So you want to go to a tournament? Here’s what you’re going to need to think about.

Ok, so obviously what you need to think about before you go to a tournament in WM/H differs depending on your faction (“I wonder if I’ll come 1st or 2nd” if you’re playing Legion, “I sure hope there’s no Cryx players” if you’re playing Skorne or your strats to dodge the Haley1 players at the venue for Cryx) but there are some general rules you can abide by before you even think about caster matchups because there are some things that will always happen in 4+ rounds of Warmachine. Here’s my trinity of things you’ll need to consider as far as list building goes;

Pathfinder: This is the most important one for me, I hate when I get screwed by terrain. I lost a game at the UK masters due to “WHFB Terrain placement” where there was a sodding big forest in the middle of the zone against LoE. As a result of terrain when I played Cryx I made sure every list I had had a good answer for it but with my Protectorate I just kind of have to accept that terrain is a thing and play around it. It’s something that you can mitigate in the list design stage and I think you’re taking a large risk by not doing so. It’s also worth mentioning that if you don’t have a good terrain solution and run into a faction that can really abuse terrain you can lose straight off of that. Examples of those factions would be Legion first and foremost but also Circle and some Cryx builds (as well as various other things but those are the big three). Oh, and Inhospitable Ground can absolutely hose you. So, what’re some solutions I hear you ask?

~Pathfinder dudes! This is the most obvious one and well, yeah. Dudes with pathfinder are good when fights take place in terrain. The ability to be deployed into terrain allowing your army to occupy a larger space when you would otherwise be forced into waves is the best thing about it but you can’t overlook the ability to charge over walls or just run through forests. I wont spend to much time talking about it, this is the square to the square hole.

~Hunter. This is a roundabout solution but it works. With Hunter you can dig deep into forests to kill enemy models inhabiting them and you can shoot guys behind walls. However there are downsides, for one hunter is generally only available on anti infantry platforms which means a Scythean behind a wall can be very bad news. However when it comes to things like enemy tarpits hiding in concealment or behind walls Hunter is a great rule.

~Incorporeal units. For much the same reason as Pathfinder incorporeal units can help you a lot in your terrain game. These are relatively uncommon but they do exist and in some design spaces can be a valid solution.

~Huge Bases. Now this is a strange one. Huge bases can be fantastic in the deployment and turn 1 stages of the game. If you have a massive patch of rough terrain just outside your deployment zone you can put your huge base just behind it and move into it no problem, it lets you use the space the rest of your army wouldn’t be able to otherwise (and let me tell you this is a blessing in the Protectorate) but they’re generally not so viable when it comes to reaching out to the opponents side of the table because generally where your huge bases go are dictated by scenario. It’s very useful on ranged battle engines though. One thing to mention is that while huge bases can charge over walls often a savvy opponent will put his models in such a way that you can’t reach over the wall to hit him with your huge base but the base doesn’t fit on the other side of the wall. You can get a pseudo-immunity to huge bases this way and it’s very annoying so bear it in mind when deploying and moving your huge based models.

~Overwhelming Firepower. Ok so this might be the protectorate in me but an answer I’ve found to terrain and the like is guns. Guns don’t need Pathfinder to hit people. So whether it’s my drop 6 aoes into a forest and smoke the bad guys out or boosted winter guard infantry or mass sprays there are options for clearing people out of forests (depending on your faction!). One thing to note is the attacks should generally not rely on being able to hit (for example aoe carpet bombs, ashes to ashes or electro leap) or be extraordinarily high RAT/boostable.

So, in summary Pathfinder is something I’d advise having in at -minimum- 2/3 lists if you can and all your lists if you can swing it (but that’s my preference, I hate when I get screwed by factors outside my control like bad terrain placement so I’d rather never run that risk) so I run many solutions. If you’re playing Legion or Circle I guess you could’ve just skipped that section.

Extraordinarily high armour: This can be quite vague but if you’ve ever played against the ARM24 galleon, Terminus, Butcher3 or a Defender’s Warded Tiberion you’ll understand how important it can be. These pieces often come with the gameplan of “kill everything that can kill me then win off of that” which in addition to being frustrating to play against is a very effective strategy. So if you let them live they can often control the game and snowball it into a lead and victory. How do we counter this? Glad you asked.

~High Pow! I know it seems obvious but some factions are capable of some extraordinarily high damage swings. A Bronzeback under Xerxis can swing at POW22 with 3D6 damage dice 7 times and twice at pow 21. It’ll flatten pretty much anything you let it touch. Other factions have things like the Ignited Avatar, Primalled Stalker or Butcher3. Alternatively you can just play Cryx, that in itself is an effective solution to armour. This is the equivalent to my Pathfinder solution, it’s kind of obvious so I wont dwell much on it.

~Control pieces. This is stuff like Haley2, Rahn, Saeryn, Krueger2, Pistol Wraiths, Exemplar Seneschals, Gun Mages or Druids. I will note these aren’t technically solutions and by themselves they wont kill a heavy (well, the Exemplar Seneschal might) so this basically forces you into a Scenario game which I’ll talk about later. However if your list is strapped for hitting power these pieces can buy you turns to deal with the high armour pieces in your own time. This isn’t my favourite solution, I like to be able to deal with pieces because by and large control is able to be mitigated and if it’s something like a Colossal or Tiberion a lot of it flat out doesn’t work. At all.

~Scenario. Usually if it’s a single zone scenario and you have no answer to your opponents high armour piece you’re going to lose most likely. They can just park that model in the zone and you never get to score and you can’t kill it. Not a winning proposition, eh? However if it’s a dual zone scenario you can often make something happen by throwing control pieces or jam units or anything with some bulk in your list at the zone you don’t want to score and focus a tonne of force at the zone you do (usually the one without the opposing heavy armour). This is how people used to beat Terminus if they didn’t have a way to kill him back when he could still contest and it’s a tried and true strategy but it’s still not my favourite, I don’t like not being able to kill things my opponent has.

~Upkeep removal. Most high armour comes from upkeeps. Whether it’s an Arcane Shielded Stormwall, Spiny Growthed Galleon or what have you upkeep removal is a valid option for this. There’s also Blessed, which for some factions can be worth a serious look. Standard upkeep removal for most factions is the Elf, who is notable to get her own little section. There’s also the Thrull-g (ha!) or more seriously stuff like Hex Blast, Banshing Ward, Disbinding, Unbinding or what have you. Am I missing something? Mmmm, no, don’t think so. Oh no, that’s mine and you can’t have it. Stop giving my spell away PP. Yeah, Purification, previously only owned by Harbinger, Kreoss and Hoarluk it’s rapidly becoming the new Force Hammer as Circle, Legion and Cyriss have all got their filthy mitts on it. That being said though it is a completely foolproof method of removing upkeeps and animi and just in general screws over a few factions and casters. If you can bring a Purification caster in your lineup it’s generally worth considering.

~Eiryss. She gets her own special section, like I said. Eiryss1 and 2 are different animals (F**k off Retribution I don’t care) and they both do different things. Eiryss2 can remove upkeeps, remove focus and deny focus allocation by committing suicide. Eiryss1 can strip focus and stop you getting it back next turn, shoot stuff and deal 3pts of damage to the book. Eiryss2 is way more common because she’s far more versatile and generally useful however Eiryss1 is great if you can let her hit reliably, are planning an assassination or are terrified of Butch3 and need Eiryss2 elsewhere in list construction. Eiryss2 helps you deal with upkeeps and camping warcasters, but if you have a caster like say Kreoss1, who doesn’t need the help with upkeeps but is still terrified of ARM24 warcasters Eiryss1 can be worth considering.

That’s not everything there is to say about high armour, but broad strokes. Infantry armour skew doesn’t really get to the out of control options there are if you start stacking it on colossi or anything and snipers or heavies are generally a good answer there. My favourite solution is still high POW attacks. The savvy among you will probably be able to guess what the next section is, that’s right, it’s high defense!

Extraordinarily High Defense: So this comes in two really problematic forms. High DEF infantry (16+) and high DEF heavies (14+). Personally I find the heavies far more troublesome (15/18 KD immune Angels are really annoying to deal with) but that depends on your faction by and large. So, how do we deal with this?

~Hit buffs/def debuffs. No really, I have to mention it. Things like Carnage, Dark Guidance, Guided Hand, Deadeye, Icy Grip or whatever. It’s a simple application, buff your hitting ability to hit things.

~AOEs. AOE abilities let you get around high DEF by not needing to hit. This is generally only a solution to low armour models but exceptions exist. A lot of people refer to this as the Protectorate wheelhouse but I’m personally not a fan due to the lack of reliability. If you have something like Dougal it gets better, but I’m still not a fan, especially of AOE3s.

~Bounce Effects. Examples include Electro Leap, Ashes to Ashes, Admonisher, Death Strike. These are abilities that cause automatic damage without hitting, which allows them to get around high Defense. This is one of my favourite solutions to high DEF and if it’s available to you I’d highly recommend it. My only complaint is from spells like Ashes to Ashes or Eruption of Spines, D6 suck in this game so prepare for disappointment but alternatively killing 7 Nyss for 4 focus is gorgeous.

~Slams/KD/Stationary. Three birds with one stone here. This is a solution to both high DEF heavies and infantry. If you can KD them or make them stationary their DEF drops and you can usually crush them as most high DEF models have rubbish ARM. Problems arise with KD immunity (Angels being the worst offender) but you can work around it. Another solution is slamming models over the high DEF models, this should kill / maim the slammed model as well as kill things like Kayazy that you slam them over. I used to slam gators over Kayazy back when I played Skorne, it’s quite an outdated solution but viable in a pinch.

In summary DEF is one of the most annoying stats to circumvent and there generally aren’t a lot of good ways to get around it short of having the correct abilities or just high MAT/RAT. High DEF heavies are particularly obnoxious because they tend to have high enough boxes and armour to not care about AOEs or bounce effects.

Closing up, my checklist of things to make sure I have when I go to a tournament are; Solutions to Terrain, Solutions to high ARM and Solutions to high DEF. Why? Well this means you wont get screwed by a table you play on and you should be able to kill everything in their army, right? Hopefully this article helps some of you newbloods out there, I’ll be going into more specifics in further articles but I’ve got a busy month ahead of me so they wont be soon!