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Hey,

As a new player I've seen a lot of things on the forums about Tier lists associated with warcasters and warlocks. I was wondering what these list are and how they work? I was wondering what the point in taking these types of lists were: eg. do they give an army wide advantage or are they just fluffy lists?

Thanks in advance for your help.

PS What kind of glue should I use with PP models? Is GW or Loctite superglue ok?

Castiel wrote:Hey,

As a new player I've seen a lot of things on the forums about Tier lists associated with warcasters and warlocks. I was wondering what these list are and how they work? I was wondering what the point in taking these types of lists were: eg. do they give an army wide advantage or are they just fluffy lists?

Both. They're Themed lists for your Casters/Locks that restricts what you can bring and everyone has one(some have 2). They give you a bonus for each Tier you achieve. Tier 1 bonus is always achieved by simply taking the Theme

Sometimes the bonus is as simple as a free UA that ignores FA, sometimes it's increased FA on a certain unit or removing FA altogether. Advance Move(make a Full Advance before the game) seems to be a common bonus, as does reducing the cost of Jacks/Beasts.

Occasionally, you even get things like Zerkova and all 3 Magnus lists that give you access to models outside of your faction(Vanguards for Zerkova, select Cygnar units for Magnus).

Very rarely is the Theme better than taking a generic list, though(eKreoss would be a good example of a theme that's better than a generic list), mostly due to the restrictions on what they can take. The best Tiers are those centered around models you'd find yourself taking with a certain caster to begin with(such as the aforementioned eKreoss theme or, in my opinion, Karchev's theme).

Any superglue will work on PP models regardless of if they're metal, plastic(it's PVC, plastic glue will NOT work), or resin.

As another note, some tier lists allow very different options or strange benefits that allow the army or caster to play very differently than usual. For instance, the Bad Seeds list allows Magnus to go from a mostly control-oriented caster to a very fast ranged/skirmishing one, due to a radically different selection of options.

IIRC, Zaal (from Skorne) is another example of playing a list in a very different way, due to composition.

And if I may pick your brains a tad more, what would the Tier list for pStryker be? (I'm getting the Cygnar battlebox, just wondering what might be a good expansion after that)

Thanks for your answers!

pStryker allows non-character Cygnar Jacks, Ol Rowdy, Field Mechaniks, Long Gunner Infantry, Trencher Infantry, Stormblade Infantry, Journeyman Warcaster, and Squire.

T1: 1 Heavy Jack per Mechanik unit gets Advance Move

T2: Requires Ol Rowdy, get +1 to the roll for starting the game

T3: Requires 2+ Long Gunner units, get a free Long Gunner UA that ignores FA

T4: Requires 2+ Lancers in Stryker's Battlegroup, units(selected before either player deploys) can start the game with Stryker's Upkeeps on them, these upkeeps are free on the first turn

Thanks!

I spent a while trying to get it to work, but, really, outside of the niche of 2 LG units with more flexibility (which you'll basically never use elsewhere), you're looking at little benefit:
+1 isn't enough to get a list
advance move is usually just equivalent to a free run since you don't want to overextend
free upkeeps are fun, but not worth 12 points of light warjacks...

Cygnar tier lists that are out there:

eStryker runs a pretty good electro-only list, as do the Nemos and eHaley(alternate theme)
Kraye runs a crazy but small skirmish army
Siege runs a pretty good trencher list
eCaine has two lists that are challenging, to say the least. I only play them to try to think outside of the box.
pHaley, Darius, and pStryker's aren't very good, moreso b/c they require units you don't want multiples of typically (buying a lot for limited return).
eHaley's is okay, mostly because eHaley is near-broken
Sloan and Constance have highly pigeonholed lists that could run decently but are inflexible.

Cygnar got early tier lists, meaning PP hadn't really figured out what made a good list, and most of the Cygnar ones look like "lots of X for Y small benefit"