Thoughts on ranged Cygnar

Starting to thing (or rethink) the whole idea of Cygnar's ranged superiority. The more I did and think through things, they have a lot of ranged assets, but lack the terror inducing superiority that a Lylyth2 list brings to the table, or Bart + Galleon, or some of the other "Meta-Benders" that exist out there. Cygnar is probably second to none for effects that allow them to shoot accurately and ignore targeting, but rarely do we have the ability to hit with a POW greater than 10 (prior to CRA's).

This leads to an interesting dilemma, we don't have the out right destructive power at range to crush an enemy army without fear of retribution, but the heavy emphasis on ranged seems to scream that we need to soften up targets to reduce the impending onslaught.  We have a lot of tricks to get around things (anti stealth in particular) but nothing that ignores pretty much everything. For example some of the other meta-benders in the ranged game:

• Lylyth2's ranged game ignores: forests, concealment, clouds and stealth (eyeless sight)
• Ravyn's Snipe feet go ignores: LOS in general, magic buffs, animi, cover, concealment...

We also lack the staying power of something like:

• Bart + Galleon: 4 focus a turn for armor 22, fully boosted ranged damage (with between 3 and 7 attacks a turn).

As Cygnar it often feels like we show up to the battle field and face teleporting assholes who ignore all the rules we have to follow. We don't have a heavy stealth caster, we lack the ability to counter a lot of upkeeps and the like within faction (and even outside of faction we have Eiryss for upkeep removal).

This is not a Cygnar mweh article however, it is simply looking at what our enemies have (stealth, cheaty rules, and oddly more armor buffs etc). With all our ranged superiority how do we start to look at taking advantage of it.

First of one of the other things Cygnar does well (in my opinion) is board control. We can dictate where large portions of or enemies cannot go, or force them to play our game. We can spam reasonably high powered templates that stay in play and do damage, not only that we get to place them in larger numbers than most people get (off the top of my head placeable POW 10 from Trencher Chain Guns and Longgunners, Placeable POW 12's from the Cyclone and Stormwall). 

We also have access to probably the second best defensive buffs in the game (blur and arcane shield are good, defenders ward is ridiculously awesome...), but having it on a 3 point solo is pretty bad assed as far as keeping our stuff up and going. We also have Stryker1 who gives your entire army +5 ARM for a turn. All and all we can put up some decent meat shields.

Add a dash of either Haley ruining peoples days with Temporal Barrier or Haley2's feat and time bomb, you can stretch out the pain for as long as possible. 

At the end of the day (as it is getting late and I am totally rambling), I think we as Cygnar have a strength in ranged attacks, but I think that we lack some of the tricks that allow other faction to seemingly dominate at ranged. I am pretty sure I am stuck in a bit of Cygnar, I am doing it wrong...

I think we may need to look into combined arms over straight up pew-pew and accept that skew lists will be hard for us to pull off... With work killing me and twins on the way, Dojoing will abound for a while, but I am pretty sure the Swan I have loved since MK I is more of a Phoenix, but only time will tell (or Flanzer playing Cyngar ).  

Rules Exploitation ~ Collateral Damage not an attack

Not really an exploit, but an interesting little section of grey area. Collateral damage (off the cuff models hit by a slammed or thrown model). This little rule interaction totally gets you around abilities that trigger off of enemy attack or enemy damage rolls.

This has the kind of bizarre side effect of allowing you to do things like:

• Throw/Slam grim salvation targets into Madrak, keeping him from shunting the damage onto another target.
• Prevent Brine from going all pigheaded by killing Rorsh or finishing off Brine with a throw/slammed model going into him.
• Get around things with relentless advance, sanguine bond, holy monolith, and possibly impervious wall... generally things Menoth likes.

Long story short, only the initial target (the model thrown or slammed) is attacked, all the other models just take a damage roll.

Wonky. 

09/01/2012 Notes on 35 points Kraye Vs Butcher

Played Butcher1 Vs Kraye tonight, nothing much to report but some thoughts on the game.

 His List (unfortunately missed his name)

System: Warmachine
Faction: Khador
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
The Butcher of Khardov (*6pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard (2pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)
Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount) (5pts)


My List: System: Warmachine
Faction: Cygnar
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Captain Jeremiah Kraye (*6pts)
* Minuteman (5pts)
* Minuteman (5pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Ogrun Bokur (3pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

I also slightly and was 1 point over (had a third Stormsmith by mistake).

All and all, I got some milage out of Guided fire (probably could have gotten more if I had used the metal storm guns as metal storm guns). I am still not sure it is not a trap. If I could have kept both minutemen in command (Jesus Christ 6 inch move + 5 inch jump + 5 inch move after activation = OMGWTF BBQ), I may have gotten more play out of it as well.

All and all the list did OK, but lacked staying power, at 35 losing the Stormwall is devastating, as it is literally half the points in the list. JR for an amour boost? Maybe min mechanics instead of Arlan? Also in this list, the sentinel may be of more use than the bokur (although he done good for himself as well) if I am trying to exploit the guided fire. All and all, Kraye makes the stormwall really accurate and that could be good, not sold on it without the accuracy buff though.

Possible revised list:
 System: Warmachine
Faction: Cygnar
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Captain Jeremiah Kraye (*6pts)
* Minuteman (5pts)
* Sentinel (4pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Field Mechaniks (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

This trades out some of the craziness with the 2 minutemen for another body on the feat turn and 1d6 boosted shot if I guided fire. Alos the addition of JR should bring Stormwall up to ARM 22 which should make it slightly more survivable. Lose out on some free focus (pulling Arlan) for the Mechanics more chances/higher repair chance. Still feel like this list is lacking in magic weapon availability, but I am not sure how to fix that at 35 points (and in multi-list formats as A&H can only be in one list). I think that is all.

Is This Your Card?

Or the fine art of the force.

I was watching one of the more competitive players at my LGS play a Mordikar Skorne list and was mildly enlightened by him talking through his thought process while playing. He totally possessed a tool I was missing. In the same way a magician can force you to pick the card he knows, the Skorne player called his turn...

You will kill 5-6 swordsmen, 2-3 Accurii, and hurt (but not kill) the Rhinodon. He even called it out and watched as it all went according to plan. I came to realize I was missing a tool, the ability to "force".

Knowing pretty much at all times what your opponent can kill and knowing how to maximize on those losses (which for some casters is easier than others), was a new way of thinking about the game that I hadn't actively thought about yet. I am used to doing all the calculations separately (threat range is X, damage output is Y, etc.), but watching him basically dictate his opponents turn was a bit disconcerting.

All and all I know he is a bit out of my league (he has placed highly in several major events), but the glimpse into his mindset for a moment showed me the next level of the game that I was only vaguely aware of previously.

Being a generalist in a specialists world

I tend to find by self drawn to the jobbers in any given army. For IG I love the grunts, Ork's the boyz, Cygnar the trenchers and so on and so forth. I have noticed that many times these generalists tend to be glossed over more often than not, as they are over shadowed by a unit that specializes in one thing. Often this seems to transpire for many reasons; specialists have a clearly defined roll,some systems charge more for the ability to do many things alright as opposed to one thing well, and they tend to get taken out if they try to play someone elses game.

With so many cards stacked against them, why would anyone in their right (OK maybe this doesn't describe me) mind want to play generalists? I have personally found their flexibility to out weigh their "limitations". In Warmachine, I love me some trenchers. Are they going to crush my enemies while I listen to their women lament... probably not. However, on any given turn I can:
* have a guy pop smoke
* shoot someone
* assault to get 2 attacks on the charge
* assault to extend their ranged threat range.
* fire off AoE's in hopes of a good scatter
* dig in to help them against enemy shooting and blast damage.
* dig in to remove them as a LoS blocker
* advance dig in and make a combat action
* CRA to put some hurt on a larger target

With the exception of the 2 orders (assault and cautious advance), I will often do some random combination of all of that when I have the trencher module going. Admittedly this works better in Warmachine than in 40K, given the way that unit activations work. But for the most part, generalists in my experience can try and play the counter point to the strategy on the other side of the table, or do their own thing.

No Retreat Baby, No Surrender

I have noted that in the last couple of games I have played that there came a moment where the odds seemed daunting, and (once for me, and once for my opponent) thoughts of throwing in the towel started to emerge. At the end of the day, the person with their back to the wall (again once for me, once for my opponent) pulled out a win.

The first time I actually saw the shot and walked him through the kill (he had wanted to give up at the end of my turn). I know Warmachine can be a discouraging game, and when in one turn you lose half your jacks and the other half are knocked down or autonomous, one can have a hard time seeing the outs. Long story short(ish) he ended up adding a notch to Caine's gun belt, and Durgen went off with some new battle damage in his armor.

Last time game I played I found myself in a similar situation. The only reason I even made it into the next turn was a missed scatter roll keeping Thor alive with 1 point of damage (but on fire). Start of the turn Thor put himself out, slammed with the avalacher, knocked everyone down, the lone remaining forgeguard got a charge off, and Durgen finished him off with a boosted pow 14. If I hadn't rolled that out and stuck with it, I would have lost.

The Art of War talks about the idea of dead mans land (or some such title) the idea that if your men have nowhere to retreat, they will fight to the last. In a similar vein when you are down to a hail mary (something that works better in some games than others), play it out. At worst you made a gallant last stand, at best you have one of those "there I was surrounded by..." stories that make those of us of a mathematical persuasion cringe as you beat the odds.  

Advanced Deploy - Are you doing it wrong?

Many games have a rule that lets you setup your little dudes on the table at some point after your opponent. On top of that there tends to be some kind of addition to your deployment area dependent upon the game you are playing.

From a Warmachine perspective most people seem to only view this as an extra 6 inches that your men have to move first turn and leave it at that. This seems a bit short sighted to me and often gets your scouting forces killed early (this can also hold true in 40k with infiltrators). I often see bemoaning posts about how I deployed my guys way out there, and they got killed. They will then often go off about how unit X is a bad unit. Often (as I have learned from personal experience) the fault lies on the Gigantic side of things, not the little.

Often we, as the leaders of hordes of plastic and metal armies, seek to maximize an "advantage" to the point it is detrimental to the fictitious lives of our charges. I would like to wax philosophical a bit about what goes through my mind when I look into pushing guys into no mans land.

I am not left handed... (or getting to deploy once you have seen some of your opponents strength)

This is the biggest strength (IMHO) of an advance deployment, you get to place your models after your opponent does. WHAT?!?!?

In my mind and experience, the ability to deny a flank, take an objective early or that will be hard for your foe to get to, and/or show up to the party with all your friends is a much bigger part of the ability than just the extra deployment. Several armies across game systems use this strategy well and often.

In the 40k universe Deathwing and drop pod armies actually are toward the top of this list for me. Not only do these guys deploy after you, but they do so during their first turn. How many of them do so is up to you. In Warmachine, the ability to set up in cover, on a hill, or overlooking an objective or choke point can be the difference between victory or defeat.

You should be aware of the counter to this mentality "I am not left handed either". This is basically where your wily adversary has units he gets to deploy after you... the big thing here is to not over extend yourself and leave some easily exploitable weakness for someone to exploit.

Location, Location, Location

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. This builds on the logic above, once you know where your opponent is and how you are to crush them, look at the terrain. Can you set up where you aren't walking into a death trap? Even better can you deploy somewhere there is a strategic advantage? Are you denying some thing, threatening something, or just there because it is 16" out?

Basically, wasted movement is bad, make sure you have a reason for what you are doing.


A little bit of real estate

Finally we come to the first thing people think of, so it will probably what I talk about the least. Hey look I get an extra X" of deployment... IF your army consists of blood thristy savages who's soul purpose in the universe is to get into hand to hand as quickly as possible (Doom Reavers spring to mind), by all means deploy as close as you can to your opponent and run screaming into their lines. I would like to point out however, that this is using both countering your opponents deployment (GAR ME NO HAVE TO GO AS FAR TO SMASH) and probably location (GAR MUD ICKY AND SLOW ME DOWN... NO KILL FAST).