Caine3, let's talk about him

So what you are telling me is that I should just bite the bullet, and put in my order for the Hurricane/Stormwall kit, and figure out both collossals and magnets? (How the f*** do they work?)

Sorry, it's my weird pop culture references coming out. The 'Magnets, how the f*** do they work' is froma trully abysmal Insane Clown Posse song that might have gotten way to much play in my dorm room in college.

I think the next time I play, I'm going to try out of theme, and then probably pick up the Hurricane/Stormwall kit. I've just told myself I'm not allowed to buy new things until my Centurion, Brickhouse, and my last two Storm Lances. All of which are in some level of completion on my dining room table.

I shamelessly copied this list, so it's more like I ended up with yours than the other way around

Covering Fires tend to be a little catch22 against spammy lists: You have to shoot as much as possible to thin out their numbers and if you don't do that then you don't get covering fires. Don't get me wrong, it's a useful tool, but often times you simply need to pew pew

Chargers have bigger threat and boosted attacks, so are more reliable in hitting outside feat. Cyclones on the other hand are more survivable due to arm 18. 3 lights have more boxes than 2 heavies tough.

Stormwall also have pod, that helps with scenario and additional inf clearing especially with ff.

I just want to chime in because I got my first game with Caine3 in last night and it impressed me quite a bit with his potential and drawbacks. I'm not doing myself any favours with Caine because I am refusing to use themes. I do not like what theme lists do to the game, so I have chosen not to use them. However I recognise that Caine3 is probably strongest if you play him in theme. That said outside of theme he was impressively fun and potent.

My list was;

Caine3 and the Hellslingers
Ace
Charger
Charger
Cyclone
Cyclone
Dynamo
Journeyman warcaster
Firefly
Arlan Strangewayes

My opponent was running a Lylyth2 list with a blightbringer, bolt thrower and Naga for the battlegroup. He also had striders and warspears both with CAs plus some other support staff and solos.

It was short, Dynamo and the Cyclones shot the blightbringer off the table with feat and Caine killed most of the striders with blast shots and mage sight to see them whilst they hid at the back of a forest. The attrition went so quickly in my favour it seemed unfair but my opponent did have one opportunity (which they did not see) to assassinate Caine following my feat turn. Simply because there was no way to keep Caine outside of Lylyth's personal threat range and apply pressure. There were a couple of lights stood in front of Caine which blocked direct line of sight to him but his bolt thrower (despite crippled mind and body) could have created line of sight to Caine with just a bit of luck. Even with arcane shield a zero camp Caine is uncomfortably possible to assassinate for Lylyth just by herself.

Conclusions are very simple. He can apply punishing ranged superiority and has a really attractive tool kit to problem solve but he, Ryan and Watts are painfully vulnerable making it a very cagey game indeed. I like him and want more games with him. Before I decided to ban myself from theme forces I had been thinking of fielding him in Storm division because stormclads and accumulator really free up his focus load and calamity turns the lightning guns on even more. Storm blades and lances are terrifying ranged threats when you can make them RAT 7-9 and POW 16-18. The feat is cool and actually made his AOE shot type a lot more meaningful than I first thought.

I played Caine 3 as one of my pair at the Welsh Masters last weekend, only dropped him twice, but I was very impressed by him. My list was:

Heavy Metal

Caine 3
- Squire
- Ace
- Thunderhead
- Charger
- Charger
- Charger
- Charger
- Charger
- Charger

Arlan
Junior
- Firefly

I won one lost one with him, the loss was due to my sloppy positioning and killing Makeda 2s' Krea, which gave her 3 more stay death fury, rather than killing his last 2 ferox which jumped and killed Caine with the help of Rhadeim.

If you play it right the list is near impossible to jam up as long as you layer the jacks correctly, Black penny gets the Synergy up 3 easily, then the chargers at the back can aim for a cheeky boosted rat 11 into melee. If all that does fail an Arcane Shielded T-Head can usually eat a free strike to get a sweet pulse off.

In both games I managed to get Calamity out before feat turn and then just upkept it, both my opponents on their turn moved to just outside of 18" (charger threat), but that puts them within the 21" threat of Caine to land a Witch Mark, Cast Calamity then Flicker Back. I then protected Caine by running T-Head in front of him (as I said if he gets jammed you can clear him off)

The great thing is though not every Charger needs 2 focus, even an unboosted rat 9 pow 15 will still do good work against a lot of targets. Also if your opponent does not have any single tough nuts to crack that you would have to put tons of shots into, you could maybe get away with no Calamity and just use the feat

The biggest weakness of the whole thing is Caine, he still dies to a stiff breeze, even with Arcane Shield and camping a focus or two.