Cygnar Musings

Not even two months ago I wrote a piece about the current state of the meta. It was after the errata hit and I had a pretty good idea of what to expect then and what worked. Since then, so much has happened in this little game of ours! It's incredible how much it's changed the meta in general and Cygnar in particular. In this post I'll elaborate on my thoughts for Cygnar. With no less than 3 theme forces out, a new caster and a new character warjack I anticipate that we will not be getting anything new for a while. Hopefully this piece will remain relevant for more than a couple of weeks!

Let's start with a brief rundown of viable casters. I think Haley2, Haley3, Stryker1, Maddox and Nemo3 are our 5 strongest casters now. Behind them we have probably another handful, Caine2, Caine3, Siege, Stryker2 and maybe another Nemo. The first 5 here include 4 casters who get a lot out of the Storm Division theme, and Haley3 which is innately powerful and flexible. The key thing here really is Storm Division. It is a complete game-changer for us. I was recently interviewed by the Boxcars podcast (watch the episode here). While on the show I was asked what would make some of our poor units more playable. I argue that points is the number one balancing mechanism in the game. To take an extreme point of view, would you not take Long Gunners if a max unit was 1 point? Anyway, the point is that Storm Division allows for tons of points. Sure, you give up a few utility models, but you gain so much. Take Maddox for example, she can build 60 points to get 3 free choices. With Junior, Squire and a Stormblade UA that's +14 points. She's already +30 so against a non-theme force +25 point caster she's playing 19 points up. That's a lot. 

Let's take a look at the specific casters! 

I can't help but start with my favourite caster in the game: Haley2. Until recently I had not played her for a long time and it was refreshing to be back again, despite facing a supposed counter in my first game with her for months! Storm Division is great for Haley and it allows her to build a list which basically gets her everything she wants. The list pretty much builds itself:

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25], Storm Division, Fuel Cache
- Thorn [13]
- Stormwall [39]
- Squire [0]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
- Firefly [8]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]

We give up Ragman and get 9 free points. I tried to build lists like that before Storm Division but it wasn't doable. The free points are amazing though and the theme benefits really, really helps her in mirrors. I have lost Haley2 to electro leaps before, it is a big weakness for her. Heavy Metal actually shows promise with Haley2 as well, she can get a staggering +17 points on top of an extra 2 inches for deployment. I've dojoed around a bit and my problem is that I can't find what I consider to be a good balance for her. Whatever I do she seems to end up struggling with too many usual suspects. Consider this for example:

THEME: Heavy Metal
Major Victoria Haley - WJ: +25
- Squire - PC: 0
- Stormwall - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 25)
- Lightning Pod
- Thorn - PC: 13
- Charger - PC: 9
- Charger - PC: 9
- Ironclad - PC: 12
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
- Charger - PC: 9
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0
Lieutenant Allison Jakes - PC: 0
- Charger - PC: 9

Without the POW16 shooting and PS15 charges from the Lances I fear that this will struggle against arm-skew variants, which I really need Haley2 to handle. Harkevich and Amon stand out, the latter could possibly sing Passage all the way to the bank. For Haley2, if all else fails, the vanilla list I played pre-theme forces is probably still decent.

I'm going to keep this short. The advent of so many interesting casters and builds means that we might have another drop for Circle than Haley3. What's so interesting about this? The Ironclad was a central piece for combating Una2. Tremor was a key defensive ability to counteract Una's feated Griffons from jamming. Without the need for that I can see the list going for even more firepower. Consider this for example:

(Haley 3) Major Prime Victoria Haley [+25], Bunker
- Grenadier [9]
- Grenadier [9]
- Thorn [13]
- Defender [16]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Trencher Infantry (max) [16]
Journeyman Warcaster [4]
- Charger [9]
Ragman [4]

I'm not sure whether losing Rhupert's worth it. I am sure however that I'm confident that the optimal Haley3 list is pretty close to this.

Stryker1 is a strong caster. Not our flashiest one, but he has an impressive set of support abilities and a feat which is so strong that in some matchups it's in effect as much of a time walk as Haley2's is. Stryker can probably be tailored a bit depending on what you want him to face, however no matter what I see him playing with Storm Division, Stormwall, Junior and Firefly. Consider this for example:

(Stryker 1) Commander Coleman Stryker [+30]
 - Squire [0]
 - Charger [9]
 - Firefly [8]
 - Stormwall [39]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
 - Charger [9]

Tons of firepower, cycle-able snipe on Chargers make them terrifying. Tooled for mirror, swapping out Chargers for Stormblades for example would give it a lot more punch in melee. Many options!

Like Stryker, Maddox brings a toolbox to the table. Lots of tools, in fact. Unlike Stryker her skill-set doesn't scream for a Stormwall and she does even more for her troops so I can see her taking advantage of the Storm Division bonus points even more so than Stryker. Spamming dudes and cheap-ish jacks ensures that she always has something to apply the feat to which will deal all sorts of damage.

Cygnar Army - 74 / 75 points
Theme: Storm Division
(Maddox 1) Major Beth Maddox [+30]
 - Firefly [8]
 - Charger [9]
 - Brickhouse [18]
 - Squire [0]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Stormblade Infantry [10]
 - Stormblade Infantry Storm Gunner (1) [2]
 - Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard [0]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
 - Charger [9]

As many dudes as we can get and the double Charger setup again to cycle Snipe. I'm not 100% on Brickhouse but he's easily swapped for a Stormclad. Suffice is to say that Maddox can take a ton of strong models and she supports them very well. 

My new shiny toy! Initially when I tried him out I wasn't quite convinced, I couldn't make lists which I found to be strong enough. But then, of course, Storm Division happened and he got the free points he needed to reach critical mass: With lists like his based on a very powerful ranged alpha you need both enough models to saturate the table and enough output from said models to make the alpha absolutely lethal. I find that Nemo manages both and since I made the Storm Division list I have not been able to make any improvements: 

Theme: Storm Division
(Nemo 3) Artificer General Nemo [+25], Bunker
- Storm Chaser Adept Caitlin Finch
- Squire [0]
- Firefly [8]
- Firefly [8]
- Firefly [8]
- Dynamo [18]
- Lancer [10]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
- Firefly [8]

The list has kept impressing me. It has tons of good matchups and it's so hard to play against. It's made to play a game of attrition but has scary strong assassination angles and a legit scenario play. It also contests fairly well, making it hard for control-casters to do their thing. Magnetic Field is a game-breaker in this regard. Pre-theme force I had Reinholdt and a GMCA here. I have missed them surprisingly little. In fact the Squire's awesome and I love the Lancer, he's been an MVP piece in many, many of my games.

A lot of these lists are still very fresh. The meta's yet to adapt to all of the releases as of late and there are more coming almost by the week now. There could be some hidden gems out there, Heavy Metal looks promising for example and maybe Stryker2 can make a really strong list which nobody's found yet (Storm Division?) etc. That said the casters and list concepts above have all shown very promising initial results thus far. I won't have time to test them all personally but I know people who play just about every concept I don't. It's an amazing time for Swans for sure!

How does all of this fit together? The way I see it we need something to deal with melee monsters (and preferably accompanying casters, e.g. Amon in theme with High Reclaimer) and someone to take on the ranged wars. For the first category, Haley2, Stryker1 and Maddox all seem to fit the bill. They should all have game into arm-skew variants as well as mirror matchups. List specifics depend on how the meta evolves and what the pairing is. For the second part of the pair I see Haley3, Nemo3 and Stryker1 as the potential candidates. Haley2's time-walk effect works poorly against shooting. Stryker1's feat though is pretty legit against shooting!

So what will I be doing? I'm still not 100%, but the more I think about it, the more matchups I consider etc the more I find myself gravitating towards Haley2 and Nemo3 (with the lists above). SmogCon's up in a little over a week so there's a handful of games left at least. Furthermore SmogCon's Masters Heats are 3-lists so I'll just run with Haley2, Haley3 and Nemo3.

Will another caster knock out a Haley from our optimal pairing? I don't know, but it feels like it could certainly be a thing. Is a pairing without a Haley at all possibly our best? I mean it really could be, so many casters have gained so much from these recent releases. Hopefully this piece has given you a thing or two to think about, go out there and show everyone that the Age of Cygnar is upon us!