Player Profile: Mangsky

General Information:
Owner of Pitshop and Fortress Toys. If the growth of the hobby can be attributed to one person, it has to be the source. He brought in the models, and we got around to playing them.
Along with all the games we had with warhammer, warhammer 40k and now with the privateer press products, he's probably the one who we could consider the head honcho for these niche games.

Factions:
Warmachine - Menoth, Cygnar, Cryx (WIP) - Kreoss, Severius, Harbringer, Testament; Stryker, Haley; Lich Lord Asphyxious (WIP)
He's probably going to try all the factions save Khador, just because he can. Currently though he favours Menoth in competitive 1000 point games. And has proven all but impossible to beat in a straight up ToM + HoM list. Damn his infantry. He actually makes me want to play Khador again.

Hordes - Legion of Everblight - Lylyth, Vayl, Thagrosh
Eyeless sight and wings pretty much spell out the reasons why he even bothered with the Legion, but the great lack of defensive capabilities and the limited choices makes this his less favoured faction to play.

Favored Strategy/Tactics:
Figure out the most broken or most abusable strategy, add in the most unbalanced or the 'sideboarded' units. He'll try to figure out what you can bring and will take a list that can handle whatever you can possibly put on the table. The more competitive you are, the better his army becomes. It then becomes necessary to use all possible tactics against him, you cannot win by brute force alone. Use every terrain piece, scenario objective, and unit against him. Do not hesitate to use game psychology and all possible bluffs and feints as he'll definitely be using something that you will always have an uphill battle against.
He loves his zealots. He takes 2 units in 750.

Strengths:
Unlimited resources and extensive knowledge of his and your army. High rolling dice and pretty much plays to the strengths of his army.

Weaknesses:
Psychology is probably the only thing he is susceptible to as you can sometimes bait him to take one precious unit in exchange of the scenario win. Rare, but not impossible to do.
Doesn't know jacks and doesn't like focus allocation. If you want to win for sure, challenge him to a mangled metal game.

Notes:
Bring your ace game, and he'll play similarly. He can also play to your level if you're starting out. Expect the Kreoss drop and pop at 500 point games. He likes larger point games, current favorite is the testament of menoth with his soul tokens and revive.

Player Profile: Daemon Russ

General Information:
This guy has been around early in the days of warhammer and warhammer 40k. He opened Gamer's Shop at about the time we were peaking with the mage knight. along with the dumdums, we made Gamer's Shop our second home. Gamer's Shop provided respite and refuge to the heretics, and misfit players who in one way or another were pushed out by gaming cliques.
With the decline of the hobby due to the tyrannical monopoly of the stockist, the shop closed and our other games died out. And with the warhammer clique ushering us out, we needed to get into another game. We found one we could nurture when Mang started to bring in some new toys.

Factions:
Mercenaries - Four Star Syndicate - Magnus
When we actually started we both had wanted to play Cryx, but the fact that all the other players were already getting Cryx. It would have been like there was no other faction to play. So we wanted to get first dibs on the second hand faction of Cygnar, as Mang wanted to sell them off for looking goofy. Unfortunately, someone had beat us to it. He was supposed to get Menoth but Mang beat him to it. I beat him to Khador so he ended up with the Magnus starter.
The faction itself had a lot of flaws. He was probably the only one who had kept on playing a majority of jacks as the meta shifted to all infantry--not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't. There simply wasn't enough models at the time.

Legion of Everblight - All
The first ever HORDES and first Legion player in this country. He has at least one of everything and multiples of a lot of the models simply because early on he needed to get 2 starters just to get to play 500 points as that was the only thing out. Who would have known everyone would want to play the faction of land sharks after that.

Favored Strategy/Tactics:
Our games usually hinge on what his carnivean can do. Perhaps the limitation of the Legion has to do somewhat with his play style but generally his favoured tactics are on the more aggressive and high risk assassination runs. He focuses on high range and singular high powered runs which mostly leave him undefended later on as his dice betray him. Recently the arrival of the angelius has changed the meta a bit and basically he still want to get up front and into the fray as soon as he can. He has the capacity to use all his units effectively and can open up and take advantage of these that another player would have otherwise missed.
Now if only he didn't get bored/tired around every third round of every game.

Strengths:
Strong in all aspects, can utilize everything from terrain to units better than most players.

Weaknesses:
Bad dice rolling and often hesitates to make his opponent feel bad. Gets bored near the end of the game.

Notes:
Every player should have at least one game against the local pressganger. Even just to get whupped. He will wipe the table with you with a smile, and you'd probably be happy for it too.

Player Profiles

Will be doing a series on the local WARMACHINE/HORDES player profiles. I hope it helps everyone discover a little more of each other and help me learn if my assumptions are indeed close to the truth.

Most will just be poking fun at our current clique of players, not that we'll ever be really truly be at a level of competitive play to challenge anyone abroad but at least we can get better.

NB: Stole picture unceremoniously from our warmachineph multiply site. sorry kim.