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Hey guys I'm a super noob when it comes to war machine. I have no idea how to play the game, but I dig the look of the models. After doing some scoping and lurking, I've come up with a list. I like the models so I was wondering if it would be viable. I would eventually be a super competitive player if I liked the game enough to stick with it so I def don't want to invest in junk. Thanks for taking the time.


Warcasters
- Gorten Grundback
- Durgen Madhammer

Warjacks
- Wroughthammer Rockram
- Ghordson Driller
- Ghordson Driller
- (2) Grundback Gunners
- (2) Grundback Gunners
- (2) Grundback Blasters

Units
- (6) Horgenhold Forge Guard
- Herne & Jonne

Solos
- Thor Steinhammer
- Gudrun the wanderer

Most of the stuff there is pretty good I think (I'm not a Mercs player, so take that as you will). I wouldn't get the second driller just yet, but grab a Basher, which works well when marshaled to Thor Steinhammer. Thor can give the Basher some amazing opportunities for slams with his abilities.

Then, think about getting a few more Forgeguard (they can be taken in a unit of 10, and having 10 of them is a good idea). You might also think about grabbing General Ossrum as a third caster, he's very highly thought of.

The only other thing I'll mention is that going pure Searforge is not the best way to be competitive, they are not a full faction, they are a small part of a faction and by limiting yourself to them, you'll miss out on tools that might be useful to you. Yes, Rhulic dwarves can be good, but they can have a few problems being highly competitive on their own. Having options and variety can be a big factor, so if you want to be competitive, remember that you'll eventually need to get some of the more general mercs as well. Focusing on Searforge to start with though is perfectly fine.

Oh, and expect to lose a lot when learning the game - it's not your faction or choices, it's just the way you learn the game

And welcome to Warmachine!

Well... I would not recommend getting into mercs as your first faction. They are wonderful and fun and can be extremely competitive now that they have Galleon.

The reason I would steer you away to start is there are just a massive amount of options when it comes to mercs. You have to figure out what contract to run under, and how different units, solo's jacks, work for each (speaking of have you gone to the PP website and downloaded the contracts? Its free).

The really nice thing is that you can add mercs into your other factions to fill holes you need plugged. So you can still grab the models you love and have them on the table too.

Given the unit that you have, you may want to use Madhammer as Grundback tends to work better with the hammerfall.

 Bad_Sheep37 wrote:
Hey guys I'm a super noob when it comes to war machine. I have no idea how to play the game, but I dig the look of the models. After doing some scoping and lurking, I've come up with a list. I like the models so I was wondering if it would be viable. I would eventually be a super competitive player if I liked the game enough to stick with it so I def don't want to invest in junk. Thanks for taking the time.


Warcasters
- Gorten Grundback
- Durgen Madhammer

Warjacks
- Wroughthammer Rockram
- Ghordson Driller
- Ghordson Driller
- (2) Grundback Gunners
- (2) Grundback Gunners
- (2) Grundback Blasters

Units
- (6) Horgenhold Forge Guard
- Herne & Jonne

Solos
- Thor Steinhammer
- Gudrun the wanderer

alot of things i see new players do wrong is go into nothing else but the jacks, i was the same way, and now im warning you, dont go jack heavy ( unless the castors you have are made for that, im not familiar with them ) and put some infantry in there, because infantry ease up some of your focus use witch is vital in every game, you have to find a balance to where you can use jacks but not to much that you loose all your focus, but you can go 0 jacks and infantry only, but if you do that you probably wont have enough heavy hitting forces to break through his jacks/warbeasts

Actually, you can get away with a small swarm of gun bunnies a few different lists with rhulics. 3pt lights with ARM18 and decent guns makes it easy to take a few if them, and they rarely need more than one focus. I wouldn't get more than 4 or 6 of them to start with, but it's definitely a valid idea to take a bunch of them (and perhaps one or two on Thor, if you don't have a basher on him).

So after doing a ton of research. Do you guys think it would be decent to take like 6 gunners. Who should I run them with? Also toss in two drillers or two jacks with decent close combat potential and then fill points in with infantry. Wat do you guys think would work best?

Thanks

gunners should run in 3's at most unless you want to kill someone with 1-6 dmg points a shot .

So do you think like two squads of three? How about blasters? Would Thor do better with a gunner or blaster, or something with close combat potential?

 Bad_Sheep37 wrote:
So do you think like two squads of three? How about blasters? Would Thor do better with a gunner or blaster, or something with close combat potential?

Well, Searforge is pretty specific, and I don't want to lead you wrong, so I might suggest checking out the Privateer Press merc forums, who can give you better info. I can't say for sure how good going for a gun-bunny swarm is, but I can say that some people think it's pretty viable to take a large bunch, though generally you'll only find 2-3 in a list.

But, were it me (and I'm not a merc player, remember that), I'd try for 3 (maybe 2 gunners and a blaster) on a caster with a single heavy (driller or rockram maybe?) and thor with a blaster and a basher, then add in some infantry.

You only need 1 focus to max out gun bunnies, if you really want to just throw it up in the air run 5 on gorten. One focus each and hope for insane rolls. Heavy jacks pack a min of arm 17. So do the math or just roll 3 dice for each bunny and tick off another jacks boxes. Most people ignore the jacks with the bunnie army and go for a caster kill. Once the enemy gets tere it is usually over as you are running nothing but lights. Thor essentially gives you one free focus a turn with his marshaling you can add 2 bunnies on him to bring it up to seven and then add infantry and artillery. It is a fun list that is sure.

Going full on Dwarves isn't the best idea. You can hover make a mostly Dwarf army work, and it gives you access to some of the other Merc solos and units that can fill a gap.


And the way the game is normally played is only with a single Warcaster/Warlock. The rules actually disallow 2 until you play 100+ point games, which is pretty rare. Having 2 or more Warlocks really just gives you variety, which is awesome.

I'd actually look at getting General Ossrum. He's a pretty killer Warcaster.

So I'm getting ready to play my first game tomorrow. I know this is a total newb list, but this is what I'm going to try out for 35 points...

Gorten
-Gunner
-Gunner
-Gunner
-Gunner
-Gunner

Thor
-Driller

6x Horgenhold forge guard

I know I'm prob going to get crushed, but it looks fun enough .

Not bad for just trying stuff out, but as a newb I wouldn't recommend actually buying that extreme of a list. Wait till you have a good sized collection before you start taking extreme lists.

That said, it looks like a really fun list.

Thanks for the reply. Without really seeing how the game is played, this is the only list I can tactically understand. In other words, I have in mind a way I want everything to work etc. lol there are so many combos that I can't wrap my head around quite yet.

You'd be best served by getting a little of this and a little of that.


Try something like General Ossrum, a Gunner, a Blaster, and either a Driller or a Rockram as your initial battlegroup. Add a unit of Forgeguard or Shield Corps.

Play a few games with them and add units from there as you feel so inclined.

Warmachine doesn't really reward spam, its very much a combined arms sort of game.

The bunnies are cheap enough to run multiples but I wouldn't ever consider running more than 2-3 of the same type.

Alright man I looked at what you said and have it some thought. New list for today.

Gorten
Driller
Gunner
Gunner

Thor
Rockram

6x Horgenhold forge guard

 Bad_Sheep37 wrote:
Thanks for the reply. Without really seeing how the game is played, this is the only list I can tactically understand. In other words, I have in mind a way I want everything to work etc. lol there are so many combos that I can't wrap my head around quite yet.

Well, I'll let you know of one I have seen for the Rhulics, which seemed rather effective, which was Marshaling a Basher to Thor. The way it works is that Thor activates and uses "tune up" to buff the damage rolls of the Basher, before using his Pronto ability on the Basher, which would allow it to move up and "aim" for a Slam attack. The basher gets to slam for free, so it goes in, slams it's target, and slams it d6+2" hopefully over the top of another juicy target like the enemy caster. Now, it can follow up right up to whatever it was that was slammed, and can get another kick in (hitting automatically against knocked down targets) if it's still in range of Thor's jack-marshal bonus, before finally using Flack Field to add in some more damage, and maybe take out a few support models.

Keep in mind that gorten is a low focus warcaster, he cannot run all those jacks. In fact, I would not take him with more than 3 bunnies at the most for the simple fact that he has some very good spells and IMHO, his own ranged weapon is more potent than that of the gun bunnies. Due to this, I would rather leave a bunny out and keep the focus for himself. I have always had success running a big heavy with him, drillers get the most mileage out of his strength buff as well as rockrams and the basher (one of the better jacks IMHO).

I have always found that running a highborn list (or was it four star?) works best as almost everything rhulic can work for cygnar. Honestly, I do not see the point of the searforge contract, it limits your options too much and you can pick the same models with highborn (anything that can work for cygnar.

I have always felt that an avalancher works really well with thor. You can move the avalancher with pronto and still gain the aiming bonus, use the jack marshal to boost the atk roll, and tune up to boost all the damage rolls - it almost contends with a defender at range and is better than khador's destroyer in...basically every way.

Thanks guys for the replies. The list at the top of the post is all the models that I currently own. I ended up getting an insane deal and snatched it up. That's why I'm not running the basher Thor combo. I did see that, and I would absolutely love to run it. I'm just trying to find something effective with what I currently have until I decide to invest more into the game. With models listed, what do you guys feel would be the most effective and why. Once again thank you so much, I really appreciate the feedback. Jumping into a new game is tough and it's nice having the help that I have been receiving.

I will testify to the effectiveness of Thor's Basher. That thing has a crazy threat range.

I would say gorten with the rockram or one of the drillers plus a gunner/blaster under him. Thor is so good that he should probably be in every rhulic list, I think he is one of the best if not THE best jack marshal in the game. You can run whichever heavy that you didnt put with gorten under thor (rockram or driller). IMHO, its a waste to stick a gunner/blaster under him since a warcaster will accomplish the same boosting or better with a single focus point.

Forgeguard should probably be in almost all of your rhulic lists since its our only solid infantry unit - albeit a very solid unit - tough and hard hitting, just what we need. Herne and jonne are also a great duo to have, especially with the new rhulic warcaster. They are great against skirmishers that have low ARM and those soft support solos like menoth's choir.

I would recommend getting a basher next, followed up by an ogrun boker. After that, maybe look at general ossrum and start expanding into the other mercs available to the highborn covenant contract (there are tonnnnnnsss of them). Something that is awesome for highborn covenent is that you get to take a unit of arcane tempest gun mages (or longgunners, but I would prefer the gun mages). The ATGMs add a big bag of tools to your relatively simple rhulic force and adds a dynamic that people wont be expecting - high DEF. See, dwarves are slow and very high armor so people will tend not to take AOE against you since...it wont do much against your units. However, ATGMs are the opposite, having high DEF and low ARM makes them a real pain to hit especially since gorten can put a wall of cover right in front of them every turn - thats DEF 19 to range that people wont expect in a dwarf list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only change I would make to the second list you posted would be to switch out the gunners for the blasters. Looking at that list, you have plenty of hard hitting single target models - forgeguard, driller, rockram (that thing will demolish ANYTHING when run under gorten with his str buff). I think having the boosted sprays will give you a solid way to deal with enemies in cover, stealth, and groups of skirmishers and what not. IMHO, switch out at least one of the gunners for a blaster just so you can deal with those targets better. Besides that, looks great, besides needing a bokur that is.