søndag 27. november 2016

Tactica: Captain Allister Caine (Caine2)

Captain Allister Caine sporting his Spellstorm Pistols
I wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek post called "Caine2 List Building for Dummies", and was asked about maybe doing a more serious post on the subject. Here it is!

So, who is Captain Allister Caine? Caine2 is the hardest shooting S-o-B in WARMACHINE. He is the ultimate super solo glass cannon, bringing high damage and tons of utility. He also dies to a stiff breeze, so caveat gunmage.

I'm going to go through his abilities, possible tactics, and some tested (and some fun) Caine2 lists.

Update: This post was for the 2016v2 errata. Caine2 was heavily nerfed in the 2017v1 errata after Ammo Type was replaced with Empowered Shot, and he attritions worse now. Most notably Trick Shot assassinations are no longer viable, and losing free Black Penny makes comboing with Ragman more difficult.

Abilities


Innate True Sight is a strong and situational ability, which allows you to ignore all clouds and Stealth, two of the overall strongest and hardest defensive techs to counter. This ability is key to making him a strong candidate for your tournament pair.

Spellstorm Pistol is just insanely good.

* Black Penny is great for unjamming your army, or firing at something you have tagged with Ragman's Death Field without penalty.
* Grievous Wounds is generally great for crippling Warbeasts and Trollbloods, and it also outright counters some very strong feats and abilities. A good tactic is to apply Grievous with the last shots, after you have determined what lives or not.
* Trick Shot is the best of them. It allows you to clear low two low ARM infantry for the price of one, or remove all the chaff around a heavy while you feat it away. It also allows you to do the infamous Trick Shot assassination. More on that later.

Reload [Infinity] is Caine's signature ability. It is what makes Caine2 into Caine2. You can fire up to 8 shots per turn, 2 initials and 6 for your focus. With Reinholdt or the Squire (ha ha don't take the Squire) it goes up to 9.

Spells


Caine2 has mostly upkeeps, and every time you switch an upkeep around you lose 2-3 Focus for that turn. You do not want to do that. Usually I just pick the 1-2 upkeeps I want at the start of the game, and almost never switch. Drop the upkeeps if they become useless later in the game, or if you have a do-or-die assassination run.

Bullet Dodger (BD) tends to go on Caine, unless the opposing army has KD / Stationary threats that you think you cannot avoid. If they do, give Caine HR instead.

Heightened Reflexes (HR) goes on Caine if the matchup indicates that BD won't work. Typically this will be against casters like Rahn, or lists with Dahlia & Skarath, or if you cannot reliably spot the Throw assassination angles (I cannot reliably spot the Throw assassination angles). The perfect Unit to cast it on is Trenchers. Tough becomes vastly more powerful when you cannot get knocked down.

Fire for Effect (FFE) is in my opinion an overall poor spell on Caine. It is expensive for its effect, and since BD and HR usually are more useful, casting this spell means much less pew pew in one of the turns you want to pew pew. There are a few exceptions. I would not take models in your list that depend on FFE for being effective. You don't want to be tied into using this spell.

Gate Crasher (GC) has too short range in Mk3 to improve your assassination chances much. It is mostly useful for positioning. The standard operating procedure if 12" is risky and 17" is safe, is to move up, fire a few shots, and GC back to safety. It's a place effect so you can land behind obstacles or blocking models.

Feat


Overkill allows you to do insane damage with Caine. It is not so good against very high armor targets. If you face those, put the first shots into softer targets to build up damage, and then drop the last shots into the tough guy. The feat can be used either for attrition or assassination.

Caine2 Game Plan

Weaknesses: Dying


You fuck up, you pay the price.
Surviving is the biggest issue with Caine. If the opponent gets something on him, he cannot tank it.

The most important thing is to not get knocked down. If he stumbles, he dies.

The easiest way to avoid this is HR. The harder (but usually stronger) way here is to spot all the KD angles. This got easier to avoid in 2017v1 after removing friendly throws.

The seconds easiest is BD. This has the added advantage of the enemy not knowing whether you will Dodge forwards or backwards, for surprise threat extension. If you want to BD away, you need to closely consider his plays to block your Dodge (this is often quite easy if Caine2 is extended).

The saddest tactic is GC. It costs 2 Focus and therefore 2-4 sweet damage rolls, but sometimes it is really the only possible way to keep him alive.

Always consider camping. If the enemy can drift unto you with blasts, or realistically hit you with anything, always camp something. Two boosted AOEs can kill a non-camping Caine just fine.

Weaknesses: Armor Cracking

High ARM casters with high ARM jacks are the bane of Caine. The best tip if you see that in the enemy pair is to drop your other list (which should be an armor cracking list).

If you can't or won't, well. There are some things you can do. One is the one I am doing, which is building a list which is as good at cracking armor as possible. It might allow you to take down 3, maybe 4 heavies, but if you run into Karchev then, yeah, it's probably gg.

If you are sure you can't crack his armor, well, probably you should just save your Feat until you have a line on the caster and go for even the diciest assassination. A small chance is, after all, better than no chance.

Tactics

There are three main ways to win at WARMACHINE - assassination, scenario, and indirectly by attrition.

Direct assassination on Butcher3

Tactics: Assassinations

There are two basic runs. Shooting the enemy caster repeatedly in the face, or shooting his best buddy repeatedly in the face and use Trick Shot onto the caster.

Caine has 19" threat on the direct damage run. It's hard to get it higher, but throwing him with a Stormwall while he has HR on himself increases the range to 20.5". If the enemy has placed a model between 7" and 10.5" away from Caine you can charge it first to extend your threat. You will waste any attacks you need to remove the model you charge before you can start shooting at your real target, but since Mk3 removed friendly faction charges your opponent might more easily overlook this fairly standard Mk2 style tactic.

If you want to do this run, anything that increases LOS and reduces target DEF is great. Knockdown is of course the best, but Cygnar has no reliable long range KD. Staple support units for assassination are Rangers and the Gun Mage Captain Adept (GMCA). Ace can also increase your chances by pushing and (maybe) knocking down models.

The Trick Shot run has longer threat, you can add whatever base you are shooting at + 4" to the max distance. On the other hand, unboostable POW 10 is not high. As a rule of thumb, you can do it on ARM 13-14 casters with some camp, ARM 15 casters with no camp, and on ARM 16+ it doesn't work. Only do this if it is the only possible way to win. This no longer works in 2017v1.

Tactics: Scenario


Caine2 is not a strong scenario player, having nothing at all that supports winning on scenario. But still, it's good to consider what he *can* do. The trick here is that Caine is such a bully against lists that have low threat ranges and cannot kill him directly. You can move him 12" up turn 1, and then just keep pushing his army away with your assassination threat and damage. If you cannot win yourself, then your threat may be enough to keep the enemy caster off *his* scenario, buying you time to win in one of the other ways.

Caine2 pushing in his Trencher fort, his best buddy Reinholdt by his side
There are many matchups where winning on scenario is unlikely or impossible, and then you just have to do something else. But if you can get an edge on scenario, you can maybe force the enemy to just feed his army into your hungry, hungry dual Spellstorms.


Tactics: Attrition


In my opinion this is the strongest way to build and play Caine. It might sound surprising to many, since Caine does so little for his army and he has always been considered one of the best assassins in the game. But in Mk3, he got such an incredible boost with his Ammo Types.

Caine2 on the bird hunt - he attritions hard
The key to this tactic is that Caine is like having a bonus 20 point unit teleporting around and causing havoc. If you have Caine, your army is likely to do more damage than his army.

Special Combos

Stuff you won't see every game.
  • Hellmouth: Caine2 can fairly reliably remove this horror, even with no feat. How, you ask? Throw FFE on a Trencher grunt. Have the unit move up and CRA on the Hellmouth. A 10 man POW 21 CRA removes the blasted thing on 5+ on two dice.
  • Lightning Pod: Stormwall Lightning Pod is a great target for a clutch Trick Shot
  • Stormwall: A Stormwall with Arcane Shield is also itself a great target for trick shots. Move the guy within 4" of the enemy caster or into a swarm of low ARM infantry and clear them away while having Caine2 far. far away.
  • Storm Lances: You guessed it. ARM 20 Storm Lances can survive quite a lot of Trick Shots as well.
  • Trick Shot assassination using Stormwall on Amon
  • GMCA: This guy is also a legit FFE target. If you really really really need that +2 to hit for the next turn's assassination run, you can consider putting FFE on the GMCA on this turn.
  • Rhupert: His Mist can also be used on Caine, to put his DEF over the top. Getting to DEF 21 starts making many spell assassination runs against Caine very janky.

Army Choices

One of the nice things about playing a caster that does not support his army is that you have plenty of options. 

Army Choices: Essential

I think there are only two must-haves with Caine.
  • Reinholdt for the extra shot every turn.
  • Rangers for the accuracy buff. With so much shooting, you want Caine at 3+ to hit whenever you can. Try not to spend them all at once, having just one left that can threat 19" with run + Mark can be the difference between winning and losing.

Army Choices: Strong

The clue to Caine2 is to take models that do not require support from Caine.
One of Caine's best buddies (sorry Ace)
  • Stormwall is a fantastic distraction and also improves assassination potential and armor cracking.
  • Gun Mage Captain Adept has the strongest synergy with Caine, and is my first optional choice.
  • Journeyman Warcaster is good for attrition. Stormwall, Centurion and Storm Lances are prime targets.
  • Trenchers, are an exception to my no-support-from-Caine rule. HR makes these guys beastly, and the clouds are great for playing Caine up the board.
  • Storm Lances are totally self-sufficient and our best overall unit in Mk3. They also bring the best armor cracking, which helps shore up one of Caine's core weaknesses.
  • Ragman is great in any Caine list where you expect to have enemies in your face. He delivers a maximum of 36 extra damage from Caine2 every turn if you can hit with both shots and Trick Shots within his Death Field.
  • Rhupert Carvolo can give Caine another +2 DEF, give emergency pathfinder, and who doesn't love the sound of bagpipes?

Army Choices: Optional

These are choices which are more debatable, but can be fun and/or useful.
  • Defender, Gallant (with Halan Versh), Hunter,  Stormclad are good jacks that require little or no focus.
  • Ace has a knockdown shot, but is very expensive and mostly duplicates abilities you can get for less.
  • Centurion requires little focus and is a good scenario piece, but sometimes he just won't see any action.
  • Arlan Strangewayes frees up a focus if you have jacks that want more than one.
  • Eiryss2 is good for assassination focused lists, but she is expensive and pretty predictable, and there are too many ways to remove her.

  • Lady Aiyana and Master Holt with Murdoch are very expensive, but allow Caine to pew pew at range with an ARM debuff. I would probably prefer Ragman.
  • Lanyssa Ryssyl helps with extending Caine's poor jack threat, but it's still poor.
  • Lynus Wesselbaum & Edrea Lloryrr are nice for picking out arcnodes and spirit, but against many lists they do little. I am unsure if they are worth their points.
  • Viktor Pendrake is a possibility against beast heavy lists, but I don't think it's the best choice, since you usually won't have issues hitting even Circle beasts with Caine.
In order to not make this wall of text a Trump level tall wall of text, I won't go into the models I think are less useful.

Caine2 List Variants


Here are some possible Caine2 lists, for your enjoyment.

Army List: "Infantrymachine"

Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* Centurion
* Hunter
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo
6 Rangers
5 Storm Lances
10 Trencher Infantry

This is a list I constructed myself, and the one I am currently playing. I like toolbox lists more than skew. This list is asking the following conundrum of the opponent, "Can you deal with lack of vision, 21 hard to kill infantry and cavalry models, Caine's strong removal and assassinations AND a 24 ARM jack?" I think many lists will struggle with at least some parts of this army.

Check out my battle reports about Caine2 for details.

Army List: "Stormwall"

Several similar lists have been played in tournaments, with the exact solos being shuffled between these and Ragman, Lanyssa, Gobber Tinker, Lynus & Edrea, etc.

Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* Stormwall
Journeyman Warcaster
* Charger
3 Storm Lances
3 Storm Lances
6 Rangers
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Captain Arlan Strangeways
Rhupert Carvolo

This list uses Stormwall as an anchor point, diversion and/or LOS blocker for Caine. A neat trick here is Shadow Fire works on friendly faction models, so you can move the Stormwall, make it invisible with the GMCA, place Caine behind it and pew pew pew. When the enemy turn starts, the Stormwall blocks LOS again.

Caine can here keep his Focus mostly for himself. Power Up + Arlan provides 2 out of the possible 3 focus for Stormwall, and you probably only need 2 for shooting when you have Rangers and GMCA. There are not so many good upkeep targets, so probably Caine can just keep HR or BD on himself all game. I guess a DEF 12 Stormwall could be fun though.

Army List: "Bounty Hunter"


Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* Ace
* Stormwall
2x Gun Mage Captain Adept
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (Eiryss2)
Gobber Tinker
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
6 Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
6 Rangers

If you like your games short & sweet, why not just throw all the assassination boosters into one list and add a Stormwall to the mix. A possible triple Shadow Fire, Critical Knockdown push shots Rhupert to give Caine pathfinder, and Eiryss to strip the focus. I am not saying it's tournament level good, but I am sure it will be fun. For you.

Army List: "Hunter Spam"


Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* 3x Hunter
Journeyman Warcaster
* 2x Hunter
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Ragman
6 Rangers
5 Storm Lances

Shoot'em up, and whatever survives, hit it with a Storm Lance charge. At least it will be glorious. Just make sure to tell your opponent "Caine2 is not really OP" afterwards.

Army List: "Morrowan"


Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* Centurion
* Gallant
Journeyman Warcaster
* Hunter
Arlan Strangeways
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Harlan Versh
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Rhupert Carvolo
5 Storm Lances
6 Rangers

This list was provided to me by the Hydrogenator in the PP forum. It looks pretty interesting!

The Hydrogenator writes: "[f]irst turn is typically BD on Gallant, sometimes HR on Caine if I need it (Lylyth3, throws, KD casters). I think FFE is a trap, not worth losing the focus but I play pretty greedy with him. It forces you to be a bit more cognizant of threats but he out threats pretty a huge portion of the game to begin with.There are few casters who can afford to walk within 19-25" of him. And there typically isn't much left to threaten Caine after he activates and Gatecrashes out. Versh is another nice control piece depending on your opponents army, he's surprisingly tough to deal with.

AS starts on the ponies and then I switch to the Centurion once they get stuck in."


Army List: "Sniper"


Caine 2
* Reinholdt
* Ace
* Centurion
Journeyman Warcaster
* Charger
Alten Ashley
Arlan
Eiryss 1
Gorman
2x Gun Mage Captain Adept
2x Gun Mage Rifleman
Ragman
6 Rangers
Lynus & Edrea

From KhadorGuy09 in the PP forum.

KhadorGuy09 writes: "The basic premise is to play a catchers mitt style game. Arcane Shield goes on the Centurion who is there to contest scenario elements, while the rest of your army inflicts 'death by a thousand cuts'. The priority for Caine, the Rifleman and Alten is to scalpel out spirits and cortex's, while the rest of the army clears up any infantry. One trick is not to use the feat to kill a single heavy, but to spread out the damage on vital systems on several, without cortex's or spirits the Centurion is near impossible to kill. There is a fair amount of gunfighter and black penny so the list is also pretty good at unjamming itself.

Also with the GCMA and Eiryss 1 the opponent has to respect the threat of assassination, so the longer you hold the feat and bully their caster back the better."

More Army Lists


You can find a lot of tournament Caine 2 lists here:

In Closing


I absolutely love playing Caine2. He is very flexible, and can be played extremely aggressively. He can often pull out wins from places wot wins should ne'er be pulled. I hope the guide was useful, and I'll see you over the tabletop!



lørdag 26. november 2016

Frozen Forge tokens

I am sure that a lot of you have spotted the absolutely beautiful tokens, measuring widgets and templates most of the Norwegian players have been sporting at events, and also the custom colored purple Cygnar ones that I use for my battle reports. They are made by my friend Jonas Brand and his company, Frozen Forge.

Jonas Brand has been an avid player of WARMACHINE for years. He knows exactly what we need, and he makes the very best stuff. Super durable, very clear and obvious symbols, beautiful design. Every detail is right, down to separate tokens for Journeyman version of spells, focus token variants, and sufficient tokens for every possible minion and merc.


All the tokens for my Caine2 army list

Movement widgets are so much more accurate than using a measuring tape.


0.5" - 6" measuring and movement widgets

I love planning out my assassination runs and important unit placements with these proxies.


Proxies with front arcs 

I wanted to help him get the word out, so I have reached an agreement with him that I will link to his store from my blog, and when he makes some new clever stuff he'll send my a copy, and then I will tell you about it.

As you can see my blog has no other ads. I don't get any money from Frozen Forge for this. I do this purely because Jonas' stuff is the best, and I am super happy with the design and quality.






Tournament Results: 2D6 Club Steamroller

PlayerFactionCastersScore
AsbjørnCircleUna2 / Wurmwood3-0
MartinLegionLylyth3 / Absolynia22-1
LarsConvergenceLucant / Directrix2-1
GeirProtectorateHigh Reclaimer / Amon2-1
MatsTrollsbloodsRagnor / Doomshaper31-2
StianLegionVayl2 / Absolynia21-2
Christian TCygnarCaine2 / Haley21-2
Christian BProtectorateHigh Reclaimer / Severius20-3


Battle Reports


Caine2 vs High Reclaimer
Caine2 vs Wurmwood
Haley2 vs High Reclaimer

Battle Report #40: Haley2 vs High Reclaimer (2D6 Tournament)

The last game of the tournament was versus Geir, who played Amon and High Reclaimer. I think Caine2 would have a terrible time against Amon and 10ish jacks, so I drop Haley2.

Major Victoria Haley (75 points)


Major Victoria Haley (Haley2)
* Squire
* Stormwall
* Ironclad
* Thorn
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Ragman
Lanyssa
3 Storm Lances

The High Reclaimer (75 points)


This is the exact same list as Christian played in the first match.


The High Reclaimer
* Dervish
* Scoure of Heresy
* Vigilant
2x Allegiant of the Order of the Fist
Anastasia di Bray
The Covenant of Menoth
Vassal Mechanik
2x Wrack
6 Knights Exemplar + Officer
6 Knights Exemplar + Officer
6 Idrian Skirmishers + Chieftain & Guide
5 Flame Bringers

Deployment


The scenario is The Pit.

I win the die roll and go first.

My plan is to try to pressure him on scenario, and hopefully force him to make some less than optimal plays to stop me. Lances go on the right to try to harass his flag. Stormwall positions to toe into the zone, and prevent vision of Haley when she is standing on my flag.





Turn 1


I move up, out of his threat range.




Everything swarms forward. His list is strong in melee and weak at range, so it makes sense to get close.



Turn 2


I move up, feat, and kill everything I can get my hands on. Unfortunately I am not able to remove the Allegiant on the left.





I have seriously underestimated how much damage the Idrians with Hand of Fate can do, though. He shoots away all my Lances. Not a good play by me, I should rather have shot and engaged all the Idrians.

Anastasia enters on the left side behind my models.





Turn 3


I kill Anastasia, but a boosted pod and eleaps together are, unfortunately, not able to kill the Allegiant (while I kill my own Lanyssa). I fail to score. This is not good, my plan was to start scoring, and it would be hard for him to get ahead.




He moves even closer. I have killed a lot of stuff, but now he starts scoring. It's going to be very hard for me to contest anything. The High Reclaimer throws up some clouds and thinks himself safe, camping 3 focus.

0 - 1



Turn 4


I am behind on scenario, and I have only 8 minutes left on the clock. But, I spot an angle. Thorn runs up. I arc a Time Bomb, needing 6 to hit, and with the squire reroll I stick it on the High Reclaimer. The Stormwall gets Temporal Acceleration. The Firefly clears away the one Examplar in the way. The Stormwall scoots left and fires three times on the now DEF 12 High Reclaimer, needing 6+. Unfortunately the second shot comes up 4 on the dice. I buy an extra die and get a 1. Crap! The High Reclaimer is left on a only a few boxes.

0-2





Haley is completely exposed, the High Reclaimer can feat, and I have two minutes left on the clock. there is no way I can survive this. I shake my opponent's hand!

Post Mortem


Phew, this is hard. But I definitely had chances here. If I had not lost the Storm Lances to the Idrians he would not actually have had much left if I had kept killing stuff on the last turn.

That was a fun tournament! The matches were hard and fairly even all the way,

Full tournament results here!


Battle Report #39: Caine2 vs Wurmwood (2D6 Tournament)


For my second game I am matched with Asbjørn, who is piloting Una2 and Wormwood. I am pretty sure he won't risk dropping Una2 into Caine2. I really want to try out my Caine2 list and see if it has game into Wurmwood at all. After all, my Haley2 / Stormwall list is very susceptible to Stranglehold.

Captain Allister Caine (75 points)



Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* Centurion
* Hunter
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo
6 Rangers
5 Storm Lances
10 Trencher Infantry
Bunker

Wurmwood, Tree of Fate (75 points)


Wurmwood
* Feral Warpwolf
* Megalith
* 2x Pureblood Warpwolf
Swamp Gobber Chef
3 Shifting Stones
2x4 Sentry Stone and Mannikins
10 Tharn Bloodtrackers


Deployment


I win the dice roll and want to claim the board.




Turn 1


Everything runs up.




Wurmwood rolls only 1 fury for each Sentry Stone.He kills off 5 Trenchers and 3 Rangers. I probably should have placed things a bit further back. Wurmwood feats and boom where is everything? I can only see trees.




Turn 2



I use Trenchers and some leaps to clear off some Bloodtrackers, and back out. Hunter goes for extreme flanking maneuver. I contest, so he does not score.




Turn 3


The warpwolves clear away the Hunter with some good dice rolls. Wurmwood makes his fort.




There is an opening for Caine. I feat and charge a Bloodtracker, and then shoot away the Feral and all the Bloodtrackers as well as a Sentry Stone. The cavalry removes another Sentry stone.

It's maybe a risky, but I cannot see how he assassinates me, so I go for it. I still have the Bullet Dodger, after all.



Cassius runs around me and the Tree ports in. A Hellmouth pulls the Megalith within range of Caine. A Shifting Stone blocks my last exit. Then, Megalith punches me dead.

I think I could have made this all much harder by making a triangle of Lancers in front of Caine.




Circle wins by assassination!


I am not sure if this is Wurmwood or Cassius, but he sure seems satifisfied with the result. Damn that tree!




Post Mortem


This was a very interesting game! Wurmwood does not have very many pieces, and if I can remove some, I think I have game here. Wurmwood is probably up, but then he is up against a lot of things.


Battle Report #38: Caine2 vs High Reclaimer (2D6 Tournament)

Geir in the club arranged a small 8-man tournament today. This is my first proper tournament since I last played Mk2, about 4 years ago!

The first game is a matchup I have been really looking forward to trying out. I wanted to see if my Caine2 list has game into the High Reclaimer, or not.

Captain Allister Caine (75 points)


Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* Centurion
* Hunter
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo
6 Rangers
5 Storm Lances
10 Trencher Infantry
Bunker

The High Reclaimer (75 points)


The High Reclaimer
* Dervish
* Scoure of Heresy
* Vigilant
2x Allegiant of the Order of the Fist
Anastasia di Bray
The Covenant of Menoth
Vassal Mechanik
2x Wrack
6 Knights Exemplar
* Knights Exemplar Officer
6 Knights Exemplar
* Knights Exemplar Officer
6 Idrian Skirmishers
* Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide
5 Flame Bringers
Fuel Cache



My opponent, Christian.

Deployment 


With Anastasias help the High Reclaimer wins the starting roll.

My plan is to push Caine up the middle, send the Centurion to contest the left zone, using the remaining units to clear and control my zone.

High Reclaimer has a nasty assassination threat, but Caine with Bullet Dodger can be hard to assassinate unless he can box me in. Even with 4 dice take 2 on Examplars with minifeat and Hand of Fate he needs to roll 2 sixes on 4 dice to hit, and if he misses then Caine starts dodging away.

On the other hand, I cannot Trick Shot assassinate the High Reclaimer.

Both lists are very attrition based. I expect a long grind!


Deployment

Turn 1


High Reclaimer moves up and creates a cloud wall.




I move up and create a smoke fort around Caine. Caine gets Bullet Dodger and the Trenchers get Heightened Reflexes. Caine shoots away the center Monk and Gate Crashes back into safety.

I misplace a Trencher which prevents me bouncing lighting off a Storm Lance with the Firefly, so the other Monk survives.




Turn 2


Idrians with Hand of Fate shoot hard. My Hunter is removed. Anastasia comes in on the right flank. His horses jam,




I try to remove all the horses by bouncing Trick Shots off the book into the horse in the forest, but unfortunately I miss a number of attacks on the right flank afterwards and some horses remain.

I forget to make space for the Centurion so he is unable to press forward to contest.





Turn 3


The High Reclaimer toes into the zone and starts scoring. His units engage and I have lost a lot of forces.

0-1





I am way down on attrition, and my opponent has started scoring. But the High Reclaimer is not completely safe where he is standing. I clear a path for a Ranger to run within 5" of the High Reclaimer. Then, the Centurion clears the spot where Caine needs to stand without being engaged. The GMCA moves up and tries to Flare, needing an 8, but I don't hit.

Caine moves up and starts shooting. My dice are hot and I miss only one single shot on 7+. The eigth shot is enough to fell him.




Cygnar wins by assassination!


Post Morten


Haha, that was just lucky. Or was it?

If I had hit with the GMCA then I would have had a good chance, but since I missed I needed crazy rolls. Getting 7 out of 9 hits is only a 20% chance on 7+, and when he is camping 3 Focus I need around that many hits to get the job done. Had I got the GMCA on him then I have an 82% chance to get 7 hits, and hitting that single shot was a 42% chance. All in all, this means that my run has around a 40% chance of success.

Anyway, it was the right play, no way I could have won any other way, and it paid off.

The matchup feels pretty rough for Caine. His list is grindy, and hits very hard, so I think he can just skip assassinating and focus on killing all my stuff.

I go to 1-0! 






fredag 25. november 2016

Caine2 List Building for Dummies

Step up your Caine2 game with our 5-step Gunmages Anonymous program. Our 5-step program is highly scientific, and has been meticulously tested out on unsuspecting casters from all over the Iron Kingdoms.

Step 1


Take Caine2.


Step 2


Take Reinholdt.


Step 3


Take Rangers.

Step 4


Take 89 points of self-sufficient models that don't want Focus from Caine.


Step 5





Edit: I have since written a long Caine2 Tactica. :D

Battle Report #37: Caine2 vs Issyria

I had time for another quick fight and Nima wanted to try out his Issyria list. Normally I would drop Haley2 into this, but I need more Caine2 practice.

Edit: Nima has written about this fight on the blog, declaring it a victory for him even if he had lost 3 times on takebacks! The gall! The lies! The pointy, pointy ears! Never trust an elf, that's what I say. :D

Captain Allister Caine (75 points)


Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* Centurion
* Hunter
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo
6 Rangers
5 Storm Lances
10 Trencher Infantry
Bunker

Issyria, Sybil of Dawn (75 points)


Issyria, Sybil of Dawn
* Chimera
* Hyperion
Elara
* Discordia
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (Eiryss2)
2x Archanist Mechanik
Nyss Hunters
* Soulless Escort
2x2 Heavy Rifle Team


Deployment


This is interesting. Issyria's spell countering is useless against Caine2, but she can armor skew a lot which Caine2 doesn't like. On the other hand Issyria dies to a stiff breeze so perfect positioning is needed to avoid the Trick Shot assassination. It's going to be hard to me got get Ragman into position since he can feat to see through my clouds, and anyway Hyperion scatters can kill any of my solos.

Nima wins the die roll and elects to go first. I elect to get the trench.

His infantry goes on the right, and I counterdeploy the Lances to chew them up. Usually I want Lances to harass the distant zone, but they will just murder Nyss. The solosplace near that sweet, sweet trench.






Turn 1


Hyperion gets Inviolable Resolve and skews towards the left objective. The Chimera gets Admonition. Eiryss runs behind the objective.




Issyria is standing within 4" of Discordia and camping only 2, and Discordia is within 19" of Caine2. So that is ~36 Trick Shot damage on poor Issyria.

Cygnar wins by assassination!


We minifeat Issyria back and continue the game.

Cygnar tech time. I run two Rangers near Eiryss. Caine casts Bullet Dodger and Heightened Reflexes. He shoots his own Rangers in the back and after two Trick Shots Eiryss dies.

Lances get Arcane Shield and run up. One goes within 4" of a Nyss and I bounce a Firefly shot off it. A Nyss is electrocuted.

The Hunter shoots a weapon team member.

God, I love playing Cygnar.

Most of my lovely solos jump into the Trench and hope for the best. I did a misplay here, I should have had 2 Trenchers make smoke in front of the Trench to force a feat if he wants to go for murdering my solos, or for a long shot assassination run on Caine with the Starburst.






Turn 2



Hyperion toes into the zone. There are some shots, but only minimal damage, I lose a Storm Lance, two Rangers and a Trencher. Nima looks frustrated.




I start killing stuff. All but one Nyss dies. Caine gate crashes into the zone and camps 2.




Turn 3


Nima sees he is losing both the attrition and scenario game, and ponders the throw assassination.

When Nima smiles and goes all quiet, you know it's assassination time.

He plays out a bit of his turn but doesn't get it done. We reset. He does it another way but that doesn't work either. We reset. In the end we figure out that throwing the Chimera with the Hyperion, clearing out the Lance jamming the last Nyss, a Discordia spray, and then Nyss hunters charge, is the way to land it.

I still cannot wait for the throw rules to get fixed!




Post Mortem


Quite an interesting matchup. I would think that Issyria should be up here, that ARM23 against shooting Hyperion should be really tough to crack with my list. On the other hand, her extreme brittleness means she is always in danger of dying to the tiniest mistake.

Again, I need to look for the throw angles here. The whole thing is just so stupid. Hyperion's laser guided throw threat is like 8.5" + 5" + 2" + a base, and it simply cannot miss.


torsdag 24. november 2016

Battle Report #36: Caine2 vs Doomshaper3

More Caine2 practice! I play my list far too slowly, so I have decided to try just playing Caine2 until I manage to get sufficient speed. Today I face Mats and Doomshaper 3. Doomshaper 2 was one of my favourite Mk2 Warlocks, it's going to be interesting to see what his third incarnation is like.

Captain Allister Caine (75 points)


Captain Allister Caine
* Reinholdt
* Centurion
* Hunter
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo
6 Rangers
5 Storm Lances
10 Trencher Infantry
Bunker


Hoarluk Doomshaper, Dire Prophet (75 points)


Hoarluk Doomshaper, Dire Prophet
* Dire Troll Mauler
* Earthborn Dire Troll
* Mulg the Ancient
* Pyre Troll
* Troll Axer
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Swamp Gobber Chef
6 Krielstone
* Stone Scribe Elder
Northkin Fire Eaters
3 Trollkin Warders


Deployment


I deploy Caine centrally. My game plan is to use the Centurion to lock down the left zone, and the Lances to clear the right zone. I place the Centurion directly in front of the left zone so that he can run turn 1, and walk and use Polarity shield turn 2. Due to the forest on his side, contesting the right zone seems to be the hardest for Doomshaper.





Turn 1


I run into position. I forget that the Fire Eaters have assault, leaving too many Rangers within spray range. Caine gets Bullet Dodger, Trenchers get Heightened Reflexes, and Caine gate crashes as far as he can up the board. He can't shoot a lot, so I give the Rangers Heroic Call.





The Pyre Troll sets the Fire Eaters on fire. They spray away half my Rangers.




Turn 2


All the fire burns out. Caine shoots Grievous wounds unto the Pyre, taking out his Mind, and also bounces a shot onto Lanyssa who dies. Then he teleports back. The rest of the units remove the Fire Eaters. The Hunter snipes out the Gobber Chef that could have contested the right zone next turn.




I forgot that the Earthborn could trample. He kills off one of the Lances. Doomshaper feats, and Mulg and the Scroll Bearer together increase my upkeep cost to 3. The Centurion is hit with Strangehold.

Edit: Eric from the Cygnar FB group pointed out that the upkeep cost is actually 4 per spell - it's doubled twice.




Turn 3


I cannot keep my upkeeps. I spend too much time considering an assassination, when attrition is clearly the way to go. I feat and shoot Grievous Wounds onto all the Dire Trolls. Together with Ragman and the units I kill the Earthborn, Mauler, do some damage to Mulg, and jam up everything.


1-0




Doomshaper is in trouble. He has no assassination play and is losing on both attrition and scenario.

He decides to try to free up Mulg, which he manages, but he does only light damage to the Centurion.

2-0





Turn 4


I kill Mulg. Mats concedes.




Cygnar wins by attrition!


Post Mortem


Grievous Wounds is good against trolls, but it is just crazy against Doomshaper. It completely neuters his feat, as well as other abilities. Mats decides he never wants to play this matchup again.

I am happy with my play, I think I played solidly, and I never felt that Doomshaper pressured me.