The first and most important thing to know about Reznik is he is a bad-ass, smash mouth take-no-prisoner type caster. From his spell list and abilities to his feat Reznik is designed to kill people, hopefully enemy war-nouns. His stat line is impressive on its own and he can clearly bring the hurt to virtually any opponent, but that can easily be coupled with his spell Engine of Destruction (EoD) to bring him up to ridiculous levels of smashery (MAT 11 P&S 18 anyone?) and at a cost of two there's plenty of focus left after using it to really lay into someone. You can then couple that with his Purgation ability on his sword (giving addition dice on melee attack and damage rolls vs a target with an enemy upkeep on them) and his feat (stripping focus and fury from everyone in his control range) to handily murder anyone in his 12" threat range (under EoD).
As well as the blunt force aspect of his rules Reznik also has some nice movement shenanigans for his battlegroup to further facilitate his assassination focused play-style. First up he had the ability Witch Hound allowing one model in his battlegroup to advance and make an attack each time a battlegroup model is hit by a spell. As well as that he has Perdition, a damage spell that allows a warjack in the battlegroup to advance if the spell does damage, once per turn. These abilities are circumstantial at best but against the right armies are devastating.
He also boosts a pair of upkeep buffs, the typical Menite staple of Ignite, giving +2 to melee damage rolls and critical fire and the devastating Iron Agression, hands down one of the best warjack buffs in the game. This spell lets one jack run and charge for free as well as giving an additional die on melee attack rolls, and can crank a great jack into one that makes your opponent cry, especially if it's stuck on a jack like the Avatar.
Generally Reznik's gameplay is brutally unsubtle, plodding up the field until you can get close enough to deliver Reznik to your opponents face. Even the toughest war-nouns in the game get squished pretty quickly when charged by Reznik under his feat and EoD. Moment of anecdote, just this week I managed to kill Terminus on the turn after his feat using Reznik. Ouch.
Now I'm a big Reznik fan boy but I'm not blind to his weaknesses. First of which is his low Focus. 6 is fairly average as these things go but with so many battlegroup effects on his card he wants to take a jack heavy list and also wants to be quite greedy with his focus meaning he feels pretty starved most games. Really he wants to be taking a focus efficient battlegroup and a Heirophant. And Wracks. And maybe a Reclaimer. Seriously that 6 does not go as far as you'd really like it to.
The other issue with Reznik is that his aggressive play style means he's often pretty far up the board, increasing the risk that someone else will get to him for the assassination first. With Def 14 and armour 17 with very little to camp he has a solid defence but not enough to be dependably survivable, especially against an opponent who can boost rolls.
On top of this in a meta game sense Reznik does have a whole lot of tricks and sneaks but they come with caveats that, to a knowledgable oppenent, are pretty easy to avoid triggering, and he doesn't play to scenario very well. When I'm making a list for the Executioner I generally just make an assassination delivery system for Reznik to reach the other carter with enough jam units in there to keep me from losing on scenario before he can get the killing blow in.
Overall I think that Reznik is a characterful and (perhaps more importantly) fun caster to play. He's also simple, and doesn't require much finesse to play well, but can really shine in the hands of a canny oppenent who can set up some strong charge lanes to score the win.
He's definitely a big favourite of mine and hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll put up a battle report using him at 50 points after the tournament I'm playing next week.
-M
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