First of all, welcome to the Machine!
Warmachine is nowhere near Inquisitor in terms of the details. Inquisitor is more of an
RPG than a minis game. There is still a handful of things to keep track of during a game such as feats, spell effects, orders, etc. There are also damage tracks on a number of models, but only jacks (and beasts in Hordes) play any differently due to damage suffered. Nothing takes place in between games unless you're playing a campaign.
Since you are just starting out with Warmachine, I recommend playing Boxed Set battles until you get the hang of how jacks and casters use Focus. Making the right decisions with your Focus is the hardest part of the game but also the most crucial. Once you get used to how Focus works, you can add units and solos. Since you don't plan on picking up the Khador Boxed Set, you can just make a 300-ish point army using whatever warcasters and jacks you care to pick up.
As for your warcasters, you picked 3 that I am not very good with. But I shall persevere.
First, I will reference you to the
Battle College. Lots of good advice there.
The Old Witch is one of the sneakiest warcasters in the game. She loves hanging out in terrain (see Prowl) and can teleport either herself or her Scrapjack via Unseen Path. She is the only Khador caster that can channel spells, but she really doesn't have any devastating spells to cast. She makes her army navigate terrain easier (Weald Secrets) and lets her warjacks ignore a whole bunch of special rules when drawing
LOS (Augury). Her feat is a powerful denial tool and can be centered on the Scrapjack, keeping Old Witch safe in the back lines. Using her spell Slaughter, she or the Scrapjack can go on a tear and kill a whole bunch of infantry models if they're packed tightly enough. Murder of Crows is more often used to block enemy
LOS than for the effects in the spell description. Against non-fearless opponents, she can cause multiple
CMD checks to try to make them flee (Murder of Crows, Terror, Trepidation).
For warjacks, she likes shooty jacks (Behemoth, Destroyer) because they benefit from Augury the most. Since you'll be running through terrain a lot, the Kodiak is a nice choice because it has All-Terrain, but you could just take any melee jack and slap Weald Secrets on it for terrain navigation.
Most Khador casters have a way of getting ridiculously high
DEF or
ARM or some other personal defensive measure (like the Old Witch's Prowl). Most Khador casters also have a way to beat face like it's their job. Zerkova does not have either capability. However, what she does have is excellent denial and solo sniping abilities. Her spell list looks decent but not spectacular, but her Arcane Artifacts dramatically increase their utility. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the spells, though, because a lot of them are changing in MkII.
Watcher, however, pretty much stays the same and heavily influences Zerkova's warjack selection. Read the spell description. Okay. The Destroyer is a good pick because Watcher lets you make a ranged attack if you want and the gun overcomes the jack's naturally low
SPD. It also make a decent choice because, if the jack (any jack) is protecting Zerkova, it's not going to be in the front line. The Destroyer has a gun and can contribute from the back lines. However, Beast-09 is actually a better pick for a pure bodyguard because Crit. Freeze stops any model dead in its tracks before it can attack, and nothing will cheese off your opponent more than freezing his model during his turn before it can do anything. The Juggernaut can do this too, but Reach gives Beast-09 the edge.
Karchev is warjack caster in the body of a warjack. Tow increases his jacks' mobility, Sidearms protects them (though you'll more often be using Tow since you can't use both at the same time), Unearthly Rage makes your jacks monsters, and his Total War feat is for jacks only. Oh, and Iron Curtain isn't really a jack buff, but it requires jacks to work. Karchev is an impressive 20
ARM base with 34 damage boxes, but don't think he's invincible. He loses systems like warjacks (take mechaniks maybe?), and his large base and low
DEF makes it easy for other things to get to him. Disruptor Bolt, Knockdown spells, etc.
Good jacks to take with Karchev are all of them. Bad jacks to take with Karchev are none of them. Okay, maybe the Marauder should sit out.
One other thing about Karchev. Learn what does and does not affect him. His Man in the Machine rule was confusing when he was released. I believe it's been cleared up in MkII, but for now you might need to find errata in the
WM/H FAQ. Remembering that he counts as neither warjack nor warrior model helps.
The Juggernaut is cheap beatstick. Don't send it against infantry and you should be fine. It doesn't have any special synergies with your 3 casters aside from the aforementioned Watcher combo. Take one if you need single target, high POW melee attacks for cheap.
Drago has a problem. Like other Berserkers, it has a chance to explode when it uses Focus. Vlad can get around it due to his Affinity. Karchev can get around it because he doesn't need to give his jacks Focus to make them awesome. Everyone else has to take a chance on Drago blowing up when combat starts.
Beast-09 is arguably Khador's best warjack. Reach, Thresher, Crit. Freeze, 3 attacks, an imprint that makes hitting easier; what more do you want? I already said it makes a good bodyguard for Zerkova, but he's Death Incarnate with Karchev. Unearthly Rage boosts all melee attack and melee damage rolls your jacks make. More attacks means more efficiency for Unearthly Rage. Beast-09 has 3 base attacks or it can use Thresher instead. That's a lot of fully boosted attacks generated. Combined with its Imprint (Murderous), Karchev can make fairly effective assassination runs on enemy warcasters. Upkeep Tow from the previous turn, cast Unearthly Rage, and Tow Beast-09 to a good location near the enemy caster. Use Murderous, walk over, and smack that warcaster with 3
MAT 6(7 in MkII)+
4d6 attacks to hit. That should do it. Note: Murderous does not help you against non-living models.
All right, I think that answers your questions. If you have anymore, post away.
Iron Warriors