Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Karchev
Behemoth
Berserker
Berserker

Widowmakers

Great Bears of gallowswood

this is only 29 points I am not sure what else to take ...or if I should drop the GBoG.

Help me out please.

The list isn't bad. You have a good core of heavy hitters, but you're a little light on anti-infantry. Two Mortars would work, or perhaps Greylords and a 2 point solo of your choice or a minimum unit of Battle Mechaniks.

Karchev tend to do better with more cheap Jacks then the high end character jacks. I'd run two more Berzerkers over the Behemoth, or add two Marauders/Juggernaut using your extra points. You can tow three jacks, so every jack over that should run for free (but that's already covered with the two Berzerkers). Beast 09 is pricey but works well with unearth rage, but not much better then he normally does.

I'd run something like this.
Karchev
2 Berzerkers
2 Juggernaut
1 Marauder

Widowmakers
Winter Guard Mortar Team.

That's 35/40 points perfect.
Having five Jacks helps you maximize the effects of unearthly Rage and gives you several different Tools to use on the battlefield. The Berzerkers can run (and charge) for free, so Kharchev toes the other three. The Juggers let you do mad damage to hard targets, the Marauder gives you very cool slam tricks all at pow 20.

The Widowmakers and Mortar allow you to mess with the enemy battle plans while your wrecking ball of Khador metal rolls into position.

The Behemoth is an amazing jack, but he's not getting that much juice out of Karchev at the 35 point level.

After playing Karchev a bit, I have found a number of factors to be important for his army. First of all you will want some way of clearing out big swathes of infantry with relative efficiency. For that role a Jack like Beast or the Devastator are pretty useful.

Secondly, any infantry you employ should not need caster support as Karchev does not have the focus or the spells to provide any such support. Thus units like doomreavers, the Great Bears, manhunters, and widowmakers work well as they don't need any support.

Personally, I kind of like Behemoth in a Karchev force as he can provide some ranged support before pounding something into the ground with his armor piercing fists and unearthly rage makes those fists terrifying. Another warjack to strongly consider is the Kodiak, it can run on its own has pathfinder and its chain attack is just brutal while under unearthly rage.

A friend runs Karchev with 2 Berserkers, Drago, and Beast.

For infantry he has Greylords, mechanics, and a bit of support from the Wardog and Reinholdt.

I think there is more in there, but I can't remember for sure.

The list does pretty good.

I have a crazy Karchev force that I'd like to try out. It's more for the models than necessarily being good on the tabletop.

Karchev = +5
Behemoth = 13
Marauder = 7
Destroyer = 9
Drago = 8
6 Mechaniks = 3

A neat 35pt force that can dish out huge pain but is only 6 targets. It'd probably win or lose big but the thought of putting so much heavy metal on the table just tickles me :-)

While I've been fielding pButcher more often these days, my typical Karchev list rather closely resembles his anyway. Lately, I've been fielding the following:

pButch
x2 Spriggans
Beast-09
Destroyer
Dog

Karchev would look rather similar, just having to drop the dog to deal with that pesky last WJ point he's missing. If I were to go to 50 points, I'd likely add a full unit of Winterguard Riflemen, along with Kovnik Joe, some Widowmakers, and a puppy.

The Spriggans are great melee 'jacks with their extended threat range, and lend your dedicated ranged combatants a hand against stealth-heavy lists like Cryx or Retribution. The frag grenades aren't as bad as they look either, and I've killed off an entire unit of Mage Hunters in a single turn with a salvo of the things.

Beast-09 has great synergy with Karchev, I think, with the potential of rolling up to 4 dice when trying to freeze an enemy caster. Great against undead or construct units as well, where Murderous would otherwise fail you when threshing.

The Destroyer is mostly there in 35 to add some token range support. It synergizes rather well with Tow and the Spriggan's Flare, making it surprisingly accurate in this case. Really though, it wouldn't be hard to downgrade it to a Juggernaut or even a Zerker, in favor of throwing in some infantry support, perhaps mechanics.

I'd be tempted to go with

Karchev (5)
Behemoth 13
Destroyer 9
Destroyer 9
Mortar 3
Mortar 3
4x Battle Mechaniks
War Dog

Light infantry (like retribution) will hate playing against 6 blast templates, the Jacks and Karchev should shred anything thats heavy enough to withstand the blast damage, and the wardog ensures that Karchev isn't essentially auto hit by melee attacks. The battle Mechanicks likely won't make a huge difference in most games, but they will help against lucky ranged attacks that knock a weapon off.