Help on Goreshade's spelllists, please.

[RandomThoughts]

I am intrigued by Goreshade, I like the fluff and I like his counter-magic streak (hex blast, denying enemy casters spells / feats), but I find it hard make sense of most of his other spells. They just don't click with me. So I thought I'd ask around and get some feedback on that.

Phantom Hunter - what's it for? How do you get something out of it? I already thought about getting one of the new spider-jacks so that I can shoot enemy units out of LOS with decent ranged weapons and so that I can use pathfinder to charge models on the other side of a forest, but that's all I could come up with.

Sudden Death - I always feel like I should include a model worthy of the spell. Bane Lord Tartarus seemed like a good inclusion, until I was told he can't use Tresher outside of his turn. I don't feel like I know what to do with this spell.

FEAT: Reanimator - I usually play Banes and Nyss mercenaries with some solos thrown in, and I feel like I'm wasting potential with this feat. I feel like I should have some cheap as dirt burning material (most likely Scrap Tralls, standing by to be consumed), and some really expansive non-character models to reanimate, stuff like Ogryns and ... I don't know, pistol wraiths and Warwitch Syrens, I guess. Any advise on that?

Soul Gate - Any use except hit and run tactics with melee jacks?

Mage Blight - it's what first drew me to Goreshade, but 5 fous is kind of expansive, isn't it? Just to lock down some aspects of the opposing side's army.

FEAT: Dark Summons - I currently own 1 unit of Bane Thralls and I like running them with their UA. I'd either have to give up the UA, or shell out the money for a second unit, neither of which really appeals to me right now. Am I missing something?

I think in final conclusion, both Goreshades look mighty fine on paper, but I just can't get an army resolving around either one going.

[Spirit]

OOOOKKKK.

First off, the goreshades are both considered the lowest teir cryx casters.

Mageblight is a trap spell, if your casting it, your low on focus, and goreshade isnt exactly hard to kill. If their caster is in your control area and you can only have 2 focus? ITS A TRAP! And casting it is usually a bad plan.

Bleed is another trap spell, your going to have to boost the damage against a lot of targets, so 2/3 focus to heal d3 health and LOSE 2/3 armour from camping often just isnt worth the investment.

Soul gate does what it sayd on the tin, you can hit with warjacks and bring them back, usefull spell.

At the 15 point level, pGore (also known as snoreshade for his boring play styple) getting a free 5 point unit for a feat is pretty darn evil, but, at higher points games its just nowhere near as good as most of the other feats out there.

His play basically involves making your warjacks stealthed and getting them into the fight, this has 2 problems. A: You dont have the focus (he likes to camp for armour) or the spells to support warjacks, other than giving them stealth. B: Anything that can ignore stealth just destroys him, because you have no movement shenanigans.

Egore has similar problems, although im not as fammiliar with him.


Dont get me wrong, im sure there are people that enjoy playing him and geta lot of enjoyment, maybe thats your thing, but i htink you will soon find he is very 1 dimensional, with little variety in lists or win. conditions. Sorry i cant be more positive!

[Chimaera2000]

Phantom Hunter: Another use for this is if you're utilizing Ghostly or Incorporeal units. Phantom Hunter would enable you to declare a charge on a unit on the other side of an obstacle. You can also cast it on a unit with reach or ranged weapons to attack through a friendly unit screening for them.

Sudden Death: If you're ever fielded a unit with Counter-Charge (like Khador's Man-o-War Drakhun), then you've got an idea for some uses for the spell. The spell can be used to discourage charges against a target you don't want charged or just to punish them for doing so. You're on the right track with Tartarus; any strong melee warrior, especially one with Reach, will be very well-suited to this spell. I particularly like Reach units because if your opponent is charging with a non-Reach unit themselves, you can keep your model under Sudden Death from reprisals by charging into your melee range while keeping yourself out of theirs.

FEAT: Reanimator: I think you've got it! This one's a recycling spell where you turn inexpensive units (like Mechanithralls or Cephalix Drudges) into more expensive and/or valuable ones (like virtually any Solo; unit attachments may possibly be returned, I believe).

Soul Gate is likewise best used with an inexpensive unit. I like the idea of running a cheap model into range of a shooting unit (like Widowmakers) and teleporting a Warjack into melee range of that unit to prevent it from shooting. Besides this direct use, any positioning effect has the potential to shape the board by threatening an opponent from an unexpected angle. This can be like teleporting an Arc Node Jack across the board to threatening the Warcaster with an assassination next turn by teleporting a Slayer into a threatening angle to their warcaster. Teleporting Warjacks on top of objectives is another fun use as well.

Mage Blight is darn expensive and best used when you're confident that Goreshade is not in danger and that you can go for the kill. I can say from Khadoran experience that if you're closing in with warjacks and popped Mage Blight to keep her from Wind Rushing away, I'd be feeling the pressure. I think that a Skarlock Thrall is a particularly valuable investment for Goreshade, since if you ever wanted to cast Mage Blight you'd have effective access to 5 Focus instead of 2.

FEAT: Dark Summons is what it is! You get a unit of Banes without attachments. Bane Lord Tartarus will still work just fine with them. If you're not playing in an gaming environment friendly to proxies, then you will need to field a second unit of Banes if you'd like to field the attachment. Since I hear you when it comes to not wanting to spend money on models when you don't have to, another way to go is just to field the Bane Thralls with their Attachment when you're fielding Warcasters other than pGoreshade and field them without the Attachment when they're with him. That way the Bane Thralls always get a chance to shine (err.... gloom?) and the Attachment still gets use when you're playing casters other than Goreshade.

[RandomThoughts]

OOOOKKKK.First off, the goreshades are both considered the lowest teir cryx casters.

[...]

Dont get me wrong, im sure there are people that enjoy playing him and geta lot of enjoyment, maybe thats your thing, but i htink you will soon find he is very 1 dimensional, with little variety in lists or win. conditions. Sorry i cant be more positive!

I asked, you answered, why should you apologize for that?

So to both of you, thanks!

RT

[Count_Orlock]

I'm a huge eGoreshade player, and while he's not the greatest he's still my favorite. He's an attrition-style Warcaster, you will use your army to grind you opponent to pieces. Smash everything to dust, and then get to the Caster. I understand that he is not for everyone, but I can't stop loving him. And also, he is in my opinion the coolest model and character in the entire game. <3

Phantom Hunter: Since this is a Battle group only spell you can't cast it on units, which I guess you already know. Otherwise it would be great on Bane Knights. *dreams* Anyway, I see two prime targets for this. The first, and probably the best is the Leviathan. It can stand behind, say a house and shot at whatever without the fear of retaliation. People can't hide in forests from it's wonderful gun. Great fun! The other one, is Nightmare. With Ghostly it can move through houses, walls, etc, etc. And with Phantom Hunter it let's you target people behind these pieces with a charge. Or charge someone standing deep within a forest. It makes it much harder to avoid his accurate and deadly strikes.

Sudden Death: To be honest, this is not a spell I use very often. But Tartarus and other Banes are good targets. The best way I've used this is for protection. Cast it on say a Bane Knight, standing slightly behind another Bane Knight. When the fron Knight gets charged, you can basicially counter-charge it, kill it and save yourself a Knight. It's not great, and I go most games without using it to be honest. Which is a shame, cause I really like the idea behind the spell. But it's hard to use.

Reanimator: Always include max Scrap Thralls, 9 models for 3 points is awesome. Necrosurgeon with Stich Thralls is also nice, 4 models for a mere 2 points will make this Feat even more potent. You can only bring back Friendly Faction models, so no raising Mercs, like Ogrun or Nyss Hunters. But maybe you mean Black Ogrun? I don't really use them with eGore(or anyone for that matter). Bring back Banes of all kinds(but not Tartarus of course), important solos like the Skarlock, Warwitch Siren and so forth. Another unit that is great to raise is Soulhunters, they are really fragile and this Feat gives them another shot at unlife. Well, anything is great to bring back as long as it is better than a Scrap/Stitch-Thrall. Like bringing back the Bane UA when someone actually kills it. ^^

[Lion El Jason]

First off, the goreshades are both considered the lowest teir cryx casters.

Of course, due to the way Cryx are unarguably the best faction in the game, Lowest Tier of Cryx is still 'A' Rated casters in the grand scheme of things!

[RandomThoughts]

Of course, due to the way Cryx are unarguably the best faction in the game, Lowest Tier of Cryx is still 'A' Rated casters in the grand scheme of things!

I didn't know that. I just thought I had somehow clicked with Cryx, or is this like playing Grey Knights and wondering why everyone else is complaining???

[ICLRK625]

Nah, it's not so much that Cryx is better than the other factions then it is that the typical Cryx list counters many of the typical other-faction lists (Khador especially).

[Spirit]

Of course, due to the way Cryx are unarguably the best faction in the game, Lowest Tier of Cryx is still 'A' Rated casters in the grand scheme of things!

http://wmdm2011.blogspot.com/2012/01...ve-answer.html

Its going to be good when he gets around to combining even more data, then this will just be the flat out quote of the year to proove all the "cryx is op" threads wrong. If they are so "unarguably the best" then why dont they win the tournaments?

What cryx comes down to, is the better your opponent, the harder a time you will have playing as cryx. However, dont get me wrong, i agree that for new players, cryx are unfair to play againt. I'd say once you get used to the battlebox its very hard to lose vs the other battleboxes, but thats because of Denegrahs utterly crippling spell list. Which becomes less of a problem when you get your head around stealth mechanics and threat ranges.

But for new players, ok, you can have it, cryx have a massive advantage, ive even swapped to Prime Aspyxius now, because we have more fun that way, but we are all still learning here and when i go to my local group for games, they stomp me just as much as i stomp them.

I like this quote the best: "If you're having trouble with Cryx it's your own problem. Cryx does not dominate everything, and is in fact placed squarely in the middle when it comes to tournament wins. The reason you're having trouble is because you can't beat Cryx without understanding Cryx. Become a better player, and Cryx will stop being a problem."

[Falkman]

The main difficulty with Cryx is that they play so differenly from other factions that you can't bring the same kinds of lists to deal with them. You need an anti-Cryx list to reliably kill Cryx, which I'd guess is why Cryx is pretty low on that "ranking" listed; everyone knows Cryx is dangerous as hell and thus brings an anti-Cryx list to deal with them. If you don't have an anti-Cryx list however, but instead rely on the same list you use to fight Khador/Cygnar/Menoth/whatever, you're in for a rough ride.

Then again, I wouldn't put much trust in anything written by a guy who describes Legion as "a tricky finesse list, which should not do so well in tournament settings".
It's like he hasn't even read their rules.

[Spirit]

The main difficulty with Cryx is that they play so differenly from other factions that you can't bring the same kinds of lists to deal with them. You need an anti-Cryx list to reliably kill Cryx, which I'd guess is why Cryx is pretty low on that "ranking" listed; everyone knows Cryx is dangerous as hell and thus brings an anti-Cryx list to deal with them. If you don't have an anti-Cryx list however, but instead rely on the same list you use to fight Khador/Cygnar/Menoth/whatever, you're in for a rough ride.

Yea, i could go with that, but then that still comes down to "be prepared for them and you'll be much better off". The same shows in almost all games ive found, a non tailored list will have good and bad matchups.

Thats why i like the 2 list format thats very popular in warmachine, so you can be prepared for a lot of things. because this game is a game of counters.

[Falkman]

Yea, i could go with that, but then that still comes down to "be prepared for them and you'll be much better off".

Yeah, but it kinda sucks that I have to bring a list specifically tailored to kill Cryx to win, when I don't have to do the same vs the other armies.
Of course people are going to get annoyed when there's one specific army most of their normal stuff doesn't work against. Especially when you're new and haven't yet realised that, or bought a load of anti-Cryx stuff.

[Lion El Jason]

Well, while I was mostly making a joke, Cryx are the top faction, nobody who knows this game is going to argue that but they don't always win tournaments (By the way tournament wins are not the best way to see who's on top, tournament attendance is better).
This year, on top of everything else we have character restrictions which hit Cryx hard and Domination has a lot of help for infantry removal which is whats awesome in Cryx.
The two top Hordes factions are also strong against Cryx so its all swings and roundabouts.

If you're just starting then don't worry, WM/Hordes is nothing like Warhammer or 40k, there is no GK, SW or IG which are so much better than DA, Nids or whatever that its almost not worth playing.
None of the factions have any real advantage over the others; caster matchups, tactics on the table and most importantly player skill all play a much bigger role.

[RandomThoughts]

A friend of mine played eGoreshade on our last Warmachine Night, and we've been trying to piece together a good list for him since then.

Here are some thoughts, which I would really value input on, followed by a first draft for his list:

First of all, Banes + UA, because they are already awesome, and they get even better imo as his Elite Cadre.
Bane Lord Tartarus makes them even better, plus he'll be the target of choice for Sudden Death.
9 Scrap Thralls, to feed Goreshade's feat.
Bile Thralls, as target of choice for Occulation.
A Desecrator (once it comes out in May) for Phantom Seeker - LOS free shooting, LOS-free charging through forests, and the Banes feed it Focus.

Which, with units at max, leads to exactly 30p:
eGoreshade (+5)
Desecrator (9)
10 Banes + UA (11)
Tartarus (4)
10 Biles (8)
9 Scraps (3)
TOTAL 30

For 25, we'd probably reduce both units to min-size and plug in a Necrotech with Scrap Thrall or a Machine Wraith for the last point. For 35, we'll probably add either a Defiler, or the Cankerworm, or the Withershadow Combine.

Thoughts?

[Spirit]

A friend of mine played eGoreshade on our last Warmachine Night, and we've been trying to piece together a good list for him since then.

Here are some thoughts, which I would really value input on, followed by a first draft for his list:

First of all, Banes + UA, because they are already awesome, and they get even better imo as his Elite Cadre.
Bane Lord Tartarus makes them even better, plus he'll be the target of choice for Sudden Death.
9 Scrap Thralls, to feed Goreshade's feat.
Bile Thralls, as target of choice for Occulation.
A Desecrator (once it comes out in May) for Phantom Seeker - LOS free shooting, LOS-free charging through forests, and the Banes feed it Focus.

Which, with units at max, leads to exactly 30p:
eGoreshade (+5)
Desecrator (9)
10 Banes + UA (11)
Tartarus (4)
10 Biles (8)
9 Scraps (3)
TOTAL 30

For 25, we'd probably reduce both units to min-size and plug in a Necrotech with Scrap Thrall or a Machine Wraith for the last point. For 35, we'll probably add either a Defiler, or the Cankerworm, or the Withershadow Combine.

Thoughts?

One thing i will say is that biles are usually fine as a minimum unit, working off the premise that it only takes one to wipe out way more than their points cost. Generally you use them expecting to die, but sometimes the enemy will fail or have to deviate silly amounts of resources to get the job done.

Also, a minimum unit standing behind your front line banes is impossible to deal with, charge the banes, die to biles, kill the biles, dsie to banes.

Those 2 points will give you a warwitch siren, who can powerboost the descecrator as long as it has 0 focus (ad i believe it accumulates when it activates, so there should be no problems using the two rules together)

Edit: Its 3 points saving, so not your looking at warwitch + machine wraith (1 point incorporeal models arer good for contersting scenarios or running into ranged unit so that they have to do nothing or force pree strikes).

Or a pistol wraith, but i prefer option A