Borka...success!! (guest article)

Today we had a local 25 point tournament. Although my computer had a bit of a spazz attack and deleted my previous report, I'll give you a brief writeup and look into the lists I took.

Firstly, it was a 2 list event, so even though 25 points is a very small amount of points, you have to look at it and make sure you have two contrasting lists you can use that cover each others weaknesses. Because of the small point limit and the local-ness of the event, I decided to give Borka another shot as well as Grim, a Caster I like but just doesn't fell right.

List 1:

Borka

*Axer

*Mauler

Min Champions

*Skaldi Bonehammer

Trollkin Champion Hero

Min Krielstone.

So, the brick was back. Def 15 Arm 20 Champions are tough nuts to crack, combined with wind wall (all ranged shooting that is non magical misses) means they really weren't hurt until they saw combat. This meant I could trundle up the field, not worry too much about blast damage and get stuck in with some sneaky counter charging shenanigans from Skaldi too. The real point to this list was what I would like to call the Borka Catapult:

1. Keg Carrier tops off Borka for 7 Fury total and no-knock downs

2. Mauler advances 5.5”, has the Axers'axersanimus if he needs an extra 2”

3. Casts Rage animus on self (+3 STR)

4. Buys a power attack in Borkas rear, 6 to hit and boosts the roll, 95% chance to hit

5. Automatically wins strength test and Throws Borka 7.5” (plus 2 for Borkas base size) giving him essentially a 9.5” advance

   1. Generally this throw will only do 3 or so damage to him

6. Borka Pops feat and charges something with a 13” threat range. Has a total of 8 Attacks at PS 15

Furthermore, the beautiful thing about this is you can cast mosh pit for knockdown on your weapon, you could cast the maulers animus on yourself for PS 18 or if things are looking pear shaped, you can iron flesh up to a respectable def 17 and stumbling. Not bad for a drunkard.

The only real thing that was missing here was a fell caller to give him a potential mat 9. Mat 7 isn't the best against warcasters where you are usually needing 8+ to hit, especially when boosting attacks takes away your fury and makes him more and more vulnerable. Mat 9 is a HUGE increase and really increases his output.

The beautiful thing is, this gives Borka essentially a 21+ inch threat range, and more like 30 inches on a good day from where the Mauler is!! If there is one thing this game makes you realise, its that it is never really over until the fat lady sings... or you step out of the kill box :

My other list was:

Grim Angus

*Impaler

*Bomber

Fell Caller

Max Burrowers

Min Long Riders

This is a very different army to grim, a lot revolves around utilizing his feat and accuracy to help other units like the powerful bomber hit, the cavalry's impact be THAT much better and the assassination potential is still there, just in a different form. Also, the list has much better speed and alpha strike than the Borka list and tended to cover its weakness.

3/5 Games I played Borka, and 3/3 of those games I tossed a fully buffed up Borka into their lines. 3/3 of those games I won, because it was such an out of the blue tactic no-one saw coming. I love Warmachine!

Borka catapult complete, next project is Grissel.

Cheers!

James

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I wanted to comment on something I spotted in the "Borka... Success" article. I don't mean to discredit anybody, but it's something with the rules, and as you said you'd play more Warmachine, I think you might want to know.

The author wrote about a "Borka catapult", which, in essence, involves pumping the caster and then extending his threat range by 6" through throwing him with a warbeast, before he himself activates and charges.

That does not work. The Prime: Mark II rulebook clearly states that a model which is immune to knockdown is knocked down, it isn't - but if that model still activates during the same turn it would have been knocked down, it has to forfeit movement or action. He therefore would not have been able to charge.

I don't have a page reference, though, but if you have the rule book, just check the index in the back (which is the best thing about it ;-)).

Hope it helps,
yours,

Martin

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Hi Shawn,

Just saw the reply to the Borka thread, If you could slot this in somewhere that would be great.

Thanks for your sighting!

You are 100% correct. What I meant to say was you can sacrifice your action (fighting or shooting) to advance and cast spells (like iron flesh) on yourself. You are then def 17 arm 21 (with a krielstone) and bump around combat, as well as having transfers up your sleeve, a hard nut to crack!