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After dusting off the Mercs the other day for pickup games, my interest in them may have been rekindled enough to use them in the next slo-gro league at the LGS. The league will more than likely begin with Battlegroups only, so I'm looking at the following...

Captain Phinneus Shae (+6)
- 8 Mule
- 5 Vanguard

...and need one more 8 pointer to fill the roster. If voting, please add some insight for your choice over the other two - pros & cons sorta thing. Thanks !

If you have to start with battlegroups only I would do something like 3 Nomads or if you don't own that 2 Nomads + Vanguard and just ignore the 3/4 pts you are playing under so you can include more pirates once you start increasing in points.

Really the mule doesn't add anything for him as he doesn't want to give it 2 focus a turn to shoot (let alone having an 8/12 inch shot is meh and you really want this thing shooting so you can't even take advantage of coup de main or his feat really). Having multiple cheap melee jacks(2-3 nomads) gives a punch vs heavy armor, let alone reach jacks are something you can't take a free stike from. Your opponent has to deal with them in some way (i mean yes a 6 pt 19 armor nomad isn't THAT hard to kill if they want to kill it, but they have to commit to kill it so having it in a zone is a big deal) and having 2-3 nomads charging 13" with reach, pathfinder, and parry on the feat turn for free is pretty nasty, let alone your opponent trying to kill them the next turn.

Vanguard is cool for grogspar, then holding objectives once grogspar and the other solos die while being annoying and incredible for the cost.

I do not own two Nomads, let alone three - and even still, a pair of them with the Vanguard would only be 11 points = 4 under allowance (2 under minimum required). So I would need to add either Bucaneer or Talon, which I already have. However, I only have 1 Nomad regardless...and the reason I posted the starting list plus poll options - based on the models I have already.

But even if I did have two Nomads, they wouldn't be very Focus friendly with Shae = yes, Coup de Main will help with charge distances but with the free charge Shae would be at -1 Focus for the effect. Assuming for a moment he has Storm Rager with upkeep, he starts with 5 Focus... intent to cast CdM leaves him with 2 Focus... he allocates 1 each to the Nomads leaving him without an ARM buff, and them with a single boosted attack roll each.

By the wsy, Mule has an effective threat range of 12" when forfeiting the movement, and if used with Godspeed it becomes 15" ... that is a combined total threat range of 25" if needed after a first rurn run.

The point of the nomads wasn't to give them focus, they run perfectly fine without the focus, they are simply a tool that can work with coup de main that he will most likely cast each turn so they will charge for free each turn 10 inches (what they run with 1 focus) and eventually become a viable threat your opponent needs to deal with. The mule costs 2 additional focus a turn (boosting to hit and most likely you will want to boost damage as well in these cases) and ya I said 8/12 inch shot before i was referring to forfeiting movement, a mule alone is going to leave Shay with 0 focus to run it, 3 melee jacks leaves him with 2 focus the he can camp or spend if he wants.

Since you have 8 pts left and you own a single nomad just throw that in and be the 2 pt minimum under with the mule/vanguard.

Yeah, that could work.