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I've been thinking about starting warmachine for a while now and i'm looking to buy my first miniatures. I like the look of the protectorate of menoth and i've decided to start with them. Looking at the battle boxes the one heavy/two light warjacks with a warcaster format seems like a good place to start. After reading some articles on battle college I think Reznik looks like a great warcaster, so i'm thinking rezinik a devout a revenger and a heavy 'jack of some sort. Would this be a good place to start? any advice is welcome, thanks in advance!

The battle box isn't bad. The crusader is a cheap jack for what you get, though I myself started infantry-heavy and so never had much experience with it. The Revenger isn't bad, especially with Reznik who needs arc nodes, but I would get the Blessing of Vengeance as soon as you can. It's got everything the Revenger has and much much more.

The repenter light warjack seems to fall short with most people. I just don't think its spray is damaging enough, though against an infantry horde lighting people on fire shouldn't be ignored.

Honestly though if you're thinking about going with Reznik and different jacks, you might want to skip on the battle box. It sounds like you just don't really need Kreoss or the Repenter, but it's up to you.

More on Reznik though, he's become the most common caster for me to use. I really like him, the way he plays and what he can do. Kreoss, for me, lacks "sneaky tricks" and is more of a beatstick, made moreso by his epic version. Reznik can pull interesting tricks with Firestarter, terror, wracks, and a combo with his abilities that leads to a 17" charge. He only has 6 focus though, so if you aren't playing mangled metal pick up the Heirophant and Vassal solos, they'll help you manage focus as well as boost your jacks.

Reznik, Devout, Blessing of Vengeance, Full Choir, Hierophant is about 270ish points all by itself.

You'll also need to buy Wracks for his planting ability if not for the extra focus. If you field them that's
5 points a piece so 10 points for two or 15 for three (the maximum).

Thanks for all the advice, that 270(ish) army seems like a good starting point and i'll certainly be buying some racks. I look forward to getting my first miniatures and having a few games!

In that list posted above, dropping 1 choir member to buy yourself 2 points, then spending that on a Redeemer light jack would add a lot of versatility. Someone had to point out to me that Brand of Heresy worked on all attack rolls, not just melee. Having the Redeemer in my list allowed me to drop an Angelius on a turn that Seryn popped her feat [preventing all her models in the army from being targetted by melee attacks] by casting the Brand on it then unloading three fully boosted missles into its belly.

Reznik is a decent warcaster. Kreos is a great warcaster.


Get Kreoss first. And oh yeah, get a redeemer warjack. And a choir and eiryss, put those four units together. Once you understand the pure evilness of that you are ready to buy more units.

See I wholeheartedly disagree. Having Kreoss + Redeemer isn't playing the game, it's playing Kreoss's feat. It's a no-brainer. Move Kreoss within 14" of their caster, move Redeemer within 16" of their caster, game over if you can roll high enough. Worst comes to worst use the Vassal to give you the 4th shot. Done, game over. Tactics? Tricks? No. Just literally, drop and pop. There's not much enjoyment in that. Being able to win doesn't make Kreoss a "great" warcaster in my opinion.

Reznik's options, increased survivability, greater potential for denial and increased damage potential over Kreoss make him the much MUCH better caster. True, you might lose more often than you would win with Kreoss. But the games will be better and the victories actually earned.

wracks are useful to have/pain to get assembled.

friend of mine plays menoth, and his route was to use lots of blasty stuff, fire away and hope it landed somewhere useful