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I've been playing Warmachine now and then since it came out, but only recently started focusing on playing tournament style and learning how to really play the game well. I'm having some difficulties in objective scenarios using my Cygnar, mainly because I've never played them as a board control style. In a recent 8 player local tournament I face Khador all three games and was stumped each time in dealing with their Shocktroopers. They just plodded along up to the objectives while I poured fire into them with little effect. Once they were there I had nothing to displace them.

I know Cygnar doesn't have a full equivalent, but what can I use for this purpose? Trenchers sounded like a possibility at first, having AD and digging in with smoke to hold ground until reinforced, but their low armor and single wound feels like a waste of points. The Precursor Knights were my next thought, but I've never seen them used and think there must be a reason for this.

I would appreciate any advice or opinions on how Cygnar can bring some durability to take and hold objectives while supported by ranged units. I'd be open to any caster if that's a key component but I currently own pStryker, pCaine, and eCaine.

Boom howlers are a stock option.

Steelhead halbadeers would work too.

Best "Cygnar" unit for TAKING Objectives is Storm Blades, they are pretty brutal on the assault

Best "Cygnar" unit for HOLDING Objectives is Silverline Stormguard, the "no charge" effect slows down enemy aggression pretty nicely

I'll second silver line stormguard, and suggest trying precursor knights as well.

Silverline Stormguard aren't very good at holding objectives, their ability is only really useful to deny the opponent the extra threat range that the charge move provides. As soon as they are tied down to holding an objective this ceases to matter very much because by that point your opponent is usually close enough to your lines that he doesn't need the extra 3" to reach you and any decently competent melee unit will still kill the Silverline's ARM 15 (or even ARM 18 with Arcane Shield), without too much trouble.

Best "Cygnar" unit to hold objectives are Boomhowlers.

But the most effective way to hold an objective with Cygnar is by using an Arcane Shielded Centurion.

I dunno. Most of my experience with Cygnar the best way to hold an objective is to kill the badguys before they get a chance to kill you.

We don't really have a unit that we can just march out onto an objective that can then absorb a lot of shooting and/or charges.

That said, Boomhowlers is probably one of the best.

I just wish that the best option we had wasn't a merc unit. If I get my christmas wish then cygnar will get some cataphract-esque heavy infantry soon to fill the gap.

 TrickyTaco wrote:
I just wish that the best option we had wasn't a merc unit. If I get my christmas wish then cygnar will get some cataphract-esque heavy infantry soon to fill the gap.

Its pretty accepted that Cygnar won't ever get a heavy infantry squad

Played against Precursors with eHaley over the weekend and they were tough to deal with with a mostly shooting army. Deceleration and shield wall makes them very tough to shift. And they can't be targeted by spells which makes trying to debuff them or cast on them even tougher.

Add in Rupert and you get Tough, too.

I've only seen them played a few times recently, but they have been solid when I've seen them.

If you are a purist who wants to avoid merc units then check them out.

I get a LOT of mileage out of Sword Knights with Arcane Shield. DEF 13 ARM 19 causes problems. I know they're not a popular choice but they're probably my favourite frontline unit in Cygnar because they're cheap and if you build your army around them they can punch way above their weight class.

Sword knights are nice for their points but they arent going to do anything against shocktroopers or some of the other heavy infantry in the game. You wont crack their armor and dealing a single wound is laughable when they have 8. Plus, their POW14 polearms are going to reliably crush any infantry that cygnar has. Boomhowlers would be hard to deal with because the shocktroopers have so few attacks per turn but boomhowlers will still have an issue cracking that armor at dice -12. I have found that dealing with these heavy infantry can really only be accomplished using a melee focused heavy warjack considering the troopers and Skorne cetratus have armor ratings higher than nearly all heavy warjacks. In my Durgen madhammer merc army, the only way that I can tackle buffed cetratus (arm22 with defender's ward) is with a redlined driller. Nothing else is going to crack that armor rating. A Hunter should be able to crack a shocktrooper relatively well - ARM 17/2 gives you 8 base, +4 from shield wall so you are rolling dice -6. A defender would perform the same. Thats probably the best you are going to get from a ranged jack.

I don't think swordknights or boomhowlers are designed to be dealing with high ARM as much as they are to just stay alive. Though CMA on the boomhowlers helps.

For cracking armor that is where you bring in the damage dealers. Forgegaurd, stormblades, etc.

Though that is a nice thing about Precursors. They have a mini-feat that gives them an extra dice of dmg for one turn. That gives them a bit of offensive punch when needed as well.

Even forgeguard have a hard time cracking some armor. I ran up against a squad of cetratus with xerxis leading them and they sit at DEF14/ARM22 under defender's ward and shield wall, then they bump up to 24 under his feat. I think storm knights are your best bet. POW 15 melee weapon so long as they stay grouped together, plus a pow 14 assault. That should put some solid damage on shocktroopers on the charge. Stormknights seem to be able to handle high arm and light infantry with their UA, they just need some defensive buffs to make them more survivable which Cygnar has wide access to. Rhupert for tough/fearless and JR for arcane shield would make them a solid force.

Shoot, most things in the game would have trouble with armor 24.

Though in that case Precursors ignore Defenders ward with blessed weapons.

But really, we are getting off track of the original post. You want units to control objectives. The rest of your army should be about clearing them out. And Cygnar has ways to deal with heavy armor.

Thanks everyone for the replies - a lot of information for me to chew on

 Mordekiem wrote:
Shoot, most things in the game would have trouble with armor 24.

Though in that case Precursors ignore Defenders ward with blessed weapons.

But really, we are getting off track of the original post. You want units to control objectives. The rest of your army should be about clearing them out. And Cygnar has ways to deal with heavy armor.

Correct - I don't need the unit to be able to dish out damage, just stand their ground until the rest of the army can get their jobs done. My biggest difficulty so far in scenarios has been avoiding a situation where I'm down 1-2 CPs early and then forced to be more aggressive than my units can handle. I guess tarpit is a more proper term for what I'm after.

KingKodo wrote:
Sword knights are nice for their points but they arent going to do anything against shocktroopers or some of the other heavy infantry in the game. You wont crack their armor and dealing a single wound is laughable when they have 8. Plus, their POW14 polearms are going to reliably crush any infantry that cygnar has. .

They're deceptively nasty. The flank friendly warjacks ability combined with a charge gives them quite respectable damage output. 10+4d6 damage each.factor in something like rolling thunder and they're quite obnoxious!

Yeah, they can deal out some damage with flank at least. Still, for the OP's purpose, he would then be dedicating the sword knight squad (8 points with the UA) plus a warjack (preferably one with reach to make flank somewhat useful) which is going to cost around 4-6 points. At that point, the OP would be better off holding the objective with a centurion. As a tarpit unit, Precursors would work OK. They can get up to 21 armor with shieldwall and arcane shield, their attacks ignore spells, and their mini feat grants them extra damage. More versatile unit IMHO. I still think that boomhowlers are better tarpits though. If you get Captain Murdoch - they get assault, go to ground (mini feat that gives cover and immune to blasts I believe) and makes them a faction unit so your faction specific feats and spells effect them such as pStryker's +5 ARM feat. Murdoch also has tough, so their call of defiance makes his tough roll 4+ as well. It is almost as though Murdoch was made for them.

So, boomhowlers vs storm knights? Boomhowlers are much more survivable but storm knights have 2 more power on their weapons.

Precursors can't be targeted by AS I thought?

Edit: Yep, spell ward, so no AS for you. 18 Max, with certain casters can get a buff against ranged only

 motyak wrote:
Precursors can't be targeted by AS I thought?

Edit: Yep, spell ward, so no AS for you. 18 Max, with certain casters can get a buff against ranged only

Correct. No AS.

But CTRL spells like deceleration work. So do abilities like rhuperts songs.

Also, not all casters have AS or if they do have other targets like the stormwall.

Yeah deceleration was what I was getting at with the 'certain casters' comment.

I'm think 2 centurions B2B, maybe with Junior to arcane-shield them.

Well precursors just keep striking out. Odd to have a unit with spell ward in a faction that has so many defensive spells. While not all casters have AS, a journeyman war caster pretty much fits into any list so we can safely assume that any cygnar army will have access to it (barring some theme lists that is). Boomhowlers with Murdoch seem like the best choice.

KingKodo wrote:
Odd to have a unit with spell ward in a faction that has so many defensive spells.

Precursor Knights lead by their powerful leader, Vorkesh

MillertimeRC wrote:
I don't need the unit to be able to dish out damage, just stand their ground until the rest of the army can get their jobs done. My biggest difficulty so far in scenarios has been avoiding a situation where I'm down 1-2 CPs early and then forced to be more aggressive than my units can handle. I guess tarpit is a more proper term for what I'm after.

This, to me, says you are not being aggressive enough. You absolutely have to be contesting zones, flags, or objectives by turn two. Use you guns to clear them out. Have your melee unit ready to charge/ run to clear the rest. But, have the unit move past the zone to prevent your opponent from simply running something back in. Use a jack or solo to actually take the zone. Now, your opponent has to chew through the unit and eliminate what's holding the objective.

Mechnomancer wrote:

MillertimeRC wrote:
I don't need the unit to be able to dish out damage, just stand their ground until the rest of the army can get their jobs done. My biggest difficulty so far in scenarios has been avoiding a situation where I'm down 1-2 CPs early and then forced to be more aggressive than my units can handle. I guess tarpit is a more proper term for what I'm after.

This, to me, says you are not being aggressive enough. You absolutely have to be contesting zones, flags, or objectives by turn two. Use you guns to clear them out. Have your melee unit ready to charge/ run to clear the rest. But, have the unit move past the zone to prevent your opponent from simply running something back in. Use a jack or solo to actually take the zone. Now, your opponent has to chew through the unit and eliminate what's holding the objective.

Moving the battle lines past the zones / objectives is a fine tactic... If you are playing Cryx or some other high-speed faction. It is allot harder to pull in a faction where the available mellee units are SPD 4 and 5. With Cygnar you'll have your front line at 27"-30" by the end of turn 2 assuming that you did nothing but run forward waiting to be slaughtered. If you are actually charging and doing some damage to your enemy, you can take 3" off of those numbers (again, assuming that your opponent is nice enough to leave his units just at the edge for you to get a successful charge), and suddenly you are not "moving past" the objectives, you are dab smack in the middle of the table and in prime position to get your fragile mellee units counter-charged!

PhantomViper wrote:

Moving the battle lines past the zones / objectives is a fine tactic... If you are playing Cryx or some other high-speed faction. It is allot harder to pull in a faction where the available mellee units are SPD 4 and 5. With Cygnar you'll have your front line at 27"-30" by the end of turn 2 assuming that you did nothing but run forward waiting to be slaughtered. If you are actually charging and doing some damage to your enemy, you can take 3" off of those numbers (again, assuming that your opponent is nice enough to leave his units just at the edge for you to get a successful charge), and suddenly you are not "moving past" the objectives, you are dab smack in the middle of the table and in prime position to get your fragile mellee units counter-charged!

Agreed. And using the Cryx example they have things like Satyxis which work wonders for jamming and tarpitting. I can't think of a Cygnar or Merc unit that can get up the board that fast and cause issues right off hand. Does anyone else have a unit that they use like that for Cygnar?

Boomhowlers, sword knights, precursors, gun mages, rangers, and all cygnar light jacks are all spd 6 or 7. Ironclad chassis are spd 5, and the storm themed infantry are spd 5. Try playing rhulic lists if you think THAT is slow.

I dont think cygnar is meant to be extremely mobile, their guns are supposed to make up the difference.

KingKodo wrote:
Boomhowlers, sword knights, precursors, gun mages, rangers, and all cygnar light jacks are all spd 6 or 7. Ironclad chassis are spd 5, and the storm themed infantry are spd 5. Try playing rhulic lists if you think THAT is slow.

I dont think cygnar is meant to be extremely mobile, their guns are supposed to make up the difference.

I don't get your point...

Who said that Cygnar is meant to be "extremely mobile"? Or that we are as slow as the dwarves?

All that was said was that pushing the front lines past the objectives is a tactic that is only really valid for the more mobile factions and that we don't really have good units to use that type of tactic.

I play Menoth and I'm always getting dudes to push the front line as far forward as possible.

That's with Spd6 and Spd5 infantry. And my fastest jacks are only spd5.


If I can do it with below average speed than you can do it with average/slightly above average.