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I took a long break from Warmachine as I sucked at it immensely. With the mark 2 rules out and about my LGS is taking another stab at it with a 30 pt tournament. Shown below is what I've come up with. I'm not averse to spending a few bucks if it will materially increase the internet effectiveness of the army.

Caster: Stryker
Warjacks: Ironclad, Hunter, Charger, Lancer
Units: 6 Gunmages, 3 Storm Lances

i would go with at least 1 less jack, and use the points for perhaps a solo(maybe a journeyman to run the hunter, freeing up some focus for stryker)

Wouldn't that drastically reduce the usefulness of hunter's extended range cortex as the journeyman's range would be like 12 inches? I think he'd be fine running the charger though.

I would probably drop the hunter or the charger. the lancers node can be very usefull. the charger and hunter I do not know. I do feel the journeyman would be a good addition, as would be a squire.

should be enough to fill up the points again...

Sarge wrote:Wouldn't that drastically reduce the usefulness of hunter's extended range cortex as the journeyman's range would be like 12 inches? I think he'd be fine running the charger though.

Well the Hunter works fine with just one focus, and with journeyman running it you can keep journeyman safe from harm, keeping up the arcane shield on ironclad or storm lances.

You need to drop one jack as has been said as Stryker doesn't have the focus to run all of the jacks you have on your list. He has 5 focus left to allocate after keeping up arcane shield, 4 if you have blur on gun mages. Charger needs 3 to run optimally, Hunter as said at least one, if it can stand still and gain aim. After this those you have none for casting or giving to lancer or ironclad.

I would include squire in the list, to give some boost to Stryker, along with some infantry, swordknights or trenchers, to get a bit more stamina in the army. I would drop either Hunter or charger from the list, Hunter would free up enough points for squire and min swordknights.

What I'm saying Metsuri, is that the Journeyman doesn't have the range to put focus on the Hunter. However, I have time for game or two today so I'm going to give that a try. New list:

Warcaster: Stryker and squire
Warjacks: Lancer
Solos: Journeyman Warcaster with Hunter
Units: Arcane Tempest Gunmages, Sword Knighits (Marshalled Centurion)

The Journeyman has plenty of range for the Hunter.

Advanced Deployment is only 6". After advancing once to fire, the hunter probably is going
to start back pedaling or moving laterally to start getting more shots off.

I see what your saying. What do you think of the list otherwise?

It has only one heavy hitter in Cent, which is a bit on the slow side. If you are facing only couple of jacks/ hard targets you are ok, but if opponent brings two heavies you are in trouble.

You have gun mages and swordknights for light infantry elimination and junior together with Stryker give plenty of support to the army. Problems are going to be stealth and heavy armies.

Stealth is a big problem for that army for sure. Anyway I can mitigate it would be awsome. I never actually ran that list, I ended up using Ol'Rowdy quite a bit and find I really like him.

Few of the stealth resolutions for Cygnar are B13th and arcane tempest officer. First adds the 5" template where anyone can shoot and the later adds true sight to gun mage unit. The later would be a decent fit to your army with minimal distortion, the B13th is of course excellent addition for 4 points.

In regard to the Charger vs. Hunter, I like the Charger far better than the Hunter. The Hunter on average does not outperform the Charger on average damage until Armor 19 and then it's only 1 point better until Armor 24 at which point the Charger realistically can't hurt. The Charger however is far better at caster assassination than the Hunter is (particularly with Siege).

The only thing is that the Charger NEEDS the full 3 focus to hit it's potential while the Hunter only needs 2, but is about a third again as expensive.

I find the Hunter generally only needs 1 FOC. With RAT 6, it typically doesn't need to boost to hit a heavy jack.

dietrich wrote:I find the Hunter generally only needs 1 FOC. With RAT 6, it typically doesn't need to boost to hit a heavy jack.

Especially when it aiming from a forest, like it should.

dietrich wrote:I find the Hunter generally only needs 1 FOC. With RAT 6, it typically doesn't need to boost to hit a heavy jack.

I don't know. Every time it misses, you can hear that unspent 1 focus point haunting you...

I believe the Hunter's RAT is 7. Either way, that's the first place a spare focus is going as that shot does no good if it doesn't hit its target.

You have spare focus?? what caster do you play, mine are mostly out of focus before everything i want to allocate focus to has had a allocation...

Only exception is terminus, because he does not have many usefull spells IMHO...

Edit: Yeah I know terminus is cryx, but that is my main faction and the other casters never have spare focus in cryx. As far as I knew that also held true with most cygnar casters...

malfred wrote:

dietrich wrote:I find the Hunter generally only needs 1 FOC. With RAT 6, it typically doesn't need to boost to hit a heavy jack.

I don't know. Every time it misses, you can hear that unspent 1 focus point haunting you...

Sarge wrote:I believe the Hunter's RAT is 7. Either way, that's the first place a spare focus is going as that shot does no good if it doesn't hit its target.

Sarge is right, it's now RAT 7 in Mk II - even better. So, it has a 5 in 6 chance of hitting DEF 12, which is about the best a heavy warjack typically has (barring cover, etc.). Heck, it has a 35 in 36 chance of hitting DEF 10, only missing on snake eyes. It depends how critical the die roll and what else I can do with the FOC whether I boost the to hit or not.

But, the Charger basically needs 3 FOC a round to operate effectively - 1 for an extra shot, and 2 to boost both shots. The problem is that the Charger is RAT 6 and POW 12. So, against most targets, you generally need to boost. Either, the DEF is high enough, you need a bonus to hit, or the DEF is low and you need the bonus to damage. There's not many low DEF, low ARM models that the Charger can reliabily shoot down without Boosts. The Hunter generally only needs 1 FOC to operate, but it is only good against high ARM targets on large bases.

I've been sticking with Commander Stryker lately as Cygnar heavy 'jack with arcane shield and his feat is basically impervious for a round. I just find that feat exceptionally useful. I've also been running the hunter with a Journeyman Warcaster so he usually puts 2 focus on it and keeps 1 for himself.