Underwhelmed

[Thisendup]

I've played a few games now with Gibbering Hordes and they feel really underpowered.

My games so far have ranged from losses to horrible stomping into the ground. Only one was there even a slight chance of a tie if I pulled off an amazing set of flips.

For a melee faction we're not terribly good at melee and our abilities seem lackluster compared to the other factions (I would gladly trade a morphling for an Engineer or any three upgrades for rapier wit)

I only have my kickstarter stuff (armoured welks, basic set, frenzy, crawler, eggs, and morphling), but are other people experiencing this or am I just an anomaly?

[Rathnard]

I'll admit I've only played one game with the Hordes, and it was a proxy game using the starter box. But from that game i found them to be pretty capable.

The striped stalkers were hard to shift when in terrain and the eggs from the Karkinoi were ideal for eating (at first) and then threatening unguarded objectives in later turns.

The Tidepools were excellent for area denial, especially once made hazardous from the stormsiren going to glory. And Stormy herself was just brutal, with her Siren Call pulling enemy units into tidepools for damage.

That said, this was only one game. I'm definitely curious to hear what other Gibbering Hordes players have to say.

[Merchant]

gibbers have all the tools to succeed they might have the biggest learning curve tho. being at a perma -2 stat as a ranged faction is brutal, and the frenzy with healing magic makes for the best healers in game.

[-Loki-]

Also remember if you need something dead, giving Tidal Scepter to The Frenzy or Horomatangi lets them literally teleport across the board. Even easier in a 2 commander game with the Stormsiren since she places an extra Tide Pool during Scouting and can also dump a Tide Pool on their head so they don't need to set themselves up.

Horomatangi is particularly brutal for this. With both his Hordes and Burning Man restricted upgrades (Commanders attach assets based on sharing Allegiance symbols, which he has both of), he can activate next to an egg clutch and in base contact with a Tide Pool, go to Glory, teleport to any other Tide Pool, and either Rush or Focused Effort depending on where the target is, then hit with Superheated Claws. Then use Mighty Willpower to hit with Superheated CLaws again. If the target was a Commander, it will now have discarded (not flipped) both of its assets. Then he can use Tidal Wave (versatile) give make enemies within 3" take an S3 hit, then breath fire on them (versatile). Not much in the game will survive that kind of assault. And if they do, when they activate they take another S2 hit from Cloud of Steam.

[Jinn]

20 minutes ago, -Loki- said:

Commanders attach assets based on sharing Allegiance symbols, which he has both of

You do need to take the Cult Envoy card though, as you can only attach assets belonging to your allegiance. This does mean no Binh Nguyen.

[-Loki-]

True, but I'm happy to have a mega beatstick Horomatangi. Also it's nice to have 2 Assets that can discard up to 5 damage on him in a game with things like Railguns.

[SAYNE]

I had a similar experience when I was starting, I'll be honest, if you're playing single Commander with Storm you basically have to bring Relics and (personally) Unnatural Reflexes for Card draw/cycle and cheating second. It's so beneficial in the long run. Most of my games go to turn five and I usually only win by a few points, but that's kind of how it works some times. We play better on the slow roll game modes and Pitched Assault is a nightmare. Set traps is nearly unfair against Hordes since eggs can drop the traps so easily from absolutely anywhere.

You will lose more than half the battles, but when you win, they don't come back.

Also, Heavy Rains. At least once or twice a game. 

[-Loki-]

I think Relics of Ancient Malifaux is going to be a default choice a lot of the time. Being able to easily place Reinforcement tokens on units and the choice to make them Reinforce is so very powerful. Add a margin trigger to cast again and it's too good to not have on a Hordes Commander. It's most efficient on The Frenzy since it allows three casts, but that would also assume The Frenzy is in a position to use it, which is not always going to be the case. But Stormsiren? She's almost always going to have it.

[Siwy]

Keep your reinforcments coming all the time and make sure opponent doesnt get any.

 

Gibbering hordes models have terrible stats compared to other factions. But the idea is that they reinforce very well. (Zerg swarm?). Basic tools for that are: speckled crawlers (glory), frenzy (relics, necklaces) and feeding frenzy & spawning moon strategems.

With these tools you should often keep up with reinforcing casualties you take.

As it comes to keeping your opponent low on models: squall and cut them off are very usefull tools to reduce reinforcements. 

Armored whelks help in both cases: they protect from pinned and on glory remove tokens and give pinned.

Try to spend your tactics tokens on strategems. And dont focus so much on the cards.

[Thisendup]

So the jist of much of this is I don't have the best mix of models to play an effective Gibbering force. 

Since the game is not released until May, I'm going to have to suck it up and get as good as I can with what I have.

Armored Welks really have been the A team of my horde so far. Still trying to figure out the best way for Striped Skulkers and the Alpha Crawler.

So far the alpha crawlers main contribution to my game has been he looks scary.

I'll have to try the Frenzy with Unnatural reflexes and relic of ancient Malifaux. Sounds like a good combo.

[-Loki-]

I don’t find it worth dropping The Frenzy’s upgrade, Shark Tooth Necklaces. Immunity to Area and positive flips to duels is just too good, especially as it lets you fish for suits. Their triggers are great.

[Nef]

Speckled Crawlers help a LOT both in general but specifically Pitched Assault. Reinforcement Tokens are our bread and butter. 

[SAYNE]

Gibbering hordes probably more so than any other faction benefits immensely from having all units available to it and also making it to a turn 5 game. Most games I've won were won in the last two turns, when my numbers begin to reveal themselves. The area denial gets stronger and stronger. This is definitely a "slowly choke your opponent" army to me.

[cbtb11235813]

Having now played with/against every faction at least once (I've played real games with Hordes 3-4 times now, and Cult once. Played against Cult several times), I really think the Horde have the largest learning curve/difficulty to play. My philosophy is this:

You're going to lose models. Probably a lot of models. But more so than literally anything else in the game, you can keep coming back. Throw bodies at high value targets and wear them down. Put meat shields near objectives. Your opponent may still score but you can sure as hell make them work for it. As @SAYNE said, once your opponent loses something, it isn't coming back.

I played a game last weekend of Pitched Assault vs King's empire. Turns 1 and 2 I was behind. Turn 3 we ended tied. Turn 4 I was so far ahead there was no point in a turn 5. That is how I expect most of my Horde games to go

[spooky_squirrel]

That is what it feels like to play against it. There's attrition and control aspects to it that make it so that if you don't get an early lead as Hordes, take advantage of the cheaper Stratagems to set yourself up for a strong swing turn, then take advantage of the fact that your stuff keeps coming back to put weight of numbers on when the opponent no longer has enough bodies to hold/threaten all the objectives.

[Sybarite]

After playing against the Hordes starter twice I'm underwhelmed with them too. Is it just a weak starter? We felt my Cult was more mobile, hit harder and did a bunch of reinforcing with the Warped too so with their armour of 7-8 they're very resilient. The regular troops of the horde allegiance box feel lacklustre, other than maybe the karkinoi.

[Pergli]

17 hours ago, Sybarite said:

After playing against the Hordes starter twice I'm underwhelmed with them too. Is it just a weak starter? We felt my Cult was more mobile, hit harder and did a bunch of reinforcing with the Warped too so with their armour of 7-8 they're very resilient. The regular troops of the horde allegiance box feel lacklustre, other than maybe the karkinoi.

It does feel that way but I think hordes is more finesse than it looks originally. If you're playing the starter, your hardest hitting unit is your storm siren. Flipping her to glory and then dragging enemies into your 3-5 tide pools is devastating. Keep your skulkers touching terrain so they are always doing + flips and the karkanoi are there for clean up/egg spawning.

[Sybarite]

Not sure it's just finesse. I think they might be a little weak too, at least in the starter. The tide pools and siren's call are about the only scary thing. The Karkinoi could do some damage too I guess. I hope you're right though.

[-Loki-]

Hordes need a few units extra to help out. They rely on Reinforcement tokens and the methods of putting them down in the starter are limited.