My problem with Cyrgnar

[Taslon]

I have a problem with Cygnar. Its that I cant deal with heavies. Thats the preface of this Post. How do I deal with mass Heavies that Trolls, Skorne, and legion do?

SO here goes. Ive played cygnar off and on since mk2. Now lemme preface this, I like cygnar, I like lightning. I dont hate that we use mercs, I really dont, but as Im playing currently I get rolled by skorne and legion lists with three plus heavies. I dont know what I can do. My stormblades melt, and most of our in faction infantry doesnt do to well. What i need is to be able to stand up to these lists. So im asking yall. What do you do against the three plus heavy lists? My current main list is a 3nemo list that handles balenced lists very well, destroys infantry machine lists, and is a all around all comers list. Im not opposed to buying stuff, but what do I do against these lists? Any input?

[Stephan Garmark]

eStryker and eCaine are your friends. Stryker can just deal so incredible amounts of damage to beasts that it's not even funny, especially with a couple of 'clads in his battlegroup. Stormwall with eHaley is quite nasty against beasts as well and Siege is always a good option against hordes.
Hordes are generally a little harder to deal with than WM for us, but It's nowhere as hard for us as it is for Cryx, so just go for something that hits hard like Clads and Walls and you're golden.

[tankrandall]

Assaulting stormblades can easily wreck a heavy or 2. If they are melting I assume one or more of the following: you dont have arcane shield on them, you dont give them tough, you aren't getting the alpha strike, they also love deceleration & deflection. Gorman's black oil can disable one for a round and your heavy can deal with the 3rd.

[6_Focus]

I tend to face those kinds of lists too and i really like eNemo with a couple Hunters, a couple Stormclads, and a unit of Sword Knights. Polarity Shielded SKs in between Stormclads really work wonders as does the Hunter pair.
Sometimes i'll take out one of the Stormclads and put in a Cyclone to put templates in front of my unchargeable SKs or in front of the Stormclad. I find Legion beasts and infantry in general just cannot overcome that particular positon on the board without taking massive damage.

[6_Focus]

double post

[Darth_Stryker]

Run a firefly up in their face attached to Sword Knights. Pop Kiss/Harm on them followed by Rust/black oil. Have Archdude Runewood buff your knights with +2 to hit on the charge and there is very little those Sword Knights can't take out in the charge, regardless of Def/Armor.

Range solution is attach two hunters to a Gun mage unit with the UA. pop dead eye on the hunters to get that crit and if you crit use the boost damage jack marshal ability and your rolling 4D6 at half their armor.

[ShepMachine]

Before replying, I had to check the date this was posted. Because I wanted to make sure it was posted after june 1st. The day it all changed...

Honestly, before I got my stormwall, I usually took Siege against multi-heavy lists, and usually won by assassination. I dabbled with stryker2, and I was getting ok with him, but nothing was really thrilling me. I usually just defaulted to running eHaley and just trying to exert control over their force, but it wasn't really winning me games, just preventing me from losing by scenario.

Any nemo is a good answer, they run jacks well and have the delicious +2 str buff. But they are incredibly hard to keep alive. They don't control the game like haley, but their survivability stats aren't good like our super-solos.

But now, we've got stormwall, start saving up. Get that $140 set aside... Once you've got one, there are a couple ways to go.

Control the game with one of the haleys, locking down one or two heavies at a time and crushing the third one with stormwall.

Get aggressive with a stormwall and one of our buffing casters like nemo and darius. Juggle your buffs right, and make the right piece trades, they won't get a stormwall without losing one and a half of their heavies at least. These lists might want heavy hitters that don't eat focus like stormblades, which will survive to fight as long as they live behind the stormwall until its dead.

We've been talking about this in another thread, but the implications of reach open fists are crazy for dealing with heavies. Get within 2" of a bronzeback and then weapon lock him. You can use extra focus to buy additional attacks on him, and he can't move from hyperaggressive, and he won't ever get to 1/2" melee on you. You could even move up to within 2" of two skorne elephants, headlock one of them, and start smashing on the other one.

A lot of people might lament having to take a colossal to beat heavy spam, but its not true of all factions, and it isn't even precisely true of ours, but our own heavy infantry is difficult to protect without breaking up LOS to them, and our heavies, although offensively brilliant, are too fragile to piece trade with. The stormwall makes it easy.

[Joasht]

I've won against heavy-on-heavies lists numerous times......simply because I don't bother with killing their heavies unless I have to, which usually is a difficult thing in Cygnar.

Always look to win on scenario or assassination, sometimes one positioning fault and its all game over for the opponent. I've never tried "bothering to kill their heavies" since this game isn't about who kills more stuff, so it might actually be less effective (i.e. harder to actually win) if you tried to kill his heavies, than if you tried to worm your way to a victory in another way.

As I always tell new Cygnar players in my local area, Cygnar is about being a jerk and winning like a jerk, while being friendly and sportsmanlike :P

[Gavriel]

Huh, I've never had much trouble taking on trolls with Cygnar. I find that Ol'Rowdy and a well timed Precursor knight minifeat along with sustained defender fire over the course of 2 or three turns is enough to deal with just about anything. That said, I've never killed Mulg with my Cygnar, but have also never lost against Trolls with them. That should say a lot about how I play. If you can't easily kill all of their heavies, then seek to mitigate them.

[PG_Dino-Czar]

Ive never tried Ecaine so I'll give that a shot, and also I ordered siege. Do you think Dino Czars Kara Sloan list ideas would handle it well? Use the feat to wipe a heavy out then kill as mug as I can around it while pummeling the heavies

What do you mean by "handle"? The Boomie assault list will kill one high ARM target at range, and then contain or wear out one or two more for the rest of the game. The storm list goes through armor like nothing, but don't have anything like the staying power of some factions. Neither are built to table your opponent, if that is the goal.

[bStyker]

@Taslon - I don't want to labour this point, but essentially what it boils down to is that Cyngar is actually quite capable of taking out heavy armour. We can only reliably do it one piece at a time however. We're not able to slug away at an opponent over several turns like a bruiser, or take enough of a beating then counter punch hard enough to take down our opponent in one fell swoop. Instead, we're a technique fighter: we neutralize, focus, and stall. That's what Cygnar does well. We've got lots of positioning tactics, and abilities to help us control the flow of the game so that we can focus fire and take down the priority targets one at a time. If disruption worked on beasts we'd be golden. Instead, we're a nice shiny Silver.

As mentioned before, a Stormclad can kill a heavy, and a well supported Stormclad can pretty much kill anything outside of a Colossal. Try out eCaine, Siege, Kara and anyone you'd like, but in the end, if killing heavies easily is what you're after, you're betting on the wrong horse. We're not that breed of faction. This isn't to say that it can't be done, but simply to say that it's not our forte.

Best,

[hmk17]

I think the main question is "what exactly are you using?" Cygnar has stuff that deals with armor, knowing your typical lists can help us help you; rather than just us naming out anything that can crack armor. Cygnar is also not the strongest faction against Hordes either, we can deal with it; but you usually need to plan for it.

Cygnar has the options, but whether you aren't playing them or playing them effectively are two different things. And being able to help you there requires us to know what you are usually running.

[Martacus]

I've played a few games with Siege now, and I can say that his feat is monstrous against armor. I usually use his feat turn to assassinate a caster though.

[sleet01]

I'm using the Storm Lance brick right now. It's expensive, but it's damned effective at taking down high-armor targets and their attendant support. And in a cNemo list with Lightning Field and Eye of the Storm they're even more deadly. They can work just fine without support, but I find that giving them Rhupert and AS really turns them up to 11... and with the amount of stuff they kill for me, I don't mind the cost too much.

I don't like Storm Blades very much because they're so slow, lack Reach, have low defensive values, and are crappy at range. But when I run them as a well-supported second line behind some throw-away unit they're very effective at killing heavies, especially beasts. They die to POW 10s even with Arcane Shield so I like to screen them with Stormguard or PKs or the like, to prevent incoming ranged fire and to stop the enemy heavies within the Blades' charge range. If you're not doing that, you might consider it. If you *are*, then it could be that your opponents are tailoring their offensive abilities to deal with the Stormblades; time to take something else, like the Forge Guard mentioned by others?

[Sardonic Artery]

Since when does the number of posts makes you a better player?

Indeed. I'm vocal and opinionated; doesn't mean I'm good.

I've seen plenty of Skorne and Trollblood lists fall to my heavy shooting lists (eCaine, Kara, Siege) -- especially if Aiyana and Holt are involved. As mentioned, eStryker is a solid pick, too. Even the Haleys can cause people problems.

I've also learned the art of target priority. If we can shove it out the way (gun mages, force hammer) or disrupt it (not against Hordes obviously), we usually do better. Placing models can stop a good trample (although I play Trolls and 5 fury on heavies means I don't care if I have to lose my initials to get to you).

I will throw in my hat for forgeguard. They've got the armor to make it across the field (unless something autowounds) and crit smite + charging weapon masters can be mean. 5D6 for smacking one beast into another is beautiful.

[Rolling_Thunder]

The haley list I played at mayhem is designed largely to take down heavies turn after turn. If you want a breakdown and a list you can check it out here.

I almost never have a problem with heavy targets between positioning, engagement, and time shift. You can also buy time with gunmage pushes and Tk/domination.

One of your lists has to deal with heavy stuff, that's all there is to it . Our heavies kill heavies just fine. Gunmages don't kill heavy things, but they push them.

[Trollicious]

Start running eStryker and 2 stormclads. Positive charge on those things is incredible.

Alternatively, you can now bring Stormwall. With AS, he should be able to take the charge, then pummel jacks as a counter.
The full toolkit would include Journeyman, mechanics, and ragman.
Casters that improve its ability to hit are key here too. eStryker and pHaley come to mind.

[Garath]

This is fun:

pHaley
Centurion
Ol'Rowdy
Gun mages+UA
Cyclone

Fill the rest of the list however you want...

Haley advances behind Cent and casts TB- often

Cyclone pushes beasts back with thunderbolt rounds- until they are too far away to walk into combat (TB preventing charges and slams etc). Gun mages deal with stealth or push stuff back.
Cent and Rowdy go to town taking down a heavy each turn.

This is ALSO fun:

pHaley
Centurion/Rowdy
Gun mages + UA
Hunter
Hunter

Similar idea here,except this is more along the lines of a true sucker punch list- feat being used to alpha strike the opposition- 4 hunter shots into a single target will deal lots of damage.


Trollicious is right about E Stryker and stormclads - makes sure you bring some 'blades too- a single unit can give BOTH jacks a free focus.

I'm not too sure on stormwall - not against all targets ...more the a few beats can kill it in one round

[Centa]

As Cygnar we are able to take a lot of merc stuff, and we really should do this to make it easier for us.

When you struggle to deal with heavy armor you should take some of these models:
- A&H: +2 dmg buff with a range of 10" and a 'rat' of 8
- Ragman: -2 armor for enemy models within melee range of your models close to Ragman. Not that easy to pull off, because you have to move him up first and then your unit/jack.
- Gorman: -2 armor against jacks, unfortunatly not what you are aming for. You have only mentioned hordes factions
- Lanyssa: damage buff for jacks only, because they can charge for free. But everyone benefits of the +2" charge range. Helps alot to get the firststrike.
- Anastasia: +1 attack for every model inside her cmd. Again a little bit difficult to pull off.

Add in eEiryss to get rid of pesky upkeeps and almost everything in our armory should be able to take down a heavy.

If you write down some of the common lists you use, i am sure we can tweak them a little bit to help you with your problems. Just asking for help without giving us any informations makes it very difficult to help you.

[Mod_GoLu]

I realize I'm saying this several days too late, but...

Keep it civil.

[WindlordRyu]

Minutemen, most heavies won't like 2 boosted POW 14's. Works even better with eHaley. And then there's those Weaponlock shenanigans.

[LordCommaderCavanaugh]

My meta is hordes heavy and I find it fairly easy to deal with heavies using Cygnar. There are a few really good options for dealing with heavies in Cygnar, which I will now list:

Jacks
-Defender
-Hunter
-Ol' Rowdy
-Ironclad
-Stormclad
-Centurion
-Thunderhead

Infantry
-Sword Knights
-Storm Guard
-Storm Blades
-horgenhold forge guard
-boom howlers

Warcasters
-eStryker
-Kara Sloan
-Siege
-The Haleys
-eCaine

So basically, any of those options are good at killing heavies. In almost all of my lists I run two hunters, generally one marshaled under strangeways and one in the juniors mini-battle group. So, I get to boost to hit and boost to damage every turn with two jacks who can just walk away with parry. Or course where the hunter shines the defender is just as good and sometimes better. So, when you dole out two armor piercing shots per turn with boosted damage there is a really good chance you are going to put the hurt on heavies beasts or jacks. On average die there is a good chance you can deal about 10 - 20 damage per turn.

Of course all the warcasters listed above have amazing damage output and can put heavies down no problem. eStryker has no problem with heavies when he is overloaded, Kara Sloan can put to boosted damage weapon master shots per turn on the same unit. eCaine can make a series of shots on his feat, which will probably kill a heavy. Siege under the feat turn gains armor piercing for one turn and can then put down two magic weapon rockets in one turn. Constance Blaize can actually put down a large number of attacks all in one turn with flashing blade and if she is using her flank ability and is loaded with souls she can definitely take down or severely cripple a heavy all in one turn.

All of the jacks listed above will never be more the dice minus three or four against any heavy. Ol'Rowdy with four focus bonded to eStryker can charge for free then lay down four POW 18 hammer attacks in a row, any of which can knock the enemy down. Four POW 18's is really, really hard for anything to stand up to. The centurion, ironclad and stormclad are all also just as dangerous for the same reason. The storm clad gets the added bonus of electro-leaps. The thunder head can have lighting shroud, I may be wrong on the spell name, cast on it and then its fists become two POW 18 forces of destruction. With four focus on it it can dole out five POW 18 punches in one turn.

Sword Knights get flank, it is awesome, use it. Charging an enemy warbeast on 4d6 and MAT 8 is pretty much a guarantee to really throw out some high numbers for damage on most heavies, because there will be 11 sword knights to complete the charge with the unit attachment included. The sword knights seem particularly effective against warbeasts, but I have had them seriously mess up a jack before. Storm guard and the storm blades can both use the combined melee attack, which can output major damage to a heavy target. The Horgenhold forgeguard can stand up to heavies with arcane shield on them and they can retaliate in kind with heavy damage.

Using heavies to deal with heavies is usually an effective tactic. Charging with any of the above infantry should also do it. Use caution when using a warcaster to kill heavies, because it needs to be completely outside the threat range of everything else if you don't want it to die. Let me know how any of these options work out for you.

[Joasht]

Sometimes its also down to your list building.

For example, you (i.e. the OP) said that you use Stormblades, and they melt; of course they do - so you need to find a way to deliver them. I personally like Sword Knights for this job, since they make good, cheap fodder that don't die to random AoE's as easily (unlike Steelheads). You don't necessarily expect them to do anything other than die, but all that matters is that enough of your Stormblades make it to matter.

Also, keep in mind that Cygnar is one faction where its easy to get carried away with support; Jr., Squire, Arlan, Runewood, Reinholdt, Rhupert, Gorman, Eiryss etc. cost a lot of points when you take any combination of them. I'm not saying you would take ALL at once, but even two or three from that list starts packing on the points. If you aren't careful you'd spend like 10 points on them in a 35 point game and drastically decreasing your damage output.

[VagrantPoet]

Hordes are generally a little harder to deal with than WM for us, but It's nowhere as hard for us as it is for Cryx, so just go for something that hits hard like Clads and Walls and you're golden.

Whuh? Cryx love for you to bring a small number of big models. No-one can kill heavies with cheap infantry as easy as Cryx. Apply banes and mechanithralls, or any of the many damage buffs, etc.

Good advice, I just thought this was an odd statement, unless I read it wrong.

[PG_Tommeh]

I was thinking the exact same thing. Cryx really is capable of handling tough targets without resorting to fielding big things themselves.