Played a game yesterday with my Cadians and used this list:
Regimental HQ
Kasrkin Coy + psyker + 2 Stormlords
Kasrkin Coy + Sabre + Fire support
Kasrkin Coy + Sabre
Hellhounds
Hellhounds
Hydras
Deathstrikes
Shadowsword
Stormsword
Thuderbolts
My idea was quite simple, put objectives close, push forward with the HQ and big coy and engage with hellhounds.
My opponent s quite new to Epic (but a seasoned gamer) and played Tau, with imho too few markerlights. Both my single super heavies were blown to pieces 1st turn by a starship and broadsides (after a unneccesary bold move with the stormsword). One of the stormlords also got it at the last activations when a large airbattle was fought (AX 10 vs flak & T-bolts vs Barracudas ). After those opening salvos, I got this experience:
- Hellhound formations of 6 are fast and deadly (as long as you make your regroup rolls, I passed less than 50%, and had to marshall them once or twice, but saved more than 50% and I guess that evened it out).
- The Leviathan / Stormlords are slow... Against a shooty army it's not that easy to get them in support positions for the hellhounds.
- The footslogging Kasrkin were much more fun than I had anticipated. But their main use is still AA.
- The list are a bit short on AT.
Some more thoughts, of which some is more a stream of consciousness:
Activation count: I know that there is some thoughts about the Cadians having access to lots of WE and still get many activations. I don't think that my 11 activations with 5 WE is over the top, but the 13/6 or 12/8 above might be, save they have very weak AA. The cheap activations are: Hydras, Kasrkin, Sentinels, Shadowswords.
The way I see it, less than 3 activations/1000 pts is few, about 3,3 is "normal", 4+ is many.
- Hydras: all IG have them, and they are fine that way. An army of hydras will have a lot of broken formations after turn 1. I have never seen hydra spam.
- Kasrkin: I like the theme of a storm trooper army, please don't touch it. The pricing in some configurations seems to be fine: The WE-mounted costs 325+ or 500+ pts. Not really activation-spamming. With fire support you nudge at the same pricing. Naked or with sabre platforms they are cheap enough to be numerous.
Most lists in this thread includes 2-3 units of them, most often with sabre platforms, and these might be used for spamming activations and "locking up" shadowswords. Juding the lists above, shadowswords seems to be the answer to some/most problems. Making the sabre immobile is quite boring, but a points increase to 75 pts could be in order. It's probably a better way to get AA than any other IG have. If you raise it to 100 pts, and give it either 15 cm speed (like the rest of the unit to simplify) or better 45 cm range (like other autocannons) I wouldn't protest. The naked kasrkin can't do very much more than ping a BM with the commander's autocannon. Perhaps removing it, would force the Cadians to buy some kind of upgrade (and negate spamming) or just have a not-very-useful-min-max-shameful formation. The autocannon commander is somewhat out of the theme in my opinion anyway.
- Sentinels: I haven't used them, but they seem quite rubbish autocannon-LV, except for activation count. Could one thought be to adress the list's lack of AT by giving them a lascannon or something instead and a points increase?
- Shadowswords: well, they are what they are. Imho the list are a bit short on good AT-fire and Shadowswords are a quick fix that make the list a high activation WE-killer.
AT:The list is a bit short on AT unless you have couple of shadowswords, ordinatus or russ-platoons. In the case of Leman Russ I'd go for the demolishers instead to keep the engage-theme of the army. I don't know if this really is a problem or more of a reasonable/thematic weakness of the list. Perhaps one could argue of giving the infantry more platform options, or a small tank hunter-formation (3 tanks). But I will have to play lots of more games before I know.
Whiteshields (and other infantry):As they are know, they wont recieve a baptism of fire. What about making a Infantry company, about 13-17 stands strong, of regulars and whiteshields? Have it at 8 regulars + 4 whiteshields and a commander at about 200-250 pts. Options: add more whiteshields or regulars at a 1+1 ratio (and all the other options with fs, platform etc). Then make the whiteshields into SHIELDS with no autocannons, but some kind of grot-rule. Perhaps this should have been under next headline...
As long as kasrkin have all the options regular infantry have, are cheaper, better and cooler, Cadians will have lots of activations and no regulars/whiteshields. But then again, Kasrkin in WE engaging and fighting at close range is a cool theme.
Wild and crazy ideas:What about giving the kasrkin options to buy Scout or Teleport (with no other options than fire support), or making Chimera/Vultures into an upgrade of the company? Think of the kasrkin as an elite to be sent in at the schwerpunkt, perhaps all the platforms should be reserved for the infantry coy and all kasrkin should be mounted in some way to represent that they are "the cavalry". In my army above, changeing the AA-kasrkin to infantry would cost 150 pts, the hydras would have to go. Pretty much the same army with one activation less. If high activation/lots of WE are a concern.
All the best
/Erik