Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello, I have being looking into warmachine lately as the game interests me (im a person with 40k background). I am not quite clear on mercenaries, I see that you can field them as an independent faction on MKII; but how else can you field them (perhaps like allied detachments in 40k)? I couldn't find it on the rule books :S

So, can I field a Khador army with a few mercenaries here and there? If so; what are the restrictions?


[EDIT]
Another question, this one is regarding the tier bonus. If I do not fulfil the requirement for tier 2 for example, but fulfil the requirement of tier 3; do I still get the bonus on tier 3?

[EDIT]
Thank you all for your replies, both questions were answered.


Thanks.

I can answer the second one. No tier 2? Then no tier 3 for you. It's like a ladder you have to climb

Every Mercenary model, except Warjacks, has a rule on their card saying what factions they work for. They can be included in any lists that faction takes as normal. They're just friendly Mercenary units/models instead of Friendly Faction models.

Mercenary Warcasters can only be included in other faction's lists if the game is using multiple warcasters. Otherwise using a Mercenary warcaster means you are making a mercenary army.

There is no limit to the amount of points you can spend on Mercenaries. You will of course have to take the minimum of your faction warcaster and 1 faction warjack, but the rest of your points could be in mercenary models(that work for your faction)

Mercenary warjacks can only be used by mercenary warcasters and mercenary jack marshals, so if you take a mercenary jack marshal they can use any of the mercenary warjacks. Rhulic warjacks have an additional restriction that they can only be controlled by Rhulic Mercenary warcasters and marshals.


On tiers, you must satisfy all requirements in order. You have to satisfy tier 1 and 2 to be able to unlock the benefits for tier 3. A tier 4 list must satisfy the requirements for all 4 tiers. And so on.


If you want a quick way of identifying which mercs you can take, just look at battle college.

http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/Khador

Here is the khador page. Down at the bottom where the model lists are, at the bottom of that is the listing of all the mercenary things that can be taken in a Khador list.

Thank you, your reply was very well explained and thorough. its all very clear now.

Thanks again

Just bear in mind as well, mercenaries as a faction work differently to the other factions. You can't just pick any combination of casters, jacks units and solos and head off. With all-merc armies, you must select a contract first (searforge, highborn, four star, talion, puppet masters). This restricts you to a subset of the total mercenary options, but you get other things in compensation.

Mercenaries, essentially aren't a full faction - they're a collection of sub-factions.

Deadnight wrote:
Just bear in mind as well, mercenaries as a faction work differently to the other factions. You can't just pick any combination of casters, jacks units and solos and head off. With all-merc armies, you must select a contract first (searforge, highborn, four star, talion, puppet masters). This restricts you to a subset of the total mercenary options, but you get other things in compensation.

Mercenaries, essentially aren't a full faction - they're a collection of sub-factions.

Instead of a contract, you can select the Theme Force for that particular Warcaster/Warlock instead.

You will of course have to take the minimum of your faction warcaster and 1 faction warjack

This is wrong; The only requirement for your army is a Warcaster. You can take, for example, Capt. Haley, and then nothing but Mercenaries (ones that will work for Cygnar) and have a Cygnar army list.

As a side note, army selection in Warmachine/Hordes was like a breath of fresh air coming from 3rd edition 40k. The only thing you have to take in your army is a Warcaster. No 1 HQ and 2 troops, and up to 1 more HQ, 4 more troops, 3 elites, 3 fast attack, and 2 heavy support. Or whatever it was. Of course, now it's all Unbound, where I can field nothing but Wave Serpents and Wraith Knights if I really want to (and not have many friends left to play with...).

Not correct. You are not allowed to have an army list that is more than 2 points under the agreed upon point limit. Only one warlock has a Warbeast point value of 2, so only that one warlock could actually run a legal list with no beasts. And nobody would run a hordes list with no beasts.

No warmachine faction can run a legal list with no warjacks because every warcaster has more than 2 WJ points.

While you are correct in the strictest sense of the rules, in most cases that I am aware of people require that armies be within 1 or 2 points of the game level (on the minus side only). As such you have to spend your caster points and that requires a faction jack.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not correct. You are not allowed to have an army list that is more than 2 points under the agreed upon point limit. Only one warlock has a Warbeast point value of 2, so only that one warlock could actually run a legal list with no beasts. And nobody would run a hordes list with no beasts.

No warmachine faction can run a legal list with no warjacks because every warcaster has more than 2 WJ points.

I thought that rule was steamroller only?

And? Thats how this game is played.

It is true that the "No more than 2pts under" is from SR. However, it's generally a good idea to use your points and most Factions have at least a warjack that's free or nearly so with their points so there's little reason not to take one.

And stuff.

Not everyone plays SR. Most do but not all.

And yes, there is little to no reason not to use the bonus points.

But since WMH is a game of very tight rules I'm just trying to make sure they are properly explained.

Quick question because I'm trying to figure out the game: Why is being more than 2pts down banned for steam roller? There's obviously some competitive advantage you get from it, but I can't figure out what it would be.

I think it harks back to mk1 days when someone ran Sorscha on her own. She'd kill 1+ vp of opponent's army and then run away all game. When game ended the Sorscha player won on VPs.

No idea why you'd do that now, as game is about zone taking and holding.


Gaz

Gazzor wrote:
I think it harks back to mk1 days when someone ran Sorscha on her own. She'd kill 1+ vp of opponent's army and then run away all game. When game ended the Sorscha player won on VPs.

No idea why you'd do that now, as game is about zone taking and holding.

So the solution to lateral play was to ban it? Seems pretty daft for a game which is trying to be hyper-competitive. Lateral play is always interesting to me, since it forces lateral thinking versus just whatever stuff you've practiced.

Also, I know nothing much about Khador/Sorscha, but wouldn't a lone warcaster be pretty easy pickings? It just seems like people get annoyed when they are forced into original thought on the fly, which is honestly half the interesting stuff that can happen in a wargame anyway.

Actually the solution to the "run away" problem was solved in Steam Roller rules by adding kill box to some scenerios. So, I don't think that the run away problem is the basis for the 2 point rule..
My guess is that the rule is there to prevent the sour grapes complaining and denegrating of an opponents win (ie., "I was playing 5 points under so of course he won"). Also, it promotes the purchase of more models in that if you only have 25 points worth of models but the tourney calls for 35 then you have to buy more stuff to enter.

hands_miranda wrote:

Gazzor wrote:
I think it harks back to mk1 days when someone ran Sorscha on her own. She'd kill 1+ vp of opponent's army and then run away all game. When game ended the Sorscha player won on VPs.

No idea why you'd do that now, as game is about zone taking and holding.

So the solution to lateral play was to ban it? Seems pretty daft for a game which is trying to be hyper-competitive. Lateral play is always interesting to me, since it forces lateral thinking versus just whatever stuff you've practiced.

Also, I know nothing much about Khador/Sorscha, but wouldn't a lone warcaster be pretty easy pickings? It just seems like people get annoyed when they are forced into original thought on the fly, which is honestly half the interesting stuff that can happen in a wargame anyway.

Some casters have enough mobility and baseline defense that they can effectively outpace some forces close to indefinitely. This particularly true if the army lacks area-effect attacks, and/or has a low model count.

This isn't an issue in modern games as they all play with scenarios that force a player to have board presence or lose on control points.

Presumably in an environment where you were playing against a time limit, no scenario, and victory awarded based on points killed there are a lot of match ups where the "Warcaster only" list would basically have an auto-win. That's kind of a really bizzare way to play though, maybe that was popular in the Mk1 days? (before my time).

EDIT: Just to be clear for some lists there is no counter play or "creative solutions" for this. There are just some situations where it's mathematically impossible to even put dice into something that can move a greater distance than your threat ranges in a non-linear fashion.

No, Gazzor is right.

The 2pts limit is a throwback to MKI tournaments that had VPs as their secondary win condition (first one was assassination).

People would then take an extremely mobile Warcaster as their entire "army" (usually pCaine or pSorscha), kill a couple of VPs worth of models and spend the rest of the game running away, winning the game by 1 or 2 VPs to 0. This made for incredibly boring and frustrating games.

This restriction was left in place in the SR documents as a "just in case" precaution since the birth of scenario objectives made this tactic a non-factor.

One other thing to note about Mercenaries is that many spells and effects will either be "friendly" or "friendly faction". The distinction means that "friendly faction" effects can't be used by a Khador model on a Mercenary unit (or vice versa). There is one exception in Koldun Kapitan Valachev, a Khador unit attachment who can be attached to a Mercenary unit, and causes them to count as Khador faction models while he's in play.

Some good mercenaries for Khador include:
Aiyana & Holt: Having a +2 damage bonus against a target of your choice is very useful, as is being able to give your units Magic Weapon when it's needed.
Tactical Arcanist Corps: They're a good versatile unit that can pop up a wall of clouds in front of what you want to protect, or clear light infantry with flame blasts.
Saxon Orrik: Being able to put Pathfinder on a unit or model that needs it can be priceless.
Nyss Hunters: They're just a very good & versatile ranged skirmisher unit, able to put down accurate fire and get work done in melee. They especially like receiving Iron Flesh or Fury.
Boomhowler & Co: An excellent front-line unit who will get into the face of the enemy and require a lot of effort to remove.
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution: One of the few ways Khador can get rid of upkeep spells.
Sylys Wyshnyallyr: Khador casters are often focus-starved, so a free upkeep spell is very welcome. He also works well with casters like Sorscha or Zerkova, who want to be casting offensive spells.

This is slightly besides the point since the thread is about Mercs and Khador, but there are more exceptions. Captain Jonas Murdoch for Cygnar will also make a unit behave as if Cygnaran instead of Mercenary when it comes to faction. Most elven mercenaries are from Ios as well and will have the Partisan ability which means they are (it's not an act) Retribution units as well - this is mostly related to Sylys or the two mercenary versions of Eiryss.

Could be worth keeping in mind when facing Cygnar and you suddenly choke on your tea when a group of Boomhowlers get a spell cast on them that you thought they weren't allowed to have.