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I'm quickly growing tired of the "Who can bring more heldrakes" mentality of my local meta, so I'm checking into Warmachine. I really like the look of the Cryx army, and I was wondering what the strengths and weaknesses of the Cryx are. I like the concept of the Warjacks, and I really want them to feature heavy in my army. Will the Cryx work well with that mentality?

Cryx seems to be able to run a significant amount of jacks pretty well, although I usually see them running several lights and maybe one or two really good heavies depending on the warcaster. If you compare stats and abilities to my primary faction (Khador) cryx heavy jacks are effectively polar opposites - they have good SPD, high DEF for a heavy. They generally have good MAT as well and they can hit very hard when they need to. However, their trade off is that they have a smaller damage grid (that is, less hit points) and they have similarly lower ARM so they really cannot take hits back that well. Their high DEF score will have enemy heavies boosting to hit more often which means they will have less focus to buy more attacks or more damage dice so it is a solid trade off.

They have some extremely good infantry choices and their warcaster are very strong in the spell department - specifically in casting debuff type spells on their opponents rather than buff spells on their allies (although they have many of those as well). Mechanithralls are their most basic infantry choice. They are also the cheapest infantry in the game but at the same they can hit very hard for being so cheap. They get weapon attachments called brute thralls are (in my opinion) too good. They are dirt cheap, they are very hard to kill for their point cost (8 health for a 1pt model? nobody else has that) and they can hit as hard as a heavy warjack - again show me a 1pt model than can hit THAT hard.

The big picture I see with Cryx is that they have a very unorthodox play style - they have roundabout and tricky ways of getting things done and when their tactics are executed very well, they will crush their enemies very very effectively, if something is not executed well or your opponent counters your strategy effectively, you will be screwed. The faction seems to give you very little breathing room in this regard. Compare that to a faction like Khador where if you mess something up, you may lose some models but usually not the game depending on point size of the battle.

Cryx generally doesn't run high amounts of jacks (cornercase: mortenebra). Our infantry really outshine the jacks in most cases. Not to say that our jacks are anything to sneeze at, as explained above.

Very glass cannon, but you'll normally be swarming your enemy with lots of disposable units.

Menoth runs jacks much, MUCH better.

As noted, save Mortenebra, Cryx doesn't support a whole lot of heavy warjacks. What warjacks are taken tend to be utility bonejacks (the smaller ones) in decent amounts. Exceptions exist primarily in characters like the Deathjack (a character beater) and in my observation, the "crabjack" chassis (the ones that have a spider leg look). Cryx infantry has an advantage of being able to hit really damned hard, and generally a bit more survivable, so list builds tend towards effective heavies, numerous lights, and a (for Warmachine) respectable amount of infantry.

Exceptions exist, mind. Warwitch Denegrah can kind of run whatever the hell she feels like. Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast does pretty good at a moderate amount of warjacks. Master Necrotech Mortenebra often runs nothing but warjacks. Numbers fluxuate a bit for other warcasters but you can expect maybe as few as one bonejack to as many as four warjacks total for other warcasters I think.

Cryx is very much defined by singularly powerful warcasters, an attrition game with recursive undead troops, and a good amount of powerhouse jamming stuff. They run very oddly comapred to other Factions too, and with debuffing have a bit of a "I'm making you suck and suffer" factor to them that does require a bit of a killing instinct I think compared to toher Factions at times.

And stuff.

Cryx has arguably some of the best infantry in the game. The Staxis Raiders are amazingly fast and can be imune to blast damage (which is how a lot of factions deal with infantry).

Bane Knights, and Bane Thrawls give people fits, Especialy when running with Tarterous (and lets face it you will run them with him.

Cryx has bone chicken Jacks (cheap little arcnodes) that are great for getting your spells down range where they are needed and provide great cover after they die for your caster to get upfield and be somewhat safe in.

Sort of. Cryx can make a decent play of it with Warjacks, but typically infantry-centric plays are much better, as Cryx infantry is amazing and their casters are greedy.

You can get decent performance out of it in friendly games if you outplay your opponent, but it's far from the best faction to for 'Jacks.

I mean it isn't Khador in it's staggering inability to field a real selection of 'Jacks, but they're not great at it.

I find it funny how the one faction that can actually play jack centric in anything other than corner cases (Menoth) is never the one that people want to play when they're just starting out and want to play a lot of jacks.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I find it funny how the one faction that can actually play jack centric in anything other than corner cases (Menoth) is never the one that people want to play when they're just starting out and want to play a lot of jacks.

Convergence can do it now as well. Cygnar can get better than average mileage out of their 'Jacks, thanks to the having an amazing an 'Jack Marshal on top of a few solid 'Jack Casters and a 2nd battle group built in.

Apart Mortenebra, you could also try the Witch Coven (high focus, cast upkeeps on multiple jacks), also their NQ tier list looks dedicated to run jacks.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I find it funny how the one faction that can actually play jack centric in anything other than corner cases (Menoth) is never the one that people want to play when they're just starting out and want to play a lot of jacks.

I think the issue is that people in 40k are not used to limited resources so the concept of having one or two jacks running full bore all the time and having a ton of jacks that run well with 1 focus or so is lost a little

 dementedwombat wrote:
I find it funny how the one faction that can actually play jack centric in anything other than corner cases (Menoth) is never the one that people want to play when they're just starting out and want to play a lot of jacks.

I looked at the aesthetics of the armies and I liked Cryx the best, with Khador being a second. But to my understanding Khador jacks are crap.

I also like the idea of a witch coven. Where do you get models for this game? My flags only has a few and the privateer press Websters only has battle boxes.

 jetstumpy wrote:
Where do you get models for this game? My flags only has a few and the privateer press Websters only has battle boxes.

I mainly get them online (Wayland, Troll Trader, Ludik Bazar are all in Europe). If you're across the pond I can suggest Discount Games or Lotus Vault.

 jetstumpy wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
I find it funny how the one faction that can actually play jack centric in anything other than corner cases (Menoth) is never the one that people want to play when they're just starting out and want to play a lot of jacks.

I looked at the aesthetics of the armies and I liked Cryx the best, with Khador being a second. But to my understanding Khador jacks are crap.

I also like the idea of a witch coven. Where do you get models for this game? My flags only has a few and the privateer press Websters only has battle boxes.

thewarstore and discountgamesinc are good starts

khador nor cryx jacks are "crap" WM is not a game of just taking good models like 40k is, its all about synergy between those models
Both cryx and khador jacks can kick ass, but require a lot of resources, while a "jack spam" army, usually has weaker jacks that need to be allocated less focus/upkeeps/ect. so they are more effecient, but not "better"

Khador jacks are awesome. It's just most Khador casters don't like more than one. Only 2 run jacks and a third only runs gun-jacks.

 Grundz wrote:

 jetstumpy wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
I find it funny how the one faction that can actually play jack centric in anything other than corner cases (Menoth) is never the one that people want to play when they're just starting out and want to play a lot of jacks.

I looked at the aesthetics of the armies and I liked Cryx the best, with Khador being a second. But to my understanding Khador jacks are crap.

I also like the idea of a witch coven. Where do you get models for this game? My flags only has a few and the privateer press Websters only has battle boxes.

thewarstore and discountgamesinc are good starts

khador nor cryx jacks are "crap" WM is not a game of just taking good models like 40k is, its all about synergy between those models
Both cryx and khador jacks can kick ass, but require a lot of resources, while a "jack spam" army, usually has weaker jacks that need to be allocated less focus/upkeeps/ect. so they are more effecient, but not "better"

See I don't know what is good or not yet. I still haven't gotten my rulebook in the mail yet. But I guess a jack spam isn't really what I want, only to feature some jacks in the army.

 jetstumpy wrote:

See I don't know what is good or not yet. I still haven't gotten my rulebook in the mail yet. But I guess a jack spam isn't really what I want, only to feature some jacks in the army.

Yep thats pretty much anybody then, there's virtually no caster in the game that doesn't want 1-2 jacks so you're good.

Also to note: for warmachine you dont really have to build out your models for individual armies, in 40k you might want mech marines, but to change to something terminatory you need to spend a zillion dollars.
in warmachine, just switching out a caster can cause a lot of your list to play differently, every caster has a few optimal solo's or squads you probably want but its all pretty forgiving unless you are going to a big bad tourney. For example with everblight, between three or four casters my list changes by replacing a few beats (who are magnetized to all their options) with others that synergize slightly better with the caster, but these lists play VERY differently

battlecollege is a great place to get an idea of what you want or how some casters will play, but its not religion, just dont go crazy taking choices that don't have any synergy and you'll be fine for a while.
I really like the witch coven , well , the idea of it, but have never played with or against it

Ah well, I'm a new player who's trying to run Gorten Grundback as my first caster...so I really shouldn't be complaining about anybody's "strange choices starting out".

Also, 3 jacks in 15 points, and he can actually run them all well! Gunners only need one focus each, and Thor can babysit one (and only one) better than a warcaster can.


And for places to buy, I would also recommend discount games inc. Their prices are about as low as they come, but (at least for me over here in China, it might just be my internet providers not the site) their store is a little janky and their search function doesn't actually work. The owner also does my new favorite warmachine podcast, and I just recently discovered their store is based in my home state, so that just seals the deal for me.

I'm relatively new so I'm running a winter guard army with a soviet WWII theme. Lots of infantry with Jacks as support role

 Adam LongWalker wrote:
I'm relatively new so I'm running a winter guard army with a soviet WWII theme. Lots of infantry with Jacks as support role

As I can gather that's not a bad way to go with Khador.

It should be noted that the upcoming character solo Andrei Malokov will help a bit with the focus-hungry warcasters, mainly in that he's a little warcaster himself. While a tad fragile, his being around unloads some of the strain on resources fo the Faction. He'll be a nice addition when he hits.

And stuff.

jetstumpy wrote:

I looked at the aesthetics of the armies and I liked Cryx the best, with Khador being a second. But to my understanding Khador jacks are crap.

your understanding is wrong. Khador jacks are as good as any other factions. they smash face and can take a beating. with the right support from spells and feats- boundless charge, redline, superiority, infernal machine, full throttle etc, khador jacks become downright mean. the issue stems from people seeing this game as being only about jacks, and therefore, only wanting to run jacks. and its not. and it never has been the case. khador, like many other factions run a handful of top line jacks extremely well, in conjuction with a solid backbone of infantry.

jetstumpy wrote:
See I don't know what is good or not yet. I still haven't gotten my rulebook in the mail yet. But I guess a jack spam isn't really what I want, only to feature some jacks in the army.

Sounds par for the course really.

Adam LongWalker wrote:I'm relatively new so I'm running a winter guard army with a soviet WWII theme. Lots of infantry with Jacks as support role

Seems like khador to me!

IMHO the best part of the game is that you can run a faction in so very many different ways.

Just in Khador you can run a red tide (ala soviet russia), You can run a super fast assassination list with Strakov or pButcher, You can run a decent gunline. It all depends on the caster and the units you feel like taking.

Heck my next list is gonna be all Cavalry (when I can buy, assemble and paint all the models) something like this.

Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey (*5pts)
* Drago (7pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Greylord Outriders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Iron Fang Uhlans (Leader and 4 Grunts) (11pts)
Iron Fang Uhlans (Leader and 4 Grunts) (11pts)
Fenris (5pts)
Kovnik Markov (4pts)
Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount) (5pts)

As a reformed WH40K, one of the things that drew me to Warmachine was that I could completely change the army based on the Warcaster.

The long and short of it being, I could choose an army on aesthetic value, then find which Warcaster worked for what I wanted do.

Also, expense wise, you can usually afford to field more than one, should you really want something different. Or a different aesthetic.

You can change everything with Mercs too.

It's versatile, reasonably balanced (especially held up next to 40k) and, for the most part, less expensive.

Just my two cents.

Malakov, the upcoming journeyman warcaster in Warmachine: Vengeance, will enable Khador to run more warjacks than before.

Depends on how much you want to use Redline. With that spell he only has 2 Focus to hand out. But one more jack for Khador is a big increase.

Redline is an upkeep. He can fill a warjack up and it can charge for free still too.

And stuff.

So it is. Must have muddled it with something else.

Behemoth could be pretty nasty with him running it. Charge for free, beat the crap out of something, and shoot other stuff. All with no focus input from the Caster.

 Grey Templar wrote:
So it is. Must have muddled it with something else.

Behemoth could be pretty nasty with him running it. Charge for free, beat the crap out of something, and shoot other stuff. All with no focus input from the Caster.

The drawback is that his defensive stats are not particularly great while only having 5 hit boxes. If you can scalpel him out, there goes that very expensive character 'Jack.

 ChaoticMind wrote:
Khador jacks are awesome. It's just most Khador casters don't like more than one. Only 2 run jacks and a third only runs gun-jacks.

I don't even know where to start with this statement. You can run 2 quite happily, I really hate the Khador forums for the whole "1 jack to rule them all" mentality. The 3rd you say only runs gun jacks must be harkevich who in actual fact runs melee jacks quite well (esort being a great boost to khadoran mobility, that said he'll have 4 or so focus to hand out) a berzerker can be used as well to tie up an opponents heavy , but that's just me I like zerkers.

I've been playing cryx for the last couple years-- have about 120 points. I find there's pretty much no style that I can't make work with Cryx. I've even done non-Mortenebra jack-heavy and found with a couple warwitch sirens, focus dependancy is helped a lot. That said, I'd recommend to most people to do the "one heavy and two lights" thing to start with Cryx.

Cryx also can make one of the best troll attrition armies in the game. Bloodgorgers & Slaughterborn backed up by Boomhowler & Co. from the mercs. Or rather, Boomhowler & Co leading the advance with their 4+ tough roll. Add in a caster that doesn't care about "friendly faction" and you're good to go. I like pDeneghra and pAsphyxious as they have armour debuffs. Though eDeneghra is also growing on me for taking this list into a scenario game.