Surviving the perfect storm......

[BENDER]

I understand that there have been a fair few threads about this subject already. But a lot of them have been cluttered with misinformation about the new Stormwall. And it appears that many of the members of this board do not check the rules for their own models as well. And this has given many people a false impression as to how we deal with this. I want to get past all this and come up with practical ideas based on facts and sound opinion rather than speculation and guesswork.

I'll begin by outlining exactly what I mean by a perfect storm. Many of the threads about Stormwall slaying have simply looked at it in isolation. As Lamoron pointed out, The big lad isn't coming without support. And although there has been talk of twin Stormwall builds, I do not think that this is practical in a typical 50 point setting that one sees as the tournament standard these days. This may change in the future.

The perfect storm would look like this: PHaley, Stormwall, Black 13th Aiyanna and Holt Journeyman, squire, a unit of mechanics,epic eiryss, stormcallers/fireflies, assorted ranged infantry/jacks to taste.

A quick rundown of what PHaley does for the big guy:

Arcane vortex: For the cost of 1 focus she can negate any spells targeting her or a model within 3 inches of her. This means that the majority of our debuffs can and will be negated.

The feat: Everybody gets an additional shot. That's more shots going into some poor schuck off the stormwall and the gun mages have a whale of a time taking apart the single wound infantry.

Temporal barrier: While in her control, we are at -2def, and cannot run or charge.

Arcane shield: Okay the journeyman will be casting this. But it means an arm 22 Stormwall.

Stormwall himself brings:

56 damage boxes. Repairable by mechanics. either D6+5 Reliably or 6d6 if he gets lucky.

2 covering fire templates. Pow 12. These will typically be placed so that mellee infantry are going to cop one if they manage to trudge through temporal barrier.

2 big guns that can severely damage our jacks and any unprotected casters.

Lightning pods. These are not a special action. At the end of movement they are simply placed within 10 inches of the Stormwall. Anything on the line between it and the pod take a pow 10 and are disrupted.

Black 13th: All round stealth + incorporeal ignoring *** kickers that shoot twice under the feat.

A+H: Gives a unit magic weapons or +2 damage. So incorporeal models are more vulnerable and those big guns are now at effectivly pow 17.

Epic eiryss: removes any upkeeps that somehow manage to get onto the stormwall and possibly removes buffs from our units.

The general game plan seems to be as follows:

Park the stormwall on the objective, and simply delay and pummel the Cryx army into dust as it trudges forward.


The bad news ?

1. Charging it with single wound melee infantry simply is not viable. All of our infantry, even the speedy raiders are reduced to their basic speed. Typically we can usually only depend on suffering 2 turns of shooting max before we engage on our terms. This is now negated. The covering fire templates will also prevent our more heavy hitting infantry from reaching the Stormwall. Not onlywill they have to endure the stormwalls guns, but the gun mages and all the other firepower as well. It will be like the battle of the Somme. And we are the unfortunate Brits

2. Directly debuffs are negated. Parasite, crippling grasp, feast of worms, curse of shadows etc will be shut down for one focus. Gorman di wulfe will have a bullseye on his forehead. Stealth will not protect him. And the stormwalls own threat range, be it lightning pod or covering fire, will exceed what he can manage with black oil or rust.

3. You have to kill it in one go. The mechanics will patch it up. If by some miracle you get into hand to hand with it, it can either power pimp smack you d6+2 inches away or thresher. This will require multiple heavy hitters to concentrate their efforts on it. Doing that with only melee units under temporal barrier is far from simple. It will require a combined arms approach. Something that a stereotypical cryx army is ill equipped to do.

4. Warjacks with walking threat ranges below 10 inches will not be getting focus without siren help. And remember, no charge bonus while TB is up.


Ok, so how do we take this system apart?

The vulnerabilities/ upsides I see in this system are:

1. With temporal barrier being cast every turn, Haley has but 3 or 4 focus to negate spells or power the battlegroup, or to camp as armour. Anything that can increase that focus expenditure will work to our advantage.

2. "Passive" debuffs and normal buffs still work. Other factions can get by without our debuffs. So can we. Pdenny and the covens feat are not negated. Dark shroud (tartarus, PShade, ragman etc) is not negated. Scything touch and Pskarres feat will still work.

3. Although our faction ranged options are limited, we do have access to decent ranged mercs as well.

I do not know how the leviathans burst fire affects huge bases (please enlighten me). But it can be used to soften up the stormwall. And it need never worry about the shooting into melee penalty.

Pistol wraiths. Remember that death chills do not stack. But it can be used to either stop a stormwall from reaching an objective, or from shooting. Getting it in range may be tricky however. They may however, be better suited to hunting the support solos such as junior or getting the drop on the mechanics.

Nyss hunters: If by some miracle you can get enough debuffs on to it, these can be used to put a serious dent into it. Single shots if fully debuffed. (The "keep dreaming" scenario is arcane shield removed, parasite, feat, dark shroud and rust bomb = armour 10! ) CRA'S if not. And their bows can always be turned on the supporting infantry.

Steelhead riflemen: CRA's

4. We are not without our own colossus. I know that this may sound like a real world arms race. But the kraken has a really good chance of tearing this up. especially with 4 inch reach.

5. The caster is still mortal. instead of throwing time and resources at something we are unlikely to kill. Focus on getting at Haley. She cannot hide forever and as per point one, she will be weakened if she wants to support the army properly.

6. Stormwall has to choose between guns and fists. Chucking medium based models like expendable helldivers and medium based multiwounds like ogrun can prevent it from moving on to objectives.

7. Temporal barrier does not touch place and push effects. Telekenesis, hellmouth, teleport, dark banishment, vengeance, wrathes abilities etc can all be used to get us up the field faster.

8. Our multiwound solos should survive long enough to get swings at it. Tartarus for example should be able to make it through the templates and get that much needed debuff on the big guy.


I have chucked down most of my general thoughts on the situation. I have other things to attend to but if you can figure out any suggestions as to how we can unlock this combo, I would be happy to hear it!

[PaintVagrant]

Burst fire does nothing to huge bases. So pow 13s :\

Basically the way to beat this list is assassinating with guns. The problem is not Haley camping behind stormwall. The upside is she is WAY back behind him, negating a lot of her range for TB. TB will only effect ~11" in front of stormwall. That means you can deploy to the extreme flanks, and get your charges/etc off outside of TB.

Generally speaking wide deployment is a good idea against her anyways, against this matchup it seems even more important. It will also help mitigate the covering fire (a little)

[Decade]

Regarding point 3 & 5, we do have a way to screw with Haley's game plan using Shade2 and a Kracken/Leviathan - Phantom Seeker. She wants to play peak-a-boo behind a Stormwall/Stormtower? Fine. Put PS on the jacks and start blitzing her. The psychological effect of having the Kracken start lobbing unicorn cannon blasts onto her is probably going to be profound. I know most players start getting nervous when their caster starts taking damage. And the flayer will still be able to shred infantry up close. Its also possible to force your opponent's hand by launching a hexblast at the Stormwall, force Haley to spend focus to negate it, then take a shot at her with even less armor.

Further on 5 is the old helldiver + Skarre1 trick. Get a couple of helldivers into range of Haley, allocate them some focus, DG and Feat. An opponent that knows what the HDs can do will try to keep Haley away from them, which means you can keep forcing her back further. Less TB coverage on the SW is not a bad thing.

Just my thoughts on the mater.

[SpiderBite]

I love a good challenge like this. Hopefully this thread won't devolve into pewp.
Anyway, as to your #4 ("We are not without our own colossus"), i just don't see the Kraken killing a Stormwall, especially if you can't spell-debuff it.
I am not too savvy about all the models in the game's abilities, but here's my current theorymachine answer for proposed challenge:
Witch Coven, Nightmare, 2x Sirens.
The Coven should be able to get everyone up close and personal with their feat. Veil of mists is not targeing Haley or anything within 3" of her.
Nightmare with Infernal Machine and Prey bonus used intelligently is moving 10" with Reach.

My concept is to get Nighmare close enough and keep the Stormwalls incapable of killing him for a turn. . . . somehow. Maybe Sirens, Pistol Wraiths, Gorman, some combo of such. drop a VoM and have Nightmare simply walk through the Stormwalls and give Haley a hug.

[Scottl1]

I played a proxy game on vassal vs a stormwall with a Terminus list and it too DJ fully loaded and Terminus to take it down. lol I admit that won't always be the case since it'd be hard to have them both loaded up like that. Though sending the 2 ahead of the rest the army did suprise my opponent who thought I guess I'd stand their and twirl my thumbs. lol

WWS can help mitigate the disruption and focus issues but thus far I would say putting at least 2 hard hitting jacks does help to at least cripple a side so it limits the covering fire.

[Lambstar]

pSkarre with Nightmare and Satyxis raiders. Nightmare preying on Stormwall can walk 8" with reach, which is how far it's going to be away if Nightmare is in TB range. Once there, under Skarre's feat and fully focused up, he's got 5 P+S 23 attacks that hit on 3's. Satyxis, depending on how far away Haley is from the Stormwall, can charge from outside TB range potentially and have an 11" walking threat range assuming you brought a raider captain. Even walking, a bunch of POW 14+3d6 attacks aren't to be ignored, as well as some random POW 13+3d6 attacks. The really nice thing is feedback. If Skarre rolls a 3+ on ritual sacrifice, she (and her Skarlock) can toss out 4 backlashes in 1 turn, which Haley needs 4 focus to stop. If she doesn't have that, each satyxis whip is hitting on 4's and doing 2 points to Haley for every damage roll, plus 1 each for the horns. Haley could very well die from feedback/backlash alone.

[bonesaww666]

I have no experience fighting pHaley but does she have to cast her spell every round or does it remain in play? Of its a cast every round issue Venethrax has some potential... Lamentation would near negate her focus every round...

Can't cast debuff's? Perfect he doesn't have any! Unfortunately he only really could use arc nodes to increase pressure on Haley by blasting her with Hellfire, and if she is shooting at Bone Jacks then they aren't shooting at your other more precious Helljacks. I think target saturation is the way to go, I don't think I would want a DJ personally as he already has a raging bulls-eye on him...

Also just inquiring, do weapon locks work as usual? I have no frame of reference...

[Auracco]

Keep in mind that Haley's army is going to have a limited damage output. If she cast temporal barrier she's down to 3 focus. If your caster has a debuff (parasite, curse of shadow, cripling's grasp) Haley will keep some focus for the arcane vortex, she might have arcane shield on herself (jr put arcane shield on the stormwall and Haley use her own arcane shield on her). This situation leaves her with very little focus to allocate, the stormwall will still have 2 pow 15 attack but with this perticular combination it won't have a lot of focus to boost.
Also keep in mind that if Haley wants to sit behind the stormwall she will activate after it has moved, meaning that the stormwall won't really benefit from the def debuff of temporal barrier or the feat. Rat 6 with very few focus to boost is not exactly reliable to hit important target reliably. If she does sit behind the stormwall her temporal barrier will cover up to 11 inches in front of the stormwall.
If Haley is not behind the stormwall to get the most out of the def debuff from temporal barrier it will mean that she's not hiding behind a big los blocker and thus more vulnerable to assassination.
There are still some casters who could outspell the potential arcane vortex. PGaspy can cast 2 parasite a turn or 4 on his feat turn, the scarlock can cast one more parasite (you will probably loose the scarlock on the next turn but it can be worth it to put parasite on the stormwall. The coven can cast a fair number of curse of shadow each turn and their feat will protect them very well against cygnar.
The withershadow combine can be used to remove arcane shield, it will probably be a one shot deal since they need to be fairly close to the stormwall for it to work, but with things like telekinesis from scaverous or the coven's feat it is not entirely out of the question.

[Kuwanger23]

Lambster, single wound infantry is not an option due to its pow 12 covering fire. The only ones that could withstand that are bane knights and they would only be able to walk 3". pGoreshades Mage Blight might get more love now though.

[Gamingdevil]

I actually do think the multiple Stormwalls will be the problem. One can be taken down by throwing everything you have at it, in a single turn. Sure this will incur some losses on you as well, but at least it's gone. I do think this is going to force us to always take at least one heavy, rather than just spam infantry.

I played a game against double Stormwalls on Friday, list was: off the top of my head:
pHaley
Stormwall
Stormwall
Squire
Journeyman
full Pressgangers
Bossuon Grogspar
Doc Killingsworth
2 Stormcallers

I'm not sure if that's everything, but that's the gist of it. The Pressgangers are basically fodder to keep you one more turn from the Stormwalls to wreak havoc. Mechanics are not needed because there is no way you are taking down 2 Stormwalls with Covering Fire and Disruption all over the place.

My list was:
eSkarre
Deathjack
Nightmare (preying a Stormwall)
Nightwretch
Skarlock
full Raiders with UA
Captain
min Blood Witches with UA
2 Pistol Wraiths
Gorman
Warwitch Siren

He didn't cast TB in turn one, because I wouldn't be in range yet anyway and just put up Arcane Shield on the Stormwalls, ran everything forward. PG's were in front. 4 of my raiders could charge one of his Stormwalls with Desperate Pace, unfortunately my node was out of range, so couldn't put up another Backlash (didn't deploy it well). Not that it mattered because I failed to do any damage on the Stormwall (on average I shouldn't have been doing 1 damage with mini-feat, was just going for some quick damage on Haley). That's about the most important thing that happened that turn, apart from killing off some PG's with the remaining Raiders.
His turn he zapped some stuff, killed most of my raiders and failed to hit DJ with a Stormcaller (rolling 10 on his skill check), so it wasn't disrupted. My turn I feated, Nightmare walked up to his Stormwall and used Combo Strike, boosting the damage, putting 2 columns of damage on it. My Nightwretch tried to kill 2 PG's in front of the other Stormwall, but failed, because I had to walk through a Covering Fire and my opponent was lucky enough to shoot its head off. DJ eventually perditioned himself by killing a Stormcaller, but couldn't reach the Stormwall because the PG's were in the way, so he ate those instead. Gorman Black Oiled Nightmare's Stormwall and the Pistol Wraiths killed the other Stormcaller.
It wasn't looking too bad at this point, but I had made the mistake of not having focus on Skarre, 2 boosted lightning pods later and she was toast (doesn't target and is not an action nor ranged attack)

If I had focused Nightmare and DJ on 1 of the Stormwalls I probably would've taken it down the turn after the feat. The problem would be that I would still have to contend with the other one.
Warwitch Sirens are nice since they can at least clear the Disruption, on top of giving a focus. A boosted combo-strike is better than nothing

This is not to say double Stormwalls will be common, seeing as they are rather expensive and they do take up the majority of your list. But they are certainly viable and a real problem.

[AshenFang]

The feat: Everybody shoots twice. That's 4 power 15 shots going into some poor schuck off the stormwall and the gun mages have a whale of a time taking apart the single wound infantry.

The feat is NOT 'everybody shoots twice', the feat is everyone gets ONE additional attack, regardless of ROF, meaning each Stormwall gets one extra shot, having to pick one of it's four guns.

[AshenFang]

I actually do think the multiple Stormwalls will be the problem. One can be taken down by throwing everything you have at it, in a single turn. Sure this will incur some losses on you as well, but at least it's gone. I do think this is going to force us to always take at least one heavy, rather than just spam infantry.

I played a game against double Stormwalls on Friday, list was: off the top of my head:
pHaley
Stormwall
Stormwall
Squire
Journeyman
full Pressgangers
Bossuon Grogspar
Doc Killingsworth
2 Stormcallers

On the topic of multiple Colossals, I had been thinking about what happens to infantry machine once a Khador player tosses out two Conquests. That's 8 3" templates that can be each spaced out a tiny bit, lined across the board. Granted, only POW 6, but still a potentially scary thing to have to wade any amount of single wound infantry through.

[Lamoron]

On the topic of multiple Colossals, I had been thinking about what happens to infantry machine once a Khador player tosses out two Conquests.

Khador can't reliably stop our charges, and I'll take POW 6 hits on my ARM 15 Bane Thralls any day. Satyxis Raiders ignore it since it's blast damage, Blackbane's ignore it since it's not magical, cavalry and multiple-wound things might get their paint scratched but nothing serious. I don't really fear the Conquest at all actually...

[various]

Given the huge pain problems associaled wouldn't it be simpler to just go for the 'Caster kill in the scenario that you've outlined? Not trying to be a smart arse but surely just killing most 'Casters is the simplest option: they've got less damage, less armour, and if they'res chewing through their Focus then they either won't be able to camp as much or will have less for other things like defensive spells. The Colossals will take time to get used to (that's always an issue with any new unit) but i'm pretty certain that once they've been around for a while then we'll start to notice a pile of assorted interactions that weren't immediately apparent to us. Cryx tend to excel at assassinations and Colossals won't chage that, in fact they could well make it easier to do. Sure, they're big and can take a bucketload of damage but they are only one model, and a hugely expensive model at that, which means less pts for supporting it with other stuff and less models to protect their 'Caster. Unsupported models tend to die when they get ganged up on by several other units/'Jacks and less models on the board make their 'Caster harder to protect. Large chunks of our forces will very likely be destroyed in the process, but that's pretty common as it is so that's not a big surprise.

[Gamingdevil]

Not trying to be a smart arse but surely just killing most 'Casters is the simplest option: they've got less damage, less armour, and if they'res chewing through their Focus then they either won't be able to camp as much or will have less for other things like defensive spells. The Colossals will take time to get used to (that's always an issue with any new unit) but i'm pretty certain that once they've been around for a while then we'll start to notice a pile of assorted interactions that weren't immediately apparent to us.

You're absolutely right, they are new and will take some time to get used to and I'm sure we will find new and exciting ways to kill our opponent anyway. But assassinating the opposing caster isn't as easy as you make it sound. If they're hiding behind 1 Colossal, it's not that difficult to get a good angle on them, since they can never hide completely. But they're quite well hidden when there's two of the buggers, you also can't move them, slam them, place them or knock them down. So either you're going through them or around them, both options don't seem ideal at this time.

[BENDER]

That is a really good contribution GamingDevil. Most of the folks around my area will probably only run one due to their expense but if you have experience against a pair of them it's great to hear.

[Der Tod]

I would like to add something in that sort of debate not in terms of "ways to deal with the Stormwall" but rather "can the Cryx player be forced to come of with a special list tightened together in order to deal with this particular scenario"?
I mean, Cryx is pretty good in its range of troops so that it might break down to the point that one has a general list against everything and one special against pHaley + Stormwall.

I'd just like to raise the question if that is that likely in a tournament, steamroller tournament and sorts of.
We might even consider seeing it from the Cygnarian side ... is it worth for the Cygnar player to design a list like this?
Or are there many other factions besides Cryx, which haven't got a problem with some sort of arrangement at all ... because that would just make this cascade of thoughts here quite useless.

Lik,e to be fair ... if i think about a Snipe-Feat-Go-Ravyn-Ret list ... I might be able to kill the support with the MHSF or go for Haley after avoiding B13 in the first turn ... (theory and I am not experienced in tournament play but from the Retribution side it doesn't give me headaches that much)

[Drakor]

I think eShade tier could give this a run for its money, they can only throw out one beacon and I doubt they have enough templates to stop 30+ banes. Plus a phantom huntered levi will give hayley something to sweat about.

[various]

i'm not saying that assassinating the 'Caster is easy but it is likely to be easier than trying to chew through 56 damage boxes at armour twenty or so. A Colossal is big but it can only do so much, and it certainly can't be everywhere at once. What i meant was that with so many points tied up in one (or two) models it gives us a serious numerical advantage which allows us to outmanouver the enemy (something that we are already good at doing) which could (probably a key word here) make it easier to organise an assassination run on the 'Caster controlling it. Some of our 'Casters are better suited to pulling this off than others: a direct melee assassination is likely to be tricky but a magic assassination via an Arc-Node is possibly less difficult to organise. i honestly think that coming up against multiple Colossals in one game is something that most people won't have to worry about a great deal, sure it will happen (like it did to you) but i think that most people just won't be able to afford the financial cost. Most of the tournaments around tend to be fifty pts max, and sinking 38pts into two models is likely to produce a very unbalanced force that will have a variety of weaknesses that can be exploited (once we get over the initial shock of coming up against the Colossals, working out how to deal with them, and the changes to the opponents force composition which results). The reality is that some 'Casters will be better at running Colossals than others (the pHaley example springs to mind), with Cryx there is already a great deal of excitement over the Witch Coven running the Kraken, and it'll be the same for the other Factions. The other alternative is to start using our own Colosslals to deal with the opponents as they are likely to have many of the problems that we have with theirs.

[SpiderBite]

@ derTod: yes, people make a list just for fighting Cryx all the time.

@ Drakor: a levi with eShade is going to have a difficult time hitting Haley's DEF16

@ various: its definitely more of attemptingto get the caster kill off than trying to kill the Stormwall. The Kraken will have a difficult time even scratching the Stormwall.

My current thoughts:
Nightmare with Coven
2xHarrowers with pDen

[Drakor]

On a side note had a game against one earlier, was playing termi against blaize. Feated with termi for 8 or so souls and next turn wandered over and smashed the thing to death for the cost of around 5 focus. It had arcane shield on it so I ran in a bane thrall and rust bombed it down to straight dice for termi.

[Scottl1]

On a side note had a game against one earlier, was playing termi against blaize. Feated with termi for 8 or so souls and next turn wandered over and smashed the thing to death for the cost of around 5 focus. It had arcane shield on it so I ran in a bane thrall and rust bombed it down to straight dice for termi.

Um isn't the sw arm 19? That with as would be 21 minus 4 for malediction and shroud so you wouldn't have straight dice. Prob wouldnt matter I was just curious since I played Terminus vs phaley and stormwall. lol

[SpiderBite]

i thought it was base ARM20?
ARM20 (+2 ArcShield -2 Dark Shroud, -2 Malediction, -2 Rust) = ARM16

for some reason I had never thought to simply apply Terminus to the problem. . . .
damn. another reason to quit avoiding him.

[Scottl1]

ARM19 (+2 AcShield -2 Dark Shroud, -2 Malediction, -2 Rust) = ARM15

for some reason I had never thought to simply apply Terminus to the problem. . . .
damn. another reason to quit avoiding him.

Terminus fixes most problems though if there is cover fire it'd be hard to get a thrall close enough.. Maybe BLT but thrall? eh.. Gorman would be a bit hard too since his range is only 6 in. But Terminus and a fully loaded dj, seether etc can wreck house.

[SpiderBite]

Gorman's range is 14" (ignoring clouds, SPD6, +6RNG +2 double powder ration) with +2 to your rust/blackoil attack and rerolling dir/dis from Artillerist. . . i never bring him without his buddy Doug.
Still, 12" range isnt too difficult either.

with enough thralls, one's gonna get through.

[Gamingdevil]

i thought it was base ARM20?
ARM20 (+2 ArcShield -2 Dark Shroud, -2 Malediction, -2 Rust) = ARM16

It's base 19, but Arcane Shield adds 3.

[BulletProofGandhi]

Would people who have been having success with Terminus in this regard mind sharing their general army composition/tactics? A friend of mine tried an infantry heavy list using Terminus, 2 mcthrall units with necrosurgeons, a bane thrall death star, raiders + ua, going up against pHaley, a Stormwall, a storm strider, atgm+ua with 2 marshall'd hunters, and then the requisite support like jr, squire, and Arlan. He told me his army got torn apart before it could even do anything and he felt that Terminus wasn't really the answer. I'm a bit skeptical about this though, as he's pretty new to mk2, so tactics might have had a hand in it, and because people note that they often have success with Terminus against an anti cryx caster like pHaley.

[various]

Came up against the dreaded pHaley Stormwall combo in the 35 pt tournament I played in today and it was no where near as scary as people are making out. Rather than obsessing about it i wrecked everything else in my opponents army and then went for the scenario win. The Stormwall just couldn't do enough to get its pts back, nor could it contest the objectives spread out. By the end there was only pHaley, a Squire, and a Stormwall. Sure I lost models but won the game which is what the aim is. So I guess that's another way of coping with Colossals: go for the scenario win rather than trying to destroy it.

[Lamoron]

Could you put up the lists you were playing?

[various]

It was a pretty general list: pAsphyxious, Deathripper, Nightwretch, Reaper, Slayer, min Banes+UA, min Bloodgorgers, WSC, and a Skarlock. Was only a 35 pt tournament so o question the wisdom of sinking half the pts into one model but my opponent had just got it and was dying to try it out. Basically it just couldn't kill enough stuff and couldn't get to everywhere it was needed. i took a decent amount of losses (about half my force) but by the end my opponent only had pHaley (with two thirds health) the Stormwall, and a Squire. Killing the pods the Stormwall launches is a must: once they start triangulating with the Storm(unsure of rest of the name) Solo's it can be a problem. The restricted fire arcs on Colossals can also work in your favour as it often had to risk exposing it's rear to get all its weapons to fire. my opponent was an experienced Cygnar player (has been using them since mk1) so he normally knows what he's doing.

[SjoerdH]

I played a game against double Stormwalls on Friday, list was: off the top of my head:
pHaley
Stormwall
Stormwall
Squire
Journeyman
full Pressgangers
Bossuon Grogspar
Doc Killingsworth
2 Stormcallers

For a tournament I played against an identical list today. I brought epic Denny. It was one list tourney only, scenario was incursion.
It was a nightmare. I barely knew what to do against it. In then end I tore op one storm wall with my banes and nightmare, but I lived with 1 point remaining. I couldn't get to Haley and taking out the storm walls was a pain.

The storm smits became high priotity targets. They deal a lot of damage being able to triangulate safely.

Jacks and armor piecing are the answer I guess. I would like to attack the thing with some ripjaws and more decent jacks someday .

[West996]

I've always wanted to try the Pskare and double HellDiver list. I think it would work doubly so against this perfect storm type list. Fill the rest of your points with the usual infantry machine to weather the storm as you get your HellDiver's into play. Bring Nightmare or DJ and as soon as Haley has to move out of position or be jumped by the HellDivers you can charge the Colossal.

Otherwise he is going to get caught by the HellDivers sooner or later.

[Scotty]

A well played Morty list could get it done, she might feel safe behind her colossal buddys untill that scavenger comes flying right over the top of them and hell drivers from beneath.

[Sheer_Falacy]

A well played Morty list could get it done, she might feel safe behind her colossal buddys untill that scavenger comes flying right over the top of them and hell drivers from beneath.

But the scavenger would have to be almost base to base with the colossal to get over it, which would mean starting 7 or so inches away from it given overrun. That's awfully close for them to have ended their turn without shooting it or disrupting it.

[2LiveIs2Die]

A well played Morty list could get it done, she might feel safe behind her colossal buddys untill that scavenger comes flying right over the top of them and hell drivers from beneath.

Pods with boosted damage will not only disrupt it but will probably do substantial damage.

[Gamingdevil]

For a tournament I played against an identical list today.

It was the same list, because we were playing the same person

I agree about the Storm Smiths, especially with 2 Storm Walls. He can drop 2 pods in his turn, triangulating immediately, he couldn't care less if you killed the pods, he'll just drop them again where he needs them. Killing the Storm Smiths asap is the only answer you have, even if that still leaves you with the Pods.

Again, I don't see any problem with 1 Storm Wall, it's 2 that are monstrous. Of course your opponent is investing a huge amount of points in both of them, but they are very hard to deal with. I'm sure we'll learn by experience in time and then it will probably become less common to take 2, just like what happened with the Striders.

[Palmer_v1]

Fought one in a 25 point Highlander tournament Saturday. He had pHaley, Stormwall, a squire, and a min Gun Mage unit(i think). I was using eSkarre, Raider Captain, Min Raiders+UA, Deathjack, Ripjaw, and a Defiler.

There were some obstructions in the middle of the field, but it was mostly open otherwise. He went first and put Arcane Shield on stormwall, and ran everything else. I put Death Ward on DJ, and ran everything else up, trying to hide the satyxis from his gun mages. He advanced, did some kind of feat/spell that let him shoot extra, and was able to clear everything but the Satyxis captain with his gunmages. Stormwall itself put down two covering fire templates, and shot Deathjack a few times, pinging him for a couple damage each time, but no systems lost. He also dropped a pod just in front of DJ, since I was just far enough away to not get one behind me. She also did temporal barrier this turn.

I loaded up Deathjack, advanced the defiler on one side, missed everything with the spray, then used it to arc Perdition into a gun mage, killing him. Moved DJ around the blocking pod, and within 6 inches of Stormwall. Arced another perdition and did the same for the Ripjaw. Ripjaw advanced and vicelocked, staying in the stormwall's left arc only. DJ advanced, arm locked, then bought 4 attacks. I was hitting on anything but snake eyes, and damaging at dice -4, and rolled kinda average, so plinked him for around 10 damage total. eSkarre also feated and targetted Haley, Skarre, Dj, and the two arc nodes. The raider captain advanced and shot at one of the gun mages but missed.

His turn, Stormwall breaks the arm lock, but can't attack anybody, gun mages rape the raider captain, phaley puts up temporal barrier and camps the rest.

DJ arm locks and punches 4 times again. Starting to destroy systems in his left arc now. Ripjaw does armor piercing attack, but is dice -3, and I rolled crappy. Defiler tries to spray more people, mostly misses, but I use him to arc Backlash onto Stormwall. pHaley was hiding behind a wall a fair distance away at this point. The only thing in Stormwall's right arc at this point is my defiler.

This is the turn that lost him the game. Rather than load up stormwall to try and crush Deathjack, he spends a few focus shooting the defiler. The Gun Mages get some boost from Haley, rather than casting Temporal barrier, and she camps on what's left. Thanks to cover though, Skarre only gets hit once, but it hurts. She's down to like 5 boxes at the end of this turn. He also let AS drop from Stormwall this turn so he had more to camp or give out.

Because he didn't do Temporal Barrier, I'm able to dump my focus in DJ and the ripjaw, and run behind some building, directly away from the gun mages and phaley, and still in Stormwalls left arc. If he had kept TB up, I couldn't have retreated far enough to be safe, and the gun mages would have finished her. I smack SW 4 more times with DJ, also doing 4 points to haley thanks to backlash, and finish his left arc at some point. Then the Ripjaw activates and gets the activation of a lifetime. 1 Focus on the little champ, he bites, hits, and without AS, I'm even dice. Boost that ****, and roll boxcars. The ripjaw, in a single activation, does 18 points of damage to the Stormwall, which is actually enough to kill it the rest of the way.

The rest of the game was just clean up after that. Skarre was able to stay hidden behind buildings while Deathjack walked around and cleaned up. The Satyxis did nothing but die horrible deaths, the defiler mostly arced, the ripjaw was epic, Deathjack is Deathjack, and Skarre played hide and seek.

[eKraye]

Fought one in a 25 point Highlander tournament Saturday. He had pHaley, Stormwall, a squire, and a min Gun Mage unit(i think). I was using eSkarre, Raider Captain, Min Raiders+UA, Deathjack, Ripjaw, and a Defiler.

There were some obstructions in the middle of the field, but it was mostly open otherwise. He went first and put Arcane Shield on stormwall, and ran everything else. I put Death Ward on DJ, and ran everything else up, trying to hide the satyxis from his gun mages. He advanced, did some kind of feat/spell that let him shoot extra, and was able to clear everything but the Satyxis captain with his gunmages. Stormwall itself put down two covering fire templates, and shot Deathjack a few times, pinging him for a couple damage each time, but no systems lost. He also dropped a pod just in front of DJ, since I was just far enough away to not get one behind me. She also did temporal barrier this turn.

I loaded up Deathjack, advanced the defiler on one side, missed everything with the spray, then used it to arc Perdition into a gun mage, killing him. Moved DJ around the blocking pod, and within 6 inches of Stormwall. Arced another perdition and did the same for the Ripjaw. Ripjaw advanced and vicelocked, staying in the stormwall's left arc only. DJ advanced, arm locked, then bought 4 attacks. I was hitting on anything but snake eyes, and damaging at dice -4, and rolled kinda average, so plinked him for around 10 damage total. eSkarre also feated and targetted Haley, Skarre, Dj, and the two arc nodes. The raider captain advanced and shot at one of the gun mages but missed.

His turn, Stormwall breaks the arm lock, but can't attack anybody, gun mages rape the raider captain, phaley puts up temporal barrier and camps the rest.

DJ arm locks and punches 4 times again. Starting to destroy systems in his left arc now. Ripjaw does armor piercing attack, but is dice -3, and I rolled crappy. Defiler tries to spray more people, mostly misses, but I use him to arc Backlash onto Stormwall. pHaley was hiding behind a wall a fair distance away at this point. The only thing in Stormwall's right arc at this point is my defiler.

This is the turn that lost him the game. Rather than load up stormwall to try and crush Deathjack, he spends a few focus shooting the defiler. The Gun Mages get some boost from Haley, rather than casting Temporal barrier, and she camps on what's left. Thanks to cover though, Skarre only gets hit once, but it hurts. She's down to like 5 boxes at the end of this turn. He also let AS drop from Stormwall this turn so he had more to camp or give out.

Because he didn't do Temporal Barrier, I'm able to dump my focus in DJ and the ripjaw, and run behind some building, directly away from the gun mages and phaley, and still in Stormwalls left arc. If he had kept TB up, I couldn't have retreated far enough to be safe, and the gun mages would have finished her. I smack SW 4 more times with DJ, also doing 4 points to haley thanks to backlash, and finish his left arc at some point. Then the Ripjaw activates and gets the activation of a lifetime. 1 Focus on the little champ, he bites, hits, and without AS, I'm even dice. Boost that ****, and roll boxcars. The ripjaw, in a single activation, does 18 points of damage to the Stormwall, which is actually enough to kill it the rest of the way.

The rest of the game was just clean up after that. Skarre was able to stay hidden behind buildings while Deathjack walked around and cleaned up. The Satyxis did nothing but die horrible deaths, the defiler mostly arced, the ripjaw was epic, Deathjack is Deathjack, and Skarre played hide and seek.

As long as we agree I played a derpy first game I'm no longer angry about this loss lol.

[Palmer_v1]

As long as we agree I played a derpy first game I'm no longer angry about this loss lol.

Haha, I didn't realize you frequented these boards! Yeah, you definitely should have had me. If you had played pHaley a bit closer, you probably could have used her to finish off Skarre in those last 2 turns with the Gunmages, assuming you also kept TB up. Letting me run away behind that building was probably the turning point. It was definitely an entertaining game, and I'm glad I got a chance to try the arm locking shenanigans. I may also have to upgrade all my arc nodes to Ripjaws for that armor piercing attack.

[Eradanphx]

I watched Khador vs the Stormwall with n3mo on Saturday. It seemed very easy for him to make the Stormwall irrelevant. Spread out, spd 5 doesn't allow the stormwall to cover much ground, and the assassination vectors upon up quickly.