gmonkey
Junior Strategist
I, for one, welcome our Infernal Overlords.
Posts: 313 
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Post by gmonkey on Dec 11, 2017 15:20:57 GMT
A while back, I had a match where I played Nemo1 Heavy Metal into Kaya. I felt relatively good about the match going in, but in the end Kaya's beasts ended up out-threating even my locomotion jacks. A charge from a warpwolf one-rounded Dynamo before he got off a single shot, and in the end I lost three jacks in Kaya's alpha, then she teleported the beasts back behind a druid cloudwall with her feat. I followed up with an almost-assassination from Thunderhead, because autohitting boosted POW14s are pretty good, but I was thwarted by lightning-immune druids with a long reach on their near-useless melee weapons.  After this game, I remade my list and added sword knights. A screen on my jacks would have been a real life-saver in that game. The discussion that I'd like to have is this: how important is an infantry screen? Are sword knights and trenchers the only good cygnar options? Do you include an infantry screen in any/most of your lists? If not, what are other viable approaches? Attachments:
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Dec 11, 2017 15:45:34 GMT
Mostly I rely on guns or longer threat ranges in order to get work done before my quality pieces are attacked.
In order for a screen to be worthwhile it has to do 2 things in my mind:
1) Have survivability at range
If your opponent can clear out your screen at range and open up charge lanes to you models behind, then they have failed in their job. However if your opponent has to remove them in melee they; potentially block their own models from charging past them, they have given you models to kill in retaliation
2) Do work at range
If they are likely to die from either range or melee on the turn they are screening, then you need to get work out of them first.
The obvious candidate is Trencher Infantry, with the flexibility of Concealment or Cover, Tough, potential Feign Death, and a whole host of defensive buffs that can go on them, plus the fact they have guns, they tick both boxes in my mind.
I would not consider a screen in other themes as there are not appropriate troops in those themes
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Post by sludgeogre on Dec 11, 2017 19:46:16 GMT
Totally agree with cygnar guy. If your screen is easily removed at range, it's not really a screen at all. Cygnar jacks are higher def than average, but if people can hit them, they melt quick. You have to stay outside of their threat range and piece trade as efficiently as you can to stay in the scenario game. Kraye is great at this since he can speed up his jacks for a lot less focus and once you kill a beast you can reposition back 5", which makes a huge difference if you can play the terrain properly.
Sword Knights make a good screen, but they are a pretty large point investment that doesn't get much work done besides hanging around on scenario. I'd personally just rather have more heavies.
You need to recognize when too much of your battlegroup is in their threat range and when they can be easily removed by those threats. If there's too many of them, contest with something and wait for them to get closer. Having your own large threat ranges (again, Kraye does this amazingly well when you sit on your feat for a turn) can also help keep them a little further away.
It's also always nice to take 2-3 Chargers to threaten whatever wants to come up into your heavies. Helps keep them honest sometimes.
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Fire Step
Junior Strategist
Everyday I'm Wrastlin'
Posts: 334
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Post by Fire Step on Dec 11, 2017 20:04:47 GMT
Generally any jack heavy list does a lot better when it spends some points on a screening unit. Speaking from a point of view from Protectorate, even just the inclusion of 20 points of Idrians (with UA) makes a big difference to how any warjack list functions.
You want a unit that can either avoid a hit (with high def) or maybe tank a hit or two (through armour or tough), although in a tight spot I have shielded a colossal with choir before to prevent it being charged head on by an opponent's colossal.
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Post by sludgeogre on Dec 11, 2017 21:21:24 GMT
Generally any jack heavy list does a lot better when it spends some points on a screening unit. Speaking from a point of view from Protectorate, even just the inclusion of 20 points of Idrians (with UA) makes a big difference to how any warjack list functions. You want a unit that can either avoid a hit (with high def) or maybe tank a hit or two (through armour or tough), although in a tight spot I have shielded a colossal with choir before to prevent it being charged head on by an opponent's colossal. The problem is that our 'jack theme only gets to take three units that are mostly garbage: Sword Knights, Precursor Knights, and Long Gunners (the old, terrible ones). Sword knights can be alright since they are def 15 in melee, but they don't do much besides sit there unless you're running Stryker2 or something else that can bump up their damage output a little bit. |
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Dec 12, 2017 9:11:14 GMT
Generally any jack heavy list does a lot better when it spends some points on a screening unit. Speaking from a point of view from Protectorate, even just the inclusion of 20 points of Idrians (with UA) makes a big difference to how any warjack list functions. You want a unit that can either avoid a hit (with high def) or maybe tank a hit or two (through armour or tough), although in a tight spot I have shielded a colossal with choir before to prevent it being charged head on by an opponent's colossal. The problem is that our 'jack theme only gets to take three units that are mostly garbage: Sword Knights, Precursor Knights, and Long Gunners (the old, terrible ones). Sword knights can be alright since they are def 15 in melee, but they don't do much besides sit there unless you're running Stryker2 or something else that can bump up their damage output a little bit. Sword knights also die to literally any gunfire. |
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Fire Step
Junior Strategist
Everyday I'm Wrastlin'
Posts: 334
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Post by Fire Step on Dec 12, 2017 10:29:25 GMT
The best screen unit would probably be trenchers honestly.
Advanced deploy ☑️
Tough☑️
Dig in☑️
Fairly hardy in combat ☑️
Failing them, I guess you could try nyss hunters at a push, though they're a bit more out there. Native pathfinder and high speed means they can push up early turn 1. They are expensive, but have high mat, rat, weapon master and combined ranged attack.
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Post by droopingpuppy on Dec 12, 2017 11:32:06 GMT
Well, as OP wants a unit to be block the charge line against our warjacks, then Trencher Infantry would be a good unit for him, for they are almost immune to typical gunfires.
But generally, I don't think that Trenchers are good at screening at all if you want them to shoot the gun; They are do nothing while in melee, nor they can block LOS. If they can block LOS then they can't shoot instead. -_-;;
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gmonkey
Junior Strategist
I, for one, welcome our Infernal Overlords.
Posts: 313
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Post by gmonkey on Dec 12, 2017 13:46:47 GMT
I like to run sword knights with Stryker1 and give them blur to get them into melee.
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Post by snarlyyow on Dec 12, 2017 19:06:40 GMT
My Nemo1 list used Fireflies as my "screening unit". They have good reach, can shoot, and have 26 boxes making them difficult to remove. If you play jack heavy you really have to know what your opponents threat ranges are and how to stay out of them or, at least, make positive trades for his pieces.
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Fire Step
Junior Strategist
Everyday I'm Wrastlin'
Posts: 334
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Post by Fire Step on Dec 17, 2017 22:21:27 GMT
My Nemo1 list used Fireflies as my "screening unit". They have good reach, can shoot, and have 26 boxes making them difficult to remove. If you play jack heavy you really have to know what your opponents threat ranges are and how to stay out of them or, at least, make positive trades for his pieces. Interesting idea to use a light warjack as a screening unit/model. Ideally a warjack with repel/defensive strike or retaliatory strike would really worth best, as well as it having a high enough defence to be difficult to hit in the first place. |
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Post by snarlyyow on Dec 18, 2017 17:46:33 GMT
My Nemo1 list used Fireflies as my "screening unit". They have good reach, can shoot, and have 26 boxes making them difficult to remove. If you play jack heavy you really have to know what your opponents threat ranges are and how to stay out of them or, at least, make positive trades for his pieces. Interesting idea to use a light warjack as a screening unit/model. Ideally a warjack with repel/defensive strike or retaliatory strike would really worth best, as well as it having a high enough defence to be difficult to hit in the first place. Well, yeah, better things are better but Cygnar's things are weird. When I saw that Cygnar lights had 26 boxes I was actually kind of taken aback. They're really good models generally. When I played Darius pre-theme I had a unit of Sword Knights. They did all sorts of things. Like, let's say you're playing against a TEP. One of the things you can do is run two or three of them to engage it. Hell, even running them out of formation is largely okay. They can't take free strikes but they are still models. They still have a DEF value, they still need to be walked around. Blocking a huge base from doing what it wants to do while you set up a counter play is strong. Giving up 4 points of models to take a 18 point off the table is smart, giving your opponent an order of activations headache is great. In other games I might run one to engage Eiryss1 so she would have to take a free strike. You can body block all sorts of annoying stuff. Poor opponents never consider trampling, good ones do but even if they can get to your juicy bits they still need to give up their initials. That's a big deal to loads of heavies in the game. If your goal is simply jamming I would consider the myriad of ways of doing so properly, which often means giving up models in weird and bizarre ways to set up better piece trades for yourself. |
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