Help against Cygnar?

[ToAzT]

So my friend has recently bought Sloan and has been completely destroying me as I can't seem to get close enough to deal enough damage. I've got pretty much the entire catalogue of Khador barring Uhlans and Pikemen to use, so any advice would be wonderful. I might just be a terrible player. :P

[Tossy]

Nope, I have trouble against them too...

Are you playing scenario. If not Cygner shooting will shine. If so then that is what you have to play for...

Sloans gun will rip through your heavy's but his troops shouldn't be too much of a problem (depending on what he brings). What caster are you using? What troops is he using?

[ToAzT]

I've been switching between Karchev and the Butcher as they're my two favorites, but I can try other dudes. He mixes it up with the troops, but I know there's a lancer, a defender, the black thirteen, and then another solo that gives warjacks focus.

[PG_Duckboy]

I would use Kayazy with UA, battle engine, and go with an IF caster. I have been on an Old Witch kick lately (as i have posted about her quite a bit lately) BUT you can use Irusk1 with ease, You should be able to get butcher going as well.

Karchev is probably not the best matchup unfortunately. Huge target, fairly easy to hit.

You could go strakhov, screen with battle engine and then get close enough to pop feat, then pop mini feat with kayazy and have a hay-day.

I would definitely recommend a scenario as cygnar has a tendency to sit in deploy and camp.

[ToAzT]

Hmm. That gives me a reason to put together and paint my Gun Carriage. not a bad plan. We'll see.

[Trollicious]

Sloan eats gun carriages for breakfast. Send a devastator her way instead. Even sloan feating with a pair of defenders won't really do much more than scratch its paint.

At the same time, Close in on her with a pile of kayazy, unless of course she has gun mages. In that case, take out the gun mages with widowmakers, or rifle corps+joe, THEN send in the kayazy. She only gets a max of 2shots a turn at them, if she forfeits movement, which means that in an all out run, you'll be on her in 2-3 turns.

[PG_Draxos]

pButcher should do the job finely. Sloan can't boost her feat shots so while her feat turn is accurate it's not very powerful. Iron Fleshed Kayazy are def 17 vs ranged and he needs ALOT of 11's to hit them at rat 6.

My advice is this, bum rush her as fast as possible with Kayazy and your jacks. Your opponent might be able to downt he Kayazy but 2 Khador jack will be standing there ready, and if he takes down the jacks...

[Trollicious]

Careful, AGTM are rat 7, so they need 10's and Sloan has deadeye. Make sure you thin out their numbers before committing.

[ToAzT]

Wouldn't the black 13th just completely make the kayazy useless? Pretty sure one of them has a flare. Also, what does AGTM stand for?

[Tossy]

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages... they see through stealth and are just gross

[Mrfantastical]

The flare only drops stealth, but if they have IF on them they are still DEF 17, so need a well above average roll to hit. Keep them in concealment/cover, and now they're DEF 19-21.

It's the AoE's you have to worry about. B13 (Ryan) has a 4" pow 12 to everyone hit shot that hurts Kayazy.

I like what someone said earlier pIrusk handles Cygnar very well.

[Trollicious]

Deadeye and sloans feat negate iron flesh to a large extent. pIrusk's feat should deliver your infantry though. One battle lusted great bear would probably kill Sloan on his own if you could deliver it.

[Col_Festus]

I would also recommend you take pIrusk. Being tough on a 4+, immune to KD, with Def 17 negates a lot of shooting, and will really ruin Sloan's day. Most of your army will make it through her feat to wreck havoc on her forces.

[jdeckert]

First, and most important, play scenario. Just like Tossy said, Cygnar can kite you all day otherwise.

I'd be a little leary of relying on Kayazy's defense. At a minimum, the B13 can drop their stealth and slow their advance with Ryan's Mage Storm. That AOE that stays in play is probably the best thing about that unit. If he's got gun mages, too, between deadeye and the feat they won't have too much trouble picking off the rest of the unit. Widowmakers and gun mages have the same threat, and gun mages have higher defense so that's not necessarily a great matchup either.

When I play Cygnar, I fear ARM a LOT more than DEF. Karchev seems like he ought to be a decent pick, how are your games with him going?

[PG_Dino-Czar]

I would also recommend you take pIrusk. Being tough on a 4+, immune to KD, with Def 17 negates a lot of shooting, and will really ruin Sloan's day. Most of your army will make it through her feat to wreck havoc on her forces.

Kara and her army eat high DEF and puts 4d6-3(?) x2 on Irusk without breaking a sweat. It is winnable for the Khador player, but Irusk wouldn't be my first pick.

[CHaoTiCTeX]

Against sloan, I can say that I have had success with eIrusk and double mortars, cycling FFE

A Harkevich shooting list might also do well here, thinking something along the lines of Big B and Ivan to make your core, then mortars (i love the mortar). should make some issues

[Col_Festus]

Kara and her army eat high DEF and puts 4d6-3(?) x2 on Irusk without breaking a sweat. It is winnable for the Khador player, but Irusk wouldn't be my first pick.

There is no way they will shoot down a death star thats tough on a 4+ and a full unit of kayazy's that are tough on a 4+. You can keep Irusk 14" behind the the two units. If I recall correctly you simply have to clip the units to effect them, its not done on a model by model basis. She also does not ignore LOS. It's pretty dang hard to drawn LOS through all of that to Irusk if you're worried about assassination. If even 2 or 3 WG make it through that, their sprays will destroy a lot of enemy models as she is probably running a gunline.

[PG_Dino-Czar]

There is no way they will shoot down a death star thats tough on a 4+ and a full unit of kayazy's that are tough on a 4+. You can keep Irusk 14" behind the the two units. If I recall correctly you simply have to clip the units to effect them, its not done on a model by model basis. She also does not ignore LOS. It's pretty dang hard to drawn LOS through all of that to Irusk if you're worried about assassination. If even 2 or 3 WG make it through that, their sprays will destroy a lot of enemy models as she is probably running a gunline.

I won't play theory tennis with you. I'm telling you what I've done and what I've seen work.

I'd invite you to read my write up on her if you have any questions about how I run Kara.

[Col_Festus]

I won't play theory tennis with you. I'm telling you what I've done and what I've seen work.

I'd invite you to read my write up on her if you have any questions about how I run Kara.

I wont play it with you either. I've played pIrusk numerous times in an environment that is over flowing with Cygnar. I do quite well, and pIrusk infantry spam always gives them fits.

[geeps]

just use winterguard,

besides b13 and siege
they dont have much AOE's to kill them.

[ToAzT]

I've never really used the Kayazy, so I think i'm gonna try those.

[Iron Will]

Zerkova tier 4 Hunting Wolves will do the job...

[Trollicious]

Irusk can play very far back, but is susceptible to shooting, which is why I usually have great bears with clouds on them screening him from attacks. Kara's army can shoot those clouds away, but she'd have to feat first to ensure accuracy on all the shots needed to punch the hole. Having played both of these casters a lot, it may come down to kara puling some feat shenanigans and running up in order to get her feat shot in on irusk in the backfield.

It's important to note that while Irusk only needs to tag the unit in order to give it fearless, tough, +2 on attacks, and no KD, the 4+ tough is limited to models in his ctrl.

[Col_Festus]

Irusk can play very far back, but is susceptible to shooting, which is why I usually have great bears with clouds on them screening him from attacks. Kara's army can shoot those clouds away, but she'd have to feat first to ensure accuracy on all the shots needed to punch the hole. Having played both of these casters a lot, it may come down to kara puling some feat shenanigans and running up in order to get her feat shot in on irusk in the backfield.

It's important to note that while Irusk only needs to tag the unit in order to give it fearless, tough, +2 on attacks, and no KD, the 4+ tough is limited to models in his ctrl.

His feat states Warrior models/units. So if you clip a unit, its effected by his feat. It also does not say non-warcaster models, so he himself is effected by it.

[jdeckert]

His feat states Warrior models/units. So if you clip a unit, its effected by his feat. It also does not say non-warcaster models, so he himself is effected by it.

Except the 4+ tough part, as Trollicious stated:

"While in Irusk's control area, friendly Faction warrior models/units gain fearless, tough, and +2 to melee and ranged attack rolls and cannot be knocked down. When a friendly faction warrior model makes a Tough roll of 4, 5, or 6 while in Irusk's control area, that model heals 1 damage point." Two different sentences there.

While I don't think pIrusk is a bad matchup for Sloan, I don't think he's the best either. While that is a lot of high DEF to chew through, there can be a lot of answers on the other side of the table and the feat only lasts for 1 round. Gun mages out threat WG and kayazy, have crazy accuracy with deadeye, and ignore stealth. The cyclone can put down templates that will auto-kill kayazy and WG if they move through them. The B13 can let other things ignore stealth, have great accuracy and range, and mage storm is fantastic for that situation. Of course, I don't know if he's running all that. Even then 26 really hard to kill models is still a high count and could cause problems. I can definitely see that going either way, but if he's only got Sloan and a defender as his big guns he might have a hard time with ARM cracking.

[Tyr852]

I'd throw my chips in for scenario play as well only because I find using X caster to counter Y caster isn't much fun for either person and you'll learn more then just scooting and shooting.

Also not sure if you've ever seen Last Samurai but charging a static gun line will normally always result in how that movie ended .

[PG_Draxos]

pIrusk + Scenerio or any other attrition caster will do it. It was pointed out several times by our LGS last night that Cygnar can't deal with ARM so use that to your advantage.

[mcpolle]

Well we just had a tourney here in DK, with 16 players, and 6 being Cygnar, mostly Haley in both forms, but the Cygnar player that won, had Siege and Stryker, so cudos to him,


I played with Khador, played a pIrusk list, with Assassins, and Nyss hunters,Gt bears, spriggan, slylyss, Valachev, Drakhun, eEiryss, Kell,

It was only 42 pts, but played 3 Cygnar players, and lost to all of them, one with pHaley, temporal barrier sux, one with eHaley, she just sux, dead eye with gun mages, and B13 is just hard work, and finally an easier battle against Nemo, almost got him, had him down to 3 wds left, but he won on scenario,

Mad a fair few mistakes, but learnt a lot, enjoyed my tourney, but boy many Cygnar out there, and even withpIrusk, could not get a win in on them.

So if anyone can come up with some good advice, not arguing on who has the best math, but would be good to see /hear.
Polle

[Natetehaggresar]

There really is no easy answer to well played Cygnar. They can handle armor through gorman, aiyanna and holt, positive charge, eNemos strength spell, pNemo can give a stormclad 5 focus, other casters can give it 4 with the accumulator, or if necessary eCains feat. Also a devastator to hold a zone isn't a sure thing either, a full unit of gun mages can push your brick 7-21 inches to get it out of a zone. To top it off, disruption can ruin your day.

High def isn't the solution it is against other factions either. Cygnar has lots of leaping or auto-hitting pow 10s. Gun mages can ruin naturally high def/stealth's day, deadeye counters iron flesh nicely. Also thunderhead = dead infantry.

Really what you need to do to win changes alot from list to list, and individual matchup to individual match up. Some casters really rely upon their support, if you can kill eCaine's reinholdt and squire, you are much better off.

If you are playing against a typical ehaley build, her game falls apart once you kill the stormclad. Position a gorman near you front line to black oil that thing after haleys feat, just be careful not to get him shot or electro-leaped. If you can shut down the stormclad you are well on your way to winning.

If pHaley is not being properly screened she can die very easily to ranged combat if you're running either vlad or pbutcher, if shes not camping pirusks feat turn and pow 10-12 guns can even reliably kill her, an eyriss helps here. If she has an arcane shielded stormstrider in front of her thats an entirely different problem I don't have a good solution to yet.

Disruption can be very important, generally Cygnar uses the tricks their superior jacks bring to the table to net them the win. Either Eyriss can keep one of their key pieces neutered for at least one round, the better you are at keeping her alive, the better the game will go.

One of cygnars weaknesses is rough terrain. As far as I can remember I think just the hunter has pathfinder. Most of their units lack pathfinder, so rough terrain ruins their day if you can kill runewood or the piper. They need path finder less with a heavy shooting build, but if they cram in too many guns then they will be lacking on holding the zones, hopefully.

Finally arm 24 centurions suck. eEyriss is helpful, and remeber you can alway run a model right next to the centurion, then charge it with you jack instead. Even better if the jack has two weapons like an ice axe and an open fist, punch your friend, then start axing the centurion.

Anyway, to help you more, I'd need more information.

[Brushmonkey]

pVlad, Wind Wall, shooting jacks. Laugh. You jacks can only be shot by the ATGMs and Sloan. Also worth trying with a few clamjacks. Couple of those running upfield with pVlad behind is all kinds of horror for the Sloan player (but I still prefer Big B and Ivan).

[ToAzT]

Alright, I'm necroing my own thread to update it a bit, as I've played a bit more.

To update my opponents list, it's Sloan as the caster, uses trenchers and the jack that can shoot a mortar 3 times when it's b2b with trenchers, a defender, Arcane Gun Mages, and the black 13th.

My standard go-to girl of eSorscha didn't really work, so I moved to pSorscha, and that's been a little bit better, but not even fog of war really helped. The Winterguard works decently well, but nothing I'm super impressed with, and the jacks all seem to make no big difference. I don't own any of the clam jacks, or ivan, so I'm kinda hosed there.

I normally don't do the whole, play to beat a certain caster/player, but I'll be frank, it hasn't actually made a difference yet, haha.

But, man. I really need to start playing scenario.

[Tossy]

Alright, I'm necroing my own thread to update it a bit, as I've played a bit more.

To update my opponents list, it's Sloan as the caster, uses trenchers and the jack that can shoot a mortar 3 times when it's b2b with trenchers, a defender, Arcane Gun Mages, and the black 13th.

My standard go-to girl of eSorscha didn't really work, so I moved to pSorscha, and that's been a little bit better, but not even fog of war really helped. The Winterguard works decently well, but nothing I'm super impressed with, and the jacks all seem to make no big difference. I don't own any of the clam jacks, or ivan, so I'm kinda hosed there.

I normally don't do the whole, play to beat a certain caster/player, but I'll be frank, it hasn't actually made a difference yet, haha.

But, man. I really need to start playing scenario.

Scenerio will help a lot... Just print off the SR pack from the main website (see below) and make sure you play it. The game is more balanced that way.

http://privateerpress.com/files/SR2012_Rules_V1.3.pdf

If you are playing straight assassination, have you considered pButcher casting iron flesh on yourself and camping until you get close enough to murder?

[ToAzT]

Scenerio will help a lot... Just print off the SR pack from the main website (see below) and make sure you play it. The game is more balanced that way.

http://privateerpress.com/files/SR2012_Rules_V1.3.pdf

If you are playing straight assassination, have you considered pButcher casting iron flesh on yourself and camping until you get close enough to murder?

That actually doesn't sound like too horrible an idea, except for I'd probably end up kited around the board.

[Viss]

I'm having opposite experience with Cygnar.

I've played almost 80% of my games against Cygnar (pHaley, eHaley, pNemo, Siege, Kara) and had a lot of success with cloud efects blocking LOS (murder of crows, gorman, greylords) to importatnt models (greatbears, jacks, caster). I've been almost always played with Iron Fleshed WGI and I'd learned that against Chainlighting is better to send some folks as "bate" and leave a 2nd wave more than 4" away. And Butcher? He walked via entire battlefield to caster and let him kiss his Lola for the last time. But... This worked until we decided to play SR scenarios.

Now I'm stuck against eHaley's feat with GM pushing shots. I must play more aggresively than before and should not go with old "attrition" tactics. If I've taken sometimes the run + engage option to "shutdown" his ranged infantry, nowadays I'm using this more often. My heavies are most of the time pushed (hammersmith + lanyssa combo, gun mages or even 2H throw with TH or cyclone).

If you play scenario you have less time to play attrition style or to profit from better survivability. I think there are more things to consider - models that can be moved/pushed like gun carriage or conquest, or hard hitters with better SPD like cavalry models (mow drakhun, fenris, 3Vlad, etc) which can charge/engage gun mages from distance and give you time to score an objective.

[Joasht]

That actually doesn't sound like too horrible an idea, except for I'd probably end up kited around the board.

Yeah, you really need to start playing scenarios. As both a Cygnar and a Khador player myself, I can tell you that if you aren't playing a scenario against me, that pButcher is going to spend a lot of time getting kited....or jammed with Boomhowlers.

How many points are you playing at? Seems to be in the 35 region?

[Saekyn]

Alright, I'm necroing my own thread to update it a bit, as I've played a bit more.

To update my opponents list, it's Sloan as the caster, uses trenchers and the jack that can shoot a mortar 3 times when it's b2b with trenchers, a defender, Arcane Gun Mages, and the black 13th.

My standard go-to girl of eSorscha didn't really work, so I moved to pSorscha, and that's been a little bit better, but not even fog of war really helped. The Winterguard works decently well, but nothing I'm super impressed with, and the jacks all seem to make no big difference. I don't own any of the clam jacks, or ivan, so I'm kinda hosed there.

I normally don't do the whole, play to beat a certain caster/player, but I'll be frank, it hasn't actually made a difference yet, haha.

But, man. I really need to start playing scenario.

Without knowing the specifics of your games/lists, I'd say to go all-out and shove your army down their throats.

Send two pairs of Kayazy Eliminators in, one pair down each flank, running 14 inches a turn. Send in a full, spread-out unit of Kayazy Assassins. Send some terrifying infantry like double Doom Reavers or Man-o-War/IFP up the middle so he has to answer it. Get some heavy jacks and run them as fast as you can. Don't bother bringing shooty-elements unless he likes to leave targets of opportunity ripe for a sniper shot or clumped infantry for a mortar.

You could try going jack heavy with p.Vlad. Bring focus-efficient jacks like Kodiaks, Beast 09, Berserkers, Drago....you run them turn 1, probably won't take too much fire (if they use snipe to hit your jacks, not like it'll hurt much anyway), and you pop feat turn 2 to run all those beautiful war machines 16 inches.

[ToAzT]

Yeah, you really need to start playing scenarios. As both a Cygnar and a Khador player myself, I can tell you that if you aren't playing a scenario against me, that pButcher is going to spend a lot of time getting kited....or jammed with Boomhowlers.

How many points are you playing at? Seems to be in the 35 region?

Playing 35, and 50 next week.

I think I'm gonna try pVlad, as it gives me a reason to paint my Drago.

[sourclams]

eVlad + Uhlans and pIrusk + Uhlans and Behemoth were what I used to 'off' Sloan last times I played her.

Uhlans are effectively Mat10+ under feats and Reach-on-Charge means you can poke her and then shoot into the "melee" without penalty. Irusk feated, Uhlans charged, 1 got her, then Behemoth put a shot into her. Same with eVlad but you can simply get there and kill him first with SPD11. If you can just thin out her models then her shooting drops off dramatically.

Scenario + Speed is the usual way to deal with a gunline.

[ToAzT]

I'm considering bringing more armor in general to help fight it off, and then use maybe Behemoth+Ivan to shoot back.

[sourclams]

The big thing is don't get frustrated. Khador does have the tools to deal with lists that endlessly kite and shoot, but you need a combined arms approach (with your own shooting). Play scenario, use your speed units. When Sloan gets tired of staring at eVlad behind a wall jamming her with Uhlans from 16" away AGAIN while attempting to run a gun mage onto a mid-field objective held by your IF brick, your opponent will start changing up their lists.

ALTERNATIVELY, you can wait a month and field 2x Conquests. She simply doesn't have the sustained damage to blow through 2 immovable colossals with mechanic support.