Grayle?

[Obeisance]

Most of the locks from Domination are seeing a heap of play. eHex and eVayl are badass. Jarl is solid. Even the Sturm/Drang is good.

I don't see him played anywhere. I don't see lists posted. I see no tactics articles. So what's wrong with Grayle?

Being 5 games deep in Circle, it's possible I'm not seeing his failings.

...

Fury 6, decent stat line and hitpoints.
Stealth, Sidestep, Sprint and weaponmaster.
His feat gives your army Stealth and psuedo-Warpath.

Awareness is decent, but situational.
Gallows is solid, but random.
Storm Rager is bad ***. I'm sure a Stalker or Ghetto would love it.
Wind Blast is kinda crap in concert with Awareness.
I think his feat is pretty solid.

Problems..
Doesn't have Reach.
Models can't psuedo-Warpath themselves.
One awesome upkeep, one good movement spell, two spells that could've been one or the other.
Pretty crappy tier list.

What's the deal?

[gbu27]

He is fun to play. I just hear he is not competitive. Also storm rager cannot go on beasts. Still an amazing spell for solos

[Mattho2k3]

Storm Raged can't be put on a warbeast as it is warrior model only.

[Asdrubael]

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but someone literally posts this exact question in a new thread once a week. Glance back a page or two and I'm sure you'll find plenty of stuff on Grayle and whether he's good or not.

To summarize the consensus -

Stormrager = good, Awareness = awful, other spells never get cast (unless you include a geomancer for Gallows).
Grayle is a solid if unspectacular assassin. Most people that play him win more than they lose, but they can't figure out why that is (me included). He doesn't look that good on paper, but he just gets it done.
Stealth component of feat highly underrated. Warpath bit is surprisingly nice, takes finagling, but it makes him a very good alpha-striking warlock. Once you get past the whining about him not benefiting from the feat, you'll realize it's still fantastic, and he can use it to move to safety toward the end of the turn.

[kaneblaise]

Awareness = awful

I think the consensus here is that Awareness is just waiting a good ranged warbeast, which the Woldwrath may very well provide that boost. The rest looks pretty much spot on, though.

[Blaque]

Gallows and Windblast actually get cast a bit, regardless of Geomancy (that he needs a Geomancer is actually I find a trap). As noted, though, there are plenty of threads on him. the reason he's not talked a lot about is that I think he's showing to be either fairly straight-forward (once you figure him out, not much else to talk on) and there's some bias against him. That said, if you look through things, there's not really a lot on any particular caster after a point. I don't remember the last time I saw a Baldur1 tactica.

And stuff.

[Stallandor]

I think he does do better at 25-35 as opposed to 50 points.
A agree about winning but not being 100% sure why. But you just keep doing it - but he seems to be the first caster then dropped for a new 2 caster SR2012 rotation.
He is fun to play though.

[Obeisance]

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but someone literally posts this exact question in a new thread once a week. Glance back a page or two and I'm sure you'll find plenty of stuff on Grayle and whether he's good or not.

I actually searched for Grayle and skimmed to see if anyone had posted the question. I didn't restrict the search to the Circle community. Guess I should have.

[Legrasse]

The Woldwrath could make him legit. I've been using Grayle as a vessel for Megalith's animus, so rather than side-stepping and sprinting away I just sprint directly at the enemy caster and then ranged assassinate with the Fulcrum and shrimps, with the LotF camping a few hearts and waiting to finish the job if necessary. With spells like Gallows, Wind Blast and Awareness, coupled with Druid's Wrath and a unit or two of druids, it's going to be very difficult to hide from Grayle.

Edit: Grayle wins games because people have difficulty comprehending just how hard he can be to kill.

[Obeisance]

That's pretty cute, using Sprint to apply a debuff.

[eliassmith27]

He is good, but relies too much on living enemy units and one bad dice roll can take out a large part of your capabilities. You miss a key roll and you loose a key solo, and solos are the key to playing Grayle.

[Lighten]

He seems to run fine with just himself and Morraig as Storm Rager targets. Lack of living infantry doesn't give him problems in that build.

[Phatheadaf]

@OP...

I don't think there is anything wrong with him personally. I actually bet he is nifty, even has some potential in Hardcore. Problem is he came out at the same time as eBaldur, which many people had waited for anxiously. Additionally, he isn't so much different from Warlocks we already have. So people felt kinda meh. Personally I was hoping for a beatstick, beatstick Warlock. Even tho you could make a good argument that he is, he just doesn't feel that way.

Playing him usually means that you want to run the solo All Stars, namely Morraig, LotF, and the Reeve Hunter. I think you take a Geomancer to rotate Storm Rager w/o the expenditure of Fury on Grayle. I also think he wants Groves to be able to sling Storm Rager around if needed, and the occasional Gallows is also nifty. Stones adds to the shenanigans, and all of that stuff makes up what takes advantage of what he does. Problem is that is an expensive list of stuff.

Also, I know your a Cryx player, as am I. The Circle players seem to generally take longer to come around on things than other communities. Circle is a VERY difficult faction to play, the hardest IMHO. so testing out new things can be frustrating to say the least. As such the community takes to things a bit slower than other faction communities. That's just my own observation.

Give him a whirl and let us know what you think..

A.

[Ruan]

Grayle is fun, but to me has always felt like a 'seat of the pants' caster - you have to keep on your toes, since at his best he's dancing around the f ront lines killing stuff and then retreating back - hit and run. I've actually won all of my games with Grayle, but in every game it felt like an uphill battle - not because he's bad, but due to constantly, consistently, using him offensively and then getting him back to safety defensively.

Don't underestimate the usefulness of Gallows, especially in a clutch situation. I've won a tournament by charging, side-stepping, side-stepping, then sending a fully boosted Gallows at a caster he thought was in the clear.

If you're side-stepping purely for distance - for instance in the above situation, it was off of a Gladiator - try to knock down the target first (which my Gnarlhorn did), so you don't have to worry about missing your target. Same goes for simply trying for a melee assassination. Knock down your target first, if possible.

[LoserX]

One of my favorite things about Grayle is just how unknown he is, no one in my local community really knows anything about him so he is always getting into situations they could have avoided and offing the caster pretty early or failing that turn being pretty survivable and taking another run at their caster on my next turn, i personally love the woldwarden and not just for geomancy but also chain attack: smite, slamming a target that you don't kill allows grayle to move up and finish em off or use em for side step-ing. Also Swamp Gobbers and Ravyn see a bit of play so clearing Clouds can be pretty useful for me, though still situational.

[RidetheLightning]

I've had the pleasure of playing Grayle a bit and I love our ninja 'lock! He really is best when upkeeping Storm Rager on himself and going to town on nearby units and solos. I was very leery the first time I played him because I kept thinking "he belongs on the front lines, but wait, that's asking for an assassination run on him!" and so I played VERY cautiously with him and found that IS the way to play him! Yes he is a tough nut, but he is a ninja so play like one! Dart out, kill only models you know you can, then retreat to safety. In the end, I let my beasts tie up my opponents jacks and slipped those lovely blades right into Reznik for the win!

[Ruan]

When you look at his cards, you might think he isn't quite that good, but when you actually play him... he's a very interesting, fun warlock to play. You can win tournaments with him, even. I'll be curious to see if the Woldwrath helps him out - I'm thinking it will.

[PG_Darkblood]

Alright, well seeing the fourth post on Grayle I've decided to spend the last week play testing Grayle, I'll be writing a tactica on him soon... Either tonight or tomorrow. Hope that helps, and to the community and dont mean to flood the forums with my tacticas just want to help the new guys!

[PG_Darkblood]

Double post :/

[Patuljak]

A fun thing about him is Wind Blast, which actually makes him really good at protecting your army vs a lot of Colossals - sometimes you can even zone them if they rely on hitting their ranged attacks (like Galleon, RAT4 harpoon is much more fun than RAT7).

And yeah, Grayle is awesome, he's very subtle which I found makes him hard for the opponent to read.

[santospr]

Actually, Grayle has kind of almost been out for a year. He came out as an early release in Gencon and so we have been playing him ever since before eBaldur came out. And yes, every week there is a thread of "What about Grayle?" and such. We kind of have beaten the horse to messy pulp now. Basically the conclusions are still the same as they were a week ago with what Blaque said.

The biggest question mark at the moment is the a WWrath. Depending on his guns, he could take great advantage of Awareness and Windblast and add a much better range threat for Grayle than the Fulcrum can. The WWrath's animus, if the spoiler's are correct, could also help him land those gallows with out having to spend 4 fury just to hit. Also, depending on the weapons, the Tharn ravager bowmen could also possibly benefit from his feat (as stealth and move forward and still have aiming bonus is great for range units).

As it stands currently, Grayle is not bad, a fun warlock, has to be unusually brave to be survivable, but just isn't top tier for tournaments. I know when I used in a SR2012 35 point, I always chose my other list over him, cause I was afraid of the powerhouses that were in my opponent's lists. For casual games, I tend not to use him vs Legion only for the most part.

[Blaque]

I think the thing about him is that he can be more brave to be more survivable. He tends to "get in" to places that other warlocks aren't as willing to go with his combination of really good inherent statline, access to ARM buffs, and Stealth. I actually like him a bit agains tthose Legion match-ups, since he tends for me to run a bit warbeast heavy and he himself can take the punch to the face against things like Lylyth2.

And stuff.