Warmachine/Tactics/Cygnar

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Note that this page is, for the most part, a placeholder, and will be added to over the coming months. Also note that, currently, it only contains units from Prime Mk. 2 and Forces of Warmachine: Cygnar.

Why Play Cygnar?

Cygnar is the go-to faction for the color blue, guns, lightning, and lightning guns; it's rare to see a soldier of the Cygnus without some kind of ranged options, and the same goes to their warjacks. While they aren't the toughest kids on the block, they can certainly hit you fast and at range; with range buffs some of their models can hit your deployment zone from turn one. Their melee doesn't suffer, though, as they have some shockingly strong knights and cavalry (which, true to the boys in blue, can also shoot lightning as well as hit people with it), as well as tricky close-combat jacks that rely more on disrupting the enemy rather than outright destroying them (though they can do the latter just fine).

General Strategy

Shoot them, and make sure you don't get shot back. Cygnar's soldiers are more accurate and have a variety of tricks, but don't hit as hard as other factions. Cygnar is very good at shooting, but don't rely on it; if you have no way of mitigating the enemy from advancing up the field and getting into combat, you're hosed. Popular 'tarpit' units are the mercenary unit Boomhowler and Co, Stormblades with armor buffs and more rarely Sword Knights (the closest thing Cygnar has to a 'swarm' unit.

Their warjacks are on the fragile side, but conversely are more mobile, better and dodging shots and more accurate at hitting things. Like the troops they're loaded up with tricks and special effects, most commonly 'Disruption' which can prevent a warjack being allocated focus for one round; this is an effective way of shutting down focus-reliant warjacks - in particular Khador, who need to boost hits a lot.

Unit Analysis

Warcasters

• Major Markus "Siege" Brisbane: One of the 'Big Three' of Cygnar, along with eCaine and eHaley. Very effective at controlling the flow of battle, he's great at cracking hard targets with his feat. His spells are very expensive, though, and he's easy to overextend with.
• Lieutenant Allister Caine (pCaine): He shoots things, and does that well, teleporting back to safety once all your important solos and units are so much swiss cheese. More of a support caster, though he occasionally supports his troops by shooting up the other guy's.
• Captain Allister Caine (eCaine): GOD OF ASSASSINS. Best assassin caster in the game. Can fire up to ten shots a round with the right support, and on his feat turn they do more damage each time.
• Captain E. Dominic Darius: The Man in the Can, Darius has a big ol' toolbox of tricks and is the biggest blue target in the lineup. Rides around in warjack-like battle armor, and best supports a big brick of 'jacks. Was probably the weakest caster in the line up until the Stormwall pumped him up to a horrible extent.
  • Halfjacks: You know those Minions from Despicable Me? Yeah. Mostly there to bodge up Darius's jacks, support his feat, and occasionally turn themselves into living mines.
• Captain Victoria Haley (pHaley): An excellent spell-focused warcaster. Temporal Barrier is the spell she's best known for, but her other support abilities and feat are equally good. Hard-counters a large number of asshole feats and casters like eAsphyxious.
• Major Victoria Haley (eHaley): A Big Three warcaster, and considered one of the best in the game. The Mistress of Time is also an alchemist; she turns her units into gold, and her enemies into shit. Super powerful abilities and spells, the best focus score in the faction, and one of the best feats in the game. Take care though: she's very vulnerable to attrition, and, unlike many casters, she needs her army and cannot win a game by herself.
• Captain Jeremiah Kraye: Cavalry warcaster, gives his warjacks cavalry rules and makes them ridiculously fast and mobile with his spells. Makes Minutemen hilariously powerful. Has a number of bad matchups, but still incredibly fun.
• Commander Adept Nemo (pNemo): He's a 'jack runner and spellslinger, loves spellcasters hanging around him and throws lightning like it's going to dry up.
• General Adept Nemo (eNemo): Oddball, sort of an anti-jack caster, very good at making jack heavy casters cry. His other abilities make him sort of an odd mage warcaster. Tends to pump a single 'jack into super mode rather than running with a whole pack of them like most 'jack casters. Not as good against armies that are immune to disruption, which is now more than half of the factions in the game, but a "'jack bullet" is good for anyone when it works.
• Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Adept Caitlin Finch (3Nemo, N3mo and lNemo): Specialist in electrical damage. His spells mostly involve doing electrical damage or helping jacks (or both in the case of his Lightening Shroud), his control radius means prevent electro-leaps from hitting things immune to electricity. His feat gives an extra die to all friendly electrical damage rolls in his radius, which coupled with the fact that he can extend his radius an inch by spending one focus and his gun's range is equal to his control range, can make him a deadly assassin. Note that he comes with Caitlin Finch as an attachment, so he can't use a squire.
• Captain Kara Sloan: Sniping specialist warcaster, very much wants a shooty battlegroup but a mixed arms army. Usually you can play her as a classic shoot from afar, but taking a bunch of minutemen and playing up close is an unorthodox but terribly fun and effective playstyle. Anything with Assault is gold on her feat turn.
• Commander Coleman Stryker (pStryker): This guy comes in the starter box for Cygnar, and it's easy to see why. He's easy to get used to, being able to fight, support your models, and attack with magic. There's no other caster in the game that will teach you how to use your army more effectively than him. People usually drop him for advanced play, because he doesn't specialize in anything, and he doesn't do anything well enough to win against many other casters. But that's not quite fair. He's got Earthquake and Snipe on the same spell list, and no caster with that spell combo in a ranged-heavy army is ever truly uncompetitive.
• Lord Commander Stryker (eStryker): Stryker going through a darker, edger phase caused him to learn to focus on something, mainly, offense. Unlike other Cygnar casters, he focuses on buffing units in melee. Also, he's a much stronger fighter, with a stronger weapon that has Reach. Be careful with that Overload power, he can and will blow himself right the fuck up if you get greedy. Take tons of melee troops and 'jacks, throw your entire army at the enemy, then charge across half the board and cut their caster in half in a single blow. Simple, powerful, effective. Note that, he can potentially deal the highest possible damage roll of any model in the entire game! (Potentially, mind, because you are NEVER going to roll all sixes on Overload and then roll all sixes again on a boosted damage roll while under the effects of Positive Charge. It's just not going to happen.)

Warjacks

Light Warjacks

• Charger: The Humvee of the Cygnar armory, the Charger is a cheap, incredibly versatile platform; with its Powerful Attack and Dual Cannon it's focus hungry but shreds medium armor targets reliably.
• Firefly: A Stormsmith's best friend, the Firefly can become the stormfront for triangulations, zapping Cygnar's foes with its Storm Blaster and spear.
• Grenadier: It's basically a metal Trencher with a grenade launcher. Gets free shots when it has Trenchers to manually load shells for it, and can dig in with the rest of the gravediggers. Use trenchers to jack marshal it.
• Hunter: Able to range out far ahead of many other warjacks, the Hunter is a mobile armor-cracker that ignores half the base armor of a medium/large based target with it's armor piercing long gun. Elusive, to, with pathfinder and parry. Hunters work best in pairs and are a popular pick for assigning to Gun Mage Officers.
• Lancer: Considered one of the best Arc Nodes in the game, the Lancer chassis can also hold its own against heavier warjacks, in particular by bopping it with the shock shield it carries, damaging a 'jack's cortex with each hit. It isn't a front liner, but makes for a vicious second-line/bait warjack when supporting something more nasty.
• Sentinel: Shreds infantry with its gatling gun, the Sentinel can also throw itself in front of ranged attacks to take a hit for someone more important than it is. Otherwise an unremarkable 'jack.
• Minuteman: Oh this guy is hilarious, he can bounding leap giving it ridiculous mobility, clear infantry with its flakfield ability and then shoot both guns at the squishy war caster that the infantry were screening. Has great synergy with Kraye and Sloan as it now has ridiculous movement or shooting power. Some people complain its not worth the hype because its hard to use well, but the knack is to treat its guns like melee weapons and get up close to targets.

Heavy Warjacks

• Centurion: Some units are called speedbumps, but the Centurion is a full blown barricade; massive shield, piston-powered spear, hard to move once it decides it wants to stay.
• Cyclone: The Sentinel's big brother, an infantry shredder that can throw anything that it can't beat down with its dual gatling guns or fists. Can lay down covering fire templates that shreds infantry, but not as great against harder targets.
• Defender: An excellent heavy hitting 'jack, its got a big gun to snipe hard armor with (this is what you'll be using this for most part due to its long range) and a cortex-shredding hammer of pain. Versatile, but on the fragile side for a heavy warjack.
• Hammersmith: It's basically a Khadoran 'jack painted blue; the Hammersmith marches up to something then starts hitting it with a pair of hammers until it stops twitching. Simple. Brutal. Effective.
• Ironclad: One of the first 'jacks to come out, and considered the 'standard' warjack of Warmachine. Big hammer to knock things down with, it's also on the cheap side but doesn't really show it.
• Stormclad: One of the best non-character warjacks in the Cygnar arsenal, it allocates itself focus when hanging out with its Stormbros and a loaded Stormclad is a dangerous thing to have within two inches of your anything. For the most part, if want something to die in melee, this thing can do the job, packing a high powered sword, with reach, and high MAT to us it with, which also electo-leap. Fielded with Nemo3 and under his feat, anything not immune to electricity damage with charge range of this beast is dead. It has a shield as well, so its a bit more durable than other jacks with the Ironclade chasis.

Character Warjacks

• Ol' Rowdy: A more expensive Ironclad with higher MAT and ARM (only in its front arc though). Also has Counter Charge, so anything that ends its activation too close to it, it can charge, and Aggressive, letting it run and charge for free. In all, though more expensive than an Ironclad (but cheaper than a Stormclad), it brings more accurate hitting in melee, greater mobility and is less focus hungry.
• Thorn: Coming soon.
• Thunderhead: Cygnar's most expensive warjack next to the Stormwall, so make sure you know what your doing when you field it. It has above average armor and damage boxes for a Cygnar jack and its fists are stronger than the average fists (both also have Sustained Attack, but it doesn't stack between them), but the main reason you'll field this thing is his Lightening Coil, on its own is a decent ranged weapon, and it has the ability to automatically hit everything within 6 inches of it even if it the Thunderhead can't target them, and it has Sustained Attack, so any hard targets you hit with it, you can follow up against with its more damaging normal shots.
• Triumph: Siege's personal gun man. This thing is a Defender with extra RAT, can sacrifice movement to ignore stealth, and his cannon that if you spend one focus on, will leave behind a 3 inch AOE. Is weaker in melee than a normal Defender, however, because it trades in the shock hammer for a shield, but that does give some extra armor. Despite what the fluff implies, don't field with Siege, it doesn't synergize well with him. Best use it in a caster assassination list.

Units

• Arcane Tempest Gun Mages: A toolbox unit, but not good at head-on fighting, very common to see because it brings options to the table.
  • Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer: Tactics: True Sight on the best ranged 'jack marshall in the game, in the faction with the best ranged 'jacks in the game? Groovy. The reason Gun Mages are so ubiquitous.
• Long Gunner Infantry: Pretty much just stand and shoot. Thats all, effective when you want to bring something down before it gets to your lines, but crap against Stealth or heavy armour like Eavy jacks or heavy infantry.
  • Long Gunner Infantry Officer & Standard: Coming soon.
• Precursor Knights: Coming soon.
  • Precursor Knight Officer & Standard: Coming soon.
• Rangers: Coming soon.
• Storm Lances: Coming soon.
• Stormblade Infantry: Coming soon.
  • Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard: Coming soon.
  • Stormblade Infantry Storm Gunner: Coming soon.
• Stormguard: Coming soon.
• Sword Knights: Coming soon.
  • Sword Knight Officer & Standard: Coming soon.
• Trencher Cannon Crew: Coming soon.
• Trencher Chain Gun Crew: Coming soon.
• Trencher Commandos: Coming soon.
  • Trencher Commando Scattergunner: Coming soon.
• Trencher Infantry: Coming soon.
  • Trencher Infantry Officer & Sniper: Coming soon.
  • Trencher Infantry Rifle Grenadier: Coming soon.
• Field Mechaniks: Coming soon.
• Captain Jonas Murdoch: Probably the best Ranking Officer in the entire game. Why? Because there are unreal numbers of mercs that can rock the house under the effects of Assault and the benefits of Faction status.

Character Units

• Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team: Coming soon.

Solos

• Gun Mage Captain Adept: Coming soon.
• Journeyman Warcaster: Coming soon.
• Stormsmith Stormcaller: Coming soon.
• Stormsmith Storm Caller: Coming soon.
• Squire: Support attachment for you caster that extends their control radius, re-roll a failed magic attack, and you can mark off a box on it to give your caster an extra focus. You really have no reason NOT to use this.
• Trencher Master Gunner: Coming soon.

Character Solos

• Captain Maxwell Finn: Coming soon.
• Major Katherine Laddermore: Coming soon.
• Captain Arlan Strangeways: Coming soon.