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So I recently got into warmachine, haven't bought anything just yet but I am planning to. I am looking at Cygnar at the moment, but I have a few questions!
So! Basically I was thinking about getting the battlebox and the 13th mages, they seem like good choices, and people seem to be using them everywhere,
so figured they'd be good right? ^^ But then I want a good close quarters units. I was looking at Percursor knights, Stormguard, swordknights and stormblades.
Which one would be the best fit for what I plan to buy?

Thanks for your answers!

B13 is a great way to get up to 15pts with the battle box.

Staples that you will want for Cygnar as you will want these in most lists...Squire and Junior WarCaster.

After that it depends if you want to get a different caster or stick with pStryker (he is a solid all purpose caster but does not really excel at anything). Precurser Knights are great but so are the others and anything with Lightning is good with the Nemo's.

You will find with WM that the caster you take in a game will influence what units you bring with it.

Its not like 40k where you know you want 2-10 of this type unit, and that type fast attack and 3 of these heavies.

Everything in this game has its place, its a matter of figuring out how to maximize its effectiveness and if it will work with the rest of your army and your caster.

oh and welcome to Dakka

Welcome to the game, glad to see another new player.

On to the advice portion of the post. B13 is a good way to get the battlebox up to 15 points (or squire/other solo, but I would probably go B13).

Now, I don't know if you want to play competitively or not, but either way, I don't actually recommend using many cygnar units that aren't Arcane Tempest or rangers for the most part. As a Cygnar player, you should definitely look at the Merc options available to you. Also, I would highly recommend a stormwall for cygnar for all 50 point lists and some 35 point lists.

Caster wise, I would look at eHaley, eCaine, Siege, and possibly eStryker

DarkyNWO wrote:
So I recently got into warmachine, haven't bought anything just yet but I am planning to. I am looking at Cygnar at the moment, but I have a few questions!
So! Basically I was thinking about getting the battlebox and the 13th mages, they seem like good choices, and people seem to be using them everywhere,
so figured they'd be good right? ^^ But then I want a good close quarters units. I was looking at Percursor knights, Stormguard, swordknights and stormblades.
Which one is 'best' if you will. Which one will fit with the other that I bought?

Thanks for your answers! <3

Precursors are a solid unit. I think their best use is as a screen for your other stuff; they don't really have the stats to do their own work, but they'll take the heat off of their buddies. Their Unit Attachment is very worthwhile, granting them useful abilities like Ranked Attacks (so that friendly guns can shoot over their heads) and a once-per-game Weapon Master. I recommend looking into Rhupert Carvolo, the Piper of Ord if you're interested in them; Precursor's can't be targeted by friendly buff spells, but Rhupert's songs aren't spells and thus can still affect them.

I haven't tried it yet, but I feel like they can combine well with Stormblades. Stormblades are very strong-hitting troops, who have two flaws--poor ranged accuracy, and difficulty surviving until they're in range to do their thing. The accuracy can be buffed by Rangers, the 'caster, or by their Weapon Attachment; the survival, meanwhile, can be buffed by Rhupert, the Journeyman Warcaster, or by hiding them behind a screen of Precursors. This can help them get up the field until they're in charge range. Unfortunately, they're not really survivable or numerous enough to be a good screen for more than a turn.

Stormguard are a bit more of a niche unit thanks to their high price. I think they have potential, but they're annoyingly easy to kill for something that's meant to be a defensive unit. Still, they will kill infantry, and it's hard to slip past them to attack more vulnerable stuff thanks to Reach. I tried to use them as a screen for Stormblades in eStryker's theme force once, and failed because it was too many small bases tripping over each other; with the Stormblade Captain giving them all Tactician, I think this tactic has become a lot more viable.

Sword Knights are underplayed, I think. It's really hard to go wrong with such a cheap unit, and they can do some surprising work. They act less like a hard screen or tarpit, and more as jammers--they get all up in the enemy's faces and keep them from moving around the swarms of Knights in their way. Their biggest flaw is that Cygnar doesn't have a great 'jack to run alongside them, particularly marshaled to the UA. We have four 'jacks with Reach (which work well with the Knights' Flank ability): the Firefly dies like a chump and is just a little too pricy; the Lancer is way too expensive for the job if it can't use it's arc node; the Centurion and the Stormclad are both very expensive, and don't run very efficiently under a 'jack marshal. I'm wondering now if there'd be some play with Sword Knights under Kraye (who can jam heavy 'jacks like the Centurion down the enemy's throat very quickly), but I haven't tried it.

One other thing I'll say for Sword Knights: If you ever look into Mercenaries, keep an eye out for eMagnus. He can take Sword Knights in one of this theme forces and give them Ambush, which is a very strange ability that works bizarrely well for them. Few things are more fun than seeing your opponent's face as you spawn a full unit in the middle of the game to go bum-rush a zone.

I've had some luck with sword knights by running them with a Firefly and having Rhupert Carvolo tag along near them and other units to give them Tough. The firefly can burn through a few models in lightly armored units that might get in the way, and then it can flank with the SKs to mess up 'jacks or other units. Granted, it might be a bit pricier than some other options, but for the extra ranged backup from the Firefly and the ability to use reach are worth it in my opinion.

If you're looking into Mercenaries as a possible way to snag a few melee units for your army, Sam Machorne and the Devil Dogs are a good units for busting up enemy 'jacks. I usually marshal a Buccaneer to them, use it to knock down an opposing 'jack, and then let the Devil Dogs tear it to bits.

I've been having some luck running a pStryker list with all stormknights. The stormblades with UA and gunners pack a serious punch on warjacks and other high armor infantry while the stormguards hit low armor infantry pretty well. You could just use pStryker and lancer from the battlebox along with the black13 along with the stormknights. Then you'd have 4 points left over for a 35 pt list

Warning, list needs stormblade captain to shine -_-

 grayshadow87 wrote:

If you're looking into Mercenaries as a possible way to snag a few melee units for your army, Sam Machorne and the Devil Dogs are a good units for busting up enemy 'jacks. I usually marshal a Buccaneer to them, use it to knock down an opposing 'jack, and then let the Devil Dogs tear it to bits.

How good are the devil dogs? I was a bit concerned that the marshal in the squad doesn't just transfer to another dude if sam dies, but again they look like a wrecking crew and I've love to get some focus back onto reznik

Heya everyone! Awesome replies! Thanks a bunch!

I just played my first game today with a friend! Holy feth this game is intense! :O
We played the battleboxes against eachother, me with Cygnar and he with Meneoth. We basically only played with his models so I just poxied and that worked out fine.

So while he did scrapmetal to my Ironclad with his crusader in turn 2 (Did like 32 dmg to it in one strike O_O) and then proceeded to beat the living gak out of my Lancer,
I did manage to actually snipe his Warcaster with my Charger with that huge Dual cannon + Strykers pewpewpew spell. If I had not managed to kill him right there my
Caster would have gotten charged by his Crusader and won him the game. Daaamn. Love this bloody game already.

So a few more questions! How on earth are you supposed to survive the charge? I did miss strykers feat the charge turn, but managed to do it the next one so the Lancer did survive
a bit longer. But still. It still does MASSIVE damage. I can only imagen what happens to infantry when they get charged by something big and nasty like those huge double-axe swinging
khador 'jacks! :O

Secondly. What about cavalry? They seem very cool with their electrolances! :O Are they any good? Worth to take over infantry? Is it possible to survive with only jacks and say, long-gunners?

Awesome community you guys! Rock on!

I would say look into picking up Stormblades - namely when play against them they will give me fits. Then with unit attachments you have a very solid unit.

Jack wise Defenders and Hunter are some of your best bets.

Stormblades w/UA and gunners are often treated at a poor choice in the online meta. Most people just skip over them and grab some mercs. However I love stormblades, they're a glass cannon unit, but if you can deliver them, they can easily take out any other troop choice in the game, along with most light 'jacks and some heavy 'jacks.

Plus you can stick a Stormclad with them which is a beast in melee. It gets a free focus from being joined to the stormblades, a decent ranged attack, has reach, electro-leap, and the second highest P+S weapon(behind the stormwall) in the Cygnar line-up.

DarkyNWO wrote:
So a few more questions! How on earth are you supposed to survive the charge? I did miss strykers feat the charge turn, but managed to do it the next one so the Lancer did survive
a bit longer. But still. It still does MASSIVE damage. I can only imagen what happens to infantry when they get charged by something big and nasty like those huge double-axe swinging
khador 'jacks! :O

Secondly. What about cavalry? They seem very cool with their electrolances! :O Are they any good? Worth to take over infantry? Is it possible to survive with only jacks and say, long-gunners?

Awesome community you guys! Rock on!

pStryker's feat is great for surviving the charge (Armor 20-something is very hard for non-heavies to ding without incredibly lucky dice). Other than that, though, it's all a matter of maneuver to get your opponent to put his stuff into your charge range before you put your stuff into theirs. It's a hard skill to master, and you'll inevitably screw it up a lot, but it's a huge part of the game. Piece trades are a major part of this--putting something you can afford to lose in a vulnerable position so that it gets charged, probably gets smashed horribly, and then you use something to charge whatever charged you. Think chess.

I don't have any experience with Stormlances, because a full unit of them costs a ludicrous amount of money. I hear interesting things about them, the main problem being that they're very pricy and thus detract from the number of bodies on the field (which is important for things like scenarios). I do have some experience with Tempest Blazers, though, the light cavalry that consists of gun mages on horses. They're quite spectacular, though again, you need to experiment to see if they're worth the price (two points per model is a lot for units).

Just 'jacks and Long Gunners? This is what's known as a skew list--a list that poses an unusual question that not every opponent can answer, but that will die horribly if your opponent has the rock to your scissors (in this case, Stealth would be the end of you). Long Gunners generally suffer from a lack of mobility--they're slow, and rely heavily on standing still to aim to buff their accuracy and rate of fire. pStryker helps them out a lot with Snipe, making it easier for them to stand still and shoot a lot of the board with massive waves of fire, but you might still find yourself in a lot of situations where they're looking around blankly at a whole lot of nothing.

Running 'jack heavy is tricky due to the demands on Focus put on 'casters. Cygnar is partially balanced around having spectacular 'casters, who have strong spell lists, feats, and abilities and who do a lot of the killing work themselves. Unfortunately, this makes them hungry for their own focus, so with a few exceptions (Nemo 2 and Kraye, for the most part, though a few others can try the trick) most Cygnar 'casters have trouble running more than three 'jacks (maybe 4 ranged 'jacks, or 2 melee 'jacks). A major trend has been to just take a Stormwall and be done with it. There are ways to help any 'caster keep up more 'jacks (Sylyss or the Squire can help with Focus loadouts, Gallant and Stormclads generate free focus when they're near appropriate models, Arlan Strangeways can put a focus on a 'jack that doesn't already have it, 'jack marshals can run a Hunter or a Defender fairly effectively), but it's probably best to realize now that the 'jacks are specialty models who are meant to solve the problems your infantry can't handle.

DarkyNWO wrote:
Daaamn. Love this bloody game already.

So a few more questions! How on earth are you supposed to survive the charge? I did miss strykers feat the charge turn, but managed to do it the next one so the Lancer did survive
a bit longer. But still. It still does MASSIVE damage. I can only imagen what happens to infantry when they get charged by something big and nasty like those huge double-axe swinging
khador 'jacks! :O

1. yeah, most games end up with the shambles of your army taking shots at the shambles at his, no matter how badly you're losing if you get creative enough you can almost allways get a shot at a caster

2. to survive the charge, don't is the real answer. you haven't gotten there yet, but once you start adding in infantry and utility models things start getting crazy, but in general if a fully focused up jack charges something, it dies, infantry do get hilariously overkilled but with them its all positioning to make sure only one or two can be hit at a time.

as for calvary, I dont want to throw you off track but cygnar has one of the coolest casters in the game, while not the greatest, he DOES make ALL your jacks into calvary(!!)

Boomhowler's is the Merc unit you'll get the most use out of for Cygnar. Medium Base infantry that can be 4+ Tough? Yeah, it doesn't get much better than that. Though I'd wait for them to be reboxed into a 10 man unit in the next few weeks just to make it easier to buy all at once.

Some of my usual suggestions for people looking to start Cygnar are:

1. Black 13th - you already know this one, so I don't need to go into detail.

2. Squire/Sylys Wyshnahoweveryouspellit - A lot of the Cygnar caster's would love the extra 2" of control from the Squire, and grabbing that extra focus on the right turns can be clutch. Some casters though want the Elf, and Stryker1 is usually at the top of my list for the free upkeep (since he has 3), and being able to get an extra dice on an Earthquake, discarding the lowest could mean the difference between a direct hit and a bad deviation.

3. Arlan Strangeways - If you want to save another focus for Stryker, Arlan can help you do it. Want to run your lancer? Don't allocate to it and have Arlan put a focus on with Power Booster. He's not needed right away, but down the line, he's one of those models that you can almost always get some use out of.

4. Get both heavy kits, and magnetize. Don't forget to magnetize the Ironclad from the Battlegroup box. I can't say enough how great it is to be able to magnetize the options for all three jacks from each kit fairly easily. There are some tutorial videos out there just google, or youtube search. I think I found some better ones not on youtube through the google search though.

5. Ol' Rowdy - Being able to run and charge for free is top notch, add on the Imprint, Counter Charge, and his more than decent Arm value, and you have a great jack that is well worth the extra 2 points over an Ironclad.

I'm definitely more of a MerCygnar player, so other suggestion would be more along those lines. Alexia and her Risen, Horgenhold Forge Guard, and Cylena with her Nyss are all things that work very well in Cygnar lists and fill roles that faction units generally don't. Also, don't forget things like Epic Eiryss, the Piper, Gorman, and if you are interested in any of the more shooty oriented caster Rheinholdt. As a Cygnar player you have access to the widest selection of Mercenaries, it just seems a shame to ignore them.

DarkyNWO wrote:
So a few more questions! How on earth are you supposed to survive the charge? I did miss strykers feat the charge turn, but managed to do it the next one so the Lancer did survive
a bit longer. But still. It still does MASSIVE damage. I can only imagen what happens to infantry when they get charged by something big and nasty like those huge double-axe swinging
khador 'jacks! :O

That's an interesting question. Generally speaking, things don't survive the charge in Warmachine, if you don't want them to. A fully loaded jack/warbeast will kill very nearly anything but the most buffed models.

Let's say, however, your opponent presents you with /two/ warjacks. Suddenly, you can't allocate full focus to two of your own warjacks, so you have to choose which one you go after, or you might divide up your fire and hope to get them both so badly damaged they can't retaliate well.

Infantry will generally just get splatted- their armor is generally good only against light anti-infantry weapons and blast damage. However, they have something more useful on their side- multiple models. You want to spread your infantry out a bit so that his melee jack can only fight a couple of them at a time. If that's the case, at worst he can kill those few. The rest can then retaliate.


This then leads into the real meat of the game. You can use your infantry as a screen for your harder-hitting models. If he charges your infantry, you can then charge his jack. If he doesn't charge your infantry, then your infantry will just get the charge on him, and jam the jack on his side of the table. Obviously, he'll be trying to do the same thing to you, which forces even more questions- do you lead with your anti infantry infantry, to get rid of his screen? Do you lead with anti-jack infantry, so you're a greater threat on the charge? Obviously this'll change depending on circumstance, but you get the general idea.

It's an exciting world once you get out of the battlebox games, and it's great you're already excited. Good luck!

 Grundz wrote:

 grayshadow87 wrote:

If you're looking into Mercenaries as a possible way to snag a few melee units for your army, Sam Machorne and the Devil Dogs are a good units for busting up enemy 'jacks. I usually marshal a Buccaneer to them, use it to knock down an opposing 'jack, and then let the Devil Dogs tear it to bits.

How good are the devil dogs? I was a bit concerned that the marshal in the squad doesn't just transfer to another dude if sam dies, but again they look like a wrecking crew and I've love to get some focus back onto reznik

As long as you're careful with Sam, they're not too bad at all. Since she has a much farther shooting range than her henchmen, she doesn't really lose anything in terms of effectiveness if she sticks near the back of the unit to let her men soak up the hits for her. Her survivability goes up a bit farther if you lead with your jack in order to draw a bit of the fire. Now don't get me wrong, they're probably not going to stick around all that long once they get their job done (unless they are able to catch a lone 'jack by itself), and if your opponent decides to make a point of going after them then they are going down without some support, but what infantry units can you not say that about? Also, if you're truly worried about losing Sam, you could always have a solo marshal run alongside them just in case. It might be a bit of overkill, but it could remedy the problem of losing your marshal should the situation arise.

Welcome to Warmachine and Welcome to Cygnar

Be aware that nothing in Cygnar is exceptional in melee

Out of their long list of mediocre melees you usually end up with Mercs for it or you can kinda of make it thru with Stormguard

Stormguard have great damage, so if they get the first hit they are pretty amazing, but if they don't...

Best way to survive charges is with infantry, you need high defense infantry in the front. It also helps if they have shield wall in addition to that high defense

The other type of infantry that can survive a charge are medium based heavy infantry, if you give them enough ARM buffs, they just might make it thru... might

 grayshadow87 wrote:


As long as you're careful with Sam, they're not too bad at all. Since she has a much farther shooting range than her henchmen, she doesn't really lose anything in terms of effectiveness if she sticks near the back of the unit to let her men soak up the hits for her. Her survivability goes up a bit farther if you lead with your jack in order to draw a bit of the fire. Now don't get me wrong, they're probably not going to stick around all that long once they get their job done (unless they are able to catch a lone 'jack by itself), and if your opponent decides to make a point of going after them then they are going down without some support, but what infantry units can you not say that about? Also, if you're truly worried about losing Sam, you could always have a solo marshal run alongside them just in case. It might be a bit of overkill, but it could remedy the problem of losing your marshal should the situation arise.

Losing a marshal just makes the jack autonomous, which isn't that big of a deal, I was thinking of using them with that steam-cannon jack with critical dev. (or critical slam or whatever) on his gun, since my reznik list is usually vanquisherX2 reckonerX2 then filler, I could really use that ranged (and devil dogs knockdown spam) to make them more accurate and get to juicy back line targets.

 Grundz wrote:

 grayshadow87 wrote:


As long as you're careful with Sam, they're not too bad at all. Since she has a much farther shooting range than her henchmen, she doesn't really lose anything in terms of effectiveness if she sticks near the back of the unit to let her men soak up the hits for her. Her survivability goes up a bit farther if you lead with your jack in order to draw a bit of the fire. Now don't get me wrong, they're probably not going to stick around all that long once they get their job done (unless they are able to catch a lone 'jack by itself), and if your opponent decides to make a point of going after them then they are going down without some support, but what infantry units can you not say that about? Also, if you're truly worried about losing Sam, you could always have a solo marshal run alongside them just in case. It might be a bit of overkill, but it could remedy the problem of losing your marshal should the situation arise.

Losing a marshal just makes the jack autonomous, which isn't that big of a deal, I was thinking of using them with that steam-cannon jack with critical dev. (or critical slam or whatever) on his gun, since my reznik list is usually vanquisherX2 reckonerX2 then filler, I could really use that ranged (and devil dogs knockdown spam) to make them more accurate and get to juicy back line targets.

Oh, the Mule? Now that definitely has some potential, and you could even have it hang back in B2B with Sam to boost her survivability while blasting at enemy back lines. Go for it. For that matter, I might actually try that.

 grayshadow87 wrote:

Oh, the Mule? Now that definitely has some potential, and you could even have it hang back in B2B with Sam to boost her survivability while blasting at enemy back lines. Go for it. For that matter, I might actually try that.

Yo people! Back again. Bought the Battlebox, 13th, and stormblades+UA. They just look badass, even if they might suck xP

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/514636-.html?m=2
Pic of my newly painted Battlebox, finished them up today. Think they turned out okay, though
the blue looks fethed up on the picture, but it's a lot better in RL. And yeah, noticed the blue on his sword as I uploaded the picture. Fixed that. ^^

So yeah. Few questions. As you can see on the picture, their bases got a huge slot in the middle. How can I fix this? Fill it with greenstuff or something?
Also, on the UA for the stormblades, the standardbearer got a HUGE bloody flag. And I can't freehand for gak, so, any tips on what I could put on it?

2ndly, Check this picture
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/514637-.html?m=2
It's Stryker, 13th gunmage and a Stormblade. Why on earth is the mage so much smaller? Is that a miscast or are all of them that small?

Cheerio. Have a good one people! ^_^

The slot is easy to deal with. Just put a piece of tape over it and paint/base appropriately.
The B13 is for some unknown reason just a smaller set of models than most of the others. Maybe they just haven't eaten well in the recent past or their mothers didn't give them enough vegetables when they grew up.