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I would be really interested to start Warmachine along with my wh40k projects but I have no idea where to start. I've been trying to scour the forums for some information, but all the threads seem to lack real answers. New players only need the basics

I'm still in the point where I'm choosing a faction. To me the aesthetics of the models count almost as much as the actual performance of the army. So right now we are standing between Khador and Cygnar. I really like the simplistic brutality that the Khador jacks have and the warcaster that comes with the battlebox looks really amazing (yay for boobies!). On the other hand the Cygnar battlebox has different size jacks that creates nice variation to the look of the box (but no boobies ). Kara Sloan looks great too. So with these choices in mind the performance starts to count. That's where I need those real answers.

There are many threads about starting an army and I'm not sure if people are just asking the wrong questions or if the answers are too hard to be answered. Things like "Sorscha is not bad but might not fit your playstyle" and "Just buy the starterbox and see what you like" aren't really good answers. How would you know if you don't know the playstyle? So the first question I ask is what actually IS the playstyle that Sorscha fits? Or any other warcaster? I want examples of what different casters do and what kind of list and strategies they fit in.

The other question is about starting the army. Let's assume I'm taking either the Cygnar or the Khador starterbox. Where to go from there? I don't yet know my playstyle, but I know things that interest me. First thing is low model count. I really want to show these guys some love when it comes to painting. The other thing is either really fast hit and run style army or something that hits REALLY hard when it gets the chance. I'd like some example lists and just the basic strategy behing that list and that caster. If I for example took the Khador starterbox and a box of winterguard, where would that take me? What could/should I do with this army?

Have you looked at the Hordes factions too?

I feel Hordes armies generally have lower model counts than Warmachine ones

Among the Hordes armies, Circle and Skorne are pretty well known for hit and run tactics, especially Circle but Skorne's YoYo Karn is pretty popular too. Both factions are also famous for hitting pretty hard, especially Skorne who is probably the hardest hitting faction in the game.

Low model count is probably Cygnar more than Khador, although the true low model count factions are usually in HORDES. If you love the Colossals, Stormwall is widely regarded to be the best Colossal in the game. Cygnar also likes to utilize a lot of mercenaries (examples are Greygore Boomhowler & co, Reinholt the Gobber, Gorman di Wulfe and Ragman). Khador also enjoys their mercs, as does everyone, but not on the same level.

Cygnar does a lot of gunlines, with some sort of tarpit unit to keep the volume of fire up and not getting run over. Khador is more about the powerful first strike.

Go Skorne!

We run the big guys the best. You want Simplistic Brutality? It is not unheard of for a Bronzeback to smash a gargossal in a single turn, sprinkle on some Karn or Tibbers and you just can't beat Skorne.

Having said they if you are set on Cyg or Khador you can grab the Khador end of the 2 player starter kit for like $40 on ebay this is close to 25 points and probably is the best 2 player stater IMO as the Man-O-Wars are solid. If you were to add in a ox of winter guard, their UA, rockets and Kovnik you'd be looking near 35pts, but you probably would be better off for 25 running the winter guard instead of the shocktroopers. In this game it really is how you play your models so grab something to start and get some games in, stop looking at the forums and go play!

if you want a faction that hits "fast," then I would definitly not suggest Khador... They are rather slow compared to most other armies, though they do hit hard. Cygnar is OK from what I've heard... personally, I play Retribution of Scyrah, and they are definitly fast moving and fairly hard hitting, but nowhere nearly as sturdy as Khador or some of the other factions... Really, the best way to figure out your playstyle is to try it out... and the best place to start really is the battle box... or if you have a buddy, the 2player starter boxes are not a bad way to go either. Come to mention it, if you got the 2player starter box for warmachine, you would have a small army for both Cygnar and for Khador...

Sorscha is a bit of a feat caster. Her once-per-game ability is rather strong and she uses it to great effect with her mobility. She can buff her melee jacks for a burst of speed and freeze foes to make them very easy to hit.
Stryker is an army buffer. He has buff spells that add to armor and gun range. His own feat is more subtle granting a further armor buff to his army. He has a a spell that is similar to sorscha's feat but much smaller in scale.

Khador jacks are typically slow but many casters have a way to grant them a burst of speed. They tend to have higher power but lower accuracy than average. Their infantry run a wider range of speeds. The faction generally doesn't like to run more than two jacks at a time while using infantry as their backbone; but high model count is a relative term. Is 35-40 models high count for you? That is the high end for a single khador list.

Cygnar are a little quicker than khador overall but not blindingly fast. They are fair at ranged hit-and run tactics -especially if you are good at judging distances with high precision. The ability to keep up the cat and mouse game will vary greatly however. Eventually some of your side will end up slugging it out in melee. Cygnar run more balanced lists more often with two to three jacks and a couple of infantry units sharing the spotlight. As noted above, they utilize the most mercenaries of all the factions. Cygnar also embraces their elemental affinity more than khador. There are a LOT more electrically-themed models than ice-themed.

Most factions mix melee and ranged options. If you want high damage the whole game will be to your liking but I'd say skorne do excessive damage best. Circle are the kings of melee hit and run.

An example list might look something like this:
Points: 25/25
Kommander Sorscha (+5pts)
* Destroyer (9pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard (2pts)
* 3 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeers (3pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)

Sorscha would likely cast fog of war and upkeep it for the first two to four rounds to make enemy ranged attacks and spells miss more. She would allocate only a few focus each turn -just enough to get the juggy in position and help the destroyer boost mortar shots. As her force closes in she would advance forward so that over half of the opposing force is in her control area and line of sight to feat then fire off a shot from her pistol and possibly a tempest spell if she didn't allocate or upkeep. Wind rush can get her up faster but riskier or help her back off to safety if she walked up normally. The whole time the winterguard are advancing with buff effects from Kovnik Griorovich then unloading ranged attacks when they get close enough. They are accurate enough with Grigorovitch's inspiration that they do not need frozen foes to hit, but they will not chew through heavy armor nearly as fast as the jacks.

A cynar alternative:
Points: 25/25
Commander Coleman Stryker (*6pts)
* Charger (4pts)
* Lancer (6pts)
* Ironclad (7pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

Stryker will cast snipe and arcane shield early to upkeep them for most of the game. The ironclad or lancer may be allocated a focus to run but most of his first-turn focus will go into spells that will be upkept. He will probably use his +5 arm ability the turn before he expects the enemy to make their big move. He will try to have his lancer run within casting range of the enemy caster to cast his earthquake spell to knock them flat on their back and set them up to be shot up. Gun mages will pick away at enemy infantry and toy with their jack positioning.The stormsmith will zap a jack that gets too close and disrupt it for a turn or hunt down evasive solos. Stryker can do the same with his pistol but that leaves him closer to the action than he prefers. Eiryss will help stryker set up for an assassination where the enemy caster has low armor and very low defense by stripping focus away from her after stryker lands earthquake.
The charger gets allocated as much as stryker can afford on the offensive turns while the ironclad runs interference on the setup turns.

 supertzar wrote:
I would be really interested to start Warmachine along with my wh40k projects but I have no idea where to start. I've been trying to scour the forums for some information, but all the threads seem to lack real answers. New players only need the basics

First and foremost, welcome to the iron Kingdoms.
Don’t be too frazzled about not knowing where to go – its par for the course for those coming from other games – especially from 40k. I think though that you need to understand something before pushing on – there are no “real” answers. At least not the ones you’re looking for. One of the best pieces of advice I got when entering warmachine/hordes was to forget everything I thought I knew about gaming, as learned through the prism of GW games. And what do I mean by that? Its simple. Say you want to do a Space Wolves army. You go online – say you want to do space wolves. The advice will be to give you the handful of “the-lists” that happen to be the most effective/competitive lists. Its easy to figure out where to go, because only a handful of truly effective builds exist. The same cannot be said for warmachine. Not for factions, not even for specific casters. There is no “the sorscha list” is the same vein as long fang spam was a staple SW list. That is the real answer. There is no “cheatsheat”; no “how to” guide or “walkthrough”. No one will hold your hand and tell you what you need, or what you need to do. Now one will guide you down an obvious path. There is no obvious path. And this is for one simple reason: to a lesser or greater extent, everything can be built into an effective game winning strategy. The very concept of “the-lists” as evident in 40k is alien in wamachine.

 supertzar wrote:

I'm still in the point where I'm choosing a faction. To me the aesthetics of the models count almost as much as the actual performance of the army. So right now we are standing between Khador and Cygnar. I really like the simplistic brutality that the Khador jacks have and the warcaster that comes with the battlebox looks really amazing (yay for boobies!). On the other hand the Cygnar battlebox has different size jacks that creates nice variation to the look of the box (but no boobies ). Kara Sloan looks great too. So with these choices in mind the performance starts to count. That's where I need those real answers.

Khador’s thing is less its jacks and more its infantry. Its design aesthetic is “Ve don’t do silly light varjacks”. In Khador, the word for “bigger” is the same as “better”, and there is no such term as “excessive force”.

 supertzar wrote:
There are many threads about starting an army and I'm not sure if people are just asking the wrong questions or if the answers are too hard to be answered. Things like "Sorscha is not bad but might not fit your playstyle" and "Just buy the starterbox and see what you like" aren't really good answers. How would you know if you don't know the playstyle? So the first question I ask is what actually IS the playstyle that Sorscha fits? Or any other warcaster? I want examples of what different casters do and what kind of list and strategies they fit in.

Its very much “too hard to be answered”. There is no “one way” to play a faction, or a caster. The simple fact is swapping out one unit in this game is enough to radically shift the playstyle of an entire army. And to be fair, ideas about what you think you like don’t always translate into being things you like on the table top. Also the nature of the game, and its infamous steep (vertical) learning curve doesn’t lend itself towards throwing yourself into the deep end. End the “hands off” approach. “Buy the starter box and see what you like from there” are very good answers, because I can’t define a specific roadmap for you. You need to do that yourself. What I like, and what I push as “good” are not necessarily “good” – they’re “preferences”. And everyone will have different preferences. Battle boxes are the best way to get into the game, for a whole variety of reasons. They’re the perfect springboard. Use them to cut your teeth, and then expand slowly.

As to sorscha’s playstyle – she is best described as an assassination caster, with a brutal control feat. Aside from her spell fog of war, she doesn’t really have any support buffs to offer her army. The rest of her spells are rather selfish, and geared towards her doing the final blow. As she cant really hand out buffs, she needs reliable, self sufficient units to pull their own weight. She has a brutal feat that stops whole armies dead in their tracks by making everything in her LOS stationary (although she has a severe hard counter in the form of Protectorate armies with the “book”. I’ve found one of her main tricks is to use her army to clear the way for sorscha’s assassination run (which has a ridiculously long threat range) where she takes out the enemy caster herself – although this wont work if they’re camping lots of focus or are naturally hard – she doesn’t have the hitting power to wreck the likes of the butcher, for example.
But believe me, this is the short and sweet version. And its not really that accurate. You can build sorscha into a control/denial spell slinging caster with Sylas Wishnayler, and clever use of both her feat, and icy grip. You can build her into a ranged assassination list by comboing her feat with ranged units like the behemoth/destroyers to get the most out of the feat. You can turn her into an attrition caster – again through her feat which gives you one brutal turn to clear everything out, and letting you win via superior piece trades. Again, taking hard hitting infantry units like doom reavers or iron fangs lends itself to this.
See what I mean? Depending on the synnergies within your list, there is a huge depth of playstyles available. And this is true for every caster.

 supertzar wrote:
The other question is about starting the army. Let's assume I'm taking either the Cygnar or the Khador starterbox. Where to go from there? I don't yet know my playstyle, but I know things that interest me. First thing is low model count. I really want to show these guys some love when it comes to painting. The other thing is either really fast hit and run style army or something that hits REALLY hard when it gets the chance. I'd like some example lists and just the basic strategy behing that list and that caster. If I for example took the Khador starterbox and a box of winterguard, where would that take me? What could/should I do with this army?

Where to go from the starter sets? Lots of games. Expand slowly. Maybe a second caster, maybe a unit or two to swap things out. Take your time building up. Don’t go straight to 35/50pt games.

Regarding low model count – this is warmachine. Not 40k. a “horde” in this game is 30 odd models. That’s one ork mob. You have all the opportunity you need to show them love in painting.
Fast hit and run. And hits really hard. Well, that’s everything. Everything in this game hits hard. Everything can be taken down in a turn by something else. If there was a pendulum swinging between “the ability to inflict damage on your opponent”, and “the ability to withstand damage from your opponent”, this one leans very much towards the former. This is not 40k where 100shots kills 2 marines. Damage output is generally high – and for some things – staggering.
Regarding fast hit and run, Cygnar’s Kraye or enen eStryker springs to mind. With Khador, you’ve got vlad, vlad3, strakhov etc. With other armies like Circle – you’ve got kromac and kaya. All factions have some builds.
Regarding example lists and strategies – that entirely depends. It depends on both what I take, and what I play against. I’m going to play radically differently against a beast heavy troll army as I am against a range-denial menoth army. Its not really a good idea to “listmachine” because frankly, you’re gonna get nothing out of it.
Now – khador starter and winterguard. That’s sorscha, destroyer, juggy, and what? Is it 6man squad? 10men? What about the UA? What about rocketeers? What about Kovnik Joe? Can you be more specific please. As is, if its just the basic 6 grunts, you’ve got a 15pt army. Run up the board with fog of war up, use them to tarpit and take things out in combination with the destroyer, use your jug for heavy armour cracking, and wait for an opportunity to pop feat and take out their caster. Vague, I know. And its all I can give you. Remember – sorscha is the queen. Everything else is a pawn you can gladly chuck away to that end.

I'm sorry, I really shouldn't be suggesting this, but if you want to go Hordes and decide skorne is for you (I've seen a few of their games and I agree they do seem to play very "run the elephants up in your face and smash it in") then maybe you should try morghoul.

Why?

1. He is an incredibly aggressive leader, perfectly capable of assassinating the opponent on his own.

2. He seems like he would play very fast, he has the ability to get up the board and move around (or through) blocking models.

3. His playstyle is incredibly high risk/high reward. Your win condition is the guy who makes you lose if he dies, and he is very fragile, no matter how many evasion tricks he has. So no matter what you'll always be on the edge of your seat.

4. His model is awesome, both of them (eMorghoul even more if you ask me).

Now, the bad parts:

He's bad...really bad...worst warlock skorne has bad. You are not taking full advantage of your bashy beasts since he's up front doing work instead of buffing the beasts.

Warmachine is not "perfectly balanced". Some leaders are just better. That said, it is nowhere near the levels of internal imbalance GW puts out with 40k. It is possible to win with Morghoul, in fact I just read a very entertaining battle report where a guy went 5-0 at a tournament with him. It was kind of funny since evreyone makes him out to be the worst thing on two legs, but whenever someone actually does a battle report involving him the general fan reaction is "wow, he's a lot better than I thought he was. I'm going to respect the guy a little more now."

He's kind of like that one guy nobody expects, and non-expert players might not know how to deal with him since nobody ever plays the guy.

Keep in mind this is the musings of a guy who has never actually played, but has read a bunch of tactics/strategy stuff on the internet, so it might not be the best way to base your decision.

Thank you all for fast answers!

Bonus cookie to Dais for actually giving straight answers to the questions I had. Exalted.

As for Deadnight, your answer basically was "get the starter and choose what you like", but in much greater depth, i.e. answering the "why" instead of "what". That alone makes the answer superior to just stating the obvious. You took the extra step to actually explaining it to a new player. Exalted

Deadnight wrote: sorscha is the queen. Everything else is a pawn you can gladly chuck away to that end.

This actually is a sort of _basic_ strategy I was asking about. The rest are just tactics to make it happen and that is something I'll gladly learn myself

I'm also starting to think that the model count won't be a problem regardless of what I decide. I'm definately not aiming for big games at first. Probably those 15 pt just to start learning the ropes. And as Sorscha from the starter kit looks so good I think that's what I'm going for. If I have understood correctly, the Khador starter makes a total of 11pt? I was thinking of buying the winterguard box with 10 grunts and 3 rocketeers. Maybe I'll just use 6 grunts to get to the 15pt mark and save the rest for later expansion.

EDIT: I appreciate all the comments about Hordes and might get into it when I'm more familiar with this game system. Right now I really want to check out these battlerobots

Avoid Khador if you like 'Jacks. This is such a common a thread "I want BattleRobots and Low model count, so I'm looking at Khador" I'm really, really starting question what the hell the designers at PP were smoking when they thought it would be a good idea to make the faction with the biggest 'Jacks the worst at running them.

Chongara wrote:
Avoid Khador if you like 'Jacks. This is such a common a thread "I want BattleRobots and Low model count, so I'm looking at Khador" I'm really, really starting question what the hell the designers at PP were smoking when they thought it would be a good idea to make the faction with the biggest 'Jacks the worst at running them.

Khador run single jacks, or a handful of jacks as well as any other faction. Khador isnt about "only" jacks, however, and never has been. the fluff backs me up. Jacks in Khador are rare. irusks 4th assault battalion has 20,000 infantry, and 80jacks. the resources for them are scattered and in remote areas - therefore their jacks are extremely expensive to make. Hence the push towards getting the most out of the few they have by making them bigger, harder and stompier than anyone elses. Beyond that, in game, Khador only do heavy jacks (no lights) and heavy jacks cost more points - hence the fact you will never see more than a handful.

the simple truth is that warjacks are war machines, but they are not warmachine. even going back to the earliest publications (witchfire trilogy) jacks, whilst iconic are not the cornerstone of the IKiverse, nor are they ubiquitous. Heck, in the witchfire trilogy, there were a grand total of 2 jacks present in the whole adventure, and one of them had the over riding purpose of falling off a ship and sinking into a river. there are vastly more farmers with horse drawn ploughs than jack drawn ploughs, and its as true for the military - you will have vasty more soldiers than jacks.

Chongara wrote:
Avoid Khador if you like 'Jacks. This is such a common a thread "I want BattleRobots and Low model count, so I'm looking at Khador" I'm really, really starting question what the hell the designers at PP were smoking when they thought it would be a good idea to make the faction with the biggest 'Jacks the worst at running them.

One thing has to be made clear. In the first post I said that the aesthetics of the models matter almost as much as the performance of the army. This extends also to the army as a whole. The look and feel must be right. This means that when I'm looking to a game with cool battlerobots, I'm not looking at a game about cool battlerobots (not sure if I got the grammar right but the point is clear I think). Low model count does not equal maximised jacks. To me the visual effect of the jacks is ruined if the army is made solely out of jacks. You have to have small models with it to maximise the visual impact. And while I understand Khador is the faction that is about infantry, I've been convinced that you can make nearly everything you like work in some way. So I believe I can make Khador work with big jacks and not spam the infantry

I also believe that when I play enough games and start expanding the army I might be convinced otherwise and start massing the convicts and make that army work too. Wise minds adapt

I always think of Khador as a WW2 soviet army - a couple of large tanks but it's mostly infantry doing the heavy lifting.

But on the Jack Heavy front, the good news is that there's a new Junior Warcaster (basically a solo who can get focus) for Khador called Andrei Malakov coming out who'll be able to help run an extra jack or two. The bad news is that he's not due out till next year with the Warmachine video game kickstarter, though you could always proxy him when playing with friends of course Rules for him are available here: http://files.privateerpress.com/nq/nqplus/NQ_Kickstarter_Special_Edition.pdf

Or you could just play Khachev for your warcaster - he's the only caster who's also a warjack, and he likes to bring a bunch of other jacks with him. Think of him as the armored division

 supertzar wrote:

Chongara wrote:
Avoid Khador if you like 'Jacks. This is such a common a thread "I want BattleRobots and Low model count, so I'm looking at Khador" I'm really, really starting question what the hell the designers at PP were smoking when they thought it would be a good idea to make the faction with the biggest 'Jacks the worst at running them.

One thing has to be made clear. In the first post I said that the aesthetics of the models matter almost as much as the performance of the army. This extends also to the army as a whole. The look and feel must be right. This means that when I'm looking to a game with cool battlerobots, I'm not looking at a game about cool battlerobots (not sure if I got the grammar right but the point is clear I think). Low model count does not equal maximised jacks. To me the visual effect of the jacks is ruined if the army is made solely out of jacks. You have to have small models with it to maximise the visual impact. And while I understand Khador is the faction that is about infantry, I've been convinced that you can make nearly everything you like work in some way. So I believe I can make Khador work with big jacks and not spam the infantry

I also believe that when I play enough games and start expanding the army I might be convinced otherwise and start massing the convicts and make that army work too. Wise minds adapt

Oh, irony, how thee mocks me! heh, trust the guy who has never played the game to get the thing about jacks! you summed it up. Its not about "only" jacks. 1 jack amongst a whole bunch of infantry has presense, it has mass, it has status. 1 jack amongst 20 jacks means nothing.

Now, to help you along a bit further - you dont need to do "infantrymachine". in fact, id recommend against it. spammed infantry has as many hard counters (pCaine, pFeora, pKrueger etc) as spammed jacks, and being honest, a combined arms approach is best. Some khador casters - maybe the majority (the sorschas, the irusks, strakhov, eVlad) work best with a single jack - maybe two at higher points levels. However, we have a few casters that enjoy taking 2-3 jacks out for a ride.

the first up is the Butcher. full throttle. boosted attack rolls, free charges all round for his entire battlegroup.although it is a bit of a "trap" spell, it is incredibly useful if you get to pull it off. what FT essentially means is the more jacks you have, the better the spell becomes. a single kodiak can generate the equivelant of 4 focus worth of boosts from a 3focus spell. on its own, its a saving. 2 kodiaks is generating 8 focus for the cost of a 3 focus spell. 3 kodiaks is 12, and so on.
the second up is epic butcher. dont be fooled by his random focus - look at his rage drives. free charges and power attacks, amongst other things. and the more he redlines, the more your jacks do to, thanks to his conferred rage literally infecting them. if you ask me, he's probably my favourite khador caster - he's just balls to the wall aggressive, and brilliant fun.
third up is prime vlad. his feat doubles the speed of his jacks. and signs and portents affects everything in his control area. he can get a lot of mileage out of his jacks, even if he is boring to play (my opinion though).
fourth is Harkevich. he plays differently to our other casters. he's more of a ranged guru. give him a few destroyers, decimators, and black ivan. have fun with his feat and the aptly named spell "broadside". only casters with beards get this spell, and Hark has one of the best.
Last up is the iconic Karchev. this guy wears a warjack like others wear clothes. hes tricky to play and has some severe hard counters. despite this, he is fun to play, and he is one of the best jack casters khador have - with some nasty tricks like the "karchev powerslide" in conjuction with his feat and unearthly rage he can swing a whole battlegroup of jacks right into the heart of an army. limited use, but brilliant at what he does.

oh, and there are also mercenary jack marshals that help augment out jack numbers - best option is thor steinhammer - if you really want more heavy metal.

How about just looking in faction - Man O War Kovnik with boosted initial attacks.

Ok. I read through the quickstart guide and the stat cards with it. Then I scrambled through the model summaries in the dakka articles. What really caught my eye were the widowmakers. They also seem to be quite a good match with Sorscha because the fog of war right? I suppose you could also use wind rush to get them out of danger when you have to. Are they really hard to use? I understand that every unit is manageable and potentially great but I mean are they hard to use as a beginner?

The other thing is that I don't see the points anywhere. If I'm going with the battle box and widowmakers where do they take me pointswise? I'll remind that I'm aiming for the 15pts at first.

Windrush is self only, so you can't use it on the Widowmakers sadly. However, Fog of War is handy to make sure their Camouflage actually works. They're fairly easy to use as well, just make sure to stay at range as long as possible with them. Also note that Fog of War works on EVERYTHING in your control area, so enemies that are close enough will get concealment as well.

Points are at the bottom of the stat cards. Battle College and the Dakka articles, of course, won't have points cost on them typically. However, the battle box and a unit of Widowmakers is exactly 15 points.

Windrush won't wrok on Widowmakers. That spell only affects Sorscha herself, as a warning before getting the wrong idea there.

Widowmakers are PC 4 for four bodies. So them in the battlebox is 15pts exactly.

And stuff.

Shame on the wind rush. Otherwise that sounds like a plan then! I'll go and see if my FLGS has a battle box and widowmakers this weekend. What else do I need? Templates? The stat cards come with the models right? I believe I can play the first games with the quickstart rules just to get the hang of it and invest on the rulebook after that. And dice and tape measures and all that I obviously have already.

Yes, you can play straight out if the box. You should already have a 3" diameter template (in warmahordes that's a small blast template). You should buy the template set (either for hordes or machine) they're identical except for color and logo. Then it's just flavor to taste.

 supertzar wrote:
Shame on the wind rush. Otherwise that sounds like a plan then! I'll go and see if my FLGS has a battle box and widowmakers this weekend. What else do I need? Templates? The stat cards come with the models right? I believe I can play the first games with the quickstart rules just to get the hang of it and invest on the rulebook after that. And dice and tape measures and all that I obviously have already.

I'd recommend getting the Templates and a Khador Token set. The Token sets allow you to mark certain effects and spells and keep track of focus - you can just use home made tokens or beads for focus and scraps of paper for spells, of course, but the ones they make I think are pretty nice.

The stats cards do come with the models, and I'd also strongly recommend you to get some Card holders/sleeves. I personally use sheets of 9 sleeves, something like this:


They're great for using your cards in a game, as you can just mark damage boxes using a wet-erase marker pen on the outside of the plastic (just make sure you don't wipe any damage off accidentally ). You can also get individual card sleeves that work too, but I find the larger sheets easier. If the shop you're going to sells Magic cards, there's a good chance they'll sell these too.

If you want all the stats/cards of all the models in your army, you might also consider getting the digital app Warroom (it's on Apple and Android). It has it's faults (it's a mediocre list builder, and has some stability issues on some android devices), but for $6 you get access to all the cards for your entire faction, both those released previously and those released in the future up to the end of this edition. If you just want an online list builder with the points costs, you can just use Forward Kommander (http://www.forwardkommander.com/).

 dementedwombat wrote:
I'm sorry, I really shouldn't be suggesting this, but if you want to go Hordes and decide skorne is for you (I've seen a few of their games and I agree they do seem to play very "run the elephants up in your face and smash it in") then maybe you should try morghoul.

Why?

1. He is an incredibly aggressive leader, perfectly capable of assassinating the opponent on his own.

2. He seems like he would play very fast, he has the ability to get up the board and move around (or through) blocking models.

3. His playstyle is incredibly high risk/high reward. Your win condition is the guy who makes you lose if he dies, and he is very fragile, no matter how many evasion tricks he has. So no matter what you'll always be on the edge of your seat.

4. His model is awesome, both of them (eMorghoul even more if you ask me).

Now, the bad parts:

He's bad...really bad...worst warlock skorne has bad. You are not taking full advantage of your bashy beasts since he's up front doing work instead of buffing the beasts.

Warmachine is not "perfectly balanced". Some leaders are just better. That said, it is nowhere near the levels of internal imbalance GW puts out with 40k. It is possible to win with Morghoul, in fact I just read a very entertaining battle report where a guy went 5-0 at a tournament with him. It was kind of funny since evreyone makes him out to be the worst thing on two legs, but whenever someone actually does a battle report involving him the general fan reaction is "wow, he's a lot better than I thought he was. I'm going to respect the guy a little more now."

He's kind of like that one guy nobody expects, and non-expert players might not know how to deal with him since nobody ever plays the guy.

Keep in mind this is the musings of a guy who has never actually played, but has read a bunch of tactics/strategy stuff on the internet, so it might not be the best way to base your decision.

Are you looking at the same Morghoul stats as everybody else?

pMorghoul is THE premier beast caster that Skorne has. He does so much for our beasts. Abuse and Admonition are amazing spells.

He himself does only one thing really well, shred infantry and casters that have less than 14 boxes. He can't crack high armor, but that is what you bring beasts for.

His feat also screws stuff up, especially stacked with an Agonizer.


What you are saying may apply to eMorghoul, but prime Morghoul is an amazing support caster that has inbuilt crowd control.

That said, eMorghoul is good too. He just plays 100% to the assassination run and if it fails the game is over.

I was referring to the epic variety, which just about everyone seems to hate for some reason. I really liked the model and would totally play him if I decided to start a hordes army.

 Maddermax wrote:


I'd recommend getting the Templates and a Khador Token set. The Token sets allow you to mark certain effects and spells and keep track of focus - you can just use home made tokens or beads for focus and scraps of paper for spells, of course, but the ones they make I think are pretty nice.

The stats cards do come with the models, and I'd also strongly recommend you to get some Card holders/sleeves. I personally use sheets of 9 sleeves, something like this:


They're great for using your cards in a game, as you can just mark damage boxes using a wet-erase marker pen on the outside of the plastic (just make sure you don't wipe any damage off accidentally ). You can also get individual card sleeves that work too, but I find the larger sheets easier. If the shop you're going to sells Magic cards, there's a good chance they'll sell these too.

As far as tokens go, the ones from Privateer are very nice, and for those of us that like to have things match up to what we're playing, they really work. I also have to agree with using the 9 card sheets. I am currently using top loaders, and not only do those fill fast, they take up a lot of space (I've filled one Top Box already). As soon as I can pick up some of the sheets, I'll be switching out. One thing I would recommend with them is to get some cheap individual sleeves, I know from my card collecting days that they help with cards sliding around inside the sheet pocket.
'

I am of the opinion that there are no warcaster/warlocks that are simply "bad". It seems as though there are some that are good at handling a wide range of situations and opponents, while the ones categorized as "bad" are made to handle fewer situations. For example, you may have a warcaster that is bad at a standard assassination game, but does really well in some scenario maps (Zevanna Agha in khador comes to mind).

Take this from someone who has used just about every khador warcaster and some very odd lists (50pt harkevich filled with destroyers?). Karchev is khador's only real "jack" caster. Yes, Harkevich;s broadsides gives his battlegroup an additional ranged attack, but, it does not pay off, just like butcher's full throttle does not pay off when using numerous jacks. Heavy warjacks get bogged down by infantry and our warcasters dont have the focus or abilities to clear enough infantry out of the way to untangle them. In addition to this, one of the better parts of our jacks is that many of them hit very hard - our most basic warjack's melee weapon is POW19. This means that you really should not have to boost damage against most targets, buying extra attacks is almost always more valuable but pButcher does not have the focus to full throttle AND give out focus to his jacks. Khador's infantry do very well when they have a big angry warjack to absorb hits for them which is perfect since khador jacks have the highest average ARM and some of the highest number of hitboxes. I usually end up having them around just to take hits and to make sure that my infantry make it to the front lines in one piece.


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 supertzar wrote:
Shame on the wind rush. Otherwise that sounds like a plan then! I'll go and see if my FLGS has a battle box and widowmakers this weekend. What else do I need? Templates? The stat cards come with the models right? I believe I can play the first games with the quickstart rules just to get the hang of it and invest on the rulebook after that. And dice and tape measures and all that I obviously have already.

I would recommend downloading the free simulator program called "Vassal". It simulates table top games and you can go in and observe matches or test models/units before you actually buy them. I use it all the time - my friends and I have test matches to try out list ideas, strategies, and to test out models to see how they perform before we actually go out and buy them. It is a fantastic tool that can teach you alot.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I was referring to the epic variety, which just about everyone seems to hate for some reason. I really liked the model and would totally play him if I decided to start a hordes army.

Maybe because he has the abilities like an assassination caster but a threat range so short and predictable even casters like pSeverius & pNemo can stroll up to the mid-line and have nothing to fear? I suppose this would be "kind of gakky, but tolerable" if he did anything of substance to support his army but he doesn't.


Also he's melee-centric and wearing tissue paper for armor. I've had stray redeemer blasts turning the eMorghul player a little pale on occasion. Again you can tolerate this one focus 7/8+ casters that sit back and support. Even on guys like Caine who sit back and shoot then teleport to safey. It just doesn't work on a guy who is all "I'm coming for you with my knife".