New to Skorne

[Aerisa]

Alright, I've recently picked up WarmaHordes and went with the Hordes side of things while my boyfriend went Warmachine. I tend to have a play style that is a 'run up and hit you hard' type and that's how I've been playing. However I am finding that I only have that one tactic and end up floundering quite a bit. I'm new to this style of table top gaming.

Any suggestions? I started with the basic battle box and have added the min Beast handlers, Agonizer, Ancestral Guardian, and the Praetorian Swordsmen with UA. I just picked up Archdomina Makeda as a second warcaster. Any suggestions would be great. Thank you!

[patisarat]

Check out the thread with all the Skorne tactica articles. It's stickied at the top of the Skorne forum. All the articles it links to are pretty detailed (sometimes excessively so) and will give you a feel for how Skorne runs. Good luck!

[Demonster]

If you want to keep up a 'run up and hit you hard' style, grab a Bronzeback, another Titan Gladiator, Molik Karn, and Nihilators. Those tend to be our hardest hitters, so if you want just sheer force of power, recommendation is those. For strategy, inform us on how you want to especially strategize, or just look at the top stickied for Skorne Tactica. Or search it in the threads - they're all pretty good, pretty much complimenting the same things.

[Aerisa]

Well I do like hitting hard but Im wondering if thats all there is to Skorne. Running up and hitting them hard and hoping you last long enough to hit them again. Are there other ways to play Skorne? I always seem to feel jipped when I get hit by all these special things other factions can do. So I guess I want to know whats great about Skorne?

[Demonster]

Skorne has the highest melee potential. The phrase goes 'we get in melee, you lose'. Of course this isn't the only way to play Skorne. As a faction we don't have a recurring theme aside from just being tough. Or range is mediocre at best in comparison to others and we don't have a lot of themes, such as Legion being good at handling beasts and shooting, Circle with their trickery and decent speed, and Trolls just having tough on every darn model out there! We do have our own set of tricks such as the Molik Missile and Marketh slinging upkeep spells, but it requires effort on your part to look it up. What do you like about the faction so far?

[sourclams]

The tricky warlocks are Zaal and Mordikaar; these two have playstyles filled with tricky threat vectors and conditional shenanigans that just kinda make opponents to 'Whaaa?'. These are the two you can default to if you want people to make the 'what just happened' face.

To some extent you can put Rasheth in that group as he's incredibly fragile but has a lot of back-line spell-channeling in his playstyle.

Xerxis, pMorghoul, eMakeda, and Naaresh will be far more straightforward face-beaters with a more predictable 'deliver beasts, profit' sort of gameplay, but they each also have a small toolbox of special rules/abilities that make them generally good all-comers (less so Naaresh than the other 3).

p/eHexeris kind of exist in a world apart, where they're kinda/sorta tricky, but also pretty straightforward.

[Aerisa]

I enjoy hitting hard and the fact that the Titan can take a lot of damage. I don't like that if I don't hit I end up in big trouble and dead. I've been trying a few tactics such as the straight on charge with the Titan. I've also heard alot of good things about Molik and want to pick him up next along with a Bronzeback. I'm a bit intimidated still by 50 point matches and have only done 15 and 25 so far. I regularly play against Cryx and Menoth. I did well against the Menoth and a Khador in the 15 point list mostly because they failed a charge.

[Tainted Coil]

Try the Titan Sentry and/or Tiberion. They are the best of both worlds - hard hitting and extermely tough. With Xerxis and these two beasts you can throw Defenders Ward on Tiberion making him a ridiculous 13/23 stat, and put Fury on the Sentry making him +3Strength, +5 if you enrage him His MAT is low, but 3 initials is all you usually need to kill another heavy, especially on feat turn.

I have been using the Sentry a lot lately and he is my new favorite beast. He can take a few hits and still deal damage, making him an ideal blocker for a Bronzeback. Oh, and Train Wreck on a Sentry is awesome, even more so if the unit is Black Spot'ed.

Overall I think of Skorne as the "snowball" army. We are slow to get started but once you get this beast rolling down the hill it becomes unstoppable

[sourclams]

Skorne is a great matchup against both Cryx and Menoth.

Menoth because you generally out-threat their jacks and will get the alpha strike, while hitting hard enough to make it stick.

Cryx because the Cyclops Shaman can remove their offensive debuffs and nasty upkeeps, many Skorne lists have a way to deny Cryx souls, and Cryx armor values are typically lower so you only need to get your meat hooks on a model to make it explode into dust.

And although I doubt you think of it as such, Skorne defense is generally a bit higher than normal, making Cryx predominantly MAT6 infantry require extra support to hit easily.

[Demonster]

The only difference going up in more points are more models and more battles. You just need to pick and choose your fights properly and you'll survive in the long run. However it does help to eventually get some more units and solos in by then since if all you're using are warbeasts it gets a lot more difficult to manage without paingiver help.

[Darque]

A lot of our tricks actually center on melee so you may be seeing them but not recognizing them.

Sending in Molik and having him sidestep to their caster is often seen.

A Bronzeback Trainwrecking through a unit.

Morghul doing his "you can't hit me" trick.

We are getting better at range but really there are to few casters that actively support it at the moment.

[various]

Although i'm a long way from being an expert i've found that Skorne can be deceptively manouverable, there's an awful lot of stuff that moves out of sequence (Leap, Sprint Animus, Sidestep etc) or that can directly buff your Speed (Tyrant Commander, Rush Animus, both Makeds's, etc). Whist not exactly being a 'shooty' Faction Skorne can field a credible combined arms force that means the opponent has to take our ranged capacity into account. Experience also counts for a lot, nobody ever knows 'everything': i've been gaming since 1991 (yes, i'm ancient) and i'm still learning new tricks with every game that i play. Read up on the tactics threads, play around with force composition, never be afraid to experiment, and just because someone says that a unit is bad doesn't necessarily make it so. Skorne aren't exactly a subtle Faction but there's a lot of hidden depth that takes time to discover. Try proxing different 'Locks until you find one that fits your prefered style, i've recently started to use Naaresh and he's opened up a whole new bag of tricks: Iron Flesh to get our DEF values up, Cyclone for movement shennanigans, and an awesome Feat. Different Beasts also bring new tricks to the table: the Archidon is a great answer to more mobile enemies (great for hunting Solo's or finishing off an already weakened Caster/Lock) and has the Sprint animus (for added movement fun) but can often be overlooked for Beasts that hit harder. Keep at it, never give up, and never surrender!

[Aerisa]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm still finding that I'm not thinking...strategically how I should. The enemy knows I'm mostly melee and since they know I come up and hit them they know to shoot spells and get the heck out of the way. A few friends keep talking about all the really cool things their armies do but I'm not finding as many neat things. I did use a BB one time and was hit by a repulser shield and then he blew focus and wiped out the BB in one turn. What am I doing wrong.

[dboeren]

I'm still finding that I'm not thinking...strategically how I should. The enemy knows I'm mostly melee and since they know I come up and hit them they know to shoot spells and get the heck out of the way. A few friends keep talking about all the really cool things their armies do but I'm not finding as many neat things. I did use a BB one time and was hit by a repulser shield and then he blew focus and wiped out the BB in one turn. What am I doing wrong.

Well, for starters you attacked something with a repulser shield with the Bronzeback even though you knew he'd only get one attack and then be countercharged by something big. If you'd taken a moment to look ahead - you'd have seen it coming. This is roughly the equivalent of seeing a car coming and throwing yourself in front of it.

That said, you had at least two ways to protect your Bronzeback even after this - Admonition and the Agonizer (assuming it was a jack/beast that took you out). Were you using either? Both? No make that three ways, Morghoul's feat is great for that as well. My guess is that you don't understand the tools you have yet so you're not doing anything but moving up and punching stuff.

So you have so far:
Morghoul
Makeda
Gladiator
Bronzeback
2xSavages
Agonizer
Ancestral Guardian
4xPaingivers
6xPraetorians+UA (or maybe 10, you didn't say)

If you're using Morgoul, which is what I recommend for now:
You can make your beasts hit incredible hard and fast (even the Savages), plus you can protect one of them with Admonition. Are you using this spell? It's incredible and will make it more difficult to take out your lead beast. He can also personally take out living single wound infantry very well. Do not get him into melee with anything big unless you know what you're doing. His feat is also excellent in smaller games, and the one turn where it's usually good to put him closer to the front. It prevents a lot of enemy retaliation and can assist in an assassination versus enemy warlocks but I recommend you try to use the defensive aspects primarily - though it's OK to pair that up with an attack on the same turn of course.

The Agonizer is hard for Morghoul to fuel at times, so use your early turns to get as much Fury on it as you can, he's awesome at messing with opposing beasts or jacks.

The Ancestral Guardian needs souls to work well and you may not have many of them yet. Morghoul rarely ever does, he's just not a troop sort of guy. Makeda will in bigger games. If you have 10xSwordsmen rather than 6x then he may see some time but overall he's not one of our go-to models.

Paingivers will of course be in every Morghoul list and really most any list you make that uses more than a bare minimum of beasts. They're great, and you should work on learning to use all their abilities.

Savages are good missiles since they're fast, but you have to apply some judgement where to send them. Often, it may be worthwhile just holding up things so you can set up a bigger move next turn. Or, you can load them up with Abuse + Enrage and do quite a lot of damage.

Praetorians with UA can do a lot, sidestep is a versatile tool but not always obvious how to use to best effect. Work on using your extra movement to get more attacks deeper into enemy lines and also to stuff their charges.

[Aerisa]

Thank you so much for the suggestion. What had happened with the BB is perhaps my fault but I really got flustered when he took me apart like that but I'm still in the process of learning about my models and learning what to do with, let alone the enemies.

I will drop the Guardian. I have the min unit for the swordsman. I appreciate the info on models as I've never played a game like this and I mostly do run up and hit things. I have used Admoniton but I tend to use it starting off. I've also been dumping most of Morghuls fury into the agonizer the first turn as the enemy is way out of my range.

I have a question about the PGBH. Can each model in the unit use each action as long as they are on separate Warbeasts?

[patisarat]

I have a question about the PGBH. Can each model in the unit use each action as long as they are on separate Warbeasts?

Yes, indeed they can. Each beast can only benefit from 1 PGBH effect per turn, but the PGBHs can hit different beasts with different effects if they like.

[Aerisa]

Yes, indeed they can. Each beast can only benefit from 1 PGBH effect per turn, but the PGBHs can hit different beasts with different effects if they like.

So that's why I hear so much about the max unit? Because each one could do something and it makes it more likely to have one near a needy beastie?

[Stuh42l]

Yes, and it allows a few more of them to be killed by stray shots. They tend to priority targets and letting one of them take a hit instead of yourlock is almost always worth it.

They still only have 8 CMD though, sothe biggest 'line' you can hit is app 14".

[various]

It sounds as if one of the problems that you're having is being lured into unfavorable trades: sacrificing units/Beasts is only good if it either gets you closer to your objective or for a model that is more valuable than the model that you are putting out. Swapping an 8pt Gladiator for a 4pt Bonejack is a poor trade but swapping an 8pt Gladiator for a 12pt Character Jack is a good trade. Thinking ahead is a must and prevents you from being lured into poor trades. You need to see at least one turn ahead (preferably more but start easy) and try and see what your opponent will do: ie if you charge their Jack and hammer the snot out of it are you just opening yourself up to a counter charge that will cost you. Basically what i'm suggesting is that you be aware of the concept of 'Favourable Attrition' (i think that it's a Chess term).
Something else to be aware of is when to use the different Power Attacks: knowing when to Throw, Trample, Slam, or Headbutt (etc) is a must. One of the advantages that Hordes Factions have over their Warmachine counterparts is the ability to run our Beasts 'hot' whereas Focus is a very limited resource Fury is a bit the opposite. It's risk management (Hordes) versus resource management (Warmachine): Hordes can keep Boosting and buying extra attacks (etc) whereas WM players can't. The offside to this is that we have to worry about Frenzy checks but there a variety of 'Fury Management' tools, be they Pain Giver Beast Handlers, some Feats, or even things like having pMorghoul attack your own Beasts so that he can use his special ability to add or remove Fury (in this case remove). Remember that just because you can do something with a model doesn't necessarily mean that you should do it, consider your options carefully. Once you've come to a course of action stop and think about what your opponent will likely do if you go ahead with it, you won't always be correct but it'll at least give you an idea regarding any consequences of what you're planning to do. i assume that you're not yet playing in timed events so there's no need to hurry too much (if you're opponent complains just point out the fact that you're still new, but most people are happy to have new players take their time). By the same token don't agonise about your decisions, if you do something that doesn't work out then remember the mistake and make sure that you don't repeat it. We tend to learn more from our defeats than our victories, with a win it's easy to think that everything went according to plan, with a defeat you tend to be more analytical about the game and examine where exactly we went wrong.
Finally i'd suggest that you pick one 'Lock and stick to it for several games so that you get to know them in and out, i'd recommend anything from a half a dozen to a dozen games with the same 'Lock. Get an idea of how their spells work, how their Feats work, and what their best roles are against as many different opponents as you can. Personally i'm not a fan of pMorghoul due to his low Fury score and that he does next to nothing to support our infantry (but that's just my opinion) so i'd go with pMakeda as i think that she does more for our infantry (important as Skorne can be one of the more infantry orientated Factions). It may be a good idea to keep to smaller games whilst you find your feet, 15-25pts, that way there are only limited interactions between your models: in larger games these interactions can become very complex. There's plenty of good advice around (most of it likely better than mine!), never be afraid to ask for it as the Skorne community here is nice and friendly so it's rare to get a negative response. Like anything else becoming a good player takes time, effort, and practice so keep at it and i'm sure that you'll get results. May the Ancestors guide your hand.

[onthedownlow]

Not much to add here - there is a whole bunch of great advice above, but I can add one thing - learn to play the game at low points games first (15 - 25pts max), and don't go anywhere near 50pts for the meantime.

Getting hammered by experienced players because you're out of your depth and haven't yet built up sufficient experience just isn't fun. Silly little tricks like the Repulsor Shield are things that you find out about and never do again, but simply running forward and hoping to get the charge each time is usually what I found myself doing when I first started, until I built up some faction confidence and experience.

Keep playing, try doing different things with those Titans (slams and follow up for example) and work out how you can use them as well as the obvious charge and smash. Good luck!

[onthedownlow]

Not much to add here - there is a whole bunch of great advice above, but I can add one thing - learn to play the game at low points games first (15 - 25pts max), and don't go anywhere near 50pts for the meantime.

Getting hammered by experienced players because you're out of your depth and haven't yet built up sufficient experience just isn't fun. Silly little tricks like the Repulsor Shield are things that you find out about and never do again, but simply running forward and hoping to get the charge each time is usually what I found myself doing when I first started, until I built up some faction confidence and experience.

Keep playing, try doing different things with those Titans (slams and follow up for example) and work out how you can use them as well as the obvious charge and smash. Good luck!

[various]

If you're consistently getting hammered whilst you're trying to learn it can be really off-putting, you may want to ask them to go easy whilst you learn the basics. Not suggesting that they let you win but just that they don't go all out with every trick they know and win solely because they know the rules better. Usually against someone that's trying to learn i use a very different play style for the first couple of games: rather than trying to set up a win i make sure that the different elements of the rules get used, tell them when they're doing something that's a seriously bad idea, make a few suggestions about how they could do things, set up a couple of non-game losing tactical conundrums, and try to make sure that they get an understanding of the basics. There's nothing to be gained from wiping the floor with a player that's still trying to learn: it's no fun (for anyone) and is bad for the hobby because it puts the player of wanting to play (costing the game a new player that'd otherwise contribute to the hobby).

[Aerisa]

Thanks again for the advice!

It is disheartening to be beat into the ground. So far I've only played smaller games. I do try to run up and get the charge but that does not get me far. Sure if I enrage a Titan and abuse him I can take out a war jack when I hit but when I do take them out I m definitely in the open.

I have been doing slams instead of charges but rarely do I get to follow up as I frequently kill what I charged. Then if I don't kill it the Titan usually dies shortly after. I do think a bronze back will make things a little more exciting.

[Kurgash]

When you slam something, it is moved first then it suffers the damage and you can follow up after even if it died so try to line up a bigger base for slamming through into their caster and just buy away...

[Mr.chair]

Morghoul's feat can really keep your heavy warbeasts alive and allow you to pull ahead in the piece trade. With his feat up, your opponent's heavies with have a maximum of 3 initial attacks to hit your warbeasts since they can't force or spend focus. That means they are really unlikely to be able to kill you. This allows you to move forward really aggressively and put your beasts in positions where they might not normally be safe. Then if they engage you'll easily be able to survive their hit and kill them in return the following turn.

The key to learning Morghoul is really when to feat, and how to get the most out of admonition. Admonition + counter charge on the bronze back make for tons of great out of activation movement combinations that will leave your opponent spinning.

[Mr.chair]

Double post.

[Aerisa]

So when I slam tonight it was looked into and it came off as when the model dies you can't keep going...

[Glasskin]

Right. To Follow Up, your Slam target must still be alive.

The reason is that Slam damage happens before the Follow Up move, and the Follow Up move must be "directly toward" the target. If the target died to Slam damage, it's no longer there, and you can't follow up toward it.

My advice on Morghoul is:

1) Send one beast out a little ahead of the rest with Admonition upkept on it. If your opponent lets you get the first charge in, take it. When the opponent tries to retaliate, use Admonition to dodge the attacker. If the opponent charges you first, just dodge them. Make sure the leader is supported by your other beasts - they should be in position to charge anything that reaches your leader in melee.

2) Use Morghoul's feat the turn you are about to be charged. Because Morghoul is fast, this will often be the same turn you make your own first charge. Feat and advance with Morghoul (after casting Abuse if you want it), then charge out with your warbeasts. You'll probably only kill one or two things, but your own warbeasts will be pretty safe from retaliation thanks to the feat.

Otherwise, just keep playing. The biggest hurdle for beginners (from what I can tell) is judging ranges and threats - both their opponents' and their own - and that's the sort of thing that comes naturally with practice.

[R3n3]

Hey there,

I played my first game with Skorne today, too. And also with P Morghoul and won against Gorten ;-)

I managed to get the Alpha Strike with my BB ( Enrage, Abuse, Rush + Eyeless Sight ) through a wood into Brun and Lug finishing both of. If I had activated his animus I could have beat backed into his Caster, but well..
After that my Drake shot up his Inf badly and a Rhinodon finished off his unit together with an Void Spirit. I feated with Morg capturing Gorten + 2 Jacks and he wasn't able to recover himself from this blow. He slowed me down by 1 Turn with his feat but he couldn't recover from my feat turn.

@ Aerisa

Maybe this combo I mentioned above won't realise your Opponent unless you sit in front of him: Extoller, various Beast and our Speed Buffs

cheers

[Kurgash]

Huh. Well now I just look silly, good thing I've really only slammed large based things otherwise I'd almost feel bad.