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.

Major Katherine Laddermore

Our most expensive in-faction solo, Laddermore is Cygnar's dragoon. Before her most recent nerf, she was an auto-include with any stormlance list. But since her +2/+2 electrocharger stormlance buff was changed to a simple veteran leader +1 to-hit for all nearby storm knights, the nature of her utility has changed. It is nice that she now can also help stormblade infantry to hit, and I've seen serious tournament lists where she's included even without stormlances.

On her own, Laddermore is formidable. She's a stormlance, and that alone is not nothing. She's 13/17 with a whopping 10 boxes, and even after an enemy deals with those ten boxes, she still doesn't die. But aside from her extreme durability, she's really got three specific things that set her apart from vanilla stormlances.

First, her veteran leader ability. She's got MAT8 and RAT6, and she gives any other stormlances within 9" of her the same accuracy. It's no electrocharger, but it can help stormlances and stormblades both hit just a bit better. Positioning her to take advantage of this ability is key.

Second, she's a dragoon. This means that even if she gets hit by a POW33 Stryker2 charge attack which rolls triple sixes at dice plus sixteen, netting 34 damage, she's still alive. She just gets dismounted. And when you go from that large base to a small one, you can place the new small base anywhere completely within the volume of where the large base was, potentially allowing you to place the newly dismounted dragoon out of reach of the attacking model. This can be super-useful to prevent your attacker from buying additional attacks and taking out Laddermore.

Third, lightning generator. Laddermore can generate more lightning than you'd think. When she assaults, her shot gets 1d3 leaps, and then her melee attack gets 1d3 leaps. If she then gets another attack from Stryker2's feat, that's another 1d3 leaps. It's pretty good.

Stormblade Captain

Five points is fairly pricy for this model. And before themes were allowing people to take models for free, he seldom saw the table. But a free model is a free model, and when you're choosing between 0-point options, he's not a bad pick.

The thing people generally think of with this model is his tactician ability, which allows storm knights to see and move through each other. But although I can envision best-case scenarios with stormlances assaulting, repositioning back, and then the stormblades charging through them, that's pretty much never going to happen on the table. Perhaps I just don't have enough experience, but I don't see this as the models' best ability.

The stormblade captain is a MAT 8 weaponmaster, and his electrical shot is POW14 rather than only 12, so it's almost as if it's permanently affected by a storm rod. He does lack assault, so it's less useful than on stormblades, but his weaponmaster charge shouldn't be disregarded.

For my money, the best thing about this model is his ability to marshall a stormclad and turn it into a complete beast. I've gone into that in detail here, if you're interested in details. (https://casualty-wmh.blogspot.com/2017/04/module-stormclad-stormblade-captain.html) And when the stormblade captain is base-to-base with his stormclad (because why would you ever marshall any other jack?) he jumps to 14/18 and can't be knocked down thanks to Iron Sentinel.

After all that, his quick work ability is a bit of an afterthought, but is certainly always nice.

Lieutenant Gwen Keller

With the seven-point grenadiers being a never-taken option, it's doubly hard to justify a solo that costs more than half that. Gwen Keller is both a stormblade and a grenadier. She does everything that either of those units does, and the only things she has that those units do not is quick work, and five boxes.

Her one trick is charging a model, killing it, and then using quick work to toss a grenade. Aside from this, she's got to be one of the worst solos out there. If she were three points, she'd probably still see the table only rarely.

Savio Montero Acosta 

...or as I like to call him, Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez. Either that or Inigo Montoya. Take your pick.

Savio is a beast. He's also a great option as a free solo, being the only six-point free solo option in Cygnar.

Savio is a combat solo. And with defense 15, if you get him into melee with enemy infantry and keep him clear of enemy jacks or beasts, he will do wonders. Even MAT7 enemy infantry will need to roll an 8 to hit, and if they miss, Savio almost certainly kills them in retaliation.

You see, Savio has a little ability called riposte. Whenever he's missed by a melee attack, he gets to strike back with his MAT9 POW13 weaponmaster attack, and on average, that falls just short of killing a Khador man-o-war. Once Savio's in melee, his defense is effectively 19, and the enemy won't be firing into melee.

Dodge means that when he's missed by a melee attack, he can riposte before or after making his two inch dodge move. Both are triggered, and you make the choice over which to do first. This can often allow you to move into the rear arc of an attacker before rolling the riposte attack, although the hit bonus will seldom matter unless you're targeting an enemy caster.

The real dream with Savio is putting Bullet Dodger on him, although this is only possibly in Cygnar when running Caine2 in Storm Division.

I like to run Savio up behind a unit of stormblades, then when one of them dies, he takes his swift vengeance move and comes out swinging.

The biggest danger with Savio is boostable shooting, which you've got to be especially careful to avoid before closing in melee. Again, your preferred targets are anything that can't boost attacks. It's great to run him into an enemy unit and have the unit decide not to even activate.

So that's it for Storm Division solos, and that wraps up my Storm Division Deep Dive series. I hope you enjoyed.