Theme - The Irregulars
Theme - The Irregulars Mercenary Theme Force |
Theme Force Deleted This mk3 Theme Force has no equivalent in mk4. You can build a similar army in Unlimited Mercenaries (if/when the models in this theme get ported to mk4 rules) |
Some mercenary contracts offer jobs so desperate, so vile, or so insane that no right-minded group of sellswords would ever consider taking them. For the employers who offer these contracts, it is fortunate that the Iron Kingdoms has no shortage of mercenary companies full of the desperate, the vile, and the insane. When such undesirable jobs appear, they attract an unlikely assortment of mercs willing to do anything, no matter the odds of survival, for another fistful of coin.
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Theme Rules
- For the core rules on how Theme Forces work, see this article.
Theme Restrictions
An army made using The Irregulars theme force can include only the following Mercenary models:
- Mercenary warcasters
- Non-character Mercenary warjacks
- Mercenary character units
- Idrian Skirmisher units
- Kayazy units
- Precursor Knight units
- Mercenary character solos
- Gobber Tinker solos
- Mercenary battle engines
Full Model List
This list was last updated: 2020.12 (Edit)
Warcasters
- All Mercenary warcasters, except the Cephalyx ones.
Warjacks
- All non-character Mercenary warjacks,
- Character warjacks can be taken, but only if they have a bond and they're in their bonded model's battlegroup.
Battle Engines
Units
- Alexia1
- Boomhowler1
- Croe's Cutthroats
- Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters
- Dannon Blythe & Bull
- Herne & Jonne
- Idrian Skirmishers
- Kayazy Assassins
- Kayazy Eliminators
- Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
- Lynus Wesselbaum & Edrea Lloryrr
- MacHorne1 ('Jack Marshal)
- Precursor Knights
- The Commodore Cannon & Crew (★)
- The Devil's Shadow Mutineers
(★) The Commodore Cannon can only be included if your warcaster is a Privateer.
Solos
- Alexia2
- Alexia3
- Alten Ashley
- Anastasia di Bray
- Balthazar Bamfist
- Black Bella1
- Black Bella2
- Bloody Bradigan
- Boomhowler2
- Boomhowler3
- Bosun Grogspar
- Brun Cragback & Lug (Lesser Warlock & Companion Warbeast)
- Captain Crawtooth
- Colbie Sterling, Captain of the BRI - ('Jack Marshal)
- Crosse1 ("Junior Warcaster")
- Dahlia Hallyr & Skarath (Lesser Warlock & Companion Warbeast)
- Dez1
- Dez2
- Dirty Meg ('Jack Marshal)
- Doc Killingsworth
- Eilish1
- Eiryss1
- Eiryss2
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Eiryss3 - Eiryss4
- First Mate Hawk
- Flubbin
- Flugwug the Filcher
- Glyn Cormier, Illuminated One
- Gobber Tinker
- Grand Master Gabriel Throne
- Gorman1
- Gorman2
- Gubbin1
- Gubbin2
- Gudrun1
- Gudrun2
- Harlan Versh, Illuminated One
- Harlowe Holdemhigh
- Hermit of Henge Hold
- Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter
- J.A.I.M.s
- Kell Bailoch
- Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress
- Lord Rockbottom
- MacHorne2 ('Jack Marshal)
- Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan - (Warcaster Attachment)
- Major Harrison Gibbs
- Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile
- Orin1
- Ragman
- Raluk Moorclaw, the Ironmonger ('Jack Marshal)
- Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (Warcaster Attachment)
- Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
- Rorsh & Brine (Lesser Warlock & Companion Warbeast)
- Rutger Shaw, Professional Adventurer ('Jack Marshal)
- Savio Montero Acosta
- Saxon Orrik
- Scythe
- Sergeant Nicholas Verendrye
- Stannis Brocker
- Sylys Wishnalyrr (Warcaster Attachment)
- Taryn Di La Rovissi, Llaelese Gun Mage
- Thor Steinhammer ('Jack Marshal)
- Underboss Vizkova
- Viktor Pendrake
- Weird Wendell, Gremlin Wrangler
- Widget, Tinker Extraordinaire
- Wrong Eye & Snapjaw (Lesser Warlock & Companion Warbeast)
Requisition Points
You can spend each Requisition Point on either:
- One Mercenary command attachment
- One other Small- or medium-based Mercenary solo with a point cost of 5 or less
Theme Bonuses
- If Ace is included in this army it is a friendly Mercenary model instead of a Cygnar warjack.
- Note: Only Caine3 can take Ace
- While 'jack marshaled, warjacks in this army gain Flank [Friendly Warrior].
- Flank [ Warrior ] - When this model makes a melee attack against an enemy model in the melee range of a friendly warrior model, this model gains +2 to attack rolls and gains an additional damage die.
- You can reroll your starting roll for the game. Your starting game roll can only be rerolled once as a result of this special rule.
Thoughts on this Theme Force
The Irregulars in a nutshell
The Irregulars are conceived as the plucky band of misfits that just don't fit into the many, many other Mercenary themes. However, due to the catch-all nature of character solos and units being allowed, the theme ends up with a glut of powerful choices that rather imbalance it compared to the more cohesive themes. So you end up with a lot of lists running Nemo4, Asphyxious4, Hermit, Harlowe, and whatever else your particular caster needs to do their thing.
It has so many very powerful choices crammed into it that it's borderline overpowered. On top of this, the Riot Quest game continues to provide a nearly endless supply of solos that are automatically allowed in theme, so while most other themes in all the other factions languish, Irregulars keeps getting more powerful.
The theme lets you reroll the dice to see who goes first, which gets +1 from Anastasia, which means you will go first more often than any other theme. It has options for pathfinder, magic weapon, multiple ARM debuffs, reposition 3", multiple threat extenders, recursion, and much more. Coupled with the power of, say... Fiona the Black, and you have a force that could lead to many a rage-quit.
Oh yeah, and your get Flank on marshaled warjacks which you'll probably never use.
Theme's weaknesses
This theme has so many different options that can provide any sort of buff you can imagine, there are practically no drawbacks. But if we must pick nits...
- Practically no non-character solos - For a long time, this wasn't a weakness because there were only about 3 non-character solos (and they were all sort of "meh"). Eventually though several notable non-character solos were released and not getting them in this theme became a proper downside (notably the Archons).
- You're light on warjack support (it's just Balthazar Bamfist, Widget and Thor Steinhammer)
- The jack marshal theme bonus is an almost useless gimmick most strong players avoid, since you have access to three journeyman warcasters, four lesser warlocks, and Malvin and Mayhem.
List Building Tips
Casters of Note
- Shae - His only privateer models are likely only going to be jacks, but that is all right, as the solos and Gaspy4 more than make up for that. He also loves the Flank bonus to marshaled jacks. A Freebooter or Mariner under Boss MacHorne will do lots of heavy lifting.
- Captain Rahera - She can really maximize her feat and Black Spot with Idrians, Devil Dogs, and Aiyana and Holt. Even if she only brings a Blockader she doesn't mind only having one Empower solo, too.
- Bart - Irregulars has better solos than Talion and among Bamfist and Sylys he can fully fuel two colossals, upkeep Hotshot, and cast Batten every turn. On top of that, he really loves the damage buffs, solo hunters, infantry clearing, and defensive models in the theme.
- Ashlynn2 - Gaspy is probably the best model to benefit from True Path. Croes Cutthroats can do a lot of work with Hand of Fate and can be protected by Artifice, doubly so if you have Gudrun the Wasted for Kinetic Distortion. Also, there are lots of great solos to bring back with her feat, such as Scythe, Alexia2, or Princess Delores.
- Crosse2 - He will find excellent targets for his upkeeps here in Idrians and Gaspy as well as lots of damage buffs to augment his personal output. Nemo4 also adds a recursive element he so loves for his Lifebound unit.
- Magnus1 can snipe some Idrians or Croes.
- Damiano can have a field day with Gaspy and Idrians, Croes or even Nyss in tow, making for a very strong melee list that also features great gun play which should give his jacks plenty of RtW moves. He also loves Alexia2 recycling the souls of infantry into Thrall Warriors who turn into P+S 13 weapon master on feat.
- Ossrum - His feat will only work on his BG and a few limited solos, but that's fine. He can get a lot of value out of Thor and Widget1 with a marshalled Avalancher under FFE, put Snipe on Croes and Bullet Dodger on Crosse. FFE has many more excellent targets here, such as Dez&Gubbin, Glyn, or even a jack under Nemo4 or Gaspy4.
- Durgen - Dual Attack from the feat is pretty cute on Croes, who are also excellent Primed targets thanks to Reposition 5", which lets them move into enemy lines and threaten explosions.
- Gorten - Rock Wall and Solid Ground means he can deliver any kind of infantry effectively, and Croes Cutthroats reward him with explosive damage potential, while Eliminators are excellent flanking pieces. Just like in Hammer Strike you can also bring Bamfist and Gudrun2 here for DEF stacking. The main draw however are the many damage buffs in the theme, like Throne and Gaspy, because he has none.
Units and Battle Engines
- Most good Irregulars lists start with Asphyxious4 and/or Nemo4 which dramatically increases your focus pool and lets you run jack heavy with the best of them. They are probably the main reason to play this theme because not only are they powerful models themselves, they also make everything around them better via recursion, damage fixes, and threat extensions.
- The Siege Crawler can't actually reinforce anything in theme.
- Idrian Skirmishers are decent ranged units, though they're slightly below the curve.
- Nyss Hunters are much cheaper than Idrians and follow a similar combined arms strategy. With no native defensive abilities, you will need to provide them for them, which not every caster can do.
- Croe's Cutthroats are the next flavour of combined arms single wound infantry. They have built-in Advance Deployment, Stealth, Pathfinder, and Reposition 5"(!) all of which are great abilities. They also have Backstab and Prey which dramatically improve their damage output if combined with Gastone Crosse.
- Precursor Knights are great in melee, but have delivery issues outside of Flame in the Darkness.
- Kayazy Assassins similarly have delivery issues due to their low SPD and reach. If you can deliver them you can get one turn of Shadow Dancing Backstab fun.
- Devil Dogs are 10 knockdowns on a stick.
- Boomhowler1 are a cheap throwaway unit. Basically, the closest thing you will find as a replacement for Steelhead Halberdiers. Boomy's Cacophony bubble can be randomly very nasty for your opponent to play around if you manage to get him there.
- Kayazy Eliminators - They are the best two-man units in the faction and if you have 8 points to spare they make a great addition.
- Lynus & Edrea - They can be cute with Crosse2 to bolster his gun but overall less effective than a 5 point solo
- Herne & Jonne - Okay-ish with Durgen, but pretty outclassed overall.
- Lady Aiyana & Master Holt - They used to be an excellent choice, but in lieu of Gaspy4, the Hermit, and Throne handing out damage buffs like candy and magic weapons being more common on individual models, they are the expensive kind of overkill.
Solos
Maximize free solos and bring the most useful ones that fit with what your army wants to do. One of the strengths of Mercenaries is the power of the in-faction solos. Though the solo selection is caster-dependent, it's hard to go wrong with the Hermit as your first freebie.
- There are too many solos in this theme to do a complete rundown but there are a few standouts and groups of models that do similar things to each other:
- The lesser warlocks are all usable although they have lost a step in mercs over time.
- Alten Ashley, Kell Beiloch, Harlowe Holdemhigh, Taryn, Scythe and Princess Graciela are all potent mid-to-long range shooting solos that need zero caster input to be functional. The latter two cannot be requisition options, but have the strongest guns of the bunch, so it becomes a question of how many points you have left to spend on this kind of solo.
- Gabriel Throne, Ragman, Hermit, Gorman1, Hutchuk - All of them carry damage buffs that get progressively more conditional. Ragman is kinda obsolete thanks to Gaspy4 already handing out Dark Shroud like candy, but Throne, the Hermit, and even Gorman still frequently make it into lists due to the additional utility they bring.
- Crosse1 is a good choice for Croes-based builds, as he brings the Discombobulate spell that turns Backstab online.
- Sylys, Hermit - If you have a spell-slinging caster such as Fiona these two make boosting attack rolls on their spells superfluous with Arcane Secrets and Telemetry.
- Gudrun2, Hermit - When it comes to keeping key models alive, these two have you covered. Kinetic Distortion discourages shooting and can be stacked with concealment or cover and Mad Visions negates one damage roll per game, which can decide whether you lose a colossal completely or not.
- Anastasia di Bray - She should be in every Irregulars list. Sometimes you forget you wanted to ambush her and never deploy her all game, and she still was worth her inclusion, because she passively grants +1 to your starting roll just by being in your list. That alone is worth 3 points! If she ambushes, kills a solo, and then eats a shot that could have killed something else, she will have made more than her points back. Espionage sometimes randomly wins you the game against an unaware opponent, but it doesn't come up often.
- Lanyssa - This is the only speed buff in the theme, which some casters love, and some don't care about. She sort of enables the jack marshaling benefit because jacks charge for free against Hunter's Marked targets, so there's that as well.
Jack Marshalling
- Warcasters that let marshaled jacks charge for free, Magnus1 and Shae might get some use out of the Flank benefit
- Lanyssa Ryssl, Nyss Sorceress Widget and Bamfist are helpful with marshaled jacks as they hand out free charges, an extra attack or free focus, respectively, allowing them to charge and crush, though it is much easier, albeit more expensive, to just take a Mangler.
- Jack Marshals are much improved and this theme lets you take the aforementioned Lanyssa, Widget, and Bamfist to greatly augment them.
The Mercenary jack marshals are:
- Captain Sam MacHorne & The Devil Dogs - They knockdown targets expertly, so they can set up the Freebooter.
- Colbie Sterling, Captain of the BRI - She has a really weak drive so she runs everything equally mediocre.
- Dirty Meg - She has the best drive out of all the marshals so she can run just about anything.
- Raluk Moorclaw, the Ironmonger - His Assault Drive lends itself to combined arms jacks, so a Swabber or Rover or Mariner can be good.
- Rutger Shaw, Professional Adventurer - He wants a sturdy jack for his drive, a Talon, Freebooter, Nomad or Toro fit the bill
- Thor Steinhammer - Can only marshal Rhulic jacks. Having him run a Basher can be surprisingly powerful. Or give him an Avalancher with a buff such as Fire for Effect from Ossrum.
- Boss Machorne has a powerful drive and is a strong melee combatant, but it's an expensive package.
Starting a 25 point Brawl list
In 2021.03 Phillip Melvin, one of the LOS authors, put together this list for the Brawlmachine format. It was then updated for the 2021.10 errata. He even wrote about it's playstyle and expanding it beyond 25 points, which you can read here.
- Drake MacBain: [+30 WJP]
- Dez & Gubbin, Dynamite Duo: [Free] (5 pts)
- Princess Delores Graciela: [6 pts]
- Harlowe Holdemhigh: [3 pts]
- Anastasia di Bray: [3 pts]
- Gobber Tinker: [2 pts]
- Lady Aiyana & Master Holt: [7 pts]
- Kayazy Eliminators: [4 pts]
For more Brawlmachine list ideas, see Category: Brawl List
Sample 75pt List
- [Fiona 1] Fiona the Black [+27]
- Mangler [14]
- Toro [13]
- Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker [0(4)]
- Alexia, Mistress of the Witchfire [6]
- Anastasia di Bray [3]
- Gastone Crosse [0(5)]
- Nomad [11]
- Grand Master Gabriel Throne [7]
- Hermit of Henge Hold [0(5)]
- Scythe [6]
- Thamarite Advocate [3]
- Thamarite Advocate [3]
- Asphyxious the Sanctified [14]
- Talon [6]
- Croe's Cutthroats (max) [16]
This is a particularly punishing list that crams one of the strongest casters in the game with some of the most powerful models in mercenaries. It provides board control, good shooting, good melee, multiple bonuses to go first, excellent scenario pressure, and tons of focus.
Other
Trivia
Released 2017.08
Other Mercenary models
Rules Clarifications
Rules Clarification : Flank (Edit)
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Rules Clarification: Theme Forces (Edit) Themes that change a model's Faction [Show/Hide]
Rerolling the starting roll [Show/Hide]
Warjacks/Warbeasts with bonds [Show/Hide]
Including Mercenaries [Show/Hide]
Number of Mercenaries
Mercenaries and Ranking Officers
Other
Including Partisan Mercenaries [Show/Hide]
Partisans & Theme Forces (Edit)
Requisition Points [Show/Hide]
Free models and Specialists (ADR) [Show/Hide]
Unit Attachments [Show/Hide]
When to apply theme benefits [Show/Hide]
See also these Theme-Specific Rulings [Show/Hide]
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