Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello everyone. I am a new player who absolutely loves Convergence, but most of their models don't come out for a while, and I'd rather not start my warmachine career with an army nobody knows how to play yet. So until people get them figured out I thought I'd pick something different. Grundback is just calling to me for some reason, it is probably his feat... but the fact that all the Dwarf stuff looks pretty cool helps too.

First off, right now I have the prime rulebook. What else do I need to run mercenaries? I know there's more stuff that goes into that faction, but I'm not sure about what they are.

Second, any suggestions for a smaller force involving Gorton? A couple things I know I want are Thor jack marshaling a couple of gunners, one heavy for Gorton (I really want a driller because it looks awesome and I really want to actually use an arm lock power attack at some point, but I'm not sure if it's a good option), and that one elf guy who upkeeps one of your spells for you since Gorton seems to have a short attention span, i.e. very low focus...

Other than that, what kinds of stuff do you recommend? I honestly haven't looked over the all the options he has, but I know I need some kind of infantry/solo support.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
P.S. I'd like to aim for about 15 points. I think that's traditionally the first "battle box plus" level of army, and I could always take some stuff out and play a battle box level game if I needed to.

Welcome to Warmachine and Mercenaries!

You've got Prime. Good. It's also a good idea to pick up the Forces of Warmachine: Mercenaries book because it has the rules for the contracts and all the Mercs that were available at that time, but it isn't necessary. The rules for the contracts can be found online and the rules for a mini are included with said mini. You don't need to buy any more books. You may need to do some research before purchasing anything new to make sure they all play nice together. This link should help. http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiMercTab

Gorten once had his own battle box. It was him, a Driller, and 3 Gunners. This would clock in at 8 points in Mk II. The box is no longer available, and I wouldn't recommend it anyway. I never use that many Gunners (or even Gunners + Blasters, for that matter) in a list. I prefer to use more heavies, but that might just be because Khador is my main. Gunners are decent enough for the points, but I wouldn't put them on Thor. They have Powerful Attack on their gun which requires a focus point to trigger. Thor can kind of mimic the effect by using Tune Up, but there are better things to use that on. While you're starting out, you might as well try it just to learn it, though.

The Driller is beloved my most Rhulic players. It's dirt cheap, fairly durable, and hits hard enough. The dream is to pull in an opposing warjack (or warcaster or some other really important model) with Gorten's feat, and have a Driller with Strength of Granite, Tune Up and 3 focus go to town on it.

Your list right now looks like:

Gorten +7
-Driller -6
-Gunner -3
-Gunner -3
Thor -2
Sylys -2

Total: 9 points.

You have two Gunners because they come 2 in a blister. And you can play around with who controls which warjacks (Driller should absolutely stay with Gorten, though). I threw in Sylys since you mentioned him, and yeah, he's a big help for Gorten.

This leaves you with 6 points. Gorten's best infantry buff is Solid Ground which prevents blast damage and knockdown in his control area. So anything high DEF and low ARM and/or with Tough is what works best with him. A min unit of Boomhowler's could be good. Or a full unit of Steelheads. Either would be a great screen for Gorten. Gun Mages are an option if you want to go with the Highborn Covenant contract. You could also take two 3 point selections. Herne and Jonne and one of the Eirysses. Nyss Hunters are probably the most popular choice, but they're too expensive to slide in here. Kayazy Assassins are another very popular unit (min unit leaves you 1 point under, max is 2 over). You might want to check them out in the future. This is where having the Merc book (or Merc card deck purchased in the War Room app) comes in handy.

So yeah. That's what I got.

Kayazy or Boomhowler's would be my recommendation as well. Don't forget to pick up Reinholdt if you go the Kayazy route, that extra hand cannon shot can be great.

Thanks for the great advice and points totals. I'm guessing that I'm not exactly making it easy for myself picking dwarfs for my first army though. At least I'll get better quicker (totally...).

I have heard amazing things about Boomhowlers, so I'll go with them. They give me some bodies to fill out the force and are probably good in a lot of different armies if I decide to branch out later. I'm not such big fans of the models but you can't deny they're effective and the idea of Dwarfs and Trolls fighting as battle brothers amuses me greatly.

Really sad that Sylyus (thanks for the name, I couldn't remember it for anything) doesn't work for Searforge. I'd love to have that extended deployment zone...apparently it's pretty much an entire extra turn of movement since dwarfs are so slow.

I'm trying to stay away from any of the main faction units (Kayazy or gun mages) since I kind of want Convergence to be my "main army" once they've been out for a bit and I learn how to play. Plus I just never liked Cygnar, although that might just be because I think all the other factions are more interesting.

Any other general advice? I wanted the gunners with Thor because it seems like Grundback really needs all the focus he can get. Plus I was doing a little bit of battlecollege reading and apparently being able to give the gunners Pronto really helps their mobility (my favorite suggestion was to use pronto, forfeit move action to aim, then shoot with the +2 bonus even though you moved).



Automatically Appended Next Post:
One more random question, doesn't the warcaster's jack points only apply to jacks in their battlegroup? Do the gunners count for that even though they walk on martialed by Thor?

If not then the list above would be 10 points since one of Grundback's points is "wasted".

 dementedwombat wrote:

Any other general advice? I wanted the gunners with Thor because it seems like Grundback really needs all the focus he can get. Plus I was doing a little bit of battlecollege reading and apparently being able to give the gunners Pronto really helps their mobility (my favorite suggestion was to use pronto, forfeit move action to aim, then shoot with the +2 bonus even though you moved).

One more random question, doesn't the warcaster's jack points only apply to jacks in their battlegroup? Do the gunners count for that even though they walk on martialed by Thor?

If not then the list above would be 10 points since one of Grundback's points is "wasted".

Actually, in low point games, the extra mobility from Pronto can help you line up a shot into your opponent's backfield or do a move-shoot-move kind of thing. It's not that putting a Gunner on Thor is a bad idea. It's just that, when you have more options, there will be better ideas.

Warjack points only apply to the battlegroup. That means you can only put one Gunner on Thor.

Nice! I'm really getting excited about this army and scheming all kinds of cool strategies for them (which is surprising since they were never supposed to be a primary). I suppose one gunner is really all you could ask Thor to run at max potential, and at the very least it gives an alternate threat axis for me to try and flank people with. And since a gunner only really needs one focus I can make myself feel better about putting it on my warcaster by justifying it as "that one focus Sylyus saves me per turn".

I have no idea if my list is actually good at 15 points, but I might be approaching this from too much of a Games Workshop "has to beat x-y-z internet lists" perspective. I'm guessing that you can't do much in the way of redundancy or "covering all the bases" at 15 points, and unless someone does something really cheesy like bring nothing except a warcaster and a colossal or something I should be fine.

Does anyone actually use the blaster? I can see a ridiculous combo involving the feat, stonewall, and a blaster that would make infantry very very sad. But I just can't see the blaster being used that often compared to everything else.

And of course PP is currently in the process of re-releasing a new set of boomhowlers, so they're not available on the internet stores. I swear the company is just messing with me by putting the models I want to buy on preorder.

Blasters are actually very very good. The spray template deals with things like concealment, cover, and stealth, which can be very difficult to deal with in any list, especially a dwarf themed list (although if you do highborn, you can take ATGMs + UA that ignore stealth). With powerful attack, the blaster is probably the most efficient warjack in the game. If you catch 3 models under the spray all attack rolls and dmg rolls get boosted so you effectively used 1 focus to get the effect of 6 focus. Spray attacks ignore shooting into melee as well so when your opponent tries to tie up your heavy infantry, you can slide the blaster down one flank and spray through their entire front line, potentially wiping out many many models...with 1 focus on a 3 pt model.

Personally, I run a max unit of forgeguard with Gorten. There might be better options, but they are really very good infantry. They hit very hard, have high armor without needing shieldwall (they tie shieldwalled iron fangs in ARM, except they dont need to shieldwall...). Their MAT is on the high side for 5/8pt infantry, they have a cool crit effect and ranked attacks. Downside? Well their DEF is bad like most dwarves, and their SPD is low, BUT they have reach which helps make up for that. On a charge, their threat range is just .5" less than your usualy speed 6 infantry. On top of that, you can use gorten's landslide to vacuum your enemy into charge range of your forgeguard as well as lowering their ability to counter attack them (-3 to RAT). His feat cures what the guard are bad at in a roundabout sort of way. Stick Rupert corvalo in there and you can buff DEF, grant tough, and pathfinder to your guards which makes them even more solid. I always run them in my dwarf merc lists, and they have never failed me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also - Heres a silly trick that I have used to annoy people. Have Gorten drop a wall template a little bit in front of your forgeguard, 1/4" - 1/2" should do it. Unless your opponent has reach, they cant engage your forgeguards since you cant end your movement on the wall. I have caught a few people doing that, not realizing they couldnt stop on top of the wall. Next turn, you drop the wall, the forgeguard smash the crap out of whatever was there, then put the wall back up to shield them from retaliation (it grants cover).

Blasters are ace. Certainly the best Rhulic jack at killing swaths of infantry for the points. These guys I don't mind marshalling with Thor. Pronto lines up the spray (maybe even allowing you to retain the aiming bonus), Tune Up boosts the attack rolls, and as long as you aren't shooting stuff with ARM higher than 15, you don't really need the damage boosts. If you catch a solo or UA or something, you can use the free jack marshall boost to boost damage on him.

At 15 points, it is impossible to "cover all the bases". You will run into a bad match up and you will lose. But don't let that discourage you. There are bad match ups for everything in this game, even at higher point levels. I just try to make sure I have an answer for swarms of infantry and hard targets when I make my lists.