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Hey there, another disheartened AoS casualty here!

Looking at warmachine as have heard great things about it.

I like the aesthetics of scyrrah mercenaries skorne, some circle and Khador although it has been recommended to me to avoid Khador as a learner, would you agree with this? I am pretty open to any force, Hordes included although I am not such a fan of the undead looking army, Cryx, I am over undead type troops at the moment!

Is the all in one box the way forward?

I understand that whichever army I choose I can pretty much tailor the army to my playstyle so I basically choose which army I like the look of the most?

I am an aggressive/counterattacking style player. I am not a bull in a china shop but like pulling opponents out of position and using expenedable troops to expose them to hardhitters if that makes sense. If it helps I used tomb kings, tau, space wolves, skaven and skink heavy lizardmen in my GW days...

dragonelf wrote:
Hey there, another disheartened AoS casualty here!

Looking at warmachine as have heard great things about it.

Welcome!

dragonelf wrote:

I like the aesthetics of scyrrah mercenaries skorne, some circle and Khador although it has been recommended to me to avoid Khador as a learner, would you agree with this? I am pretty open to any force, Hordes included although I am not such a fan of the undead looking army, Cryx, I am over undead type troops at the moment!

I don't know who advised you, but its kind of the exact opposite, Khador is an excellent learning faction because they are a relatively straightforward faction. What happens is that new players usually think that Khador is a heavy warjack faction, when in reality they rely much more in their infantry than almost any other Warmachine faction and only really use 1 or 2 warjacks in each list.

dragonelf wrote:

Is the all in one box the way forward?

If you can find one and you are absolutely sure that you like the game, then yes, the all in one box is the best deal that you can get.

But get a hold of a Press Ganger or at least a couple of experienced players and play a few demo games first just to make sure that you like the game because WMH is a radical departure from a GW game and as such some people might not like all the differences.

dragonelf wrote:

I understand that whichever army I choose I can pretty much tailor the army to my playstyle so I basically choose which army I like the look of the most?

Almost.

Armies will have a preferred play style and if that play style is in the opposite end of what you wan't to do, then odds are that no matter how much you tailor you won't be able to "fit" the army to that play style, or if you do, it won't perform that role as well as another faction that specializes in it.

For example, Legion is a alpha strike faction and its units are generally fast and hard hitting but extremely fragile. So if you wan't to play them as a brick style army, you certainly can if you select your Warlock and units carefully, but you'll never perform as well at it as Trolls, for example.

With as diverse as most armies are these days most can play a bunch of different play styles. However there are generally overarching play types or ways that each plays to it's strengths.

Khador is known for it's fantastic infantry (even though they have fantastic character jacks)

Menoth runs Jack heavy but can have issues with mitigating terrain.

etc.

My advice would be two fold. Download War Room and check out the different armies. You can look at some of the casters and units from each faction without having to buy the packs. Also get down to a local store and meet the PG. They should have a few different armies for you to try and see what feels right.

As to playing.... play the battle box play it for a week or so. Then move up to 15 points, then 25, 35, and finally 50.

Also please stay with a caster till you have in down pat. Learn the synergies and when to use your feat before moving on to your second.

Thanks so much for that...

Do you think it is easier as a beginner to stick to the warmachine mechanic or hordes?

I'd stay away from Merceneries as a full faction for the moment, chances are that if you go with a Warmachine faction you'll be grabbing some Mercs anyway.

All in One if you can get it, if you can't try to get half of the 2 player starter set if you're going Khador/Circle and battlebox otherwise. Magnets are often a great early investment as well.

Retribution of Scyrah is a faction very much like the Eldar with plenty of specialised, elite troops and few generalists. Very much a finesse faction, it's one of the more difficult ones to learn but quite powerful in the hands of a master. Retribution armies tend to excel at shooting and board control.

Circle Orboros, like Ret, is a finesse faction with a steeper learning curve than others. They have a lot of what we shall refer to as "shenanigans" especially teleportation abilities. A Circle army tends to be very fast and manoeuvrable with some of the most dangerous assassination vectors in the game, but also very fragile and not particularly hard hitting.

Skorne is a lot more straight forward, and tends to be the army that just wants to charge forward at your opponent and smash them into little bits. Skorne armies tend to very melee focussed, hard hitting and durable but fairly slow, though they do have access to a lot of speed buffs which can lead to surprisingly long threat ranges.

Khador is like a more infantry focussed Skorne, slow but quite durable and hard hitting. Khador does have a melee bent to it but also have some fantastic ranged pieces, such as Winter Guard and Widowmakers.

dragonelf wrote:
Do you think it is easier as a beginner to stick to the warmachine mechanic or hordes?

I think Warmachine is a little bit easier to grasp at first but after a couple of games it really doesn't make too much difference which mechanic you're using. You'll want to learn both mechanics once you've got the basics down so you can understand more about an opposing army using the other system.

thanks a lot for that. To be honest I like the sound of all those armies! It sounds like khador is a good starting point for me. Solid infantry and shooting sounds good although I have very little clue about the mechanics of the game!

I have watched a few online battle reports for warmachine and I have noticed the board appears a bit barren. Is terrain not a part of the game? I have always enjoyed the tactical movement element of tabletop games and the terrain is part of that, plus the board looks much nicer with terrain on it.

dragonelf wrote:
Thanks so much for that...

Do you think it is easier as a beginner to stick to the warmachine mechanic or hordes?

Some thinks focus is easier to learn the fury management.

PrinceRaven wrote:
Khador is like a more infantry focussed Skorne, slow but quite durable and hard hitting. Khador does have a melee bent to it but also have some fantastic ranged pieces, such as Winter Guard and Widowmakers.

With respect, Khador are not 'slow'. Their jacks have a base speed that is in line with a lot of the other heavies in the game, and a lot of ways of boosting that speed- say hi to forced march Vlad or blitzkrieg strakhov. They've been described as 'the fastest slow faction in the game' and it reflects well. and their infantry is similarly on a par (ie 6") with most other infantry options. Then there's cavalry.

So no. Khador are not 'slow'. They're as fast as anyone else...

dragonelf wrote:


I have watched a few online battle reports for warmachine and I have noticed the board appears a bit barren. Is terrain not a part of the game? I have always enjoyed the tactical movement element of tabletop games and the terrain is part of that, plus the board looks much nicer with terrain on it.

Jesus. Don't waste your time watching FaceTube battle reports. Play the game. Terrain matters hugely.

Deadnight wrote:

PrinceRaven wrote:
Khador is like a more infantry focussed Skorne, slow but quite durable and hard hitting. Khador does have a melee bent to it but also have some fantastic ranged pieces, such as Winter Guard and Widowmakers.

With respect, Khador are not 'slow'. Their jacks have a base speed that is in line with a lot of the other heavies in the game, and a lot of ways of boosting that speed- say hi to forced march Vlad or blitzkrieg strakhov. They've been described as 'the fastest slow faction in the game' and it reflects well. and their infantry is similarly on a par (ie 6") with most other infantry options. Then there's cavalry.

So no. Khador are not 'slow'. They're as fast as anyone else...

dragonelf wrote:


I have watched a few online battle reports for warmachine and I have noticed the board appears a bit barren. Is terrain not a part of the game? I have always enjoyed the tactical movement element of tabletop games and the terrain is part of that, plus the board looks much nicer with terrain on it.

Jesus. Don't waste your time watching FaceTube battle reports. Play the game. Terrain matters hugely.

Shhhhh! Khador is slow.... No need to look any further....

Well, I can only speak from fairly limited personal experience against Khador. Apart from their cavalry I'm used to seeing a lot of SPD 4 and 5 or SPD 6 with no reach.

dragonelf wrote:
thanks a lot for that. To be honest I like the sound of all those armies! It sounds like khador is a good starting point for me. Solid infantry and shooting sounds good although I have very little clue about the mechanics of the game!

I have watched a few online battle reports for warmachine and I have noticed the board appears a bit barren. Is terrain not a part of the game? I have always enjoyed the tactical movement element of tabletop games and the terrain is part of that, plus the board looks much nicer with terrain on it.

Terrain is very important in the game and has a huge impact. Thats why you often see very little relative to other games.

If you don't have a rule which lets you ignore terrain, any movement you make through rough terrain costs you double movement. So even those little patches of forest can be a huge obstacle. You also can't charge over walls unless you have a rule which lets you ignore them either.

This means a warjack with speed 5 that has a charge move of 8" can only move 4" in rough terrain, if its moving only through rough terrain. You also have to factor a model's base size into this as well. Even if the rough terrain is only 1" wide, if your base is a large base thats another 4" of movement penalty(twice the width of the large base which is almost 2") So that would be 6" of movement to get over 1" of rough terrain for a large based model.

Some factions have a lot of Pathfinder/Flight(rules which ignore terrain) while other have next to none. thus finding the right balance of terrain is tricky. Put too much and you heavily favor the factions who ignore it, and too little and you make their abilities irrelevant. The best balance IMO balance is somewhere around 5-7 pieces of terrain, with 2 of them being linear obstacles/obstructions, 1 piece of shallow water, and the rest being an even mix of hills and forests.


Also, Youtube battle reports are a terrible way to learn about the game if you know almost nothing. You need to have some experience to get any value out of them, and watch the right channels. After you've gotten some games under your belt, I recommend Advanced Maneuvers and Chain-attack battle reports on youtube. Wargamer Girl is also great, very well explained and documented batreps. Avoid miniwargaming at all costs, they are horrifically bad at this game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Chute82 wrote:

dragonelf wrote:
Thanks so much for that...

Do you think it is easier as a beginner to stick to the warmachine mechanic or hordes?

Some thinks focus is easier to learn the fury management.

Only in that it takes 5 less minutes to explain.

If you'd like pick up the free starter rules for both warmachine and hordes on the PP website. These are the basic rules for both games.

It's easy to say ignore the youtube channels but other than investing in the models, how else can i get a flavour of how the game plays? Is it worth buying the basic rulebook? I don't want to buy a load of models and find out I hate the game.

dragonelf wrote:
It's easy to say ignore the youtube channels but other than investing in the models, how else can i get a flavour of how the game plays? Is it worth buying the basic rulebook? I don't want to buy a load of models and find out I hate the game.

That is why I advised you to find your local Press Ganger or at least a couple of veteran players and get a few demo games under your belt.

You won't learn anything from youtube battle reports if you don't already have a semi-solid grasp on the rules and mechanics of the game to help you understand what is going on.

Or at least watch these first, they will help you get a feel for the game (but I still advise you to go do a few demo games before buying anything):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxirCgRSzhA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En7dqerjSJM

Yep I do appreciate that. Not sure what there is in terms of warmachine in my area but I will look into it. I do see the limitations of youtube videos for sure. Nothing like playing yourself.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Well, I can only speak from fairly limited personal experiwnce against Khador. Apart from their cavalry I'm used to seeing a lot of SPD 4 and 5 or SPD 6 with no reach.

Indeed - jacks are speed4. So are menoth heavies and a lot of cygnarans, as well as Mercs. But that's base speed. Look at spells like superiority or boundless charge which might as well make them spd6. Look St speed boosting feats like with vlad or strakhov.

As to infantry - see pikemen. Backbone of khador. Spd6 isn't 'slow'. Spd6 is normal. Winter guard don't have reach, but their job is to shoot you from 14" away with rifles or rockets. Or shotgun things to death with grapeshot.

dragonelf wrote:
It's easy to say ignore the youtube channels but other than investing in the models, how else can i get a flavour of how the game plays? Is it worth buying the basic rulebook? I don't want to buy a load of models and find out I hate the game.

Play the game? It's not rocket surgery. But to give a detailed answer, the buy in is pretty cheap if you go with any of the starter sets. But, if you want to just check it out, bear in mind the quick start rules used in the battle box games are free to download. You could always download them, proxy some dreadnought or monstrous creatures as 'warjacks' and some space marines as your 'warcasters'. Use this to take your baby steps in the game. It's not perfect. Veterans might have a few issues with base sizes etc, but for the first few practice games you'll be fine, and it's a quick, easy and free way to explore the game mechanics and see if it's for you. To expand on this further, I would suggest contacting your local pressgangers for a demo, or the local warmachine players to get a game in.most should be quite happy to show you the ropes.

I'd recommend the rulebook for the game mechanics and especially the fluff. You can't sell a game as just vectors and geometry - you need the background information too to act as a hook. The rulebook gives a good overview of all the factions and should let you get a taste of the iron kingdoms lore. It should help direct you to an army that you can enjoy.

For what it's worth, I play khador and circle, and am starting a retribution army. If you have questions on them, ask away.

As for the game, and your understandable worries about getting into it - I'll try to put you at ease. It's a brilliant game. For a lot of reasons. That said, I won't sell it on its great fluff (but it has great fluff). I won't sell it on its excellent balance. (But it's balance is indeed excellent). I wont sell it on its extremely well written and watertight rules set (but the rules and the game mechanics are a joy). What will I sell it on? Well, my personal story. I got burned out of 40k with that iron warriors army back in fourth ed. Walked away from the hobby for about two years. Just couldn't take the plunge. Then I remembered those two battle boxes I had from mk1 and how much fun I had with them. Well, I dug them out and googled tge game. Turned out pp was doing a free, open world wide beta test. Grab your armies, play games give feedback. Make out game better. Me? Sold. Went up to Dublin and bought a crapton of khador stuff. Started painting again. Started playing. Felt that simple joy that had been lacking for so long. Simply put, Warmachine was the game that made me fall in love with this hobby again.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Retribution of Scyrah is a faction very much like the Eldar

They may be elves, but they aren't the Eldar. Closer to Necrons but you can't really compare the factions cross-lores like that. Cygnar are probably the closest to Eldar I should say. Actually, scratch that, all factions except Menoth are like Tau. Menoth are like the Sisters of Battle and their ilk.

Actually, let's make that perfectly clear. There are no shiny rainbow, touchy-feely, factions in Warmachine (not even Cygnar). It's not grim dark in the way of 40k, but we really don't need people to start with the crap that elves usually get by associating them with one of the more loathed factions from 40k (and for good reasons). Bottom line, Scyrah hate humans, they are the terrorists of their empire* and they drink strong, black coffee. Why do they drink coffee? Because they are the barbaric terrorists, the rest of the Iosians drink tea.

* A terrorist is someone whose intentions are to spread fear among a group of people, this group being human mages. Who, being honest, actually deserve to die, so they aren't evil terrorists. Don't be a human mage and you will (probably) be fine. No guarantees on you being fine if you aren't a mage.

P.s. I own a significant number of Eldar. It's been a rollercoaster with the editions, but they have never been balanced.

P.p.s. Die, human mage scum

Wow, that's some story! My story is not too dissimilar except it is one of boredom partially. Started in fantasy around 20 years ago. Didnt like 8th edition, friend persuaded us into 40k a couple of years ago and enjoyed. I played tau because i liked the markerlight mechanic. I enjoyed it until recently. I have become a bit disillusioned with the overly complex army selection, formations which I find unbalancing and the powering of armies such as necrons and eldar is really putting me off. I want to win a game because of playing well. So as a result I have really got into painting again, I found I enjoy it more than playing at the moment. But I miss the fun of playing and that's what is turning me to warmachine.

They aren't terrorists. They're extremists (not the same thing). They don't want to spread fear among human mages. They want the extermination of ALL human mages.

They feel the decline of their gods is directly related to the increase in the number of human mages. For this reason, to save their god, all human mages must die.

But yes, die human mage scum.

The AiO is the best value to get into the game if you can still find it.

Stay away from mercs as a starter faction. Scyrah is also not great to start with, they are very unforgiving of mistakes. It's quite the finesse army.

Skorne & Khador are both straight forward but very good at it. Skorne is a combined arms force that can field multiple styles well, while khador runs infantry heavy usually only 1 or 2 jacks.

Circle is tricksy using teleportation & movement shenanigans to get things where they need to be & back home safe after.

Cryx is the debuff faction. Their stats tend to be on the low side but they have more than enough debuffs to make up for it.

I am not a bull in a china shop but like pulling opponents out of position and using expenedable troops to expose them to hardhitters if that makes sense

I think you should look more into circle and cryx. circle does the first part while cryx does the latter.

I think from the models point of view, so far I like Skorne. I like their units and their big fellas! I will have a read of the rules and take it from there.

dragonelf wrote:
Wow, that's some story! My story is not too dissimilar except it is one of boredom partially. Started in fantasy around 20 years ago. Didnt like 8th edition, friend persuaded us into 40k a couple of years ago and enjoyed. I played tau because i liked the markerlight mechanic. I enjoyed it until recently. I have become a bit disillusioned with the overly complex army selection, formations which I find unbalancing and the powering of armies such as necrons and eldar is really putting me off. I want to win a game because of playing well. So as a result I have really got into painting again, I found I enjoy it more than playing at the moment. But I miss the fun of playing and that's what is turning me to warmachine.

Forget everything you know about 40k it's not going to help you much. You can't sit back and shoot like tau and expect to win in warmachine, it rewards the aggressive player. Everything dies in warmachine so don't get to attached to your models expect them to die in glorious battle. check out the pp website forums and post on there that your new and looking for someone to show you a demo game. Hopefully you can hook up with a group or club in your area. Good luck and I hope you enjoy the game as much as I do

Mahtamori wrote:
Actually, let's make that perfectly clear. There are no shiny rainbow, touchy-feely, factions in Warmachine (not even Cygnar). It's not grim dark in the way of 40k, but we really don't need people to start with the crap that elves usually get by associating them with one of the more loathed factions from 40k (and for good reasons). Bottom line, Scyrah hate humans, they are the terrorists of their empire* and they drink strong, black coffee. Why do they drink coffee? Because they are the barbaric terrorists, the rest of the Iosians drink tea.
P.p.s. Die, human mage scum

To be fair, it doesn't have the body count of billions lik 40k but it is plenty grim, and plenty gritty, and a lit more immediate about it. When the old witch pulls a newborn baby out of her pouch and slits it's throat as a sacrifice to summon Wurmwood and his human sock puppet Cassius, you know you're not dealing with a Saturday morning cartoon!


And for dragonelf, if you want some faction blurbs, try these. Im missing convergence though!

Trollbloods: Braveheart Trolls - Large, tough, strong with a kilt and tartan wearing scottish highlander theme and a back story that begins like the Trail of Tears, until their version of "Crazy Horse" starts winning when he binds the tribes together. The most "good guy" choice, with some Dirty Dozen, Braveheart and the Incredible Hulk thrown in for spice. Pieces can cost more than average to collect because they are larger and require more metal to manufacture. trollbloods are seen as the "brick" faction. they tend to grind out an attrition based win. they hit hard, but their true strength is being able to buff themselves up with multiple layers of buffs and snnergies (kinda like the protectorate), and absorb whatever you throw at them, and laugh it all off. they are also the "humourous" faction. No, they're not orky, and no they're not comedy, but they have some amusing moments, especially as the faction as a whole always seems to be hungry they like drinking, fighting and carousing with the trollblood maidens afterwards. they have a lot of shaman and "rock/stone" themed magic, and shamans, and they have a lot of "irregular" forces - in that i mean, they are a bunch of barbarian "warriors", instead of rank upon rank of "soldiers", and they tend to fight with a scavenged mix of guns, swords, axes, hammers, bison cavalry, lots of attitude, and general trollish badassery.

Skorne: Roman/Samurai Legions with slightly more torture and pain. A mix of Roman, Samurai and Persian influences, particularly in fancy ornate armor. A cruel empire of slavery, war and conquest revolving around a warrior society, a warrior cult that glorifies death in battle against overwhelming odds (its their only way of acheiving immortality as the Skorne reject the gods, and face only oblivion on death otherwise) and a study of death magic and ancestor worship. The Skorne despise the gods, and especially those who worship dieties, and consider themselves all the stronger for standing on their own, without any dieties to aid them. They are the hordes faction that is most likely to look like an organized army in uniform. They employ enslaved crocodiles, the elephantine Titans, their infantry tends to be heavily armed cataphracts, light infantry equipped with spears, shields, swords, needle gun things. and then there is a soul fueled terracotta army of warrior-stone golems to bolster their numbers. they posess movement shenanigans, huge damage output and great resilience, along with nasty pain-fuelled magic.

Legion of Everblight: Blighted evil goblin-ice elves who worship a dragon (who commands them with a tyranid-like hive mind) that has genetically twisted them in his own image and into his perfect army. In a lot of ways, the Legion is the closest wargaming entity to Tolkien’s brand of orcs (being, essentially, tortured, twisted elves)
The Elves look more like goblins, their leader is a dragon-possessed ogre who grew wings (and promptly ate another dragon). They fight with primitive bows and swords but wield scary magic and breed dragon blood spawned monsters that are a cross between sharks-on-land and a dinosaur. They play by their own rules (ignore terrain, LOS etc), and hope to eat the souls of all the other dragon-gods. Lots of female characters ranging from weird deformed mutants to bow hunters to ninjas to sorceresses. Overall they're very fast and tend to be the most beast-heavy faction. definately a hit and run/glass cannon faction that focuses purely on assassination and "killing the other guy" as opposed to grabbing objectives and playing the attrition game. For the most part, their beasts are melee beatsticks, who are no slouches at range either. Their infantry ranges from various flavours of either claymore, or bow-armed elves, typically as skirmishers rather than “line” infantry, or halbard wielding ogryn berzerkers who act as shock troops from hell.

Circle of Orboros: Terrorist Druids meet up at Stonehenge for a tree spiking or a human sacrifice.
Forget tree hugging hippies. They are the wrath of the hurricane. Heck, one of their leaders is a carnivorous soul-eating tree! They are consummate manipulators, shrewd, and extremely sinister in nature. These guys embody purely the wild, powerful, untameable and incredibly destructive aspect of nature. Fires, floods, plagues, earthquakes and any other portents of disaster are their stock in trade. These nature manipulators believe that civilization, which has become too strong in the last few thousand years will bring about the destruction of mankind at the hand of the Devourer, an entity that represents the primal chaos of predation and nature’s fury. As such, they seek to destroy civilisation, and restore "balance" to the world, and placate the Devourer. Though they seek to deny its return, they draw their power from this very same diety that essentially represents the end times they seek to hold at bay. And they will do whatever it takes. They will steal babies, they will torture and kill, they will sacrifice, blight the harvest, spread plagues and make Faustian deals to advance their agenda. Their forces in the field are wild, savage and barbaric in appearance. It consists of druids, wildmen and hunters, werewolves, 8 foot tall beastmen from your worst nightmares, stone-golems, semi-sentient sacred stone markers, grizzly bear-sized goats, and anyone else they can manipulate to serve them. They source their magics from the very wilds themselves, and use this magic adeptly to manipulate terrain and nature itself(earth and stone, forests, wind, lightning etc), slay foes, teleport their troops, or makes their minions stronger. they're a fast, hard hitting, surprisingly resilient glass cannon/ guerrilla faction who can do ranged, attrition and denial as well though they primarily deal in melee. Essentially, they go in like an ICBM, wreck face, and disappear again, leaving their foes striking at shadows. They have a lots of dirty underhanded tricks and manipulations and a great ability to punish magic users.

The Farrow Minions (the mercenaries of hordes- they're a subfaction, like WMs pirates and dwarves) - the iron Kingdoms do not have ork. Instead, they have Pork! Farrow are scavenging Boars who walk on their hind legs and carry scavenged/looted rifles. Their society is chaotic and primal, where the strong rule the weak, and everyone is out for themselves. It's a real bacon eats bacon world! Speaking of bacon, they have the best named rule in the game - called bacon! - and apparently, even farrow think other farrow are tasty! They are led by a self styled, (if somewhat deluded) Conan the Boar-barian warlord called Lord carver (Lord carver esquire the third, bringer of most massive destruction to give him his proper title!), and he is allied with a human Mad Scientist called doctor Arcadius who has turned them into a force to be reckoned with,by creating Frankenstein cyborg-pigs sewn together from spare parts of bodies and robots to do their dirty work. AS a pact, there are fewer choices of models if played with one of their own generals, but all units and solos can be included in almost any Hordes Army. They're a movement/damage output faction. You have cyber roadhogs, warhogs, gun boars, cleaver armed infantry, meat wizards, rifle armed brigands and so on. And a pig called maximus. Generally speaking, they look and feel like a warband of brigands and scavengers on the edge of society with a very 'mad max' feel more than an “organised” army. But many a fool has underestimated their effectiveness. And whatever happens, you will always play with a smile on your face - whoever wins gets the bacon!

The Alligator Minions. Hordes doesnt do lizardmen. they do Gatormen. With Bayou, Voodoo, and sinister undead undertones these Gatormen are leather hide tough, but fight with only simple spears and possess no technology not even bows and arrows. They are joined by other swamp creatures such as poison tree frogs, giant snapping turtles who spit acid, and fishmen who like to sneak up behind you. Another new addition to the game, there are fewer choices of models if played with one of their own generals, but all units and solos can be included in almost any Hordes Army.Their strengths generally lie in their resilience and disruptive magic.

Khador are angry russian imperialists. The thing to remember is that in Khador, the word for "bigger" is the same as the word for "better". And also, in Khador, there is no such thing as "excessive force". Khador mix devastating short range firepower, excellent melee abilities, great artillery and long range fire support elements, and extremely heavy armour. Khador are the faction most reliably seen as "tough" or “hard”. They're primarily a faction geared around attrition, stsying power, and massive damage output. Though they're often seen as the beatstick faction (listen to the battlecries of "axe to face", and you'll get the mentality of your average khador player quickly enough!) they're surpringly an all-rounder faction, boasting the widest diversity of troop types in the game. Khador options range from power armoured Men O War super-heavy infantry, to other heavy infantry like Iron Fangs, heavy and light cavalry options, regular "line" infantry like winter guard and assault commando stormtroopers, irregular guerrilla type infantry like kossites, manhunters and kayazy assassins as well as ice and blizzard wielding mages types. As mentioned, though they're seen as a beatstick faction, through various warcasters, khador can do a blitzkrieg game as well as having some surprisingly excellent ranged options. as you’d expect from the "excessive force" faction, khador don’t so much go in for long range rifles and chainguns like their southern neighbours in cygnar (although the Winter Guard Rifle Korps and the Widowmakers are beyond excellent) as much as they do for big massive artillery pieces that put huge holes in the ground, or are simply quite devastating and over the top - flamethrowers, rockets, mortars etc come as standard. Khador tend to be a "raw stat" faction. They don’t have a lot of indirect support pieces - pretty much, warcasters are the support options for a khador army, as opposed to the choir, book, vassals etc of menoth. However, Khador units tend to be remarkably self-sufficient, and are quite happy, and fully capable of standing on their own without the need for someone else to buff them. In terms of jacks, khador tend to go more jack light. In the fluff, the materials used to build the cortexes (ie the brains) of the warjacks are in remote and inaccessible places, and as a result, Khador lacks the sheer numbers of jacks as other factions. And so, they do things properly. They laugh at even the idea of “light” warjacks as a waste of time and resources. Instead, they make fewer, but bigger, tougher and stompier jacks than their neighbours. They make up for the lack of jacks with their aforementioned hard hitting infantry options like men o war, iron fangs and other options like horse-drawn tanks. khador jacks are big, relatively slow, and not that bright. They're solid beatsticks, and a few have excellent abilities. Their warcasters range from infantry centric support casters like irusk, denial masters like the Old Witch, to monstrous beatsticks like the Butcher, and light, flighty, assassins like Strakhov and Sorscha. They tend to be “harder” individually, and as a general rule, like to lead from the front, more so than other factions.

Cryx. they're best described as dragon worshipping undead necromancers, with a pirate fleet, ghost fleet, summoned "demons" (ie bane-nouns), stitched-together-from-machinery-and-body-parts necromantic constructs (thralls), zombies, blighted amazon warrior women, blighted trollkin, and a general assorted thieves, murderers, cut throats and scum of the earth. They're quite fast, extremely hard hitting, but quite squishy behind it all. Cryx are the gutter fighters of the iron kingdoms. A Cryx player who plays fair is doing it wrong. Cryx armies play by every low down, dirty underhanded, mean and nasty trick you can think of. Plenty times their assassination runs come out of nowhere, followed by cries of "they can do WHAT now???" Overall, they're an offensive debuffing/ buffing faction. They'll cripple your armour, stats, and other abilities via spells, feats and other necromantic lore so your defensive measures are far less effective, then they'll buff their own guys up to crazy levels, wade in, and then when it comes to crunch time, and your armour is like paper, they tear through it whilst your guys are rooted in place. That’s how they play. They're fast, vicious, extremely mean and will generally be the ones striking first. Cryx has very limited options for a ranged game, but makes up for this with excellent spell slinging abilities via cheap arcnodes and speed. Though generally not individually tough, they can however play an immensely strong attrition game by recycling their troops (and their opponents!) by bring things back from the dead, and swamp the board in an unending tide of undeath. They can suicide their troops for massive area damage, and are just about capable of getting anywhere on the board through ghostly shenanigans, or sheer, blinding speed. in terms of jacks, Cryx jacks either come in the "chicken" variety, which are spell relay nodes with legs and bitey things, and meaner and bigger helljacks that want to hamstring you, torture you, rend you limb from limb and eat your soul(and if you’re lucky, in that order!). Depending on caster, Cryx generally plays light in terms of numbers of jacks fielded, but make no mistake- their options are solid. Cryx are generally regarded as having a lot of excellent choices, and fantastic warcasters that can really control a game.

The Protectorate.

The protectorate is a nation of fanatical religious extremists. They're unrepentant, extremely dangerous fanatical warriors, who despise sorcery, have issues with technology, free speech, free thinking, and are quite happy to brainwash their own citizens into their extremist cause. They follow the teachings of a god called Menoth. Menoth is a deity who is basically an even more nasty, angry, ruthless, spiteful and vengeful version of the fire and brimstone god of the old testament. In the fluff, worship of Menoth has been on the decline for centuries-(for very obvious reasons!), and they’ve had enough. They’ve stoked their anger for these centuries, and have finally released it, and have started a great crusade, to sweep aside all the newer imposter religions that have sprung up, and re-impose the absolute worship of menoth as the prime (and only!) god in immoren. Fire. Torture. Burning stuff. Crucifixions. Typical "death to heretics, and blasphemers" stuff are the hallmarks for the Protectorate.

In game, they’re generally regarded as a denial faction. In a nutshell, they stop the other guy doing what they want to do (eg no charges, immune to shooting, immune to magic, spreading out damage amongst themselves etc) and then following up with a brutal counter punch. Their jacks tend to have lower stats than the rest of the factions, but this is more than compensated by their aforementioned excellent support units. Those units are the key to the functioning of the protectorate - they're a very synergistic army, and are all about overlapping layers of protective, and vengeful buffing. it ends up being a "denial loop" with no end. They are a more technologically regressed faction, but take great strength from divine prayer and faith. Though their ranged game is more limited, they have a very diverse access to extremely high damage melee infantry (exemplars) and are perfectly viable in a brawl. In terms of units, they don’t have an “army” in the modern sense of the word. Their military forces tend to be divided along the lines of the militant orders of extremely zealous crusading templar knights-exemplars (heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, and super-heavy infantry types) armed with a variety of weapons such as crosshows, halberds and magical swords, Next you have the “armed militia” element of the protectorate, with fire-spear armed temple guardians, firebomb and rocket armed zealots, priests, shaolin monks and inquisitors. A third aspect are the native idrian tribesmen who act as scouts, and skirmishers for the larger armies. This is backed up with their excellent priestly support units (choir, vassals etc) that are used to support their jacks. Menoth is regarded as a premier “jack faction” in that, unlike, say Khador, they are able to run a lot of jacks easily and efficiently, thanks to their excellent ancilliary support. Their jacks, on their own, are rather lacklustre, and their stats are lower than other factions. With the support elements in play, their stats and abilities skyrocket. Very much a “sum of their parts” aspect of the faction. Their warcasters are a diverse bunch representing everything from crusading knights (kreoss), witchhunters (reznik), high priests (severius), martial artists (amon), prophets (haringer) and pyromaniacs (feora). There is an equal mix of piousness, nobility of spirit, purity of purpose, intolerance and outright fanaticism in the faction.

Cygnar.

Fluffwise, they're america (kind of) in that they're the richest, most technologically advanced country in Immoren, but are surrounded by enemies and constantly under attack. They're liberal in the sense that 19th century america, or UK was liberal. In some ways, they’re far more liberal and forward thinking than people today! Cygnar are generally just trying to make do, trying to survive, and fend off all their adversaries. Also, they have lots of lightning themed units. Essentially, they're regarded as the "good guys" of the setting.

Cygnar is regarded as one of the premier ranged factions in the game. But this falls short of the mark. Cygnar are more than just guns. Cygnar have fantastic (and in some areas, the best) ranged options, but it’s not all they do -they're not tau! Cygnar is about well trained, professional infantry, wielding chainguns and rifles, backed up by counter charging melee units and jacks. Add in a lot of units that wield powerful, electric and voltaic “lightning weapons”, and the “electric chicken” becomes a bird with a nasty kick! Cygnar tend to be a bit standoffish in how they play. Cygnar are about ranged supremacy and area control, all backed up with pointy swords. Their magic is generally geared towards buffing their defensive abilities against ranged attacks, buffing their own ranged abilities, and general toolboxiness/utility (like haley). Cygnar is the most technologically advanced human faction, and have the coolest toys and gadgets. Though they’re not a “jack-faction”, cygnar have a lot of ways to put multiple jacks on the field and run them well. Their jacks are an almost perfect mix of armour, speed, utility and skill. They’re well- armed, well armoured and extremely well crafted. Their forces tend to look like a modern, or pre-modern army, and are well armed, and well equipped, divided along the lines of long gunners (US army), trenchers (US marines), gun mages (who get all the girls!) affiliated knightly orders (sword knights, precursor knights), the stormnoun units (stormblade and stomguard,heavy infantry, storm lance heavy cavalry, stormsmiths, stormtowers etc do you see an electricity theme here?) and as a faction, since they pay the best, they make the most use out of mercenaries. again, they have a diverse bunch of warcasters (ranging from plucky underdogs (stryker), spellslingers (haley), mentor/genius inventor (Nemo), genius mechanic (Darius), scouts (kraye), duellists/anti-heros (Caine) and so on.

Retribution.

Retribution of Scyrah are like a sci-fi cygnar. in a way that only genocidal, xenophobic elves can be! the elves are in a bad place. all their gods bar 1 - scyrah - their goddess of spring have disappeared. Their empire is crumbling away. Thanks to this, their civilization and race are dying, and the number of soulless births are increasing. They have maybe a century left. They decided that the disappearance of their gods happened at about the same time as the birth of magic in humans, that its humans fault for it. and they're out to get them. You know - when life gives you lemons, kill all humans. The elves are probably the most advanced faction in Immoren. Their “lines” are clean, sleek, sci-fi and very futuristic. They’re more like Protoss than Industrial Age elves! A lot of their weapons make use of technologies and magics unknown to the rest of Immoren. Their warjacks (called Myrmidons) do not burn coal, but are instead are powered by the latent energy of Caen (they’re very “green”!) In ways they're similar to cygnar in terms of gameplay, but along a slightly parallel path, and one where they punish magic users above all else, and while in ways they lack the raw stats of factions like khador, they get around the issue as they tend to ignore their opponents magical defences and tricks, (so all your buffing is effectively pointless) whilst also supporting their own abilities. Their jacks are like the Protoss from Starcraft in that most tend to have a forcefield that protects them. They’re quite a combined arms faction. Their jacks tend to be well made, skilled and relatively fast. They’re great on utility (they can all generally shoot and perform in melee), but tend to be a bit lower on the scale in terms of raw damage output and, despite the powerfield, resilience than other factions. Their infantry comes in a variety of styles. You have the infamous skirmishers of the Mage Hunters warbands, which have infiltrated human lands for centuries with a policy of targeted strikes and assassinations of human mages, and more recently, the military forces of the elven Great Houses, with rank upon rank of well trained, well-armed halberdiers and riflemen, along with the knightly orders of the elves – the Invictors and the famous Dawnguard. Their infantry, as a whole tends to perform well at range, and melee. Units are very powerful, and self-sufficient. Their warcasters similarly come in a variety of styles from support casters to assassination. Generally though, they lack the raw stats of other factions’ warcasters, and though most support a ranged game, they tend to act more as utility/support than frontline beatsticks

Hmmm. After reading all that I hadn't considered the Minions but those pigs are awesome! Those models are cool in a weird off the wall sort of way. You're going to tell me that they are a really difficult army for a beginner now arent you!

I still like skorne for their mythology and models, but the pigs are seducing me!

Pigs are pretty good. But they are definately the weakest army in terms of variety, because they only have a limited selection of models.

Plus the special rules are hillarious, hog wild and bacon! Being some of the names.

dragonelf wrote:
Hmmm. After reading all that I hadn't considered the Minions but those pigs are awesome! Those models are cool in a weird off the wall sort of way. You're going to tell me that they are a really difficult army for a beginner now arent you!

I still like skorne for their mythology and models, but the pigs are seducing me!

Minions are a great second or third faction. They lack the depth of other factions and therefor are predictable and easy to beat. However Crocks are fantastic merc units to add to a lot of other factions as front line troops.

Minions are definitely not a great beginner faction but the great thing about them is you can play another faction, like Skorne, and field lists with lots of minions in them. Skorne is really sounding like the fsction for you based off of everything you've said.

Deadnight wrote:Indeed - jacks are speed4. So are menoth heavies and a lot of cygnarans, as well as Mercs. But that's base speed. Look at spells like superiority or boundless charge which might as well make them spd6. Look St speed boosting feats like with vlad or strakhov.

I did say they were like Skorne, generally slow but with access to speed buffs.

Mahtamori wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Retribution of Scyrah is a faction very much like the Eldar

They may be elves, but they aren't the Eldar. Closer to Necrons but you can't really compare the factions cross-lores like that. Cygnar are probably the closest to Eldar I should say. Actually, scratch that, all factions except Menoth are like Tau. Menoth are like the Sisters of Battle and their ilk.

On the table they're like Eldar in terms of the aesthetics of the Myrmidons, the specialised nature of their army, and their good ranged game.

I take on board the pig feedback. Something to consider later. I have read the basic rules but they don't explain how to build an army. I presume this is in the main rulebook or army books specific to the army you want to collect?

Building an army is simple.

Pick a warnoun (caster for war machine. Lock for hordes).
Pick a points value, the average is 35/50, but a starting match is about fifteen. Make sure you add your warjack/warbeast points to the total, most warnouns add between 4 and 6
Fill points with models, you'll find the point costs on the card of the model you own, in the war room app or in one of the main books.

Generally uour first 3-5 games will be battle box only. Warnoun & a few beasts / jacks. This is so you learn the FURY/FOCUS mechanic.

It may seem overly simplistic but really get that mechanic down before building up to bigger games as it's the core mechanic of the game.

Yeah, the basic rules assume you're playing battle box games and battle boxes aren't all equal point values.