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.