Commander Dalin Sturgis

Template:Cygbox This model is playable only in an Unlimited format.

Commander Dalin Sturgis is a master duelist who believes in leading his troops from the front lines. Nimble and deadly, he has honed his impressive combat skills to lend support to his warjacks and soldiers even as he surges across the battlefield delivering death with his twin-bladed mechanikal staff. Commander Sturgis rends his foes with a flurry of precisely targeted blades before disappearing in a flash of arcane light to track down his next opponent.

Basic Info

Warcaster abilities:

• Focus Manipulation

• Battlegroup Controller

• Power Field

• Spellcaster

• Independent Model

• Leader

Feat : Dead on Arrival

1. Enemy non-warcaster, non-warlock, and non-infernal master models in Sturgis's Template:CTRL range are pushed up to 3" directly toward Sturgis in the order you choose.
2. Then Sturgis gains 1 focus for each enemy model he is engaging and may make one basic attack with one of his melee weapons against each enemy model in his LOS that is in the melee weapon's range. These attacks are simultaneous.
3. Then, once this turn, anytime this activation except while resolving an attack, you can place Sturgis anywhere completely within 3” of his current location.

Abilities

• Template:Chain Attack Flash
• Template:Relentless Charge
• Template:Reversal
• Template:Snap Strike

Weapons

Hand Cannon
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		12			1			Template:-			12
Blade (Left)
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				7				13
Template:Magical Weapon Template:Feedback
Blade (Right)
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				7				13
Template:Magical Weapon Template:Electro Leap

Spells

{{Category: Template:Arcane ShieldTemplate:Lightning Storm

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Theme Forces

• Template:Si
• Template:Gravediggers
• Template:Heavy Metal
• Template:Sons of the Tempest
• Template:Storm Division. In this theme this model gains Immunity: Electricity.

Thoughts on Sturgis1

Sturgis1 in a nutshell

Sturgis is great generalist caster with a decent assassination threat range of 14" and who has a collection of support spells and a feat that can either help with the assassination or can bring your opponent closer to you. His spell list is composed of spells that have a very Cygnaran flavor, including great upkeeps such as Snipe and Arcane Shield, the ever great Positive Charge, as well as Teleport to make him extremely mobile, making him able to get in close an personal and be a one man clean up crew or dangerous assassin. He is quite comparable to the likes of Stryker1 or Maddox1, but his level of personal output (which neither of the other can compete with) makes him valid competition for them in a list pair rather than a cheap knock off.

Feat thoughts

His feat has two main roles:

1. To bring the enemy into charge range to ensure your army gets the alpha strike.
2. Clear models out of the way for an assassination run.

It can occasionally pull contesting/controlling units away from the zones /flags. The damage roll is not tied to the pushing part of your feat; you can roll (and boost) against such targets. The last part of the feat is a very situational bonus, allocating to Warjacks in Sturgis' control area.

Spell thoughts

• Arcane Shield - Your primary support spell, making the already hard elements in your army even more durable and pumping up the resilience of the squishy ones up to the point that they will likely survive stray blasts. Don't expect fragile, single wound models to survive direct hits, though. Bring a Journeyman Warcaster, if you want to defend 2 targets at once, or ease the focus burden on Sturgis. It should be noted Sturgis becomes very hardy DEF16, ARM18 with 18 boxes when he puts this spell on himself.
• Positive Charge - One of the best spells available for an offensive caster. It works wonders for any melee list and is even better when applied to any model with an Arc Node. It goes a good distance to helping with Cygnar's usual difficulties with high ARM targets. It's difficult to do effectively but if you can utilise Sturgis' feat and end up in positive charge range you can deal a lot of damage.
• Lightning Storm - Sturgis' one nuke - and your focus pool makes it pretty restrictive to cast. The hazard from this could be great to control your opponent's movement options, but the low-ish POW will hardly scare away the tougher troops, let alone jacks/beasts. Land it near rough terrain or similar to further curtail them. You can also consider arcing it onto electricity-immune friendly targets, that are in abundance in Cygnar's arsenal.
• Snipe - This is one of the the support spells that takes Cygnar's ranged game from good to amazing. Hard hitting jacks can be good targets, but the best application is probably on a ranged unit. Cycling Snipe between models/units is a time honored tradition in Cygnar.
• Teleport - This can be used to get Sturgis out of dodge after he's charged forward into melee or get an extra 6" movement at the end of your fist turn. You can also combine it with your chain attack, use it to escape retaliation, or get the last few control points in a scenario by dominating the enemy's zone.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Sturgis is an in-between caster, often compared to Commander Coleman Stryker, Lieutenant Allistair Caine, and Lord Commander Stryker although he lacks Stryker1's support and attrition tools, Stryker2's sheer hitting power and Caine 1's ranged presence. In general, he has a much less clear game.
• Without Flash and without his feat his assassination threat is only 11" - not enough to qualify him as an assassin. Even if flash triggers, if a small based target happened to survive your initials, that move is not even enough to get completely into its back arc.

Tricks & Tips

• You can choose to not apply Electro Leap.
• The chain attack has two important conditions and both must meet to be triggered. First, all of your initial melee attack must hit - if either one misses, there will be no teleporting for you. Second, the enemy must survive the first hit and it's not always that easy to find an enemy model that can survive a P+S 13. You basically need a low DEF multi-wound model to ensure triggering it.
• Watch out for enemies who resist pushing via special rules like being on a huge base or, simply, standing behind the warcasters/locks which also stops pushes. The latter scenario also leaves room for some tricks against high DEF low ARM casters/locks. Push a low DEF target close to the caster, the rake it with blasts/electro leaps to do quick work on the caster.
• The feat pushes every enemy model closer to you by 3". Though you choose the order they are being pushed, watch out not to bring something on you you don't want to (melee assassins and the like).

List Building Advice

Strategy

His main win condition is attrition, relying on getting the alpha strike with the feat. He also is good enough in melee to assassinate the enemy if the chance presents itself. If the latter is part of your plan be sure to bring some sort of DEF debuff to make Sturgis' potential 16 attacks more accurate.

With as generic a spell list as Sturgis has, anything at all works well with him.

Theme Thoughts

• A Squire is strongly recommended. He only has an average focus pool, and the extra CTRL zone increases the area of his feat too.
• Journeyman Warcaster - A second source of Arcane Shield is always great. As well as a solo with a good gun that can run a cheap Positive Charge node for him, such as a Firefly.
• Jakes1 - Master and student united on your tabletop! Similar to the Jr she can run a firefly for him. With Sidekick and Energizer it can get stuck in deep into the enemy lines and proc Ionization and PC and might cheat out another turn with the extra Defense. Jakes herself really loves the damage buff from PC due to her hight number of initials. Alternatively inflate her cost immensely on purpose and give her a Centurion, which will love the speed buff from Energizer and no-knockdown from Sidekick.
• Arlan Strangeways - Sturgis desnt have much focus to give to his jacks, so Arlan helps there. Repairs are also never bad. Note arlan also has a pretty decent if short ranged spray, so he can hoze down some enemy models that have been reeled in and bunched up with the feat.

Template:Header Sturgis's prefered theme, as it has lots of great targets for his support spells and gives him a control element that works well with his feat.

• Storm Lances - Arcane Shield is a tried and true spell on them and naturally it is also great with Sturgis, especially since he can also crank their damage with Positive Charge.
• Stormblades - Snipe on them goes pretty well so they can pick of targets until they go in after the Lances to clean up. Storm Gunners benefit from this especially.
• Reliant - They get to accumulate here, so they can boost both the attack and damage roll on their shots without needing focus from Sturgis. Use the feat to drag enemy models through the electrical fields they leave behind.
• Stormsmith Grenadiers - They have native reposition but only RNG 6" on their grenades. Snipe lets them be 13" away from the models they chucked their grenades at. Since their grenades also leave an AOE behind you can once again use his feat to drag enemy models through it.
• Fireflys double their function as cheap Positive Charge nodes, because they also bring Ionization, which naturally works well in this theme.
• Storm Strider - A great target for Arcane Shield or Snipe.

• Long Gunners love Snipe, and you can play around with his feat too to bring targets from 21" into a double CRA zone.
• Sword Knights like arcane shield and are close enough to the action to benefit from both positive charge and flank at the same time.
• Thorn - It's an upgrades Lancer that can channel spells while engaged as well and it comes with some extra trimmings for the 3 points you spend on it over a Lancer.

• Trencher Chain Gun Crew - dragging enemies into walls of fire can get rid of them fast.
• Snipe on Trencher Long Gunners is a decent use of the spell.

Template:Header Sturgis is a greta caster for Sons because he brings Snipe and cranks damage with Positive Charge, something the gun mages love. That being said, Sturgis himself only really gets Bastian Falk out of the deal who serves as yet another damage buff to his personal output.

• Tempest Blazers - A decent target for Arcane Shield because it puts them at decent ARM levels.
• GMCA Shadow Fire makes Assassination runs easier.
• Bastian Falk - Sturgis's melee attack are magical, so he benefits from Rune Marked.
• Caine0 and Ace can hunt important solos and UAs with their Trick Shots or thin out infantry after Sturgis puled them in with his feat.
• Arcane Tempest Gun Mages as mentioned above love Snipe and Positive Charge.

• Gabriel Throne - Another damage buff and Pathfinder on demand for Strurgis's troops.

Battlegroup

• A Cyclone can lay a Covering Fire down before Sturgis feats, and anyone pushed into it by his feat will take damage. Snipe benefits both its guns and the covering fire templates and with Positive Charge it deals some decent damage both in melee and at range.
• A Stormwall can do the Covering Fire trick too.
• The Hurricane is both an Arc Node for PC plays and a great gun-platform to benefit from snipe. or Use Arcane Shield to protect your massive investment.
• At least one Lancer should always accompany him to serve as a cheap Positive Charge node.
• The Avenger or Defender are great Snipe recipients.
• Centurion - A Shield Guard with Arcane Shield is always great. It's too bad he can't speed it up, but Polarity Shield makes it a great anchor piece.
• Note that a Firefly, Lancer and Centurion will will his WJPs exactly and give him a lot of tools to play around with.

Other

Trivia

File:Sturgis-ks.jpg

Kickstarter Exclusive sculpt

• Released as part of the 2013 Kickstarter project for Warmachine: Tactics. Backers got a limited-edition sculpt.
• The non-limited edition version of the sculpt is available through PP's online store, under the "PP Exclusives" section.
• Sturgis became a Cryx warcaster known as Sturgis the Corrupted.