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whitestar333
10-04-2010, 05:25 AM
So it makes me a bit sad to see the Warmachine threads so empty compared to the 40k threads in the Lounge, so I decided that I would do my part by posting some lists that I've come up with and get people thinking about fun and effective lists to try or play! I know that most Warmachine players check other forums for their info, but I figured I could post some stuff here for the 'converts' who typically play 40k or Fantasy and are looking to dabble in Warmachine/Hordes.

My favorite Warmachine faction is Cygnar. While they might be considered the poster child for Privateer Press, they are nowhere near as popular, nor powerful, as one might expect considering their public status. Cygnar is the most technologically advanced faction, typically characterized by lots of ranged weapons and even bending lightning to their will (more on that in the future)!

One of my favorite faction characters is Siege. If you look at his rules, you realize that he is quite the tank (as far as Cygnar goes), with a lot of tactical utility to bring to both his own and his armies abilities. Some might say that the traditional tier lists are not very competitive nor effective, but I wanted to share this particular one that I crafted, to argue that they are, in fact, quite competitive!

Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (+5)
-Defender (9)
Trencher Cannon (3)
Trencher Cannon (3)
Trencher Chaingun Crew (2)
Trencher Commandos (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5)
-2 Trencher Commandos Scattergunner WA (2)
Trencher Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5)
-Trencher Infantry Officer & Sniper UA (3)
-Grenadier - 'Jack Marshalled (5)
Captain Maxwell Finn (3)
Trencher Master Gunner (Free!)

This list was built to maximize the benefits of Siege's tier list, although it does not get to Tier 4 because there were more important toys to play with, and the Tier 4 benefits (2+ defenders and they get advance move) don't seem all that great at this level of points. Here's the breakdown of the tiers that benefit this army:
Tier 1 - Trencher Infantry and Commandos 1 point cheaper (hence bold point values) + FA benefit to weapon crews (not important at this level)
Tier 2 - 3+ Trencher weapon crews and you get one Trencher Master Gunner for free
Tier 3 - 2+ Trencher Infantry and/or Commando units and you get a 3" AOE cloud effect within 20" of board edge for each unit after both players deployed. The effect dissipates after the first round.

So, thanks to our tier benefits, we essentially have 4 points of free stuff, meaning our list is 111% it's actual points cost, and that's for starters! You might also notice the prevalence of infantry and a lack of heavy hitters. You might ask, "How would this list deal with Khador? One Defender isn't enough; Karchev would eat this up!" Let me inform you of Siege's feat: Breach. It essentially means that the first time in the round that each enemy model suffers damage, you half the ARM value when calculating the damage. It's a little tricky, and there have been discussions about how the Defender's shock hammer is completely useless during the feat turn, but it can allow you to knock some heavy shots into those heavily armored 'jacks across the table. A CRA from your trencher infantry will suddenly have the potential to be at 2d6+7 damage against a typical ARM20 'jack!

There are a lot of neat tricks that this army has, and even more AOEs to play around with. The commandos will be your necessary flankers, and with stealth and tough they are likely to be a real headache for your opponent, knowing that those scatter gunners will try to get into perfect spray position. Add in anatomical precision and make sure that they can see Finn, and they will be killing all kinds of solos and infantry you want them to deal with on the flanks while your trenchers advance, shoot, and dig-in every turn. If you're worried about the trenchers getting hit by some AOE support, use the master-gunner to give *close fire to the grenadier (which should always be in BTB with some trenchers) and your commandos can get some close artillery support (with up to 3, POW 12, 3" AOEs) without worrying about blast damage. You should also keep Finn back and dug-in, with LOS to your trencher units to boost their effectiveness, but he's pretty squishy so don't be tempted to utilize his anatomical precision thresher and sprint - he's much better off buffing his trenchers!

Siege will want to be relatively greedy with his focus, so keeping him with just the defender allows him to allocate the one occasional focus to boost to hit or damage, and keeping the other 5 for some of his supporting spells, or to boost the damage on his Rocket Cannon (which is almost as good as the Defender cannon itself). You'll find yourself using Fox Hole and Mage Sight the most with Siege, with the occasional Rift to slow down units without pathfinder. If a 'jack or beast gets too close for comfort, Siege can also use Force Hammer to slam them back a bit. Siege is also a pretty tough 'caster, with DEF14 and ARM17, and with critical smite on his hammer, you can feel relatively safe using him to go up and smash something in the face with his POW14, and then smack it again with Force Hammer if you have the focus, essentially slamming a model back 2d6".

Oh and one of my favorite things about this list is that you can have 8 AOE shots on any particular turn (not counting the grenades from the commandos), which should make any non-shield wall unit shudder in anticipation.

Even still, this list is certainly better prepared for scenario wins and dealing with infantry-heavy lists, with the ability to hold-out against an opponent, being able to advance, shoot, and dig-in (thanks to the UA), shoot at stealth armies (TONS of AOEs and Mage Sight), and Siege can always apply the hammer directly to the forehead, if all else fails.

Revarien
10-04-2010, 12:04 PM
Don't get me wrong, Siege has a decent tier list set... and it totally seems like you maximized it, but wow... I can't get around how much I love using a squire and Rienholdt with him. I know he doesn't get great use of the magical aspects of the Squire, but those 2 extra inches to his control zone has won me games with his feat. Rienholdt's extra shot is also something that's hard to pass up... that way I can ground pound and still get a decent direct shot off.

All and all, though, it boils down to play-style and I'm more of a long gunner/ spray and pray kinda player then the trench warfare type.

whitestar333
10-04-2010, 12:34 PM
Well you literally get to 'spray and pray' with his tier because with the points you save from trenchers you get the two commando scattergunners for free! While I see the benefit of Rheinholdt with many Cygnar lists, I feel like the number of AOEs you have access to in this list mitigates the extra ground pounder shot you would get, especially since the free trencher master gunner allows one of those models (usually I would recommend the grenadier since he can throw down 3 AOEs in the same turn) to get +2 to their ranged attack rolls and reroll deviation and/or distance. Sure, it won't be nearly as powerful as ground pounder, but you're not usually relying on a high POW to clean out lots of infantry anyway.

Revarien
10-04-2010, 02:59 PM
My Menoth have run into a slight hitch with something similar though... let me preface it real fast:

When I first started the game, I started with Menoth and loved the deliverers... TONS of AoE drifts... massive troop killing power (it IS effective, that's for sure), but then I came up against girded and trenched enemies. Ouch. I got slaughtered when those were run... that's what moved me onto other tactics.

Obviously, if you're running trenchers, you're gonna be ok with the enemy throwing tons of AoEs your way... I just suggest having some other killy power other then relying on the AoEs (That nasty Skorne Xerxes list will care not for the AoEs because they'll be too weak to breach the 23 or so armor on 8 wound models). Just be prepped for it.

McNs
10-05-2010, 09:52 PM
This is a cute list, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it validates the usefulness of theme lists as well as you think it does.

You mention the number of AOEs in the list as a positive, but let's look at the POW of each of these:

- Trencher Cannons - POW 7
- Grenadier - POW 6
- Siege's Gun - POW 7
- Defender under Explosivo - POW 8

Against armies with an ability to deny shooting or with ARM buffs for their Stealth models, this army is going to have problems. Once a model with Stealth goes above ARM 15, you're going to have a very hard time dealing with it.

What does it against armies that quickly get delivered (e.g. - Legion rush armies, Barnabas Blindwater armies, etc.) that quickly engage your troops to prevent them from getting shot. Once Finn is out of the picture (or at least tied up out of site), those Commandos are going to have a tough time against things like Daugters of the Flame, Satyxis Raiders, etc.

I concur with Revarian - I think Siege gets a lot of flexibility from models not available to his theme list. While I appreciate that the theme lists offer some fun options, I don't think the majority are geared towards super competitive play.

whitestar333
10-06-2010, 08:26 AM
While I don't think that the list is "super competitive", even a POW 7 blast can be effective against most troopers en masse. Why? Probability states that you have about a 50% chance of rolling a 7 or higher on two dice. If you're hitting multiple models, there's a chance that one of them will get hit with a POW high enough to kill a single-wound trooper. In my experience, you can use the same probability mechanism used in 40k (number of dice rolled) to achieve a similar effect in Warmachine - if you throw enough dice, eventually you'll do enough damage. I think that most people expect to have one or two solid hits in Warmachine, when if you just roll enough dice, you can get the effect you desire. In fact, probability is even more on your side in Warmachine.

I think the main weakness of the list is high-arm, multi-wound infantry or high ARM 'jacks, but even then you have access to the CRA of the trenchers if you really need more powerful shots, and Siege's feat turn can really soften up a lot of targets, let alone him using his own rocket cannon. Also, with the number of AOEs, any mechanics have to worry about getting hit from standing too close to the 'jacks they want to repair.

Quantity is its own quality, and volume of fire can often yield productive results - especially against infantry with high DEF as they often have low ARM values, and even still, there's a reasonable chance of rolling a 9 or higher on two dice (approximately equal to a 5+ in 40k), and I'd rather be sure of hitting with a low POW than being uncertain of hitting with a high POW, and the number of AOEs can help this.

I do want to return to my point that this is not optimized for competitiveness, but rather being fun and yet still effective. Even still, with the best and most competitive lists in Warmachine, it ultimately comes down to how you use the list and your tactics on the tabletop, moreso than other gaming systems. In the hands of the right player, I think that this list can be very effective against most (read: not all) armies on the table.

McNs
10-06-2010, 03:17 PM
While I don't think that the list is "super competitive", even a POW 7 blast can be effective against most troopers en masse. Why? Probability states that you have about a 50% chance of rolling a 7 or higher on two dice. If you're hitting multiple models, there's a chance that one of them will get hit with a POW high enough to kill a single-wound trooper.

Emphasis mine. Here's where I think the core assumption falls down: you're assuming your enemy is going to allow you to hit multiple models with AOEs. Unless we're talking 5" pie plates, its very rare you're going to have an opportunity to hit multiple models with AOEs in MK II - the formation rules allow to ensure that only a single model will get hit.

Granted, you've got what equates to a 1-in-3 (so 5+ in 40K terms) chance to deviate onto a small model if you target it (and its in range). That said, now we're talking another above roll to damamge. Given your example below, now we're in 6+ terriroty in 40K terms.

So, at best, we're looking at 8 3" AOEs a turn - more probably 5-6. So, you're going to average one deviation/kill against a model with Stealth, extra high DEF, etc. How many turns do you anticipate you'll be able to make these kills until said models close and start doing damage of their own?



I do want to return to my point that this is not optimized for competitiveness, but rather being fun and yet still effective. Even still, with the best and most competitive lists in Warmachine, it ultimately comes down to how you use the list and your tactics on the tabletop, moreso than other gaming systems. In the hands of the right player, I think that this list can be very effective against most (read: not all) armies on the table.

Perhaps I came off to strong initially: this isn't a bad list. That said, it doesn't validate theme lists as competitive: look to Rahn's, Ravyn's, Terminus', eSkarre's, etc. for that. Heck, look at eNemo or Kraye's within Cygnar for some heavier firepower.

In terms of improving the list, here's something I think keeps the theme (and Tier 3), stays a good all-comers list, but suffers less from bad match-ups:

Siege
- Defender
- Charger
Trencher Commandos (6)
- 2x Scattergunners
Trencher Infantry (6)
- Officer and Sniper
Rangers
Trencher Cannon
Trencher Chaingun
Trencher Chaingun
Trencher Master Gunner

Big changes: Finn has been traded for Rangers, who grant the +2 to hit (albeit at range only) to all models rather than just the Trenchers. We dropped a unit of Commandos and a scatterfun and added in a Charger. Why? Focus effeciency during the feat, another that can benefit from Mage Sight, and it adds diversity to the list.

While I do subscribe to Relasine's theory of redundancy within list building, I think 2x Commandos was overleveraging their Anatomical Precision ability and putting pressure on Finn to be too far forward. This list has an excellent board control capacity (as does your list), but can put more focused, accurate ranged pressure on an enemy. There's some AOEs here, for sure, but this list should emphasize using the Master Gunner to help Siege or an Explosiov'ed Defender hit more accurately (rather than keeping friendlies safe from AOEs).

************

As for your comment that a good player will good use of this list: I'd argue a good player should able to make good use of almost any list. One key aspect of Warmachine is list design, especially trying to minimize the number of bad match-ups. I think your list overleveraged Commandos and AOEs at the expense of versatility. If Commandos and AOEs are fun for you, by all means, keep at it. That said, I think the list could use some more tweaking to even itself out against bad matchups.

I appreciate your arguement though; thank you for keeping this discussion civil. I'm really glad that there is, in fact, Warmachine discussion on the Lounge now. If you'd like a crack at it, I'll open a thread with some thoughts on some of my Skorne lists.

Lux
10-07-2010, 12:08 PM
My argument against this list is that there will be some forces that completely laugh it off. A Khador Man-o-War list will simply wade through it for the most part. A Menoth jack-heavy list with a choir (or two!) can't even be targetted by shooting. Dug in infantry won't be hurt (Pig's). Units like the Skorne Karax are immune to blast damage. And let me tell you, there are times you'll absoltely need some solid melee capability to kill things.

The list is too focused; it needs a little more balance. Will it be fun? Maybe, depending on the players. The "AOE scatter" phase can get old after a couple games for some people. Others will love it.

I'm not saying don't play the list. Just don't expect it to be balanced and have a good chance against everything. And don't expect all your opponents to love facing it over the long term.


Lux