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So (as the title says) I've been looking at getting into warmachine and picking up the 2-player starter set for me and a few warhammer 40k friends to try it out.
I just have a few questions.

1: Is there a UK based website that sell warmachine (preferably cheap) to save on postage and see the prices in £

2: what are the differences between the races (both tactically and fluff wise)

3: I know hordes and warmachine are in the same universe, but are they the same game? For example, could you fight a warmachine army against a horde army or are they completly different? (I know warmachine is fantasy and giant mechs and hordes is wild animals)

4: (This is probably a stupid question) Is it fun?

Thanks in advance

Boss Gitkrusha wrote:
So (as the title says) I've been looking at getting into warmachine and picking up the 2-player starter set for me and a few warhammer 40k friends to try it out.
I just have a few questions.

1: Is there a UK based website that sell warmachine (preferably cheap) to save on postage and see the prices in £

2: what are the differences between the races (both tactically and fluff wise)

3: I know hordes and warmachine are in the same universe, but are they the same game? For example, could you fight a warmachine army against a horde army or are they completly different? (I know warmachine is fantasy and giant mechs and hordes is wild animals)

4: (This is probably a stupid question) Is it fun?

Thanks in advance

1. Couldn't tell you, sorry. I would check eBay though. I bought 4 different battlegroups for around $100 USD.

2. http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/

3. You can play Warmachine against Hordes. When I started, I picked up two Hordes battlegroups and two Warmachine battlegroups. This let me see which I liked better and allowed me to get some friends into it with me.

4. Warmachine is fun. It's a lot more tactically involved than 40K and (in my experience) the games go a bit faster.

 the_kraken wrote:
2. http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/

@OP: Battlecollege can be nice to look things up really quickly or get some very basic ideas. Some of the newer stuff is very nice. But quite a bit of the older stuff is outdated or simply wrong. SO take everything with a grain of salt and do further research before accepting anything you read there.

As for question #3, yes, they are, for all intents and purposes, the same game. There are differences, but they are balanced against each other and tournies will allow armies from either set. If you think of Hordes as an expansion to Warmachine you will be pretty much on the mark.

1. I believe Wayland Games stocks Warmachine/Hordes.

2.
Cygnar - The "good guys" of Warmachine; while the nation itself doesn't always make the most ethical decisions, their characters are portrayed as noble and courageous heroes. Cygnar is right in the middle of everything in western Immoren and are constantly embroiled in warfare with Cryx, the Protectorate of Menoth and Khador. Cygnar are most well known as a faction with very strong shooting, powerhouse Warcasters and lightning effects, however they tend to be on the fragile side, particularly when it comes to their infantry. Cygnar have arguably the most powerful colossal in the game.

Khador - A militaristic society in the frozen north focussed on expanding to reclaim the Khardic empire. Also they are definitely not Russian, I don't know where you heard that from but they are completely different from Soviet Russia. 100% not Russian whatsoever. Khadoran warjacks are big and tough but pretty slow, and they tend to focus more in the infantry side of things. With both strong shooting and melee combat, Khadoran armies generally aim to leverage their tough, elite troops to whittle down the opponent over several turns.

Cryx - If Cygnar are the good guys, Cryx are certainly the bad guys. An army of pirates, witches and necromancers who worship the Toruk, the father of all dragons, as their living god. Cryx like to swarm the field their undead infantry and rely on their powerful Warcasters to secure victory once their opponent has expended their resources killing your fragile but expendable troops. As I've stated, Cryx warcasters are very powerful with devastating feats and debuff spells as well as offence. Very much a melee focussed army.

Protectorate of Menoth - Religious zealots who split off from Cygnar to form their own nation, now they fight to spread the word of their god across Immoren, and burn the heretics who refuse Menoth's law. One of the few Warmachine armies that can run a lot of Warjacks with a variety of casters thanks to their excellent support pieces. PoM armies tend to be slow but durable with a lot of overlapping synergies between various support pieces and models that benefit from your own models being killed. Menoth Warcasters are there not as powerhouses in their own right but to support their army with powerful buffs. They also excel at denial with lots of debuffs and anti-magic, and immunity to non-magical ranged attacks for their jacks. Generally melee focussed when it comes to infantry but they do have a variety of strong ranged Warjacks.

Retribution of Scyrah - The elves are a dying race, fading into obscurity, and they're fething pissed off about it. Some of the Iosan elves have linked the decline of their race to the rise of magic amongst humans, so KILL ALL (magical) HUMANS is the name of the game. An elite army with fast but fragile units, scary combat solos, a strong ranged game and a lot of magic hate. No caster should feel safe when they're on the same board as a Retribution army.

Convergence of Cyriss - The cult of Cyriss see perfection in mechanical precision and transplant their souls into clockwork bodies, they fight to attain places of power they can harness to complete their Great Work. The other Warmachine faction known for being quite jack heavy, Convergence truly matches its fluff and relies on tactical precision as the cogs of its army whir and mesh together. Each caster changes the stats of their warjacks and provides them a unique ability. While their jacks aren't all that powerful in their own right, the Warcaster and other support pieces in the army act as force multipliers to seriously ramp up the capabilities of their jacks. The infantry exist to keep your warjacks alive, and are usually quite resilient with support pieces that can repair them and bring them back after being destroyed.

Mercenaries - Very diverse, all sorts of people are willing to fight for coin.Mercenaries are unique in that while they are a faction in their own right (arguably several mini-factions), they also work for other Warmachine factions. Cygnar in particular makes heavy use of Mercenary units and character solos. As a faction in themselves they have two very strong colossals but their other warjacks aren't quite so powerful, and they rely a lot on the tricks of their character solos.

Trollbloods - The "good guys" of Hordes, fighting desperately to hold on to their land and save their race from those who would annex them or use them as part of their own schemes. Trollbloods are a durable faction with a strong infantry focus, slow but hard hitting Warbeasts and powerful support pieces. Did I mention Trollbloods are durable?

Legion of Everblgiht - Corrupted snow elves and ogrun bent to the will of their draconic master, with warbeasts artificially created from the blood of Everblight's Warlocks and sculpted by his blight into killing machines. Everblight is one of Toruk's progeny, recently escaped from a prison the Iosans held him in. Rather than take physical form, Everblight has divided his athanc, the stone that houses his soul, amongst his Warlocks, giving them great power and allowing him to see through their eyes and communicate with them telepathically. Everblight's primary goal is to find the other dragons so that he may absorb their athancs and become powerful enough to defeat Toruk. Legion lists generally run a lot of Warbeasts, with maybe 1 or 2 units and some support pieces to help manage keeping so many warbeasts under control, thin out the opponents infantry or spawn lesser warbeasts during the game. Legion infantry has to be self-sufficient as infantry buffs are few and far between. Legion is a fast army with a good mixture of ranged and melee, but it is also fragile and quite elite (Legion warbeasts are pretty expensive, points-wise), a Legion player needs to hit the opponent hard to cripple their ability to retaliate. While their Warlocks are generally focussed on supporting the Warbeasts, many of them have a powerful offensive presence in their own right with long threat ranges and hard hitting spells or melee abilities, which contributes to Legion's reputation as an assassination faction.

Circle Orbors - Druids that want to destroy civilisation so that their god stays safely in the afterlife battling Menoth, rather than coming back to Caen and unleashing far more destruction. They have a variety of creature under their control, including 2 headed dogs, werewolves and stone constructs. Like Legion, Circle is fragile with a small model count, they primarily rely on movement tricks and teleport to manoeuvre around and control the board. It's an unforgiving faction that punishes mistakes but with good placement a Circle player can take advantage of extreme threat ranges and angles to have some of the best assassination potential in the game.

Skorne - Sadomasochists from an eastern empire, the Skorne believe that only the strong deserve to survive. Their warbeast a wild animals they've caputred and conditioned with drugs and torture to fight for them. Skorne warbeasts come in two forms: slow but very durable and hard hitting Titans, and the faster but not quite as resilient Cyclopes, their units are dangerous in melee and often slow but quite hard to kill. A Skorne army is generally melee focussed and rarely subtle, they want to charge up the board and smash the enemy's face in. Their warbeast support is some of the best in the game and their Warlocks are usually focussed on delivering their army up the board with speed and defensive buffs.

Minions - Like Mercenaries, but for Hordes. Minions are fielded in other faction lists but not to the same degree as Mercs. Their Warlocks are incredibly powerful but their Warbeasts tend to be fairly lacklustre, lending to both Gatormen and Pygs having a stronger infantry presence than most other Hordes factions. It's generally recommended to stay away from Minions as a first faction.

3. 95% of the rules are exactly the same across both systems, they are 100% designed to be played against each other. Usually people stick to one of them when it comes to teaching someone the game though, as it's easier to teach someone the Focus or Fury system than both at once.

4. Heaps of fun, in comparison to 40k the game plays faster, with a tighter ruleset and far less power imbalances between factions.

There are quite a few UK retailers
Firestorm Games
Wayland Games
WargameStore
Troll Trader
Plus if you are on FB there is Warmamachine and Hordes UK Sales and Trades page

I too have only just started in Warmachine thanks to a friend buying me the two player starter set.

Since then I have used Element Games for adding to my addiction - full hardback Prime rulebook, Khador army book and P3 paints. Easily see what items are in stock. Great service, same day dispatch and orders usually arrive within 2-3 days. www.elementgames.co.uk

So far I've yet to play the game due to finding time, but I'm enjoying painting the models, reading the book and listening to a bunch of Warmachine/Hordes podcasts.

Enjoy!

Rightous zealots burning heretoics, a dying elven race, good guys dressed in blue and bad guys in red, badass giant robots, when it comes to wargaming some things never change

What are the best armies for beginers in warmachine and hordes?

So far I think I'm leaning towards either Menoth or khador, I like the looks of both armies and they both seem to suit my playstyle (plus they're the only 2 armies in the two man starter set so that's a plus).

Some factions have steeper learning curves than others, but really it's more important to pick the faction with a playstyle and aesthetic you like.

Between Menoth and Khador the question is really how much you like big stompy robots. If you like them a lot I'd go with Menoth as they can effectively run way more Warjacks than Khador can. Khador like their infantry, especially Winter Guard and Widowmakers.

Looks like I'm going with menoth then

Menoth is a pretty easy army to learn. Your first model purchase after the starter set should be the Choir. The choir turns your average jacks into good jacks.
Find out if any of your local shops have a Pressgangers, they will help you learn the game and can answer your questions.

So how long do warmachine games usually take to finish?

Boss Gitkrusha wrote:
So how long do warmachine games usually take to finish?

Depends on how many points your playing. 35 pts it usually under a 1 1/2 hours of play, I usually play death clock and each side gets 42 minutes at 35 pts.

Boss Gitkrusha wrote:
So how long do warmachine games usually take to finish?

It will depend, some games are over in less than 30 minutes. I once had a 25 point game last 3 hours since I was teaching a new player, and we spent a lot of time just talking about the game in general.

On average I'd say somewhere in the range of 1.5-2 hours.

Also if you're going into Menoth there are a bunch of great podcasts out there about Warmachine/Hordes with a lot of good information on starting the game, and starting a faction. There is one called Creator's Wrath that is 100% menoth based and is run by two guys who play in Sheffield.

If you can find it the All In One Army box is a great place to start, but if you can't and you pick up half of the two player battlebox, I'd highly suggest looking into converting the Cinerator unit that comes with the box into Bastions, it's a very easy conversion(Cut off the swords, drill through the hand, and insert a brass rod and then glue a halberd head(or the sword blades left over from the aforementioned swords you removed), also don't attatch the shield and use a bit of green stuff to fill in the gap where the shield would normally go. Cinerators are one of Menoths worst units, whilst Bastions are very good.

I been looking for a new podcast, I'll have to check out creators wrath

Oh yeah, 2 more things

Does the 2-player starter set come with a rule book? And if it doesn't what's the rule book called?

It comes with the basic rules yes.

If you want the prope rule book (ie the one with fluff!) you either want warmachine:prime (mark2) or hordes:primal (mark2), depending on whether you want a warmachine or hordes army.

A good investment is the war room app. You can get all the cards for your faction for a few quid, and it automatically updates with new releases. It also works as a reference with regard to rulings etc...

Boss Gitkrusha wrote:Oh yeah, 2 more things

Does the 2-player starter set come with a rule book? And if it doesn't what's the rule book called?

Deadnight wrote:It comes with the basic rules yes.

If you want the prope rule book (ie the one with fluff!) you either want warmachine:prime (mark2) or hordes:primal (mark2), depending on whether you want a warmachine or hordes army.

A good investment is the war room app. You can get all the cards for your faction for a few quid, and it automatically updates with new releases. It also works as a reference with regard to rulings etc...

To expand a bit on this- you get a miniaturized full rulebook with only rules, no fluff. That rulebook does not have certain rules in it- new rules for model types that have come out since that rulebook was written. The rules you don't get are: Battle Engines, Colossals, Gargantuans, Unit Attachments, and some of the more specialized rules for certain factions (Retribution Force Fields, Cephelix Monstrosities, Mercenary/minion Contracts vs. theme forces, COC warjack and focus rules, and a couple others). This is where the War Room app comes in handy as it has all those rules in it. Some of the model types mentioned will come with a reference card that details some of the rules, but not all of them.

The rules for huge based models (5" bases like Battle Engines and Colossals) are pretty easy, and once you get them down, you won't need a rulebook for them. The more specialized rules- well, if you play one of those factions (Retribution, Cephelix, etc), you'll pick up those rules very quickly. Again, I can't say enough about how much War Room helps.

Good luck, and have fun! Warmachine/Hordes is a great game.

 Tamwulf wrote:


To expand a bit on this- you get a miniaturized full rulebook with only rules, no fluff. That rulebook does not have certain rules in it- new rules for model types that have come out since that rulebook was written. The rules you don't get are: Battle Engines, Colossals, Gargantuans, Unit Attachments, and some of the more specialized rules for certain factions (Retribution Force Fields, Cephelix Monstrosities, Mercenary/minion Contracts vs. theme forces, COC warjack and focus rules, and a couple others).

Just as a quick correction, unit attachments were available in Mark 1. I think what you are actually referring to are the rules for Warcaster units.

More probably the rules for Ranking Officers is what he meant.

Though not the best done app, War Room is actually a pretty good resource in that it's right now the only place to easily get all of the rules in a single place. This not only includes model entries but many rules which showed-up after the corebooks.

And stuff.

Well, I've just ordered the box set, now I just have to wait.

Thanks everyone, you've been very helpful and informative

Boss Gitkrusha wrote:
Well, I've just ordered the box set, now I just have to wait.

Thanks everyone, you've been very helpful and informative

Very cool! I hope you like it. I love the game and as soon as I played it, I knew it was what I had been looking for in a strategy game.
Don't forget the fluff side too, lots off good stuff out there.