Stolen Jacks!

[Croo47]

I had an idea yesterday; what if mercenaries stole or bought one warjack from each faction? For example, some mercs have stolen a Charger, Juggernaut, Slasher, Repenter, and Phoenix. They altered them from their original state to make them more balanced, but this has resulted in some negative stuff (so the Juggy is faster, but has a bit less armor). Each of these would be a character warjack.

[Coinlord]

I like it. I think mercs should steal more things.
The obvious fluff issue is that each faction has extremely different cortexes and locks to prevent this from happening. But you could always say they defeated it in battle, rebuilt it with a nomad cortex, and tought it a new trick or two.

[koreandog]

I'm surprised that there are units that some mercs can bring out of faction, but not one of their jacks.

[PG_ThickMcLargehuge]

Its because fluff wise jacks are really hard to maintain on even a basic level. The cortex system is really delicate and for a lot of these different jacks a generic cortex will not be able to interface with its systems. The people that have the knowledge to build and interface with these systems have learned it from the different nations that recruited them long ago. So unfortunately it doesn't make a lot of sense to steal a Khador jack because of the immense cost of simply fueling it vs the jacks available to mercs normally let alone the complications of getting the right cortex and not being able to work for the nation of Khador with that stolen jack in tow.

Cygnar has highly advanced tech in a lot of their current jacks making them only good to mercs as replacement parts if they can't access the higher functions. Ret Myrmidons are altogether alien in design as they were granted the technology by their gods so that's a no go. The Menenites punishment for about 99% of crimes is death by burning so the risks in stealing one of their jacks, which are comparable to the merc jacks anyway without a choir making them good, are pretty high. Cryx jacks are Cryx jacks, unless you are a necromancer of the highest order its gonna be pretty rough getting souls to fuel them.

In essence they are stealing what they can and using it. A lot of its not cost effective to maintain or even practical to steal. Magnus is one of the few that can get away with it because he has the knowledge to get into the systems and is a genius who made custom jacks with arcnodes on his own.