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Hi everyone,

I just had my first 1 vs 1 game against horde and I was hoping to get some comments from the community.

I'm a bit confused about the balance of Jacks vs beasts.

while Jacks are limited by the amount of focus they can have, and is available for them to get, Warbeasts seem to have no such limits, able to get free hits and free boosts until they have killed everything.
I understand that each time they do these free actions they gain fury, that the caster then can take and dump, but it does not seem like this is much of a limit at all.

I fought vs Skorne with 4 beasts and had a very dull game as his beasts just ploughed through everything in their path, boosting and gaining extra attacks until what ever they were fighting was dead.

Is this normal for hordes armies, and how am I meant to actually fight against that other then just running away with a shooty list and pick them apart from range? (I see that most hordes beasts have no ranged attacks)

I dunno... I guess I'm missing something big here but after that game I'm rather discouraged from fighting vs hordes again with anything less then a full shooting list :(

Warbeasts actually have a limit on how much fury they can generate, though it's usually higher than the 3-focus limit for 'Jacks. It's usually 4 Fury (for heavy warbeasts) and less for smaller ones.
The counterpart is that losing beasts is much more painful than losing 'jacks most of the time, as losing Fury generators can be crippling where having more Focus for your caster can be helpful

 aprilmanha wrote:
Hi everyone,

I just had my first 1 vs 1 game against horde and I was hoping to get some comments from the community.

I'm a bit confused about the balance of Jacks vs beasts.

while Jacks are limited by the amount of focus they can have, and is available for them to get, Warbeasts seem to have no such limits, able to get free hits and free boosts until they have killed everything.
I understand that each time they do these free actions they gain fury, that the caster then can take and dump, but it does not seem like this is much of a limit at all.

I fought vs Skorne with 4 beasts and had a very dull game as his beasts just ploughed through everything in their path, boosting and gaining extra attacks until what ever they were fighting was dead.

Is this normal for hordes armies, and how am I meant to actually fight against that other then just running away with a shooty list and pick them apart from range? (I see that most hordes beasts have no ranged attacks)

I dunno... I guess I'm missing something big here but after that game I'm rather discouraged from fighting vs hordes again with anything less then a full shooting list :(

Was the person taking all of the focus on their Warlock? Because if there is any fury left on the warbeast, they have to make a frenzy check (roll under their Threshold).

The first time you play against Hordes, it can seem unfair, but it's basically a long game vs. short game type deal. If you wipe out all his beasts, he has to cut (do points of damage) himself for fury. If he wipes out your warjacks, you still get all your focus and are very dangerous.

If this was a battlebox game, don't worry too much about it. The game starts to be much more balanced at 25+ points and less susceptible to these sort of match ups.

The game was a 35 point game, Menoth VS Skorne.
I was just amazed how much damage Hordes can do.

Also not really sure what the point of the fury mechanic is since the Warlock can just take all the generated fury and dump it if he can't hold it all, making it near impossible for frenzy to happen?

Maybe it was a special Warlock ability his Skorne lock had that let him take the 12 or so fury... I don't know. Its just discoraging

I need to find more less competitive players O_o I stopped playing w40K so much because there was so much list competition going on

 aprilmanha wrote:
The game was a 35 point game, Menoth VS Skorne.
I was just amazed how much damage Hordes can do.

Also not really sure what the point of the fury mechanic is since the Warlock can just take all the generated fury and dump it if he can't hold it all, making it near impossible for frenzy to happen?

Maybe it was a special Warlock ability his Skorne lock had that let him take the 12 or so fury... I don't know. Its just discoraging

I need to find more less competitive players O_o I stopped playing w40K so much because there was so much list competition going on

Uh, that bolded part, no he can't. The warlock HAS to take all the fury generated up to his Fury stat. The rest gets left on the beast. If there is ANY fury on the beast, they make a Frenzy check.

There are some abilities that prevent this, but I don't know of any that allows Skorne to do that.

My first ever demo game was similar, although I was the one using Skorne and iirc my mate was Cygnar. After that game we both had the same doubts about playing the two games vs each other and we decided to stick to Warmachine only as we were only going to be playing each other. I went Cryx, he went Cygnar.

Years later we both have those same armies as well as a Hordes faction each and neither of us bat an eye at playing Warmahordes now. And we even get regular games against other opponents too!

It's just a case of learning what each system offers and cracking the Focus/Fury management.

Edit: just saw your new post... that's an issue!

If you are a Warmachine player, you will say - wow! beasts are so powerful! They can make so many attacks!

If you are a Hordes player, you will say - wow! Warcasters are so powerful! They have such awesome spells and feats!

It does sound like something peculiar may have been going on with the fury rules in your game, though. You should make sure you both understand the rules there. Basically, in the control phase a warlock can take fury points from beasts in their battlegroup until they have as many fury as their FURY stat ("leach" is the game term for this). They can't just take infinite fury points and then "drop them" (a warlock can drop fury points, but only during their own activation, not during the control phase).

That said, Skorne's main deal is that their beasts hit obscenely hard, maybe harder than anything else in the game, so you should expect stuff to die if their shenanigans are unimpeded.

Skorne have a cheap specialist unit devoted to fury control. They have rather explosive turns and are well-know as the heaviest hitters in general.

I find comparing aspects between warmachine and hordes tends to reveal an unbalanced arrangement no matter what your comparing. The games only even out when viewed as a whole.

Yeah, I think my problem is playing with someone who is a bit TO competitive.

Admittedly last time I played him, he played Cygar and was upkeeping Snipe with his caster on 4 different units a turn....

 aprilmanha wrote:
Yeah, I think my problem is playing with someone who is a bit TO competitive.

Admittedly last time I played him, he played Cygar and was upkeeping Snipe with his caster on 4 different units a turn....

That is not being competitive, that is cheating.

You can only have a single instance of a upkeep spell in play at any time. He could never upkeep four instances of Snipe at the same time.

 aprilmanha wrote:
Yeah, I think my problem is playing with someone who is a bit TO competitive.

Admittedly last time I played him, he played Cygar and was upkeeping Snipe with his caster on 4 different units a turn....

Well that's not being competitive, that's downright cheating...

Ninja'ed by keeping the page open for ages and not refreshing!

 aprilmanha wrote:
Yeah, I think my problem is playing with someone who is a bit TO competitive.

Admittedly last time I played him, he played Cygar and was upkeeping Snipe with his caster on 4 different units a turn....

Yeah, sounds like someone is playing fast and loose with the rules. You may want to see if there is a Press Ganger in the area, have them swing by. Most of those issues will be corrected with a little supervised play.

I think the best thing is just be more selective with my the people I play with

Its no fun when people care about winning

Everyone should care about winnning. You should just be careful in playing with the attitude that "winining is the only important thing and it doesn't matter how I do it."

I think if something seems a bit weird to you, don't be afraid to ask to see the rules about it, either on the card or in the book, or both. Either you'll learn the rules better or you'll find out the thing didn't actually work in the first place.

I play with the attitude "Winning is not important, only having a fun game is"

Unfortunately getting effectively curb stomped is no fun for anyone (Not for me cause there is nothing for me to do other then repack my models, and I assume not for the other person cause they only have like 1 turn of doing anything)

First couple times I played Hordes I got stomped. It's frustrating when you have 3 focus max and they have 5 fury. Next time with your Menoth have your vassal put enliven on your jack. That will save him from getting smashed

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/How_Fury_works_in_Hordes

Have a look at that guide as to how fury works and what the downside is.

One of the PP staff said "The objective of the game is to win. The point of the game is to have fun." Now, to help with that I would recommend finding somebody to guide you through the game as others have suggested. Where abouts are you in the UK as I might be able to point you to a group to help?

I play mostly in Worcester Wargames and a Club in Redditch, I don't really want to go further afield then that really anyway, going to clubs is stressful enough

Edit: I've had a look at the fury rules a bit closer now and it does seem to be... kill the horde in one go before they attack, because if they start attacking they will be rolling in so much fury they can kill everything.
Seems like its a very staggered mechanic, which favours going all or nothing, with either you are attacking and creating more fury to make more attacks, or not attacking and have no fury to do any attacks...

I think I'm going to stick to playing Just Warmachine, which feels much more balanced with the focus limits having casters creates.

I know the rules and all, but it does SEEM like when I play against Hordes, they just keep rolling dice until I die. I haven't had a single fun game against Hordes yet.

(Yes, I know, I just need to learn more about them and I'm doing it, but it is a slower process than I'd like.)

When playing against hordes, cripple the beasts and you'll cripple the caster.

Compared to warjacks, beasts tend to be far weaker in taking a hit. Even the most tanky of Beasts can't take as much punishment as a regular heavy. Once he gets low on beasts, then he'll have no fury left. Whereas a caster can survive quite well without and jacks.

Here is how Fury works.

Warlocks and Warbeasts both have a FURY stat.

Warlocks start the game with Fury equal to their FURY stat. They use this in the same way as focus to boost and buy attacks, cast spells, heal themselves, etc... Defensively, Fury is used to transfer damage the warlock takes to a beast in its control area instead of granting additional armor. The warlock counts as still having suffered damage, and all effects triggered upon being hit. The final difference with Fury is that, during its activation, a warlock can spend 1 fury point to heal 1 damage point on any of his warbeasts that are in his control area.

During their activation, a warbeast can be forced if it within its warlock's control area. When a warbeast is forced, you place 1 fury point on it. A beast must be forced to charge, boost+buy attacks, or make power attacks. Many beasts also have additional abilities they can be forced to trigger, like a Warpwolf triggering Regeneration. All Warbeasts also have an Animus, which is basically a primeval magical ability the beast has inherently. To cast its animus, a beast must also be forced for the amount specified in the Animus. A warlock also can cast the animus of any of his beasts that are in his control area, if he does so the animus counts as both an animus and a spell. If a beast casts it it is only an animus.

A warbeast cannot have more Fury on it than its FURY stat. Most heavy beasts are Fury4, there are some like the Skorne Bronzeback or all Dire Trolls that are FURY5. Most lights are FURY3, but there are some that have 2 or 4. A Warlock also cannot transfer damage to a beast that has Fury on it equal to its FURY stat.

During the Control phase, a warlock may siphon a number of fury from his warbeasts in his control area up to his FURY stat. Unlike Focus, Fury carries over from turn to turn. You don't lose all Fury and then siphon. If you kept fury on your warlock it will reduce the fury you can siphon. If, after siphoning, any warbeasts still have fury points on them you must check to see if they frenzy. You roll 2D6+the number of fury still on the beast and compare it to the beasts Threshold stat. If its equal or under, the beast doesn't frenzy. If it is over, the beast frenzies. TLR it immediately activates and attacks a random model in its melee range or it charges the nearest visible model and makes 1 fully boosted attack with its highest pow melee weapon. If it frenzies, you can then choose to remove any number of fury points from the beast. It may not activate again this turn.

Thats the downside of Fury as opposed to Focus.

Beasts do generally get more attacks. however, in general beasts have a lower P+S on their attacks than warjacks do. They also have less armor and hitboxes. Going all out on your beasts can mean you'll lose total control over them next turn. Beasts are also usually higher point cost than similar Warjacks, and you have to take more of them.

Warlocks also become crippled if they lose all their warbeasts because they lose the ability to generate fury unless they suffer 1 point of damage in the control phase to generate 1 fury. They also lose the animi of beasts that die, and since warlocks generally only have 3-4 spells instead of 5-7 that warcasters have they can lose a lot of abilities.

Beasts have less health, lower armor and tend to hit softer per hit than warjacks. They tend to have more attacks, better defense, tend to cost more and have the ability to heal. You need to understand this to start learning how to deal with them. As a menoth player you have a lot of tools to deal with them. You can emphasize your elite infantry and tear him apart with dozens of weapon masters. If you want to emphasize your jacks, you can deny magic, shooting, charges and then mop him up with some of the strongest hitting jacks in the game after they get buffed up. You also have the ability to strip animus and upkeeps. Skorne hits hard, very hard, but you need to learn your faction because you have everything you need to destroy skorne.

Ok so Horde emphasizes the Win Big or go home aspect, they either hit hard, and in so doing get to hit harder, or get shot down before they can get going and die.

Seems to one sided to me I think. going to stick to playing warmachine

Its not really onesided. Warmachine has better infantry, and one on one jacks are better than beasts. Hordes has worse infantry, they have to take more beasts, and they suffer if they lose them.

The games are balanced together. Fury is a little more forgiving than Focus thats all.

 aprilmanha wrote:
Ok so Horde emphasizes the Win Big or go home aspect, they either hit hard, and in so doing get to hit harder, or get shot down before they can get going and die.

No, that is not how Hordes and Fury works.

A Warlock will have to keep his warbeasts generating fury each turn so that he can use that Fury to cast his spells. The trick with hordes is in maintaining the balance between generating enough Fury for the Warlock to function, but not to generate too much Fury that he can't leach it all out of his Warbeasts.

If the can't remove all the Fury from his Warbeasts then each Warbeast that still has fury points will have to take a Threshold test and if it fails then the Warbeast's activation will be spent making a single attack on the nearest eligible model that can even be one of his own.

First time playing hordes always seems like it is overpowered. My advice is to make sure you learn the rules for hordes as well, especially for warlocks and their beasts. Once you learn how their rules work you can take advantage of them.

IMO, if you are still relatively new it isn't such a bad idea to get a Hordes battlebox just to play them a little. A battlebox is cheap and let's you learn the mechanics.

Or at very least print the free quick star hordes rules off the PP website. That has all you'd need to know how Fury works.

I play Skorne and Menoth, I don't own the hordes rulebook, just the warmachine one.

And I've played one demo game, yet own both rule books haha.

I don't think avoiding Hordes will help, you need to practice against it. It's really not overpowered against Warmachine, just works differently. Avoiding hordes altogether seems like a bit of a cop out really.

 aprilmanha wrote:
Seems to one sided to me I think. going to stick to playing warmachine

It doesn't really work that way. Noone 'just' plays Warmachine or Hordes. It is really the same game.

If you go to "Warmachine night" at your LGS there will probably be both. If you go to a tourney there will be both.

As I said, I'd get the rules (even the quick start rules, though I am pretty sure they don't cover everything) and when you get the chance to play against them take it.

Also, if you do think that hordes is that much more powerful or fits your style better then play a hordes army! Pretty much all my friends who play have multiple armies including at least one hordes and one warmachine.