Menoth thoughts

[sapper79]

Ok is it just me or is Menoth a lil unballanced and overpowered. Just my expereince but they seem to be that way please tell me your thoughts and what to do against their choir BS.

[Alienated One]

Kill the choir. With no choir, their jacks can be shot up. Choir is very easy to kill, unless your opponent hides them. AOEs, normal gun shots, even storms strikes all work.

[TsavongLah]

Aiyana+Holt to make guns magical, eHaley to make them choose between no-spells and no-shooty, shoot the choirboys first, &c.

[AxeHappy]

Yep they are a pain. Played a 50 point Kreoss list and got my teeth kicked in. They are a support army, so you have to figure out how to kick those supports out from underneath them. Choir, Covenant, Monolit Bearer, anything that reeks of support needs kind loving attention in the form of lead and arcane energy.

[Mutton]

Siege does naughty things to Menoth. As does a well played eHaley. eCaine has trouble with their backfield 'casters, as does eStryker. eNemo sucks against Harby, pKreoss, and eSevvy to an extent, but can do well elsewise.

[Griffin839]

Only problem I have had is the new and improved Harbinger. Her feat makes scenarios incredible difficult to win. Pow 14s if we advance forward at all? Good luck taking the objective under that. You may as well pass the turn in a non-gunline army. That and her ability to martyr bastions makes them almost impossible to kill off completely. Oh ya, against her i was running eNemo. Dont do that. Her ability to strip upkeeps makes eNemo a sad panda.

[Sideshow Lucifer]

eCaine is actualy fine agaisnt Menoth. Run him like a super solo with a couple lights to start sniping off their support. Kraye can do similar things with the speed of the light ranged jacks. You just need to make them split their support and/or forces and concentrate on one till its gone.

[WickedGood]

I found the key to killing Menoth is to kill the soft chew center first. To do that I like to run my cav up the side of the board for a turn or two to position them behind my opponent for a chrge into the chior and such. I am one of the few people that use storm smiths and I find it very useful against Menoth with disruption for the jacks, and the action being able to snipe down models. The monolyth bearers rules have been toned down in MkII but I still like to kill him asap to avoid the turn of no death for the darn zealots.

[TsavongLah]

Ooh, speaking of Stormsmiths... if the Firefly can really act as a Triangulation point, then Menoth is going to be utterly hosed against our lightning lists. eNemo casts Energizer, Firefly runs up the side for position, Stormsmiths fry every support solo on the board and disrupt a 'jack or two. :D

[Griffin839]

Ooh, speaking of Stormsmiths... if the Firefly can really act as a Triangulation point, then Menoth is going to be utterly hosed against our lightning lists. eNemo casts Energizer, Firefly runs up the side for position, Stormsmiths fry every support solo on the board and disrupt a 'jack or two. :D

Since its not out yet, lets keep that on the dl. There is still time for PP to edit the power of the firefly so lets not give them any incentive. ;)

[TsavongLah]

Haha, right. When is it out, anyway?

[Justicator]

Honestly, Cygnar has a lot of ways to answer our strategies. Cygnar has a decent number of magical weapons (not as many as the elves). And outranges us like crazy.

You NEVER need to boost to hit against us ... if you ever boost to hit, you are doing it wrong. Average rolls on 2 dice from Cygnar will hit us. Remember, if it's a Menoth heavy it has 10 defense. If it's a Menoth light it has 12.

Our armor is higher which gives you some trouble, but chipping away at us from a distance really helps. Most of our heavy jacks are slow with 4 SPD. Only 2 or 3 have 5 SPD - and one probably won't see much play because he's hard to rationalize 8 points for (Castigator).

Also remember, we're only as fast as our support. While it's true our support is Amazing, it's equally a noose. We can't run our jacks very much if we want the boy-band's buffs. Same story with the former Cygnaran.

As stated take out our support and things can fall apart quickly. Once again, we're easy to hit, most of our support is geared towar making us hard to hit.

If we get into attack range, you're going to feel the pain... period, end of sentence ... but at the same time this is where our choir has to change to +2 hit/damage - because on average our jacks have poor MAT and RAT. This gives you an opening to range things if the songs were messing with you before.

We're far from invincible ... in fact we're fairly one dimmensional. We have very plug and play stuff. An army will work with just about any caster. They'll just work slightly different. Our casters got kicked in the nads for uniqueness - so honestly each game feels very the similar. Pretty much each of our casters has an attack spell, a buff spell and a denial spell. They often have the same attack spells, similar buff spells, and one of three flavors of denial. We lost a lot of our unique flavorful things.

Now please quit coming on our board and claiming we're broken :D

[Gorbad]

Aiyana+Holt to make guns magical, eHaley to make them choose between no-spells and no-shooty


Be careful with this though, if all your guns are magical (A&H, Gunmages, etc.) there is no choice for the Menoth player and it will be no spells all the way.

I think it's probably worthwhile bringing some Long Gunners just to force that choice, especially if you are playing someone like eHaley who likes to cast spells on jacks. But you need to make shooting or spells equally nasty things, and turning all your shots magical just doesn't do that. So it's a great option if you got no spells you plan on sending there way, but less so if you want to target there jacks with your caster.

[Brock_Vilmon]

The trick to beating Menoth is realizing we can't protect everything at once. We need to make hard choices about how to protect certain jacks or units, and Cygnar has plenty of options for forcing us to choose the lesser of two evils.

In my last Mark I match, I had to choose between "no-shooty" or "no-spelly" to protect my heavy jack. If I chose no shooting, a unit of gun mages would fry my jack's cortex. If I chose no spells, Haley was going to knock the jack down anyways with a Scramble spell. I was only able to prevent permanent damage - the Cygnar player was going to take my jack out on a key round regardless what choice I made.

A few other things to consider:

1. Dug-in trenchers ignore blast templates - very painful for Menoth.
2. Lightning attacks are often simultaneous, which means those knights exemplar won't get their giant armor bonuses.
3. I haven't played against your new Cyclone jack, but it looks like an absolute infantry killing machine. Perfect for smacking the zealot zerg rush.
4. Haven't played against them in Mark II, but I agree that both Siege and Haley are perfect for hindering a melee heavy POM army. Caine can also give casters like Reznik fits.

[whats82]

Dug in trenchers ignore blast template but vanquisher still set them on fire, so 66% will still die next turn.
Lighting can work, though they are by no means reliable since exemplars have decent ARM.
Cyclone is great at slowing infantry from coming toward you, but struggles against heavy ARM and really can't do anything vs menoth jack wall unless A+H supports it with magic weapon.

[Dominik]

Be careful with this though, if all your guns are magical (A&H, Gunmages, etc.) there is no choice for the Menoth player and it will be no spells all the way.

Singing no spells doesn't do jack to stop magical ranged attacks, so, what do you care if he then sings no spells all the way? It is not like cygnar has a ton of spells that kill heavies...

[GunMageinTraining]

Yea, but they don't like it when I dominate his vanquisher and use it to light half his army (in a nice little brick) on fire.

Or timebomb to slow them to a crawl, or any of our slam/kd effects.

My problem with Menoth is that the denial circle is fast approaching full circle. They are only like one or two abilities off from being able to shut down everything, and that's more than a bit much. That and Vanquishers are like 2 points too cheap for what you get.

[sapper79]

The propblem is that as per page 68 of the MKII rule book, gun mages and other magical range weapons are not magical attacks and can't get thru no shooty order from the choir.

And like GunMageinTraining said they pretty much can shut down everything which realy sucks. When we have to true recourse to it.

[Dino-Czar]

They never were magic attacks. They remain magicAL attacks. The wording did not change (which is to say it remains terrible).


edit: to be clear, magic attacks and magicAL attacks are two different things. A magic attack is a spell and uses spell casting rules (like being able to be used while engaged and using either focus/fury or magic skill [x]), but a magicAL attack is mechanically the same as non-magicAL attacks except where specified.

[Dominik]

The propblem is that as per page 68 of the MKII rule book, gun mages and other magical range weapons are not magical attacks and can't get thru no shooty order from the choir.

And like GunMageinTraining said they pretty much can shut down everything which realy sucks. When we have to true recourse to it.

Yes they can. Gun mages have magical ranged attacks and the choir can't block those.

Magical XY attacks = attacks with the magical weapon quality
Magic Attacks = Offensive spells

[ZenBattleLust]

"•Passage (★Action) - The warjack cannot be targeted by non-magical ranged attacks. Passage lasts for one round."

"•Shielding (★Action) - The warjack cannot be targeted by enemy spells. Shielding lasts for one round."

As Dominik said, the choir can't do anything about magical ranged attacks at all. It doesn't matter which one they chant.

[Justicator]

That and Vanquishers are like 2 points too cheap for what you get.

That's ridiculous. The Vanquisher is not worth 10 points, it's not even worth 9 points.

Without a vassal, Vaquishers are one shot wonders. And at 10 range and 10 DEF, after that one shot all of cygnar will take it apart. Since 10 range often seems to be the faction minimum.

I need to spend 4 more points to make the Vanquisher a feared killing machine.

[Gorbad]

Singing no spells doesn't do jack to stop magical ranged attacks, so, what do you care if he then sings no spells all the way? It is not like cygnar has a ton of spells that kill heavies...

If you play eHaley you really do want to be able to cast spells at his jacks as that's almost certainly her easiest way of dealing with them. So not giving the Menoth player a reason to sing no shooting is probably not a good idea. Gunmages will not deal as effectively with a Menoth heavy as eHaley will.

[Mutton]

That's ridiculous. The Vanquisher is not worth 10 points, it's not even worth 9 points.

Without a vassal, Vaquishers are one shot wonders. And at 10 range and 10 DEF, after that one shot all of cygnar will take it apart. Since 10 range often seems to be the faction minimum.

I need to spend 4 more points to make the Vanquisher a feared killing machine.

Menoth has the best lane blockers in the game in Errants and TFG. Really, you should not be tied up in combat that easily.

[yux]

Menoth comes in the power to distruopt, honestly kreoss knicking everyone of our guys down except kraye is reallly good. but also turning off our upkeeps is almost broken. thier are few defensive moves to make against him you have to be agressivewith menoth which is terrible idea, you cant hit the jacks hit the support, problem is thier jacks hit your jacks in the mean time (that adds up to alot fo dead cygnar jacks).

cygnar has amazing range, and amazingly low damage output. Redeemer cost less and fire 3 aoe, give it fire attack and now you are simply lighting up most of cygnar.

Not saying they are unbeatable, but they are probably our most diffuclt matchup. cryx relies more on high defense which we auto counter. khador has trouble with our insane range and faster speed. retribution is a less accurate us.

In fact khador matches up quite nicely to them, because their guys usually just get up close and beat face (choir les susefull, and of course the fact that behomoth in melee with avatar= one less avatar

nothing is unwinable but their are natural strengths and weaknesses.

retribtuion is pretty good agaisnt everyone but cryx. cryx does terrible thing to retribution.

in fact retirbution has about 8 answers I can think to harby, (you mean you only have 14 armor and are large base yipeee).

vs cygnar ahs to deal with those other 10 armor points

but honestly the cygnar player is gonna have to work harder then the menoth player.

[Justicator]

Menoth has the best lane blockers in the game in Errants and TFG. Really, you should not be tied up in combat that easily.
Having good infantry and support does not make the Vanquisher by itself worth 10 points, which is what I was counter-posting. It makes those infantry and supports worth their points.

And yes, I can't wait to get some TFG with a UA so I can shoot through them (wish I had some arcing fire, but oh well :))

I'm not sure why you list Errants as good lane blockers. Is it because they can "magic bullet" themselves? Did you mean Bastions?


In fact khador matches up quite nicely to them, because their guys usually just get up close and beat face (choir les susefull, and of course the fact that behomoth in melee with avatar= one less avatar
retribtuion is pretty good agaisnt everyone but cryx. cryx does terrible thing to retribution.

Agreed. Khador pretty consistently a very difficult match for us, and I've yet to beat Elves with all their magical ranged attacks.
I have gone about 50/50 vs. Cygnar.

[Dominik]

If you play eHaley you really do want to be able to cast spells at his jacks as that's almost certainly her easiest way of dealing with them. So not giving the Menoth player a reason to sing no shooting is probably not a good idea. Gunmages will not deal as effectively with a Menoth heavy as eHaley will.

Ummm... You give the gunmages deadeye, then they knock over the jacks and kill the choir. So why would Haley2 care what the skirt-boys sing, they are hosed no matter what.

[Dominik]

That's ridiculous. The Vanquisher is not worth 10 points, it's not even worth 9 points.

Without a vassal, Vaquishers are one shot wonders. And at 10 range and 10 DEF, after that one shot all of cygnar will take it apart. Since 10 range often seems to be the faction minimum.

I need to spend 4 more points to make the Vanquisher a feared killing machine.

Place a destroyer statcard and a vanquisher statcard right next to each other and compare. If you are really honest you can't do that and still say the vanquisher shouldn't cost 10 points.

[Dino-Czar]

Ummm... You give the gunmages deadeye, then they knock over the jacks and kill the choir. So why would Haley2 care what the skirt-boys sing, they are hosed no matter what.

The covenant makes this a non-starter, as does the Harbinger. The trick really is making either option a mistake, not trying to circumvent one so that you never have the option to use the other.

[Dominik]

For the covenant to completely prevent this you need more than one Jack or infantry support on top (otherwise just push it out of the way with an angled shot) which means there is a lot more points invested than those gunmages which makes the whole theorizing moot.
And even then the menoth player just concentrated a lot of points in one spot which frees my army up to run up a lancer on the flank or something similar and kill the choir or whatever else I want to that way.

[Dino-Czar]

Have your opponents put their vassals in b2b with their jacks? If they hang out behind and off center it is pretty effective at preventing any kind of meaningful push and blocks most LoS. But that isn't really the point.

The point is that eHaley is far and away better at messing up Jacks than she is a clearing infantry. It is to your advantage to convince your opponent to go no shooting rather than no spells. You can't do that if they can't do anything at all about your ranged attacks. We can spend all day going back and forth, but those facts aren't going change.

Now, with most (all?) other casters I would agree with you (pNemo and his Voltic snare possibly excepted), but eHaley really does seem to be a special case.

[GunMageinTraining]

eHaley if a Defender/hunter is on the field, is reason enough to say no-shooty.

TA for a double-tap defender cannon? ATGM+UA for Crit-brutals? Yes plz.

[Dominik]

Have your opponents put their vassals in b2b with their jacks? If they hang out behind and off center it is pretty effective at preventing any kind of meaningful push and blocks most LoS. But that isn't really the point.

The point is that eHaley is far and away better at messing up Jacks than she is a clearing infantry. It is to your advantage to convince your opponent to go no shooting rather than no spells. You can't do that if they can't do anything at all about your ranged attacks. We can spend all day going back and forth, but those facts aren't going change.

Now, with most (all?) other casters I would agree with you (pNemo and his Voltic snare possibly excepted), but eHaley really does seem to be a special case.
Now you even bring Vassals into this?
Boy, that's sure a good amount of points theorymachining ^^
If your opponent does you the favour of putting his vassals into b2b with his jacks, then you take your speed 7 heavy, telekinesis it for 2", put temporal acceleration on it if you really have to and slam the menoth jack over the vassal.

[Ysthrall]

Menites tend to be my main opponent at my LGS.

An mentioned above they're slow. If they're under temporal barrier, they're practically staionary.

I have broken the menite brick with:
Arcane shielded Storm lances under strykers feat engaging and tar pitting their line,
Trenchers with UA doing Assault and Battery up the flank
Stormsmiths or GMCA doing a suicide run snipe on the choir leader (annoyingly, won't be possible now)
And as mentioned as well, Earthquake followed by shooting them all when on the ground.

Yes they're annoying. Yes they throw out a large amount of damage when they close, and yes the zealots with UA and the Idrians with UA are probably still cheap for their abilities.

But we can SO take them :)

Caveat:
Despite 4 or 5 menite opponents, I have never faced the Harbinger or the Covenant. No-one seems to use them at the moment...

[Dino-Czar]

Now you even bring Vassals into this?
Boy, that's sure a good amount of points theorymachining ^^
If your opponent does you the favour of putting his vassals into b2b with his jacks, then you take your speed 7 heavy, telekinesis it for 2", put temporal acceleration on it if you really have to and slam the menoth jack over the vassal.

Did you just stop reading after the first sentence? I freely acknowledged that the Vassal thing was an aside. it was just something I've seen that I wanted to share.

As for the rest of your post, well that is some nice buff stacking but the pow 11 you get for the slam isn't likely to kill the Vassal at arm 15 with 5 wounds (no, you can't boost collateral). At this point you've committed your bonded jack and however much focus to maybe kill a 2 point solo.

Now I'm not saying you haven't actually done this, but when I build a list I'd rather have a plan that plays to my Caster's strengths. If you go back and look I think you'll see that was the actual content of my post.

I prefer forcing bad options no matter what the choir sings rather than forcing a single option which cuts out some of my Warcaster's best spells and forces me into moves like what you described.

But as I said, we can go back and forth all day. I don't have a client till 4.


edit: a bit of grammar.

[Dominik]

All I'm saying is. Let him fool around with the choir, make him concentrate his stuff there, then go around it.
A clever opponent will always sing no spells anyway, at least against haley.

[GunMageinTraining]

Nevermind that you just threw away the bonded jack on a slam... of which the menoth player happily pays the focus, stands it up, sings battle hymn and proceeds to wreck your jack. If you have disruption available, it may be different... maybe not.

[Dominik]

Perhaps I threw the Jack away. Or I beat on the one I didn't Slam and afterwards disrupt both enemy jacks. Perhaps I slammed the jack over the choir. Perhaps I did it to get a LOS on the caster.
Hard to tell over the internet.

[Dino-Czar]

All I'm saying is. Let him fool around with the choir, make him concentrate his stuff there, then go around it.
A clever opponent will always sing no spells anyway, at least against haley.

I've never found "go around" to be as easy as spending more time in the list building stage.

And I'm not sure that "clever" opponents do always sing no-spells. Punish your opponent for a turn with Longgunners and a TA'd Defender... they'll think twice about which song to sing, if you let them.

Again, with any other caster I'm inclined to agree with you: all magical shooting, all the time. Just not with eHaley


edit: needed to clear up some terms. Also, seeing the above... I thought you were slamming to take care of the Vassal?

[Mutton]

eHaley and Siege are the best choices against Menoth generally, as Siege will wreck 'jack walls thanks to his feat + Explosivo and eHaley will wreck them with spell if they no shooty and spells if they no spells. eStryker has a bit of trouble with their backfield 'casters and no good way of circumventing Enliven, and eCaine will either dominate or get crushed (as most his games go).

[divelbiss78]

I play both Cygnar and Menoth (forgive the heresy). The issue people have with menoth is in thinking and not in an unbalance of models. You have to play to the opponent, the same strategies that work against most other factions, get you killed against the protectorate.

Wanting an army that can beat everyone with the same strategy is asking to be broken. You shouldn't just win against everyone.

That being said, I do win almost every game with Menoth, but it is because people let me dictate the field and engagements. If you push Menoth outside of their very specific box, they fall apart.

[Dominik]

edit: needed to clear up some terms. Also, seeing the above... I thought you were slamming to take care of the Vassal?
I didn't care about the Vassal.
I was just saying if I want to go through that wall, then I find a way. You were constantly coming up with the "what if" scenarios. All I said was, haley2 doesn't give a flying crap what the choir sings, she'll make them bend over anyway.

[Dino-Czar]

I didn't care about the Vassal.
I was just saying if I want to go through that wall, then I find a way. You were constantly coming up with the "what if" scenarios. All I said was, haley2 doesn't give a flying crap what the choir sings, she'll make them bend over anyway.

I was doing what now? I mentioned the Vassal placement as an aside and you invented a (frankly terrible) way to deal with it. Then you tried to claim it wasn't that bad by pretending it wasn't about killing the Vassal.

That said, I'm going to go ahead and expound on why (in an eHaley list) trying to use all magical ranged weapons to brute force your way past the Choir is doing things the hard way. First of all, there isn't any need to try and use thunderbolt rounds as a poor man's Telekinesis if you actually have Telekinesis. And why wouldn't they sing "no spells"? Because last turn you blasted them to hell and back with your non-magical shooting. Or, if they do sing no spells, you blast them again. Either way you're better off than if you had to use 7+ points doing nothing but moving things around.

Second, and this is key, it is easier to get ranged attacks into the back field than magic. Keeping a Lancer (or even Thorn) free to move around is a lot tougher than running your favorite shooty solos/units around the edge. If I simply must bring the ATGM in my eHaley list this is typically their job. Fast, accurate, and range 14, its like they were made for this! (FYI, Rune Shot can be used outside marshaling range. Dead Eye and/or Strangeways are available. Just saying.) Rangers work really well in the run around and shoot role too. Less range, but they are faster and can Mark Targets no matter where they are.

But what about Aiyanna? She does allow a unit to ignore the choir, but thats just one unit. I'd rather leave her at home and spend those points on, say, a Charger. Comparable damage, better survival, and provides a focus outlet perfect for the type of Damned Either Way style that I find best beats Menoth. It's also yet another shooting element for support hunting.

I've got to get ready to go, so I'm wrapping this up quick: eHaley certainly does care if she can't cast her offensive spells, and if you limit yourself to magical ranged weapons only you're going to find yourself gimped for damage output. Build a smarter list and you don't have to work as hard on the table.


edit: I was in hurry and forgot what I'd said. Yeah, I floated the book and harby too. In my defense I haven't seen an MK II list without the book in... months?

[GunMageinTraining]

I worry that the two-three turns your spending navigating around his jacks/brick is two or three turns they are wrecking face unmolested.... but then again I've actually done very well against Menoth in Mk2... oddly enough.

[Justicator]

Place a destroyer statcard and a vanquisher statcard right next to each other and compare. If you are really honest you can't do that and still say the vanquisher shouldn't cost 10 points.


Put a vanquisher against a Destroyer - Destroyer is much better, one more point. Yes, Destroyer IS BETTER, arcing fire 14 range - 14 Pow, one of the best ways to get rid of my annoying support guys. Not to mention put the ranged hurt on just about anything. Critical Amputation, one of the best critical effects in the game. Arm 20 and more Hit Boxes. Yes Destroyer is way better and beats the Vanquisher in a fight hands down.

I have no clue how you could say the Vanquisher is better then the Destroyer. Vanquisher is better at the job of killing small infantry, Destroyer is great at taking out hard targets and annoying utility pieces. A better comparison job-role wise would be the Reckoner, which Destroyer is still clearly better than.

Anyway, these kinds of comparisons are almost pointless and only serve to point out the wonkiness of PP's points scheme -

Put a Guardian against the Cyclone - Cyclone is way better, same points
Put just about any 9 point jack against a Guardian - Guardian is worse

Put a Castigator against a Kodiak - Kodiak is way better, same points

Put a Castigator against an Iron Clad - Iron Clad is better, one less point

Put our light arc node against the elf light arc node - Elf light arc might be better, same points

Put a Devout against a Sentinel - Sentinel is as good maybe better, one less point

[Mutton]

Crit Amputation is actually really, really bad. Because even if you get it, you have to hit an arm and not kill it straight out for it to do anything! The Castigator doesn't compare that well to anything, but it's just a meh 'jack, although I'd argue that if Khadorans could take it over the Kodiak they would consider it. You're also comparing the Guardian, which is both a beatstick and a heavy arcnode, against a ranged 'jack.

And really, you're comparing Menite 'jacks, with choir access, to base 'jacks of other faction 'jacks. That's just not far. And I bet a whole lot of Khadorans would trade their Destroyer and Crit Amp for a Vanq + Choir.

[Justicator]

And really, you're comparing Menite 'jacks, with choir access, to base 'jacks of other faction 'jacks. That's just not far. And I bet a whole lot of Khadorans would trade their Destroyer and Crit Amp for a Vanq + Choir.
No, I'm not comparing with Choir ... as Choir is external and costs more points. Just like the Vassal. At face value no choir, no vassal ... a Vanquisher is an 8 point jack ... if he were 9 or 10 points, I'd never play him. He's not worth 9 or 10 points by himself.

A lot of people complain and seem to want to argue: because we have access to the choir and vassal our jacks (which are not all that great on their own terms, solid yes, great no) should be more expensive.

I was making the extra comparisons to try to drive my point home.

(btw - Guardian, not worth taking at 9 points)

[GunMageinTraining]

face value you still are silly.

Auto-fire, 4" aoe pow 14 gun.

Thresher on it's chain (all be it not reach), decent enough stats, good armor, plenty of boxes.

It compares quite well against a Destroyer, which needs to both hit to do much damage, and doesn't have secondary effects. Loose auto-fire, make it crit-fire and it's 8pts, and we'll forget that 2 points of choir affects upto 4 jacks. Not just 1, while providing other benefits (souls, bodies, blockers).

[Sideshow Lucifer]

Saying Menoth jacks shouldn't be priced with the Choir in mind is like saying Cygnar ranges shouldn't take Snipe into account. Menoth realy should be paying a Choir tax on their jacks just as we do for Arcane Shield and Snipe.

[Nuriochi_sol]

Menoth has always given me fits. It has something to do with a particularly brutal whomping I received as my second game ever and it was mean-spirited, unhelpful, nearly caused me to quit the hobby entirely, and has left an almost indelible mark on my tactical brain when it comes to Menoth.

So as an addendum to this topic, I'd like to ask the group...

If you focus on the support models early on, do you feel the main force is sufficiently weakened when they arrive on the scene?

I feel like I'm looking at a speeding locomotive barreling down on my position, and putting out the steam engine (support models) only stops it from ADDING momentum, but they're already moving at a pretty good speed to destroy me. So I always end up blanching and going for the obvious, biggest threat.

Is this my tactical error? Do people feel PoM is often sufficiently gimped without the support stuff that Cygnar can weather an assault from their first wave?

Obviously, I speaking in sweeping generalities here... just something that's always vexed me.

[Ganmeyde]

We do pay a choir tax. Compare a Kodiak and a Castigator, and then get back to me.

Oh, and if you're so worried about the choir, just use Gun Mages and push our jacks back faster than they can move. Throw on Deadeye with Caine and you have a 62.5% chance to get that critical slam. Siege can use Explosivo to let your defenders hit us. Aiyana and Holt can let your Defenders/Cyclones/Chargers shoot magic attacks. Eiryss and the GMCA can Phantomseeker snipe the Choir. Kell Bailoch can take a few extra points out of any jack.

And then there's the Black 13th...

It's not like you have nothing you can do to counter us. I'll say to you what I say to everyone else: Kill the support, beat up the rest of the army. It's hard to deal with, but it's not impossible by any stretch. There's a reason you get two lists, and denial is not exclusive to Menoth.

And as for the Kreoss pop and drop... anyone can see it coming from a mile away. At worst, it's six power twelve rockets and some 10POW Errant Crossbow fire. It will kill people who are not prepared, just like Sorscha, Vlad, Butcher, Karchev, Asphyxious, Deneghra, Skarre, the Legion of Everblight in general, Stryker, Gorten, Durgen, Magnus, Broadsides Bart, Ashlynn, the Testament, the Harbinger, Haley, Siege, Caine... do I really need to keep going? Like the saying goes, "Tout est au fromage, arômes juste différent"


Everything is cheese, just different flavors!

[PBear]

eHaley and Siege are the best choices against Menoth generally, as Siege will wreck 'jack walls thanks to his feat + Explosivo and eHaley will wreck them with spell if they no shooty and spells if they no spells.
Agree. Both of these casters can circumvent the most problematic things about Menoth armies.


We do pay a choir tax. Compare a Kodiak and a Castigator, and then get back to me.

Ever notice how when people want to make a cross-faction comparison to prove a point, they compare jank from one faction to good stuff in another? Not to pick on Ganmeyde, because there are many offenders, but the Castigator is hardly the most feared 8pt Menoth warjack. More like the odd man out.

[Gorbad]

Saying Menoth jacks shouldn't be priced with the Choir in mind is like saying Cygnar ranges shouldn't take Snipe into account. Menoth realy should be paying a Choir tax on their jacks just as we do for Arcane Shield and Snipe.

But do we really? I can accept that there might be something we don't get because of certain spells, but I don't see us paying more for everything because of those two spells. Snipe is on two casters, it's not even that much of a signature Cygnar spell at this point.

We have access to Arcane Shield more, in the form of an (IMO) expensive solo, so that might limit our top armour a little bit, but we still got high armoured stuff.

Do you feel that our units are overpriced if they don't have access to snipe and AC?

[Ganmeyde]

Agree. Both of these casters can circumvent the most problematic things about Menoth armies.



Ever notice how when people want to make a cross-faction comparison to prove a point, they compare jank from one faction to good stuff in another? Not to pick on Ganmeyde, because there are many offenders, but the Castigator is hardly the most feared 8pt Menoth warjack. More like the odd man out.
I picked two 8 pointers with open fists. It was the most direct comparison I could find.

And I don't see the Castigator as "jank". It's still good anti-infantry and a pair of POW 16 Fists. My point was he just needs choir support to do as well as a Kodiak. ;)

[GunMageinTraining]

My problem with focusing on the support... still leaves decent, capable, powerful jacks untouched, and on your door step, frequently backed up by additional buffs via the warcaster, and plenty of focus. Not that a Vanquisher even needs focus to do it's primary job.

[Ganmeyde]

My problem with focusing on the support... still leaves decent, capable, powerful jacks untouched, and on your door step, frequently backed up by additional buffs via the warcaster, and plenty of focus. Not that a Vanquisher even needs focus to do it's primary job. You're Cygnar. Disrupt them or push/slam them back with Gun Mages, and the rest of your stuff can kill the Choir. (If the crit slams didn't just run them over.)

Once the choir is gone, the average menoth list has a much more limited punch, aside from the Vanquisher. And you should be able to limit your losses to the Vanquisher a bit more with the new formation rules.

In all honesty, the Meta is still very young. I mean, we've had Mk2 for a week now, and the new books will add more things that will shake things up further. Debate now is kind of pointless until we see everything that's out for each faction.

[Mutton]

We don't have crit slams; it's crit KD, which will never happen thanks to the Covenant. Choirs can hang out way behind the 'jacks as well; I spent a good long time playing menoth mk2 to figure out their weaknesses, and ATGM are not one of them.

[Gorbad]

ATGM are great for use against Cryx, Cygnar and most of Hordes I think, but they are not generally the unit you will want against Menoth. In most cases I'd much rather have Long Gunners against the Menites.

Of course either will most likely be a second shooting unit after B13 and probably a shooty solo or two (Vesh, Eiryss, Stormsmiths, etc) so might not even be essential or included, but there are good odds they will be.

[PBear]

What's wrong with ATGM against Menoth? Their range and mobility makes them useful for taking out those support models.

Longgunners are only useful if you have a way to force them to sing "no magic." Other than eHaley, they will probably be singing "no shooting."

[Mutton]

What's wrong with ATGM against Menoth? Their range and mobility makes them useful for taking out those support models.

Longgunners are only useful if you have a way to force them to sing "no magic." Other than eHaley, they will probably be singing "no shooting."

If Longgunners are a core of your force, I always find it wise to bring A&H. Thing with ATGM is, even with their 14" RNG, taking out support is difficult due to Menoth's large amount of AOE spam along with how far back the support can hide.

[PBear]

Maybe I haven't played enough Menoth, but I feel like with a 6" move and 14" RNG I haven't had much of a problem shooting out support models. And if the support is that far behind, the warjacks can move out of support range if they charge/run forward.

[Typhael]

face value you still are silly.

Auto-fire, 4" aoe pow 14 gun.

Thresher on it's chain (all be it not reach), decent enough stats, good armor, plenty of boxes.

It compares quite well against a Destroyer, which needs to both hit to do much damage, and doesn't have secondary effects. Loose auto-fire, make it crit-fire and it's 8pts, and we'll forget that 2 points of choir affects upto 4 jacks. Not just 1, while providing other benefits (souls, bodies, blockers).

What about range, arcing fire, and the difference in arm and boxes themselves?

[Saleem]

As a Cygnar and Menoth player the quick answer is yes. once the support units have been removed there is nothing really spectacular about Menoth Jacks. The infantry can still be scary but thats always been their schtick.

The menoth brick falls apart really quickly if you are able to force the opponent to split their forces. Letting him remain in formation is recipe for a face beating but once he has to spread out he starts to have fits about who to cover with what.

One thing I like about playing vs PoM is the fact that i have to play it out and be patient, unlike going up against other factions you cant go for the jugular with cheap assassination runs. You have to prepare him force him to make that one critical lapse in judgement then pounce. All fun!

[WarJack Prime]

I feel like I'm looking at a speeding locomotive barreling down on my position, and putting out the steam engine (support models) only stops it from ADDING momentum, but they're already moving at a pretty good speed to destroy me. So I always end up blanching and going for the obvious, biggest threat.


A thought provoking statement. I've given this some thought and I think you hit it on the nose but you didn't realize it. you must put out the steam engine to try to stall the army and you go after the biggest threat. Obviously just killing my support isn't going to win you the game but it is the first step toward victory for you. You absolutely have to take out the support models first and then go after the biggest threat.

Without support it's harder for my models to win combats in some cases because it puts us on even ground so to speak. Some of my support models make it so you can't support your models. My Choir can stop your shooting from weakening my jacks before you get there. They can also stop your caster from supporting your models with spells that weaken or otherwise disrupt my game plan.

Think about it this way, how much easier will it be for you to play against me if I don't have a Vassal, a Reclaimer, a Choir, Wracks, or a Covenant? Wouldn't it be easier if my Reclaimer wasn't giving my jacks "free" focus because you killed my models? What about if my Choir wasn't stopping your guns from shooting or your caster from casting at them, or even if they weren't MAT8 POW20? How about if you could knock down models in my army? That Covenant needs to go! wouldn't it be easier if my caster didn't seem to have so much focus points? Between wracks and the Reclaimer and free attacks from the Vassal my caster can feel free to purge your upkeep spells or cast spells while still having jacks fueled by other means.

In the end, you do need to remove my support and then go after the biggest threat, or at least sidetrack it so you can kill my DEF14 casters.

[Justicator]

A thought provoking statement. I've given this some thought and I think you hit it on the nose but you didn't realize it. you must put out the steam engine to try to stall the army and you go after the biggest threat.

I think Penny Arcade sums this up pretty well:

http://privateerpressforums.com/picture.php?albumid=134&pictureid=560

[knight_actual]

There's alot of talk about removing supporting pieces.

In my exp, I have not had too much difficulty in keeping jr, or arlan safe. This is due to the margin that they can keep from the frontline. things that come to kill them will in turn be killed by the front line.

Let us look at the vassal and reclaimer- big supporters that is actually killable because killing 6 dudes spread out and buried in the back line is very difficult.

vassal and reclaimer can stay up to 10" behind the warjacks. A disrupted crusader has threat 4.5" So a model that wants to tag a crusader supported by vassal and reclaimer needs to have a weapon that reaches further than 14.5" to tag the support without being nuked in turn. Let's say that the crusader has a vilmon standing next to it.... even under temporal barrier, a model must have a gun that reaches out more than 18" to nuke the support w/o getting killed by vilmon.

killing the support is not possible on a battle line against battle line basis. some positioning schenanigans will be needed.

que flanking force discussion.

[Justicator]

vassal and reclaimer can stay up to 10" behind the warjacks.
Vassal and Reclaimer have to be within 5" of the target to do their abilities
The Choir has to be within 3" of the target to do theirs.

Granted activation order can change these positions, but if the jack gets 10" away from the support - most of the support can't function in certain ways.

Reclaimer still can I guess becuase you can activate him first and move him up and do his Communion

Vassal is usually post order activated, and being 10 inches away messes with him, but I guess if your jack is in range of something right now, he can also move up and do his abilities - but either way he's ending within 5" of the jack.

Choir is ruined by a jack being 10" away.

[knight_actual]

true, choir will not work 10" away from jacks. they need to be 9" away.

in any event, it is quite difficult to assasinate these solos as well as take care of the vilmon+senechal+zealot MB as well.

[Ganmeyde]

true, choir will not work 10" away from jacks. they need to be 9" away.

in any event, it is quite difficult to assasinate these solos as well as take care of the vilmon+senechal+zealot MB as well.

Vilmon is a joke for three, unless you take Paladins with him for the Elite Cadre bonus. Seneschal is three points and just requires you to kill him last. MB is no worse than the IFP UA.

3 Vilmon
2 Pally
2 Pally
3 Senny
2 Covenant
2 Vassal
3 Choir
8 Zealots + MB

For 25 points, 'jack(s) not included, they should be hard to deal with.

This is the equivalent of another player complaining they have trouble killing five or six bonejacks in one turn.

[DrBaltar]

Menoth is the most annoying match up for Cygnar! pKreos, pFeora and Harby...urgh! In the case of Kreos: my army will hit you in my feat-turn and your arcane shield or other defensive buffs are gone! In the case of Feora: i ll burn your low arm army down! In the case of Harby.... i dont like her! :D

2 days ago i had a match against a friend who loves pFeora. I must say, i hate fire (pow 12 and you get rid of it only on 1 or 2 why not 1-3?) and Feora is the queen of fire...her feat took out (again) 1/3 of my 35p list and half of eStrykers life points (but darthStryker still managed to get the magical line to kill her!).
The best way to fight them is to have a good amount of shooting with magic attacks...otherwhise you are not able to reach their dmg output in melee to get around their high arm and they will kill you if you havent done enough dmg with shooting. The best ways to face them are Siege (thanks to his feat) and Haley (both, because she gives us 1-2 rounds more shooting). Well, thats just what i feel when i face Menoth...

[Sideshow Lucifer]

I find Harbey to be the easiest matchup with Cygnar. She is a giant target to pound into the dirt and keep the menoth player playing very defensivly.