Battle Report #507 & #508: Caine3 vs Makeda2

:: Prologue ::

I had the time to squeeze in a few games yesterday. Lately I've been told Caine3 is the thing and a friend of mine made a convincing case so I figured I should at least try him out. My opponent was playing Skorne and I figured this would be a good place to start: Not necessarily an intended matchup for Caine3 in a pairing but certainly a hard faction for non-Haley2 Cygnar lists to deal with!

:: Lists ::

:: Cygnar ::

Cygnar - HurriCaine
Theme: Heavy Metal
3 / 3 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army
Caine's Hellslingers - WJ: +20
-    Caine's Hellslingers (Cont.)
-    Squire - PC: 0
-    Ace - PC: 12
-    Charger - PC: 9
-    Charger - PC: 9
-    Charger - PC: 9
-    Hurricane - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 20)
-    Charger - PC: 9
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
-    Firefly - PC: 8

:: Opponent ::

(Makeda 2) Supreme Archdomina Makeda [+27]
- Despoiler [19]
- Molik Karn [19]
Mortitheurge Willbreaker [4]
Mortitheurge Willbreaker [4]
Tyrant Rhadeim [9]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Praetorian Ferox (max) [20]
Praetorian Ferox (max) [20]
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew [2]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We were playing Outlast 2 and I went first. The plan was to push up pretty far and force Skorne to either give me an assassination opening, a big shooty alpha or a scenario play with a slow grind.

:: Game 1 ::

I run stuff up.

Makeda moves in a trench and makes a fort of Ferox.

By shadow firing away a cat, Caine gets LoS to Makeda. He shoots her, applies calamity. Feat is stacked up to max. Hurricane is then effectively RAT11 and hits Makeda, slamming her into Molik. The ensuing firepower is insane and despite 2 heavies and 6 transfers she dies before 3 (!) of my Chargers have even activated.

My opponent realizes how crazy firepower Caine3 really has. We discuss angles, various spells, threat ranges and fears and go again.

:: Game 2 ::

As with the first game I run up.

My opponent keeps Makeda outside of 17" from the Hurricane. Cats are significantly more defensive.

I stay outside of cats' threat ranges with most of my things, slowly establishing myself on the right flank. Caine arcs Calamity onto the red cats through the Hurricane and I back off, killing one with grievous from Watts (proxied by Nemo) and reducing another couple of cats to 1 box. I forgot a couple of lessons here and got greedy. Stay death kept everything intact, I probably could've reduced 2 more cats to 1 box each.

Makeda has to make something happen. Red cats alpha the Firefly with feat (which also prevents KD and thus it's harder for me to get to Makeda). It loses most of its boxes but cortex and melee weapon are intact.

I don't want to feat because I don't think I can get enough Ferox now. I do however see an opening which lets me back off, hopefully kill the red cats -and- keep Hurricane out of the heavies' threat range. Calamity allows me to do all this, but I must say that towards the end it got kind of dodgy as my opponent managed a string of tough checks. Hero Arlan ended up taking out 2 cats with his spray! MVP!

Makeda makes a fort and send cats into Hurricane.

The fort is not big enough. I grievous one dude, shadow fire another and assassinate Makeda.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Caine3 was interesting! I make a lot of nooby plays because I don't know what patterns Caine3 likes. These games gave me some food for thought. He plays a very unique style where threat ranges are comparatively short but the punch is high, by Cygnar standards. I was surprised to see how many tricks this list has, which is very positive in my opinion. It feels like it will reward skilled play a lot.

The fact that this list can simply shoot through Makeda2's Stay Death is pretty huge. Calamity feels like a -very- big deal for Caine3. Being able to arc it by the Hurricane -and- through his shot type combine to make it very hard for an opponent to defend against. It is a very strong debuff and debuffs are very rare for Cygnar. Needless to say I love it.

These two games also show how incredibly hard it is to defend against Caine3's assassination. So many angles, such insane power. When 2 heavies with 6 transfers isn't close to enough you know he can burn through a ton of camp whether he's targeting a Warcaster or a Warlock.