Hark lists

I think going with 10 jacks and the 4 free solos can work pretty well. There are some factions that just can't deal well with that many boxes, especially when combined with Hark's +3 arm feat. I came up with that same list, but haven't played it as I am 2 marauders short (if anyone has an extra set of marauder arm pistons they are willing to part with PM me).

I was also toying around with a similar list to Tenzilla (also haven't played it yet since I just picked up a couple forge seers and haven't put them together yet), except I have the behemoth marshaled as Hark can still benefit from Iron sentinel while b2b with the marshaled behemoth as IS doesn't require the jack to be in your battle group. Also, instead of mechanics I have a unit of eliminators and I upgraded one of the marauders to a a 3rd kodiak.

If PP goes through with adding merc options to themes forces and we end up being able to take Orin midwinter in JAWS I think that going with a list similar to Tenzilla's, with Orin included, will be the way to go for Hark (in my list I'd drop the unit of elims for Orin).

This works.  I think Hark's biggest challenge with a Jack Heavy build is that the question you ask (can you chew through this many boxes) gets answered RELATIVELY easy by MANY (but not all) factions.....

A)  "Yes.  Can I introduce you to two units of sentinals/Knights Exemp/Stormknights with Fury/Neighslayers with Fury, etc. etc. etc.).  YES, ARM 23 helps TREMENDOUSLY but Hark with spam can still get overwhelmed by weaponmaster spam and, with the meta, people know to have SOMETHING that cracks armor in thier list.

B)  "Yes.  I can control your brick".  Hark's 12 inch control range creates problems if just jacks.  Consider Haley2.  Her play in these games is to defeat you "in detail" - using, for example, THorns disruption to keep your jacks under control.  Your range to hand off powerboost _IF_ the greylords are caught in the feat is trivial. 

C) "Yes I will see your brick and raise you."  Hark's lack of POW buffing leaves you needing POW 19 to get the work done.  USUALLY works.  But then you run into TWO ARM 29 Centurians under Sryker 1 and start thinking about what the heck you can do if you can't get your Kodiaks into throw range.  

A, B, and C create a ceiling on Hark's Jack brick.  It will play well into a nice number of matchups and then you run into competitive players who have considered your question and come up with their answer.

Because of this (see SR2017 thread) I am leaning toward a rework.  As you point out, the center piece of terrain makes it LESS critical to put down the cloud wall to ensure Hark lives.  Kodiaks are still uber but less critical to keeping him from getting completely shot and even less critical if you have in our off list the WG theme so you can sac pawn ghost shots.  So you start to remove/downgrade jacks to get the light infantry jaws encourages for specialized rolls.

A)  "Yes I can bring weaponmasters"  - Well say hellow to Yuri, manhunters and eliminators - all which either likely out threat you and/or which can deal a point of damage (or 2) to ARM buffed sentinals.  Plus treewalker is a THING in SR 2017 in most situations.

B)  "I can control your brick"   - Well great.  How are you also dealing with the skimishers that are off on the entire other side of the WIDE board in SR 2017 clearing and contesting and getting ready to score where you aren't because of the brick.

C)  "I will raise your brick".  Well I got 3 weaponmasters with ways of increasing their number of their attacks.  Still not GREAT but helps to put on damage beyond what the jugger can do.....AND polarity field loses a _BIT_ of its utility as you start to get fast things that can get into back arcs.

Now I think this isn't THAT fruitful to theorymachine it.  If you have been playing the brick for SR 2016 I suggest just tweaking things next game.  Bring the skimmishers and see how it works and whether your loss of the full bring is made up by having infantry on the flanks.  At the VERY least it will probably offer up some additional "fun" as the Hark brick can get a bit old and you will have fun laughing at forests and your treewalker abiliyt.

Hark has been one of my main casters for a long time, even in Mk.II. TBH, she is a good caster, but he's not as much of an easy button as people think. I was thinking of starting a blog and writing my first article about her. I find he gets a lot of hate online and from my meta, which is hugely disproportionate to her performance on DGI.

Also, the jury is still out on how she is affected by SR2017

I think in the commentary she struggles the most from something Khador struggles with in general. That is, a lot of people look at our raw stats and go "Your ARM 20 is OP bullshit. But my ARM 24 unchargeable arcane shielded centurion is totally fair and balanced." I feel like for a variety of reasons, Khador in particular gets a lot of "grass is greener" comments from other factions.

At the end of the day, Hark is a strong caster in one dimension: attrition. She doesn't have much assassination or control game at all, so her win conditions tend to involve grinding the enemy down until you either win by scenario, or basically table your opponent trying to assassinate. Her threat ranges are very static as well, and not so long that she is consistently outthreating everyone or really making your opponent think too hard about varying threat ranges.

I suspect that one of the reasons she gets complained about all the time but doesn't show up on DGI is that she is very good against mid-level players, but not so good at the top tier. What I mean by this is that she has a game plan which is somewhat straightforward. A mid-level player might look at it, go "I can't deal with that much ARM 23," bash his head against the brick wall that is Hark feat turn, then go on the internet to complain about how OP he is because they can't beat an attrition-themed caster in an attrition-themed faction at attrition. A top-level player will realize that smooshing together in the middle and duking it out is exactly what Harkevich wants to do, and will come up with a plan that doesn't involve bashing your face against a brick wall like the Hark player wants you to do.

(As an aside, he's not always as invincible at attrition as you might think. Attrition requires both not dying and dishing out a lot of damage, and while Khador is blessed with a solid baseline on a lot of our beaters, he doesn't do much to help with the latter. There are lists out there that can get up to a pretty sweet spot on the bell curve for armour or damage, and then Hark's attrition game goes downhill quickly).

Also, I think playing Hark requires a bit more finesse than people think. When you only have about a dozen models on the table, you need to start getting creative to get the most out of them. I know that playing Hark has really made me a master of the rules surrounding power attacks, and seeing opportunities via janky throw/trample tricks.

Anyways, here is my list. I know it is not quite optimized in part because I am a little restricted by my belief in #playitpainted, but I kind of like this list. Also, I know cloudwall is very effective, but I play against Legion a lot. Anyways, each different warjack has a different purpose and role, and I think the flexibility gives me something to offer. Also, when people start whining about spam, I just say "hey, it's technically not spam. I have seven different kinds of Khador heavies"

War Room Army

Khador - Hark 75 melee

Theme: Jaws of the Wolf
4 / 4 Free Cards 74 / 75 Army


Armory - Steamroller Objective

Kommander Harkevich, The Iron Wolf - WJ: +28
- Black Ivan - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 19)
- Kodiak - PC: 13 (Battlegroup Points Used: 9)
- Juggernaut - PC: 12
- Juggernaut - PC: 12
- Marauder - PC: 10
- Demolisher - PC: 16
- Rager - PC: 11
- Mad Dog - PC: 9

Widowmaker Marksman - PC: 0
Manhunter - PC: 0
Greylord Forge Seer - PC: 0
Greylord Forge Seer - PC: 0


THEME: Jaws of the Wolf

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Maybe Hark is actually a bearded lady.