So just quickly, thoughts in Mercs in general and on the lists that I played.
Bart Galleon: The Galleon with spiny growth and Batten down the hatches is near invincible but you need to be scared of being jammed out of the scenario. Other than that the list is incredibly strong. The only question is what to do at 50 points. Currently the list has Nyss Hunters which are excellent but I'm going to try out Croes Cutthroats to see if I can use advance deployment to push the battle line forwards and ensure the Galleon does not get jammed.
Shae: Shae is amazing in SR 2013. The pirate jam is the extremely strong this year and Shae's list is just so fast and he does so much for it. I need to get a second unit of Press Gang to bring this to a tournament but I think it is worth it.
Damiano Pirates: I love this list. It does everything. I need a bit more practice with it if I am going to use it as a tournament list because you need to use the feat offensively and the ability of you army to soak up damage and still be able to dish it out allows you to delay the feat. I have found so far that you do a lot better if you hold the feat for a turn or two, wait until you can get the right models onto your opponents higher ARM models.
Pirates in General: If you get the first turn you get your pirates across the half way point of the table before your opponent has moved. You set the battle line so far forwards that you are always in a very strong position on scenario and the super tough units make it extremely difficult for your opponent to clear their zone. Kara Sloan + Pirates is a legitimate list in Cygnar too, deadeye is awesome on gun mages and sea dogs in Damiano so you'll get as much out of it in Cygnar. In addition you get Kara's gun and you can go double hunter so you have a lot more ARM cracking every turn in that list.
Ossrum: A unit of sniped long gunners combined with Marshall Discipline from Ossrum destroyed 12 models in a single activation in today's game (7 Nihilators, 3 slingers and 2 beast handlers) and killed a caster later in the game. Alexia1 continues to be amazing in every list I put her in, I do not know why more people do not play her. Other than that though I'm not sold on the list, particularly on his jack load out. He really doesn't have a lot of focus to feed his jacks.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
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
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Meta Benders - Morvahna the Dawnshadow (Lady Goat)
What's the Problem
- Her feat brings her entire army back to life except for beasts and shifting stones. She can place gallows groves in the middle of your tough units or behind your screening models to arc spells onto your warcaster. She can place War Wolves behind your caster, CRA them with Reeves and then have those War Wolves charge your caster with Gang and back strikes and boosted attack rolls (and the boost for charging). She can bring back a bunch of her own models around your caster then death knell them for ludicrous damage. Just having to kill her whole army twice though can be so much effort.
- Whenever any model in her army misses or rolls bad damage she can hurt herself and reroll. She never has to live with bad dice and then the unit she has Carnivore on can attack and heal back all that damage she just suffered. She also heals whenever you kill any of her models.
- Purification.
- She has Ram and Life trader on her weapons. So she can charge a model use her goat (for +2 to hit but mount attacks cannot be boosted so you lose the extra damage dice), reroll if she misses, knock the opposing caster down then buy weaponmaster attacks if she suffers another damage. She can also push other models out of the way to get to the caster by using ram as she can buy mount attacks.
- Fog Of War. Stalkers already circle's best beasts now have stealth. Gallows Groves - stealth. Reeves go to DEF 17.
She is an attrition monster, she will use scales of fate to make sure her models do more damage than they should then when you work through them she will feat to bring them back. Stalkers were bad enough with just sprint, with sprint and stealth and never failing to kill models because you get rid of tough and reroll misses or bad damage. And to top that all off if you need upkeeps you better be ready to cast them every turn and forget defensive upkeeps.
How to Deal
Non living models are ideal. All the hordes armies can bring the Gatorman Witch Doctor (except funnily enough the Farrow minion ones) and you should, actually you probably should in general. He ensures that you don't have to worry about command checks which can be randomly awful. That shuts down Carnivore and the bulk of her healing which hurts scales of fate as well. If you are a warmachine faction you can go jack heavy and if you are Cryx you don't have to worry. In general in addition to undead/warjacks/constructs you want a few boostable guns. If she hurts herself too much just start shooting at her.
From there the next issue is her feat, for that you want to be able to remove models from play. There are a lot of game effects that can do this and they double up, helping you with Goatvanna and with recursion mechanics, things like the Spawning Vessel, Mechanithralls and Necrosurgeions, Shamblers and Alexia.
Be aware of the scenario. She is hard to jam out of a zone because she can bring models back into the zone but those models are often easier to remove. Also keep an eye on the assassination, force her to be careful how much of her life she is willing to spend.
Caster Recommendations
Cygnar: Haley2 with double Stormwall is a nightmare for her. Nemo2 doesn't look so great either, she will also struggle against Kraye and Darius (See Darius isn't a total loss against top tier casters!) (don't play Darius at a tournament).
Protectorate of Menoth: Go for the jack wall. In particular a jack wall with a bunch of guns. Feora2 is probably your best, Reznik and Feora1 can do it too, Harbinger can have a game.
Mercenaries. Bart + Galleon. The ARM (even 22 with purification) is a nightmare and the boosted gun port shots have no trouble with her infantry. Either Magnus,
Trollbloods: Doomshaper2 with a lot of beasts is ideal. Get their ARM up to 22, can purify away the krielstone bonus, snacking RFPs and you have no infantry to kill with Carnivore. That said any caster with Witch Doc Crocs for their infantry and a couple of dire trolls to RFP will do just fine. Even doomshaper1 does OK, runshapers are multi wound and fairly tough under the krielstone.
Legion: Not Kallus. Fog of war does nothing, shredders and scytheans and afflictors RFP and Legion loves going beast heavy. Even Lylyth with no RFP can do enough damage at range that it's probably still uphill for lady goat.
Minions: Poor minions. Pigs have slaughterhousers to remove those skinwalkers from play and the gators have the witch doc croc to make their troops non-living. You are going to have to deal with a fair amount of her crap. On the other hand though the only minion caster who really struggles is Midas as she will RFP his beasts and take away his feat. Carver beast heavy isn't bad, Rask with witch doc crocs can do the job, Maelok loves the undead spam, Barnabas can at least knock down her units which will buy you a turn.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Rejigging Cygnar
I'm rejigging some of my Cygnar lists because of SR2013. In 2012 the gunline reigned supreme and Cygnar played it really well however in 2013 you need to have more presence moving forwards or you just lose on scenario so I'm rewriting my most static gunline lists. I've been playing mainly Mercs, Legion and for some reason pigs so far but Cygnar is one of my main competitive factions so I need to do this at some point.
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