List Musings

The last two months have been crazy. Following SmogCon I've been dojoing like mad, trying to find our optimal pair. I've played a ton of games and spent countless hours tweaking, reviewing, thinking, discussing and cursing because my list doesn't add up. I finally landed on a pair I really liked. My main concerns were meta-benders I didn't know beforehand and lack of experience against crucial matchups. Towards the end of the process I had no time to write about my findings and my rationale. Now, however, I do. As such I want to detail the journey from SmogCon to Lund and explain in-depth why I took the lists I did. Make no mistake, not a single choice in either list was random!

Let's rewind a bit. Prior to SmogCon we were told that Heavy Metal would not be playable. The hype was all about Storm Division then. It turned out that Heavy Metal was indeed playable, but that's another story. Patrick Dunford showed us all that Stryker1 and Haley2, both in Storm Division, was the pair to beat. He went undefeated throughout the weekend, which is an amazing feat considering the huge field!

Following SmogCon I started dojoing and practicing with Stryker1 in Heavy Metal, Nemo3 in Storm Division and Haley2 in both. I came to the realization relatively quickly that Stryker1 didn't work with double 'walls. Nemo3 had some glaring weaknesses and I found that whenever I had him in my pairing I would have multiple issues neither of my casters handled well, which I expected to be present at a tournament. I love playing Nemo3 but unfortunately I realized quickly that he wouldn't make my pair.

One of the lists I tried out with Haley2 was the Electrobots-variant. Running 4 heavies in total backed by 2 Fireflies and Thorn took her damage output to the next level. In some matchups she was a pure battery almost, spending most of her stack simply fueling her jacks. This was a strong list with some amazing matchups. However I struggled with its defensive capabilities. Games against casters like Krueger2 and Fyanna2 showed me this and made me miss my Stormwall. Speaking of which...

I ran Stryker1 in heavy metal with double Stormwalls for a while. It was a pretty solid build. I did find two things however which I could never get around: The first was that I thought I had the defensive tech to whether mostly anything in melee on feat turn. That turned out not to be the case and I had multiple games where I simply couldn't play as aggressively as I wanted in fear of the 'walls going down despite Stryker1 feating. The second was that the more my opponents got used to fighting double biglies, the more they found plays which made life miserable for me. The list is inherently inflexible and you can be forced to spend a disproportionate amount of effort to rid yourself of small problems. The last nail in the coffin for me was a game against Iron Mother (link), which showed me Stryker could not even handle Convergence, something I had really hoped that he could seeing as Haley2 struggles against Iron Mother.

I next set my eyes on Sloan while at the same time evolving my Haley2 list further. I believe in trying out extremes and experimenting. Read more on my thoughts about army list creation here. As such it was natural for me to start Sloan at all out shooting. My first game with her featured 5 Hunters and a Stormwall (report is here). It was pretty much the cookie-cutter Sloan list which builds itself and everyone has found it. Through a series of iterative steps I realized that the main problem with this list was its inability to deal with jam. I think that whether you have 4 or 5 Hunters is largely irrelevant in a shooting matchup. I very much doubt that -that- difference is what makes you win or lose the game. On the other hand, adding more anti-jam elements would greatly help me in a number of matchups where the shooting simply isn't strong enough. The first list change saw a somewhat... unorthodox choice being picked up.

The Hammersmith is a piece which multiple players have asked me to try out. Incidentally, before I picked it up with Sloan I had tried it with Haley2 for a few games. While it was decent with Haley2 (more on this later), it truly came into its own with Sloan. You see, people don't like having Sloan's Hunters keep shooting. One of the ways to do stop them from doing so is to engage them. A Hammersmith is very good at getting models disengaged. Even if you don't kill your target they will be pushed or slammed away. Unlike the Ironclad - which is the natural alternative assuming you want a beatstick - the Hammersmith has equally good weapons on both L and R. This means that a spike in one column won't render it a lot worse. On the contrary the Hammersmith can still largely fulfil its role with a single weapon system intact. It's not ideal, but it's doable. SPD4 is a bit of a pain, but in practice I've found that ARM19 often makes up for it. It becomes just tough enough to shrug off most harm intended for it. Sidekick is better with DEF12 in a nutshell, but the base of 13/19 really has become a thing with the Hammersmith. It's a piece which is very hard to prioritize with all the Hunters around. Indeed you use it as a mobile shield in many matchups. The ability to move it out of activation with Energizer means it can often fulfil this role very well.

I've gotten a few questions about the 4th Hunter being on Junior. What I've experienced with Sloan is that often times, I want my non-Hunter light jack to operate aggressively and sometimes a bit away from my strong flank. This has lead to Junior hardly ever being in range because he'd be too jeopardized in those positions. At the same time, the Hunter on Sloan mainly has one advantage over a Hunter on Junior and that is the feat shot. Sloan has 7 focus and Arlan provides an 8th. If you don't need guided fire (which you do, very often!), you can boost her 2 shots, the Stormwall's 2 shots and 4 Hunter shots. However you almost always want Refuge on Sloan and/or camp, which means that in practice I hardly ever allocate all of her focus. As such the difference is one unboosted Hunter shot by and large. By comparison the Firefly doesn't need a whole lot but he really likes the feat shot. He's there to enable me to deal with volume and an extra shot really lets him do so. Overall this is a battlegroup change I've been really happy with.

The ensuing Sloan list I took to Lund was optimal. Given what I knew about the meta and the preparations I did, I could not have found a better list. I've been critisized by some for not just going with 5 Hunters. Quite frankly I think that is sub-optimal. In theory you lack punch when melee inevitably happens. In practice I have many games highlighting the MVP Hammersmith getting work done. If I were to highlight a single game where the Hammersmith was crucial it would have to be this one: Sloan vs Vayl2.

Here is the resulting Sloan list I took to Lund:

Cygnar - Firing Solution v4
Theme: Heavy Metal
4 / 4 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army
Armory - Steamroller Objective
Captain Kara Sloan - WJ: +28
- Squire - PC: 0
- Hunter - PC: 11
- Hunter - PC: 11
- Hunter - PC: 11
- Stormwall - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 28)
- Lightning Pod
- Firefly - PC: 8
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
- Hunter - PC: 11
Lieutenant Allison Jakes - PC: 0
- Hammersmith - PC: 12

 

While I initially liked the Electrobots, I found it to be a "win harder" kind of list. It plays the good matchups extremely well, but the list doesn't help me in the iffy matchups where I feel Haley really needs help. Examples include Lylyth3, Krueger2, various mirrors and Vlad1. At least, possibly more.

I knew I wanted to get back to the Thornwall build I've come to love. The question was, how do I build around it? For a long time now I've been a fan of a Firefly in this list because it adds so much utility. I could not find a decent list with it though. Due to Haley2 having +25 warjack points precisely it's so much harder for her to make these things add up than e.g. Sloan. Following various group chat dojo sessions I ended up with a draft without the Firefly though. I must admit it didn't look half bad. I also decided to test the Hammersmith. The idea was that with "only" two heavies and a colossal (as opposed to the electrobots' 4 heavies) I wanted more volume. Against almost any target in the game the Hammersmith has more damage output than the Ironclad. While SPD4 indeed is problematic I've found that with Haley2 in heavy metal her feat is often to set up for a play rather than to cover a play. As such the third piece tends to run anyway. The aforementioned benefits of ARM19 and double weapon systems indeed apply to Haley2 as well. I've found that in some games the Hammersmith's taken an amazing amount of punishment before eventually going down. For Cygnar this is very valuable. As a rule of thumb we attrition really well. Our ability to do so comes from our ability to preserve pieces. The natural toughness of the Hammersmith makes it more forgiving as an aggressively played piece.

Here is the resulting Haley2 list I took to Lund:

Cygnar - Technical Death Metal v4
[Theme] Heavy Metal
(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25]
- Charger [9]
- Hammersmith [12]
- Stormwall [39]
- Thorn [13]
- Squire [0]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [0]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
- Charger [9]
Lieutenant Allison Jakes [4]
- Stormclad [18]

As opposed to Sloan, my Haley list could have done with more playtesting and tweaks. To be fair a couple of the issues I've found her to need help against have been virtually non-existant in my meta lately so in reality it would've been impossible for me to get the necessary practice games. However now that I've been abroad and seen what people play I sure do have a few ideas. The main idea, as always, is to see how far we can stretch this list before it's too much. More specifically I want to make Haley2 shooty. The question is how shooty can she be without losing out against ARM-skew variants? A lot of her matchups really hate Cygnar shooting. First off though I must test the limits. There's no way I'm taking Haley2 without tools to deal with ARM-skew variants such as Amon and Karchev for example.

I have a feeling I'll want to swap 2 Chargers for a Stormclad, but here's the Haley2 list I indeed to playtest:

Cygnar - Technical Death Metal v5
Theme: Heavy Metal
4 / 4 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army
Armory - Steamroller Objective
Major Victoria Haley - WJ: +25
- Squire - PC: 0
- Thorn - PC: 13
- Stormwall - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 25)
- Lightning Pod
- Cyclone - PC: 13
- Firefly - PC: 8
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
- Charger - PC: 9
Lieutenant Allison Jakes - PC: 0
- Charger - PC: 9
- Charger - PC: 9

I've also played Darius a bit. Sadly, I found him lacking. There's too much power around now to rely on his feat. He was a lot of fun to play and certainly has a few dynamics which make him a lot more suited for double colossal builds than e.g. Stryker1. If only he had the +5 ARM feat... One can dream! Nemo3 received a couple of honorary games at Lund as well. I have couple of heavy metal ideas for him revolving around Firefly spam. I hope to get around to fielding it in the not-too distant future. Nemo3's a caster I really enjoy. He's different and his feat turn is so destructive by Cygnar standards. As always I'm looking for Haley3 variants as well. Temporal Distortion and Echoes are very strong, surely there must be something here.

As it's been for a while, it's exciting to play the Swans. I'm looking forward to trying them out in SR2017. From what I've been able to theorymachine out the scenarios should fit my lists quite well. Practice will tell whether this is correct. I can hardly wait...