Cygnar trashin this weekend

[dommer01]

Hey guys,

Got a couple games finally scheduled this weekend and I'll be mostly playing against Cygnar (Siege and Sloan). Any tips and hints for these warcasters would be appreciated. Both of them seem like they have one turn of completely trashing my models but after that, whatever's left of my army is going to start dry-humping his models.


Stay Thirsty,
Dommer

[patisarat]

These two will probably try to assassinate your warlock dead at distance, rather than wipe out your whole army. Camp on Fury for transfers when you sense the feat turn coming, and definitely take a Krea along, maybe a Brute too.

[Vapour]

I find Emak closes the gap faster than they would like. Also, you playing scenarios ?

[mauler78]

Being both a Cygnar player and Skorne play, I can tell you that both are looking for a long range assassination. With out knowing what other types of stuff are in the lists it is hard to say what to defend against. What I would bring if I were playing those list, you can expect to say ATGM, Defender(s), Hunter(s). Both casters love the little goblin Rhenholt since they can get an extra shot.

Siege feat turn is really gunning to hit your caster with a defender while their ARM is crippled since a defender shot can get upwards of +8 to a caster unbuffed. Problem there is if he can not get to you caster he might just pop it to waste your heavy beasts and deny you fury or places to transfere. The problem is even if you can manage to take out the jacks with high power RNG you still have Siege, and his gun is more then enough to finish low ARM casters.

Sloan is also in the business of long range assassination, maybe even more so then Siege. Since she has a spell that can extend the range of you BG weapons she can pack extreme range assassination. He feat is slightly less powerful in some respects to Siege, since IMHO it is heavily reliant on her BG being in the right places to benefit fully. The boost range attack for everyone is only going to come in to play if she has an abundance of range infanty, and they actually need the boost. WORD OF CAUTION, if you see ATGM be very careful on feat turn since 2/3 of their shots have a crit effect, and you might find key models on the butts and messed up.

To summarize, I would be stuff the protect against range. Stealth units are nice, even with Siege and mage sight if you spread them out he has a hard time seeing all of them. Consider bringing a sacrifical pawn to run up the side board and cut it to direct attention away from you main force. It is mildly exspensive but I find a totem hunte and 3 croak hunters for 9 points is a HUGE distraction, and if not deal with swiftly can slaughter a good deal of stuff.

[dommer01]

These two will probably try to assassinate your warlock dead at distance, rather than wipe out your whole army. Camp on Fury for transfers when you sense the feat turn coming, and definitely take a Krea along, maybe a Brute too.

Bringing both. I was thinking between a pMorg list beast heavy or a eMakeda list beast heavy.

Vapour

Exactly what I was thinking. I think eMakedea will definitely put me in a position to where I can easily and quickly close the gap and negate a lot of his feat potential

[dommer01]

Being both a Cygnar player and Skorne play, I can tell you that both are looking for a long range assassination. With out knowing what other types of stuff are in the lists it is hard to say what to defend against. What I would bring if I were playing those list, you can expect to say ATGM, Defender(s), Hunter(s). Both casters love the little goblin Rhenholt since they can get an extra shot.

Siege feat turn is really gunning to hit your caster with a defender while their ARM is crippled since a defender shot can get upwards of +8 to a caster unbuffed. Problem there is if he can not get to you caster he might just pop it to waste your heavy beasts and deny you fury or places to transfere. The problem is even if you can manage to take out the jacks with high power RNG you still have Siege, and his gun is more then enough to finish low ARM casters.

Sloan is also in the business of long range assassination, maybe even more so then Siege. Since she has a spell that can extend the range of you BG weapons she can pack extreme range assassination. He feat is slightly less powerful in some respects to Siege, since IMHO it is heavily reliant on her BG being in the right places to benefit fully. The boost range attack for everyone is only going to come in to play if she has an abundance of range infanty, and they actually need the boost. WORD OF CAUTION, if you see ATGM be very careful on feat turn since 2/3 of their shots have a crit effect, and you might find key models on the butts and messed up.

To summarize, I would be stuff the protect against range. Stealth units are nice, even with Siege and mage sight if you spread them out he has a hard time seeing all of them. Consider bringing a sacrifical pawn to run up the side board and cut it to direct attention away from you main force. It is mildly exspensive but I find a totem hunte and 3 croak hunters for 9 points is a HUGE distraction, and if not deal with swiftly can slaughter a good deal of stuff.

Mauler, thanks for the reply. I was thinking of bringing eMakeda with Molik and an Archidon to draw his attention. With Karn slipping up his flank and a archidon on the other, i'm hoping he'll be drawn to the apparent danger and allow me to close the gap with the archidon. We're playing 35 pt scenario but I really think sacrificing Karn (which he hates and will more than likely gunning for) and the BB to allow the archidon to get into a position and allow me to destroy him on eMakeda's feat turn.

[Demonster]

Just keep your defenses up because no matter what, they will be shooting you for 2-3 turns non-stop.

[Triumph Of Man]

Play a scenario, otherwise shooty armies have a really annoying tendancy to just walk backwards while shooting and refuse to engage. Sloan is particularly guilty of this.

It's not unbeatable, it just makes for a really boring game.

[Darque]

Lots of transfers, large-ish Control area. I'd hit them with a 50 point Zaal, but he's been my go to guy lately (might need to switch that up myself).

pHex would be a nice spite move. Good control area (14"), psychic vampire to keep their caster and Jr at bay, a FEAT that just makes people cry, plus full range arc node goodness.

A Xerxis Brick could hold a bit, include a Razor Wurm for Girded as well.

That's about it for now.

[alexnjessi]

I like the Xerxis brick idea, especially if both parties are okay with proxying Tiberion. I'm not so sure Xerxis needs girded, but a Krea will definitely help, more so for the armor than the def vs range. But then again, I'm a big Xerxis fan so take that for what it's worth. I played against a Xerxis list with two Brutes in it once...very difficult to put shots on Xerxis. Two brutes (or Tibbers+brute) and a Krea would give you all the fury you need, and your infantry can do the heavy lifting.

[dommer01]

I gave some thought into the Xhersis brick and I'll probably end up playing it 1 or 2 games just so he can get an idea of how it operates but I don't think it'll stand up to the damage that Siege will be putting down. His feat will halve all of their armor and at that level, 3 Rangers will be dropping fully buffed Centratii on average dice rolls.

[crazypackage]

Multi-wound bricks are bad period against siege. One ground pounder on feat turn will kill them before the damage is even rolled for. If he's a half decent siege player he will drop Molik and the handlers. The Archidon won't be a real threat since he can't punch through Siege's armor and won't be able to get a good thresher off against spread out ranged models with highish defense.

Zaal is the best way to go. Don't allow him to chain AG kills on the same turn (Ex. Kill the furthest AG to pop out the Kovaas then proceed to kill the other ones so the Kovaas is far away. Then the gunmages kill the Kovaas) and you should be able to engage him fast enough. Bring Swords to the gunfight so to speak.

[AngraX]

Having played Siege a lot I can say he suffers against high def, infantry spam and, to a less extent, armor bonuses. The big thing on Siege is his feat turn. It will half your BASE armor. Rough. However, arm bonuses are not halved. Shield guard will also help a lot against him as you can diverge shots from important pieces. Transfers are also very important. Be very careful with them. If he shoots your beasts first and then shoots your caster and you transfer, your beasts will effectively be affected twice by the feat. However (correct me if I'm wrong) if he shoots your caster first, when you transfer the feat will trigger on the transfer target as well thus wasting it.

Kara sloan plays as a weaker version of him (feat wise). She will have a very strong turn of shooting, however she has no way to reduce arm. She can generate 2 boosted pow 12 weapon master shots from 14'' away + a couple boosted pow 15 shots from 18 away. Xerxis here is a good bet. I haven't played against her with Skorne but I believe they can close the gap before dying.

There seems to be two popular lists with Sloan: an all shooting list and a combined arms approach with Stormblades and the Stormclad. Against Xerxis, I think the second list is more dangerous since they will shoot on your way in and charge with the blades when you close. And they pack quite a punch.

I second crazepackage advice on Zaal against Siege. Mordikaar should make an interesting list as well due to his feat. And kill his rangers. Also remember: play scenario. Force him to come close to you.

Hope I could help.

[dommer01]

Multi-wound bricks are bad period against siege. One ground pounder on feat turn will kill them before the damage is even rolled for. If he's a half decent siege player he will drop Molik and the handlers. The Archidon won't be a real threat since he can't punch through Siege's armor and won't be able to get a good thresher off against spread out ranged models with highish defense.

Zaal is the best way to go. Don't allow him to chain AG kills on the same turn (Ex. Kill the furthest AG to pop out the Kovaas then proceed to kill the other ones so the Kovaas is far away. Then the gunmages kill the Kovaas) and you should be able to engage him fast enough. Bring Swords to the gunfight so to speak.

While I agree with what you say about Siege wrecking the bricklist, I disagree with the archidon not being able to hurt him. 5 PS 17 attacks with boosted attack will take out almost any Warcaster and considering how effective Sieges spells and attacks are, he'll have had to cast/boost at least half his focus. My money is on the Archidon pushing 18 damage on armor 20 with average dice rolls.

Also, I don't think a traditional Zaal list will work either. Siege's feat will chew threw heavy infantry like AGs and Immortals like its nothing. I think the most effective way to beating this list is to get around its 14 inch shooting range.

[Vapour]

If he uses nasty shooty jacks:
An option is to use an Archidon or 2, charge in (boosting or on feat turn to increase odds of the crit pitch) toss the jack back towards your lines. Which closes the gap between them and your titans even further. Then run them back away from the enemy. Your titans then eat an isolated jack or two. Hopefully you run up your krea, and swamp gobber since you are likely to get shot at by said infantry/warcaster. Hopefully you have nifty wreck marker/s to grant cover.


Edit: You can mebbe even use you Agoniser aggressively to avoid the shooty reprisal. (only jacks tho)

Problem is all that infantry. Id like to know from you guys whether the venator unit + attachment would be handy? Or even a catapult?
Second edit: Prioritise the Defender and the Hunter if he fields them. Their guns on feat turn will wreck your day.

[dommer01]

I got those games in yesterday and went 3-0 with the Cygnar player. He forgot his Sloan card so I played Siege all three games. We ended up playing the scenario with two 6x8 zones outside each players deployment zone and you score by placing your models in your opponents zone.

The first game we played was at 35 points and I brought a typical bricklist. Xerxis brick is kind of hard to put together at 35 points but it was still surprisingly affective.
My list
Tyrant Xerxis +5
Basilisk Krea 4
BB Titan 10
Cyclops Brute 5
Cetrati 11
PGBH 2
Tyrant Rhadeim 5
Tyrant Commander 3

I don?t know Cygnar very well so I?ll just list what he had to the best of my ability. He brought Siege with a heavy jack that had a 15 or 14 inch range shot. He brought 10+ua Long gunners, black thirteenth solo and group, 2 solo pistoleers that I didn?t get the names of. All in all, very shooty.

First turn went to me, I put DW on the Cetrati and ran everything straight up. He moved forward but failed to put any models on his control point to contest it.
I knew that this was my only chance to win so I ran my Cetrati again and toed them into his control point to score. I brought the bb up on the left and placed the brute between the BB and my warcaster whom I walked up and popped feat (I know but I needed the extra armor and most of his models are almost no armor anyways). I popped the Krea?s animus and trampled him behind the Cetrati. I made sure the krea had most the Cetrati and my warlock in its animus.
I flanked the right side with my Tyrant Commander by running him and managed to get both solos into combat. I ran Rhadeim up the left and tied up his Black 13^th. My logic in doing this was to sacrifice them to minimize the amount of guns shooting at the Cetrati in the middle.

His turn, he popped his feat and shot the crap out of me. He left the BB alone knowing that Hyper Aggressive would put him in good range to get into combat. He did something that was expected. He shot a hole in the Cetrati and attempted the assassination. He realized he wouldn?t be able to win via scenario with my force basically in his face on turn 2. However, he did something unexpected as well. His first shot into Xerxis was from Siege at pow 14 . Half armored Xersis was sitting at armor 9 but I had Krea animus and feat pushing me up to a respectable armor 13. At plus 1 he boosted and rolled a 14 doing a total of 15 damage to me. I had two options, let the brute take the shot or transfer. I elected to transfer knowing that if I got another big shot on the BB I could then just let the Brute take it the full hit even though he was almost dead.

Here?s what was unexpected, instead of capitalizing on the feat and putting shots into my entire army he kept going for the caster-kill. At armor 22, Xersis was more than willing to take what little was left. Before he realized he didn?t have the resources to put him down, most of his attacks were spent. He put the black 13 unit into the control point along with a few solos.

My 3^rd turn I walked my krea into the black 13 and popped his animus bringing their def down to a more respectable 13. I then charged them with what was left of the cetrati killing a few. I then activated the BB and put beatback on Xersis and than charged the black 13 squad and proceeded to beatback through his entire unit finishing the game with a scenario win.

I thought I was toast as soon as I put my models on the table but I was really shocked at just how effective the Xerxis brick is. I must admit though that my opponent tunnel visioning my caster was also very important to me winning the game. Xerxis is very durable and the Brute proved to be very useful as well. All in all great and fun game.

The 2^nd game I tried out my new Archidon with eMakeda. The game was over at the bottom of the 2^nd turn when I flew the Archidon over his models and bit Siege and then pitched him into a bunch of other models. I baited him with Molik Karn which he took. He poured every shot into him including two boosted shots with Siege (Reinholdt for 2^nd shot) which was exactly what I was hoping for. That gave my enraged archidon a much better chance at killing him. eMakeda plus x2 Archidons and Molik is just so nasty for the caster kill. It can come from anywhere!

The final game was with a 50 pt Rasheth list. It was hilarious! He slammed the BB back with Siege and almost killed him. I activated, popped feat and put Blood mark on his caster and trampled the bronzeback into b2b with siege. Two hits with bb no boost put him down to two hit points and I missed my last hit. Full on fury I gave the turn to him. Knowing that if he shot my caster at all I would just transfer the damage to him, killing him so he focused on killing my army but left his caster too exposed in the process. I proceeded to walk up 4 inches and SS?ed for the casterkill ending the game.

I tend to be overly cautious in these games knowing how potent his list can be. He had a 11 man CRA that on feat turn, they would be shooting my warbeasts at dice + 11. Luckily it didn?t happen as much as I thought it would be.

Please note that neither of us have played in 6 or so months and are a bit rusty on rules. So if you see anything that we did do incorrectly, let me know for future reference.

Stay Thirsty,
Dommer

[Triumph Of Man]

Krea can't Trample. Trample power attack is available to heavy warbeasts only.

[Skorznex]

^^That.

Other than that good games. I love baiting people with Molik or a BB.

[Bully Bully Mahu]

I really like Naaresh against Cygnar, no knockdown DEF 18 ARM 18 Gators is fun.

[dommer01]

Krea can't Trample. Trample power attack is available to heavy warbeasts only.

Thanks, I found out afterwards that this was not a legal move. It was certainly nice having the 2 extra cetrati in the animus but I don't think it was game changing. However, I hate making mistakes and buddy was definitely cool with it.

Stay Thirsty,
Dommer

[Triumph Of Man]

Thanks, I found out afterwards that this was not a legal move. It was certainly nice having the 2 extra cetrati in the animus but I don't think it was game changing. However, I hate making mistakes and buddy was definitely cool with it.

Stay Thirsty,
Dommer

Just charge your Cetrati from behind. If your Cetrati ran 10", then the Krea's threat range is 9.5", so you can't possibly hurt them. I use this most games on turn 1 to keep the Cetrati buffed against any long distance shots.

[dommer01]

Just charge your Cetrati from behind. If your Cetrati ran 10", then the Krea's threat range is 9.5", so you can't possibly hurt them. I use this most games on turn 1 to keep the Cetrati buffed against any long distance shots.

I was considering doing that in the first place but since I didn't run the Cetrati their full movement, I would have been in range with the Krea. It has been a while since I've played, I just need to get back into the rotation again.

[Triumph Of Man]

I was considering doing that in the first place but since I didn't run the Cetrati their full movement, I would have been in range with the Krea. It has been a while since I've played, I just need to get back into the rotation again.

Just move a paingiver up behind the Cetrati then and charge him instead. Faced correctly you'll still need 9s to hit the little bastard and if you kill him noone cares.

[dommer01]

Just move a paingiver up behind the Cetrati then and charge him instead. Faced correctly you'll still need 9s to hit the little bastard and if you kill him noone cares.

Good advice! Its the little things like this that can really make or break a game.