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there is a journeyman league starting up soon an am thinking of doing cygnar. I would like to run fairly jack heavy. (at least 3 if not 4 or more) is there a good caster for this role?

Nemo, Darius, or Kraye.

With any of the Nemo's being the optimal choice.

There are a lot of good ways for cygnar to run four jacks. There are fewer ways for Cygnar to run four jacks in the caster's battle group.

Keep in mind, any Cygnar army can include a unit of Gun Mages with UA, and 'jack marshal a shooty jack (usually a hunter or defender).

Likewise, you can add a journeyman warcaster with a jack, usually a defender or charger.

Arlan strangeways can add a focus to any jack without any focus, which helps with marshalled jacks.

Even stormclads (heavy hitters) can be marshalled by Stormblades. They have affinity, so gain 1 focus if they activate near a storm blade, and get the jack marshal pseudo-focus.

 jeratoll wrote:
Nemo, Darius, or Kraye.

With any of the Nemo's being the optimal choice.

^ One very fun list (although not necessarily for everybody) goes something like this:

Commander Adept Nemo (*6pts)
* Thorn (8pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Thunderhead (12pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Field Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Tactical Arcanist Corps (4pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)

Of course since you're going journeyman this might not be the best list to grow slowly...

So with the gun mages and a journeyman, would haley (primal) be a good choice? I have a bit of soft spot for her as she was the caster I used when i tried when started the game. Although I am finding i do better with offensive casters than support.

You can run eNemo and a swarm of Chargers to be a cheeky bastard on his feat turn, if that's your kind of thing.

 Commander_Nightflier wrote:
So with the gun mages and a journeyman, would haley (primal) be a good choice? I have a bit of soft spot for her as she was the caster I used when i tried when started the game. Although I am finding i do better with offensive casters than support.

\

She doesn't really do Jack heavy that well. You'll have Temporal Barrier and Deadeye up. Which leaves at most 2 focus per turn to hand out, and that's if you're not wanting to camp or cast anything else. You can mitigate some of this with those models, but they're only good with ranged jacks, I personally only have ever run the Cyclone with the Gun Mages, whilst using Jr. as a dedicated jack support piece is risky as all they hvae to do is kill Jr. who's at max 6" away to get rid of the jack.

OK epic Nemo is the best for jack heavy. Is he mostly a support caster? I heard he can be rather fragile and I would like to avoid that if possible.

 Commander_Nightflier wrote:
OK epic Nemo is the best for jack heavy. Is he mostly a support caster? I heard he can be rather fragile and I would like to avoid that if possible.

He is tied with, if not edging out pSeverius for most fragile caster in warmachine. Old man stats, few hit boxes, dude makes tissue paper look like steel. That said, support casters like that aren't so hard to keep safe. Remember, you only need their CTRL to edge as forward as the rear of the your front line 'Jacks, which you may not even have many of if you're going for more shooting-centric machines.

If you've found you're losing your support casters, your probably pushing them too far forward. Being able to play back buys you a lot of slack in this game, especially with access to shield guard or a good screen. You're not invincible, but there are only so many things with the 20"+ threat ranges needed to get on an old man running things from the back line.

Arlan is a marshal and mechanic along with his ability to give a focus. IMO he works well with a hunter or defender since he can give them boosted to hit and dmg.

ATGM I like with hunter. Snipe and AD pretty much mean he is shooting on the bottom of turn 1. Defender also works well here.

Jr, again, I like single shot jacks, though the charger and sentinel might be interesting.

Probably not good for a journeyman league, but if you want to proxy Jakes there is an interesting thread on the PP forums about how to run her. That one extra focus over Jr opens up a lot of options.

Its not that I'm losing my support caster. Its more that in game that end up being attrition, I run out of tools to work with and a fragile support caster isn't the best to run up and start hitting things with if you're out of options. I feel that casters that can take a few hits are better because they can still be used if I make a few mistakes and still have a shot at winning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is kraye the one that makes the minute men Calvary?

He makes all jacks cavalry, including minutemen. They become light cavalry

 Commander_Nightflier wrote:
Its not that I'm losing my support caster. Its more that in game that end up being attrition, I run out of tools to work with and a fragile support caster isn't the best to run up and start hitting things with if you're out of options. I feel that casters that can take a few hits are better because they can still be used if I make a few mistakes and still have a shot at winning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is kraye the one that makes the minute men Calvary?

I understand. That's why I went with Siege early on. He is much like you described however he only runs one Jack.

Frankly though. If you feel you are running out of tools then Jack heavy is probably not the best way top go.

also work your way up to 50 point games. At that point I finally feel like I have some options.

 Commander_Nightflier wrote:
Its not that I'm losing my support caster. Its more that in game that end up being attrition, I run out of tools to work with and a fragile support caster isn't the best to run up and start hitting things with if you're out of options. I feel that casters that can take a few hits are better because they can still be used if I make a few mistakes and still have a shot at winning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is kraye the one that makes the minute men Calvary?

Speaking in very broad strokes here:

-Warjacks need support.
-Casters with more support tend not to have as much personal beats.
-Casters with more personal beats tend not to have as much support.
-Therefore casters with more personal beats, are less likely to be good at running multiple warjacks.

This is something of an oversimplification but for the most part these are trends in the game. It's infrequent you can have your cake and eat it too. Some counter examples exist, such as Intercessor Kreoss in Protectorate. However, they're just that... exceptions. I'm not really aware of any that exist in Cygnar but a more advanced Cygnar player may be able to correct me on this.

why not the fat boy, Sir Darius?

I probably wont go jack heavy then. So what would be a good build stratagy for styker? And who would be a good second caster? I haven't played against much cygnar with my ret (just one 15 point game) and those 3 25 point mangled metal games i started with.

One idea I've had for running some heavies in Cygnar is to use two Stormclads marshaled to a Sword Knight officer, with Storm Blades and possibly Arlan Strangways nearby. One Stormclad is getting 3 "focus" (two focus and one pseudo-focus) and the other is getting two. Why the Sword Knight Officer? Because he gives them a 15" non-linear melee threat range. Yeah, that's a lot of points, but you've got two units of infantry and two heavy jacks running hot without taxing your caster, so he can run more Jacks if you can afford them. Or drop the Sword Knights and Officer and just marshal the Stormclads with Arlan Strangeways or a Journeyman or something if you don't want to spend the points.