Butcher3

Thinking about stuff with Butcher3

Things he wants:

Threat range extensions
Things that add to his survivability
Models that do not require support

Important Models

Corbeau - 3 inches extra for the Butcher is a big deal. It happens before allocation too so he can stay further back from his jacks if necessary.

War Dog - the arguses are part of Butcher's unit not attached so he can take an attachment, I'd take a wardog to help keep Butcher alive

Behemoth - Energizer and focus on behemoth is a scary proposition. The other option is to take Beast09 for reach + Energizer.

Black Dragon Iron Fangs + Great Bears + Widowmakers and Kell Bailoch - Jamie Perkins made a list I really liked where he used a lot of models that were able to pick column/spirals for warbeasts and warjacks so that you could stop them from shaking Sorscha1's feat. Butcher can with Grievous Wounds do a similar thing to warbeasts where you can remove their spirit spirals and prevent them from healing. (It's only melee attacks but you can use widowmakers to take out the spiral or finish off the spiral and have another model hit the warbeast with grievous wounds). These models also require no support.

Iron Fang Kovnik - to help the black dragons.

Greylord Ternion - Not sure they are needed but stationarying something then taking out its spirit is pretty neat.

Saxon Orik - Pathfinder for Black Dragons and Butcher if the dogs die.

Ogrun Bokur - Butcher is a great client as he needs to get forwards to do work so the Bokur isn't hanging back and gets to make attacks. You can take two, and I think that might be prudent.

Tactical Arcanist Corps - A little bit of extra survivability. They may struggle to keep up with the Butcher though so it's another thing that might not be needed. The Greylords might actually be better for this because they can just blizzard Butcher and give him concealment. If it's impractical to get a cloud in front of him you can at least give him concealment.

You can also add in something to force command checks in case he pops his feat after engaging some models in a unit (which is likely as he'll want to attack and then replenish focus). Alexia2 is a good option, Doom Reavers work too.

Other stuff - Khador have a lot of good infantry options, there are a lot of other things you can throw into the list that do well without caster support. Kayazy, Nyss, Wintergaurd and Joe, Doom Reaver, Uhlans, Shocktroopers and the Iron Fang Kovnik, Boomhowlers...

I'm coming back to this draft after listening to Muse on Minis talk about him, it seems my ideas aren't particularly out of the ballpark but that's probably a good thing.

New thought about Greylords - Butcher is a really excellent Harbinger match up because silence of death stops both Martyrdom and Self Sac on the errants. Greylords have sprays that are spells so if they target a Khador model (or at least a non-zealot) they can spray dead zealots under minifeat. This applies to both the cav and the Ternion. I think the Cav's stationary ability might be good on Butcher as well.

Edit2:

Alexia2 - Feeling even stronger about her after a bit of a think. I wish she had reach, with reach and silence of death she would be able to munch infantry. Even without she adds some spell defence to the Butcher, that also keeps her near him to force a command check on the feat and near two Bokurs so if your opponent does not have a lot of ranged attacks you can shield guard them regardless of whether they are targetted at the Butcher or Alexia. Impending Doom is going to help her collect some souls. This does preclude Alexia1. Alexia1 has some interesting synergies too. Risen are cheap and you can use them to gum up charge lanes. She hits harder than Alexia2 and there will be a lot of infantry models for her to get corpses from.

I was looking through the Mercs entry to try and find some models that could collect corpse/soul tokens and buy attacks or who had Beserk to really abuse silence of death. I did find a solo with Berserk and reach: Gudrun. Ahh Gudrun, you useless sack of crap, have I found a place where you can flourish like a golden turd?

There is a stupid section in the back of my brain that is leaning towards Rorsh and Brine and a Road Hog. Rorsh and Brine because big threat ranges + Silence of death will kill a lot of hordes casters and you can bring sprint into the equation with energizer and two heavy hitters (Butcher and in this list Beast09). You can also ping Brine for a point with one of your snipers and from then on he will charge for free. Greylords can provide a hit buff (maybe) as well.

Edit3:

Press Gang and Sea Dogs - Ok this one might be stupid but hear me out. You have ARM cracking in Butcher, two dogs, two Bokurs, Behemoth of Beast09 so from there you take the full pirate suite, Press Gang, Sea Dogs and all the solos (Including Alexia1 but not including Rhupert, stupid Khador, why did you have to murder his family?). Then you put silence of death on the Press Gang to build an uber unit of Sea Dogs and recycle them into zombies. Being 4+ tough while your opponent cannot have tough seems good.

Vayl, Consul of Everblight (insert love hearts here)

I have played a ton of games with Vayl2 and I love her, Ed has not so much love.

Spells and Abilities

Vayl (much like my other love Caine2) is a squishy low ARM caster who loves to play attrition but will assassinate the shit out of you if you give her half an opening (and she really only does need half an opening). Much like Caine you want to save her feat for late game when you can assassinate a warcaster unless you need it to remove a key model from the table. Unfortunately her feat does not have quite the hitting power of Caine's feat but if you combine two boosted Ravagore shots with two boosted Obliterations you can take down some heavy targets.

Her main spell as far as game-play is concerned is refuge. That spell is huge in Legion. You cast it on an Aneglius which is SPD 7 and has reach and it can be 9" away from the model it attacked. Casts its animus before it refuges and it pushes everything 3" further away before it moves so it is 12" away from enemy models. She can cycle that spell between two Angels and they become very potent and very hard to remove. She also has Occultation and Admonition (stealth and a spell that allows you to move away when a model comes near your model). The combination of those spells makes her an excellent denial caster. Icy grip helps tremendously with the lowish MAT of Legion beasts (-2 DEF, offensive spell and stops special attacks like bile thrall purges) and as part of the assassination run and Purification is still a ball busting spell of uber ridiclousness.

Army Composition

You want to go for the theme force here because it is almost exactly what you would be taking anyway. You want double Angels for the repulse/refuge trick, Admonition is another spell that supports heavies and the spawning vessel is fantastic with an assassination minded caster. Other than the double Angelius you want something to feed the spawning vessel, something else with flight for the theme force bonus, then fill with points discounted heavies.

At 50 points I recommend strongly to go double Ravagore. I spent a lot of time with Vayl playing two Angels and a Seraph as my three flying beasts because that made a lot more sense to me (points discount, threat range extender and movement shenanigans for the assassination) but she the points are better spent on ravagores. The Ravagores do a lot of damage from range, the Angels retreat again giving you distance, they complement the list quite nicely and their ability to shoot at casters complements the assassination more than the movement shenanigans of the Seraph. Vayl already has 25" on the assassination, she doesn't generally fall short. The issue with the Seraph is it doesn't do enough. It slipstreams and then shoots at infantry, poorly. A bit extra range would help, a damage buff so it could shoot at heavies would help. I don't know how much SR 2013 changes this for her, it changed my 35 point list, putting in a Scythean rather than a Ravagore for more forwards presence (and now I am trying an afflictor instead of the Sorceress and Hellion as well) but I haven't played enough of her at 50 points in SR2013 to be 100% sure. She doesn't struggle too much with scenario because the double Angelius makes it easy to clear a zone, she can spawn a lesser and launch it into the enemy zone without losing anything and walking into her threat ranges is always painful. The afflictor creating solos and then refuging away is great for scenario.

If you do take her out of her theme force take Raptors. They are silly with Occultation. That's the only weakness of her theme force, the lack of raptors.

Things to Avoid

Carniveans. I don't know why this beast gets so much love on the legion forums. It's like a scythean except worse and costs more points. You don't need spiny growth, take the reach beast.

Throne of Everblight. It's in her theme force and some people are tempted to use it to screen her. Don't. It's pretty good if you can armour stack it but she can't.

Light warbeasts other than the afflictor. You get a points deduction for heavies and legion heavies are so much better for their points than our lights. The afflictor gets a pass because you need a third flying beast for the theme force and it helps with the low model count. The other option is the Harrier, both are fine.

Hex Hunters - Stealth actually becomes a problem when you have a squishy caster with a low model count. She has little synergy with them and often wants to kill her own models to create lesser warbeasts, the cheaper Legionnaires are better for that as well.

Tips for Playing Her

She doesn't piece trade, she removes pieces without risking her own. In that vein don't risk your pieces. Refuge your angels, use your ranged firepower, use admonition, force your opponent to come to you and tear them apart piece by piece.

Try to hold onto the assassination. The Angels can shoot, as can the Ravagores, keep them alive, remember the massive range of the spawning vessel, it contributes too and you can kill your own models to spawn that lesser warbeast. If you use the feat you lose a lot of assassination potential, avoid using it unless you really need it.

Look for scenario, if your opponent doesn't have an out for stealth get her into the zone. It helps threaten the assassination and lets you dominate. Use the repulsion on the Angelius and remember that you can charge with vayl, hit something, repulse, refuge and then repulse again. Vayl herself can move a model 6" which will get it out of most zones and away from any flags or objectives.

The biggest mistakes I have made with her have been trying to do too much. She has a very good long game, use it. If you bite off more than you can chew you lose more than you are prepared to. Be happy to pull your opponent apart slowly as long as it keeps your force alive.

Other Playstyles

The only one that really counts in the Seraph. I don't like it at 35 in 2013 and I didn't like it at 50 in 2012. I don't think the scenario changes make a difference, Vayl is still a scenario monster.

My list


Legion of Everblight
Machinations of Shadow (Vayl, Consul of Everblight)
(Tier 4)
PCs: 50 / 50
27 models

[00] Vayl, Consul of Everblight (0 / 6 WB)
[09]  >> Ravagore
[09]  >> Ravagore
[08]  >> Scythean
[08]  >> Angelius
[08]  >> Angelius
[02]  >> Harrier
[01] Blighted Nyss Shepherd
[01] Blighted Nyss Shepherd
[01] Spell Martyr (1 Martyr)
[06] Blighted Nyss Legionnaires (9 grunts)
[03] Spawning Vessel (6 grunts)

Pretty much all 50 point Vayl2 lists will be this exact list. It's just the way the points work out with the theme force bonuses and requirements. I really want to put an afflictor in for the Harrier but though the spell martyr can go (it's there as the only one point option) I don't have another point in the list. 

Match Ups and Pairings

I have had huge difficulties finding a pair for Vayl2. I think Thagrosh1 would probably be my go to pairing but meh. In a three list format it's easy because I can take Vayl2, Lylyth2 and any of the warlocks that like to get forwards (Vayl1, Saeryn or Thagrosh1).

Her main two weaknesses are colossals (the will always be able to get to your angels if you refuge away from them) and armies that have an out for stealth and can play for scenario. As such she hates playing against Legion and Cygnar in particular. If your opponent has no guns she will walk all over them. There is no easier match that Vayl2 against a list without guns. 

Caine2 Tactica

Of all the Cygnar casters the one I love the most and the one that I think is the most competitive (better than Haley2 in my opinion) is Caine2. I love him to pieces and I have the most play experience with him out of the Cygnar casters.

Spells and Abilities

Caine has some excellent army support spells in his bag in Blur and Heightened Reflexes but by far the best thing he does to support his army is shoot a unit dead every turn. His feat is a useful assassination threat but it should never be the be all and end all of his game. It is more useful as a threat than as a mainstay of your game plan. Focus on killing troops and projecting threat, if your opponent leaves him self open for the feat by all means take it but it is generally more useful in forcing your opponent to camp focus, find cover or other defensive bonuses or just stay further back where his ability to influence the game is lessened.

Army Composition

Squire, Reinholdt and Rangers. These are auto includes in any Caine build. Rangers are just awesome all round but the extra +2 on Caine's feat turn will often buy you 2 more shots (when he's taking 10), since the POW goes up with every hit these will be the high POW shots, the POW 20+s. Reinholdt is the best one point imaginable for Caine and the Squire is how you get up to 10 shots on feat turn.

Since Caine is going to be shooting all the infantry dead you don't need any infantry clearing in his army, what you need is a jack that uses an absolute minimum of focus (0 preferably) and pieces that can crack ARM without warcaster support. Highly recommended are Forge Guard and the 4 arm fixers Cygnar has access to (Aiyana and Holt, Ragman, Eiryss to shoot off upkeeps like arcane shield and defenders ward and Gorman for Rust). Alexia and the Risen are also a great asset for him. Alexia with 20 risen will kill most heavies dead. You charge then buy 10 boosted attacks.

Other than that if you are looking for synergy Boomholwers are dumb with heightened reflexes. 4+ tough and they are not knocked down makes the unit a massive pain to chew through. Don't take them if you feel you are compromising your ability to crack ARM. Ol'Rowdy is a particularly good choice for a jack, he has high power attacks, runs for free and charges for free. Counter charge is a particularly good ability.

The other thing you can do when you have a troop swarm like Caine favours is to go though tough and recursion route. When you have a lot of tough models you can force your opponent to spend a lot of resources killing them, particularly when units like Boomhowlers are 4+ tough. If you combine this with Alexia you also get the dead models coming back as risen. The combination of the two makes it even harder than normal to fight through a troop swarm. One of the ways to get tough is through the piper (Rhupert Carvolo) and he also grants fearless which I would say is essential for a troop swarm. We have all been in games where a failed command check takes important models out of the game, particularly if they are the only models contesting the scenario.

Things to Avoid

I'm going to talk about the things I occassionally see with Caine that I don't think suit his play style. I'm going to skip over things you never see that are also bad choices like trenchers or Hammerfall High Shields.

Gun Mages. Gun mages are very good at shooting infantry models, particularly incorporeal and stealth models. Caine shoots exactly the same targets but better. When you add in the shots from the rangers you have plenty of infantry clearing at range. Save the gun mages for a deadeye caster and take some ARM cracking instead. Boomholwers and Forge guard and Alexia also have no problem killing infantry models either if you need it. EDIT: I should add that I don't mind gun mages if you are going double hunter. The gun mages are awesome jack marshals for the hunters and the hunters give you some long range punching power against high ARM.

Storm nouns. Caine is the best grind caster in the game because no matter how much damage your opponent does to your army Caine will still be there shooting the crap out of stuff. He can feat to remove a heavy and even without the feat will still kill most casters. 5 Boosted POW 12 shots are a problem for most casters, especially when they are coming in at RAT 11. Storm nouns die too easy, yes you can put arcane shield on them but you can also arcane shield forge guard. Go for the more survivable models to give Caine the time he needs to grind out your opponent.

Stormwall. That thing is a focus hog and Caine wants that focus. He does nothing to support it so you need to bring that in and he doesn't give the forwards momentum that Caine wants. Caine wants he army to press into his opponent so he can sit just behind it murdering infantry and forcing the opposing caster to worry about the feat assassination. Stormwall wants to sit back and shoot and force models to come to him. He's not a match for Caine2 put him in your other list.

Tips for Playing Him

Go first if you can. Get into the scenario zones as deep as you can and keep pressing forwards. AVOID LOW PERCENTAGE ASSASSINATIONS! That has to be the biggest mistake I see with Caine, players get fixated on getting the feat off and often use it when the enemy caster is in cover or camping a lot or both. Work out the maths in your head. If you need 5s to hit you are going to miss two shots, if you need 6s to hit you are going to miss 3 shots. If the POW of your final shot is two below the ARM of the opposing caster then you aren't going to make it. If you need to boost to hit remember that you only get 5 shots, if you need to boost both only 3 shots. As soon as the assassination looks unlikely pull out. If your assassination is close to the border line and you miss the first shot pull out immediately, figure out where the feat shots will do the most damage, shoot there and save 3 to gatecrasher to safety.

Other Playstyles

I know some people are talking about Tempest Blazers with him and I don't dislike it. Put blur on the unit, send it out on a flank and get behind your opponents models. Having Caine in front of your army and tempest blazers behind is a nightmare. They don't fit into the list I have built for him but if anyone ever runs a tournament with reinforcements then they are straight in the list.

I'll mention here also although I dislike the list, the avenger assassination tactic. If you take an Avenger and marshal to gun mages and take a Trencher Master Gunner you can push models around with the gun mages to get the opposing warcaster in AOE range of the Avenger and if there is nothing in between you can snipe the Avenger and just shoot straight at the caster. You can also use the avenger to just shoot screening models to ensure Caine has LOS to the caster. Caine's feat works a lot better against a knocked down caster. I don't like the tactic because it places too much focus on assassination and you are picking options that make your list worse at attrition to make it better at assassination. Caine doesn't need to be any better at assassination but he does need to have a good attrition game in order to ensure that assassination is on the table.

My List


Cygnar
Standard Army
PCs: 50 / 50
47 models

[00] Captain Allister Caine (0 / 5 WJ remaining)
[02]  >> Squire
[09]  >> Ol' Rowdy
[03] Journeyman Warcaster
[05] Rangers
[02] Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
[02] Gorman Di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
[03] Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
[02] Ragman
[01] Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator
[09] Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (9 grunts)
[05] Alexia Ciannor & the Risen (9)
[08] Horgenhold Forge Guard (9 grunts)
[04] Lady Aiyana & Master Holt

This list is shamelessly stolen from Keith Christiansen who is my Mercs/Cygnar guru. I used to have a thing against playing lists other people had come up with but I've changed my opinion. I want to play fun lists and I want to talk about my lists with other players. I'm not going to avoid playing a fun list just because someone else has come up with it and boy is this list fun. Having your warcaster just obliterate stuff is just amazing. I had a game against Cryx where Caine killed two pistol wriaths, the entire withershadow combine, more than half a unit of mechanithrals, a Krakken and Asphyxious3. That was my first game with this list. My other games have had similar results. I will warn you though that around turn 3-4 of Caine just destroying everything it starts becoming impossible to hold in the pew pew noises. 

In this list the Boomholwers are 4+ tough no knock down, the forge guard are ARM 21 and tough, anything that dies comes back as a zombie and you have all 4 ARM debuffs. Apply all of them to a colossal (say a Krakken) and Caine will kill it without feating. Boomholwers with shoot a colossal to death. Even just one or two and the Forge Guard and charging Boomhowlers will get the job done. That redundancy is what makes the list so good at cracking ARM, you can probably kill one or two ARM fixers but you aren't going to kill all 4, not until they've done what they are in the list to do. 

Match ups and Pairings

The list has very few bad match ups. It really wants to avoid anything that can remove tough and RFP and casters Caine can't assassinate (there are a few). The only character that really bugs me when it comes to pairing is Reinholdt. Too many casters want that guy, all the rest of the characters here I can live without in any other list. If you are willing to run Caine against Ravyn and other assassiny (definitely a word) casters and just keep him in his deployment zone until the assassination is gone then you can go with Haley2 or Nemo1 or Nemo2. They all run jack heavy very well. Kraye too can run double Stormwall quite well.

Meta Bender - Asphixious2

What's the Problem?

• 20+ weapon masters with good P+S, of those 10 have reach + vengeance + ghostly and 12 have dark shroud and tough and stand up for free and stealth. One is Tartarus. After you kill them 10 get to come back and attack you again. Including Tartarus. Who still gets to use all of his abilities like curse and he creates more banes because there weren't enough. You can also bring back the Sea Hag so you have no tough. Parasite on top of that means there is nothing in this game he cannot remove from the table at will.
• Excarnated bile thralls. Not only do you have to deal with bile thralls but new ones are created from your own dead guys and placed in range while the bulk of the unit hides in safety. Bile thralls purge and kill all your infantry.
• Soul Reaper - he always has more than 7 focus, and he can place his soul gathering template in the best place possible, excarnate a bile thrall, parasite a heavy/colossal and then teleport away to safety.
• He can place clouds to block LOS to anything you want to kill, these clouds auto kill single wound infantry. 
• The clouds, combined with teleport, combined with hellmouth (can't charge asphixious and 5" from him is all rough terrain) combined with his excellent stats and any focus he doesn't spend pushing his ARM up and Wrathe often being around so all living models are -2 damage (he lets stuff move extra on feat turn as well) makes asphixious almost invincible.

With his feat not only will asphixious kill anything you love but he can always clear a zone and he has no problem dominating being one of the most difficult models to kill in the entire game. This means that if Ashpixious can get to 2-3 control points without using his feat (just applying a buttload of weapon masters and excarnated bile thralls) he pretty much automatically wins. He can also use the feat to get ahead and put a lot of pressure on his opponent. He generally only needs to be able to dominate once more to win the game. 

He also creates a situation where he has so much infantry on the table that if you don't have a lot of infantry clearing you will just be overwhelmed. He has no problem cracking ARM so a lot of low model count armies  find they just cannot remove enough banes. High model count armies often find themselves bane purged and death knelled to peices.

How to Deal

Don't let him assassinate you with the feat, keep your caster safe, distance is your friend (but really you can't be far enough away to be 100% safe, use terrain and use models that cannot be killed by a single Bane. 

The feat requires you to charge so abilities or spells that target your own models and prevent them from charging completely protect them from the feat. Those abilities also provide fairly decent protection from Banes. 

Don't ever just kill one Bane Knight. Wipe out the whole unit or don't touch them.

Attacks that remove from play are your friend. If you remove a model from play it does not come back on feat turn. Tartarus should be your main target for this followed by the Bane Knights (and the Blood Hag). Tartarus makes the feat particularly deadly, his ability to thresher with reach and curse is a big part of the feat. 

You need to be able to remove a lot of infantry. There will be 40+ models on the table. You can shut down the excarnate bile thrall trick with magic denial or by targetting the bile thrall unit with an ability that prevents special attacks. You also want a list that can't be taken off the table by 10 MAT 8 P+S 13 chargin weaponmasters. You almost certainly want to avoid a colossal. 

Caster Recomendations

Cygnar - Haley1. No charging within 16" of her means he has no feat. It also means that those fantastic weaponmasters need to slowly slog it up the table through covering fire templates and a hail of gun mage shots. You should always win this match. Just be careful to camps some focus when Asphixious manages to get some extra focus from his soul reaper otherwise he will just excarnate you to death. Other than her Haley2 often has a decent game, the feat shuts him down for a turn and again he will only kill a Stormwall with the feat. Arcane shielded Centurions are spectacular at holding zones (just watch out for slams from his arc nodes). Caine2 will RFP all the Bane Knights and Banes like killing heavies not trying to wade through super tough - no knock down Boomhowlers. Cygnar really doesn't care about this match up, the faction is full of answers. 

Legion - Lylyth2 has enough AOEs that set everything on fire and stop infantry advacing to chew through the infantry here. Saeryn is full of answers. Vayl2 has options and Thagrosh2 will at least give you a game.

Trollbloods - Grissel1 is generally the one you want to go to. Grim Angus has game too. Madrak2 will take all that infantry off the table without difficulty and even Asphixious cannot assassinate him. 

Menoth - Harbinger can handle the match, fear of god, her feat and her own excellent scenario abilities make her a decent match up for the litch. High Reclaimer shuts down charging thanks to his clouds and has Ashes to clear up infantry. This match up can be trouble for menoth however you can battle your jacks every turn which allows you to do a fair amount of damage with redeemer templates.

Minions - :( Rask is probably the best minions can do. 

Mercenaries - MacBain has some game, as does Fiona and Shae. The dwarf casters make a game of it but only if you take them outside of Searforge. 

Tournament Talk

I want to skim over a lot of things in this post.

First - There are quite a few people excited about the club challenge I want to run. It looks like we may even have a team from Melbourne coming up. If we get a team from Melbourne and do not get a team from the Guild I WILL MURDER ALL OF YOU.

Results - Due to the odd number of players and results kind of working the tournament should have finished a round early however we played the last round anyway. This left me on at that stage 3 wins 1 loss playing Jeff Traish on 4 wins and no losses. I won that game leaving 3 players on 4 wins and 1 loss. Me, Jeff and Creagh. The first tie breaker was strength of schedule (how well your opponents had done), since we had all played each other it came down the other guys. I picked up 3rd, Creagh 1st. Didn't play Haley2, first time I'm sad that didn't happen. I wanted to live the dream and kill her on her feat turn. 

About the meta - Not nearly as many colossals as I expected. No stormwalls. None. There was a Mountain King, Two Krakkens, Hyperion and a Conquest. No Galleons but no Merc players which is generally the way (no minions either, it's usually either one or none for those factions). More warmachine than hordes, infantry machine is alive and well, the doomshaper1 theme force and the Vayl2 theme forces are good. They took second and third. Menoth are a strong faction. Guns are still a thing, expect to see guns. The scenarios are very winnable and if your opponent can't jam you, you almost always want to go second. No one was jamming, I did have a ret player jam me with quickened halberdiers but that was after they had killed three Legionnairres so copped almost a full vengeance. That also allowed me to spawn and then refill the pot. The spawning vessel is ridiculous for 3 points. 

About my tournament pairing - By this I mean my competitive super series invitational (essentially the Australian Warmachine Weekend or national championship) lists because I'm still going to screw around with stupid lists and caster combinations for everything else. Last year it was Saeryn and Lylyth2. After seeing how good Vayl2 is I think I want to include her. I don't know who I'd pair her with. Lylyth2 eats Haley double stormwall and Bart Galleon as well as the protectorate gunline and Saeryn does pretty well against Asphixious2 and Cryx in general, as well as Trolls and Skorne. Vayl2 has game against everyone which is great but makes it more difficult to think of a good pair for her. I could always go Mercs and take Bart Galleon and pair with Damiano, Ashlynn or Shae. EDIT: Just spent some time going over all my lists and I am feeling Vayl1/Vayl2. Super series is in May btw so some time next month expect to be saying a lot of Vayl. 

About Colossals/Gargantuans - I played 4 games against colossals, two in the tournament proper and two in my practice games in the week leading up. I destroyed only one and that was in a practice game, both colossals I faced in the tournament I did not even damage. I won all 4 games. You can't contest all the scoring areas in 2013 with a colossal, if you can't kill a colossal you still have a game. My colossal advice should probably have an addendum - don't get fixated on the colossal. If you get tunnel vision you can throw away opportunities to win. In this list I had no way to minimise the colossals, I just ignored them and killed their caster and/or went for the other scoring area. The colossal needs to predeploy and can't run if it wants to shoot. I would have went after the colossals had I needed to, my list is capable of killing them but as always in this game you prioritise targets based on what will put you ahead on scenario or attrition or to set up an assassination. Always focus on winning not on killing the big scary thing. 

Playing Against Mercenaries

Bartolo Montador

What does he do - his feat knocks down anything that moves and stays in his control area (and also gives -3 on attack rolls). He adds ARM to all his warjacks, hot shots one (boosts all ranged damage rolls), and can make everything in his battlegroup shoot again outside of activation. 

What does he bring - Galleon

How do you play against him - Armlock your heavies, get the behind walls or bring a shield guard and hide it behind your heavies (so it shield guards and gets pushed to B2B with your heavies). Spread out your infantry, have a plan, if you can't kill an ARM 24 Galleon set up the assassination or do something else to take it out of the game. 

Phinneas Shae

What does he do - Makes his pirates stupid fast, pulls assassinations out of nowhere, Storm Rager (a warrior model becomes awesome) and Phantasm (reduces the RNG of some ranged attacks when you shoot at one unit).

What does he bring - Pirates and all the solos, Nomads

How do you play against him - You are going to eat the alpha strike. Shae has one of the longest in the game. Set yourself up to survive it. You won't be able to pick match ups either the pirates are too fast and have advance deploy. Take out the solos, make use of things that stop tough. Watch for the assasination there is the commodore cannon (keep your caster away from your jacks) Blow the Man Down (stay clear of Shae) Storm Rager can make a warrior model awesome and Veil Of Mists (which will let Shae's stuff move through your stuff). 

Gorten Grundback

What does he do - Slides a chunk of stuff 8". Reduces their SPD, RAT and DEF. No blast damage, no knock downs, puts up a rock wall and his jacks hit stupid hard.

What does he bring - Dwarves and/or gun mages or Kayazy. There are a number of different builds with him that work.

How do you play against him - Same advice as for Galleon when it comes to avoiding being pushed by Gorten's feat (armlock your heavies, block of models with terrain). Watch the scenario, he has no problem dominating and will push all your stuff out of the zone with his feat. Use the advantage you have with threat range (particularly over his jacks) and be careful he can't slide half your army forward and kill it with his feat as that's really the only way he's going to alpha strike you.

Durgen Madhammer

What does he do - Blows up all the things. He makes his infantry awesome but also explody (if I can make up an adjective). He personally will kill all your infantry. 

What does he bring - low ARM infantry (Nyss, Steelheads, Kayazy), Dougal and Reinholdt

How do you play against him - Spread out your infantry. You'll still lose a bunch but don't make it easy for him. Durgen tends to get assassinated so keep on the look out for that. 

Building A Skew List

I haven't talked a lot about skew lists. The idea behind skew lists is to do the opposite of balance a list. For example you can skew high DEF, you put as much high DEF stuff into a list as possible. Most lists try to do stuff, skew lists instead say to your opponent - can you deal with this? If they can't you win and if they can you generally lose. There are a lot of different ways you can skew a list, the most common is probably high DEF in Khador. Where you take Kayazy and Winterguard or Nyss Hunters and abuse Iron Flesh (and sometimes Weald Secrets). It's not just high DEF or high ARM you can skew a list with. The 42 doomreavers list (Epic Zoktavir theme force) is a skew list. Pretty much all double Colossal lists are skew lists, you won't get the same offensive power out of two colossals as you will almost anything else but if your opponent can't deal with two colossals you'll win and while most lists can deal with one colossal as it stands probably the majority cannot deal with two. 

You still need to be able to deal with:

• Heavies

• Infantry

• High ARM

• High DEF

Mostly though you are trying to ask your opponent a question. If you are making things difficult to kill they need to be as difficult to kill as possible. If you are going for a swarm of something it needs to be as big as possible. Go for overkill, an ARM 22 Galleon is probably going to be very difficult to kill but an ARM 24 Galleon is going to be impossible for most armies and that's what your skew list needs to aim for. 

Example

Trollbloods
Standard Army
PCs: 50 / 50
17 models

[00] Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain (0 / 6 WB)
[12]  >> Mulg the Ancient
[10]  >> Earthborn Dire Troll
[10]  >> Dire Troll Bomber
[09]  >> Dire Troll Mauler
[06]  >> Troll Axer
[03] Janissa Stonetide
[02] Troll Whelps
[03] Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (3 grunts)
[01]  >> Stone Scribe Elder

Madrak has sure foot so a model and all models within 3" get +2 DEF. The earthborn animus gives me +2 ARM when in 3" of a wall and Janissa gives me a wall that I can place wherever I want. The wall also gives me cover against shooting (another +4 DEF) and +2 DEF if you are striking me in melee over the obstacle. The Krielstone gives me another +2 ARM and I end up with 4 heavies on anywhere between DEF 14 and 18, ARM 22 or 23, with whelps, snacking and regeneration to heal them back up. The Bomber and Axer kill infantry and I have two big AOEs so high DEF isn't a big problem. The Mauler has a great strength buff as do the stones and the Earthborn and Mulg are high P+S to start with. Madrak's feat allows models to move an inch and attack again for free whenever they kill a model and he can give them +2 to hit. The only real problem with the list is that I can't get elemental communication on the Axer so it is only ARM 20. Poor little Axer, he never gets any love, he doesn't even have a chicken.

There aren't a lot of armies that can deal with 4 ARM 22 or higher heavies, particularly when they also have to contend with mostly DEF 16 and also need reach to attack at least two of the beasts in melee. Of course if your opponent has enough buffs to get over that hurdle then you have 4 slow beasts, only one of which has reach and they only need to remove 5 models to defeat the list. A good example of a counter to this list is Kreoss1. Purification lowers all your ARM by 2 (except on the earthborn) and gets rid of sure foot (lowers DEF by 2 and can be knocked down). You can then use your knockdown feat to shoot Madrak or just beat  a few heavies out of the game with your choir buffs. 

Building an Alpha Strike List

What does it do?The idea behind an alpha strike list is to hit your opponent first and hit them so hard that their counter attack is blunted and they cannot do as much damage to you back. This is not as simple as merely getting the charge. An experienced player will spread out their units frontwise (forwards and backwards, needs to be a word for this, there probably is and I just need to ask someone who actually speaks English). They'll stop you from being able to engage the majority of the unit. Important beasts/jacks will be hidden behind cheaper models (often with someone like Alexia picking up their souls to create more models for your opponent). Other feats and spells will stop you from attacking key models. Some of this in unavoidable and just makes the bad match ups any list faces but if you can't deal with at least some of these tactics your alpha strike list is not going to work very well.

• Heavies

• Infantry

• High ARM

• High DEF

I also need for my alpha strike:

• Threat Range (the maximum distance away your model can be from mine where I can still attack you). I have to be able to out threat my opponent in order to alpha strike. High SPD is good, reach is good, pathfinder is also important.
• Damage Potential - I need to be able to kill what I hit.
• Protection on the approach. If your opponent can shoot you to death or set all your models on fire then you won't have enough for an effective alpha strike.
• A way to clear screening units/models. I want to attack as many models as possible. My opponent is going to attempt to place his models to minimise that. I need to be able to kill, move or otherwise get past those models to attack the bulk of his army and in particular the valuable models. 
• Caster protection. When your army is tearing across the table instead of standing and shooting and when you need to throw in as many models as possible to blunt your opponents counter attack you'll find your caster is more exposed. 

What do I want to put in the list?
Firstly generic stuff. My list needs to be able to deal with:

Alpha Strike - I want to go fast and I want to hit hard. I want reach if possible. I want protection on the approach. If I'm alpha striking my plan is to hit my opponent so hard they don't have enough left to counter successfully. I want a way to clear cheap screening units. I have to also look more closely at how I'm going to keep my caster safe, I don't have quite as many screening options when all my stuff is charging in compared to a gunline.

Example
I've talked about my Madrak2 list before but it's the best alpha strike list I have. It has some shooting to clear screening models, madraks spells to increase damage, madrak's feat lets me run and attack and everything is fast anyway. That's a pure alpha strike list but I didn't want to talk about the same list twice so I'm going to look at Doomshaper1 instead.

1. Doomshaper - feat gives +3 SPD to his beasts. Wild aggression makes them hit very accurately, refuge lets me pull back a key beast so that I protect at least one model from counter attack. Great at throwing out animus, goad allows you to move after attacking a screening model. 
2. Runebearer - lets me protect two models from the counter attack or cycle wild aggression so two models attack extra accurately. 
3. Earthborn + Janissa + Krielstone - Gives me +4 ARM to all my beasts so they make it to the alpha strike alive. Also a damage buff with the elder.
4. Mauler - Damage buff so I kill what I hit, also benefits from the +3 SPD feat. 
5. Mulg - Best beatstick in trolls. With Reach and Wild Aggression and Goad and Rush and Feat can get most anywhere and kill most anything. Gets an extra attack with doomshaper.
6. Axer - rush for more SPD. +3 SPD is good. +5 SPD and pathfinder is fantastic.
7. Fennblades - got to balance the list. All beasts is fine but sometimes you need bodies to get in the way of things or to go do something out of doomshapers control area. Sometimes your opponent has anti beast tech and you need something to go kill it. Fennblades don't synergise at all but give you balance which can be important. Reach also allows them to kill things while still leaving a path the heavies can charge through. They are fast enough to alpha strike as well. 

Trollbloods
Standard Army
PCs: 50 / 50
24 models

[00] Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia (0 / 6 WB)
[02]  >> Trollkin Runebearer
[12]  >> Mulg the Ancient
[10]  >> Earthborn Dire Troll
[09]  >> Dire Troll Mauler
[06]  >> Troll Axer
[03] Janissa Stonetide
[03] Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (3 grunts)
[01]  >> Stone Scribe Elder
[08] Trollkin Fennblades (9 grunts)
[02]  >> Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer

Sometimes I drop the Axer, take some whelps and a chronicler max the stone and take the bellows crew. If I do that sometimes I switch the fennblades for a bomber. I used to play him a lot but I've been giving him a rest lately. Might be time to crack him out again. 

Building a Gunline

Wanted to start by mentioning that you can shield guard black oil. It's been a crazy journey but once again you can have a shield guard dive in front of your colossal yelling "NOOOOOO!" or whatever it is robots yell when they dive in front of stuff.

I started out trying to write a post about the general archetypes I build lists around but it became way too long so I'm breaking it up. I'll start with the Gunline.
What does it do?
The idea behind a gunline army is to outshoot your opponent, to do massive damage from range with minimum engagement.

What do I want to put in the list?
Firstly generic stuff. My list needs to be able to deal with:

• Heavies
• Infantry
• High ARM
• High DEF

I also need in my gunline:

• Guns. Lots of guns. Boostable guns prefered.
• Something to contest/control zones. It should be particularly survivable and also fulfil another role
• A way to prevent engagement, or a way to unengage my guns. Most gunlines fall apart once you get them into melee so I need to stop my opponent from doing that. 
• Magical guns or a way to get them. A lot of the things that stop shooting stop non-magical shooting
• A way to deal with stealth
• An assassination. Gunlines tend to give up points rather than get them, especially in a timed turn situation you need to be able to assassinate in order to win.
• I want a way to maximise my range to my opponent, that could be long range guns, snipe or tricks that allow you to move after you have shot (moving backwards to get more distance).
• I want a way to minimise the amount my opponent shoots me

Example: 
My Caine1 50 point list.

1. Caine1 - He has snipe for a bigger distance between you and your opponent, deadeye to kill high DEF infantry, blur to dampen your opponents shooting, thunderstrike to assassinate and a feat that kills infantry. He doesn't help you contest or kill heavies though so lets start with that.
2. Stormwall - Has guns, puts down covering fire to prevent engagement, kills heavies, kills infantry, can contest zones. A unit that helps it prevent engagement is
3. Black 13th. They have magic guns, kill infantry, can shoot a pod (from the stormwall) with mage storm to help prevent engagement and can put down an AOE to allow other to ignore stealth. They also have stealth so are hard to shoot.
4. Journeyman - gives Stormwall Arcane shield so it can get forward and be very difficult to kill
5. Gun Mages - great with deadeye and snipe, two things Caine1 has. They have magical guns and they ignore stealth, they also kill infantry.
6. Wyshnalyr - I want to open up the thunderstrike assassination. Wyshnalyr gives me two extra inches and an additional dice drop lowest. He also gives me a free upkeep for snipe or blur.
7. Two units of Long Gunners - with deadeye and snipe they kill everything. the two units can put out 4 POW 20 shots as well if I need to destroy a heavy or a thunderstruck caster. They round out my need for more guns. They are very long range, especially with snipe. 

The finished list is:

Cygnar

Standard Army

PCs: 50 / 50

34 models

[00] Lieutenant Allister Caine (0 / 6 WJ remaining)

[02]  >> Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker

[19]  >> Stormwall

[03] Journeyman Warcaster

[06] Arcane Tempest Gun Mages

[02]  >> Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer

[04] Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team

[10] Long Gunner Infantry (9 grunts)

[10] Long Gunner Infantry (9 grunts)

Variant - Counter punch

This is a combined arms approach rather than a pure ranged approach. The idea is to shoot your opponent so that they move into your charge range and then finish them in melee. It is more versatile than a pure gunline  but generally doesn't shoot as well. I want pretty much what I have above but with a few changes

• Remove the need for a model to contest, as you are going to get into melee.
• Instead of just shooting you need models that can shoot and fight in melee.  

This is how I chose to build Stryker2's list. He has a whole lot of melee abilities and previously I had run him as an alpha strike caster but since Cygnar is a ranged faction I wanted to try him with a counterpunch list, using his melee abilities to make the counterpunch that much more dangerous. 

My thinking here was that Defenders with Positive Charge actually become quite good in melee, MAT 9 P+S 18. I could take two, and then two hunters so I can remove a heavy a turn at range. In order to do that though that heavy can't have an ARM buff so Eiryss comes into the list. That should be enough to scare my opponent to come towards me. 

Next I wanted a long range shooting unit that could fight well in melee. Cygnar don't really have one in faction but the Nyss can do it and I can take Murdoch to make them Cygnar. Since everything is going to be bunched up around the defenders Ragman should be able to give a lot of stuff Dark Shroud. That also takes the Defenders to POW 20 and the Nyss to MAT 8 POW 13 weaponmasters if in 3" of a defender and 3" of Ragman (just POW 11 weaponmasters if not within 3" of Ragman). 

Next I want to put the assassination on the table. Stryker is an excellent melee assassin. In order to get to his target though he probably needs pathfinder. Runewood can give him that. He can also give the Nyss another +2 to hit. If MAT 10 P+S 13 weaponmasters are overkill I can spread the three out to cover a larger area and settle for MAT 8 P+S 11 weaponmasters. Remember the Nyss have 3 attacks on feat turn (though one is ranged and will only benefit from dark shroud from Ragman). The other thing when assassinating with your caster is that you have to get them further forward than you would like so I want to be able to protect him. That means Arcane shield so in comes a journeyman. He can marshal one of the hunters with his last two focus.

And that's 49 points. Put in Reinholdt and I have a 50 point list. 

Cygnar

Standard Army

PCs: 50 / 50

22 models

[00] Lord Commander Stryker (0 / 6 WJ remaining)

[02]  >> Squire

[09]  >> Defender

[09]  >> Defender

[06]  >> Hunter

[03] Archduke Alain Runewood, Lord of Fharin

[03] Journeyman Warcaster

[06]  >> Hunter

[03] Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

[02] Ragman

[01] Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator

[10] Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (9 grunts)

[02]  >> Captain Jonas Murdoch

The Arc Node Dillema

The arc node dillema is a problem that Cygnar and Menoth have. Khador cannot pay points for an arc node and Cryx and Retribution do not suffer from the dillema. Here is the problem in a nut shell:

Arc nodes cost points, their combat abilities are much less than similarly priced models and if you choose to use those combat abilities they can no longer arc spells. Arcing spells through an arcnode also uses up focus that you could be giving to jacks or casting buff spells on your own troops. That means that when you are playing an arcnode you need to get so much out of your offensive spells that the difference between casting those spells and buffing/feeding jacks is big enough that it pays for your arc node.

Kreoss1

Early in MkII Kreoss1 enjoyed great success as one of Menoth's best casters. This success came largely from the pop and drop tactic. It was pretty simple. You brought Kreoss, Eiryss and 3 Redeemers. Once you had your opponent's caster in your control area you purified (if they had a defensive spell that could hamper your assassination, like sure foot) feated and then shot the knocked down caster to death (first with Eiryss then the redeemers). If you did not need to purify you could give all 7 focus to your redeemers otherwise 4 focus would also get the job done. With 7 focus you could then hit the knocked down caster with 11 POW 14s (with 16 inch range too, 3 from each redeemer and two from ancilliary attack from your vassals, you could even boost one of the damage rolls). With 4 focus (purification) you could still hit the caster with 9 POW 14s. The enemy caster would not be able to camp any focus as Eiryss would remove it. And of course if you had any other shooting in the army you could pound the unfortunate caster with that as well, though even an ARM 19 caster was unlikely to survive even the 4 focus assassination attempt.

Deployment and the first turn

I talk a lot about list building and a lot less about list playing, that's mostly because I tend to write these with war-room and/or FCU open while I'm screwing around with my lists. That said how you play a list is more important than list construction. This is stuff you should be aware of before you start a game.

How are you going to spend focus
Have a plan with what you are going to do with your fury. Most casters have some upkeeps they want to get out, some don't have enough focus for all of them. Warmachine casters need to balance their desire to get their spells out with feeding their jacks. If you want your jacks to run that's less focus for spells. Generally you want to make sure your defensive upkeeps are out as turn 2 there is generally some engagement, shooting if nothing else. You also need to think about where you want your caster. If you cast spells you can't run but you can charge. If you are going to fail your charge you need to cast spells before your caster moves. That's important because then you need to make sure you have line of sight to the things you want to cast spells on. A common mistake I see and have been guilty of making in the past is to put your caster between two heavies which then means that you cannot see any of your units and can't put any upkeeps on them. Now I will put a model from every unit I want an upkeep on next to my caster. It's also a common mistake to put a caster who wants to get up the table, say one with a good control feat behind your jacks. That pretty much forces you to walk first turn. Your jacks need to go first because they are in the way and then aren't in range of your upkeeps. You can't fail a charge and cast so you have to charge and attack your own model or walk up and cast. That 3" can make a huge difference. Some casters don't need to get up the table but some really have to. Some of my troll casters actually just put fury on the krielstone and run to get a better position on the table.

Know where your support models go
The choir for menoth move 6" and have to be within 3" of a jack. Most of the good Menoth jacks (except the Vanquisher) are SPD 5. If your choir starts behind your jacks and the jacks run 10" you can't protect them from shooting. If your choir goes first (and are trapped behind your jacks) gives then no spells and they run then they will be out of range next turn which is much worse. If you want to use your choir first turn (and if your opponent has ranged attacks you do) then your choir has to be front line besides your jacks. Shepherds in Legion have the same problem. This also applies to basic stuff like which support models need to stay near what models. Again with Legion Shepherds need to be a lot closer than Forsaken to remove fury so I use Forsaken on me melee beasts and shepherds on the ranged beasts. If you collect souls, you need to be near models that will give you souls (in menoth again your reclaimer collects souls but some units like errants have defensive abilities that stop soul collection), if you give a unit hunter in your command range you need to deploy with that unit. The Thrullg is a great late game model and it has advance deploy, you generally want to sit it behind your units not out in front of your army where your opponent will just shoot it. Janissa is another one, if she runs she can't put down a rockwall, this is OK sometimes but if you go second against a fast list or a list with a lot of ranged attacks then you need the rockwall up. Janissa can't put it that far forwards. She moves 5" and the wall has to be completely within 5", if your beasts run their full distance she can't put the wall in front of them. Every faction has stuff like this. You need to be aware and know if it applies to you.

Know roughly how your army will set out
This is the one that gets the most variation as you want to pick favourable match ups for your troops. You want gun mages with deadeye across from the Kayazy, winterguard or iron fangs not across from the conquest they can't move. That said you should have an idea of what goes where, what goes in front, what goes behind, what goes out on the flanks, what needs to stay near your warcaster, etc. Look out for aura or command range abilities and also remember abomination. It's a common cryx mistake to deploy models that are not fearless near the deathjack. Eiryss too can block focus allocation to your own jacks if you aren't careful.

Know your match ups
Know what kills infantry, what kills heavies, what kills high arm, what kills high DEF, what kills stealth, what needs to steer way clear of fast reach troops, what needs to hide from Eiryss and Gorman, what wants to kill Eiryss and Gorman. If they aren't across from the thing they want to kill don't be afraid to run your models sideways first turn especially if you are faster than your opponent.

Know your order of operations
You should never have order of operations problems on turn 1. If you know what order things need to happen in at least for the first turn then you should place your models accordingly. Don't block in a model that needs to activate first. You are going to be activating things in the same order for your first turn in pretty much every game you play with the list so you should know it. First turn other than the support models that I've mentioned above the other thing is usually pathfinder. Fell callers, Rhupert, saxon orik and a few other models have the ability to give out pathfinder. You often have some rough terrain in or just in front of your deployment zone, these models need to be free to activate, move where they want to be and give those units pathfinder. Don't block them in.

I think that's it. I feel like I've missed something though.

List Building Again

This is another post borne out of a dicussion at the club. The comment put to me was that there is a tendency towards trying to take "premium" models rather than something more along the lines of "I like this model I'll try it out". There is really nothing wrong with building towards models that you like both in a casual and a competitive sense. I was a bit thrown by the comment and it took me a while to pin down why, it's because I don't build lists like that anymore. I don't build a list by asking what are the best models with this caster I instead come up with a way I want the list to work and then pick models to do a job in the list.

I'll try and explain with the help of a list I have refined and am pretty happy with, my Madrak2 list. I'm picking him because I ended up playing him very differently from the way I played him the first time I put him on the table.

Madrak2
My second favourite troll caster. Your caster's abilities are going to be key when deciding what you want your list to do Madrak has a couple of important ones

Blood Fury - Additional damage dice for model/unit. Better on units because they have more attacks for the same spell cost so put out more damage.

Desperate Hour (Feat) - Everyone instantly makes a thresher attack that only targets enemy models. Works with blood fury.

Grim Salvation - If you hurt Madrak you instead remove a warrior model from within 1" of him. Unless it's a Musician or Standard Bearer or Weapon Attachment in which case they can pass it on to someone within 1" of them.

Warpath - Whenever you kill a model in his control a warbeast in his battlegroup can move 3".

When I started with him one of the first things I took was Mulg. Seemed like a high MAT reach beast with the feat was a good idea and Mulg's only drawback is his low SPD which is fixed by warpath. I also had an Earthborn and Janissa so I could being up his ARM and keep him safe, figuring the Earthborn would also get a lot out of warpath. The problem is that is a lot of points (At some stage there was a mauler in here too but I can't remember if I ever had all three together), these are points you can't use on troops. Points that do much less attacking on the feat, points that get less value out of blood fury, points that do not help keep Madrak alive. So the list was altered. I dropped one and then both heavies and started to have a plan for the list rather than a bunch of models I thought would be good.

The plan was a pretty simple one: Surround Madrak with infantry so he is unkillable. Alpha strike (or let your opponent alpha a tarpit unit then counter) and feat with blood fury killing everything.

In order to carry out this plan I need: reach for the feat, speed for the alpha strike, a way to deliver stuff for the alpha strike, I want a hit buff (so I hit on all my weaponmaster, reach, thresher attacks). I also need some beasts but I don't want many, the infantry will do the heavy lifting so the beasts should be able to contribute to the battle from relative safety.

Good units for this plan:

Kriel Warriors (you can take a weapon attachment with reach and they are cheap to stand around Madrak, they can go faster or hit harder and more accurately)
Borrowers (no reach but fast and high pow to abuse blood fury, also very cheap and will always make it alive)
Long Riders (fast and reach and hit hard and high MAT but expensive)
Fennblades (fast and reach)

I can take any three at 50 points. All have their own justifications there are no right or wrong answers. Burrowers are one of my favourite units so they are in, they always make it to the battle too, guaranteed as they can burrow. They also can't benefit from the feat which is good because it means I can cycle blood fury to them after the feat and I don't lose anything. Fennblades are a big unit with reach which is fantastic for the feat and the Kriel Warriors add to numbers to keep Madrak alive and I can put them in front of the more important Fennblades. If I take a Runebearer (Moses) I can upkeep blood fury on the Kriels, charge and kill stuff, runebearer it onto the fenns, charge and kill, feat and kill more stuff, have Madrak cast blood fury onto the burrowers and they can kill anything still standing. I need a fell caller so the Burrowers can hit and I want a second fell caller for the Fenns as they are going to be making a shitload of attacks (I've made more than 30 attack rolls in a single turn with them).

The burrowers don't need any help getting to the enemy but the fenns and kriels do, so add a krielstone to make them pretty much immune to blast damage and immune to fire and corrosion (KS elder). Since I have so much infantry I'll take a chronicler too as he can give them concealment and his best ability, if you kill a model in melee you get knocked down which makes it very hard to get through the unit and means the survivors will kill everything next turn as well.

I need some beasts with ranged abilities and or useful animus as they are going to stay back, I want ranged stuff in particular so I can kill annoying models my opponent has left in front of his army to disrupt the charge. The Impaler means Madrak can shoot 12" with his axe which is good and it has a good ranged attack. The Pyre's animus gives me a damage buff (always love a damage buff) and immunity to fire makes Madrak even more unkillable. That's 47 points, the last 3 points are a Thrullg if it's a tournament list (stays back removing offensive upkeeps until the late game) or Janissa if it's not. Janissa is a lot better than the Thrullg for this list but I tend to run Madrak2, Doomshaper2 and I need Janissa in my Doomshaper2 list.

Trollbloods
Standard Army
PCs: 50 / 50
52 models

[00] Madrak Ironhide, World Ender (0 / 5 WB)
[02]  >> Trollkin Runebearer
[05]  >> Pyre Troll
[05]  >> Troll Impaler
[03] Janissa Stonetide
[03] Fell Caller Hero
[03] Fell Caller Hero
[02] Stone Scribe Chronicler
[04] Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (5 grunts)
[01]  >> Stone Scribe Elder
[06] Kriel Warriors (9 grunts)
[02]  >> Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper
[03]  >> Kriel Warrior Caber Thrower (3 Caber Throwers)
[06] Pyg Burrowers (9 grunts)
[08] Trollkin Fennblades (9 grunts)
[02]  >> Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer


A few more things and then I'll shut up. I've seen a lot of Madrak with Champions. Madrak is great with champions, blood fury makes gives them 5 dice on the charge and 4 dice on their second attack. If they hit a heavy it disintegrates but they never hit a heavy. They spend the whole match killing Legionnaires and slowly dying to ravagore shots until I can finish them off with a Scythean.  That said I've also seen Madrak with champions as a second wave unit where the fennblades and burrowers kill anything that can take ARM 20 champions and the champions then just chomp through the rest of the rest of the army while puny infantry just bounce off. The plan is more important than the models. What do they do? why are they in the list?

Lastly you need a plan for how you are going to spend your focus/fury. This can be as simple as camp the lot or Caine shoots stuff. Here I want Blood Fury on 3 things so I need the Runebearer to cycle it. When the runebearer is not using his once per game spell casting ability (stupid Skarlock Thralls) that'll mean Madrak has 3 fury left. He's got plenty to top up the krielstone or snipe and throw his axe. He does not need to camp a lot of fury as his troops keep him alive. You need to remember if you want your caster to cast a lot of animi or if you need to fuel jacks and cast spells that you need a plan for how you are going to spend your focus.

This may make no sense, I'm very tired. I may put up a post about different things I build lists to do at some point.

Attrition

Attrition is the default way most people approach the game but there are a lot of concepts I think people do not recognise. The basic idea is to kill more points of your opponent than you lose of your own. There are a lot of different ways to do this so I'll go through some of them. I'm sure that I will miss some concepts so I'll probably come back to it in future. This will be longer than my assassination and scenario posts as this is how I prefer to play. I hope this makes sense as much of this was written while I was very very tired.

Assassination & Scenario Are Part of Attrition

It is not enough to have an army that purely attritions. It must also be able to win by scenario or assassinate because in the end it will be one of those two things that wins you the game. If you have no way to kill your opponents caster they will be able to move right up and use all their powers and abilities, if you have no way to win on scenario then your opponent will have to waste less models and activations contesting scenario zones. You can be a lot more effective at attrition if your opponent has to be worried both about attrition and about losing due to assassination or scenario. If you can force your opponent to keep their caster back out of the game or you can force your opponent to waste activations contesting rather than killing your stuff you can get ahead in attrition. It will also let you finish the game quicker, rather than wiping out your opponents entire army you just wipe out enough that they can no longer stop the assassination or contest the scenario.

Alpha Strike

This is probably the most basic of the attrition concepts, the idea is to hit your opponent hard before they have had a chance to hit you. Ranged armies are generally very good at this but so are those with threat range extensions like Doomshaper2. The ranged alpha is very different from the melee alpha so I'll discus them separately.

Ranged Alpha - The first thing to look at when it comes to the ranged game is whether you are ranged dominant or ranged submissive. If your opponent has more ranged threat than you do you need to close and engage. If you have more ranged threat then you can hang back and shoot and wait for your opponent to come to you. The key in a ranged alpha strike is concentration of force. If you are shooting at a unit there is no point moving up so that the back members of the target unit are in range if you aren't going to be able to kill the front members of the unit. You just make it easier for your opponent to shut down your shooting. If you hang back and make sure all the closest members of the unit die you have greatly increased the amount of ground your opponent has to cover to get to you. Likewise when shooting multiple wound models you don't want to put a little bit of damage on a lot of models you want to kill something. Try and move so that you are as far away from everything else as possible and just close enough to the thing you want to kill. Then do the same thing next turn. Don't be afraid to back up, backing up is good but you see a lot of players who almost don't seem to realise that their models can move backwards.

Melee Alpha - you need three things, SPD and the ability to kill what you are hitting and something to keep you safe from retaliation. If you leave your models up where your opponent can kill them you are piece trading which will be discussed shortly. The other option is to hit your opponent so hard that they are no longer able to counter attack or that their counter attack is so blunted that you are able to stay ahead of your opponent in the piece trade.

Piece Trading
Whenever you go to attack something of your opponents you need to be aware of the counter attack that will happen on their turn. You need to be taking into account what they will be able to kill. The idea with piece trading is to ensure that you allow your opponent to kill less points worth of your models than you kill of theirs. It is very rare to be able to kill your opponents entire army in a single turn so if your opponent can pick and choose what to kill they will take out the biggest threats, even if you have alpha struck you will still find yourself at a disadvantage. The idea behind piece trading to kill models in your opponents army while exposing models that are less important to your army than the models you have killed. You always want to trade up, kill a 10 point model while exposing only a 6 point model to your opponents army.

Part of piece trading is list building. Good models for this are models that take more points to kill then they are worth, models that can kill more points than they are worth and/or models that enable other models to do either of those two. A good example in trolls - champions are a great piece trading unit, they can kill more than 10 points of models and have high ARM and 8 wounds each so it often takes more than 10 points of models to kill the entire unit. The Mountain King on the other hand is very bad for piece trading. It cannot kill 20 points of models and it does not take anywhere near 20 points of models to kill it. Troll heavies can use their support staff to both become more difficult to kill than their points and to destroy the world. A lot of cryx infantry also falls in this catagory, banes and mechanithrals in particular. Though Mechthralls are very easy to kill they are also half a point each so you generally can't kill them as cheaply as you can buy them and they can destroy heavies.

The other part is to recognise when you are making a trade and to make sure you don't make bad trades. There are quite a few players that will charge with their heavies as long as there is something in range, even if that something is not particularly valuable. Be aware of when your opponent is baiting you and bait your opponent. The best way to do it is to use models that are harder to kill than their points. The Warpwolf Feral (warping ARM) is a great choice for a bait piece, the Vanguard is probably my favourite (13/19 with 26 boxes and set defence). Generally when you are baiting you are also using the scenario, you run a model into the scoring area to contest and control and then you have another piece in range to charge and murder whatever kills that model. It's a great tactic too with second wave units like Forgeguard that are slow. When you commit a model recognise what your opponent has to strike back with, if you are likely to lose that model then make sure that what it kills is worth losing that model for (I'm not just talking points here, often taking out the choir for example is worth a lot more than 2 points).

The other thing to take into account when piece trading is to use the depth of the table. You don't want your whole army in a line, again it will allow your opponent to pick what they want to kill and ensure that they are ahead on the piece trade. Spread out forward and backwards, particularly with units. Make sure your Officer is at the back of the unit where he has some protection. If only 3 models can make the charge don't move up the rest of the unit next to them where your opponent can easily kill them, keep the bulk of the unit back with a few models forward that your opponent has to kill first before they can clear a lane to the unit. Often this leaves your opponent blocked by their own models and you can charge the rest of the unit in.

Things That Keep Your Models Safe
Some abilities allow you to attack or at least move your army into threat range of your opponent without losing models and these abilities are key to attrition. These can be simple ARM or DEF buffs but also include things like the Choir of Menoth (who can sing no shooting), Vassals (who can allow your jacks to walk away from charges) and Janissa (walls). The best pieces are those that keep your models completely safe but following up from that are pieces that make your models much more difficult to kill, enough that it is very unlikely that your opponent will kill them. I know it does sound obvious but every single game I have won against Menoth I have benefited from my opponent choosing to ancillary attack (jack makes an out of activation attack) rather than enliven (jack makes a full advance in any direction first time it is damaged). If you are playing circle remember that the warpwolf stalker has sprint for an animus and use it, hit and then move away out of threat range of the majority of your opponents army. Too many players ignore these abilities and they are the key to winning via attrition. In the circle case in particular you may not be able to kill as much stuff if you are relying on sprint but you kill it for free rather than trading those models for your heavy warbeast. Make use of refuge, of soulgate, spirit door, teleport, gate crasher to kill models and then move back to safety.

Throw away units - this one blends into the next section which is tarpitting. There is a lot of value in cheap 10 man units, these units aren't in the list to kill anything (it's a bonus when they do) but they are there to die in preference to your more expensive models. Generally the unit is a speed bump, forcing your opponent to spend activations killing cheap models that aren't particularly dangerous, possibly blocking off charges with their own models they send to kill your guys. The basic way you use them is you put them in front of your better models, blocking off charge lanes and if they are small based models blocking LOS. Against some lists, especially low model count lists this tactic can make your valuable models completely safe. I use this tactic a lot with Legion, Legion beasts are very easy to kill but if I can put my legionnaires in between my models and my opponents models that are threatening them then I can make it much more difficult for my opponent to get to my beasts. If your opponent tramples then they lose all their initial attacks and have spent a focus/fury which is often enough to ensure that they don't kill the model they were sent after. The other thing these units do well is kill cheap units my opponent has put in the way of my beasts.

Tarpitting
So this is something I don't see that much but which is very useful both in attrition and in scenario play. The idea is to put something your opponent will struggle to kill in front of either the scenario zone or something you don't want to deal with. Boomhowlers are the ideal mix of a tarpit and a throw away unit, especially when you put arcane shield on them. There are other great tarpits though, the Centurion is a great one (again particularly with arcane shield), Tiberion with defenders ward and a krea and an agoniser is pretty much invincible. The difference between tarpitting and piece trading is that your tarpit is not supposed to die, at least not for a turn or two. It slows up your opponent and allows the rest of your army to take take out the rest of your opponents army while key pieces are tied up with your tarpit. A lot of casters that camp focus like to do this themselves as well (at least in SR 2012), they contest scoring and simply stand around killing a few models but mostly just being invincible (in SR 2013 the rumour is that casters will no longer be able to contest). If your opponent cannot score in scenario because of your tarpit then you are free to attrition as much as you like while pretty much ignoring the scenario. Tarpits are also great for protecting ranged threats. I mentioned recently a Caine2 list that I really liked. If you have Caine2 behind a unit of Boomhowlers you can allow him to take a lot more shots at your opponents army and he'll be able to wipe out a unit himself pretty much every turn. It works particularly well for units like gun mages, long gunners and the black 13th that lose a lot when they are engaged.

Out of Formation Troopers
There are quite a few abilities in the game which require at least some members of the original unit to be alive. Makeda1's feat is a good example, it requires returned to life trooper models to be placed in formation and you can't do it if the unit is dead. What you can do though is leave 1 trooper model way back with your caster and not care that he is out of formation. If the rest of the unit dies you can still return them all to play just way back near that one model. This also works the other way, if you run models towards your opponent so they are out of formation they can't make free strikes or attacks but they can use other abilities that are not attacks and do not require them to be in formation. Rangers are a good example of this, you can run 1 ranger forward to be within 5" of what you want to shoot giving your whole army +2 to hit while the rest of the unit hangs back in safety. Spell effects also effect trooper models that are out of formation so you can use an out of formation legionnaire to deliver chiller or an out of formation bane thrall to deliver dark shroud (if the banes aren't in charge range you can run that one model and keep the rest of the unit safe).

Models that Generate More Models
Great for attrition as when you are playing attrition games tend to go a bit longer, they will have a lot of time to generate more models. The spawning vessel for Legion is a fantastic example, stitch thralls, Tartarus (although Tartarus does tend to just die), Alexia1. They also give you interesting threat vectors so you can take out key models that your opponent has thought was safe.

Moving Your Opponents Models
This one is a common mistake. There are a lot of spells and abilities that allow you to advance an enemy model and then use that model to make an attack. The mistake people make is using that spell/ability to use make an enemy model attack an enemy model. The best way to use that ability is to advance that model directly towards your army and then turn it around. That will generally allow you to kill it without suffering retaliation. You can still have a shot at your opponent if you have a ranged weapon. If you waste that spell or even feat having a swing at an opposing model you can almost never get anywhere near the same points value. This is particularly true of Rampager as you are casting on a beast. Some trooper models can get more value making attacks against other stuff but still you generally get more value picking expensive stuff and moving it towards you. (If you are playing against Rampager have your heavies hold hand, if one heavy is arm locked neither can be moved by rampager, it also works against pushes).

Attacking your own models
I don't know that this necessarily goes in attrition but I'm putting it here anyway. There are a lot of great tricks you can pull off if you remember that you can attack your own models. If you are up against non-reach infantry you can shoot your own heavies with a scather template (Ravagore, Desecrator) and they will auto-die if they charge it. A trick I often see with cryx is to run a death-chicken up and slam another death chicken through it to knock down an important model. Remember that this avenue is available to you. Lately I've been attacking the storm pods Stormwall drops a lot. It lets you put down extra covering fire using the black 13th and lets you drop a pod in the middle of a stealth unit and take half of them out.

Scenario

I don't think anyone has ever built a list to win on scenario, I think it's always an attrition list that can also dominate on scenario and you simply take the opportunity to win on scenario if it is presented to you (if you go first on a scenario you can gain a significant advantage on). I think one of the main reasons you don't see pure scenario lists the same way you see pure assassination lists is that it makes a huge difference whether you go second or first and which scenario it is.

List Building
While no one builds lists purely for scenario you often want your attrition lists to contain the pieces you need to win via scenario. You can do that with assassination lists as well, it make a very good bluff and can force your opponent to put their army somewhere predictable so you can line up the assassination. The main things you want to enable yourself to play for scenario are:

fast, low point solos - the best models in the game to control flags or contest zones, particularly if they have a ranged attack they can use while doing that. You don't want to have to keep a whole unit within 4" of a flag or objective, you want that unit to be fighting or at least blocking your opponent so they can't contest. Same with a heavy. You want something cheap controlling your flagjective so that you are taking as little of your army out of the game as possible.

Models that can move enemy models - Repulsion is awesome for scenario. So is bulldoze. Gun mages, druids, Battle mages, there are a lot of models that can move other models around. This includes casters with spells that allow you to move enemy models. Rampager, Telekinesis, Hellmouth, Force Hammer, Thunderstrike, Gallows. They can use these to move key models out of the scoring zone.

Models that cannot be moved/are difficult to kill - preferably both but a devastator in the middle of a 12" circle needs a lot of movement to be pulled out of the zone and the ARM 25 makes it very hard to destroy. Colossals are ideal for this as they are the hardest models to kill in the game and they cannot be moved. They also can often contest both scoring zones. The other models that are really good for this are incorporeal solos, and models like Reinholdt who is DEF 16. Reclaimers can often do it too (auto 1 damage point to anything that comes in melee range).

Casters with SPD debuffs
This is the big one. If you go first, rush up and the feat turn 2 you can put a lot of armies in the position where they can't possibly contest zones on your turn. It also works to a lesser extent for casters that make you take damage if you move up (beast/jack heavy armies will mostly ignore it but works fantastically on infantry). You can get a point, push forward again so they have to fight through most of your army to get to the zone and then kill anything that does. Against an inexperienced opponent you can do this going second as well as often they don't think to rush the zone and instead hang back a bit to protect their army.

Casters to watch out for: Both Deneghras, Grim Angus, Haley2, Krueger2, Irusk2 (technically, never seen it but that might be because he doesn't have iron flesh), Magnus2.
Damaging casters: Old Witch, Harbinger
Other casters that can cause scenario issues - Bartolo Montador, Gorten (have to be really close but as his feat pushes stuff as well as SPD debuffs it has an excellent scenario effect), MacBain (feat on boomhoowlers blocking off a scenario zone).

Playing for scenario
The first thing to do is to identify early on whether you are going to be able to win via scenario. If not play attrition. Whenever you are playing scenario you will find yourself sacrificing models for points, it puts you way down on attrition. If you aren't going to be able to win that way you are going to lose the game trying. This depends on a lot of things, firstly the scenario being played - how easy is it to score? how easy will it be for your opponent to contest the zone? It depends on what you are playing against. If your opponent has a colossal and you are relying on pushes to score then don't play scenario, go for attrition.

If you have determined that you can win by scenario then pay attention to the scenario conditions, focus on preventing your opponent from scoring not on killing models or not dying. You will often have to give away a whole unit to your opponent, run them out in front of the zone to make it harder for your opponent to get through. The pieces you need to protect are those that can win the scenario for you, everything else can be sacrificed and you need to not be afraid of losing half your army without doing any damage as long as it is going to put you in a position to win the scenario.

Playing Against a Scenario Caster
Run at them. You need to get across the table, you need to have models in the zone turn 1, especially if you go second. You need to have as many models as possible too as they will be able to kill some models as well and feat to keep you out. Don't be afraid to lose models just to contest the scenario preferably fast low point solos. The most important thing is to never give up a point in your turn. You may have to give up a point in your opponents turn, that's OK as long as you are in a position where you can fight back and make that the last point they score. Remember that you can trample warjacks/beasts.

Try to take out or at least neutralise their scenario pieces. Gun Mages will not do anything if you run and engage them. Put a colossal in the zone and protect it. If all else fails camp all your focus and toe your caster into the zone. The Harbinger may be one of the squishiest casters in the game but if she camps 11 focus she's ARM 25.

Assassination

List Building
Every assassination list has a core of models that are required to get the assassination off. A good example is Siege. You rush up rangers for +2 to hit, move up, drop foxhole to get line of sight to the caster, feat, shoot twice (second shot coming from Reinholdt), eiryss shoots off any focus on your caster and then you plough all your other boostable guns into the caster as well, generally a Stormwall, a Defender marshalled or controlled by jr. The most important thing in most assassination lists is a DEF debuff or hit buff, knocking down the opposing caster is best but failing that you want something else that will make the caster easier to hit as that is generally the biggest obstacle in killing a caster. The other thing you need is threat range. You are't going to be able to walk over a beast/jack and headbut your opponents caster until you have fought through their entire army. They are going to be keeping their caster somewhere far away behind their models where they think their caster is safe. You need something that can reach out and touch a caster from a massive distance, the longer the better. Anything that allows you to move your opponents caster is tremendously valuable, particularly if you can move that caster without rolling (like for example Hellmouth). You can pull casters out of terrain, away from cover, out of auras (or move the defensive Aura) and it can make a very big difference.

Here is a circle assassination list from Warmachine Weekend (Craig Conroy).

Krueger the Stormlord

• Woldguardian
• Woldguardian
• Woldwarden
• Woldwarden

Druid Stoneward and Woldstalkers
Druid Stoneward and Woldstalkers
Shifting Stones

• Stone Keeper

Shifting Stones
Gallows Grove
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

The important thing here is that Kruegar has telekinesis. Both Woldwardens can use geomancy to cast that spell for one fury and then Krugar can channel it through the gallows grove 3 times (or twice boosted), this lets you move things out of the way so you can get to the caster and move the caster up and turn the caster around so you gain +2 to hit. You also have Eiryss there to shoot off any focus or defensive buffs on the caster. The other thing this list has that is important is two units of shifting stones. One of which will be on the edge of advance deployment and the other around the Woldguardians. The Woldguardian can then be teleported to have the back edge of his base just within the stones and then teleported again by the advance deploy unit for 20" of teleportation shenanigans + 10" of telekinesis shenanigans. The woldguardian is a great assassin because as soon as it hits your caster is knocked down and the rest of the attacks hit automatically. You can also see that if this attempt fails you've given your opponent a free heavy beast and you don't have your other beasts in position to strike or go for scenario since they moved in order to cast telekinesis. There are two Woldgaurdians in the list but only one can participate in the assassination so if you are waiting till turn 2 or 3 to assassinate (which doesn't always happen) you can use the heavy as bait.

Playing an Assassination list
Know your threat ranges. That has to be the biggest key, know how close your opponent needs to be before you can kill him. As above you need a massive threat range and this normally puts the turn 1 assassination on the table. Ask your opponent haw far they are moving their caster. Know exactly how far they need to move to allow you to assassinate. Know the odds of the assassination, against what DEF or what ARM will your assassination start to become less likely? If you can't use one of your key pieces for some reason how does that change your odds. If you are playing the Siege assassination list and your opponent has blocked off your rangers this turn but is within the 19" you need to get the assassination off you need to know whether you can still make that assassination without the rangers or whether you need to throw away some models to allow you to reposition for the assassination next turn.

It's a different way of thinking about resources too, when you are playing assassination the only resources of your opponents that count are those that can stop you from successfully assassinating and the only resources of yours that count are those that you need to assassinate. The fact that you are thinking about the game this way can allow you to make very good trades that also look advantageous to your opponent. Generally you want their caster to spend resources, be on less focus or fury, you may also need to bait out key pieces like Mulg or a Bronzeback (protective fit and counter charge respectively). You can use things you don't need for the assassination to bait those models out or tempt your opponent in to spending focus or fury.

Charge/slam your own models. It's pretty basic positioning advice but if you don't know it you won't get assassinations to work.


Playing Against an Assassination List
Keep your caster back. Nothing protects quite as well as distance. Be aware of non-standard moves that extend threat range. I have seen a caster stay just outside of 19 inches away from siege only to have a heavy push him an inch and bring him into assassination range. Know the threat range of the assassination attempt and try to stop your opponent from being able to access key pieces. Be aware of how the assassination is going to come at you, there are tricks you can use to stop it. Caine2 will struggle to kill you if you are in cover and he can't use his rangers. If you opponent is relying on pushes to get the job done you can armlock with your beasts/jacks that have open fists (neither model in an armlock can be pushed). If you are playing Magnus2 you can have a Vanguard headbut him every turn (still love that idea). There are always ways to take the assassination out of the game, most assassination lists rely on you not seeing the assassination coming or underestimating the threat range of it. Camp focus or fury. As much as possible. Most importantly kill the threats to your caster as quickly as you can so you can get your caster back into the game. Most casters don't like being in your deployment zone for the entire battle.

I'll finish off with a list of assassination casters (almost certainly not exhaustive) and how they accomplish their assassination so you can be aware. I've included threat ranges, these are standard threat ranges (measured from the caster unless otherwise noted), you can increase them with things like push or slipstream. I've also listed the key pieces to make the assassination work so you know what you need to kill or otherwise take out of the picture to be safe. I'm also not counting casters who have a very good assassination run (Caine1, Lylyth2) but who's lists are generally attrition lists until the assassination opens up. These are casters you often see in builds that do nothing but gun for your caster right from the get go.

Kreoss1 - He'll knockdown your army and your caster and then shoot you to death (your army no longer blocks LOS).
Threat Range: 22"
Key pieces: Redeemers, choir, vassals,

Krueger2 - Telekinesis + stone double jump. In tier (as above) it will be a teleported WoldGuardian (but you gain Eiryss), out of tier it will be a primaled Ghetorix or Stalker (which is better but no eiryss).
Threat Range: 20" Teleport + Telekinesis.
Key pieces: 2xShifting Stones, Heavy beast with auto knockdown or reach (not colossal), Eiryss or Gorax.

Cassius - Combination of Hellmouth, often double hellmouth, curse of the shadows and the stone double teleport (Stalker with Primal). Don't feel safe just because the tree has no souls, he can kill his own guys to load up as he pulls off the souls during his activation not he control phase.
Threat Range: 19" (to hellmouth target within 3" of warcaster) 20" double teleport.
Key peices: 2xShifting Stones, Heavy beast with reach, Gorax, bone grinders.

Lylyth1 - Feat gives an additional dice on attack rolls, she can boost on top, shoot you, auto hit with parasite and then shoot again. Then Typhon can gunfighter charge and spray through to your caster from insane distance. She does need LOS to your caster but with SPD 7 and slipstream she can usually get it. Typhon does not require LOS.
Threat Range: 19" (21" Slipstream which she normally has).
Key pieces: Typhon, Seraph

Rhyas - Feat lets you place B2B with the first thing you hit, Rapport makes your scythean hit very accurately (MAT 8) and you can massacre it for another attack or wraithbane it to avoid defensive spells.
Threat Range: 4" from anything with 11" of a scythean (up to 20" with a colossal or battle engine).
Key pieces: Proteus or shepherds, Scythean, Nephlim Soldier or Naga Nightlurker

Seige - Rangers run into position to give a RAT boost, Siege drops foxhole to clear LOS, feats  to increase damage output and shoots with a lot of boostable guns.
Threat Range: 19"
Key pieces: Rangers (only need 1), Defenders or Stormwall, Siege, Reinholdt, squire, Eiryss2

Caine2 - Rangers run into position to give a RAT boost and caine shoots your caster to death himself using his feat (he can kill a lot of casters without the feat too). In his assassination lists (he's also a great attrition caster) you'll also see gun mages and an Avenger to knock stuff down or push them out of the way.
Threat Range: 19"
Key peices: Squire, rangers, reinholdt, Avenger, gun mages, trencher master gunner, Eiryss2.

Makeda2 - Molik Khan. Leash, Road to War and Rush or Train wreck. he can move around stuff in the way and still make it to your caster with 5 fury (initials required for side step) and all boosted attack rolls from the feat as a POW 15 weaponmaster.
Threat Range: 22" (from MK)
Key Pieces: Molik Khan, Beast Handlers, Gladiator or Bronzeback.

Asphixious2 - It's the feat. You can still curse with your temporarily returned to life Tartarus. Again it needs LOS (but from 3" from asphixious after he has charged) and a charge lane but you are bringing 10 guys back to life, they can't all make it to the caster anyway so you can easily clear out a lane.
Threat Range: 24"
Key pieces: Tartarus, Bane Knights, Bane Thralls. Special note here, killing them does not prevent him from using them to assassinate you, you need to remove them from play. Especially Tartarus. Even this doesn't work as if you start doing this an assassination minded player will just kill his own stuff so he can feat it on you and that still works. Really you need something that prevents charges or takes you caster to very high DEF.

Vlad2 - Feats on Kayazy Eliminators and regular kayazy who killstroke. They charge straight through your army ignoring models and hit your caster at MAT 12 POW 14, 2 attacks, they can boost using your caster's focus or combo strike for POW 18 and two of them gain an additional dice on attack and damage discard lowest. The regular Kayazy have only 1 attack at MAT 12 but POW 15 and can all do the extra dice discard lowest spell. Oh and they are DEF 20 after they finish attacking.
Threat Range: 13.5" with 2 attacks on the caster or 15.5" with one attack, measured from the eliminators
Key pieces: Kayazy Eliminators

Magnus2 - It's a bad seeds list (though I believe this can be done outside of his theme forces and even with Magnus1). Renegades are the key. With rangers and the trencher master gunner you are RAT 10 and if the first shot hits the caster is knocked down (you may then be able to arc Calamity on to them as Renegades are also an arc node, if not Calamity then Obliteration). Renegades have arcing fire so ignore intervening models not within 1" and will happily shoot those models anyway to knockdown most casters. You then hit them with the other Renegade boosting damage (pow 16) and a boosted damage defender shot.
Threat Range: 19" (from renegades)
Key pieces: Rangers, Renegades, Defender, Trencher Master Gunner.

Ravyn - Known as "snipe feat go". Ravyn will feat to giver her mage hunter strike force boosted attacks and put snipe on them for extra range. They advance deploy, move 6" and shoot 16" meaning that if your caster moves 3" or more from the edge of your deployment they will pretty much auto die. They are only POW 10 attacks but they ignore anything that adds to defence or ARM and there are 11 of them boosted to hit. They also ignore LOS so you can't hide. You have to run.
Threat Range: 22" from MHSF
Key Pieces: Mage Hunter Strike Force

A lot of the best assassination casters also make very good (I would argue better) attrition casters but that's a topic for another post. Also there are finally pictures of Kreoss3 available, Alzer on the PP forums bought the model and assembled it.