Violence in Benghazi

First:

RIP Vilerat. You will be missed. Shootin' blues on the gates of Heaven now.
Couple things I wrote that I want to preserve.
I want to clarify something regarding the recent embassy attacks:

The attacks were NOT CAUSED BY THE VIDEO. It appears that they were, but that argument falls apart upon inspection. The videos were posted in mid-July. Even if we assume nobody involved in the attacks speaks or understands English or knows anybody who does, they were dubbed into Arabic last week. Why today? Because of its symbo
lic value.
The militia that carried out these attacks was deeply unpopular. They were largely driven out of Benghazi earlier this year, first electorally, and then physically.

These attacks were an attempt to reassert their dominance. They failed to gain control of Libya via the democratic process and they are now attempting to subvert that process, spread terror, and intimidate their opponents. The video was a convenient excuse to attack and allows them to cloak their brutality in the guise of "defending Islam," but this was a political attack launched for a political reason. While it is obvious that some of the attackers were enraged by what they saw as an attack on Islam (but even that is not so cut and dried; see my earlier post), many more were fully aware of what they were doing and why.
The militia that carried out these attacks was deeply unpopular. They were largely driven out of Benghazi earlier this year, first electorally, and then physically.
These attacks were an attempt to reassert their dominance. They failed to gain control of Libya via the democratic process and they are now attempting to subvert that process, spread terror, and intimidate their opponents. The video was a convenient excuse to attack and allows them to cloak their brutality in the guise of "defending Islam," but this was a political attack launched for a political reason. While it is obvious that some of the attackers were enraged by what they saw as an attack on Islam (but even that is not so cut and dried; see my earlier post), many more were fully aware of what they were doing and why.
Also:
i think the tragedy here is caused by the intense level of misunderstanding on both sides.
most (all) of the middle east does not really have free speech, especially in the area of filmmaking; filmmakers are often sponsored by the government and will certainly be in serious trouble if they release something with which the government does not agree. therefore, it is culturally understood that any film has the implicit approval of the authorities. this is not the case in america, but the lack of prosecution of terry jones and the man behind the sam bacile pseudonym makes it look, from a certain perspective, like the us government endorses the content of their movies.
it's not that muslims everywhere freak out every time islam is insulted-- you'll note that american muslims don't, because they understand the cultural difference-- but when you (erroneously) believe that an incredibly insulting film about your beliefs is officially endorsed and supported by a regime that has exerted tremendous influence in your part of the world as an occupier and killed thousands of innocent people, you get enraged. and this shit happens.
it's also worth noting that the movie has been available on youtube since july and dubbed into arabic since last week, and it's fairly obvious that the ginned up "outrage" surrounding it is mostly an attempt by a wildly unpopular sectarian group to legitimize their violent acts and stir up hostility towards their opponents on the 9/11 anniversary.

Thoughts on "Who's the Boss?"

I want to do another in my caster profile series but I don't have the time or energy right now.  I've been managing a political campaign (for those that don't know) and it's a 60+ hour a week job.  I'm not eating enough and I don't have any kind of social life lately, but that's what I signed up for.

Anyways, today I want to talk about the best format ever and how it could be even better.

Who's the boss!!!!!

For those who don't know, this is a 35 point, one-list, death clock formatted event.  The catch: you make a 35+5 point list with no caster/lock.  So no theme forces, no elite cadre, no nothing.  Before each match you spin the Wheel of Casters to determine who leads your army.  The only stipulation is that you cannot get a caster from your faction.  Naturally, there's more on the wheel than casters-- Door Prize, Bankruptcy, Dealer's Choice, Jackpot, Double Cross, Free Spin and Free Spoon.  Bankruptcy gives you Rorsh, Dahlia Hallyr, Brun Cragback, Wrong Eye and a Journeyman Warcaster (but no Brine, Skarath, Lug or Snapjaw, of course).  You must divide your battlegroup between them.  Jackpot lets you pick a caster (within 5 seconds, of course); Double Cross lets you switch casters with your opponent.  Free Spoon is a free spoon, man, don't read too much into it.  One problem I have with the format is that it's based on Boss Points, not wins, and a lot of those events are worth TONS of boss points-- 3-5 for an unused Free Spin or Double Cross, 7 (!) for the Spoon.  Compare this to 5 for winning a game +1 for every ten points of army destroyed, and the outcome is a bit too random for me.  I mean, yeah, it's a wheel, but that's different-- the joy of the tournament is overcoming randomness and adversity, but there's a difference between the randomness of spinning a bad caster matchup and having to make the best of it vs. the randomness of losing the event because someone spun 10 bonus points on the wheel.

Anyways.

As a hilarious event, this is second to none.  Warcasters and warlocks become Friendly Faction to the army they're in; Harby in a Hordes army has Fury 10 and up to 10 transfers, eVayl in a Warmachine army has Focus 8.  Effects that add Focus instead remove Fury and vice versa.  Some models were errata'd-- Lord Carver's feat is now Friendly Faction (!), Laris becomes a light warjack in a Warmachine army, and so forth.

Here are my lessons from the event:
1) Tiberion with Full Tilt is nasty, but if you forget to cast Bump and lose him to a Forced Evolution'd free-charging Reckoner, it won't matter.
2) Ravyn does absolutely nothing for Skorne but you don't need her to.
3) Titans with Roots of the Earth turn out to be fairly difficult to kill.
4) Burning Ash is a realllllllly good spell.

I went 3-1 and scored a free Titan kit for being the first person in Round 4 to kill the enemy caster (Constance Blaize in a ret army, yeesh) with a solo (a combo striking Hakaar, after Tiberion had thoughtfully crit-slammed her into me).

That's all for now; I know this was a short and shallow post but I have work to do and I wanted to spread the gospel of the Best Format Ever.

Commander Adept Nemo

And now this, the long-delayed next in my series on casters.  Today we focus on the non-epic version of everyone's favorite mad scientist, Commander Adept Nemo.

Nemo's statline is pretty much at the bottom of the barrel.  He's both slower and less accurate than average, and his defenses are at the absolute nadir for casters-- the combination affectionately referred to as "old man stats."  Fortunately, his abilities and his desire for arc nodes mean he can play a bit farther back than most.  He has a fairly generic melee attack; it Disrupts, but if an enemy warjack ends up in melee with him he's in trouble anyways.  He has a ranged attack as well-- it's a bit higher POW, and it disrupts as well, so if an enemy jack makes it close to him you're probably better off shooting it than whacking it.  Remember that his gun is an AOE and disrupts on a hit, so even if he misses, if the template clips the enemy, they're not getting any focus.  Of course, Nemo's still pretty fragile even if the enemy can't boost, so you're going to want to do something else about it.  He does have seven focus, which is a bit above average, and he can easily get more-- which is good, because he likes to spend it!

Nemo has quite a few powerful special rules that really help him in his assigned role.  First and least, he's immune to electrical attacks.  This won't come up often, but it does mean that certain assassination vectors-- most especially enemy pNemos, but some others-- won't be able to touch him.  Nemo's second rule, Arcane Accumulator, is his primary way of getting more focus.  Every time a spell is cast in his control area by anyone but him, he gains a power token!  These turn into focus.  The max he can get is three.  At first glance this looks like a way to get powered up from the enemy casting, but frequently you won't be within 14" of the enemy caster.  It does trigger from friendlies, though, and Cygnar has lots of access to them.  Notably, the Journeyman Warcaster can trigger it, and he's such a good model that you'll likely have one anyways!  So can Aiyana and Alexia, though frequently you'll only need one of the two.  I'd say Aiyana, because she synergizes well with Nemo's preferred means of offense.

Overpower allows Nemo to extend his control area at the start of your turn-- one focus for a 1" increase.  Along with the Squire this can give Nemo a huge control area, at the cost of lots of focus.  This also means that you can allocate to 'jacks that are more than 14" away, if you're willing to invest a little extra focus.  This is often a good decision, because a 'jack with focus is far, far more effective than one without it.  This will also let you bubble out your control area to catch enemy casters for the Arcane Accumulator rule.  Supercharge is his last ability, and it's a really big one.  Normally, you can only allocate three focus to a 'jack; Nemo can allocate five.  A single 'jack can wreck house with five focus, but it's also just the right amount to pull off a really neat move that I will discuss later on.


Now, Nemo's spells.  Chain Lightning is his first and most commonly used spell.  For three focus, you get a RNG 10 POW 10 shot that bounces d6 times.  Each bounce hits the closest target to the last one hit within 4", not counting previously hit targets.  This can kill as many as 7 enemy infantry per cast, and Nemo can throw it out twice and still upkeep his other spells, with the help of a warcaster attachment and/or some power tokens.  This won't always be necessary, but it helps absolutely blow away enemy infantry.  You can use Cygnaran 'jacks as rangefinders for this spell against Stealthy and high-DEF infantry, since a POW 10 will bounce off of most of them.  This spell is why you always bring at least one arc node with Nemo.  Be careful-- it will jump to friendlies, and even if they're electrically immune (like Storm infantry) they'll eat up a bounce.  You can also roll low and only get one bounce; it happens.

Deflection is a neat little spell-- +2 ARM for all of your warriors against ranged and magic attacks.  That won't help lots of infantry, but stacked with Arcane Shield it pushes ARM 15 Storm stuff to ARM 20, which will keep them mostly safe from POW 10-12 stuff (as long as it's not boosted).  Obviously, if you think that your opponent's chief anti-infantry threat vectors are lower-POW ranged and magic attacks, this will be useful.  Note what I said: there's a difference between that and "your enemy has lots of guns."  If the opponent's shooting is largely high-POW, Snipers, or anti-'jack, Deflection won't help much.

Disruption Field is just a nice standard add-on to a Cygnaran warjack.  Cygnaran 'jacks by and large aren't the most melee beatsticky, but Hammersmiths, Centurions, Stormclads, etc. can all put the hurt on enemies.  Disruption Field increases their STR by 2, which is a decent melee buff.  If you're going to be sending a 'jack into melee, you want every edge, and that includes extra strength; the Disruption is just the icing on the cake.


Electrify is an interesting defensive spell.  It's cast on a single model and knocks the first attacker d3" away, hitting them for a POW 14.  This is a two-part defense; first, it means you can't be hit twice by the same enemy; and second, it makes the enemy think twice about sending infantry in.  A single powerful warjack attack can crush Nemo unless he's seriously camping, though, so it's not best on him.  Also note that since it is an upkeep (even though it only lasts for one attack) it will override Disruption Field or Arcane Shield.  A good target for this is the Thunderhead or another valuable ranged heavy-- someone you don't want tied down in melee.

Locomotion is an interesting bit of utility.  For 1-3 Focus, you can move a 'jack 1-3."  The standard use for this is to extend a threat range-- for a melee or ranged 'jack-- and certainly that's a good use; but you have other options.  For instance, this can be used to move a 'jack into range so it can then aim; it can set up slam angles; it can do all sorts of neat stuff.  Think outside the box!  Be creative!  Don't feel the need to move the full 3" if you don't have to.

Voltaic Snare is an interesting anti-warjack spell.  It won't do damage, but it'll absolutely paralyze one 'jack and everyone near it.  It's quite pricey to cast, but sometimes-- especially in a low-model-count army of the kind Nemo prefers-- the ability to prevent an enemy from moving is the best way to deal with them.  If you can simply deny a powerful threat piece like the Deathjack or Beast-09 the ability to advance to advance, you don't have to devote resources to shutting it down by tying it up or blocking its lanes.  Don't forget that you can cast this on your own warjack to shut down enemies nearby.  This is a second best solution, since you're consigning the target to a quick and brutal death and the enemy can circumvent the penalty by slamming or throwing it away if they really want their jack to charge, but it's better than nothing.

Nemo's feat is kinda neat.  It's a free POW 14 hit against every beast and jack in his CTRL, boostable, with bonus Disruption against the 'jacks.  It seems simple, but it's deceptively complex.
First of all, Nemo has a very variable control area.  It starts off at a reasonable 14", but the Squire pushes it up to 16," and you can extend it further.  This means you should almost always be able to catch all of the essential enemy warnouns in the bubble.
Second of all, this is an instant pulse feat.  It Disrupts, but has no lingering effects besides that.  So you want to maximize its punch when it happens.
POW 14 is respectable, but most heavies won't care too much, unless you boost it.  On your feat turn, boosting is likely a good decision.  Remember that this isn't an attack and so won't trigger almost any protective ability in the game.
Against lights, though, especially arc nodes, this feat can be murderous.  Bone chicken swarms of the kind preferred by some Cryx casters will be absolutely decimated; they're only ARM 14, and even if they survive the pulse they won't be able to channel next turn.
This feat won't really help assassinate the enemy.  It won't help too much against infantry-heavy lists, or high-ARM enemies.  It'll help some against 'jacks due to the Disruption, but you'll really want to get your own heavy hitters into position.  A turn of Disruption is like a turn of relative safety, since a heavy without access to Focus is a heavy that won't be able to do too much damage to another heavy, especially with Arcane Shield.  Beware of Power Booster, Unearthly Rage, the Avatar, the Deathjack, and other ways that the enemy will be able to boost without being allocated Focus.  This is a very matchup-dependent feat, clearly.


Nemo's tier list allows all warjacks but Ol' Rowdy, Thorn, Triumph, and Gallant-- that is, non-characters plus Thunderhead.  The most important jack in there is Thunderhead, so you're covered.  For troops he allows Mechaniks and Storm Knight units.  That's a lot of stuff, but it's missing some mercs that he really likes, and it's missing Rangers.  So that's a shame.  For solos, he can take the Squire, Junior, Stormsmiths and Storm Knight solos.  He does want the Squire and Junior, which is nice, but this list doesn't have Strangewayes, which is a major downer.  Bonuses give Junior and his jacks AD; cute, but not useful, since Junior's job is to hang out in the back upkeeping Arcane Shield and keeping Nemo fueled up.  You get +1 on your starting roll for bringing two lights, which is a great bonus (one of the better ones to get) but Nemo doesn't really need two lights.  If you have two Stormblade units you get a free UA, which is a lot of points to throw out there (never mind if you want a UA for the other unit, let alone storm gunners) on things that aren't jacks and don't directly help Nemo out.  Tier 4 gives your jacks +2 SPD on the first turn if you take the Thunderhead, which is cool and you're going to take the Thunderhead anyways, but ultimately not enough to make up for the restrictions.


Let's talk about some key model synergies.  Nemo's jack synergies are pretty basic: he loves the Thunderhead to death, and also likes Lancers (or Thorn) and the Stormclad.  Pretty much besides that you don't need any specific jacks; he doesn't do much for shooty jacks, so you can leave them at home.

The Lancer (or Thorn) is for Chain Lightning and, rarely, Voltaic Snare.  It's the number one way Nemo has of removing infantry without risking the Thunderhead.  He'll generally have some spare focus due to Arcane Accumulator and the Squire, so why not spend three to clear out d6+1 low-armor enemy infantry?  It doesn't function against enemy Storm Knights or Druids but most other things can be whacked.  This is the first 'jack to drop if you're picking up other things but it is nice to include in an all-rounder list.


The Stormclad is a great target for both Electrify and Disruption Field.  It's already got fairly high melee P+S, so Disruption Field pushes it into the territory of one-rounding enemy heavies without too much trouble.  It's got Reach, so it benefits greatly from Locomotion to extend its threat range-- maxes out at 13," which is nice.  Its buckler makes it somewhat resilient, so it is a good target for Electrify to keep it alive longer.  And the free focus from Storm stuff really helps stretch Nemo's even further; you can get up to 15 on the table in one turn, which is ridiculous.  Remember, though, you can't get an additional one if you already have 3, even with Nemo; if you want to go over, you have to do it yourself.  Never forget that it has a gun, too.  This list has an awful lot of POW 14 shooting from jacks, which really starts to add up.


The Thunderhead is the cornerstone of any good pNemo list, and it lets him play a deadly ranged assassination game.  It goes like this: Allocate 5 to the Thunderhead.  Activate Strangewayes and give it Evasive Action.  Locomotion it 3" forward, then advance another 5" ignoring all free strikes.  Shoot the enemy caster with a boosted Lightning Coil attack.  Proceed to buy two more Coil shots, boosting the damage each time and hitting automatically.  That's an 18" non-linear threat range that will kill lots of casters dead-- one unboosted and two boosted POW 14s are bad news to anyone but the kings of camp sitting on full focus.  Naturally, some casters shrug this off-- stealth, sac pawn, Vyros/Butcher/Venethrax/Terminus on camp, etc.  But a lot of them hate it.  The T-head is no slouch in melee, though you'll want to put Disruption Field on it if it's tangling with enemy heavies.  It can also pulse in a pinch to fry out enemy infantry, and if it gets within 6" of the enemy caster, you can pulse to hit them automatically.

Not mentioned but worth a look: Stormwall.  It's huge, so Nemo can hide behind it; and with 5 Focus it can pound the ever-living shit out of another Colossal in melee (or boost a bunch of its ranged attacks, killing tons of enemy infantry).  Nemo's very good at putting lots of eggs in one basket and you won't find a bigger basket than your Colossal.



Units and solos that work with pNemo include Rangers, Stormblades, Squires, Junior, the Black 13th, Arlan Strangewayes and mercs including eEiryss, Aiyana and Holt, Gorman, Alexia, and Steelheads.  As an assassination-oriented caster, many of the models fulfill fairly predictable roles for Nemo.  Others are taken because of his specific attributes.

Rangers are there for a simple reason: they make it easier for the Thunderhead to hit stuff with its gun.  That's it, but that's all they need.  For a list that can rely on a single die roll, you want to stack every available modifier on.  Rangers are also fairly hard to kill if you're smart about Prowl, and have decent guns to remove enemy infantry, so they're generally never a bad choice.


Stormblades are a fairly standard Cygnaran unit these days, and for good reason.  They hit very hard in melee without requiring any of Nemo's focus, which is good, and their ARM is just good enough that it's not a waste of time to cast Deflection when they're around.  Putting them up to ARM 17 makes POW 10s unreliable at removing them, and with Arcane Shield they can hit ARM 20.  They also juice up any Stormclads you take.  Basically, if you need some bodies on the field (and you do) you could do worse than Stormblades.

Aiyana and Holt fulfill a couple of key roles.  First of all, Aiyana's spells power up Nemo; with her and Junior around, he should basically always have nine focus.  That's pretty cool; it means two upkeeps, two allocated, and still camping on ARM 19.  Or something.  Second of all, the list relies pretty heavily on T-head's gun, and being able to make it magical is pretty great.  Finally, as an assassination list, Harm is never a bad thing.  Toss it on enemy 'jacks to make it feasible to shoot them to death with POW 14 electricity.  Toss it on the enemy caster to break a camp.

The Black 13th have some excellent spot removal, which is lacking in this list outside of the unreliable Chain Lightning.  Mostly, though, what you want is Fire Beacon.  This opens up a whole class of casters to kill with the Thunderhead; without it, your best assassination vector is shut out of any caster with Shadow Pack, Shadowmancer, Occultation, Stealth, or Prowl.  Which is a lot of casters.  It also removes Camouflage, which, you know, sometimes helps.

Alexia serves two purposes; first, as a recycler.  Nemo really, really doesn't want enemies anywhere near him.  Being able to use each of your infantry twice to block lanes is great.  Second, for her spellcasting; go for 10 focus per turn if you want.  Camp it all to ARM 24, or unleash absolute mayhem via Chain Lightning spam, fully loading one jack to 5 and another to 3 whilst upkeeping, or whatever else you can imagine.

If you're looking for bodies to jam with to keep Nemo safe, Steelheads are your best option.  Sturdy, cheap, reliable, with Reach to engage lots of enemies and CMA to have a chance of denting them, you can't ask for better.  They pair well with Alexia because you get so much Steel for your buck.  You really need to jam with this list; it relies on lots of vulnerable models that are FA:C, so you can't have redundancy.  If your opponent can tell what you're planning they can pick apart essential list components.  You cannot give them the luxury of doing this; jam, jam, jam.

Arlan Strangewayes is the best mechanik you've got, which is pretty important.  You can't lose the T-head's gun, but you CAN lose your Cortex or whatever, and that sucks hard.  You generally want your jacks to survive longer; why not repair them?  Mostly, though, what you want is Evasive Action to prevent your opponent from blocking your Grand Strategy by simply engaging the T-head with a few guys that can really hurt it on free strikes.  It can't Pulse or shoot in melee, so Evade them and back out to fry them up.  You can also unDisrupt jacks with Power Booster, but that's not super important because most Disruption effects are electrical, which you are immune to anyways.

Junior's there because in a list with 1) a fragile caster 2) a lot of ARM 19 jacks, you need that Arcane Shield.  Casting it on Stormblades makes them very difficult to shoot to death as they advance; casting it on the Thunderhead or Stormclad increases the odds it'll survive long enough to get a Locomotion/Lightning Coil or Locomotion/Disruption Field/charge assassination off.  Casting it on Nemo lets him camp up to a hilarious 28, which is always worth a look.  Ultimately, though, if he has to do that you're in serious trubz.  Remember to cast an out-of-range Arcane Bolt across the table each round to fuel up Nemo's accumulator!

Squires do a lot for Nemo.  As I keep mentioning, he wants lots of Focus because he's good at making it go a long way, and that's sort of their job description.  Arcane Realignment is nifty if you want to Chain Lightning, and Nemo does.  Finally, since his feat affects his CTRL area (and you can make it even bigger via Focus expenditure) Arcane Repeater is a huge boon.  Plus there's nothing funnier than a 27" control area.  Yes, that is the entire board.  Yes, that is the outer possible limit.

Eiryss and Gorman are there for boring reasons: he helps hide Nemo (who needs all the help he can get) and she helps assassinate casters.  Like the B13, she opens up a whole category of casters that can now be killed by the Lightning Coil-- Vyros, Butcher, Venethrax, etc.  Anyone who thought they could camp to safety will discover their error.  Be very careful to keep her more than 5" from your 'jacks, since allocation is kind of a big deal to Nemo.



Here's a sample 35 point list:
Nemo +6
Thunderhead- 12
Rangers- 5
Aiyana and Holt- 4
Black 13th- 4
Max Steelheads- 6
Squire- 2
Junior- 3
eEiryss- 3
Rhupert- 2


This is a decent all-rounder list.  I included Rhupert to help the Steelheads jam.  Notice that this list is very character heavy, including four of the character models that almost always appear in at least one tournament list.  Basically, Rhupert makes the Steelheads Tough and they run to engage, running interference for Nemo and the T-head.  The Rangers hang back, taking potshots, until they can get close enough to Mark the enemy caster and you can go for the kill.  Eiryss likewise hangs back-- not always a good idea to AD her the extra 6" out.  Aiyana and Holt are for Harm and to give Nemo more focus.  This list is reliably at 9 Focus per turn, and should play somewhat conservatively until it explodes into action.  Against infantry heavy lists, that should consist of a pulse, a couple of Chain Lightnings and then a Locomotion (to get T-head out of danger), and as many shots as Holt and the 13th can put out, hopefully putting a substantial dent in the enemy's army.  Against armor heavy lists, that should be a Harm, a feat, and then a fully juiced Thunderhead tossing around effective POW 16 shots.

I hope you enjoy playing this lesser-used warcaster!  I'm happy to be blogging again.  Next time I hope to cover one of three issues: the difference between one-turn, two-turn, and three-turn feats, the types of models in a list (essential, superfluous, interfering), and the idea of dice games and how to make probability work for you.  Or at least stop working against you.