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Post by Stormsmith Dropout on Jun 27, 2017 22:03:40 GMT
She's Morrowan. She's Cygnaran. She's got a great jack.
Let's talk about Blaize. Commonly known as THE WORST CASTER IN TWO FACTIONS. But is that still true? Mark 2 is a long way away.
Can she do Storm Division? Grave Diggers? Heavy Metal? ... Sons?
Probably her biggest boon is Gallant. Because he's a great Jack.
And her biggest problem is that her game plan requires the deaths of her own soldiers.
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Post by Stormsmith Dropout on Jun 27, 2017 22:43:18 GMT
Blaize's feat has 2 parts. There's the armor part, and then the focus replenishment part. So, I'll break down the pros and cons of each.
Souls and Armor: Pros: -Once 6+ friendly faction warrior models are dead, this feat is more powerful than pStryker's Cons: -Requires the death of Cygnaran infantry, of which there are few cheap options. -Only affects Warrior models.
Souls and Focus: Pros: -Might serve as a deterrent to opponent killing a ton of infantry. -Blaize can have plenty of focus to stay safe next turn. -Fuels Radiance of Morrow -Jacks can be fueled, spells can be cast, etc. Cons: -The more focus you get, the more models you've lost. -Not any great options for what to do with the focus. It's just nice to have.
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Post by welshhoppo on Jun 27, 2017 23:11:23 GMT
I'm going to chip in as an impartial Khador player.
Blaize really suffers from a lack of cheap infantry, She also wants loads of Morrowan infantry, and you just don't have it,
But she really suffers because her feat requires souls, yet she doesn't have the ability to suck in souls from a distance. If anyone with soul collector is closer than she is, they get the soul and not her.
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Post by smoothcriminal on Jun 27, 2017 23:36:41 GMT
Shouldn't she absolutely wreck Ghost fleet with Sunburst?
Also trencher theme. Crusader's call gives 21" assaults. Feat abuses the body count.
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Post by Stormsmith Dropout on Jun 28, 2017 3:13:56 GMT
Shouldn't she absolutely wreck Ghost fleet with Sunburst? Also trencher theme. Crusader's call gives 21" assaults. Feat abuses the body count. She'd do okay into Ghost fleet, depending on the list. I don't know how much coverage a Blaize list can get. Especially if teched against Ghost Fleet. Stormblades are definitely not ideal into the ghost pirates. Too expensive, still slow, die to shooting. And there's no good way to bring a ton of them. Trenchers might work. They're still expensive, but they have some game into ghost pirates. My guess is that with Gravediggers, Connie won't get too many good feat turns. Trenchers are pretty resiliant, but don't benefit much from the extra armor until a ton of them have died. No Morrowans, except Gallant, to use Connie's extra focus. Crusaders call is nice because it's an every turn thing. But extending the melee threat of trenchers without a damage buff doesn't really help them. And there are better ways to extend ranged attack range (snipe). She can definitely RFP some unit leaders. So, that's a good piece for the Ghost Fleet game. I'm just not sure if she does enough outside of that.
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Post by danfromchicago on Jun 28, 2017 4:27:42 GMT
pSiege is always going to be better into the ghost fleet IMO
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Post by droopingpuppy on Jun 28, 2017 6:56:50 GMT
Honestly, if I can choose either her MKII version or the new edition version, I will grab the MKII version. At least MKII version is usable in Mercenary, but for now it is not possible as well.
If she is a Skorne Warlock, Morrowan tags on her/Radiance of Morrow are changed to Praetorian, and Gallant is changed to Skorne Praetorian Warbeast(just because it needs to be work with her, despite its already great performance), then we can start. She will be an inferior Zaal1, though, but still she have some tricks Zaal1 doesn't have.
Well, she is more like a solo, rather than a warcaster. Only noticeable points for a warcaster are Crusader's Call and Repudiate, while good spells but can be acquire on the other casters or can be discarded(because we are the ranged heavy faction, and jacks can go Nemo2/Stryker3 instead). Other than that, her only trick is just charging Gallant and put all the focus on it to cause massive damage. Yes, running only a heavy warjack, although very powerful one, and does nothing else. It is more like a 4 points Character Journeyman Warcaster that stick together with a heavy warjack. Not to mention that Gallant is already good even without Blaize. Then, we can choose Jakes1 instead, and choose the another warcaster with her. Seriously, I think that taking Blaize means that you don't have a warcaster on the list, but take about 10 points solo with Battlegroup Commander instead. Can you win the game without a warcaster in a competitive games? I don't think so.
If we are melee heavy faction, with many cannon fodders melee units, then Blaize may have a place. But in the ranged heavy faction, with almost no cannon fodders(and can't benefited by Radiance of Morrow, although it is already a silly spell) and full of fragile melee options that need for the protective spells, I don't think that she worth a warcaster slot consider we have only one slot for the most games. If she is a 10 points solo model consider her damage box and FOC too high for a 4 point solo model with Battlegroup Controller(without the feat, of course), then she would be an interesting pick, though. But first we need a warcaster to make a list.
It is not same with the other caster's problems, such as Haley1. Haley1 is removed from the game just because she is simply inferior than the other warcasters in the same faction, despite the fact that she is still usable on her own. Even Jakes2 - personally rated as worse than Haley1 due to the same reason - is usable on Cygnar, although I still doubt the usefulness of her over a solo model Jakes1. But Blaize is diffrent; she doesn't bring something that we expect for a warcaster.
Also, the funny thing is that she can't bring Ragman and Savio Montero Acosta, can works with her greatly if she can bring them.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Jun 28, 2017 10:09:22 GMT
I don't think she is quite as dreadful as some people are making out, she does have few things going for her
1) Repudiate - she is one of only two Cygnar Casters to have upkeep removal, and in a faction pretty much bereft of blessed weapons, that is something
2) Gallant - she is the only caster who take the amazing Gallant in a theme force, and use him to his max potential
3) With theme forces being so good, not being able to take Ragman is now less of a drawback
I can see trying her in Heavy Metal, two max units of Sword Knights and Runewood is 30 points exactly, leaving you with 75 points of jacks to get a free Squire, Junior and Arlan.
I think I am right in thinking she gets the armour buff from feat, so run the Sword knights in and position her aggressively behind, next turn she can go in with flank and a bunch of souls to wreck some stuff, or do a cheeky Sunhammer assassination
might be able to dark house some games with her
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Post by droopingpuppy on Jun 28, 2017 11:26:00 GMT
Haley3 also have that too, and she can cast it more easily.
Also, you can use Gallant on a non-theme list, enjoy good synergy while only lose Shield Guard. For example Haley3 or Jakes1 makes it DEF 17. Haley3 and junior can make it DEF 15 AND ARM 22. And you may mix some stuffs include Mercenary support. For Haley3, she have too many benefits than Blaize have as well, especially defensive buffs which Blaize lacks. We don't have much cannon fodder, so every casualty is a great loss. Also think that Gallant is not a mandatory choice for a Cygnar list too.
Even if we don't consider anything above, we need the defensive buff to run both heavy warjacks and the units, especially for the melee units. Crusader's Call delivers them easier, but even with that they need to suffer the enemy shootings for at least one turn. We have not much a cannon fodders to bear the casualty and we better rely on the gun.
Repudiate and Crusader's Call are indeed the good spells, but only with these and allow to boost the damage roll of Gallant while spend the focus to make an additional melee attack is really enough for a warcaster? How to protect your troops? And how to make enough damage or bend the enemy blows? How to run her in Cygnar?
She is only good at dogfight between the melee troops, but that's not we want, and the opponents are not want this either. Also we have the other problems as well. Gallant handles the enemy armor, but so do many warcasters with a POW buff, with much less focus points than Blaize.
Although MKII Thor was too great, but is there much diffrence with him and her?
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Post by Aegis on Jun 28, 2017 11:29:28 GMT
She is 2 main problems away from being interesting:
1) The feat. Without soul priority the feat gets nullified by too many things. Not only RfP, but also anything that takes soul. That is also wrong by her own fluff, since the only time she used it was exactly to avoid the souls of her soldier to be trapped by a cryxian soul trapping device and offer safe passage to the city of Morrow. Also, the new overboost mechanic doesn't help her. In MK2 she could arrive to absurd levels of ARM on feat turn, while now even stacked of focus she can still be killed if she overexposes too much (now focus only prevent 5 damage).
2) Lack of morrowan models. Making a signature spell that works on 3 models in the whole game, 2 of them being characters just doesn't make any sense.
Also, her problem is that she is an infantry caster in a faction that has infantry that has big problems to be delivered. Her only movement bonus works only on charge (so doesn't help while moving) and her only defensive buff is her feat, that also requires things to die before beginning to work (and, of course, the first thing that will die are the things you would like more to survive since it's your opponent who choses who kill first).
I have toyed a bit with a spam list with Storm Division, with tons of Stormblades running at the enemy like an horde, but other than not being very thematic (Morrowan church usually doesn't have access to Stormknights) it still doesn't work.
I still wait for a theme force to judge, but my idea is that even with a good theme forces she would be mediocre at best without a total rework.
I think something like Deflection would be one of the first thing she would like to have.
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Post by Korianneder on Jun 28, 2017 12:22:28 GMT
I think something like Deflection would be one of the first thing she would like to have. Every caster in the game would like to have deflection, but I don't think she needs it. All I ever see is Cygnar players complain that their infantry dies easily and they can't deliver them into melee and here we have a caster that fixes both of those situations. If she was a Minion or Convergence caster I'd gladly use her and we have worse single wound defensive stats then Cygnar infantry. She can still bring arcane shield like every other Cygnar caster. That combined with her feat can add up really quick. She's one of only two casters in Cygnar that can deal with enemy upkeeps. She herself projects quite a bit of threat. She has a range 10, pow 13, aoe 3 that removes from play. She herself has a 13 inch melee threat (after crusader's call) with a mat 7 pow 13 blessed attack that she can flashing blade with. She has some of the best defensive stats in Cygnar at 15/17 with 16 hit boxes. The only thing she doesn't do is make Cygnar shooting better, but there's every other caster in the faction that can do that. She's a good caster, she just lacks ideal models for her. If she had a 10 man, 11-13 point unit that could get up the board quickly then that'd be ideal. The only change I can see making is change her feat so that enemy models cannot collect the souls of her warrior models. Don't worry about the Morrowan stuff on her until there's a Morrowan theme force or more Morrowan models. She'll honestly never be best in Cygnar because she's not named Haley, but she's not scraping the bottom of the barrel anymore like she was in Mk2.
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Post by smoothcriminal on Jun 28, 2017 12:27:03 GMT
She'd do okay into Ghost fleet, depending on the list. I don't know how much coverage a Blaize list can get. Especially if teched against Ghost Fleet. Stormblades are definitely not ideal into the ghost pirates. Too expensive, still slow, die to shooting. And there's no good way to bring a ton of them. Trenchers might work. They're still expensive, but they have some game into ghost pirates. My guess is that with Gravediggers, Connie won't get too many good feat turns. Trenchers are pretty resiliant, but don't benefit much from the extra armor until a ton of them have died. No Morrowans, except Gallant, to use Connie's extra focus. Crusaders call is nice because it's an every turn thing. But extending the melee threat of trenchers without a damage buff doesn't really help them. And there are better ways to extend ranged attack range (snipe). She can definitely RFP some unit leaders. So, that's a good piece for the Ghost Fleet game. I'm just not sure if she does enough outside of that. Well there are better casters out there, in fact all of them are better, but wasn't that the premise? We're trying to see how she might work at all, not how to make her more meta than H2. I think she's pretty straightforwad, basically a Khador caster in Cygnar. In fact she would be great with khador-tier infantry like fangs or wg, but alas plastic soldiers aren't cheap in Cygnar. You take something like Gallant, 2x Stormclads and at least 3 units of infantry, use feat to load the jacks, speed them up and dispel whatever, if some infantry survives it's a bonus, and then she either works or she doesn't. And there is exactly 3 ways to do that, storm theme, trencher theme or no theme morrowans. Trenchers seem to be best pick. Though storm ponies charging 15" aren't bad either, the problem there is not having cheap bodies for feat fuel, at least if you're not ready to play stormguards.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Jun 28, 2017 12:41:48 GMT
Now that Siege 2 exists to give infantry a Threat range extension, but is also packaged with more support, I don't see myself needing to consider Constance.
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Post by droopingpuppy on Jun 28, 2017 12:41:57 GMT
I think something like Deflection would be one of the first thing she would like to have. Every caster in the game would like to have deflection, but I don't think she needs it. All I ever see is Cygnar players complain that their infantry dies easily and they can't deliver them into melee and here we have a caster that fixes both of those situations. If she was a Minion or Convergence caster I'd gladly use her and we have worse single wound defensive stats then Cygnar infantry. She can still bring arcane shield like every other Cygnar caster. That combined with her feat can add up really quick. She's one of only two casters in Cygnar that can deal with enemy upkeeps. She herself projects quite a bit of threat. She has a range 10, pow 13, aoe 3 that removes from play. She herself has a 13 inch melee threat (after crusader's call) with a mat 7 pow 13 blessed attack that she can flashing blade with. She has some of the best defensive stats in Cygnar at 15/17 with 16 hit boxes. The only thing she doesn't do is make Cygnar shooting better, but there's every other caster in the faction that can do that. She's a good caster, she just lacks ideal models for her. If she had a 10 man, 11-13 point unit that could get up the board quickly then that'd be ideal. The only change I can see making is change her feat so that enemy models cannot collect the souls of her warrior models. Don't worry about the Morrowan stuff on her until there's a Morrowan theme force or more Morrowan models. She'll honestly never be best in Cygnar because she's not named Haley, but she's not scraping the bottom of the barrel anymore like she was in Mk2. Actually, the area defensive buff such as Deflection is a basic requirement for the warcaster like her. We have one instance of Arcane Shield, sure, but that's usually reserved for our Ironclad chassis warjacks, or they are easily beaten by the enemy anti armor guns. Also we have only one instance of Arcane Shield, while she need to spamming the melee units. Maybe she works well in Khador or Protectorate. Maybe in Trollbloods or Skorne as well. But, not even a single place is reserved for such a warcaster in Cygnar. She can't do anything to our ranged game, which is a requirement for us, and she can't do anything to our fragile to moderate melee units despite her concept as a melee concentrated warcaster. So all she has are upkeep denial and fuel Gallant, but just for that we better take the other warcaster and make the gap by a solo instead. A warcaster should support the army well, or can end the game by himself. But Blaize can't do either jobs, at least in Cygnar. She is just a design fault. Also it is funny that she is bad at deal with Cryx as well. The old Haley1 before the removal was much, much suited for such task, supported by the fluff and the performance in the game.
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Post by Korianneder on Jun 28, 2017 13:38:13 GMT
Every caster in the game would like to have deflection, but I don't think she needs it. All I ever see is Cygnar players complain that their infantry dies easily and they can't deliver them into melee and here we have a caster that fixes both of those situations. If she was a Minion or Convergence caster I'd gladly use her and we have worse single wound defensive stats then Cygnar infantry. She can still bring arcane shield like every other Cygnar caster. That combined with her feat can add up really quick. She's one of only two casters in Cygnar that can deal with enemy upkeeps. She herself projects quite a bit of threat. She has a range 10, pow 13, aoe 3 that removes from play. She herself has a 13 inch melee threat (after crusader's call) with a mat 7 pow 13 blessed attack that she can flashing blade with. She has some of the best defensive stats in Cygnar at 15/17 with 16 hit boxes. The only thing she doesn't do is make Cygnar shooting better, but there's every other caster in the faction that can do that. She's a good caster, she just lacks ideal models for her. If she had a 10 man, 11-13 point unit that could get up the board quickly then that'd be ideal. The only change I can see making is change her feat so that enemy models cannot collect the souls of her warrior models. Don't worry about the Morrowan stuff on her until there's a Morrowan theme force or more Morrowan models. She'll honestly never be best in Cygnar because she's not named Haley, but she's not scraping the bottom of the barrel anymore like she was in Mk2. Actually, the area defensive buff such as Deflection is a basic requirement for the warcaster like her. We have one instance of Arcane Shield, sure, but that's usually reserved for our Ironclad chassis warjacks, or they are easily beaten by the enemy anti armor guns. Also we have only one instance of Arcane Shield, while she need to spamming the melee units. Maybe she works well in Khador or Protectorate. Maybe in Trollbloods or Skorne as well. But, not even a single place is reserved for such a warcaster in Cygnar. She can't do anything to our ranged game, which is a requirement for us, and she can't do anything to our fragile to moderate melee units despite her concept as a melee concentrated warcaster. So all she has are upkeep denial and fuel Gallant, but just for that we better take the other warcaster and make the gap by a solo instead. A warcaster should support the army well, or can end the game by himself. But Blaize can't do either jobs, at least in Cygnar. She is just a design fault. Also it is funny that she is bad at deal with Cryx as well. The old Haley1 before the removal was much, much suited for such task, supported by the fluff and the performance in the game. Supporting the ranged game is a requirement for you. You have every other caster in Cygnar supporting the ranged game. Every faction has a caster that is very different from what the others do. Constance supports melee. She doesn't need to support guns to. And she literally has a feat that gives an armor bonus to everything in her control area to help keep it alive. Are you just ignoring it because it requires models to die or because she has to collect the souls? There's quite a few feats in the game that require both of those and they do just fine. Also why can't you put arcane shield on the screening unit and then cycle it to gallant (or an ironclad) later in the game? You don't have to put arcane shield on your melee heavy first turn of the game. Honestly from my outside perspective it just sounds like people complaining that she can't do everything while simultaneously complaining that Cygnar needs exactly what she brings. It'd be like if Minion players complained that Carver doesn't buff our ranged game while simultaneously complaining that we have no way of making our beasts harder to kill or get to melee faster.
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