Siege, the best of Cygnar

[yux]

I joined warmachine at the tail end of mark 1. Thus although spoiled by mk1 black 13th, I feel most at home with mark 2 rules.

I play over the top ranged armies, simply because warmachine tries so hard to stop me from doing so. In fact PCain mk1 was my hero just for the extra 7 inches he could slap on any unit.

I was heartbroken to see what mark 2 did to cygnars ranged capabilities, only to find the arcane gun mages rune shot rule, and thier new snipe ability.

It was like a fresh start, any cygnar caster now had access to snipe on a jack.

The top two canidates are obviously Ehaley and Caine

Ehaley allowes for a second "artillery" shot. and here feets trip up melee armies when they are on your doorstep

she also has such a large control area, you can generally premesure 18 inches.


But even she does not hold a candle to siege

first lets talk stats

He has 17 armor base, which is amazingly high for cygnar.

his range is 14 inches with power 14
or 14 (with squire), of shoot anything with a power 12
His foxhole protects the gun mages like nothing else in game, it shuts down menoth and khadors best *****ts aginst us, AOE, and its just funny when people try to block LOS with troops
explosovo makes defenders best artilery in game (that fire magic bullets of death)
mage site allows tatical advantage that scares retribution
and force hammer, is oh well you almost got in melee.
and his feat is just a game ender. cygnar alreay has great rat, we are just not allowed to boost damage
His feat breaks that rule, its disgustingly powerfull virtually anything but a heavy will be one shot by a defender.
He single handely undoes all the major flaws with ranged forces by himself (excluding ROF). I agree that he would be broken if given snipe, as is he is borderline.

I guess what Im saying is the new Has to be at least this shooty
this is the benchmark

[bouncymischa]

Even in Mk I, Siege was becoming my favored caster because he brought a powerful tookbox to the field. I could take my Trencher "grunts" army, and give them the armor-piercing capabilities they needed against armor, while they could handle light stuff by themselves.

Now Mk II has just made his toolbox even bigger. It's a shame Trenchers are a bit on the expensive side, but at least it mitigates any guilt I may feel for taking Siege with them.

[mrhuettel]

in mk 1, i liked siege, now: it has developed to a love...

a few advices from my gaming experience: take squire and reinholt - both are necessary to get the best out of brisbane.
jacks for him? defender and hunter! siege is highly focus-efficient and both jacks need little support for their shooting - an explosivo now and then, some focus to boost damage when necessary, that's it.
his synergies with either trenchers or long gunners is phenomenal - he keeps them from damage and as soon as it gets to popping his feat, they are a major threat in the game (double max long gunner cra on a khador jack with halved armour -shot 1- is to bring that thing down).
and: i can highly recommend siege in two-caster games, especially with pstryker and enemo as upkeep machines with snipe, arcane shield and blur or fail safe, forcefield, lightning shroud and polarity shield, respectively. they help out in siege's army lists by either buffing infantry to an almost disgusting level or take care of a lot of warjacks - both things that greatly support siege.

however, i'm hoping that sloan will be more on the surgical side of the casters - siege is a toolbox, caine is a one-man-army. i feel that we need someone with mediocre focus (let's say 5 to 6) but the ability to give our army precision in taking out enemy troops, jacks or casters. snipe, deadeye, deceleration, guided fire and something refreshingly new.

[phreaker187]

Siege is nice, but comparing him to eHaley is like comparing a Volkswagen to a Bentley.

eHaley is the queen of cygnar period. 8 Focus, beefs up jacks, best control feat in the game, protection from range, and dead eye.

Lets not forget TK + TA on a defender with gun mages can kill a caster in his deployment zone as soon as you see a sliver of his base.

Not to take anything away from Siege, he's good, but he's not really in the same league as eHaley.

[dergliss]

From what I've heard, Siege, eCaine, and eHaley are all top tier in Cygnar. I've also heard that eHaley is the strongest out of these, but I didn't think that the gap was quite that large.

[yux]

First you can actually compare apples and oranges, It just requires context

Dont get me Wrong Ehaley is house, Focus alone is amazing. But heres a basic difference.

Feats

Haley completely hamstring your enemy for an enitre turn. In a game were turns go to 5 turns tops, thats pretty scary. Very few armies can get away unscathed by her abilities (mostly armies that ignore syngery), However due to changed ruling on charge, enemies can still attack somewhat effectivly, and the turns still come up.

Its powerfull but a good play can attempt to mitigate the damage.


Siege feat, is often best unused, enemy casters know thier is very little way to avoid dieng withing 19" of siege, some are tough enough to make it, and some have crazy abilities (terminous, goreshade a few others, hordes casters to some extent) but the majority have to avoid it like the plague, and worse the have to deal with the fact that at any moment siege can decide that wrecking their army is worth the feat.

Cygnar is not allowed to have boost damage spells, because cygnar is too good with range and accuracy, Siege literally breaks that rule. In any other faction i would agree siege has a great ability, in Cygnar his feat is magic.

Durability, not even a contest siege is tougher and only somewhat easier to hit (unless you count foxhole then hes 18 defense),

Focus, haley has this department dominated, she clocks in at 8 while he is stuck with 6, huge gap. Granted this is mitigated by the huge cost of her spells. And complete lack of upkeeps. where siege can upkeep anything.

spells,

offensivily haley wins flat out, time bomb, is a bomb. and she has 8 magic attack, she almost always hits. Siege really only has 1 spell that competes with the force hammer slam, its great in alot of situations, but as a rule impratical, and generally used if something went wrong

Defensse goes to siege, foxhole competely stops the bane of cygnars weakest members, no blast damage, and plus 4 defense is huge, for 2 focus or 1 to upkeep, also granting ranking fire to those inside. of and rift makes slow armies cry, Granted Haley does have deflection, the only time I can see it bieng suppior is spread out forces, and bile thralls.

Support, a very tough call, she can make a rune shot clip an unwary caster from across the map. Twice... and she can redecorate your opponents board, genuinly amazing abilities.

But siege, can give that same defender a 3 inch aoe. and let it hit choir protected jacks, or windwall vlad. and its cheap 1 focus per guy.
oh and foxhole allows you to decide what your line of site is today, as well as mage site, for more annoying situations.

combat, haley does not go into combat, unless you are ending your opponent


Siege can 4 inch aoe infranty to oblvion, he can shoot anyone within 14", he has a power 14 ranged shot, honestly I think hes better then caine as a solo, just for his ability to do effecient damage (dont get me wrong caine has the ability to abort a failed mission, where siege does not). But siege can be with the rest of his group, he can empower them.

I like them both, in mark one I was sad because niether had snipe, as of amrk 2 they both sorta get it.

and the both crazy deadye gun mage, two please.

but siege says, I dont care, if you stealth, I dont care if if your incorpeal, i dont care about chior, I dont care about vlad, terminous minions die to aoe.

[EnternalVoid]

Siege really had one advantage in my opinion over eHaley when you add it all up, and that is that he can end the game himself. There is only a small handful of casters that are safe against Siege and his feat. And to really maximize his feat you only need Reinholdt and the Squire for good measure, anything else is gravy. They are also both support units you can keep in the back with him.

Now the difference is eHaley will manipulate the board like a puppet master and kill them with something else. A jack, a range unit with deadeye, or even just a TK movement on a caster to expose them *and their back* to attack. eHaley sets up the kill, she does not do it herself. Siege on the other hand can win the game pretty much by himself if things go all wrong.

Now I am not saying that Siege is better than eHaley, save in the regard that with his feat he can often take out a caster himself with out really any aid. eHaley though is good at setting up the kill so she does not need to do it herself, that is the difference.

[Killionaire]

Seige, eHaley, eCaine, eStryker and Nemo are all really top tier. There's very little gap between them, with perhaps Seige, eHaley and eCaine just a slight tad (barely any) over eStryker and Nemo.

I'm really quite pleased at how MK2 came out for most of our casters. Even our B-Tier (Caine, Stryker, Haley, and sorta low on the list eNemo) isn't shabby.

[withershadow]

That still leaves the C tier, who are our two specialist jack casters. Except Kraye is probably more of a D. :/