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Which Faction (Hordes or WarMachine) focus on the most damage from a distance either direct or area of effect?

Thanks

Cygnar probably, but most armies can run a fairly strong range game
Be aware there are very few, if any gunline armies in warmachine, shooting is short range and dangerous

I just want to be able to field either some of the best Artillery or snipers...or both

J0kerrMT wrote:
I just want to be able to field either some of the best Artillery or snipers...or both

Khador has some good artillery, and widowmakers are solid infantry snipers, they play with lots of infantry and usually one or two beatdown jacks
cygnar is more lightning based, they have some great jacks with big guns, my favorite is an armor piercing cannon, they also have casters and support troops that can give effects to shots, electroleap, a knockback, ect. They are more of a mixed faction that runs more jacks with more support and less frontline infantry.

Like I said though, shooting in warmachine is more about crippling systems and cutting out support than it is murdering an army, khadors arty shoots all of 20 inches, most shooting is between 10-14 and most models can run to engage those guys about the same distance, shooting is finessey and hard to pull off for new players since a lot of it is properly placing models so that they cannot be easily engaged and calling out good targets.

I'm not saying don't do it, just be careful with expectations, there's no IG in warmachine that brings down serious thunder at super long range

J0kerrMT wrote:
I just want to be able to field either some of the best Artillery or snipers...or both

Khador, in this regard.

Their overall ranged game is kind of "Meh" but Snipers & Artillery they do well. In other words it's something they use to clear infantry, but almost never to crack armor.

Cygnar, Protectorate, Legion and Retribution probably have the strongest overall ranged games. The war machine factions in that list especially. Each has their own approach that's rather different from the others.

Suffice to say if you put say "__________ Gunline" and put any of those 4 factions in the blank, you're bound to give at least 1 person the heeby-jeebies.

Chongara wrote:

Suffice to say if you put say "__________ Gunline" and put any of those 4 factions in the blank, you're bound to give at least 1 person the heeby-jeebies.

The issue here is that for all of them, you're looking at a pretty specific list.
I run elylyth, 2 ravagores, a bolt thrower, striders+ua, and whatever else, you dont want to fight this army with a lot of things, but against cyriss lucant, he walks up the field and laughs at me while I die, its not a super hard counter, but all the serious business gunline casters have equally serious holes in their playstyle. (as far as I understand!)

I'd hate for someone to go all-in on a faction besides cygnar who wants shooting, not because its not doable, but because only one or two casters can do it and then he's all-in on this faction but gets bored with those one or two casters eventually I'd rather see cygnar where he has enemo or haley or maaaaybe the horsey caster and can pull different types of shooting based armies out there without allways putting down the "I will annihilate you turn 1-2, then you will annihilate me with the remains turn 2-3, then our casters duke it out" game that the gunline casters play a lot

 Grundz wrote:

Chongara wrote:

Suffice to say if you put say "__________ Gunline" and put any of those 4 factions in the blank, you're bound to give at least 1 person the heeby-jeebies.

The issue here is that for all of them, you're looking at a pretty specific list.
I run elylyth, 2 ravagores, a bolt thrower, striders+ua, and whatever else, you dont want to fight this army with a lot of things, but against cyriss lucant, he walks up the field and laughs at me while I die, its not a super hard counter, but all the serious business gunline casters have equally serious holes in their playstyle. (as far as I understand!)

I'd hate for someone to go all-in on a faction besides cygnar who wants shooting, not because its not doable, but because only one or two casters can do it and then he's all-in on this faction but gets bored with those one or two casters eventually I'd rather see cygnar where he has enemo or haley or maaaaybe the horsey caster and can pull different types of shooting based armies out there without allways putting down the "I will annihilate you turn 1-2, then you will annihilate me with the remains turn 2-3, then our casters duke it out" game that the gunline casters play a lot

The gunline lists may be specific, but most of them use versatile pieces you're going to be using in other builds. This is especially true of protectorate, which just about every piece in an all-in shooty list is going to see play in other builds, even the duplicates.

Hell, I've put together lists that call for 3 Reckoner, when you usually see maybe 2 in a "Gunline" list.

These shooty intensive lists are usually just using caster to make various other bread-n-butter pieces play nice with each other when skewed towards one part of the game.

J0kerrMT wrote:Which Faction (Hordes or WarMachine) focus on the most damage from a distance either direct or area of effect?

Thanks

J0kerrMT wrote:I just want to be able to field either some of the best Artillery or snipers...or both

#

Range or magic?

All of them can play this game.
Khador and Protectorate are probably more AOE happy than the other factions. THe protectorate lack a lot of ranged units (aside from errants, and deliverers), but their jacks tend to carry a lot of ranged ordnance, that while innacurate, can saturate the field. Khador have some of the best artillery in the game (and the only "tank"!), as well as excellent snipers (widowmakers are king), and have access to some extremely strong shooting units. any one who says khador dont have a ranged game have never faced kovnik joe and the winter guard rifle korps, or nyss hunters with valachev. their jacks tend to be innacurate, but good on range and AOEs.
Cygnar tends to be less on artillery and snipers and more on basic guys with really good long range ("long" being definedas 14") firepower in the form of basic rifles and chainguns. cyngaran artillery is less awesome, although their jack mounted pieces (defender, hunter, avenger etc) are a byword for "solid ranged jacks".
Retribution also plays an excellent ranged game, with very good self sufficient infantry units (riflemen, mage hunters, stormfall archers etc) and most of their heavy jacks carry ranged weapons as well. What makes them stand out a bit for me is most of their ranged jack weapons are magical weapons which, whilst situational in very very useful.

Then youve got the hordes factions. Legion is obviously a prime candidate, with a shockingly good roster of archer equipped units, and very good ranged abilities on quite a number of warbeasts. the other factions can do a ranged/AOE game but it tends to operate at shorter ranged to the warmachine factions.

Bear in mind, this only factors in actual "physical" shooting. if weretalking magic ranged, and magic AOEs its a whole different story. cygnar and their chain lightnings, protectorate and their fire, cryx and their immense spell bombing etc.

That said, bear in mind a "gunline" army like tau, or the imperial guard does not work in warmachine. you cant hang back in your deployment zone, and try and outshoot them. the range of must guns (14" at the highest) is well within the "run to engage" range of most melee units. Range is the alphastrike, but it will be engaged in turn. you cant rely on it exclusively. you will need melee tarpits, and melee beatsticks.

Skorne has a surprisingly good gunline option these days, what with the Mammoth and the Cyclops Raider, not to mention the Willbreaker. The Incendiarii aren't half bad either. Use Xerxis for Martial Discipline, and your ranged infantry can safely hide behind a nice thick brick of Cataphract Cetrati.

 Laughing Man wrote:
Skorne has a surprisingly good gunline option these days, what with the Mammoth and the Cyclops Raider, not to mention the Willbreaker. The Incendiarii aren't half bad either. Use Xerxis for Martial Discipline, and your ranged infantry can safely hide behind a nice thick brick of Cataphract Cetrati.

You beat me too it. Also eHexy for Black Spot and Ashes to Ashes, Slingers and Venators with UA too. Soulwards are great for ranged support too.

About the only Factions who can't really depend ot build heavy "gunline" armies are Circle Orboros, Cryx and Minions I think, though even in those Factions there are specific lists that can be made to at least put out a decent amount of ranged firepower.

And stuff.

Minions don't have a gunline by traditional standards, even for Warmachine. Yea they have shooty beasts and units, but both also like to be combat slugging it out, or at least charge into the fray. Gators could be different, but in my experience with the Piggies that's what I've seen when scanning to see what to buy.

I think Carver wtih Farrow Brigands and Midas with swarms of Bone-Grinders kinda do a form of shooting. It's just not in any sense a form of line shooting and these are units that are also expected to do work in melee at some point with those respective warlocks.

And stuff.

I would actually say that Cygnar is by far the most shooting intense faction in most lists, followed by Ret.

However, as defined above, all factions can run a shooty list, much like Cygnar can run an all melee list... it's just that the majority of the time, Cygnar will have something close to 50% shooting focus, where most factions will be 30%. This is largely because 4 major Cygnar casters are massive ranged weapon batteries themselves, and can kill even heavies at range(caines, Siege, Sniper lass).

However, you need to define what type of shooting you are looking for. Cygnar has almost no blasts whatsoever, so no typical artillery, and no traditional snipers. They DO have Gun mages, which have sniper ranges and accuracy, and stuff like Long Gunners than can shoot even further, as well as really accurate cannons. If that floats your boat, they are fun.

So Cyngar or Legion or Khador? for the stronger shooting power in general.

Pros and Cons of each..thanks.

I'd certainly say that Retribution has much stronger ranged options than Khador.

So I was set on Khador for the strongest gun army in general..and now I am up to 4 choices.

Khador, Cygnar, Legion, or Retribution.


Who has the best range in general?

And who has the largest ranged weapons in general?

Cygnar
Cygnar shooting tends to be the most "line shooting" in the game. Most of their popular warjacks have guns of some fashion and they tend to be high POW, long ranged, accurate, and not having AOEs. Their warjacks are also the most overall accurate.

Their staple Faction infantry tend to also have lower power utiltiy guns or long range group-shots and not much else. They are the most Mercenary-friendly Faction in the game, and are built it seems with this in mind.

Cygnar warcasters tend to do a lot of work. They either have a lot of buffs to ranged attacks or survivability. All but one has a gun of some sort, be it a simple hand cannon, rocket launchers or weird electrical-blast things. They also at times have spells or rules that allow for the mass-removal of infantry. Their feats tend to be support-based or defensive, but a few do have sime nice offensive punch to them. They also have some great personal assassination potential with a few of their warcasters, along with a couple who support warjacks well and another couple who have massive control abilities. They tend to be singularly powerufl.

Cygnar Faction stuff has a habit of being expensive pointwise with lots of bells and whistles attached. This has resulted long term in some of the Faction choices not taken as often over Mercenary ones. Cygnar also has a thing where their warcasters can act so wildly different from one-another that they support fairly diverse things and so it is a tad harder to be competent without getting more Mercenary and Cygnar options as you can. Ignoring Mercenaries is also considered a way to outright depower yourself. Folks might not like it, but Steelheads, Boomhowler, Nyss or Mercenary solos are big parts of successful Cygnar.

Khador
Khador has a lot of high stats about. Things hit really hard, things can either be really hard to hurt or hit. They have a lot of potential burst speed so their low inherent SPD stats tend to be a misnomer. They support their infantry very well, with lots of synergy and "blocs" of troops that work well with some of Khador's more common buff spells. They don't have the volume of guns Cygnar has, nor the support. They make up wiht this with a good amount of non-typed AOEs, sprays and are templates.

Khadoran warcasters have a wide range of styles, but tend towards support with a good abiltiy to be midfield or upfront and doing stuff. This either is making things easier to hit, large buff spells or effects, and so on. There's alsoa n emphasis on making things hit harder with a few warcasters along the way. They have little way to deliver spells from a distance, and so tend to go for area buffs, upkeeps, or risky manuevers to get wrok done.

Ranged in Khador overall is supportive though. Most of the buff stuff goes into melee hitting power. While Cygnar can comfortably play a ranged with bit of melee force, Khador performs best outside of Winterguard blocks using artillery and gun warjacks as a way to shave off opposing backlines or midlines while melee stuff deals with a lot of what's up front.

Issues with Khador are that the overall meta has shifted to kind of smash their former best tactic (high DEF troop spam) in a fairly serious way. They also don't quite have the warjack support that Protectorate has, but their warjacks are not as accurate and able to be chewed-up more on the approach by gunfire. To top it off, their warcasters really can't support more than one warjack or two unless they have tricks for that. This creates a weird in-Faction balance thing where only a handful of warjacks ever see play; namely the characters, Spriggans and colossals. This said, some warcasters do run multiple warjacks alright, and the upcoming character solo Andrei Malakov might help put a couple back on the table.

Legion of Everblight
Legion is kind of a Blitzkrieg faction. A lot of their warbeasts move through terrain without a hitch, and they all ignore terrain and most mitigating rules for shooting or LOS as well. Their more popular beasts have good guns to help on the approach, and they are a fast army overall. Only one of their heavy warbeasts is really dedicated to shooting and does best when supported with things that can finsih the job after it hammers things on the approach. Legion warbeast save in a couple builds also tend to be fairly glass-jawed, able to do some hurt but going down if things accurate enough get to their fliers or have enough attacks get to their walkers.

Legion infantry serves a lot of different, but kind of easy to see, roles. THere are Striders and Raptors, which are pretty good hit and run skirmish units with accurate bows that can hit well and clear single-wound troops. The other is fodder mostly, stuff that gets in the way or does a lot of hurt it can, but mostly things to help get the warbeasts to where they need to be or to hold points. They have some recursion mechanics built on this: a pot that when enough guys die you spawn little warbeasts and solos which spew out of dudes who die and you have to kill again. Finally they have the Ogrun, which also tarpit but bring a lot of offensive punch in doing so. Their infantry though is not the most resiliant and you'll note again not much line shooting.

Legion warlocks tend to have a lot more in support of warbeasts than troops. While they do have buffs or debuffs that help, nearly all of them do more for their warbeasts than any troops they take, or do area effects that help everything. The thing is their solos also tend to buff their warbeasts and they can generate free little ones. THis tends to the army buildling around warbeasts doing a lot of the heavy lifiting, with infantry taking a support role a snoted above. Exceptions exist like in all Factions, but this is the tendancy of the Faction.

The army, though, is fragile as hell. Warbeasts tend to have terrible defensive stats or low wounds. Some warlocks can mitigate this, with hit-and-run tactics, anti-ranged spells or armor buffing. But Legion tries to go for the throat, plays aggressive and can sometimes fall short. Their warlocks also tend on the fragile side I think, and taking otu support solos or lesser warbeasts impacts a lot of the force's effectiveness more than the other two Factions I feel. They also of late have a tad bit of an issue on cracking some of the highest armor about. The options exist, but Legion strugges against some of the tougher nuts.

THeir most ranged-friendly warlock, as an aside, buffs hte hell out of shooting one turn. BUt it is best around heavy bombardment from warbeasts, and afer the feat she loses a lot of steam. She also can't hold positions all that great. She plays on skirmish playstyle more and if you get corned or bullied out of zones things can go south fast for her.

Retribution of Scyrah
This is the other big ranged Faction. Their staple units for shooting include archers with grenade-bows, mage-hunting commandos with crossbows, and guys with gunblades. All of their heavy warjacks and most of their light ones have guns. A lot of their warcasters also have guns.

Shooting in Retribution is strucutred such to kind of do a lot of work, much like Cygnar. Unlike Cygnar, Retribution is expected to back this up with infantry that hits hard or to make sure everything dies with the shooitng. Their warjacks also tend to have a few more "gimick" guns. They don't shoot as far, but tend to have special effects like setting things on fire, creating vortices that killa bunch, or slamming things back. Their warjacks don't quite hit very hard, but they also tend to be fast and moderately durable on the approach. Their infantry tends to be very strong, with lots of self-reliance, adn the warcasters tend to have some denial and range extension somewhere in their rules, but that range extension is often in hte form of speed buffs or dragging stuff towards you. Retribution overall I think is more "combined arms' than "shooting with melee back-up" that Cygnar can support.

They have two warcasters who buff the ever living hell out of shooting, one able to run a mostly gun list that rips most oppositng forces to pieces. They also have some fo the better assassination runs in the game. Their main drawback now I feel is that since they're a young Faction, they don't have the range of choices other ones do. As each reelase has come out they have had their holes filled, but they don't have quite the variety of warcasters and models, so some lists might seem a bit samey, and it's hard to get folks on surprise with them.

And stuff.

Thanks...

Leaning toward Cygnar now

J0kerrMT wrote:So I was set on Khador for the strongest gun army in general..and now I am up to 4 choices.

Khador, Cygnar, Legion, or Retribution.

Who has the best range in general?

And who has the largest ranged weapons in general?

Define "best"? they're all different, really.

cygnar for great basic guns (ie lots of rifles, and chainguns) and their jacks tend to wield non AOE ordnance.Also lots of guns that shoot lightning.
khador have some excellent long range firepower (rifle korps, and widowmakers) and extremely solid artillery via their horse tank, mortars and bombard wielding jacks. the rest of their infantry tend to be short ranged, and again liking of sprays (winter guard grapeshot rounds, assault kommando flame throwers etc)
Legion have lots of basic guys with accurate bows, and some of their beasts (being dragon things) can spew fire.
Retribtuion have a lot of basic guns (ie rifles) and their jacks tend to be pretty solid at the ranged game as well.

Blaque wrote:
Khador
Khador has a lot of high stats about. Things hit really hard, things can either be really hard to hurt or hit. They have a lot of potential burst speed so their low inherent SPD stats tend to be a misnomer. They support their infantry very well, with lots of synergy and "blocs" of troops that work well with some of Khador's more common buff spells. They don't have the volume of guns Cygnar has, nor the support. They make up wiht this with a good amount of non-typed AOEs, sprays and are templates.
Khadoran warcasters have a wide range of styles, but tend towards support with a good abiltiy to be midfield or upfront and doing stuff. This either is making things easier to hit, large buff spells or effects, and so on. There's alsoa n emphasis on making things hit harder with a few warcasters along the way. They have little way to deliver spells from a distance, and so tend to go for area buffs, upkeeps, or risky manuevers to get wrok done.
Ranged in Khador overall is supportive though. Most of the buff stuff goes into melee hitting power. While Cygnar can comfortably play a ranged with bit of melee force, Khador performs best outside of Winterguard blocks using artillery and gun warjacks as a way to shave off opposing backlines or midlines while melee stuff deals with a lot of what's up front.
Issues with Khador are that the overall meta has shifted to kind of smash their former best tactic (high DEF troop spam) in a fairly serious way. They also don't quite have the warjack support that Protectorate has, but their warjacks are not as accurate and able to be chewed-up more on the approach by gunfire. To top it off, their warcasters really can't support more than one warjack or two unless they have tricks for that. This creates a weird in-Faction balance thing where only a handful of warjacks ever see play; namely the characters, Spriggans and colossals. This said, some warcasters do run multiple warjacks alright, and the upcoming character solo Andrei Malakov might help put a couple back on the table.

Hmm with respect, i think youre underestimating khadoran ranged ability a bit. We dont have any range supporting casters, but the winter guard rifle korps, with kovnik joe is extremely self sufficient, highly accurate, and boastful of an extremely long range. Widowmakers have the "auto-plink" sniper rifles, again with very high native accury and have extremely long range. the mortar has a 20" range, and whilst innacurate (unless its tied with hand of fate, fire for effect, signs and portents etc) is extremely useful. our jacks with bombards (black ivan, destroyers, Big B) and our tank (gun carriage) also offer a lot of ranged utility at very long ranges (14" typically) as well. the gun carriage is especially useful for creating difficult terrain (and its fun too! ever trample a whole squad to bits with pSorschas feat turn up?) if anything id argue the khadoran ranged game doesnt need support- the fact theyre all inherently self supporting means there is little need for that warcaster support-especially for the infantry. those 14" guns with boosted mat5/7 attack rolls do a hell of a lot of infantry shredding.
When you say its "supportive", id argue that is less a feature of Khador, and more a feature of "good sense". gunlines dont really work in this game, and an all-range army has some severely hard match up issues. I would not recommend "all ranged" for any faction. it simply doesnt have enough "answers" to a lot of the "questions" other armies can ask. As such, id argue that the khadoran ranged game definately has a place to play in an army list alongside melee beatsticks (which is a point ive been making all along, for all factions). Id genuinely feel the same about cygnar or my new retribution army - im taking invictors along with riflemen. In any case, i've found my rifle korps and widowmakers to be extremely useful, and the backbone of a lot of my lists offensive power.
To be honest, i think a lot of the "khador doooom" threats are very guilty of the "internet echo chamber" effect. the issue with khador is more of an issue with the meta evolving to deal with high DEF spam. Khador is far from wrecked by it. the sad fact is too many khador players were guilty of autopiloting on kayazy, kovnik joe and the winterguard with iron flesh, and never learned the need to spread out different game styles. there is a growing awareness of the versatility of uhlans, men o war, and iron fangs (especially the black dragons) who are seeing quite a bit of a revival in fortune. personally, since colossals have hit, ive been playing eIrusk a lot (and i genuinely do not understand why he is not more popular- he is an amazingly versatile caster! and frankly, im happier with tough than iron flesh any day!) and i find taking him with Men o War, Black Dragons, or our other infantry is an incredibly potent combination. Khador isnt done. Not by a long shot.
I'd also disagree with the assessment of the jacks. I always eun Butcher with twin kodiaks, and have run many lists with juggernauts - ive always found them to be well worth it. theyre not fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but they get the job done. Konquest is getting a lot of play as well.

J0kerrMT wrote:Thanks...

Leaning toward Cygnar now

OK...

Cygnar do a very good long range game, but bear in mind cygnar as a whole has issues with armour cracking. those pow10s your infantry are wielding only go so far against arm19 jacks and def16 arm 18 infantry.

Ok...I am understanding that each army can be built almost anyway..so I have one more question that usually settles who I play in games:

Which faction, from War Machine and Hordes, is most generally known for carrying the heaviest most damaging gun? This can fire anything as long as it is not a flame weapon..so single target or blast template.


Thanks..you guys have been great.

Cygnar's best guns are Defender Cannons, which are RNG 16, POW 15 I think. Nothing else to it besides being accurate as hell. The Big Guns on the Stormwall colossal are a couple inches shorter. They have a warcaster with a RNG 14, POW 12 Weaponmaster (extra damage die) anti-tank rifle she can fire twice. Things kind of drop off from there but they have a lot of hand cannons (RNG 12, POW 12) and guns with range extension. All of it is fairly accurate.

Khador's biggest gun are Wintergurad Artillery, which are RNG 20 and I think POW 15. Not very accurate, but it's an AOE and so can drift about to cause havoc and is cheap. They also have Bombards on a couple heavies and a big cannon on their colossal. Shorter ranges, but similar POW and are AOEs. They also have Winterguard, which while a bunch of POW 10s are either spray templates or RNG 14 rifles. And Widwomakers are straight-up snipers.

Legion has dragons that spew fire AOEs, sprays or just plain single-shot things that cause fire. They also have a lot of bows and a warbeast with a bullista used like a crossbow. Ravagore has a gun similar ot the Defender that's an AOE that leaves a template in play and is a bit shorter range and less RAT. Rest of guns are sprays or hand-cannon-ish on beasts. Ranged support is kind of warbeast-geared I think, but troops do shoot far at RNG 12 a lot with bows.

Retribution warjacks have guns that are about RNG 10-12 and POW about 12-15, though their colossal has the hardest hitting gun in the game that's on the largest AOE size possible, but is shorter range. Their infantry looks a lot like Cygnar on shooting with riflemen, but they also have the gunblades on Invictors which are shorter range and hit harder, and crossbows on Mage-Hunters, which can't go hgih like Long Gunners but are good middle-line stats that are hyper-accurate and ignore a lot. They also have good burst stuff, with Invictors shooting stupid-far once a game, a warcaster making it all hyper-accurate and another that makes it all hit like a truck.

For consistant high power, long ranged shooting I think Cygnar is the way to go. Khador has a bit I feel in that it pays for range and support for AOEs and other buffs, which isn't bad either. Legion has guns, but supports the beast ones best and they are not quite the same level as th eothers. Retribuiton has the next most guns everywhere, but tends to feel like they're only half the story in my eye.

Again, all subjective. The stuff above on Khador has a better view on it than I might be giving it I think, but to me Khador has guns that help the overall force, rather than Cygnar or Retribution which can be defined by theri shooting ore.

And stuff.

Honestly, if you want a ranged focus, for warmachine it comes down to either Cygnar or Retribution, and for hordes it's almost certainly legion.

Cygnar shooting tends to be a bit weaker, a bit longer ranged, and a bit more accurate. Their heavy shooting almost exclusively on their jacks.

Retribution shooting tends to hit harder, be a bit less accurate, but have bells-and-whistles attached (more AoE, knockdown, ignoring defensive buffs, etc). Their heavy shooting is concentrated mostly in their infantry, whereas the jacks tend to carry the 'support' weapons.

Legion tends to be similar to Cygnar, but they can 'afford' to bring more of the bigger guns and ignore the smaller ones. So they tend to have a smaller number of longer range, higher power weapons. I would say that they are much more reliant on melee than the two above, though.

So out of Cygnar and Retribution...which has, in general, the bigger more powerful guns? If they are equal in power..who has the more range in general?

Again...thanks for the help

For warjacks, Cygnar. For infantry, Retribution.

The 'generic' ranged jack for Cygnar is range 16, pow 15, as noted above. Every Ret heavy warjack has a gun, but they tend to be in the range 12 pow 14 range, with some sort of additional effect (fire, AoE, knockdown, etc). They're also less accurate.

Cygnar infantry tends to be highly accurate and slightly longer ranged but none of it goes above pow 11, and that's on a unit that is traditionally considered underpowered- you'll normally be seeing pow 10's. Retribution has two options that are pow 12, and one of them is 'effectively' pow 15.5 because it has an additional die of damage on direct hits. It's not /super/ accurate though.

Both factions will be getting a lot of work done at range in most builds.

J0kerrMT wrote:
Ok...I am understanding that each army can be built almost anyway..so I have one more question that usually settles who I play in games:

Which faction, from War Machine and Hordes, is most generally known for carrying the heaviest most damaging gun? This can fire anything as long as it is not a flame weapon..so single target or blast template.


Thanks..you guys have been great.

hmm. depends really. See below.

 Blaque wrote:

Khador's biggest gun are Wintergurad Artillery, which are RNG 20 and I think POW 15. Not very accurate, but it's an AOE and so can drift about to cause havoc and is cheap. They also have Bombards on a couple heavies and a big cannon on their colossal. Shorter ranges, but similar POW and are AOEs. They also have Winterguard, which while a bunch of POW 10s are either spray templates or RNG 14 rifles. And Widwomakers are straight-up snipers.
.

Blaque got some numbers wrong im afraid with regard to the khadorans.

POW16 on the mortar
Pow12 winterguard blunderbusses. Pow10s are the blunderbuss sprays.
jack weapons - typically bombard are typically range 14" with pow14s. same with the gun carriage (tank). then you've got the demolisher with pow15 AOEs.
pow15 on the colossal.

To answer your question though - on the faction with the most powerful guns. Cygnar and Khador have a lot of pow15s and pow16s even. then you've got retribution - their battle engine does a terrifying pow16. and their colossal has a POW18 AOE5 main gun.

however - the most POWERFUL gun in the entire game, bar none belongs to the mercenaries. specifically the Talion charter - the commodore cannon. POW20. weep. only the pirate contract with the warcaster Shaye can field it though.

J0kerrMT wrote:
So out of Cygnar and Retribution...which has, in general, the bigger more powerful guns? If they are equal in power..who has the more range in general?
Again...thanks for the help

it depends on the caster. Both have casters with snipe, so both factions can bring their range up to 18". Both have guns that range from 10" to 14". Both have pow ratings from 10 upwards. bear in mind, most rifles will be pow10s, or pow11s. neither will crack any kind of armour with any degree of efficiency, but both will shred pretty much all single wound infantry reliably up to arm16 if they hit. cygnar probably has more ranged magic attack spells (chain lightning) whilst retribution has more ranged attacks that ignore ARM or DEF buffing spells. cygnar probably have a higher "grade" of warcaster across the board - dont get me wrong - retribution casters are solid as a whole, but i would argue Cygnar have more A+ feats on their casters than retributions (generally seen has having less powerful feats-although kaelyssa is excellent, and rayns snipe-feat-go is infamous!). then again, retribution probably have more self sufficient infantry than cygnar (in my opinion, slightly tougher, and they hit harder)

Who has more/who has more effective? Honestly, id call it a wash. Neither is strictly "better" - its far more accurate to say they're on parallel tracks. far better question now is to ask yourself which do you prefer as a faction, in terms of aesthetics, feel, background etc.

The highest damage gun is on the retribution Hyperion colossal (well, aside from the very limited commodore and even that is debatable since Hyperion can boost). Colossals in general tend to bring the most ranged power for any faction. Gargantuans tend to not bring the same firepower as colossals but the skorne mammothis noteworthy for firing off several large blasts.

Each faction have one or two of their own big guns (except maybe circle and cryx.) The most notorious ones seem to combine power with range.
Cygnar's defender and hunter are well regarded as a set of high damage long-ranged heavy and light jacks. The Ravagore from legion has one of the most effective guns in hordes.

@Deadnight - Thanks for the corrections. I am in a bit of an environment with little Khador and I was not near my tablet to check cards. Need to refresh the memory at some time.

I think as noted, though, Cygnar and Retribution's range emphasis is a wash as to who's "better" between them. They are both decidely on top on that style of play, but they do things in a way as to create equal results by different means. So it then becomes what elements you prefer in that, what Faction looks cooler, and what peripheral stuff to the shooting (which both Factions have a good deal more to them than that) you like better.

As for which Factions sure as hell can't shoot well, I think the only decent guns in Cryx are Mercenary options and the Kraken, with a bunch of mediocre warjack guns. Circle has a lot of hard hitting RNG 6-10 guns, a couple RNG 12 guns that either hit hard or hit a lot, and a Gargantuan with a hard-htiting but ineffecient as hell for costs gun. And then no actual support for any of it besides keeping things alive or debuffs. Minions have in some form Lord Carver wtih Brigands, but it's a hybrid style. These are the Factions off the bat that I think jus tdon't do shooting well save specific lists.

And stuff.

Just placed order for Cygnar.

Thanks for the help