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So I'm trying to start a Cygnar army and I was wondering if this army is any good?

Captain Cain
Defender
Gun Mages with Officer attachment
6 Sword Knights
Black 13'th Gun Mage Strike Squad

It's for a 20 point starter army, To face Khador and Menoth from the two player starter box. Is the Defender the only thing in the list to take on Warjacks? Do I need more anti warjack? Please help!

Maybe I should go for the Battlegroup box and add a group a Gun Mages and a group of Sword Knights to that.. But I dont realy like the looks of the warcaster in the battlegroup and i'm unsure if the two light jacks will be very useful against heavy jacks (Cus I dont know much of the game yet..)

Captain Caine (hereby refered to as epic Caine, or eCaine) is an interesting choice in that he is an outright assassination caster - he prefers to get the job done by himself, and generally can end any game where he gets line of sight to the opposing warcaster. pSorcha *can* survive his full out attack with Wind Rush, but its actually not all that likely - pKreoss tends to melt if you can start getting shots off on him with eCaine's feat up. Even without his usual 3 support pieces (Reinholt, Squire, and a squad of Rangers) eCaine can put 8 shots downfield per turn at RAT 9 - under his feat, that means that if you land all his hits the last shot will be POW 19.

Generally most lists you can make are pretty decent against most other lists of the same cost, but you need to know how to apply it properly - this list you've got can work for 20 points, but you're going to want to focus on disrupting the enemy's formation so your caster can line up for his assassination run on their caster. Use Thunderbolt shots from the Gun Mages to knock jacks down or out of the way, and the Black 13th can use their Brutal Damage attacks to kill heavy infantry models. But generally you're going to want to use this force like a stiletto, cut a hole in your opponent's force and finish off their caster.

One option you can use if you like is marshalling the Defender to your Gun Mages for access to their Rune Shots, which is arguably better than having Caine run it himself. This means you'd need another jack however, probably a Charger (dropping the B13 or Sword Knights) that Caine can feed 3 focus to when he isn't getting involved himself. Don't feel that you have to do that right away, but it is something to consider. The Sword Knights will mainly be fodder and chaff to block your opponent's advance for a turn - they tend to need a reach jack flanking an enemy model to be really effective, but they have the advantage of being fast and cheap.

The last piece of advice is that you should probably consider getting pCaine (Lieutenant Caine) or another caster to play with as well to see how it charges your force and shakes things up. Also while there are ways to counter eCaine, he actually tends to be the most effective when people don't recognize how to properly block LOS to their caster and can be frustrating for newer people to defend against. This doesn't mean you shouldn't play him - he can be fun - but having another alternative gives your opponent a different experience if they find eCaine frustrating early on. pCaine acts more as a support caster who shows some of the ranged damage potential that his epic version develops, but also supports his army with a few decent upkeep spells. He's generally regarded as a more offensive version of pStryker, the battlebox caster.

I picked Captain Caine because on another forum people recomended him out of my list of favorite casters (Based on models) The ones I like the best are Captain Kara Sloan Captain Allister Caine and Captain Jeremiah Kraye. Though people recomended to not use Kraye..

And i'm starting to lean towards the easy method of using the Battlegroup box even though I dont like the looks of the warcaster in it.. I want something to handle the enemy jacks, and something to handle heavy infantry, I want ranged stuff, and a bit of melee, A balanced force basically.. XD

Merellin wrote:
I picked Captain Caine because on another forum people recomended him out of my list of favorite casters (Based on models) The ones I like the best are Captain Kara Sloan Captain Allister Caine and Captain Jeremiah Kraye. Though people recomended to not use Kraye..

And i'm starting to lean towards the easy method of using the Battlegroup box even though I dont like the looks of the warcaster in it.. I want something to handle the enemy jacks, and something to handle heavy infantry, I want ranged stuff, and a bit of melee, A balanced force basically.. XD

Thing with Kraye is that he's a bit of an oddball caster. He's not bad, but he definitely tends to run more niche lists (lots of jacks, little infantry).

As for Stryker, what don't you like? Just the model? I personally found him a good caster to start with, because he not only comes in the battlebox (Free with your first three Jacks!), but also is fairly buff oriented, which means that, unlike Cain, you don't have to stick your caster out front and take all the risks, letting you keep him a bit safer.

Yeah, i'm basically going 100% on the looks of the models. I think buffing would be good, I'd prefer buff spells over combat spells. The three I picked are my favorite based on looks, And Stryker in the battlegroup box I dont like based on the looks. But I'm leaning towards taking the abttlegroup box and then a unit or two to get it to arround 20 points, Seems like the easiest way to start.

Merellin wrote:
Yeah, i'm basically going 100% on the looks of the models. I think buffing would be good, I'd prefer buff spells over combat spells. The three I picked are my favorite based on looks, And Stryker in the battlegroup box I dont like based on the looks. But I'm leaning towards taking the abttlegroup box and then a unit or two to get it to arround 20 points, Seems like the easiest way to start.

Have you considered any of the other versions of Stryker's model? There are 3 options for Stryker1.

The original metal:



Metal alt:

That alternative version looks a lot better then the version in the battlegroup box, But.. Hmm.. *checks the price and chokes on the water* Ghaa.. Thats cheep, Might aswell get it.. XD I'm used to the prices of Warhammer 40k HQ models and some Warcasters costs less then half of that.. Including the alt Stryker model.