Caine's Character Sentinel

[Calibre]

The Centurion is fairly costed and has good but not over the top abilities. The problem is that those abilities for the cost make it so much better than a normal Centurion that you would never see it again. Everyone would just take the character.

You can't have character warjacks like that. They can be better but they can't outright replace the original. Even with Rowdy, people still take Ironclads. Even with Thorn people still take Lancers.

I have to disagree with this. I find it rather humorous that PP staff and Mods would judge a Character jacks such as Darius' Centurion as over the top. The only reason why this character jack could possibly be over the top, is when a player fields it with for example eHaley, or in other words having a jack which can potentially charge through difficult ground 15"/17" by adding a couple of extra solo's, and by that stage you are soooo over-investing in a one hit wonder that you are severely hampering your army's potential to with all comers. And simply because of this reason our not so skilled warcasters, ie Darius has to pay the price, simply because with him its okay-ish but with other super/prime caster its over the top. Has anyone noted the type of character warjacks that Cygnar has received since MK1, they were really game changing compared to what some other factions got :P

Secondly I feel the above statement is absolutely wrong, a lot of players on tournament level play Ol'Rowdy or Thorn in there thematic lists (Haley/Stryker), and by this time there is just no way you can disregard the pure power difference or toolkit you get with characters, and the reason why it might appear that players are playing their non-character counterpart is because that sometimes you just don't have enough points to field them or that they aren't providing you with the specific toolkit that your looking for, so I don't think character jacks would replace non-character counterparts unless you do something like Caine's Sentinel, 5pts which on average out performs the hunter, is just a steal, and a auto include right there, but for the others its simply "Hmmmmm do I really need the character...or can I spend the point for it better elsewhere?".

As for the Darius' Centurion being over the top....lets look at what constitute a character warjack, 1. MAT/RAT increase, 2. ARM/POW increase, what did we get?....pathfinder for a slow moving jack and only on charges, that's extremely situational, in fact so much so that not in any of the games that I ever played can I remember a case of "Dang it, if only I had pathfinder on a charge", but I can't even remember how many times I wished I had the ability to be able so see through this small forest, so I can charge through it or +1 MAT so that I have a little average dice change to hit high def caster. I can't tell you how many times I required a 11/12 on 3d6 to hit and just flops it, that never happens on a Stormclad, but I don't like to always field a Stormclad, sometimes I would like to take the charge with a Centurion but I don't want to invest in knockdown options costing 7+ points.

Therefore I say the right way Darius' Centurion should have been crafted was to give it +1 MAT, +1 ARM, that way is equal to normal Centurion with AS on it (without having the need to take the crutch) when buffed with fortify, and if it survives(cause we all know, that pillow fisted Titans and Carniveans, leaves Centurions to be repaired...right), it has an improved change to get the hit/kill on the caster.

[Dan from Chicago]

Sustained attack is crazy good. On a POW 18 reach weapon? Seriously crazy good.

[Defenstrator]

Rowdy far and away outshines a normal ironclad. It's bad design in it's current state. For those 2 points Rowdy is better 100% of the time if available. Any list with an ironclad can find 2 points, and is better with rowdy. This is just play true, I'm sorry friends.

I don't disagree, but I don't think it's a bad thing. To be blunt the Ironclad isn't a heavy jack. It's a medium jack that can deal damage like a heavy but disolves when actual force is concentrated on it. If Rowdy was worse I would just take more Stormclads, not Ironclads.

[leo_neil316]

It honestly feels like the Caine Sentinel is this PPS playtest's version of "if you don't call this out as BS, we're going to disregard any input you have".

I figured the devout that automatically gets damage transfered to it was a bigger one tbh. +26 boxes for your caster?

[PG_rynar]

No all are nececary broken or underpowerd. Some are right on the monney, it's your mission to find out where the truth lies by playtesting
No as for caine's sentinel... No way it's gona fly 10" is it's biggest downside... Wait I play cygnar... with snipe available?....

[CeltKhan]

Sustained attack is crazy good. On a POW 18 reach weapon? Seriously crazy good.

Supercharged Sustained Attack Reach POW 18. Nemo is why we'll never get full Sustained Attack on a heavy warjack.

[Calibre]

Supercharged Sustained Attack Reach POW 18. Nemo is why we'll never get full Sustained Attack on a heavy warjack.

Not arguing but merely stating the obvious, due to a prime caster taking an jack ability to the point where it becomes broken good (not that he needs it anyway), implies we have to automatically skip out on having such nice goodies on our not so good casters (Constance, Kara, Siege and Darius), not even mentioning the other primes where is doesn't synergy very well with.

[Mod_Redphantasm]

Supercharged Sustained Attack Reach POW 18. Nemo is why we'll never get full Sustained Attack on a heavy warjack.

The Thunderhead has sustained attack on both ranged and melee. But it's also 12 points without reach.

Again, I'm not saying Darius's Centurion is overpowered. I'm saying that at it's current design it flat out replaces a regular Centurion because it is better but not significantly more expensive. Part of being a quality play tester is knowing when models are super good or super bad. Another part is knowing when a model out-right invalidates or overwrites an existing model.

[Crate123]

I (like a lot of others I suspect) didnt notice that it wasnt critical sustained attack. I say return it to the old crit. effect instead of true sustained attack and its a fine jack.

[Calibre]

I'm still saying a lot of people are running around with their hands in their hair screaming broken, but have yet to field this Character in an actual game. I've played it in a few experimental games and on the extreme case you've got a jack with 10" pathfinder threat range. My general feel of it is that's its mediocre, its not something even worth replacing my Stormclads for as you still end up with this:

1). If you assume you need 6/7 to hit on heavies you are on average going to hit anyway, the only benefit sustain gives you is that you don't have to roll to hit with the very rare chance of missing. Beyond this you still need to invest 2(if you charged)/ 3(if in melee) focus on the Centurion before it becomes profitable, assuming you roll average to good on damage (which won't one turn a heavy). So the benefit from sustain does not make such a huge impact when facing other heavies, which if you ask me...it was designed to do.

2) Sustain grants you no benefit what so ever vs. infantry unless they are multi-wounded which generally does not boasts high def in any-case.

3) In the very rare situation that you are able to engage caster/warlock in melee, your opponent has either made an stupid mistake, or a calculated risk. In this scenario we encounter 2 distinct situations.
A) We have a high def caster such as Ashlynn which will require you to roll 12+ on 3d6, so miss here is still a miss, and hitting will most likely result in instant death...so sustained isn't doing anything for us
B) We have a high arm caster such as Terminus/Butcher camping on 25(average arm). Hitting here is situational better as a hit is not always guaranteed, and we can benefit from not needing to roll to hit each time. It does make some sense to have sustained as high arm casters will generally try to seek out and destroy or tie up things which puts them at risk. On this high value of arm only exceptional rolls will result in damage with a fairly low chance to kill, even with 3 focus.

On the other case where you caught your opponent off-guard you deserve the win, jack/attrition casters are not designed to be able to pull of assassinations and your opponent needs to learn not to put his caster out in the open and play chicken with a jack caster. On a game I play tested this jack using pNemo and Avenger combo I found out the hard way investing in such a huge point cost to be able to get a reliable caster kill just opens you so much to the inability to deal with things like as debuffs, ethereal, stealth.

Will Darius' Centurion be an auto include or replace Centurion....well not more so than being replaced by Stormclads, 1 point more you get -1 arm, +1mat, +1spd, +1 pow, +1 focus (if you got an accumulator you are not going to waste it by not including at least the unit or a solo). All the stats on this cheap jack seems very appealing (I must admit the 5" move feels a bit better)...but what do you intend to do with it? You have to play it with a plan, and even then its not out shining its normal version. After I had a chance of play testing it a bit the general feeling I get is that I can either play the Stormclad with better synergy or the normal roadblock Centurion and opt to include stormcaller or reinholt or even cover 1 pt cost for Ryssyll, which I feel benefits an overall heavy list better.

[Halfhoot]

1). If you assume you need 6/7 to hit on heavies you are on average going to hit anyway, the only benefit sustain gives you is that you don't have to roll to hit with the very rare chance of missing. Beyond this you still need to invest 2(if you charged)/ 3(if in melee) focus on the Centurion before it becomes profitable, assuming you roll average to good on damage (which won't one turn a heavy). So the benefit from sustain does not make such a huge impact when facing other heavies, which if you ask me...it was designed to do.

If you have a 58% chance to hit... you also have a 42% chance to miss... 42% is not what I would call "very rare".

I also missed the change from crit sustain to full sustain. Yea I'd take it back down to crit and leave it at point cost. I think that does push it over the 1 point increase.

Also maybe I'm just used to playing Agamemnon... but being a character does not to me invalidate the previous incarnations because I often see multiples of a jack type on the table. If you were going to take two Centurions and all...

Granted I would pick up this character immediately whereas I still do not own a Centurion... but that's mainly because of my extreme burning desire to have a pathfinding melee jack in Cygnar outside of Kraye whom I do not play.

[iksander]

I figured the devout that automatically gets damage transfered to it was a bigger one tbh. +26 boxes for your caster?

I love that thing, and yeah its worse. I actually love all the retarded things in the playtest. It's like goofing around with cheat codes or playing MK1 warmachine. Man I miss Mk1 Black 13th

[Centa]

Hunter	Minuteman	Caines Sentinel

*Do not post full stats on the forums

Averanged Damage output of these 3 jacks vs ARM 18 unbuffed:

Jack	0 FOC	1 FOC	2 FOC	3 FOC
Hunter	4	7,5	7,5	7,5
Minuteman	6	9,5	13	13
Sentinel	12	15,5	19	22,5

That shows, the Sentinel does way too much damage for his point cost. Sure it has less special rules then the other two, and can be shut down if something runs into melee with it. But still it does to much damage.
I would say reducing the Strafe to d3 and removing Shield Guard should be fine.
He would still do double the damage of a Hunter for 1 point less, but you have to spend 1 FOC more, and get less special rules, and less threatrange.
Maybe the RAT could be reduced to 6, but this wouldnt change much, with access to rangers.