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Now that they've been spoiled, I'm curious what the community's thoughts are regarding the Silver Line Stormguard. I know I've been mulling over their worth in my head, and I'm a bit torn on them. I like the "no charging for you" factor when they're in B2B, but I just can't make myself like the new AOE effect. I really can't see that it would be of any use outside a specially crafted lightning list or maybe a Nemo tier list. Maybe I'm wrong though... regardless, I'm not completely sure how I feel about them.

The silverlines are good but not great. I like them for the role they fill. An unchargable unit sort of has to be vulnerable to shooting so I'm not upset about that. Plus they have arm that is just high enough to skew the odds in their favor when facing aoes from infantry. They do have issues with boosted blast damage and direct fire ranged attacks though. They solve cyganr's problem of not having a good front line unit but magnify the faction's frailty.

They might be the ideal unit to put Blur on. And Nemo 3 is already taking a lot of lightning weaponry. Stack his feat with the effect on the Silver Line's gun.

With the storm solo you get stormblades/stormlances who can charge right through the unchargeable silver lines, while getting a bonus to their assault shots/electroleaps. I think that sounds pretty good.

A charge denial unit is pretty good. It forces the enemy to either walk forward into melee or shoot them to death.

Thats pretty decent to start with. Critical Knockdown and their aoe are icing on the cake.

They're vulnerable to continuous corrosion or fire AOEs though. And regular pow10 shooting will hurt them pretty bad.


I think they'd make a good tag-team with regular Stormguard. Silver-line can buff the Stormguard aoe while also protecting them both from getting charged.

The problem with SLSG is that, like most Cygnarian infantry, they're overcosted pretty badly for what they do. They have an interesting defensives shtick that's sadly easily overcome (shooting/blasts/spells, high speed infantry with buffs like Styaxis can just walk up to them, cheap infantry can simply jam them with ease) and a very low Damage output (single POW12 attack each). For 6/9 points, you'd expect a little more.

I think Polarity field is over-rated on them generally. On a Jack (like the Centurion) it's awesome, as it stops infantry from charging it, therefore makes it far more resilient - but at only ARM15 and with a single wound, SLSG will die whether it was a charge attack or not. So the only thing it does for them is deny opponents that 3" charge movement... good, but not 6/9pts great, if you know what I mean.

I suppose I just can't help but compare them to most other frontline denial infantry - TFG are 4/6 points and are (IMO) just as good at holding a front line position, and faster to boot. WGI are 8/10 with the U/A and Joe, and at DEF14 with tough or boosted ranged attacks, will have a much better time on the front line and do more damage to boot.

Now, the polarity gun is interesting if you have a strong electric list, and the great thing about it is if even a single SLSG is left, you'll be able to fire it off. Keep a couple of them back for when the rest of the unit is wiped just to move up and tag targets in the late game. I could definitely see a few lists making use of that. They're not useless, far from it, I just think that in general they'll be very limited in what armies they'll work well in.

I really want to like stormguard, I always liked the models and ascetically the wall of heavy pole arm infantry I have always found cool. I actually have a full unit of normal ones.

That said I think they will be like most cygnar melee infantry, decent but solid with the right caster. The problem though is that for a front line unit they are competing with boomhowler and co. which are just badass.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
I really want to like stormguard, I always liked the models and ascetically the wall of heavy pole arm infantry I have always found cool.

Pretty much a summary of my thoughts. I keep wanting them to be awesome, and while they have their uses, I keep finding other things for my lists that can do those things better.