Assassination Casters In Attrition

I've been writing a lot lately, I even have a backlog of posts, mostly due to the fact that I haven't been particularly well so haven't been able to do that much, that and I got a hold of war room (it's pretty but not as good for list building as FCU). I've also got stuck into some painting (I'll put a thanks up here for the swivel thing Uli made me though he'll never see it as that would require using technology).

My favourite lists are attrition lists with a dangerous assassination run. Vayl1 is fantastic at this, Caine2, Seige and I've recently spotted one in Caine1 which will probably see me put him on the table shortly.

The value of these casters is twofold. Firstly they can finish the game even when losing the attrition war with their assassination run and secondly when they don't assassinate they take your opponents caster out of the game and give you a huge attrition advantage.

I'll use Caine2 as my example. He's my favourite Cygnar caster (and I really want to run Keith's Caine2 list in the near future too). Caine has a 19" assassination death zone. He can with his feat shoot 10 shots at RAT 11 at increasing POW with the last shot at POW 22. Very few casters can survive it, especially since his lists will always have Eiryss to strip focus and Gorman to black oil (-3 DEF). In fact even without his feat very few casters can survive the 6 boosted POW 12 damage rolls he can give them or even four double boosted shots. Caine plays in the midline so if you want your caster close enough to cast their spells on your beasts/jacks without an arc node then you will almost certainly be in the death zone (to be read in a deep booming voice). Playing against this you have 3 options:

1. leave your caster back out of the game and forgo casting a lot of their short range spells and using some abilities. You can leave a model from some of your units way back so you can get some buffs out but otherwise your caster sits out most of the game.

2. Use your resources to protect your caster. This may mean that you camp a bunch of focus/fury or that you use models just to protect your caster. Something like errants that the Caine player will have difficulty getting through. Often it will have to be a combination of these things, especially if the list has some knockdown potential.

3. Move up and operate at full efficiency and hope your opponent fails the assassination.

All three options are good for the Caine player. The first two put your opponent at a significant disadvantage and the third will almost always mean that you win the game. One of the best things about Caine is that if you suffer dice failure you can generally still get away as he can gate crasher back to safety.

That's generally what having an assassination on the table does, it forces your opponent to give up something, whether it makes them hide their caster or waste resources defending them, it gives you an advantage. Sometimes your opponent won't see the assassination run coming, and sometimes they will be powerless to stop it. It also gives you an advantage in scenario as your opponent has to keep their caster away from the scoring zones. If you don't have a way to assassinate many casters will just sit in the scoring zone and prevent you from winning on scenario.

The only real disadvantage is to bring the assassination into play your caster has to play in the midline which puts them in danger. This is generally not as much of an issue as it sounds. All the good assassination casters have an assassination because they have these threatening spells or abilities that require you to bring them forward to use. They all also have something that makes them difficult to kill. Caine for example has the best DEF of any caster in the game at DEF 17, he can also put blur on himself (+3 DEF against shooting) and if you kill his jack expect him to sit happily in the wreckage so he gains cover (DEF 24). Same deal (actually worse as then he is +2 DEF in melee as well as from ranged, you won't kill DEF 19 Caine) if there is a wall anywhere on his side of the table. He'll be behind that wall the whole game, happily running forward, shooting 6-7 of your guys and teleporting back. Vayl1 also has high DEF (as she always has concealment) and has dark sentinel and Talion, which add to her ability to get forward. In the end though it requires you to think carefully about how you are going to protect your caster which is something I enjoy.