Although Wold War is sort of the same thing the meta is trying to solve for right now (ARM 21 en masse) it presents that problem in a way that is unique to how other similar lists are doing it, and is also unique to Circle (give or take how folks used to run Baldur2.) It also probably doesn't hurt that Bradigus pairs well with Krueger2, a strong warlock who's about to get another potential power bump with the Sacral Vault release. Unless PP brings the nerf hammer down on Bradigus hard - which I don't think they'd do, assuming they ever errata him or the theme list - they're a really solid pairing that also allows Circle players to play something new.

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So, Bradigus will be out there. You may or may not have a plan for him (some factions are better off than others, and player skill factors heavily into all of it,) but at the very least, make sure you know what to expect. The Wold War will be raging for awhile. Hopefully these observations and tips are helpful in preparing for it. A lot of the things I've said match up with advice others have given about fighting Wold War, which I think reinforces that these are fair strategies for trying to play against it.

If anyone has any additional insights about fighting Wold War, please feel free to share them in the comments below. As always, thanks very much for reading!