Theory Thursday: Cygnar Avenger Warjack

{This article is based on mk2 rules}

A new type of post I figured I would try out.

I will start my first Theory Thursday with one of my favourite heavy warjacks, the Avenger.

The best thing about it in my mind is the Seismic Cannon, which on a direct hit on an enemy model knocks down everything in the 4" AOE.

The problem lies with its RAT of 4... but there are ways around this, I typically marshal the Avenger to Gun mages to get use out of their great Rune shots. 

I'll breifly cover those shot types and how I think they are with the avenger

• Critical Brutal is not great on a AOE attack as it only effect models directly hit, so has no effect on the blast damage and as a crit effect its unlikely anyway.
• Thunderbolt is only worth doing if you are shooting at shield wall troops (push them out of formation then roll the damage to get around that armour bonus) or you are trying to get models out of a zone.
• Snipe is the best for this Warjack, gets the range up to a more respectable 14" (which often means you can aim to mitigate the poor RAT)

I tend to use the Avenger to deny ground to my opponent rather than get kills. At POW 14 its ok but I mainly end up using the Jack marshal bonus to boost to hit. If it kills something that's great, but I would always rather hit and knock things down than miss because I wanted to boost damage. 

I was idly reading the its card the other day and something twigged for me. The knock down only triggers on a direct hit on a enemy model, and playing steamroller scenarios as most players do I remembered that the objectives you often get are classed as enemy models.

Also I have found that a lot of player will use these objectives to hide their Warcaster. So it can be a nice way to knock down their caster and you only have to roll a 3 to hit an objective! 

The Avenger also has great synergy with the Trencher Master Gunner, who can give it Artillerist to give it +2 to ranged attack rolls and a reroll on distance and or deviation.

Or he can give it Close Fire to allow it to fire into troops that have run to engage your Gun Mages. Using Thunderbolt in this situation helps as it can push them clear out of combat even if they survive the shot itself.

A great Jack for clearing line of sight for either Caines, Siege or Sloan to assassinate.

An odd trick you can do with it when its in Sloans battlegroup is to run with the Avenger in its activation, and then when Sloan activates have her Feat and shoot to trigger a feat shot for the Avenger who is now further up the field and perhaps has now got a better line of sight. 

It can also be very mean to run it on Gun Mages with eHaley as your Warcaster, cast Temporal Acceleration on it to knock down even more of their army!

Appologies if this is all super obvious or you all already knew this, I just want to try something new and get some of my ideas out there. 

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments and let me know if you want more of these or not!

Finished magnetising my Avenger Warjack

While I had my pinning stuff out for the repair work I figured I would finish magnetising my Avenger Warjack.

I magnetised the chassis and the avengers weapons a while ago, but never got round to finishing the other options of the Centurion and Hammersmith.
Mainly because the Avenger is so good, I have a Centurion already and don't find the Hammersmith worthwhile with the casters I have been using.

But I finished it up now.

Drilling into the shoulder until the magnet will be flush with the joint

On the wrist I drilled until two magnets deep

 Magnet inserted and super glued into place, I made sure that all the arms are aligned the same way.

Wrist all finished up. Again all aligned the same,

The weapon choices all finished, the reason I drill two magnets deep on the wrist is because there is not enough room to fit a magnet in the hands.

Avenger

Hammersmith

Centurion

Now all that is left to do is paint it up! Should make me more likely to use the other options.

Post move repairs

Its been over a month since I last posted... new flat, looking for a job. Moving across the country has been stressful.

I have also not had the internet for quite a while now, hence the lack of posts...
So on a rainy day last week with nothing better to do I figured I would repair the damaged models from the move.

Time to bust out the pinning kit!

This poor Trencher commando lost his hand, nice quick and easy fix

My Firefly Light Warjack suffered a broken spear, I had to clean up the break on both sides before pinning to insure a smooth join.

My Stormguard break all the time and I have resolved to not just glue them back together, but to pin them hoping to not have to fix them again... Two of them needed work, one a weapon the other had come apart at the waist.

The Stormblade Captain's pommel had bent on his sword, bending it back snapped it off...

I had to trim it back to make the connection smooth.

Two Ironclad's needed their hammers reattaching, very quick and easy.

This was a nasty one, my Lancers arm had snapped in two. It was tricky to line up the pin holes just right as there is not much room to fit the hole I drilled.

Here they all are good as new. (Nearly)

All the Warjacks need repainting as I have changed my colour scheme since I painted them (or they are second hand)