WM/H Masters 2015: Gators or Skorne?
Or, as it should be called, “One Extremely Mediocre Player’s Attempt To Get Acceptable At The Masters Format.”
Tournaments and events are the lifeblood of pretty much every miniatures game. That goes arguably double for Warmachine and Hordes. I’ve never been particularly amazing at any miniatures game, despite spending more money than I care to think about on this hobby as a whole. I used to place in the odd local tournament or two years ago, but when my group started traveling more to other metas I started to realize just how inadequate my skills really are. That was all exemplified by our little visit to the Mayhem Cup at Asgard Games in Houston last year. That’s the largest tournament I’ve ever been to, and I was totally unprepared for an event that attracts people who often place on a national level. It doesn’t help that real life often prevents me and some of the locals from playing as often as we’d like.
All that said, the release of the 2015 Masters rules has seen many of the locals approaching the game with a whole new level of resolve. The larger metas in my state have already had several tournaments using the Masters format, and now it’s time that I really started thinking about which faction I want to focus on for the year 2015. My current collection consists of Convergence, Skorne, and Blindwater, but the release of Exigence and the influx of new models has me really leaning towards Skorne or Minions.
Since the rules are part of the Masters format, I also want to stick with the Active Duty Roster casters. Yes, I know that most of them are considered pretty low tier casters and the benefit of an extra 10 points for reinforcements doesn’t really change this, but ADR is one of the more unique aspects of the Masters format and provides an interesting challenge by encouraging players to limit themselves to four casters that are often underused. So, with that in mind, my potential choices are:
Skorne- pHexeris, Mordikaar, Naaresh, and eMorghoul (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHANO)
Minions- Arkadius, Barnabus, Maelok, and Midas
Skorne actually has two pretty competitive warlocks on that list with pHexy and Mordikaar. Mordikaar in particular has always been considered a fairly effective tournament warlock, and often sees play as a potential Cryx drop. Hexy, while less commonly used, is still a pretty solid warlock with a really powerful feat against infantrymachine lists. Naaresh is often considered one of the lowest tier Skorne warlocks, but I have a bit of a soft spot for the pain-obsessed masochist. I’ve had a decent amount of success with him in the past using Gatormen with Iron Flesh. Even though I’ve been playing Skorne for pretty much as long as I’ve been playing Warmahordes in general, I have little experience with pHexy and NO experience with Mordikaar. In fact, I just bought Mordikaar last week.
As for Minions, there are two Gatormen warlocks on the list: Barnabus and Maelok. Maelok is a regular sight in any tournament with a Blindwater player. Maelok with three Posses and Witch Doctors are very hard to remove on feat turn unless you are running a dedicated anti-armor list, and even then there is the possibility that the Maelok player used the Incorporeal portion of the feat defensively. Barnabus is a hard counter to any gun line list. He is a solid, if not particularly complex, warlock that has fallen a bit out of favor because of more recent Gatormen warlocks like Rask and the new shiny of Jaga-Jaga. While I don’t own pigs, I’ve always wanted to expand into the other half of Minions and wouldn’t be opposed to picking up a list. The new Arkadius theme force looks like a ton of fun, but I’ve yet to see it in action anywhere.
There aren’t any Masters events on the schedule in my area quite yet, so I have some time to settle on which faction I want to play for the format, and with our recent decision to devote Wednesday nights to Warmahordes I should hopefully be getting more practice in now. I’ll report back once I’ve settled on my faction for 2015 with the lists I plan to practice.
What do you guys think? Skorne or Minions? Which way lay victory?
