Mercenaries are sort of an odd duck faction for Warmachine and having started playing Cryx and moved to Retribution is probably the worst way to have transitioned into them. Cryx and Retribution have comparatively very few mercenaries who work for them compared to say, Cygnar and Khador, meaning I own very few and that the transition to using them as a full time army would be more difficult.
There are a number of different sub-groups within Mercenaries including Pirates, Rhulic(dwarves), and some more generic mercenaries including steelheads.
I would think that the pirates would appeal to me but something about them rubs me the wrong way. The pirate package of units and solos feels fairly one dimensional and the models don’t seem interesting to paint, other than the jacks.
The dwarves are the ones that interest me for whatever reason. I own Gorten and a number of the light jacks, or gun bunnies. At some point I intend on picking up an army of them. Their jacks can only be used by their casters so the number of options shrinks and allows for me to build 1 army for use with multiple casters for fun. Somehow, their slowness seems more fun than Khador’s.
The generic mercs also don’t quite appeal to me. I’ve always been a little put off by the use of characters in Warmachine, making you use a pre-defined character rather that one of your own creation. Maybe it’s all the time working at Games Workshop. I’m starting to get into it but having a whole army of characters still puts me off, like it stifles the personalization of the army. I’m not quite sure entirely why, but I know they’re not appealing.
Pros:
- Lots of variety
- Dwarves are cool
- Couple of cool casters
- Can reuse models in other armies
Cons:
- Lack of personalization options
- Lack of clear theme