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Looking for some info on the games a few people at my local store play it and said it's ok, I like the army boxes they have coming out wondering which one is best all round.

They're all good starting points for their factions, and all factions are well balanced overall. So really you should go with the faction you like the look and playstyle of.

Here is a rough breakdown of how the major factions play in general, although it doesn't apply to all lists they make.


Cygnar: All around combined arms faction, heavily reliant on use of mercenaries. Jacks have average armor, but above average mat and rat. They're generally fairly fast for jacks. Infantry are fairly squishy but have good offensive power. Slight shooting emphasis on the faction overall. Lots of lightning and electricity based spells and attacks.

Khador: Infantry focused faction, mostly on light and medium infantry. Typically only run 1 jack at most. Jacks are slow, heavily armored, and hit very hard. Although jacks are slow, many casters have spells that can increase speed to very fast levels. Heavy infantry do exist in Khador but they're generally subpar. The main focus being on Winterguard and Ironfang pikemen.

Protectorate: A synergistic combined arms faction heavily focused on denial and attrition. Most abilities involve buffing friendly troops or denying enemy abilities. Jacks are slow, slightly above average armor, and hit hard. Jacks are decidedly average, but the faction has many buffs for jacks including the ubiquitous Choir unit. They're a cheap support unit that sings hymns to protect jacks from spells or shooting or make them more powerful in combat. Faction has a lot of Weapon Master infantry, giving them lots of hard hitting power in melee. Not many good ranged infantry choices, at least long ranged anyway. Lots of fire based attacks and shooting, they set things on fire a lot.

Cryx: Another infantry faction, focused on hard hitting and fast, but squishy, infantry. Magic focuses on debuffing enemy models. Jacks are squishy, hard to hit, and very fast and hard hitting, but Cryx often only runs light jacks with Arc Nodes to help their casters cast their spells. They rarely have much focus to give their jacks. A focus on corrosion and soul/corpse collection. Many units either collect souls or corpses from fallen enemy models to power their attacks or even make new models. Casters are some of the more strong casters in the game as far as offensive magic is concerned.

Retribution: This faction is another combined arms faction, with some focus on shooting. They have some very strong ranged units and some good, durable, and hard hitting melee units. Jacks have good armor, but very low health. This is mitigated by many jacks have force fields of extra armor that can be recharged. Jacks almost all have good melee and ranged attacks and are fairly fast. The faction has many units and solos focused on assassinating enemy warcasters.

Convergence of Cyriss: This is the robot faction. They're all about internal synergy. They can run the most jacks of any faction due to their special rules allowing them to share focus and generate a lot of it for free. They also have lots of repairing and replacing of lost models. Jacks are slow, durable, and hard hitting. Mostly a buffing faction with a lot of quirky rules. Think of them as a massive rube-goldburg machine.

Trollbloods: This faction is all about the beef. All their basic infantry are on medium bases and have the Tough rule, which is basically a 1/3 chance to not die. Infantry are average speed, good damage output, and fairly durable. Elite infantry are downright obnoxious to try and kill. Warbeasts are expensive, durable, and hit like a freight train. Overall they focus on buffing their troops.

Skorne: A combined arms faction that can basically do it all. They can go warbeast heavy, they can go infantry heavy and do it better than another other hordes faction. Beasts are durable and hard hitting, they also have many speed buffs to mitigate the slow speed on many of their beasts. Infantry range from light and fast to hard hitting and slow.

Legion: A beast heavy faction with only average infantry. Beasts are fast, ignore most terrain, and hit hard, but they're fairly squishy. Beasts have a lot of abilities and special rules which has led to the joking moniker of "Legion of Everbroke" as they ignore tons of rules.

Circle: A faction of glass cannons. Warpwolves are the main beasts and they hit hard and are fast but squishy. They have support light beasts that can also deliver a punch. Infantry are fast, hard hitting, but generally squishy. They do have one class of beasts who are the opposite of the warpwolves, the Wolds are slow and durable but only have average damage output. Lots of their infantry have good ranged attacks while beasts are almost all melee only. Lots of teleportation and hit and run abilities in the faction.



Mercenaries and Minions are two subfactions which can be run as your main force but are mainly intended to supplement main factions.

Mercenaries are the best at running their own lists, minions struggle due to lack of options but the options they have are good. They have a lot of quirky rules and abilities.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Cygnar: All around combined arms faction

Thank you GT! I hate it when people say Cygnar is the shooting faction. That's like saying Khador is the burly, heavy jack faction.

I'd recommend looking at Menoth, Khador, Trolls, or Skorne starting out, they're the most straightforward/forgiving factions. Mercs/Minions are small and one-dimensional, Cyriss and Cryx have a lot of convoluted rules to wrap your head around, Cygnar, Circle, Scyrah, and Legion are fragile and heavily dependent on difficult-to-pull-off manoeuvres/tricks.

 Mordekiem wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Cygnar: All around combined arms faction

Thank you GT! I hate it when people say Cygnar is the shooting faction. That's like saying Khador is the burly, heavy jack faction.

Its understandable as Cygnar does have the best shooting of all factions. But if we were to look overall no faction is shooting focused. Shooting is too weak to be the primary strategy for victory.

If Cygnar is the anything faction it's the counter-play faction. They bring probably the broadest variety of tools and tricks to the table, your goal playing them is to figure out what trick is going to ruin the other guy's day. Sometimes that means blasting Kreoss off his horse from twenty inches away without line of sight, sometimes that means having an Ironclad knock Kaya down and let Sturgis stab her to death. If you set yourself into the 'this-is-how-to-play-Cygnar' mindset you will lose because Cygnar's strength is adaptability, not in doing one thing really well.

Also well said.

THough I am trying to figure out how Cygnar would reasonably kill someone 20" away with no LOS. Or do you mean they can clear get LOS then blast them? I could see that easy. But trying to figure out what they have like phantom shot or something.

 Grey Templar wrote:
They're all good starting points for their factions, and all factions are well balanced overall. So really you should go with the faction you like the look and playstyle of.

Here is a rough breakdown of how the major factions play in general, although it doesn't apply to all lists they make......

Thanks for the write ups. I've spent this evening absorbed in a game of Hordes as a beginner at my local Wargaming club. Lots of enthusiastic gamers already playing it, but as raw beginner it's nice to have a rough idea of the factions.

 Mordekiem wrote:
Also well said.

Though I am trying to figure out how Cygnar would reasonably kill someone 20" away with no LOS. Or do you mean they can clear get LOS then blast them? I could see that easy. But trying to figure out what they have like phantom shot or something.

The Gun Mage solo (who is generally considered one of the worst Cygnar solos) has Phantom Seeker, which would allow him to ignore LOS but is only a 16" threat (unless someone casts Snipe on him). pEiryss has the same ability and 1" more threat. Otherwise I guess a spell assassination via an arc node would technically count. Or killing a caster via electro leaps I guess (surprisingly easy with Nemo3).

Powerguy wrote:
The Gun Mage solo (who is generally considered one of the worst Cygnar solos) has Phantom Seeker, which would allow him to ignore LOS but is only a 16" threat (unless someone casts Snipe on him). pEiryss has the same ability and 1" more threat. Otherwise I guess a spell assassination via an arc node would technically count. Or killing a caster via electro leaps I guess (surprisingly easy with Nemo3).

I thought gunmage, too. He can probably get a 20" threat with no LOS, but I don't see him blasting anyone off their horse.

I could see Cygnar clearing LOS or using spells to give LOS to a Defender and doing a boosted Snipe shot. Siege can allow his Defender to ignore trees and a boosted shot, especially under feat, can certainly take someone out. That is about as close as I can come up with.

I don't think Sloan has any ways to avoid LOS.

It's just a riddle I am trying to solve now.

 Mordekiem wrote:
Also well said.

THough I am trying to figure out how Cygnar would reasonably kill someone 20" away with no LOS. Or do you mean they can clear get LOS then blast them? I could see that easy. But trying to figure out what they have like phantom shot or something.

Taryn. Pick two models, they don't block LOS anymore. It's the sort of combo-trick manoeuvre that will kill you if you don't play cautiously and prep for it that Cygnar is very fond of.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Mordekiem wrote:
Also well said.

Though I am trying to figure out how Cygnar would reasonably kill someone 20" away with no LOS. Or do you mean they can clear get LOS then blast them? I could see that easy. But trying to figure out what they have like phantom shot or something.

Taryn. Pick two models, they don't block LOS anymore. It's the sort of combo-trick manoeuvre that will kill you if you don't play cautiously and prep for it that Cygnar is very fond of.

Ah, I see. But that isn't restricted to Cygnar only. She will also work for Menoth (who have their own tricks) and a merc contract.

I also feel that the entire game tends to revolve around these type of combos/tricks. If you don't know what you are playing against you are going to be taken by surprise.

 Mordekiem wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Mordekiem wrote:
Also well said.

Though I am trying to figure out how Cygnar would reasonably kill someone 20" away with no LOS. Or do you mean they can clear get LOS then blast them? I could see that easy. But trying to figure out what they have like phantom shot or something.

Taryn. Pick two models, they don't block LOS anymore. It's the sort of combo-trick manoeuvre that will kill you if you don't play cautiously and prep for it that Cygnar is very fond of.

Ah, I see. But that isn't restricted to Cygnar only. She will also work for Menoth (who have their own tricks) and a merc contract.

I also feel that the entire game tends to revolve around these type of combos/tricks. If you don't know what you are playing against you are going to be taken by surprise.

I've been throwing the Gun Mages/marshalled Defender or Hunter/Strangeways/TA and Deadeye from EHaley combo at things Taryn gets the gun LoS to, hard to replicate that outside of Cygnar.

The whole game may revolve around the combos/tricks, true, but Cygnar is just a toolbox of combos/tricks. Most factions can't do the combos/tricks as well but they can stand up and fight a long attrition fight much better, Cygnar can't.

Well there is also the lovely foxhole-feat-go LOS shenanigans Siege can pull, a lot of people never expect that the first time it hits.

Yeah, pretty much every faction has ways to get LOS to something it otherwise does not. That's why I don't see that as a pervasive Cygnar trick. In fact I'd say Ret does it better as far as shooting goes since MHSF simply ignore everything. And with eyeless sight, Legion can do this pretty well, too.

I understand the idea 'Cygnar is tricky', but that pretty much describes most of the factions. Circle, Legion, Cryx and Ret all have plenty of tricks of their own. The game is so offensive that few factions seem to be able to just line up and trade punches.

The difference is Cygnar can potentially give it to everyone via Siege or Taryn. I think in Ret only Kaelyssa can make everyone ignore LoS on her feat turn.

Kaelyssa's feat has nothing to do with LoS. It makes all FF models in her control range stealthed and unchargeable.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The difference is Cygnar can potentially give it to everyone via Siege or Taryn. I think in Ret only Kaelyssa can make everyone ignore LoS on her feat turn.

You're thinking snipe-feat-go & it's on Ravyn.

MHSF with their UA gain phantom sight and already ignore spells & focus boosts to Def & Arm. You activate Ravyn, give them snipe, then feat for an additional die on ranged attack rolls & swift hunter. SH is mostly just extra in case you roll bad, but not many casters are surviving 12 shots that ignore any spells & focus boosts to Arm, the additional die helps them hit and snipe because why the feth not.

Here's the numbers on it. As you can see once the base armor (Remember no spells no focus) hits 16 it makes it tougher, but this is JUST the 1 turn dmg from the MHSF & UA, not the rest of your list.

Cygnar always seem to be the "ohh you have X, have some Y" backed up by a versitile and powerful ranged game (Hunters/Defenders and *insert armour fixer here* against high arm low def targets or stormsmiths and e-leaps against high defense low arm targets)
Cygnar are terrible at the slug fest imo, too many units have victim stats
Mercnar are better at that, super tough boomies, Alexia and risen, forgeguard but still excell at the whole counter game.
of course I could be wrong I am still terrible at this game

 Grey Templar wrote:
They're all good starting points for their factions, and all factions are well balanced overall. So really you should go with the faction you like the look and playstyle of.

Here is a rough breakdown of how the major factions play in general, although it doesn't apply to all lists they make.


Cygnar: All around combined arms faction, heavily reliant on use of mercenaries. Jacks have average armor, but above average mat and rat. They're generally fairly fast for jacks. Infantry are fairly squishy but have good offensive power. Slight shooting emphasis on the faction overall. Lots of lightning and electricity based spells and attacks.

Khador: Infantry focused faction, mostly on light and medium infantry. Typically only run 1 jack at most. Jacks are slow, heavily armored, and hit very hard. Although jacks are slow, many casters have spells that can increase speed to very fast levels. Heavy infantry do exist in Khador but they're generally subpar. The main focus being on Winterguard and Ironfang pikemen.

Protectorate: A synergistic combined arms faction heavily focused on denial and attrition. Most abilities involve buffing friendly troops or denying enemy abilities. Jacks are slow, slightly above average armor, and hit hard. Jacks are decidedly average, but the faction has many buffs for jacks including the ubiquitous Choir unit. They're a cheap support unit that sings hymns to protect jacks from spells or shooting or make them more powerful in combat. Faction has a lot of Weapon Master infantry, giving them lots of hard hitting power in melee. Not many good ranged infantry choices, at least long ranged anyway. Lots of fire based attacks and shooting, they set things on fire a lot.

Cryx: Another infantry faction, focused on hard hitting and fast, but squishy, infantry. Magic focuses on debuffing enemy models. Jacks are squishy, hard to hit, and very fast and hard hitting, but Cryx often only runs light jacks with Arc Nodes to help their casters cast their spells. They rarely have much focus to give their jacks. A focus on corrosion and soul/corpse collection. Many units either collect souls or corpses from fallen enemy models to power their attacks or even make new models. Casters are some of the more strong casters in the game as far as offensive magic is concerned.

Retribution: This faction is another combined arms faction, with some focus on shooting. They have some very strong ranged units and some good, durable, and hard hitting melee units. Jacks have good armor, but very low health. This is mitigated by many jacks have force fields of extra armor that can be recharged. Jacks almost all have good melee and ranged attacks and are fairly fast. The faction has many units and solos focused on assassinating enemy warcasters.

Convergence of Cyriss: This is the robot faction. They're all about internal synergy. They can run the most jacks of any faction due to their special rules allowing them to share focus and generate a lot of it for free. They also have lots of repairing and replacing of lost models. Jacks are slow, durable, and hard hitting. Mostly a buffing faction with a lot of quirky rules. Think of them as a massive rube-goldburg machine.

Trollbloods: This faction is all about the beef. All their basic infantry are on medium bases and have the Tough rule, which is basically a 1/3 chance to not die. Infantry are average speed, good damage output, and fairly durable. Elite infantry are downright obnoxious to try and kill. Warbeasts are expensive, durable, and hit like a freight train. Overall they focus on buffing their troops.

Skorne: A combined arms faction that can basically do it all. They can go warbeast heavy, they can go infantry heavy and do it better than another other hordes faction. Beasts are durable and hard hitting, they also have many speed buffs to mitigate the slow speed on many of their beasts. Infantry range from light and fast to hard hitting and slow.

Legion: A beast heavy faction with only average infantry. Beasts are fast, ignore most terrain, and hit hard, but they're fairly squishy. Beasts have a lot of abilities and special rules which has led to the joking moniker of "Legion of Everbroke" as they ignore tons of rules.

Circle: A faction of glass cannons. Warpwolves are the main beasts and they hit hard and are fast but squishy. They have support light beasts that can also deliver a punch. Infantry are fast, hard hitting, but generally squishy. They do have one class of beasts who are the opposite of the warpwolves, the Wolds are slow and durable but only have average damage output. Lots of their infantry have good ranged attacks while beasts are almost all melee only. Lots of teleportation and hit and run abilities in the faction.



Mercenaries and Minions are two subfactions which can be run as your main force but are mainly intended to supplement main factions.

Mercenaries are the best at running their own lists, minions struggle due to lack of options but the options they have are good. They have a lot of quirky rules and abilities.

I'm a bit late to this party, but this is a killer synopsis.