Pairing Musings

Do you remember the days of Mk. 2 where everything basically boiled down to Haley2 and Haley3? Those were the easy days, the good old days where all you had to do was play a lot and master the insanely strong casters. I did enjoy those days immensely, indeed they helped shape me as a competitive player and find my stride in Warmachine. However, both then and there and now in hindsight, I am / was perfectly aware that they were above the power curve. The game needed to change, and change it did.

Fast forward about a year and I'm seeing choices I never thought I'd field competitively at the very top of the spectrum. We've seen a ton of changes. First a giant paradigm shift with the release of Mk. 3 and subsequently a ton of smaller changes. They happen so fast though, it's hard to keep track! If you had told me half a year ago that Stryker1 would be a meta bender I would probably look at you all weird. Yet here he is, flashing his Invincibility in the face of anyone who thinks +5 ARM isn't a big deal.

The current state of the meta is a pain to try and address. Some factions, with Cygnar first and foremost, have so incredibly many viable builds. Figuring out what to effectively play to provide you with decent coverage feels like an impossible task, let alone getting an overview of the meta to begin with! Yet we must strive for this and I am doing my best to solve this complex puzzle. I've learned the value of experimenting and I'm not afraid to try wacky things. My #noLances approach this weekend is but one of many examples of when I go out of my comfort zone. I think it's underrated to -not- stick to your guns and instead explore what's out there and that's what I intend to do.

Speaking of guns, I think we are about to see more of them. There are so many things in the meta right now which have a big weakness to guns. Lances are perhaps the most clear-cut example of this. My decision to run double Heavy Metal in my pairing wasn't random. I think the meta is already adapting to the Lances. If it hasn't already it very soon will. When Lances are great, they are amazing. They are also fragile and die to a stiff breeze though. Incidentally I think Stryker1's popularity and success largely have to do with his ability to keep Lances running. Anyway, what I was saying is that your plain old DEF13 ARM17 Storm Lance will not stand up to much. Cygnar Chargers for example are very effective at countering vanilla Storm Lances.

If we take a look at some of the other factions in the game which are currently very powerful, e.g. Mercenaries, Khador and Legion, they also sport trivial choices which deal with Lances quite well: Bunnies, Rocketeers and Lylyth3 for example. While Stryker1 might be capable of running Lances effectively against these, casters like Haley2 sure cannot. Haley2 is a very powerful caster, but if she runs a list which doesn't enable her to face any of the other powerhouse factions nor take on the mirror I think you could probably get more value out of her.

The Electrobots list was conceived to be one step ahead of just this phenomenon. It was designed to bypass Haley's weaknesses. Taking down ARM19+ heavies is a very, very different thing from stopping Storm Lances. This list feels very powerful, but with another set of vulnerabilities primarily because there's no colossal around any more. The inherent stability which comes with a colossal's rules is quite frankly just gone. In itself this isn't necessarily a game changer, after all it does indeed boil down to what you intend to play the list against and what your overall pairing looks like.

That being said I must admit that I've taken a look at perhaps combining the best of both worlds: Is it possible to run Haley2 in Hmeavy Metal with a Stormwall and maintain a lot of the strengths I've found with the Electrobots? I honestly don't know, but it's definitely worth exploring.

The mirror match is certainly a mess right now with so incredibly many permutations to consider. While our themes are amazing, a couple of casters still stand out as important ones to keep in mind, both for possibly deserving a spot in your pair and for requiring you do prepare for. Haley3 and Stryker2 are in my opinion the most relevant casters here. With Stryker1's popularity, I see people experimenting with Darius as a counter to him in turn, which creates sort of a rock-scissors-paper effect as certain casters which are strong against Darius cannot handle Stryker. It is in situations like this that we understand the value of e.g. Haley3 vanilla, or the somewhat more crazy variant of her I've seen a bit lately (Heavy Metal with 10 Chargers).

I have a few builds I currently consider stable Cygnar builds. They are Stryker1 in Storm Division ("Stryke Division"), Haley2 in Storm Division ("Vanilla Division"), Nemo3 in Storm Division ("Unstoppable Force") and Haley3 vanilla. I know that these builds are solid and can perform well. The meta is slowly changing, but I very much doubt these are outdated yet. I think many/most of them will be though, and sooner than some might think. Because of this, I intend to playtest as much as I can with various other builds, to try and circumvent the whole "Oh my God we gotta deal with Storm Division!" backlash which I'm sure is coming. I also think that the majority of our next lists will be Heavy Metal lists because we get so many free points so this is where I'll focus my attention.

Stryker2 has gotten a lot of traction lately, both in and out of theme. To make a long story short I think Stryker2 is an interesting caster and I hope I'll get to explore him more. To rewind just a little bit though we have to try and remember what the pairing I brought this weekend was intended to do. In a nutshell, the Electrobots would timewalk and beat melee lists at attrition whereas the Immovable Object would timewalk and beat shooty lists at attrition. It all sounds so easy when you simplify the game, right? Of course it's not quite that easy in reality. Warmachine is a very specific game, meaning it boils down to key matchups which cannot be generalized as such. What I found in practice was that the Electrobots were vulnerable to shenanigans, more so than I was comfortable with, whereas Immovable Object just kept getting worse the more my opponents understood how it plays. Jam it up, force it out, alpha post-feat and you're good to go. It felt as though it relied on opponents respecting the big, bad boys too much instead of doing what they should be doing: Go balls to the wall (quite literally!) and shut them down. As my nickname for the list ironically implies, they aren't going anywhere. I knew this would be a problem before I even wrote the list as I ran doublewall in Mk. 2 with both Stryker1, Haley2 and Kraye. My hope was that the +17 points from Heavy Metal would suffice to help clear the 'walls and prevent this from happening. Suffice is to say that at least my specific implementation failed to do so. With Stryker1 I have not been able to find another configuration I believe is capable of doing so either.

In a nutshell, Stryker1 was supposed to deal with shooty variants. On top of that we have the mirror match clusterfuck and in a good few situations he definitely had to take that role as well. Indeed in most cases he was preferred drop against Cygnar. How do we fulfil this role? Stryker2 sure is an interesting candidate. My few games and dojo with him thus far have proved to be more promising than I'd have thought before hand. Through a combination of Deceleration, free points from Storm Division, his personal presence and his Feat he might be what I'm looking for. His dicey and risky playstyle doesn't exactly appeal a ton to me, but again I do find that he's impressed me. I will have to keep an eye out for him and try to get practice games in now and then. The caster which currently has me most excited though is an old favourite, one caster I hated to not love when I thought I was so close to making her work. Is this her time to shine again?

Sloan first hit my mind when I started thinking about the RPS effect of the mirror matchup. Like rock, paper, scissors, what happens when you introduce Spock? Sloan's list seems to write itself in Heavy Metal and the result looks pretty terrifying, at least on paper. I honestly can't wait to try this out in practice:

"Firing Solution"
Theme: Heavy Metal
Captain Kara Sloan - WJ: +28 Armory
-    Squire - PC: 0
-    Hunter - PC: 11
-    Hunter - PC: 11
-    Hunter - PC: 11
-    Hunter - PC: 11
-    Hunter - PC: 11
-    Stormwall - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 28)
-    Lightning Pod
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
-    Charger - PC: 9
Archduke Alain Runewood, Lord of Fharin - PC: 0

Let's run some numbers. When you roll damage against something with a lot of boxes, you can count 3d6 as averaging 11 if you are dice off X. In a nutshell it's the same principle as pow 10 + 2d6 averaging 1 box of damage vs ARM17 (assuming there are boxes). So, let's say you play against a Stormwall. As every Cygnar player well and truly knows, these 'walls inevitably seem to have Arcane Shield. Hunters are thus off 7. On feat turn that means you do 8 damage per Hunter for a total of 40. The Stormwall adds another 8 with Sloan adding 8 as well. That's one-rounding an Arcane Shielded Stormwall right there! Sure, this assumes all dice hit but you get my point. I did play Sloan a bit last year before the December errata etc. I put her away more or less for 2 reasons: I struggled with being "pushed in", i.e. having smart opponents push up max against me and physically force me out of the game. Secondly I struggled with staying relevant on scenario. The Stormwall is an excellent piece at solving these issues. I tried my hardest to write Sloan lists with a 'wall but it simply wasn't doable back then. Heavy Metal seems to give me everything I want though, with the exception of choices like Rangers and Reinholdt, which are of course unavailable in the theme. Sloan seems to be able to handle so many problematic matchups, at least on paper. I have to get out there and start playing games to verify this assumption. It starts on Wednesday, I have a game scheduled against Bunnies which should be interesting!

To go with Sloan I intend to keep playing Haley2. The Electrobots have their weaknesses, but boy do they have their strengths too! The trivial ease with which this list has destroyed other powerhouses (e.g. Amon) completely blows my mind. Maybe Sloan can pick up the job where Haley needs help to enable the Electrobots as the best pairing. I do think it's worth exploring Heavy Metal further with Haley though. There are so many options! First stop is to see if I can somehow create a hybrid between the Thornwall battlegroup and the Electrobots. Dojoing this for a bit and discussing it for hours with fellow Cygnar players I've come up with the following alternative:

"Technical Death Metal"
Theme: Heavy Metal
Major Victoria Haley - WJ: +25
-    Squire - PC: 0
-    Thorn - PC: 13
-    Stormwall - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 25)
-    Lightning Pod
-    Charger - PC: 9
-    Hammersmith - PC: 12
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
-    Charger - PC: 9
Lieutenant Allison Jakes - PC: 0
-    Stormclad - PC: 18

Multiple compromises here and indeed this list might end up being not enough of anything. I feel as though I have to test it though, at worst I get a better feel for how Haley2 plays with a Stormwall in Heavy Metal. I think that alone is worth fielding it for. The Hammersmith might seem out of place in this list and based on the principles of the Electrobots it sure is. I want to give it a try because of its high, theoretical damage output. With essentially 3 initials at POW17 it packs a lot of punch for its points. If it doesn't work swapping it for an Ironclad is trivial.

This past weekend I took a #noLances approach and I intend to keep working in that direction, quite simply because I believe it's the best approach for Cygnar right now. I will focus on Sloan and Haley2 whilst also trying to get some games in with Stryker2. I feel I have stable builds to fall back on with Stryker1, Haley2 and Nemo3 in Storm Division as well as Haley3 out of theme. I have an eye out for how Darius performs as well as wacky Charger-spam builds.

This past weekend I played 5 tournament games and all 5 of my games felt close. I think my opponents without exception identified key mistakes which cost them the game. Not one of them I believe felt steamrolled by my list(s) due to the innate power in them. The games were amazing and this is how I want Warmachine to be. When I build a pair I strive to make matchups playable. It feels to me like the game is getting closer and closer to a state where you can take a lot of different things and still have a pretty legit fighting chance. That is highly valuable and I applaud Privateer Press for how far they've come. It sure is an interesting time to play the Swans and I think Warmachine & Hordes in general. Thinking back to Mk. 2 and Haley2 + Haley3 still brings me good memories. Objectively the game is in a better state now and I welcome it.