Mk. 3 Cygnar List Thoughts

It's early days yet and none of this is official. For all we know, the leaks that have surfaced recently are outdated or even downright fake. Regardless I believe we are starting to see the big picture and as such I'd like to discuss some possible list variants with you all and share a couple of aha moments I've had when I've started actually trying to write lists. With that out of the way, let's recap a little. 

The state of the Cygnar meta now towards the end of Mk. II is very Haley-dominated. You can read my in-depth thoughts on the matter here: Post-Tournament Analysis April 2016. To put it shortly, Haley2 can build lists with withering firepower, tons of control and significant melee potential while Haley3 can be tailored to deal with her problematic matchups. Together this pair has absolutely dominated the tournament meta in 2016. Personally I believe that for the both of them the flexibility in what they can do is the keyword.

From what we know thus far (i.e. based on PP Insiders + forum answers), the Haley2 list variants will at least lose Eiryss2 (and with it, most likely its ability to remove upkeeps) and probably the Warjack bond as well (seeing as all bonds are being lost now). For Haley3, Revive has taken a big hit as a revived model must forfeit its action upon being revived. So, based on this we can reasonably anticipate that the flexibility we know as of Mk. 2 will be gone and we have to focus our lists some more.

Let's start with a naive approach for Haley2 based on my most recent list. With juniors needing a jack, Gastone's cheap way of bringing boosted POW12s no longer exists. We know that Aiyana's kiss no longer works outside of friendly faction so if we want her we have to bring Murdoch. Let's see how close we can get:

Haley2
- Squire
- Thorn
- Stormwall
Junior
- Charger
Eiryss1
Aiyana & Holt
- Murdoch
Black 13th

And that's it before we're out of points. Comparing this to the Mk. 2 list I've ran the past couple of months, we are short ATGM and Reinholdt. On top of that we lack upkeep removal and bond. It seems to me that a naive approach is unlikely to work. We have to rethink how we build our lists. Perhaps the Stormwall has to, perhaps something else. I don't know.

Let's skip ahead to something a little more interesting. Kara Sloan! With Field Marshall True Sight this is now a very interesting character. One of my main worries for her is her inability to deal with armour once stuff gets close enough. However let's, for the sake of argument, assume that we can avoid facing such lists with her. How does this look for example?

Sloan
- Defender
- Dynamo
- Hunter
- Firefly
- Firefly
Junior
- Hunter
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Black 13th
Aiyana & Holt
- Murdoch

Tons of firepower and minimal support. True, Reinholdt is missed but he can be included if we ditch the B13th for example. The idea behind this list is to simply blast stuff apart. Sounds easy, right? Playtesting is obviously needed to see if this is viable. A thing I discovered with the Firefly is that although it's amazing, it's kind of hard to fit it into a list. I think it boils down to the fact that I expect the meta to be heavier since everyone, including Cryx, is forced to run at least a sizeable battlegroup now, and most of our lightning tech is low-pow. Thus, getting the Firefly to actually matter becomes an issue of finding our sources for high damage output that is lightning based. Dynamo seems one of our best choices in this regard, and between the new firefly and kiss I believe he can really tear things up at a distance.

Another caster I find very interesting now: Stryker2! As those of you who have read my blog for a while might remember, I tried to play Stryker2 earlier this year. My main disappointment with him was his inability to get heavy hitters that hit hard enough upon reaching the enemy. Perhaps that part has been solved now, more or less, with Ironclad becoming dirt cheap and power up being a thing. Take a look at this:

Stryker2
- Squire
- Ironclad
- Stormclad
Junior
- Stormclad
Trenchers (min)
Stormblades
- UA
Alain Runewood
Black 13th
Eiryss1

So much power! Imagine how this will hurt once it reaches something. The big difference from Mk. 2 is of course power up, which combined with Positive Charge (assuming he keeps it) is just huge. The jacks will be able to do so much more work. Alternatives here of course include adding more Ironclads to simply push the number of beatsticks or go the other way and subtract utility stuff for stronger beatsticks. It might just be a thing on paper but I think Stryker2 will be very interesting in Mk. 3.

Okay, last list for now. This list is something I contemplated running in Mk. 2 but never got around to. The basic idea is that Chargers are a great source of POW12s because they are a lot harder to kill than infantry-based POW12s (such as Gastone). Anyway, here it is:

Haley3
- Squire
- Lancer
- Charger
- Charger
- Charger
- Charger
Trenchers (min)
Aiyana & Holt
- Murdoch
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Stormblades
- UA & WAs

Low model count but high quality. At least that's the thought. Will likely struggle with spammy lists but should handle ARM ok. I feel like the Revive nerf really hits Haley3 hard. Lances are so expensive and I'm not sure if they're worth it without the Revive-assault angles they love so much in Mk. 2. There are of course some synergy options here that can possibly be exploited too, for example Lances with Laddermore in Haley3 + Dynamo + Firefly and Aiyana, Holt + Murdoch.

There are so many options now and these few examples are far from exhaustive. Caine2, Haley1 and Nemo3 all have some highly interesting lists as well which I`ll look at soon.  Hopefully though this'll spark some thoughts and help us start thinking in Mk. 3 terms.

Update: I've been thinking about lists all day and I ended up with these 2 as the ones I tentatively want to try out to see how they play.

Haley2:

Haley2
- Squire
- Thorn
- Stormwall
Junior
- Charger
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Anastasia di Bray
Aiyana & Holt
- Murdoch
Black 13th

Tentatively this list is meant to face: Protectorate, Cryx, Convergence, Trollbloods, Skorne, Minions, Khador. I'm not 100% about Minions but I think it's the right drop into most of the other factions. The list is designed to deliver quality shots and have a strong melee game to follow up with. I contemplated a heavy, for example an Ironclad, and it might well be that B13th + Anastasia make room for something like this. Cheap, expendable, hard hitting. I am wary however of losing too much of my potential to remove stray models here and there as the list feels light on this already.

So to complement this I have gone for something that is significantly better at clearing infantry. I fully expect Retribution for example to be troublesome for us with MHSF now being FA: 2. True, their assassination potential has greatly been reduced but they still murder our battlegroups like there's no tomorrow.

Caine2: 

Caine2
- Reinholdt
- Stormwall
Junior
- Hunter
Anastasia
Aiyana & Holt
- Murdoch
Rangers
Storm Lances (max)

A bit of an odd list by Mk. 2 standards. Given its stated goal to be more effective at dealing with infantry a couple of these choices might be off. Indeed I might end up changing a few of them as well. However a lot of these choices are driven by what I expect to drop this list into. Tentatively this is the rest of the factions: Cygnar, Retribution, Legion, Mercenaries, Circle. Caine2 is a one-man army vs infantry and I'm not sure how much more we need. The rest of the choices have more or less been selected based on having some degree of anti-arm (since everyone will have sizeable battlegroups now) and trying to counter the factions specifically.