European Team Challenge ETC 2012 Preview

Hey all,

Just a quick update ahead of my trip to the Warmachine/Hordes European Team Championship (ETC) at Maelstrom Games, Mansfield this weekend.

I am going as part of team 'Let The Wookiee Win' - featuring an all star line up of Hull Warmachine's Dave Forster (http://doublehandedthrow.blogspot.co.uk/), Ex-Hull Warmachiner Kenny and York Warmachine's Paul North (http://twitter.com/yorkwarmachine).

Its shaping up to be a great weekend and I can't wait to see how the venue looks with 240 people playing Warmachine and I am hoping that the focus on a team based event will really add to the tournament experience in a similar way to the doubles event I attended with Nick in January.

I am taking a 50point Krueger1 list which I have outlined below, this list is what I have managed to scrabble together after my burglary and contains some bits and pieces I have been able to beg, steal and borrow.

Krueger the Stormwrath  +5 points
* Feral Warpwolf  9 points
* Ghetorix  11 points
* Gorax  4 points
* Woldwarden  9 points

Feralgeist  1 point
2x Gallows Grove  1 point each
5 Gatorman Posse  9 points
Shifting Stones  2 points
Shifting Stones  2 points
* Stone Keeper  1 point
Tharn Bloodweavers  5 points



I will quickly go over the key pieces so that my next post can concentrate on how the games went after the weekend.

Krueger is probably one of the most feared 'anti infantry' casters in the game (up there with pCaine and pFeora) between his feat, chain lightening and lightening tendrils he is going to give me real help against high defence low armour infantry. I added a wold warden to double up on chain lightening or help cycle lightening tendrils. This allows me to focus the rest of the list around pieces to crack armour.

Ghettorix, a Feral Warpwolf and a Gorax should allow me to crack open even the toughest warjacks (hopefully Collosals too although I haven't tried this out yet). The feral has a nice synergy with  pKrueger as lightening tendrils gives him access to reach which is one of the keys reasons that the warp wolf stalker is usually chosen over him. Whilst he animus is nowhere near as good as sprint he is a point cheaper and has an extra base attack which means he potentially can be making 7 attacks with 7 lightening leaps.

My main unit is a max squad of Gatormen - these guys provide a solid centre to my army to keep Krueger safe and they also hit hard. I was worried about lists with heavily armoured infantry who would be immune to lightening threat of Krueger. The power 13 from the Gatormen help deal with these and with lightening tendrils both of their attacks gain reach. MAT 7 is nice, as are their various abilities giving them extra charge distance against living models, access to pathfinder, terror, +1DEF, rerolls against living models.

My second unit is a squad of Bloodweavers - they have been included as a tool box piece to cover a number of options - extra damage dice against living models is nice against war beasts, access to dispel is nearly always useful and extra infantry clearing with bloodburst which combined with Krueger should give my list a slight specialism in dealing with infantry which will be handy for the team. Lightening tendrils also can work nicely with these guys to create a decent threat range and help them make use of gang whilst engaging multiple targets.

As for my support - double shifting stones is too good to miss out on - they give access to all sort of movement shenanigans, fury management, charge lane blocking, beast healing and also act as a target to bounce chain lightening off when I need to make sure I hit (against stealth, high defence or models just that little bit out of range). I also included two gallows groves to allow Krueger to cast his spells on either flank and to give a small amount of help against anyone using 'tough' models. A Feralgeist completed the support pieces - This little guys has managed to stay in my list against the odds - whilst his ability to posses living warbeasts as they die is handy it is mainly his 'incorporeal' ability that has made him useful in the list - he can sit on objectives or in control points and if the opponent does not have much access to magical weapons he can be a real pain to shift - this has helped me win games in practice so the little guy is in.

So with theory machine and practice games out of the way I am happy my list is a strong one - now it is all down to whether or not I can do it justice at the weekend.

Looking forward to seeing a lot of you there!