How do I improve this list at 35 points?

[PowerToast]

I played two games tonight, and lost both, with this list...

Gorten
-Gunner
-Gunner
-Driller

Thor
-Basher

Bokur : Thor
Gudrun
Min Highshields
Min Highshields
Min Forgeguard

First game was against

Grim Angus
-Impaler
-Blitzer
-Mauler

Krielstone Bearer
-Stonescribe Elder
Thumper
Max Longriders

My Highshields were neutralized by his Longriders running to engage. I used Landslide to get them off my lines, but didn't have the power to drop all of them, and they simple ran back in the next turn. In hindsight, Rockwall would have been super helpful there to stop them from getting on me so quickly.

I tried to get Gudrun around into his Krielstone Bearers. By the time he got there, it was too late. I should have just thrown him at the Mauler early on to make him choose between killing Gudrun and leaving his Mauler out of position, or taking a free strike.

Thor and his Basher and Bokur were taken completely out of the game by the Thumper. Putting them on the flank was a bad idea, as they were out of Solid Ground. The Bokur died on collateral damage from a 5 inch slam... I had thought I had lined the Basher up in such a way that it would slam back without hitting anyone, but I guess not.

Because I was displeased with the way the Highshields were neutralized in the first game, I changed one unit out for another unit of Forgeguard in my second game. My opponent brought:

Vayle
-Typhon
-Seraph
-Seraph
-Shredder
-Shredder

Max Legionairs
Forsaken
Shepherd

And one other model that didn't seem to do anything all game.

I won the roll to choose who could go first, but didn't opt to take the first turn. Turned out to be a big mistake, as his stuff zoomed up and took the first half of the board on turn one. The terrain was such that the center of the board was covered with forests with gaps about five small based models wide between the wooded areas. My Forgeguard were spread out for fear of Typhon. My opponent told me (after the game, of course :() that I should have put them into little groups of three instead of just scattering them out. Incite ment his Seraphs were killing them on damage rolls of two, so it felt like I was screwed either way...

Gudrun died a painful death attempting to hold up the enemy for a turn. Cat and Mouse ended up meaning he killed Gudrun and half of a unit of Forgeguard and then pulled back into formation, so he failed to be useful...

The Basher would have been flung into the Legionairs, but Thor failed a drive check (he has made 4 drive checks for me in his career thus far, and failed two of them :() so ended up doing nothing all game.

Typhon ended up charging my Driller through the woods (the ones that consumed all but two 6" gaps in the centerline, remember?), and my opponent bent his sprays onto Gorten. I tried to tell him that sprays line up from center of base on the attacking model to center of base on the target (that is how it works right? I'm still a newbie) but he either didn't get it or didn't want to get it. I didn't feel like arguing, so I let him kill Gorten to win the game. I didn't get a chance to shoot because of Cat and Mouse/The Forrests/Fear of turning the Legionairs into blender mode to kill my Forgeguard before they got a chance to go.

At the end of each game I asked my opponents what I could have done differently... The troll player suggested more Forgeguard and less Highshields, saying that I didn't have a strong core, which made a lot of sense. The Legion player told me I didn't have any way to compel my opponent to close with me.

After giving it some thought, I think I will try the following list next time...

Gorten
-Gunner
-Gunner
-Driller
-Driller

Max Forgeguard
Max Forgeguard
Bokur : Gorten
Thor
Herne & Jonne

I figure that I will be getting hit first since I am so slow, and thus I need enough Forgeguard that I can lose a few and still be able to hit back. Herne & Jonne can force the enemy to close, along with the Gunners, and Thor provides Tune Ups and Repairs. As sad as I am to lose the Pronto Bowling Ball, it just doesn't seem to work for me, due to failed drive checks and Thumpers. The Bokur helps keep Gorten safe if I can't screen him with Forgeguard, but I am thinking a third Gunner might serve better.

I am looking for any advice you can offer. Thanks in advance. :)

[Cannibalbob]

Typhon ended up charging my Driller through the woods (the ones that consumed all but two 6" gaps in the centerline, remember?), and my opponent bent his sprays onto Gorten. I tried to tell him that sprays line up from center of base on the attacking model to center of base on the target (that is how it works right? I'm still a newbie) but he either didn't get it or didn't want to get it. I didn't feel like arguing, so I let him kill Gorten to win the game. I didn't get a chance to shoot because of Cat and Mouse/The Forrests/Fear of turning the Legionairs into blender mode to kill my Forgeguard before they got a chance to go.



You are correct in your interpretation of how sprays work.

If your opponent had Typhon in melee with a Driller, and chose to attack with the sprays, then he needs to line them up directly with the driller. You cannot angle sprays.

When you use sprays to hit key models further away you need to line up the attacking model the proper way - otherwise you will not get to position the template in the correct manner to hit your intended target.

There is a clear diagram and explanation in the rulebook. To be quite plain, the Legion player cheated to win that game. If someone "either didn't get it or didn't want to get it" I would not play games versus that opponent anymore. You should not be afraid to confront an opponent who is clearly bending/breaking rules to thier favor in order to win.


In regards to other general Rhulic tactics I will comment more later.

[PowerToast]

Thanks Bob. I found out later that the Typhon doesn't seem to have pathfinder, so he shouldn't have been able to do that anyway. :P

I am eagerly awaiting your general searforge tips! I've read the stickies, but I'm just too dense to get it... It hasn't quite 'clicked' for me yet. :)

[Reik483]

I'd recommend keeping the Basher in there. While he's not as durable as a Driller, being able to Drive 5, Slam move 8 inches, then slam the target 3-8 inches gives you a lot of threat range with a Dwarf army.

[Cannibalbob]

Sorry for the late reply. I have been rather busy with school and not had time for a big reply to this post.

First, its probably best to point out that there are many ways to play any army - and that holds true of Searforge and Rhulic forces in general. If you were to line up most of the main Searforge/Rhulic players from the merc boards, such as Relasine, Faultie, myself, DrillerManiac, Maxxev, etc. you would probably find that not one of us really plays the same way. Our armies would all be a bit similar, since Searforge is rather limited in its choices, but how we deploy and use these forces in general would probably be very different.

And of course, some people will prefer some units and things over others. Some of that is influenced by what units/armies people regularly face off against and personal past experiences. For instance, Relasine claims that he does not get much use out of Herne & Jonne due to what he faces in his local area and a bit of poor luck, and so he has said a number of times that he personally does not put them in that many lists.

For myself, I rarely ever play a Gorten list that does not include them. I may leave them at home in a 25 point game, but anything larger and they will be in the army. The reason for that I regularly face off against nasty low-armor models that I simply cannot let close to my army without bad consequences - and Herne & Jonne perform admirably at wiping those units out. Things such as Bile Thralls (one single purge can really hurt rhulic units), Kayazi (downright mean), Doomreavers (just one of these guys can obliterate a third of a packed unit of forgeguard or highshields), etc.

So, just remember that anything I say is a suggestion and a description of how things work for me. I don't claim that any of this is the absolute truth and/or a definitive way to play the army.

That said, my playstyle with Searforge, and Gorten in general, is a combined arms approach. What I mean by that, is that I try not to lean too heavily into melee or ranged. I field a combination of both melee and ranged, and I use whichever tools are the best for the situation at hand in any given turn to inflict as much damage as possible or minimize what the opponent can do.

I find that Gorten is an excellent caster for this sort of approach, because he himself really seems to epitomize Searforge combined arms. Gorten himself is a one-model representation of the idea behind my whole army. Gorten has a excellent shooting capability. He can either fire multiple resonably lethal shots, or he can blast both barrels for a cripplingly massive ranged attack. Not many models in the game can fire a pow-16 boostable shot. His rat might not be the highest around, but the power behind his gun cannot be ignored.

He is also undeniably mean in melee. He boasts 2 initial melee attacks, and Forgefather, his main weapon, is very mean. He also has access to Strength of Granite, which makes his melee attacks truly devastating. Gorten can flatten warjacks with that spell on him.

Gorten is also extremely defensive in nature. He is a bit slow, but he has the highest natural armor of any warcaster aside from Karchev. Gorten's armor is even higher than the Butchers. On top of that, Gorten has 18 health boxes - which is huge. Not many casters get to 18 health (a number of Trollkin do), and even fewer have more than that. Gorten also has great defensive spells such as Solid Ground and Rock Wall. To be quite frank, Gorten is a little tank that is tough as nails and one of the hardest casters in the game to kill. His only real weakness is that he is very slow.

So as I said before, I tend to model my Searforge army after Gorten himself. I include a mean shooting component, a powerful melee component, and most of the stuff I use is extremely tough.

What this means is that my army is generally comprised of a core of Gunners & Highshields for shooting, and Drillers & Forgeguard for melee. From this core I add utility models to fill niche roles that I need. For instance, Herne & Jonne are included for the single purpose of dealing with things that the rest of my army really cannot engage well. Bile Thralls, stealthed units, Doom reavers, etc etc.

I generally also include Thor. Thor is a bit odd in that he serves 3 main purposes in my playstyle. First, he buffs any Drillers Gorten controls into utter death machines if needed. Tune-up on a caster-controlled Driller takes that Driller to a level of obscene damage rarely seen by many other models. I also often marshal heavies with Thor - generally either a Driller or a Basher (or sometimes both).

This does 2 things. First, he makes these jacks much faster than they ever would normally be through Pronto. This allows those jacks to get further up the field than the caster controlled jacks. They can often first-strike the enemy, or get into a threatening position. This works well as bait.

Searforge is pretty slow, and so I find that you really need to work on baiting tactics. Even if it seems blatantly obvious that something is bait, you can often set it up in such a way that the enemy HAS to take the bait or else you can punish them for it. Thor's jacks work well for this because Pronto allows them to move so erratically that if ignored you can often move them into a game-winning position. I have won many games by using pronto to get a Thor-marshalled driller into combat with the enemy caster.

So Thor serves as a massive buff to caster controlled jacks, an excellent controller for bait warjacks, and a source of unpredictable movement shenanigans for marshalled heavy warjacks.


-- I will expand more on how I generally set up and play with the other units tomorrow.

[PowerToast]

Well, it might interest you to know that I ran the following list tonight...

Gorten
-Gunner
-Gunner
-Driller
-Driller

Thor
Bokur : Gorten
Bokur : Thor

10 Forgeguard
10 Highshields

And actually had a lot of success with it. The Highshields didn't get to shoot much, but they held up a unit of champions the whole game. The Forgeguard accounted for a second unit of champions (save one model), the Gunners picked off a pyre troll, and I traded a Driller for Mulg. I would have won, but I got careless and left Gorten in range of a single remaining Champion (the Champion picked him off because Mulg had gotten a whack in on Gorten the round before. I must remember to protect Gorten better :P )

I found that having two Bokur was great just because of how mighty they are with the client bonus (absorbing two shots a turn would have been nice had my opponent had any shooting), having two Gunners was great because of how well they could focus fire his light warbeast, two Drillers was great because my opponent had no chance of scrapping both of them in one go.

I didn't really miss having Thor marshal anything, being able to put Strength of Granite on my Driller was worth about as much as Tune Up for me, and Thor made himself useful by using his torch to burn a Champion off of his Bokur and also by reparing the drill arm of my last remaining Driller so that he could wreck Mulg.

I can really see how the combined arms approach would work well, but I seem to be having trouble getting my Highshields to mesh with my Forgeguard. I find that I want to put the Highshields in front so that they can shoot and tarpit better, but I want the Forgeguard in front so that they can get a charge after Gorten messes up my opponent's plan with Rock Wall...

I had wanted to try Herne and Jonne out tonight, but forgot my card. I think the second Bokur was more useful against my opponent's list, but in general I would appreciate Herne and Jonne's effectiveness against infantry hordes, which helps shore up the Gunner's lack of potency against swarms of lightly armored models.

I really didn't miss the Basher at all tonight. It would have been fun to slam Mulg back into his own ranks... Actually that might have been more effective than just ending him with my the Driller trade, because of the damage to his units... It's good to have choices!

Edit: No worries about your schooling Bob, I understand how hectic it can be. I appreciate you just reading the thread! You've been amazingly helpful so far. :)

Double Edit: What do you think about Brun and Lug? Most of the people in my area play 50 points and the dwarf and bar seem like a good way to increase my killing power. I have heard that they suffer from Brun only being able to force Lug if he is within 6 inches. How much does that impact their effectiveness? Do they pair well with Gudrun? Would Brun & Lug, Gudrun, and Herne & Jonne be a good addition to the above list to make it a nice, solid 50 points? Or do you think I'd be better with a Basher and Lorde Rockbottom instead of the dwarf and bar?

Phew... That was a long edit!

[Cannibalbob]

I didn't really miss having Thor marshal anything, being able to put Strength of Granite on my Driller was worth about as much as Tune Up for me, and Thor made himself useful by using his torch to burn a Champion off of his Bokur and also by reparing the drill arm of my last remaining Driller so that he could wreck Mulg.




Thor does not need to marshal a warjack to use tune-up on it. He can use tune-up on any rhulic jack within 5", whether or not he is the one that controls it. So, you can get both tune-up and Strength of Granite on a single Driller - and it is certifiably obscene.