Caine1 Vs Vlad ~ Tournament Practice

Played a game tonight with the first in my quasi experimental lists

From my end I was bringing:
Faction: Cygnar
Points: 35/35
Lieutenant Allister Caine (*6pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Stormclad (10pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard (3pts)
Archduke Alain Runewood (3pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)

From the North, the hard charging Vlad 3

Faction: Khador
Points: 35/35
Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey (*5pts)
* Behemoth (13pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Fenris (5pts)
Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount) (5pts)
Manhunter (2pts)
Manhunter (2pts)
Yuri the Axe (3pts)

All and all a fun game, and unfortunately I ended up de-toothed and dying to a death bolt.

That being said, 18" threat on Stormblades with dead-eye and snipe worked out well, but is kind of a one trick pony. Need to remember to keep the Officer alive to keep up the assault order. Failure to kill Eyriss1 meant I was disrupted most of the game. All and all list did most of what it was ment to, but I never was able to create the opportunity to stack debuffs onto what needed a debuffing (AKA the behemoth).

I am seriously thinking about switching the 2 jacks for the stormwall... not sure but the longer ranged threat projection should allow me to hit further out and keep the stormblades back for a while.

Trying to hard?

Thinking through many of the support options in this game. For Cygnar in particular given the elite nature of our units, we tend to want to baby them into delivering their payload. I am not 100% sure that taking JR, the piper and devoting caster resources to keeping things like stormblades alive.

Thinking through things, if you are trying to survive charges, you either need good defense (generally MAT + 8 or so to start to be safe) or really high ARM (if my thinking is correct then you want about POW + 10 against your opponents pow). 

In game terms this seems to imply that you want to be in the realm of def 14-15 and the realm of ARM 19-20. There are other modes of defense such as tough that give you a chance to stick around longer than you would otherwise.

My I guess my thought process goes along the lines of:

How much is it worth to try and keep things alive in a game where you can be buffed, de-buffed and generally kicked in the teeth, where is it best and is it best to focus your efforts in support. 

In general, I find myself taking Rhupert more for pathfinder than for any of his defensive buffs... they are useful but pathfinder tends to be the primary reason. That being said, when playing Mercs, I often find Saxon being more useful than Rhupert as he can contribute offensively as well as providing buffs.

Not sure if I have a point, but I am willing to lean toward the idea that buffing offense is probably more powerful than tying to keep things up... also having more troops may be better than trying to get 110% out of one unit that will probably get feated off the table.

List Thoughts

So 35 point tourney coming up, and it may be my last chance to get a bunch of games in before the babies come and I go into dojo machine mode fairly indefinitely .. That being said, I am trying to put my money where my mouth is and continue to think my way through competitive Cygnar...

This list kind of builds itself with the only real though going into where to spend the 10-12 points that aren't in use anywhere else (tier IV requires 28 points to reach). Basically we are playing the I really hope lightning hits a lot of dudes game.... there are all of 12 models in this list. It also lacks some basic buffing (ie arcane sheild) that most of these kinds of list bring. Without further ado:

List 1:

Cygnar - I like Haley 2 Tier IV ~ I like Huge Base Light
40 / 40 (35 5)    Warcaster(s) : 1/1    Warjack(s) : 2    Battle Engines : 2    Solos : 2    Units : 2
Major Victoria Haley - WJ:  5
-    Thorn - PC: 8
-    Centurion - PC: 9
Storm Strider - PC: 9
Storm Strider - PC: 9
Stormsmith Stormcaller - PC: 0
Stormsmith Stormcaller - PC: 1
Stormsmith Storm Tower - Leader & Grunt: 2
Field Mechaniks - Crew Chief & 3 Grunts

Lots of ranged, possibly hosed by stealth (although running storm smiths could help with that, will have to see).  All and all I really just want to see what 2 giant lightning spewing walkers are capable of on the table top :).

List 2 that I am thinking of right now is:


Cygnar - Caine with blades
41 / 41 (35 6)    Warcaster(s) : 1/1    Warjack(s) : 2    Battle Engines : 0    Solos : 3    Units : 2
Lieutenant Allister Caine - WJ:  6
-    Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker
-    Stormclad - PC: 10
-    Ol' Rowdy - PC: 9
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios - PC: 3
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist - PC: 2
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord - PC: 2
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt - Lady Aiyanna & Master Holt: 4
Stormblade Infantry - Leader & 5 Grunts: 5
-    Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard - Officer & Standard Bearer 3
-    1 1 Storm Gunner's: 1

First off, this list is playing off of the fact most of the lists I have played over the years have had a hard time dealing with high armor... also two heavies with Caine1? Madness!

There are two "free" focus on the table (Ol' Rowdy being awesome in general, Stormclad stealing batteries from the blades), which should get people where they need to go until I need to give out focus to kill something big, Caine can not be a super solo for a turn I am pretty sure.

Caine1 for my first brawler list in while? Madness!

Logic is as follows:
~ Crowd control, Caine1 makes the pew-pews like few others, 4 shots a turn + a million on his feat turn (which can see squishies behind huge bases), means that he pretty much is this lists ranged game.
~ Board control, THUNDERSTRIKE at 15 inches is pretty awesome (doubly so with roll an extra die and drop the lowest, thanks for nailing my wishes). Also the possibility of punishing the "run your army forward types" is pretty hot.
~ Snipe and dead-eye means I can put shots from the stormblades on targets, and that gorman probably doesn't need to get as close to be magical.Trying to play up assault with some heavy hitters, don't know how well that will work... we will see.
~ Blur on stormblades is OK to get them across the board, don't love it, don't hate it 15/15 is pretty good in my book.

Beyond that trying to stack de-buffs a bit, trying to skew toward making people deal with heavies, and trying something different :).

One of the things I have been going back and forth on has been Runewood vs. Rhupert as the support for the Stormblades, fearless and +2 Mat on the charge, vs some extra defenses leaves me at a bit of a wash. Make take him because he is fairly useful on his own (extra pow 12 handcannon and pow 12 magical weapon master).

Pretty sure things are going to die, and not sure if the extra bit of survive that the piper brings our weighs the extra offence... will probably end up going with Runewood as I don't think I have gotten him on the table yet.

Closing thoughts:
Biggest fears I have currently are Ret, and any of stationary/fire lists as both my casters are pretty squishy. I may also turn to Darth Stryker to be my second list, but then I am playing two of the Cygnar super casters in a friendly tourney, and I also really want to see if I can make assault do something useful, but I am not 100% that the stormblades will get anywhere un-molested...