A Minion Players concern. Humbly request a red response

[TheLoki]

Now i realize that i do not play a "real" faction and therefore need to deal with what i have. However I'm slightly worried about my factions future in what seems to be the new Warmahordes direction. I'm completely fine that I'm not getting a gargantuan. In fact I'm GRATEFUL pp is holding off on it so i can get some sorely needed core pieces.


That being said i was wondering if a red could balm our concerns with Colossal/gargantuan and how we will deal with them. Not asking for any spoilers or anything like that in the least. Just a simple post letting us know whether or not you took our deficiencies into consideration with the new releases and gave us a way to handle this new climate.


Thanks in advance.

[PG_Crump]

I feel like Carver won't have too much of an issue with Colossals. I do however feel like Blindwater will struggle. That being said, Minions is a faction. I would expect anyone to have issues in the game if they didn't play half of their faction.

[TheLoki]

I play minions as a faction actually and your correct that carver can handle them. What about the rest of what i have? Should i just stop playing the gator half due to their inability to handle the huge bases? These things are going to be prevalent that much is certain so i worry about the future of the faction as a whole NOT an individual pact/caster.



=edit= I get the feeling that you figured i used only blindwater because of my sig banners. Its simply because i have yet to find a pig/minion banner that i like. I actually run and maintain the Thornfall sticky in the minions forum =edit=

[Northern Ronin]

Best bet is going to be Pigs. Finisher goes a long way on a model with so much health, and a war-hog will be putting some pain on them with Dr. A. Aggression Dial can get that P+S up there pretty good, more so with a feat / frenzy charge into it. Gators have one trick so far, swamp horror's crit effect can be reaaaaaaally painful against a Gargantuan. Still in a rough spot against Colossals though. At least most of their troopers can deal with covering fire? That's kinda a plus.

This is just an example of the Minion thing. In an event, your Anti-Armor list is Pigs, your anti-trooper list I feel should be Gators by design, but I feel pigs are better at that. Perhaps Gators are meant to be the scenario side, while Pigs are the killing side? They do have better control feats, and spells, and seem harder to uproot beyond placing roughs, and Spiny.

[TheLoki]

Yea its true pigs are the better option for dealing with colossals that is for certain. I'm a bit worried about blindwater however. That half of the faction has zero way to handle the new huges. Now alot of non minion players are going to wag fingers and say "use pigs vs colossals" but i feel that is an extremely unfair way to look at things. fact of life is both pacts need a way to deal with them or it leads to extremely uniquely uncomfortable situations for the faction.


Your running a cygnar steamroller. Normally i would reach for my gators as Cygnar obliterates pigs pretty hard. However one of your lists has a colossal. Now I'm forced to use pigs on the chance that you choose your colossal list as gators cannot deal with it. Hope that makes sense. Minions have a unique position in Warmahordes via the 2 pacts so i know sometimes it seems odd to non minion players.




Want to clarify that the point of this thread is in no means to whine moan and lament my factions deficiencies. Its more asking PP to lay our community's fears to rest a bit with a simple we took care of it post.

[onthedownlow]

Given that our pigs player is gleefully rubbing his hands together in anticipation of killing one of these things, I doubt that Farrow will struggle.

Blindwater is obviously a different story; but remember that killing the colossal is only half the story - you can still get the pounce on the enemy Warnoun or win on objectives.

[TheLoki]

Well thats very true and i have taken this into account. Once again the big problem comes down to blindwater who are a scenario pact. Every faction sans minions now has a model that cannot be removed thru things such as throws and slams as well as being nigh impossible to kill via the pact.

In summary Both pacts need a way to deal with colossals for minions to remain healthy as a faction. Want to iterate that i in no way expect something nuts like banethralls or some such nonsense so much as a way to not have a single model type shut down half my faction. Now to be fair this may be a bit more doom crying then i intend but so far Colossals have proven to be impossible to deal with for blindwater outside of buffing posse to the teeth every turn and jamming it up for a turn to try and keep it off the objective. The results have been.... disappointing at best. Those high power threshers REALLY hurt.

[warlorddrax]

if only we could buff our posse's damage output... that would be really nice...

Malediction is nice and all, but if i am using that to weaken a collossal, i'm thinking that Maelok is going to be squished next turn.
...and we can't bring Calaban to timed events... he doesn't have a feat that works in that format.

and we all know that P+S 17 isn't going to cut it VS. a collossal or gargantuan.

and i will never be tempted by the pork-side. they are prey-animals and must be eaten!

[Falkman]

...and we can't bring Calaban to timed events... he doesn't have a feat that works in that format.

Then don't focus too much on the feat. He's still the Gators' best bet against a colossal, with Parasite and all. It's not like you have to toss a spell every time you can during feat.

[katadder]

calaban pretty much is gators only option against colossals/gargantuans. as a pure gator player (cant stand pigs) I feel they may be getting retired for a while as they just cant stand upto a colossal. hell a sweeping attack from one would probably wipe out a gatorman posse that doesnt have iron flesh

[watchgeorgerock]

I love how everyone expects minion players to play both sides of the faction. There is 1 model, ONE model that they share. Thats quite a huge investment. Clearly PP intended players to play one pact or the other or why would they design it that way.

[onthedownlow]

I love how everyone expects minion players to play both sides of the faction. There is 1 model, ONE model that they share. Thats quite a huge investment. Clearly PP intended players to play one pact or the other or why would they design it that way.

As far as I can see everyone is trying to actually separate the two out here for purposes of discussion though, and to try and discuss the Blindwater Congregation.

As far as tournaments go, they are one Faction, obviously in fluff and gaming terms both entirely another case. Certainly I don't know any of our Minion players that play both or anybody that even refers to them as 'Minions' instead of either 'Blindwater' or 'Farrow'.

[Azahul]

As a Farrow player (and thus someone that doesn't really have to worry about Colossals), I have to say I sympathise. Blindwater initially looked like it was designed so that its Warlocks that lack ways to kill heavy armour have ways to go around it (two-handed throws into water or turning models incorporeal, that sort of thing). Honestly, if it weren't for the introduction of Colossals, I would be of the opinion that they didn't need a way to crack heavy armour, as the faction seemed built around ignoring that kind of model. However, Colossals can't be tossed aside in the same way, and the bigger models can make moving incorporeal models through them a good deal harder. So yes, I think Gators need a way to deal with Colossals.

It would, however, be nice if PP could come up with a way to do this that doesn't involve giving Gators a way to straight out kill Colossals. A solo like Gorman, perhaps, that gives them some way to simply negate the model and work around it would be far more in theme with the Congregation as things stand.

[Chip]

I love how everyone expects minion players to play both sides of the faction. There is 1 model, ONE model that they share. Thats quite a huge investment. Clearly PP intended players to play one pact or the other or why would they design it that way.

Thing is (and it's an issue that a LOT of people could do with remembering) - if you CHOOSE to not play all your options, then it's no longer PP's fault that you can't do everything. I only play Houseguard, so I have forfeited the right to expect stuff that can shoot through walls and weapon masters. People who play Rhul have forfeited the right to have a massive selection of Mercs to choose from. Gatormen players won't get near the single-target damage Farrow can throw out.

Of course, you could just take Gators in a proper faction, then you could get THEIR heavy armour bashing!

[katadder]

Thing is (and it's an issue that a LOT of people could do with remembering) - if you CHOOSE to not play all your options, then it's no longer PP's fault that you can't do everything. I only play Houseguard, so I have forfeited the right to expect stuff that can shoot through walls and weapon masters. People who play Rhul have forfeited the right to have a massive selection of Mercs to choose from. Gatormen players won't get near the single-target damage Farrow can throw out.

Of course, you could just take Gators in a proper faction, then you could get THEIR heavy armour bashing!

minions cant play all their options as you say though as you either play pigs or gators, you cant mix the 2 unless working for another faction. unlike the retribution you used as an example where you have the option of adding in the units that can shoot through walls or weaponmasters I cannot add a big damage dealing pig to my gator warlock

[Custardboy]

A lot of minion players like one either farrow or gators. Me, I just have farrow so have their problems. Even then, I sometimes have trouble with armour so I hope gators get rage or some similar animus. And for piggies to get something to deal with high def infantry

[solkan]

When asking for a colored response, you should probably ask for the correct color.

Red is Moderator, purple is Infernal, green is press ganger, and orange is PPS general staff. If you want an answer from the exceptions to that scheme, you probably need to be specific.

[SillySod]

Calaban has parasite and hex blast....

End of discussion?

It seems pretty clear that gators have at least one (possibly more) casters that can handle a colossal and from what people are saying farrow dont have too much trouble either. Not to mention that beating colossals doesnt necessarily mean killing the colossal.

As for farrow and gators as seperate factions - no, they are the same faction. Albeit a weirdly bisected faction but they are clearly intended to be played alongside each other competitively.

[Rynth]

calaban pretty much is gators only option against colossals/gargantuans. as a pure gator player (cant stand pigs) I feel they may be getting retired for a while as they just cant stand upto a colossal. hell a sweeping attack from one would probably wipe out a gatorman posse that doesnt have iron flesh

IIRC, the strongest most accurate Colossal is MAT 6 STR 18. Assuming the +1 DEF prayer that means it will hit more than half of the time and do 7 or less damage more than half of the time. Killing a few wouldn't be odd, but killing all of them with a single sweep is statistically unlikely.

[FearLord]

People are welcome to play Minions just as one pact or the other, but the fact is that if you don't take all of your available options to a tournament, you cannot expect to compete with the people who do on an even playing field. You are allowed to mix and match pacts in Steam Roller for a reason.

That said, I think as things stand right now, going into Colossals, Gators are probably the more competitive pact. The prevalence of damage buffs available to pigs will redress this balance some what, so this could well be by design / intent...

In addition to that, outside of Barnabus, I think Gators should be able to cope just fine - Calaban has parasite and access to Thrullgs so worst ARM (outside of specific feat turns) is probably looking like 18 (Mountain King + Krielstone) and that has by far the least wounds... Maelok can take steps to ignore it with his feat...

But really, the answer is "Take your Pig list" in the same way that the answer for me playing Retribution and bringing Rahn and Ossyan is "take your Ossyan list"...

[captainspud]

Err, has anyone done the math on this?

5 P+S 17s = 5x (0.97 x 5) = 5x 4.85 = 24.3
2 P+S 14s = 2x (0.97 x 2) = 5x 1.94 = 3.9

Total from one wrassler = 28.2
Total from two wrasslers = 56.4
Stormwall damage boxes = 56

I don't see the problem at all. Two wrasslers, with zero buffs, kill a full-health Stormwall on average rolls. Throw in two turns of average Spitter shots and the Conquest goes down nicely, as well.

Throw on Parasite and it gets even sillier-- one Spitter shot and one Wrassler, and the Stormwall hits the dirt.

COLOSSALS REALLY AREN'T THAT HARD TO KILL.

[magi]

We just don't know what Gators (or anyone, for that matter) are getting in Gargantuans. Perhaps you should wait to freak out until after you see what your new releases will be?

[Rynth]

COLOSSALS REALLY AREN'T THAT HARD TO KILL.

Don't let facts get in the way of DOOM!

[skarreslave2]

pow 17 kills collossals just fine. I faced several at lock and load and my retribution myrmidons did just fine killing them. I took a stormwall down with discordia, skarath, 4 invictor shots and 1 mage hunter strike force shot. pow 16s trashed it. Gators will do just fine with 2 heavies and a couple of posse beating on one. next time it was a phoenix and walking sentinels. 3 pow 17 and several 3d6 pow 12s trashed a collassal.

put the doom down and try playing against them a few times first. The model looks intimidating, but its not that hard to kill it.

[Drakor]

This thread confuses me, Colossals have twice as much health as warlocks and thats about it, so why are they so hard to kill?

[toku]

Really tired seeing people say Minions is a faction and gators fight alongside with farrows.

No, this is not the truth. Truth is they are just trying to punch each other to death. Minions is a different case with Mercenaries, they don't have contracts like 4star or highborn to give you a lot of options and then you can use different themes in ONE list. While building gator army list, you lose almost all access to farrows. How can you say "fight alongside" even they can't be contained in ONE list.

Thornfall Alliance and Blindwater Congregation are two opposite sub-factions. When you play Minions as your faction, you get to choose one from them. In the same faction don't mean they can showed on the table at the same time and "fight alongside".

Back to colossals, maybe skip them is the best strategy? With Barnabas' swamp pit or Maelock's feat to shorten the distance with casters and try to kill them without destroying the colossal is now my plan.

[PG_Cloud-Gatherer]

pow 17 kills collossals just fine. I faced several at lock and load and my retribution myrmidons did just fine killing them. I took a stormwall down with discordia, skarath, 4 invictor shots and 1 mage hunter strike force shot. pow 16s trashed it. Gators will do just fine with 2 heavies and a couple of posse beating on one. next time it was a phoenix and walking sentinels. 3 pow 17 and several 3d6 pow 12s trashed a collassal.

put the doom down and try playing against them a few times first. The model looks intimidating, but its not that hard to kill it.

Hahaha, thanks for posting about that so I didn't have to.

If I'm playing against Gators with my Cygnar and I have one list with a Stormwall and one without, I'd honestly pick the one without. Stormwall is a huge point sink that does most of its tricks with shooting, and Gators can make themselves basically immune to that. If you're forcing me to use Stormwall as a melee jack, I'd have been much better off with a pair of Stormclads.

An Arcane Shielded Stormwall is a slightly different story in terms of how hard it is to kill, but only slightly. As has been mentioned, Calaban can deal with that pretty trivially. Parasite cancels out Arcane Shield, or Hex Blast just dispels it. Boom. One spell and you're back to normal. Hex Blast plus Parasite means your Wrastlers are rolling dice+2 for damage. So that means two out of three Gator locks have some way of mitigating or outright wrecking a colossal, and Maelok might have something too but I'm not that familiar with him.

Colossals are fun, and I think we'll see a lot of them at first because of that, but they're not these big game-changers that people seem to think they are. Remember that a colossal is just as scared of you as you are of it. Typically they're slightly easier to kill than their equivalent points cost in heavy jacks, so if you can kill heavy jacks you can kill a colossal.

[PMAvers]

People are welcome to play Minions just as one pact or the other, but the fact is that if you don't take all of your available options to a tournament, you cannot expect to compete with the people who do on an even playing field. You are allowed to mix and match pacts in Steam Roller for a reason.

Honestly, the pacts *are* basically different factions since they don't share models at all. Telling a Thornfall player they *have* to bring a Blindwater list is like telling a Cygnar player that you *have* to bring a Menoth army for one of your lists.

(Which is still why those tournaments that forced you to bring three lists with different warnouns for each were a jerk move by TO's back when each only had two.)

[PG_Cloud-Gatherer]

Really tired seeing people say Minions is a faction and gators fight alongside with farrows.

That's not what people are saying. People are saying that in a tournament, you can bring (at least) one Farrow list and one Gator list, because you sign up as a Minions player, not a Thornfall or Blindwater player.

[FearLord]

Really tired seeing people say Minions is a faction and gators fight alongside with farrows.

No, this is not the truth. Truth is they are just trying to punch each other to death. Minions is a different case with Mercenaries, they don't have contracts like 4star or highborn to give you a lot of options and then you can use different themes in ONE list. While building gator army list, you lose almost all access to farrows. How can you say "fight alongside" even they can't be contained in ONE list.

Thornfall Alliance and Blindwater Congregation are two opposite sub-factions. When you play Minions as your faction, you get to choose one from them. In the same faction don't mean they can showed on the table at the same time and "fight alongside".

No one is saying anything about taking them in one list, but 90% of tournaments are 2 + lists and Steamroller rules allow Mercenary and Minion Players to use a different Contract / Pact / Theme force for each list they bring. Whether or not Minion players choose to take advantage of this fact is up to them, but they equally cannot complain that "Blindwater isn't viable" or "Thornfall isn't viable" because these are only half of the Minions Faction...

[Wishing]

No one is saying anything about taking them in one list, but 90% of tournaments are 2 + lists and Steamroller rules allow Mercenary and Minion Players to use a different Contract / Pact / Theme force for each list they bring. Whether or not Minion players choose to take advantage of this fact is up to them, but they equally cannot complain that "Blindwater isn't viable" or "Thornfall isn't viable" because these are only half of the Minions Faction...

Well, they totally can. "Blindwater isn't viable" or "Thornfall isn't viable" as statements makes total sense. What you are saying is that players should not say that because they can't take Blindwater or Thornwall to a tournament, they can only take Minions. They should just say "Minions isn't viable", which isn't true if one of the pacts is viable and the other one isn't. However, we are ultimately just quibbling over semantics and technicalities. We all know that being a "Minion" player is like being a "Warmachine" player - that you play Warmachine doesn't mean you have armies for all the factions, and being a Minion player doesn't mean you have armies for both pacts. Saying to a Gator player "just play Farrow" is the same as telling a Cygnar player to "just play Khador". That the former is technically legal to do in Steamroller and the latter isn't is a technicality that really isn't relevant to anything, nobody chooses their armies based on which army types the Steamroller rules allows you to combine in their multi-list tournaments. And just like Mercenaries, Minions isn't a faction.

[TheLoki]

I agree that the faction has to be viewed as such. Complaining about individual pacts is usually just not taking the whole picture into account. However Blindwater has a severe weakness to a model TYPE not a singular model. It would be like having zero answer for solos. I did not mean to set the world on fire.

[PG_demonmonkey263]

Stop comparing minions to mercenaries. It's not the same. When looking at minions you kind of need to look at it like two little factions. They have two cross over model/units and one of them is a character whereas mercs have a lot of different options.

I don't disagree that minion players should have both Farrow and Blindwater but the fact of the matter is is a lot of players look at it as two factions in a sense and don't want to have to spend $250-$300 on a whole other list just to deal with armor. They want to spend $50ish dollars on one model to splash in a list here or there to do want they want to do.

Lastly, Calaban. Sure he has Parasite but if you're getting him that close to your opponents models just to cast that spell that better be your winning turn because if it's not it usually is your last turn.

[Wishing]

However Blindwater has a severe weakness to a model TYPE not a singular model. It would be like having zero answer for solos.

People in the thread have been arguing that Blindwater has no such weakness and deal just fine with Colossals using their currently available attack capability. What are your thoughts on that?

[TheNoob]

People in the thread have been arguing that Blindwater has no such weakness and deal just fine with Colossals using their currently available attack capability. What are your thoughts on that?

I think the comments people are making are pure theorycrafting and not looking at the actual game play on the tabletop.

Yes, Parasite is great.... but it is range 8 (or 10 dont have the book in front of me) with no access to an Arcnode (well technically very poor and unreliable to semi-arcnodes). Which means I'm putting a fairly weak warlock within charge range for the model to cast (as well as most of the other army). Hexblast is also great for getting rid of buffs, but again, short range (10 or 12, again no book) with no arc node.

Secondly, on paper P+S 17 is good against ARM 19, but gators have 0 STR buffs while there exist many +ARM buffs. so its more realistic to look at P+S 17 vs ARM 21 or 22 (most ARM buffs are +2 or +3). Thats why you hear a lot of Gator players complain about high ARM, bc there are very few -ARM or +STR buffs in the gator's playbook. Some of the tricks that Gators rely on (Knockdown, slams, throws) just dont work against Colossals, which just makes the problem even worse.

I'm not DOOMING, i'm just laying out facts. Yes, in a perfect pure theorycrafting game, you can Hexblast and Parasite a Colossal and throw 2 wrastlers at it and wreck it in one turn. In reality, it is a little harder than that. And i dont think having Gator players ask if PP took that into account with the new book, is really asking too much.

[Sygerrik]

Saying that you should be able to compete at a tournament without ONLY Blindwater or ONLY Thornfall is like saying you should be able to bring Khador to a tournament with ONLY warjacks and solos and no units. Use half a faction, and see what happens.

[TheNoob]

Saying that you should be able to compete at a tournament without ONLY Blindwater or ONLY Thornfall is like saying you should be able to bring Khador to a tournament with ONLY warjacks and solos and no units. Use half a faction, and see what happens.

Technically, Minions is one faction. But with only 1 or 2 solos and 1 unit being able to be used to both pacts, the reality is that its actually like playing two factions.

With any other faction, you can buy a unit and use it in 2 or 3 lists (Winterguard, gun mages, etc). With Minions, if you want to play both Pigs and Gators, you have to basically buy two whole factions.

Peopel need to stop saying Minions are a faction. Technically yes they are, but units/models wise they are two different factions.

[Kenton]

Don't let facts get in the way of DOOM!

Pass the popcorn.

[profparm]

It seems like people planning on starting Minions to play at tournaments should know that it will be expensive (as you'll need pretty much 2 full armies with no-to-few shared models) and should be aware that it will be a challenge, as, even in the Journeyman League rules, players are reminded that Minions and Mercenaries are inherently weaker and less developed factions so will be more difficult to win with.

If you're not planning on playing in tournaments, then you're playing casual; if my opponent asked me NOT to play something in casual ("We know I have no chance against Old Witch with the models I own/can field, do you mind playing a different caster?") I would have no problem obliging, because people I play casual games with I have no problem adding additional restrictions to enhance the fun element for both of us. If it won't be fun for me to NOT play Old Witch, then I'll just pass on the casual game.

This is why I'm normally confused when players thinking in terms of tournament steamroller rules start up the argument about them being one faction or two; they are ONE faction for tournament purposes, and, if you ONLY want to play Gators and have ZERO access to the things that Pigs can beat, don't come to a tournament where you might have to face things that Pigs are better at dealing with than Gators. Play casual. I'm not going to go to a tournament and bring 2 or 3 lists that ALL have high defense and low armor, and then ***** and complain because my 3 Winter Guard-themed lists lose to the things that Winter Guard loses to, when I could have easily brought alternate lists with different strategies by the rules allowed.

[Asp]

You learn how to give the good fight with the pieces you have...Pigs struggle against having no upkeep removal, ultra-high DEF mobs, and incorp. Bad match ups exist throughout this game. You either see 'em as a challenge and accept it, change factions, or rage quit.

Really the Colossal player is running up against the same wall. Throwing them out on the table is taking the chance your opponent isn't fielding a list that will just dominate it at any point sub-fifty point game. To protect their point investment most factions are throwing in an additional 5-6 points of models just to feel their likely to get a decent return on investment. It really doesn't leave much in the way of points to form an army at 35 points. Add in multiple control points to contest and they are in a real uphill battle.

-Asp