Jam

Firstly plastic stormguard!

Stormguard are Cygnar's best in faction jam unit (though still by comparison a pretty shit jam unit) and a necessity for eHaley so I've been looking at them for a while but previously they only came in the 6 man box and places were always sold out... Anyway I thought this might be an opportunity for me to talk about the jam.

So what is the jam?

To put it simply it involves sticking stuff in key locations, either engaging ranged models or blocking charge lanes or gumming up scenario zones. There are a couple of things you need to make a good jam unit, you want it to have reach (in order to engage more stuff, add some threat range to your jam and make more of the board susceptible to free strikes) and it needs to be cheap or have some tricks to keep it alive (as you generally have to run these units and often their main contribution to the battle is to die). They also need to be able to do something when they aren't jamming. They need to have some damage output, whether it's what they do after the turn they jam or what they do when you can get the jump on your opponent or when you opponent is able to ignore them for some reason.

Some examples

Haley2 and the stormguard is a special case so I'll give some more relevant examples.

Everblight and Legionnaires - Of all the units in the Legion of Everblight the crappiest one is the one that sees the table the most because while beasts can fight and shoot they are less than ideal for jamming. With Vayl1 (my favourite Legion caster, possibly my favourite caster in the game) her feat lets you move things after the end of your turn. This means you can retreat all your beasts back and shove a cheap jamming unit in the way, they engage the ranged units and block off charge lanes to your more expensive beasts.  She also has chiller which drops DEF by 2 if you are within 2" of any model in the unit so I can use the unit as a chiller delivery system. I have killed casters with this method (although generally late in the game you end up using a shredder). It works well with other casters too I use them in about half my lists. Kallus in particular loves this unit and his feat and abilities are geared towards the jam tactic.

Mercenaries and Steelhead Halberdiers - Another unit that is perfect for jamming. They may not have vengence but they have set defence (+2 DEF if you charge them) and have a point of DEF better to start with which really adds to their survivbility (which is great in a jam unit). They also have an extra point of SPD so can run 2" futher (and still have reach from there). They have an extra pow as well which is marginally helpful, it makes free strikes a little deadlier. These get used with Magnus1 (who has a feat vaguely similar to vayls (at least in application) but also Ashlynn at higher points (to protect your shooting) and of course with Constance (when she is a Merc caster) who absolutely loves the shit out of this unit.

Trolls don't really have a jam unit, much like Cygnar they have units that can do it but do other stuff better and so you pay the points for that. Minions are in the same boat but while I think the lack of cheap throw away troops for Trolls and Cygnar is deliberate and characterful minions just don't have very many units, they only became a faction with the dawn of MKII so they haven't been around for very long. They might get something in a few books.

I'll metion two more factions because they bring up some interesting points.

Menoth have the Temple Flameguard which could be a great jam unit but don't often get used as such. Menoth has access to vassals which can give their jacks enliven (when you damage them they can walk away) and the choir who can stop you shooting at their jacks. They have defensive tricks without jamming, they still do use a unit to block charge lanes but it's usually exemplar errants. They get into position and shoot (with the jack happily shooting from behind them) and when you try to remove them they self sacrifice, if you want to kill that one model blocking a charge lane you have to kill all the other members of his unit within 3" before he will die.

Skorne technically have the Karax as their standard 4-6 point unit with reach but they are MAT 5 P+S 10 and don't have abilities to increase either of those (like combined attack or powerful charge). That means that while they can jam they can't do much else. Most skorne lists that I have seen jam with Nihilators. They cost more but they have tough (which is painful on a jam unit) and they are a good unit in their own right.