Theme lists are in my opinion one of the most interesting aspect of the games Warmachine and Hordes. Each list is broken into tiers which offer separate benefits but require you to meet the specifications of the previous tier. Often times they have very strict requirements that are not worth the bonuses that they grant but a great many are worthwhile and even preferred because of what they offer.
Now when you are making your list and deciding if you want to use a theme list or not, you have to determine if you gain more by using the theme list or by running your warcaster/warlock as you normally would in faction. Unfortunately, most themed lists can only be made effective at 50 points or higher due to the restictions involved. Lets look at pButchers Theme list shall we?
Now looking at his theme list we start to notice several things; one is that his theme lists allows you to field Man O Wars effectively by increasing their SPD the first round as well as making them slightly cheaper. The first bonus is especially important because the largest problem with Man O War is that they are unable to get to the fight on time. The Tier Two bonus is considered to be the main reason to run his theme list since it allows you to run a Man O War themed army effectively. If you continue to look at the later benefits, you'll notice that you are also able to Advance Deploy certain jacks - this allows them to get up the field faster.
If you run a list at 50 points and to tier 4 you might have a list that looks like this:
pButcher +6
2x Kodiaks -16
Marauder -7
War Dog -1
Man O War Demolition Corps (full) -9
Man O War Shock Troopers (full) -8
Widowmakers -4
Man O War Drakhun (with dismount) -5
Widowmakers Marksmen -2
Yuri -3
Of course there are other ways to make a list with these restrictions but I feel that this one has a great deal of potential. Now looking at it you get 3 major benefits for your army:
1) Faster Man O Wars
2) Advance Deployment for your jacks
3) You can redeploy your solos to counter anything your opponent might bring.
The third bonus is very important since it allows you to counter any solos or units that you need to kill off quickly. An example would be sending Yuri after Eiryss or Tartarus.
The first and second bonuses combined means that you are able to either AD (Advance Deploy) or run your heavy armor into the enemy and onto any scenario points allowing you to win by first holding off your enemy and then following up with a counter strike on pButchers' feat round.
Now that we have covered the bonuses of his theme list we have to cover the arguments against running it. If you run pButcher with the normal restrictions that Khador has you have access to a great many thing including Magic Attacks, Mercenaries, Character Warjacks and Mechaniks. Many of these things can be covered if you have a second list in a tournament or if you're aware of your local meta enough to know you don't need any of the things mentioned above.
Personally this Theme list is very powerful but unfortunately has many weaknesses built into it. Many Theme lists are like this and you have to decide if what it gives you is better than what you can have normally.
I have run a similar list before and it is capable of simply running over anything it contacts except for its few weaknesses (enemy upkeeps and incorporeal models being the most obvious). Another major bonus for it is that it is one of the few lists capable of running Man O Wars en masse which is something Khador doesnt do very often.
I'm going to keep writing reviews about theme lists in the future. Please feel free to email me with any article requests and your own opinions on my writings.
