Dojo Time: Mox Cubed Team Tournament Lists

Prologue:

Hitting the "submit" button for tournament lists is always an exciting and slightly nerve-wracking experience for me. The knowledge that I've nothing left to do should I change my mind about them is both a comfort and a constant nagging doubt riding on me.

Such is the case for the Mox Team Tournament I will be attending in Seattle in a couple of weeks.

My teammates are playing a fairly typically Harkevich (Jaws of the Wolf)/Butcher 3 (Winterguard) and Vindictus (Exemplar Interdiction)/Rez 2 set of pairings, and with that in mind, I went into the dojo, both in my head and with Bret F.

The ultimate conclusion is that my teammates both have really solid list pairings, and so my two should be interested in forcing out matchups so that we can get them favorable games.

With that in mind....

Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees....

List 1: Wurmwood and the Lazer Shrimp

I've been a big advocate of a close variation on this list for months now:

Wurmwood
- Cassius
- Pureblood
- Feral
- Argus
- Woldwyrd
- Woldwyrd
- Woldwyrd

Gobber Chef

Sentry Stone x2
Shifting Stone x2
Gatorman Bokur and Shamblers
Min Bone Grinders

Fuel Cache


It's got a lot of different angles, but mostly it tries to either assassinate or attrition unfairly thanks to Hellmouth and Stranglehold.

The core of the list has always been 3 Wyrds and the Units, and the heavies have gone through a few iterations. I started out with Brennos and Megalith as a "screw you colossal" core, eventually moving to a Pureblood over Brennos so I could put Wraithbane on everything, and then Megalith got swapped out for Loki when he came out.

A few months later, and I've decided I'd like a little bit more backline punch, so I've put in a Feral in his place. I've found that I tend to just sort of keep my heavies way back anyway, and without Primal in the list, the Warpwolves don't hit very hard. Points are tight, and so the Feral gets the nod since I can't fit a Gorax in the list.

Couple points of interest:

3 Wyrds against an ARM 20 heavy without an enemy upkeep and with Curse of Shadows on it do approx 30-33 damage on average dice, and adding the Pureblood spray in gives you another 6-7 damage.

Take those three Wyrds against an ARM 20 heavy with an upkeep on it, and all of a sudden WITHOUT Curse of Shadows, they're doing 15 damage each, or 45 damage total. With Curse, that goes up by 18, for a total of 63 damage. Basically if you put out upkeeps against this list you're asking to die.

The Gatorman Bokur can kill a heavy on his own if necessary, and is also one of the best tools available for an infantry slug fest.

I can make a 16 inch forest wall every turn if I really need to.

I'm going to need to play this list a lot in the next couple of weeks, as the muscle memory is fading from March, but I think it's still a very scary, potent list.

I think I can drop this into some Cygnar, Legion, other Circle builds (?), Menoth, Khador, Minions, some Mercs, some Skorne, Cryx, and possibly Trolls.

Which brings us to...our second list....

Tiny SMASH!

List 2: Baldur's Boulders

So I've got a list that's pretty good into most things, and I'm going to pair that with something skewy as all get out to force matchups.

Who better than Baldur 2? I mean, I own two Woldwraths, I should use them both probably.

Baldur 2 (Bones of Orboros)
- Woldwrath (Tiny)
- Woldwrath (Smalls)
- Megalith

Stoneshaper (free)
Stoneshaper (free)
Stoneshaper (free)

Sentry Stone
Shifting Stones
Shifting Stones

Bunker


This list is designed to march up the middle of the table on Scenarios like Recon, Extraction, The Pit, and Take and Hold, and sort of just...not die. It might take a while to kill all of your models, but it'll probably happen.

Rock Wall and potential 3d3+3d6+1 healing every turn means that taking down a Woldwrath is hard, and if you don't do it in one turn you probably won't ever.

Druid's Wrath can really help out against infantry swarms since Crevasse from Megalith and Baldur and Stone Spray from the Stoneshapers (I know sprays only get the additional dice against their primary target, but still) can do some serious work, and the single Sentry Stone (say that five times fast) unit chip in as well.

When the Fulcrum CID becomes live, I'll probably replace one Woldwrath with two Fulcrums and perhaps replace the other with Wyrds and a Guardian, but for now, this is what it is.

There's not a lot to say about this list tricks wise. Something most people don't realize is that the Knockdown effect on the Woldwrath's fists don't rely on hitting an enemy model. Got a Warpwolf in your face? Smack a friendly Shifting Stone next to it first and THEN go to town.

I think I can drop this into Cygnar, Ret, Non-Fyanna (hah!) Legion, Skorne, Mercs, some other Circle builds, Trolls (potentially), Khador (bring on the Marauders baby) and Minions.



Conclusion:

Gonna be lots of Circle battle reports coming down the pipe (man I even have these lists painted already, sweet!), culminating with a Team Tournament in two weeks time. Hopefully at least one of these will be another Video Report, and I have a few new toys to review for both Broken Egg Games and Wyrmwood, so keep an eye out for those.

Gonna be fun! Thanks for reading :)

Dojo Day - The New Tuna

Prologue:

Una 2 came into the world last November, and almost instantly was banned in casual games by my local play group.

With a Feat that meant her entire army was safe from retaliation and a swarm of Griffons that she could stay 28 inches away from and still be forcing them, she was definitely over the power curve.

Since then, she's faded out of the competitive scene as Circle's list options have, by necessity, diversified.

Still, she delivers speed 9 light warbeasts that are essentially mat 8-10 PS 12-14 weaponmasters, and that can't be a bad thing right? She also has the extremely interesting spell Hand of Fate, and I can't help but think that she still has plenty of game.


Una's Card:

Real quick overview - average everything statwise, another 15/15 with 15 boxes. She's fury 7 which is great, and speed six.

She has an excellent gun, range 10 pow 10 with reload 2 that can either Thunderbolt, Black Penny, or Snipe.

She gives Griffons in command (8 inches) Sprint and gives Griffons in control Flank.

She has for spells:

Hand of Fate - additional dice to hit and damage for a model/unit, drop the lowest.

Wind Wall - prevents her and anything completely within 3 from making ranged attacks, and prevents her and anything completely within 3 from being targeted by non-magic ranged attacks.

Mirage - an interesting but oft maligned spell that gives a model/unit apparition.

Twister - random pow 10 nuke with a 3 inch cloud AOE attached to it.

Feat - Models with flight gain +2 speed, light warbeasts with flight cannot be targeted by melee attacks for a turn.


Synergies:

Griffons - naturally, and Scarsfells are still the far superior Griffon of the bunch. Three initials, Stealth, and a great animus.

I like running these in even numbered pairs, since you usually run/charge one to engage something and then charge it with another Griffon for flank.

Woldwyrds - these guys are staples of the Circle roster right now. Good damage output from range, high maneuverability, excellent control elements in Purgation and Witch Hound. Wanna see something funny? Purgation and Hand of Fate at the same time. Delicious.

Gorax/Feral - you really need to have Primal in this list. Those Griffons have one job, and one job only, and that is to kill things worth way more points than they are. Without Primal, that gets much less likely to happen.

Units that shoot - Reeves, Sentry Stones, Bloodtrackers. Mirage lets the non-Sentry Stone ones get closer, and then Hand of Fate lets them do silly things at range.


The list:

Combining all of the elements I've just mentioned, you get something like this

Theme: The Wild Hunt

Una 2
- Pureblood
- Scarsfell x4
- Gorax
- Woldwyrd x2

Wolves of Orboros (min)
- CA
Reeves of Orboros (max)
- CA
Shifting Stones


I chose The Wild Hunt for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it lets Una play with everything she likes to play with (Except the Celestial Fulcrum, but that is an article for another day), gives her a few free points, and provides incentive for your opponent to move their army into the middle of the table.

Luckily, this is just where you want it to be, since Scarsfells are hard to hide from.

Finally, it also gives the Pureblood tracker, which on occasion can be complete money.

The list is basically a gunline that then punishes you for engaging it by killing stuff with high MAT weaponmaster Griffons.

Hand of Fate goes on the Reeves or a Wyrd most likely until it's go turn, in which case it gets swapped to the Pureblood or a Griffon depending on what you're fighting.

What would I drop this into?

I'd be looking at Legion, Trolls (I think, I don't get to play that matchup much), other Circle lists, Khador lists that don't skew crazy heavy on jacks, a lot of Menoth lists out there, even Amon with Dervishes (Crusader spam is probably bad), and potentially Cryx as well.



What do you think? How would you build Una right now? Would you even play her? How viable do you think she will be in SR 2017?