So Colossals are
out. In my mind this means that every player needs a reliable way to get rid of
an opposing model that has double the boxes of a standard heavy. What I am looking for was a way to ‘one
round’ the opposing 20pt model and gain a clear advantage in the attrition
game.
Time
for a bit of research
Conquest: Arm 20,
62 Boxes – not many defensive buffs, likely to have Mechanics
Stormwall: Arm
19, 56 Boxes – will always have Arcane Shield, access also to Failsafe, Fortify,
Deceleration etc. Usually have at least
Arlan for repairs
Judicator: Arm
19, 60 Boxes – Will always have Choir singing, have some less common +2 Arm
buffs, absolute ranged beast with a Vassel in tow.
Kraken: Arm 19,
58 Boxes – Few arm buffs, can increase speed and pow though, good melee threat
range.
Hyperion: Arm 19,
12 + 50 Boxes, likely to be seen with Rahn for Polarity Shield
Galleon: Arm 19,
58 Boxes – Bart with Wrong Eye and Snapjaw makes for Arm 24. Access also to Failsafe, Temper Metal etc with
other popular casters (note Eyriss cannot remove Batten Down unless shooting
Bart)
Mountain King:
Arm 19, 48 Boxes – Will always be min Arm 21 because of obligatory Krielstone –
can go to 23 with Earthborn. Need to one
round it or it will Whelp heal for the win. Not popular with Troll players
Woldwrath: Arm
20, 55 Boxes – Not much healing available.
EBaldur for Arm 23 though...
Archangel:
Current spoilers say 11/18 with about 46 boxes.
Can bet its gonna have spiny growth/tenacity up all game though...
So, whoever ends
up with the anti-colossal role will without fail need EEiryss and probably
Aiyana and Holt to max out the damage.
In the past a charging Stormclad was a pretty popular big damage dealer
in Cygnar. Used with Kraye/Darius it could
charge for free, EHaley granted a bond and an extra attack, EStryker offered a
bond and Positive Charge.
If we assume that
via a variety of methods (dependent on caster) your Stormclad was arriving at
its target with an initial charge attack, a shield attack and around 2 or 3
‘buys' from one source or another. These are Pow 19 for the sword plus Pow 14 for the shield. On a standard Arm
19 Colossal we can assume it doesn’t miss so 10.5 for the charge, 2 for the shield and 7 more
for each of the 3 buys. About 33 Damage
all told from one of our heaviest hitters.
Getting more
specific if it were bonded with EHayley and Temporal Acceleration this becomes slightly
more, around 40 dmg. Bonded and Positive
Charged with EStryker it becomes about 43.
Still not dead in one round.
I am aware that Colossals are not supposed to die in one
round. Equally I am also aware that without resorting to ridiculous buffs, many
factions can quite easily lift one off (Mulg with Rage, Enraged Titan
Bronzebacks etc). So, the maths
continues...
If we add in
'harm' from Aiyana then the numbers jump dramatically. An extra 2 damage per
hit means that the damage with Haley jumps by 12, by 10 for Stryker and by 10
for Kraye. This means with Aiyana both
EHaley and Stryker are levelling out at around 52 - 54 dmg in one round with a
single Stormclad and Aiyana.
Haley has a
Stormwall nowadays (strapped to her on a permanent basis) so she is well
equipped in the heavy lifting department.
A charge attack, a second fist, a Temp Acceleration attack and 3 buys at
p+s 20 is about 52 damage without Aiyana.
With her feat to limit retaliation she is pretty well equipped as she
stands.
With the imminent
release of SR2013 (and the ‘dominate’ complication) EStryker may be about to
get more interesting but for the time being lets run some numbers on ECaine and
his very reliable feat. With Aiyana
proving to be a necessity we can assume he will be only opening up if the
target is already 'Harmed'. This means
he starts at an effective p+s 14. If you
unload all 10 shots into a Colossal (avoiding any double 1's to hit) then you
are looking at 65dmg on all currently released unbuffed Colossals, barring Conquest
who takes 55. That means that ECaine
will, reliably (roll more dice = more reliable averages) one round all bar 1 of
the Colossals in the game so far.
Suddenly I am very interested in ECaine.
The
Dirty Dozen
I have played
Caine for years, I love Caine in a rugged, manly, bromance kind of way. There came a point though that I simply couldn't
stop getting him killed. I wanted to
play him aggressively, get him up the table, threaten the assassination
run. My lists were all Caine delivery
systems, designed simply to get range and line of sight as quickly as possible.
In revisiting one
of my favourite casters I wanted to try and change my play style to make more
use of his rather good (and sometimes a little underused) buffs. I began with my tried and tested 'add a
Stormwall to make it better' approach.
This was quite successful as it gave Caine a very large region of
relative safety to operate in without worrying about getting things slammed
over him etc. He doesn't really offer
the Stormwall much in the way of buffs though.
I wanted to use Boomhowlers for a tarpit but at this point Haley was
hanging onto them for dear life so I tried running a small pirate module with Doc
Killingsworth, some Pressgangers and the occasional solo. This iteration felt very uncomfortable with
the pirates being ineffective, the Gunmages lacking punch and the Stormwall
left with little support.
Next came the
Steelheads; full cavalry and full Halberdiers swapping in for the Gunmages and
pirates. This was pretty tasty, the
Steelhead cav are monstrous on the charge with a flank bonus, suddenly the
supporting cast was pulling its weight.
Caine had his usual spread of mercenary and faction solos (Reinholt,
Squire, Junior, Eryiss, Arlan, Aiyana and Holt, Pendrake, Stormcallers etc) and
I was enjoying playing hide n seek behind the Stormwall.
Then Keith won Warmachine
weekend and Jamie P returned home from the US with a very positive impression
of the list he was running. It was very
similar to my 2011 Caine lists, Boomhowlers upfront, a full roster of the best
solo's, Rowdy and pick your flavour on the Infantry. What I liked about Keith's list was his use
of the Risen and Forgeguard. His was a
list that ran in waves, it didn't have any real 'high value' targets and could
'jam' the board, letting Caine go to work in the backfield. This was great, so with a couple of minor
tweaks it was time to steal a list and get
ECaine
Rowdy
Squire
Full Boomhowlers
Full Forgeguard
Rangers
Alexia and the
Risen
Epic Eryiss
Gorman
Aiyana and Holt
Junior
Reinholt
Pendrake
I have added
Gorman for the two Stormcallers that Keith was running as I really like having
the ability to hide Caine behind a smoke cloud (also, Black Oil is a real
threat to Colossals and this is the anti-colossal list..). I have also swapped out Ragman for Pendrake,
letting Caine murder all and any warbeasts on his feat turn.
I am still being
quite tactically naïve with this caster and have been giving him a lot of
thought recently. Since I am not going
to be pressing for the assassination run as ardently as I used to I must try
using him on a flank. Running with the
standard central caster deployment simply seems to end up with him boxed in and
under threat from all of the opposing army.
Moving up a flank and then across could cut down on the ranged threats
he faces and let him play the attrition game more.
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