Cygnar list

[BlackVise]

Hi,

Coming back to WM after a long lay off. I'm came up with this list to try. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Captain Jeremiah Kraye -6
Ol' Rowdy 9
Charger 4
Cyclone 9
Charger 4
Sword Knights (10) 6
Sword Knight Officer and Standard Bearer 2
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord 2
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team 4

34 points

[GentleBen]

Looks like a nice balanced list. I like the idea of the Cyclone with Kraye. Guided fire means you can use the focus on the 'jack to boost its damage rolls since you don't have to worry about hitting. Really helpful if you can get line of sight to a warcaster. I might advise swapping out Rowdy for a regular Ironclad so you have two points left over for a squire. There may be some synergy he has with Kraye that I'm missing but I don't really see him being worth the two extra points in this list. Also I don't know if you really need both chargers. That 4 points might go better to a full unit of mechanics or a Journeyman Warcaster, and a stormsmith. Or maybe Gorman the mercenary alchemist, and Arlan Strangewaves.

Kraye is a wierd caster who bothers me a little sometimes. He's one of my favorite caster sculpts period, so I'm sure I would use him regularly if I played my Cygnar army more. But so many of his abilities seem to contradict each other, and other Cygnar abilities. For example: Guided Fire vs. Full Tilt/ Iron Horse. Which of these abilities do you choose to capitalize on when you build your army? Do you want melee 'jacks so they can charge really far, or ranged 'jacks so they get boosted shots? Then there's Guided Fire vs. the Charger's powerful shot. If you're going to want to boost the charger's damage roll then its attack roll will also be boosted with Powerful Shot, so in the case of your list you would only be casting Guided Fire for the sake of the Cyclone. I can see the advantage of having multiple options for sure but it still just feels a little off.

Anyway please don't let anything I say discourage you. Kraye has a lot of good tools and he can sure win you games. I guess I'm just still trying to figure him out. You can also always go check out the Cygnar List Discussion (http://www.privateerpressforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=33) section of the Privateer Press main forums. Theres even a Kraye Discussion going on right now here (http://www.privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?t=7592).

[BlackVise]

Thanks for the advice!

[Irdion]

Hi,

Coming back to WM after a long lay off. I'm came up with this list to try. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Captain Jeremiah Kraye -6
Ol' Rowdy 9
Charger 4
Cyclone 9
Charger 4
Sword Knights (10) 6
Sword Knight Officer and Standard Bearer 2
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord 2
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team 4

34 points

Hi!

To start off, I'm mainly a Nemo guy, but I've picked up Kraye for the last year or so and he is one of my favorite casters in the game. The first thing you need to know about Kraye is that he is a toolbox, and should be used accordingly. No one thing (be it shooting or charging into combat) is going to win the game for you. Likewise, Kraye has some trouble standing up to heavy shooting, as his large base and pretty low armor will lose you a few games until you figure out how to keep him protected.

The thing I'm seeing right off the bat is that you have a big abundance of Warjacks, and only 6 focus to go around! For Kraye there are generally two camps people fall into - people who play Kraye to load up on Light Warjacks and dance around the opponent, and people who build a balanced center to play around. You seem to be going for a balanced spread, so the rest of my post will be colored appropriately.

Kraye has a few "best friends" from Cygnar, namely the Hunter, Sentinel, Cyclone, and Defender. The reason for this is that they all possess either multiple shots, or a single shot that needs to land true to be effective, as well as a somewhat decent melee weapon (especially the Defender!). The reason they are Kraye's best friends is because just about every one of his spells provides some positive benefit for them, either in the form of Guided Fire, his Feat, or Full Tilt. Likewise, Mage Sight is basically flipping the finger to any "you can't shoot me effects" outside of the Choir of Menoth or Vladimir. Pursuit is a great reactionary ability to something trying to escape your charge range (like other Cygnar players, Cryxian nasties, or Mercenary trickery).

Going warjack heavy, you need to design your list with a plan to be focus efficient, and to preserve your resources you've invested into them. In this light, the Charger is a poor choice for Kraye, because while it is by itself an incredible self-contained package, you end up wasting focus every time you boost damage if Guided Fire is up - focus that could be spent boosting a Defender or Hunter shell. the main way to be focus efficient is to design your list under the assumption that you will probably be using Guided Fire every turn, and that you will be suffering retaliatory damages on your warjacks which may knock out essential systems. The counter to the first problem is intelligent list design to take advantage of Guided Fire, and the second is Mechanics. You have your ranged might in your Warjacks, the Black 13th is a high priority, very expensive bullet magnet more likely to get offed than do any truly useful work without designing supporting elements into your list.

My advice is to keep Carvolo and the Sword Knights, as they form a solid backbone which can react to enemy push by tying them down and dealing some retaliatory damage. Keep them in blocks of two to get Defensive Line bonuses, while keeping those blocks a couple inches away from each other to largely ignore high powered AOE's. USe them rather aggressively to pull down the weight of enemy shooting onto them, while your warjacks joust for position. My advice is to drop Ol' Rowdy for a Defender or Cyclone (depending on whether you are up against an infantry horde or simply some hard targets), bring on a Leader and 3 grunts for Mechanics to patch up damages, maintain the option to turn Arlan Strangwayes and the Cyclone into a Hunter, Sentinel, and Stormsmith, and swap out the Chargers for a Hunter and a Sentinel. This gives you huge reactionary power all across the board with light cavalry light warjacks, with a solid Defender core.

Kraye -6
Defender or Cyclone 9
Cyclone 9+Strangwayes 2 or Sentinel 4+Hunter 6+Stormsmith 1
Sentinel 4
Hunter 6
Sword Knights (10) 6
Sword Knight Officer and Standard Bearer 2
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord 2
Field Mechaniks 1

This list has the ability to generate a hail of anti-infantry firepower, or a nice even mix between anti-warjack and anti-infantry. Play around with different options, and see what kind of mix you want.

All told though, ave fun and play like you got a pair!