Buenos Nachos Wargamers!

This week we get airborne, with both Legion and Cygnar. Legion have some fun options in this matchup, and I’m going to go with the zanier caster. Meanwhile Cygnar are the mirror match, which is always an awkward proposition. As always, be aware of the assumptions I’ll be making about Haley’s plan.



Blighted Battle Plans

The first suggestion I’ll make is to include a naga in your list. Legion hates Arm 22 collosals, but can deal just fine with Arm 19 ones. I know its 5 points, but it gives you a lot of flexibility in many matchups. Not having access to primal/rage I think it’s an important animus to have in one list with many pairings. It’s also a pretty solid little shooting beast, which is extra sweet on a support piece.

Imagine this guy with a sombrero and poncho. So cool.

Now when we talk Naga, we obviously begin to think about Lylyth2. Lylyth2 is very good against a single stormwall. Such lists don’t trivially kill Stealth heavies once the wall goes down, and your power 16 should be just fine. She’s somewhat out of favour in the current scenario pack, but if you are worried about gunlines, Lylyth2 usually outguns them all. Pincushion and three ravagores with wraithbane do about 48 damage to a stormwall. Making it easy to kill with a boosted shot and swap over pin cushion next turn. You also do this from very far away. Things start to get dicey then though. You may get one ravagore charged and killed, then be feated on so another dies before you can counter attack. Killing a stormwall with one ravagore can be tricky. But if you give yourself the time to have out 3-4 shots into it after the first went down you should manage it. I’d highly recommend the blackfrost. Keep them back though. When the stormwall gets involved, you can harm it, and against normal heavies you can drop def and boost damage, making ravagores very competent in melee. I like warspears with her two, but really there’s nothing innovative to it, you just have to stall up the stormwall you leave alive for as long as possible to stymy the charge then feat combo.

Vayl2 is also very solid, just because she is very solid. If you make a stormwall and arc node and obliterate Haley twice, well she doesn’t like that. You have stealth, purification, admonition, etc. It’s a tightrope of a game for both of you, but you have the tools. There is even less innovation in what I would suggest here, though the 3 angelius beast load out would be sweet. As would getting blackfrost into tier, but it’s not always worth it.

The zany option is Abslonia. Our other two casters can stop shooting by stealth, or occasionally ham up charges. Absylonia can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of stormwalls by casting blight field. You do have to be careful with her doing this in her 12” control area. But the stormwalls themselves lose a lot of threat with no focus. The best part is taking a ravagore. Haley will be very edgy, and want to hide, which usually involves playing the stormwalls close together. Which means you get ever closer to the dream of blight fielding them both and just doing whatever you want as they flail uselessly at your def 17 warbeast. High Def on heavies is actually a big problem for stormwalls, and they don’t like pow 16 armor pierces either.

I WISH someone would put a sombrero and poncho on this model. Yick.

I think if you utilize your models correctly, and really get up and abuse blight field you can defeat Haley with a fairly balanced list.

Absylonia, 5 warbeast points

-Ravagore, 10 points

-Angelius, 9 points

-Carnivean, 11 points

-Naga, 5 points

-Shredder, 2 points

-Harrier, 2 points

Shepard, x2, 1 point each

Swamp gobbers, 1 point

Gatormen Posse, 9 points

Strider Deathstalker, x2, 2 points each

Swans’ Solution

Mirror matches. Blyeck. Facing and Arm skew with Cygnar? Double blyeck. I’m not really sure there is an easy answer to this question. I guess we should begin with the question of can you deal with it with your own Haley2/Caine2 pair? If your Haley has one stormwall, which I consider to be the better build, you are in trouble. It’s a legitimately awful matchup. Caine2 can play it, it’s very dependent on scenario though. If its destruction, you probably just lose. If it requires splitting up you are probably in good shape.

I think Siege has a real strong game of just killing Haley. With foxhole and so on, its very hard to keep Haley safe from Siege, especially in a killbox. Meanwhile your infantry and stormwall require the kind of effort she spends focus to achieve. A typical Siege list would be doable. Don’t as a general rule aim to feat to kill a stormwall though, it’s only really +10 damage, which is much better on heavies than single big targets. If you think you can get one and that will gain you a zone, then by all means. Holding the feat keeps your threat live though. Still a tough game. Cygnar don’t like Arm 24 vs. shooting.

Vlad Trés unrelated.

The mirror matchup is very boring, but some of its elements may just be the best options you have. So I’m going to suggest two stormwalls of your own. Not with Haley though. Rather with Darius. Collosals are actually not good at one rounding collosals. Your feat and jack hammer along with ragman and Eiryss2 make you pretty likely to one round a stormwall who charged and failed to kill yours. So she can’t counter feat to stop it really. You can have ragman, Darius and Eiryss quite far back, and always debuff, before moving up to jackhammer to finish it off. Both of your guys are Arm buffed which helps against the shooting matchup. I would also recommend a sentinel. It keeps Eiryss away, provides another survivable repair target, and can be held back to keep Darius safe. This list is very short on points however. And to be honest its just skewing harder in return, which opens you up to many problems. Dropping eiryss and the sentinel gives you Tempest blazers which can help against its general matchups.

I won’t construct a list, because I feel like there are many points in flux depending on how much you want to focus on the dub-walls matchup. Darius dub-walls beats Cygnar a lot though. It’s nasty, if a bit boring.

Next week we talk Trolls and Elves! Getting all Tolkien on the robots!

-Eoin/VP