A Minion Players concern. Humbly request a red response

[Taslon]

It's hardly minimal investment. It's not like Mercs where there's a 4 star or highborn that allows us to take majority of the options exists for the Minions. When you choose a gator, you are stuck, I repeat, stuck with the limitations with the blind water. It's a legitimate concern. It's just bad for the game to have such an imbalance. If our faction is indeed Gator + pigs, then there should be a list that incorporates both, or better yet, just allow both pacts to have options they will need.

No it's like wanting to play highborn and only highborn and expecting to be able to take on a pbutcher theme force. Your faction is balanced upon the inclusion of both pigs and gators. As is mercs across all contracts. It sucks that I can't take a avalancher with domiano, it sucks that I can't take a galleon with dwarves.

Minions do have the worse end of the stick as we have very minimal overlap, but when I opened my minion book I could see that gators were a scalpel, and pigs were a hammer. I got both knowing so. A new player should be informed of this when he starts. But your matchup with blind water vs collosals is way better than some of the hard counters your own faction provides. Truth be told, as most collosals are mobile ranged weapon platforms I think y'all are better off than pigs with ignoring ranged and or knocking off buffs

[PG_relasine]

I know that >_<. Very tired and realized what I posted a few minutes after that. However alot easier said then done. The thrullg is a pretty terrible way to spend 3 points(unfortunately necessary) . That however is another argument completely. So far far from this thread we have been told to Hide our stuff in swamp pits(barnabus) While Calaban Parasites it. It happens in alot of arguments across alot of factions, the assumption that we have access to all our tool at once. Not to mention people are factoring in Blindwater lock spells but not any spells on the warcasters in question. Once things like polarity field get tossed around things get even worse.

That wasn't the argument I made earlier.

I can't say that I fully understand where Gator players have trouble with colossals. Most are ARM 19. They also have terribly low DEF values, so a Wrastler isn't going to have much trouble hitting it. A single, 9-point Wrastler with its paired P+S 14 attacks and its single P+S 17 will do a fair amount of damage to an ARM 19 model that it won't have trouble hitting. Those two P+S 14 attacks will average 2 damage a-piece. The P+S 17 will net you an average 5 a-piece. That's 29 damage without buffs, which is half (or better) of most colossal damage grids. A pair of Wrastlers can take down a fully-healthy colossal in a single turn. Wrong Eye will average 27 damage (5 P+S 17, 1 P+S 14) against an ARM 19 colossal.

On top of this, you have:
Thrullg/Hex Blast for upkeep removal (Arcane Shield, Defender's Ward, Inviolable Resolve)
Parasite on Calaban
Malediction on Maelok (if your opponent shoves their colossal down your throat)

If you can get Parasite or Malediction on a Colossal after stripping upkeeps, now your Posse can join the party. P+S 16 Gatormen (w/ Parasite) with two attacks are going to put the hurt on a colossal, fast. With their two attacks, they're averaging 11.5 damage a-piece (one charge, one extra swing). That's 57.5 damage on average, enough to kill Stormwall (provided you stripped Arcane Shield with a Thrullg/Hexblast).

If you're taking Barnabus or Maelok, make sure you run a Thrullg, and you should be fine.

If that doesn't fill your tank, then I don't know quite what to tell you except that you need to suck it up. A someone who played with Searforge exclusively during a lengthy streak of late MkI Warmachine, you've just got to learn to work with the tools that you have.

[Taslon]

ok, ppl need to stop saying that..... Calaban isnt the answer, unless the question you are asking is, which gator caster is gonna get crushed by a colossal the fastest?

Hex Blast and Parasite are RNG 8..... that means i have to get my caster within charge range of the slowest colossal( SPD 4 + 3 for charge plus auto-reach= 9). His ranged weapon Arc-node maker does NOT work unless your opponent if being extremely nice to you (as you cant change the facing your brand new Arc node).

So no, CALABAN is not the answer. It is why Calaban is often said to be the worst gator caster, bc he is an Arc Node and an errata away from being strong.

The collosal should be dead if you catch it with both hex and parasite. Then the only thing close to you is a five inch wreck marker. But by all means keep telling us how your faction is hard countered by collosals when all you will play is a limited options from your playbook

[Taslon]

I know that >_<. Very tired and realized what I posted a few minutes after that. However alot easier said then done. The thrullg is a pretty terrible way to spend 3 points(unfortunately necessary) . That however is another argument completely. So far far from this thread we have been told to Hide our stuff in swamp pits(barnabus) While Calaban Parasites it. It happens in alot of arguments across alot of factions, the assumption that we have access to all our tool at once. Not to mention people are factoring in Blindwater lock spells but not any spells on the warcasters in question. Once things like polarity field get tossed around things get even worse.

There quite a few models that feel terrible but might be need spot like. But my argument is pigs kill collosals, and you say that blind water should be able to kill them, we show you how blind water can kill them and now your not happy with that. The fact it you need I build a list to deal with armor. And yes if your second list has to be vs collosals I'm sorry. But I I like elylith I have to build a list that can counter barnabus don't I. If your first list has a weakness your second must shore that weakness to its best ability

[TheNoob]

The collosal should be dead if you catch it with both hex and parasite. Then the only thing close to you is a five inch wreck marker. But by all means keep telling us how your faction is hard countered by collosals when all you will play is a limited options from your playbook

Let me try to understand this? are you saying that a faction that has 3 casters, 4 beasts, 2 units (3 in one theme) and a handful of solos its crying DOOM bc they want to know if in the next upcoming book they get some help in a much needed area? really?

and yes, in a perfect game where you can get Calaban in 8" of the colossal and 2 wrastlers into charge range with nothing blocking lanes or being a threat to my caster and with no shooting or spells busting aspects on the beasts and numerous other things, gators can bust a colossal on one turn. In reality, life aint that easy.

[TheLoki]

There quite a few models that feel terrible but might be need spot like. But my argument is pigs kill collosals, and you say that blind water should be able to kill them, we show you how blind water can kill them and now your not happy with that. The fact it you need I build a list to deal with armor. And yes if your second list has to be vs collosals I'm sorry. But I I like elylith I have to build a list that can counter barnabus don't I. If your first list has a weakness your second must shore that weakness to its best ability

You need to go back and reread the opening post as you have obviously missed the point. First of all your example is a caster vs caster weakness. Our problem is much more prevelant as its a model type that poses a problem. Does Elylyth get shut down By a model type available to every faction and every single caster in the game? No? Then your example is completely invalid for this argument. Pigs killing colossals is not the problem here and the constant "USE PIGS" cry boggles my mind. Yes pigs can kill colossals no one questions that. However Every steamroller can include a colossal which makes blindwater nigh unplayable in some scenarios. Before you try and invalidate our concerns at least take the time to learn what the concern actually is.

[Taslon]

I'm not invalidating your concerns. Your concerns are that your heavies can't reliably one round a collosal, and you want privateer press, mainly Soles, DC, or Simon I would assume to come in and tell you this issue will be resolved in gargantuans.

My interjection was firstly you have a warlock who can do it. With his theme force he can do it from 15inches away from the collosal, without at 13 inches. At which point he can drop any upkeeps off it, and reduce its armor, even pop his feat shoot it to turn it into a arc node, then have the two wrastlers kill it maybe only needing one. The easier course of action is to play pigs as well so you can focus on the two strengths of you faction, instead of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and solve everything with gators.

My stand comes from playing minions since they came out and doing well with them, that it's obvious that they don't want gator to be deal with armor trivially. Why? We don't have hardcore heavy hitters in faction. We cap out at an average of 17. But the other contract we can take symbiotically takes care of armor very well, but doesn't have the shinnangons that the gators do. Thus the two combine and form the yinyang of balence.

My problem with your post is your asking the developers who obviously balanced pigs and gators to work harmoniously for a reason, to break this reasoning as you feel that the new model type is a hard counter to your 1/2 the faction. And the fact is. You mentioning how few releases there are for minions strengthens the argument that a minion player should play both.

Finally most if not all factions have to build with collosals in mind, and that may or may not involve them building dynamically different lists than there go to.

[TheLoki]

Once again mate your hitting on a few points but missing the big picture.

Your right pigs and gators are meant to be played together. That is why i play both pacts. However Cygnar, Retribution and Legion are absolutely HORRID matchups for pigs. Unfortunately Gators have a terrible time dealing with what are shaping up to be extremely prevalent models in said factions.

That leaves me with two extremely uncomfortable options. A. Take pigs and deal with an extremely one sided matchup as said factions systematically blow up everything in my faction in order to deal with this single model type or B. Take gators who have no reliable way to deal with this model type therefor causing a bad matchup regardless.

A Pact having a weakness to a caster or a faction is something i can understand/deal with by steamrollering in pacts as you've stated. This however is not the case. A Model type available to every single faction and caster (sans minions but thats a moot point) is causing a few factions to become nearly unmanageable for the faction by forcing out gators in these matchups.

I have also played Minions since their inception and have done fairly well with them and i fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of each pact.


In Summary Blindwater has no good matchups now via the threat of colossals. If someone has a colossal in any of their steamroller lists i'm forced to move to pigs even if its a horrendous matchup otherwise. Hope that made my point a bit clearer.

[HoodooDoll]

Theloki and others have now repeated the problem several times. The problem isnt PLAY PIGS AND GAOTRS NEWB L2P. The problem is that Colossals just plane force Minion players to play pigs because the very threat of an immovable colossal shuts down gators. Gators previously had a way to mitigate high armor targets with throws/slams to remove them from control points/set up assassinations. Now, not only do Gators struggle with high armor they have no way to mitigate it with slams/throws. The hope is that Gators specifically will be given a way to mitigate (not outright kill) a colossal with the up coming gargantuan book. Minions players are not asking for a way to kill them but mitigate the sever wrench that colossals throw into list selection. Hope that made sense I'm quite a few vodkas in. :-)

[PG_relasine]

I've tried arguing potential solutions here, but they've apparently been dismissed as Theorymachine, so instead, I'm going to take a different approach.

My advice at this point is honestly to do the best with the tools that you have and not to bother with "requests" to Privateer. Doing so is only going to make you more upset over the long run if/when you don't get the "answer" that you were hoping for.

I know. I've been there. I loudly bemoaned the lack of tools that Searforge had for years (for proof, see my title, or ask DC about it). Doing so only made me more and more frustrated, until I finally pushed those things out of my head and did the best with what I had available to me until I got bored and moved onto something else. And you know what? I became a better player because of it and enjoyed the game more.

What I'm saying is that if you get hung up on what you don't have, you're not going to appreciate what you do have, eventually resulting in a loss of enthusiasm for the game. Regardless of cross-comparisons between Mercenaries and Minions, they're both really second-class factions that will always feel slightly behind the curve, which is something that you need to accept, or rather, something that you should have accepted when you bought-in.

[absent]

I don't think the OP arguement is completely off base, one of our local players is looking at his gators, a 3rd faction, and saying he bought them for the theme, but if they don't get any kind of str buff in this next book he will probably sell them as they just won't be fun to put on the table vs the arm 22+ monstrosities that are coming out. It's like if someone bought dwarfs as a merc theme and are ramming into cryx and some of their worse matchups constantly, i can say "Pp didn't balance dwarfs as a faction" until i'm blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that if someone bought into a theme, and aren't having fun with it, it is still their concern to have. Gators seem to be more of a main part of the faction than dwarfs, though dwarfs are catching up a little, it seems like just as valid a concern for some people. As a main merc player, or as someone who is a main minion player, the logic may be baffling that they want one theme to have all the answers, but in the end if they aren't getting enjoyment out of the faction because it is too restricted in each theme, it's their right to express that and or sell their stuff, and it's up to PP to decide if that is acceptable or not.

TLDR: gators could use a STR buff for their beasts,(like Dwarfs could use some magic weapons, ) but neither is balanced to be a stand alone force so it's hard for PP to respond to those needs when the rest of the faction doesn't share that weakness. Part of balance is having some weaknesses and making one force with no weaknesses is potentially a problem.

[HellecticMojo]

My advice at this point is honestly to do the best with the tools that you have and not to bother with "requests" to Privateer. Doing so is only going to make you more upset over the long run if/when you don't get the "answer" that you were hoping for.

I know. I've been there. I loudly bemoaned the lack of tools that Searforge had for years (for proof, see my title, or ask DC about it). Doing so only made me more and more frustrated, until I finally pushed those things out of my head and did the best with what I had available to me until I got bored and moved onto something else. And you know what? I became a better player because of it and enjoyed the game more.

wait, so you got bored, gave up and moved on. How does this solve anything?

[PG_relasine]

wait, so you got bored, gave up and moved on. How does this solve anything?

Eventually, I got bored, yes. But for a while, once I had resigned myself to just be happy with what I had, I really enjoyed playing with what I had until the lack of options wore on me, and I wanted to try something else.

[Wishing]

We are pigeon holed into lists that have to deal with a Colossal. Yes there is always Calaban but then both lists would serve basically the same functions, cracking armor.

So is the point here that since Colossals, all lists now have to be able to crack armour, so any lists without armour-cracking ability are no longer viable?

On that note, why won't Gators warriors work for pigs and pig warriors for gators if both will work for Skorne, Everblight, etc... doesn't make a lot of sense that a skorne whip is that much scarrier/convincing than the threat of Arkadius' lab or Calaban's sacrificial stone.

I'd say the simple answer is: Theme. Mercs have non-themed contracts, where you can mix and match dwarfs and humans in the same list. However, the Searforge contract is limited to dwarfs only, not because of logic or fluff, but because it is racially themed. The only minion packs we have are both racially themed, and are therefore racially restricted. It's just a design choice to make the armies look and feel more cohesive and appealing.

[katadder]

I'm not invalidating your concerns. Your concerns are that your heavies can't reliably one round a collosal, and you want privateer press, mainly Soles, DC, or Simon I would assume to come in and tell you this issue will be resolved in gargantuans.

My interjection was firstly you have a warlock who can do it. With his theme force he can do it from 15inches away from the collosal, without at 13 inches. At which point he can drop any upkeeps off it, and reduce its armor, even pop his feat shoot it to turn it into a arc node, then have the two wrastlers kill it maybe only needing one. The easier course of action is to play pigs as well so you can focus on the two strengths of you faction, instead of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and solve everything with gators.

My stand comes from playing minions since they came out and doing well with them, that it's obvious that they don't want gator to be deal with armor trivially. Why? We don't have hardcore heavy hitters in faction. We cap out at an average of 17. But the other contract we can take symbiotically takes care of armor very well, but doesn't have the shinnangons that the gators do. Thus the two combine and form the yinyang of balence.

My problem with your post is your asking the developers who obviously balanced pigs and gators to work harmoniously for a reason, to break this reasoning as you feel that the new model type is a hard counter to your 1/2 the faction. And the fact is. You mentioning how few releases there are for minions strengthens the argument that a minion player should play both.

Finally most if not all factions have to build with collosals in mind, and that may or may not involve them building dynamically different lists than there go to.

you say you have been playing minions since they came out (so have I) yet you seem to think we can hex blast and parasite a clossal from 15" away. are the players in your area really bad or do they just like to help you hit their most powerful models with your spells? you cant change the facing of your pseudo arc node so unless your opposition falls into one of the above you will not be doing either spell from 15" away.

as for gators and pigs working harmoniously, they dont. they both work for everyone but each other. yes in a multi list tourney you can do a list of each if you have the cash and want to buy into a 2nd faction (as when alls said and done they are seperate mini factions) but in single list tourneys (which is every one I have been to the last couple of years) this isnt feasible and the same applies to the current league where it becomes even more apparant that PP considers pigs and gators seperate factions by what factions people can ally with: mercs (not one contract specifically) can ally with thornfall alliance (not minions) and gators (not minions) can ally with skorne. what more proof do you need that even PP considers the 2 pacts separate factions?

[absent]

re: wishing "all lists must now counter armor"

no but at least one needs to, and still be very good (i'm implying calaban isn't very good btw)

re: wishing " non-theme mecenary contracts"

Not to be too snobby but four star and highborn definitely have a theme. One is "scoundrels you find near five fingers" and the other is "scoundrels who will fight against khador" they definitely have themes though.

Re Katadder

your TO's are really missing the best part of steamroller if they are forcing one list tournaments, that changes the game into way too much rock paper scissors, 2 lists is so much more strategically deep. Maybe you should talk to them about getting more 2 caster tournaments. That is honestly a bit rediculous compared to here where i have only been to maybe 3 - 1 list only tournament in 3 years

[Fedora]

Just as an example, against the Conquest, Gators under the leadership of Barnabas has the lowest damage output of every single caster in the entire game bar none.

Every single other caster with just a single 15pt army can very easily outperform the damage output of Barnabas with any possible configuration of army he takes. Maelok is in the exact same situation unless he is within 2" of the target. Without Malediction on a heavy, wrastlers will average, no matter what else gators might try to 'stack' up on it (hint; nothing), lower than every single other caster is capable of putting out with their own heavies.

The only thing Gators have going for them, competitively speaking from my own experience is:
1) Durability. Gators are tough nuts to crack on their own, Posse are resilient enough to survive almost all but juggernaughts swinging on them (I know one bane spam player that whines when his bane knights don't one-shot my posse members on a charge when on average they should do 1less damage than they have boxes)... Which every colossal is capable of easily equaling out in damage plus the bonus of a sweep. And their heavies which, spiny growthed at def12 arm21 are pretty bulky... They just fear jacks that swing on them with pow20s+... Which the colossals also bring. One of the best parts of gators? That high armored wrastler with spiny growth can bounce back significant enough damage to knock out systems on damaged heavies. This will be virtually nonexistant against colossals. So woops, Colossals bring concentrated enough firepower that Gators are actually in huge trouble. The days of just engaging a defender with spiny growth up and letting him wail helplessly on my blackhides is a thing of the past.

2) Knocking things down. Colossals are immune, whoops. (This is one of the major reasons Menoth is one of Gator's worst matchups thanks to the good book. Of course, the good book messes up ALL their casters. But hey at least the book is a character.)

3) Ignoring things and going around them. With such a gigantic piece, its going to be very difficult to ignore them. Going around them, to get the delicious caster inside, will be similarly very difficult against any savvy opponents. (No, cheap shots that generally only work against newbies like ravyn strikeforce are NOT actually good abilities)

Hopefully gators will get the things they need in the form of something other than "another caster with parasite yaaaay there's that anti-armor you needed" since, you know, that doesn't help Barny or Maelok... Or even Calaban who even with parasite, struggles to perform as much damage with a full furied Wrastler hitting a conquest as a circle caster that themselves have no means of buffing pow or debuffing arm and is only using a simple combination of animi and abilties their non-character beasts have. (since letting circle use character beasts wouldn't be a fair comparison.)

But given what I've seen of Colossals so far (and what I've done with the amazing kraken), I'd suspect PP knows what they're doing. Its just going to suck a LOT until gators finally get the stuff they need to bring them up to speed. (No point in playing my gators in 50pt+ tournies as that's practically a surefire way to get myself a bunch of losses.)

[katadder]

re: wishing "all lists must now counter armor"

no but at least one needs to, and still be very good (i'm implying calaban isn't very good btw)

re: wishing " non-theme mecenary contracts"

Not to be too snobby but four star and highborn definitely have a theme. One is "scoundrels you find near five fingers" and the other is "scoundrels who will fight against khador" they definitely have themes though.

Re Katadder

your TO's are really missing the best part of steamroller if they are forcing one list tournaments, that changes the game into way too much rock paper scissors, 2 lists is so much more strategically deep. Maybe you should talk to them about getting more 2 caster tournaments. That is honestly a bit rediculous compared to here where i have only been to maybe 3 - 1 list only tournament in 3 years

maybe, or maybe you have to think more if you cant change your list because you didnt consider certain opposing builds. which was all ok until colossals come along and gators cannot compete in a 1 list format.

[absent]

What did you do before when you hit a d-warded avatar or a batten+ spiny rocinante, or any other number of arm 23 baddies of badness that couldn't be knocked down or killed by them? 1 list tournaments were always rock paper scissors, maybe people weren't bringing much rock.

[Theorythmus]

I've skimmed over some parts of the topic, so sorry if someone mentioned it before.

If minions were supposed to be played as 1 faction (i.e. people taking both Blindwater & Thornfall to tournaments and such), why then were the 2 parts of it seperated for league play, unlike mercenaries which are "1 faction" for league purposes.

I'm not certain about this (so correct me if I'm wrong), but isn't it so that you're not allowed to play more then 1 faction when competing in a league. And there are some other league problems if you would count the minions as 1 faction. If you have played against 1 player with blindwater & 1 player with Thornfall, would that count as played against 2 different factions, or just 1?

Allthough I know it's not relevant towards regular tournament play, but there are places where (as far as I know) you are only allowed to take 1 of the 2 pacts rather than both.

Concerning the topic of armor cracking I have not much to say because I have yet to properly face minions or play them myself, but I'd thought I'd mention this little bit of information because people seemed to be coming back to the fact that they are always supposed to be "1 faction" like mercs is "1 faction"

[Joasht]

If minions were supposed to be played as 1 faction (i.e. people taking both Blindwater & Thornfall to tournaments and such), why then were the 2 parts of it seperated for league play, unlike mercenaries which are "1 faction" for league purposes.

I think the league one was just an oddity, but I'm pretty sure Minions (i.e. pigs and gators) count as "one faction".

I understand the OP's concern, as his displeasure is being somewhat pidgeonholed into pigs as gators have seemingly few, if any, counters to colossals. Perhaps, for the time being, you'd have to live with it until the next book arrives (which isn't too long from now)? I'd be a little bit surprised if PP doesn't give something to help with the problem, but this unfortunately wouldn't be the first time certain army builds aren't as viable.

[katadder]

What did you do before when you hit a d-warded avatar or a batten+ spiny rocinante, or any other number of arm 23 baddies of badness that couldn't be knocked down or killed by them? 1 list tournaments were always rock paper scissors, maybe people weren't bringing much rock.

you can at least slam or throw them away from objectives and go for the scenario win. with a colossal you cant even do that.

[TheLoki]

I know. I've been there. I loudly bemoaned the lack of tools that Searforge had for years (for proof, see my title, or ask DC about it). Doing so only made me more and more frustrated, until I finally pushed those things out of my head and did the best with what I had available to me until I got bored and moved onto something else. And you know what? I became a better player because of it and enjoyed the game more.

Yea i understand the problems that Searforge has but a few very real differences exist for minions. You chose to Limit yourselves to a heavily themed contract when you had access to things like 4star and highborn in order to build more well rounded take all comers list. A better example would be if Mercs only had Searforge and Talion charter to take to a tourny. 2 lists incapable of building an all comers setup with huge glaring weaknesses with no in faction overlap. If that were the case Mercs would be pretty bad off as they would have some really terrible matchups they had zero chance of dealing with. However the access to things like 4star and highborn give you very powerful and versitile lists to take.

I guess what i'm trying to say is you always had the option of breaking out into a more well rounded and less restrictive contract. Minions however is set up more like searforge and talion with its pacts severely limiting our list building options. Now i realize that this is a Minion theme and actually one of the reason i purchased the faction. However as time goes on its becoming a rather debilitating weakness.


In Summary using searforge as an example is a bit of a misnomer since you are reassuming 1 out of 4 contracts(oft regarded as the weakest) vs an entire faction. Granted minions have a striking similarity to searforge in its composition i will grant you that (and for a faction thats a problem).

[TheNoob]

you can at least slam or throw them away from objectives and go for the scenario win. with a colossal you cant even do that.

^ This is the problem. Gators are a tricky pact, they use power attacks, pop n drop and things other than full out destruction to win games. I mean, they can hit kinda hard, but that was never their point. Their theme has always been throw something off an objective to win, knock stuff down to win etc.

Colossals are a particular problem for gators bc they combine 3 of their weakness into one model: a) high ARM b) high damage boxes c) immune to knockdown/throw/slam etc

I dont play gators anymore, but i can see a very very uphill battle for them if a colossal is thrown on the table. so much so, id say its the closest thing to an auto-win that this game actually has.

[TheLoki]

^ This is the problem. Gators are a tricky pact, they use power attacks, pop n drop and things other than full out destruction to win games. I mean, they can hit kinda hard, but that was never their point. Their theme has always been throw something off an objective to win, knock stuff down to win etc.

Colossals are a particular problem for gators bc they combine 3 of their weakness into one model: a) high ARM b) high damage boxes c) immune to knockdown/throw/slam etc

I dont play gators anymore, but i can see a very very uphill battle for them if a colossal is thrown on the table. so much so, id say its the closest thing to an auto-win that this game actually has.

And to build upon your post a bit Colossals are a model type available to every faction in the game exacerbating the issue.

[Jota]

Well since gator players readily can wreck colossals using Calaban I really have to stand among the ones not seeing the problem. And yes this is based on discussing it with gator players who faced colossals at lock n load.

This is what I have heard too.

Sure, lists needs tweeking etc but that is as it should be. How is Tiberion handled, or is he also the doom of minions?

[absent]

. A better example would be if Mercs only had Searforge and Talion charter to take to a tourny. 2 lists incapable of building an all comers setup with huge glaring weaknesses with no in faction overlap.

I've won tournaments taking talion charter and searforge as my 1 and 2 list set up, so i don't think it's really all that big a problem. When general awesome comes out i will probably take a pirates life and his theme to a tournament too, which is even more restrictive, and i dont' think it will decrease my chances of winning. Plus people have already said carver, and i'd assume doc A with his CG and STR buff for hogs, can take on colossals. So it's really not at all in line with your example, it's far more in line with the searforge only example.

[PG_carnage4u]

This is what I have heard too.

Sure, lists needs tweeking etc but that is as it should be. How is Tiberion handled, or is he also the doom of minions?

Typically High Armor just defeats gators, unless they are able to use throws/slams to somehow manage some type of scenario win. Tiberion with DEF ward will be hilarious against gators.

I would like to watch a game of equally skilled and expeirenced gamers, where a calaban player wrecks a colossal in a normal game tournament style game. Currently, until the next book releases, I think I have the same chance of seeing this as I do Big Foot. lol I have faith the next book will give (*Minions*) more tools the deal with them. Pigs already have higher damage output currently.

As it has been stated. Minions seem to appeal to many, who want just Pigs or Gators, and those players hinder themselves with matchups when only getting into half of minons. It would be kind of neat, if some releases for Minions worked for both sub groups someday. Minions are new, so they are a little behind, then they have 2 subgroups, which means they are even a bit farther behind the curve. With these new awesome Models of Mass Destructions coming out, its not good to be too far behind, if you want to survive.

[TheLoki]

I've won tournaments taking talion charter and searforge as my 1 and 2 list set up, so i don't think it's really all that big a problem. When general awesome comes out i will probably take a pirates life and his theme to a tournament too, which is even more restrictive, and i dont' think it will decrease my chances of winning. Plus people have already said carver, and i'd assume doc A with his CG and STR buff for hogs, can take on colossals. So it's really not at all in line with your example, it's far more in line with the searforge only example.

I used them as an example for limited list structure and zero model overlap not for whatever power layed therin. However if you feel that is a bad example i will work on one that better gets my point across. As for the people talking about pigs that is not the problem here at all.

Normally when we discuss matchups we speak about things such as caster vs caster or Faction vs Faction correct? Well for the most part its the same for minions. Vs things like ELylyth we would reach for gators over pigs or vs things like most khador we would whip out pigs. Pretty standard fair for every faction to use your steamroller to your advantage vs a caster or a faction.

This however is not the case. Its a modeltype available across all the factions that is causing the disparity so the answer "use pigs" becomes invalid as by following that logic i should just sell my gators and always use pigs due to everyone having access to colossals.

Minions are such an oddity within the game i feel the need to try and convey my meaning thru the use of other factions but so far it has proven ineffective more then likely due to my own failings. Its such a unique problem that i'm not exactly sure how to explain it other then Play minions yourself for a year in the new enviroment and tell me how your gators fare against cygnar with a stormwall (quite possibly pigs worst matchup so reaching for them is a no go). However the stormwall in this same list makes gators a no go since the stormwall can not be handled. Now some people are going to say herp derp use calaban. This also does not solve the problem for quite a few reasons.

1. Calaban is pretty bad at what he does.
2. Calaban does not do ANYTHING for gators to facilitate their good matchups vs the shooting armies that eviscerate pigs so horribly. Calabans bad matchups are the same as the pigs. This requires Maelok or Barnabus to alleviate

To reiterate we take gators in our steamroller to cover a weakness that pigs do not (This is just good list building i think we can agree). Unfortunatly every faction now has a model that invalidates the gator side of the steamroller oft enough to cause us extreme worry.

[TheLoki]

This is what I have heard too.

Sure, lists needs tweeking etc but that is as it should be. How is Tiberion handled, or is he also the doom of minions?

Actually not as much of an issue as you would think. Skorne is a pig matchup regardless so par for the course here. The problem stems in what are Gator matchups becoming horrendous via this new model type.

[nicholas_342]

For every body talking about choosing which list to play at a tournament, what about Divide and Conquer? Or at least I think that's what the rules is called. Most of the tournaments I've seen in my area are two lists divide and conquer. You pick which list to start with and then you have to alternate between your list for subsequent games. Add in character restrictions and a minions player is forced to bring both pigs and gators. Nine months from now, your at one of these style tournaments. There are 20 players and say a third or 6 of them have a colossal. That's not too unreasonable as I've seen people on these forums talking about buy 3 or 4 different colossals, and i'm sure there are people who will buy 2 just for their faction. So as a minions player your going to be lucky if those 6 players have their colossal in only one of their list because the odd's are good that you will have to face one of those 6 players, and about even odds that you will have to play your gators against them. And if they are having to play their colossal in that list, or if they have a colossal in both of their lists, your kinda sol.

I can understand the problem because I play mercs and I'm one of these dummies who only uses dwarf casters. I do play Durgen in Highborn rather than try and make him work in Searforge but truthfully, I don't see Durgen doing much against any colossal unless my opponent is nice enough to move his caster off to the side of it instead of leaving him parked behind it. Gorten can at least brick up with a lot of warjacks, and it looks like Ossrum has the chance of being able to get a heavy hitter into melee with a colossal without too much trouble. Which means that in a tournament like the one above I will probably bring Gorten and Ossrum just because there might be a colossal despite the fact that Durgen is great for taking out infantry armies.

Hopefully when the Gargantuan book comes out the minions players will be pleasantly surprised with what they get. At least you'll be getting at least 6x the amount of stuff that Searforge got

[TheLoki]

Thats what i hope as well Nicholas and is indeed the entire point. This isnt a doom thread lamenting our fate. It was more of "hey pp i have faith you will throw us a bone" kinda deal. Just was hoping for a heads up tis all.

[Taslon]

The argument isn't I wanna play gators and only gators, as I said in my post. I play both Pigs and Gators, the problem is that it makes Pigs the only viable option we have because of a fear of colossals. We are pigeon holed into lists that have to deal with a Colossal. Yes there is always Calaban but then both lists would serve basically the same functions, cracking armor. I guess unless you play Minions it's hard to see where we are coming from.

Edit: And the league rules regarding Minions make me want to scream, but that's for another thread I guess.

In most scenarios, mainly sr2012, You have 2 lists. Your pig list will be able to contend with High armor lists, yoru gator list can deal with ret/cygnar/cryx/legion match ups. I have no idea why the league worked out that way, but it did.

[absent]

you are assuming everyone will use a colossal in every list, at 18+ per model, and $125 per model, you aren't going to see them in every list ever. Also they just don't fit in every list very well, i think with mercs i can shoehorn it into 6 casters, of my 12, so i could theoretically take it in 50% of my lists, probably not that high a % in a tournament setting, so having it in both my lists will happen just via the numbers less than 1/4 the time.(less really, but that gets into murkier waters) If my list with galleon in it counters pigs as well, yeah you are in some trouble, but every faction has those terrible matchups, my strategy with that is just dodge them or get lucky and win anyway. Some times that is all you can do.

also divide and conquer is an alternate rule, and doesn't work that way. You don't have to alternate based on your first choice, you can play your pigs 2 times and your gators 2 times in a 4 round tournament. And divide and conquer is an alternate rule specifically because getting locked into crappy matchups is stupid anyway, so it happens to more factions than just minions.

I agree there is a complaint to be had, but the complaint really specifically stems for people that want gators to have a str buff because they like gators, not minion players needing it in general.

[TheLoki]

In most scenarios, mainly sr2012, You have 2 lists. Your pig list will be able to contend with High armor lists, yoru gator list can deal with ret/cygnar/cryx/legion match ups. I have no idea why the league worked out that way, but it did.

That my friend is the issue here.

Ret/cygnar/cryx/legion all of which are Gator matchups as you correctly stated now have access to Colossals turning them against gators. All of those previously gator matchs now have a model that gators cannot deal with forcing them back into the pig side for fear of them. This creates a huge issue as said gator matchups are gator matchups for a reason. They annihilate pigs. So now we do not have a list we can comfortably reach for (or uncomfortably in the case of cryx. its just rough for us in general) vs those factions.


The league is a non issue in the long run as its just a league thing. I think it was wrong they way they handled minions but at least it doesnt matter in the grand scheme of things.

[TheLoki]

you are assuming everyone will use a colossal in every list, at 18+ per model, and $125 per model, you aren't going to see them in every list ever. Also they just don't fit in every list very well, i think with mercs i can shoehorn it into 6 casters, of my 12, so i could theoretically take it in 50% of my lists, probably not that high a % in a tournament setting, so having it in both my lists will happen just via the numbers less than 1/4 the time.(less really, but that gets into murkier waters) If my list with galleon in it counters pigs as well, yeah you are in some trouble, but every faction has those terrible matchups, my strategy with that is just dodge them or get lucky and win anyway. Some times that is all you can do.

also divide and conquer is an alternate rule, and doesn't work that way. You don't have to alternate based on your first choice, you can play your pigs 2 times and your gators 2 times in a 4 round tournament. And divide and conquer is an alternate rule specifically because getting locked into crappy matchups is stupid anyway, so it happens to more factions than just minions.

I agree there is a complaint to be had, but the complaint really specifically stems for people that want gators to have a str buff because they like gators, not minion players needing it in general.

On the risk of sounding hipster i guess you just have to be a minion player to understand the issue here. As for them being in every list ever you are absolutely right this will not be the case. However they will be prevalent enough to cause extreme pause when reaching for anything blindwater.

[absent]

You've played all those matchups in 2 list format with gators/pigs vs those factions then? If you are forcing your opponent to go for their colossal list, then selecting your pig list and trashing it, i'd say that could be a boon instead of bane. Honestly this is all pure speculation at this point. Your argument should just be "i like the gator theme and would like them to have some method to occasionally kill an arm 22+ model" Thats the only one you need to make. Trying to make this argument into some overarching minion issue is diminishing it to unsoundness. Saying ret with hyperion beats both pigs and gators is frankly unproven to the best of my knowledge and that makes your original argument look like it's also based on speculation, which erodes it's foundation. Stick with the basic premise.

[TheLoki]

You've played all those matchups in 2 list format with gators/pigs vs those factions then? If you are forcing your opponent to go for their colossal list, then selecting your pig list and trashing it, i'd say that could be a boon instead of bane. Honestly this is all pure speculation at this point. Your argument should just be "i like the gator theme and would like them to have some method to occasionally kill an arm 22+ model" Thats the only one you need to make. Trying to make this argument into some overarching minion issue is diminishing it to unsoundness. Saying ret with hyperion beats both pigs and gators is frankly unproven to the best of my knowledge and that makes your original argument look like it's also based on speculation, which erodes it's foundation. Stick with the basic premise.

Its a bit more complicated then that I'm afraid. If cygnar reaches for their colossal then all is pretty much lost. They Hose pigs really hard and gators cannot deal with the colossal. Same goes for Retribution and their new colossal.

Its not a vs every faction thing thats the problem. If its a bad matchup for pigs then we are screwed since we cant reach for gators.

Its alot of things working together to cause a really huge headache.

[katadder]

I can guarantee I am putting stormwall in every one of my cygnar lists for tourneys. he brings the combination firepower of 2 defenders and a cyclone, plus the melee power of a stormclad for only 18pts. add in the fact he also boosts stormcallers and hes going to be cygnars go to jack in majority of lists.
now add the fact that cygnar are a horrible list for pigs to fight and normally you go to gators then what do you do as gators cant take down stormwall

[TheLoki]

I can guarantee I am putting stormwall in every one of my cygnar lists for tourneys. he brings the combination firepower of 2 defenders and a cyclone, plus the melee power of a stormclad for only 18pts. add in the fact he also boosts stormcallers and hes going to be cygnars go to jack in majority of lists.
now add the fact that cygnar are a horrible list for pigs to fight and normally you go to gators then what do you do as gators cant take down stormwall

Exactly the issue at hand.


That being said i appreciate the mature and well thought out manner you present your counterpoints absent.