Cygnar: Perils of Allistair Caine

I've recently had the chance to pick up my Cygnar and roll some dice with them.  A group of folks at work have either just started or have dusted off their old armies. I've brought out a range of builds, including Everblight and Cryx, but last Thursday I had the chance to bring back premier assassination caster Captain Allister Caine against the new (to me) forces of Cyriss.

Let's break down the army lists (15 points each):

Cygnar

• Captain Allister Caine
• Defender Heavy Warjack
• Hunter Light Warjack
• Reinholdt
• Black 13th

Cyriss

• Forge Master Syntherion
• Cipher Heavy Warjack
• 3 Diffuser Light Warjacks
• 3 Attunement Servitors
• Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Let's take a look at the end of the first game.  Note that we didn't play the final turn, but just assumed that Caine and the rest of the army would be able to assassinate Syntherion without much trouble.  We called the game in favor of being able to get another one in.

The thing to talk about here are the mistake that I made that led to Caine being in such a precarious position.  By the end of Cyriss' last turn Caine had taken 8 points of damage and one reasonable roll by my opponent would have ended it before I could go after Syntherion. What led to me only surviving by the skin of my teeth?  On turn two my Defender, Hunter and Caine moved up to kill the heavy Cypher using Caine's feat.  Killing the opposing heavy warjack would leave me in a dominating position and I was hoping to have enough focus left to gate crash out.  I manage to kill the Cipher (You can see it's crater on the top edge of the hill) but almost died myself in return.  Here's a summary of my mistakes:

• Overestimating Caine's Feat.  Caine can do a lot of damage on his feat turn, but against ARM 18 and a heap of damage boxes even he can have a hard time getting the job done.
• Not prepping properly for the subsequent turn by closing the gap between the Hunter and the Defender.  Caine's pistols only need a small gap to shoot through or he could have shot the large based heavy over the top of the medium based Hunter.
• Relying on Caine's high defense.  The servitors and syntherion both have abilities that debuff Caine's defense.  DEF 17 is great, DEF 13 not as much. Caine's DEF should be relied on as a last resort and not as part of your battle plan.
• Caine strayed too close to the opposing army. Caine's pistols have a range of 12 which matches his control radius. Stopping at the exact point you need to stop at is easy to determine.  In this case I needed to stop 9 inches away from the heavy (Syntherion's Reconstruct spell allows the 'jack it's cast on to respawn within 3 inches of the point it was destroyed).
• Caine was way too close to the opposing army. The opposing army's light jacks allow allow charges against targets they hit to move an additional 2 inches.  Syntherion's DEF debuff gives an additional 2 inches. That adds up to a solid charge range.

Next post will go over the second game we played, and provide a concise list of actions I can take to improve my Caine Game.

(For the second game and an overall analysis click here.)