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So a quick 35 point Cygnar list with the only Warcaster that drew my attention. I think it should do fine against Khador and Cryx, but I'm fairly sure I'll have issues taking on Menoth. Any suggestions on what to swap in/out to take out those blasted choir members? Alternatively, general comments and critiques are welcome since this is my first Cygnar list after all.

Captain Kara Sloan (*6pts)
* Hunter (6pts)
* Defender (9pts)
* Defender (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Trencher Chaingun Crew (2pts)
Trencher Chaingun Crew (2pts)
Trencher Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

Any list that relies on shooting is going to be in for some pain against good ol' Menoth. Silly choir and their silly songs. You need some sort of melee buffer/speed bump or something. Some sort of WM infantry or a melee oriented 'jack would help.

Well that's why the Trenchers are in there. They're supposed to be m speed bump, as for those Darn choir I think I have a solution sort of? Mainly using the Hunter and it's 26" range and the Black 13th, but I definitely need more than that.

Edit: It really bothers me now since against almost any other faction I think I stand a good chance with my gun line :/

Edit Edit: Wait, hold on. Can't I just strafe the hell out of the choir with my chain guns? <- Disregard this. I'd have to actually be able to target them first :/

You would actually have a hard time against Khador and a lot of Cryx lists with that Cygnar list. If the Cryx player has a Deathjack and gets it to you you are going to probably bite it. Khador jacks you'll hit without much difficulty but you aren't going to hurt them with much of anything besides the Defenders. Their jacks are fairly cheap and if they tie up the Defenders the rest of the list will have trouble.

Well I'm assuming the Hunter would come into play against heavy jacks as well since it halves the armour of what it's shooting and then deals damage. So 20 would be 10 and then I can just boost damage to do 6+3d6. Also, when the heavy jacks such as the Death Jack or a Behemoth come into range what I plan to do is just go ahead and blow my feat.

That would hopefully give me four Defender shots and a few more from my Warcaster as well. If I'm lucky the Hunter might still be alive as well and get another armor piercing shot. At least that's the mindset I had when thinking about it.

But you have a point, if there are too many heavy jacks I won't have enough fire power to deal with it.

Honestly, change out the caster for Siege. You'll be alot happier. Kara has to win on turn 2 or you lose. You don't have enough shooting to stop really any infantry rush or jack rush. Any Hordes army will eat this alive. This will also struggle any scenario where you have to control a point across the board or intentionally move up (killbox).

I'd also dump the hunter to get some more bodies out there. Sword Knights or a ATGM + UA (with losing the chainguns) and put a defender on the Gun Mages would really help out more with being able to cover a field.

Do you mean Hordes as in Horde faction or Hordes and a horde? Hrmm scenario games would be really tricky...would putting some stromblades and the stormclad help as well? As an alternative I mean. For the trenchers and a defender of course.

Sgt.Sunshine wrote:Well I'm assuming the Hunter would come into play against heavy jacks as well since it halves the armour of what it's shooting and then deals damage. So 20 would be 10 and then I can just boost damage to do 6+3d6. Also, when the heavy jacks such as the Death Jack or a Behemoth come into range what I plan to do is just go ahead and blow my feat.

That would hopefully give me four Defender shots and a few more from my Warcaster as well. If I'm lucky the Hunter might still be alive as well and get another armor piercing shot. At least that's the mindset I had when thinking about it.

But you have a point, if there are too many heavy jacks I won't have enough fire power to deal with it.

The Hunter will blow great, gaping holes in heavy 'Jacks, as will the Defenders.

The trick is to get firing lanes at the bad guy 'caster or warlock. I use only Haley and I don't know much about Sloan. That said. . .

I do know that an Ironclad can use Tremor to open firing lanes, that's not really any different with another caster. I've also had success with Precursor Knights with UA clearing the way (Ranked Tactics makes this effective, Haley's feat along with the UA's mini-feat help a great deal). Two Defenders and the Black 13th should be able to put anyone down. Hunter isn't so great against small-based guys, but if you get a shot at something like the Butcher, Hunter will ruin his whole afternoon.

Yeah, that's what I figured. So you this list is viable then?

The list is not viable as you have little to no answer to clouds or stealth. You have good firepower with Kara and Jacks, but if you are facing trenchers, eGaspy or any Hordes army using gobbers you are having trouble in getting any targets for your shooters. If you hit army that has a lot of stealth you are in even bigger trouble.

As soon as the enemy hits your lines you don't have any counter assault. The chainguns will slow infantry, but any heavily armored enemy won't be bothered by them. Sloan is a very limited caster and you will need some melee capability or have to rely on turn 2 assassinations, which will be hard to get as you have to shoot your way to the caster as you have no way to open firing lines in any other way.

On the topic of Stealth...I thought the Black 13th were...stealth...cancelers? But everything else considered, yeah.

The Hunter will blow great, gaping holes in heavy 'Jacks, as will the Defenders.

The trick is to get firing lanes at the bad guy 'caster or warlock. I use only Haley and I don't know much about Sloan. That said. . .

I do know that an Ironclad can use Tremor to open firing lanes, that's not really any different with another caster. I've also had success with Precursor Knights with UA clearing the way (Ranked Tactics makes this effective, Haley's feat along with the UA's mini-feat help a great deal). Two Defenders and the Black 13th should be able to put anyone down. Hunter isn't so great against small-based guys, but if you get a shot at something like the Butcher, Hunter will ruin his whole afternoon.

Actually, they will perform about the same until you get above armor 20. That's the first time on average a Defender will get outdamaged by a Hunter. Below that, they're the same or the defender is better. The defender is all around better against warcasters and warlocks. Taking a hunter on the off chance you'll run in to Jabba, Butcher, or Kromac is pretty iffy. Plus the defender will actually be able to fight its way out of a tarpit. The hunter can only duck it.

FWIW, Sloan's feat is a gimp version of pHaley's.

Sgt.Sunshine wrote:Do you mean Hordes as in Horde faction or Hordes and a horde? Hrmm scenario games would be really tricky...would putting some stromblades and the stormclad help as well? As an alternative I mean. For the trenchers and a defender of course.

Hordes as in all of the Hordes armies. She can't pull off a turn 2 assassination against Hordes unless they go insanely brain dead during the first turn.

The B13 cancels stealth in 5" AOE off Lynch. This is giving up one of your brutal shots as well.

With Sloan, no the stormies and the clad won't help. There's no synergy to her feat and she can't buff them. She's an awesome second caster for a multicaster game. She's not as good as the main caster.

Ah alright, I guess I have some rethinking to do. Probably take a look at Haley then.

The list you posted would work pretty well with Siege. The problem is Sloan.

Huh, alright. I'll take a look at Siege as well then.

Haley works crazy well with a gun-line approach. Temporal Barrier will give you at least one extra turn of shooting, maybe more. In a straight caster-kill mission, a Haley list can shoot down an entire army.

But that is boring to play and it's maddeningly frustrating to play against. It's much better to go for a third-round assassination with Haley's feat, which is insanely good.

As far as stealth, B13 has a little for that, the Gun Mage Captain Adept has something for that as well. I suppose any list will have shortcomings, so one has to pick one's poison a bit.

Defenders don't exactly suck in melee, and trenchers should at least hold things up a little. At least you won't be as tempted to stand still and shoot as you would be with Long Gunners.

It seems to me Sloan would need LOS to shoot, and if she has LOS to them. . .

I seem to be rambling. I should probably stop.

I play almost the same list, but with Siege. It works well for Seige, but he's got a different bag of tricks to slow down enemies (rift), defeat stealth (mage sight), make magic weapons (explosivo) and open fire lanes (foxhole plus his gun fires huge long range templates). He can basically do a mean turtle game. Sloan needs to be more offensive it seems. I like trenchers as speed bumps, and chain gun crews are great for that purpose. At this points level I think maybe the squad and 2 chainguns may be over kill and you need something with a bit more punch. Maybe replace one of the defenders with Triumph. He's got a lot of Siege's bag of tricks (he takes the anti stealth pressure off of Sloan and B13 and he can do a AOE). If only he could make his gun magic. He would be a no-brainer for Sloan IMO. I think this list really could use something that can do knockdown. Perhaps some swordknights and an ironclad in place of the trenchers. You'll need to be careful with them though and hug cover so you don't lose them to enemy shooting attacks.

But with Triumph, you're paying two points for a defender that can't fight. At least something running up on a defender can be fought off with the shock hammer. The shield is pitiful. So you need to pay an additional 2 points for Strangewayes to be able to get Triumph out of the crapper to be able to shoot.

Defender, tried and true...

I was originally on board with all the Triumph hate, but to be honest I'm warming up to him now (I'm also painting him right now so that might be coloring my opinion). I'm not saying that Defenders aren't good (I run two of them in my current list) and I'm not saying including Triumph is a no brainer because most of the time he probably isn't a good idea. He's a trade off. He's for the Cygnar player who never gets his defenders into melee.

You lose 3 points of P+S with Triumph and Cortex damage. Yes the shock hammer was awesome and made the model very versatile.
You gain 1 RAT and 2 ARM (from the shield) with Triumph. Also you gain Arcane Precision and and a 3" AOE.

Does he straight up replace a defender? No, but if he doesn't move then he has RAT 7 plus 2 (aiming bonus) and can see through stealth without any focus. Now put him with an ATGM+UA and they can all snipe and see through stealth and you can still boost Triumph's damage. That's a range 20 pow 15 RAT 9 shot that can see through stealth all without a focus being spent. I think that is where he is at or with a journeyman (who can take advantage of his AOE, boost damage and still have a focus for herself). Also in Sloan's battlegroup, which is why I originally suggested it. They both have high RAT, high damage and long range guns that can see through stealth. Sloan and Triumph can hang back cast Fire Group/Deadeye and blow up stealth heavies or use blaster to clear out stealth units.

You can't marshall him or put him on Junior cause he's a character jack.

The problem is he's Siege's jack which duplicates about everything Siege does, costs more, and does less. My defenders will get into melee all the time because the opponent figures out they need to get them engaged because they are killing them with the damage at really long range.

Triumph is more of a side-grade than an upgrade. If you can park him behind everything else you have - including your other Defender - then he'll do wonders. If you put him out front where it's easy for the ernemy to get to him, then yeah, he's not going to provide what he was brought to provide. I would only take him if I already have one Defender and was going to take another one.

I forgot about character jacks and jack marshaling. That rarely comes up for me. That sucks. The ATGM+Triumph sounded pretty sweet. I will make a list for this SOB.

Though junior isn't a jack marshal. Character jacks cannot be assigned to jack marshals as per their rule, but it's doesn't say anything that seems to eliminate junior. They can take warjacks in their battle group because they have the Battlegroup Commander rule. Am I missing something? This is another thing that rarely comes up in my games since the other character warjacks for Cygnar aren't that well matched to junior so I always took them on the caster.