Overview
Constance Blaize is a holy Knight of Morrow, and serves her god through her selfless leadership over both Cygnaran and Church forces. In game terms, this means she can be played as either a Cygnar Warcaster or as a Mercenary using the Highborn Covenant contract.
The Knight of the Prophet strongly supports a melee army in factions known for their ranged options. Her troops will move faster and hit more accurately while being given some small protection from magic. At some point, her troops' deaths will increase the armor of other troops, including her. Then she and her warjacks will step up and finish the job with an abundance of focus provided by the aforementioned deaths.
Basic Tactics
Constance Blaize starts off by casting two spells. She casts Banishing Ward on a key unit to prevent enemies from targeting them with spells and animi, and she casts Transference on herself to be used when melee starts.
Transference allows her melee troops to use her focus to boost attack and/or damage rolls. This is a huge boon to infantry as infantry, as a rule, don't have access to boosting mechanisms outside of charging.
To get her army close enough to use Transference, she will save focus to cast Crusader's Call, a spell that grants friendly faction models an extra 2" when charging.
Cygnar Choices
Starting Out as a Cygnar Warcaster
The Knights of Morrow
A Precursor Knights Unit is an obvious choice as the unit never takes a command check around Blaize, can provide her a flanking bonus for when she has to cast Flashing Blade to attack all the enemies in her melee range, and can get bonuses from both Transference and Crusader's Call
Before any Other Warjack
Before any other warjack, you must consider the Gallant Warjack. It's a character model, so you will only ever need one. Constance Blaize likes to keep her focus so that her troops can use it to boost their attacks via the spell Transference, so Gallant benefits greatly from having the Accumulator rule. Basically it gets a free focus for beginning its activation near Morrowan models.
What's a Morrowan model?
Constance Blaize, Precursor Knights, and Harlan Versh.
And finally, Gallant can both give Blaize access to Flanking while protecting her against a ranged attack with Shield Guard.
A Little Bit of Support
The Archduke Alain Runewood, Lord of Fharin Solo
helps support a melee-centric infantry army by way of his Battle Plans. He can help the troops move through terrain by granting a unit Pathfinder, he can send them against terrible things by giving them Fearless and a bonus to their charge attacks. Runewood complements any sort of (melee-troops) army composition you decide to go with for Constance Blaize.
Expanding Play with Constance Blaize as a Cygnar Warcaster
The Other White Knights
The Sword Knights Unit further enhance Constance Blaize's melee strengths. Unlike the precursor knights, they CAN have the Banishing Ward spell cast on them, making them immune to enemy spells and the like. And while they don't have access to Shield Wall they still reach a respectable ARM stat with Defensive Line, making them even faster than the Precursor Knights.
Add their connection with Runewood and their low low cost, they almost made it into the first group to include with Constance. Almost. However, with a lower cost comes some weaker capabilities. Precursor Knights hit and damage more consistently in the absence of friendly warjacks and provide Flanking to Constance Blaize.
An Illumination
Bringing Harlan Versh, Illuminated One Solo adds a bit of anti-magical ranged response to your army. Though Gallant has Purgation with Constance, it only has it on melee attacks, whereas Harlan Versh makes Purgation attacks with his gun. And if he can hit the target, that means he will trigger Quad-Fire an attack that can hit up to four times so long as the first attack hits. And when he attacks a model with spell effects on it? Purgation. All those ranged attack and damage rolls get boosted. Plus, he's a Morrowan model, giving Constance a chance to Flank with him.
It's all about the Journey, Man
A Journeyman Warcaster Solo can keep more of the troops alive by casting Arcane Shield on a select model or unit. Most likely that target will either be Constance herself, or one of her non-Precursor Knight units (they cannot have ANY spells cast on them). In addition, the Journeyman gives you an outside source of focus that can be used to fuel a ranged light warjack like the Hunter Warjack or the Minuteman Warjack.
Stretching Out
Melee and Spell Support
The Lancer Warjack gives Constance access to an arc node that extends the range of her targeted spells. Thus she can cast Sunburst from safely behind her wall of infantry. Additionally, a Lancer is an inexpensive option to bring to support an army with Sword Knights, as the spear will trigger the Sword Knights' Flanking ability. And by this point you have Sword Knights, right?
A Few Good Mercs
Fielding Constance as a Cygnar model means you lose access to using mercenary models as faction models. Simply put, merc models don't benefit her feat and don't benefit from some of her abilities. However, bring the Captain Jonas Murdoch Unit Attachment and you can make one unit of mercs count as Cygnar models while Captain Murdoch is still alive. One reason to do this is that Cygnar can turn mercenaries into faction models using Captain Murdoch, but Mercenaries can't turn Cygnar models into Mercenaries (outside of Precursor Knights, that is).
Playing Constance Blaize as a Mercenary
Starting Out as a Mercenary
The Knights of Morrow, Part 2
A Precursor Knights Unit is still an obvious choice, whether Cygnar or Mercenary, as the unit can count as whatever faction Constance chooses to represent. The unit never takes a command check around Blaize, can provide her a flanking bonus for when she has to cast Flashing Blade to attack all the enemies in her melee range, and can get bonuses from both Transference and Crusader's Call.
Just One Warjack, Part 2
Just like Constance, the Gallant is an ally model. Therefore, all that applies to the Gallant in a Cygnar army applies to a Mercenary one.
Before any other warjack, you must consider the Gallant Warjack. It's a character model, so you will only ever need one. Constance Blaize likes to keep her focus so that her troops can use it to boost their attacks via the spell Transference, so Gallant benefits greatly from having the Accumulator rule. Basically it gets a free focus for beginning its activation near Morrowan models.
Play that Funky Music, Piper
In the absence of using Duke Runewood, a Mercenary Constance should bring the Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord Solo as he supports infantry models without needing to cast his ability as spells. Thus he can grant infantry models Pathfinder to get them through terrain or make them Tough so that there is a chance that models in the unit will not die.
Expanding Play as a Mercenary
The Steelhead Solution
It starts by taking the Steelhead Halberdiers Unit to support Constance with very cheap infantry that can melee attack from 2" away and even combine their attacks for greater accuracy and damage. Then you take the Steelhead Heavy Cavalry Unit to gain flanking bonuses when they engage models that are also engaged with the Halberdiers. You run up the Halberdiers and then charge the Steelheads in (with an extra 2" from Crusader's Call</>). Finally, you bring the Stannis Brocker Solo to give all nearby Steelheads more flexibility through his Tactician rule that allows Steelheads to move through other Steelheads while in his command range.
Pinball Dwarfs
Sure, they move a slow 4" (or run 8") per turn, but the Horgenhold Forge Guard get a few things from Constance. First, Crusader's Call gives them 2 additional inches when charging, so the Forge Guard charge 9" under its effect, 1" more than running. Their real benefit, however, is using Constance's focus from Transference to try to get the Critical smite effect on their hammers to trigger by boosting their attack rolls.
