New Player being out shot by Menoth Vanquishers....HELP!

[trueblue]

Hey there Cygnar forum, recently I made the mistake of starting cygnar as my first warmachine faction against a friend who plays Harbinger of menoth. I just can't see any way to even close enough to kill Harbinger without having my entire army slaughtered by his Vanquishers and their damn flame belcher. 10 focus and a massive control range? Explain to me how this is fair? And don't say she is fragile, she has more than enough focus to camp some and a big enough control range to sit in terrain. As if that wasn't enough, she gets Awe for a effective 2+ to defense. Upkeeps spells like arcane shield? Purification lol.

Any infantry advancing across the field, even with cover or concealment get either killed by the massive 4 inch aoe that is apparently even more accurate than cygnar thanks to choir. It doesn't even matter if I take cover with Foxhole because the AUTO will just kill them next turn! Everyone tells me to get stormblades so I can kill heavy jacks, but at armor 15 I honestly doubt they will even make it across the field even spread out and arcane shielded.
The only solution I can think of is to field more jacks that are basically inferior in every way compared to choired menoth jacks.

Our last game was the worst. His vanquishers basically sat in cover with a Vassal and turtled the whole game, while I missed the majority of siege's boosted attack shots.

ATGM and black 13th were useless...missing the majority of shots against cover, while Harby's feat just stopped them from advancing, letting the Vanquishers lolauto gun get in range. Thunderbolt shots are cute, but sorry pushing back something isnt the same as actually killing it. Black 13th managed to kill the choir then died afterward to Harby's lolauto hit Cataclysm. Defense 20 harbinger while in cover with means I never even got a chance to scratch her....


Ironclad lost his movement and could not engage them before getting bogged down by infantry. Maybe he would have made a difference, but with the infantry tarpit I doubt it.
Defender managed a lucky kill shot against one Vanquisher though....but by then Harbinger was able to end the game with a Cataclysm to siege's face.

This is what I have now.
Siege / Epic haley /Strykers(I swap around a bit)
Defender
Ironclad
Lancer
Charger
Full Precursor Knights
ATGM
Black 13th
Squire
Gorman De Wulfe
Journeyman warcaster

I used to think this faction was actually competitive and that we played at most with a small disadvantage against other factions.....Boy was I wrong.
The only thing keeping me from switching out now is the fact that I have spent almost 200 bucks on this damn faction.

[TKaz84]

First thing to do is to take a deep breath and relax. Harbinger is very challenging to play against, particularly with a limited collection to choose from. Other matchups will not be this painful

[Skorne]

http://privateerpressforums.com/show...nger-of-menoth Here is a similar question asked to Legion players. I think that if you read their answers you could find cygnar methods to the same problem. (For instance, they suggest blast damage vs errants and peppering Harbinger with shots as often as you can. Two things cygnar can do really well.)

Edit: Also, on eStryker. If you can get her to throw out her focus for casting spells and you're sure of your range, go for it. His 17 inch range is extremely potent. His only problem is to hit though, and you're saying they always camp terrain. It sounded like she's always in terrain and you're always not... I think you could work on your general strategy a little bit, because if this is always an issue you should try and work it out first.

[Joasht]

*Scratch head* Thats a very negative post.

Well. I'll admit that Harby is probably the pinnacle of PoM's competitive game (along with pSeverius and possibly eFeora), so its understandable to suffer, but its not an "OMG this faction sucks" situation.
1) The faction is competitive.

2) Your list is one of the problems.
a) You have two heavies from the sound of it; and neither Siege or eHaley or the Strykers want two heavies.

b) You don't have enough Mercenaries. Throw out your heavy, and put some Mercs in. Like, for example, Boomhowlers, and just run. Harby's feat? Then stop running for a turn, then resume running on the next. That one unit should easily absorb the double Vanquisher + Vassal without completely dying. Their role is cannon fodder, but the opponent will take a while to kill them if you throw Arcane Shield on them.

Be mindful of your damage output though. Boomhowlers have poor damage output, so if you take them with ATGMs and a single heavy your entire army will lack hitting power at 35 points and below, so you'd need to probably swap out the ATGMs with something else.

c) The reason you are having issues is also in part because you actually rely on Cygnar infantry, and plan to rely on Cygnar infantry. Stormblades are average at best; I don't even play them anymore, which is a pity since I started the faction because of them. Regardless, if you want to win, you need to play the right things.

d) Take Eiryss. People usually like eEiryss, but pEiryss sometimes works against PoM as an anti-Covenant model, and the full-round disruptor of pEiryss works better against Harby IMO.

3) Your game sounds weird; its like his entire army has Cover. Whats up with that?

Off the top of my head I can't give much more advice, perhaps come with some lists (both yours and his) and a more detailed description of your games, and it will be possible.

[trueblue]

How do I even close enough to shoot or even hit the harbinger if she hides behind a screen or terrain lol ?
And about the cover thing, there was a small area of the table with 2 patches of rough terrain. He basically shifted this whole force there and sat it out the whole game. Defender had better range than the vanquishers, but not enough to avoid him simply advancing and shooting.

I had thought of bringing boomhowlers in, but against his 2 heavies I would only have a single defender/ironclad left to threaten 2 heavies.

[ThunderClad]

I think you should ask the Menoth player for some tips to go against them. See what he hates to go against, what would work well against them. If they just laugh at you or snub you or something, you don't want to be playing them anyways.

-Trenchers w/ smoke screen. Granted, they will still suffer blast damage and will still be set on fire, it's at least them and not the rest of your army. Granted, it's an expensive way to go but it's just an idea. Don't be scared to proxy models for different lists you wanna try too. eStryker+Runewood for instance is a great combo, "Oh you're in cover? Pathfinder eStryker to the rescue!"

Just don't let this discourage you too much, like the others have said Harbinger is a difficult caster to go against for sure! Good luck!

[Joasht]

How do I even close enough to shoot or even hit the harbinger if she hides behind a screen or terrain lol ?
And about the cover thing, there was a small area of the table with 2 patches of rough terrain. He basically shifted this whole force there and sat it out the whole game.

I never said "hit the Harbinger". While its always a good idea to hit a caster if you have enough lethal force, your priority here is to close the gap so that you don't get shot to death. Casters like eStryker and Siege can potentially end the game if he gets careless/overconfident with Harbinger (e.g. moving her forward to join the fight) particularly after she's used some focus. But again, you need to balance your damage output and make sure that you have at least some means to kill a heavy. For example, you could always take Forge Guard and run them in as the second wave. ARM 21 with Defensive Line and Arcane Shield, backed up with Rhupert chanting Tough on them.

By the way, rough terrain doesn't generally give cover. You might have played wrong there.

[trueblue]

I never said "hit the Harbinger". While its always a good idea to hit a caster if you have enough lethal force, your priority here is to close the gap so that you don't get shot to death. Casters like eStryker and Siege can potentially end the game if he gets careless/overconfident with Harbinger (e.g. moving her forward to join the fight) particularly after she's used some focus. But again, you need to balance your damage output and make sure that you have at least some means to kill a heavy. For example, you could always take Forge Guard and run them in as the second wave. ARM 21 with Defensive Line and Arcane Shield, backed up with Rhupert chanting Tough on them.

By the way, rough terrain doesn't generally give cover. You might have played wrong there.

Wait what??? Oh my friend is so dead.....
We been either playing boards with zero terrain or heavy terrain boards the whole time! Without the terrain the jacks form an wall and basically march forwards owning everything lol

[Lanz]

You might also want to consider playing a scenario. It generally forces players out of their hiding holes. Harbinger can still generally sit back, but the entire force won't be able to just hang back and wait for you.

As for Harbinger herself. There are several things to be aware of;

1) The more spells she has to cast, the less focus she has to work with, much less camp. Sure, she can purify Arcane Shield, but that means she has to spend her focus to cast purification. She can easily burn half her focus every tun just on Purification and Crusader's Call.

2) Martyrdom is both a trick and a trap. Hammer her infantry and force her to either lose them, or take damage to save them. She won't be able to keep it up indefinitely.

In the end, Harbinger is a very tricky caster to play, and relies on a very fragile balance of many things going on. Overwhelm one area (force her to burn focus, force her to martyr), and she starts to lose ground. That said, she's one of Protectorate's best casters, and for good reason, and Vanquishers are amazing 'jacks too. If you're facing down a bunch of vanquishers, you're in for a rough ride no matter how you slice it. They have virtually no weak point outside of being rather slow, which is, again, a good reason to be playing scenario.

[Ysthrall]

I concur with the above comments, Protectorate is a hard match-up for Cygnar, especially when just starting, and Harbinger is one of their most annoying to face. It's not just you, she really is an over-powered Mary-Sue.

That said, a couple of points...

Harby hiding behind a screen? Of what, heavy jacks? Because unless they're bas to base, you'll have some sort of LOS, and if they're anything smaller, or not quite touching, you can hit her with something. Heck, if she is, eHaley should be able to Dominate or TK a warjack to walk out of line and leave a nice LOS. Or Siege could Foxhole one.

Ironclad bogged down by infantry. Remember his Tremor attack (costs no focus, but is boostable). In combo with almost any ranged unit (those ATGM will do nicely), that'll shoot up most infantry.

You've got a solid force there, but it might not do too well vs Harby. Some suggestions:

Storm Lances might be a good thing to proxy, high threat range, solid armour, and 5 hits each. Not likely to die from fire effects, and quite capable of killing most infantry, light jacks, and for that matter Harby if they can reach her. And at 16" run, they'll make a very threatening and effective flanking force. Put Arcane Shield on them from the journeyman, and laugh if Harby wastes focus on purification.

Stormsmith Stormcallers. Cheap at 3 in a blister, cheap at a point each, and a credible threat. They ignore DEF completely (cover, what cover), can hit jacks under safe passage (and a disrupted jack is, as I'm sure you've found out, much less scary), and can pick off choir members like mad. Spread them out, and if your opponent spends a turn shooting them up, thats a turn he's wasted killing 3 points. Given the ARM of Harbinger, and her difficulty in hiding behind stuff, these guys can also put a bit of damage on her.

Hunter. With Blur or something similar on it, this sniper jack can lurk on a flank and shoot up Harby. Operates at massive distance, is RAT 7 base. If his choir sing safe passage, shoot the choir or Harby. If they sing something else, shoot the jacks or Harby. If they run to engage the thing, walk away and continue.

Don't give up, you're starting on a very steep learning curve there. If you aren't having fun losing repeatedly to Harby, request a different caster. If your opponent refuses to do anything but sneer at you and deploy Harby, request a different opponent.

For further tips and assistance, what does your opponent usually field?

[PG_Erwin Ravenheart]

While I agree that Harbinger is a very good caster there's a few things I want to point out to you that I feel might have been overlooked.

Her control range is huge... But her ability Awe is command range (10") not control range. Add to that that it only affects living models and your defenders and hunters (yes armour piercing will work agains her) should have not that much trouble hitting her. That large base is one of her biggest weaknesses in that it's nearly impossible to screen.

Another tactic when he's forcing you to play the ranged game is hitting his key solos like the vassal (if you can get to him), Vilmon and any other solo he speaks fondly of. Hammer them and force him to Martyrdom, hopefully getting him down quite a bit.

Having a way to strip that focus or forcing him to spend focus on Purification and Cataclysm are a good way to lower his defences. As I see it he's spending focus on his Vanquishers... Purification is 3 and Cataclysm is 4. Even if it costs you the Black 13th and for instance a Blur upkeep , you'll be ahead of the game when you can line up a shot on him next turn with your defenders and hunters.

She dies to a stiff breeze when low on focus. Also get eEiryss (I know pEiryss might be more effective against some lists, but eEiryss is just more versatile in general), if he wants to get down and dirty it's time to even the odds.

Download Steamroller 2012 and play scenarios. Nothing is worse then playing a non-scenario game against a gunline.

Good luck!

[trueblue]

Thanks for the replies guys....what my opponent usually brings is the choir vassal and 2 vanquishers as standard, with a unit of daughters of the flame and paladins to threaten the flank and block charge lanes respectively.
What im looking for is some models that can tank the hits while moving in. One wound infantry seems really terrible since even boomhowlers die to auto fire and the precursor knights i tried out all died on turn 3 without making an impact

[PG_viggo3000]

Siege is a realy god caster against harby. He ****s upp passage with explosivo. He can kill alot of menoth inf with ground pounder and his feat are great against jacks. Hang on with cygnar. I had problems with them at firs but now they are my most competative faction (i also play legion, cryx and menoth). And the only Merc units i own is Ogryn assult corp and Ayana holt.

[Joasht]

Siege is a realy god caster against harby. He ****s upp passage with explosivo. He can kill alot of menoth inf with ground pounder and his feat are great against jacks. Hang on with cygnar. I had problems with them at firs but now they are my most competative faction (i also play legion, cryx and menoth).

I agree with what is quoted in this box. Siege is actually exceptionally good against PoM as a whole since he has answers to some of the issues you'd usually face against PoM; he can bring high POW magical attacks via Explosivo'ed bazooka shots/Defender/Hunter/Storm Strider/etc. and Ground Pounder or Foxhole gives you the ability to potentially harm the PoM backfield i.e. support; something not many find easy to do. (Storm Strider is awesome by the way....jumping lightning to Choir/Vassals is hillarious).

Also, I happen to enjoy Cygnar a lot. I have a far better win:loss ratio with Cygnar than my other factions, although admittedly its difficult to extrapolate my success since meta's and players vary massively.

[PellaxVeritas]

So far I have found, Estryker and apply liberally works wonders, if you can get your hands on pcaine or ecaine they can kill his infantry/force martyr, keep your infantry spread out.. a 4 inch aoe will only hit models that are exactly 1.5 inches away from another small based model.. try and eye ball it, it is good practice to learn which armies you spread for the aoes to minimize losses and which ones you go b2b to block LoS/defensive buffs etc. Once you get rid of his army harby will have no choice to be quite frank, Cygnar is great at removing support models with surgical precision with multiple models. It is a steep learning curve just keep at it.

[leo_neil316]

[QUOTE=Joasht;15058612) Your list is one of the problems.
a) You have two heavies from the sound of it; and neither Siege or eHaley or the Strykers want two heavies.

b) You don't have enough Mercenaries. Throw out your heavy, and put some Mercs in. Like, for example, Boomhowlers, and just run. Harby's feat? Then stop running for a turn, then resume running on the next. That one unit should easily absorb the double Vanquisher + Vassal without completely dying. Their role is cannon fodder, but the opponent will take a while to kill them if you throw Arcane Shield on them.
[/QUOTE]

I like your more simple world where arcane shield helps stop the protectorate killing models, I really do.

Especially against harby.

Still, boomhowler's 4+ tough will do most of the work there anyway.

And as for point (a). Really? eHaley needs two heavies most of the time, they're her kill vector, lose your heavies and you lose most of your ability to do anything except cast deceleration and hope the infantry can pull it off. pStryker can run multiple heavies just fine. Multiple melee heavies is a bit trickier, but stormclads and rowdy pick up the slack where you need it there. Rowdy and a Defender works just fine with him all the time. eStryker loves heavies, again especially stormclads and Rowdy, but also hammersmiths. Being able to buff a wall of jacks with one cast of positive charge lets you hammer through any opposition, and with the squire and no other pressing need for his focus except the odd lolwot damage charge he can take stormblades and strangewayes and give a bonded Rowdy 4 focus, cast positive charge and have two 2 focus stormclads back him up, all at +2 to attack and damage rolls. Not to mention a free 3" move and attack after. Don't forget Lanyssa either!

If your opponent is trying to brick it up, Darth can hammer a wedge of heavy warjacks through them better than anyone else.


And siege loves two defenders. Two defenders and siege will do 17 damage a round to a vanquisher, while in a foxhole, while siege is sitting pretty on ARM 20 from arcane shield. And they'll do it all day long. Move up, bombard the gits until they come out to fight you, then pop feat and remind them why that's a terrible idea.

[ShockwaveIIC]

While I agree that Harbinger is a very good caster there's a few things I want to point out to you that I feel might have been overlooked.

Her control range is huge... But her ability Awe is command range (10") not control range. Add to that that it only affects living models and your defenders and hunters (yes armour piercing will work agains her) should have not that much trouble hitting her. That large base is one of her biggest weaknesses in that it's nearly impossible to screen.

Another tactic when he's forcing you to play the ranged game is hitting his key solos like the vassal (if you can get to him), Vilmon and any other solo he speaks fondly of. Hammer them and force him to Martyrdom, hopefully getting him down quite a bit.

Having a way to strip that focus or forcing him to spend focus on Purification and Cataclysm are a good way to lower his defences. As I see it he's spending focus on his Vanquishers... Purification is 3 and Cataclysm is 4. Even if it costs you the Black 13th and for instance a Blur upkeep , you'll be ahead of the game when you can line up a shot on him next turn with your defenders and hunters.

She dies to a stiff breeze when low on focus. Also get eEiryss (I know pEiryss might be more effective against some lists, but eEiryss is just more versatile in general), if he wants to get down and dirty it's time to even the odds.

Download Steamroller 2012 and play scenarios. Nothing is worse then playing a non-scenario game against a gunline.

Good luck!

Listen to this man

Also, as someone else has mentioned, Hunters love dancing with Harbinger. They hit at hard against her, and also help keep the Vanquisher honest.

The only other things I can add. Martyrdom is also Command range as well. I have seen people play it wrong hence why I mention it.

[Craaag]

Sounds strange like you guys are playing with way too much terrain or something. There is actually guidelines in the rulebook for making a fair table. Use scenarios to get him to have to at least come out of the trees. You guys do realize that he doesn't get cover from rough terrain? Only hiding behind obstructions and obstacles and in wreck markers provide that as far a I know, the rest is just concealment and that is provided from trees and such. Rough terrain outside of forests actually just slows you down.

Seige and Defenders are good.

In my last game my friend used a Defender jack marshalled by the gun mages and had Arlan give it a focus point and Seige cast explosivo on it. That was a neat trick. Still the real money was on the Feat turn. That thing wrecked my Redeemer pretty much in 1 solid hit and it didn't cost seige 1 Focus point. A boost from the Jack marshal to ensure the hit and 1 from Arlan for damage against half ARM redeemer and a brutal crit = wreck marker redeemer. The feat also subsequently took out a Vanquishers cortex pretty much a whole unit of Vengers and the majority of my errants.

Word of caution. He lost that game though. Brought Seige a little too far forward to catch all my jacks in the Feat. Should have focused on Vanquisher instead of Redeemer as even without a cortex it can still lob AOE lol autofire's of doom. Warcasters don't like to burn.

Use those Defenders and hunters to take those vanquishers out.

His list is built to take out Infantry. So as suggested earlier your infantry needs to be minimal or more durable like Stormlances.

[Lanz]

Seige's Foxhole is a pretty big deal, actually. I'd forgotten about that. From a Protectorate perspective, Harbinger can have some solid screens to obscure direct line of sight to shoot her, but foxhole is one of the few effects that can get rid of the screen and nothing can be done about it (short of taking the Scourge of Heresy anyways).

[leo_neil316]

but foxhole is one of the few effects that can get rid of the screen and nothing can be done about it (short of taking the Scourge of Heresy anyways).

Uh, Scourge of Heresy can't do jack to stop foxhole. He's got arcane vortex, same as pHaley. You can only negate a spell targeting a model within 3" of him. Foxhole doesn't target models.

[Joasht]

I like your more simple world where arcane shield helps stop the protectorate killing models, I really do.

Especially against harby.

Still, boomhowler's 4+ tough will do most of the work there anyway.

And as for point (a). Really? eHaley needs two heavies most of the time, they're her kill vector, lose your heavies and you lose most of your ability to do anything except cast deceleration and hope the infantry can pull it off.

I like your simple world where math doesn't matter, and POW 9 Blasts and POW 12 Fire kills ARM 16 just as easily as ARM 19's, I really do.

Does it make them invincible? Surely not. But it ups the probability of them not dying, and thats part of the plan. Read how I said they are meant to die, and how its harder to kill them with Arcane Shield. Its logical. I never alluded to it making them "practically impossible to kill"; just that it would "take more time to kill them".

As for your point on the multiple warjacks, by reading in between the lines of the OP, it appears like the OP is playing a game in the 25-35 point range; given that all the information I have to go by his list is "Siege, Ironclad, Defender, ATGMs and Black 13th" (which is nicely 25 points); I wouldn't take two heavies at that kind of point range. At 50 points, sure, go right ahead.

[trueblue]

Seige's Foxhole is a pretty big deal, actually. I'd forgotten about that. From a Protectorate perspective, Harbinger can have some solid screens to obscure direct line of sight to shoot her, but foxhole is one of the few effects that can get rid of the screen and nothing can be done about it (short of taking the Scourge of Heresy anyways).

About Foxhole...I find it frustrating how it only prevents blast damage and not the auto fire from Vanq shots.

[Joasht]

About Foxhole...I find it frustrating how it only prevents blast damage and not the auto fire from Vanq shots.

You can't have everything unfortunately. Autofire happens to be one of those things that decreases the defensive value of the Foxhole, but Lanz was talking about using it offensively. By the way, you never did clarify what points you were playing at.

[Dolganar]

If he wants a shooting war, give him one. Put the defender up with arcane shield on it, arm 21, us eHaley. Give the defender 3 focus, cast Temporal acceleration and dead eye on it. You now have two boosted to hit, boosted damage rng 16, pow 15 shots. Let him come to you. Bond the Ironclad, if anything, gets within 14.5 inches, the Ironclad can deal with it. I would recommend getting a stormclad for this, but an Ironclad isnt bad.

[Joasht]

If he wants a shooting war, give him one. Put the defender up with arcane shield on it, arm 21, us eHaley. Give the defender 3 focus, cast Temporal acceleration and dead eye on it. You now have two boosted to hit, boosted damage rng 16, pow 15 shots. Let him come to you. Bond the Ironclad, if anything, gets within 14.5 inches, the Ironclad can deal with it. I would recommend getting a stormclad for this, but an Ironclad isnt bad.

Alternatively you could Arcane Shield the Ironclad for ARM 21; dice minus 5 against their Hymn of Battle'd Vanquisher shots; dice minus 7 if are using Deceleration. Not to mention DEF 14 against shooting. If he still shoots your Ironclad then thats great (as he's not shooting your infantry), if he doesn't shoot your Ironclad then thats great too.

I assume he has some form of infantry in his Harby list; depending on the number and type, ATGMs and Black 13th should do well against them, although admittedly it might not necessarily be enough to wipe them out.

[Joasht]

I think his point was that you forgot Purification.

Thats a good point...it did slip my mind. Forcing her to spend 3 Focus a turn at zero expense to you, if the buff came from Jr., is not the best outcome, but still a decent proposition, especially given that she might be cutting herself.

[jlav]

Wow, I'm just... in shock how you would walk toward a line of guns with minimal range, and take turn after turn of punishment and blame the faction for why you lost the game...

Okay, that aside, remember that a jackmarshalled defender with the gun mage captain has a 26" threat range... And you can marshal 2 of them... And Seige's foxhole eliminates any intervening models, while he camps enough to take any retaliation.

Vaquishers are a good jack, but don't threaten heavies too badly, and are you playing cataclysm correctly? It is useless unless she's close to her target. (pow 10 at 10")

As another tactic to be aware of, run your unit in a staggered formation, and run one model in melee with the vanquisher. Preferably something with reach like a stormguard or a pikeman. Leave the rest of the unit back a little, maybe even leave 2 in melee range to make sure it soaks up all of his melee attacks, or tempt him to use thresher (then he's likely to use focus). Then he must either back up, suffering a free strike, to shoot at 1 target, or deal with his melee. If he's successful or not, who cares, now you can charge with the rest of the unit and put the hurt on. Now since you've drawn focus off of Harbi, you'll have an easier time popping her in the face with a defender or hunter.

The rough terrain granting cover thing? Sorry but that's kind of funny. What could be funnier is if that terrain was in her deployment...

[skunk]

Have you thought of using kara sloan at all? She will doing a good job at helping your army hit if he does decide to turtle . Her and reinholdt with your current set up could be potent.

[Sanguinary Dan]

And don't forget that we have access to several Snipe casters. And a large unit of Long Gunners with snipe buffed to by Lady Ayanna is quite capable of ruining any PoM plan. After all a pair of RNG18, RAT17(RAT5+10 men+aiming), POW20, shots are going to make even Harby nervous. Even without Snipe Siege's Feat will let that unit cripple, or even kill, a Vanquisher in a single blast.

[ShockwaveIIC]

The rough terrain granting cover thing? Sorry but that's kind of funny. What could be funnier is if that terrain was in her deployment...

The only thing I can think of granting cover is her Tier list, where she can gain walls.

[leo_neil316]

Vaquishers are a good jack, but don't threaten heavies too badly, and are you playing cataclysm correctly? It is useless unless she's close to her target. (pow 10 at 10")

Vanquishers with choir and vassal get two shots a turn at RAT 7 POW 16, one boosted damage.

That'll gut our heavies pretty easy unless you've got centurions or buffs that can survive purification.

Thats a good point...it did slip my mind. Forcing her to spend 3 Focus a turn at zero expense to you, if the buff came from Jr., is not the best outcome, but still a decent proposition, especially given that she might be cutting herself.

Assuming of course that you have no other upkeeps running she might want rid of and she doesn't have eEyriss, sure. Most likely with eHaley 'cause deceleration is, as you pointed out, wicked awesome cool. Especially since it protects jacks too!

As to boomhowlers. Yeah, those POW 9 blast damage rolls kill boomhowlers on 8's without arcane shield. That's about 40% of the time. The POW 16 direct hits kill automatically. Sure you get the 4+ tough.

But the fire kills on a 5 and you only get a 5+ tough check against that. And dying on a 5 manages to be a big problem for most units. Even tough ones.

[Snuggly Buffalo]

If you're having trouble with the accuracy of your shots, you might try investing in a unit of Rangers. Keep most of the unit back while one of them runs up to give the rest of your army a +2 bonus on your ranged attacks each turn. Additionally, try 'jack marshalling a defender with the Gun Mages and have Arlan Strangewayes around to give it a focus. If you run this with Haley, put deadeye on the Defender, and boost your attack. RAT 6 + 4d6 will hit Harbinger behind cover slightly more than 50% of the time. If you're taking aim and have a Ranger bonus, you've now got a very good chance of hitting Harbinger even behind cover. To top it off, with 4d6 dice you have a good chance of getting a crit; use the Gun Mages' Critical Brutal, and boost the damage roll, and you've got a good chance of hitting Harbinger for 15+4d6 damage.

Can't see Harbinger because she's out of LOS? Go ahead and shoot one of her 'jacks instead then (you might skip Deadeye, in that case, unless you REALLY want to knock your target down at range, which will sometimes be the case). Choir preventing you from shooting the 'jacks? That means the 'jacks are vulnerable to spells, so move an arc node up and use Domination and either kill a choir member with his own 'jack or walk it closer to your forces so you can charge it with a back strike bonus. If you get it within walking distance of your ironclad, walk up behind it and weapon lock it, then beat on it with your hammer. Next turn, even if he breaks the weapon lock, he can't advance to turn and face you, and his 'jack becomes worthless.

[Juggernautie]

Apply a Stormwall with Jr/Arcane Sheild and a little I can hit with magic, Lady Ayanna. Phaley with the ha, you can not charge me. And then let Stormwall lay waist to the heavy jacks, cover fire to slow the infantry.

[trueblue]

Hey everyone I just wanted to say I managed a caster kill earlier using 2 hunters and a defender on siege! Feat turn left his Avatar with only his weapon which some how managed to severely damage my defender, but the hunters managed to squeeze off a shot through the crack in the wall!

[phreaker187]

Nice Job. Next time there is a side where the terrain is setup unfairly (like all his army can get cover) if you win the starting roll opt to go second and pick the good side.

If your friend likes to turtle in the trees you can play that game too. If you guys aren't playing scenario then stand in your DZ and pick off the daughters with ATGM when they come out. Nobody can out turtle Cygnar. Doesn't make a fun game, but hopefully your opponent learns their lesson.

[Stephan Garmark]

eHaley, gunmages, eEiryss and two hunters is the anwer. Haley Can just take over the vans and turn them around to put some of that hurt on harby or his own army. If he makes them immune to magic, hit them with 3 hunter shots instead. Never feat first, of you can get harbys feat off first, you have a very potent weapon. Finally if he screens harby with the jacks, use tk to move them and hit her with Eiryss and hunters.

[Lanz]

Vaquishers are a good jack, but don't threaten heavies too badly, and are you playing cataclysm correctly? It is useless unless she's close to her target. (pow 10 at 10")

I regularly mangle khador heavies using Vanquisher shots, so this is mostly false. Two Vanquishers will take out half a heavy's boxes in a single turn unless it's packing some amazing armor. Warbeasts can shrug it off a bit better, but warjacks will easily lose a system or two to flame belcher fire before they get the chance to engage.

And it does sound like the OP is facing down more than one Vanquisher. 2 Vanqs and 2 Vassals is 4 POW 16s a turn. Against the typical cygnar heavy, that's only dice -2 for damage. That racks up boxes quickly.

Feat turn left his Avatar with only his weapon which some how managed to severely damage my defender,

The sword was intact? I'm suprised the Defender survived then. The Avatar has no cortex to damage, so you can't stop it from getting focus. It usually can wreck heavies even if the sword is busted, much less if the sword still works.

[jlav]

I regularly mangle khador heavies using Vanquisher shots, so this is mostly false. Two Vanquishers will take out half a heavy's boxes in a single turn unless it's packing some amazing armor. Warbeasts can shrug it off a bit better, but warjacks will easily lose a system or two to flame belcher fire before they get the chance to engage.

Wow, I must just be sucking my dice with my vanquisher then. My Menites thank you, I will be giving him a little more attention in the future.