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I want to get in to Warmachine cause i love steampunk and it looks like i can get a pretty good army going cheaper than most other games. I want to play mercenaries, they're actually a legit army choice, right, or are they like Dogs of War in WF?

anyway, if i could get a good idea of what a mercenaries list would look like, what to take, what not to, etc., that would be very helpful

Hi,

I also have a small mercs army. I started a four star army to get the most options. Right now I have bought:
- Battlebox magnus (magnus, mangler, talon, renegade)
- Extra renegade
- Croe's cutthroats (min)
- herne and Jonne
- kell bailoch
- Eirriss

this small army cost me €100 or a bit less (can't quite remember) and works pretty good. I do need practise with it though. The next expansion will be steelheads. After that IO might take the force over to magnus agenda and take some longgunners.

I would say take what models you like. Magnus can have 3 or 4 jacks in his battlegroup, but he only has 6 focus. The renegades are a must btw. Talon is just for fun and was in the battlebox. You need a nice mix of melee and shooting, and imho Croes fit the bill as a unit that can do both (there are better units, but they work nicely and are rather cheap for a unit....)

hope that helps...

Welcome to Warmachine.
Yes Mercs are a faction, with a variety of units.
You can choose Magnus and get to borrow a couple units from Cygnar.
He has a few 'jacks that used to be his alone.

There are the Rhulic warcasters, the dwarves of WM. They have utility 'jacks that get a lot out of their focus.

There are the Privateers, who have amphibious 'jacks that are immune to being knocked down.
They also have a ton of solos that buff their basic units. They work well, but fall like a house of cards if the solos get picked off.

There is more, but basically, you should download the MkII rules and cards from Privateer's site.
Check out which choices you like that will work together to get an idea of what you want.

I am finding that the "cheaper game" idea is a myth.
Sure you can start with the rulebook, and a battlebox for about $85.
But then you need to get up to a point level that your community plays.
And if you buy infantry, you are looking at $50 at least for the complete unit.

Yes they are their own army.
There are different contracts that limit what you can bring in the army.
If you haven't checked out battle college, do it, it is the best starting place for finding info.

http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/Mercenaries
http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiMercenaries

Because mkII is still new (as in not commercially launched yet but everyone has it) the contracts and stuff haven't been addressed directly and battle college touches on that. (hence the 2 links)

Thanks for the advice all. I've been going over the different armies for mercs, and i like the Searforge commission army. playing an army that acts as a slowly advancing stone wall is always fun.

I'm thinking of using Gorten as my warcaster and Steinhammer as a marshall. 'Jacks will be some gunners and some drillers, will be more specific when i actually have time to build an army. anyone see any fundamental flaws in this plan?

added: also, does the army builder armies of immoren use mki or mkii?

use forward kommander. it is online and MK2.

Link:
http://www.forwardkommander.com/

If you have an iphone/itouch you can download ibodger.

I'd still maintain that Warmachine/Hordes is cheaper than 40k/WFB. But not for all armies. You can make some very economical space marine, chaos and necron armies.

if you're looking for a discount and are in the US, definitely check out thewarstore.net and miniaturemarket.com

The way that WM/HDs ends up costing as much as GW's games is that people buy things in addition to what they need for a single army so they can change things up. I have about a hundred points of mercenaries but regularly play 35 point games and sometimes 50.