Jack Marshals

[Draxos]

so ive been looking at my cards and alot of guys have the jack marshal advantage and im kinda curious if i should marshal a jack to a solo or not?
i personally dont see any benifets but im curious to know what you people think bout it

[Yentz]

I really dislike jack marshalling. Jack Marshalls can be killed off relatively easy, thus leaving you with a big ol' slow, inaccurate jack when he dies.

Furthermore, many Warcasters have spells that affect their Battlegroups. And a Jack Marshalled jack doesn't get any bonuses from that spell.

And to top it off, it removes options from my gameplay. Yes, it might make my warcaster more focus efficient, but what If I really need to laden up that Jack Marshalled Destroyer with 3 focus for the caster kill? With a Jack Marshalled jack, I lose that option. Yes there are ways to make this work better, like a MoW Kovnik+Koldun Lord+Jack, but you are looking at a ton of points there *just* to jackmarshall a jack. It ain't worth it.

At least for me. Thats my opinion, although I'm sure other people disagree with me.

[Marth]

I don't know about anyone in Khador (besides the Mechanic Chief, the Koldun Lord and the MoW Kovnik) who's a Jack Marshal.

Simply, anyone beyond the Kovnik and Koldun Lord isn't even worth considering, because they do too little. The Koldun Lord has Power Booster, which makes him great for any Jack that doesn't need too much focus, the Kovnik has a drive which boosts melee attacks and thus works wonders on jacks with two serious close combat weapons (and no, simple open fists don't count).

There a jacks which are more suited to being marshalled than others. The ones which are sensible to marshal, their favourite marshal and the reason are:
1) Berserker - Kovnik - Two Melee weapons + chain attack are great with the drive, runs and charges for free at any rate, no risk of KABOOOM.
2) Marauder - Koldun Lord - Comboslam attack needs only 1 focus to boost to hit and is its main asset.
3) Destroyer - Koldun Lord - has a RoF 1 bombard, thus needs only 1 focus to be effective.
4) Kodiak - Kovnik - Two melee weapons + grab&smash are awesome with the drive, runs for free.
5) Devastator - Koldun Lord - also needs only 1 focus to be effective (as long as a single target in b2b is concerned)

The Juggernaut, Spriggan and Decimator IMO all need the option of being focus guzzlers.

The most sound argument against marshals is the presence of battlegroup spells. Given sensible play and enough saturation, marshals are also not the first thing to be shot.

Our casters which do best with JM's are Irusk, the Old Witch, Vlad Xp and Sorscha, as they have no battlegroup relevant spells(or feats), are fogus hogs or use mainly things aside from warjacks to win.

[CorporateSellout]

There's a good discussion on jack marshalling here:
http://www.privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?t=20231

I think Khador has some great options for jack marshalling and especially with the Irusks or any time I want to keep more focus for myself, I won't hesitate to put a warjack in the capable hands of a Man O War Kovnik.

[Tevesh]

Koldun Lord with the Destroyer is the only reason to 'jack marshal. The Koldun gives the Destroyer exactly enough to be effective, protects himself from being blasted, and has a good attack himself. I don't know any other combination that is worth your time and effort.

[Demitra]

I've posted about it elsewhere, but to me the Kovnik + Kodiak combo is a thing of beauty. My only reservation about marshaling is the relative frailty of the marshal, and the corresponding option for my opponent to take out the marshal and cripple the jack. The Koldun Lord is like the best of both worlds: he gives out focus and can do it without marshaling the jack, allowing casters with battlegroup spells/feats to still affect the jack. The only downside to the Koldun is that, to me, he's kinda expensive for an extra focus to a single jack since that's all he can do. Granted he has other spells and the ability to clear disruption is nice, but he can't give a focus AND Ice Cage something for instance.

As for why to marshal, it takes some of the focus burden off your caster. In the Kovnik + Kodiak example, you can effectively give the Kodiak 3 focus with the marshal (both initial attacks boosted and the marshal "focus" for whatever). If you run, say, Sorscha with a Destroyer and the above combo, you can run both at full potential and still have 5 focus on Sorscha to do with as you please. You can also send a jack and its marshal flanking without worrying about getting out of your caster's control area.