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Just started Warmachine and I have ordered some stuff that will be here next week. I ordered a Cygnar battlegroup and a Defender/Cyclone/Ironclad model.

I am looking to build a list that is Ranged focused and Jack Heavy. I have read that the best Warcasters for this are the Nemo variants and Siege, Caine seems pretty good for what I'm looking for as well but I have no real idea what I'm doing.

My idea for a 35 point list right now is the following:

Nemo/Siege/Caine

1x Defender

1x Hunter

1x Charger

1x Ironclad

At this point I have 26 points and I'm a bit lost with where to go. I was thinking of picking up a Cyclone to fill out my points but not sure how decent they are. I'm open to any suggestions as I don't really know what I'm doing.

I don't really agree with the idea that Caine is a good jack caster, nor Siege. Both like their focus too much. Kraye is better than either of those two, and is up there with the best jack-heavy casters that Cygnar has. Darius can also give them some help, and if they aren't dead can repair them back to full health (you thought that centurion with arcane shield was tough to kill the first time around? How about the second?).

Siege likes his focus for his ground pounder attack(s) especially with reinholdt (hence the (s)), and for casting mage sight/fox hole. pCaine (Lieutenant) does well with units (to benefit from his buff spells) and wants his focus for shooting, while eCaine (Captain) is even more of a hog when it comes to focus. These casters don't usually have much left over for the jacks they are controlling, which is why people put jacks like Ol Rowdy on the Caines so much, because he can do more with less focus.

Kraye, however, speeds jacks up, helps them hit harder at range and in melee, and allows them more mobility than they would normally have, by making them cavalry. This lets your heavy jacks crush infantry with impact attacks, while it lets your light jacks dance around as light cav

 motyak wrote:
I don't really agree with the idea that Caine is a good jack caster, nor Siege. Both like their focus too much. Kraye is better than either of those two, and is up there with the best jack-heavy casters that Cygnar has. Darius can also give them some help, and if they aren't dead can repair them back to full health (you thought that centurion with arcane shield was tough to kill the first time around? How about the second?).

Siege likes his focus for his ground pounder attack(s) especially with reinholdt (hence the (s)), and for casting mage sight/fox hole. pCaine (Lieutenant) does well with units (to benefit from his buff spells) and wants his focus for shooting, while eCaine (Captain) is even more of a hog when it comes to focus. These casters don't usually have much left over for the jacks they are controlling, which is why people put jacks like Ol Rowdy on the Caines so much, because he can do more with less focus.

Kraye, however, speeds jacks up, helps them hit harder at range and in melee, and allows them more mobility than they would normally have, by making them cavalry. This lets your heavy jacks crush infantry with impact attacks, while it lets your light jacks dance around as light cav

Like I said before, I'm really new (first game today), but is Kraye the "best" choice for a hard hitting ranged army?

 Turock wrote:

 motyak wrote:
I don't really agree with the idea that Caine is a good jack caster, nor Siege. Both like their focus too much. Kraye is better than either of those two, and is up there with the best jack-heavy casters that Cygnar has. Darius can also give them some help, and if they aren't dead can repair them back to full health (you thought that centurion with arcane shield was tough to kill the first time around? How about the second?).

Siege likes his focus for his ground pounder attack(s) especially with reinholdt (hence the (s)), and for casting mage sight/fox hole. pCaine (Lieutenant) does well with units (to benefit from his buff spells) and wants his focus for shooting, while eCaine (Captain) is even more of a hog when it comes to focus. These casters don't usually have much left over for the jacks they are controlling, which is why people put jacks like Ol Rowdy on the Caines so much, because he can do more with less focus.

Kraye, however, speeds jacks up, helps them hit harder at range and in melee, and allows them more mobility than they would normally have, by making them cavalry. This lets your heavy jacks crush infantry with impact attacks, while it lets your light jacks dance around as light cav

Like I said before, I'm really new (first game today), but is Kraye the "best" choice for a hard hitting ranged army?

A hard hitting Cygnar ranged army that you want to be really heavy in jacks? Yes.

He gives both kind of jack more mobility, allowing ride by attacks for your heavy jacks if they want to move around with more flexibility while shooting their ranged weapons, and light cav moves for your hunters etc to shoot and scoot. Easy Rider lets you shoot from one side of a forest/rough terrain and then when the enemy close duck back through it with no penalties, forcing them to follow. This isn't too good for scenario play, but it has other uses, letting you get up further to shoot sooner, etc. Mage sight lets you ignore stealth for your battlegroup, so your jacks can hit enemy heavies with occultation/stealthed solos/whatever. Guided Fire lets you boost ranged attack rolls for your whole battlegroup for 1 turn, which is pretty neat, but it'll limit the focus you have to dole out for boosted damage. Then he has his feat and full tilt which help you get off melee assassinations if you feel the need. He's really a great caster.

Something worth looking in to if you plan on going jack heavy is the squire, if you are going to play Cygnar for more than a few weeks you'll end up getting him anyway because he's so useful.

Get a journyman for moar focus.

 sing your life wrote:
Get a journyman for moar focus.

While this would be a good idea normally, to benefit from a lot of Kraye's buffs the jack has to actually be in his battlegroup. But Jr is always good to have along for some Arcane Shield awesomeness.

Cyclone shreds low-arm infantry, and I hear he's good with Kraye.

I use my cyclones to mow infantry (duh) and pepper opposing jacks before my hunters get the kill..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Of course I use eHaley tho I am probably going to start running Kara

Neither, Siege or Caine want to run jack heavy lists. Both versions of Caine will only want one Jack as they both want to have the focus for themselves. Which is why you will usually Caine with Ol' Rowdy as he is a very focus efficient Jack.

Siege before Stormwall would have had a Defender and maybe another Jack,

Out of the 3 Nemo's eNemo is probably best at running multiple jacks as he has energizer and his Feat turn to fuel them up.

As already been mentioned is Kraye can run multiple jacks but he will only want a couple of heavies and a few lights like the Hunter, Minuteman and/or Sentinal. Though Guided Fire can help his battle group to hit things it is a high focus spell and there are better options to improve your hit chance like Rangers or making use of the High Rat models we have to do infantry clearing like the Black13th or Tempest Blazers.

If you want to run Jack Heavy Cygnar, try Siege's new tier list from NQ50.

It ranks up there with the most fun lists to play.

It involves taking Siege and tons of JWC and have the jacks on them.

The best combination I've found is one Charger per JWC or a Sentinel to protect the JWC and offer some anti infantry fire power and a Charger.

I tried it and it's a lot of fun and much better than using Darius or Kraye.