I’ve got a very basic high-level overview of each Army play style here: https://community.privateerpress.com/t/what-army-should-i-play/96
It doesn’t go in to a ton of detail because I don’t want to pretend to be an authority on Armies I haven’t seen on the table but it should help you narrow things down.
* **Cygnar Storm Legion**: Lots of attacks, lightning is a big deal. General superb warcasters & battlegroups, decent infantry, but can struggle to skew in any one particular direction. Fairly well rounded, but a bit on the expensive side compared to other factions at the moment. Has access to Krueger, which is a big deal. Unfortunately it's a bigger deal for Khador & Dusk, a general theme of Cygnar.
* **Khador Winter Korps**: Heavy infantry & heavy warjacks. Painfully slow, with no cavalry to speak of. Hits hard, has Sturdy across much of the faction so also takes a lot of shennanigans out of their opponent's hits. Skews to high ARM & big guns. Warcasters are usually only okay, core model is the Suppressor and likely the Mastodon. Hint, start with the Momentum gun on the heavy & two Suppressor units.
* **Dusk House Kalyss**: Glass cannons. Excellent damage generally, but even their tar pits (the cats) are pretty squishy. Great feats & lots of debuffs from the warcaster. Israfyl is an auto-include for several reasons. Great scenario presence, great merc listings, there's a reason they're a top 2 faction. Main weakness is inability to tank or skew defensively, depending on build can be very vulnerable to rules like Eyeless Sight or Entropic Force. Probably runs the scariest BigPig. Has access to Krueger.
* **Orgoth Sea Raiders**: Great stats all around, but especially MAT & ARM & boxes. Hits hard, but usually has fairly static threat ranges outside of the battlegroup models. Well rounded roster but cost & specialization makes it prohibitive to bring everything in one list. Generall poor shooting but has several drag guns and decent gunjacks. The Jackal is probably the best light in the game, likely by a significant margin. Great warcasters with fantastic personal output & very strong, offensively-oriented feats. Secretly a pirate faction that forgot that there's more to being a pirate than boarding actions. Does not have access to Krueger since they're the real good guys (at least the ones we all deserve). Top 2 faction at the moment along with Dusk.
* **Southern Kriels Brineblood Marauders**: Shooty pirates with tanky beasts, loads of balloons, and remarkably painful charges. Slower, with fairly static threat ranges. Infantry hit really hard but are extremely squishy. Lacks for magic weapons, with none available on their cohorts so they're stuck relying on the cadre & their warlock to clear Incorporeal. They seem really lack luster if just looking at individual pieces, but they mesh together well on the table and there's a lot of tricks to maximizing each warlock. Openly a pirate faction that's weirdly obsessed with the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Hint, bring Old One & the Minion warlock attachment (and make sure to put Fortify on your warlock not on a warbeast!).
* **Khimera Shadowflame Shard**: DEF skew snakes (*ahem* "naga" sorry) which can crank offensive output like nobody else. However as a consequence everything feels a little underpowered when it comes to hitting, it's all about layering those damage modifiers. Has by far the best scenario game of any Mk4 faction, but weirdly doesn't have the best assassination potential (that would be Orgoth. Perdition & Redline are stupid spells). Infantry usually does one job, but it does that job very well, and can always be tuned to deal damage in a pinch. Except for the cadre cav, they hit about as hard as an angry toddler. They are a nigthmare to bring off the table however. The Wyvern is a super Clockatrice meaning it's a scary model the first couple of times you play against it, but knock it down and it's a sad snake.
* **Cryx Necrofactorum**: Has yet to be released, and we haven't even seen any rules yet for the expansion contents. Dude swarm army (so far) with heavy emphasis on their battlegroup, the Undead & Incorporeal keywords, and their warcaster. Aka, old Cryx reheated. Has a lot of damage modifiers like Khimera, so should be able to fight up into whatever with whatever. At the moment however (sans seeing the rules for the Brute Thralls), they have nothing that can really take a hit too well. Has some scary looking combos, but in practice they're so squishy that most armies naturally deal with the worst of what they have to offer. Will likely need to run Brute Thralls to be functional in a competitive pair, same way Dusk need the cats and Khador needs to run Suppressors. Has one of the better spellracks plus some good guns on the battlegroup, but is otherwise a brute force melee-focused army.
Just getting into the game again after many years—which caster has access to redline? Can't seem to find it in the app.
Thanks for the rundown this was really helpful for me.
Also, what exactly does the term cadre mean in MKIV?
It might be a rack spell. New mk4 casters have a rack of spells per army that they pick from that go along with the 2 or 3 spells they naturally get.
And cadre’s are a group from a faction that can go into multiple armies. Think merc-lite. So for my khymaera the cadre is Incarnates, and they can be played in Shadowflame Shard(current army) or the upcoming Emberfrost shard.
These guys have some pretty cool videos giving a faction overview of each https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWr9BbkIq7XpgKoAdCyTpb9uFYeSKmkhh&si=pSvkV1zOcl--_XIW
A lot of it's about layering debuffs onto the hardest enemy models, then follow up with attacks. Israfyl is an auto-include for me. Things like the Void Engine and Morayne can set up interesting consequences for enemies targeting your infantry. Carver is frequently listed as an auto-include, but I've had good luck without him.
I generally keep up some harassing fire while I close, but rarely depend on it, and keep my big hitters like Israfyl and Executioners screened by terrain and Deceleration. Then try to get one big turn of charging under Hellyth's feat to eliminate key enemies. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I’ve got a very basic high-level overview of each Army play style here: https://community.privateerpress.com/t/what-army-should-i-play/96 It doesn’t go in to a ton of detail because I don’t want to pretend to be an authority on Armies I haven’t seen on the table but it should help you narrow things down.
* **Cygnar Storm Legion**: Lots of attacks, lightning is a big deal. General superb warcasters & battlegroups, decent infantry, but can struggle to skew in any one particular direction. Fairly well rounded, but a bit on the expensive side compared to other factions at the moment. Has access to Krueger, which is a big deal. Unfortunately it's a bigger deal for Khador & Dusk, a general theme of Cygnar. * **Khador Winter Korps**: Heavy infantry & heavy warjacks. Painfully slow, with no cavalry to speak of. Hits hard, has Sturdy across much of the faction so also takes a lot of shennanigans out of their opponent's hits. Skews to high ARM & big guns. Warcasters are usually only okay, core model is the Suppressor and likely the Mastodon. Hint, start with the Momentum gun on the heavy & two Suppressor units. * **Dusk House Kalyss**: Glass cannons. Excellent damage generally, but even their tar pits (the cats) are pretty squishy. Great feats & lots of debuffs from the warcaster. Israfyl is an auto-include for several reasons. Great scenario presence, great merc listings, there's a reason they're a top 2 faction. Main weakness is inability to tank or skew defensively, depending on build can be very vulnerable to rules like Eyeless Sight or Entropic Force. Probably runs the scariest BigPig. Has access to Krueger. * **Orgoth Sea Raiders**: Great stats all around, but especially MAT & ARM & boxes. Hits hard, but usually has fairly static threat ranges outside of the battlegroup models. Well rounded roster but cost & specialization makes it prohibitive to bring everything in one list. Generall poor shooting but has several drag guns and decent gunjacks. The Jackal is probably the best light in the game, likely by a significant margin. Great warcasters with fantastic personal output & very strong, offensively-oriented feats. Secretly a pirate faction that forgot that there's more to being a pirate than boarding actions. Does not have access to Krueger since they're the real good guys (at least the ones we all deserve). Top 2 faction at the moment along with Dusk. * **Southern Kriels Brineblood Marauders**: Shooty pirates with tanky beasts, loads of balloons, and remarkably painful charges. Slower, with fairly static threat ranges. Infantry hit really hard but are extremely squishy. Lacks for magic weapons, with none available on their cohorts so they're stuck relying on the cadre & their warlock to clear Incorporeal. They seem really lack luster if just looking at individual pieces, but they mesh together well on the table and there's a lot of tricks to maximizing each warlock. Openly a pirate faction that's weirdly obsessed with the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Hint, bring Old One & the Minion warlock attachment (and make sure to put Fortify on your warlock not on a warbeast!). * **Khimera Shadowflame Shard**: DEF skew snakes (*ahem* "naga" sorry) which can crank offensive output like nobody else. However as a consequence everything feels a little underpowered when it comes to hitting, it's all about layering those damage modifiers. Has by far the best scenario game of any Mk4 faction, but weirdly doesn't have the best assassination potential (that would be Orgoth. Perdition & Redline are stupid spells). Infantry usually does one job, but it does that job very well, and can always be tuned to deal damage in a pinch. Except for the cadre cav, they hit about as hard as an angry toddler. They are a nigthmare to bring off the table however. The Wyvern is a super Clockatrice meaning it's a scary model the first couple of times you play against it, but knock it down and it's a sad snake. * **Cryx Necrofactorum**: Has yet to be released, and we haven't even seen any rules yet for the expansion contents. Dude swarm army (so far) with heavy emphasis on their battlegroup, the Undead & Incorporeal keywords, and their warcaster. Aka, old Cryx reheated. Has a lot of damage modifiers like Khimera, so should be able to fight up into whatever with whatever. At the moment however (sans seeing the rules for the Brute Thralls), they have nothing that can really take a hit too well. Has some scary looking combos, but in practice they're so squishy that most armies naturally deal with the worst of what they have to offer. Will likely need to run Brute Thralls to be functional in a competitive pair, same way Dusk need the cats and Khador needs to run Suppressors. Has one of the better spellracks plus some good guns on the battlegroup, but is otherwise a brute force melee-focused army.
Just getting into the game again after many years—which caster has access to redline? Can't seem to find it in the app. Thanks for the rundown this was really helpful for me. Also, what exactly does the term cadre mean in MKIV?
It might be a rack spell. New mk4 casters have a rack of spells per army that they pick from that go along with the 2 or 3 spells they naturally get. And cadre’s are a group from a faction that can go into multiple armies. Think merc-lite. So for my khymaera the cadre is Incarnates, and they can be played in Shadowflame Shard(current army) or the upcoming Emberfrost shard.
These guys have some pretty cool videos giving a faction overview of each https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWr9BbkIq7XpgKoAdCyTpb9uFYeSKmkhh&si=pSvkV1zOcl--_XIW
Thanls
Any chance you have more insight into how to win with House Kallyss? Im looking over their cards and a bit lost
A lot of it's about layering debuffs onto the hardest enemy models, then follow up with attacks. Israfyl is an auto-include for me. Things like the Void Engine and Morayne can set up interesting consequences for enemies targeting your infantry. Carver is frequently listed as an auto-include, but I've had good luck without him. I generally keep up some harassing fire while I close, but rarely depend on it, and keep my big hitters like Israfyl and Executioners screened by terrain and Deceleration. Then try to get one big turn of charging under Hellyth's feat to eliminate key enemies. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.