Anti Colossal lists

So these will be from factions I play as those are the factions I know. I can give half arsed advice on how to build an anti-colossal list with the other factions and casters but it's going to be just something I saw someone else make work or stuff I don't really understand.

So a quick run down on casters I would take and how I'd use them.

Seige and two defenders (one marshalled) or colossal and defender, Reinholdt, rangers, Journeyman  warcaster and Eiryss. Jr puts arcane shield on Seige because he has to get forward for this. Run a ranger up to within 5" of their caster. Put foxhole on the colossal (or whatever else is screening the caster), Feat, Shoot twice with boosts with siege (Reinholdt lets him shoot the second time), shoot with Eiryss (if camping or using a defesive upkeep), then plough in the shots from the defenders (again with boosts) and then if it's more than 25 points you'll have some other shooting you can unleash. With his feat bonus this is pretty darn deadly. I might even throw in an Avenger and trencher master gunner in order to knock a caster down (why not?).

Fiona the Black. Long gunners, Galleon, Taryn, possible Eiryss again (though as in the above list she is generally surplus, something that doesn't quite work with the other stuff you need to do but in the right situation could make the difference), Dougal Macnaile. The idea here is to cycle nonokrion brand, Dougal adds range to the Galleon and adds accuracy. Taryn gives you extra opportunity to shoot through stuff, she is there mostly to give LOS to Eiryss. Rocinante might make this list as well because I have been playing him with Fiona and because you have the focus to give out if you are just going for the assassination (with wyshnalyr, who should always be in her list, she has essentially 9 focus).

Durgan, Kayazy, Rocram and a driller. you can cycle redline on the two jacks to great effect but the real kicker here are the Kayazy. They can go through the colossal to kill your opponents caster or they can get through to your colossal even if you put a jam unit in front of it and even though they are armed with daggers when they strap some explosives to those daggers they become colossal killers. As you already have Dougal in any good Durgan list you can also add Gorman and black oil the colossal out of the game for a turn or two.

Rhyas. This one relies on her feat. Her feat allows you to place anywhere b2b with the first model you damage. So take a Nephilim Soldier for massacre (charge for free, if you kill charge target move an inch and make another attack for free), a Scythean (your assassin, put Rapport on it to take it to MAT 8), Proteus or a shepherd (extend your crappy control range to include your teleporting scythean). Take a Seraph too just to move your threat range up to a million. (actually it's 6 + 3 (charge) + 2 (reach) + 2 Slipstream + 4 (base + reach again when you are placed) + 2-6 (the base of the thing you hit, + an inch if you kill it) you can push it too for an extra inch. So 20 odd inches but most importantly your front line + 4-5 inches (from the back of the bases of your front line).

Haley2 - yeah OK, everyone hates her. I have stopped taking Haley2 in friendly games which actually means that I haven't played her in over a year (and only then a couple of times). That said she can neutralise shooting to some degree and she can send a Stormwall hurtling up the field with an extra attack and 4 focus. After softening the colossal up with some shooting first and being safe from retaliation because of her feat.

Lylyth2 - Yeah OK I picked the other caster everyone hates as much as Haley2. You can't deal with colossals in this list but everything has stealth so the colosssal can't shoot at you. Most colossals rely a lot on shooting and when they automatically miss you and only scratch your beasts with blast damage they don't do that much. Besides you can damn well kill everything else in the army. Actually you can probably kill the colossal too, two ravagores and two bolt throwers with pin-cushion on feat will deal out quite a lot of damage. Then you can shoot it again next turn because your threat range is stupid long.

Absylonia - Blight field means no focus for your colossal. You can also jam a Gargantuan and achieve the same effect with that spell. She has a strength buff if she needs to kill the colossal and a way to make an Angelius DEF 17. Once your colossal is relegates to only it's inital attacks and no boosts she has the ability to tear apart the rest of your force. Quite a few armies will actually find the DEF 17 Angelius more difficult to kill than a colossal.

Doomshaper2 - The real advantage you have here is that you can refuge one of your beatsticks. So send in Mulg (with rage), beat it almost all the way to death and then refuge him back 7 inches and put a wall in front of him then send in an earthborn or mauler and finish the job. You'll lose that beast but Mulg will be relatively safe, you end up trading a 9-10 point model for a 18-20 point one.. Also you have massive threat ranges here on your beasts so you can get to the colossal. Just watch out for jam units and upkeeps. Upkeeps could be a problem here.

Madrak - He can add a damage dice to any unit and his feat gives everything another attack. Pretty much anything in his army will kill a colossal. Fennblades will kill a colossal with their POW 12s when they suddenly become weaponmasters. It's got to be the long riders though that will be the most feared. on they charge they will pack 2 POW 14s with 4 dice each + the feat attacks. The full unit is only worth 11 points.

Vayl1 - Catch a colossal in Incite, hit it with two scytheans (who are now POW 19) watch it die and then retreat back to safety with your feat.

Nemo1 - can give a jack 5 focus and a strength boost. And has access to eiryss (no upkeeps) and Cygnar shooting which can put a dent into it first. He also has his thunderhead assassination bullshit. I would not use the storwall for this manoeuvre. It can't use the out of activation movement to make up threat range (and change up charge angles) and it can't have arcane shield and the strength boost.

Stryker2 - Can use positive charge on a warjack (probably a stormclad) and charge the colossal. Then send in sword knights. They are suddenly POW 12 weaponmasters. They can then use reform (Runewood should almost always be in his list) to move in front of the warjack and give it a meat shield to protect it from some retaliation. Main problem here will be delivery as you can't do much to increase their threat ranges but 10" stormwall and 9.5" for the sword knights is not terrible.

Damiano - Deadeye, money shot (for steelheads) and Taryn di la Rovissi. Great thing about this is you can deadeye your gun mages and your steelhead riflemen, money shot the steelheads and still have 2 focus left over for Rocinante. Taryn shadowfires whatever is screening the caster (particularly if it's a colossal), gun mages can knock down anything else in the way or just blast away at the enemy caster. Riflemen do the same but with POW 13s or 5 POW 15s if your caster is a little higher ARM. To hit is boosted, from deadeye and they are both RAT 7 to start with (from moneyshot and gun mages are just awesome like that). Gun mages also will crit brutal damage 1/3 times so are quite useful in that regard.

Anyway that's enough for now. I hope I've kind of explained the way I approach colossals and given some understandable examples of the different ways I'm thinking about them and the way I would deal with them.