Cygnar First Army - is it worth playing in 2024?

So, what are my thoughts about Caine and First Army after WTC, I hear you ask? Even if you did not ask, here are my unfiltered thoughts, profanity and all, enjoy!

I went 1-4 with Caine, but the pilot here, your truly, is absolutely not the best player around, and my opponents were all good players, so I don't think much can be read into that.

Warcasters

Caine is an S tier caster, with an extremely strong feat in an infantry meta. He has one of the best assasination runs in the game, with access to both ranged knockdown / push from his army and spell slams from himself. Snipe is also a really good spell, expecially with all the range reduction these days.

The other warcasters depend on which flavor of mid you prefer.

Kraye is a super cool model, and fun and dynamic to play. The presence of several armies with range reduction, plus maybe 40% of the WTC tables having range reduction terrain available makes him much worse than he was last year. The ever-present pig is very strong into Cyclones and Kraye + he ignores the Stealth part of the feat. If the pig gets spanked hard with the nerf bat, Kraye stocks will go up.

Siege looks pretty good on paper, and dug in Trenchers can be hard to remove for a few armies, but it is slow on clock and requires extreme precision. The payoff for all the work - one good charge a turn that will maybe take out a heavy if it does not have DEF over 12- is not great, you're basically giving the 10-ish points you took right back by leaving a 10 point unit of DEF 11 Trenchers to die. Similarly costed buffed units from other factions can take out an unbuffed Colossal on a charge. Trenchers can not, they need a caster spell, plus 9 points of solos, and even then they cannot take out a colossal. Even on feat turn, Siege only barely out-threatens many other lists. And what's the deal with a spell that you place out, and then ONE model can fit inside the 3" ring to get a DEF buff, it's just peak clunkiness. Other factions give a global buff for 3 focus. You give one model the same buff for 2 focus, and must cast it again if it moves.

Darius is shelf tier. In a game with Wyverns and Issrafyl and cavalry and whatnot that charge 15+ inches on any given turn, your jacks must be fast, cheap, or very tanky. Cygnar jacks are slow, expensive and have paper armor. A repair feat is terrible in a game as lethal as Warmachine. When things get charged, they almost always die, and if they don't die, you have a free Ol' Faithful that will get all systems back online, or cheap Engineers. Your feat is about as good as 3 cost spell plus a command card. Caine's feat removes 20+ points of enemy army.

If you want to kill big things, take Kraye, if you want to kill infantry, take Caine, and if you want your life to be a constant uphill struggle against unfathomable odds, for little benefit, take Siege for that true Trencher lifestyle. Just leave poor toilet bowl man Darius on the shelf.

Models

I'm not going to be considering how models play with Darius here.

The best model in Cygnar - as in most armies - is Carver + MMD, unless you play Kraye, in which case take the 4 Cyclones first and then maybe the pig. I tried to do 4 Cyclones and pig, but found it too weak on scenario play, you get very thin on solos and units.

On from broken shit to the actual Cygnar models. We have some good options, but the internal balance in the army is generally atrocious.

Cohort

The great jacks are Centurion, Cyclone, and Triumph. Ace and colossals are OK.

Ace is the best choice with Caine, but the high amount of shield guards around + Ricochet not triggering if you kill the target makes his bond not all that strong. Ace is of course useless without Caine.

Centurion is somewhat hard to remove at range, fairly costed, and Polarity is great into jack spam - but most armies these days run infantry that will easily remove a Centurion on the charge.

Cyclone is extremely good with Kraye's Pincushion, and having one or two is OK with Caine's Snipe. The main issue is the short range into range reduction abilities.

Hurricane and Stormwall are not great colossals, being expensive and fragile, but they have good main guns, and junior + Caine give them a ridiculous threat range, making them the highest value cohort targets for Snipe.

Triumph is great value with Siege, since he can get 3 attacks a turn. Siege does nothing for jacks, so the best option is to only take Triumph.

The rest of the jacks are overcosted trash, with poor threat ranges, low damage output, high focus requirements, and low armor. Just take artillery units instead. Kraye is the only caster that is good with jack spam, and if you took 4 Cyclones + 1 Centurion then you cannot really take much more. 

Structures

I have not had much time to try out Blockhouse, but trenches are great, the cannon is good, and it's hard to remove a blockhouse with infantry. Adding back grunts to artillery units is nice, because they still can do their job the turn they return. I would think that in any scenario where it can deploy to contest and can cover other objectives well it is pretty strong. The main problem I have is finding the 9 points for it. I imagine something fun can be built around one or two of these.

Units

The good units are the cheap units: Karli Cannon, Express Team, Engineers, and Rangers. Karli Cannon can sometimes just assassinate a caster, and otherwise they are great at cleaning out objective camping enemy units. Express Teams are great for grievously wounded bacon and for scenario control. Engineers are mandatory for Kraye to run his Cyclones. Rangers are super cheap with great rules, great for contesting and buffing your army against DEF skew.

If you play Siege, you are forced to take Trencher Infantry or Trencher Commandos to get anything out of Siege's Blood Lust and Desperate Pace, but they are still not great units. The commandos are way too expensive to take as ambushers.

The other Trenchers are mid to low tier units with a premium cost, and best left on the shelf.

Solos

Unlike the Cygnar units and cohorts, most of the solos are quite decent!

Patrol Dog is the absolutely bestest of Cygnar solos, who's a good solo? Yes you are, you are the bestest, you are, come here. The doggie is mandatory for a shooty army to see things. The best boi is also a great capper and contester. Dodge just straight up wins you games sometimes. Always take two. If they were FA: 10, I'd take 10.

Squire is overcosted for a non-combat solo, but since you are so dependent on Thunder Strike and Pincushion hitting every turn you cast them, I unfortunately think he is mandatory with Kraye and Caine. Think of it as the 4 point Cygnar tax. Siege has no use for Squire.

Murdoch is a good support for Caine, since his favorite place in the whole world is right behind a LOS-blocking forest, ready for murdering. Siege can also use him, since Trencher Infantry does not have pathfinder for some reason.

Finn and Hitch are over-costed, but the to hit and damage buffs are mandatory with Siege. For other casters, Rangers are way better value than Finn. Hitch's Tactician is a great ability in most armies, but Kraye's Iron Horse already gives flexible movement, and Caine has teleport, so he's not worth 4 points.

Trench Buster is over-costed compared to other armies' options, but Shield Guard is such a good ability against piggy pig and nasty AOEs that freeze and pitch you, plus they help against assasinations, one or both are worth it.

Master Gunner is solid value if you have any artillery, and you will have artillery, because the other non-support units are crap.

Sniper is a hard to remove capping solo that has long enough range to also do work, a good combination.

Warcaster Lieutenant is strong when stacking with Caine's Snipe. Losing Iron Horse makes him not worth taking with Kraye. Siege has no points to spare for such luxuries as jacks.

This makes Gibbs the only solo that you can probably leave on the shelf. Not that he is bad, but just take the Sniper instead if you have two spare points lying around.

Conclusion

I might play First Army again next year just on the strength of Caine, and my general love for all things Caine, but overall this army needs some serious buffs and several quality of life fixes to be a fully competitive army with a good pair.

My suggested fixes

Range reduction should be a named non-stackable effect like cover or Snipe. Stacked range reduction is extremely oppressive. You can outright lose games if you get the bad side of a table. I don't understand why this one effect in the game stacks. -3" is annoying, but -6" or even -10" is just insane.

All the jacks I did not mention above should probably drop by 1-2 points each, or get better rules.

Trencher and Commandos should be 1-2 points less for a unit. Some solo or UA needs Desperate Pace to make them at all playable outside Siege. Useless abilities like the Infantry UA minifeat should be replaced with something that can be used, and the Commando UA costing 3 points just to make the unit have any rules at all, jesus fucking christ, you have to be kidding me, just move the rules to the unit. Long Gunners and Triumph could just be RAT 2.

Just let the Squire give +1 ARC, please.

Replace Darius' feat with... anything, really, it's ridiculously bad. Also, he should get a global ARM or DEF buff as a spell so that he can properly run a jack heavy list, like most of the new factions have on the rack, and he needs more threat extenders.

Edit: Fixed poor wording in Siege paragraph.