35 Pt Horsemachine

[Ravyn]

Okay, I should start this off with a disclaimer, I'm trying to be as coherent as possible, but I had an emergency appendectomy on valentines day, so the drugs are still kicking in.

Anyways.

I was horse crazy as a girl, and I'll be honest, I never grew out of it. SO I decided to make an all "Iron Horse" list, and Cygnar was the best army for it, given that you guys have the only mounted warcaster.

Thing is, I don't know a damned thing about Cygnar.

So, can you guys help me build a 35 point list?
My only rules are that unless necessary, I only want mounted figs, and jacks.
I was thinking:

Kraye
Cyclone
Squire
5 Steelheads
5 Stomrlances
Laddermore
Stannis

What do you think?

-Ravyn

[bouncymischa]

Sorry to hear you were in the hospital, Ravyn, but I'll see what advice I can offer. :3

One thing is that Kraye tends to favor warjacks. Full Tilt is best on a purely melee warjack, and his feat also helps buff a melee attack run. Guided Fire is best used if you've got a lot of potential shots, although even a Cyclone + Kraye can make for a decent focus investment. His only buff spell for troops, Easy Rider, works only on Faction models, though.

With that in mind, it might be better to focus on giving Kraye a suite of jacks to take, with the Stormlances and Kat as backup, taking out the Steelheads, as he can't really support them at all. Although Steelheads can function as an independent module, I'd probably favor bringing them in if you were expanding to 50 and had maxed out your other options.

So if Kat, the Storm Lances, and the Squire are your troops, then you've got 23 points of jacks you could fill in. You could go with something like a Hammersmith (Full Tilt target), Cyclone, and Hunter, to get a mix of anti-infantry and anti-armor, for example.

Taking at least one light and one heavy will give you the mix of light cavalry and regular cavalry rules from Iron Horse, at least. :3

EDIT: Another alternative jack-wise would be to drop the Hammersmith down to an Ironclad, and buy the Gobber, so that Kraye can get a free reload on his rifle.

[divelbiss78]

That could be fun, although i don't see squire being near mobile enough to keep up with that much speed.

you could trade the squire and the cyclone for an ironclad (beatstick) and either a charger or a sentinel.

Definitely not a traditional list, but i could see pulling of some wins with it. You could be anywhere on the board.

[WarcasterKramer]

Looks like it would be fun - especially if you are playing one of those scenarios that requires you to hold territory on the far side of the board.

That said, I'd probably drop the squire - with only one jack, you really don't need the extra focus - replacing it with a JWC. And I'd exchange the cyclone with a Centurion. Cast Full tilt on the Centurion and arcane shield on the Stormlances at the beginning of the game. This will give your army a little bit more staying power.

[divelbiss78]

That is a good idea too. AS on the stormlances is really good now with their reduced hit boxes. A full tilted Centurion is really really scary.

[SoulReclaimer]

I support this post as it truly shows she is playing with a pair. Warmachine is clearly an equal opportunity game :)

A+ for creativity and thinking out of the box.

[Garath]

I taught about this list before. And I would suggest you use Boot Camp for extra info on Kraye- it's one of the best write-ups for Cygnar.
On the side note Kraye is all about mobility. He gives light warjacks light cavalry rules which are annoying to play against.
Give it a few games and then You'll get the hang of it.


Happy hunting

[GunMageinTraining]

I'd consider a pair of Sentinels even. They can get good use out of guided fire (sometimes) and being light, gain all the light cavalry bonuses. In addition, Shieldguarding Kraye against ranged elements is helpful.

I too would probably stick the steelheads only at larger points and jump to Heavy melee jacks.

The first that comes to mind is a Hammersmith or Stormclad. Both are really worth every point, and work exceptionally well with Kraye. Hammersmith is great at smashing through tough bricks where the Stormclad is good at that too, though not quite to the same extent, as well as absolutely reaping a harvest of dead infantry via electro-leaps, and making sure that big nasty jack is very, very dead.

2 Hammersmiths, so that you can reload the jack-cannon works well too.

I think a squire can keep up just fine as all it really needs to do is just run around, so feel free to keep him.

[nanozach]

Two things...

First, The forces book implies that in the far future when they get around to releasing new cygnar stuff (aka stuff not revealed in the faction book), cygnar will be getting some form of light cavalry. When this happens, it will really beef up your options for lots of horses, and they work on a theme force with kraye.

Second, To actually maximize the number of Horses on the field, you might want to consider epic stryker. One of his tiers, 2 if i recall correctly, increases the field allowance of storm lances to 2. That would allow you to put 11 cygnar horses on the table (at a huge $$$ investment, but there it is). This would be 27 points of Cav. But the rest of your list would be more traditional, aka no turning jacks into cav. (but more horses!)

With respect to the list, assuming you stick to kraye, he actually has really great synergy with the stormlances in his spell easy rider, which gives faction models pathfiner, which really really helps the storm lances. His control range is a little short, for how fast the lances would be with pathfinder, so I would throw in a squire without too much second thought. With that said, take some jacks to make use of the extra focus, and as mentioned dont use non faction cav because they dont synergize. Just think of all those jacks as being imbuded with the sprits of horses, giving them cav rules =). Sentienals are great with Kraye, b/c they keep him safe, and do great with guided fire. If you do range, maybe take two, but if you dont plan on using guided fire much, still take one for the protection from shield gaurd. Since your army is so fast, and you have a reroll in the squire, I would say take a lancer to arc pursuit. He becomes very fast under kraye with light cav move and a free run, and full tilted can jump in and kill a caster. Try using Strangeways to give him (or any full tilted jack) immunity to free strikes, then have fun. Maybe even try using thorn for this. You also have a pretty decent gun, so reinholdt is a good buddy, and you almost always want one big jack (stormclad or hammersmith, as mentioned by others)

So that puts us at:
Kraye (6 WJ)
Storm Lances (11)
Laddermore (5)
Squire (2)
Strangeways (2)
Lancer (6)
Sentinel (4)
Stormclad (10)
Reinholdt (1)
Total (35)

Alternatively you could swap the Stormclad out for a hammersmith and upgrade the lancer to thorn.

With eStryker (6 WJ) You have to make sure you still make the tier...
Storm Lance (11)
Storm Lance (11)
Laddermore (5)
Ol' Rowdy (9)
Squire (2)
Stormblades (5)

Or something of the sort, I may elaborate on stryker with lots of cav later but i've spent too much time away from work already :-p

good luck!

[vivakenshin]

I have thought and made a similar list to yours Ravyn scratch the merc riders mainly because I do no own them. But one jack that has worked well with Kraye for me is the Hunter.

The light cav rules with Hunters Parry and Pathfinder lets it run around the field very well. Mage sight helps at times also.

If you are going to run Stormlances i would say bring a JR for AC. With the 3 less hp boxes, making them armor 20 helps.

Get better and hope to see you in an event some time up here in WA.

[Wakshaani]

One of the things to look at is your focus investment. If you cast his shot-boosting special, for example, you only have 3 focus left for other uses... and odds are, you're upkeeping his double-SPD spell on something as well, leaving just 2.

Much as I hate to suggest them, Hunters are your best choice, and you might as well shoehorn a theme list together for benefits. His tier 4 bonus isn't really worth the second jack, but, the option's there.

Two hunters matched with two Sentinels gives you maximum use from Kraye's shootyboost, with the Hunters taking 1 Focus each for damage as well... combine with the spell you're upkeeping and that's all 6. Ouch, but handy. It gives you four light cavalry jacks, two of which are immune to freestrikes, pathfinders, and advace deployment.

Fun note! If you take a cyclone, covering fire is an action, not an attack, so it can have a SPD of 10, then lay down covering fire. If you ever want to -shoot- with it, drop the upkeep spell and unload, but, odds are, covering fire is why you take him.

Toss in a couple of Ranger units to handle anti-infantry work beside the Sentinels and top it all off with the Black 13th, or a unit of mechanics and a gun mage captain adept.

Not the most horse-friendly army, but, it's a good 'un.

But when we get light cavalry... mmmm, that'll be a good day.