Due to burnout from GW games and the fact that my closest place to play GW is 40 miles away, I'm looking into Warmachine to get my table top fix. I've located a store where WarMachine is supposed to be played and it's only 20 miles so much more attractive as gas prices keep rising.

Anyways, I looked into starting WM up years ago and went so far as to buy a WM Prime book and escalation books. I'm guessing these are Mk1 rules and the ruleset has moved to Mk2. So going to guess a new rulebook is high on my purchase list. Looking over the minatures Cryx looks the most appealing to me. Looking at models I like and plugging them into Army Builder here's a tenative 15 point list for my First purchases:

Lich Lord Asphyxious ( I really, really like the look of the 'Epic' one, is there some sort of restriction on using epic VS normal?)

Death Ripper - looks cool, and the node idea seems interesting
Reaper - I like the idea of harpooning enemies to me and killing them or perhaps letting Bane Lord Tartarus kill them.

Bane Lord Tartarus &
Unit of Bane Knights

If my basic grasp of the rules and possible synergy are correct. My basic idea is advance, Use the Reaper to pull enemies out of formation to kill them, with possible kills by Bane lord to give me more Bane Knights. If some Bane KNights die, it's ok, I can make a final finishing move of using the Lich Lord's Feat to bring back up to 10 of the models for a 1 turn finishing blow to hopefully kill the enemy warcaster.

if I under stand army building this is 21 points but only counts as 15 due to the Lich Lords +6 bonus points.

Looking online, I see that I can buy the basic knights in 1 box set and get blisters to suppliment the unit 2 at a time. (I have no clue is just having 2 extra bane knights is enough for Lord Tartarus, but it's a start)

Death Rippers are 2 to a pack, so that does allow for some expansion as I move to higher levels.

Am I being completely dumb here? Any advice?