A Journey into Dark Age: Playtesting and Activations

It's been a little bit since I updated you on the progress of my Dark Age list, as I prepare for the March to Immortality.  Since my very first game I have played about 10 more games, and I've found myself challenging some preconceptions of the game.  Below are some of my musings and the current iteration of my list.

First up is activations.  In my research into list building for this journey, I came across one prevailing thought. People would post lists asking for opinions, and again and again the response would involve this thought.  You need enough activations.  For those of you not sure what I'm referring to, Dark Age uses an alternating activation turn sequence.  The logic being that the player with more activations can react better and control the field.  As I've played games, I wrote lists that had what I thought were an acceptable number of activations.  I used units that were points effective for creating activations.  What I found was though I had plenty of squads and individuals, I was struggling to have an impact on the field.  Dark Age is a game about killing your opponent, without effective killing models it didn't matter how many activations I had.  My friends and I tweaked the list and though I have only 4 activations at 500 points, I feel that they are ultimately more effective.  The prevailing thought behind this list is that I may have 4 activations to you 6 or 7, but if by turn 3 I've killed 2-3 of yours, we are on the same playing field.

Here is the list as it currently exists.  The pictures aren't my paint jobs, but ones I found that I like.

Father Mayhem

Raze

3 Buzz Blades

Blood Reign (Attached to the Buzz Blades)

Keepsake

1 Puppet (With Keepsake)

Now, for those of you counting at home, technically that is 5 activations, but the puppet is only there to give the Keepsake an ablative wound.  I played a variation of this list last night (instead of Keepsake and a puppet, it had 4 Buzzblades and Red) to great effect.  Red being the only unit to not do anything for me, thus the change to Keepsake.

In other news, I'm looking for more opponents, so if you are in the South Jersey/Philadelphia area, leave a comment below.  Until next time...

Belgarath97