Dealing with Heavy Infantry

I notice your lists are not using a Firefly. If positioned well, which can be hard to do, those pow 10's become pow 12's turning it from an iffy kill to a likely to kill non feat turn. Running two FF's makes it much easier to clean up infantry. The new CID upgraded Storm Strider is really good too. Pow 14 (16 with FF) with d3 leaps and you can likely boost the damage rolls.
If you want to go the Cyclone router I would recommend a Stormwall over the Cyclone. having 2 covering fire templates while still having 2 high pow shots really help. Especially against speed 4 dwarfs who go down to ARM 16 when moving. Not to mention the pod which can be really good as a control piece.
Storm Lances should eat Forge Guard for lunch. Typically the Forge Guard are in 3 model formation to provide the ARM bonus. You charge into it making impacts against at least two of them, then assault shot with eleap, then lance with eleap means you should kill all three of them per SL model plus maybe one or two others depending on positioning and dice.
If you want to get frisky you could use Hurricane to slam them into each other. If they are already B2B for the ARM bonus then they all take a POW 14 slam.
Hope you can find some stuff that works for you.

I would play my Caine 3 list with 6 Chargers and Thunderhead, they would absolutely tear the arse out of 26 Forge Guard, get a nice pow 17 Thunderhead Pulse, followed up by two more pow 19s, and then 12 x boosted pow 15s

Good responses. Let me hit them all.

xadmar -
I actually own two fireflies. I name all my jacks, but I've only played the firefly I named "Joules" - I have yet to play (or name) the second. The trick with the fireflies here is that getting one within 5" of forge guard means that if I don't immediately kill all those forge guard, the firefly dies. It only takes about two forge guard to take it off the table. Fireflies are squishy.

I don't have the cash to pick up a storm strider or colossal yet, but I've been looking.

And yes - lances should in theory be able to squish units of forge guard, but oddly they never do. Especially once the CID nerf goes in, they'll need to commit to get anything done, and then the whole 20 point unit just dies. I know at least in my game earlier this week I tried to use the terrain chokepoint to help and it probably hurt me more than anything and got my lances killed.

mrveux -
I guess my current two lists do likely have what it takes. You mention a stormclad with 4 focus, but I actually prefer a lightning shrouded hammersmith with 4 focus. It's got the same POW, same electroleaps, 2 extra attacks, moves while it's hitting, and costs 7 point less. It's just got half the reach, but I'm hoping that won't matter while I'm beating back with each hit.

Since the above-linked Nemo game, I've switched to a Heavy Metal Nemo1 list

Nemo1
Squire
Centurian
Defender
Hammersmith
Dynamo
Cyclone
Lancer
Jr
Firefly
Jakes
Firefly
Arlan
Field Mechanics (min)

I'm considering tweaks, but the above is my go-to Nemo list. I wish I could have more mechanics though.

I'm also looking at Maddox. Not sure I can take on a new caster, but if I did, it would have been her! (Imagine Sam Gamgee talking about Rosie Cotton)



Caine3 I'm avoiding for the same reasons that I've always avoided Sloan and the Haleys. But for the rest, how to punch through a giant mob of dwarves and a 40-box battle engine? Shadow Fire is hard to come by outside a Caine list, and to punch through you're talking 4-6 POW12 shots to kill enough dwarves, and then how much would I realistically have left for an assassination? Ossrum is hard to assassinate anyway. High armor, camped focus, bullet dodger.


36Cygnar24Guy36

Avoiding Caine3, see above. Thunderhead, on the other hand, I'm going to be putting on the table soon. I've been painting him this past month, and I'm nearly done. The way he packs in those forge guard, T-Head might have a field day. Or he might just get jammed and end up unable to pulse. I hope he's not a 20-point waste.

Know what I just thought of? I wonder if Stormsmith Grenadiers would be any use against forge guard. The lightning AoE that stays could be helpful. Pulling them out of formation could help. And -2 speed would suck for a speed 4 model.

I think, if they don't change much from CID, Trencher Commandoes are going to be really good for dealing with heavy armor, single wound infantry. What will make them worth taking will depend on whether they get any jack level armor cracking, which was something we were talking about at the end of the cycle.

My most recent thrashing was using Stryker2. (casualty-wmh.blogspot.com/2017/06/battle-report-mercenaries-ossrum-vs.html) My problem likely came as a result of terrain and poor play on my behalf. He shielded his forge guard with gun bunnies on the approach and feated turn one for an early gun bunny mini-alpha that gave them all extra armor. I made the decision to hold feat for a turn, since I'd be charging ARM21 gun bunnies and hitting at dice minus six with the stormblades that were in range of the stormrod. It would never have been enough to take out a light jack, and then the forge guard would have wrecked me the following turn, owing to Ossrum's ability for the forge guard to move/attack through the gun bunnies. I'm calling my performance poor, but in that situation I'm still not sure how I could have done better.

I'd considered Stryker2 or Nemo3 for next time, as I actually Nemo3 - I've just never played him.

It feels like you should have casted rebuke on one unit of Forgeguard and done what you could to the bunnies. Remember, tying the bunnies up in the melee is a position they don't want to be in. So, sure, you do some damage to a number of them, maybe take out a system on a few of them, then they are engaged in melee and have to take free strikes without the feat to use their guns. That's a win! Rebuke on the dorfs saves you a turn of reprisal.

Thanks for the feedback. I've realized a few mistakes I made after reviewing all this. I'm going to break up my responses and address things one at a time.



I actually did - I just neglected to mention that in the battle report. Oh wait - I did mention it. It was on turn three. I think I couldn't get LoS on turn two because of the bunny wall.



I'd used up the squire by then - pulled the focus on turns 2,3,4. So I only had six to use. Three for velocity, so I had three left. I used one to soak damage on the siege crawler's free attack, and lucked out that Stryker was left on one box. Then I had two left: one to buy and one to boost.

Perhaps I should always save one accumulator box for the assassination run with Stryker.



I keep thinking that feating earlier would have helped, but would it really given how little extra damage that would have yielded on Ossrum's feat turn? I couldn't get at the dwarves - only the ARM21 gun bunnies.

I actually did use positive charge, just didn't mention that in the BatRep. Pretty sure I had it on the Lancer turn two, which I guess means that the stormblades were hitting at dice minus four rather than dice minus six. They still weren't able to remove the bunnies.

I suppose I should have involved Rowdy. Maybe knocked down some bunnies on turn two to arc rebuke past them at the forge guard. I didn't think of that. I was too concerned with keeping Rowdy alive and B2B with Stryker so that he'd be DEF18 when the forge guard got there. That was a mistake.



You're right. I should have kept Stryker on the flag. I guess I was too enamored of that big house that would keep him safe from everything. Last time I kept him on a flag I nearly got Stryker shot to death by a Behemoth.



There were actually three units of forge guard. I had rebuke on the unit of ten, but sixteen more just kept piling in. I'm thinking now that I should have had the storm lances circle around the forest and hit the artillery from behind as well as any remaining forge guard. I managed to run one stormlance around to engage artillery, which tied them up for one round, but that was too little too late. I lost one lance to an early bunny assasult, and two more to lances I didn't think could get me. I had them charge bunnies on turn two to do some extra damage, but they could only repo back three inches, and that was too close to the dwarves and I lost two cav.

So in the end I guess it's not about bringing a different army - it's about playing the one I've got here better. Thanks again for the advice. The reason I write up these battle reports is so that I can review how I've played and improve my game.

Warning: Thread derail ahead.

The clock isn't so bad. I always make my plan on my opponent's turn anyway, unless I'm playing Haley2 or Haley3 because there are so many options. Typically speaking I go into my turn knowing full well what I'm about to do. I know what pieces I want to remove, I know where I want to put my caster, etc. I'd really suggest that while you're playing on the clock you ask yourself one major question:

What is my primary win condition going forward?

Clock
Assassination
Scenario

If unclear, continue attrition.

Then, when your turn starts, regardless of what you answered for the previous question, see if you can pull off an assassination. Maybe it's not your best chance to win, but assassination also prevents you from being assassinated in the future.

So, develop a plan during your opponent's turn. Focus on their big pieces that threaten your big pieces. You want to put yourself in a position where they can't remove something of yours. (e.g. - If you have a Stormwall, prioritize the things that can kill the Stormwall so it can run rampant later in the game.) Focus on your most likely win condition, ignore the rest.