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So I've been looking long and hard at Warmachine, and I love the aesthetics of all the factions, so choosing that way is right out. The biggest draw I find to the whole Iron Kingdoms setting is the crazy steampunk robots and the giant feral beasts. I really want to maximize any warjacks I put on the table, and use as many as possible. Obviously I'll need to use troops and solos from time to time, but they are the garnish to the meat that will be my giant automatons of death.

I've gotten a hold of the books, and it's fairly easy to see who the main 'jack casters are: Amon, Darius, Karchev, etc etc. I guess what isn't so easy to see on first glance is who else supports warjacks well, perhaps in more subtle ways. As I'd be looking to go big when I buy into Warmachine, I was wondering what faction has the most options for fielding 'jacks, taking into account Warcasters and Jack Marshalls?

The most? Cryx. They have no Jack Marshal at this time however but you can have a ton of bonejacks running around.

The best? Depends on your preference to Melee (Khador - Karchev / pVlad) or Shooting (Cygnar - p or eNemo).

Which faction has the most jack capable Warcasters then?

Each faction has at least 1 caster that likes jacks.

Each "jack caster" is capable, but they are all different.

Which faction do you like based on fluff/models?

All of them (excepting Retribution, at the moment) have at least one solid 'jack caster. Cygnar has Kraye, Khador has Karchev, Cryx has Mortenebra, and Menoth has Amon. All of them can run nearly all jacks very successfully.

Yeah, I get that they all have one warcaster has at least one solid warjack caster, but in a game of steampunk robots, surely there's more than one for each faction?

Actually, each faction has several 'Jack casters, or at least Casters who support Jacks as well as infantry. Cygnar has Nemo and Darius, Menoth has Reznek and the Harbinger runs Jacks well on account of 10 focus and spells that benefit Jacks and infantry equally. Actually finding Casters that off no support at all to Jacks is harder to do.

To Zond, it all depends on what you are looking for. Khador has the biggest, toughest, slowest Jacks around, with the Protectorate's a close second then Cygnar then Cryx. Cryx are the fastest and Khador the slowest though. Which faction interests you the most? Start with that and take it from there.

Well they all interest me, as I stated in my OP, so I was hoping to find out who had the most Warjack support, but it seems that's a dead end.

Yeah, any faction can support their Jacks, though there are some who do not like Jacks in each faction. Caine for Cygnar is one example, or pFeora for Menoth. They don't like Jacks very much, they like to keep their Focus and wreck face all by themselves. And certain casters work better with infantry. Most are pretty balanced between infantry and jacks.

Oh well thanks for the help. I was hoping at least one faction would be able to support the stompy monsters of doom with at least 4 or 5 warcasters, but it seems that isn't the case. Kind of disappointing as that was the main draw for me, but if that's how it works, it's how it works.

Thanks again.

Part of why the game is called Warmachine is because *most* warcasters in each faction can support warjacks to at least some extent. Each faction does have one or two *dedicated* warjack 'casters, but for the most part, a lot of warcasters are capable of running at least 1-2 warjacks well.

Warmachine as a whole doesn't really have a "flavor of the month" faction, where one faction will suddenly dominate all other factions. The game is fairly balanced as a whole, and that means that for what you're looking for, faction choice would come down to aesthetics more than anything. Pretty much everyone has answered your question to the best of their ability - sorry if you didn't really get the answer you were looking for.

Zond wrote:Oh well thanks for the help. I was hoping at least one faction would be able to support the stompy monsters of doom with at least 4 or 5 warcasters, but it seems that isn't the case. Kind of disappointing as that was the main draw for me, but if that's how it works, it's how it works.

Thanks again.

Are you asking if a faction can have multiple warcasters in a list and each with a couple of Jacks? Unfortunately you must think of a Wasrcaster as a single General running the battle and not an HQ choice. In games of 100 points you can field multiple Warcasters.

I wasn't looking for a flavour of the month faction, I was simply looking for a faction with more than 1 or 2 dedicated warjack casters in order to capitalise on what drew me to the Iron Kingdoms setting. As that is not the case, I'm either having to rethink or go elsewhere.

And no, I was not comparing Warcasters to HQ choices, I understand how they work, and have only played GW games a handful of times in my life.

Well you can always look at different ways of taking jacks. For example in the Protectorate you can take Amon, their Jack caster, and give him 3-4 light Jacks (he works best with lights) and add the Avatar (a self sufficient Jack powered by their god) and add in solos that support Jacks (such as the Vassal and Reclaimers) and you can run more Jacks that way. Cygnar has the Journeyman who can take his own battlegroup and several units can be jack marshals and take their own Jacks.

There are ways to get a very Jack heavy army even with a Caster who isn't dedicated to it.

For non-warcaster support, I would say protectorate has quite a few: the choir, vassals, and reclaimers, but they also don't have any jack marshals. -they may get a marshal in the future and if they do the rest of this post will be irrelevant, menoth would be ahead then.
khador, cygnar, and retribution have no shortage of jack marshals with a couple of good drives and each have at least one model with power booster. cygnar also has the journeyman but he really isn't much better than a marshal with power booster.
Cryx dose have a model with power booster and seem to be getting a marshal from spoilers over at bell of lost souls. They also have a couple of jacks that have high focus efficiency.
Mercenaries have several jack marshals with great drives who can bring their mercenary jacks with them when they hire themselves out to factions but, when played as a faction, that is really all they have other than a couple of casters with focus efficiency.
(drives can offer things like extra speed or a reroll, etc. and power booster just hands one focus to a jack)

I'm a Cygnar player, and I got into the game for the same reason you did - although, I was also interested the whole lightning/gunslinger feel that Cygnar has as well.

Now, let's see - for Cygnar, Kraye's definitely a great choice. He does something funky with your warjacks - they become light and heavy cavalry, and his spells reflect his ranger-esque background.

eNemo is another great Warjack caster, and most of his spells favor heavy warjacks - take Failsafe, for example. A warjack with Failsafe will ignore lost systems. Place that on a Hammerer, and your opponent will need to overkill it to prevent the damage it will do when in CC.

Darius is another good jack caster. Just be careful with him - his larger base makes him harder to hide.

I think pNemo is also a really good jack caster as well. Cygnar does not lack for Jack Marshals either.

The problem with Darius is he's not a good caster overall in Mk2. His feat is next to useless now since wrecking a Cygnar jack isn't that hard, he's a large base, and the half jacks aren't that good. From a competitive standpoint, he's arguably the weakest caster overall that Cygnar has.

12thRonin wrote:I think pNemo is also a really good jack caster as well. Cygnar does not lack for Jack Marshals either.

The problem with Darius is he's not a good caster overall in Mk2. His feat is next to useless now since wrecking a Cygnar jack isn't that hard, he's a large base, and the half jacks aren't that good. From a competitive standpoint, he's arguably the weakest caster overall that Cygnar has.

While that may be true having 4 ironclads with 2 more being marshaled by sword knights is a terrifying thing at 50 points.

I also like running lots of small jacks in a High Reclaimer list, but I don't think Cygnar can be beat for jacks n'support. Tons of jack marshals (some are cheap like the sword knights and some are busted awesome like the dude) plus we've got Jr. for a measly 3 pts with Cherry Kraye on top.

I don't know, maybe eNemo with like 6 Chargers or something...

RxGhost wrote:I also like running lots of small jacks in a High Reclaimer list, but I don't think Cygnar can be beat for jacks n'support. Tons of jack marshals (some are cheap like the sword knights and some are busted awesome like the dude) plus we've got Jr. for a measly 3 pts with Cherry Kraye on top.

I don't know, maybe eNemo with like 6 Chargers or something...

Hmmmmm...

General Adept Nemo
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Centurion
-Centurion
-Centurion
-Squire
Captain Arlen Strangeways

Plan: Run right at the enemy warcaster. Nemo puts Polarity Shield on front Centurion, other 2 take flanking positions. Cast Force Field to prevent AOEs. When you get 2+ chargers into position, pop feat and fire away.

infinite_array wrote:
Plan: Run right at the enemy warcaster. Nemo puts Polarity Shield on front Centurion, other 2 take flanking positions. Cast Force Field to prevent AOEs. When you get 2+ chargers into position, pop feat and fire away.

You mean crawl toward the enemy warcaster right? Centurions are slow jacks for Cygnar, and if you want to get the most out of eNemo your going to spend a turn putting his upkeep spells into play.

Casper wrote:

infinite_array wrote:
Plan: Run right at the enemy warcaster. Nemo puts Polarity Shield on front Centurion, other 2 take flanking positions. Cast Force Field to prevent AOEs. When you get 2+ chargers into position, pop feat and fire away.

You mean crawl toward the enemy warcaster right? Centurions are slow jacks for Cygnar, and if you want to get the most out of eNemo your going to spend a turn putting his upkeep spells into play.

Well, could use Arlan's Power booster, Nemo's Focus matrix, and the Squire to get some focus, then use Energizer to get those Centurions moving.

infinite_array wrote:

RxGhost wrote:I also like running lots of small jacks in a High Reclaimer list, but I don't think Cygnar can be beat for jacks n'support. Tons of jack marshals (some are cheap like the sword knights and some are busted awesome like the dude) plus we've got Jr. for a measly 3 pts with Cherry Kraye on top.

I don't know, maybe eNemo with like 6 Chargers or something...

Hmmmmm...

General Adept Nemo
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Centurion
-Centurion
-Centurion
-Squire
Captain Arlen Strangeways

Plan: Run right at the enemy warcaster. Nemo puts Polarity Shield on front Centurion, other 2 take flanking positions. Cast Force Field to prevent AOEs. When you get 2+ chargers into position, pop feat and fire away.

centurions have polarity shield built in, unless the enemy has somehow gotten behind you (in which case I'd be more worried about the caster taking the charge).

Requia wrote:

infinite_array wrote:

RxGhost wrote:I also like running lots of small jacks in a High Reclaimer list, but I don't think Cygnar can be beat for jacks n'support. Tons of jack marshals (some are cheap like the sword knights and some are busted awesome like the dude) plus we've got Jr. for a measly 3 pts with Cherry Kraye on top.

I don't know, maybe eNemo with like 6 Chargers or something...

Hmmmmm...

General Adept Nemo
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Charger
-Centurion
-Centurion
-Centurion
-Squire
Captain Arlen Strangeways

Plan: Run right at the enemy warcaster. Nemo puts Polarity Shield on front Centurion, other 2 take flanking positions. Cast Force Field to prevent AOEs. When you get 2+ chargers into position, pop feat and fire away.

centurions have polarity shield built in, unless the enemy has somehow gotten behind you (in which case I'd be more worried about the caster taking the charge).

Centurions have to make a Special Action to use Polarity Shield. Having it despite running/charging/making attacks can be worth a focus or two from Nemo.

Khador has Karchev, pButcher, and pVlad as all pretty much dedicated Jack casters, and eButcher I feel plays very well in this roll too. If Jacks are your think, Khador is the way to go in my experience. Plus our jacks are by far the coolest.

I wouldn't precisely call pVlad a dedicated jack caster. The only thing that really benefits 'Jacks more than anything else is his feat, and for the most part the guy holds onto his focus like a crack addict holds onto his last rock. Similarly, pButcher really likes his infantry, due to the higher volume of attacks you can get on feat turn.

Of course, that's not to say they can't run warjacks reasonably well. The problem is, so can most other warcasters in the game.

Zond wrote:I wasn't looking for a flavour of the month faction, I was simply looking for a faction with more than 1 or 2 dedicated warjack casters in order to capitalise on what drew me to the Iron Kingdoms setting. As that is not the case, I'm either having to rethink or go elsewhere.

And no, I was not comparing Warcasters to HQ choices, I understand how they work, and have only played GW games a handful of times in my life.

I think you are asking the wrong question, each faction can provide what you want them to do. Make your choice based upon playstyles and aesthetics and then come back and ask that question for a specific faction. It will make it immensely easier to answer your question that way.

Cygnar - Shooty, Loves lightning. The ranger of the Iron Kingdoms
Khador - Smashy, slow, heavily armored. The Tank.
Cyrx - Spell slinging, sneaky. The assassin / Wizard.
Menoth - Loves buffs and fire. Paladin / Cleric of the IK.

As I said, in my opening post, I enjoy the look and potential playstyle of all the factions. It's quite clear that the answer to the question I posed doesn't exist, otherwise everyone would have rattled off a list.

Honestly, thank you all for your answers, but at this stage Warmachine is not what I had hoped for in a game so I'll either move on or rethink my stance.

Zond wrote:As I said, in my opening post, I enjoy the look and potential playstyle of all the factions. It's quite clear that the answer to the question I posed doesn't exist, otherwise everyone would have rattled off a list.

Have you not been listening? The answer is: Cygnar.

RxGhost wrote:

Zond wrote:As I said, in my opening post, I enjoy the look and potential playstyle of all the factions. It's quite clear that the answer to the question I posed doesn't exist, otherwise everyone would have rattled off a list.

Have you not been listening? The answer is: Cygnar.

Yeah, I don't get it. It's as if we're all telling him something, but the OP just sticks his fingers in his ears and keeps nodding.

I think he's looking for the faction that will be the most OTT when it's mostly jacks, and that's the problem with the game - every faction can run jacks well. CYGNAR - I'll say it again, CYGNAR - has an abundance of 'Jack Marshalls - nearly every unit's officer can have an attached Warjack. We've got solo's who can run 'jacks. We've got jacks of every flavor. So, in case you didn't hear:

Cygnar, Cygnar, CYGNAR!