Captain Allison Jakes
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Captain Allison Jakes |
Unlimited Only This model can only be used in the Unlimited game mode. You can see the other models with / without mk4 rules on this page. Note that the rest of this page is about the model's Mark III rules. |
The transition from journeyman to full-fledged warcaster is never easy, but Captain Allison Jakes earned her promotion through circumstances far beyond the scope of any ordinary trial. She now carries herself with the confidence of one who has seen the ravages of war, moving across the battlefield with a grace expressed through acrobatic stunts, nimble parries, and cunning dodges. Wielding a pair of swords, Jakes cuts through the opposition with a fluidity that speaks of her skill as a duelist and the innumerable hours she has devoted to mastering the art of close combat. As she advances downfield, she freely lashes her foes with deadly voltaic strikes, and those who fight alongside her find themselves moving with the speed of a swiftly approaching storm. With each new battle her reputation grows, and despite her youth she commands the respect of any fortunate enough to serve under her command.
Basic Info
Jakes2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Warcaster - All warcasters come with a stack of standard special rules - most notably being awesome. Click here for a newbie-friendly recap, or click here for the full rules.
Feat: Powerhouse
- Captain Allison Jakes channels a surge of voltaic energy through the forces under her command. Armed with galvanic weapons spouting tendrils of lightning, her soldiers and warjacks thunder across the battlefield to deliver leaping arcs of electricity deep into enemy ranks.
While in Jakes' control range, friendly Faction models gain Immunity: Electricity & Parry. Affected models' melee weapons become RNG 2 and gain Electro Leap (as below). Powerhouse lasts for one round.
Abilities
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Parry
- Acrobatics - This model can advance through other models if it has enough movement to move completely past their bases. This model ignores intervening models when declaring its charge target.
- Sprint - At the end of an activation in which it destroyed or removed from play one or more enemy models with melee attacks, this model can immediately make a full advance, then its activation ends.
- Field Marshal [Sprint] - Warbeasts/warjacks in this model's battlegroup gain Sprint.
Weapons
Hand Cannon | ||||||||||||||
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RNG | ROF | AOE | POW | ||||||||||
12 | 1 | - | 12 | |||||||||||
Feedback Blade | ||||||||||||||
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RNG | POW | P+S | |||||||||||
0.5 | 7 | 12 | ||||||||||||
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Bayonet | ||||||||||||||
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RNG | POW | P+S | |||||||||||
0.5 | 7 | 12 | ||||||||||||
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Spells
COST | RNG | AOE | POW | DUR | OFF | ||
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Bullet Dodger
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2 | 6 | - | - | Upkeep | No | |
Target friendly Faction model gains +2 DEF and Dodge.
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Escort
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2 | SELF | Control | - | Upkeep | No | |
Warjacks in the spellcaster's battlegroup beginning their activations in its control range gain +2" movement when advancing as part of their Normal Movement. The spellcaster gains +2 ARM while one or more warjacks in its battlegroup are within 3" of it. | |||||||
Lightning Storm
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3 | 8 | 3 | 10 (Electric) | - | Yes | |
Models hit suffer a POW 10 electrical damage roll. This spell's AOE is a hazard that remains in play for one round. Models entering or ending their activations in the AOE suffer a POW 10 electrical damage roll. | |||||||
Positive Charge
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2 | 6 | - | - | Turn | No | |
Target friendly Faction warjack gains +2 to melee attack and melee damage rolls. While within 3" of the affected warjack, friendly Faction models gain +2 on melee attack and melee damage rolls. Positive Charge lasts for one turn. |
Theme Forces
- Flame in the Darkness. She gains access to Khador and Mercenary warjacks in this theme.
- Gravediggers
- Heavy Metal
- Sons of the Tempest
- Storm Division. Jakes gains Immunity: Electricity in this theme.
Thoughts on Jakes2
Jakes2 in a nutshell
Jakes likes to blitzkrieg with warjacks. Hit hard, hit fast, and try to sprint clear for the counter-attack. Despite that, her feat and Positive Charge rewards you for using a combined arms approach too. Among the current themes, you should shy away only from the Sons of the Tempest, as they have very few direct synergy with her. All other lists can work very well. Her melee prowess, though not stellar, shouldn't be completely ignored. Of course, she's not Rhyas, but Acrobatics and Parry can lead you to normally unreachable places and angles. Screening models can't do anything to her, so you can easily reach crews behind a warjack or charge through a defensive screen. Your blades can cause all kinds of trouble by tagging an enemy warlock with Feedback damage or by unjamming your own warjacks with the Electro blade to remove chaff infantry with the electro leaps.
Feat Thoughts
Have you ever thought: "This unit would be so nice if it could threaten models just a bit further away!" or "I'd really like to trample through these Swordsmen, but they'll thrash my jack with the free strikes."? Well then, Jakes is a good solution to these scenarios.
Parry is neat on your arc nodes, since engaged arc nodes normally can't channel spells, but with Parry they can just walk away from the problem.
An increased melee range not only adds extra threat distance, but also interacts with quite a lot of rules.
- Your "free strike range" covers a lot more area ... but models can walk a long way around you without triggering a free strike.
- Units with Flank (notably Trench Busters and Sword Knights) can activate their bonus damage from further away.
Electro-Leap, as always, is great for dealing with high-DEF low-ARM targets, like support solos hiding in the back lines or enemy Trenchers with Dig In.
- Mount weapons have an Infernal Ruling that says they're melee weapons, so her feat does work with Impact Attacks.
Don't forget it's an aura, not a pulse, so you must stay in her CTRL area to use its benefits.
Spell Thoughts
- Bullet Dodger - Usually it will be on Jakes or on a valuable solo, like Laddermore to protect them from shooting attacks. Putting it on an elusive jack, like the Grenadier or the Hunter will also be effective.
- Escort - One of her a bread & butter spells, you'll cast it on turn 1 and won't let it drop throughout the game.
- Lightning Storm - A board controlling Zap, but incredibly expensive for your tight focus pool.
- Positive Charge - Her second go-to spell. Cast it once you want to get stuck in.
- Mastering its use is essential to play with Jakes effectively. See Tips and Tricks for its application.
Drawbacks & Downsides
- Jakes provides very little direct support for models outside of her battlegroup.
- She can become focus strapped with large battlegroups.
- You support melee engagements through your spells. Things that forbid melee attacks, charges (or worse, advances, like Magnus2's feat), as well as anti-magic stuffs (Lamentation, Arcane Suppression, or even Arcane Vortex) can hurt you a lot.
- Despite being a duelist, her melee package is underwhelming. Lists with few "soft" targets will leave you with few opportunities to trigger your Field Marshal ability.
- As every high DEF-low ARM caster, she is pretty vulnerable to pop-and-drop assassinations.
- Despite all her ninja-chick flicks she lacks Pathfinder and can't provide it to her army via spells either.
- She doesn't have the reliable movement shenanigans game of Kraye or the attrition power of Stryker2, both of which overlap to some degree with how she wants to play.
- She now also competes with Sturgis1 as another Positive Charge 'caster. Since he brings a lot of Cygnar's signature tools, such as Arcane Shield, this forces Jakes2 into an even more crowded field.
Tricks & Tips
- Outside of her feat she has no Electricity immunity. If you want to throw around lightning, your best option is to bring her in the Storm Division theme force. With a default electricity immunity, you can swing around with your Electric Blade without fear of arcing a lightning into your own troops.
- Many careless casters has been shot down by a fully boosted volley from Jakes' handcannons. Not your first line of attack, but not something to forget about either.
- Sprinting past infantry prevents your jacks being charged by them, keeping them weirdly safe.
- Killings from Electro Leap (or Feedback) won't trigger Sprint, as they are not melee attacks. On the flip side they won't trigger attack-related abilities like Swift Vengeance.
- Sprint can get the Positive Charge bonuses in interesting places. Use it to kill a heavy model and then sprint over toward another target to spread the bonus for other parts of your army to use.
Positive Charge 101
- It is not an upkeep, thus resists most of the anti-upkeep techs like Purification, Dispel, Purgation, Hex Blast, etc. You can also have it beside an upkeep like Arcane Shield, or while being effected by another effect, like Arlan's Arcane Reinforcement.
- It lasts throughout the turn, so your free strikes won't benefit from it.
- Your warjack can receive it even while it is Disrupted, Stationary, Knocked Down, or has crippled systems and also broadcasts the respective bonuses.
- Only damage rolls from melee attacks will get the bonus, collateral damages won't.
- Just like with Ragman, use base length and melee range to spread its effect from afar. Cast it on a colossal and charge in with your Storm Lances to reap the benefit up to 7" away.
- If needed, you can cast it on two, or even three separate jacks in a turn (which will leave you woefully exposed, so use sparingly).
- The recipient warjack doesn't have to be in your battlegroup. Marshaled jacks, as well as ones in a Journeyman's battlegroups are all valid targets.
List Building Advice
Strategy
Jakes' army's superior mobility enables strong scenario pressure, while her feat can swing an attrition fight to your favour. It also enables nasty assassinations against careless opponents. Overall, keep looking for suitable targets to activate your sprint from Field Marshal.
As for units, any self-supporting infantry screen works well with her.
Theme Thoughts
Support models - Various themes
Jakes likes these solos, which can be in various themes:
- Squire - Gives an extra focus, spell attack rerolls, and larger control area.
- Captain Arlan Strangewayes - Can give extra focus to hand out and repairs.
- Aiyana with Murdoch, Gorman or Ragman - Positive Charge stacks very well with damage buffs and ARM debuffs. With Aiyana and Death field it will yield a whooping +6 swing on your damage rolls, even before counting the units' innate damage bonuses.
- Swabber - The best Escort buddy available for her, as it can stay close to her and give her +2 ARM as well as Lash and Girded. Shield Guard is the cherry on top. With its drag gun it an also reel in targets for the Positive Charge buff.
- Toro - It packs a nice P+S 18 whack-stick (POW 20 with Positicve Charge), which it can use to wreck something then Sprint away and threaten Counter Charges on the enemies' turn.
- Freebooter - PC makes it less flimsy with its clams and Jury Rigged and Escort lets it charge 12", then you can back up 7" thanks to Sprint (provided you kill something).
- Blockader - With POW 24 under Positive Charge and a 14" threat range (SPD 5 + Charge + Escort + 4" melee), it can bully a sizeable chunk of the board. Positive Charge extended from a huge base should make follow ups easier for your infantry.
- Black Bella - Bella is essentially what happens when Savio and Finn have a baby. Killing Spree + feat induced reach and electro leaps will clear chaff. Duelist, Riposte and Bullet Dodger make her really hard to remove.
- Precursor Knights - With a 2" melee range during your feat they can form a surprisingly effective Shield Wall.
- Precursor Knights can go in other themes, but you need to use up your "Up to one Mercenary" slot if not taken in heavy metal.
- Malvin & Mayhem - Berserk is no Killing Spree, but it's as much as you can get. You can also put Positive Charge on them as they are, in fact, a Warjack.
- Savio - Bullet Dodger puts him at DEF 17 and Positive Charge makes him hit like a load of bricks. 2" reach and e-leaps on his glaives are also always nice.
- Thunderhead - This guy fares pretty well under Jakes being an already electro-infused jack.
- Stormblade Infantry - Being your hardest hitting infantry, a minimum unit can efficiently trade with any ARM 20 heavy if given Positive Charge and Electrical Arc.
- Savio can be here, too, and he even get Force Barrier from Keller for DEF 19 under Bullet Dodger.
- Thunderhead - He can be taken here too.
- Precursor Knight - These guys are also available in this theme, but don't use up your merc slot.
- Sword Knights - Cheap infantry who are enhanced by warjacks' presence and even more so from Positive Charge and Jakes' feat. If you fancy them, definitely go for the Heavy Metal theme force. If you keep them in Defensive Line, they can effectively screen you from pop & drop tricks too.
Gravediggers
This list kind of works with Jakes and you may have hilarious moments with Captain Maxwell Finn on your feat turn. You can support your Trenchers only by casting Positive Charge upon your jacks before they get stuck in. This theme doesn't favor non-trencher models, so jacks will usually be your battlegroup members. Occasionally you'll bring some extra Grenadiers if you need more infantry clearing power. But overall, the toolkit that Jakes brings, doesn't enhance the things that makes Trenchers good at capturing objectives nor does she shore up their weaknesses. She primarily just provides them with ability to hit harder.
- Trencher Infantry - Unless you dug them in, they can form screen for your jacks and provide light arms fire to clear off annoying infantry which might block charge lanes or Sprint escape routes. Also, with Positive Charge plus Brutal Charge on their Bayonet they can reliably dent ARM 18 heavies - something you wouldn't expect from a P+S 9 melee weapon.
- Captain Maxwell Finn - The toughest man in Immoren gets even tougher. Overtake and Killing Spree are usually kept in check with his 0.5" melee range. Well, Jakes2 busts that can wide open allowing him to target troopers in much wider area. Also, he's a great target for Bullet Dodger. Keep a Positive Charge enhanced jack near your target unit to ensure that your killing spree won't get interrupted by some bad rolls.
- Trencher Warcaster Lieutenant - He can run and reload a Grenandier for Jakes. Trencher Mechaniks help load it up as well if you want some repairing abilities.
- The Patrol Dog during your feat can knock down a target on a critical hit from 11" away and electrocute someone with the electro-leap.
Mercenaries
- Lanyssa - She allows your jacks to make focus-free charges which leaves Jakes with more focus to boost an important attack or damage roll to trigger Sprint. Add in her Escort ability's extra movement and you can charge from quite the distance.
Warjacks
- Sentinel - Jakes is short on focus and she prefers heavy melee jacks, but one Sentinel to give her the ARM buff and a Shield Guard is never a bad choice.
- Minuteman - With its ability to leap, it can be an ideal target for Positive Charge. It can leap in, kill, and then sprint away.
- Hammersmith - Sprint helps this jack not get stuck far out in front after beating back targets. Escort fixes it's low speed, Positive Charge boosts its hitting power, Jakes' feat keeps it from taking free strikes while following up and amends their short melee range. Jakes turns this decent jack into a monster.
- Centurion - Charge in, kill, back up, then use Polarity Shield to keep a safe distance from your enemy. It can safely stay close to Jakes so she can enjoy the bonus ARM granted by Escort, whilst the extra speed allows it to keep up with her.
- Stormclad - It's got an accumulator which is a really useful ability when Jakes is focus strapped. Don't forget to bring a Storm Knight model to fuel it.
- Ironclad - Kill or knockdown someone important with your Tremor attack then leave the rest behind with Sprint.
- Stormwall or Hurricane - A seemingly odd choice, but stacking Positive Charge, Escort, and Arcane Shield on a colossal is downright mean.
- Firefly - These guys are great on feat turn because of their Ionization buff.
Other
Trivia
- Jakes is the epic version of Lieutenant Allison Jakes - a solo.
- We first saw the Lieutenant in the computer game Warmachine Tactics.
- Originally released in Forces of Warmachine: Cygnar Command (2017).
- In the lore she has two named warjacks: a Charger named Bandit in the videogame, and an Ironclad named Bunker in the Rites of Passage anthology. Despite this, she has no bonded character 'jack on the tabletop.
Other Cygnar models
Video Battle Reports
- 2018.06 Feat Fetish 75 points vs Damiano
- See also Category: Video Battle Reports for more casters with videos.
Rules Clarifications
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Rules Clarification : Feat - Powerhouse
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Rules Clarification: : Magical Damage (Edit) |
* The "Damage Type: Magical" is not inherited by "secondary" damage from a weapon. That is, stuff like arcs (Electro Leap) or hazards (Scather). (Infernal Ruling)
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Rules Clarification : Electro Leap (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Feedback (Edit)
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Rules Clarification: : Warcaster (Edit) | ||||
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Rules Clarification : Sprint and/or Run & Gun (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Acrobatics (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Parry - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Field Marshal (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Positive Charge (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Escort and/or Battle Host - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Bullet Dodger (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Lightning Storm (Edit)
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- Cygnar
- Morrowan
- Model
- Does have Mk4 rules
- Warcaster
- Parry Feat
- Electricity Immunity Feat
- Electro Leap Feat
- Parry
- Acrobatics
- Sprint
- Field Marshal
- Sprint Field Marshal
- Magical Damage
- Feedback
- Electro Leap
- Bullet Dodger
- Escort
- Lightning Storm
- Positive Charge
- Flame in the Darkness
- Gravediggers
- Heavy Metal
- Sons of the Tempest
- Storm Division
- Video Battle Reports