pHaley for ETC, hoping for some great opinions

[Stephan Garmark]

I've had a really hard time deciding what to bring to this tournament, mainly because I'm a little tired of the ol' Cygnar and our (sub par) tricks. Or maybe because I've been shuffling around so many different lists that I just get creamed with them due to lack of experience with different casters. So since there's only a month to the event I made the decision to just go ahead and choose a caster for the event. We're a 4 man team, we have 2 Khador (old Witch and pIrusk) and 1 Cryx (eSkarre) and me with Cygnar. The team really wants me to field eHaley, but I have trouble with her at the moment mainly the fact that I feel like I need Thorn in her list, but I also want a solid firering base since I believe this is where our main strenght as Cygnar lies, so that often adds up to being very few models that can be countered fairly easily. Also, albeit I like her spell list I often feel like she doesn't get enough out of her focus, probably because I'm bad at making decisions with her.

I was around eCaine, eStryker and eNemo. I love Caine and I don't think he has a lot of bad match ups, but I also don't really want to play him for 6 games in a row. eStryker is clearly my favorite, but he's got a lot of bad match ups and I figure the Khador guys are better at doing the heavy lifting than me as Cygnar. And eNemo autoloose to anything that can make the ground rough, like pIrusk or Baldur, so even though I love him and have a lot of fun with him I feel like I'm not doing whats best for my team if playing him.

That brought me back to eHaley, no bad match ups, great spells, awesome feat, but a relatively small army. It was Thorn that gave me the gripes. It's not that he's over costed or anything, he's just expensive in an army where you want a lot of tricks, so I finally decided to go for pHaley and a ranged approach.

This is the list I've come up with. Bear in mind that some of the entries may seem redundant but I'll try to explain the choices afterwards.


pHaley
Squire
Ol' Rowdy

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + UA
2 x Hunter

Black 13th

Rangers

Horgenhold Forgeguard (full)

Rhupert

Arlan Strangewayes

Junior

(50)

So basically as with all things pHaley it's all about 3 spells: Temporal Barrier, Arcane Shield and Dead eye.
I wanted the army to be extremely precise and hold a lot of shooting, so thats why I run both Gun Mages, B13th AND rangers. I know that if you shoot at something within 16" of Haley with Gun Mages and a spotting ranger they effectively gain RAT 11 and with dead eye thats just rediculous, but I want my gun mages to hit EVERYTHING, I don't want a single one of them missing those iron fleshed winter guard or iron fleshed Nyss or any other high defence unit. I want it to be like 10 gun mages killing 10 models a turn. So thats why I went all in on the ranged segment.
I was discussing possible tar pits with my friend and Forgeguard seemed like the best to get the most out of double AS. I know they wont benefit from Haleys feat, but thats okay as long as I can lay the pressure on with the gun mages I wouldn't need that extra attack with the forge guards ... I don't know, maybe Jonas has a spot in the list after all, I just think it's a bit much to give 2 points for it. I think forgeguard are superior to Boomhowlers in this particular list because of the armor buff and the "you can't really charge them" apporach, killing ARM 21 dwarves on range is hard unless you're a widowmaker or mage hunter, and if you are, good luck surviving the barrage of gun mage fire coming your way.

Ol' Rowdy came in over Stormclad due to two things. He gets more out of AS and counter charge. He's not fast, but thats okay I don't need him to be, I need him to be able to take out threats that move to close to my lines and he does that fine with only speed 5 and counter charge, also since I don't have a fancy bond I think he's just superior to Stormclad in this particular list.
Dual hunters should be selfexplanatory. Those 4 hits on feat turn is going to hurt a heavy enough for it to be out of the game for a while.

Oh and finally the rangers. They're there for two things, adding precision and dealing pow 11 shots around the board. I think they fit in nicely with everything even though the list is very precise without them, but as I said, I don't want to miss.

So what do you think?

[shaner]

List looks really good Stephan. I personally would use Boomhowler over the guard. With Murdoch, feat, and dead eye, that's a lot of pow 12 shooting. If they are in the ctrl area with TB up, and rangers about, they will shoot all kinds of stuff. With assault, that's a deadeye'd shot and two melee attacks on feat turn. Anyways, the FG will be solid as well, just not as versatile.

Let us know how it works out.

[Garath]

You could get more out of this list with some tweeks here and there. pHaley is all about those 3 spells you mentioned and she is 9/10 times the most anoyying caster to play against due to TB. That is something to benefit from.
Same way as Forge guard are hard to kill at range ,so is Rowdy. In that regard ,considering the fact that he benefits from AS in cc and they only benefit from it at range , this list needs no Junior .
Especially if Rowdy is a second wave figure(and you mentioned him counter charging,and them tarpitting stuff) you can swap AS from FG to rowdy when it starts to get ugly and the big boy goes to town.
Another model you can do without is Arlan Strangeways- he does give a free focus and whatnot but the list has a single jack so perhaps Arlan's points are better spent elsewhere

For all the reasons listed ,I would suggest you switch Junior and a hunter for a defender- packs roughly the same damage output on a more durable chassis.
Murdoch to lead the Forgeguard instead of Arlan means you loose in the jack department ,but Forgeguard get to swing twice on the feat turn .
This does mean,however that Arlan isn't there to give the shooting jacks a focus point for those extra shots

[Stephan Garmark]

thanks for the replies. They're both great.
I'll go with the guard over Boomies because they're tougher and they can kill jacks. Boomies just add a lot of infantry removal, and I don't really need that as I have plenty of gun mages and rangers, so I wanted a unit I could rely on hitting hard.

Garath, dumping junior seems bad. He's still a fully boosted pow 12 and an arcane shield for the dwarves. Medium to light shooting will hit right through their arm of 18, but 21 is really hard to get through. Remember that there are character restrictions, so only 1 Eiryss pr. team, so taking away upkeeps are hard at this event.

I agree with taking out Arlan. I don't think he really fits, maybe Gorman would be a better choice, getting some of that rust going before hammering with my hunters?

I would really like a defender instead of the other hunter, but I just don't see it realistically happening, unfourtunatly