Warmachine: Crucible Guard Warjack Showdown
The Suppressor, Vindicator and Toro warjacks have all been released in one warjack kit! Lets take a look at the new heavy warjacks the Crucible Guard have access too!
The alchemists of Crucible Guard have built some interesting tricks into their warjacks. Today we’re taking a look at the new kit that will allow you to build either a Suppressor, Vindicator or Toro heavy warjack. With a little work and some magnets an adventuresome hobbyist can magnetize the kit and get all 3!
Suppressor
The Suppressor fills an interesting mixed role of support and infantry clearing. The 3 chemical attacks the Crucible Guard have worked into the Suppressor ensure that it always has a role to play on the field. The Suppressor is also able to make all 4 initial attacks thanks to Dual Attack! This allows the jack to charge into melee, then spray deeper into enemy lines.
Rust is great against other jacks and any other constructs that may be on the field. The Incendiary attack is great against infantry. If your base attack doesn’t kill the enemy, the fire roll just might.
Ice Cage forgoes damage to instead lower a targets defense by 2, which is great to set up other attacks from the rest of your army. However things get really interesting when you stack multiple Ice Cages on one target. This combos nicely with the 3 man Combat Alchemists unit. The Suppressor activates first and boosts to hit the first one or two Ice Cages, then a combat alchemist activates and easily lands the third Ice Cage causing the target to become stationary.
Edit: Originally stated that Ice Cages worked on Battle Engines.
Unfortunately Battle Engines are immune to stationary
Vindicator
Much like the Suppressor, the Crucible Guard also equipped the Vindicator with 3 attack types. Unlike the Suppressor the Vindicator provides long ranged damage output with the Steam Pressure rule. When aiming the Compression Cannon becomes RAT 7 and an impressive Range 16.
Decrepitation is an amazing attack type making the cannon a weapon master against constructs and undead models. Combined with an effect like Rust from the Suppressor the Crucible Guard will be monsters when it coming to removing enemy constructs from the table. Cryx will have to be especially wary of this gun, because in addition to all their warjacks it affects a large amount of their casters.
Psychoactive Gas has the potential to really mess up a Hordes player, especially if you can hit multiple living warbeasts in with it. The third attack, Psychomorphic Destabilizer will allow the Vindicator to help take out any pesky incorporeal models. These three attack types along with a RNG 2 POW 17 melee attack make the Vindicator a very solid combined arms jack. Capable of contributing serious ranged work all game and then backing it up in melee when it needs to. This is a perfect jack to hang back and contest a zone until the late game.
Toro
The Toro is unique in this kit because it is actually a Mercenary warjack. It will work for Crucible Guard due to the Maker’s Mark rule and is considered a faction model when played in a Crucible Guard list. These cross faction releases are becoming more common and are great for getting multiple groups of players excited for a single release.
A relatively straightforward beat stick
For Crucible Guard players this will be your standard melee warjack. Sometimes you just need a melee presence to hold a zone, threaten other hard targets and not cost a lot of points. The Toro fills that role nicely. With ARM 20 counting the shield and a POW 18 melee attack this jack isn’t easily removed and can’t be ignored. Countercharge is a neat ability that, if your opponent forgets about, can cause a lot of problems.
Mercenary players will immediately notice the similarities between the Toro and Nomad. Both have SPD 5, MAT 6, and hit at POW 18 with their sword attack. The question for Merc players becomes, is the Toro worth 2 more points than a Nomad? Those 2 points will buy you;
- 1 DEF – Unless you plan on increasing DEF further with something else, the difference between DEF 10 and 11 is negligible
- 1 ARM – Definitely nice
- Counter charge – Situationally good, with multiple counter charges the value of this increases. We’ve seen this in other factions, like Karchev or Zaadesh’s battlegroup counter charge abilities messing up opponent turns
- 1 less POW on the shield attack – While technically not as good as the Nomad, this probably also falls in the negligible category
- No open fist – I’m not sure how many players actually try and throw stuff with Nomads, but it’s not an option with the Toro
It seems like the Nomad will still remain king of the budget heavies for Mercenary players, but I will happily be proven wrong on this. A Toro strategy involving counter-charge or taking advantage of the slightly higher DEF/ARM stats may emerge and dislodge the Nomad from it’s throne.
Wrap Up
The three heavy warjacks the Crucible Guard have created each serve their respective purpose well. Given these unique roles it’s hard to say which jack is the best or worst. As the meta changes over time the Crucible Guard will be able to swap to whatever jack provides the best answer for the situation. These alchemists are all about bringing the right chemical for the job and jacks like the Suppressor and Vindicator clearly do that well.
So which Crucible Guard warjack is your favorite? Do you think Merc players will take the Toro over a Nomad?
