Monday 1 February 2016

Light Jack Problems, gun gone - first hit

I can't talk for anyone else but my light warjacks have a habit of having their gun arms crippled the first hit they take.




I thought I would have a think about what each of our ranged light jacks have to offer once the inevitable happens and they get crippled.


Charger

If it is in a battlegroup then it can spend focus to boost to get back to two dice with its powerful attack ability so it can still have a decent damage output even when crippled.

Firefly

The firefly's gun is pretty good, its main use to me is the lightning generator which can be used to bypass high defence, stealth or things that prevent attacks. (As the leaps aren't attacks)
Best thing to do when its gun is crippled is to forfeit movement to aim and shoot one of your own models in the back to arc the leaps where you need them. (Remember not to shoot something immune to electric though as it won't leap from them.)
It's also easy enough to hit most heavies in the game aiming even with only one dice.
Also good to remember that even though the gun generates the leaps, it is not considered to create the damage and does not suffer the effects of the crippled system.

It also still has the ability to help out with electrical damage via Ionisation even when it only has one box left, as it is not tied to any systems.

Grenadier

Even with its gun crippled it can still benefit from manual reload ability and get 3 shots if needed. Its main targets are low arm infantry but with one dice for damage you will likely to struggle to break armour with pow 6 blasts. I like to use Grenadiers jack marshaled to gunmages so with runeshots you can use Thunderbolt for its push effects. Even if they don't kill a model once crippled you still have the utility of the push on 3 aoe's. Great for clearing zones or pushing models out of shieldwall for other models to kill.

Hunter

These are the jack I most often have crippled guns on a first hit. Again I often have these marshaled to gunmages for the rune shots. Luckily it has a high base RAT so it can often still hit its main target heavies even with one dice especially when aiming. You can then use your jack marshal boost for damage.
If its on your Caster or a Jr just aiming or using other effects to mitigate rolling one dice to hit (like flare from the GMCA or Guided fire from Sloan) will be enough to let it hit most heavies letting you just boost damage with its power up focus.

Minuteman

With two guns it's not often you will have to deal with a completely crippled Minuteman. They tend to be fire and forget missiles, and mainly go from fully healthy to destroyed in one turn. Flak field isn't tied to an arm system so would still work even when the Minuteman has only 1 box left.

Sentinel

Its gun is not its main selling point really. It can aim and try to hit I guess... I have never had much use out of its shooting, but it's not why I take one. For me they are for shieldguards, holding zones or slambots.


Ace

With his high RAT and good likelihood of having other hit buffing models like Rangers in Gravediggers or GMCA in Sons of the Tempest being in the list he can use the Runeshot types even with a crippled Gun arm. Allowing him to use thunderbolt to push a model out of a zone, make a model not count for LOS with shadow fire or hit a low DEF heavy to kill a nearby model with Trick shot (which would roll 2 dice damage as like eleap its not counted as a ranged attack damage roll)
 


I guess you could use these guys in a pinch?

(Not that many people use them...)

What do you do with your jacks once they are crippled?


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3 comments:

  1. Ace only has special shots w/ caine.

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    Replies
    1. You are quite right, not that anyone would really use Ace with anyone but Caine!

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  2. Your comment about the Sentinel brings out the key point - light jacks are about more than just their gun (something Cygnar players are perhaps more likely to forget than other factions).

    All Cygnar light jacks can hold a zone quite well, as DEF13+ is just challenging enough to reduce the number of hits taken. It usually takes considerably more than the cost of an individual light to take one out reliably, which diverts opposing forces from elsewhere.

    The Firefly and the Charger are also competent in melee. Not their primary role, but they aren't bad at it. Lose the gun, consider solo hunting via melee if available. Fireflies have decent P+S for this purpose and reach, so an 11" threat range. And they can still triangulate in melee.

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