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My friend and I put together this list. We designated it the "Battleship Strategy".

Karchev - +5WJ pts
-Behemoth - 13

Yuri the Axe - 3
Manhunter - 2
Mechanics - 1
Mechanics - 1

Basically you set the mechanics up in two vertical columns like this: | |
You tow the behemoth so that he is close enough to fire his mortars. Upkeeping tow while gaining +2 SPD from Karchev's turbine will let karchev put 4 focus to the behemoth's mortars. So you run karchev up, rotate, put the behemoth in firing range "without" moving him as to get aiming bonus (the move should cover roughly 28in {12 from run, +2 from rotating, +14 for range of guns) the behemoth fires with boosted hit and damage rolls to knock out some units. If/When the behemoth takes some damage, you tow him strait back to the space between the mechanics and he gets fully healed. Yuri and the manhunter sit on the sidelines and wait for your opponent to try and catch karchev or the behemoth with eyriss or some other solos, which they will promptly assassinate. The mobility of karchev's tow makes it nearly impossible to deal enough damage to the behemoth to even cripple some systems. I have only play tested it once against a cygnar player and it dominated the table without losing a single model.

FOlks have any thoughts? suggestions? Any weaknesses you can see with this strategy? We are concerned that Cryx could be a problem as well as eHaley but we havent play tested them yet. Lemme know watcha think!

Interesting.

How do you deal with long range arcing fire or AOE simply killing all your mechanics?

It sounds like Khador would give you trouble with Mortars or Woodsmen mangling the mechanics and Vlad/Drago rushing in.

A Menoth army chanting "no shooting" makes the ranged power of the Behemoth worthless if they use a tight cluster of jacks to screen the choir.

What's the prescription for Disruption heavy Cygnar forces? Unboosted Bombards aren't that scary (well they are still bombards) and a pair of Ironclads could make short work of a Disrupted Behemoth.

I'm not familiar enough with Cryx to comment, but their speed would seem to be an issue as well as that screening spell.

Well Karchev can run 12in plus the behmoth's movement of 4in plus the mechanics can move up 6in and repair, so you can keep the mechanics really far away from where the behemoth and karchev will be shooting, I keep them around 12in back. The behemoth has an effective threat range of 26in (karchev's 12in run + rng 14 from mortars). Since mortars cannot move and shoot and only shoot 20in, you can probably move karchev up and bomb the mortars long before they can reach your repair crews.

Even with a menoth army chanting, you can just bomb their other models, say the warcaster, or other non jack/choir models. On top of that, behemoth will always get the charge, since Karchev gives it an effective charge distance of 19in with tow.

Any annoying solos, such as eyriss can be suicide killed with yuri and the manhunter.

Cygnar is my greatest foe, as my best friend who lives right next door plays them. Even when disrupted, and even if the mortars do not directly hit, a power 7 blast is still enough to kill most cygnar models. They have high DEF but low armor and health. Longgunners, gun mages, and all their solos have low armor, most are 11 which easily killable by a scattering pwr 7 mortar. I havent found a guy that can kill the behemoth in one round, even amped up defenders with haley's dual shot fear cant put it down.

Again, if the enemy manages to survive to get into melee, which is very possible, you are effectively dealing with two of the most powerful melee fighters in the game. Plus even if the behemoth is disrupted, Karchev's feat allows it to charge/slam for free, plus his spell boosts attack and damage with melee weapons for 3 focus. Even if the ironclads manage to damage the behemoth, they would have to get really lucky to even deal alot of damage to it, plus they are going to get pummeled by pwr 12, boosted armor piercing fists. Karchev can also simply tow the behemoth out of melee and into repair range for the repair squads, have it repaired, and then tow it back into charge range.

I have only played against cygnar and menoth with it so far, but so far I have yet to take casualties. The idea is not to be able to crush your opponent quickly, its that it is very difficult for your opponent to stop your behemoth/karchev combo.


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The kossite woodsmen could be an issue. They can pop onto the field and probably kill a squad of repair guys on the first shot. Their RAT is only 3 however, and I dont think they could get both repair squads with one group of woodsmen.

My cygnar friend offered up a 15 pt army with epic haley that we will test. Her slowing effects plus buffing effects, plus the jack dominating spell could be a problem.

You'll be happy to know that eHaley's Domination doesn't work on character jacks then.

I agree that this is a difficult combo to best at 15pts, I just want to help and I think it will very neatly give the Cygnar, Kraye-kiting lists a dose of their own irritating medicine.

I play a jack heavy cygnar list most times and I think list would be rough for you

eNemo +6WJ
Ironclad 7
Ironclad 7
Ironclad 7

You need an 8 to hit the Ironclads and they laugh off blast damage and with eNemo's feat and abilty to allocate focus on his activation he is very dangerous. You can only run away for so long from his Energizer spell and when upkeeping Polarity shield and Forcefield he's impossible to assasinate with AOE attacks and with good positioning it will be hard to gain the charge even with Karchev's huge advantages there.

And nothing will survive 3 ironclads with full focus all converging on it and your list only gives them 2 targets to worry about.

Forcefield makes eNemo immune to blast damage and knockdowns, and allows him to choose the deviation direction of any missed AOEs in his 14" control area.
eNemo +6WJ
Stormclad 9
Stormblades 5
Stormblades 5
Squire 2

With Failsafe on it the Stormclad is arm 21 and uses its free focus to run, eNemo also upkeeps Force Field and Polarity Shield so that the stormclad cant be charged and the stormblades are impossible to hit with blasts. WIth the Squire Nemo can cast all 3 spells on turn 1.

The Stormclad gains 1 focus each turn and screens Nemo, they will be hard to target with blasts since if you miss Nemo makes it deviate away from the infantry and even if he cant Stormblades are arm15. The turn before melee Nemo casts Lightning Shroud on the Stormclad for the +2 STR (it already has electro leap and that spell isn't very useful againt your list since I assume you're a skileld player and won't easily let your mechanics die). Spending his feat can give an S+P 21 Stormclad 7 focus for 1 turn which should be more than enough to crush either Karchev or Behemoth and if they are close together put some hurt on the one that doesn't die.

I think with either of those lists positioning and player skill will be the real determinates of who wins since each has a strong strategy that the other can deal with but any wrong move will spell disaster.

Sounds fun really. ^^

Those would be a tough couple of lists to contend with. I havent played any lists like them yet so I really dont know how I would handle it. I think the second one would be more difficult though, as I can still boost the attack rolls on the mortars, giving me a good chance to hit with them.

The second list would be very odd. Dont know how I would deal with that stormclad. There is alot of AOE between the behemoth and karchev's spells however, that I think would be able to take out alot of storm knights. Of course I would need to get pretty close to them to cast those spells, which could expose me to the stormclad. It would probably come down to assassination suicide attempts from yuri and the manhunter on my part. Offer up the behemoth and try to knock out nemo with the stealthers or something. The two of them hit like trucks on the charge, pwr11s + 4d6, could take nemo down with one round of combat. Cant really say until I play it.

I think they are very evenly matched, and both difficult to play against.

This was the kind of response I was hoping for.

P.S. I hadnt realized that Behemoth was a character.

I just want to point out that since this would be a 15 pt game, which in MKII is a small game I think, there isn't enough room in the list to make a truely dominating team. But a list of say 50 (I think it is) would be more accurate seeing as you can make the most amount of combos with your points and only one warcaster.

My point is a 15 pt list can't be expected to beat every other list. I just don't think it is possible(unless extreme terrain circumstances every match). There will most likely be a list that will defeat it 9/10 times, so if you really want to make the best list with the Behemoth, create the largest list in MKII that only allows one warcaster and encorperate units and other models that can cover up your weaknesses (as an example: only having 2 targets on your team. And the Behemoth can dish it out but can't really protect. He only has .5" melee range).......just a fun suggestion

eNemo is a push over and is always the weakest link in his team, but he can be hard to get too since the can move his battle group 3" (each in any direction) per game.

CircleKhadorKid has a good point, but making a 50pt list doesn't realyl help if the players prefer 15s.

In response to circlekhadorkid,

In a 15pt battle, it is very very difficult to kill the behemoth in one round of combat, which is what I kind of like. You have less resources to use, thus skill really comes out on the field. I really dont like playing huge games because it turns into a match of who can use the most efficient models and you end up with everyone picking the same models such as eyriss, gorman, etc... with 15pts, you only have enough for your caster, and a small combo with maybe a bit of support.

To say the Behemoth cant protect is opposite of what I saw in the model. It can pummel at range, it can pummel even better in melee, and it has the highest base armor stat of any jack to my knowledge (21) and it has the most damage boxes of any jack. Theoretically the devestator has better armor but cant be offensive with that armor. And yes the behemoth is limited in one way because it doesnt have reach. But what is a weakness in my opponent's eyes is a strength in mine. The behemoth's pwr 12 piercing fists (possibly some of the most devestating jack destroyers in the game) are both open fists, thus the behemoth can utilize the full power of all your power attacks against other jacks, such as two handed throw (or whatever). You could throw a jack, knock it down, doll out a huge power 15 (pwr12 +pwr from other hand? dunno if I read two handed throw right) then blast it with basically autohit mortars. Karchev also bi-passes the reach issue fairly easily by giving the behemoth 12inches of free movement on my turn, basically allowing it to charge up to 19in. If used right, reach shouldnt be an issue. Also if the behemoth gets damaged, you can tow it out and get it repaired while still allowing it to be combat effective.

I created this post because between the four people I play with, this strategy is unbeaten and we cant come up with anything that could reliably beat it, until scarik responded to it. Now I know what I can expect as opposition when I bring it to a tourny. My issue now is that the models cost something like 130$ and theres only 4 main models excluding the mechanics. D: go me for selecting an army consisting of two of the more expensive models PP makes huh?

P.S. I also like the smaller battles because since my friends and I are fairly new, any battle above 20pts tends to take around 4-6 hours to complete. I cant imagine how long a large 50 or 75 pointer would take

After reviewing Enemo and the ironclads, I do not feel that the list is as sound as I did before. The behemoth will always have the aiming bonus from not moving, so he will be getting hits on 6s. Karchev will have 4 unspent focus to boost those mortars, every turn. An average roll from those boosted mortars is 16 to hit, easily enough to hit the ironclads. The damage on most of those mortars will also be boosted, thus dealing, on average, 14+roll of 10= pwr24, thus 6 damage against an ironclad per mortar hit. Even if you spend three focus so each ironclad can run and three for energizer, you are only gaining 1inch each turn on the behemoth. We play about 24inches apart usually so thats alot of turns of mortar fire. The behemoth is basically always going to get the first charge regardless of what spells nemo is using, energizer only gives you 3 inches of movement, whereas karchev gives 12. Plus the behemoth will almost always drop an ironclad every round of melee combat when karchev boosts it with unearthly rage and pumps extra attacks. Each attack from the behemoth will hit and will deal pwr 12s + 3d6 against your halved armor of 9 or 10 with that armor spell. Thats a minimum of 5 damage from each fist, while karchev can grant the behemoth 5 fist attacks each round, all boosted. You could take the behemoth out in one round if you pop nemo's feat and go all out with all three ironclads, but only if you roll average or higher (total damage came out to 36 across all three ironclads rolling for extra attacks, which happens to be exactly the same health the behemoth has). Even if you manage that, you just exhausted nemo and all your jacks, to kill the behemoth, thus leaving your forces open to yuri who can do insane damage even to the heavy jacks, the manhunter, who can also do extreme damage to the jacks, and karchev, who can reliably put down an ironclad each turn as well. After thinking about the disruption of Cygnar, I may replace the manhunter with a koldun lord, as they have the ability to stop disruption and grant focus to friendly jacks.

Long post, but there were alot of calculations in there. You are banking on getting into melee with a model that moves faster than you while still being 100% combat effective. I love karchev, and the whole idea behind him, but I would be surprised if PP kept him the same when they officially release MK2.