Local events and general list rambling.

Sturgis and Maddox? Good stuff, always great to hear about some of the less common casters!

All the forums are pretty quiet these days. I'm told the facecord and disbook scenes are quite lively, though I wouldn't know.

As an attempt to provoke some kind of discussion I want to put in a little something about Stormsmith Grenadiers.

They have appeared in both Maddox and Haley lists because I wanted to see if I could make good use of them and each caster had something to add to them. In the case of Maddox it was snipe but Haley3 offered both the option of tactical supremacy, revive and ghost walk. I've still not taken advantage of the option of ghost walk but temporal distortion alone was enough to make them a nuisance to try and deal with at range and overall I felt I got good value out of them. Here is my rough evaluation of the unit.

Stormsmith grenadiers:

6pts gets you 3 guys with POW 13 AOE 3" electrical grenades that can either slow enemy models 2", create electrical hazards or do the lightning equivalent of hellmouth (minus the RFP). The biggest problem is that these grenades are only range 6". The grenadiers are a mediocre RAT 6 (since they normally can't boost I stand by calling this a mediocre RAT) and have force barrier. Force barrier is quite a big deal as it means +2 DEF against ranged attacks but more importantly immunity to blast damage. For such low armour models this makes them a lot more survivable than usual against a lot of the familiar weapons that Cygnar's foes normally employ. However they is no getting around the 3 man unit size as a limiting factor for a unit that so desperately needs caster support to function. I've tried using with some kind of buff and it sucks. Even if you slow the enemy down, they are still close enough to charge you so either they are aiming to kill the enemy model or you've done something to counter their native weaknesses. Which is why they like spells such as snipe or tactical supremacy, anything that will let them throw those grenades and survive the following turn!

So far I've have played them into Khador several times and the Cygnar mirror once. They've done okay... the main issues are their fragility and short range but so long as a firefly is nearby they can do one heck of a lot of damage. Partially because i've faced Khador so often but with a firefly but buff the damage to 15 on the direct hit and 9 for the blast damage (or 12 if you stack things so models are dragged into the hazard) they can do impressive damage. Demo corps hate them and even jacks can suffer some appreciable damage if you are luck with roll or have been able to reduce they armour somehow. The issue of being only a 3 strong unit and the situational benefit of their attack types is the key issue. If you can keep them alive (snipe helps but reposition is better in some ways) then being able to chuck out these grenades can really mess with an opponent's plan. For 6pts they ought to feel more comfortable as a throwaway unit but the value of their input makes it hard to treat them this way. I want to make them impactful and their fragility makes that hard to commit them in the disposable way that normally accompanies cheap units. These guys are specialists that can potentially cause substantial havoc with the opponent but only if the situation allows. Even if they achieve their task the chances are that the opponent will remove them the following turn. This is because the majority of their effects come across as diversionary. Their short range often means that opponents will still be able to retaliate against the grenadiers if nothing else. This is way theme restrictions really hurt. If you could combine these guys with gun mages then there would be a solid place for them. Slowing enemy models down and then pushing them away would be obnoxiously powerful (probably why we can't do this in theme) but there's almost not way to abuse this because of how the themes play out. As such, stuck in storm division the grenadiers are limited to more sacrificial roles (at least in my experience) for which they don't perform badly. It's just that the options they provide make them feel like they should be so much more than a "fire and forget" type option. (Not that they are that but most of my opponents ensured that I do not get multiple rounds with these models.)

This is a unit with a lot of potential should you be able to stack the requisite buffs. This comes with the requisite "however" because without something in the way of support they do not come across as good value on paper. Short range, requirement of support to achieve anything reliably and the fact that most lists will will likely struggle to fit them in as a luxury style option (I know I do) means that this unit is a "take it because you've decided you will' rather than because it's a great choice. That said, if you do make their abilities shine then they will do amazing work for you.

Nemo4 bringing them back is really nice. Stacking Haley1's barrier with them, while having Nemo4 to hide behind seems nice too.