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Hey guys. Over the time I have played Warmachine, people have given me mixed reactions to my Cygnar. Some say they suck (fixed that by beating them) and some say they are too overpowered (Never have I thought that any Warmachine faction was overpowered) I was just wondering if anyone had gotten these reactions, or if they had gotten other reactions. (Note: Most of the people I play against also play Warhammer. Don't know if this has any connection, but its always helpful to have more info.)

People say they suck because of the lack of good infantry choices.

People say they're over powered because of eHaley and the Stormwall.

Both are wrong.

Yes, the Stormwall is the best Colossal in the game and sure eHaley double stormwall is a beast of a combination but it can be beaten. Plus the fact that you have 38 points tied up in just stormwalls that means you're predictable, you've no versatility. If the enemy knows where you are and what you're doing you're dead.

Sure our infantry tends to be more glass cannon than anything, that's the way it's been balanced. Stormblades are IMHO some of the best infantry killing troops in the game. Give them Arcane Shield or Dead Eye and they go from tier 2 to tier 1 easily. In my first game against Cryx I gave them Dead Eye, gave the assault order, hit with the storm gunner so that the other 9 models in the unit had AOE 3", pow 14, auto-hit, ranged attacks before getting off the charge. Let's just say I wiped out a full unit of Bane Knights and a Death Ripper on turn 2.

I agree with you about the storm knights. They hit pretty hard, don't cost much, and storm gunners just make them better. One other thing people have called overpowered in my experience is my Hunters. They easily wreck a warjack given enough focus.

 Trazyn the Murderous wrote:
I agree with you about the storm knights. They hit pretty hard, don't cost much, and storm gunners just make them better. One other thing people have called overpowered in my experience is my Hunters. They easily wreck a warjack given enough focus.

That'd have to be over a few turns, because even with eHaley casting TA on them they aren't getting enough shots off in a turn to wreck a jack that isn't one of those Cryx arc nodes.

people say they suck because their insane over reliance on mercs and general reasons

people say they are OP because of eHaley and Stormwall

Both are correct

eHaley and Stormwall are OP, and having counters and being able to beat them doesn't mean that its not OP and most Cygnar list brings excessive Mercs

People tend to complain about what beats them, and call UP those things that they beat/play. It's the unfortunate nature of wargaming, often.

So far my opinion is that Cygnar sucks. Ive played 3 games with the starter boxes, my Cygnar and my friends Menoth. He won 2 of the 3 by a fair margin. The last game we played I won with some lucky rolls on a last ditch caster vs caster attack. However I was sitting on 2 destroyed jacks and one heavily damaged. He still had 2 of his, both a bit knocked around but still useable.

The thing Im most disappointed about is that for an army that shoots, their shooting sucks. My Charger gets maybe one round of ineffective shooting before its snatched up in CC and crushed. I built the majority of my Cygnar (60+ points, fully painted) around shooting, and it seems that may have been a big mistake.

Im going to give it 2 more games, with some of my other units, instead of just the starter, to see if things get better when a more complete force is on the field. If Im still getting trashed, they are getting sold and im going to try Khador.

 Mad4Minis wrote:
So far my opinion is that Cygnar sucks. Ive played 3 games with the starter boxes, my Cygnar and my friends Menoth. He won 2 of the 3 by a fair margin. The last game we played I won with some lucky rolls on a last ditch caster vs caster attack. However I was sitting on 2 destroyed jacks and one heavily damaged. He still had 2 of his, both a bit knocked around but still useable.

Cygnar is hard to play is the problem, shooting in warmachine is finesse'y and as you've noticed you either obliterate a target or they're pretty much okay. There is no "gunline" faction like most people are used to in warmachine, there's a few builds but thats about it.

some ideas:

1 shoot with everything, use trenchers to drop aoe clouds to block LOS, models without LOS cannot charge, robbing them of movement distance, sure they 'could' run to engage your trenchers, but there's at least 1-2 rounds more of shooting! and if you have an enforcer behind the infantry, most anything that runs in will die.
2. at 35 points cygnar comes into its own, at lower point values they suffer because their jacks aren't that fast, or that tough, as you've seen, even if you could run /anything/ like you can now, you dont have the points to blow on an enforcer like a hammersmith threatening to massacre any jack that engages your infantry (trading a 6-10 point jack/beast for a few infantry is never good!)
3. cygnar is all about screening with infantry, gunmages and the 13th can push people farther than most can charge back, get folks out of mellee to shoot again, ect. when you start (or with battlebox you may only get one round of shooting, but as the points go up and you get more clever with knockdowns, screens, and denial you'll get, two, three, more.

if you do bail and go khador I do have a battlebox for them you can have for /cheap/

 Grundz wrote:

 Mad4Minis wrote:
So far my opinion is that Cygnar sucks. Ive played 3 games with the starter boxes, my Cygnar and my friends Menoth. He won 2 of the 3 by a fair margin. The last game we played I won with some lucky rolls on a last ditch caster vs caster attack. However I was sitting on 2 destroyed jacks and one heavily damaged. He still had 2 of his, both a bit knocked around but still useable.

Cygnar is hard to play is the problem, shooting in warmachine is finesse'y and as you've noticed you either obliterate a target or they're pretty much okay. There is no "gunline" faction like most people are used to in warmachine, there's a few builds but thats about it.

some ideas:

1 shoot with everything, use trenchers to drop aoe clouds to block LOS, models without LOS cannot charge, robbing them of movement distance, sure they 'could' run to engage your trenchers, but there's at least 1-2 rounds more of shooting! and if you have an enforcer behind the infantry, most anything that runs in will die.
2. at 35 points cygnar comes into its own, at lower point values they suffer because their jacks aren't that fast, or that tough, as you've seen, even if you could run /anything/ like you can now, you dont have the points to blow on an enforcer like a hammersmith threatening to massacre any jack that engages your infantry (trading a 6-10 point jack/beast for a few infantry is never good!)
3. cygnar is all about screening with infantry, gunmages and the 13th can push people farther than most can charge back, get folks out of mellee to shoot again, ect. when you start (or with battlebox you may only get one round of shooting, but as the points go up and you get more clever with knockdowns, screens, and denial you'll get, two, three, more.

if you do bail and go khador I do have a battlebox for them you can have for /cheap/

I have very little infantry...only a single standard unit of Sword Knights...and only for the idea of mashalling a jack. To me the idea of WM is jacks...if I wanted a buch of infantry Id be playing a different game. I got in it for big stompy robots.

Heres what I have:

Stryker
Siege
Journeyman Warcaster
Squire
Sword Knights
Lancer
Charger
Firefly
Ironclad
Defender x2
Stormwall


My general plan is/was to attach the Defenders, Ironclad, and Squire to the caster to make my center/main force. Use the Journeyman with the Charger, and the Sword Knights with the Firefly as my flank units. A traditional 3 prong attack. Heavy fire from the center, Journeymans 3 focus is perfect for the Charger, so decent fire from one side, the Sword Knights and Firefly giving some fire from thier side, as well as being a tarpit unit and the Firefly taking advantage of their Flank ability and its spears reach. Seemed like a sound plan, but if the shooting doesnt come together it loses a lot.

At this point Im not looking to add anything more to them. If I cant make them work Ill sell them to start Khador. Ive always been a player whos style would suit Khador better, but I decided to go with Cygnar to try something different from my typical style army.

You'd be better off marshalling a defender to Jr. The first turn he puts Arcane shield on your sword knights and every turn thereafter upkeeps that and then gives his 2 focus the the defender to boost attack and damage rolls.
Also why aren't you using the Stormwall it's an awesome piece of machinery?

 Mad4Minis wrote:
I have very little infantry...only a single standard unit of Sword Knights...and only for the idea of mashalling a jack. To me the idea of WM is jacks...if I wanted a buch of infantry Id be playing a different game. I got in it for big stompy robots.

I would be super careful about going into Khador with that mindset. There are very few effective builds in Khador that can go jack-heavy, and those don't tend to be as strong as the options in other factions. Indeed, if you want stompy robots, your two major options are Menoth and Convergence. Cryx can do it pretty effectively as well, but they're also incredibly limited in terms of list-selection.

 Mad4Minis wrote:

I have very little infantry...only a single standard unit of Sword Knights...and only for the idea of mashalling a jack. To me the idea of WM is jacks...if I wanted a buch of infantry Id be playing a different game. I got in it for big stompy robots.

you see, i dont get this idea. I dont see how warmachine is "about" jacks. Jacks might be warmachines, but they are not WARMACHINE. In the fluff, theyre expensive, and rare. Take Irusks 4th assault batallion. 20,000 infantry. and 80 jacks. there is so much more to western immoren than just jacks. I think its a bad idea to make, or to want to make the game revolve entirely around them. I feel 40k is ruined in exactly the same way by an overemphasis on space marines, an army which makes up a miniscule percentage of the fighting forces of the galaxy, and yet is hugely over represented both on the table top and in the rulebooks, with something like 50% of the rulebooks dedicated to "marines with different bling".

To me, a single jack can still be a hugely impressive centrepiece of an army. "More" does not necessarily translate to "better", or "more important". Sometimes, less is more. To me, one jack stands out as special. twenty jacks and the effect is ruined. So much of the game would be ruined by only focusing on one aspect of it.

but thats merely my POV.

 Mad4Minis wrote:

My general plan is/was to attach the Defenders, Ironclad, and Squire to the caster to make my center/main force. Use the Journeyman with the Charger, and the Sword Knights with the Firefly as my flank units. A traditional 3 prong attack. Heavy fire from the center, Journeymans 3 focus is perfect for the Charger, so decent fire from one side, the Sword Knights and Firefly giving some fire from thier side, as well as being a tarpit unit and the Firefly taking advantage of their Flank ability and its spears reach. Seemed like a sound plan, but if the shooting doesnt come together it loses a lot.

To me, thats a bad call. Stryker doesnt have the focus to effectively run 3 heavy jacks, especially when his best use is upkeeping snipe and arcane shield and holding up for an assassination run via jack bullet and earthquake.. at best, i'd give him a defender and ol rowdy. Same with the journeyman. his best use is putting up a second arcane shield, and fueling a hunter or defender with his other 2 focus.

 Mad4Minis wrote:

At this point Im not looking to add anything more to them. If I cant make them work Ill sell them to start Khador. Ive always been a player whos style would suit Khador better, but I decided to go with Cygnar to try something different from my typical style army.

i think you will be bitterly disappointed if you take your approach to khador. it will not mesh well. khador is an infantry heavy faction with extremely limited jack support. as a faction, we run 1-2 jacks well, and then take our excellent heavy infantry to bulk things up.

If you are genuinely wishing to go jack heavy, menoth is the best army, but even then, you'll need to make heavy use of the infantry support pieces 9choir, book, vassals) to make the most out of their jack support.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
You'd be better off marshalling a defender to Jr. The first turn he puts Arcane shield on your sword knights and every turn thereafter upkeeps that and then gives his 2 focus the the defender to boost attack and damage rolls.
Also why aren't you using the Stormwall it's an awesome piece of machinery?

My friend and I are new to the game, only 3 games under our belt. Still getting a full grasp on the basics, so we have only used the starter so far. I had a wad to blow (almost started 40k Tau) so I got a bunch of stuff all at once, thats why I have so much I havent used yet.

 Mad4Minis wrote:

Heres what I have:
Stryker
Siege
Journeyman Warcaster
Squire
Sword Knights
Lancer
Charger
Firefly
Ironclad
Defender x2
Stormwall

lemme see what I can do with this, are your opponents guys that wont let you do some standins to try a few things out for a game or two?

 BoardroomHero wrote:


I would be super careful about going into Khador with that mindset. There are very few effective builds in Khador that can go jack-heavy, and those don't tend to be as strong as the options in other factions. Indeed, if you want stompy robots, your two major options are Menoth and Convergence. Cryx can do it pretty effectively as well, but they're also incredibly limited in terms of list-selection.

Menoth isnt an option, my buddy, and only regular opponent, plays them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grundz wrote:

lemme see what I can do with this, are your opponents guys that wont let you do some standins to try a few things out for a game or two?

No, hes just fine with proxy stuff. Actually we both plan on doing a good bit of it before any more purchases.




@Dreadnight...the jacks are what attracted both of us to the game. That and better balance (and affordability) than 40k. Jacks are the poster boys for Warmachine, bummer they are actually not what PP leads you to think they are. Oh, guess Ill scratch the idea of Khador then. Both my buddy and I dont like infantry...using, painting, etc. Perhaps it might be time to reconsider playing Warmachine if jacks are just a support unit...

 Mad4Minis wrote:


@Dreadnight...the jacks are what attracted both of us to the game. That and better balance (and affordability) than 40k. Jacks are the poster boys for Warmachine, bummer they are actually not what PP leads you to think they are. Oh, guess Ill scratch the idea of Khador then. Both my buddy and I dont like infantry...using, painting, etc. Perhaps it might be time to reconsider playing Warmachine if jacks are just a support unit...

jacks aren't just a support unit, but you can't /just/ use jacks, Figure jacks have a primary cost (their point value) and a secondary cost (how much focus you want to give them) I did the same thing when I started, "YEAAAH! robots!" but in reality, if you're stretched thin focus-wise you dont get to do all the fun slams and such, its always "this guy needs 3 to smash faces and this guy needs 2 to shoot and thats alls i gots" as you play more you'll hold on to more and more focus as your opponents get better at getting to eachothers casters

example: a journeyman and a defender make a great combo, since you want to boost hit+damage on that big gun, and he only makes 1 shot, 2 or 3 isn't shabby for mellee either to bust someones cortex
example2: strangeways and a charger, fantastic, strangeways and gun mages are pretty good too!

so while model count (and maybe even point wise) your jack count will be lower than the "support" they will do a ton of the lifting, jacks just aren't the greatest (with some exceptions) at killing lots of infantry, its just hard to get the number of attacks off you need for it to work properly. The issue is, if you're playing 15 points, or 50 points, stykers focus is what strykers focus is, just because you "can" buy more jacks doesn't mean you have the secondary resources (focus) to do it.
I also like infantry, not that I like playing them, but I like having something for the giant robots to rampage through, and thats what cygnars infantry do, ping away at things, get in the way, and die
If you /dont/ want to run infantry, you need to understand the output your army has and fight in waves, have a buffer of men in the front, deliver some pain to the first wave of jacks and disrupt the second wave of jacks to limit the counter attack, menoth in general is pretty much unchallenged in both jack spam and counterattack-based combat with their slower jacks and awesome support.

if you do want to get out of cygnar, cyriss is probably what you're looking for, they have built-in mechanics that let you run jacks and pretty much only jacks, infantry comes in the form of little robots that get in the way and lots of various servitors with different roles, fun stuff.

I do understand that, still kinda bummed out. Seems our style of play might be better suited to smaller games like 20pts, maybe more if we use our colossals.

 Mad4Minis wrote:
I do understand that, still kinda bummed out. Seems our style of play might be better suited to smaller games like 20pts, maybe more if we use our colossals.

pretty much, if you want to house-rule it, you just need a pool of focus that is for jacks only, the thing is, if you aren't worried about focus effeciency, you end up not using arm locks, slams, and such nearly as much, which is where all my fun comes from.
you could also give a shot at using the hordes fury system instead, just with all warmachine models, which would be weird as hell, lol

 Talamare wrote:
people say they suck because their insane over reliance on mercs and general reasons
eHaley and Stormwall are OP, and having counters and being able to beat them doesn't mean that its not OP and most Cygnar list brings excessive Mercs

What is "excessive mercs"?

As for liking Jacks in Cygnar...go for it. If you and the guy you play regularly are just messing around with stuff, let it happen organically. But factions do different things well. Menoth, Convergence, and some Cygnar (not Stryker or Siege though) are the ones capable of running a bunch of jacks most easily. There are also corner cases like Karchev and Mortenebra. But I also agree with the above that the game has big stompy robots, but that's not what the game is about. Just like Hordes has warriors, but it's not about mass formations of infantry.

If you think Cygnar is OP or UP then go play another faction for a bit.

I started with Cygnar and had trouble with them winning consistently. Then started some cryx (won a free battlebox) and they worked great for my playstyle. Since then I have played both and do fine with my Cygnar.

I've also played around with a menoth and circle army as well. I have a 35 point army of each. I was about to build a 35 point khador list as well when my brother decided to pick them up instead. I also have the legion half of the two player box sitting around, but have not really messed with them.

I've been a long-time cygnar player from late mk1. From my observations Cygnar is in a bit of an identity crisis as a faction right now. So much that Cygnar used to do as a signature has been portioned out to other factions it leaves little for the faction to call it's own.
In mk1 Cygnar was the "shooty" faction with ranged dominance. in mk2 every faction except Cryx can make at least one or two good ranged lists. In early mk2 Cygnar had a higher overall accuracy than other factions but boosted attack rolls and+2s to hit have become more common across the board, particularly with Convergence getting flare spam. The current subtheme of targeting tricks such as electro leaps, the minuteman's flak field, and the storm pod placement has seen a boom in recent books so that may be the direction the faction is headed.
For the time being Cygnar has a strong "jack of all trades, master of none" feel as much of the army's mechanical flavor has bled out to other factions. The most important thing to keep in mind while playing them is to use the appropriate tool to solve the right problem.

Now strenghts can be done by other people , what I think cygnar lacks is good infantry for objective games . Stormblades may hit hard , but they are very glass cannon and everything that does melee seems to have an arcane shield tax added. Shoting can of course help , killing those stealth units, pushing back stuff or destroying stuff with focus loaded uber jacks with haley. . But will this work always aand also against players that know how cygnar tries to clear zones with shoting? Probably not.
Also from what I heard the character limitation hurts cygnar a lot more then other factions , because a lot of lists rally around corner stone units or are mercs doing stufff cygnar units can not do on their own.

Seems that Cygnar needs heavy infantry. Looks like PP is breaking the "every faction lacks something" by giving Menoth a jack marshal. With the tech available Cygnar should be able to do a killer variant of Khador Man O War shocktroopers.

From what I understand from reading the PP forum , manowars are like light jacks only instead of a high cost and fragile cortex , they put a dude inside who is cheaper and at worse gets cooked when the boiler gets damaged.

 Mad4Minis wrote:
Seems that Cygnar needs heavy infantry.

They do...they're called boomhowlers

 Mad4Minis wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
You'd be better off marshalling a defender to Jr. The first turn he puts Arcane shield on your sword knights and every turn thereafter upkeeps that and then gives his 2 focus the the defender to boost attack and damage rolls.
Also why aren't you using the Stormwall it's an awesome piece of machinery?

My friend and I are new to the game, only 3 games under our belt. Still getting a full grasp on the basics, so we have only used the starter so far. I had a wad to blow (almost started 40k Tau) so I got a bunch of stuff all at once, thats why I have so much I havent used yet.

Battlebox games are not really anything to judge by, especially against Menoth. pKreoss still has one of the best feats in the game. As a battlebox, the Cygnar one is kind of meh, especially with Stryker. You really want to give the Charger 3 focus, but he doesn't like giving up that much, because he wants to cast his upkeeps, or he wants to make the Ironclad wreck something in melee, etc.

 Mad4Minis wrote:
I do understand that, still kinda bummed out. Seems our style of play might be better suited to smaller games like 20pts, maybe more if we use our colossals.

Depends on the caster, really. The Nemos (especially Nemos 2 and 3) really love large groups of warjacks, and get a lot of mileage for only a small focus investment, and Kraye can run nearly all warjacks fairly effectively as well. Khador runs into larger issues in doing so, although Karchev can run three or four Khadoran heavies very well, and Harkevich is rather interesting if you're trying a hybrid ranged force (and given that all Khadoran ranged jacks are still good in melee, hybrid is very subjective).

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Mad4Minis wrote:
I do understand that, still kinda bummed out. Seems our style of play might be better suited to smaller games like 20pts, maybe more if we use our colossals.

Depends on the caster, really. The Nemos (especially Nemos 2 and 3) really love large groups of warjacks, and get a lot of mileage for only a small focus investment, and Kraye can run nearly all warjacks fairly effectively as well. Khador runs into larger issues in doing so, although Karchev can run three or four Khadoran heavies very well, and Harkevich is rather interesting if you're trying a hybrid ranged force (and given that all Khadoran ranged jacks are still good in melee, hybrid is very subjective).

I agree with mad4minis here. Even the best jack casters can't run a 50 point battlegroup; and the more infantry you add to a cygnar list the more difficult it is to maintain the advantage. You can only go to the nyss hunters and boomhowler wells so many times before the opposition catches on or you get bored. Sure there are stormblades, gun mages, and rangers but none of them can hold the front line.

In regards to earlier comments on heavy infantry- the faction doesn't necessarily need the medium based 8 health guys, but they do need something robust and durable to keep the bad guys from the squishy guns in the back. Medium bases would be nice to stop tramples though. I for one would love to see a morrown answer to menoth's bastions.

 Dais wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Mad4Minis wrote:
I do understand that, still kinda bummed out. Seems our style of play might be better suited to smaller games like 20pts, maybe more if we use our colossals.

Depends on the caster, really. The Nemos (especially Nemos 2 and 3) really love large groups of warjacks, and get a lot of mileage for only a small focus investment, and Kraye can run nearly all warjacks fairly effectively as well. Khador runs into larger issues in doing so, although Karchev can run three or four Khadoran heavies very well, and Harkevich is rather interesting if you're trying a hybrid ranged force (and given that all Khadoran ranged jacks are still good in melee, hybrid is very subjective).

I agree with mad4minis here. Even the best jack casters can't run a 50 point battlegroup; and the more infantry you add to a cygnar list the more difficult it is to maintain the advantage. You can only go to the nyss hunters and boomhowler wells so many times before the opposition catches on or you get bored. Sure there are stormblades, gun mages, and rangers but none of them can hold the front line.

In regards to earlier comments on heavy infantry- the faction doesn't necessarily need the medium based 8 health guys, but they do need something robust and durable to keep the bad guys from the squishy guns in the back. Medium bases would be nice to stop tramples thommugh. I for one would love to see a morrown answer to menoth's bastions.

And if they came out looking even half as good as Connie and Gallant I'd buy them on release.

Well, assuming they didn't have spell ward. I'm sick of that awful rule hamstringing otherwise good models.