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Well, after a lot of consideration, I've finally decided to see about starting up Warmachine. Fortunately, I'm not alone: with other family starting at the same time I'll have a guaranteed opponent! Here are what we're both looking at or our starting, 15-point lists. I'm putting in the same post because... well, I'd like them both reviewed and they're going to be facing each other at the start, so having a decent match there (it doesn't need to be totally balanced, but it shouldn't be a total steamroll) is probably important to learning the game

For myself, I picked Menoth. Why? Because years ago I bought the Harbinger of Menoth just to paint the model. It was gorgeous and on sale at the FLGS and I was pretty sure I'd find some excuse to drop it on a D&D table one day or another. Now the Harbinger can fill her true purpose! That's not JUST it -- Menoth has been described in all my research as the combo or synergy faction, and that really appeals to me since it;s what I try to build in M:tG all the time. After research and thought, I came up with the following list

Harbinger of Menoth (-5)
> Devout (5)
> Reckoner (8)
Choir of Menoth, minimum-sized (2)
Daughters of the Flame (5)

The Devout and Choir are inclusions I have been led to believe are basically mandatory, at least for the Harbinger. And they both make sense to me, the devout because lose leader = lose game so intercept bullets for leader = good, and the chior because it makes my heavy hitters, the big robots, substantially better. Get them to battle, make them hurt stuff, right? The Reckoner I was... less sure about, but I'll make a confession here: I like smashy centerpieces in my army, something that can take punishment and even better dish it out something fierce. As for the daughers, well, Reckoner doesn't look like it can make a lot of bodies hit the floor all at once. Unless I've misestimated it, it's more about making one big body hit the floor. So the daughters, I suppose, are there to mop up enemy troopers. Second confession of the list: I'm also a sucker for the models, so I've thusfar prioritized them rather than the more defensive (but fewer bodies) 5 points of Dartan Vilmon + Paladin of the Order of the Wall


The second list on this side of family is Cygnar, because the general at the head of it is, while also totally new to warmachine and decently new to the miniature-laden tabletop, an old hand strategy games in general, and one that favors masses of shooting, skirmishers, shooting, hit and run tactics, and the occasional dirty trick. To that end, Kara Sloan, the sniper, was selected as warcaster for the day. The list currently looks like this

Kara Sloan (-6)
Hunter (6)
Minuteman (5)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4)
Trencher Infantry, Minimum Sized (6)

The start of the list was with the warjacks here, two of them that seemed to work well boosting their already good movement and shooting abilities, loaded with abilities to harass my lines. The Minuteman was an instant must-have for Kara's player, jumping, shooting, and dropping hits all over the place. The Black 13th, on the other hand, were, like the Choir and Devout in the Menoth list, something considered essentially mandatory. I can't say that I don't see their power. That brings us to the trenchers. While we were looking over the list before them, the question came up "What do I have that keeps me from being assassinated?". Answering that was crucial to what to do with the last 6 points, and the Trenchers seemed the best in-faction answer. They still shot, of course, which was crucial, but they could also at least provide something resembling a battle line and might be able to hold their ground and buy Kara, her warjacks, and the 13th the time they need to clean up whatever was inbound. There didn't seem to be many other options -- a Sentinel, perhaps, leaving room for 2 points of support (Squires were often mentioned), but it wouldn't seem to have the same battlefield presence


So, that's what we've researched and guessed at, but right now the only model we own (and thus the only absolutely non-negotiable model) is the Harbinger of Menoth, so before that ceases to be the case I'd like to know where our assumptions may be on base and if there are any really bad ideas in the lot.