Jack Heavy Casters - My Snowflake Syndrome

That Jakes list looks tasty.

I admit, when looking at her I kept seeing a worse Stryker2. However after a few goes with her, she's not worse, just different.

Darius I want to love simply because JackHammer and Refuge, but I've since binned him for Stryker1. I've actually had a fair bit of success running jack heavy with him. He's been a nice choice vs the shooting heavy armies (I tried Haley3 for that. There's too many Legion players about for that to work).

Heavy metal seems like it adds so much potential to these casters but I feel like they all have several character models they like using. Though I may just be crutching to hard on models like thorn and gallant.

Makes me wanna have a crack with Kraye as well..so many wonderful heavies...gotta be a thing right?

Try Kraye Heavy Metal with 3 Centurions, having them 21" up the board turn 1 is pretty fun (+2" deployment, trample 7", repo 5")

Here are a pair of lists that I feel have interesting possibilities. My major thesis in writing these lists was that to get maximum value from Heavy Metal, you need to be able to use Jakes 1 effectively. You can play a list and not get maximum value, but its a lot better if you do.


First one is Stryker 1, everyone has been saying he has game and I'm just going to confirm that. The list I have, though, is a little different than others and I think its mainly because I don't think fireflies bring as much value as Chargers do most of the time.

Stryker 1- Heavy Metal
Hurricane
Hurricane
Squire- Free

Strangeways- Free
Junior- Free
> Charger
Jakes- Free
> Charger
> Charger

This list is one that I attempt to maximise my ability to create and abuse Vectors.

Double Hurricane with Stryker 1 isn't new tech, the interaction between having double arcane shield, Snipe and Earthquake is great with Hurricanes, who provide pathfinder and melee presence.

Triple Charger is interesting here, I think, because Chargers can make so much value at range (along with Hurricanes) that the list has a pretty devastating alpha potential and sustained shooting potential (Earthquake and Electro-Projectors means plenty of knockdowns for Chargers to shoot into melees and unclog pieces).

Ive used this list on the table and it faced Lylith 1 in a matchup where she has really good tools against me, specifically parasite + Blessed = Arm 15 Hurricanes. Despite that I could still smash through and kill her heavies with shooting pretty trivially and then feating to prevent any meaningful fight back. Her assassination chances after it were calculated to be 1.3%, and I easily could have been more careful and made it 0.01% by getting into Cover and taking from the squire.


The Second list is a little...stranger.

All cards on the table, I loved Nemo 1 in mk2. He was my Bae. He killed more troops than eCaine and pCaine combined through the power of "Triple Chain Lightning", he controlled jacks and colossals through voltaic snare and he could maintain threat range superiority and heavy killing through Allocating 5 to a lightning shrouded heavy.

Nemo 1 in Mk 3 lost my 2 favourite things about him, Chain lightning and Voltaic snare, and so I pretty much disregarded him.

But I spent some time and I found that Nemo 1 has a few things that do bring him above some competitors.

1. Deceleration is much stronger now. Chargers in general are extremely powerful in the ranged game, but they take damage easily from enemy shooting. Decel helps prevent this through 13/18 chargers.
2. Locomotion is the second highest threat extension in the faction. Cygnar is the land of +2", Haley 2 is the only exception and her +4" is only for 1 model a turn and is 5 focus worth.
3. Nemo 1's feat has become stronger because of changes to Overcharge. 1 focus becoming a 2" Control Range extension is really strong and it lasting for a round makes it very easy for him to steal power tokens from enemy spellcasters.

So the plan was "Force enemies to close with superiority from the ranged game, use long threat range cheap heavies to isolate and hammer anything that gets too close, use the feat to determine tempo vs enemy warjacks."

Nemo 1
Squire (free)
Dynamo
Ironclad
Ironclad
Ironclad
Ironclad
Charger
Charger

Strangeways (free)
Journeyman (free)
>Charger
Allison Jakes (free)
> Charger

Min Mechaniks

Ive used this list twice. Game 1 started with my legion opponent not wanting to face double Hurricanes so I played this bad match-up vs Lylith 3 and then *surprise surprise* I get assassinated on turn 2. I Faced a list which: Outthreated me, and couldn't be shot. Pretty much textbook bad matchup.

Although...I *could* have made my wall better with my Jacks, I *could* have taken 1 from the squire to hold onto 1 more focus, I *could* have not cast locomotion to get an ironclad through terrain and I *could* have recasted Arcane Shield onto Nemo because he was relying on Snipe rather than Blessed to get range onto me.

Considering that he killed me with her last shot needing a 6 to hit, any one of these things would have saved me. I then would immediately kill pretty much his entire list.

Second game was vs Amon in Creators Wrath and this game was great for me. Again, shooting wasn't really on the table, but Nemo's feat was extended to 20" range, hit 9 warjacks and Disrupted 7 of them. It wasn't even the most effective feat. Because I outhreated him in a lot of cases I should have sat just out of range, moved the chargers up to pop some of his support and bait out his models, when they come out I should have crushed them with my heavies, feated on the rest and be in a position to kill him back afterwards.

I still ended the game with 4 heavies and 3 chargers after pretty much killing everything in his list.

With the changes to Battle Engines, I might replace Nemo's 2 Chargers with a Storm Strider because Decel makes it tough to hurt from range and its guns are pretty effective at clearing infantry as well as hitting heavies.

I have 4 ironclads because I am focusing on out threading enemy heavies and the Hammersmiths 11" Threat is far fairer than the ironclads 12". But you are right that it does hit harder if you decide to critical slam.

The ironclad is a little more reliable vs enemy def 12 and above because of tremor being on the first attack.

I could probably happily replace 2 ironclads with 2 Hammersmiths without too much hassle. Honestly it's easier to proxy .

While he dies to a stiff breeze, because I am often recasting arcane shield to proc power tokens I am finding that often it finds its way onto him eventually and arcane shield and deceleration makes him arm 19, plus any camp he is sitting on.

Vs sorscha/galleon etc it is a huge deal. In general ive been lining up my jacks behind my objective so they block Los and can't be pulled by hookshots and such, which helps early on.

I used to think that Thorn was better on nemo 1 than he was on Haley 2 in mk 2. In mk 3 I care for less about his offensive spells than I used to. Now the name of the game is locomotion and his feat most of the time. I like heavy metal with him and would prefer to not lose his free support.

Will try him more soon and see what happens.