Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, I'm ready to pick some stuff up and get into Warmahordes. I've been doing some research and I've narrowed down my choices for a starter faction to two: Cygnar or PoM. From the sounds of it, PoM involves a lot of buffing and debuffing, which isn't normally my play style, but I'd be willing to give it a go. Cygnar seem pretty balanced to me; decent melee and ranged capabilities. I really like both factions models (though some of the Cygnar infantry don't quite float my boat all the way.)

What faction would you guys recommend? Any particular lists I should try to build? What are some good Warcasters for each faction? I'm aware of the All In One boxes, but I'd almost like to build things out myself, but I'm not totally sure yet.

Menoth is much more straightforward, Cygnar has more of a learning curve.

If I were to attempt to describe each faction's playstyle succinctly:

Menoth is built on synergy. Nothing is really impressive alone, but everything becomes terrifying when properly supported. Starting off PKreoss (the battle box caster) is probably the most straightforward warcaster option, most of Menoth's warcasters take some effort to get the most out of. Other than that the Choir makes every warjack better; I also recommend Exemplar Errants to new players because they're effective in a lot of situations.

Cygnar is best described as the counter-play faction. They don't usually win straight fights, they win games by making sure the other guy's plan doesn't work; that makes them a little harder to start with because it's much easier to win with them if you know what the other guy is trying to accomplish. The easiest warcaster to play there is probably either PStryker (the battle box warcaster, who sticks his buffs on people and hangs out) or either Caine (who is a very point-and-click sort) are straightforward warcasters; the Black 13th is a very good unit to start with because it's inexpensive and does so many things.

My only real concern with Menoth is ranged attacks. Can they hold their own at range or will I have to get up close and personal for everything?

 the_kraken wrote:
My only real concern with Menoth is ranged attacks. Can they hold their own at range or will I have to get up close and personal for everything?

Menoth infantry don't really do ranged really well, but their jacks make for solid artillery pieces and they're n the slower end of the speed curve - theyre more likely to be the ones taking it on the chin and thrn counter punching rather than blitzing their way in with an alphastrike from long range.

Menoth has plenty of ranged game, just not from its infantry.

We go for a quality, and relatively short ranged, shooting game. Except for a few exceptions.

We have a better mix of shooting and melee on our jacks than Cygnar does. Every one of our jacks that has a gun is also good in melee, Cygnar jacks are only good at one or the other.

We can get a lot of shooting work done with jacks, vassals, and choir combining.


Cygnar is a definite combined arms faction, but they do struggle to balance that because their melee units are VERY squishy. As a result, they often are forced to look to mercs to be their melee infantry component. Stormknight units are just too fragile and expensive to be your speed bump. And while they hit very hard, they almost never make it into melee as pow10 shooting just rips them apart.

Fortunately for Menoth, shooting isn't as important in this game as it is in others. And their shooting while low in number of models, has good volume and good quality.

A Vanquisher with a Vassal, and the Choir singing Battle, pops out 2 4" AOEs a turn. At rat7 and pow16(pow9 blast damage) and continuous fire it just shreds infantry like nothing else, and direct hits will damage jacks too. And thats before you add focus. And while it has the lowest pow on its main melee weapon of any of the protectorate heavies, it still hits for a respectable pow18 with Choir.

The Reckoner also has an amazing gun, and its all around a great jack. It can spend the first few turns sniping out critical targets, or using Flare to let other jacks hit better with their shooting. And once melee it joined its still Mat8 and pow19(with choir)

The Redeemer is the closest you get to a dedicated shooting platform in Menoth, and it still is capable of killing stuff in melee with a decent pow15 melee(for a light) with Hymn of battle.


One of the common builds for Protectorate is pKreoss and his Pop'n'drop assassination. The idea is you pop feat and shoot the enemy warcaster to death.

Typical list includes the following,

pKreoss
-Reckoner
-Vanquisher
-Heirophant

Tristan Durant
-Redeemer

Choir
2 Vassals
Taryn di la Rhovissi

With the rest of the points you add 2 units of infantry and other solos to taste.

This list can smack down enemy warcasters with a fully boosted pow15, a fully boosted pow16, a fully boosted pow14, 2 pow14s, and another pow15 and 16(using the vassals)

Tristan is there because the Redeemer is normally very focus hungry and he lets Kreoss have more focus to spend. Often you need Purification to eliminate a spell or animus which gives Steady or an Arm buff. And it ensures the other jacks have focus for boosting damage.

Taryn is for ensuring steady models don't block LoS after the feat as her Shadowfire runeshot makes models hit not block LoS.

The fortunate thing is this list also transitions into traditional PoM attrition too if the Pop'ndrop isn't an option.

Warmachine in general is a game about finishing it up close and personal. There are very few ways of winning this game at a distance, sans the above method and a few others. And even then you often have to go for Plan B, and C, and maybe D.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Menoth has plenty of ranged game, just not from its infantry.

We go for a quality, and relatively short ranged, shooting game. Except for a few exceptions.

We have a better mix of shooting and melee on our jacks than Cygnar does. Every one of our jacks that has a gun is also good in melee, Cygnar jacks are only good at one or the other.

We can get a lot of shooting work done with jacks, vassals, and choir combining.


Cygnar is a definite combined arms faction, but they do struggle to balance that because their melee units are VERY squishy. As a result, they often are forced to look to mercs to be their melee infantry component. Stormknight units are just too fragile and expensive to be your speed bump. And while they hit very hard, they almost never make it into melee as pow10 shooting just rips them apart.

Fortunately for Menoth, shooting isn't as important in this game as it is in others. And their shooting while low in number of models, has good volume and good quality.

A Vanquisher with a Vassal, and the Choir singing Battle, pops out 2 4" AOEs a turn. At rat7 and pow16(pow9 blast damage) and continuous fire it just shreds infantry like nothing else, and direct hits will damage jacks too. And thats before you add focus. And while it has the lowest pow on its main melee weapon of any of the protectorate heavies, it still hits for a respectable pow18 with Choir.

The Reckoner also has an amazing gun, and its all around a great jack. It can spend the first few turns sniping out critical targets, or using Flare to let other jacks hit better with their shooting. And once melee it joined its still Mat8 and pow19(with choir)

The Redeemer is the closest you get to a dedicated shooting platform in Menoth, and it still is capable of killing stuff in melee with a decent pow15 melee(for a light) with Hymn of battle.


One of the common builds for Protectorate is pKreoss and his Pop'n'drop assassination. The idea is you pop feat and shoot the enemy warcaster to death.

Typical list includes the following,

pKreoss
-Reckoner
-Vanquisher
-Heirophant

Tristan Durant
-Redeemer

Choir
2 Vassals
Taryn di la Rhovissi

With the rest of the points you add 2 units of infantry and other solos to taste.

This list can smack down enemy warcasters with a fully boosted pow15, a fully boosted pow16, a fully boosted pow14, 2 pow14s, and another pow15 and 16(using the vassals)

Tristan is there because the Redeemer is normally very focus hungry and he lets Kreoss have more focus to spend. Often you need Purification to eliminate a spell or animus which gives Steady or an Arm buff. And it ensures the other jacks have focus for boosting damage.

Taryn is for ensuring steady models don't block LoS after the feat as her Shadowfire runeshot makes models hit not block LoS.

The fortunate thing is this list also transitions into traditional PoM attrition too if the Pop'ndrop isn't an option.

Warmachine in general is a game about finishing it up close and personal. There are very few ways of winning this game at a distance, sans the above method and a few others. And even then you often have to go for Plan B, and C, and maybe D.

I would exalt this twice if I could. This is quite in depth and I very much appreciate the advice. It looks like I'll be going Menoth after all.

Also, can you take allies in WM like you can in 40K? Or is it just Mercenaries and Minions that can be taken as allies?

And, forgive my noobishness, but what does the p in pKreoss stand for?

Only Mercs and Minions fill the ally role in Warmachine.

And only those models whose Mercenary/Minion rule says your faction can take them.

For example, a model with the Mercenary[Protectorate, Cygnar, Khador] will work for The Protectorate, Cygnar, and Khador.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Only Mercs and Minions fill the ally role in Warmachine.

And only those models whose Mercenary/Minion rule says your faction can take them.

For example, a model with the Mercenary[Protectorate, Cygnar, Khador] will work for The Protectorate, Cygnar, and Khador.

Okay, cool. I was just curious.

Also for Kreoss, High Exemplar or Grand Exemplar? Which will be more effective?

They do completely different things.

Kreoss2 is only really used in his Tier list. Go for pKreoss instead, he's more general. Kreoss2 is a very specialized type of list, not for a new player.

Okay cool. Well, I will go ahead with the 2 player starter box then.

Do note that the Cinerators in the box are basically useless past starter games unless you convert them into Bastions.

I would be more inclined to get the All in One box and a Battle Box together instead.

Doesn't the Battle Box come with the wrong form of Kreoss though?

 the_kraken wrote:
Doesn't the Battle Box come with the wrong form of Kreoss though?

No that has pKreoss (prime Kreoss, that's what the p stands for, the first version of him basically. Sometimes seen as Kreoss1) as well.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 the_kraken wrote:
Doesn't the Battle Box come with the wrong form of Kreoss though?

No that has pKreoss (prime Kreoss, that's what the p stands for, the first version of him basically. Sometimes seen as Kreoss1) as well.

Ohhhhhh, okay. So, it is the Grand Exemplar version.

Yeah, pKreoss is the one who comes in the battle box. That's High Exemplar Kreoss

eKreoss just comes by himself. This is Grand Exemplar Kreoss.

Okay, nevermind. I've noticed the difference in models now.

The whole pCaster/eCaster/caster1/caster3 thing took me a bit to get my head round but you quite quickly learn who's who and all the jargon and everything.

Yeah, it should be a good time. I've got two other guys who are wanting to start up with me too.

Update: Nabbed a couple Battlegroups today. I got one for Menoth and one for Skorne. I figured it would be good to have a second army I could loan out and use to get others interested in the game.

Always good to see someone already looking forwards, towards bringing more people into the game

I figure the more people I get into it out here, the more games I'll have.

I got hooked from a battle box game.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I got hooked from a battle box game.

That's always good to hear. I have pretty ready access to lumber and whatnot (I work at Home Depot) so, I'm probably going to start putting together a table to play on. About how big does it need to be? Is 4' x 4' reasonable?

 MWHistorian wrote:
I got hooked from a battle box game.

Me too. Well, I'd already bought quite a few models but my Battlebox game really sold me on it!

 the_kraken wrote:
Update: Nabbed a couple Battlegroups today. I got one for Menoth and one for Skorne. I figured it would be good to have a second army I could loan out and use to get others interested in the game.

I like your thinking...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 the_kraken wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
I got hooked from a battle box game.

That's always good to hear. I have pretty ready access to lumber and whatnot (I work at Home Depot) so, I'm probably going to start putting together a table to play on. About how big does it need to be? Is 4' x 4' reasonable?

4x4 is the correct size of the table... Update us with picture of your table

I will do that. I may just put it in a new thread. I have the day off so I can do some shopping around. The battlegroups are supposed to come on Monday.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I got hooked from a battle box game.

Morghul versus Kreoss, the Gladiator slams one of the Menoth heavies over Kreoss and one-shots him. Coming from 40k it was a great intro to the wacky fun possible in WMH.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
I got hooked from a battle box game.

Morghul versus Kreoss, the Gladiator slams one of the Menoth heavies over Kreoss and one-shots him. Coming from 40k it was a great intro to the wacky fun possible in WMH.

Good lord, that's fantastic.

 the_kraken wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
I got hooked from a battle box game.

That's always good to hear. I have pretty ready access to lumber and whatnot (I work at Home Depot) so, I'm probably going to start putting together a table to play on. About how big does it need to be? Is 4' x 4' reasonable?

Just as a note on this, while 4X4 is the correct size for a warmachine table, if your building a table that could be used for anything other than warmachine I would suggest going a bit bigger. Personally I like having a bit of clearance around the edges, and a larger table for if I'm playing another game, so if you feel up for it what I would suggest doing is building a 7x5 table, and then using tape/paint/differently coloured wood inserts (if your super adventurous) to denote different board sizes. The end surface should look something like this:

(Note, ignore the poor resolution. I'm in the process of moving post-graduation and my laptop is barely able to run the CAD software I'm using).

I hadn't even thought of that and it's a very good idea. I may have to expand my ambitions a bit.