Battle Report: Cygnar (Caine2) vs Cryx (Goreshade)

Cygnar (Sons of the Tempest)

• Captain Allistair Caine
• Squire
• Hurricane
• Arcane Tempest Rifleman
• Journeyman Warcaster
• Sentinel (Southwest)
• Lieutenant Bastian Falk
• Hermit of Henge Hold
• Gun Mage Captain Adept (Roger)
• Gun Mage Captain Adept (Buford)
• Captain Arlan Strangewayes
• Black 13th Strike Force
• Rangers
• Alexia & the Risen
• Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
• Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
• Field Mechanics (min)
• Field Mechanics (min)

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Cryx (Black Industries)

• Goreshade, Lord of Ruin
• Kraken
• Necrotech
• Necrotech
• Necrotech
• Gorman Di Wolfe
• Bane Lord Tartarus
• Bane Riders
• Bane Knights (max)
• Bane Knight Officer
• Bane Warriors
• Bane Warrior Officer & Standard
• Bane Warriors
• Bane Warrior Officer & Standard

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Deployment

In this game, both of us were playing somewhat unfamiliar armies. I was playing gun mages for the first time in years, and using the hermit for the first time. He was running Goreshade for the first time, and playing banes for the first time since Mk2. He started the game mistakenly thinking that banes still had stealth. Thankfully we figured it out before it caused too much trouble.

The scenario was Invasion. My opponent won the roll and chose the side with the two forests and the flat house, which I'd originally wanted because rangers and Black 13th get stealth with concealment, but in the end the kraken was his only model with ranged attacks, so it didn't matter. I got the side with a central wall and a burnt out L-shaped building. Also central lava to hide behind.

I chose the observatory objective and he chose wreckage.

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Cygnar Turn 1

Cygnar runs forward. Taking a spot behind the objective, Cygnar realizes that getting past that objective with a huge base will be an issue. Caine gets heightened reflexes, Falk gets bullet dodger, a Gun Mage Captain Adept gets fire for effect, and the Hurricane gets arcane shield from the journeyman warcaster.

Given that the kraken has a 5 inch AoE, I'm very careful to space out models.

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Cryx Turn 1

 

Banes flood forward. They've places two clouds touching the forests, which do an excellent job of blocking line of sight. The Bane Riders get occultation, and the kraken gets Infernal Machine. Gorman hides behind the objective.

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Cygnar Turn 2

 

The arcane tempest rifleman aims and kills Gorman. Rangers run forward within five inches of the bane warriors, killing a few, and it's not until a few more activations that both of us realize that bane warriors no longer have stealth, only prowl. So gun mages kill a number of them, and a thrall warrior charges the two in the cloud, missing. The gun mages in the other zone can do nothing but spread out.

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Cryx Turn 2

Bane riders charge and kill all but one gun mage in the closer unit, as well as Buford the gun mage captain adept. The kraken says YOLO and charges the sentinel, which astoundingly survives.

Banes in the far zone charge. And while they can't reach the gun mages, the rangers take some casualties. All in all, the zone is a mess.

(Cryx 0, Cygnar 0)

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Cygnar Turn 3

Roger takes out a bane officer, and the unit of gun mages and the rangers kill a lot of banes before Alexia's risen charge in to block. The Black 13th shoot and they all either miss or do no damage.

The sentinel moves back to safety behind the wall and gets repaired, and the hurricane gets focus from Arlan and charges into the lava to attack the kraken, taking out one side entirely.

Bastian Falk sprays three bane riders with his shotgun, setting them on fire, and the journeyman warcaster boosts a shot into another. Together, they kill three, and a fourth ends the turn on fire, although it goes out immediately.

(Cryx 0, Cygnar 0)

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Cryx Turn 3

The kraken forgoes melee attacks on the Hurricane to shoot at Caine. The hermit uses Mad Visions to eliminate the boosted hellblaster hit on Caine entirely, and Caine ends the turn in good shape.

Banes charge the gun mages but miss, although they do kill a number of Risen and one ranger. Other banes kill the Cygnar objective. Goreshade moves from behind the building up to a spot behind the forest, which Caine takes note of, and Caine decides right then that he'll prep for the assassination.

Cryx scores one point from killing the objective, and another for the circle zone.

(Cryx 2, Cygnar 0)

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Cygnar Turn 4

 

The sentinel is out of the journeyman's control range because I wasn't paying attention.

Caine moves up to the wall and shoots out four banes. Also, critically, he decides he's in no real danger of knockdown, but since he's now moving forward he wants to steal bullet dodger from Falk, so he lets heightened reflexes expire and instead casts bullet dodger on himself.

The repair crew moves to the hurricane and fixes it up. Gun mages continue their assault on the banes, shooting out a few of them. The risen charge in with combined melee attacks, killing two banes.

Bastian Falk walks over and blasts the banes near the hurricane with a rune marked shot, also tagging the kraken. This gives the kraken +2 damage from any magical attack. Arlan then gives the hurricane magical weapons. Next, the hurricane punches the kraken to death, but rolls badly and misses two of his attacks entirely.

Next round should be a trivial assassination for Caine, unless Goreshade flat-out flees.

(Cryx 3, Cygnar 0)

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Cryx Turn 4

Cryx looks at the board and sees that it only needs to score 2 points to win. But then my opponent realizes that he can walk a bane over, feat, and make Caine stationary. So he does. Then two necrotechs charge and do a lot of damage to Caine. One of them was unpainted, which added insult to injury. Goreshade walks up and finishes Caine off with a siphon bolt.

(Cryx win!)

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Final Thoughts

• I really did take the perfect army for facing banes. Gun mages kill a ARM15 or ARM16 bane fairly easily, as do rangers. And they don't care about dark shroud because they die to any hit regardless.
• If I had realized that stationary was a danger and just not spent the two focus to get bullet dodger, I'd have probably won the game.

  

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.

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.

My First Steamroller

This weekend, I participated in my first warmachine tournament. I've been playing the game for maybe two years, but hadn't previously felt ready. That was largely because I was terrified of deathclock.

I did find that during the tournament games, I got very shaky, couldn't do remedial math (ugh, what's 13 minus 7?!?), and made so many horrible decisions. I forgot to activate models, forgot to allocate focus, moved models into my charge lanes, forgot to feat, and lost at least one activation shooting at a stealth model. I didn't prioritize models, and basically had zero real plan much of the time. I played much of the game entirely without thought. This is not how I normally play warmachine. Deathclock stole my mind.

Novice Listbuilding: My First Steamroller

I've been playing Warmachine for just about two years now, since slightly before MK3 was announced. But it hasn't been until very recently that I've felt ready for a tournament. Now don't get me wrong - in many ways, I know that I'm still not ready, and may never be. But I'm not ever going to be any readier than I am now, so what the heck? Let's look at the list pairing thoughts of an utter amateur.