That said, let's go down the list of Cygnar's 21 casters, and look at where each of them sits. I'm not going to letter grade them, but I'll try to make the call about whether the caster ought to get some CID tweaking.
Friday, December 14, 2018
State of the Cygnar, End of 2018
After this year's WTC, many players are asking themselves whether Cygnar is competitively viable. And while an analysis may be laughable when it's coming from a non-competitive player such as myself, please realize that armchair quarterbacking is a thing, and that while I may not actually play Warmachine, (sarcasm) I do listen to multiple podcasts weekly and participate on multiple forums.
That said, let's go down the list of Cygnar's 21 casters, and look at where each of them sits. I'm not going to letter grade them, but I'll try to make the call about whether the caster ought to get some CID tweaking.
That said, let's go down the list of Cygnar's 21 casters, and look at where each of them sits. I'm not going to letter grade them, but I'll try to make the call about whether the caster ought to get some CID tweaking.
Friday, November 2, 2018
Hunter or Charger?
It's a question I've seen discussed many times. While people are normally trying to analyze ranged damage, there's a lot more to be looked at here. Let's take a quick look at the pros and cons, and compare Cygnar's two favorite ranged light warjacks.
Friday, August 24, 2018
Analyzing WTC Cygnar Lists
The September 15th World Team Championship is fast approaching, and the lists were recently announced. I thought it would be useful to look through the 64 cygnar lists that appear at Conflict Chamber's WTC list site and determine the most popular and interesting ones.
It's no surprise that Haley3 is the most popular caster, with 18 lists, 16 of which are gravediggers. The other two are storm division, and to be honest, I'm not sure I understand how either of the two works.
Siege1 appears with ten lists, six of them Sons of the Tempest. I guess those POW10s have a lot less trouble breaking armor when it's halved. He's also got three lists in heavy metal and one in storm division.
Haley2 is making a comeback in third place with nine lists: Six in heavy metal, two in Sons of the Tempest, and one Storm Division.
Siege2 appears in six of the WTC lists, five of them in gravediggers and the remaining one in storm division.
The once-great Nemo3 is down to only five lists, three storm division and two heavy metal. Sloan has four heavy metal lists, Stryker2 has three storm division lists, and Stryker1 has two heavy metal lists.
Haley1 shows up twice, once in heavy metal and once in sons of the tempest. And then we've got one appearance each for Caine3 storm division, Nemo1 heavy metal, Kraye heavy metal, Maddox storm division, and... what? Nemo2 sons of the tempest?? Now that's an odd one, Hungary. Damned if I can even remember what Nemo2 does.
Let's see, it's got a couple centurions, a firefly, and a lancer. Those centurions will be anchors - one with arcane shield and the other with fail safe. Wait - the list has no junior? Weird! Uhh, okay... gun mages running a cyclone, which is always a good combo. Arlan and Falk are there to work together to give either a centurion or the cyclone that damage buff, Black 13th is good, and Anastasia for the critical roll to go first. Polarity shield can make unchargable gun mages or black 13th, who can then close in with gunfighter and Falk for pistoleer-boosted POW12s. Field mechanics should keep the centurions in working order, and be able to score a circle zone. It's an unusual list. I hope it works.
Others that immediately catch my attention? Denmark's Siege1 Sons of the Tempest / Siege2 Gravediggers lists. Both Denmark teams are using identical Siege1/Siege2 lists. They must really like those lists.
Also, every Cygnar list on every USA team is in gravediggers.
But one of the things that I've noticed most is that a lot of teams just aren't taking Cygnar at all.
It's no surprise that Haley3 is the most popular caster, with 18 lists, 16 of which are gravediggers. The other two are storm division, and to be honest, I'm not sure I understand how either of the two works.
Siege1 appears with ten lists, six of them Sons of the Tempest. I guess those POW10s have a lot less trouble breaking armor when it's halved. He's also got three lists in heavy metal and one in storm division.
Haley2 is making a comeback in third place with nine lists: Six in heavy metal, two in Sons of the Tempest, and one Storm Division.
Siege2 appears in six of the WTC lists, five of them in gravediggers and the remaining one in storm division.
The once-great Nemo3 is down to only five lists, three storm division and two heavy metal. Sloan has four heavy metal lists, Stryker2 has three storm division lists, and Stryker1 has two heavy metal lists.
Haley1 shows up twice, once in heavy metal and once in sons of the tempest. And then we've got one appearance each for Caine3 storm division, Nemo1 heavy metal, Kraye heavy metal, Maddox storm division, and... what? Nemo2 sons of the tempest?? Now that's an odd one, Hungary. Damned if I can even remember what Nemo2 does.
Let's see, it's got a couple centurions, a firefly, and a lancer. Those centurions will be anchors - one with arcane shield and the other with fail safe. Wait - the list has no junior? Weird! Uhh, okay... gun mages running a cyclone, which is always a good combo. Arlan and Falk are there to work together to give either a centurion or the cyclone that damage buff, Black 13th is good, and Anastasia for the critical roll to go first. Polarity shield can make unchargable gun mages or black 13th, who can then close in with gunfighter and Falk for pistoleer-boosted POW12s. Field mechanics should keep the centurions in working order, and be able to score a circle zone. It's an unusual list. I hope it works.
Others that immediately catch my attention? Denmark's Siege1 Sons of the Tempest / Siege2 Gravediggers lists. Both Denmark teams are using identical Siege1/Siege2 lists. They must really like those lists.
Also, every Cygnar list on every USA team is in gravediggers.
But one of the things that I've noticed most is that a lot of teams just aren't taking Cygnar at all.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Battle Report: Mercenaries (Gorton Hammerstrike) vs Cygnar (Caine1 Storm Division)
I got in a quick game with a friend last night. The summer has been busy, so this was actually our first Steamroller 2018 game.
Both of us knew we were bringing somewhat wonky lists this game. I hadn't played Caine1 in over two years, and my friend's Gorten list was odd as well.
His list was called "Gortenball", and the premise was to have a thick wall of jacks surrounding Gorten, who would then be able to get him close enough to feat and send a jack or two in for the assassination. The odd thing is that the list gets zero free solos.
My Caine1 list was predicated on the idea that with Caine there to deal with infantry, the entire remainder of the list can focus on armor-cracking. I also had stormcallers in there for some reason, probably mostly because I hadn't used them in Mk3 yet.
Both of us knew we were bringing somewhat wonky lists this game. I hadn't played Caine1 in over two years, and my friend's Gorten list was odd as well.
His list was called "Gortenball", and the premise was to have a thick wall of jacks surrounding Gorten, who would then be able to get him close enough to feat and send a jack or two in for the assassination. The odd thing is that the list gets zero free solos.
My Caine1 list was predicated on the idea that with Caine there to deal with infantry, the entire remainder of the list can focus on armor-cracking. I also had stormcallers in there for some reason, probably mostly because I hadn't used them in Mk3 yet.
Monday, July 9, 2018
Cygnar Storm Division Deep Dive, Part 4/4: Storm Division Solos
When I typically think of storm division solos, I'm generally thinking of the Stormblade Captain, Katherine Laddermore, and the new grenadier solo Gwen Keller. But there are other solos available in the theme as well. The stormcallers are technically solos, but I did cover them in part three. And of course, Cygnar's two auto-include solos, the squire and the journeyman warcaster, are also available in Storm Division, but I won't be talking much about them either. The other two I'd love to cover are Lieutenant Allison Jakes and Arlan Strangewayes, but there's so much to talk about with each of them that they each deserve their own article rather than one lumped into a Storm Division analysis.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Cygnar Storm Division Deep Dive, Part 3/4: Storm Towers and Other Stormsmiths
The stormsmiths are the seldom-seen stepbrethren of the storm knights. Aside from those stormsmiths lucky enough to sit atop the storm strider, they're not often seen. Today, I'll be taking a close look at three different stormsmiths, and where they fit into the Storm Division army.
Firstly, stormcallers are Storm Division's sole answer to stealth. Their walk-and-shoot threat is a respectable 16 inches. Unfortunately, they're an extremely low-POW answer to stealth, and so they're not useful against Shadowpack beast bricks.
Secondly, the stormcallers' lightning attacks are also magical, which means they're able to take out gremlin swarms, Blackbanes, and other incorporeal models. Magical weapons aren't a huge shortage in Cygnar, but storm division has fewer than Cygnar's other themes.
Lastly, the stormcallers' attacks are surprisingly accurate, as they ignore cover, concealment, and elevation. That trencher who was dug in on a hill is no longer DEF19 , now he's DEF13, and your stormcaller only needs a 7 to take him out.
The reason I most often took stormsmith stormcallers in Mk2 was because of their storm strike's disruption ability. It used to be that any hit on a warjack from a stormcaller would disrupt the jack. It was very strong. But in Mk3, this has been downgraded to critical disruption. A normal attack from a stormcaller has only a 16.6% chance to get that disruption, and a POW10 is pretty unlikely to do any significant damage to that warjack. If you were able to boost that attack, the chances would go up to 44%, but it's nearly never worth applying any kind of boosting effect, as stormcallers are solos rather than a unit, and a spell like deadeye would only affect a single stormcaller.
All this being said, the stormcallers are extremely squishy, and their 13 defense will do little to save them from blast damage or accurate shooting if they move out in the open to get triangulation attacks.
Similar in some ways to long gunners, stormcallers are all about getting a large volume of reasonably accurate low-power attacks. On their own, each stormcaller can make a single range 10, POW 10 storm strike, threatening 16". Pew pew! But when two line up, a stormcaller can attack any two models in a line drawn between two stormsmiths, meaning the attack on one of them can threaten nearly 26", assuming that another stormcaller can reach that 26" mark. The best of all is when three models can form a triangle and allow for the stormcaller triangulation attack, which allows each stormsmith to make up to three attacks against models within the triangle.
There are a number of triangulation tactics you may want to try to maximize your stormcaller shootiness, the most obvious of which is running a single model and sacrificing his attack(s) to give the other stormcallers a triangle which they can then use to triangulate, resulting in more overall attacks. Since the stormcallers are not a unit, you can even have one run while others aim.
There are also a number of other models who can participate as members of a stormcaller triangle, even if they can't make the actual triangulation attack themselves. They are the storm strider, the stormpod, and the stormblade infantry standard. The fact that stormcallers are solos rather than a unit allows you to deploy them at the extreme left and right flanks and run forward until it's time. When you're ready, you can score triangulation attacks even if your stormcallers began your turn 38 inches apart! One simply runs 12" inward, leaving it 26" away, then the other walks 6 inches to the 20" mark and uses the triangulation special attack. Granted, I don't recommend actually leaving them a full 38 inches apart as they move up, but that measurement should serve to illustrate how far apart they can be and still remain a threat.
Caine0's fire for effect spell would do much to make the storm tower viable, but despite the fact that War Room allows you at the time of this writing to include Caine0 in a Storm Division army, it's rumored that this is a bug, and that Caine0 isn't an allowed model.
The storm tower walks 3 and runs 5, so long as the grunt is still alive. This allows it to make it up to the 15 or 18 inch line by the time it wants to shoot on turn two, threatening to the 29" or 32" line, but only if its target is directly across from it. This means you'll generally want the storm tower to look for decent defensive terrain, such as a wall or a hill, and to threaten circle zones into which the enemy will be inclined to bring infantry.
As odd a niche as the storm tower brings, it's only situationally useful. I love the look of the model, but despite having owned it for about a year, I've only put it on the table once.
They're pretty resistant to shooting. Force Barrier makes them DEF15 even without terrain bonuses, and they're entirely immune to blast damage, which is usually how all my high-defense infantry dies. So the real trick with the grenadiers is: how do you deliver a grenade or two and not have them immediately charged?
One option is to put them in a spot where a valuable enemy model such as a heavy can in fact charge them, but then have your own heavy ready to retaliate. This leaves your opponent with a decision: sure, that driller can charge and kill the grenadier, but then your own ironclad walks in and takes out the driller, and your opponent has just given you a 10-point model in exchange for the 2.3 point grenadier he killed.
A second option is to screen them. You can have your grenadiers all walk up and throw grenades, and then run some stormblades past them. You would, of course, only do this if the threat to the grenadiers was a melee charge, and ideally you'd have the stormblades with iron zeal and arcane shield this round.
Another excellent option is snipe. If you're running a Stryker1 stormlance brick, a Caine1 stormblade gunline, or a Maddox list, this is a potentially very good option. You can juggle snipe between Caine's stormblades and the grenadiers, or onto Stryker1's colossal. Range 10 grenades are actually relevant.
The grenadiers' kinetic grip grenade is the reason Haley1 got nerfed into near-unplayability. Her temporal barrier spell stacks with a kinetic grip grenade, meaning that anyone hit suffers -4 speed. This means something like a driller has a speed of 0 and can only move if it charges. Anything 4.5" away is perfectly safe, and if Haley hits it with a scramble spell to disrupt it, it's a useless model next turn. The fact that the grenade is an AoE means that clustered enemy models can all be hit by the same effect. In the perfect situation (which of course never happens) it's back-breaking.
The other two grenade types are Voltaic Vortex and Galvanic Blast Field. These two, unlike kinetic grip, both require a direct hit against an enemy model to get anything more than POW7 blast damage. The galvanic blast field leaves a small electric AoE which will do POW10 damage. In the right situation, this may be the thing that saves your unit of grenadiers from an enemy infantry charge next turn. But again - you don't get much choice in positioning it, since it's got to directly hit an enemy model. The final shot type, voltaic vortex, is interesting in that its area of effect depends a lot on the model you hit. Hitting a small-base model gives you an AoE not much larger than the standard 5" pie plate. Hitting a large-based model gives you a nearly 6" AoE. But hitting a huge-based model will allow the voltaic vortex to affect nearly an 8" area. Granted, it will only be pulling all those models right into the enemy colossal, but this is a good tool in your toolbox, and could come in handy at the right moment.
Next time, we'll wrap up this series and look at storm division solos.
Stormsmith Stormcallers
The stormcallers are the gun mages and long gunners of the storm division: accurate, but low-power. Stormcallers solve three different problems that storm division can have issues with, and that's why they're most often taken.Firstly, stormcallers are Storm Division's sole answer to stealth. Their walk-and-shoot threat is a respectable 16 inches. Unfortunately, they're an extremely low-POW answer to stealth, and so they're not useful against Shadowpack beast bricks.
Secondly, the stormcallers' lightning attacks are also magical, which means they're able to take out gremlin swarms, Blackbanes, and other incorporeal models. Magical weapons aren't a huge shortage in Cygnar, but storm division has fewer than Cygnar's other themes.
Lastly, the stormcallers' attacks are surprisingly accurate, as they ignore cover, concealment, and elevation. That trencher who was dug in on a hill is no longer DEF19 , now he's DEF13, and your stormcaller only needs a 7 to take him out.
The reason I most often took stormsmith stormcallers in Mk2 was because of their storm strike's disruption ability. It used to be that any hit on a warjack from a stormcaller would disrupt the jack. It was very strong. But in Mk3, this has been downgraded to critical disruption. A normal attack from a stormcaller has only a 16.6% chance to get that disruption, and a POW10 is pretty unlikely to do any significant damage to that warjack. If you were able to boost that attack, the chances would go up to 44%, but it's nearly never worth applying any kind of boosting effect, as stormcallers are solos rather than a unit, and a spell like deadeye would only affect a single stormcaller.
All this being said, the stormcallers are extremely squishy, and their 13 defense will do little to save them from blast damage or accurate shooting if they move out in the open to get triangulation attacks.
Similar in some ways to long gunners, stormcallers are all about getting a large volume of reasonably accurate low-power attacks. On their own, each stormcaller can make a single range 10, POW 10 storm strike, threatening 16". Pew pew! But when two line up, a stormcaller can attack any two models in a line drawn between two stormsmiths, meaning the attack on one of them can threaten nearly 26", assuming that another stormcaller can reach that 26" mark. The best of all is when three models can form a triangle and allow for the stormcaller triangulation attack, which allows each stormsmith to make up to three attacks against models within the triangle.
There are a number of triangulation tactics you may want to try to maximize your stormcaller shootiness, the most obvious of which is running a single model and sacrificing his attack(s) to give the other stormcallers a triangle which they can then use to triangulate, resulting in more overall attacks. Since the stormcallers are not a unit, you can even have one run while others aim.
There are also a number of other models who can participate as members of a stormcaller triangle, even if they can't make the actual triangulation attack themselves. They are the storm strider, the stormpod, and the stormblade infantry standard. The fact that stormcallers are solos rather than a unit allows you to deploy them at the extreme left and right flanks and run forward until it's time. When you're ready, you can score triangulation attacks even if your stormcallers began your turn 38 inches apart! One simply runs 12" inward, leaving it 26" away, then the other walks 6 inches to the 20" mark and uses the triangulation special attack. Granted, I don't recommend actually leaving them a full 38 inches apart as they move up, but that measurement should serve to illustrate how far apart they can be and still remain a threat.
Stormsmith Storm Tower
The Storm Division's only artillery piece, the storm tower has an odd role. On one hand, it looks at first much like the storm strider, which is one of Cygnar's strongest models. And while it only gets one shot to the storm strider's two, it costs less than a quarter of the strider's points. But it's not only the fact that it's one POW less that makes it such a relatively poor piece. It's mostly the fact that it has no way to boost damage, so its POW14 attack isn't going to do much to enemy heavies. And it has no way to boost the hit roll, meaning that the lightning generator may be entirely lost if the RAT6 attack misses enemy infantry.
Caine0's fire for effect spell would do much to make the storm tower viable, but despite the fact that War Room allows you at the time of this writing to include Caine0 in a Storm Division army, it's rumored that this is a bug, and that Caine0 isn't an allowed model.
The storm tower walks 3 and runs 5, so long as the grunt is still alive. This allows it to make it up to the 15 or 18 inch line by the time it wants to shoot on turn two, threatening to the 29" or 32" line, but only if its target is directly across from it. This means you'll generally want the storm tower to look for decent defensive terrain, such as a wall or a hill, and to threaten circle zones into which the enemy will be inclined to bring infantry.
As odd a niche as the storm tower brings, it's only situationally useful. I love the look of the model, but despite having owned it for about a year, I've only put it on the table once.
Stormsmith Grenadiers
One of the most recent storm division releases, this 7-point 3-man unit has a lot of utility, but with only a six inch range and no ability to reposition, each is likely to get one shot per game with a grenade.
They're pretty resistant to shooting. Force Barrier makes them DEF15 even without terrain bonuses, and they're entirely immune to blast damage, which is usually how all my high-defense infantry dies. So the real trick with the grenadiers is: how do you deliver a grenade or two and not have them immediately charged?
One option is to put them in a spot where a valuable enemy model such as a heavy can in fact charge them, but then have your own heavy ready to retaliate. This leaves your opponent with a decision: sure, that driller can charge and kill the grenadier, but then your own ironclad walks in and takes out the driller, and your opponent has just given you a 10-point model in exchange for the 2.3 point grenadier he killed.
A second option is to screen them. You can have your grenadiers all walk up and throw grenades, and then run some stormblades past them. You would, of course, only do this if the threat to the grenadiers was a melee charge, and ideally you'd have the stormblades with iron zeal and arcane shield this round.
Another excellent option is snipe. If you're running a Stryker1 stormlance brick, a Caine1 stormblade gunline, or a Maddox list, this is a potentially very good option. You can juggle snipe between Caine's stormblades and the grenadiers, or onto Stryker1's colossal. Range 10 grenades are actually relevant.
The grenadiers' kinetic grip grenade is the reason Haley1 got nerfed into near-unplayability. Her temporal barrier spell stacks with a kinetic grip grenade, meaning that anyone hit suffers -4 speed. This means something like a driller has a speed of 0 and can only move if it charges. Anything 4.5" away is perfectly safe, and if Haley hits it with a scramble spell to disrupt it, it's a useless model next turn. The fact that the grenade is an AoE means that clustered enemy models can all be hit by the same effect. In the perfect situation (which of course never happens) it's back-breaking.
The other two grenade types are Voltaic Vortex and Galvanic Blast Field. These two, unlike kinetic grip, both require a direct hit against an enemy model to get anything more than POW7 blast damage. The galvanic blast field leaves a small electric AoE which will do POW10 damage. In the right situation, this may be the thing that saves your unit of grenadiers from an enemy infantry charge next turn. But again - you don't get much choice in positioning it, since it's got to directly hit an enemy model. The final shot type, voltaic vortex, is interesting in that its area of effect depends a lot on the model you hit. Hitting a small-base model gives you an AoE not much larger than the standard 5" pie plate. Hitting a large-based model gives you a nearly 6" AoE. But hitting a huge-based model will allow the voltaic vortex to affect nearly an 8" area. Granted, it will only be pulling all those models right into the enemy colossal, but this is a good tool in your toolbox, and could come in handy at the right moment.
Next time, we'll wrap up this series and look at storm division solos.
Friday, June 29, 2018
Cygnar Storm Division Deep Dive, Part 2/4: Stormblades and Stormguard
When you hear people asking for a storm knight CID, it's usually because of the three units I'm going to review today: the Stormblade Infantry, Stormguard, and Silver Line Stormguard.
Cygnar's storm knight infantry tends to be very complex and have wonky rules. There's a lot to keep track of in terms of making sure this model is within 5" of that model, making sure that model is inside this other model's command range, and lots of additional overlapping synergies. Memorizing a model's stats are one thing, but when there are so many modifiers, and a single stormblade unit might have three different POWs on their shots because some are inside ionization and others are out of range of the storm rod, it can get sticky.
Cygnar's storm knight infantry tends to be very complex and have wonky rules. There's a lot to keep track of in terms of making sure this model is within 5" of that model, making sure that model is inside this other model's command range, and lots of additional overlapping synergies. Memorizing a model's stats are one thing, but when there are so many modifiers, and a single stormblade unit might have three different POWs on their shots because some are inside ionization and others are out of range of the storm rod, it can get sticky.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Cygnar Storm Division Deep Dive, Part 1/4: Stormlances
Cygnar isn't known for its units. Great warjacks, like the charger, centurion, and firefly, sure. Powerful solos like the journeyman warcaster and squire, yup. But units? Not so much.
Gravediggers has trencher infantry, which since the stormlance nerf are arguably the best unit in the faction. Trencher Long Gunners are also pretty amazing for what they do. But gravediggers is fresh off a CID that has (in my opinion) made it the best theme in Cygnar.
On the contrary, Sons of the Tempest remains (once again, my opinion) the worst theme in Cygnar. The once-great gun mages now seldom see the table, and the Black 13th have lost Lynch's true sight and Ryan's mage storm. They all die to a stiff breeze.
Being a jack theme, Heavy Metal is an odd dumping ground for units. The sword knights make sense, as their fluff indicates that they're trained to operate alongside warjacks. But original recipe long gunners are an odd inclusion.
This brings me to The Storm Division, the theme I'd like to touch on with this 3-part series. Storm Division has six units, excluding mechanics, more than any theme besides gravediggers. Today, we'll be looking at the top of the heap: stormlances. Call them lances for short if you must, but dear lord please never call them lancers. A lancer is a warjack, people.
Gravediggers has trencher infantry, which since the stormlance nerf are arguably the best unit in the faction. Trencher Long Gunners are also pretty amazing for what they do. But gravediggers is fresh off a CID that has (in my opinion) made it the best theme in Cygnar.
On the contrary, Sons of the Tempest remains (once again, my opinion) the worst theme in Cygnar. The once-great gun mages now seldom see the table, and the Black 13th have lost Lynch's true sight and Ryan's mage storm. They all die to a stiff breeze.
Being a jack theme, Heavy Metal is an odd dumping ground for units. The sword knights make sense, as their fluff indicates that they're trained to operate alongside warjacks. But original recipe long gunners are an odd inclusion.
This brings me to The Storm Division, the theme I'd like to touch on with this 3-part series. Storm Division has six units, excluding mechanics, more than any theme besides gravediggers. Today, we'll be looking at the top of the heap: stormlances. Call them lances for short if you must, but dear lord please never call them lancers. A lancer is a warjack, people.
Friday, June 22, 2018
Battle Report: Cygnar (Nemo3 Heavy Metal) vs Mercenaries (Ossrum Hammerstrike)
I had a game recently with a good friend of mine in the barn/garage in his backyard which he's termed The Battlebarn. Mosquitos and mice notwithstanding, we had a good time. Here's what went down.
He brought his strongest list: Ossrum with lots of bunnies and dwarves. This one's given me lots of trouble in the past. I brought a Nemo3 Heavy Metal list. The last time I played this list, it had a Stormclad, but no units. I tweaked the list to downgrade the stormclad to a hammersmith so that I could add two min repair crews to help out with scenario. We'll see soon how that worked out.
He brought his strongest list: Ossrum with lots of bunnies and dwarves. This one's given me lots of trouble in the past. I brought a Nemo3 Heavy Metal list. The last time I played this list, it had a Stormclad, but no units. I tweaked the list to downgrade the stormclad to a hammersmith so that I could add two min repair crews to help out with scenario. We'll see soon how that worked out.
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
My Favorite Cygnar Casters and Lists
I know that Haley3 and basically anything in Gravediggers is setting the world on fire at the moment, but firstly, I own two trencher models, neither of which has been assembled during the three or so years I've owned them. Secondly, I know that I don't have the skill to manage moving a Haley3 cloudwall and not clock out on turn two - I'm not even going to bother trying.
I've got a few casters and lists that I absolutely love, and I'd like to share them right now.
I've got a few casters and lists that I absolutely love, and I'd like to share them right now.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Battle Report: Cygnar (Stryker2 Storm Division) vs Convergence (Father Lucant Clockwork Legions)
I had a game recently with a friend of mine who hasn't played Warmachine in nearly a year. The last game we did play, he was playing Circle, and he stomped me badly. He hadn't played a Convergence army in roughly 3 years, since before Mk3, so he was rusty.
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Magnetizing a Stormwall / Hurricane, Part Three
The long and drawn out process continues. I still have very little time, but I was able to carve out an hour or so over the weekend and get some more done while watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on Netflix for what must be the fourth time.
After spending a while staring at the waist connection, I decided not to magnetize it. I'd have to chop off the large plastic nub which connects the colossal's top half to its bottom by slotting neatly into the crotchpiece. In the end, I just glued the damn thing. I think that's going to work just fine.
After spending a while staring at the waist connection, I decided not to magnetize it. I'd have to chop off the large plastic nub which connects the colossal's top half to its bottom by slotting neatly into the crotchpiece. In the end, I just glued the damn thing. I think that's going to work just fine.
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
CRA / CMA Math
It occurred to me recently that I don't think I've ever seen an analysis of the math behind when it's best to take a combined ranged or melee attack versus individual attacks. It seems fairly clear which is best when you're attacking very high or very low ARM or DEF targets, but there's a middle range in which it's difficult to judge.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Magnetizing a Stormwall / Hurricane, Part Deux
I always knew that assembling and painting a colossal would take a long time. I didn't think it would take this long. I started in March, and I'm still not done assembling it. It's true that I get less than an hour a couple nights a week to spend on this, and there was a vacation to factor in as well as the fact that I'm generally watching TV and drinking while I work on the model. I also took a break from the colossal to build that Khador Bunker. I guess that's why it's taking this long.
Friday, April 20, 2018
A Fun Caine2 Jank List
Despite the nerf in which he lost his free shot types, Caine2 remains a powerhouse. He may no longer be a tournament caster, but it sometimes feels like Caine doesn't even need an army to deal with the opponent. He's a fun caster who's still got good assassination potential.
Caine2 is a caster I'll only play out of theme nowadays. He wants models that support his assassination. That means rangers, who only appear in Gravediggers. It also means Gun Mage Captain Adepts and Bastian Falk, who only appear in Sons of the Tempest. Playing out of theme also allows me to add other focus-independent armor crackers like Rorsch and Brine, Stormlances, or a Storm Strider.
There are a few janky combos which I've always wanted to try out with Caine2, and this list looks to make use of as many of those as possible.
Caine2
Reinholdt
Gallant
Ace
Bastian Falk
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Anastasia Di Brae
Jakes
Ironclad
Rangers
Gun mages + UA
Marshaled Avenger
Lets look at the various janky tidbits in this list
Jakes with an Ironclad
I keep hearing that this is a great combo, and helpful for Caine2, because he's got an issue cracking armor. In this case, you have a defense 14 heavy with knockdown tech that Jakes herself can be immune to thanks to Sidekick. I'd originally had Jakes/Thunderhead, but I really needed that extra eight points elsewhere.
Gallant with Bullet Dodger
With bullet dodger in place, Gallant becomes a spell-immune defense 15 heavy, which is insane. Models who can't boost will mostly miss, and jacks or beasts who boost to hit are losing out on a lot of damage potential.
Marshalled Avenger with Fire For Effect
This one is super-janky, and my favorite. When you combine Fire For Effect with Take Aim!, you're making the POW14 seismic cannon into a boosted POW16 knockdown shot with boosted POW9 blast damage. The three to-hit dice from Fire For Effect make him very likely to hit those crits, which isn't hugely meaningful on the thunderbolt AoE since they're already knocked down. But the critical brutal in this case gives a good likelihood to score a boosted brutal AoE that will average direct damage of 30 (POW16 + four dice) and blast damage of 23 (POW9 + four dice). When's the last time you hurt a colossal with blast damage?
Bastian Falk is here because of the huge number of magical weapons in this list. He can give +2 damage to Gallant, Jakes, Lanyssa, the Avenger's shot, the gun mages, or Caine himself.
Lanyssa Ryssyl helps with threat ranges. The Ironclad threats melee out to 14" with Hunter's Mark, which can knock down a caster from just over 15". Both the Avenger and the Ironclad threat long-range knockdown, which can assure a successful assassination from Caine.
Anastasia Di Brae is there to screw with enemy back lines and potentially ensure I can prevent the opponent's caster from choosing good defensive terrain. The rangers are there to hit-fix Caine's assassination, and Reinholdt for the extra shot.
Caine2 is a caster I'll only play out of theme nowadays. He wants models that support his assassination. That means rangers, who only appear in Gravediggers. It also means Gun Mage Captain Adepts and Bastian Falk, who only appear in Sons of the Tempest. Playing out of theme also allows me to add other focus-independent armor crackers like Rorsch and Brine, Stormlances, or a Storm Strider.
There are a few janky combos which I've always wanted to try out with Caine2, and this list looks to make use of as many of those as possible.
Caine2
Reinholdt
Gallant
Ace
Bastian Falk
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Anastasia Di Brae
Jakes
Ironclad
Rangers
Gun mages + UA
Marshaled Avenger
Lets look at the various janky tidbits in this list
Jakes with an Ironclad
I keep hearing that this is a great combo, and helpful for Caine2, because he's got an issue cracking armor. In this case, you have a defense 14 heavy with knockdown tech that Jakes herself can be immune to thanks to Sidekick. I'd originally had Jakes/Thunderhead, but I really needed that extra eight points elsewhere.
Gallant with Bullet Dodger
With bullet dodger in place, Gallant becomes a spell-immune defense 15 heavy, which is insane. Models who can't boost will mostly miss, and jacks or beasts who boost to hit are losing out on a lot of damage potential.
Marshalled Avenger with Fire For Effect
This one is super-janky, and my favorite. When you combine Fire For Effect with Take Aim!, you're making the POW14 seismic cannon into a boosted POW16 knockdown shot with boosted POW9 blast damage. The three to-hit dice from Fire For Effect make him very likely to hit those crits, which isn't hugely meaningful on the thunderbolt AoE since they're already knocked down. But the critical brutal in this case gives a good likelihood to score a boosted brutal AoE that will average direct damage of 30 (POW16 + four dice) and blast damage of 23 (POW9 + four dice). When's the last time you hurt a colossal with blast damage?
Bastian Falk is here because of the huge number of magical weapons in this list. He can give +2 damage to Gallant, Jakes, Lanyssa, the Avenger's shot, the gun mages, or Caine himself.
Lanyssa Ryssyl helps with threat ranges. The Ironclad threats melee out to 14" with Hunter's Mark, which can knock down a caster from just over 15". Both the Avenger and the Ironclad threat long-range knockdown, which can assure a successful assassination from Caine.
Anastasia Di Brae is there to screw with enemy back lines and potentially ensure I can prevent the opponent's caster from choosing good defensive terrain. The rangers are there to hit-fix Caine's assassination, and Reinholdt for the extra shot.
Monday, April 2, 2018
Terrain Building: The Khador Bunker
A while back, while surfing for Warmachine blogs, I stumbled across a six-year-old blog post about terrain-building. That post contained an image which for some reason really spoke to me. Based on that image, I decided to build some terrain.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Magnetizing a Stormwall / Hurricane (part 1)
When I first magnetizined my Hammersmith / Centurion , I learned some things about magnetization. And I learned when assembling my first huge-base model (the Storm Strider) that it was also quite a job. Now, I've purchased my first colossal. It's both of those difficulties combined.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
My Personal Win/Loss Record
I've just been looking at my own win/loss record over the past year or so, and I've been struck by something notable. When I first started playing Warmachine, just prior to the advent of Mk3, I did so because my friends Mark, Rich, and Chris had gotten into the game. I'd resisted quite a bit at first, but eventually got into the game. Nowadays, Rich and Chris hardly ever play, but Mark and myself still do. I refer to the small group of the four of us as our "mini-meta". Mark plays Mercs and Khador, Rich plays Cryx, and Chris plays Convergeance, Circle, and Trolls.
Let me briefly summarize the seventeen games I've played since the beginning of 2017.
Let me briefly summarize the seventeen games I've played since the beginning of 2017.
Friday, March 9, 2018
Stale Cygnar Mercs Need CID Badly
I understand the limitations on mercenaries in Cygnar themes. In mk2 Warmchine, "Mercnar" was totally a thing - you'd have entire armies of Boomhowlers, Nyss Hunters, and Forge Guard, led by a Cygnar caster. Fill the rest with Merc solos. I suppose it's best that we got away from that, but I'm left with a number of mercenary models that I'd really like to play on occasion. Nobody wants to own models that sit on a shelf and never see play. So today, I'd like to review some of Cygnar's lesser-used mercenary options, look at why they're never seen in tournament lists, and explore whether changes might be made to get them back on the table.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Analyzing OTC Stryker2 List Builds
Continuing my Cygnaran armchair quarterbacking, I'm now analyzing the other popular Cygnar caster at the OTC. Haley3 was number three, but given that she was always in Gravediggers, and given that I don't personally have much interest in Haleys or in Trenchers, I'm skipping that one.
There were eight Stryker2 lists at the OTC this year, six in Storm Division, and two in Heavy Metal. Let's go through and analyze list composition.
There were eight Stryker2 lists at the OTC this year, six in Storm Division, and two in Heavy Metal. Let's go through and analyze list composition.
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Analyzing OTC Nemo3 List Builds
Nemo3 is the biggest caster in Cygnar at the moment. On his feat turn, his two striders and dynamo melt heavies, and all the lightning generator he can bring melts infantry regardless of its defense. There are twelve Nemo3 lists at this year's OTC, half each of storm division and heavy metal. This should give us a decent sense of what's popular in his lists. Let's dissect things.
Friday, March 2, 2018
Analyzing The OTC Cygnar Lists
The Ontario Team Championships begins tomorrow, and the lists have been posted online for a while now - enough for analysis. I've pored through the 21 Cygnar list pairs looking for trends, and I have a few things to share.
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Steamroller 2018 CID - Week One
The first iteration of the newest Steamroller 2018 scenarios were released on Monday, and by now, even those not on the CID forums have likely gotten a look at what's coming. Overall, it's far less drastic of a change than we saw moving from SR2016 to SR2017. Champions will require specific themes rather than only casters, the Divide & Conquer rule is gone, and three of the six steamroller scenarios have changed.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Battle Report: Cygnar (Stryker1 Heavy Metal) vs Cryx (Denny1 Ghost Fleet)
I got together recently with a friend who hasn't played warmachine in over a year. His Cryx models were gathering dust, so he pulled out the only army he could remember: Denny1 Ghost Fleet. He had to proxy a number of models, and had to tweak the army list a good bit since Denny's warjack points have been changed since he last played, plus he'd bought a few new models that didn't exist a year ago. I just played the list with which I'm most familiar.
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Cygnar Wishlist
The latest big Cygnar release was all the Trencher stuff, which I found disappointing. My armies are mostly Storm Division and Heavy Metal - the only trenchers I own are an unassembled Maxwell Finn and an unassembled Chain Gun crew. And while the recent release of Bastian Falk was pretty cool, I've been mostly staying away from my Arcane Tempest models recently as well.
That said, here are some fun model ideas for future Cygnar releases.
That said, here are some fun model ideas for future Cygnar releases.
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Battle Report: Cygnar (Stryker1) vs Khador (Kozlov)
This was my second of two casual Stryker1 games at CaptainCon. It ended up being an immensely fun and very close matchup. I had a great time with this game. My opponent had a ball-busting list consisting of far too many boxes and an insane kayazy swarm.
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Battle Report: Cygnar (Stryker1) vs Cygnar (Stryker2)
Before heading to CaptainCon, my intent had been to play Nemo3 a bunch and get familiar with the caster. But when I got an offer for a casual game, I immediately gravitated to the list with which I'm most familiar: Stryker1.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
CaptainCon and My First Attempt at Nemo3
I'm super-excited to go to CaptainCon this weekend. I've had about seven games of Warmachine total since Steamroller 2017 dropped last summer, and I'm hoping to get in a bunch over the weekend. Casual games all - I'm not enrolled for any tournaments - but I am indeed excited.
Friday, January 12, 2018
Battle Report: Legion (Kryssa) vs Cygnar (Stryker1)
This was an impromptu casual match in a game shop, and neither of us knew much about the opposing army. I just used the same Stryker1 list I had during the tournament months ago, as I was familiar with it. My opponent brought Legion.
Here's his list as best I could reconstruct it, and my own afterwards.
Legion (Children of the Dragon)
Cygnar (Heavy Metal)
The Hex Hunters run into the forest, gaining stealth due to prowl. The rest of the army moves forward quickly.
The sword knights run forward to the forest edge, acting as a screen for the shooty jacks. The Centurions move up into the zones. The charger and storm strider take out a couple raptors. Stryker gets blur, and both centurions get arcane shield. The Cyclone lays down covering fire.
With the covering fire in place, I should probably have put Blur on the sword knights, bringing their DEF vs shooting up to 16, but for some reason I thought there wasn't much shooting that was threatening them.
Hex Hunters take out three sword knights, and one charges and shadow binds a charger. Azrael sprays the centurion, taking out its cortex despite the arcane shield.
Looks like I goofed and left a couple jacks out of control range. The centurion has no cortex anyway, but now the charger gets no focus to shake its shadow bind. The lancer takes out the hex hunter engaging the charger. The charger can't move, but takes its unboosted shots. I think I actually made a mistake here, thinking that with shadow bind, the charger had no movement to sacrifice in order to aim. But in retrospect I think it could actually have aimed, given that shadow bind simply says that when you advance you can only change your facing - not that you can't advance at all.
The storm strider shoots Azrael. The left centurion moves forward, and the right one moves into a position where Arlan might soon repair his cortex. Arlan and Runewood take the flag, and Stryker feats.
Both players score their flags, and Cygnar gets a point for the righthand zone.
(Legion 1, Cygnar 2)
My opponent realizes that the centurions holding the zones are his biggest issue, and walks everything up to the one in the lefthand zone. (it isn't chargable due to polarity shield) With Stryker's feat up, the centurion doesn't take a single box of damage. A bolt thrower pushes Arlan off the flag, but Runewood holds it. The other bolt thrower toes in to contest the righthand zone.
Both players score their respective flags, and no points on zones.
(Legion 2, Cygnar 3)
There are a few options here. Kryssa just moved up to barely behind the forest, and I know I can get line of sight and range on her with both the Strider and a charger. It would be easy to take out the bolt thrower and score, bringing me to a two point lead, but Kryssa is camping zero fury, and I've got a good assassination shot, so I go for it.
The lancer runs up, and the squire moves to be certain he's in range of Stryker. Then Stryker casts Earthquake, boosting the hit roll. This knocks down Kryssa, leaving her at DEF7 due to the cloud she's in. The Strider moves up and hits on anything but snake eyes, boosting damage twice. This is enough to end the game, and I don't even need the charger shots.
(Cygnar win!)
Here's his list as best I could reconstruct it, and my own afterwards.
Legion (Children of the Dragon)
- Kryssa, Conviction of Everblight
- Succubus
- Azrael
- Nephilim Bloodseer
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower
- Nephilim Protector
- Blighted Nyss Warlord
- Blighted Nyss Warlord
- Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters
- Bayal, Hound of Everblight
- Blighted Nyss Raptors
Cygnar (Heavy Metal)
- Commander Coleman Stryker
- Squire
- Centurion
- Centurion
- Lancer
- Charger
- Storm Strider
- Arlan Strangewayes
- Journeyman Warcaster
- Charger
- Alain Runewood
- *Cyclone
- Sword Knights (min)
Legion Turn 1
The Hex Hunters run into the forest, gaining stealth due to prowl. The rest of the army moves forward quickly.
Cygnar Turn 1
The sword knights run forward to the forest edge, acting as a screen for the shooty jacks. The Centurions move up into the zones. The charger and storm strider take out a couple raptors. Stryker gets blur, and both centurions get arcane shield. The Cyclone lays down covering fire.
With the covering fire in place, I should probably have put Blur on the sword knights, bringing their DEF vs shooting up to 16, but for some reason I thought there wasn't much shooting that was threatening them.
Legion Turn 2
Hex Hunters take out three sword knights, and one charges and shadow binds a charger. Azrael sprays the centurion, taking out its cortex despite the arcane shield.
Cygnar Turn 2
Looks like I goofed and left a couple jacks out of control range. The centurion has no cortex anyway, but now the charger gets no focus to shake its shadow bind. The lancer takes out the hex hunter engaging the charger. The charger can't move, but takes its unboosted shots. I think I actually made a mistake here, thinking that with shadow bind, the charger had no movement to sacrifice in order to aim. But in retrospect I think it could actually have aimed, given that shadow bind simply says that when you advance you can only change your facing - not that you can't advance at all.
The storm strider shoots Azrael. The left centurion moves forward, and the right one moves into a position where Arlan might soon repair his cortex. Arlan and Runewood take the flag, and Stryker feats.
Both players score their flags, and Cygnar gets a point for the righthand zone.
(Legion 1, Cygnar 2)
Legion Turn 3
My opponent realizes that the centurions holding the zones are his biggest issue, and walks everything up to the one in the lefthand zone. (it isn't chargable due to polarity shield) With Stryker's feat up, the centurion doesn't take a single box of damage. A bolt thrower pushes Arlan off the flag, but Runewood holds it. The other bolt thrower toes in to contest the righthand zone.
Both players score their respective flags, and no points on zones.
(Legion 2, Cygnar 3)
Cygnar Turn 3
There are a few options here. Kryssa just moved up to barely behind the forest, and I know I can get line of sight and range on her with both the Strider and a charger. It would be easy to take out the bolt thrower and score, bringing me to a two point lead, but Kryssa is camping zero fury, and I've got a good assassination shot, so I go for it.
The lancer runs up, and the squire moves to be certain he's in range of Stryker. Then Stryker casts Earthquake, boosting the hit roll. This knocks down Kryssa, leaving her at DEF7 due to the cloud she's in. The Strider moves up and hits on anything but snake eyes, boosting damage twice. This is enough to end the game, and I don't even need the charger shots.
(Cygnar win!)
Final Thoughts
- I can't help but think that if Kryssa had gotten the cloud and then activated afterwards, she'd have been able to move back behind the cloud after she'd done her thing, thus blocking line of sight entirely. She's also got tactical supremacy, which would let her reposition and get the same thing done.
- My opponent may have been as unfamiliar with my army as I was with his, and was likely not aware of Stryker's pop-and-drop assassination, which is most definitely a thing. He'll know for next time.
- Stryker's army is a tough nut to crack. I believe my opponent's plan was to push the centurions out of zones, but that wasn't possible with the strider. I think he was looking to remove the strider and push the centurions for a scenario win. It may also have been a mistake not to rush in and jam the shooty jacks. Chargers that get mobbed by infantry are sad and mostly ineffective.
- My army has a problem with stealth. The best option I've got is either melee or e-leaps.
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