Cyprien Army - Accepting Suggestions and/or Feedback

[Gomolka]

If you have not noticed before, or have taken a look at my signature, Cyprien Esenwein is by far my favorite figure in Heroscape. Along with being one of the my very first Heroscape figures purchased, and being a powerful figure, he quickly earned a place in a majority of my armies.

First, let's take a look at his individual capabilities and stats:

Cyprien Esenwien ranks on spider_poison's Heroscape Power Rankings as an A unit: "Cyprien wears the daddy pants for the vampires, and for good reason. However, Q9 is still too hot to be cooled by Cyprien's touch. A"

Movement: He has an incredibly movement of 8 WITH his Stealth Flying ability. Therefore, he is incredibly mobile and keeps opponents even with a range of 9 capable of being targeted, and possibly killed in one turn.

Range: He has a melee range of 1, however, his true strength comes from his Chilling Touch ability.

Attack: For a Unique Hero, he has a below average attack of 3, which puts him at a disadvantage when attacking most other Heroes, and even against some squad figures.

Defense: As Jexik mentioned in the Reliable Dice thread, 4 Just seems to be the magic number. With an average defense of four, he seems to be difficult at times to inflict a wound upon.

Life: Cyprien has a very high life of 6 Life points. This makes him very hard to take down, and keeps him alive for a rather lengthy duration of the match.

Cost: At a cost of 150, or 195 with the investment in Sonya, Cyprien almost always gets his point value worth. With one lucky roll, he can take down a figure worth more than he is cost, and then move on to other figures. As Duinor mentioned in The Book of Cyprien Esenwein - "So for 150 points you get: Stealth Flight 8, Chilling Touch (just 11 or better with +2 if you play the wife - so pretty likely), Life Drain, 4 defense, 3 attack, and by the way 6 life. That's not a bargain...that's a downright steal for that cost. And heaven forbid you play an experienced scaper that plays tactically smart!"

Now on to his Special Abilities:

Chilling Touch: Cyprien's trademark ability, and what makes his opponents shiver (pun) at the mere thought of the dramatic outcome that may ensue the use of this ability. With Sonya's support, Cyprien has a 50% chance of inflicting at least one wound upon his opponent. Moving on, he has a 35% chance of inflicting at least 2 wounds, a 25% chance of inflicting at least 3 wounds, and a 15% chance of inflicting 6 wounds upon an opponent. These are no statistics to overlook or laugh about.

Pros: If you get some lucky rolling, there's no limit to how much damage Cyprien can deal in a game. Along with Life Drain, this allows Cyprien to stay alive for a very long time before he will be taken down.

Cons: Chilling touch does not effect Soulborgs and Destructible Objects, so this special ability is rendered useless against popular competitive army figures such as Q9, Glads/Blasts, and Deathreavers.

Life Drain: Chilling Touch + Life Drain combo allows Cyprien to stay alive and in the game even when he has several wound markers on him. With the possibility of removing two wound markers per turn, Cyprien can come back from being almost dead to completely healthy before.

Pros: Allows Cyprien to comeback from being nearly dead, to fully healthy if the dice are in your favor. This keeps him alive when the odds are against him, and this increases his overall value.

Stealth Flying: Stealth flying combined with his move of 8 allows him to be incredibly mobile and strategic. If he is caught in a sticky situation, he can simply fly away from it and into a safer position on the map without having to worry aobut a disengagement. Also, as I had mentioned earlier, almost every ranged (with the exception of DED or Laglor/glyph enhanced figures) figure who targets Cyprien is open to counter-attack the next turn. This keeps the opponent very cautious of how he wants to approach Cyprien.

Pros: Incredibly mobility, ability to get out of unfavorable situations, ables him to get to the weak figure or vulnerable squad figures.

Now it's time to build an army around him.

Here are a few armies that I have come up with, playtested, and need feedback and suggestions on:

Cyprien Esenwein - 150
Sonya Esenwein - 195
Nilfheim - 380
Stingers x2 - 500

In my opinion, this army almost has it all. There are some heavy hitting squad killers, great mobility from Cyprien, and considerably good cleanup units. In the case that you face an army consisting of Q9 or other soulborgs, Nilfheim and Kaemon/Stingers can fill in the role of taking down those units while Cyprien focuses on using Chilling Touch on the non-soulborg units.

The decision of Stingers x2 over Kaemon Awa makes sense in many different directions. Whether it's Glyph grabbing, having more units, or getting more out of a turn, the stingers seem to have the upper hand in all of these categories.

Now for my next army, which is still under heavy construction. I still have to play around with it more, and fix out the little kinks, but this is how it looks:

Cyprien Esenwein - 150
Sonya Esenwein - 195
Swog Riders x3 - 270
Arrow Gruts x3 - 390
Krug - 510

This army would be perfect in the rare case of a 510 point limit tournament, but, of course, the limit is usually 500 points. In the case of a 550 point army, you could add in another squad of Arrow gruts. In the case of a 500 point limit, it would look more like this.

Cyprien Esenwein - 150
Sonya Esenwein - 195
Swog Riders x4 - 295
Arrow Gruts x2 - 375
Krug - 495

As I said, I'm still working on a stronger secondary Cyprien Army, however the 510 point army provides a good balance of squad and hero killers, bonding, and bypassing deathreavers. Cyprien would keep the opponent hesitant about making advancing moves in order to stay out of range of Cyprien's incredibly mobility. Meanwhile, the Swogs + Arrow Gruts can advance and work on taking out other squad units and even heroes if you can get enough Swogs to support your Arrow Gruts. Other than Cyprien, this army has a few mobility issues, since the Arrow Gruts will need multiple Swog Riders to keep up with them to be effective.

Well, that is about it. As the title implies, I am open to all suggestions and feedback about these armies. I hope someone enjoys trying either of these armies out and experiencing how they play out.

Thanks for reading~