Luebbi
BattleBox Champ
Posts: 54
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Post by Luebbi on Mar 28, 2018 16:13:34 GMT
As a member of the beautiful unique snowflake club, I’m itching to try Jakes2. Sadly, on paper she reads a bit like a worse Kraye, albeit with a much-needed damagebuff. So, let’s take a good look at her! What does she bring to the table, what does she want?
Field Marshal Sprint: not as good as reposition, as it is dependent on the model Speed, and on killing something. But good nonetheless.
Personal contribution: two Handcannons, and in theory some melee output, although I guess she dies once she gets stuck in.
Survivability: 16/14 is a dangerous statline. Caught in the open, most boosted shots will both hit and hurt her. With Escort, she can get this to 16/16. A Sentinel seems like a good choice to keep around her at all times to get her armor buff up and provide Shield Guard support. I usually shy away from paying 8 points for shield guards, but I think it’s worth it here.
Spells:
Escort: a 2” threat and movement extender for her and her battlegroup, plus armor buff. Nice!
Bullet Dodger: With most of our Heavies at DEF12, this spell can skew the numbers just right. I’m itching to put it on a Minuteman, personally. Back when I ran Jakes1 in a Haley2 list, this spell was also bananas good on an Ironclad. Couple it with Arlan’s Evasive Action!
Positive Charge: a +2 Damage swing and a good reason to bring a Lancer.
Lightning Storm: let’s just call it a shitty nuke for now…
Feat: Electro immunity, 2” Reach and electro leaps. Not great, but not bad either.
At first glance, she brings two good upkeeps and a great damage buff. Upkeeping both spells and casting her damage buff leave her with 2 Focus, however; fueling up a big battlegroup will be challenging.
So let’s look at possible Themeforces for her:
Grave Diggers – maybe potentially good? I’m not digging deep here as I’m trying to pair Jakes2 with another GD List. Positive Charge and the Reach/E-Leap Feat sound great for Trenchers and Trench Busters.
Storm Division – Stormlances with Electro Leaps are brutal as we know, and a damage buff also helps them greatly. However, she does nothing to keep them safe, and the 2” reach and electro immunity of her feat are wasted here.
Heavy Metal – gets the most out of Escort. Good Focus support choices, but she will still be focus strapped.
Sons of Tempest – she’s a melee-centric caster, while Sons are a ranged-centric build. I don’t see this working.
I’ll try Heavy Metal. I think she really wants Arlan Strangewayes and the Squire for focus efficiency. A Lancer seems like a good idea for proper application of Positive Charge. A Sentinel can keep her doubly safe as an Escort-Anchor and shieldguard. A Minuteman with Bullet Dodger can potentially be a huge pain for any opponent, especially considering that he gets to move 8” and jump 5”. He also benefits greatly from the feat. As for heavies, more is better – I’m leaning towards Ironclads and Hammersmiths to flood the board with multiple threats. An Ironclad is also an excellent choice for Bullet Dodger once the Minuteman gets taken out.
The Heavy Metal theme also gives us access to Sword Knights. Not that great on their own, but they love both Positive Charge and the Feat. Getting into melee with something under Pos. Charge gets them to POW12 weapon masters, with 2” Reach and E-Leaps.
So I worked out this list to try:
Jakes2 - Squire - Sentinel - Minuteman - 2x Hammersmith - 2x Ironclad - Centurion Junior - Firefly Arlan Strangewayes Max Swordknights
This gives me exactly 90 Warjack points, so 3 free solos, while still having a max unit of Sword Knights to try. Not sure how 10 of these dudes with no support (other than arcane shield) and no pathfinder are going to fare. They’re the first on the chopping block after a few test games, unless they wow me. I’d likely replace them with a min unit of mechanics and a Lancer.
Building this list hit home why Jakes2 is nowhere to be seen right now. She doesn’t ask any hard questions, and doesn’t provide an answer to any of the questions we face. She can’t deal with cloudwalls, the list doesn’t have an abundance of magic weapons, and so on.
The plus side I see with her is that 5 Heavies with a 2” movement buff can threaten quite far, and with positive charge have great damage potential. While many jackheavy lists traditionally get bogged down with chaff infantry, her feat (coupled with the Firefly I packed) can potentially take care of that, while parry gets models where they want to be. The minuteman with 8” walk, parry, 5” jump can threaten clumps of infantry or even try to throw casters or other high-value targets towards your lines of engagement.
I’ll give her a whirl in a couple friendly matches (though I'll only get to play after easter) and keep you guys posted. Did any of you run Jakes2 recently? What list? What was your takeaway?
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Mar 28, 2018 16:41:35 GMT
*takes a 2" melee weapon, cuts it in half, ends up with 2 x 0.5" melee weapons*
Jakes obviously forgot to measure twice, cut once
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Post by darkangeldentist on Mar 28, 2018 18:08:00 GMT
I played Jakes for a short while about a year or so ago. Nothing seems to have changed too much save for the theme force changes. I enjoyed using her and she can do some fun things. Her feat and Maxwell Finn makes for a potentially epic killing spree. (Managed it a couple of times but you have to be careful.)
A few notes about the initial run-down of her pros and cons. Her personal contribution is very matchup dependent, 2 hand cannons means that she can contribute each turn but her best direct contribution is clearing your own lines of chaff and intervening models. She has both sprint, parry and acrobatics meaning that she can jump over the front line, kill what's in the way and sprint off to safety. If you are clearing jacks then she can even cast positive charge before going in to make her much more likely to kill the target. Her biggest problem is being focus starved because she has 2 upkeeps she want's out at all times and a 2 cost spell she'll want to cast each turn as well. This makes list construction for her very tricky in my view. Her feat makes her actually very good for the mirror match against Cygnar. Against electrically immune forces her feat can buy a crucial turn of safety to engage and swing the game. Her threat extension isn't the best but it's enough against a lot of other Cygnar casters and if the opponent is not electrically immune the e-leap and reach part can great improve the damage you deal during the feat. (See Maxwell Finn again.) Positive charge is one of the best buffs you could ask for since it increases both accuracy and damage.
I don't know if they have changed the ruling on it but from memory, mounts are classed as melee weapons and the feat will work on them. Impact attacks with 2" melee and electro-leap can be utterly amazing into infantry swarms so don't underestimate their value on storm lances. Storm blades on the other hand really like reach, electro-leap and although she does nothing to speed them up positive charge ensures they hit like a hammersmith.
Jakes 2 can pair well with Grave diggers as the infantry are very independent and jacks like grenadiers or hammersmiths are quite cheap with little focus demands most turns. I personally favour storm division though because of stormclads and accumulator. Anything that reduces the focus load on her is good and sprinting stormclads can reach out to alpha without having to trade. Bullet dodger on Savio can be amusing too. You may only get 1-2 solos for her with a storm division list but the freedom to take Savio and another Merc can be very good. I would not dismiss Sons of the tempest either because Falk is a great bullet dodger target who stacks an applicable damage buff for melee output if you take Arlan. Free upkeep on Falk, and maybe Sylys for another free upkeep would help enormously with her focus load. The gun mage theme also provides some board control to really help protect the jacks and control enemy retaliation due to pushes. Damage output thanks to pistoleer is pretty good, especially with the black 13th so even though they don't benefit from positive charge you shouldn't be lacking for punch. I am hesitant about heavy metal, purely because of the focus strain. I struggled so hard to keep focus on her in my games (and I had accumulator to help me) for camp so I could do something to protect her from incoming damage. 14 hit boxes makes her very fragile, even with focus camp and escort and getting her assassinated is a common loss condition.
I ran her outside of themes (because I dislike themes in general and really, really liked how Gallant worked with her) and was for a previous steamroller pack but I did enjoy it quite a lot.
Jakes2 Stormclad Stormclad Gallant Hammersmith Hammersmith Sylys Wyshnayllyr
Min field mechanics Maxwell Finn Harlan Versh Stormblade Captain Arlan Strangewayes
You could probably change it fairly easily to a theme force but you'll lost a lot of the cute tricks this one is capable of and a DEF 15 Gallant with dodge can be an absolute pig for opponents to destroy. (Immunity to enemy spells is so good.) Finn was just brilliant and Harlan and the stormblade captain usually proved fairly easy to keep alive even if they didn't get to much work directly that often. Jakes being able to fully fuel 3 jacks and get positive charge out as well as upkeeping her spells and keeping 1 to camp felt wonderful.
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xadmar
Junior Strategist
Posts: 173
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Post by xadmar on Mar 28, 2018 18:13:49 GMT
Nice write up. I believe that her feat works on the SL's mount attacks. So if you make impact attacks after you touch base to base you can make impact against everything within 2 inches instead of .5 inches. I thought about running her before Kraye's remake out as her feat helps clear infantry and PC helps her jacks damage output. I never actually got her on the table though. Good luck!
Edit: Beaten to it!
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Choco
Junior Strategist
Gorten, best feet in the game.
Posts: 571
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Post by Choco on Mar 28, 2018 19:55:35 GMT
*Note: Escort does not give her the movement bonus, just the jacks.
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Post by jagius021 on Mar 29, 2018 16:22:56 GMT
I know you don't want her in grave diggers because you are pairing her with it, but her feat is real nice on commandos and on Finn.
A good exercise in exploiting her strengths comes from using Murdoch with a merc unit. My personal favorite are press gangers. Getting as many free models as possible due to the melee range increase is a benefit and also helps out gang.
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xadmar
Junior Strategist
Posts: 173
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Post by xadmar on Mar 29, 2018 16:24:26 GMT
What about Devil Dogs? Increase threat range and assault with their knock down nets.
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Luebbi
BattleBox Champ
Posts: 54
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Post by Luebbi on Mar 30, 2018 7:50:42 GMT
Thanks for the heads-up about mount attacks, that rules. Now I'm debating wether a double Stormlance build might not be the better choice
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Luebbi
BattleBox Champ
Posts: 54
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Post by Luebbi on Apr 17, 2018 19:15:35 GMT
Status report: after one game with her under my belt, I can safely consider me an expert I kid. That one game was enough to get rid of the Swordknights, though. Delivering even a few models from a single 10-man infantry unit with 13/14 stats is nigh impossible. I was playing against Axis, and his TEPs had a field day. I even put Arcane shield on them, which didn't matter in the slightest. I lost heavily in the attrition, but managed to eke out an assassination victory when Axis got too greedy and came a little too close to kill a single swordknight - putting him in walk-and-jump range of my Minuteman (I think he didn't factor in Escort), who then threw Axis to the front, where my Centurion and Ironclad made short work of him. For the next iteration of the list, I took the swordknights out (13 points). I also took out the Centurion (17). Instead, I added Thunderhead for 20, full Mechanics and Lynus and Edrea. My reasoning: I'm hoping Bullet Dodger and the Parry feat will help Thunderhead do his thing. Mechanics are great in Heavy Metal lists for obvious reasons, but also to contest or hold zones. Same goes for Lynus and Edrea - also, I didn't have a cloudwall answer in my pairing, now I have at least one tool against them. Will get more games in this saturday hopefully and see how it goes. Oh yeah, most of the game I felt very underwhelmed by her kit, thinking I'd rather have either Stryker2 or Kraye, who both have parts of her kit, but better. I don't think I'll play her for long. Meh.
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xadmar
Junior Strategist
Posts: 173
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Post by xadmar on Apr 17, 2018 19:42:44 GMT
Status report: after one game with her under my belt, I can safely consider me an expert I kid. That one game was enough to get rid of the Swordknights, though. Delivering even a few models from a single 10-man infantry unit with 13/14 stats is nigh impossible. I was playing against Axis, and his TEPs had a field day. I even put Arcane shield on them, which didn't matter in the slightest. I lost heavily in the attrition, but managed to eke out an assassination victory when Axis got too greedy and came a little too close to kill a single swordknight - putting him in walk-and-jump range of my Minuteman (I think he didn't factor in Escort), who then threw Axis to the front, where my Centurion and Ironclad made short work of him. For the next iteration of the list, I took the swordknights out (13 points). I also took out the Centurion (17). Instead, I added Thunderhead for 20, full Mechanics and Lynus and Edrea. My reasoning: I'm hoping Bullet Dodger and the Parry feat will help Thunderhead do his thing. Mechanics are great in Heavy Metal lists for obvious reasons, but also to contest or hold zones. Same goes for Lynus and Edrea - also, I didn't have a cloudwall answer in my pairing, now I have at least one tool against them. Will get more games in this saturday hopefully and see how it goes. Oh yeah, most of the game I felt very underwhelmed by her kit, thinking I'd rather have either Stryker2 or Kraye, who both have parts of her kit, but better. I don't think I'll play her for long. Meh. Thanks for the update. A word of advice my friend and Warmachine mentor told me is to play a list 5 times into different matchups before you change anything about it. That way you dont play your list into the worst possible match up on the first game and think none of it works. Not saying sword knights are good...
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Post by darkangeldentist on Apr 18, 2018 15:15:11 GMT
Just wanted to chime in again about a partial game with her into Legion. We didn't finish (had to pack up at the end of round 3) but it had been a very fun game up until that point so I felt it worth posting here.
I was running the following list;
Jakes2 Gallant Rowdy Stormclad Stormclad Sentinel Squire
Arlan Strangewayes Maxwell Finn Harlan Versh Stormblade captain
I was playing into Legion with the Oracles of annihilation theme with Vayl2 and warbeast heavy.
Vayl2 Archangel Carnivean Ravagore Nephilim bloodseer Nephilim protector Succubus 2x Forsaken Shepherd Black frost shard
Scenario was spread the net where I won the roll-off and chose to go second. The gave me a building and wall to hide behind as well as the forest that was slap bang in the centre of the table. The game was really amusing for the different problems we ended up causing ourselves during the game. My opponent wasn't aggressive enough early on so conceded table space to me so I would be able to score 2 points at the end of turn 2 without any effort or commitment. However my problem was that he out-threat me by quite a margin due to both his ranged attacks and even melee threat. The terrain and scenario pressure meant that I could get up the table using the forest to protect me from his charges and he would need to leave something within range if he wanted to apply draconic aura to me. Even then, a bullet dodger Gallant with a shield guard and evasive was far from his ideal target.
Amusing things that happened in this game: Rowdy got picked on mercilessly by legion guns, my opponent manage to stack kiss and draconic aura making it so just a single ravagore shot took out his right arm. Rowdy sort of had his revenge (on the black frost shard at lest) as Jakes popped feat so that his charge would engage them and the bloodseer that was putting out draconic blessing (who had admonition on as well). My opponent decided to admonition away but was carelessly just move the beast tightly back around the forest. Gallant was able to enter the forest and eviscerate the bloodseer (thanks purgation) and sprint back out to safety (which along with Rowdy's sprint move had completely thrown his expectations for what his retaliation plans would be) leaving him with only the ravagore with any hope of getting into melee with either. Then we saw the archangel shoot down Rowdy's remaining 20 odd boxes by itself and shoot Arlan dead as well, whilst the ravagore tried but failed to seriously cripple Gallant (boosted charge hit but the follow-up missed). In the next turn with positive charge, 3 focus Gallant went and one-rounded the archangel, hot dice for everyone! I'd been overly cautious with the stormclads and they didn't contribute directly at all, although one did score me 3 scenario points (score when we stopped was 5-3 to me) and both were undamaged.
Bullet dodger on Gallant is ridiculously fun and playing into a list that can trigger purgation was fantastic. Definitely not a great match-up because Jakes is at constant risk of getting herself killed but if you can find a safe(ish) spot on the table then sprinting warkjacks are definitely funny. I really missed my unit of mechanics though... might have to see if I can live without Harlan's accumulator or possibly even drop Finn. I don't mind playing out of theme for this kind jank list, the character jacks are so much fun with her and there is a lot be said for accumulator lightening the focus strain.
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Post by droopingpuppy on Apr 18, 2018 15:52:48 GMT
What about Devil Dogs? Increase threat range and assault with their knock down nets. Maddox uses them plainly better. Oh, also Stryker1 and Caine1, which also gives them accuracy fix.
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xadmar
Junior Strategist
Posts: 173
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Post by xadmar on Apr 18, 2018 16:21:03 GMT
What about Devil Dogs? Increase threat range and assault with their knock down nets. Maddox uses them plainly better. Oh, also Stryker1 and Caine1, which also gives them accuracy fix. Rat 5 not good enough for you? I have never played Jakes 2 but I suspect most casters do it better. :-D
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Post by droopingpuppy on Apr 18, 2018 16:25:52 GMT
Maddox uses them plainly better. Oh, also Stryker1 and Caine1, which also gives them accuracy fix. Rat 5 not good enough for you? I have never played Jakes 2 but I suspect most casters do it better. :-D Not that good, although they can do fix it by some nets with Assault(you must be attach Murdoch, don't you?) or advance&attack. Consider their target is usually has DEF 12 or less, RAT 5 is quite serviceable - not so good but not so bad either. But the accuracy fix means you can shoot down more Slug Gun and save more distance as well as provide more concentrated attack at once, resulting more damage output. Also, if you needed, with an accuracy buff they can shoot down the enemy infanty too and still have some distance with the enemy. Although the distance is shorter than Stormblade Infantry who enjoys the same trick, but they can be benefit from Snipe unlike Stormblade Infantry consider victim stat of non-cavalry Storm Knight models(or you must be activate Iron Zeal at the same time).
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