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I have a Warlock Engineer from the starter box set but I'm scared to field him because I don't really know how to equip or play him yet. Was wondering if you guys had advice for kitting this guy out. Do I use lv 1 or 2? What weapon and what wargear do I give him? (For a 1.5k-2k pts game). I already use a Grey Seer on Screaming Bell so I dont know if another wizard is smart or not. Oh well thanks for feedback ^

If you have a lord level 4, then keep him cheap level 1, then cast warplightning at everything in sight.

Doomrockets are hilarious fun as well

Honestly, I see three different set ups as great:

Naked: 15p for leading slaves, gives them +3 ld so it let's them operate without the general's leadership.

Cheap-Killy thing: Naked + Rocket or Orb aswell as maybe a pistol. Can operate like the above one or be skitterleaped and kill stuff.

Mage: Lv1 or 2. With some kind of arcane item (My current favorite is lv1 with condenser and rocket), works well as a scroll caddy too.

One thing about adding a naked Warlock to slaves is that you can't shoot into the combat anymore.

Couple other load outs I've tried or thought about trying:

1. Level 2 (hopefully with Skitterleap), Warp Augmented Weapon, Warpstone Armor. Use this guy for porting over to unguarded enemy war machines. He's got 2 attacks at S4, with most war machine crews having T3. The Warpstone Armor gives him a flat 4+ armor save, and makes it so those saved attacks inflict yet another hit on the crew. Good way to tie up or destroy enemy war machines.

2. Level 1/2, Warp Condensor, Warp Musket, Warlock Optics. I usually join this guy to a Jezzail unit I might be fielding. He gets to "shoot" in two different phases, firing off Warp-Lightning in the magic phase, then the musket in the shooting phase. If you have enough other casters you can drop the Magic entirely (along with the condensor) and pick up a doom rocket.

They run a little more expensive than other Engineers you'll see, but I've had decent success using Skitterleap(ed/ing) engineers to deal with units lurking in the back.

Oh yeah, no shooting into combat when having an engineer there. Of course, the only thing I use it for is on the flanks (otherwise you try to keep within the general's ld)
50 slaves, musician and Engineer runs at a grand total of 117p, can threaten small units and have enough numbers to reach warmachines safely. (And firing at slaves is never satisfying or very smart)

Hm... that's something I'd never considered but you're right, that's not a bad flank threat.

The new Warlock Engineers are absolutely amazing in their flexibility. Need a leadership boost? A tooled-out hero caster? Warmachine hunter? Tank destroyer? Rocket launcher? The new Engineer can do it, and on the cheap to boot!

By the way, I recommend putting the warmachine hunter/rocket launcher builds near a Grey Seer (who can choose Skitterleap) to launch him at his targets.

Any time you're using him as a castor I would suggest giving him the warp energy condenser, extra chance to generate additional power dice and a boost to warp lightning, which is the quintissential warlock engineer spell.

Take 20 naked engineers and make a unit of them.
They get ranks, and every attack against the unit in combat has to be dedicated to individual targets, with no wounds that carry over from one model to another.

Watch your opponents shooting phase come to a screeching halt as you randomize 7 crossbow hits into 20 characters...

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:Take 20 naked engineers and make a unit of them.
They get ranks, and every attack against the unit in combat has to be dedicated to individual targets, with no wounds that carry over from one model to another.

Watch your opponents shooting phase come to a screeching halt as you randomize 7 crossbow hits into 20 characters...

-Matt

This is amazing. Made all the better once I remembered the Engineers have 2 wounds each...

That is an incredible idea, and I've got to admit it certainly made me snort my soda a little bit.

I can't help but try to justify it in my mind though. 300 pts sounds a bit steep, considering the kind of other stuff you can get for that. But it'd be a HELL of a resilient unit.

Might be time to check ebay for some dirt cheap skaven.

Wow some great tactics here. Thank you very much guys ^^

The main limitation with the Engineer-only unit is that its combat capabilities are laughable so-far. You have to upgrade their weapons to give them any true functionality in combat (or throw some extra characters in there with them), they lack musicians and standard bearers, they're a Warrior of Chaos' players wet dream, etcetera.

They certainly are durable, but they don't bring much to the table either.