Friend like mercs. Present options

Thanks for the swift responses.

I understand about the cid. He is just starting out so hopefully use cool themed models to keep him engaged. We will probably be playing battlebox style games over coming months so not too concerned about competitiveness straight away.

Talon, Mangler and Nomad seem like great suggestions.

If he goes with Shae a Mangler seems good with the 2" reach and extra threat, and he can still use the model with other casters.

tell him to get 6 river raiders and 2 deck guns and a galleon its gonna be sooo sweet!

To add to the comments on Shae, one of his defining spells buff the movement of all privateer models and lets the privateer jacks charge for free, which is why freebooters and buccaneers are recommended with him.


I play Fiona the most recently (well now the exemplar CID is up I am testing Crosse2 and Ashlynn). She might actually make a decent 'battlebox caster', as a mk3 battlebox usually has an arcnode, gun and a heavy to teach the game. She brings Telgesh Mark which you can use on a jack to get you the arc node (as mercs only have caster specific arc nodes), a (bit weird) buff for guns, can use her feat to defend against an alpha strike and has high focus (for a merc) which is a nice plus at a 0 point game.

If your friend is willing to magnet the nomad/rover/mule kit, you could consider: (I say magnet so you also have a nomad)
Fiona +31
- Mule/Rover 15
- Freebooter 9
- Talon 7
Which gives a magnet kit range option so he can switch it out later. A dirt cheap (weak) heavy with open fists and chain attack to teach power attacks, and comes with his own speed boost for threat range practice and to gain some arcnode distance. And a lovable little talon, who will be a stun spear in the side of any warmachine opponents (as well as being spd 6 and reasonably tanky to use as your arc node before he gets engaged)

Or
Fiona +31
- Mariner 14
- Nomad 11
- Buccaneer 6
Which gets a bit more piratey in the jacks, and nomads are neat (if not magnetizing, the classic nomad is usually cheaper to buy if you just want a nomad btw). Pirate CID might bring changes to these, but he'll be able to learn with um as they are.

Fiona +31
- Buccaneer 6
- Talon 7 / Buccaneer 6
- Freebooter 9
- Freebooter 9
If he really likes pirate jacks over other human merc jacks. This list will feel quite weak though (he'll need to knock stuff down to do damage with freebooters (which is what the buccaneers are for) and even then...)

These are mostly for teaching how to play using the pirate arcnode, and it should be said Fiona likes have infantry (not necessarily pirates though that might change in the future.) I am in no way suggesting that any of these lists are any good (they aren't)

If he is not set on pirates, then Magnus as suggested earlier might be a safer bet, and the nomad/mangler/talon suggestion is spot on. But tbh, unless he is really into minmaxing and metagaming, he should just get what he thinks looks cool. Pirates will get their CID soon enough, and if he loves pirates he should not feel pressured to play something else imo.

Reinholdt is fantastic with a large number of our casters, and is also just a cool model. Good choices!