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Been lurking around for a while off and on, figured now was a good time to sign up.

I've decided to build a WM force, both because I like the universe and the models. However, I am having difficulty picking a force.

A friend of mine grabbed Khador, so that's kind of off the table - I figure that if he's playing them, I should find something else. Also, not having Light 'Jacks makes it hard to run multiples effectively.

As with almost everyone else who starts the game, I'm interested in running with multiple 'Jacks. Not necessarily a huge amount, but I'd like to reliably run 3-4 in a 50 point force. I'd also like to be able to soak some kind of fire on the way in - I tend to play a bit more on the "slow but sturdy" side of things. My Primary 40K force was Deathwing (prior to the newest book, it's been a long time since I played.)

I might also be a bit open to the idea of playing something a bit wacky - my WFB faction was Skaven, with all those "Oops" and "Suspiciously off-target" misfires - I'm here to have fun. Winning is great, but it's not everything.

I will admit to liking Cygnar's models a bit more than Menoth or Cryx, but that's nothing a good paint job can't fix. I'm also somewhat open to playing primarily Mercs, as I have always liked the idea of playing the underdogs a bit (Poor Llael.) I suppose that a Hordes faction wouldn't be entirely out of the question either, just lower on priority unless someone convinces me otherwise. Cyriss looks neat, but from what I've read, they're... complex and a bit unforgiving when something goes wrong, so without a really good argument, probably not a great fit for a new player.

Thanks in advance for your opinions

If you want to run 3-4 jacks, then Menoth is what you want. Often you'll run all heavies too. Or maybe 3 heavies and a light.

Menoth is definitely slow but sturdy.

Nothing really whacky, but we do have a bunch of denial. A lot of our abilities center around preventing your opponent from doing something, or at least making it a very bad idea.

Cyriss is not complex. They possess two mechanics not seen in any other faction. One is when one of your warmachines (vectors for them) spends a focus point, another vector within 6in of it gains a free focus point. Each vector can only hand out one of these freebies per turn. It is simple to understand but you do have to pay closer attention to your battlegroup's positioning and activation as it is slightly more critical than other factions. The other mechanic is that your vectors do not have their own melee and ranged skill, they use the skill of their warcaster. That is really simple to understand. Their vectors have tons of utility and almost all of them mix melee and ranged weaponry, making them very versatile. They have lots of synergy within their battlegroups and support models. They have two heavy vector chassis currently, one hovers over terrain and is similar in stats to cygnar's heavies (good spd, def, lowish arm, hit boxes). The other chassis is more akin to khador's hulking heavies, they are slow with low DEF, but possess above average ARM, STR, and hit boxes. I would say that cyriss is more forgiving than many other factions as they have so much access to repair and defensive buffing. The other big thing in cyriss is that nearly all of their infantry are constructs and can also be repaired, and they have several options for heavy infantry.

KingKodo wrote:Cyriss is not complex. They possess two mechanics not seen in any other faction. One is when one of your warmachines (vectors for them) spends a focus point, another vector within 6in of it gains a free focus point. Each vector can only hand out one of these freebies per turn. It is simple to understand but you do have to pay closer attention to your battlegroup's positioning and activation as it is slightly more critical than other factions. The other mechanic is that your vectors do not have their own melee and ranged skill, they use the skill of their warcaster. That is really simple to understand..

Thanks for clarifying that. I wasn't sure how difficult the positioning would be for doing the Focus induction, and how reliant each piece is on each other. The amount of repair is a good point on the "forgiving" side of things, too.

Grey Templar wrote:If you want to run 3-4 jacks, then Menoth is what you want. Often you'll run all heavies too. Or maybe 3 heavies and a light.

Menoth is definitely slow but sturdy.

Nothing really whacky, but we do have a bunch of denial. A lot of our abilities center around preventing your opponent from doing something, or at least making it a very bad idea.

Yeah, that's kind of what I had heard. Although I had kind of heard that the warjacks were kind of fragile? Granted, in this game, if you expect to have everything survive, it looks like you're doing it either very wrong or very right (not sure which.)

As for the Wacky part, I meant the whole "whoops, I just blew up half my own army, LOL" part of Skaven. I don't see anything like that in WM at all, though.

As for Cygnar, can they not run a decent amount of 'jacks with the Marshals? And exactly how badly does that hurt the the effectiveness of the 'jack?

Someone around here also pointed out Skorne for a slow and sturdy faction, how do they measure up?

Protectorate is going to be the closest for what you're looking for.

Menoth jacks are sub-par on their own. However there are several solos and a unit that make them much better and Menoth jacks are designed with this in mind.

 ChaoticMind wrote:
Menoth jacks are sub-par on their own. However there are several solos and a unit that make them much better and Menoth jacks are designed with this in mind.

I dunno. I think the Reckoner would see play in a lot of factions at 8 Points. MAT 6 P+S 17 /w Reach is already in-line with a lot of factions utility heavies and this thing comes with a RNG 12 POW 13 gun with assault, a 2" living models debuff and flare.

The Repenter, Redeemer and Avatar would probably all see play outside of the Choir/Vassal context and would take the support options of other factions as good if not better than their actual faction models.

They're honestly solid models for their points, protectorate support just takes them up to 11. As in like MAT 11 in the Avatars case sometimes.

The Reckoner is the best non-character heavy in the game, full stop.

Protectorate jacks, for the most part, are decidedly average. Nothing really special, no fancy tricks.

Then our jack support turns them up to 11.

KingKodo wrote:
Cyriss is not complex. They possess two mechanics not seen in any other faction. One is when one of your warmachines (vectors for them) spends a focus point, another vector within 6in of it gains a free focus point. Each vector can only hand out one of these freebies per turn. It is simple to understand but you do have to pay closer attention to your battlegroup's positioning and activation as it is slightly more critical than other factions. The other mechanic is that your vectors do not have their own melee and ranged skill, they use the skill of their warcaster. That is really simple to understand. Their vectors have tons of utility and almost all of them mix melee and ranged weaponry, making them very versatile. They have lots of synergy within their battlegroups and support models. They have two heavy vector chassis currently, one hovers over terrain and is similar in stats to cygnar's heavies (good spd, def, lowish arm, hit boxes). The other chassis is more akin to khador's hulking heavies, they are slow with low DEF, but possess above average ARM, STR, and hit boxes. I would say that cyriss is more forgiving than many other factions as they have so much access to repair and defensive buffing. The other big thing in cyriss is that nearly all of their infantry are constructs and can also be repaired, and they have several options for heavy infantry.

THIS.
Also, get some of COC's super durable heavy infantry with an Enigma foundry behind them to bring them back to life and you got yourself a hard core center.

And Iron Mother may be my favorite miniature from any gaming range.

They're complex in the sense that they have some major order of activation requirements.

If you mess up your induction chain you could seriously mess your turn up.

For that reason they are more complex for newbies to understand.

Delynne wrote:

As for Cygnar, can they not run a decent amount of 'jacks with the Marshals? And exactly how badly does that hurt the the effectiveness of the 'jack?

Cygnar generally marshals up to 1 or 2 jacks, if any.

Generally, Cygnar players like going for a Stormwall since it's more efficient and effective than 2 heavies (ex: compared with 2 Defenders it has the same number of cannon shots, plus the 2 chain guns and the better melee, and all for 1 pt more). A few casters can go for multiple smaller jacks (Kraye, Darius, and Nemo2 will do this). Those 3 will do it because their spells and innate abilities help support a jack swarm (Kraye and Darius have spells that hit the whole battlegroup while Nemo2's big trick involves his feat).

Delynne wrote:

Someone around here also pointed out Skorne for a slow and sturdy faction, how do they measure up?

While I play (and love) menoth, it's worth taking a close look at how Hordes factions play, and possibly trying out a Hordes game to see if you like the Fury mechanic. Hordes factions also tend to find it easier to go beast heavy, while most warmachine factions struggle to add more than a handful of jacks - Even an average Menoth battlegroup (which tends to be Jack heavy for Warmachine) is only as big as an average Hordes army Battlegroup, so if you want big stompy things (without having to restrict yourself to a few specialized Jack casters), Hordes is generally an easier option.

Skorne give the impression of slow and sturdy, but really they can be blindingly fast at times, with lots of access to various speed buffs. They tend to be only of average durability, but having said that they are the kings of damage output. They can be a lot of fun, with a good mixture of play styles.

Troll Bloods fit the Durable criteria far better, though they also tend to be more infantry heavy than most other Hordes factions. That said, if you want a real "terminator" like feeling, there's nothing quite like Trollblood heavy infantry - one particular build which uses Trollkin Warders with eGrissle is known as "Miserable Meat Mountain", because of how much effort it takes to chew through it - opponents simply can't cut through all those high-ARM wounds, while the warders only get stronger for being wounded.

Anyway, Menoth, Trollbloods, Skorne, CoC, all good options for you. The only other thing I'll note is that CoC, while a good choice that definitely matches your criteria, probably won't be updated on the same schedule as the other factions, and will probably have a pretty small range for a while, if that makes a difference.

Anyway, good luck choosing your faction, and welcome to the game

I chose my army by first, what looked cool. That narrowed it down to a few of my favorites, then I studied up on the fluff and chose which faction's story I liked best.

Thank you all for all the information. Based on what you guys are saying, Menoth is probably my best bet for that playstyle in the WM line, although I will have to take a close look at Skorne as well.

Cygnar like to run 1, maybe 2 jacks. There are a couple builds with 3 or maybe 4. They have some jack casters and some good jack marshall's but ultimately you need and want some infantry.