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hey guys,

I'm having an intro to WM next week, really looking forward to it as I've long liked the look of the game. Just had a couple of questions to set things up in my mind, if anyone can help?

1. Are there codex - equivalent books for each faction? Or do I just need the MKII rules and an army?
2. Other than minis and rules, are there any other essential things?
3. From fluff and looks alone, I like Khador, then Protectorate. Hordes - wise, I like Trollbloods. Are these decent choices for new players, or am I digging a hole?

thank you all!

 kaa1304 wrote:
hey guys,

I'm having an intro to WM next week, really looking forward to it as I've long liked the look of the game. Just had a couple of questions to set things up in my mind, if anyone can help?

1. Are there codex - equivalent books for each faction? Or do I just need the MKII rules and an army?
2. Other than minis and rules, are there any other essential things?
3. From fluff and looks alone, I like Khador, then Protectorate. Hordes - wise, I like Trollbloods. Are these decent choices for new players, or am I digging a hole?

thank you all!

Welcome to the iron kingdoms! Don't forget your complimentary goggles and warjack plushie!

To answer your questions.

1: yes, and no. There is no codex: khador in the game, for example. What you do have are anthology books. When pp released warmachine mark2 a couple of years ago, they started with the forces of war: faxtion books, which, while similar to a codex in a way, acted as a collection of all the relevant casters, jacks units and solos released to date for that faction. This was done for every faction. After that, pp went back to their traditional method of antholhy books. Every year, they release a hordes expansion book, and a warmwchine expansion books which has new casters, jacks, units and solos for all the factions simultaneously.

2: tokens, templates, dice and measuring tape are handy.

3: all factions are solid and balanced. This is not 40k. You will lose games because you played poorly, you won't lose games because you picked faction x.

Cool, thanks, so are there any current books worth picking up?... I assume, erm, expansion books?

Deadnight wrote:

 kaa1304 wrote:
hey guys,

I'm having an intro to WM next week, really looking forward to it as I've long liked the look of the game. Just had a couple of questions to set things up in my mind, if anyone can help?

1. Are there codex - equivalent books for each faction? Or do I just need the MKII rules and an army?
2. Other than minis and rules, are there any other essential things?
3. From fluff and looks alone, I like Khador, then Protectorate. Hordes - wise, I like Trollbloods. Are these decent choices for new players, or am I digging a hole?

thank you all!

Welcome to the iron kingdoms! Don't forget your complimentary goggles and warjack plushie!

To answer your questions.

1: yes, and no. There is no codex: khador in the game, for example. What you do have are anthology books. When pp released warmachine mark2 a couple of years ago, they started with the forces of war: faxtion books, which, while similar to a codex in a way, acted as a collection of all the relevant casters, jacks units and solos released to date for that faction. This was done for every faction. After that, pp went back to their traditional method of antholhy books. Every year, they release a hordes expansion book, and a warmwchine expansion books which has new casters, jacks, units and solos for all the factions simultaneously.

2: tokens, templates, dice and measuring tape are handy.

3: all factions are solid and balanced. This is not 40k. You will lose games because you played poorly, you won't lose games because you picked faction x.

Everything above. I will also add that the Forces of X, books are not needed. They are fine if you are into the fluff but they only have the models up to the release date of the books.

Each model/unit come with its own cards so the books are never needed.

Same goes with the books that are released every year. I would recommend getting the War Room App. For something like $60 you get all the factions cards the erratas when they happen are automatically updated in the cards on the app, it has a rules reference built in as well (and if you set it to minimum standards it runs well and does not crash or kill your phone's battery).

Also I would talk to your local Press Ganger. They will have a few factions so you can try them out and get a rough feel for how they play on the table.

All you need to play is the models, cards, 6 d6 dice, tokens, templates, ruler, and dry erase pen.
Make sure you put your cards in a plastic card sleeves such as dragon shields.

Unlike 40k the game is well balanced but has a very steep learning curve, you are going to lose a lot in the beginning.

 kaa1304 wrote:
Cool, thanks, so are there any current books worth picking up?... I assume, erm, expansion books?

Depends on what you're after.

You can get all the rules on the war room app if that's all you're after.

If you want to delve into the lore (and the lore is quite excellent) of your faction and follow the unfolding narrative, then I'd recommend all the books.

Deadnight wrote:

 kaa1304 wrote:
Cool, thanks, so are there any current books worth picking up?... I assume, erm, expansion books?

Depends on what you're after.

You can get all the rules on the war room app if that's all you're after.

If you want to delve into the lore (and the lore is quite excellent) of your faction and follow the unfolding narrative, then I'd recommend all the books.

Awesome, thank you.

Is the 2player battle box worth it, contents wise, if I chose to take on one of those factions as my own?

What is "needed" to play the game:

-Rule Book (Warmachine Prime MK II or Hordes Primal MK II- depends on your army)
-Your army
-Dice
-Tape Measure
-Templates- depending on your army, a 5" circle, 4" circle, 3" circle, and a Spray Template. There are many options out there. You may need multiple templates for a smoke grenade or fire area or a wall. Just depends.

What the others said about the faction books are spot on. A very valuable resource is War Room. It is updated often, is a bit cantankerous depending on your phone/plateform, but can include everything released in the game so far along with a brief rules description of all abilities. In a nutshell, it's all the cards for the game.

You don't really even have to pick up the expansion books (the latest is Warmachine: Reckoning) if you don't want to, except they have a lot of fluff, how to paint, and the newest models for the game. Some of the rulebooks will have additional rules in them for such things as Weapon Attachments for squads, Colosal/Gargantuans, Battle Engines, and in some special cases, the rules for Convergence and Cephylex as they play a bit differently from the other factions.

Find your local Press Ganger and he/she will hook you up with a primer on all the factions and even teach you how to play- and you won't need a thing. It's what we Press Gangers do! Volunteers to promote and show all Privateer Press games to players.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kaa1304 wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

 kaa1304 wrote:
Cool, thanks, so are there any current books worth picking up?... I assume, erm, expansion books?

Depends on what you're after.

You can get all the rules on the war room app if that's all you're after.

If you want to delve into the lore (and the lore is quite excellent) of your faction and follow the unfolding narrative, then I'd recommend all the books.

Awesome, thank you.

Is the 2player battle box worth it, contents wise, if I chose to take on one of those factions as my own?

The two player starter sets are awesome as they contain everything you need to play the game (dice, tape measure, mini-rulebook, as in full rules, just sized down to a pocket edition), and a fairly good army to learn how to play the game. You will quickly want to add to them. The armies in there are around the 15-20 point mark, and most games are played at the 35, 50, 75+ point levels, with 50 being the "sweet spot".

If you don't want the extra faction and don't care for the extra stuff in the two player starter boxes, look for the All-In-One Army boxes that are a splash release from Privateer Press. Each one has a 50 point army that retails for well over US$200 and you get it for US$120- about 40% off. The armies are GOOD, not awesome, but not terrible either. They are a fantastic deal.

Thanks all, great info for me to forge ahead. Have installed War Room but just noticed it keeps asking me to buy stuff so probably not the ideal app to help me decide, but one for use when I have decided!

Regarding two of your initially flagged down factions; Trolls and Khador. They are a bit of a pitfall in that neither of those factions focus on the "totems" so to say. They are both designed to focus less on the big stompies (Warbeasts and Warjacks respectively) so if you're planning on making armies composed mainly of beasts or robots you should reconsider those two options. Yes, you CAN play 'jack or 'beast heavy (more true for Trollbloods), but there's fewer 'casters or 'locks who can do it than in your average faction.

Warmachine factions in general are about the infantry while Hordes are about the beasts. The good news is that Protectorate has quite a few 'casters capable of running 'jack-centric lists, so if robots with tiny legs are your thing then Protectorate is most commonly recommended.
As long as you don't go for Minions (they are short on selections) or Cyriss (they require even more of you as a player when setting up the Rhub Goldberg machine) you'll be fine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kaa1304 wrote:
Thanks all, great info for me to forge ahead. Have installed War Room but just noticed it keeps asking me to buy stuff so probably not the ideal app to help me decide, but one for use when I have decided!

You get the battle box contents for each army for free, after that yes they do require you to buy the digital cards (for significantly less than phyical purchase would cost). It's an excellent app once you've picked a faction or *ahem* three. Prior to that, check battlecollage.com out. Take their tactica with a pinch of salt (it's a bit dated quite often) and you'll have a fine resource.

Khador and Troll Bloods are both very forgiving factions (as much as there is such a thing) Troll Bloods have very strong theme lists right now that are skewing the tournament meta towards anti-high arm, multi-wound models. Both are fun to play.

Khador was my first love and I am just now rebuilding my army after selling about 250pts of it.

The all-in-ones are 35 points, not 50.

And battlecollege.com

Not collage.

 kaa1304 wrote:
Cool, thanks, so are there any current books worth picking up?... I assume, erm, expansion books?

Books are only necessary if you want to read the fluff. They do contain the rules for the models that were released in that book, and each faction has its own forces book that contains all models that were released as of 2011.

However, every model comes with its rules card which has all the necessary rules and the health tracker for that model(if it needs one). So you don't need to buy any books beyond the main rulebook, either Prime or Primal for Warmachine and Hordes respectively. And the two rulebooks are functionally identical, except one has the rules for Focus and the other has the rules for Fury.

Warroom comes with all the Battlebox rules for free. Further faction cards will have to be purchased at about $8 a deck. The good news is that when you buy a deck you buy all the cards that will be released in the future as well. The cards are also updated with any errata that get released too.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Books are only necessary if you want to read the fluff.

Which is all the reason you need to buy in, if you ask me. the fluff of WMH is excellent and well worth getting into.

Been reading, one more question

If I want to play Khador, am I better off getting the 2 player box, or am i better off getting the khador box and the rulebook?

 kaa1304 wrote:
Been reading, one more question

If I want to play Khador, am I better off getting the 2 player box, or am i better off getting the khador box and the rulebook?

The 2 player box or if you can find a Khador all in one box I would get the all in one

If you're not planning on playing Menoth, or do not have a friend to split to 2 player box with I'd pass on the 2 player box. Once you get past the introductory game level you're not going to be playing the Man-O-Wars, and will rarely play either of the warjacks. Outside of the introductory level I've only ever seen one khador player use Man-O-Wars in two years once, and whilst the Juggernaut is used every now and then, I don't think I've ever seen destroyer on the table outside of a battlebox/Journeyman League game.


The All-in-one box is a much better deal, everything in it is a staple of the Khador army. The Spriggan is the go to non-character warjack for most Khador players, and the Demolisher whilst not amazing is still better than those in the 2 player box. PLus I'm fairly sure the All in one box comes with a rule book.

 jeratoll wrote:
If you're not planning on playing Menoth, or do not have a friend to split to 2 player box with I'd pass on the 2 player box. Once you get past the introductory game level you're not going to be playing the Man-O-Wars, and will rarely play either of the warjacks. Outside of the introductory level I've only ever seen one khador player use Man-O-Wars in two years once, and whilst the Juggernaut is used every now and then, I don't think I've ever seen destroyer on the table outside of a battlebox/Journeyman League game.


The All-in-one box is a much better deal, everything in it is a staple of the Khador army. The Spriggan is the go to non-character warjack for most Khador players, and the Demolisher whilst not amazing is still better than those in the 2 player box. PLus I'm fairly sure the All in one box comes with a rule book.

Hey, I use Man-O-Wars.

 MWHistorian wrote:

Hey, I use Man-O-Wars.

Not to be pedantic mwh, but the plural of man-o-war is men-o-war, not man-o-wars.

Deadnight wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

Hey, I use Man-O-Wars.

Not to be pedantic mwh, but the plural of man-o-war is men-o-war, not man-o-wars.

To be most intentionally thoroughly pedantic, it actually is Man-O-War Shocktroopers/Bombadiers/whatever when talking about WMH

You could always just either buy the Khador half on ebay or buy the whole box and sell off the menoth half you won't get much for it but it'll be enough for something else.

Raven Cowl wrote:
You could always just either buy the Khador half on ebay or buy the whole box and sell off the menoth half you won't get much for it but it'll be enough for something else.

With Khador I'd always suggest looking second-hand. Khador has by far the highest attrition/player turnover rate of any faction in the game. There should always been plenty of quality low priced offerings for Khador because so many people get into the faction, realize it isn't what they thought it was and then leave.

Yeah, Khador has some issues with it's internal balance. I'd say they're 6/10 atm (Which is still better than typical GW 3/10 for balance). They are over reliant on their grunt infantry (Which are excellent) and have issues vs. factions that can deal with grunt infantry - Cygnar especially.

The medium infantry (MoWs) are the poorest in the game and are slow and over pointed. And, as mentioned, some of the jacks are dubious. Thus they lack options to make a rounded force.

That said, the army boix is a very solid purchase. PP have worked out a tourney worthy list (Subject to a maximum $$$ in the box as I'd expect to see one less jack and another unit of 10-12 guys) that I'd rate as able to win a small local tourney with (Assuming you play it well). It covers all bases with ESorscha, a very flexible caster.

And if you want to win vs, harder match ups, consider Butcher 3 as a potential future caster purchase. The guy's an absolute monster - think Chaos Lord of Khorne who can kill 20+ guys a turn, with some luck.


Gaz

True, but the new box has done a lot for Khador. Victor is a brilliant colossal. And one of the new jacks is only 5 points.

But Khador is very much a faction of finesse and synergy. It isn't as simple as it appears.

Khador is very popular in my local area with a lot of the new players. They see those big jacks and think those are going to win them games, just to find out Khador infantry units are the bread n butter of the faction. We must have 10 Khador players in our local area so I get to face one of the different butcher models every week guaranteed.

Gazzor wrote:
Yeah, Khador has some issues with it's internal balance. I'd say they're 6/10 atm (Which is still better than typical GW 3/10 for balance). They are over reliant on their grunt infantry (Which are excellent) and have issues vs. factions that can deal with grunt infantry - Cygnar especially.

I think you do them a disservice. At least years wtc, I think something like 80% of khadors roster got fielded, and they had the highest win% of all the factions. 'Over' reliance on grunt infantry is a warmachine feature, and is mainly borne of the false notion that warmachine is all about the jacks. I don't think khador suffer against cygnar at all.

Most of our casters are solid workers (bar maybe old witch, strakhov, and karchev. Victor is nuts with harkevich and has really raises his stock). Our jacks are generally ok (decimators and destroyers are overcoats, it's quite easy to get work out of the rest). Our infantry and solos are, as you acknowledge, excellent, with few duds (kossites - maybe) or at worst, situational.

I'd put them at a solid 7.5 or 8.

Gazzor wrote:


The medium infantry (MoWs) are the poorest in the game and are slow and over pointed. And, as mentioned, some of the jacks are dubious. Thus they lack options to make a rounded force.

Men o war don't comprise all the medium/heavy infantry though. In any case, the drakhun is excellent, and khadors other multi wounded - cavalry options (uhlans and murder ponies) range from solid to excellent, and available mercenary options like steelhead cav are solid as part of a steelhead boat, and their new solo only makes them better.

In any case, men o war can be built into solid builds. They're specialised more than generalist, which is a shame. Irusk2 gets great value out of them, and there are a few theme lists that turn them up a notch. It's not enough to 'safe' them, but it's enough to make them worth it, at least in a limited set of lists.

Gazzor wrote:

And if you want to win vs, harder match ups, consider Butcher 3 as a potential future caster purchase. The guy's an absolute monster - think Chaos Lord of Khorne who can kill 20+ guys a turn, with some luck.
Gaz

Butcher3 is awesome. He's not broken, but was a real game changer for khador.

Cavalry aren't infantry. And MoW aren't medium infantry, they're Heavy infantry. Medium infantry are things like IFP.

And yeah, MoW are pretty bad mostly because they don't do much that can't be done better by other things. You can run 1 unit under Irusk2 to good effect, but any more than that and they become a burden.

Play what you want, and don't get caught up too much in Netdecking or Interwebz Collective Wisdom.

MoW's are a visually stunning unit to have on a table. To see two, or even three units of them on the table can be very intimidating if you don't have the tools to deal with them.

They are much maligned by a lot of players because, as was pointed out, other units can do the same thing they can. I kinda disagree just because a good player with a lot of practice can make any unit shine. And also realize that there are bad match-ups, games where no matter what you do, you are gonna lose (dice, scenario, or you have an all stealth army facing off against a ranged army that ignores stealth, etc.).

 Tamwulf wrote:
. I kinda disagree just because a good player with a lot of practice can make any unit shine.

That logic is flawed. Look at Will Pagani, in 2013 he won Warmachine Weekend with a list that contained a unit of Assault Kommandos, which see even less play than Man O Wars. Pagani won that event because he was a good player and had a strategy going into the event. It didn't suddenly make Assault Kommandos viable. Just because one of the best players in the game can make a unit work, doesn't mean that it's a unit that new players should use.

 kaa1304 wrote:
Been reading, one more question

If I want to play Khador, am I better off getting the 2 player box, or am i better off getting the khador box and the rulebook?

Definetely get the Khador army box. somebody already mentioned that you're already saving around $80 off the retail price. On top of that, most of the online stores sell is for at least another 20% off. One other option (just to add a little bit more to your army) is the starter box. It is only a caster and two jacks, but you should be able to find it for around $25-$30 on ebay which isn't bad considering you're getting about $85 worth of models.

If you've deceided on Khador or any other faction, it's worth the $6 to buy the faction on the War Room app. It not only gives you the stats for the whole faction and gives you an army builder complete with Theme lists, but it will also give you all future releases for the faction as soon as they are available. If a model is a pre-release at a con, they will typically have the stats available. You can even use the army builder and stat cards built in when you actually play someone else rather than using your cards. I haven't marked damage on the cards for at least a year or two now because of this feature. The app allows you to mark damage on the army you've built if you go under the 'Fight' section.

As for buying the books, it really isn't ever necessary. I find that when I but an expansion book, after the initial new book thrill wears off , I never pick it up again.

One bit of caution if you decide to go with Trollbloods. They are the most exensive army to field. Most of their troops are medium based which tend to be a lot more expensive.