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I'm a new player with the Menoth side of the two player battle box, a Choir box, and an Exemplar Errants box.

So that's
Warcaster High Exemplar Kreoss
Crusader Heavy Warjack
Vanquisher Heavy Warjack
Repenter Light Warjack
Exemplar Cinerators Unit (5 models)
Choir of Menoth (6 models)
Exemplar Errants (10 models)

Would you consider this a good starting army?
Am I right in my calculations that this is 32pts which is below standard for a 35 pt game?
Will being that 3 points under be a problem?
If I needed to add anything to get me up to 35, what's a good choice? I was staring at racks or a Knights Exemplar Seneschal

Thanks all!

Your points count seems correct to me.

Being 3 points under isn't an issue for casual games. Tournament rules frequently stipulate you can't be more than 2 points below the list minimum. However if you have Errants, the Cinerators are really kind of silly-heads without much to do.

With Errants you *REALLY* want their unit attachment. The officer and flag bearer as they give them pathfinder (rare in menoth!) and purity (no enemy spells!) which are huge deals and with Kreoss "Defender's Ward" spell on them makes them a huge pain for enemy to deal with.

You also really want at least 1 "Vassal of Menoth" as he allows you to pretty much double the rate of fire on the vanquisher. 2x AOE 4 Cont Fire templates per turn just scoops models of the table.

For now I'd drop the choir to a minimum unit (this leaves you with 4 points free) take the Errant UA and a Vassal of Menoth.

This will get you at 35pts for now. Later on you'll probably want something to replace Cinerators and maybe consider an upgrade for the Crusader. It's slow and really only likes being with eFeora or Harbinger in my experience.

EDIT: The list would look like this

High Exemplar Kreoss
*Crusader
*Vanquisher
*Repenter
Minimum Size Choir of Menoth (Leader & 3 Grunts)
Maximum Size Bastions (Leader & 4 Grunts)
Maximum Size Knights Errant (Leader & 9 Grunts)
*Knights Errant Officer & Standard Bearer
Vassal of Menoth

This is a decent 35pt platform. The Cinerators really are sub-optimal, and the Crusader would be happier with different casters. This will defiantly give you a feel for the faction and win you a few games against players of roughly equal experience levels.

So, when I got the Errants, I was hoping to run them as a shooty unit. Is that a bad idea? Cinerators on the front line, Errants shooting from behind?
I'm very new to this, so I'm expecting tons of mistakes.

 matphat wrote:
So, when I got the Errants, I was hoping to run them as a shooty unit. Is that a bad idea? Cinerators on the front line, Errants shooting from behind?
I'm very new to this, so I'm expecting tons of mistakes.

In general errants are decent at shooting, but it's a secondary function. They're Advanced Deploy meaning you can start them 6" further up the field than normal units, and they also have pathfinder meaning they ignore rough terrain. This means they're able to get up in the opponent's grill much faster than a lot of elements in the faction. This buys you time to manuever your other slow elements in a good position. In addition with Defender's Ward on them they have great defensive states. Their Swords are Weapon Master which puts them at 3d6 damage dice or 4d6 on the charge this enough to destroy any infantry, wreck light 'Jacks and damage heavies. Their crossbows are decidedly average.

The crossbows are a great way to tag units you can't reach with your melee attacks, take out models that need magic weapons or just hold back for some reason if you need to. keep in mind the last situation "Hold back when you need to" is harder for a new player to judge and you're better off going in with the mindset that favors attacking. It's not always the right call but it's the right call more of the time and more likely to get you the results when you don't know how to make the call yet. They're also blessed so good for when you need to get around some buff that would make it hard to hit with your swords. It has uses but isn't the first choice.

The cinnies are also sloooooooow (SPD 4!) If you put the errants behind them you'll never deliver anything to the enemy, and lose a ton of the initiative boost they can buy you.


A good first turn play would be to start the Errants up as far as you can get them, with the standard bearer hanging back just enough to be in CMD range of the officer (thus getting you the purity bonus) cast defender's ward on them by targetting the leader and then just running the whole shebang up field as far as you can. If you don't get charged next turn, charge them. Otherwise hit them with your point pieces of metal.

Also Errants /w the UA loves Kreoss feat. It knocks everyone down, so they auto-hit wit their swords. Then when they kill something they get to make a free crossbow attack if they're aren't still engaged by something and since knocked down models don't engage... well you get the picture.

 matphat wrote:
So, when I got the Errants, I was hoping to run them as a shooty unit. Is that a bad idea? Cinerators on the front line, Errants shooting from behind?
I'm very new to this, so I'm expecting tons of mistakes.

Errants are both a shooty and a melee unit, running them exclusivly as one or the other is a waste.

With the UA they do gain Quick Work. Which allows them to shoot their crossbows if they kill an opponent in melee(and are not engaged)

They are PoW9 weapon masters, which on the charge will even be able to put sizable dents in Warjacks. On the charge, each Errant will do an average of 4 points of damage to your typical Arm19 warjack. And they easily kill infantry of all kinds.

I'll second getting the Errant Officer and Standard and a Vassal of Menoth - they're great buys, and definitely worth it, and that would bring you up to a reasonable 35 point force.

That said, if you haven't actually had a game before, I would really suggest just trying a few 15pt games for a while - Your jacks and a min Choir only, just to get a feel for how the game plays. Get used to using your battle group firstly, and then bring in the infantry once you have it down pat.

I've played about a dozen games at this point. Really looking to expand.