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So I have a few questions about the balance in journey man leagues:

1. Troll Champions....they seem to be able to walk up the field at 25 points with no problems at all? Are they balanced in lower point games?

2. SKORNE!!!!! Are they problems for Cyngar? I just can't beat them at all.

3. How balanced is Hordes compared to Warmachine at 25 points and 35 points?....the Hordes players are taking off with win against the Warmachine players now that we have hit 25 points.

Example for 2 and 3: Both loses where one turn army wipes against me...either a warcaster batting my light jacks dead in one hit, or an elephant eating my heavy jack in one turn without thinking.

1) The game isn't really balanced below 35 points period, but thats not the point of a journeyman league. The point is to have fun and learn the game or a new faction. You'll notice the points are not focused on who wins the most.

2) Skorne shouldn't be giving Cygnar any more problems than anyone else.

3) Thats a case of Skorne outranging you on charge threat and you not having the proper counter(a speed bump of infantry)



Skorne beasts can get a pretty long threat range with pathfinder. The counter is to properly block your jacks with infantry, beware that improper blocking will not stop a competent Skorne player because the Bronzeback can get Beatback and walk through a couple screening dudes to get to your jack behind. And Molik Karn has side-step. And accept that if he catches one of your jacks its dead.

Don't rely on shooting to win as many Cygnar players try. Shooting cannot win this game except in the most unusual of situations. Shooting does moderate damage over multiple turns so you can finish things off in melee.


What are you specifically having a problem with and what are the lists for both sides? Its very difficult to give useful advice on vague generalities like "a warcaster batting my light jacks dead in one hit, or an elephant eating my heavy jack in one turn without thinking."

J0kerrMT wrote:

1. Troll Champions....they seem to be able to walk up the field at 25 points with no problems at all? Are they balanced in lower point games?

Depends on what you are playing. Champs do tend to get shot up and most heavies don't have much issues cutting through them. If you can deny them the charge on your heavy stuff either through placement, using terrian such as walls to your advantage, etc. then they can be more manageable. I would probably find the warders more of problem personally because with the stone for armor bonus and battle driven/reach makes them more annoying to deal with in my experience.

J0kerrMT wrote:
2. SKORNE!!!!! Are they problems for Cyngar? I just can't beat them at all.

Since I play both skorne and cyngar I would say that the generic cyngar list, with stuff like gun mages, nyss, boomhowler's boys, few jacks sometimes zero heavies, does match poorly against at lot of the more popular skorne stuff like the krea, kharn, bronzebacks, gladiators, etc.. The more popular skorne stuff is generally rather resistant to shooting mostly. Skorne does have the krea, brute, Makeda & The Exalted Court (which has two shield guards). Honestly I have beaten skorne with my cyngar but I do focusing less on top of the line accurate shooting and more on control type effects. Both haleys can give skorne fits due to all the control and the ability to deny charging. pHaley with a AS stormwall and temporal barrier can get a little stupid. Skorne can't enrage their beasts under TB making it impossible for them to charge, trample or slam which is all they can do with enrage. Without enrage even a bronzeback will probably not take down the stormwall in one round. Darius I have seen give them fits of all people, if your opponent gets unlucky and fails to kill any jacks they are just fully operational next turn with his feat, and the jackhammer spell helps deal with the agoniser.

Also other than this guy, which I have seen on the table once period, skorne doesn't have ways of dealing with enemy upkeeps. So all the various upkeeps on cyngar casters aren't going away once they are cast.

But yea stuff skorne hates is things like Centurion with AS and PF up. Also the haleys and any denial. Also vs. skorne you really need to be able to read threat ranges and effectively piece trade. Also all our accurate soft hitting models like gun mages need to be hunting beast handlers, willbreackers, or any thing that looks like it is wearing cloth armor or looks like a wizard. Don't bother going after the front line stuff like titans.

If you want to watch some of this stuff put into action the most recent video for chain attack is cygnar vs. skorne and well it doesn't go well for skorne. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJfy7X84Nqc Note: They are playing hard core

J0kerrMT wrote:
3. How balanced is Hordes compared to Warmachine at 25 points and 35 points?....the Hordes players are taking off with win against the Warmachine players now that we have hit 25 points.

Example for 2 and 3: Both loses where one turn army wipes against me...either a warcaster batting my light jacks dead in one hit, or an elephant eating my heavy jack in one turn without thinking.

Strange the local players in my meta think warmachine has the advantage due to most hordes players heavies warbeasts being expensive and hordes having larger battle groups leaving less pts for support and infantry, when a warmachine army can take a single heavy and a bunch of infantry and call it a day. Then again the cryx players locally are the ones giving every one fits at low pts with things like banes.

I personally I think they are balanced. Due to fury vs. focus hordes can hit harder but fall apart if the game is turning into an attrition fight.

Edit:

Grey Templar wrote:1) The game isn't really balanced below 35 points period, but thats not the point of a journeyman league. The point is to have fun and learn the game or a new faction. You'll notice the points are not focused on who wins the most.

I would agree if you mean that the game becomes more match up dependent. Meaning its harder to "take all comers" lists, to borrow a term from 40k.

Some starter sets are more balanced than others. Trying playing as Circle before you pass judgement on Cygnar.

Hordes have a general advantage over Warmachine because of their ability to use fury rather than focus. Go for the Warbeasts before you target the warlock. You'll cut off their legs. This is opposite to Warmachine where you can kill the warcaster and potentially ignore the warjack.

Fury has an advantage early game, Focus has the advantage late game.

A beast can always get maxed out if you need it to and deal with the, not very bad, consequences later. I do believe that the downside to Fury is not bad enough, I play skorne and I think that.

Jacks can never have more than 3 Focus and you are hard capped at how many you can max out.


The counter is that jacks tend to have higher base P+S and armor. In addition, a Warcaster doesn't need his jacks to keep working. Once a Warlock loses his beasts he's pretty much only got a turn or 2 left. In my opinion, this doesn't quite cover it. But its close enough to not be a problem.

Newbies can feel this more keenly because they haven't quite got the experience to compensate for it yet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blood Hawk wrote:


Edit:

Grey Templar wrote:1) The game isn't really balanced below 35 points period, but thats not the point of a journeyman league. The point is to have fun and learn the game or a new faction. You'll notice the points are not focused on who wins the most.

I would agree if you mean that the game becomes more match up dependent. Meaning its harder to "take all comers" lists, to borrow a term from 40k.

Indeed that is what I meant.

Some factions also pay a heavy tax for certain support. Menoth Jacks are costed and stated with the assumption of Choir and Vassals. If they aren't in the list things get wonky. That sort of thing.

J0kerrMT wrote:
So I have a few questions about the balance in journey man leagues:

1. Troll Champions....they seem to be able to walk up the field at 25 points with no problems at all? Are they balanced in lower point games?
.

They're incredibly tough and extremely pricey to boot. Taking max chanpions means less stuff elsewhere.
They're about as balanced as anything else. Can you throw 'anything' at them and beat them? No. Like everything else in this game, you need a plan to deal with them. Speed debuff stops their charge. Armour debuff removes resilience. Personally, I have had good success Tarpitting them with high def infantry (kayazy) which stopped them dead in their tracks. Or else applying butcher to face.

J0kerrMT wrote:

2. SKORNE!!!!! Are they problems for Cyngar? I just can't beat them at all.
.

Only if they're well played

But seriously, no.

J0kerrMT wrote:

3. How balanced is Hordes compared to Warmachine at 25 points and 35 points?....the Hordes players are taking off with win against the Warmachine players now that we have hit 25 points.

Balance is fine. What you're experiencing is the upside of fury, which us quite powerful. Taking on hordes armies requires a plan - you cant nickel and dime them. Focus on the beasts and take them out. Hordes armies generally don't attrition very well, and whilst it's great for that 'one big turn', come the end game where the beasts are dead, the fury generators are gone, and warcasters really shine.

One thing I want to point out on those that say Skorne should not be an issue for Cygnar is in the first article of The Way of Hoksune http://handcannononline.com/blog/2013/07/09/skorne-the-way-of-the-hoksune/
These 3 guys are some of the most competitive Skorne players out there and all of them note that Cygnar is one of the easier match ups for Skorne. I've only played Cygnar a handful of times but my only loss to Cygnar in Journeyman was at 25pts when I stupidly put pMorgs in a bad position and he was knocked down with Quake and was shot down.

In a way it is and in a way it isn't.

Little differences like faction balance can be important at high level competitive play where the tiniest advantage is what makes the difference.

But until you get to that level, its not going to make enough of a difference. Especially with newbies.

And skill is still the largest factor.

keep in mind, this game isn't meant to be balanced at 15-34 points. it is designed to be balanced at 35-75 single caster SR2014 games.

scenario play is a huge piece of this puzzle, and many times at lower points levels, players just don't have the ability to split or go for objectives and such. Hell, last journeyman league i played in we didn't even use killbox until like week 4 or so.

the point of the league is to get in there, wreck some stuff, kill stuff ridiculous and get killed ridiculous. its to use casters, use their feat, reave fury, upkeep spells, and release some of that unbridled iron fury on your opponents.

if you walking in with the thought of "is this balanced" and "why is his stuff so much cooler than mine" or "i can't believe i lost again, those dudes are overpowered" then i refer you to page 5 of the prime or primal MKII rule book and encourage you to read it.

just play and have fun. paint the models, get the bonus points from that, play lots of games, who cares if you win, and try a different caster and maybe a few different points levels. chances are you will get more points from those things than you will from winning 50% of your games anyway.

now get out there before stryker finds you sleeping on the job!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh, one more thing...

on a technical note, in lower points values, typically super-solo type casters, like kromak and butcher 3 are REALLY good in small games. often there just aren't the resources to deal with them.

skorne normally eats cygnar, especially in lower points games. cygnar uses a lot of synergy and repeat effects (like gun mages pushing their stuff around and the UA casting or granting snipe like effects) and at lower values, you probably just don't have enough points to field enough to get that on the table.

at 15 points, skorne is probably fielding a big dumb elephant, if its starter box stuff, he is probably playing Morgal, and like a pain giver beast handler or something else to that effect. a titan gladiator, followed by a bronzeback can be dang tough to kill. don't sweat it.

just don't stop playing.

I actually think 50 points is the sweet spot for balance. At least from my experience it feels like you can get a complete army and support. At 35 points there are often very hard decisions to make in regards to troops vs support.

 Mordekiem wrote:
I actually think 50 points is the sweet spot for balance. At least from my experience it feels like you can get a complete army and support. At 35 points there are often very hard decisions to make in regards to troops vs support.

I've found similar in my list building. I tend to not gain as many models as you'd expect going from 35 to 50, since thats when I decide I can spare the points for all my support