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Since me and a couple friends picked up Warmqchine Tactics PC game I've been poking around the Internet for more info about the tabletop version.

I do model painting together with my wife (she has no interest in the game side of stuff, just enjoys painting and me buying minis was an excuse to get back into it) and she has some pretty strong opinions about what she'd like to paint (she 'gently' pushed me away from Necrons in 40k along the lines of 'you can buy anything you want as long it's not these hideous black guys'). So based on her aesthetical preferences and my own interests I made a shortlist of factions I'd be interested in picking up:
- Khador
- Cygnar
- Menoth
- Trollbloods

I'm interested in how these factions feel in play, and mainly in:

-Warmachine or Hordes? Which one would be better to pick up as a noob?
- Which of these factions is most new player friendly?
- Is there any significant cost difference between any of these armies in the long run?
- How good/fun are the starter boxes? Since this will be a side project to my 40k Tau I'd expect to stick to the startet box for quite a bit.

Between the two game systems Warmachine is probably easier to learn simply because the Focus mechanic is less subtle and easier to parse initially. You've also noted down Trolls as the only Hordes faction you'd be interested in starting and they're not the easiest army to learn.

Khador and Menoth are both more n00b-friendly than Cygnar; they can take hits and do toe-to-toe fights very well, Cygnar has to play carefully and isn't forgiving of mistakes. Both are also in the two-player starter box, which nets you free heavy infantry right off the bat.

Typically the cost difference between armies comes more from whether you're using high-point-cost models or low-point-cost models, it doesn't really change depending on which faction you're using. Any faction can be done relatively inexpensively by sticking to plastic infantry and warbeasts/warjacks instead of lots of metal infantry.

The starter boxes are much easier to play proper games with than the starter kits in Warhammer. I'd recommend the two-player starter kit simply because you've got both Menoth and Khador on your list of potentially cool stuff; you net free heavy infantry and a rulebook on top of the price of two battleboxes. That said all the battleboxes are pretty solid, except for the Trolls (all the models in the Trolls' battlebox are fine, they just don't play well with each other in the same way everyone else's do) and I'd recommend expanding out any of these with one or two key models that give you a good idea of how to approach the faction and the game (the Choir for Menoth and a unit of Iron Fangs or Winter Guard for Khador).


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Khador is an infantry-oriented faction that has warcasters strong enough that it almost never wants to load them down with more than one warjack; most armies center around either an Iron Fangs unit with UA and support solos or a Winter Guard unit with UA and support solos, then grab a damage-dealing element to hit the enemy while the tough-as-nails light infantry hold them down.

Menoth is focused on board control and model synergy; nothing is impressive alone, everything is impressive with the right backup. Every Menoth army wants the Choir since it makes the warjacks much better very cheaply; PKreoss in the starter box likes having Exemplar Errants (with UA and Seneschal solo).

You will almost never take a unit because it does everything you want alone, this game involves figuring out what works together and putting them together in a list.

So Khador or Menoth...hmm..which one offers more variety in the long run? Asking becauseI've run into quite alengthy thread on PP forums about how competituve Khador restricts you to just light infantry heavy lists and I'm still to new to assess hiw true that is

None of the four factions you picked are noob-unfriendly, uou can not go into this and expect any model or unit to take a punch (unless they are trolls, and even then...). The game in general isn't very noob friendly, and any mistake you make is going to cost you if your opponent is attentive enough to capitalize on them.
There's essentially only two factions that are unfriendly to beginners, and none of them are in your list.

Most people, however, will recommend Khador. I think there's a certain charm about the rugged Russian look that does it. Just don't discount any of the factions on your list.

Trollblood is probably the most forgiving, but also the most limited of them - and that's not saying a lot. If you want high degree of diversity, choose Menoth, I think. I'd say Khador's biggest asset isn't the model range or the options (because they have a large amount of options and variety), but rather that they have a stupid amount of people playing them and so advice is plentiful (but so is "internet wisdom" - be warned!).

Are you at all interested in the fluff? Because the fluff is awesome and might get you more excited about a certain faction.

I know a bit about the lore but wiki descriptions are pretty bare-bines. Where could one find out more about the fluff of a certain faction?

LordBlades wrote:
I know a bit about the lore but wiki descriptions are pretty bare-bines. Where could one find out more about the fluff of a certain faction?

Any faction in particular?

Gw get praised for having written thirty years worth of lore. The truth is they have lore written thirty years ago. A lot of folks have the assumption that gw's lore is amazing (and often times, rightly so) and is 'the standard', and consequently cannot fathom that other companies can also produce great fiction and that these companies can also have a deep 'vault' of good quality fiction. It often comes as a huge surprise to some to learn some of these facts. For example, fix you know privateer press have been writing and developing the iron kingdoms for just shy of fifteen years now? And they dont stop at the end of m41.999. The plot can be seen to be quite character centric, and quite intimate at times. The fluff is constantly being developed, advanced and pushed forward. Warmachine has a fantastic setting, and it has been developing for quite a long time now?

Did you know it originally started off as a D20 RPG setting using the DnD 3.5 OSL rules? this was back when the Witchfire Trilogy was their first outing. And that was almost fifteen years ago now - 2001 I think, and the fluff has been constantly developed and pushed forward since then. It's an evolving timeline for one - we are about four years into hostilities with the current story arc. And the plot has been advancing forward steadily since warmachine amounted to a few border skirmishes four years ago to the current total war scenario.

first up: complete chronological list of fiction.
http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?195787-The-Complete-Chronological-Iron-Kingdoms-Fiction

check out the forums as well - often the lead writer of the fiction - doug Seacat will step in and elaborate on any and all points of the fiction that raise questions. And here is a collection of some of the things he's been drawn to comment on. It's not exhaustive by the way. http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?77295-Doug-Seacat-on

Now to give specific advice on where to look:
the first place for fluff, as you can guess is the rulebook and army books for both warmachine and hordes. they have the ongoing fiction, as well as character back stories, unit descriptions and the FOW books often describe some of the logistics, and actual nuts and bolts of army organisation, and history. they're good solid reads (i love the retribution book in particular, itsbackground material is phenomenol!) but generally, act as a great intro. If you are interested, the fluff goes all the way back to Mk1 and the original books from over 10 years ago. if you get the PP reader app, you can download all the old books for a song. its well worth it, IMO. the hordes expansions (mutagenesis and evolution iirc) have some really excellent story material.

the second place is PPs magazine. No Quarter. it is an excellent read. pick it up at your FLGS, and if you want the older copies, check out the PP reader app, where you can get all the old issues for a few pence. there are short stories throughout the magazine. they also run very popular and very well written fluff articles in the magazine. For example, you have the Gavyn Kyle files, which elaborates on, explores and deepends the fiction behind a lot of the "names" in the game. Not just casters. But other famous individuals too. Sometimes its units (there was one exploring the history and culture of the kayazy). Another great one is the Guts n Gears files, which are like the GK files, but are less about individuals, and more about the fluff behind unit types and warjack chassis (where they were made, how long they were in service for, development history etc). the NQ magazine is well worth a read - it has some excellent content and is well worth its price tag. i think they're re-releasing some of the fiction via skull island as well (see below). there is also regular fiction which includes both once off short stories, and stories that continue on the arc from those in books - for example, what happened to Kallus at the end of Domination is explained in one.

the third place (and my personal favourite) is the RPG material. Warmachine originated as a D20 RPG using the DnD open source licence. their very first adventure was called "the witchfire trilogy" and is a great read, with some interesting little nuggets. the "old" D20 material comprised the character guides (which ahave a lot of the basic information, cosmology, history etc) 2 monsternomicons (with huge bits of info on infernals, and skorne culture/history, although its generally about the monsters that inhabit immoren), a small exansion on the port of Five FIngers, and the excellent world guide. I cannot recommend these enough; the World GUide in particular. its epic. you can literally smell the smoke when you read it. they're very, very engrossing, and do a fantastic job of bringing the world to life - not just the history, but crime&punishment, trades and learning, entertainment, finance, language, cosmology, and lots of information on locations, towns, cities, forts, and the big names in all of them. Now, the old material is still online (if you know where to look; winkwinknudgenudge) but they're also all being updated by PP into a new RPG series using a proprietary rules system based off of the wargame. So far they have the IKRPG core rules, five fingers and the excellent Kings Nations and Gods books. again, all well worth the read. upcoming is a new monsternomicon and the iron kingdoms: unleashed "complimentary" RPG which focuses on adventures in the wilds, and expands on the races to include tharn, farrow etc. Im quite looking forward to that one! i think thw RPG material on its own is stellar, and really does a fantastic job of bringing the world to life - far more than youd expect from a regular wargame.

the fourth place is PPs publishing wing. skull island expeditions. https://skullislandx.com/
they dont yet have the volume or the library of titles of the black library, but whats there is very solid. i will particularly recommend the warcaster chronicle series (caine, butcher and shae so far), warlock chronicles (makeda and thagrosh), extraordinary zoology (brilliant little read!) and top of the pile is Into the Storm by larry correia (award winning author). the iron kingdoms excursions series is a series of short stories that are quite fun to read too.

LordBlades wrote:
So Khador or Menoth...hmm..which one offers more variety in the long run? Asking becauseI've run into quite alengthy thread on PP forums about how competituve Khador restricts you to just light infantry heavy lists and I'm still to new to assess hiw true that is

Every faction is going to give you a lot of options in the long run. The Internet loves to argue about a restrictive metagame and claim everyone needs to play each faction a certain way; if you're playing only tournaments against people of perfectly equal skill there are models you can take to give you an edge, but in random pick-up games you can toss down any combination of models that work together and have a good game. People will tell you Khador isn't a warjack faction, that doesn't mean you can't build a warjack army and have a fun pick-up game with it.

Deadnight wrote:

Gw get praised for having written thirty years worth of lore. The truth is they have lore written thirty years ago. A lot of folks have the assumption that gw's lore is amazing (and often times, rightly so) and is 'the standard', and consequently cannot fathom that other companies can also produce great fiction and that these companies can also have a deep 'vault' of good quality fiction. It often comes as a huge surprise to some to learn some of these facts. For example, fix you know privateer press have been writing and developing the iron kingdoms for just shy of fifteen years now? And they dont stop at the end of m41.999. The plot can be seen to be quite character centric, and quite intimate at times. The fluff is constantly being developed, advanced and pushed forward. Warmachine has a fantastic setting, and it has

The WMH fluff is decent, and in my opinion lots of fun to read. I love the fiction of both the WMH and 40k worlds.

It is factually untrue to say that GW fluff is 30 years stagnant. Aside from tons of published fiction (mountains of it), they have significantly advanced the storylines of both 40k and Fantasy (and added Horus Heresy to as a separate pre-40k game), and added many new factions, most recently Necron and Tau (Dark Eldar and Tyranids were added less than 30 years ago, and one of the original factions, Squats, were wiped out by the Tyranids). The last two campaign/fiction additions to 40k and WHFB, which came out in the last few weeks, sold out of the insanely priced, limited edition hardcover versions within a couple of hours of release.

I'm not putting in a plug for 40k -- I'm just saying, you can enjoy both worlds of fiction. I do!

Talys wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Gw get praised for having written thirty years worth of lore. The truth is they have lore written thirty years ago. A lot of folks have the assumption that gw's lore is amazing (and often times, rightly so) and is 'the standard', and consequently cannot fathom that other companies can also produce great fiction and that these companies can also have a deep 'vault' of good quality fiction. It often comes as a huge surprise to some to learn some of these facts. For example, fix you know privateer press have been writing and developing the iron kingdoms for just shy of fifteen years now? And they dont stop at the end of m41.999. The plot can be seen to be quite character centric, and quite intimate at times. The fluff is constantly being developed, advanced and pushed forward. Warmachine has a fantastic setting, and it has

The WMH fluff is decent, and in my opinion lots of fun to read. I love the fiction of both the WMH and 40k worlds.

It is factually untrue to say that GW fluff is 30 years stagnant. Aside from tons of published fiction (mountains of it), they have significantly advanced the storylines of both 40k and Fantasy (and added Horus Heresy to as a separate pre-40k game), and added many new factions, most recently Necron and Tau (Dark Eldar and Tyranids were added less than 30 years ago, and one of the original factions, Squats, were wiped out by the Tyranids). The last two campaign/fiction additions to 40k and WHFB, which came out in the last few weeks, sold out of the insanely priced, limited edition hardcover versions within a couple of hours of release.

I'm not putting in a plug for 40k -- I'm just saying, you can enjoy both worlds of fiction. I do!

Heh, poetic licence is a thing. talks, don't get me wrong, I genuinely still enjoy some of the 40k lore. I've read it for a long time. I enjoyed it all the way to fifth ed. I genuinely love the imperial armours, and Horus heresy fw material - it's great imagination fuel. And I do know the timeline for tau, necrons, dark eldar, they weren't added recently now, were they?

But... Considering all that, a huge amount of my favourite 40k material was written way back in second edition. The best stuff really. And I'm sorry, but more recent offerings mc murderfang the comedy robots , blood angels bro fisting necrons and Kaldor bloody Draigo do not hold a candle to it. Regarding the novels, I found it quite hard to view a lot of them as anything more than 'ok'.

Deadnight wrote:

Heh, poetic licence is a thing. talks, don't get me wrong, I genuinely still enjoy some of the 40k lore. I've read it for a long time. I enjoyed it all the way to fifth ed. I genuinely love the imperial armours, and Horus heresy fw material - it's great imagination fuel. And I do know the timeline for tau, necrons, dark eldar, they weren't added recently now, were they?

But... Considering all that, a huge amount of my favourite 40k material was written way back in second edition. The best stuff really. And I'm sorry, but more recent offerings mc murderfang the comedy robots , blood angels bro fisting necrons and Kaldor bloody Draigo do not hold a candle to it. Regarding the novels, I found it quite hard to view a lot of them as anything more than 'ok'.

Yeah, no argument that the 40k universe was created in the Rogue Trader days, and that some of the best fluff was from that era. But perhaps that's a bit nostalgia (for me) too, because back then my standards were also much lower hahaha. 3/4 of the books in my library I can't imagine what possessed me to read through them anymore lol.

Frankly, I don't think the fluff from either game is Nebula Award quality, but it's certainly fun to read, and sets the tone for the game. They need to make a WMH movie or cartoon!

While I still like 40k fluff more (and feel the setting has more depth) WMH fluff is really good. I did some more digging and and...I'm more undecided than ever.

From a gameplay perspective I'm more attracted by Menoth's jack heavy and synergy based gameplay (I also expect a jack heavy army to be a bit cheaper than an infantry one).

Fluff-wuse however I like Menoth and Khador about the same (for different reasons though) so I'd probably take Menoth over Khador, but I'm starting to really dig Cygnar. How do they play compared to Khador and Menoth?

LordBlades wrote:
While I still like 40k fluff more (and feel the setting has more depth) WMH fluff is really good. I did some more digging and and...I'm more undecided than ever.

From a gameplay perspective I'm more attracted by Menoth's jack heavy and synergy based gameplay (I also expect a jack heavy army to be a bit cheaper than an infantry one).

Fluff-wuse however I like Menoth and Khador about the same (for different reasons though) so I'd probably take Menoth over Khador, but I'm starting to really dig Cygnar. How do they play compared to Khador and Menoth?

Cygnar plays the ranged game better than anyone else but they also can't take punishment very well; they tend to emphasize DEF and outranging the enemy to stay alive instead of ARM/health boxes/Tough. They can't play the piece-trade game anywhere near as well but they're much better at removing enemies without taking retaliation. My advice when looking at Cygnar is to look at the Gun Mages unit; if you like them, you will like Cygnar, if you don't like them you probably won't.

Cygnar also does 'Jack-heavy forces better than most; they have a selection of three Journeyman Warcasters, three different Nemos with an assortment of focus-efficiency tricks, and some of the best 'Jack Marshals around.

That's my big problem. Plenty of Battleboxes but can never find out how the full army plays just from that. Coupled with the myriad of casters and Warlocks I'm honestly stumped in Mk2.

Zond wrote:
That's my big problem. Plenty of Battleboxes but can never find out how the full army plays just from that. Coupled with the myriad of casters and Warlocks I'm honestly stumped in Mk2.

How full armies play depend entirely on the chosen warcaster. You can't pigeonhole factions into 'faction x does this'.

I believe that's what I was saying? That's sort of the trouble I have getting into the game via battleboxes. I could pick Khador for the chunky jacks, realise that on the whole they tend to prefer infantry but then pick up Kharchev. It's difficult as factions have trends, but buck them easily with a variety of casters leaving me back at square one.

Zond wrote:
That's my big problem. Plenty of Battleboxes but can never find out how the full army plays just from that. Coupled with the myriad of casters and Warlocks I'm honestly stumped in Mk2.

You actually get a good philosophical grounding in how an army plays with the battle boxes. Khador's is about recognizing that Focus is a scarce resource and while you'd like to have enough to run two 'Jacks and Sorscha full every turn you can't, so you'd better limit the number of folks that need the Focus and prioritize where it goes. As a general rule you can do just about anything in any army, but if you do stuff in an army that's better at it you have more ways to do it. Khador has ways to run an all-warjacks army, but 90% of the models in your range are immediately irrelevant and everything else is entirely essential to make the force work. If you're interested in playing the game completely one way it's best to pick a faction that does that particular one way with some degree of versatility than trying to play a Khador Warjacks force (which limits you to three warcasters and turns one solo and one unit into every-army auto-includes(.

It was just using Khador as an example, not as a specific complaint. And yeah you are right, Battleboxes have some philosophy behind them such as Menoth showing you synergy etc. I was just generally commenting on the difficulty of finding the faction that's right for an individual if you're basing it off of playstyles as opposed to aesthetic appeal. Warmahordes is so varied, and that's a good thing, but it gives me faction commitment issues trying to get into Mk2.

If you want to get a better idea of playstyles for factions Muse on Minis did a pair of articles covering every faction both warmachine and hordes. Warmachine Hordes.

Now every faction does have a handful of warcasters/warlocks that have a different playstyle than the rest of their faction but all the other casters play very similar.

That's what we're here for. The next step is to ask Dakka "Can you give me a brief overview of how each army plays?" and wait for some combination of people that have all the books to write you a long list.

Head start on that:

Cygnar: Glass cannon ranged game. Heavily reliant on not getting hit instead of surviving the hits, spoiled for choice on ways to run warjacks without your warcaster. Warcasters tend towards support roles. Most options: 'Jack-heavy, ranged combat. Least options: melee.

Khador: Straightforward, brute-force oriented. Tend to run Focus-hungry warjacks and Focus-hungry warcasters, prefer a small warjack presence. Best at stacking buffs on light infantry. Most options: light infantry. Least options: heavy infantry, warjacks.

Menoth: Great board control, great unit synergy. They tend to have Focus-efficient warjacks, powerful general-purpose infantry, and ways to limit their opponents' options. Most options: infantry, warjacks. Least options: ranged combat.

Cryx: Best warcasters around, their stuff tends to be underwhelming alone but terrifying when the warcaster's spells are involved. Prefer to play by their own rules instead of anyone else's, resurrection, incorporeal/Ghostly models, and the like are common. Easiest access to Arc Nodes. Most options: infantry, combo play. Least options: ranged, warjacks.

Retribution: Tend towards a jack-of-all-trades approach where a unit's role will change completely depending on what support pieces you brought. Unit interaction is high, and they have lots of ways to control where enemy models are. They don't have more options on any particular approach, they're a small and versatile faction.

Circle: The faction of movement shenanigans. Strong warbeasts, hard-hitting infantry, but very little that can absorb punishment. Good at terrain, both getting benefits in terrain and making more. Most options: melee, warbeasts. Least options: ranged, attrition.

Skorne: The brute force faction. Units tend to be strong, tough, and slow, the game for them is about working out how to deliver their heavy-hitters. Defensive buffs, screening units, and movement buffs lead to their playstyle being frequently described as "build a brick, and throw it at the other guy". Most options: melee, infantry. Least options: warbeasts, ranged.

Trollbloods: Emphasis on model synergy. Everything is a pain to remove from the table, easy access to cheap medium bases makes your ability to screen things incomparable. The tradeoff comes in speed and your ability to toss shenanigans out, Trolls play a straightforward game and can't toss out a lot of surprises. Most options: melee, attrition play. Least options: ranged, control play.

Legion: All the warbeasts, all the time. Warbeasts are fast, hard-hitting, and the faction comes loaded down with toys to make them faster and hit harder plus the best Fury management around. Great at getting the heavy hitters where they need to be, ass at taking punishment; Legion has to play aggressively and get in the alpha strike. Most options: assassinations, warbeasts. Least options: infantry, attrition.

No comments on Cyriss, Mercs, or Minions because I don't know as much about them and they're bad places to start the game anyway.

Thanks for the breakdown. I'm undecided still, hoping to start over Christmas. I like Cygnar and Mercenaries as I'm a fan or ranged armies, however I may be more partial to big beasts than steampunky infantry. I really love ways to control or limit what my opponent can do, and I like attrition playstyles. I'll need to make a checklist and match stuff up.

Convergence of Cyriss - Lovecraftian, machine-worshiping cult. They hide in underground temples and come out only when they must.
More than any other faction, Convergence can run jacks and run them good. My usual list has no infantry in it at all. The key with them is they are hyper focus effecient. I can use one focus and power five jacks or more. When one uses focus, that focus is sent on to the next jack (vectors for coc) and so on.
Also, more than most WMH factions, what caster you choose affects your playstyle dramatically. You have Aurora who is the sneaky/fast/tricksy type. Axis who is the close combat specialist and Syntherion who is the the Jack caster in the already jack heavy faction. Their vectors tend to be somewhat sub par, BUT, they have a lot of synergy with the rest of your army that your entire force is more powerful than the sum of its parts. Also, they're amazing with attrition. Bringing back dead troops and repairing jacks is their specialty.
Convergence isn't usually suggested for beginners though due to this whole "you have to get everything just right for it to be amazing" game style. That said, this was my first foray into WMH and I picked it up. (Lost a few games in the process.)

Zond wrote:
Thanks for the breakdown. I'm undecided still, hoping to start over Christmas. I like Cygnar and Mercenaries as I'm a fan or ranged armies, however I may be more partial to big beasts than steampunky infantry. I really love ways to control or limit what my opponent can do, and I like attrition playstyles. I'll need to make a checklist and match stuff up.

Starting to sound like you'd like Legion or Menoth from that.

Zond wrote:
Thanks for the breakdown. I'm undecided still, hoping to start over Christmas. I like Cygnar and Mercenaries as I'm a fan or ranged armies, however I may be more partial to big beasts than steampunky infantry. I really love ways to control or limit what my opponent can do, and I like attrition playstyles. I'll need to make a checklist and match stuff up.

Everything except the beasts fits Protectorate of Menoth to a tee.
Heavy control
Ranged power
Not too steampunk
Strong attrition

I might have to be a crazy fanatic torturer then. What are the control options on Hordes side of things? I know that Circle have movement shenanigans but they seem to more control the tempo of the game if I want to abuse my MTG terminology. Skorne also seem to have board control simply by delivering such strength into the face of the opponent. :-P

Zond wrote:
I might have to be a crazy fanatic torturer then. What are the control options on Hordes side of things? I know that Circle have movement shenanigans but they seem to more control the tempo of the game if I want to abuse my MTG terminology. Skorne also seem to have board control simply by delivering such strength into the face of the opponent. :-P

Most Hordes armies have smaller/more subtle tricks than Menoth's blanket "double cost to cast spells here" sorts of stuff. Legion tends to ignore other peoples' control tricks and do what it wants anyway instead of having its own control tricks, not sure about the MTG term but Circle prefers to play the terrain game and control physical space, Skorne and Trolls have individual tricks but they're not as ubiquitous. The most control-intensive factions (the ones that would be at least part blue if they were MTG tribes, if you take my meaning) are Circle, Menoth, and Retribution, with secondary mention to Legion and Cryx for having so many ways to ignore or go around other peoples' control tricks.

I'm still trying to decide between Cygnar and Protectorate, so help me out with something I can't wrap my head around:

So cyganr is good at playing the raged game, right? how exactly does that work?

I mean I skimmed through Cygnar unit stats, and most of them have a range of less than 12. Given that most models have SPD 6, what's stopping the following from happening most of the time: Cygnar shoots, enemy runs into melee range, Cygnar must either take free strikers or fight in melee (which the enemy probably does better).

Am I missing something, or is Cygnar's ranged superiority based on using those few models they have whose range exceeds 12?

LordBlades wrote:
I'm still trying to decide between Cygnar and Protectorate, so help me out with something I can't wrap my head around:

So cyganr is good at playing the raged game, right? how exactly does that work?

I mean I skimmed through Cygnar unit stats, and most of them have a range of less than 12. Given that most models have SPD 6, what's stopping the following from happening most of the time: Cygnar shoots, enemy runs into melee range, Cygnar must either take free strikers or fight in melee (which the enemy probably does better).

Am I missing something, or is Cygnar's ranged superiority based on using those few models they have whose range exceeds 12?

Nope, you're correct. Ranges are low. And they're low for a reason. They're designed as such to prevent the game being about two gunlines that park in their deployment zones and lob shots at each other without moving.

'All ranged' and 'only shooting' will never be a thing. It's not what WMH Is about. But shooting has a very vital role as part of a greater plan. You use shooting to blunt the alpha strike, take out infantry and clear charge lanes, you use melee to engage your enemy, inflict massive damage, tarpit, etc.

In your case, cygnar shooty units do their thing, and blast holes in the enemy ranks, then cygnar Mercs or melee infantry move up to engage the survivors, and take any potential counter charge. Meanwhile your spell slingers do their controly shenanigans to prevent hamstring your enemy's ability to engage. Thereby buying another round if shooting.

LordBlades wrote:
I'm still trying to decide between Cygnar and Protectorate, so help me out with something I can't wrap my head around:

So cyganr is good at playing the raged game, right? how exactly does that work?

I mean I skimmed through Cygnar unit stats, and most of them have a range of less than 12. Given that most models have SPD 6, what's stopping the following from happening most of the time: Cygnar shoots, enemy runs into melee range, Cygnar must either take free strikers or fight in melee (which the enemy probably does better).

Am I missing something, or is Cygnar's ranged superiority based on using those few models they have whose range exceeds 12?

Short answer: I say Cygnar "plays the ranged game" because they can actually cripple you with one round of shooting from 12" away; most armies try to soften you up for the charge with their guns and actually win the game in melee, Cygnar likes to win a turn earlier.

Generally everything in this game is a lot more fragile than you think it is; running things into melee is a decent delaying tactic, but only if you're okay with losing everything you ran into the fight. I'm happy to run a Nihilators unit into melee and keep the enemy tied down dealing with the 13/13 Tough scary people in their face because they're tough, eight points for ten models, and let me get my Titans upfield safely; I would never, ever consider trying to run a Titan into melee as a delaying tactic because I'd lose the Titan without doing any damage. Cygnar is also fast enough that they tend to get to dictate the terms of engagement, and getting to shut down all their guns by running models into melee is wishful thinking at best.

For an analogy running things into melee in Warmachine is like charging Incubi with Terminators. Sure, you'll annoy them and they won't get to charge you, but you're going to get completely wrecked before you have a chance to actually attack them.


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Even a gun-oriented Cygnar warjack is going to have the melee potential to wreck an enemy warjack and there are going to be defensively placed melee units and solos out to punish you for trying to clog up the guns.

I want to say thanks for the help. Not taken the plunge yet, but I've narrowed it down to three. I'd either go the Mercnar route and probably do Cygnar and Llael at the same time. I'm tempted by Menoth as they fit my potential playstyles, however also very tempted by Skorne with Minions. Probably collecting both them and Blindwater. Does they have a cool nickname, Skinions, Morne?