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Made in gb
Brigadier General





The new Sick Man of Europe

What would it look like? I expect Legion would be on top because of all the broken SRs [ie eyeless sight] they can get, but I'm not sure about any other other factions.

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Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

There are 3 tiers in WMH.

Tier 1: Everyone except Minions.

Tier 2: Minions(Gators)

Tier 3: Minions(Pigs)


And this isn't representative of power level. its representative of overall competitive variety. Minions basically have 5 total competitive lists, 3 of which are gators.

So Minions aren't any less strong, its just that you know what you are going to get when you draw up a Minion opponent. And that means its a little easier to face them.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Paingiver







You could say that some form of tiers exist in the game but you would never draw the line by faction. It would be more by caster or list pairings -and that is a very large and complicated list that shifts with the metagame.

   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Illinois

Don't really hear people talk about tiers for this game. I have heard people talk about the "big 5" on a podcast before. Essentially some factions are more common than others. The 5 big ones that are popular that you will play at a tournament most likely are Cygnar, Cryx, Legion, Circle and Menoth. If you have a large tournament you will probably have more players playing these factions than the rest of the factions. You will see some minions players at a major tournament but not nearly as many as the people playing Cryx, for example.

It isn't that this factions are worse per say than the others (ok maybe that is the case for minions), it is just they are less common.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2015/05/10 22:23:01


 
   
Made in nz
Longtime Dakkanaut



New Zealand

 Blood Hawk wrote:
Don't really hear people talk about tiers for this game.

This is partially true. Faction tiers get discussed, but other than Minions all factions are pretty much on the same level in terms of competitiveness. So much of this game comes down to player skill. However there is absolutely a difference in the popularity of factions, it does vary somewhat based on your local meta but Cygnar, Cryx, Legion and Circle tend to be fairly common everywhere. Imo this is more a reflection on the uniqueness of these factions (both in looks and playstyle), their general learning curve and the maturity of the faction (all the original Mk1 factions tend to be more popular than the newer factions).

What absolutely does get discussed is the tier of casters, because there are huge differences in that area. There is a huge difference between eHaley and Karchev for example.
   
Made in gb
Drakhun





Yeah, forget army Tiers, there are definitely caster Tiers. eHaley, eCaine and most of the other casters from that book ended up being pretty powerful. But not game breakingly so.

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Warmachine MKIII record 39W/0D/6L
 
   
Made in us
Satyxis Raider






Seattle, WA

IMO, Legion and Cryx often get pegged an "unbalanced" because they tend to have a lot of extra special rules that other factions don't get. This gives them a different and distinct playstyle from a more "traditional" army like Cygnar or Khador. (I use the term traditional loosely here)

Because of the uniqueness it makes playing against them much tougher for newer players. Once you learn how they work and their "tricks" you can often shut them down much easier. But most people's early interaction with those factions colors their thoughts on them for some time. Sometimes forever.

Myself, I still hate MHSF. I learned the rules on how to use cover, terrain, LOS, etc and then MHSF simply ignored all that. Frustrating early on. And it still makes me dislike them even though I know how to deal with them.
   
Made in gb
Drakhun





The first match against an army is often the hardest.

I remember my first match against CoC, was completely blown away and got confused pretty quickly. So I lost my first game pretty badly.


Second game however, I wiped the floor with him because I knew exactly what everything did and how to sort it out.

DS:90-S+G+++M++B-IPw40k03+D+A++/fWD-R++T(T)DM+
Warmachine MKIII record 39W/0D/6L
 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

This game is very much like competitive puzzle solving, and whoever solves the puzzle first wins. When you don't know the puzzle, you're almost certainly going to lose to the person who does.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Druid Warder




SLC UT

The term "Big Five" is probably not actually a reference to tiers as I understand it but a shorthand for describing the "big five main Factions" for Warmachine (Cygnar, Protectorate, Khador, Cryx and Retribution) as they are the ones who get regular releases and don't follow weird structure. It's independent of perceived actual power tiers, which is fairly in flux for a lot of folks as I find, save for a general acceptance that Minions are a bit below the bar due to limitted choices.

And stuff


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or I guess to put things another way. The general feel I gather is WM/H is considered pretty galanced between Factions. Lot more complaints of things of late have been about within-Faction balance more.

And stuff.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/05/11 03:59:30


 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

Exactly.

WMH has great external balance. Some of the factions have unbalanced release schedules and fewer overall options, but that just means they've only got 10ish competitive lists as opposed to 15 or 20. And the exact lists change with each version of steamroller or natural meta shifts.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Zealous Sin-Eater



Chico, CA

..... then PP failed at the job. Really the whole point of PP's tight rule set is to avoid "tiers" of different power levels.

Peter: As we all know, Christmas is that mystical time of year when the ghost of Jesus rises from the grave to feast on the flesh of the living! So we all sing Christmas Carols to lull him back to sleep.
Bob: Outrageous, How dare he say such blasphemy. I've got to do something.
Man #1: Bob, there's nothing you can do.
Bob: Well, I guess I'll just have to develop a sense of humor.  
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 sing your life wrote:
What would it look like? I expect Legion would be on top because of all the broken SRs [ie eyeless sight] they can get, but I'm not sure about any other other factions.



wmhTiers would look like this:

Armies played by brilliant players.
Armies played by great players.
Armies played by good players.
Armies played by average players.
Armies played by mediocre players.
Armies played by poor players.
Armies played by terrible players.

greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy

"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are" 
   
Made in us
Thermo-Optical Hac Tao





Gosport, UK

And then me at the bottom.
   
Made in gb
Brigadier General





The new Sick Man of Europe

Deadnight wrote:
 sing your life wrote:
What would it look like? I expect Legion would be on top because of all the broken SRs [ie eyeless sight] they can get, but I'm not sure about any other other factions.



wmhTiers would look like this:

Armies played by brilliant players.
Armies played by great players.
Armies played by good players.
Armies played by average players.
Armies played by mediocre players.
Armies played by poor players.
Armies played by terrible players.


Except it wouldn't be like that, since Privateer Press ruleset does have discernible external army imbalances, just far less severe than what see in games by GW,Mantic etc.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/05/11 10:29:52


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Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





Well, Warmahorde has tier. My 50 points list is Tier 4 because I have three heavy warbeasts, two thumper crew, and only beasts and units with ranged attack, for instance. Therefore I get +2 SPD for the first turn and some point reduction on warbeasts, advance deployment on my thumper crews, and one trench template for every pair of unit in my army.

Oh, you meant power level!
Then I agree with people suggesting caster tier. I am playing Captain Gunnbjorn and he feels quite weak compared to some other casters.

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Illinois

 sing your life wrote:
Deadnight wrote:
 sing your life wrote:
What would it look like? I expect Legion would be on top because of all the broken SRs [ie eyeless sight] they can get, but I'm not sure about any other other factions.



wmhTiers would look like this:

Armies played by brilliant players.
Armies played by great players.
Armies played by good players.
Armies played by average players.
Armies played by mediocre players.
Armies played by poor players.
Armies played by terrible players.


Except it wouldn't be like that, since Privateer Press ruleset does have discernible external army imbalances, just far less severe than what see in games by GW,Mantic etc.

Well you could do teirs looking at the factions a different way. Basically break the factions up based on the amount of options available to each faction. Factions like minions, ret, and CoC would near the bottom due to not having as many options as the other factions.

I played against gators a lot when I first started playing warmachine in college, and I did lose games at first but it was much easier to learn how to play against gators than something like cryx since there were a lot less options available to the minions player.
   
Made in se
Wicked Warp Spider






Ios

Statistics can give you a tier list. Would have to be sampled for accuracy - Starcraft isn't balanced based on Gold League, as an example, it's based on Masters or better.

Chain-attack.com used to have a tier list for casters which was based on gameplay and not statistical sample, but it seems to be uncooperative atm (and it's no longer linked on their site... could be people were being a bit zealous over it). They do have caster rankings during their episodes. Interestingly enough, aside from Minions, the lowest average rating would be with the Ret - but then they do kind of loath Retribution (though the strength with Ret seems to be with the army, not the caster).

I really need to stay away from the 40K forums. 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

 Mahtamori wrote:
Statistics can give you a tier list. Would have to be sampled for accuracy - Starcraft isn't balanced based on Gold League, as an example, it's based on Masters or better.

Chain-attack.com used to have a tier list for casters which was based on gameplay and not statistical sample, but it seems to be uncooperative atm (and it's no longer linked on their site... could be people were being a bit zealous over it). They do have caster rankings during their episodes. Interestingly enough, aside from Minions, the lowest average rating would be with the Ret - but then they do kind of loath Retribution (though the strength with Ret seems to be with the army, not the caster).


Well even the Chain-attack rating system wasn't a good one. They only based it off a handful of games, and only against certain casters.

They didn't take each caster and match it up against every other caster to see how it stacked up. They'd play against another random caster, who was also being evaluated only on that single datapoint.

And the Chain-attack meta is missing a few factions, like Menoth and they're a little low on Ret as well. They've admitted this has caused many casters to have artificially low or high ratings. So really its just anecdotal evidence. Thats why I think they've cut back on the rating lately.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Thermo-Optical Hac Tao





Gosport, UK

Yeah the chain attack ratings aren't overly accurate. They're just fun to listen to, I don't take them overly seriously.
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

They are top level players, so they have good tactical advice overall.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Cosmic Joe





by caster, yes, but then it will depend on their army and who and what they are facing.



Also, check out my history blog: Minimum Wage Historian, a fun place to check out history that often falls between the couch cushions. 
   
Made in us
Rogue Daemonhunter fueled by Chaos






Toledo, OH

there certainly aren't tiers like 40k has. You can build tournament winning armies out of any faction in the game. As many other have mentioned, its less a matter of sheer quality/power, but the number of high level options that seperates armies.

Armies like Cygnar, Legion, Cryx, Menoth, and Circle have many top tier casts, and can drop multiple different builds that are top notch.

Khador, Elves, Skorne, Trolls, and Mercs have a couple of stand out casters, and a handful of competitive builds. These factions have more "duff" casters or failed subthemes, or have overall fewer choices, and so have fewer top notch options.

At the bottom, Minions and (presumably) CoC have very few options and only a handful of really top notch units. CoC is brand new, while Minions has a real death of units and hard hitting heavies.

   
Made in us
Widowmaker




Somewhere in the Ginnungagap

In my opinion, WMH is very similar to MTG. In that there are certainly better options, list etc to take just as there are better decks to build in MTG. However if you can't pilot that list then you still won't win. In 40k I feel like list alone can win without the player skill being necessary. In that way 40k has tiers that WMH does not.
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

 DrNo172000 wrote:
In my opinion, WMH is very similar to MTG. In that there are certainly better options, list etc to take just as there are better decks to build in MTG. However if you can't pilot that list then you still won't win. In 40k I feel like list alone can win without the player skill being necessary. In that way 40k has tiers that WMH does not.


Exactly this.

Any external balance disparities between factions is eclipsed by player skill, and only really matters with players who are very close in experience.

That said, there is still a rock paper scissors element to the game, but again that gets solved by having multiple lists and its still dependent on skill. Rock might be > Scissors, but you still need to know how to use Rock or the Scissors can still beat you.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Sergeant




America

They even draw from a lot of the same thematic choices as MTG. Which isn't a criticism. I think MTG tapped into very logical color - alignment - effect. I'd do the same thing with a miniatures game.

White - Religious, Enchantments, Cities, Desert Nomads, Lawful: Protectorate
Blue - Magic, Sorcery, Wizards, Technology, Good: Cygnar
etc.

It just feels right. Circle Orboros feels very Green. Their aim is to get the big creature based threats to you quickly akin to green ramp. Yet you have options, you could build for more smaller threats akin to a the Green Elf Tribal decks by taking lots of Tharn or Wolves. Whereas Khador feels Red because it throws a lot of smaller creature threats at you because Red Deck Wins and Russian Machine Never Break. Butcher of Khardov is the Shivan Dragon. An iconic finisher.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/05/12 07:06:48


Who is Barry Badrinath? 
   
Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





 Col. Tartleton wrote:
Blue - Magic, Sorcery, Wizards, Technology, Good: Cygnar

Blue - Hunger, regeneration, cartoonish, scottish, victims: Trollblood.
.

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
 Col. Tartleton wrote:
Blue - Magic, Sorcery, Wizards, Technology, Good: Cygnar

Blue - Hunger, regeneration, cartoonish, scottish, victims: Trollblood.
.


Blue- Genocide, Religious Oppression, Concentration Camps, Evil: Cygnar

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





Blue - Man, World, House, Corvette, Girlfriend, Feelings, Da Ba Dee: Eiffel 65.

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
Made in us
Cosmic Joe





If WMH had tiers it would be:
1.Everyone else
2. MWHistorian



Also, check out my history blog: Minimum Wage Historian, a fun place to check out history that often falls between the couch cushions. 
   
 
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