New to Warmachine, Advice for starting Magnus wanted.

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Eyclonus**

As the title says, new to the game, coming from a background of 40K I could see from the very moment I saw the stat blocks that WM/H is a very different game.

I played a few games today with a friend, I was using the Cygnar battlebox starter set with Coleman, Charger, Lancer and Ironclad. My friend had borrowed the Cryx set with what I now rightly understand was 3 chicken 'jacks and a Slayer. Suffice to say I did win all three matches, mostly because it took until the third match for my friend to understand how killing the warcaster ends the game at that level of play.

I've looked through the faction book, yes I know its a stopgap for the moment due to the rules shift, and I really like both Prime and Epic Caine. I was wondering what a good list using Caine for a starter box sized battle would be. Judging by what I've heard about eCaine at Battlecollege, I'm guessing its better that I started with Lieutenant Caine first and then worked my way towards using Epic Caine after some experience with his finesse style of play, compared to Stryker who seems like a beginner's toolbox.

This is what I thought of using;

- Caine/eCaine - I like both models, and eCaine does seem to be something of a master assassin.
- Hunter - even a newby like me can see this thing can cause terrible, terrible damage to high ARM 'jacks and I'm guessing low ARM medium/large models are even more screwed by it.
- Sentinel? Its cheap and it doesn't seem to blatantly suck, the chaingun seems a little weak and would probably be only firing on 'casters/warlocks then other jacks until I start fighting more infantry, but otoh Caine seems to be an infantry killer.
- Ol' Rowdy? I see that aggressive means I can run rowdy a bit more aggressively than the others which means I can spend more focus on Caine and less on his battlegroup.

EDIT: Is it better to drop the sentinel for a Charger? I had considerable success with using my Charger to cripple systems on my friend's Slayer and on the turns it hit, his bonejacks. But the Focus cost seems a little too high.

EDIT: Made mistake calculating the points; Forget the Sentinel, Just eCaine/Caine and a Hunter and Ol' Rowdy.

EDIT: Retitled to suit change in circumstances. Any advice for using Magnus The Traitor?

**Eyclonus**

60 Views and no comments?

**Metsuri**

I haven't got any experience with Caine, but he seems not to a great caster at 15 points especially if it is played with only jacks and casters. He doesn't bring much to buff jacks and hasn't got powerful attacks to bring down heavies/ casters camping on focus.

For heavies I would consider either Ol Rowdy or stormclad as they are the best beatsticks Cygnar has. Rowdy would probably be better fit as more focus efficient. Hunter would be a good light jack for him also for the same reason. Charger is too focus hungry for Caine and the most Caine would get from Sentinel at this level is the shield guard. Caine with 2 Hunters and Rowdy is 15 points so you could go with that.

**Sanctjud**

Very little experience against Cygnar.
I can just suggest:
-Watch out falling into the trap of going all ranged, fast elements can shut them down hard. (ex: Satyxis Raiders)
-eCaine will unlikely fail, but it happens, so have a back-up plan even if the assassination run was perfect up to the point the enemy caster is still alive

*With either Caine, rangers are a good investment.
*Hunters are pretty good versus harder targets, but not as flexible as the Defender.
*Sentinals are usually taken for Shield Guard and not their offensive strengths. It's for those really big hits that are lucky enough to hit Caine and for Elven Hooker defense.
*Ol'Rowdy is focus efficient and knockdown is a nice thing to have in the army.

**Eyclonus**

Thanks for the advice, but after a few games today with Coolman, I think I prefer Stryker's toolbox nature to Caine's specialization, I may get Caine as a second caster.

My next purchases are Ol' Rowdy and a unit of Stormblades. Rowdy because he seems quite handy being able to charge for free and the Stormblades because I like their theme and I want something thats able to hold somewhat in melee.

**KingKodo**

I have a fair bit of experience against cygnar as my best friend and neighbor plays them, and he is also my most common rival.

We play mostly small games as we are both new to the game.

He runs almost exclusively Siege brisbane.

*Siege brings some great buffs for your jacks and units.
*He is a tough caster, I think the second toughest cygnar has next to darius.
*He hits hard, has a powerful AOE with a long range.
*His feat is extremely easy to use and extremely effective for killing hard targets and assassinating, making him an exccellent beginner jack.

I cant recall exactly what my buddy uses, but I think his list is something like this:

Siege
-Charger
-Charger

Longgunners
Precurser knights + UA.

To sum it up. Siege himself provides great support buffs, has very good, high damage attacks. can negate stealth, and brings numerous high power AOE attacks to the field.

**Eyclonus**

Thanks for the advice King Kodo & everyone else.

Turns out instead of getting either the stormblades, Ol' Rowdy or even the actual Cygnar battlebox (I'd been borrowing a few bits from a friend who's now very in to Skorne) I ended up with Magnus The Traitor, 2 Renegades, a Mangler and a Talon. The store I went to had them way marked down compared to rest of the Warmachine stuff.

Looks like its time to learn how to be the bane of Cygnar rather than its saviour. Oblit-rockets AWAY!