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Deadnight wrote:
I see plenty cryx armies without banes, thank you.

And how many Menoth lists without Choir ? It really seems to me that the Choir is the more ubiquitous model of Warmachine.
I've seen so many shifting stones for Circle too, but that may just be my local adversaries.

Deadnight wrote:
yeah, this i actually cant agree with. this is one of the corner stones of the game; no matter how nasty something is, you can kill it.

I always have HUGE issues with high-armor warjack. And I'm playing two heavy warbeasts and the shooting troops with the highest POW available in my faction, at 20 points . But I'm still a beginner.

Remember that plinging away at a heavy with a bunch of grunts is always an option.

Most infantry can take down big things by grinding it down. A dozen guys doing 2-3 damage each will kill anything pretty quickly. Or at least cripple a system, and anything with a damaged system is pretty much out of the game.

My grunts are burrowers, and I sure try to use them against anything heavily armoured with a lot of damage boxes now that I saw how hard it is to deal with kind of stuff using a bomber and a blitzer.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
I see plenty cryx armies without banes, thank you.

And how many Menoth lists without Choir ?

I play non-Choir lists all the time.


It's just that I tend to play Kreoss2's Tier List most of the time I play Menoth.

Just because 99% of Menoth lists take a specific unit doesn't mean its unbalanced.

Choir are an essential part of the faction, and all the jacks are costed with them in mind.

Yea, part of each faction's definition is it's support pieces. I think that is true in hordes especially, with stones and gorax in Circle, the stone carrier trolls have, pain givers for Skorne, pile of Fury management solos in Legion all helping define what the factions are capable of. You have choir in Menoth, scads of arc nodes in Cryx, no arc nodes in Khador save one, mercs with crazy support solos, Cygnar with junior warcasters, etc. The factions are built around that sort of stuff. No Circle beast comes with the Rage animus because it would be insane on anything less than 11 points, but Primal is planned for and the beasts are designed with the possibility of +2str/mat and auto frenzy in mind. Movement shenanigans from stones practically define the Circle experience as opposed to another fast but squishy faction.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
I see plenty cryx armies without banes, thank you.

And how many Menoth lists without Choir ? It really seems to me that the Choir is the more ubiquitous model of Warmachine.
I've seen so many shifting stones for Circle too, but that may just be my local adversaries.

Deadnight wrote:
yeah, this i actually cant agree with. this is one of the corner stones of the game; no matter how nasty something is, you can kill it.

I always have HUGE issues with high-armor warjack. And I'm playing two heavy warbeasts and the shooting troops with the highest POW available in my faction, at 20 points . But I'm still a beginner.

A couple of things;

First, what faction are you playing (I couldn't seem to find it in the rest of the thread)?

Second, which is kinda dependent on the answer above, it may very well be that you are simply not able to access all your tools; Hordes especially I find don't scale well downwards because of the way Fury works. 20 points is really just barely beyond a battlebox, and can be very, very frustrating in Hordes. Especially if you are just beginning (rather different for an established player, who might run... uh, I dunno, two Bronzeback Titans a Cyclops Savage and... something...).

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

And how many Menoth lists without Choir ? It really seems to me that the Choir is the more ubiquitous model of Warmachine.
I've seen so many shifting stones for Circle too, but that may just be my local adversaries.
.

i've seen a fair bit of the choir in jack heavy armies, but on the whole, you can do without it.

same with stones. i play circle, and whilst they're fun, and whilst they open up a huge bag of tricks, they're not always needed. i did fine for ages when i first started by not taking stones, so my view of circle is coloured by seeing them as an asset, not a crutch.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

I always have HUGE issues with high-armor warjack. And I'm playing two heavy warbeasts and the shooting troops with the highest POW available in my faction, at 20 points . But I'm still a beginner.

i call shenanigans. even at 20pts. i've one-turned a stormwall colossal with a warpwolf stalker.

apply arm debuff if you have it. apply strength buff. charge. profit. there is no reason a pair of warpwolves, skorne titans, dire trolls or carniveans cant kill anything else in the game. even if you cant kill the damn thing after 2 heavy warbeasts have unloaded, theres gonna be enough damage to left and right arms to make its punching back problematic. and all this time kromac is moving up to assassinate.

with circle, i've got bloodtrackers with pow11 weapon master ranged attacks. backed up by warpwolf stalkers, feral warpwolves, and the monster that is ghetorix (def16, str23 with primal, and eKaya). its going down.

with khador, i've got irusk. battle lust+iron fangs, or great bears. put in aiyanna and holt for the +2 damage buff. then each of your IFs is putting out POW13+2+4D6 damage. heck, if you want more, put in gorman. i have no issues bringing down 2 warjacks in a turn.

what units are you using, and what are you going up against?

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
I see plenty cryx armies without banes, thank you.

And how many Menoth lists without Choir ? It really seems to me that the Choir is the more ubiquitous model of Warmachine.
I've seen so many shifting stones for Circle too, but that may just be my local adversaries.

Deadnight wrote:
yeah, this i actually cant agree with. this is one of the corner stones of the game; no matter how nasty something is, you can kill it.

I always have HUGE issues with high-armor warjack. And I'm playing two heavy warbeasts and the shooting troops with the highest POW available in my faction, at 20 points . But I'm still a beginner.

A couple of things;

First, what faction are you playing (I couldn't seem to find it in the rest of the thread)?

Second, which is kinda dependent on the answer above, it may very well be that you are simply not able to access all your tools; Hordes especially I find don't scale well downwards because of the way Fury works. 20 points is really just barely beyond a battlebox, and can be very, very frustrating in Hordes. Especially if you are just beginning (rather different for an established player, who might run... uh, I dunno, two Bronzeback Titans a Cyclops Savage and... something...).

I play Circle as my main faction, but I also do Khador for my steampunk candy.. I honestly have no problem with the fury mechanic.. It only becomes a problem if you don't plan for it, all the horde armies to my knowledge have some sort of fury manipulation to keep the problem of your beasts going postal with frenzy.. If your going to go beast heavy you have to keep in the back of your head that you can only leech so much from your beasts if you don't bring some sort of support for them..

Aftermath. wrote:
The game actually sounds pretty awesome from a balance perspective.

The learning curve sounds painful though. It is almost too much.

Most games are harder than 40k, since 40k rules are too abstract and illogical.
|If you aren't willing to learn, you might be stuck with 40k forever, but hey if thats your thing thats ok too :3

Oops, I should have been more cautious before posting, and made myself clearer.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Second, which is kinda dependent on the answer above, it may very well be that you are simply not able to access all your tools

I'm playing Gunnbjorn's embryonic army. Meaning not that I follow the tier list (I may break it by adding some war wagon, because the mini is awesome !) but that I do only take models with guns, except for the one which uses grenades instead (i.e. my bomber), and I do sculpt them some military caps and cigars . I voluntarily don't use all the tools available to my faction. Some Mauler would definitely be able to crush heavily armored 'jack with that +1 POW, +1 FURY, awesome animus, and extra chain-strike attack ! But they don't go along with the theme of my army. I know perfectly well it's far from optimal, but it's like that I want to play, with the narrative and aesthetic aspect in the foreground .
I maybe misunderstood what I was answering to, but I meant not everything is destroyable by any army. Of course everything is destroyable by something, else it would be pretty stupid. My blitzer and my bomber both spending all their focus to try and kill some Khador warjack not even disabling a system, barely scratching the paint, when I thought the game was going ok was some moment. Maybe if my burrowers had been near, I could have add a few extra attacks, but I'm not sure it would have changed much.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Just because 99% of Menoth lists take a specific unit doesn't mean its unbalanced.

I never meant to say it was unbalanced. Just that some models are really ubiquitous.
Every Starcraft player creates a supply depot/pylon at every game, doesn't mean the game isn't balanced !

Another thing, why is there no point limit requirement for colossal? I see 25 and 35 point lists with these damn things and it's worse than MC spam in 40k.

 juraigamer wrote:
Another thing, why is there no point limit requirement for colossal? I see 25 and 35 point lists with these damn things and it's worse than MC spam in 40k.

Any army that brings a colossal at 25 points is going to be hurting in other aspects

If you don't bring it any support it will easily die to things that kill heavies, and its very likely that the enemy will only trade half as much points as you spent on your big guy

It really isn't. If your list can't crack a gargossal in a turn, or ignore it some how, you are not prepared for heavy armor in general. Whether it is whittling it down before sending in a heavy hitter to split it open, putting 20 points of heavies into it, or just debuffing it to the point it is barely functional, if you can't break that, anyone with 20 points of heavy armor is well beyond you as well.
There's a reason you only see two gargossal focused lists at tournaments; eHaley Stormwall and Bart with Battened+Spiney Growthed Galleon are the only two that make the colossal really better than 20 points of heavies. Arguably the Stormwall is just better than anything in Cygnar, but most other factions have to think really hard before putting 20 points into one model with severe movement limitations.

Responding to Juraigamer in case it isn't clear.

 juraigamer wrote:
Another thing, why is there no point limit requirement for colossal? I see 25 and 35 point lists with these damn things and it's worse than MC spam in 40k.

I can take down a colassal with 2 crusader jacks. 12 points vs 20. The only colossal that that is a problem for is Stormwall because of disruption, but then that means jack against hordes. In that case I take a bronzeback and nuke it solo with fury to spare. Battle engines and colossals are cool, but very restrained in their balance.

 Wehrkind wrote:
if you can't break that, anyone with 20 points of heavy armor is well beyond you as well

Indeed, you are arguably far less prepared considering the added complexity of multiple targets/attacks.

I can wreck a colossal pretty easily with a couple 6 point jacks. And seriously cripple it with only 1.

Colossals at low points are skew lists. Either you can deal with them or you can't, and its about 50/50 between those two extremes.


eFeora and a couple Crusaders will make any Colossal beg for mercy. Sure it will take all her Focus for one turn(5 for the jacks, 1 for upkeeping Escort) but it will take out the bulk of the enemy army and is worth it.

Its silly easy to bone a colossal at low points without even sacrificing anything major.

That is assuming you get the jump on the collosal. On the flip side, that collosal could pretty easily wipe out your battle group by itself which would basically win it the game. But that's how it is at low points, whoever gets the first big charge has a big advantage.

KingKodo wrote:
That is assuming you get the jump on the collosal. On the flip side, that collosal could pretty easily wipe out your battle group by itself which would basically win it the game. But that's how it is at low points, whoever gets the first big charge has a big advantage.

Well that depends how low you get. At low enough points a sole warcaster can kill a huge chunk of an army. All by himself. With his two machine guns.

Just saying, you guys are seriously making me feel bad about wanting to buy the Prime Axiom...such an amazing looking model.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Just saying, you guys are seriously making me feel bad about wanting to buy the Prime Axiom...such an amazing looking model.

How come? Some people say they don't like running into colossals at low levels. If they play a warmachine army that can take Gorman they have a 2 point solo that can, as long as the enemy don't have ATGM/other stealth ignoring ranged units in the right place/lucky AOE deviations/a feat like Harby's, neuter that colossal for a round or two. God I love Gorman.

KingKodo wrote:
That is assuming you get the jump on the collosal. On the flip side, that collosal could pretty easily wipe out your battle group by itself which would basically win it the game. But that's how it is at low points, whoever gets the first big charge has a big advantage.

Only with really bad positioning on the part of the non-colossal player. That colossal has to be able to get within 2" of 2-3 jacks and then roll really well to get enough hits to wreck them. Even a relatively fragile Cygnar jack can soak 1-2 hits from a Pow 12 colossal. A colossal would have to be really lucky on dice to drop even 2 undamaged jacks.

What really happens is that there are some screening infantry between the colossal and what is coming to scrap it. If the colossal has some buddies to shoot those infantry out of the way, it might get the charge into one jack and probably kill it with it's 4 attacks. Then the 2 remaining jacks cripple the colossal, or kill it out right. If they just cripple, the next turn one jack gets smashed, then his friend avenges him.
And god help you if you are facing Hordes... a good heavy beast will out threat almost every gargossal, and can usually come close to one rounding any colossal short of the Conquest. His friend will definitely finish the job if he doesn't.

Colossals don't hit much harder than regular heavy warjacks. 1-2 more damage points at best and their armor is no better.

If anything, a Colossal is less threatening because it can't put any more attacks than an equivalent heavy with only a slight increase in quality. And that huge base is quite cumbersome.


With only a few infantry models I can totally prevent a colossal from getting where it wants to go. Sure, it CAN trample, but it still has to find an empty place to put its base at the end. That's a pretty tall order. Meanwhile all my heavies can easily charge through the gaps in my infantry and converge on the colossal to wreck it. Heck, heavy infantry can bring a colossal down. I disabled a Kraken with only a half dozen Errants and 3 pissed off KE.

I'll never have my heavies close enough together for a huge base to get all of them together.

 motyak wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Just saying, you guys are seriously making me feel bad about wanting to buy the Prime Axiom...such an amazing looking model.

How come? Some people say they don't like running into colossals at low levels. If they play a warmachine army that can take Gorman they have a 2 point solo that can, as long as the enemy don't have ATGM/other stealth ignoring ranged units in the right place/lucky AOE deviations/a feat like Harby's, neuter that colossal for a round or two. God I love Gorman.

Because I can't justify the price tag since apparently colossals aren't worth taking over an equivalent points value of heavy jacks

That said puncture and tow...someday I'll get to live the dream and a caster/lock is flying into the arms of my forces by air mail.

EDIT: I wrote tow, it really should be drag. Wrong rule name. Don't want to cause confusion.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Just saying, you guys are seriously making me feel bad about wanting to buy the Prime Axiom...such an amazing looking model.

How come? Some people say they don't like running into colossals at low levels. If they play a warmachine army that can take Gorman they have a 2 point solo that can, as long as the enemy don't have ATGM/other stealth ignoring ranged units in the right place/lucky AOE deviations/a feat like Harby's, neuter that colossal for a round or two. God I love Gorman.

Because I can't justify the price tag since apparently colossals aren't worth taking over an equivalent points value of heavy jacks

That said puncture and tow...someday I'll get to live the dream and a caster/lock is flying into the arms of my forces by air mail.

Well that is true, they can be killed, but so can everything else. And its a colossal, not a gargantuan, so right there you have one positive

KingKodo wrote:
That is assuming you get the jump on the collosal. On the flip side, that collosal could pretty easily wipe out your battle group by itself which would basically win it the game. But that's how it is at low points, whoever gets the first big charge has a big advantage.

pMorg+beast handlers+gladiator+Bronzeback=ICBM or as close to one as you get in this game. And since that's only 13 points, it leaves you room for a mortithurge willbreaker for an extra free swing in case the corpse wasn't mangled enough.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Because I can't justify the price tag since apparently colossals aren't worth taking over an equivalent points value of heavy jacks

I think the point is, Colossals don't necessarily replace heavy jacks in low-point games. Colossals have a more meaningful place in larger games.

Colossals are like any skew in low point games, it's just not likely any given list is going to account for it. Seriously, bringing something like 25 AD infantry models is going to be just a regenerate. Low points games are just weird.

Heh, as expected.

Which brings me back to one of my core problems with the game.

The damage is too damn high. What good is a system with damage boxes and tactical combat when you just crush a model/unit in one turn? There is great promise if the game came down to more than just one turn of "this better work" instead it's all about an alpha strike.

That being said, in terms of army balance there are other issues. From what I've seen of tournament lists, it's pretty much always the same things. The games internal faction and external balance needs to be refined.

But then you get models that can survive almost anything. Kill an Arcane Shielded Centurion on pStryker's feat turn with one model. P+S 20s are swinging at dice minus 9. Even Siege's Feat only drops it to 20, or maybe to 16 (I'm not 100%, would AS and feat be added before or after the halving?) for one hit. Armour piercing drops it to one of those as well. It is pretty hefty.