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Hello all...I was thinking about starting warmachine or hordes...i know the rules are compatible to both games. I cant figure out which army to play...I really wanna do a Protectrate of Menoth light jack army....probably with choir and either the harbringer or feora as my caster... but what i am having issues with is trying to figure out what hordes army i would do. I think I would probably do a minions army or a Circle of Oroboros...or however it is spelled...lol. any advice on if these are good choices?

All armies/factions are good choices. Your play style, and what you want your army to do for you, is the deciding factor in picking your faction/lists.

What do you want to play? This will help us direct you to which faction best fits your desires.

like i said....I wanna do something with Light Jacks. and a heavy to protect my caster

4TheGraeterGood wrote:like i said....I wanna do something with Light Jacks. and a heavy to protect my caster

Cryx. Plenty of nasty little light jacks with plenty of arc nodes, and some nice heavies that can keep themselves fueled with focus.

thank you gandalf the wise. your knowledge will be known forever...lol. but really. Thank you

4TheGraeterGood wrote:I really wanna do a Protectrate of Menoth light jack army....

This screams Amon Ad-Raza and multiple Dervishes with a Templar or Crusader thrown in as a heavy beatstick.

Cryx will be less about light warjacks, and more about arc noding spells and infantry support debuffs. I don't think it's really what you're looking for.

For Hordes, would be useful to know what playstyle you're going for; attrition, alpha-strike, beast-heavy, infantry-heavy, etc.

^ Oop, yep. Listen to clams.

for hordes i would probably wanna do infantry heavy...or beast heavy...but the only factions i like in hordes are minions and the circle

Neither Circle nor Minions will do infantry-heavy well. Mass infantry is generally better done within WM or Trollbloods... possibly Skorne, but that's a stretch.

And let's clarify what 'beast heavy' will mean for Circle. Circle has 2 kinds of warbeasts, the wolf/satyr Beasts and the Constructs. Circle Beasts are tricky ninja assassins that are pretty good at killing off mass infantry. They are not 12 foot tall tanks that walk into a fight and stay there, unkillable and uber. Circle constructs are the opposite; they are slow moving tanks with high resiliency and not the most amazing offense.

Kromac and Kaya both run effective beast-heavy lists. They excel at loading up a warbeast for an assassination run against some key model. Baldur runs construct-heavy lists that are somewhat plodding and relentless.

Minions (Gators) run heavy infantry well with mass Gatormen posses. Minions (Farrow) runs heavy warbeasts well with hard-to-kill and hard-hitting pig monsters that go in and tear it up.

Just some general advice on the whole " light jack army":

Light jacks are usually not fighting pieces, but often fit in a support role. The only really viable way to use a lot of light jacks is a amon ad raza list. Otherwise you will struggle against a lot of stuff. Try to destroy a Khadoran jack or a Skorne Titan warbeast with light jacks and you will see the problem.

This is mostly due to the fact that warcasters only have a limited amount of focus they can give to jacks. So the more jacks they use, the less focus they can give to each of them. Therefore the jacks will be less efficient. Combine that with the generally low power of the light jacks and you will see that a lot things will give you a lot of problems.

I see... what if I did like 3 light jacks to do an assassination strategy while i have 2 heavys...1 to protect warcaster...and one to destroy other jacks? then some choirs and idk what infantry to take...lol. i was thinking taking kreoss, the harbringer, or feora as my caster. good idea or no?

Well there is a assassination tactic that involves 2 light jacks, but thats Magnus with 2 renegades. Kreoss can do something similiar ( knockdown the enemy caster and shoot him/ her), but i dont know if the menot lights are able to bring enough fire power to achieve this

As a general rule, you dont need a dedicated caster bodyguard. A heavy to guard your caster is mostly a waste of a heavy jack.

And with the 3 light jack assassination.... well you have to realize the following thing: If you want to do anything useful with the jack ( most of the time) you have to give it focus. While the menoth casters mostly have rather high focus stats, remember that you will also pay your upkeeps and spells out of this pool.
I guess that Harbinger and kreoss might be you best bet. Kreoss will not really do a lot for the jacks, but with ranged jacks you can exploit his feat. Harbinger has the highest focus stat in the game and should be able to spare some for the lights

Just as a bit of input for the Cryx side of things, Mortenbra does an amazing job of using light jacks for assassination purposes as well as tossing in a couple heavies for utility purposes. She turns Scavengers into caster eaters (especially if you can get at least one point of damage on the caster first), Helldivers into amazingly annoying 3pt terrors, and Stalkers are fantastic with her as well. The only thing about Mortenbra is that because she plays so differently than our other casters, you will generally find the models she likes aren't taken with other casters as much. Though, at 35pts she is a big fan of a set of Raiders or Banes which everyone likes. In smaller games her Theme list is worthwhile, but around the 35pt you can do better by going out of tier and pick up a bit of infantry to stay well-rounded. You can still adhere to her Tiers, but it has more direct counters.

I was looking at the other armies and I kinda like Cygnar. lol. But i wanna use Menoth. Who would be the best caster to take if i wanted to use infantry alot? one other thing...If I take say 2 heavies and two lights plus choirs and what other infatry are required, would kreoss or the harbringer be better...I would probably be taking either Dervishes, Devouts, or revengers for light and i would take Crusaders, Guardians, Vanquishers, Templars, or something and the scourge of heresy as heavies...I know the choir is a must for infantry...and I know the vassal helps a bit also... idk though. I just need some help. Lol

Amon ad-Raza.

He typically wants 1 heavy warjack (Crusader or Templar) and a bunch of Dervishes... 4+.

You could also run T4 Harbinger. Avatar + 2-4 other Heavies of any flavor.

For infantry-heavy, eKreoss, Feoras, and Severius do it well.

The clams speaks the truth.

sourclams wrote:Amon ad-Raza.

He typically wants 1 heavy warjack (Crusader or Templar) and a bunch of Dervishes... 4+.

I agree with this. You actually could fit 8 dervishes in a 35 point list if you wanted to go all jacks (with choir support). No idea how good it would be but the thought amuses me.

Casper wrote:

sourclams wrote:Amon ad-Raza.

He typically wants 1 heavy warjack (Crusader or Templar) and a bunch of Dervishes... 4+.

I agree with this. You actually could fit 8 dervishes in a 35 point list if you wanted to go all jacks (with choir support). No idea how good it would be but the thought amuses me.

Lol yeah...I was thinking of doing that...I did an amusing list for 40k once like that. Thank you everyone

Your only problem there is that buying an Amon Ad-Raza army means you have almost no overlap that other lists could build towards. If you have a deep pocket book, that's fine. If not, it's a problem.

sourclams wrote:Your only problem there is that buying an Amon Ad-Raza army means you have almost no overlap that other lists could build towards. If you have a deep pocket book, that's fine. If not, it's a problem.

yeah...your right....i does not have deep pockets. lol...my friend does though...but he is single minded and refuses to play anything but 40k...haha. I always thought warmahordes looked fun

Just a plug for Hordes:

Circle has a great hit and run game going these days and with the release of domination they are looking very solid. I love the fury mechanic so I can't recommend a Hordes army enough. Focus and Fury function differently but (IMHO) fury tends to be more forgiving and fluid where Focus needs an organized and well planned usage.

Minions - I'm a huge fan of the Crocs. They look amazing, and undead voodoo crocs is just super awesome. They have some weaknesses mostly due to lack of options but they are a load of fun to play. Very aggresive and drips with style

If you want to run a bunch of troops in circle, we actually have one caster that is amazingly good at doing that and two that are modestly good.

If you want the circle list that will never truly die, you want to run Morvahna the Autumblade - generally you want to run 3+ units of infantry with her. A ranged component (usually druids but sometimes Nyss or Reeves for the foolhardy who like to buck logical trends), a unit you're going to insert into your opponents army like a jagged rock knife, and a big tough unit that benefits from more armor. Morvahna's trick is that she can use her regrowth spell on a unit that is constantly engaged in combat to bring back 4 or 5 troopers in the unit every turn. She generates fury from the destruction of enemy troops, and has an excellent +2 armor buff that can heal her as well if need calls for it. Generally I run a unit of druids with UA, a full unit of Bloodtrackers, a unit of Wolves, and a full unit of Wolf Riders with her.

Notable in that she does not really need warbeasts to run, and you can get by with just her warbeast points in beasts for fury thanks to her Harvest spell.

Cassius and Grayle can also run troops very well. Grayle focuses around using his feat to cut through an opposing army, while Cassius uses his troops as attrition pieces to help fuel his desire for souls to power his spells. Neither are extremely strong troop warlocks, but both can run decent numbers without much of a problem.