Captain Bartolo Montador List Overview

 

Broadside Bart

"I love my women like I love my cannons: large, loud, and full of fire!" - Broadside Bart

Captain Bartolo "Broadside Bart" is the first of several leaders I wanted to explore for the Talion Charter.

Initial List

My list focuses heavily on the Broadside spell, combo-ing with the powder monkeys for up to 3 shots per model (not including Galleon). I would have used 3x mules, but I only own one and I also love the model for the mariner. The idea is that the list present a ton of long range pressure clearing off objectives and forcing opponents to try and engage. The turn I expect them to do so, you use Barts feat Typhoon to make it a problem for them. after 2-3 turns of shooting the list can then engage in melee to clean up. The list uses far fewer units due to the jack focus meaning you are playing a bit differently from the standard Talion Charter tactic of infantry spam. But hey, if 3/4 of the leaders do infantry, why shouldn't I try the leader who loves his cannons?

Model Breakdown:

• Bart: Starting with the leader, Bart brings a few key things to the table.
  Bart has respectable stats but only arc 3 which is a large limiter for him. His initial abilities make him look like he wants to be in combat along with his jacks, but this is just one playstyle which we are not leaning into heavily.
  
  He has some respectable weapons, but they are secondary to his spell list. 
• Batten Down the Hatches: Makes your jacks easier to hit (spoiler they already are easy to hit) and makes their armor much better. This spell is really to use the turn you plan on engaging the enemy so you can outlast whatever survived your bombardments.
• Broadsides: Speaking of, this spell is what turns a few blast focused jacks into an army firing squad. Running multiple jacks to get max benefit is how we will earn the nickname of "broadside"
• Deadweight: A control spell that will rarely be used unless an opportunity arises, but don't  underestimate it. if they have infantry near a jack, you can kill the infantry then affect the jack then slam the jack away either with the commadore or a slam power attack. 
  
• Hot-Shot: Your other main spell for this build. The flow will be turn one cast is on the mule or mariner before they run up the board. Second turn you activate that jack and fire, use the powder monkey on that jack, activate Bart then broadside then cast this spell on another jack, then repeat the jack+monkey activation. Lots of boosted blasts since the spell affects all the damage rolls from the attack.
• Powderkeg, another control spell although meant to target a big model. Harder to get to go off as it required s a critical for its effect, but you can technically boost is for 4 dice on the attack, but then you have no focus for Batten Down or really anything else. 

Bart's feat, Typhoon, is dependent on enemies advancing into it, so you need to position where if they try to engage your models or contest the central objectives, they will be knocked down and as your mercy. The -2 to hit is nice, but I have generally found it to be mostly irrelevant especially as batten down give you -2 DEF.

 Cohort

• Galleon: The Galleon is this list's Colossal. 58 boxes but no structure, it isn't the most defensive at base stats. Bart helps this, but the point is to bombard the enemy to the point where they do not have enough to deal with it come time to engage.
  
  
  
  Good abilities, Bulldoze helps to bully things off of objectives and crane helps with repositioning and moving things like the commodore further up the board to be in range
  
  
  
  The guns are where this shines. Melee is fine with a nice POW21 attack, but really you want the 2x D3 attacks to obliterate any non-heavily armored infantry. This is also a real threat to the enemy caster should they get into range. Hot-shot can make these do a terrifying amount of damage to something, even heavily armored if you are willing to focus them all. And after the bombardment, you can harpoon the target and bring it in to finish it off. Add in McNaile's mini-feat and you have a nasty threat at 12".
• Mule: The mule is a great and affordable range attacker.
  
  
  
  
  Respectable heath and armor, Tried and true is nice but not the main thing you care about, although does guarantee Meg will always heal as least 2 boxes.
  
  
  
  Steam Lobber is the real gem. Arcing fire is nice to allow you other jacks to be better positioned OR you can use it to bombard backline support models or their warcaster. Steam pressure is great, but you only get the benefits during its turn, not during Bart's spell or the Ancillary Attack from the monkeys. Where you really like this model is its Crit Devastation. The ability to spam a shot that can force people off of objectives and bypass blast resistance is fantastic. It alone would make me run 3 if I had more (will work on acquiring them). Add Barts Hot-Shot and boosted pow15/8 is looking really good. 
• Mariner: The Mariner is carrying around a ship's cannon... 'nuff said... Ok but seriously it has a range 15, POW14/8 attack. That is pretty darn good. Add in that it has lash to help any infantry, and its great, although admittedly less useful in this list. 
  
  
  The key difference between this jack and other is its Thresher. If there are any infantry left, this can really mess them up when you go to engage them.
  
  Overall, the focus on these jacks allows a ranged bombardment strategy, particularly if we get to be on the defense side.

Solos

Our solos are some key support pieces.

• Dirty Meg: It is always valuable to have a repair action in a jack focused list. Meg is around just for that, but her Stall attack might be useful, but she sits at rat 4 so not likely. Just keep her behind the colossal to provide the repair.
  
  
  
  
• Master Gunner Dougal McNaile: This guy is to remove stealth on a key target and to buff a jack.
  
  
  The actions are where this guy shines. Being able to ensure you can obliterate a stealth target comes up rather often. However, the main action you use is Artillerist, making any of your jacks rat 7 before aiming.
  
  
  
  His weapons aren't anything to sing about, but not bad either. If your jacks are all engaged then he might want to tall a grenade into infantry or shoot something with his Quad-Iron.
• Powder Monkey: These are your key support pieces in this strategy. Run them behind the jacks to push them to fire fire fire! Once the jacks are engaged, you can judge whether or not the focus or an attack is more needed in the moment.
  
  
  
  
  Be careful as their explosion can cause just as many problems for you as it can for your opponent...
• Swamp Gobber River Raider: These are a mix between point filler and contester. Being 1-cost solos, they can still hold flags and ambush to contest. They help you still push the scenario and even can help with their melee debuff. If all they do is sit on a flag all game, they are worth it, but don't forget their other untility!
  
  

Units

We are only running a couple units for very specific reasons. Firstly we obviously are focusing on the jacks, but then each has their own purpose.

• Lady Aiyana and Master Holt: These two are more about Aiyana than Holt. She provides eyeless site plus magic weapons and an ever crucial damage buff spell targeting enemies.
  
  
  
  Holt just has some decent attacks, but keep this unit safe for Ayaina's sake.
• The Commodore Cannon and Crew: A cannon... and what a cannon. This thing has massive range that is a decently powerful attack along with built in slam! use this to knock down targets before you trop your other attacks into them or prior to a charge. The Incendiary Shot is another good option when you don't need the slam. Put it somewhere reasonably safe. It can't shoot when it moves so turn one use the crane on the Galleon to move one of its grunt up just a bit more to maximize their positioning turn one.
  
  
  
  
• Sea Dog Pirates:  This slot could be a couple different units and it may change in the future. I wanted a unit that could hold objectives for me and have a chance of living if anything got to them, or they could themselves rush into the fray. I am unsure if I will take them out in favor of something else, but right now I will see how they do for me. 
  
  
  
  They have awful stats and no infantry buffs in this list. That is why I am considering swapping them for a unit of gunners and a deck gun, perhaps even two deck guns and another Gobber! We will see if they prove to fill the role needed. Another option is to include the Devil's Shadow Mutineers, but again they have no support so are middling at best. 

In Summary

This list is looking to be fun but has a few key weaknesses. We will see how it fares and I will update it after I get some more games in with it. I have a June event and want to get some practice before hand. 

 

Talion Charter: The start of my voyage

Upon my return to Warmachine, I jumped into a new MK4 (4th edition) army. However, very quickly I had the desire to find and play armies I never had a chance back when I first played Warmachine over 12 years ago (guh, I am getting old). The one that I went out of my way to find and purchase the out-of-print models was the OG Pirates, the Talion Charter Mercenary Faction.

These are going to be both a hobby project and a fun way to jump into the game with! With this, I decided let's start a series of tacticas and strategy articles from the perspective of someone who is both relearning the game and learning the army! Just be aware I have done a LOT of talking with current Talion Charter players and have poured over everything. At this point, I am just lacking excessive experience but will be updating things as I play and learn! These will still be my own opinion and/or perspective!

A Swabbie's First Look

So, first thing to do is look at the army's overall status and characteristics.

Talion Charter (TC) is an "Army of Legend," meaning its models are out of print and the faction only gets rules updates once a year during the January update. The good news is there is a "Prime" list for the army, so it is still currently legal! I was fortunate enough to acquire all the models, so I get to play with them all!

TC overall is characterized by a few downsides, namely being low quality infantry with poor stats access to the mercenary warjacks who are also understated. This is balanced out by the faction having very cheap infantry and the jacks being cheaper and efficient for their cost. They utilize these core features by having multiple stacking infantry buffs and focusing heavily on outscoring through objective play, leveraging their numbers and many different slam or other control effects. 

The main struggles the army has is vs spammed high armor, anti-tough abilities, and multiple area of effect attacks. The infantry having lower POW means that the debuffs need to focus on the few most problematic enemy models/units. This means any army such as Winter Corps that can spam high armor multi-wound models will present challenges.  Our infantry also relies heavily on their 'super tough' status so anything that just ignores or prevents tough (grievous wounds or remove from play effects) completely negate the main way our army prevents enemy scoring. Lastly, with our heavy reliance on mass infantry, armies able to apply a lot of area of effect attacks can do a lot more damage if the right support isn't brought. 

The main strengths are that we have a LOT of cheap infantry than can cover not only objectives to score, but cheap ambushers who can run lots of interference and prevent enemy scoring. I addition, our ranged options have a plethora of blast damage and spray attacks making dealing with infantry rather easy. We also have a lot of knockdown and slam synergy that helps push enemies off of objectives. Add in that all of infantry has tough and we can indeed be hard to move off of the objectives.

Initial Leader Breakdown

I will go over each list option as I build and share them, but we will start with a general overview of the leaders. For leaders we have four options, each with their own spin on things.

• Captain Bartolo Montador: Broadside Bart is the leader who loves his warjacks. His spells list supports his cohort and brings some control options. He either wants to focus on being a melee cohort or a ranged cohort. his feat powerful but defensive in nature so planning battlefield engagements with him is important! This is one of my starting two leaders I have picked for my competitive lists so I will be going over him and my choices soon!
• Captain Phinneus Shae: The first of the leaders and the captain who started the Talion Charter, Shae focuses on mobility and controlling the objectives with mass infantry. He has incredibly high def to protect himself and brings a lot of support to get his crew where he wants them from a speed buff spell to his feat. Currently he is held as the best competitive option due to his focus on what makes the faction unique, spammed pirates!
• Fiona the Black: Our first really spell heavy warcaster, Fiona uses her infantry as arc nodes using Dark Rituals to cast her spells while staying safe. She also wants to focus on infantry but brings a few good control spells and the critical Curse of Shadows to help chew through high armor. She might be one of the best options to flex into assassination because of her spell list and her magical blessed weapon with grievous wounds. He feat is an incredibly powerful defensive debuff that can carry her games.
• Captain Rahera, Terror of the Wailing Sea: Rahera is a caster who also can lead Cryx armies and brings a bit of their style with her. She is highly mobile and when looking at her card she does a lot. She likes to make her jacks better at fighting with your infantry and improves your MAT and has an armor debuff and... she does a lot.. the challenge is she cannot do it effectively without killing enemies to trigger free spells. She has a great defensive spell in Rough Seas, so she wants to get into melee quickly. She also has the least number of games as she is a hard to find model so fewer people know what to do with her. She is my second list choice, and I look forward to figuring out her different tricks!

Time to Set Sail!

I will be sharing my lists over the next couple articles and breaking down each model choice within. I will also do an additional article looking at all non-choices separately in detail. I will bring battle reports and updates on how the army develops both on the paint table and on the war table! It's the pirate's life for me!

Warmachine is back! And I forgot about having a community O.o

WARMACHINE!.. Ok I don't have a problem... its a lifestyle 😎

Ok so I have been absent from gaming in general due to heavy work travel, not playing anything even video games. Well, that has all changed. Work travel has reduced, I am re-engaging with games, and in particular Warmachine.

The status of the game

Warmachine had all but fallen off of my radar, and often other people's from what I can see. I recently spoke to a friend of mine prior to Adepticon as I was going to attend this year, albeit working in an exhibitor booth. He asked me to look for Warmachine which caught my interest. He was getting into Warmachine? Well.. that was the initial shove that caused me to tumble ad dive off the cliff.

Within a few weeks of our LGS stocking the game, they sold out of the book and most of their stock. They have been getting more in, including the P3 paint line which was recently revamped. Now, nearly 2 months later, we are just now starting our journeyman league with 18 people signed up and more showing interest!

Even at the Adepticon keynote we were made aware of how everything has doubled for Warmachine in the last year, games played on LongShanks, stores supporting the game, and even people attending the keynote! Long story short, Warmachine is definitely back!

My own start

I got back into the game with Old Umbrey, a split of Kahdor focusing on beasts instead of the warjacks. I will do a few articles over them both for my hobby and list building. But that was the start... 

Next Steam Forged Games announced they were taking 3 of the old factions, Convergence of Cyriss, Grymkin, and Infernals, and releasing them as stls for people to purchase and print. I had always wanted to play Grymkin, so I jumped on this opportunity. 

Then I got a wild impulse and decided to buy a lot of old Talion Charter Pirates from a guy in Canada. I am stoked about this army as a hobby project although admittedly they are not the strongest. This will be my first focus for hobby and tactica blog posts for awhile. 

I have gone deep at this point, donating printed terrain and objectives to my local store, providing a couple playmats, etc. I am all in now.

What I forgot

One thing that has become clear from the rush of Warmachine in our area is we have a clear and growing community. Every week I have been showing up, I stay later than intended because of the conversation and community . I have not had this in what feels like years and had forgotten how valuable it is. At our first journeyman league night we had 6 games played and over 18 people signed up. 

Going forward..

From here, my main miniatures focused articles will be on Warmachine, but I will have a splattering of other things from time to time.