Full Circle - Episode 24

This week is full of rambles about Circle theme forces and a little bit about how to handle jack spam.

Full Circle - Episode 17

Lots to talk about in this episode!  I go over the recent errata to Una2 and the Scarsfell Griffon.  Also look into the latest releases of Loki, Kaya the Wildheart (Kaya3) and the two theme forces from the Circle CMD book!

Bradigus Thorle the Runecarver vs Dr. Arkadius

This blog is definitely turning into a Bradigus blog, but he's the new hotness and I want to be able to bring him to events which means that I need to put him on the table!  Since the spoilers for Exigence are rolling out. I've decided to go with his theme force!

Theme Force

Tier 1 -
Requirement: Only these models
Benefit: +1 FA for Shifting Stone and Sentry Stone & Mannikins units
Tier 2 -
Requirement: 1+ unit of Shifting Stones
Benefit: redeploy one model/unit
Tier 3 -
Requirement: 1+ Sentry Stone & Mannikin unit
Benefit: Sentry Stones start the game with 3 fury
Tier 4 -
Requirement: Bradigus is the only living model
Benefit: Add a Woldwatcher to Bradigus' battlegroup for free

I was not able to get a full listing of what was allowed in the theme force other than the above models and that I can't take character warbeasts, so no Megalith which is unfortunate.  It did not however stop me from being able to build a list.  So I went into the tank to see what kind of math I could do, and here's what I ended up with:

Bradigus Thorle the Runecarver (*6pts)
* Woldwatcher (0pts)
* Woldwatcher (5pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
* Woldwarden (9pts)
* Woldwarden (9pts)
Sentry Stone (Leader and 3 Manikins) (3pts)
Sentry Stone (Leader and 3 Manikins) (3pts)
Sentry Stone (Leader and 3 Manikins) (3pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)

This list does a lot of things for Bradigus.  A free light warbeast is never bad.  Adding more options for Sentry Stones and Shifting Stones definitely feels good to throw out there.  I can still get Synergy to go to 7 with this list, which is only 1 less than my previous incarnations.  Sentry Stones are bringing a lot the additional Woldwatchers did in my previous builds.

Anyway, my opponent was local "I own all of the things so I only play spam lists, Nik.  He decided to bring the DrA theme force from NQ!

His list!

Dr. Arkadius (*6pts)

* Gun Boar (5pts)

* Gun Boar (5pts)

* Road Hog (9pts)

* War Hog (8pts)

* War Hog (8pts)

* War Hog (8pts)

* Gorax (4pts)

* Gorax (4pts)

* Razor Boar (0pts)

* Razor Boar (0pts)

* Razor Boar (0pts)

* Razor Boar (0pts)

* Razor Boar (0pts)

* Razor Boar (0pts)

* Targ (2pts)

Farrow Bone Grinders (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)

So, as you can see, that's a lot of pork! I'm fairly sure that I can keep the Razor Boars from doing a whole lot, and that if I can take his heavy hitting beasts out, I'm going to be sitting fairly pretty.  So lets see how things go.  He won the die roll and opted to go first, the Scenario is Close Quarters.

Round 1

Unfortunately I wasn't too consistent with the photos again this time, but I did get a few early on.  His turn one went about as you would expect it might.  Everything ran, with the Goraxes in position to Shield Guard and the Razorboars up front to tarpit the army.

Next I realized that he's bringing basically 0 pathfinder to this game, so forests and rough terrain are going to be my friend.  One of my Woldwardens was able to throw a Rift out there, tried to get some damage on a Razorboar with my Watcher guns.  Then from there, I used most of the Mannikins to create forests.  This was probably one of my first mistakes because if that was going to be my plan, I needed to make sure that I blocked LOS to all of my Shifting Stones, especially since they don't have Stealth in this list.

Round 2

Nik sees my mistake and wisely tries to take advantage.  He gets the Roadhog on my Shifting Stone in the middle that is exposed, I Shield Guard that AND the Ancillary attack, probably should have let the Ancillary go.  Then he gets a Gun Boar over there, dead stone.  He's able to get another Gun Boar on another of the stones as well, dead stone.  The rest of his army moves up to be ready for the next turn.  He had actually moved DocA up kind of far because he wanted to put Crippling Grasp onto the unit of Shifting Stones he was shooting at, so he tried to block a lane to him.

I see this, and I DO theoretically have an assassination, but it involves hitting with 2 Battering Rams.  I start with my Warden on the left, it misses 2 attempts at a 6, and then the Battering Ram needs a 5 and I roll a 4.  So I'm down a Synergy, bad, no Battering Ram either.  After that I try to position things so that I can get plenty of use out the feat.  He feats and I'm able to take down the Roadhog and Warhog, and put a bunch of other damage out there, I should have killed another one, but I miss positioned my 2nd Wold Guardian due to the position of the flag.

Round 3

Now that my stuff is up in front of him in a lot of cases, some due to me putting my Woldwatcher in a bad spot, he's able to get back at me.  He uses his feat to get some movement and some free attacks.  Warhogs both get Primal, and then one gets Forced Evo.  They're able to remove the Woldwarden's far too easily for my preference.  Some other damage gets thrown around as well.

I'm looking, and this whole time I'm having some issues with FURY management, but I am actually able to mitigate it fairly well.  I get the chain going with a Woldwatcher.  Then look at some things, and see that to kill the final 2 Warhogs I'll have to do some work.  Woldguardian charges the Warhog, drops it, so that's one down.  Woldwatcher puts a little damage on a little pig by Bradigus that is in the way of the Guardian there.  I'm going to have to cast Mystic Wards though to get Crippling Grasp off of the Guardian, which I do.  Then I start attacking one pig, get a lucky crit which slams him away, and then beatback, so that's out of the way.  Bradigus kills the other little pig.  I'm able then to take down the final Warhog, and then get the final unbroken unit of Shifting Stones to get Bradigus inside of them.

Round 4

He puts some Primal up, and starts trying to see if he can take some things out  I believe he was able to take out 1 of the Woldguardians and a Woldwatcher on his turn through use of Primal and Forced Evo on Goraxes.  However, he does leave DocA in teleport range of Bradigus and on 1 transfer.

Given that last point, this one is pretty elementary.  Teleport Bradigus after getting +2 from Synergy.  Get a Sentry Stone near enough to DocA to pull his one transfer off.  Activate Bradigus and he's toast!

Wrap-up

I wasn't too pleased with how the Woldwardens survived, but one game isn't a good way to determine their value.  The one big mistake that I feel changes things pretty significantly is if I make double sure that I blocked LOS to my Shifting Stones, then I get a pretty hard alpha and the game is pretty different from there.  I believe that I actually did kill a model earlier on the last turn when I knew I was going to kill docA which would have been more transfers and have been a problem.  I think the list has a lot of potential though!

Circle Orboros Theme Forces

There's a tournament coming up in a couple of weeks out this way where it requires theme forces.  When I started playing the game I looked at theme forces and saw them as a great way to get an army together.  I'd say like many new players that I saw them as a great way to build armies.  Now that I've been playing a lot more though, I am actually feeling more hemmed in than normal with respect to them.  This isn't to say that Circle has "bad" theme forces, in fact we have a few that are actually really pretty decent, I'm just having a hard time getting a build together with more than one 'caster that I'm liking.  That said, lets see if I can try!

First, the most solid theme forces, in my opinion, are both of the Baldur theme forces.  In fact, I've pretty much exclusively played Baldur1 as a theme force.  Here's my build for that...

Baldur the Stonecleaver
- Megalith
- Wold Guardian
- Woldwarden
Shifting Stones
- Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Sentry Stone & Mannikins
Druid Stoneward & Woldstalkers
Druid Stoneward & Woldstalkers
Druids of Orboros
- Druid Overseer
Blackclad Wayfarer

Reinforcements:
Wold Guardian
Blackclad Wayfarer

Benefits:
- Sentry Stone & Mannikin units can be placed up to 20" from the back edge of the deployment zone
- 1 warbeast per Shifting Stone unit or Sentry Stone unit gains advance deployment
- Druid Stoneward & Woldstalker units gain Advance Move
- Heavy Warbeasts cost 1 point less

This theme force is great, you get up the table quick, lots of movement shenanigans, many ways to play it differently.  One modification I might consider is swapping out a 'warden in the main list for another Guardian and then having 2x Woldwyrds as the reinforcements since I don't own a 3rd Guardian.  Anyway, on to the other Baldur...

Baldur the Stonesoul
- Megalith
- Wold Guardian
- Woldwatcher
- Woldwatcher
Shifting Stones
- Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Druids of Orboros
- Druid Overseer
Celestial Fulcrum
Lord of the Feast

Reinforcements:
Woldwyrd
Woldwyrd
Blackclad Wayfarer

Benefits
- Shifting Stone units and Gallows Grove solos can be placed up to 20" from the back of the deployment
- For each Druids of Orboros unit in the army a Celestial Fulcrum gains Advanced Move
- Heavy Warbeasts gain +2 SPD during the first turn
- Light Warbeasts with Construct cost one less point.

This army is a brick.  Baldur2's feat definitely allows things to have a massive amount of ARM to survive an attack.  Woldwatchers get to ARM 21 on their on, the Fulcrum brings a healthy amount of anti-infantry.  The biggest "problem" here is that you have to play either epic or regular Baldur because they both want Megalith.  Also, there are some tweaks available, mostly that Lord of the Feast can become 2x Gallows Grove and a Blackclad.  Lord has been good to me though, so unless I have another list that he might be better in, I'm giving him the nod.

After this things start to get a bit dicey, not to say that there are bad themes, just that building them isn't as easy or I'm not enjoying the trade offs.  Lets look at the Forces of Circle Orboros book themes first and what we're restricted to...

Cassius the Oathkeeper - Widower's Wood
- Circle construct warbeasts and heavy warbeasts
- Druids of Orboros, Reeves of Orboros, Sentry Stone & Mannikins, Shifting Stones, Skinwalkers
- Feralgeist, Reeve Hunters, War Wolves, Lord of the Feast

The benefits in this army aren't strong either.  All of the access to souls in this list are pretty expensive, so any of these builds are going to rely on the enemy bringing living troops to kill.  Not feeling it at present.

Kaya the Wildborne - The Wild Hunt
- Living non-character warbeasts
- Reeves of Orboros, Bloodtrackers, Wolf Riders, Wolves of Orboros
- Druid Wilder, Reeve Hunter, War Wolf, Wolf Lord Morraig

If you want to play a lot of Reeves this list isn't too bad.  Also, Kaya can support living warbeasts pretty solidly.  Wolf Riders are a GREAT target to put Occultation up on IMO, and I have access to Bloodtrackers.  She can bring any of the living beasts.  Only loss here really is Shifting Stones aren't here.  That said, Tier 2 requires Morraig, which then makes you want to have the 13 point investment of a unit of WoO and Morraig, when I kind of also want to play 18 points of Reeves to really get the benefits.  I also don't own 2 units of Reeves, so at present not likely to happen.  Tier 1 is an option though, even though I get no benefits basically.

Kaya the Moonhunter - Call of the Wild
- Living non-character warbeasts
- Druids of Orboros, Shifting Stones, Skinwalkers
- Druid Wilder, War Wolf

This tends to be a theme force that people have a lot of good things to say about.  I've played it and I don't hate it.  Tier 1 is BIG really, all heavy beasts getting advanced deploy is pretty big.  The thing here is that you have to play Skinwalkers and Druids to get to tier 4, once you do though heavy warbeasts are -1 point.  Its still not a bad theme at all, but playing Druids and Skinwalkers isn't really what I'm looking for with her.  Tier 1 is an option, maybe Tier 4, it might be the list that's played.

Krueger the Stormwrath - Storm Front
- non-character warbeasts
- Druids of Orboros, Shifting Stones, Wolves of Orboros
- Blackclad Wayfarer, Druid Wilder, Wolf Lord Morraig

The big advantages to this theme are that you can play unlimited druids and attachments, also you get the ability to bring extra blackclads to the list if needs be.  Has most of the pieces that are wanted, that said tier 2 requires me to bring Morraig to the table again, and this is just not the list that I think he nor a unit of Wolves makes much sense.  I know, I know that a lot of people think you can play Morraig without flank, and you can, but since he's a character I want to maximize his potential.  To get to tier 4 then I'm going to have 33 points in infantry.  Might be do-able, nothing special jumping out to me.

Krueger the Stormlord - The Devourer's Host
- Living non-character warbeasts
- Tharn Ravagers, Skinwalkers
- Ravager solos, Lord of the Feast

First thing is that the army requires 2 units of ravagers, and I'm not buying more ravagers until they get released in plastic sometime next year.  Tier 2 gives Lord of the Feast a corpse token to start with, getting to tier 4 gives warpwolves advance move which is solid.  Krueger actually does have the ability to help Ravagers up the table so that I don't mind, but I don't think this is the theme force that I like with Krueger.

Kromac the Ravenous - Heart Eaters
- Living non-character warbeasts
- Tharn units
- Tharn solos, Lord of the Feast

Again, need mulitple Ravager units, lots of Whitemanes and lord of the feast.  Can get some advanced move, but as far as the rest its just too many points in infantry for Kromac to like.  I just don't see this as being a build that I'm interested in.

Mohsar the Desertwalker - Sandstorm
- non-character Warbeasts
- Druid Stoneward & Woldstalkers, Reeves of Orboros, Sentry Stone & Mannikins, Shifting Stones, Druids units
- Blackclad Wayfarer, Reeve Hunters, War Wolves, Lord of the Feast

This theme force is just weird.  It wants you to play 2 units of Druids, at least one unit of Woldstalkers and 2 heavy warbeasts.  You CAN get some free pillars out of the deal, which in the right match up would be pretty big, but to make it work you need a minimum of 19 points of infantry and that's before even adding in any support of heavies.  It could work adding in the 2nd unit of Woldstalkers and then working out the right build of 31 points in beasts.  That said, I don't know that Mohsar wants or needs 2 units of Druids.  Not impossible to play I suppose in any case.

Morvahna the Autumnblade - Harvest of Blood
- non-character Light Warbeasts
- Druids of Orboros, Bloodtrackers, Bloodweavers, Wolf Riders, Shifting Stones
- Blackclad Wayfarer, Druid Wilder, War Wolves

The benefits in this theme are fantastic, free nuala, upkeeps to begin, +2 inches of deploy.  There is a glaringly big problem here though, and that's no heavy warbeasts.  Circle begins to have a problem when they need to try to crack ARM 19+.  In this list, there are a lot of 'casters who are going to be able to camp.  I've considered playing the list, just because it'll be something a lot of people don't have a lot of answers too, but it has a TON of bad matchups.

To mention the other Domination warlock, here's Grayle...

Grayle the Farstrider - Claw & Fang
- non-character Argus and Warpwolf warbeasts
- Wolves of Orboros, Reeves or Orboros, Skinwalker units
- War Wolves, Wolves of Orboros solos, Reeves of Orboros solos, Skinwalker solos, Wolf Lord Morraig

I have a soft spot for this theme force to be honest.  I wish that I owned a 2nd unit of Wolves of Orboros because I think 2 is the right build for him since they can both get a UA.  This is actually the list where Morraig fits the best, with Grayle.  He also gives WoO Hunter, which can be good.  I like Grayle with Winter Argus, he's great with warpwolves and really the only things for this list that I want to have are Shifting Stones, Druid Wilder and Lord of the Feast.  I think it could be worked out.

I'm not going to go over the NQ themes at this point.  I don't like the Cassius one all that much at present, and probably won't play it until Woldwrath is legal and/or I have 75 points to work with.  The Krueger one is the better one, and I do think it also is begging for a Woldwrath to be honest.  Additionally, the list I want with Krueger is a double Fulcrum list ...