Are Jack/Beast themes a problem in general?

You know this isn't the PP forums any more, right? You don't need to scramble to defend your faction every time they get dissed, for fear of PP making a knee-jerk nerf. I'll restate my point (which isn't "I hate Legion, pls nerf") one last time, and then let it drop.

First, Fyanna2 + Seraphs is a very good list. NOT Una2 / High Reclaimer broken. (We all clear that I'm saying it's not broken? Yes? We're not going to keep beating up that poor innocent strawman? Good.) But it'd be good if it wasn't in a +15-20pt theme. Just like, say, Vlad1 + Rocketeer spam or double Storm Lances + Jr. So my beef is, I'm not happy that themes let you take a list that's already perfectly competitive, and then make it stronger for no particular reason. Play it against a list with a roughly similar theme, but which doesn't get a theme force, and there's an immediately noticeable power gap for no reason. Your jack / beast solos are overpriced? Yeah, so are some of mine, but I have to pay the points if I want to run a jack list.

(And if pieces are overpriced, the prices need fixing. Using theme forces as a band-aid was a bad thing in the long-term in Mk2--remember how Sentry Stones and Woldwatchers went from useless to broken overnight?--and I doubt it'll work now.)

Second, if you're expected to theme to keep up and not play 15-20pts down in Mk3, can everybody get their "Take what you were taking anyway, have free points." themes so the power creep can at least be evenly spread? Oh hold on, someone already answered that. Turns out I picked the wrong faction five years ago that isn't a "real" faction, so just gotta suck it up.

I don't feel the need to defend Fyanna2. If she proves too strong she will be nerfed. Simple as that.
I've only reiterated my personal take on Oracles. I would prefer for Legion beasts to drop point or two, but I'll take what I can get.

What you should understand is counting points will get you nowhere, for multiple reasons. Bayal is not worth 6 points the same way Ravagore is not worth 19. Guys who designed Legion screwed stuff hard and it's not a coincidence we started to go up when Oracles were released.

But yeah, if they fix Legion internal and external balance - take Oracles away. As it is those points hidden as "free" solos give me fair chance against people spamming heavy jacks costing as much as my light, but far more deadlier. You want to understand this - borrow someones Legion and play against Severius2 jack spam. It may be eye opener for you.

I don't like that kind of bandaid either but it's clear that amount of care given for different factions was not comparable and we're left with a mess.

And themes are making that mess worse, because when you play against certain WM factions, that "equalisation" is cancelled out by their cheaper jackspam list also getting extra special rules and points. You did see that two of the examples I gave were WM factions, right?

Lets also not conflate what is spammed anyway with what's CAUSED by theme forces.

Rocket spam was and would be spammed anyway, just with maybe an Eiriss 1 or a Mercanary solo on the side. I hate how people hate spam, but don't mind the same 4-5 mercenary solos in every list.

Man I keep not getting sure why people keep hating on Jaws since in the competitive scene the WGK gets more love that way anyway with more balanced lists. Jaws is used to make very balanced very fun lists.

That's because the themes that are over the top edge out the decent ones just as much as they do vanilla lists.

What incentive is there to play themes that are not powerful? Many people want to play the game and have a chance to win. Why then would they disadvantage themselves with bad themes. "Makes good stuff better" is how you play to compete with all the other similar themes. There are two options from here. Either make all themes powerful. Or all themes trash. Which would you prefer?

I hate the free points of every single theme. It's beyond frustrating that the creative capacity of PP is only "+1 to starting rolls" and free points. I'd love to see it nixed from every theme and replaced with an actual rule or function.

And for the last time, Oracles is not a direct upgrade. Fyanna would do great taking swordsmen and warlords. But that's not allowed in Oracles. She'd also love to not have to get to bring an infantry unit that's worth putting Iron Flesh on. She also not the only caster that gets played in Oracles that loose aspects of their kit. There are tons of trade offs that we have to consider. It's literally the reason I don't play Oracles. I've come to rely on our infantry. The only theme that allows swordsmen is CotD and I've only found that to be acceptable with Bethayne.

Jack-heavy non-Jaws Khador: depends on the caster. I like Butcher1 in WGK because he has no speed-buffs, but runs a battle group well. Add a WGI unit and a couple of artillery pieces and you can get Advance Move for 3 (maybe 4) jacks and still squeeze in 8 Marauders, or a smaller number of more varied jacks. Karchev should also consider WGK - he needs ranged output to trigger Road to War and Field Guns can give knockdown to help with accuracy issues. In both these cases, the casters are also more vulnerable to ranged assassination, so having sac pawn is a great benefit against many factions.

Jack-heavy Khador will always give some of the less hard-hitting factions issues. It's not the theme that does that, it's the sheer volume of ARM20 boxes on the table. People were playing Harkevich like that in Mk3 before any themes appeared. Things to consider (for Circle particularly):

Don't take the brick on head on. That's where Khador thrives. Go around the edges, draw out key models. Hordes generally cannot piece trade into Warmachine as jacks are cheaper than beasts.

Mohsar: Sunhammer - you might only use it for two rounds or so, but automatic damage to very high ARM models can tip the balance later in the game. Curse of Shadows gives an ARM debuff and (perhaps more importantly), you can move through the affected model. It's a way to get to Harkevich or his support staff. In practice that often won't work, but the threat of being able to do it means that Harkevich has to stay better protected (the same can be said for ambushing Wolves in theme). He is not that tough a caster. Pillars can also be annoying for low-model count armies to deal with, if in the right (wrong, depending on point of view) location.

Baldur2: ARM brick. Harkevich struggles with this. Marauders aren't bad if you're taking Woldwraths, but not against other models. The anti-knockdown also messes with combo-smites (Marauders) and chain attack throws (Kodiaks). Rock Wall can also be useful in forcing Harkevich to cast Mobility even once the armies are engaged, using a substantial part of his stack.

Wurmwood: Stranglehold is really annoying as it cannot be shaken by Jump Start (same applies to Shadowbind from Tanith).