Menoth thoughts

[sapper79]

Ok is it just me or is Menoth a lil unballanced and overpowered. Just my expereince but they seem to be that way please tell me your thoughts and what to do against their choir BS.

[Alienated One]

Kill the choir. With no choir, their jacks can be shot up. Choir is very easy to kill, unless your opponent hides them. AOEs, normal gun shots, even storms strikes all work.

[TsavongLah]

Aiyana+Holt to make guns magical, eHaley to make them choose between no-spells and no-shooty, shoot the choirboys first, &c.

[AxeHappy]

Yep they are a pain. Played a 50 point Kreoss list and got my teeth kicked in. They are a support army, so you have to figure out how to kick those supports out from underneath them. Choir, Covenant, Monolit Bearer, anything that reeks of support needs kind loving attention in the form of lead and arcane energy.

[Mutton]

Siege does naughty things to Menoth. As does a well played eHaley. eCaine has trouble with their backfield 'casters, as does eStryker. eNemo sucks against Harby, pKreoss, and eSevvy to an extent, but can do well elsewise.

[Griffin839]

Only problem I have had is the new and improved Harbinger. Her feat makes scenarios incredible difficult to win. Pow 14s if we advance forward at all? Good luck taking the objective under that. You may as well pass the turn in a non-gunline army. That and her ability to martyr bastions makes them almost impossible to kill off completely. Oh ya, against her i was running eNemo. Dont do that. Her ability to strip upkeeps makes eNemo a sad panda.

[Sideshow Lucifer]

eCaine is actualy fine agaisnt Menoth. Run him like a super solo with a couple lights to start sniping off their support. Kraye can do similar things with the speed of the light ranged jacks. You just need to make them split their support and/or forces and concentrate on one till its gone.

[WickedGood]

I found the key to killing Menoth is to kill the soft chew center first. To do that I like to run my cav up the side of the board for a turn or two to position them behind my opponent for a chrge into the chior and such. I am one of the few people that use storm smiths and I find it very useful against Menoth with disruption for the jacks, and the action being able to snipe down models. The monolyth bearers rules have been toned down in MkII but I still like to kill him asap to avoid the turn of no death for the darn zealots.

[TsavongLah]

Ooh, speaking of Stormsmiths... if the Firefly can really act as a Triangulation point, then Menoth is going to be utterly hosed against our lightning lists. eNemo casts Energizer, Firefly runs up the side for position, Stormsmiths fry every support solo on the board and disrupt a 'jack or two.

[Griffin839]

Ooh, speaking of Stormsmiths... if the Firefly can really act as a Triangulation point, then Menoth is going to be utterly hosed against our lightning lists. eNemo casts Energizer, Firefly runs up the side for position, Stormsmiths fry every support solo on the board and disrupt a 'jack or two.

Since its not out yet, lets keep that on the dl. There is still time for PP to edit the power of the firefly so lets not give them any incentive.

[TsavongLah]

Haha, right. When is it out, anyway?

[Justicator]

Honestly, Cygnar has a lot of ways to answer our strategies. Cygnar has a decent number of magical weapons (not as many as the elves). And outranges us like crazy.

You NEVER need to boost to hit against us ... if you ever boost to hit, you are doing it wrong. Average rolls on 2 dice from Cygnar will hit us. Remember, if it's a Menoth heavy it has 10 defense. If it's a Menoth light it has 12.

Our armor is higher which gives you some trouble, but chipping away at us from a distance really helps. Most of our heavy jacks are slow with 4 SPD. Only 2 or 3 have 5 SPD - and one probably won't see much play because he's hard to rationalize 8 points for (Castigator).

Also remember, we're only as fast as our support. While it's true our support is Amazing, it's equally a noose. We can't run our jacks very much if we want the boy-band's buffs. Same story with the former Cygnaran.

As stated take out our support and things can fall apart quickly. Once again, we're easy to hit, most of our support is geared towar making us hard to hit.

If we get into attack range, you're going to feel the pain... period, end of sentence ... but at the same time this is where our choir has to change to +2 hit/damage - because on average our jacks have poor MAT and RAT. This gives you an opening to range things if the songs were messing with you before.

We're far from invincible ... in fact we're fairly one dimmensional. We have very plug and play stuff. An army will work with just about any caster. They'll just work slightly different. Our casters got kicked in the nads for uniqueness - so honestly each game feels very the similar. Pretty much each of our casters has an attack spell, a buff spell and a denial spell. They often have the same attack spells, similar buff spells, and one of three flavors of denial. We lost a lot of our unique flavorful things.

Now please quit coming on our board and claiming we're broken

[Gorbad]

Aiyana+Holt to make guns magical, eHaley to make them choose between no-spells and no-shooty

Be careful with this though, if all your guns are magical (A&H, Gunmages, etc.) there is no choice for the Menoth player and it will be no spells all the way.

I think it's probably worthwhile bringing some Long Gunners just to force that choice, especially if you are playing someone like eHaley who likes to cast spells on jacks. But you need to make shooting or spells equally nasty things, and turning all your shots magical just doesn't do that. So it's a great option if you got no spells you plan on sending there way, but less so if you want to target there jacks with your caster.

[Brock_Vilmon]

The trick to beating Menoth is realizing we can't protect everything at once. We need to make hard choices about how to protect certain jacks or units, and Cygnar has plenty of options for forcing us to choose the lesser of two evils.

In my last Mark I match, I had to choose between "no-shooty" or "no-spelly" to protect my heavy jack. If I chose no shooting, a unit of gun mages would fry my jack's cortex. If I chose no spells, Haley was going to knock the jack down anyways with a Scramble spell. I was only able to prevent permanent damage - the Cygnar player was going to take my jack out on a key round regardless what choice I made.

A few other things to consider:

1. Dug-in trenchers ignore blast templates - very painful for Menoth.
2. Lightning attacks are often simultaneous, which means those knights exemplar won't get their giant armor bonuses.
3. I haven't played against your new Cyclone jack, but it looks like an absolute infantry killing machine. Perfect for smacking the zealot zerg rush.
4. Haven't played against them in Mark II, but I agree that both Siege and Haley are perfect for hindering a melee heavy POM army. Caine can also give casters like Reznik fits.

[whats82]

Dug in trenchers ignore blast template but vanquisher still set them on fire, so 66% will still die next turn.
Lighting can work, though they are by no means reliable since exemplars have decent ARM.
Cyclone is great at slowing infantry from coming toward you, but struggles against heavy ARM and really can't do anything vs menoth jack wall unless A+H supports it with magic weapon.

[Dominik]

Be careful with this though, if all your guns are magical (A&H, Gunmages, etc.) there is no choice for the Menoth player and it will be no spells all the way.

Singing no spells doesn't do jack to stop magical ranged attacks, so, what do you care if he then sings no spells all the way? It is not like cygnar has a ton of spells that kill heavies...

[GunMageinTraining]

Yea, but they don't like it when I dominate his vanquisher and use it to light half his army (in a nice little brick) on fire.

Or timebomb to slow them to a crawl, or any of our slam/kd effects.

My problem with Menoth is that the denial circle is fast approaching full circle. They are only like one or two abilities off from being able to shut down everything, and that's more than a bit much. That and Vanquishers are like 2 points too cheap for what you get.

[sapper79]

The propblem is that as per page 68 of the MKII rule book, gun mages and other magical range weapons are not magical attacks and can't get thru no shooty order from the choir.

And like GunMageinTraining said they pretty much can shut down everything which realy sucks. When we have to true recourse to it.

[PG_Dino-Czar]

They never were magic attacks. They remain magicAL attacks. The wording did not change (which is to say it remains terrible).


edit: to be clear, magic attacks and magicAL attacks are two different things. A magic attack is a spell and uses spell casting rules (like being able to be used while engaged and using either focus/fury or magic skill [x]), but a magicAL attack is mechanically the same as non-magicAL attacks except where specified.

[Dominik]

The propblem is that as per page 68 of the MKII rule book, gun mages and other magical range weapons are not magical attacks and can't get thru no shooty order from the choir.

And like GunMageinTraining said they pretty much can shut down everything which realy sucks. When we have to true recourse to it.

Yes they can. Gun mages have magical ranged attacks and the choir can't block those.

Magical XY attacks = attacks with the magical weapon quality
Magic Attacks = Offensive spells

[ZenBattleLust]

"•Passage (★Action) - The warjack cannot be targeted by non-magical ranged attacks. Passage lasts for one round."

"•Shielding (★Action) - The warjack cannot be targeted by enemy spells. Shielding lasts for one round."

As Dominik said, the choir can't do anything about magical ranged attacks at all. It doesn't matter which one they chant.

[Justicator]

That and Vanquishers are like 2 points too cheap for what you get.

That's ridiculous. The Vanquisher is not worth 10 points, it's not even worth 9 points.

Without a vassal, Vaquishers are one shot wonders. And at 10 range and 10 DEF, after that one shot all of cygnar will take it apart. Since 10 range often seems to be the faction minimum.

I need to spend 4 more points to make the Vanquisher a feared killing machine.

[Gorbad]

Singing no spells doesn't do jack to stop magical ranged attacks, so, what do you care if he then sings no spells all the way? It is not like cygnar has a ton of spells that kill heavies...

If you play eHaley you really do want to be able to cast spells at his jacks as that's almost certainly her easiest way of dealing with them. So not giving the Menoth player a reason to sing no shooting is probably not a good idea. Gunmages will not deal as effectively with a Menoth heavy as eHaley will.

[Mutton]

That's ridiculous. The Vanquisher is not worth 10 points, it's not even worth 9 points.

Without a vassal, Vaquishers are one shot wonders. And at 10 range and 10 DEF, after that one shot all of cygnar will take it apart. Since 10 range often seems to be the faction minimum.

I need to spend 4 more points to make the Vanquisher a feared killing machine.

Menoth has the best lane blockers in the game in Errants and TFG. Really, you should not be tied up in combat that easily.

[yux]

Menoth comes in the power to distruopt, honestly kreoss knicking everyone of our guys down except kraye is reallly good. but also turning off our upkeeps is almost broken. thier are few defensive moves to make against him you have to be agressivewith menoth which is terrible idea, you cant hit the jacks hit the support, problem is thier jacks hit your jacks in the mean time (that adds up to alot fo dead cygnar jacks).

cygnar has amazing range, and amazingly low damage output. Redeemer cost less and fire 3 aoe, give it fire attack and now you are simply lighting up most of cygnar.

Not saying they are unbeatable, but they are probably our most diffuclt matchup. cryx relies more on high defense which we auto counter. khador has trouble with our insane range and faster speed. retribution is a less accurate us.

In fact khador matches up quite nicely to them, because their guys usually just get up close and beat face (choir les susefull, and of course the fact that behomoth in melee with avatar= one less avatar

nothing is unwinable but their are natural strengths and weaknesses.

retribtuion is pretty good agaisnt everyone but cryx. cryx does terrible thing to retribution.

in fact retirbution has about 8 answers I can think to harby, (you mean you only have 14 armor and are large base yipeee).

vs cygnar ahs to deal with those other 10 armor points

but honestly the cygnar player is gonna have to work harder then the menoth player.

[Justicator]

Menoth has the best lane blockers in the game in Errants and TFG. Really, you should not be tied up in combat that easily.

Having good infantry and support does not make the Vanquisher by itself worth 10 points, which is what I was counter-posting. It makes those infantry and supports worth their points.

And yes, I can't wait to get some TFG with a UA so I can shoot through them (wish I had some arcing fire, but oh well )

I'm not sure why you list Errants as good lane blockers. Is it because they can "magic bullet" themselves? Did you mean Bastions?

In fact khador matches up quite nicely to them, because their guys usually just get up close and beat face (choir les susefull, and of course the fact that behomoth in melee with avatar= one less avatar
retribtuion is pretty good agaisnt everyone but cryx. cryx does terrible thing to retribution.

Agreed. Khador pretty consistently a very difficult match for us, and I've yet to beat Elves with all their magical ranged attacks.
I have gone about 50/50 vs. Cygnar.

[Dominik]

If you play eHaley you really do want to be able to cast spells at his jacks as that's almost certainly her easiest way of dealing with them. So not giving the Menoth player a reason to sing no shooting is probably not a good idea. Gunmages will not deal as effectively with a Menoth heavy as eHaley will.

Ummm... You give the gunmages deadeye, then they knock over the jacks and kill the choir. So why would Haley2 care what the skirt-boys sing, they are hosed no matter what.

[Dominik]

That's ridiculous. The Vanquisher is not worth 10 points, it's not even worth 9 points.

Without a vassal, Vaquishers are one shot wonders. And at 10 range and 10 DEF, after that one shot all of cygnar will take it apart. Since 10 range often seems to be the faction minimum.

I need to spend 4 more points to make the Vanquisher a feared killing machine.

Place a destroyer statcard and a vanquisher statcard right next to each other and compare. If you are really honest you can't do that and still say the vanquisher shouldn't cost 10 points.

[PG_Dino-Czar]

Ummm... You give the gunmages deadeye, then they knock over the jacks and kill the choir. So why would Haley2 care what the skirt-boys sing, they are hosed no matter what.

The covenant makes this a non-starter, as does the Harbinger. The trick really is making either option a mistake, not trying to circumvent one so that you never have the option to use the other.

[Dominik]

For the covenant to completely prevent this you need more than one Jack or infantry support on top (otherwise just push it out of the way with an angled shot) which means there is a lot more points invested than those gunmages which makes the whole theorizing moot.
And even then the menoth player just concentrated a lot of points in one spot which frees my army up to run up a lancer on the flank or something similar and kill the choir or whatever else I want to that way.

[PG_Dino-Czar]

Have your opponents put their vassals in b2b with their jacks? If they hang out behind and off center it is pretty effective at preventing any kind of meaningful push and blocks most LoS. But that isn't really the point.

The point is that eHaley is far and away better at messing up Jacks than she is a clearing infantry. It is to your advantage to convince your opponent to go no shooting rather than no spells. You can't do that if they can't do anything at all about your ranged attacks. We can spend all day going back and forth, but those facts aren't going change.

Now, with most (all?) other casters I would agree with you (pNemo and his Voltic snare possibly excepted), but eHaley really does seem to be a special case.

[GunMageinTraining]

eHaley if a Defender/hunter is on the field, is reason enough to say no-shooty.

TA for a double-tap defender cannon? ATGM+UA for Crit-brutals? Yes plz.

[Dominik]

Have your opponents put their vassals in b2b with their jacks? If they hang out behind and off center it is pretty effective at preventing any kind of meaningful push and blocks most LoS. But that isn't really the point.

The point is that eHaley is far and away better at messing up Jacks than she is a clearing infantry. It is to your advantage to convince your opponent to go no shooting rather than no spells. You can't do that if they can't do anything at all about your ranged attacks. We can spend all day going back and forth, but those facts aren't going change.

Now, with most (all?) other casters I would agree with you (pNemo and his Voltic snare possibly excepted), but eHaley really does seem to be a special case.

Now you even bring Vassals into this?
Boy, that's sure a good amount of points theorymachining ^^
If your opponent does you the favour of putting his vassals into b2b with his jacks, then you take your speed 7 heavy, telekinesis it for 2", put temporal acceleration on it if you really have to and slam the menoth jack over the vassal.

[Ysthrall]

Menites tend to be my main opponent at my LGS.

An mentioned above they're slow. If they're under temporal barrier, they're practically staionary.

I have broken the menite brick with:
Arcane shielded Storm lances under strykers feat engaging and tar pitting their line,
Trenchers with UA doing Assault and Battery up the flank
Stormsmiths or GMCA doing a suicide run snipe on the choir leader (annoyingly, won't be possible now)
And as mentioned as well, Earthquake followed by shooting them all when on the ground.

Yes they're annoying. Yes they throw out a large amount of damage when they close, and yes the zealots with UA and the Idrians with UA are probably still cheap for their abilities.

But we can SO take them

Caveat:
Despite 4 or 5 menite opponents, I have never faced the Harbinger or the Covenant. No-one seems to use them at the moment...

[PG_Dino-Czar]

Now you even bring Vassals into this?
Boy, that's sure a good amount of points theorymachining ^^
If your opponent does you the favour of putting his vassals into b2b with his jacks, then you take your speed 7 heavy, telekinesis it for 2", put temporal acceleration on it if you really have to and slam the menoth jack over the vassal.

Did you just stop reading after the first sentence? I freely acknowledged that the Vassal thing was an aside. it was just something I've seen that I wanted to share.

As for the rest of your post, well that is some nice buff stacking but the pow 11 you get for the slam isn't likely to kill the Vassal at arm 15 with 5 wounds (no, you can't boost collateral). At this point you've committed your bonded jack and however much focus to maybe kill a 2 point solo.

Now I'm not saying you haven't actually done this, but when I build a list I'd rather have a plan that plays to my Caster's strengths. If you go back and look I think you'll see that was the actual content of my post.

I prefer forcing bad options no matter what the choir sings rather than forcing a single option which cuts out some of my Warcaster's best spells and forces me into moves like what you described.

But as I said, we can go back and forth all day. I don't have a client till 4.


edit: a bit of grammar.

[Dominik]

All I'm saying is. Let him fool around with the choir, make him concentrate his stuff there, then go around it.
A clever opponent will always sing no spells anyway, at least against haley.

[GunMageinTraining]

Nevermind that you just threw away the bonded jack on a slam... of which the menoth player happily pays the focus, stands it up, sings battle hymn and proceeds to wreck your jack. If you have disruption available, it may be different... maybe not.

[Dominik]

Perhaps I threw the Jack away. Or I beat on the one I didn't Slam and afterwards disrupt both enemy jacks. Perhaps I slammed the jack over the choir. Perhaps I did it to get a LOS on the caster.
Hard to tell over the internet.

[PG_Dino-Czar]

All I'm saying is. Let him fool around with the choir, make him concentrate his stuff there, then go around it.
A clever opponent will always sing no spells anyway, at least against haley.

I've never found "go around" to be as easy as spending more time in the list building stage.

And I'm not sure that "clever" opponents do always sing no-spells. Punish your opponent for a turn with Longgunners and a TA'd Defender... they'll think twice about which song to sing, if you let them.

Again, with any other caster I'm inclined to agree with you: all magical shooting, all the time. Just not with eHaley


edit: needed to clear up some terms. Also, seeing the above... I thought you were slamming to take care of the Vassal?

[Mutton]

eHaley and Siege are the best choices against Menoth generally, as Siege will wreck 'jack walls thanks to his feat + Explosivo and eHaley will wreck them with spell if they no shooty and spells if they no spells. eStryker has a bit of trouble with their backfield 'casters and no good way of circumventing Enliven, and eCaine will either dominate or get crushed (as most his games go).