Warmachine/Hordes – The Stormblade Captain
The Stormblade Captain has arrived, bringing support to Cygnar’s Storm Knights. How does he stack up?
It’s no secret that Cygnar isn’t exactly hurting for support solos that buff melee troops. With Rhupert Carvolo, Archduke Runewood, and the Stormblade Captain, Cygnar players now have a third option to look at, albeit one with a somewhat specialized assignment. Rhupert Carvolo should be familiar to most players since he has been around since the Escalation era and works for Mercenaries, Cygnar, and Protectorate. His ability to hand out either Fearless and Tough, Pathfinder, or Terror and +1 DEF is exceptionally strong, particularly for only two points, the same cost as our new Captain.
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| Archduke Alain Runewood |
Runewood is a little more expensive and can use his Battle Plan ability to hand out Pathfinder, Powerful Charge, or force nearby models to recover from being Knocked Down. Additionally, he is a bit more difficult to kill thanks to Sacrificial Pawn with Faction Warjacks, is armed with a Hand Cannon, has Weapon Master on a decent melee weapon, and grants Sword Knights the Reform ability. Runewood’s Battle Plans can also affect individual models and not just units, letting your solos and warcasters benefit as well.
So, what exactly does the Stormblade Captain do? What does he offer that these two very solid supporting models do not? Why should you take the Captain over Runewood or Rhupert?
The Stormblade Captain’s strength is that his abilities will affect all Storm Knights (Stormblades, Storm Lances, Storm Guard, Katherine Laddermore) within his impressive 10-inch command bubble. These abilities specifically are Tactician and Leadership: Relentless Charge. The former ability allows Storm Knights in his command range to move and see through each other. The latter ability allows Storm Knights that begin their activation in his command range to benefit from Pathfinder while charging.
The first and most obvious common thread between all three of these solos is Pathfinder, all offering access to it in one way or another. What the Captain does differently is that he simultaneously grants it to several models, specifically Storm Knights. While Rhupert or Runewood can keep one of your melee units in the game against a warcaster or warlock with Inhospitable Ground or where terrain or wreck markers are making movement difficult for your army, the Captain can let potentially huge chunks of your army move undeterred provided that they’re charging and that they are Storm Knights. That’s pretty solid, and obviously you’ll get more mileage out of the Captain the more Storm Knights that you run, so this is something that you should consider when building a list with a Captain instead of Rhupert or Runewood.
Going into the Captain’s other ability of note, Tactician, this is handier than it might appear at first blush, especially for Stormblades, Storm Lances, and Katherine Laddermore. Stormblades specifically like Tactician for being able to see through each other, giving them a higher level of flexibility when trying to take advantage of their formidable, if somewhat difficult-to-use, ranged attacks. If you’re running the full boat of Stormblades, which is the base unit, Office and Standard Unit Attachment, and three Storm Gunner Weapon Attachments, you can bring a powerful ranged threat that your opponent might not see at first glance. Let’s break it down mechanically.
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| Stormblade Infantry |
Stormblades have a RNG 4, POW 12 ranged attack called the Storm Glaive Blast. This isn’t a terribly impressive baseline, but their unit leader provides a +2 bonus to both RNG and POW if he is within 5″ of the attacking Stormblade. With a unit of eleven models, getting the unit leader in a position where he and all other models in the unit can be within 5″ while still having proper line of sight can sometimes be a challenge, but the Captain helps to reduce this problem thanks to Tactician. Since line of sight isn’t as much of an issue, placement becomes less stringent.
We build on this now RNG 6, POW 14 attack with the Officer’s Assault Order, which lets the unit make ranged attacks targeting a charged model after movement. With such short range on their weapons, a lack of Reach, and a lowly SPD 5, Stormblades will often need to make every inch count, occasionally leading to models tripping over each other or blocking line of sight, again a problem solved with Tactician. Relentless Charge is obviously of major benefit here as well, since Assault moves are also charges.
The last piece of the puzzle comes from the Storm Gunners and their Electrical Current rule. Electrical Current states that if the Gunner hits a target with a ranged attack, all ranged attacks made by models in the unit will automatically hit that target until the end of the activation. It’s a pretty sweet deal considering the extra range on their Storm Throwers.
This, of course, is before Cygnar’s plethora of ranged support abilities like Snipe for additional RNG or Dead Eye or Mark Target for additional accuracy are brought into play. Eleven POW 14 attacks can seriously ruin someone’s day, especially if ten of those attacks are automatically hitting.
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| Storm Lances |
The other huge benefit that I see is to Storm Lances and Major Katherine Laddermore. The Major has been somewhat maligned in MkII due to her relatively difficult level of use. Like the Stormblade unit leader, she has a buff that she provides to Storm Lances within 5″ of her: Electro Charger, granting Storm Lances a +2 bonus to ranged attack and damage rolls. The difficulty comes specifically with her large base size and the large base size of Storm Lances. Six 50mm bases can really play hell with each other if they’re trying to stick within 5″ of a model that will most likely need to move forward, and most likely get in the way, first. This often leads to Laddermore assuming a position where her ability can benefit the Storm Lance unit while also blocking their charge lanes and reducing their capacity to do work.
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| Major Katherine Laddermore |
Again, Tactician comes to the rescue. Laddermore can follow up behind a unit of Storm Lances on the first few turns before they’re committed to the fight. Once the time arrives, Laddermore can move forward through the Lances into a position where the Lances will benefit from Electro Charger. Then, the Lances activate with the Assault Order (benefiting from Relentless Charge) and move through Laddermore, charging forward into the enemy and making their RAT 7, POW 14 ranged attacks before their melee attacks happen. It’s also worth noting that the Lances have Electro Leap on both their ranged and melee attacks, allowing them to individually wipe away up to four models when they get the Assault order, and that’s before Impact attacks come into play.
Oh, and lest I forget, the Stormblade Captain is a MAT 8, P+S 13 Weapon Master with Reach and Quick Work on a RAT 6, RNG 8, POW 14 ranged attack. He can polish off a heavy warjack for you, then shoot a model in a face for good measure.
The Test List –
So, how do I build a list for the Captain, then? If I’m going to run both Storm Lances and Stormblades so that I’m getting good mileage out of our new friend, I need to do everything in my worldly power to make sure that they can do their work. This means ARM buffs and the ability to close like a freight train, so I’m going to go with Lord Commander Stryker. With a Stormblade Captain, a full unit of Storm Lances, Laddermore, a unit of Stormblades with the Officer, Standard, and three Storm Gunners, that will take up 29 points out of my army, a pretty penny, for sure. Storm Lances will most likely need to be the vanguard of my army with their high SPD, so I’m immediately going to toss in a Journeyman Warcaster to help keep them safe with Arcane Shield, buffing their ARM up to 20. This is pushed even higher when Stryker casts Deflection to put them up to a very respectable ARM 22 against ranged and magic attacks.
Since I’m so heavily invested in infantry, I’ll leave the Stormwall at home and run with reliable ‘Ol Rowdy instead, putting him in Stryker’s battle group for his high MAT, decent damage output, focus efficiency, his ability to increase Stryker’s DEF against melee attacks, and his strong ARM stat.
I feel that between the Lances, Rowdy, Stormblades, and Stryker that I have the armor wrecking duties pretty much covered, so I need something to clean up infantry. Since I’m already running Stormblades with Advance Move and Storm Lances, I really want something that can keep up with the army, so I’ll run Tempest Blazers. While they don’t really benefit greatly from Stryker’s feat in terms of offensive potential, it does give them a bit more breathing room if I need it. Deflection can also really help the unit survive direct hits from POW 10 attacks or boosted blast damage from things like Redeemers. This will put eleven cavalry models on the table as well, which should provide my opponent with a challenge.
I’ll finish off the last two points with the Squire. Since I’m running so much cavalry, I’ll really want the extra 2″ for Stryker’s control area, and the extra provided focus is always nice as well.
Since I would like to keep Stryker in-play as an assassination threat, I’m going to put Runewood in the list as well. If the Captain dies, I have a backup source of Pathfinder, and Storm Lances charging at effective MAT 11 under Powerful Charge against their target sounds just awful. They can even reliably kill Winter Guard Infantry with Bob and Weave and Iron Flesh with that level of accuracy.
The nice thing about this list is that Rhupert is not in it, allowing me to run him with a unit of Forge Guard in my paired Steamroller list, which is pretty nice when it’s joined at the hip with a list with so much melee threat.
