EDIT: One note, i need to tweak this a bit, as currently though Conflict Chamber is allowing Ragman and Gorman in Magnum, this is not legal per infernal rulings. I will likely yank out Gorman as most of his kit other than Oil is redundant. FWIW, i feel like Partisan models counting as your merc choice is an absolutely stupid Firetrucking ruling (CG or no). That's the kind of counter-intuitive pedantry that made end-era MK1 such a Firetrucking joy (i am reminded of berserk shadowshifting bane knights attacking something with the MK1 era equivalent rules that allows an out of activation attack - try to resolve this with MK1's lack of timing, go on, i dare you.
You'll more quickly reach a valid result dividing by zero.)
conflictchamber.com/#cf201b_-12lsltlvlvlvlGlolc9ulFlyllCrucible Guard Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Magnum Opus (CID)
!!! Your army contains CID entries.
!!! You are using a pre-release theme.
(Mackay 1) Captain Eira Mackay [+19]
- Retaliator [9]
- Toro [13]
- Toro [13]
- Toro [13]
- Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc [5]
Prospero [5]
- Suppressor [13]
Ragman [4]
Trancer [4]
Crucible Guard Infantry (max) [15]
Dragon's Breath Rocket [0(6)]
So! I wanted to take Toro's to get maximum mileage out of the feat. If i'm doing well on attrition i fully plan to Instability Equation one up on feat turn to maximize the feat output. I know this can result in losing a Toro, but the cost / risk benefit along with McKay's focus starved nature i think will bear it out. It'll suck when a Toro goes kaboom, but its a needed resource fixer for this kind of list idea.
Note the Retaliator, Suppressor, and Crucible guard infantry. One of the prime reasons for these is their fire damage mixing with Pyro Blossom. I intend to drop return fire on McKay and if she's shot at use the return fire shot to drop Accelerant on a target or targets so that i can either use Accelerant again on her turn or utilize the damage buff of pyro blossom (will depend on target type and opportunity). That's a cute interaction though, for sure. I also can't ignore Scathers, of course, or the fact that her POW 15 shot can be augmented by as many as three potential damage buffs (though only 2 will stock at any one given time - Rust, Humor, Death Field, as Rust and Humor are mutually exclusive). If the Return fire trick works, on your following turn even with one of those debuffs up, you're looking boosted POW 17's and 14's from the Blossom shot and Fire Spray respectively. Good stuff. I intend to use McKay as an enabler for the rest of her list to use the debuffs and sprays to clear out enemy melee infantry with relative ease as well as targets of opportunity. I like the fact that with even 1 debuff applied on target, mckay can bring an impressive array of attacks to bear - with even just one debuff up, she's rocking a PS17 melee, 2 x PS16 cold sprays, a PS 14 fire spray, and a PS 17 gun.
That kind of damage outlay starts adding up. Her attack scores being both native 7 helps her quite a bit even before you start factoring in Oil, KD and Ice Cages.
The Crucible Guard Infantry are a bit spendy, but their native fire attacks will get mileage about of blossom'd targets. In all honesty they will probably utilize fire shots all game unless a target is fire immune.
I toyed with putting the retaliator on Prospero as well as the Suppressor, but that just makes him too tantalizing to go after. I might play with that config becuase being able to guided fire up and get the boosted KD spray is really attractive, and the suppressors sprays boosted is always good. Meanwhile Prospero will bump all the warjack attacks by one which is very much needed.
Rags is there because Rags. A magic ranged attack is handy in this list as there isn't much magic attacks, and of course, death field is superb on a huge base.
The dragon fire rocket is for both crowd control and applying Humor and getting those hard to reach targets with arcing.
Being denied the ability to take Gorman, I looked and saw basically two options open to me if i wanted to stay in Magnum Opus and utilize Crucible Guard Infantry. 2 Mechanics or a Trancer. I can already get Pathfinder for 2/3 Focus if i want it, and give my battle group speed on top, so the question came down to "is having 2 repair models of 2-4 points each that have a single hit point each worth 4 points?" THe answer was no. This put my options down to the Ace which isn't bad per se but literally has NO internal synergy with the list at all, or the Trancer.
So why the trancer ? Well he's native 15 defense against Ranged and Magic, and if hangs out near McKay you can bump that 17 due to concealment unless that gets ignored. He has a native 11" threat with a single high POW damage with a nice secondary effect on the attack. His MAT is atrocious so he's basically a 4 point Mental Force Missile. More importantly if you can actually manage to get him stuck in with some infantry, you can get some secondary effect out of the Psychokinetic bomb kaboom on death or whatever the hell.
Look, i had nothing better to do with four points, i'm trying to be positive here.
The trancer is not good, but i don't think the mechanics are worth 4 points in this list, and the Ace would be Captain Herpaderp in this list. If he gets one smite off before he blows up that's literally going to be 4 points better spent than any other way i could spend it unless i change the rest of the list.
The Toro's are there for feat maximization and being generally hard hitting and fairly stalwart. I enjoy that one of them will be ARM 22.
I wanted to get mechanics in here due to all the constructs, but points wise it just didn't work out ; the repair is nice, but honestly its 2-4 points per mechanic, and i can get pathfinder with McKay, so i nixed them. It would be nice to have one floating around the backlines though incase Mckay, Prospero, or one of the spray jacks needed a pick me up. Ditto with Alchemists, i wanted to do a cloud wall for McKay on approach and then utilize them for defense fixers with Ice Cage, but not enough points.
Alyce is there because McKay is starved for focus and being able to empower or Harmonious will really help McKay.
I like this list because it makes me use things that i would otherwise not touch with a ten foot pole in CG - namely Crucible Guard infantry. It might struggle vs. hordes because its not terribly anti hordes by any means, and particularly legion will have builds that this will fold hard against - still, even in its least beneficial matchups, the feat turn is still going to be punishing, and you still have to deal with a very fast triple Toro list, one of which will be rocking 22 arm, and all of them will be functionally immune to KD and Stationary and have access to pathfinder, so there will be very little slowing them down. Dealing with their durability before they get on you is going to be a crux of the list. another reason i wish i had mechanics to shrug off some early incoming fire....
I would prefer to play this in Prima Materia, but that theme precludes the Crucible Guard infantry and ragman, and i think they'll get mileage in this list (and if they don't with McKay i'm not sure where the the infantry will, frankly. Rags loves himself a good huge base, and McKay wants to get up into the thick of things, so that's a good target for death field - huge base in the action). Therefore Magnum Opus it is though i'm really not getting a ton of benefit out of that theme frankly. I am however getting just enough that it still makes sense to use Magnum Opus rather than Themeless. I might not be maximizing points - getting just one rocket for free, but that rocket is really important in the list, and more important the reposition on solos and the infantry is huge.
Weaknesses will be effects that create wide swaths of difficult terrain, or forests, or what have you because my pathfinder is coming from McKay - sure she's a big footprint herself but i do not want to have to cast Mobility unless i absolutely have to. Clouds will not be much of an issue until the retaliator is dealt with, which is a nice bonus. Melee wise the list can hit very, very hard but doesn't have a gigantic footprint impression for melee (i don't really count McKay's melee as terribly scary, the Toro's are doing the melee heavy lifting here).
Another weakness is the footprint of the list is lean as all hell. I'm susceptible AF to flanks collapsing from a hard hitting alpha strike and the Infantry are essentially mostly on their own.
If an enemy can snipe out Prospero, i lose a good bit of Ranged scariness, and my late game resource equalizer. Unfortunately i lost my only source of clouds, so i'm going to have to be careful with it's positioning.