War Journal – Yelling into the Void

Rotation 7 – Feb 6th to Mar 17th

In the grim future there are only burly men yelling.  Or at least that’s all there was in this rotation. This time around I focused on Ba’ar Zul, the Hate-bound, bringing him to two Store Championships, and also worked on my Colonel Straken damage prevention deck. I had these decks built for almost seven weeks, but, with moving taking up most of my life during that time, I didn’t get to play much. That said, I did get some great testing in and really enjoyed playing Ba’ar Zul. Speaking of our angry friend, let’s dig in.

Ba’ar Zul

This is the deck list I used during both Store Championships. I also experimented with some changes since. I will mention those closer to the end.

When he was first spoiled some time last fall my interest in Ba’ar Zul was pretty minimal. Playing him now I found that really enjoyed the play style he affords. During this rotation I brought him to two store championships, going 3-1 and 2-2 in a 14 player event. Considering these were collectively the first eight games I had played with the warlord I was quite pleased.

Starting out building the deck I wasn’t sure if there was a gimmick worth exploring so I just began assembling what I considered to be generally good Chaos cards. As I began putting things together I was curious what the collection of Khorne trait army units had to offer. Khorne Berzerker is a generally good card for inclusion in any Chaos deck, as is a copy or two of Roghrax Bloodhand. Ravening Psychopath helps stack damage onto Ba’ar Zul and guarantee he becomes bloodied on your terms. I decided that the deck also made sense with enough cultists to include Ravenous Flesh Hounds, a unit that hasn’t seen much play since the Core Set but has so much survivability in this deck it is quite valuable.

Making my way through all these decisions I realized that I had almost completely filled out my deck and I still hadn’t picked an ally faction. Since I felt I had no specific needs from at this point I decided to ally with Dark Eldar solely for the use of Archon’s Terror.

When I finally got around to playing the deck my general strategy was to try to win my second win condition planet using Ba’ar Zul as a damage soak. This would lead him to being bloodied and ready to tank his way through my winning planet. In most games this plan worked quite well. Ba’ar Zul would become bloodied on turn two or three and the game would be over by turn four or five. If it continued too long Ba’ar Zul would lose the ability to put pressure on. In games where my opponent didn’t offer enough opposition to bloody Ba’ar Zul I would use my own units to do so, triggering Ba’ar Zul’s Cleavers or letting Gleeful Plague Beast deal damage unshielded.

That said, playing our Hate-bound warlord is something of a tightrope walk. You have to be very conscious of when you let him go and how to use him through the entire game. Games required a somewhat reckless mentality otherwise I feel the pressure would have been too much compared to other warlords. I’m not sure I would really recommend using Ba’ar Zul at any high level events unless a player is very comfortable with him of focused on fun over competitiveness.

Since those tournaments I’ve added in Sslyth Mercenary, Seer of Deceit, and Gut and Pillage to help smooth out my economy.  I haven’t had enough games to really determine the effectiveness of these additions yet. What testing I have done is pretty promising, between Promise of Glory and Gut and Pillage I managed to get almost 40 resources in 4 rounds one game.

Straken

This deck is just a continuing development of the Colonel Straken deck I talked about in my previous War Journal – It Just Won’t Die. I only ended up playing a few games since not much has changed at this point. I added in Sa’caellum Shrine Guard to help smooth out the lower end of the cost curve. Otherwise most of the changes I made were minor number changes of units that I had already included. The deck is very strapped for space but at some point I would like to find space for Troop Transport and Inspirational Fervor.

As the meta shifts this deck still seems a reasonably effective style to use for Straken. Certainly it is the most effective I’ve come across. It is still lacking the over all control to actually become top tier, but we may see the tools it needs still yet.

Conclusion

Moving into the next rotation I will be catching up with the Planetfall warlords I haven’t had a chance to play with yet. Gorzod, Subject Ω-X62113, and Archon Salaine Morn will likely be the focus of my attention until at least Wrath of Crusaders releases in mid to late April, if not beyond that.

Until then, Loot all da trukks and make’m go fastaaaaaa!!!!

WAAAAAAAAGGGGH!!!!