Back to Basics
Keeping your Warlock safe from ranged threats
"Sure, you got me. You don't have to be a dick about it"
"Sure, you got me. You don't have to be a dick about it"
The primary win condition of Warmachine is assassination of the caster or warlock. First person that does it wins and it is always a win condition of any Warmachine game you play.
The nice thing about scenario play (and why I always play be scenario) is that if you make it incredibly hard for your opponent to take out your warlock, you can force the game to be about the scenario, or you can cripple your opponents army to the point where they have no chance to win outside of an assassination win.
This is an important concept, especially for Skorne, because we have few really good assassination victory conditions. Outside of the Molik Bullet, which is really hard to pull off against a good opponent, we are much happier maximizing damage on the opponents army.
We have some pretty good survivability options. First, we are a Hordes faction, so we will always have the superior protection mechanic of fury transfers, but because of the melee nature of our faction, we love forcing the engagement and turning the game into an army on army game. The more we grind with the opposing army, maximizing the amount of damage we can do, the more we can force an opponent into a lose-lose situation. We trade a little bit of attrition for raw damage, but if we get those excellent charges we can force the opponent into having to assassinate your warlock, or they just lose.
So making sure your warlock isn't looking at his own death comes with time. You need to be able to recognize the threats your opponent has and plan for it. Even I still get caught by an assassination angle I didn't see, but that has almost always been because I get greedy and extend my warlock to far.
It's a delicate balance, on one hand you want to bring as much to bear as possible to stomp over your opponent's army, on the other hand you don't want to just lose because you opened up that window.
There are essentially 3 types of assassination; Ranged Assassination, Melee Assassination, and Magic Assassination. In truth, most assassination runs involve all of the above as part of a play, but some armies are designed around the possibility of one being really strong over the others, and planning for it. Good players usually bring more balanced lists designed to handle many different types of scenarios, but this is a beginners article, this is for the new Skorne player that might be frustrated after the 8th time eLilith shot him off the table.
This article will focus on the ranged assasination. Here is a few guidelines.
Understand the Line of Sight rules:
"I rulz the Hunger Games"
Basically, Line of Sight works like this.
First, every model has a volume defined by it's base size, this rarely comes up, but it is important to remember. They are defined to have a set size based on the size of the base, you are not required to know what those sizes are exactly, just remember that a small base model is shorter in height then a medium base model which is shorter in height then a large base model and so on and so forth.
Second, line of sight is determined by being able to draw an imaginary line between any portion of a models base to any portion of another models base. This makes actually getting line of sight not incredibly difficult.
Thirdly, and more importantly, is that if that line passes between an intervening model it automatically misses. An intervening model is any model with an equal to or larger base size as the target.
The volume of the base thing usually throws new players off. It is a common misconception to think that because you are on a larger base, and your volume is higher, you can see over smaller base models. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
So your warlock can be buried behind a simple thing as an infantry unit and be immune to being targeted by that ranged jack or beast on your opponent's side.
This can backfire on you though if you are over aggressive. Most small base infantry models can be cleared away, and fairly quickly. Remember, the "any line from a portion of your base to another" rule? If you rely on an infantry unit to block line of sight, that puts you in a position of maybe one or two models between you and instantly losing.
If you are having a lot of difficulties with ranged assassination, you could always use medium based infantry to block LOS. Cetrati work well for this because in Shield Wall, they generally want to be in base to base, and they can push their armor to the point where taking them out at range is extremely difficult. A lot of casters though dislike this, because they might "trip" over the models in the way. It can also be a bad idea because this game rewards aggression over protection, and sinking points into a medium base unit just to keep your caster alive is considered a negative. For new players, if they are just frustrated with ranged assassination, exploring this option isn't necessarily bad.
Also remember that the reverse on line of sight is true. Raseth, bless his fat ass, will have a really hard time not being shot at. At least he has impervious flesh to help him out and plenty of transfers.
Again, it all comes down to being able to recognize those threats and plan accordingly, you can never be 100% protected in this game, which leads to...
Make them work for it:
Another aspect of ranged assassination is that most of the time it is not easy. The game is built around the idea that most ranged is difficult to either hit or damage versus capabilities of melee attacks. It is rare to see a ranged attack from a beast or jack with a ROF 3, most often it is a single shot. It is also rare to see extremely high power shots. Some units have CRA, but that is hard to bring to bear due to line of sight issues. Sometimes they block each other off from participating. Beasts and Jacks usually average POW 15 or lower, with a single attack, only being able to boost the attack and damage roll.
So when you see what is across the table from you, look at what they have and compare it to what you have.
Do they have ranged that ignores concealment? cover? Line of Sight? Spell effects? If yes, then do any of those attacks miss something on the list of things they ignore? If so, take advantage of that difference.
For example, Legion has a lot of ranged, with a lot of instances of eyeless sight. Eyeless sight doesn't ignore two very specific things, Line of Sight and Cover. So understanding the Line of Sight rules is one thing, but if you can somehow gain cover, you make Legion's task extremely difficult. If you have trouble against Legion, one of the things I recommend is to start insisting on midfield obstacles in your game. They should be evenly placed, and follow the steam roller rules of not giving one player an advantage over the other. But I am amazed by how much properly spaced terrain actually balances this game, almost like they designed it that way.
So if you face against Legion, you can pop behind cover and dare them to come after you. Outside of pLylyth, Legion does have a hard time with high defense.
Armor also matters. The only extra ranged die I am aware of is critical brutal or poison. Most of those attacks are POW 10 or 11. Extra damage die is awesome, until you are shooting at ARM 20, which is possible with a few of our warlocks.
We also have a few protective abilities that can be incredibly useful. The Krea can provide it's plus 2 DEF and ARM buff animus. The Brute can provide knockdown immunity to force players to deal with your defense plus comes with shield guard. Sure there are ways to get around these things, but it usually revolves around resources spent to do it. The less resources they can bring to bear on that actual assassination, the riskier it can become.
The more risky you make it for your opponent the less likelyhood they will go for it, which gives you the opportunity to start taking resources away from them.
In conclusion:
This is by no means an exhausted list. When I go into more caster reviews, I will go into more depth about how each caster deals with ranged defense. Some are really good at it. But if you are new, this does give you some ideas to start using to help out your game.
The nice thing about scenario play (and why I always play be scenario) is that if you make it incredibly hard for your opponent to take out your warlock, you can force the game to be about the scenario, or you can cripple your opponents army to the point where they have no chance to win outside of an assassination win.
This is an important concept, especially for Skorne, because we have few really good assassination victory conditions. Outside of the Molik Bullet, which is really hard to pull off against a good opponent, we are much happier maximizing damage on the opponents army.
We have some pretty good survivability options. First, we are a Hordes faction, so we will always have the superior protection mechanic of fury transfers, but because of the melee nature of our faction, we love forcing the engagement and turning the game into an army on army game. The more we grind with the opposing army, maximizing the amount of damage we can do, the more we can force an opponent into a lose-lose situation. We trade a little bit of attrition for raw damage, but if we get those excellent charges we can force the opponent into having to assassinate your warlock, or they just lose.
So making sure your warlock isn't looking at his own death comes with time. You need to be able to recognize the threats your opponent has and plan for it. Even I still get caught by an assassination angle I didn't see, but that has almost always been because I get greedy and extend my warlock to far.
It's a delicate balance, on one hand you want to bring as much to bear as possible to stomp over your opponent's army, on the other hand you don't want to just lose because you opened up that window.
There are essentially 3 types of assassination; Ranged Assassination, Melee Assassination, and Magic Assassination. In truth, most assassination runs involve all of the above as part of a play, but some armies are designed around the possibility of one being really strong over the others, and planning for it. Good players usually bring more balanced lists designed to handle many different types of scenarios, but this is a beginners article, this is for the new Skorne player that might be frustrated after the 8th time eLilith shot him off the table.
This article will focus on the ranged assasination. Here is a few guidelines.
Understand the Line of Sight rules:
"I rulz the Hunger Games"
Basically, Line of Sight works like this.
First, every model has a volume defined by it's base size, this rarely comes up, but it is important to remember. They are defined to have a set size based on the size of the base, you are not required to know what those sizes are exactly, just remember that a small base model is shorter in height then a medium base model which is shorter in height then a large base model and so on and so forth.
Second, line of sight is determined by being able to draw an imaginary line between any portion of a models base to any portion of another models base. This makes actually getting line of sight not incredibly difficult.
Thirdly, and more importantly, is that if that line passes between an intervening model it automatically misses. An intervening model is any model with an equal to or larger base size as the target.
The volume of the base thing usually throws new players off. It is a common misconception to think that because you are on a larger base, and your volume is higher, you can see over smaller base models. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
So your warlock can be buried behind a simple thing as an infantry unit and be immune to being targeted by that ranged jack or beast on your opponent's side.
This can backfire on you though if you are over aggressive. Most small base infantry models can be cleared away, and fairly quickly. Remember, the "any line from a portion of your base to another" rule? If you rely on an infantry unit to block line of sight, that puts you in a position of maybe one or two models between you and instantly losing.
If you are having a lot of difficulties with ranged assassination, you could always use medium based infantry to block LOS. Cetrati work well for this because in Shield Wall, they generally want to be in base to base, and they can push their armor to the point where taking them out at range is extremely difficult. A lot of casters though dislike this, because they might "trip" over the models in the way. It can also be a bad idea because this game rewards aggression over protection, and sinking points into a medium base unit just to keep your caster alive is considered a negative. For new players, if they are just frustrated with ranged assassination, exploring this option isn't necessarily bad.
Also remember that the reverse on line of sight is true. Raseth, bless his fat ass, will have a really hard time not being shot at. At least he has impervious flesh to help him out and plenty of transfers.
Again, it all comes down to being able to recognize those threats and plan accordingly, you can never be 100% protected in this game, which leads to...
Make them work for it:
Another aspect of ranged assassination is that most of the time it is not easy. The game is built around the idea that most ranged is difficult to either hit or damage versus capabilities of melee attacks. It is rare to see a ranged attack from a beast or jack with a ROF 3, most often it is a single shot. It is also rare to see extremely high power shots. Some units have CRA, but that is hard to bring to bear due to line of sight issues. Sometimes they block each other off from participating. Beasts and Jacks usually average POW 15 or lower, with a single attack, only being able to boost the attack and damage roll.
So when you see what is across the table from you, look at what they have and compare it to what you have.
Do they have ranged that ignores concealment? cover? Line of Sight? Spell effects? If yes, then do any of those attacks miss something on the list of things they ignore? If so, take advantage of that difference.
For example, Legion has a lot of ranged, with a lot of instances of eyeless sight. Eyeless sight doesn't ignore two very specific things, Line of Sight and Cover. So understanding the Line of Sight rules is one thing, but if you can somehow gain cover, you make Legion's task extremely difficult. If you have trouble against Legion, one of the things I recommend is to start insisting on midfield obstacles in your game. They should be evenly placed, and follow the steam roller rules of not giving one player an advantage over the other. But I am amazed by how much properly spaced terrain actually balances this game, almost like they designed it that way.
So if you face against Legion, you can pop behind cover and dare them to come after you. Outside of pLylyth, Legion does have a hard time with high defense.
Armor also matters. The only extra ranged die I am aware of is critical brutal or poison. Most of those attacks are POW 10 or 11. Extra damage die is awesome, until you are shooting at ARM 20, which is possible with a few of our warlocks.
We also have a few protective abilities that can be incredibly useful. The Krea can provide it's plus 2 DEF and ARM buff animus. The Brute can provide knockdown immunity to force players to deal with your defense plus comes with shield guard. Sure there are ways to get around these things, but it usually revolves around resources spent to do it. The less resources they can bring to bear on that actual assassination, the riskier it can become.
The more risky you make it for your opponent the less likelyhood they will go for it, which gives you the opportunity to start taking resources away from them.
In conclusion:
This is by no means an exhausted list. When I go into more caster reviews, I will go into more depth about how each caster deals with ranged defense. Some are really good at it. But if you are new, this does give you some ideas to start using to help out your game.
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