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I'm new to warmachine/hordes and have decided to go with khador, I know a little about the game and built this list. I was curious as to what people thought of it, comments would be much appreciated as there's a tournament that I plan to go to in 2 months and need a list to submit fairly soon. Anyways without further ado here's the list...

Karchev the Terrible (*5pts)
* Behemoth (13pts)
* Demolisher (9pts)
* Devastator (9pts)
* Devastator (9pts)
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
* Battle Mechanik Officer (2pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

First off, Karchev really should only run 3 jacks as he cant tow all 4 of them which is his big trick. The schocktroopers are going to get left behind and really do not do anything for a karchev list since your battlegroup is such a hard target.

Remove the 4th jack, maybe replace one of the others with a better jack such as Beast-09, and get some supporting infantry models - widowmakers, manhunters, yuri, a drakhun, etc etc.

Ah Khador...... Come for the Jacks, stay for the Infantry.....

KingKodo has the right idea

I agree with King Kodo

Swap out one of the 'jacks for Beast 09 so you can cut through infantry. A Spriggan would be another good choice for Karchev's tow up and turn around trick.

And while you are trimming down stuff... cut the point limit too.
Karchev is boss in smaller games(>35) but has difficulties to be competetive in the bigger ones.

So what about this list for 35 points

Karchev the Terrible (*5pts)
* Beast-09 (11pts)
* Destroyer (9pts)
* Spriggan (10pts)
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
* Battle Mechanik Officer (2pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

I think your list is looking much better.

Yeah, thats much better. Tommse hit the issue right on the head, Karchev gets progressively weaker the higher points you go. His big trick is his super fast battlegroup, and you achieve that in games as small as 25 points. Support models and infantry units tend to just fall behind him and you get much more deadly alpha strikes at higher points. At 25, running 4 really strong khador heavy warjacks with the support that karchev can provide ( not to mention, karchev is probably one of the most dangerous "warjacks" in the game) is just really hard to deal with.

My only other recommendations are: replace the destroyer with something else that provides more toobox - a kodiak would be great and can provide a concealment buff to your battlegroup which makes them slightly more durable. That leaves you with 1 point which you could use for a wardog to provide karchev with even more defense, or you could drop something else and pickup a merc solo such as Gorman Di Wolfe. Gorman can lock down key models that escape karchev's rampage with his blind grenade. I dont recall what the battle mechanic officer does - he lets you repair MOW or something? If that is indeed the case, you will get alot more mileage out of gorman di wolfe or one of the many other 2 pt mercs than you will out of the mechanik officer. Heck, you would likely get more out of a manhunter - the motherland loves it's guided missles!

I agree on dropping the Battle Mechanik Officer. You're correct Kodo, he give you the ability to fix MOW.
A Wardog would be a good buff for Karchev since his defense isn't great compared to just about every other Warcaster.
A Kodiak would probably work better than a Destroyer. The Destroyer is only going to be able to use his cannon once, maybe twice, before you get your battle group in the enemie's face. The Kodiak has two melee attacks and if both of those hit you get a free power attack. Vent steam will also help you get across the board in a safer manner.

Ok I have been playing Warmachine for a while now and have had a lot of practice with Karchev. He is my only caster and have been wrecking with him in our leagues and casual games from 15pts to 50pts. I have been looking at lists and lists that people run with him and most people are trying to play him like other warcasters and he's not.

Karchev is focus starved. He only have 5 focus (6 if he moves slowly) so he can't command a lot of jacks. So it's not a matter of picking less jacks, it's a matter of picking the right jacks.

Here are two lists that I uses depending on what my opponent is playing. These are the 50 pt lists but you can pair down the lists to go to lower values.

Karchev the Terrible
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Devastator
War dog
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Koldun Lord
Ogrun Bokur

This is the standard list that I use on most occasions. Dev is your infantry killer, fueled by the Koldun Lord's free focus to a jack without any focus. The Berserkers are the crux of the army. They don't require focus to run or charge, and they are great with Karchev's Unearthly Rage Spell. Wardog and Bokur sit back with Karchev and make sure he lives until he is needed to get into the fray. Bokur's ability to take shots that target Karchev and the Wardog's ability that says no backstrikes is critical for when you are using tow. Surprisingly enough, Tow is not the main crux of the army. You are going to use it now doubt, but you are going to use it to get jacks in specific spots or hit specific targets.

The main part of this army works from the formation and the movement. You set up in an arrow head formation with Dev at the center and Zerkers forming the rest of the arrow. Karchev is in the middle with the Battle Mechs in base to base with the zerkers and Koldun Lord, Bokur and the Wardog at the back. It's wall of iron heading up the field. These jacks allow Karchev to cast Side Arms keeping all the jacks from being knocked down as you advance, and then Koldun Lord gives the Dev focus so that it may run with everyone else. Basicly you are running 6" each turn, Karchev upkeeps SA and then uses arcane turbine to move 6". All the other jacks run 6" to keep everyone in formation. Once you are in striking distance of thier jacks or caster (infantry really can't do too much against that kind of armor but if there are such infantry send the Dev against them and Rain of Death) you then begin to move the arrow so that you can unleash hell on them. Things to remember, one, Tow only requires you to move within 2" of a model during Karchev's movement so you can pull guys around the battlefield or out of combat without free strikes since they are removed and placed in their new location. Two, when arcane turbine is active Karchev gains Pathfinder so he can move easily through terrain and drop zerkers outside of it. His feet also gives everyone in his battlegroup pathfinder for a turn and allows them to charge facing (huge on those tow turns!) and make power attacks for free (not a huge deal with all the zerkers but nice).

The reason this army works is that Karchev has one spell that makes those zerkers into wrecking balls, Unearthly Rage. It says ALL melee attacks are boosted to hit AND damage. This spell for 3 focus, instantly makes Karchev and super focus efficient caster. Let's say you have all 6 zerkers up and able to attack something on your turn. Karchev casts Unearthly rage and sits on the other two focus (now he's armor 21). Each zerker charges a model and get's off both attacks, hits on both. Let's count the focus, 6 zerkers, each charge = 6 focus, two attacks boosted to hit = 12 focus, let's say half of the guys hit with both attacks triggering chain attack for the headbutts also boosted since they are melee = 3 focus, boosted damage on all those hits = 15 focus. So that makes a total of 6+12+3+15=36 focus worth of boosted attacks and damage for 3 focus. Seems pretty damn good. And your average damage rolls are going to be (assuming 18 armor witch is on the mid high end) dice minus 2 on 3d6. That will box some jacks quick. Not to mention is Karchev is in range too (remember he has reach on is pow 19 axe, the will have boosted to hit and damage and can buy up to two more attacks at dice +1.

Now is the list unkillable, no. Just like any list it has it's weakness. You are moving at Khador speed and you have to make movements right or you could end up leaving pieces out in the wind. You leave a charge lane open to Karchev it could be game over (Gorax i'm looking at you) Also, the Battle Mechs are not there to heal jacks. 90% of the time you use them to block charge lanes. Also once you do your alpha strike, if you don't kill a bunch of stuff you may loose a lot of jacks real quick. That is another thing about the army, you can't be afraid to loose jacks. Warmachiners tend to not want to loose models. This army you are going to sacrifice models and are going to loose models. There have been times where I needed to kill a model (like Avatar from Menoth) and I loaded up a zerker with 3 focus have him go out hit it hard and hope that he blows up. I've also sent a loaded zerker into stuff hoping it would blow up to kill infantry.

Now the other list simply change it to include a Behemoth instead of the Dev. If you are going to be going up against colossals he's your buddy. 3d6 armor piercing hits... bye bye colossal. You can also bring in a Kodiak if you like since he runs and charges for free. He's pretty good against infantry too. If people are curious I can post the rest of the lists that I use at lower points but it's pretty much variations on the same thing.

Karchev is fun but he is hard to play. It takes some time to learn and you have to buy 6 zerkers...so that's quite a bit not to mention everything else for the army. Hope that gives some people some insight to Karchev and why he's one of my fav casters. Sorry for the wall of text but this is a post long time comming lol.

I run a 50pt Karchev Tier 4 list with 5 warjacks (3 berserkers, 2 kodiaks) all the time, use the power boosters from 2 Koldun Lords to cover the Kodiaks when they need some focus. The Berserkers get towed, the Kodiaks run for free (Heavy Boilers), so its all super focus efficient and works great under unearthly rage. The lack of any attack greater than P+S 16 (aside from Karchev himself) is a bit of a letdown, but you make up for it in volume, you have 10 P+S 16 attacks available to you right off the bat, with up to another 5 as a result of chain attacks.... and thats not even counting all the ManoWars I brought along for the ride too, nor does it say anything of the cloud effect shenanigans I pull to screen the warjacks/Karchev from damage as I advance.

So what do you guys do against infantry swarm tarp it armies? Cryx lists at 50pts will have around 10 times more models than you all capable of putting massive damage on your berserkers. 10 power 16 attacks aren't doing a whole lot especially outside your feat turn unless you are swinging at other heavy war jacks.Scew lists like these can be fun on occasion but they usually either win or lose a game before the first turn.

Against infantry swarm you can use the Dev and clear most of the models away also you can blow up your zerkers on purpose to kill infantry. Also if you look there are only 1 living model in the army so most of the cryx lists i run into have a hard time since there are no souls to take. Most of the time if you go up against a infantry heavy list you pick your spot and then burst though the line and go for a caster kill. Once again it's all in the movement and postioning to get the needed strike in. As i said, the list is not unbeatable but currently people are having a hard time with the amount of armor and boxes that have to be cleared out.


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Also it's not just on the feat turn. Karchev's Feat is Total War not Unearthly Rage. Unearthly Rage is a spell that give boosted melee and dmg rolls and can be recast every turn. I dont just have one round with it it's multiple rounds. In fact most of the time i really dont need my feat. i only use it if i need to do some manuvering in terrain or if i need to change facing before charging.