Competitive (Tournament Worthy) Casters

[Postazure]

It is fun to have a wide variety of casters to choose from, but some casters are not competitive in the tournament setting. As a newer player I'd like to know what casters really work well in tournaments, either because the allow you to account for a lot more situations and lists, or the are better at scenarios, or can find lists that handle the clock well.

What are the best (or at least the most common) tourney casters that we can find and why?

Also, it is good to know thy enemy, so what are the most common casters from other factions that just keep coming?

[leo_neil316]

It is fun to have a wide variety of casters to choose from, but some casters are not competitive in the tournament setting. As a newer player I'd like to know what casters really work well in tournaments,

All of them.

Or, let me rephrase that.

Player skill is the deciding factor in tournaments. There are people on these forums who will spank all our arses regardless of they're using and what we're using.

Pick the casters you like the playstyle of best and then play them in tournament games until your eyes bleed. THATS how you be competitive. Just taking a 'A+' or whatever caster just means you walk in overconfident and get hammered.

[Postazure]

I see what your saying, but that is not much of an answer. For instance, to say that estriker is a great tourney casters because if you run him with waves and waves of infantry his feat will drown he enemy in attacks isn't true, you would clock out because you physically can't activate in good faith every singe model.

For this thread it would be helpful to say something like, eStriker's strength in a tournament setting is that he can fall back on a solid assassination strategy. Due to the nature of tournament scenarios the enemy caster is usually within Striker's range the trick for the rest of the issues is to clear a charge lane. His feat, while less beneficial due to the lack of bodies on the field means that it will produce less attacks. However, being able to advice for a future turn, move away from a combat that took a jack's entire activation, or land the last blow on an enemy is extremely useful and versatile.


I agree that playing a caster repeatedly is the only way of be competitive with them, and yes even our worst caster is solid. But, some casters naturally lend themselves to a tournament setting and others don't. Having a good understanding of how casters can perform under a timed, scenario setting is extremely valuable before you set out to play a hundred games with a caster.

[veragor1206]

Ehaley- probably my number 1 go to caster for steamrollers. Her spells, feat and bond really give you a lot of control over how the game goes.

EStryker- My second favorite caster, he is capable of playing the attrition game very well and can always pull off the one man assassination run.

ECaine- Almost as good as Stryker(for me anyways), essentially your whole goal is to get an assassination with his feat or wipe out your opponents options. He does this quite well

Siege- I personally have never done very well with him at tournaments but, he is still VERY viable in the tournament setting.

These are the casters I take to tournaments and are arguably our top 4 casters. The tacticas in the bootcamp are a very good read and can give you a good base in which to build your army list from.

Can any caster do well in a tournament? sure most of the ability to do well in tournaments relies on a players skill. However in a very competitive setting I would never gimp myself by say running Darius or the such.

[JPGREAT1]

As a person who plays in nothing but tournaments I can tell you our big four are eCaine, eStryker, Siege, and eHaley. Practically in no particular order because certain people will like certain casters over the other.

Now if you want to get some rankings involved based upon previous cons/tourneys/events... I would say eCaine and Siege is top half while eHaley and eStryker is second half of that list. But as stated that doesn't mean the rest of our casters are lack luster. A local man from my area won hardcore with Kraye, I've read a battle report a few years ago someone racked it up with pstryker, pcaine this year by rolling_thunder has been proving pcaine range support prowess, and personally while I haven't won with phaley... I see MAJOR potential in her too.

The reality is at the end of the day... you gotta play and build for a certain style and practice it. Cygnar power curve is behind the rest of the factions so slapping together some random list will not work.

[PG_Cridler]

General consesus is top 4 Cygnar casters are: eHaley, eStryker, eCaine, Siege. More or less in that order (there is some debate on this of course). Personally I'd give an honourable mention to both pHaley and pCaine but then my meta is 35pts where eHaley really struggles to be effective.

One thing to bear in mind is that since character restrictions are pretty common at tournaments, you will rarely (if ever) see both Caine and Siege fielded by the same player as their playstyles are so similar and hence the support characters (reinholdt) overlap too much.

[Dolganar]

I also really like eNemo Tier 2. I take him a lot more than eCaine and Siege.

[Rolling_Thunder]

I'll list top 5 in order, purely my opinion.

at 35 points:
eCaine
Siege
Constance blaize (ARMY OF LIGHT ONLY)
eStryker
eHaley

at 50 points
eHaley
eCaine
pCaine
eStryker
Constance blaize (Army of light)

I think the N3mo is really really strong, but without playing him, I'm not going to rate him.

I think siege is pretty weak at 50 points. he has to play too far forward for my liking, which usually makes him very, very dead at 50. at 35 it's a lot harder to put enough damage into siege with AS in a foxhole.

NOTE: this could all change with battle engines, both because of our access to them, and meta shifts on dealing with enemy ones.

[watchgeorgerock]

People just dont understand Darius. He is my homeboy

[Griffin839]

I find Ehaley, Estryker, Seige, Kraye, and Constance to be our best right now. Ecaine is a one trick pony that people have seen to many times. I just don't have the success with him that I used to. Heck I dont even have him anymore.

[Oniwasabi]

This also depends greatly on the format. The more lists the format allows you to take the more potential you have of crafting multiple less balanced lists that will excel against certain factions/play styles, which makes any caster a potential power house if you can do well at reading match ups (and at extremely large events, crafting to circumstances outside of your local meta is key). In single list events like hardcore I find that you need to take a caster that is capable of doing the heavy lifting on their own if need be (epic Stryker is my top pick for "caster power level" in these kinds of events).

That and since Colossals are coming to mess with the whole meta it will probably be a bit to see where everyone falls when the dust clears.

[TerTer]

Cygnar go to is said are, eHaley, eStryker, Siege, eCaine. But i think every caster that you can make work and are confident playing with. For example i don't get pHaley to work for me. eStryker is 50/50 win/lose about. So first get confident with casters and that fit your play style as else it's hard with them i think.

[VagrantPoet]

Nemo3 is sure to get added to those lists, but all of the above are very much so what your looking for.

[bStyker]

It's funny how often this comes up, but also how there's a pretty strong general consensus on the top 4. In my own opinion, I think eHaley (who I haven't played yet but I do own the model) eStryker, Siege and eCaine seem to make the grade for the top 4, but when I look at my own success ratio, Darius is my strongest caster, with eNemo being 2nd.

I think with Darius I've played close to 12-15 games now with my gaming group, and I've only lost 3-4 player games. With the advent of the Stormwall, I don't see this ratio changing in my meta. eNemo rarely loses to scenario, but occasionally to assassinations, and I'm probably batting about 75%.

... can't wait for N3mo.

[Brettman008]

I'll list top 5 in order, purely my opinion.

at 35 points:
eCaine
Siege
Constance blaize (ARMY OF LIGHT ONLY)
eStryker
eHaley

at 50 points
eHaley
eCaine
pCaine
eStryker
Constance blaize (Army of light)

Why no love for pHaley, Thunder? Personally, I've never been able to make eHaley work at 35. At 50 she's a terror but at 35 I just don't feel like I have enough models after I take Thorn and a heavy.

I do agree with your thoughts on Siege. He's wonderful at 35 and can really jack a Hordes army but at 50 I find there are too many threats for him to deal with. I want to try him out with Boomhowlers as a solid tarpit may buy him the extra time he needs to drop heavies at range.

[Dan from Chicago]

I think people like the 'top four' because they are more forgiving than other Cygnar casters. Other casters aren't necessarily 'worse' ... just less forgiving. Siege and eCaine just care about generating LOS to the important pieces on the board, which might not include the caster. eStryker is one of the largest threats in the game ... right up there with the Butcher in terms of melee output, and he's got movement shenanigans. eHaley's got movement shenangians like no other caster in the game, and her feat can absolutely save you if you make a mistake.

I heard a comment(from a player most people would consider to be pretty top) that one big difference between Cryx and Cygnar was that Cygnar was more technically demanding ... basically that mistakes cost a Cygnar player more. YMMV, of course. Since the 'big four' either have a simpler game plan, or are forgiving otherwise it's not suprising they get top billing.

[PG_fildrigar]

eHaley's got movement shenangians like no other caster in the game.

eKrueger would like a word with you, outside. I hope you're !

[MinaFangirlOfEverblight]

i'm sad no one mentioned sloan. i know she's a bit more complicated for a tourney than most people like, but if you run a list a bit differently than her usual '100% shooty' list she can be a horrible nightmare at any point size. especially with a minuteman (or a few). not to be the sloan enthusiast that i am, but there's just so much hurt she can bring... and with the right models, seriously hold a point. you just have to take away a lot of your opponent's options so that they'll feel like they have to do the things you're trying to get them to do.

[Dan from Chicago]

eKrueger would like a word with you, outside. I hope you're !

eKreuger can get back to me once he can chain together 8" of movement alteration with an additional attack ... ignoring ROF

[MinaFangirlOfEverblight]

sadly i find ekrueger to be kinda slow for a crazy wizard from orboros. that man should be able to fly like a kite.

[Joasht]

eCaine is truly powerful, but I've personally found pCaine to be more along my playstyle. He's mostly a support caster that can also contribute a couple of kills each turn at the very minimum, as opposed to the considerably more aggressive playstyle of eCaine (I'm more of a defensive/attrition player by nature). The 15" Thunder Strike (Sylys) has also caught quite a few people off guard, and can be quite hard to defend against.

[Ysthrall]

I only own a few of the Cygnar casters, but recently took these three to tourneys, in a Divide and Conquer 50pt Steamrollers Timed tourney.

pStryker: For the smash forwards and Take That Point. Fairly quick to allocate focus et al, but can be tight on time moving his infantry, and my list had a fair bit. Worked pretty well.

eNemo: Lots of jacks, should have been fairly fast, but you can tie yourself in knots with his focus matix shenanigans, so needs practise. A nice tricky caster, quite a lot of ability vs Hordes as well as Warmachine, but can be fragile, especially in Killbox scenarios where you need to play forwards a bit more. Worked okay, it was a Tier 1 list, perhaps suffered from match-ups.

Kraye: With quite a few light jacks and a lot of manouverability, Kraye works pretty well in scenarios at tournements, especially those allowing a lot of movement. Usually well under the time limit. Hard counters I've found for him are the feats of pDenegrha (you can't really move. Or shoot. Or assign focus), and the Witch Coven (you're shooty army now has LOS 5").

Of the "top 4", I only own estryker, and I can't get him to work right, so I'm not using him at tournies for the moment.

[Juggernautie]

I'll list top 5 in order, purely my opinion.

at 35 points:
eCaine
Siege
Constance blaize (ARMY OF LIGHT ONLY)
eStryker
eHaley

at 50 points
eHaley
eCaine
pCaine
eStryker
Constance blaize (Army of light)

I believe it is a whole new world out there. Even though I did not do great at Lock & Load, I did see the light. Add a Stormwall and start all over again thinking who is going to do well at tournaments, on average.

Nemo3 / Stormwall, tier 3. Not only plays well, but also does not need the characters others want.
Kraye / Stormwall. Though Stormwall to their face, and see who is left standing.
Estryker. Add Nyss, plays well, as always.
ECaine at low point games with Gun Mages and Rowdy.

Just my 2cents. I believe both Cygnar hardcore players were playing Stormwalls. After turning on my nemo3 and Stormwall on Saturday, I'm in love with Cygnar again.

[Rolling_Thunder]

I like pHaley, I just don't think she has as many good match-ups as the casters I listed. She does win her good match-ups super, super hard though.

I didn't factor stormwall in, and I didn't mention nemo3 because they are too new. They could change everything or nothing

I like Kraye a lot with stormwall, and I think that N3mo is right up there with everyone listed in raw power, he is potentially stronger than Haley, but I have only gotten one stormwal game in, and 0 N3mo games so I really don't want to just guess at their power levels.

[Darkangeldentist]

Only a few casters are not tournament worthy at all if any and largely dependent on format. I wouldn't take pNemo to a 50pt single list event as I feel he has too many bad matchups, on the other he is great in a multi-list one.

I attended the UK masters with pCaine, Kraye and Constance (standard lists all of them, no tiers) and it I felt they did really well, Constance was my only undefeated caster in the end and turned out to be a great counter to retribution. I went 5 - 2 in the end which am very happy about.

The big four are comfortably good choices for tournaments and easy default choices if you are struggling to decide which few to use. However I feel that you will always do best with casters you enjoy using and are most familiar with. The higher the level of play. The more important it is to know the list and caster inside out.

I have kept myself to a very limited pool of casters because of my playstyle. So I can't really point out any who I feel are 'bad' for tournaments. Also the newest releases (I want the avenger out now!) will change the meta significantly.

[Icepick28]

I do agree that we have casters that have a better in the tournament setting than our other casters, but I'm still willing to take our underdogs and have some fun with them.