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Hey, so I'm pretty much completely new to warmahordes but me and some friends have recently started playing the iron kingdoms RPG and are having a lot of fun with it. They are all looking to get into the wargame so I figured I'll look into it too.

I understand the basics of the game I guess but not any of the combos and finer points of list building.
All I know is I like the heavy jacks, like the one with the shield arms and horn in particular, and am rather uninterested in the basic infantry (men o war seem ok though).
Some advice on what casters and units work well with that in mind would be greatly appreciated.

Khador is not the faction to play if you want 'Jacks. It cannot possibly be overstated how poor Khador is at running 'Jacks, bottom of the barrel.

It doesn't (broadly) work on any level.

Man-o-Wars are kind of medicore.

Khador is 100% through-and-through about its foot infantry. There is no other way to play khador.

Everything you have said indicates you would be miserable as khador player.

No, there isn't any real viable way to play around this.
No, I'm not exaggerating.

The faction is an infantry swarm faction centered around their incredible small-based infantry options. The motherland's greatest resource is her people, and she uses it with great force.

You are better off not playing the game than getting into Khador for 'Jacks and Man-o-Wars. You will lose. You will feel like you wasted your money.

Period, End of story. No wiggle room whatsoever. These are hard facts about the faction.

As long as you're ok with only running 1-2 Warjacks at a time, Khador will be a good match. A typical Khador list will only use one jack, but with the advent of Andre Malakov two or more will probably become more common. Usually Khador is just must stronger running a lot of infantry.

That said, there are a few Khador casters that may run multiple jacks. Karchev, Butcher1, Harkevich, Vlad1 and Vlad3 have the tools to do it. Though they'll all pretty much do better with the points spent on infantry.

As for Men o War, they are pretty well maligned as being sub-par. However, Irusk2 has been known to be solid at helping them as well as the Iron Fang Kovnik.

Additionally, this thread on the big forums may interest you. http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?198206-KGB-Jack-Heavy-Khador

 Kovink_Lich wrote:
As long as you're ok with only running 1-2 Warjacks at a time, Khador will be a good match. A typical Khador list will only use one jack, but with the advent of Andre Malakov two or more will probably become more common. Usually Khador is just must stronger running a lot of infantry.

That said, there are a few Khador casters that may run multiple jacks. Karchev, Butcher1, Harkevich, Vlad1 and Vlad3 have the tools to do it. Though they'll all pretty much do better with the points spent on infantry.

As for Men o War, they are pretty well maligned as being sub-par. However, Irusk2 has been known to be solid at helping them as well as the Iron Fang Kovnik.

Additionally, this thread on the big forums may interest you. http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?198206-KGB-Jack-Heavy-Khador

Don't do this to the poor man, just don't. "Oh you can run 2 'Jacks at a stretch and it's kind of niche and sub-optimal" should be the translation here. Khador is the faction for the guy who wants to play a field of a dudes with moderate synergy bonuses, it's the core identity of the faction.

God, you may as well tell someone to who wants powerful casters to rip things up in melee to go with protectorate because Reznik has a feat that strips focus.

EDIT: In the game that exists now, what the OP wants does not work. Full stop. Warmachine/Hordes is a wonderful game but if the only thing that appeals is heavy-metal Khador, they are just better off not playing at all.

No two ways about it. Khador doesn't run jacks well at all.

Their jacks and their casters very greedy for Focus. Their spells also tend towards supporting infantry more than jacks, although they have some very nice single jack buff spells.


It reflects the fluff too. Khador can't afford to make very many jack cortices, so they put the few they do make in the toughest machines they can build.

The most warjacks I've ever seen work in Khador was a pVlad list with Vlad running Behemoth and a Man-o-war Kovnik marshalling a pair of Destroyers. Signs and Portants made the Destroyers pretty accurate.

OP, have you considered Skorne? They're basically what you're looking for in a faction. Heavy beasts like the Bronzeback are big slow(unbuffed) monstrosities that smash whatever is I front of them. And the Skorne cataphract units are equivalent to man-o-war units, but cataphract a are actually fairly good units that see plenty of table time.

Well that's disappointing.


I actually had some scorn models I was sent by accident but I dislike the look of them.
I was really hoping there would be a way to make an all jack list work and to do it with kahdor models.

Yup, Skorne plays like people wish Khador did.

Like Khador, their beasts have fairly slow base speed, but can be sped up insanely.


BRONZEBACK SMASH!!! is also much more fun than running a single jack in Khador.

The first time you kill an enemy heavy without spending any Fury you fall in love and never look back.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Well that's disappointing.


I actually had some scorn models I was sent by accident but I dislike the look of them.
I was really hoping there would be a way to make an all jack list work and to do it with kahdor models.

Not a snowballs chance in hell. Now a snowballs chance in super hell v3.0 now with turbo-devil, and double-size magma pools.

No faction does "all-warjacks" really. Hell even "all warbeasts" is a pretty big stretch, save maybe legion if you all exceptions for support solos.

If you're looking to do heavy lifting with 'Jacks and be running multiple (3-4+) 'Jacks while staying in a primary faction, Protectorate is the route you wanna go hands down.
If you're looking to do heavy lifting with big things in general, you can do that with just about anything in hordes as well.

Trying to play Khador 'Jack heavy is like playing to play your clean living room "Trash Bin and Raccoon Heavy" it can only end in tears, and maybe rabies.

Sounds like I should just be looking for a different game then. An army of beasts doesn't sound nearly as cool as an army of robots and even if it did I'm still not sold on the skorne models.

Khador players constantly try to chase the dream of running several jacks, but

1. they generally do this in conjunction with a more conventional list that will only have one jack (or two lists that only have one jack, maybe, if it's a three-list format)

and 2. it remains to some extent just a dream

The doom and gloom expressed in this thread is excessive. Khador can run multiple jacks with certain casters. They are often not the absolute strongest casters but they can do some fun and interesting things that are valuable. However, you must also be happy to run lists that have just a single jack as well, because those lists are so powerful and important too for covering your matchups.

And yes, "all-jacks" is not really a thing, because you need to give them focus to bring them to their full potential and you only have so much focus to go around. Lists with lots of beasts are more workable because there are ways (of varying effectiveness) to deal with the fury they generate.

I'd try Protectorate.

We do jack heavy quite well, we were the best till Convergence got released.

You'll typically run 3 jacks in a Protectorate list.

Fluffwise, they're also based on Khador designs and parts. They're big and bulky, just not quite as much as Khador.

Bastions, our equivalent of Man-o-wars, are also actually good.


Protectorate is also more flexible in list design overall than Khador, who is all about infantry. Protectorate does infantry, jacks, shooting, melee, and any mixture you want.

To try and reconcile this with what others are saying, because I know what they're getting at and why they're saying what they're saying: if you want to get into the faction just to run an army that's all jacks and that's all you want to do, don't do it. It's not strong and flexible enough to do that. If you're willing to accept the entire faction, that being a faction with some really great infantry and great infantry support casters that also has cool jacks that you'll probably only want one of, and some much less usual lists that run several (think 2-4) jacks that aren't quite as strong but are workable, then it's okay. Just it's really important you know what you're getting into, because if you jump into Khador wanting all jacks, all the time then you will be disappointed.

Maybe Convergence could be more your thing if you like the robits. They have this weird thing to pass focus around between their models as they spend it that lets them run more than usual, to my understanding.

Alrighty well... Anyone want to give me any ideas for skorne?I suppose I should at least look into it.

What are some of their cooler looking models?
What are their beefiest monsters?
What sort of things should one back them up with?

The game really works best as a combined arms approach. Some warcasters or warlocks can run an extra beast or jack, but overall you just won't be able to be very competitive without at least some infantry. The game is designed around having units, warjacks, solos and the warcaster.

And the great irony of the game is Warmachine is very much more about infantry hordes and Hordes is more about Beasts and fewer infantry.

They are all generalities, but the types of lists that are all beasts or warjacks are very much skew lists. And Skew lists usually aren't much fun to play with or against.

If you want warjacks look into Menoth or Cygnar. They have some options to run 2-3 jacks without too much problem. They are not always considered optimal lists, but you can get away with it a bit better.

To counter the extreme gloom on this Thread. YES, you can run 'jack heavy Khador. And Yes it can win. Can you run all 'jacks. sadly no.

Reasons why jack heavy Khdor is considered bad:
1. Speed: Khador 'jacks are slow. Very slow.
2. Lack of Focus.
3. Lack of Attacks

So you have to counter these factors.
1. Speed: Khador has plenty of casters that have spells and effects to boost the speed of a 'Jack. Right now I've been theorymachine-ing Harkevich. He has a spell that increases the speed of all his 'jacks. He also gives them pathfinder. There are also casters like the Sorscha's, and the Vlad's that have spells that boost speed, like boundless charge and others. Again this makes them faster so their threat range is longer. My favorite 'jack caster is actually Irusk 1 since he has Superiority and a lot of focus.

2. Lack of Focus: Honestly Khador jacks are Focus Hogs, and our casters tend to like the focus themselves. What has helped Khador out very recently is the release of the new Novice Warcaster Andrei Malakov. He can have a battle group of his own and runs a 'jack very well. Without costing you're caster any focus. Also the Merc Sylys Wishnylayr lets a caster upkeep a spell for free so it basically gives your caster another focus.

3. Lack of Attacks: The bane of most of our 'jacks are they get swarmed by infantry and then get stuck, killing a few at a time without contributing to the fight. Its really only Beast-09 with its thresher attack that mulches single wound infantry. So you have to use another unit to help them out. Fortunely we have the best anti-infantry unit in the game: The Winter Guard Deathstar.

Now this leads me up to my list I've been running in my local meta, and it has been working quite nicely.

Kommandant Irusk (*6pts)
* Beast-09 (11pts)
* Spriggan (10pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard (2pts)
* 2 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeers (2pts)
Kovnik Andrei Malakov (3pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)

Its a 50pt list, and it has 3 'Jacks. When I first started running it people looked at me like I was crazy, since I wasn't following the accepted Khador strategy of 1 'jack.

I eliminated the speed issue by having a caster that has a spell to speed up the 'jack and also by taking Malakov since his 'jack can be speed up also due to Redline.

The lack of Focus was handled by having a combination of: 7 Focus caster, Focus Efficient 'Jacks, Sylys up keeping spells, and Malakov running the Juggernaut. I can give the Spriggan, Beast-09 and the Juggy a full load out of 3 focus each, while still having Superiority, Redline and Iron Flesh up kept.

Finally the lack of attacks was handled by the Winter Guard and if needed the Great Bears. Also the Widowmakers help clear out the infantry that can hurt the hurt the jacks.

Now I'm not a Hugh level player, rather I'm a mid level player like the majority of people. However Jamie P, a high level p;layer in the UK is advocating a 'Jack heavy list as one of you're 3 in a masters format. So take what you will from that.

Hopes this helps jonolikespie. Also check out the Khador Fourms at the PP website. Its easier to find advise on Warmachine there then it is here. Also give that thread that Kovink_Lich linked a read through.

Andrei naturally gets brought up in any discussion about Khador jack-heavy lists now. My understanding is he's still not available other than for the kickstarter backers? I see a few of him on ebay and I'm sure some people have spares knocking around just because they got all the journeyman warcasters and don't play Khador.

Is that correct? Is he going to be available for general release any time soon?

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Andrei naturally gets brought up in any discussion about Khador jack-heavy lists now. My understanding is he's still not available other than for the kickstarter backers? I see a few of him on ebay and I'm sure some people have spares knocking around just because they got all the journeyman warcasters and don't play Khador.

Is that correct? Is he going to be available for general release any time soon?

He will be available for general release supposedly in July with the other Jr. Warcasters.

Thanks, that's good to know. It just seemed like newer players needing to use ebay or buy him from friends or acquaintances who backed the kickstarter could be a bit excessive.

To the OP, Khador can run a single jack very well. Karchev the Terrible is the only warcaster in Khador who can run a very warjack heavy (that being 3-4) list as he can solve one of our greatest downsides which is speed. Being a warcaster encased in the shell of a heavy warjack means a 25-35pt karchev list will effectively have at least 4 heavies in it and that is terrifying, but he loses his edge at higher points where your 4 or 5 jacks simply cannot clear out enough models and hold enough ground.

From what I have experienced, Convergence of Cyriss is the only warmachine faction that can really run a bunch of warjacks and still be effective. However, they have a very...different...style to their army, very different from khador. I made up some Forge Master lists that are about 90% warjacks with some support models and mechanics to keep them working a little longer.

Ok that's starting to sound a lot better, I'll look into 3 or so Jack's a little more.
Thanks guys.

 Grey Templar wrote:


The most warjacks I've ever seen work in Khador was a pVlad list with Vlad running Behemoth and a Man-o-war Kovnik marshalling a pair of Destroyers. Signs and Portants made the Destroyers pretty accurate.

No Drago? With Vlad, Drago practically runs himself with free charges/runs and his affinity.

If you're gonna go jack heavy with Khador you either need a skew list (pVlad theme comes to mind) or a caster that can handle a lot of them, such as Karchev or pButcher, but both of these are no exactly optimising their main strengths (esp. with the latter). Full Throttle is great and all but you probably want Butcher's focus going elsewhere.

Not sure whats up with all the doom and gloom in this thread, its not a GW post....

Khador has really shiny giant robots. The old saying of " You come for the jacks, and stay for the infantry" is definitely true. That doesn't mean you can't run jack heavy. It just means that it would be really hard to do.

There are tier lists that allow for it. Vlad1 and Beserkers, Karchev and his parade of metal, pButcher can pull it off. There are plenty of ways. Are they the most optimal? Probably not. But at the end of the day its about having fun and enjoying what you do. Don't yuck someone else's yum.

As to MOW being junk..... Have you ever ran into this?

Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed (*4pts)
* Spriggan (10pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Widowmaker Marksman (2pts)

This list is FAST, a stone cold nightmare to remove from the table, and can hold zones/objectives like a boss.

So what's the deal with the bezerkers? At a glance they seem like jacks that wouldn't need focus, leaving it for other jacks to use.

 jonolikespie wrote:
So what's the deal with the bezerkers? At a glance they seem like jacks that wouldn't need focus, leaving it for other jacks to use.

They're very fire and forget, as focus can make them blow up (though this has its uses when they're on their last legs, load them up with 3 focus and you've got a 50/50 chance they'll detonate), they're most at home with our jack marshals as they can charge and run for free.

Vlad1's tier list makes them ridiculously cheap at 5pts a pop and also can make them a little less pillowfisted (in my experience) with signs and portents up.

They're not the greatest jack, but they do seem to fulfil a role within Khador, remember what was said about us not being a jack faction? A good number of our casters have 6 warjack points. Fill those excess points you can't spend on infantry on a Berzerker.

Drago, OTOH is fething amazing. esp. with Vlad. Mainly due to a combination of his executioner axes and affinity combined with signs and portents. You're pretty much guaranteed a critical with each attack.

Not sure whats up with all the doom and gloom in this thread, its not a GW post....

It's not "Doom and Gloom".

"'Jack Heavy Khador doesn't work. Khador is an infantry faction" isn't doom and gloom, it's basic design philosphy for the faction. It's like telling somebody playing MTG that no, they probably aren't going to get very far trying to make a Red/Blue Wurm-Tribal Lifegain deck. It's like telling somebody playing WoW that their slick idea for playing a shaman as a tank, probably is probably not going to be very productive. Or, to bring it back into Warmachine/Hordes like saying they want to play Mercs "but not use any character models".

I mean sure maybe under specific, really narrow circumstance you can toture it to work sometimes but you're swimming against a very strong current here. Like the fact an extremely skilled and advanced player is saying "I can make this work as 1 of three lists, in a three list format to address very specific meta issues in the circuit" does not make Khador a satisfying faction for somebody who wants to play 'Jacks.

I mean seriously, 3x Man-o-War shock troopers? You're only ever going to use those in like that one list, that still has really big matchup problems. You're dropping well over $100 for a very, very, very narrow undertuned gimmick list.

The game is functional, Warmachine/Hordes is great, it works. Khador is just an infantry faction, that's how it is. It's not doom and gloom, that's like saying "Hordes tends to have casters with poor spell lists, so you need to play your beast base around animus support" is doom and gloom. It's not. Hordes casters generally have small, narrow spell lists. It's not bad its part of the games design.

Khador is probably the worst faction in the game for 'Jacks and like maybe 2nd worst for running medium-based infantry (among those that have it). There are ways to do these things in the game in a very viable fashion, just not with Khador.

I mean like fine whatever. You wanna encourage OP to drop a ton of their hard-earnd money on multiple units of Shocktroopers and non-character 'jacks, fine whatever. Give it 6 months and we'll have yet another disheartening Khador player either turning in for a new faction, quitting the game or breaking down and buying a bunch load of Iron Fangs.


EDIT: From a gameplay perspective "Warjacks as the backbone" does work, in Protectorate of Menoth. . It also works in Convergence of Cyriss though i wouldn't recommend them for a new player for many reasons. Cygnar can play something of a 'jack game to a lesser extent. Mercs, Cryx, Khador and Retribution are not where you want to be looking to get your fill of 'Jacks.

Not saying the posts are in accurate but they are extremely negative thus far. If I were a new player and received this kind of response, then I wouldn't go near the game with a ten foot pole.

 darefsky wrote:
Not sure whats up with all the doom and gloom in this thread, its not a GW post....

Khador has really shiny giant robots. The old saying of " You come for the jacks, and stay for the infantry" is definitely true. That doesn't mean you can't run jack heavy. It just means that it would be really hard to do.

There are tier lists that allow for it. Vlad1 and Beserkers, Karchev and his parade of metal, pButcher can pull it off. There are plenty of ways. Are they the most optimal? Probably not. But at the end of the day its about having fun and enjoying what you do. Don't yuck someone else's yum.

As to MOW being junk..... Have you ever ran into this?

Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed (*4pts)
* Spriggan (10pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Widowmaker Marksman (2pts)

This list is FAST, a stone cold nightmare to remove from the table, and can hold zones/objectives like a boss.

Well I did fight the "Heart of Darkness" tier list for butcher1. It was at 35 pts the guy had 3 units of those guys. Even with the spd bonus first turn I was able to lock him out of the zones with melee infantry that outpaced him. (Nihilators) The only stuff that managed to make in into the single zone in the center was quickly torn apart by my battlegroup. I think I won that on scenerio I believe.

Key thing that that guy learned that game is terrain, primarily rough terrain patches like forests are the bane of the man-o-war. on that map there was enough rouge patches that he has forced to funnel his units which made it very easy to tar pit him up. And your list has zero way of giving pathfinder to the core of your list, the Man-o-War. Key thing I see there is that the entire list will very quickly outpace the man-o-wars, leaving them struggling to keep up. Especially if don't manage to see past the noob trap that is shield wall. I say noob trap because I always want to face palm when I see bran new players shield wall top of 1. Seen it more than once.

KingKodo wrote:
Not saying the posts are in accurate but they are extremely negative thus far. If I were a new player and received this kind of response, then I wouldn't go near the game with a ten foot pole.

It is more than a little off putting but that thread linked earlier is great. I'm getting the impression that yes, it is an infantry faction, but outside of tournaments 3 or 4 jacks won't be auto losing either. Admittedly a lot of the combos and abilities being talked about are going strait over my head.

Something I saw the other night that looked cool was the caster jack, I don't have the rules in front of me but I believe he had a spell to give everyone +1 armour for each jack in base to base. I would think him directly behind 2 of the shield guys would be tough to assassinate.

Also whats wrong with shield wall? Are you just losing movement and don't want to do it until you're in position?

 jonolikespie wrote:

It is more than a little off putting but that thread linked earlier is great. I'm getting the impression that yes, it is an infantry faction, but outside of tournaments 3 or 4 jacks won't be auto losing either. Admittedly a lot of the combos and abilities being talked about are going strait over my head.

Something I saw the other night that looked cool was the caster jack, I don't have the rules in front of me but I believe he had a spell to give everyone +1 armour for each jack in base to base. I would think him directly behind 2 of the shield guys would be tough to assassinate.

You mean this guy link. He is cool, I think the spell you are referring to gives defense not armor. Khador doesn't have armor buffs at all as far as I am aware. Karchev is more the exception really though, most typical khador casters can't run the jacks like he can and still prefer infantry.