gmonkey
Junior Strategist
I, for one, welcome our Infernal Overlords.
Posts: 313 
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Post by gmonkey on Mar 1, 2018 15:30:41 GMT
After hearing a podcast this morning in which it was mentioned that the Jaws of the Wolf theme had glaring and huge weaknesses, I started wondering what they were, as they were never specifically named. I thought it would be useful to have an educational thread here where we briefly summarize themes and their strengths and weaknesses. There must be others out there who like myself would benefit from this info. I'll start with a couple of the themes with which I'm most familiar. - Cygnar Heavy Metal: With warjacks, obviously armor and armor-cracking are present. But this most restrictive of Cygnar's themes has nearly zero access to pathfinder. The only options are an objective, which is scenario-dependant, and Archduke Alain Runewood, who can only give pathfinder to warrior models. This in the Cygnar jack theme.
- Cygnar Sons of the Tempest: Whereas gun mage models are very accurate and have a lot of utility, they have trouble cracking armor, and are extremely low-armor themselves, folding to even very low POW blast damage.
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Choco
Junior Strategist
Gorten, best feet in the game.
Posts: 571
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Post by Choco on Mar 1, 2018 17:31:30 GMT
Llaelese Resistance:
Tons of options! Probably the most in the game. You get 3 entire factions of non-character units to choose from! But, you only get 2 units and they have to come from the same faction (and one of the factions hasn't been released yet).
Options, outside of solos, within the theme are extremely limited.
Pathfinder for everyone! Well, almost, but it's basically everyone.
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Post by chillychinaman on Mar 1, 2018 18:39:28 GMT
Legion of Everblight-Children of the Dragon: Great and full access to the faction's Nyss infantry stands in contrast to the severely limited beast roster. ARM cracking is difficult due to the theme topping out at base PS11WM outside of 2 models and there is no access to pathfinder, though most beasts have flight. Although they won't be doing much damage, Unyielding allows for some pretty heft statlines on beasts while they are in melee.
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Post by ForEver_Blight on Mar 1, 2018 20:03:00 GMT
Legion
Children of the Dragon - Strong infantry. high model count. Powerful long range shooting. Respectable Character beasts allowed in theme.
- weakness: infantry clear. good Accuracy. Blast damage. Square zones. It's debatable whether Legion has enough infantry support aspects to support a theme like this. DOES NOT get free points off infantry which is the main focus of allowed models. DOES NOT grant theme benefits to infantry.
Oracles - Full beast roster. fury management. Utility spell units. Durable battle engine.
- Weakness: Little to no circle-zone control. Low model count. Living beast standard weaknesses (grievous and poison weapons). No good shooting defense. Not enough armor. DOES NOT grant theme benefits to Beast. Rather the infantry unit which there are only 3 options, two of which are 3 man units. No character beast allowed.
Primal Terrors - Durable models yet to be released.Actually decent, blanket benefits. Point from infantry go to solos/UA... ?
- Weakness: slow. Low model count. Very few casters can push the warrior armor to better than average levels. Relies on a Garg that has no shooting defense and can only benefit from 1 armor spell and 1 "armor" aura in faction. Actually decent, blanket benefits. Point from infantry go to solos/UA
Ravens - high mobility. pathfinder. advance deploy. ambush. High Defense. Volume of attacks. Good Ranged presence.
- weakness: average arm 12 infantry options. Average arm 16 beasts. base pow 10 on infantry allowed. very little caster support to increase the main strength of the models (speed and defense). No character beast allowed.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Mar 1, 2018 20:18:09 GMT
Irregulars -
PRO's - Widest panoramic model selection, with extra solos triggering off units and jacks selected - easy to get three "freebies", and not overly difficult to get 4 and still come out with a good to great list. Freedom of choice at its finest - its the theme that feels like you're not playing one. You can take basically everything except River Raiders, Bokur, and Cephylex stuff. No Rociante or Gallant, neither of which is a tremendous loss given the freedom you have.
Because Irregulars is so varied its hard to pigeonhole it to a playstyle, which is another strength.
Advance move for heavies is great, and there's a JM bonus too if that's your thing and its not an insignificant one either (flank - friendly warrior, for marshalled warjacks).
Cons: The JM thing is a bit of a trap, there's not much reason to try to utilize it unless you are really jonesing for jack marshal.
There's a fair bit of casters that might be better off in Llaelese Resistance because of what that theme can offer those casters.
Past that.... i got nothing. It's a great theme. It's what all themes should strive to be IMHO, and if all themes were like Irregulars, those of us who hate themes probably wouldn't.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Mar 2, 2018 9:23:38 GMT
Cryx
Infernal Machines
Strengths: wide selection of models, grants an ambush unit, access to "cheap" shield guards. Some decent recursion and Incorporeal skew. Can do a big dude spam with Mechanithralls, but you're unlikely to see this. Access to Deathjack, Malice, Aiakos and Withershadow Combine. Soulhunters are pretty great and fast.
Weaknesses: Tries to be a mixed arms theme, but succeeds at neither. All the available warrior models have victim stats and you feel pressured into taking basically 2 units of Mechanithralls, 1 as main line, to have shield guards available and a smaller one to ambush. Once you're doing that, you might as well take Necrosurgeons as well and then there's not that many points left. Hyper Aggressive is a rather bad advantage for Cryx jacks as they prefer not to get shot at all and even when they do, it's likely that the advance will be blocked by the dudes.
Black Industries
Strengths: A jack theme that actually grants bonus points for taking jacks! Carapace is really, really amazing on Cryx jacks who tend to lose systems to POW 12 shooting, but not anymore. Overlords are amazing in general. Access to Deathjack, Malice, Aiakos and Withershadow Combine.
Weaknesses: Jacks are still fragile in melee. There will be no main line unit to speak of as the only one available is Mindslaver & Drudges which are slow and not very good. Lucky for you, Stalkers can not be free, so the theme is stuck with the flying lights, arc nodes or Helldivers (lol) for free options.
The Ghost Fleet
Strengths: Recursion that is basically superior to any other in the game. Can play a good dude spam, with heavy Incorporeal spam on the side. Ghost Shot every where, so solid assassination threat and threatens backline support.
Weaknesses: Victim stats (13/12 on basically everything) and very wimpy. Units are mostly self sufficient in melee with Gang and the Riflemen have CRA, only RAT 4/5 to get shooting though. Because of the loss of point blank, they only have 1 POW 9/11 when they get to melee, so a major weakness is going to be armour cracking. Even into other infantry, they will struggle to kill much, but they will keep coming back and you won't, beware.
Dark Host
Strengths: Very powerful in melee, weapon master and brutal charge everywhere. Relatively high ARM for infantry that gets boosted against shooting and magic if a Wraith Engine is nearby. Ghostly on everything, so terrain is not an issue. Gets 2 clouds as a benefit to hide casters behind and prowl on the banes for on demand Stealth if it's really needed. Bane Warrior CA also has some built-in recursion.
Weaknesses: SPD 5 on infantry, SPD 7 on cavalry. Lowish MAT of 6, so DEF skew can be a problem (prioritise the cavalry)
Scourge of the Broken Coast
Strengths: Fast, self-sufficient infantry. High defense or stealth on most things, accurate because of gang. Access to some decent support (when it releases) and can get Pathfinder on the main unit, Satyxis Raiders.
Weaknesses: All living (I guess that's a weakness for Cryx?). Low ARM and relatively low hitting power across the board. Will depend heavily on caster to break armour.
Slaughterfleet Raiders
Strengths: an actual effective combined arms list. Gang Fighter is an amazing benefit for our focus hungry and relatively low POW on jacks (because debuffs) Effective infantry units and good support.
Weaknesses: Generally can't play all the way infantry or all the way jacks if it wants to take advantage of the theme benefit. Infantry is pretty slow (slower than the jacks) and is mostly medium based with limited access to pathfinder.
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