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Hi folks, quick question for a future purchase.

I have (25 pt Khador):
pButcher
Kodiak
Winter Guard Infantry (full unit w/ UA)
Doom Reavers w/ Greylord
Widowmaker Markman
Kovnik Joe
2x Winter Guard Rocketeers

I'm looking for a solid Protectorate 25 pts to buy for my son, he likes their color scheme. He'll really only be playing me, so I want to get something that will be competitive against my 25 pt list there. I'm sure we'll both expand in the future but some direction on where to start would be nice, I know practically nothing about Protectorate other than they like fire.

I'd suggest starting off with a unit of Exemplar Errants with the UA and the Errant Seneschal solo, the battlegroup, and a Choir, and building something out of that.

So, I am not an expert on Warmachine, but I will try to give an overview that will hold up until someone who knows better will come along.

Menoth are largely a faction of average to good models that become incredible because of the buffs they can give. The biggest example is the choir. This is the reason Menoth can have nice jacks. Their jacks aren't bad on their own, but the choir can make them amazing. Likewise with vassal mechanics. You pretty much need those models if you want to run Menoth jacks (as in seeing a list without a choir in anything larger than 15 points probably isn't going to happen).

Menoth also has a strong denial theme. It's not Cryx style "I am going to debuff you until your stuff is useless", they go about it by more passive "your stuff doesn't work on me" abilities. They have lots of stuff with abilities like immunity to knockdown, can not be targeted by spells, some things can not be targeted by ranged attacks, one unit has a minifeat that makes them immune to damage except from spells and feats (and that unit can then receive the "can not be targeted by spells" buff). Of course let's not forget the "my jack walks away from you on your turn" abilities like Admonition and Enliven. Basically lots of stuff to make the opponent's target selection not work.

Overall one of the biggest weaknesses for Menoth is that their warcasters are super squishy and easy to kill. Severius is half the reason that the term "old man stats" exists to describe fragile warcasters. This means the Menoth player has to be on their toes and watching out for the assassination at all times. Another weakness that Menoth armies have is they have very limited access to Pathfinder, so rough terrain makes them sad. The only way they can get it is either from a mercenary solo (Rhupert, who would usually much rather be giving out Tough in a Menoth list) or not so great warcasters (Vindictus can give it to troops, which is pretty much his only redeeming feature. Raza can give it to jacks).

Menoth can play several different ways, one of which is a Jack gunline. Their jacks actually have some of the longer threat ranges on guns in the game, and the choir means they can shoot pretty accurately. That style happens in a lot of lists. Other lists are pretty unique to the warcaster playing them, so I won't go into that since I don't know them that well.

Some models to consider:
-Choir (you need this)
-Exemplar Bastions (nice roadblock with an interesting damage allocation ability)
-Reckoner, Redeemer (two solid gun jacks. The Reckoner is a very good heavy, almost to the point of being under-costed)
- Avatar of Menoth (very good character jack. Maybe not so good for a 25 point list because of cost)

No idea on the warcaster, Menoth has some interesting ones (including Fiora, who does indeed like fire a lot), but I don't know which ones would be good for a newer player. High Reclaimer and Harbinger are two good tournament casters, but they seem really complicated to play and probably not a good place to start.

eFeora would be a nice matchup against this as you have a lot of troops that can burn for her. However as a new player it is very important to time her feat correctly.

I would also recommend The Harbinger, her board control practically always sets her up for alpha strike and will allow your son the chance to prepare himself for the gross doomies.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd suggest starting off with a unit of Exemplar Errants with the UA and the Errant Seneschal solo, the battlegroup, and a Choir, and building something out of that.

I agree. This is a great way to get a starter menoth force going.

Though option #2 can be to forego the battlebox and pick a caster of his choosing. And then getting a couple warjacks that play nice with that caster. If unsure, Redeemer and Avatar are both very solid and hard to go wrong with.

Likewise with vassal mechanics

Sure you didn't mean the plain old vassal? The dude who lets the Vanquisher fire its 4" burny AOE twice per turn.

With Khador I always had a nightmare vs. Vanquisher + vassal with PSevvy as the caster. He can upkeep Eye of Menoth and also lob out 2 Ashes to Ashes spells every turn, assuming EOM not upkept, or a hierophant uses the spell cost reducer power for him. Between that and the Vanquisher AOEs I was losing 15-20 infantry per turn. And Sevvy's feat makes Butcher very easy to kill. He's a great anti warmachine caster.

Errants are a great swiss army knife unit and a staple of many lists. With EOM on them they can conceivably kill 20+ soft targets by themselves in a turn (Very unlikely, but possibility is there).

My 2 cents:

PSevvy -6
Hierophant 2
Vanquisher 8
Vassal 2
10 Errants + UA 10
Exemplar Seneschal 2
Choir of Menoth 2
Knights Exemplar 5

A 25 points list that has all the tools to pwn the Butcher list, assuming it is fielded properly. The hierophant is good with PSevvy (Double Ashes is nice), but mercenary Gorman Di Wulf is the best 2 points in the game, and he works for Khador as well.
Hierophants are pretty good but not auto includes like the Errants, Vanquisher or vassal.

IMO is a solid foundation to a lot of Menoth lists with a lot of different Menoth casters. I would certainly fear to face that in a tourney, I can tell you. The anti infantry power is heinous and it's got hard hitters as well.

http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/Grand+Scrutator+Severius
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiihierophant
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiVanquisher
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiErrant
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiierrantUA
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiErrantSeneschal
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiChoir
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiExemplar

The Knights entry does note that it might not be the best option, but IMO it's the best way to make the 25 points as balanced vs. all comers as possible. They're also some of the best looking Menoth models IMO.

Not only does the force have the ability to ream Khador, it also has game vs. a lot of other factions as well as it puts out a lot of damage for such a small points outlay.

I'm actually tempted to try Menoth in the new journeyman league down my club. Hmmmm...

That said, it's cheaper to get the battlebox, and Kreoss is definitely a top tier caster. Trouble is that Vanquisher is clearly a better jack than anything else in Menoth (Reckoner is on par) and I think that the Revenger and Repenter are too much of a focus outlay each turn to run at full effectiveness.


Gaz

Gazzor wrote:

Likewise with vassal mechanics

Sure you didn't mean the plain old vassal? The dude who lets the Vanquisher fire its 4" burny AOE twice per turn.

That is the ability I was thinking about, I was not aware that the vassal and the vassal mechanic were different things though. I don't really know all that much other than the most general knowledge about the various factions (except Convergence), it's what comes of not getting to play very often.

Fair enough. The plain old vassal gets a lot more table time than the vassal mechanic. An easy error to make.

The Vassal Mechanik basically only sees play if you have a point leftover and have already taken wracks, or if you are running a Judicator or a Vessel of Judgement. He's basically mandatory with the Vessel.

The Vassal on the other hand is another auto-include on par with the choir. Lots of lists take 2.

The battlebox is a great start, especially since pKreoss is a fantastic beginner caster. I would recommend then buying a choir, a Vanquisher (Swap out the Revenger with the Vanquisher for the 25 point list), a Vassal of Menoth, and a unit of Exemplar Errants. You gotta think about synergy alot with Protectorate, and this list really takes advantage of the strengths Kreoss brings to the table.

This implies the Menoth person must be on their toes and looking out for that killing all the time. An additional weakness that Menoth armies possess is because they possess restricted access to Pathfinder, therefore tough landscape means they are sad.