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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Power Progression: Morghoul at 35 and 50


This past weekend I participated in a 35 point Steamroller at Gamers Sanctuary. I unveiled my plans for this year before the tournament, deciding that I'd focus on three warlocks this year and try to learn them the best I could.

I used Morghoul in one game out of the three I played on Saturday. I dropped him against a Cryx army. I figured the guy would use eLiche and banes, so I thought the slow cetrati and arcuarii in my Xerxis list would just get killed with spiked weapon master attacks and then I'd start losing on attrition badly (especially with Parasite and Dark Shroud). My Xerxis list had a ton of living models, so I wanted to use the beast brick to stop Excarnate. Parasite would also mean bile thrall purges would get to the cetrati and arcuarii.


I felt like my Morghoul list could out-threat the opponent with surprisingly fast titans shooting out to take down important enemy models.


Morghoul has been very interesting to me. Lets go over some of his stats:

Vital Stats: Speed 7, pathfinder, 17 defense. Doesn't take free strikes. Automatically does 1 damage to living models if he can't beat their armor. Overtake means he can go through clumped infantry and sprint means he can return to a safer spot. He can buy two attacks for each one fury, so he's awesome at finishing beasts too.

On Saturday I didn't use him in melee really because the banes were not living. His speed was nice because I pushed him forward on turn two to get a feat off on Liche. I knew he could just back up and keep casting but I wanted to get some use out of the feat.

Morghoul's defense of 17 is really nice but basically any hits that get through are going to damage him heavily. Face tanking banes with Morghoul = :( if a hit gets through.


Feat: his feat says you can't force or transfer damage to warbeasts in his control and you can't spend focus in his control. It didn't really do much in this matchup. Liche had an arc node that he could channel through and Deathjack was flanked out to one side out of my control.

Spells:
Abuse: this spell is amazing. With Marketh I can put it on three different titans in one turn which means they're all speed and strength + 2. Nobody expects that many titans rushing at them that fast. I managed to get a bronzeback with rush and abuse up into some banes, then he cast Train Wreck animus (beat back) on himself to beat into Liche. I had four fury left at that point and only managed to hit Liche once =/

Admonition: another awesome spell. This is great especially with bronze back. The spell says you can move a battlegroup model 3" after an enemy model ends its movement within 6". This is great for getting a titan out of a charge from an opponent's model. Couple this with Counter Charge and the titan can admonition out then charge back in if you'd like.

Torment: a POW12 nuke. No tough or transfer of damage. Fury 5 means you have to boost to hit on most stuff.


The list I brought:
Skorne - pMorghoul
42 / 42 (35+7)    Warlock(s) : 1/1    Warbeast(s) : 4    Battle Engines : 0    Solos : 2    Units : 1
Master Tormentor Morghoul - WB: +7
-    Aptimus Marketh
-    Bronzeback Titan - PC: 10
-    Cyclops Brute - PC: 5
-    Titan Gladiator - PC: 8
-    Bronzeback Titan - PC: 10
Mortitheurge Willbreaker - PC: 2
Agonizer - PC: 2
Paingiver Beast Handlers - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
I painted up a second bronzeback for this. Part of the idea behind another bronzeback is just to tilt your opponent. The bronzeback can really intimidate people.

The list worked pretty well in living warrior model denial specifically vs Liche. The amount of armor I had and targets made it so Parasite was harder to use as it couldn't just be used to take down a large unit every turn.


The Willbreaker is essential with Morghoul in my opinion. He extends your beast radius and makes it so Morghoul doesn't have to threaten himself every time you want to shoot out a beast missile (because you will). Marketh is awesome in my opinion because he adds an Abuse on the turn you really want to beat stuff.

In this tourney I played three games (one bye round) so I played Xerxis twice and Morghoul once. I wish I would have dropped Morghoul in my first game. I played against Cygnar and was worried that this list would get shot up before I arrived and I wouldn't be able to abuse / maltreat etc.

I dropped this list against eLiche. The game scenario was three flags with the left flag dropping.


I moved up with my beasts in a big blob. He had deployed bane knights on the left. I wanted to make them less important so I shifted my army to the right to keep them out of the fight as long as possible. On my right flank he had put Deathjack and bile thralls. I sent a bronzeback over there to deal with that. In the center he had eLiche, a ton of bane thralls, and an arc node.


On turn two I engaged with a bronzeback, moving up the willbreaker to provide beast herding and Morghoul moved up so eLiche couldn't stand still and beat up the bronzeback. The bronzeback managed to beatback through bane thralls to eLiche with four fury. I bought and boosted two attacks and had one initial and only hit once =/  I did 11 damage.

After he took down the bronzeback his lines shook out a bit. I knew that attrition would not go my way as he could bring back banes and kill me and excarnate stuff. I setup for another assassination run with Morghoul this time. I boosted two torments on eLiche, hitting both times, at dice - 4. I didn't spike any damage rolls and he survived.

I managed to keep enough stuff between me and his lines that Morghoul wasn't insta-dead. The bane knights charged in and three of them got melee range on Morghoul. Two of them hit needing hard 11 on the dice and Morghoul died =/

There were a few things I definitely could have done better in this one. I think I probably took the assassination run too early and I could have held off a bit, but I didn't want to do attrition in this one because as soon as I lost a beast I'd be down quite a bit. If I had ignored Deathjack I probably could have gotten another bronzeback in the bane line and done a ton of damage.

I feel like my strategy wasn't too bad. Average dice next time and I probably would have taken it.


We're doing the Michigan Cup in March before Adepticon. I'm thinking about this list for 50 points:

Skorne - Morgs MIcup
57 / 57 (50+7)    Warlock(s) : 1/1    Warbeast(s) : 6    Battle Engines : 0    Solos : 2    Units : 2
Master Tormentor Morghoul - WB: +7
-    Aptimus Marketh
-    Bronzeback Titan - PC: 10
-    Cyclops Brute - PC: 5
-    Titan Gladiator - PC: 8
-    Bronzeback Titan - PC: 10
-    Titan Sentry - PC: 9
-    Basilisk Krea - PC: 4
Agonizer - PC: 2
Mortitheurge Willbreaker - PC: 2
Paingiver Beast Handlers - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
Paingiver Beast Handlers - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
There isn't a whole lot of subtlety to this list. Run across the board and kill as many guys as possible with super high strength titans. In the 15 points I added:

-    Titan Sentry - PC: 9
-    Basilisk Krea - PC: 4
Paingiver Beast Handlers - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2

The sentry adds armor and reach on a titan which is super awesome as the bronzebacks aren't that hard to take down and I don't have any other heavy reach in the list. The Krea adds more armor vs ranged which would be a tougher matchup. The handlers add more fury management and more strength and free charges.


I might instead take those 15 points, plus 2 from the agonizer and 3 from marketh and put in a mammoth. So the list would then be:

Master Tormentor Morghoul - WB: +7
-    Bronzeback Titan - PC: 10
-    Cyclops Brute - PC: 5
-    Titan Gladiator - PC: 8
-    Bronzeback Titan - PC: 10
-    Mammoth - PC: 20
Mortitheurge Willbreaker - PC: 2
Paingiver Beast Handlers - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
I will try this list out a few times. I really like the idea of all the titans + the mammoth with tons of threat, speed, and huge strength. I'd like to get an extoller soulward in to add in eyeless sight. Perhaps drop the second bronzeback down to a gladiator and save those two points. Maybe drop the second BB altogether and just have soulward, marketh, and a cyclops shaman or brute.

Do you have any ideas? Let me know below. Thanks!

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