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Hey all, getting pulled toward Warmachine again. Was wondering how good a "Pure" Steelhead army is. Naturally 4Star Syndicate, and using all Solo's available. What would be a good 25 point list?

If you want a steelhead army, it doesnt matter if your 4star or highborne.

Id say highborne for Solo's to get advance Deploy.

For Steeleheads.

Start with Damiano, hes the best caster for them

Damiano
Rocinante

2x Units of Steelhead Halbs
Full Steelhead Heavy Cav
Steelhead Riflemen
Stannis

They are all good choices for a steelhead themed army.

If your Truely going pure steelhead.
Do Damiano's Teir and get 2x units of heavy cav when you go up in points.

30x Halbs, 10x heavy Cav + Riflemen can be a good thing.

just play Damiano's theme force if you want a pure steelhead army. Personally I think you lose a great deal of versatility not dipping intp support solos, but it won't selfdestruct or anything.

I wanted to do a primarily Steelhead force, using Gorman (My absolute favorite Solo) and Ragman (Who just looks too cool to pass up).

Also, what would Magnus be good with? The Renegade is my favorite 'Jack.

Also, I'm going to go ahead and change the topic;

Would it be better to go with Mercs, or Minions? I like the Farrow, as well.

 Slarg232 wrote:
I wanted to do a primarily Steelhead force, using Gorman (My absolute favorite Solo) and Ragman (Who just looks too cool to pass up).

Also, what would Magnus be good with? The Renegade is my favorite 'Jack.

Also, I'm going to go ahead and change the topic;

In the pre-Gargossal days I would have recommended the theme force for Steelheads, now, I'd rather have access to Aiyanna and Holt, Gorman, and the other tech for putting down things. Damiano in 4* still supports Steelheads just as well though, and gives you access to the Solos.

Magnus can also use the Steelheads, and does pretty well with them. He doesn't have much in the way of spell support, other than snipe for the Riflemen, but usually they're not going to fit if I'm already taking my usual battlegroup with him (Melee Heavy, 2 Renegades), Support Solos, plus the Halbs and Cav.

I'll probably just go with 4*. The Tier list seems powerful, but the solos like Meg, Gurmon, Ragman, they all seem way to powerful to pass up.

I checked out Damiano, and he's definitely going to be my Caster. Is Rochinante truly worth being with him?

Rocianante is worth it with quite a few casters, Damiano included. I've had success with Ashlynn and bard with him and I imagine both versions of magnus would put him to work as well.

I would Avoid Meg, she is kind of sub par as you will likely have just 1 Warjack.

Gorman is very good.

I would say get the Piper, best solo for a steelhead army. Pathfinder.. Tough.. Fearless.. All very good things to have.

So a quick rundown of solo's id suggest

Auto Include - Piper (imo at least with steelheads)

Gorman
EEyriss - Disrupt enemy jacks and remove upkeeps.
Ragman - He can be good, but issue I have with him is its hard to get him in range at times.


Other-
Here are some non Steelhead units just for some info that can be good with Damiano.

Boomhowlers - Tough line unit that can be 4+ Tough and have immune KD on them.

Nyss Hunters - High defense, good range and a good snipe target, + They are Weapon masters in melee to benefit from his +3str on feat.


With Choosing a contract, they all work, 4star and highborne are both good, and you can play either or whenever you want.

Also to note: When/if you take mercs to a tourney, you can take 1 List Highborne, another list as 4star, they don't all have to be the same Contract.

Highborne you have the opton of ATGM + UA that have very nice range and *Magical Weapons* This is why I take highborne, as I run against armies with Incorporal models that I normally couldn't hurt.
Also you get option of Gallant as a Warjack if you wanted Def 13 Jack + his Def boost spell makes a hard to hit jack at times.

All in all, its preference. Damiano Makes everything better.

Warmachine and Hordes is 95% player, 4% army, 1% dice.

Before asking "...are Steelheads any good?" I would counter with "are you a good player?"

The best player in the world can take a crap list and win. The worst player in the world can't win with the best list.

 Tamwulf wrote:
The best player in the world can take a crap list and win. The worst player in the world can't win with the best list.

This just isn't the case. There are terrible list choices you can make that would cripple even the beast player. They might still win against a new player but they'll have no chance in a competitive event. There's a reason certain casters dominate the top spots at the major tournaments like how eHaley and Gaspy2 were the top armies in the Lock & Load tournament that just finished.

Good players know how to build good lists and new players often don't understand the potential synergies well enough to build a good list. Heck, sometimes they don't even understand the right amount of jacks to take for a given caster or the right number of warbeasts for a given warlock.