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Hello! im a 40k player and normally play guard and love all the shooting parts. I like larger forces as they give more maneuverability and i can't get enough DAKKA. So which army and where should i start i suppose is my question. It's probably worth mentioning i have an affinity to khador models but the way i see it is that they typically have melee "elites". I was also possibly thinking mercenaries, however my limited experience with the game isn't very positive (the warmachine tactics video game) which i suppose differs quite alot from the tabletop.

For raw shooting and having the time to do such? Hard to go past prime Haley from Cygnar. That's the Captain I believe.

Well WM/H isn't really a shooting game. I mean sure there are some gun line style lists but any army that tries to sit back & castle is going to lose. Remember the average gun range is 8-14"

Hell some scenarios use a "death box" where you MUST move your general (warlock/warcaster) forward in order to not lose.

You should start by getting the 40k mentality out of your head. WM/H lends a bit more towards shooting can remove units but more often will just soften them up for the melee death punch. That's not to say gunlines CAN'T work, just don't expect IG levels of taking units off with long ranged pie plates.

The armies that can to put the focus on ranged combat with certain casters are Cygnar, Retribution of Scyrah, Protectorate of Menoth and Khador. Though each have their own flavour of it and even then a combined arms approach works much better.

I'd start by finding your local press ganger and requesting a demo game. In the mean time battle college can give you a basic overview of the factions but some of the rules & tactics advise range from situational to flat out wrong so don't take any specifics as gospel.

oh okay thanks! i guess my next question is going to be if players normally frown upon using like let's say GW models for instance valhallans for Khador or w,e.

LessThen1intiative wrote:
oh okay thanks! i guess my next question is going to be if players normally frown upon using like let's say GW models for instance valhallans for Khador or w,e.

Yes. While you could get away with this for a few friendly games it is 100% illegal in tournaments and people may refuse to play them. The issue is two fold:

1.) If you're playing PP games you should be supporting PP by using & buying their product.
2.) In WM/H there isn't really a "generic trooper" each model has different rules and it is important to be able to see the difference between them as you attack with and against individual models. I mean a unit will have usually basic trooper "grunts" but winter guard are different from kommandos are different from widowmakers & it is important to be able to know the difference. So I can pick out your rocket trooper & I need to be able to quickly tell that is the rocketeer and not the sargeant. Tournaments use a "death clock" chess timer so every second count count & confusion needs to be at an absolute minimum. As for friendly games the base sizes are different and again it can cause unecessary confusion.

Also your base sizes are important in warmachine/hordes 30mm,40mm and 50mm are the base sizes. So your smaller 25mm IG bases would not work. Your better off buying PP models and supporting the game.

I suggest going Khador

They have very powerful in faction shooting in their Infantry

Winterguard and Widow Makers are your best option.

Cygnar is considered the 'shooting' faction, however they kinda of suck as a whole and end up heavily relying on a few extremely overpowered models like Haley and Stormwall. Most Cygnar lists are even just 95% Mercs.

Oh and Khador really isn't a "Melee Elite" or "Melee Centric" army. They are more of a Combined Arms deal based on defenses. They have pretty on par shooting, and their shooting tends to have pretty impressive (tho often inaccurate) ranges.

Winterguard infantry with their officer and Kovink Joe , widowmakers, plus Nyss hunters can add up to a great deal of effective ranged infantry in a single khador list.

While cool conversions are always welcome, simply using 40k miniatures as WMH miniatures isn't acceptable.

Talamare, you don't really know Cygnar do you?

Want loads of dakka mixed with the typical Warmachine shenanigans?

pCaine tier list. All Cygnar, all shooting, all fun. You will need a melee centric Jack or two on Caine while you marshall a hunter with each of your Gun Mage UA's

While it does have a lot of shooting, at the same time it is a very skewy list that is also different for newbies to use properly.

Tier lists in general should be avoided by newbies.

Well, it's only a skew list if you don't know how to run it properly (which, yes, for new players can be different). But with so few components it isn't the most difficult of lists to play and it's not a skew list like the Khador comparative of Butcher2 tier.

A nice little combo to use for Khador is pButcher with Max rifle corp and Joe, lots of gross output on the feat turn, you can confidently take down near anything with that, boosted Attack & Damage roles are nothing to laugh at.

I'd suggest Khador or Cygnar. Both can be run infantry heavy and have a good shooting component backing up melee infantry.

The biggest difference is that Cygnar is a bit more about accuracy and DEF while Khador is about volume and volume. But that is a generality. You can do both in both.

And despite what Talamare says, Cygnar do not suck as a whole. They have quite a few good units backed up by a number of good merc units.

If you want to go Hordes then Legion all the way. They are a very beast heavy faction, so you will end up without many models on the table. They have tons of shooting at some of the longest ranges in the game; very Dark Eldar like in that their beasts have fairly high defense but paper armor, and they can put down all kinds of damage but can't really take much in return.

If you like Mercs and shooty armies, both of my main lists are shooty but are technically combined arms but then again almost every "shooty" list can be considered combined arms. Mercs have access to 2 of the 3 best colossals in the game and are very good at shooting. But what jumps out to me as a really shooty faction is Cygnar, as said before Haley1.