whats up with cygnar...

[deademon]

getting awesome colossal's and battle engines? was there a gap of units or something they needed to have filled?

not a QQ, just sincerely curious. if you look at cryx's BE, its kinda bad(read why bother playing it). but cryx has some pretty heavy stuff, so is this another checks and balance?

im pretty ignorant on cygnar units, so i cant comment on how if they needed them or not.

[Northern Ronin]

Yes, there was. You'll notice most of Cygnar uses Mercs to fill their infantry gap, Stormwall fills in what they needed pretty well, while also giving them a good choice that can deal with heavies.

[Sheer_Falacy]

Yes, there was. You'll notice most of Cygnar uses Mercs to fill their infantry gap, Stormwall fills in what they needed pretty well, while also giving them a good choice that can deal with heavies.

So because Cygnar used mercs for infantry, they needed a better warjack?

Not necessarily inaccurate, but it sure sounds like the answer there is better infantry, or to accept that Cygnar can use those mercs for a reason.

[kolonelk]

I'd far prefer 'jacks better equipped to deal with infantry spam than more units. Death to infantrymachine!

[deademon]

I'd far prefer 'jacks better equipped to deal with infantry spam than more units. Death to infantrymachine!

but what if everyone started using jacks...then theyd need to counter them some how. i understand the infintrymachine thing, i just use arc nodes + units (im cryx) so im kind of with you on that, we need more variety. but as it stands right now, its not viable for most casters to run 3+ jacks with spells and then then focus for the jacks.

thanks for pointing out the cygnar + merc stuff.

[Sheer_Falacy]

I'd far prefer 'jacks better equipped to deal with infantry spam than more units. Death to infantrymachine!

If they're going to kill infantrymachine, they need to give the factions that rely on it better jacks or better jack support. Neither Khador nor Cryx want to run all that many jacks except with a few casters each.

[PG_Electric Seal]

There's so much theorymachine in all those threads, and really only maybe two dozen strongly negative people hating on their factions colossals in all the forums.

The whole 'infantrymachine' thing doesn't really exist anymore either. People play what they want, and if they want to play lots of infantry, they will do so regardless of the current groupthink. If they want to play jack heavy, they can do that many times over in any faction as well.

The stormwall is just one of those things that people can instantly wrap their head around, while the other colossals may take some experimentation to find their niche. The Judicator and Galleon look just as amazing to me, considering their factions respective buffs.

[kolonelk]

but what if everyone started using jacks...then theyd need to counter them some how. i understand the infintrymachine thing, i just use arc nodes + units (im cryx) so im kind of with you on that, we need more variety. but as it stands right now, its not viable for most casters to run 3+ jacks with spells and then then focus for the jacks.

I don't really get the Cryx jack hate. Slayers are fragile, but at 6pts they're not bad if you are the one getting the charge off. And I've used Reapers to great effect, especially with Morty or the Coven. Deathjack needs no mention of course Crabjacks I've had no experience with though.

[PG_Electric Seal]

but what if everyone started using jacks...then theyd need to counter them some how. i understand the infintrymachine thing, i just use arc nodes + units (im cryx) so im kind of with you on that, we need more variety. but as it stands right now, its not viable for most casters to run 3+ jacks with spells and then then focus for the jacks.

thanks for pointing out the cygnar + merc stuff.

Any Cryx caster, excluding maybe Terminus can run two heavies without any trouble, and usually have spells that work well on jacks (scything touch, pursuit, dark guidance, death ward, perdition, admonition, shadowmancer, infernal machine, most of mortenebra's spells, etc)

If you consider seethers, the deathjack, and warwitch sirens, you can run 3 heavies & an arcnode or two. Also, slayers are 6 points with mat 7. It's one of the best heavies in the game.

Cryx's general baseline of 7 focus for their casters is a great boon too.

[MathPasta]

I actualy feel pretty bad for Cygnar. The only amazing stuff they get has a 80+ price tag.

[kolonelk]

I actualy feel pretty bad for Cygnar. The only amazing stuff they get has a 80+ price tag.

The casters are mostly quite decent

[Harvester]

Any Cryx caster, excluding maybe Terminus can run two heavies without any trouble, and usually have spells that work well on jacks

I would not run pGoreshade with jacks either.. Would be rather bad

[Crate123]

Well the cygnarans were "complaining" quite a bit about the power of the faction so I guess that PP heard it and decided to help out.

[nicholas_342]

We've got 3 Cygnar players at our store. One doesn't run any mercs, the second brings Reinholdt with Kara Sloan, and the third will bring A&H every now and then. Not a whole lot of reliance on mercs there. Luckily, none of them have any intention of buying a colossal.

[Xarian]

Cygnar's BE is very straightforward - it's a walking lightning coil. It has nothing fancy, it just shoots things, and can allow other things to shoot better. It only 'powers up' if you shoot it and don't kill it (which is nice, but the opponent has control over it, so it's not that great). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to use it correctly, but neither does it have much that helps it very much (Nemo3's feat comes to mind here).

Cryx's BE is a mobile support piece/vanguard-type model. It's incredibly fast (for a BE) and hard to kill due to Incorporeal, and when it does get to you, it makes everything stronger. The cloud effects are nice and are very effective against certain types of armies (e.g. Cygnar). Given the chance to smash into some low DEF living models (lots of heavy infantry comes to mind), it is literally an unholy killing machine, able to wipe out every model within 2" of it in one turn. It becomes outright scary with a Scaverous tier list due to the AD and extra deploy range.

So, yeah, my opinion on the BE's is opposite of yours. But to answer your question, the primary reason for the BEs seems to have been 'fun'. All of them are weird and do something interesting. Retribution's BE looks like a giant 3-legged cricket, for example, and has super long-range crowd control which is pretty unique among all the factions.

[West996]

The StormWall is very strong. I am one of those who believe it may even be a little too strong. But not because it is better then the other Colossals, because of how much trouble in can cause certain factions, and even only then when more then one are fielded at the same time.

I think Cygnar did need what they got, both in the BE and in the Colossal. They are very unrepresented in tournament leaders, and even in my local meta our Cygnar player is probably the best player among us, but his Win/Loss ratio wouldn't tell you that.

I think that the cross faction comparison of Colossal and Gargantuan that is going on is kind of silly, and often flat our inaccurate.

People are comparing the stats and abilities of Colossals directly to each other. That has never worked well for any other model and it doesn't work now. We just had this discussion the PoM forum about the Judicator.

There is a reason why comparing a Crusader directly to a Slayer doesn't get you very far. Their stat cards may look similar when you put them beside each other, but they function very differently inside their own factions. Same goes for the Colossi.

If the Judicator and StormWall were both Cygnar Colossi then I would be saying the StormWall is better. Alas they are not. The Judicator supported by the insane support and denial that Menoth already brings to the table is a force to be reckoned with. You have this thing marching across the field immune to either spells or ranged attacks, along with the other immunity innate to Colossi (No KD, no distruption, no place effects), and you suddenly have a huge model with lots of guns that is very hard to remove or even damage.

That is only mentioning what the choir adds to the Judicator, and lets me honest most of you were bringing the choir anyway.

Most of the concerns about the StormWall are caster specific. Junior can add armor yes, but that doesn't get the StormWall up the field unmolested.

[Baenre]

I don't really get the Cryx jack hate. Slayers are fragile, but at 6pts they're not bad if you are the one getting the charge off. And I've used Reapers to great effect, especially with Morty or the Coven. Deathjack needs no mention of course Crabjacks I've had no experience with though.

It because there is nothing wrong with cryx jacks. They do the job they were designed for and so much more. There is nothing wrong with the storm wall overall except for maybe the auto hitting part of it.

[PG_Electric Seal]

I would not run pGoreshade with jacks either.. Would be rather bad

Shadowmancer is a great spell, and so is Soul Gate. He's fine with a bunch of cheap jacks, or two heavy hitters. Having an effective +2 to damage for the battlegroup is quite good.

[Defenstrator]

I honestly think that all the people who think the Stormwall is the best are going to get a shock when they see what the Galleon is capable of. I play both factions and I really can't decide who got more. Also the Galleon, like the Stormwall seems to have certain warcasters that just about bust that thing. Bart went from being nobody to being the Galleon man overnight.

Let me put it this way. The Galleon walks up to something tough with Hot Shot on it. It gets 2d3 attacks with its POW 13 guns and all the damage rolls are boosted. It finishes with its Harpoon, again with a boosted damage roll. Then, becuase of Drag it gets a free melee attack, at which point it can buy more melee attacks. So that's 2d3 POW 13s and a POW 15 all with boosted damage followed by four POW 21 attacks. And that's without the Ragman nearby to add +2 to all of those numbers.

And when it's done Bart casts Batten Down the Hatches (assuming Hot Shot was upkept by Wishnailer) and you've got an ARM 22 colossal that can't even have it's buff knocked off.

I think that can only be described as really good.

[TheNoob]

I'm not a Cryx player, but from my interactions with them and lookin over the stats of their models, i always got the impression, it wasnt that the jacks were bad, but that their infantry was just OP (no, im not getting into the debate about bane knights, thralls and raiders).
It just seems to me that people look at the Slayer, which is a great jack; fast, accurate, good base damage/amount of attacks, then look at what slightly more points in infantry can get you and decide to go in that direction (since it keeps the focus on the caster, they can do their actions unsupported by the warcaster, etc)

I personally think a lot of the Cygnar hate-talk was two things a) their book was created to make a shooty heavy army, which is fine in theory, but is currently an up-hill battle against the meta, which is high ARM, high DEF models and b) a little bit exaggerated by a vocal minority

Didnt someone recently win a major tourney with two units of long gunners? which are supposed to be battling trenchers as the most units in the game?

[West996]

I honestly think that all the people who think the Stormwall is the best are going to get a shock when they see what the Galleon is capable of. I play both factions and I really can't decide who got more. Also the Galleon, like the Stormwall seems to have certain warcasters that just about bust that thing. Bart went from being nobody to being the Galleon man overnight.

Let me put it this way. The Galleon walks up to something tough with Hot Shot on it. It gets 2d3 attacks with its POW 13 guns and all the damage rolls are boosted. It finishes with its Harpoon, again with a boosted damage roll. Then, becuase of Drag it gets a free melee attack, at which point it can buy more melee attacks. So that's 2d3 POW 13s and a POW 15 all with boosted damage followed by four POW 21 attacks. And that's without the Ragman nearby to add +2 to all of those numbers.

And when it's done Bart casts Batten Down the Hatches (assuming Hot Shot was upkept by Wishnailer) and you've got an ARM 22 colossal that can't even have it's buff knocked off.

I think that can only be described as really good.

No one denies that the Galleon is a great Colossal. Especially considering what it does for the Merc faction it is just great.

The thing about the Stormwall is its power increases exponentially when it is fielded in pairs. If you field a second Galleon, you just get a second Colossal. When you field a second StormWall you can throw out two pods a turn for auto-hitting pow 10's and then you can triangulate with those pods with Stormsmiths. Causing a whole ton of damage even before considering the rest of the model.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not scared of one Storm Wall, I'm scared of two.

[MathPasta]

Say, Im confused about trianglulation:

When can it be used? Because the text on the card makes it sound like it can only be used when you launch a pod.

[Defenstrator]

Also, on reflection, it's not like Cygnar completely made out like a bandit in Wrath. That was the same book that had the fail that is Triumph, and Constance Blaize, the great Merc warcaster that will also work for Cygnar.

[West996]

Say, Im confused about trianglulation:

When can it be used? Because the text on the card makes it sound like it can only be used when you launch a pod.

I can't only explain it in general terms because I am not a cygnar player and I don't have the cards or the books.

When the Colossal finishes his movement it can launch a pod up to 10". It then draws a line from the pod to the Colossal and auto-hits everything in its path with a pow 10.

Where triangulation comes in, is from the solo's called Storm Smiths. Before colossals they would use each other as 'pods' and they could draw a line between each other for the same auto hitting line.

If you 'triangulated' it meant drawing a line between 3 points or 3 storm smiths and you draw a line connecting each smith and you produce more damage. The smiths were not that dangerous before because they are very fragile and getting them in position was a challenge.

Now with the lightning pods, smiths can use them as if they were another smith to draw lighting lines too. This allows you to leave your smith in relative safety and draw lines to these lightning pods causing auto-hitting damage.

With two Colossals dropping two pods a turn, each smith can use each of these pods to get their 3 lines drawn. 2-3 smiths, 2 pods a turn, you can see how the damage compounds. And that is only one ability the Storm Wall brings to the table, the Storm Smiths are a single point each.

Correct or elaborate on this for anyone that knows the specific details and I'll edit my post if I have posted anything in error.

[Baaltharus]

The reason Cryx jacks are bad is because they have pillow fisted. Why take PS16 when you can have your infantry doing so much more damage and without using up your focus. Your infantry also tend to last longer than your Jacks with their laughable armour and low boxes. And yes, you can get them stronger through the likes of dark shroud but then your probably paying points for infantry which do a better job overall job anyway. Additionally, if you take a Slayer as an example, every one one of its systems (which are poorly covered by a low box count) are necessary for it to run efficiently (both arms for combi-strike), movement for defence and charging (one of the few advantages of Cryx jacks), and cortex to do anything useful. A simple defender shot can often knock out the systems on a slayer from across the board for example).

Additionally, the Cryx lights are all excellent and make far better points investments than any of the heavies (bar characters). The simple fact that the majority of our heavies run at PS 16 compared to the other factions PS 18-20 is just too huge a point to ignore.

On top of this, if the colossals do become a staple of list building, it'll be heavy hitting jacks/beasts that people will need to use to make sure they get destroyed, something which Cryx is lacking presently. Between, covering fires, armour buffs, being made un-chargable and so on, infantry will lack the hitting power to bring down a well defended Colossal. Sure Cryx can lock them down with a variety of nonsense but killing them will be another matter entirely.

This in turn could well mean a power shift in terms of list building though I'm not yet sure if Cryx will have the jack based hitting power (outside DJ) to break their reliance on their infantry.

[Defenstrator]

Well Dark Shroud is still easy to get off. You just have to run a guy within 2" of the Colossal. If you have a warcaster with and ARM debuff like Parasite that's -5 right there, putting an Arcane Shielded Stormwall down to ARM 17. If you can't put the hurt on that there's a problem. Also, Death Chill screws with these guys unbelievably. You want to move into the zone but can't becuase some three point solo just paralyzed your colossal. It's bad enough when they do it to my heavies, let alone something worth 19 points.

I'm not saying there won't be a shift in list building, but Cryx has a lot of good tools at their disposal. They don't strike one as having less options than other factions.

[deademon]

Also, on reflection, it's not like Cygnar completely made out like a bandit in Wrath. That was the same book that had the fail that is Triumph, and Constance Blaize, the great Merc warcaster that will also work for Cygnar.

umm minuteman?

ok, so back on topic, i may have helped it derail. lets try and bring it back...

cygnar getting awesome stuff. so far it seems that people say they needed it. while other factions just got support BEs, cygnar actually got a combat CE. which makes it seem more powerful then it actually is. which makes sense.

thanks for the heads up.

[Baaltharus]

You need to be within 1/2" unless your throwing away Tartarus. So the enemy has to screen its Colossal or stop people getting near in on their terms (Haley, who also stops that nasty Parasite is Queen of this). Course you'd still have to get round those covering fire templates. I'd also imagine the likes of Pistol Wraiths won't last beyond a turn what with ATGM and the return fire after having shot.

So locking them down with PWs and WWs is still awesome but turning them to scrap will be a whole lot different.

[Scottl1]

Well Dark Shroud is still easy to get off. You just have to run a guy within 2" of the Colossal. If you have a warcaster with and ARM debuff like Parasite that's -5 right there, putting an Arcane Shielded Stormwall down to ARM 17. If you can't put the hurt on that there's a problem. Also, Death Chill screws with these guys unbelievably. You want to move into the zone but can't becuase some three point solo just paralyzed you colossal. It's bad enough when they do it to my heavies, let alone something worth 19 points.

I'm not sayinf there won't be a shift in list building, but Cryx has a lot of good tools at their disposal. They don't strike one as having less options than other factions.

Dark Shroud only works within melee range. So if you use a bane thrall he has to be right next to it. Only 2 inch dark shrouds are WE and Tartarus.

[Crate123]

I honestly think that all the people who think the Stormwall is the best are going to get a shock when they see what the Galleon is capable of. I play both factions and I really can't decide who got more. Also the Galleon, like the Stormwall seems to have certain warcasters that just about bust that thing. Bart went from being nobody to being the Galleon man overnight.

Let me put it this way. The Galleon walks up to something tough with Hot Shot on it. It gets 2d3 attacks with its POW 13 guns and all the damage rolls are boosted. It finishes with its Harpoon, again with a boosted damage roll. Then, becuase of Drag it gets a free melee attack, at which point it can buy more melee attacks. So that's 2d3 POW 13s and a POW 15 all with boosted damage followed by four POW 21 attacks. And that's without the Ragman nearby to add +2 to all of those numbers.

And when it's done Bart casts Batten Down the Hatches (assuming Hot Shot was upkept by Wishnailer) and you've got an ARM 22 colossal that can't even have it's buff knocked off.

I think that can only be described as really good.

And yes that is powerful, but not as powerful as a stormwall with pHaley behind it.
While I cant dispel your batten down the hatches, I can debuff your galleon which I cant do with a stormwall with pHaley behind it, also I can actually charge your galleon with a bunch of weaponmaster models which I cant do with against a stormwall (and I cant even do it with jacks or medium inf against pHaley). So its just very different. Galleon is going to be powerful and tough, not a huge piece of "you can not do anything here, move along". (and yes I assume pHaley is going to be the caster because thats worst case scenario, just like Bart is worst case with Galleon).

[Defenstrator]

Dark Shroud only works within melee range. So if you use a bane thrall he has to be right next to it. Only 2 inch dark shrouds are WE and Tartarus.

True, true, I had forgotten. Still, running up a Bane isn't that hard on a base that big.

And yes Haley can camp focus to defend against debuff spells while casting TB, if she doesn't want to upkeep Arcane Shield or power warjacks. I'm pretty sure I'd like to boost or buy extra attacks once in a while, or maybe cast Chain Lightning. If you're able to prevent Haley from doing anything except spamming TB every turn then be happy. She's not being used to her full potential and neither are her colossals.

[Frozen Yakman]

Also, on reflection, it's not like Cygnar completely made out like a bandit in Wrath. That was the same book that had the fail that is Triumph, and Constance Blaize, the great Merc warcaster that will also work for Cygnar.

Blaize isn't terrible, she's just currently better as a Cygnar 2 (aka Highborn) caster rather than a Cygnar 1 caster. She has potential to get better as more infantry are added to the faction. Triumph is just bad, no argument. Also Gallant is really only good when paired with Blaize, but that seemed to be a theme amongst the new character jacks in Wrath.

However, the Avenger, the Minuteman, Murdoch, Runewood, and Stormstrider were either just generally good (Avenger, Murdoch, Stormstrider) or game changing (Minuteman, Runewood) for Cygnar. I think it justified to say Cygnar made out quite well in Wrath.

[lastspartacus]

Honestly, I feel its a big push to get their star faction winning more tournaments and possibly encourage better players to the faction to accomplish that goal.

I predict Cygnar has graduated from the ranged faction or faction of pow10s to the faction of huge bases.

[Tossy]

Honestly, I feel its a big push to get their star faction winning more tournaments and possibly encourage better players to the faction to accomplish that goal.

I predict Cygnar has graduated from the ranged faction or faction of pow10s to the faction of huge bases.

Must not compare to... GW and space marines

[John of Arc]

Must not compare to... GW and space marines

My first army was Khador instead of Cygnar because I was too worried that they were PP's Ultramarines equivalent.

[RidetheLightning]

Helping to get back on topic, I'm a Cygnar player myself and while I will defend any unit/model in my chosen faction with my dying breath, I think the Strider and Stormwall did go a long way to improve the overall capabilities of Cygnar. I did feel that we got the better deal when it came to BE and Colossal models and I've had more success fielding other models when I've used them. Do I feel PP did this to balance the faction? No. I like to think it was done because Cygnar IMO, more than any other faction is about all the models working together to create the solution to win. Both the Strider and Stormwall just emphasize this.

[Lanz]

With how much cygnar complains, you'd think there must be something wrong. Hopefully this silences them for a while, but it's doubtful.

I never really saw much wrong with Cygnar stuff, other than a lot of it was rather middle-of-the-road, and generally didn't have as much reliance on special rules and match-ups to give it strength.

That said, the Stormwall isn't as allmighty as people are making it sound. Right now all the colossals are pretty awesome, and the Stormwall isn't any better than its higher cost implies. It's got it's strengths, and it's got its flaws, and people will start to figure it out eventually.

The Battle Engines are a little less even, but I'd still argue that the Storm Strider is, at best, tied with the Vessel of Menoth and the Throne of Everblight. All it really has going for it right now that pushes it into the 'wow' category is the special Haley theme list, which could just as easily happen to all the other battle engines.

[Sardonic Artery]

I dig Cygnar, but I think with colossals, Cygnar, more than most factions, needed a big beatstick of their own. If I can't disrupt, push or knockdown something in Cygnar, it takes away a lot of my avenues of dealing with something. Pre-colossals, I just nerfed your keys models until capping the caster.

[Grimmnar]

It is pure and simple. Cygnar are the poster children of Warmachine. Teacher's pet and all. :-)

Grimm

[Da-Rock]

Having run the new Big boys with a variety of Casters for Cygnar I can honestly say that both the Stormwall and Striders enhance every caster in a new way.

pHaley is a simple one, but look at others, Darius w/ Stormwall and two Striders or two Stormwalls = gives Darius something I never really had with him before - "High Damage Shooting & Infantry killing in single packages".

Other factions will get their angles too when they put their Colossals on the board.

Unfortunately in reading a lot of the scenarios people point out about how they will destroy them this way or how their Colossal can do this, this and this...................the details they give are always: (one Colossal standing alone in the center of the board against EVERYTHING that the opponent has to kill it). Just as an example - Dragging is harder then it sounds as the board is usually littered with units. If your high priority target is out front and alone then you probably already won and didn't need Drag in the first place.

In my playing with the Stormwall I have seen it dominate more often then not, but at the same time I have seen it dropped in a turn. The common denominator - all of my plans and schemes that I had laid out before playing failed badly due to the game not following the flow I needed to put together a Ultra move etc. This will be the same for all Colossals. To add to this, I really dislike the feeling I get when I drop massive damage on the Colossal and other jacks while at the same time having to leave my prime stuff open for counter attack and then watch Darius repair all the damage! Kraye then had to watch his Stormclad fly back 8" from a Power Strike smashing a Minuteman, Boomhowler grunt and another Heavy!

Cygnar needed the power increase as its supposed to be this great nation and has been spanked consistently for years!