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Hey guys, I am a long time Warhammer 40k player and I was looking to get into someone on the side. I Demo'd warmachine and it looks pretty sweet!

I have a pretty large interest in the Mercenaries mainly because their so gritty and full of steampunk goodness!!

Would you guys have any suggestions as to what pieces I should go for? I love the Mule model and i also love Drake Macbains model. Are they any good? Do the models work well together? I heard of the Mule spam before, but I'm not sure if i just want to sit back and shoot at everything.

Thanks for your time on answering my Noob questions.

Merc's are tons of fun to play, but it can seem to be a bit of an uphill battle. I think all the merc casters are playable but if I were you I would stay away from spam lists, probably the best casters for a mule are Ashlynn because of her feat and Magnus the traitor because of his snipe spell. Overall I think the mule is a solid jack for 8 points.

I would like to hear people's thoughts on this too. My wife is looking at starting either Retribution or Mercs, and was actually leaning towards Ashlynn. Does the army work WELL? Or is it mostly just a hodgepodge of units that don't synergize well?

The first thing to know about playing Mercs is that you must select either a Contract or any Merc warcaster's Tier List. Here is a link to the MkII Contract info and Magnus' tier lists. It looks like it hasn't been updated in a while though, as it doesn't contain some of the newer mercs. Also, the other tier lists are found in the Merc book. In general, the Tier Lists are much more restrictive than the Contracts, so I would advise new players looking at Mercs to stick with the Contracts for now. Finally, jacks don't care about Contracts, but read their cards carefully! Some have restrictions on which warcaster can take them.

Bad_Sheep37 wrote:Hey guys, I am a long time Warhammer 40k player and I was looking to get into someone on the side. I Demo'd warmachine and it looks pretty sweet!

I have a pretty large interest in the Mercenaries mainly because their so gritty and full of steampunk goodness!!

Would you guys have any suggestions as to what pieces I should go for? I love the Mule model and i also love Drake Macbains model. Are they any good? Do the models work well together? I heard of the Mule spam before, but I'm not sure if i just want to sit back and shoot at everything.

Thanks for your time on answering my Noob questions.

I have played MacBain a few times and enjoyed him a lot. His spells are probably more useful for melee jacks, but they help ranged jacks too, (extra ARM and extra movement are pretty universal) and Mules are good period. They'll do just fine together. There are models called Jack Marshals that can control warjacks too, and some of them synergize really well with the Mule; probably better than MacBain himself. After you get a few games under your belt, I recommend looking into them, specifically Sam MacHorne and the Devil Dogs and Cygnar's Arcane Tempest Gun Mages with Officer Unit Attachment. The latter requires that you use the Highborn Covenant contract, though.

MacBain has some really good synergies with infantry, too, so try to fit in at least one unit and a handful of solos. His Countermeasure spell on a unit with Stealth will annoy your opponent greatly. (Stealth makes attacks on that unit from models more than 5" away automatically miss. Countermeasure makes enemy models within 5" of that unit unable to shoot at all. It's good stuff. )

Spellbound wrote:I would like to hear people's thoughts on this too. My wife is looking at starting either Retribution or Mercs, and was actually leaning towards Ashlynn. Does the army work WELL? Or is it mostly just a hodgepodge of units that don't synergize well?

Mercs in general aren't the most synergistic army out there. Most of the mercs in the Iron Kingdoms are specialists in some manner. They appreciate help when they get it, but are for the most part fairly self-sufficient. Example: The Devil Dogs do extra damage to knocked down models. They also have the option to knock down models in melee instead of doing damage. So the first guy knocks the enemy model down, and everybody else dog piles it. Also, Sam MacHorne can Jack Marshal a jack with a knock down attack like a Mule or Buccaneer.

If you look into the "sub-factions", you'll find more. Most of the Privateer solos provide a benefit of some type to nearby Privateer units. Steelheads are a little more complex than that, but have some potent synergies of their own.

Certain warcasters encourage the hodgepodge mentality, though. Ashlynn's feat is really good at getting critical hits for other models in your army, so you'll want to pack Mules, Hammerfall Forgeguard, and/or Arcane Tempest Gun Mages. Regular merc, Rhulic, and Cygnar models might look weird all in the same force, but I'll be damned if it's not effective. If you know what you're doing with Mercs, you can build a cohesive force, even if it isn't cohesive looking.

Welcome to Warmachine!

I've been a merc player for about 5 years, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

There's two big things to know about mercs: 1) A steep learning curve. They're usually the underdog at a fight, so you're going to have to play smarter and harder to do well. Winning is possible, but you'll have to earn it. 2) Mercs don't play well together. Contracts 'limit' what you can bring to a force, so you have to read up on those to make sure what you like in mercs can be fielded together. Plus, there's not a lot of Synergy in the army either, with a few exceptions. An army of specialists is a good summation.

There's also quite a few different "flavors" of mercenaries, from humans, to pirates, to dwarves. My first recommendation is to pick up the Merc book, and give it a good reading over to see what interests you. Pay close attention to the Contracts section, and who can be fielded with whom.

Mercs are a ton of fun, and have a lot of character, but usually bring a knife to a gun fight. But they know how to stab the hell out of people.

I'm a newbie, but I'll offer my ten cents.
I picked up a Rhulic (Dwarven) Merc Force, and I'm pretty happy with it. As you're aware, killer visual style.

The Gorten Battleforce (if you can find the box, or just assemble it individually) has simple game play, but is fairly potent. I think Gorten's stone wall spell (create a wall obstacle on the battlefield) and land slide (all opponent's models slide 8" toward one edge of the table) make for very interesting ground control opportunities.

Though the core units won't work for other groups, I found that I can supplement them with other units that will, Like the Devil Dogs. So I can field the Dogs with either my Merc or my Menoth Army.