Cygnar: A few more lists to try out

A whole new world of hurt.

Here a couple more lists that I've been experimenting with lately.

The first is the eHaley list I plan on running along side my eCaine list for dual-list SR2014.

Points: 50/50
Major Victoria Haley (*5pts)
* Thorn (8pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
* * Hunter (6pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)

The list here is painfully straight forward.  You have the ATGM + UA + Hunter so you can take full advantage of Haley's Deadeye and Temporal Acceleration on the Hunter.  Haley bonds with the Stormwall and the Stormwall pretty much becomes a walking god.  With the ability to threaten infantry with his firing templates, put out two fully boosted Defender shots, or engage a target with 4 Focus and 5 possible attacks, we're looking at one of the most dangerous caster/jack combinations in the game.  If you manage to TK a target with Haley, TA the Stormwall, he can charge back arc and deal damage from 16" away (7" bond, 3" charge, 2" TA, 2" TK, 2" Reach).  That's just an insane amount of reach for something that big and beefy.

Next, you have Siege.

Points: 50/50
Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (*5pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Taryn di la Rovissi (2pts)

Siege is one of those casters I really like because he's all about numbers - big numbers.  The alpha strike that this dude is capable of is something out of a fairy tale.  When he says go, his entire army is capable of putting down so much damage that other sources just seem redundant.  Because of Breach, Tempest Blazers are exceptional in a list with Siege.  Being able to Electo-leap shots on half-armored targets from 19" threat is exactly what a list like this needs.  Boomhowlers will hold the line and Siege's Breach assassination is very possible still with Rangers and Stormwall's big guns.

If I'm not taking eCaine, I'll probably play Siege because of the character restrictions.

BR: 50pt eCaine vs. Butcher3

Look at this god damn crazy.

I was itching for a game all week but due to work, I wasn't able to get one in until last night.  As usual, I played over Vassal man, was it a lot of fun.  The scenario was Close Quarters.

Here's the list he took.  I'm not sure if it was standard or not, but that's what he brought to the table:

Points: 50/50
Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed (*4pts)
* Beast-09 (11pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts) (4pts)
Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Black Dragon Officer & Standard (2pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Ragman (2pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

I brought my standard eCaine list and we duked it out on a map with a trench on each side and a long shared forest on the right.  Most of the right side of the map was also a giant hill, so elevation all over the place.  Sorry, no pics, it ran pretty late last night and I just went to sleep right after the game.

Anyways, here are some highlights from the game:

• The game started out with him playing very aggressive and running or advancing everything up.  I did the same with all my guys but I couldn't really shoot at anything so I camped all my focus.
• Next turn, he manages to kill some of my Boomhowlers and strip them of their Arcane Shield thanks to Eiryss.  No further damage is dealt to the rest of my army while all of his marched up fearlessly down the middle.
• On this turn, I was able to run a few Rangers up and go hard on his army with my shooting.  My B13th killed some of his Pikeman with Ryan doing most of the work as usual, killing 4 by herself thanks to Mage Storm.  The Tempest Blazers advanced 9 and used Elecro-leap to drop a ton of Kayazy from the field despite them having Stealth.  Man, I absolutely love their ability to move 9.  Caine himself did some serious work as he was able to pick off a few Pikeman, Magic Bullet the nearby Eiryss to death and ping another Magic Bullet into Beast '09, but failed to kill Aiyana despite the +1.  A few more shots here and there from some of my other units at Ragman and he sac pawns to one of Butcher's dogs.
• The next turn was something pretty hilarious.  While I think I had a pretty good turn and I was pretty far ahead, I was definitely not expecting this.  Butcher immediately moves up thanks to Vengeance and drops one of my Boomhowlers stone cold.  He adds 2 focus to Beast '09 and then casts Impending Doom, Silence of Death and Flashing Blade, followed by Feat.  Needless to say, most of the Boomhowlers are dead in one foul swoop with no chance of Tough rolls.  He then advances, into some more Booms including Greygore, and Flashing Blades again to kill every single Cygnar-sympathizing troll on the board while camping 5 Focus.  Damn, that did not go the way I wanted to, especially when I was relying on them to block Beast so I can get another round of shooting.
• Some of the remaining Kayazy including the Mob Boss charges Ol'Rowdy and actually do something like 8 points of damage to him due to hot rolls.  Not just that, but he activates incorrectly and the 1-HP Aiyana trolls boxcars to Kiss Ol'Rowdy while he was already engaged!  Now, I watch grimly as his Beast '09 barrels down the field and straight into Ol'Rowdy's face, beating his ass into the ground and leaving him with 5 boxes left.  Looks like things really changed in a span of a few activations.
• With Ol'Rowdy near death, my primary jack was out of commission and the battlefield situation looks pretty damn even.  I choose not to allocate any Focus to Ol'Rowdy because both of his arms were out.  Instead, I move up my Gorman really close to Beast, toss Black Oil, it can only scatter 1" and it hits '09 in the face, sharply dropping his defense.  I then land a Kiss from my own Aiyana, shoot him for some damage with Holt, and put him at roughly half-health after Rowdy activates and hits him with straight dice.  Not the best outcome, but better than nothing.
• Now, my Rangers run ahead to mark the rest of his army while my Tempest Blazers advance into range of his A&H.  A few Electro-leaps after and both are dead, including his Gorman who's unfortunate enough to be within 5" of one of the Blazers after checking range.  With no more real targets, I'm left with a really tough decision.  I have Beast with Kiss and Butcher in range with Ranger's Mark Target.
• I know for a fact that with effectively POW14 guns, I can drop Beast in one go with Feat thanks to Black Oil, or I can go for Butcher.  My Eiryss was out of range to threaten Buthcer unfortunately, so I'm going to have to rely on Caine to do all the work.  Well, what the hell, why not go big or go home?  My B13th with Brutal Damage and Taryn try to do some damage to Butcher, but it was just not happening with his camped Focus.  Caine then activates and moves in range of Butcher with +2 RAT.  He throws down 10 shots, misses with the last shot and then proceeds to roll damage.  After the dust settles, Butcher is left with 1 HP and everyone in the room is sitting there in shock.
• Needless to say, I think that's going to be game.  Next turn, he charges one of his own Kayazy to get within Impending Death range of Caine, and smacks him in the face with Lola.  It actually took him two swings and that was the only thing he could muster, but he rolled what he needed to hit Caine for a second time and that was it.  If he missed, I would have shot him to death next turn.

The winning scenario for me would be to kill Beast with Feat, reallocate Eiryss to the other side of the board to threaten Focus-camping, and to shoot everything else dead in Butcher's army leaving him with no support.  Unfortunately, that might have taken too long to play and I was in a very YOLO mode because this is just a casual game and I've been working too damn much.  You gotta learn to relax and have fun a bit, especially when you're not playing in a tournament and its all fun and games.

I talked with my opponent for a little bit and he said I could have been a bit more aggressive with Rowdy and Eiryss.  I definitely agreed with the Eiryss part, as I think her ability to drop Focus off of Butcher might have been exactly what I needed on Feat turn.  A very fun and close game, I enjoyed it very much.

Cygnar: 50pt eCaine

Look at this sexy man-beast.

Alright, so what does my eCaine list look like at 50 points?  Well, the answer is pretty simple.  You take my 35 point list and you add Boomhowlers.  It's not my fault that Cygnar typically has suck ass infantry except for ATGM + UA, but hey, what can you do.  After some deliberation, I've decided to give my Tempest Blazers a try with Boomhowler and Co. in the same list for 50 points.

One of the biggest issues I have with Tempest Blazers is that while they're incredibly good, they're also very generic in terms of what they provide.  The first thing that you'll notice is that they fit the same role of ranged combat.  They're essentially faster, more durable versions of ATGM, but they lack the True Sight but can extend their firepower more because of their speed.  At the end of the day, they hit harder than ATGM but they lack the shenanigans that Thunderbolt can sometimes net you, especially in a Caine2 list where you can move things out of firing lanes.  The True Sight is also huge, making them less useful vs. Stealth and doesn't give you the same amount of degree of protection vs. say, Mage Hunters or Bane Thralls.  Fortunately for the Tempest Blazer, you can always race out there and put some Electro-leap shots in their face.  Last, but certainly not least, is the UA ability to put Rune Shots onto a Hunter.  That's probably the biggest reason to take ATGM over the Blazers.  I guess the fact that they require Crits to get inflated results also wants them in a list with Deadeye (cough Haley cough).  Overall, I can see both working out just fine in an eCaine list, but for now I think I'll go with the Blazers.

To me, it's pretty set in stone what you want in a 50 point eCaine list.  You really need some meat in there no matter what so Boomhowler is an auto-include.  Cygnar infantry typically have zero sustain and you want a unit that can tarpit, take positions and play objectives.  There is simply no substitute in the entire Cygnar game in that respect.  The rest is simply mandatory items for Caine which is: Taryn, Reindholt, Squire, Rangers, eEiryss, A&H, and Ol'Rowdy.  Essentially, the first 30 or so points that you have is pretty mandatory, from my experience anyway.  Anything else for me is just sub-optimal and there's not much list variation for the casters that I plan on playing with Cygnar (eCaine and eHaley).  Guess I did it to myself huh?

Anyways, here's the list:

Points: 50/50
Captain Allister Caine (*5pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)
Taryn di la Rovissi (2pts)

This is the list that I'm building towards and the first list I'll put on the table for my glorious return to competitive Warmachine.  Good timing too, since it looks like 40K is going down the shitter real fast.

BR: 35pts eCaine vs. eIrusk

Not bad for a first game.

I managed to play my first game of Warmachine in two years today on Vassal.  It was a smaller game than most SR lists and we only played caster kill.  We could have played a scenario game, but my opponent actually suggested caster kill after finding out that it was my first game in a long time.

Alright, so we're off and away.  I used my eCaine list with Tempest Blazers vs. eIrusk.

Points: 35/35
Supreme Kommandant Irusk (*5pts)
* Destroyer (9pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Harlan Versh (2pts)

When I looked across the table, I saw lot of multi-wound models in front of me.  The problem with my list is that while I have a good amount of firepower, it struggles against high armor.  I guess I was lucky he wasn't running heavy jacks/beasts with another caster.

Alright, now to the game:

• My opponent went first and ran most of his stuff into better positions.  I did the same, put my Tempest Blazers and Rangers on high elevation and threw my B13 into the woods.  My A&H slowly moved up and Caine lurched forward and threw Blur on the Tempest Blazers.
• The second turn saw a bunch of shots explode from the Khador side and most of it missing.  Nothing hit their targets dead on but one of the mortar blasts found Eiryss and Taryn under the scatter.  Thankfully, my opponent rolled low for damage and Eiryss survived with 1 health (this was huge) while Taryn didn't take any damage.  His Widowmakers ran far up my left flank.
• On my turn, I dropped Blur on my Tempest Blazers and ran one of my brave little Rangers up to paint the backside of his Demos, Shocks and Destroyer who was behind an obstacle.  The Tempest Blazers moved up on the far right, shot at the Destroyer and with the help of Mark Target, managed to do 9 points of total damage using Brutal Shot.  They then used their Light Cav movement to get out of the LoS of the Destroyer.  I charged Ol'Rowdy up but I was just short of Tremoring the first batch of Shocktroopers.  It's OK, I can still do some damage:  Ryan opens up on the first batch of Shocktroopers and puts her Mage Storm on top of 6 dudes.  After damage rolls, I was only able to damage two of them because of Shield Wall.  Next came Lynch and Watts who opened up and shot down one of the Widowmakers on the far left.
• Caine himself moved up 7 and opened fire with Feat and 10 shots.  I only missed one shot and focused everything I had at the Shocktroopers and Demo Corp.  After the smoke cleared, I killed 2 Shocktroopers and 2 Demos.  Not the best results, but what upset me the most was that I shot a Shocktrooper with a POW19 shot and left him with 1 HP.  That's one more ST that's going to swing at Rowdy next turn.  I finished off the turn by running my 1 HP Eiryss up and put her within Arcane Interference range of his Destroyer.
• On his next turn, he retaliates by trying to shoot Caine with the mortars but missed with everything.  His Destroyer aims and takes a shot at Caine as well, but it scatters and hits Ryan in the face.  Since Eiryss was next to his Destroyer, he was unable to allocate any focus to it, so he wasn't able to capitalize on the revenge shot.  He retaliates with his Shocktroopers and a single Demo Corps on Ol'Rowdy and did some serious damage.  Fortunately for me, Rowdy's hammer was still functional.  Two of his Demo Corps break off and charge my Tempest Blazers.  Three of them go down to Backsswings but that's to be expected because he was rolling really hot to hit.  One of the mistakes that my opponent makes this round was moving his warcaster slightly behind his medium based units engaged with Ol'Rowdy thinking he would be safe.
• Next round, I analyzed the situation and activated my units:
• Caine takes a bite from the Squire.
• Reinholdt moves up and reloads Caine.
• The remaining Tempest Blazers move up and Brutal Shot the Demo Corps (killing 1 and leaving the other with 1 HP, tying up Eiryss still). 
• Taryn doesn't move, aims and Black Pennies the remaining Demo Corps to death.
• This frees up Eiryss to take aim and shoot his warcaster, stripping his focus.
• Next is Ol'Rowdy who Tremors all of the Shocktroopers and remaining Demo Corps to the ground.
• I thread the needle with one of my Rangers and paint his Warcaster.
• Caine checks his control range, sees Irusk past the knockdown Shocktroopers, aims with Mark Target and shoots with RAT13 vs. DEF15 with a -3 damage modifier.  It takes 5 shots to put Irusk in the ground.

Overall, I think this game went pretty well for me.  I was able to utilize most of my units and use them to full effect, although the Tempest Blazers were not ideal vs. such heavy armor.  The only unit that didn't see much use was A&H, and I think I played them too defensively because I was afraid of Aiyana dying to random blasts.  Against a list like this, I really need her Kiss to allow me to punch through heavier armor.

The only thing I was really afraid of was messing up my activations.  I played this game pretty religiously back when I was invested and I think that helped a lot.  During this game, a lot of things were coming back to me and I was able to capitalize on mistakes and activate my units in the correct order.  A good first game.

Return to Cygnar

Light them up.

I didn't think this would ever happen, but it did.  It must be all the OT I've been doing for Reaper of Souls on console, but I've finally decided to get back into Warmachine.  Warmahordes has been the biggest thing in my area for the longest time and it's about time I get back into it.  I'm tired of seeing so many players show up and get games left and right, and I do miss the competitive aspect of the game in some regards.  Hell, if I want to play a competitive game, it  better be popular and well-supported.

Just like last time, I'm getting back into it because a friend's taking a stab at it.  I left the game as a pretty advanced player and I only really lost a handful of times the 2 years I played the game.  Guess what?  I'm going to do it all over again with Cygnar.  I promised myself I'll start small because I don't feel like blowing too much cash early, so 35 points is where I'm going to start.

Check it out, deja'vu much?

Points: 35/35
Captain Allister Caine (*5pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Taryn di la Rovissi (2pts)

The biggest thing that changed when I left the game is that I left shortly after Colossals got released.  When you think about it, that's not a very long time ago.  I wasn't really excited about the oversized jacks in terms of aesthetics, but I found that their introduction into the game was well-executed.  The main reason why I left the game was that I found certain lists to be very cookie-cutter (as you'll see below) and that I was seeing mostly the same things ever game.

No matter.  Now that I'm back and playing the boys in blue, I think I'm going to make smarter purchase decisions.  When I left the game, I practically had every single Cygnar unit in the game.  God knows that most of that shit blows and there's only a few things in Warmachine infantryhammer that's worth taking when you're playing Cygnar.  In terms of raw competitiveness, I would say there's a handful of models I plan on purchasing in the near future.  I will eventually build into a dual list SR2014 type of play, but for now I think I'll stick with this.  I've also decided to just focus on eCaine and eHaley as my primary casters:  Not only do I have the most experience with these  two, but most of the units are interchangeable with the exception of the Stormwall.  That's another story for another time though.

OK, so what do we have here?  Well, there's not much to say:  It's your standard Caine2 list with a few personal preferences.  One of the things I hated about Warmachine is how similar some lists look because the options are really that braindead.  For me, if I'm going to be playing with Caine2, I'm always going to have Rowdy, Squire, B13, Rangers, eEiryss, and Reindholt.  Oh, and I should probably include Taryn now because of her ridiculous 2013 FAQ changing how her Shadowfire works.  That's pretty much 21 points of auto-include for my list before I add anything else.  So what am I going to do for the next few points?  Add Tempest Blazers because they're god damn amazing and A&H because POW14 Spellstorms are godlike.  At 50 points, you're just adding Boomhowler + Co and 4 points of whatever the hell you want.

For those of you that might not be familiar with how this list works, I'll try to keep things brief.  I've literally ran this list a hundred times on the table and on Vassal, so this should be like riding a bike.

• Ol'Rowdy - One of the best jacks that Cygnar has.  MAT8, great Focus efficiency, above average armor and solid pricing.  The biggest boon that he offers Caine2 is that he doesn't need much focus to get the job done, and MAT8 AoE Knockdowns makes everything cry.
• Squire - Caine takes a bite and he's up one shot.  Also allows Caine2 to occasionally Arcane Bolt the pesky Eiyriss with the help of Squire re-roll.
• Black 13th - Utility and damage all over the place.  Ryan is the best with her POW12 cloud, but everyone else has their place due to their damage output.
• Aiyana and Holt - Extra 2x RAT8 Handcannon shots are nice, but the big one here is what Aiyana offers to the table.  Kiss allows you to do +2 damage to something, and for a faction like Cygnar which has piss-poor overall damage, this is absolutely huge.  All of a sudden POW10 guns start to matter and POW12 from Caine kicks like a horse hoof to the face.
• Rangers - The bravest of all Cygnar units.  Does nothing all game but run up one at a time like suicidal retards to give your shooty units +2 RAT.  Mark Target makes Caine one of the most accurate things in existence; allowing you to hit DEF16 all day on 5s.
• Tempest Blazers - I had to read these guys a couple of times when I first saw them.  They have amazing stats, prime Blur targets and fantastic mobility.  Add on the amazing runeshots and light cav movement and you've got yourself the best light cav in the game IMO.
• eEiryss - You need a way to be able to peel off buffs so you can further shoot things in the face the way you want to.  Stuff like Defender's Ward or whatever just negates Caine's killing potential and that's just no good.
• Reinholdt - His sole purpose in life is to give Caine an extra shot.
• Taryn di la Rovissi - In short, she's Caine's life partner from now until FAQ'd again.  The fact that her Shadowfire can figuratively remove a model from Caine's LoS is flat out godlike.  This means that no matter what, no one can hide behind another model while within 19" of Caine and feel good about their chances.

Like I said gents.. like riding a bike.  Now for the painful process of putting everything together again.

BR: 35pts eHaley vs. Xerxis

I played a game vs. my friend Skorne tonight and it was pretty educational overall.  It was the first time he played against eHaley and it was not a game that he'll forget in the near future.  This BR will be written in  my classic bullet point format and it will highlight the important plays.  Overall, I wasn't really happy with my performance but it has been a long while since I played Haley.

My list:

Points: 35
Major Victoria Haley (*5pts)
* Thorn (8pts)
* Stormclad (10pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard (3pts)
* 3 Stormblade Infantry Storm Gunner (3pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2pts)

His list:

Points: 35
Tyrant Xerxis (*5pts)
* Bronzeback Titan (10pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
Bloodrunners (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Cataphract Cetrati (Leader and 5 Grunts) (11pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Agonizer (2pts)
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor (2pts)

• Turn 1 was pretty average.  I made him deploy first since I won the roll and he setup across the table for me in standard castle formation.  Xerxis casted Defender's Ward on the Bloodrunners and they went around flanking my B13 on the left.  Everyone moved up with the block of Cetrati in the middle in Shield Wall, the Bronzeback on his left and the Titan on his right.  Everyone else was behind him.
• Turn 1 for me was just moving all my dudes up.  Lynch lit up a Bloodrunner with Fire Beacon and Ryan dropped a Magestorm on him.  I placed Watts in front of Ryan so she wouldn't be charged next turn.  Thorn ran and arced a Time Bomb into to Cetrati and it didn't scatter too well.  eEiryss flanked his army on the right.
• Turn 2 saw his entire army moving up some more.  He upkept Defender's Ward on his Bloodrunners and they charged Watts.  Only one was in reach to hit him and he missed with his attack.  He had a crap ton of Fury on his Agonizer and that was just short of touching Thorn.  With his army up mid-field, I knew next turn was going to be big.
• Turn 2 my turn saw Haley pop her feat, covering his entire army in a Temporal Shift.  She put Temporal Acceleration on the Stormclad and made the Gladiator turn around with TK.  Haley put 3 focus on the Stormclad and 1 focus on Thorn just in case I needed to get somewhere.  At this point, I was noticing the rust in playing eHaley because I had to constantly look at her cards for a refresher.  I didn't play this as good as I should of, but in the end, the Stormclad charged the Bronzeback and stuck his sword up his spine.  The TK from Thorn (should of been Deadeye) on the Stormblades who assaulted the Cetrati and shot, but missed a few shots.  Even though they failed their charge, they still got their shots off and are in charge range of next round.  Thorn used Reaction Drive to move into charge range of something, but I had no good targets because the Cetrati didn't die as much as I wanted.  The B13 also shot and killed some Bloodrunners and Ryan shot a Magestorm into the Cetrati, but missed, scattering a little on top of the Cetrati a little in front of my Stormblades.  Eiryss moved into position to shoot at Orin but she missed with double 1s.
• Turn 3 for my opponent was really my extra turn.  I moved his army around in ways he didn't like and he couldn't do anything but take a beating next round.  He got in BtB with everything for the most part and then popped his Feat for +2 ARM.  In addition, he casted Defender's Ward on the Cetrati and Shield Walled with them for a ridiculous 24 ARM.  He also casted Inhospitable Ground and that left him with no Fury to transfer to.  His Gladiator also walked into combat with Eiryss, which should of never happened but I got too greedy at killing Orin.
• Turn 4 my turn was more difficult than it should of been.  The B13 killed more things, Ryan shot another shot into the pack of dudes but it didn't do anything.  My Stormclad was in range of his Agonizer and he couldn't be allocated focus.  Thorn was still good but he quite far away from the Stormclad.  I put a focus on Thorn to run and Haley kept everything for herself.  She TA'd the Stormclad through Thorn (who ran into range), arced a Time Bomb into the Cetrati and tried to boost for damage but got no results.  Eiyrss tried to leave combat but got hit by a free strike and died horribly.  The Stormblades assaulted and killed off 2 Cetrati despite their ridiculous armor and the Stormclad moved in range to swing at Xerxis' face for the game.  I rolled really high with the first two sword swings and that was enough.

Normally, I'm pretty good at this game, but in this particular game I think played like fucking sac.  Yes, this is my second game with Cygnar in 5 months, but excuses is for bitches.  I'll go over why I think this here:

• Instead of casting TK on a Gladiator (which was absolutely useless btw), I should of casted Deadeye on my Stormblades and focus fired on the right most Cetrati in front of me.  This would of hopefully produced more damage to take them down and then I could of charged Thorn into that god damn annoying Agonizer.  That would of put my Spear with reach in range of a lot of his models and only one Cetrati would be hitting back.  With that single move, I would of swept away one of his heavies, had another round of full focus on the Stormclad next turn, been in a good flanking position with my Stormblades should he turn his back on me to engage Thorn (the majority won't be able to attack me cause of Feat), and I would of gained a much larger lead.  That would of been the optimal choice of activations, but I went ahead and fucked it up.
• Oh, and I would of never lost Eiryss.  I got greedy, gambled and rolled double 1s.  That's what I get for gambling instead of playing smart.  He would not have Defender's Ward up if she was alive.
• Overall, sloppy ass game.  Even though I still won, I'm still pretty bitter because there was so many mistakes. If I played with the right activations, this game would of been more decisive.

BR: 35pts eCaine vs. eDenny

First game of Warmachine in a long time and boy do I miss it.  This game was a standard 35pt caster kill game vs. Cryx and overall, I think it went pretty well.  I'll tell you one thing though:  I was definitely pretty rusty.  Let me elaborate on rusty for a second; if you don't a wargame in a while, you start losing some essential things that makes you a good player.  I second judged my ability to guess range, double-checked on multiple activations and played a little slower than I usually do.  These are things you get from playing the game, and I feel bad for not playing my beloved Cygnar for so long.

Anyways, back to the game.  How did this game go?  First, the list:

Points: 35
Captain Allister Caine (*5pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
* * Hunter (6pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

This is one of my many eCaine lists and this is the one I used today.  I also took the first turn and deployed my forces pretty close to eachother.  Rangers led the way as usual (AD'd), the ATGM stayed by a piece of cover/linear obstacle and Eiryss floated around the left flank.  Caine was deployed pretty offensively next to Ol'Rowdy and the B13 w. Gorman hung out to Caine's left.

My opponent's deployment was Nightmare and Deathjack to my left flank w. Cankerworm and his unit of Bane Thralls and Tartar floated around his right flank.  His infantry units were pretty far away from his jacks and were posted facing my ATGM.

Now for my abridged battle report:

• Both armies moved up towards each other with eDenny sitting in the back in fear of her life.  The Cankerworm peaks his head out a little too much and is in range of a Fire Beacon from Lynch.  With the help of a Ranger, he posts it right on the worm's head and the B13 open fire for some damage.  The Hunter, now seeing his prey, moves up and fire for some solid damage.  To finish the disgusting creature off, Caine puts himself out there and boosts his POW12s for a dead worm.
• I noticed my opponent had his Deathjack and Nightmare in pretty close proximity to each other.  I also noticed my Eiryss was deployed pretty aggressively.  I thought hmm.. why not?  She runs bravely through the terrain and within 5" of both jacks.  Defiantly, she stares them down as they ponder her actions.  After doing this, I ran Ol'Rowdy further up in "optimal" position.
• My power play played off and I baited my opponent's Deathjack into swinging at her.  She and her buddy Ranger goes down but not before I buy myself another round of shooting because no one ran.  Well, her Bane Thralls and Tartar ran, but without the support of their jacks.
• This is the power play that I intended with Eiryss.  She will die, yes, but in doing so it will force his jacks to either engage her and kill her or let me pick at his caster with Eiryss.  If he gets antsy and advances his Thralls without the help of his jacks, it'll be a turkey shoot because I can shift my ranged attention to one direction instead of two.  If my opponent moves up with his DJ to kill her, he will be range of Rowdy's charge next turn.  If he moved up with Denny and try to kill her with spells, but in doing so would risk her life in range of Caine's guns.  Either way, she needs to be dealt with because of her presence and no matter what decision my opponent made, I would of benefited somehow.  The best chance he had would be trying to kill her with Nightmare and then the free focus on DJ to apply pressure with his Thralls.  This didn't happen.
• Next round, I focus all my shooting at his Bane Thralls and stuff dies left and right.  Rowdy gets 3 Focus from Caine and he dismantles the Deathjack after the Hunter boosts damage on his face.  Caine moves over and shoots Tartarsauce in the face and Ryan puts up a Magestorm to block further Thralls from charging forward. More things die on his side and the damage is done and irrecoverable:  More than half the Banes were dead, Caine was completely safe (due to positioning and clouds), he lost both Canker and DJ in exchange for Eiryss, and Tartar was dead with Caine still having Feat.  We call the game here.

Post-game thoughts:

• Power plays are one of those things you do that forces your opponent to scratch his head in a thousand different ways.  He knows that whatever he does, something is going to happen and it's not going to be good.  Move Denny closer and she dies, move DJ and oh god Rowdy's right there, keep your army together and give me another round of shooting, or try to kill Eiryss with Nightmare needing 8s and if you miss, it's another round that you're behind.  I guess in a way, what I did was force a "check" like you do in Chess.  Eiryss and Ol'Rowdy being the key pieces.
• My opponent should of kept his army together and have them support each other.  If the jacks are one direction and the infantry in another, that's already a problem because there's not enough combined threat.  I was able to focus my attention to the left first, dealing with the jacks, before switching attention to the right, to annihilate all the infantry.  If my attention was split at a central force, there would of been a lot more difficult decisions to make.
• Another thing to note here is that if his infantry was closer around his jacks, he could of activated his Thralls to kill Eiryss instead of sacrificing actions on his jacks.
• This game just shows you that if you make one mistake, whether it was deployment or movement, you risk the chance of getting stopped cold in your tracks.  If your opponent is a good one, he will capitalize on your mistake and make you pay dearly for it.

WM: Cygnar Tricks

This will be the first of many mini-articles that I'm putting out for Warmachine.  The purpose of these articles is to teach players all the "tricks" that each faction can put out.  Keep in mind that I'll only speak from the factions and warcasters that I have experience with.  By experience, I mean combat experience either on the table or in Vassal.  You won't find any theory hammer here.

Oh and yes, I'm also going to need your input on how I can format this better.  For now, I'll start with the warcasters and what kind of units you'll see with them.

Siege
Playstyle: Massive ranged damage.
Feat: The first time a model takes damage in his control area, it's at half armor.
Gimmick: The complete and utter destruction of the opposing army on feat turn.
Units: Defenders, Stormclad, Rangers

On feat turn, Siege and his army can wipe out an entire opposing army.  Every single model taking damage will be at half armor means that ATGM will be doing straight dice to Khador 'jacks.  A Stormclad will be hitting at dice +9 and each POW10 Electro-leap will be killing any infantry around him.  Ground Pounder will also do massive amounts of damage to infantry coming in range of Siege and on feat turn, it's going to absolutely destroy shield walls.  Due to Siege's fantastic assortment of spells, he can make Defenders do magical AOE3 shots and give his ranged army constant cover and immunity to blast damage.  Mage Sight reveals stealth and Foxhole can drop enemy 'jacks into a hole and open LoS to the enemy caster for ranged assassination.

eHaley
Playstyle: Using spells to move units into advantageous positions.
Feat: She controls the order of activations of enemy models in her control range.  Those models effected have to forfeit their movement or combat action.
Gimmick: Jack Bullet or Bullet Jack.
Units: Defender, Stormclad, Stormblades, Lancer

eHaley has the ability to inflict massive damage to your opponents and then deny them any chance of retaliation.  Her Feat allows her to control the order of activations for your opponent's models and they have to either forfeit their movement or combat action.  That's absolutely huge; especially if nothing is in combat reach.  You can also use her feat to completely deny your opponent's chances of an assassination or successful jack kill.  With Telekensis and Temporal Acceleration, she can launch her Stormclad at her opponents with a threat range of 16" with Reach.  This is her ideal jack bullet and her other is the Defender.  By casting TA on the Defender and moving stuff around with TK, the Defender can claim a aiming bonus with two boosted shots at the enemy warcaster for an assassination.  Haley also likes to run with Stormblades because she has access to Deadeye and can increase their chances to hit dramatically.


eCaine
Playstyle: Ranged assassination and massive single-target damage.
Feat: For each shot that hits, Caine gets +1 accumulative damage to his POW12 guns.  Models that are boxed explodes for AOE3 POW10 blast damage.
Gimmick: 19" threat range from clear line of sight or 18.5" without for his ranged assassination.
Units: Rangers, Reinholdt, Squire, eEyriss

There's a lot of eCaine lists out there that play differently from each other.  Some take advantage of knockdowns to open up a shooting lane and others compensate Caine's shootiness with melee.  Whatever it is, the list almost always feature Rangers, Reinholdt, Squire and eEyriss.  The reason why is because Ranger's mark boosts Caine's RAT to an appalling 11 and eEyriss makes sure focus camping warcasters are no problem.  On Feat turn with 10 shots thanks to ROF Infinity guns, Caine can move 7" and shoot 12" for massive amounts of damage on a single-target.  It's pretty much capable of killing anything in the game with average dice, no exaggeration.  If line of sight or shooting lanes isn't an option for Caine, he'll just charge up 10.5" and then Gate Crash teleport 8" into your hiding warcaster's face.  Sure, it takes some focus to do so, but 7 shots with Feat is still enough to kill most warcasters in one go.  With this in mind, nothing in the game is truly safe from Caine as long as he's alive.

eStyrker
Playstyle: Infantry heavy, combat assassination
Feat: After everything activates, models in control range can advance 3" and make an additional melee attack.
Gimmick: 17" charge range, Positive Charge, Rebuke
Units: Ol'Rowdy, Stormclad, Lancer, infantry by choice

eStryker plays very differently compared to every other Cygnar warcaster.  He prefers heavy infantry lists, close combat warjacks such as the Stormclad or Ol'Rowdy, and frequently likes to assassinate in close combat.  With Velocity and a clear charge lane, Stryker has a 17" threat range with Overcharge.  Overcharge allows him to roll 1-3 D6 and exchange HP for raw damage.  With 2 dice, he's hitting for POW22 and using his focus to boost attack rolls on the enemy caster for an an easy kill.  Positive Charge makes the Stormclad MAT9 with POW21 and infantry models within the Stormclad's reach gain the same +2/2 bonus.  For this reason, you'll see eStryker lists running Sword Knights, Stormguard/blades and Precursor Knights.  It's quite easy for these infantry to charge in and do massive amounts of accurate damage when in range of a jack.  In terms of jacks, a Lancer is a must for Rebuke since denying enemy orders to a unit for a turn can be game-changing.  Ol'Rowdy is also a fantastic buy for a melee jack because of Stryker's affinity.

Kara Sloan
Playstyle: Accurate ranged superiority.
Feat: Everything in her control range gets boosted ranged attack rolls and models in her battlegroup gets to make additional ranged attacks.
Gimmick: She's RAT8 with a RNG14, POW12 Weapon Master weapon that can be extended to 16".
Units: Defender, Cyclone, Hunter, Stormblades

The first time Kara hits home with a shot, you're going to feel it.  Her POW12 Weapon Master gun can be boosted for 12+4d6 worth of damage.  With Reinholdt, she gets 2 shots of these from up to 16" range thanks to Fire Group.  The Defenders and the Hunters in her battlegroup can claim a lot more opportunities to shoot thanks to the extended range and on feat turn, they're definitely going to find their mark.  Kara's feat also allows everything in her battlegroup to make additional ranged attacks that can pummel enemy jacks into oblivion.  The rest of her army comp is pretty standard; ATGM with a Cyclone UA'd, B13 and/or melee units like Stormblades to take advantage of Deadeye.  With RAT8, Deadeye and Feat, Kara can preform a high-powered ranged assassination from even greater distances than Caine.

eNemo

Playstyle: Buffing his jacks to unbelievable levels.

Feat: Each warjack in Nemo's battlegroup in his control area gets up to 3 focus.

Gimmick: On feat turn, all of his jacks go buck wild with Energizer and plow through things.

Units: Hammersmith, Stormclad, Ironclad, Thunderhead

eNemo is THE warjack caster in the Cygnar army.  His Energizer can make all the warjacks in his battlegroup advance an extra 3"; his Fail Safe can make warjacks with disabled systems ignore their handicaps; Polarity Shield can keep enemies from charging and Lightning Sword turns any jack into a Stormclad with +2 STR and Electro-leap.  On feat turn, Nemo gives all his jacks 3 focus so he can have up to 9 by himself to do other stuff; like re-arranging all his upkeep spells and use Energizer.  To make things even more interesting, Nemo can allocate focus during his activation and retrieve any focus he put on his warjacks.  The applications to this is near endless as it gives Nemo plenty of spell versatility and strategy on how he wants to execute his turn.  To keep things even more interesting, Nemo's basic ranged attack now functions the same way as Voltaic Snare (as pNemo).  This in itself can cause massive problems for opposing jack armies.

Alright mans, this is all the experience I have with Cygnar warcasters.  Most of my experiences come with eCaine, Siege and eHaley  but I've recently been playing with eStryker and Kara Sloan.  I like them all a lot, but I find the first 3 to be my favorite (especially Caine).  In terms of power, everyone except for Kara is considered to be Cygnar's "Big 4"; meaning they're Tier1 casters.  Kara is viewed as a weaker version of Siege but I don't see it that way.  I think she brings a lot to the table and her playstyle is truly unique.

BR: 35pt eCaine vs. eFeora

Played a 35pt standard caster kill game vs. Patrick's Menoth tonight and it's the first time we've played in months.  He was fielding eFeora and I knew instantly this was going to be a tough game.  In this game, Caine doesn't have much to assassinate because of eFeora's Escort and placement, but you'll see that I do just fine.  This will be another game where target priority is more important than the caster kill.


My list looks like this (same as last week):
Points: 35
Captain Allister Caine (*5pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
* Defender (9pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

His list looked something like this:
Points: 35
Feora, Protector of the Flame (*6pts)
* Redeemer (6pts)
* Reckoner (8pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer (2pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Knight Exemplar Seneschal (3pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)

I won the deployment roll and I went first.  Since I had nothing to do really, I put Blur on myself and moved everything up and over to the right side of the board.  The enemy 'jacks now had to funnel themselves between the top terrain piece and that wall obstacle in order to approach my army.

His next turn sees Escort cast and upheld on Ferora.  The large unit of Errants got in the forest and stayed out of line of sight of my army while the rest of his jacks approached the funnel in a tightly formed location.  The choir sang no shooting and the Seneschal moved up slightly with Gorman slightly behind him.  Good, I thought to myself.

Caine upholds Blur and moves into terrain.  He Magic Bullets the Defender and A&H makes the Defender's shot magical.  I move the Defender slightly into concealment and boost to hit the Seneschal since I saw the opportunity to kill him over damaging a warjack.  After the boosted hit and damage roll from Arlan's Power Booster and 'Jack Marshal, the Seneschal goes down.  The Defender's shot ricochets into Gorman 4" behind him and KOs him in one shot thanks to the JFK theory.  eEyriss also moves into the far right chimney and takes a sniper shot at a errant that's peaking out of terrain.  The shot lands between his eyes.

Next turn sees his army of jacks move up without any movement from his Errants.  Strange, I thought to myself.  His Redeemer fires into some of my units and magically scatters on top of Eyriss' head.  A good roll later and she's toast (literally!).  Another lands on Arlan and he catches fire while the other one lands on the Stormsmith, incinerating him.  Not good.. Arlan's on fire and he's the JM to my Defender.  A few more shots go by with the Reckoner and Vanquisher taking shots at the Defender and some damage boxes were marked.  Nothing has been taken out at this point.

On my turn, I roll for Arlan's fire roll and I put it out with a 1.  Phew.  The Defender didn't take any fire damage either.  A sole Ranger runs into position and marks all his 'jacks by the upper gravel.  Caine drops Blur because nothing's really going to hit DEF19 in concealment (or so he thought) and eats the Squire for 7 focus.  He moves up a bit and shoots the Redeemer a couple of times with boosted damage shots before Gate Crashing back to Reinholdt.  The Defender aims and fires with boosted damage rolls and the B13 joins in to kill the Redeemer.  Good job guys.

Seeing the Redeemer go up in flames, my opponent runs most of his Errant infantry up towards my lines.  I guess they were deathly afraid of approaching Caine and Ferora got pissed about it.  My opponent then takes his Reckoner and Vanquisher and goes to town on the Defender with shots of righteous fury.  The Choir sings praises to the battle and dice gods and the Defender takes a crap ton of damage.  Thankfully, poor allocation rolls kept everything in full function, but I only had half my boxes left after the shooting was done.  At this point, Ferora is still well protected from the cover left by the Redeemer wreck and her camped focus.  With Eyriss dead, assassination is clearly not going to happen I thought.

With the enemy on my doorsteps, I move my army into position with the help of my Rangers.  Two Rangers ran up and marked mostly all of the infantry along with some jacks.  Alright, let's see what I can do.  I moved up Aiyana and Holt and Aiyana makes them stealthed.  Holt shoots down 2 by himself, the B13 shoots up 4 and Caine mops up the rest.  Before returning to Reinholdt's side, Caine Magic Bullets the Defender and GGs back to safety.  Now that all of the Errants have been dealt with, the Defender returns fire on the Vanquisher and the ricochet shot bounces into the Vassal.  I roll like balls and he only takes 2 damage thanks to Iron Sentinel.  Ol'Rowdy, sensing the Defender's dire need of assistance, runs behind him; ready to counter-charge anything coming my way.

That's pretty much what happened next:  Choir sings for battle, Vassal puts Enliven on his Reckoner and then it came charging in.  Rowdy got up in his face but Enliven just moved the Reckoner out of Rowdy's reach after some damage and he started swinging.  The Defender took quite a beating and was down to 6 boxes left with the right arm and movement taken out.  The last attack from the Reckoner went into Ol'Rowdy and he took 5 points of damage.  Next came the Vanquisher that moved up behind the Reckoner.  Ferora then went up behind her two jacks and lined up a shot with her flamer at Ol'Rowdy and popped Feat.  She hit all the 'jacks and they all caught fire, but no serious damage was done to any of them.  Then she took the jacks that were on fire, put them out and put them on Ryan, Arlan and a Ranger.  With a good amount of focus camped, she Fire Steps into some cover and that was it for her turn.

Ryan and the Ranger burned to death but Arlan managed to survive his burns with 1 HP.  Sensing the end in sight, Arlan repairs 4 damaged boxes on the Defender and the Defender goes into action.  He goes up to the Reckoner and starts doing swinging.  After two hits, the Cortex is out and the Reckoner is at half health.  Next to activate is Rowdy:  Which moves on the side of the two 'jacks (as per picture) and slams his hammer into the ground; creating a tremor.  The two jacks fall on their face and now it's time for Aiyana and Holt to go to work.  Aiyana casts Kiss on the Vanquisher since it was largely undamaged and Holt puts 3 damage on it with his POW14 guns (+2 dmg).  Caine pulls from Squire one last time and moves up into shooting distance of both jacks.  He shoots into the Reckoner with Feat up until it's a smoldering ruin before lighting up the Vanquisher in a blaze of glory.  Effectively POW14 because of the kiss, all 10 shots hit their marks and the two Protectorate jacks go up in flames.  We call it here since it's pretty much clean up afterwards.

BR: 35pt eCaine vs. pGaspy

OK, a quick BR on a 35pt game of WM I played last night.  It was standard caster kill format with my eCaine list vs. Chad's pGaspy.  This game showcases the options offered in a Cygnar list and all the different tools a player can use to his disposal when fielding eCaine.  Even though the assassination run didn't go as planned, careful target priority on feat turn can still make for a devastating turn.

My army list:
Points: 35
Captain Allister Caine (*5pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
* Defender (9pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

His army list:
pGaspy + Scarthrall
Full unit of Bane Thralls + UA
Spray Chicken
Cankerworm
Seether
Tartersauce
Small unit of Mechanothralls and Necrosurgeon

My first game back from many many long months of OT and boy, does it feel good to play again.

The gist of the game goes like this:

• Caine casts True Shot on himself and enables him to see through stealth, camo and concealment.  He upkeeps this the entire game practically vs. Chad's stealthed dudes.
• Turn 2 my turn is where the game actually began with the two forces ready to do battle.
• Rangers run order into range and Lynch Fire beacons some Cryx dudes.  Ryan Magestorms and kills a bunch of dudes (Chad not rolling enough Tough), and Watts kills one himself.
• Aiyana and Holt casts and shoots, but isn't very successful.
• Eyriss disrupts the chicken on his side and the Defender puts heavy damage on it.
• I forgot that Chad's dudes can just auto get up on his turn because of some special rule and Aiyana and Holt gets charged by angry Thralls and dies horribly.
• Some combat also kills a Storm Smith.
• His Seether moves up behind some of his remaining Thralls and his Warcaster sits behind the Seether.  His Cankerworm runs up to my right flank by the B13.
• Eiyriss moves up and attempts to sap Iron Lich of all his focus and fails to hit (needing a 6).
• The B13 mows down most of the remaining Bane Thralls and opens up a charge lane for Rowdy.
• Rowdy charges the Seether, boosts to hit for crit KD and isn't able to.  He inflicts a good amount of damage on the Seether.
• Rangers run into position for marked targets, doing else all game but redirect charge lanes and this.
• At this time, I know the assassination isn't going to happen so I change my plans to something more acceptable.
• Arlan PB's the Defender and the Defender aims and shoots at the Seether in combat.  He's essentially RAT10 with aiming bonus and Ranger's marking so his boost hits the 7s needed.  Arlan's JM bonus boosts the damage and the Seether takes another batch of damage.
• Caine draws focus from the Squire, Reloads from Reinholdt, moves up slightly and shoots 9 shots with Feat up.  After only missing 1, I kill the Cankerworm, the Seether in combat, Bane Lord Tartersauce and the rest of his Bane Thralls.  Caine was RAT11 with the Ranger's marks.
• Next turn, Chad's damaged chicken tries to arc stuff into Caine, just to run into Magestorm, takes POW12+10 and dies.
• Chad kills the B13 with his Iron Lich, pops feat to get all his focus back.  His normal Thralls attack Eyriss and fail to kill her because of her DEF16.
• The game is pretty much clean up from here with most of the Mechanothralls dying to Arlan's spray + Ranger's mark, Eyriss dying from a Mechanothrall after trying to move out of combat, and despite Iron Lich camping full focus, combined boosted damage shooting from the Defender, Caine and Ol'Rowdy wailing on him, he goes down.

Post-game thoughts:

• Aiming and Rangers' mark allow most of the Cygnar army to shoot into combat without penalty.
• Rangers are absolutely vital against high DEF armies because it allows all of you guys to shoot more reliably.  RAT11 Caine guarantees results.
• If you don't have an assassination lined up, or the risk is too high, always go for the max amount of damage on his army instead.  Most people think Caine is just assassination and that's it.  As long as you do irrecoverable damage to the rest of his forces in any given turn, it's just as good.
• After I knocked down the models in front of A&H, I thought I was safe from retaliation.  Too bad those Bane Thralls just got up right after and charged them.  That was bad play from me and they did not make their points back.  This just means that I have to know my opponent's units better and understand what they can or cannot do.

BR: 35pt Siege vs. eGaspy

The battle begins with a map with a fair share of terrain.  This battle highlights the importance of utilizing knockdown and positioning so Breach turn can inflict the most damage.  By destroying and severely crippling my opponent's warjacks, I can stay ahead in the attrition game and deliver game-winning results.  The guy with the last warjack is always ahead.

My list looks like this:

Points: 35

Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (*5pts)

* Defender (9pts)

* Defender (9pts)

* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)

* Squire (2pts)

Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)

Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)

Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

His list looked like this:

Points: 35

Lich Lord Asphyxious (*6pts)

* Nightwretch (4pts)

* Reaper (7pts)

* Seether (9pts)

* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)

Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)

The Withershadow Combine (5pts)

Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)

Cryx Turn #1

He runs his entire army and covers his advance with clouds of goo.  For those of you who don't know, eGaspy has a spell called Caustic Mist.. which he can cast to block LoS to a lot of targets as long as he stacks them next to eachother.  His Reaper sat behind some concealment forest and his Seether sat right behind the Reaper with the WSC sitting close to both.  For Warmachine newcomers, this is the dirty strategy of Dark Industries:  If he manges to gets a hold of any of my jacks with the Harpoon, he can damage it enough for the WSC to turn him into another Seether or something.  His Bane Knights run up my left flank and Bane Lord floats around the right side of the board.  The Nightwrench also hugs the woods with the Reaper for some arc node coverage.

Cygnar Turn #1

On my turn, I moved both Defenders up with 2 focus each.  I put a foxhole on them and hold off on moving Siege any further.  Arlan boosts Ol'Rowdy and he Imprints for Grudge just in case he gets pulled.  Since the mists were up on every location except for one opening to his Seether, I positioned my Defenders and made magic happen.  The Defenders open fire for boosted attack and damage rolls.  Concentrated fire puts serious damage on the 1 and 6 boxes causing the Seether to lose one of his arms.  Eiryss aims and shoots the Nightwrench for Disruption and I'm happy with that.  B13 moves up and attempts to Snipe the Knights on my left flank but only manages to kill one.  The Stormsmith runs up the left flank and the turn ends.

Cryx Turn #2

On his turn, he puts 3 focus on the Reaper, 3 on the Seether and that's it.  I know exactly what he's going to try to do.  Or not!  Instead of harpooning my Ol'Rowdy, he harpoons one of the Defenders out of the Foxhole!  He rolls insanely high and beats the DEF16 requirement and drags one of my Defenders to his doom.  After some serious damage from the Reaper and the Seether that charged in, I'm left with no Cortex Hammer and boxes everywhere.  The moment of truth came with the Seether Chain Attacked with Grab & Smash and I resisted the throw!  Now I'm stuck in there with a half-ass Defender and no targets of opportunity.  The rest of his army runs up close and is now in charge range of my army.

Cygnar Turn #2

Siege is the master of making big turns and that's exactly what he did this game.  I'm not going to take any credit for Siege's masterful execution of tactics and strategy, but in short, this is what he did:  Siege starts by dropping Foxhole, putting 2 focus on the safe Defender, 1 focus on the one stuck in combat and 2 on Ol'Rowdy.  That gives him 2 more for himself since he ate some Squire.  Strangewayes moves up and tries to Evasive the Defender locked in combat but he's just short of range.  No problem, Ol'Rowdy decides he's going to single-handily turn this shitstorm around.  He charges in 8" towards the Seether and Skarlock Thrall and smashes his hammer into the ground.  He boosts to hit the Seether, watches as the Skarlock falls on his ass and knocks down my own Defender.  I use Grudge on Ol'Rowdy and then end his activation.  Reinholdt reloads Siege and the time for action is now.  With a clear line of sight to the Reaper and the KD Seether, Siege walks up and covers most of the Cryx army with Breach.  He starts off and ground pounds 4 Bane Knights into ash and before setting up his 2nd shot.  His next shot hits the Reaper in the face with a boosted attack and damage roll for 16 boxes of damage.  The force of the impact immediately destroys the Harpoon and the movement of the Reaper 'jack.  Seeing the Seether on his ass, the Defender hits his DEF5 target easily and boosts for massive damage.  A total of 19 points of damage is scored and the Seether vanishes from this world.  With no melee weapon and no chance of survival, the Defender takes a chance and moves out of combat with the Reaper.  The Reaper strikes him down easily with the Free Strike and now stands to face Ol'Rowdy alone.  Eiryss moves up and takes a chance with her bow at the now breached Tartarus, hits and rolls laughable damage.  The B13 goes to town with Mage Storm and Brutal Shots and puts down a bunch more Bane Knights.  The Stormsmith epic fails with a 12/8 on his skill check.

Cryx Turn #3

With his army in shambles, the Iron Lich is confused.  He is too far away to pop feat and kill Siege, but he is in range to try and kill the Defender.  Too bad the way I moved my B13 put them as meat shields in front of my Defender so that he can't possibly be melee'd my reach targets.  He decides not to pop his Feat but instead puts 3 focus on the Reaper in a futile attempt to kill my Ol'Rowdy.  With the Seether wrecked in front of his WMC, they cowardly sit behind cover and hit my Ol'Rowdy with magical attacks.  I get hit by one of them for 4 damage while the others bounce off my ARM20.  The Reaper comes up to me and smacks me for some damage.  I smack back with Grudge but roll low for damage so only a few boxes gets filled.  In total, I take something like 9 damage on various locations so nothing critical happens there.  Tartersauce charges Eiyriss and turns her into a Thrall.  The Lich moves behind his WSC and throws up some more mists; one of which lands on Ryan and my Defender and ends his turn.

Cygnar Turn #3

I put 2 focus on my Defender and keep 5 for myself.  Yum Squire.  Arlan moves up and PB's Ol'Rowdy for a Focus and the fireworks begin.  I move Ol'Rowdy into the left flank of his Reaper and tremor everything within 2".  I catch his Reaper and his Nightwrench (who ran there last round) and I spend a focus to bash the Reaper's face with another attack.  The Reaper is now a smoldering ruin.  My B13 cleans house again with Lynch Black Pennying Ryan out of reach of a Bane Knight and Ryan shoots up two more after that.  Watts shoots and misses, but that's fine.  My Defender now has LoS to the Iron Lich's medium size base, aims, boots and scores a hit with a boosted damage roll.  After 12 points of damage is logged on the caster, Siege makes his move.  He moves, Explosivos himself, boosts to hit and hits the Iron Lich in the face.  He boosts for damage and that's enough for the game.  Otherwise, the next shot and the AOE3 would of probably did considerable damage to the WSC near his caster.

Cygnar Wins!