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Well first off I'm a 40k player through and through, but recently I've been wanting to branch out into other miniature games to see whats out there and when I want to take a break from 40k I can go to some other systems. I've found a fondess for cryxx, mercs, and retribution of skyla(?) their models look good I like the necro/steam punk feel from cryxx and I like the pirate theme from mercs (who doesn't?) and retribution reminds me of Eldar which is nice.

A couple of problems is that well from what I gathered was that, mercs isnt new player friendly at all and don't seem to have a battle group which makes things expensive. Retribution doesn't have one either but it is also much more expensive, I was looking at a cav set for them and it was no joke $99 and I don't even know if the unit is good at all. Cryxx seems like the safe choice out of the three but as a Dark Eldar player I kinda want to play the good guys once in awhile and not to mention that some of their leaders are kinda dopey IE the witch caster.

So to get to the point of the post I need someone to sell the game to me basically, I'm a competitive player so I'd like to make sure the army I go with is at least viable and fun and won't make my wallet cry when I go to pay for it.

Check out any of these article. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/272107.page

As for the factions:

Merc's have several different factions within of factions and they use to have some starter boxes. Ret has an unofficial starter box but its not necessary depending on your caster.

Any faction can be player friendly and every faction is good. What casters are you specifically looking at? Picking a caster is nearly as important or even more so than picking the faction.

Cryx has a variety of pirates, too. Undead pirates and horned women pirates. Oh, and they have an elf, too.

As for me, I was a pretty die-hard 40k player. And Warmachine blew me away as how much of a better and funner game it is. The rules are tighter and better, the models are better and it is cheaper overall to get into and play.

IMO, buy a starter box for the faction you are interested in and start playing small games. It is not a huge investment of money and if you switch factions later then you always have an army that a friend can borrow to try out the game.

Luthon1234 wrote:So to get to the point of the post I need someone to sell the game to me basically, I'm a competitive player so I'd like to make sure the army I go with is at least viable and fun and won't make my wallet cry when I go to pay for it.

There's some things we need to know to help you.

1. What do you want to play (playstyle wise)? Factions have fairly distinct play styles. If you want a wall of unstoppable infantry, you don't choose Menoth. If you want a large base-centric Blitzkrieg, you don't choose Circle.

2. What do you want to play model-wise? This isn't GW, and there truly aren't any 'Ogryn'-level suck units in this game. But some model combinations (I'm going to refer to them as 'modules') work better than others. Many winning-est lists take good modules. eMakeda and Molik Karn is a good module for Skorne. eCaine, Reinholdt, and Rangers is a good module for Cygnar. Winter Guard Rifle Corps and Harkevich is not necessarily a good module. Having an idea of what you want to play and what models you like gives vets a framework from which to give you guidance and help to avoid you burning cash on a bunch of models that don't function on the table.

Do you prefer a lot of infantry with a few big models, or a lot of big models with a few infantry? If the former, Warmachine is probably the best starting point. If the latter, Hordes is probably the best starting point.

Also, while Warmachine is a good system, and balanced, there is a very steep learning curve. When you're starting out, it is important to find others who will go easy on you and explain what's going on as you play. So explain your skill level. Now, on to factions. I happen to like Dwarves, and so went with Rhulic Dwarves. And have been expanding into other Mercs as I do. It's the best faction for having a variety of different units/looks in a single "faction". Though they suffer from not having a good amount of "super" units, they do have a lot of good, inexpensive (point wise) units that are good looking and have fun fluff.

Ok I finally found the quick start rules but, while nice I wish there was something like a quick reference sheet (if they supply this in the main rule book nevermind), also do I need both rulebooks to effectively play the game? I don't know what kind of rules people usually play but it seems like you can use a horde army vs a warmachine army.

@ sourclams: well i played Dark eldar which was a alpha strike army, I'd like to play another army that was kinda like that but I'm generally looking for one that is more balanced but still has some bite to it.


After finally navigating the PP website (don't ask I'm kind of dumb looking for things) and I got to looking at some of the armies available. I've narrowed it down to 4 armies that the models actually look good so I hope you guys could explain how they work. Legions of Everblight look freaking awesome holy crap, I like the mercs epecially the pirates, retribution looks good, cryxx kinda fell on my interest scale so I probably won't get them unless they have a really kool playstyle.

@ creon: yea i'm gonna need a lot of practice its definetly got a ton of rules especially since your kinda playing two games.

So what books should I get? I hear that hordes is getting a new one but I don't know whats in it.

The only book you'll really need is Prime (WM) or Primal (H) and you don't need both. Core mechanics is the same for both systems the only difference is focus/fury. All the other expansion books only contain fluff and rules for new models/units but since you get stat cards in every blister/box they aren't necessary (unless you really like IK fluff or want to have all rules in one place).

And if you're looking for a quick reference sheet - go HERE

Luthon1234 wrote:@ sourclams: well i played Dark eldar which was a alpha strike army, I'd like to play another army that was kinda like that but I'm generally looking for one that is more balanced but still has some bite to it.

Legions of Everblight look freaking awesome holy crap, I like the mercs epecially the pirates, retribution looks good, cryxx kinda fell on my interest scale so I probably won't get them unless they have a really kool playstyle.

So what books should I get? I hear that hordes is getting a new one but I don't know whats in it.

Privateers system with books works as such:
There are the core rulebooks: Warmachine: Prime mk2 and Hordes: Primal mk2. These two have all of the basic rules for the game and stats for the basic set of troopers for all of the system's factions (Cygnar, Cryx, Khador and Menoth for WM and Circle, Legion, Skorne and Trolls for Hordes) except Retribution and rules for couple of basic Mercenary models.

About once a year PP publishes a anthology expansion, which includes new units for all of the system's factions and couple of new rules. For Mk2 they have release Wrath for WM and Hordes: Domination is coming out in November. You don't need to get these expansions as the models have a rule card(s) with them when you buy them, but they are a convenient way of collecting the rules in one place are more comfortable to read than cards.

PP collected the models from all of the Mk1 anthologies to Forces of books, which came out last year. Those books simply contain rules for all of the factions models from Mk1 and couple of new additions. These books are nice to read, but are really optional as there are no new rules here and the models stats can be seen from the cards as I mentioned before.

So you only need to get the core rulebook (Prime or Primal) and you are set to go. If you are looking for alpha strike force and you like Legion models, I think you know where to go. Legion is the glass cannon of WM/ Hordes. They can be played beast heavy, which means that they don't usually have many models on the board and they definitely are competitive.

Metsuri summarizes the way that PP does books for their games really well, so not going to add to that much myself.

On factions, some ways I describe them:

Mercenaries
These guys are a very hodgepodge group. They are actually more a collection of smaller Factions who happent o share some models, and this can make building an effective Mercenary army pretty hard. Their models are usually balanced with the idea that the other Factions can take them and they also have their other list restrictions. That said, they have soem strong choices, and their casters can be pretty good especially, but note that they are the hard way to go, as their playstyles swing so much.

As a note, the pirates are weird since they have not grown and have shown no signs fo that being something they will get for a while. Their main thing is support, with lots of characters olos who synergize well with one another and some pieces that are really strong, but limitted by their list options.

Legion of Everblight
To note to start, you noted wanting to play good guys, these aren't it. The Legion is an army of blighted Nyss elves and Ogrun being led by a dragon hellbent on devouring the elven god and other dragons for power. So something to have in mind.

That said, Legion is the most "Blitzkrieg" army in the game. THey tend to run amazingly good warbeast support and ahve a lot of models that hit hard, hit fast, and are hard to stop from getting their alpha strikes. Much of the army can't take a hit, but what it does to make-up for that is to do so much damage so fast that it is hard for the opponent to recover.

They do have some other things depending on caster, though. Thagrosh, Bethayne and their newest caster, Kallus, do well with some infantry about. Lylyth runs a very ranged oriented list, Thagrosh a more melee one. And so on. You can get good vareity in a faction, but just keep in mind the above (fast, hit fast). It's a very aggressive faction and I think that's the main thing to keep in mind.

Retribution of Scyrah
The Retribution is very much acombined arms force. They worry about good solid melee with range support helping them on the advance. They are a more troop-heavy force, which runs light on warjacks, but their warjacks are fairly well, and nearlye verything has a gun.

The Retribution is the newest army in the game and so has the mostl imitted selection. This means that there is nto as muchv areity of the force, so it has some predictability (Its main weakness is this limitted palette of options for now). But with the new warjacks next year, and more casters over the coming years, this gap is closing quick and the factionw ill grow into its own fairly nicely, I think.

And stuff.

Luthon1234 wrote:Ok I finally found the quick start rules but, while nice I wish there was something like a quick reference sheet (if they supply this in the main rule book nevermind), also do I need both rulebooks to effectively play the game? I don't know what kind of rules people usually play but it seems like you can use a horde army vs a warmachine army

Once you get one book you can get the flavour of how the fury/focus mechanic works via the quickstart rules (hordes, warmachine). That should give you enough grounding to ensure that the opposing player isn't talking out of their behind.

As a starting point, I would look at Saeryn in Legion of Everblight. Saeryn is largely regarded to be one of the most powerful warlocks in the game.

If your interest is basically split between Legion and Retribution, then here's how I'd boil the two factions down:

Legion is the "savage" elven bad guys, Ret is the "pretty" elven bad guys (from a human-centric perspective). Ret do plenty of bad things in the fluff, they're just all about smooth lines and the color white.

With Legion, you will probably end up playing relatively few elves. Your army lists will compose primarily of giant blind dragonspawn. The elves are just there to point the warbeasts in the right direction and to give them backrubs for bonuses.

With Ret, you will probably end up playing relatively few warjacks; your armies will rely less on single powerful models on large bases, and more on infantry and numerous 'hero' solos to do your legwork.

Legion plays primarily as a Warbeast-centric blitzkrieg (although you can build infantry-centric lists) without much staying power. Glass cannon is apt.

Ret plays primarily as a combined-arms force that excels at assassinations. Ret armies are generally difficult to remove from the table, but still don't really want to get into prolonged attrition battles.

So I think I have a good idea on how the rules work now my problem is setting up a list. I'm assuming that the rulebook explains this but WTH is a tier list and can I only do theme lists? Another question about the models, say I join a tournament and I happen to use different minis that PP doesn't make, for example the skarre warcaster hero, I hate her model but I like her rules could I use say a model from GW such as lelith that represents the skarre warcaster? I know GW has strict policies on stuff like that, I think its like 70% of the model must be GW but I want to know whats PP stance on it.

Now to actually collecting the army. I've been checking out this website called battlecollege, it has many articles on warmachine and horde which I found to be very helpful and from what I gather the battle boxes are generally pretty good for starting out, but I don't know where to go from there I guess I'll be going with legion so what would be the next buy for them?

Hey Guys,

Im very interested in playing Warmachine but im so undecided on what type of army I was looking for suggestions:

my play style is: Ranged Combat, Hit and Run, artillery

Luthon1234 wrote:So I think I have a good idea on how the rules work now my problem is setting up a list. I'm assuming that the rulebook explains this but WTH is a tier list and can I only do theme lists? Another question about the models, say I join a tournament and I happen to use different minis that PP doesn't make, for example the skarre warcaster hero, I hate her model but I like her rules could I use say a model from GW such as lelith that represents the skarre warcaster? I know GW has strict policies on stuff like that, I think its like 70% of the model must be GW but I want to know whats PP stance on it.

Now to actually collecting the army. I've been checking out this website called battlecollege, it has many articles on warmachine and horde which I found to be very helpful and from what I gather the battle boxes are generally pretty good for starting out, but I don't know where to go from there I guess I'll be going with legion so what would be the next buy for them?

ok let's do this b the numbers.
1: Theme lists are fluffy lists granting bonuses and limitations that scale up in points and benefits with what are called tiers. The are an option and in no way required to play, more often than not they are considered equivalent or weaker than everyday lists in spite of their unique bonuses, but they can be a ton of fun.
2: the PP conversion policy is ultra-strict by the letter, but they leave it up to the tournament organizers to allow conversions. Basically, you can expect local store tournaments to allow most anything that dose not cause confusion. That's the real point of it all: let your conversion be obvious as to what model it depicts. For Skarre herself, have you seen the new 2011 model?
3: After the legion box you probably want to get up to 15 points and maybe get a second warlock to change up the feel of the army. The legion box will leave you at 13, so a 2 point solo, two one point solos, or some combination of models up to 4 points (if you remove a single shredder) would work well. If there are any warbeasts hat really catch your eye you can get one early on.


@garoublade These days any faction except cryx can play well at range. For mobile shooting using hit and run tactics you can probably narrow it down to cygnar and retribution, though neither has much traditional big explosion artillery and both tend to use more direct fire. If you want the big booms of mortars with basic grunts backing them up khador is the way to go.

So like in a game you start out at Tier 1 then make your way up?

Luthon1234 wrote:So like in a game you start out at Tier 1 then make your way up?

Not in the game. You get the tiers based on your armylist.

If you build an armylist for tier 2, you also get the benefits of tier 1.

If you build an armylist for tier 4, you also get the benefits of tiers 1,2 and 3.

However, to build an armylist for higher tiers, you have to follow all the
restrictions of each tier you qualify for.

Luthon1234 wrote:So I think I have a good idea on how the rules work now my problem is setting up a list. I'm assuming that the rulebook explains this but WTH is a tier list and can I only do theme lists?

Tier lists are explained in each faction's particular "Forces of" books. They typically restrict you to unit choices that the given caster has a proclivity toward story-wise, not necessarily gameplay-wise. Because of these restrictions they come with bonuses that help mitigate the loss of not taking units that may better accompany your warcaster on the table as far as gameplay is concerned. It is not necessary to do a themed list and it is often better not to do so as there are only a handful worth shooting for (such as Mortenbra).

Luthon1234 wrote:Another question about the models, say I join a tournament and I happen to use different minis that PP doesn't make, for example the skarre warcaster hero, I hate her model but I like her rules could I use say a model from GW such as lelith that represents the skarre warcaster?

Which model are you talking about? pSkarre's classic sculpt was certainly not the greatest, but her 2010 resculpt is beautiful as is her epic version. If you still don't like them, it would be up to your tournament's host and your opponents to let you use other miniatures. I haven't seen anyone attempt to do so, but I have seen a few neat conversions for minis that people didn't like. Also, you like Lelith over pSkarre's resculpt? That's... interesting.

Luthon1234 wrote:Now to actually collecting the army. I've been checking out this website called battlecollege, it has many articles on warmachine and horde which I found to be very helpful and from what I gather the battle boxes are generally pretty good for starting out, but I don't know where to go from there I guess I'll be going with legion so what would be the next buy for them?

Battlecollege does have a great deal of information, but they also have a tendency to paint the picture that every model is great in every semi-applicable situation. If you're playing pSkarre, then as awesome as the Deathjack is you'll prefer more infantry instead. eSkarre on the other hand loves her Deathjack so much I think it should have a special affinity bonus with her just to make people even more annoyed with the combo. Regarding where to go from the Battlebox with Legion, the guys over on the Privateer Press forums actually have a stickied thread answering that very question. They list what models you would want to consider and why.

garoublade wrote:my play style is: Ranged Combat, Hit and Run, artillery

Well, Khador don't have too much in the way of hit and run, but they certainly have artillery and ranged attacks in addition to giant beatsticks they call warjacks. They do have heavy cavalry, though, so while that isn't quite hit and run it's certainly very hitty and runny in separate statements. Cygnar is known for its ranged weaponry, but they still have some solid melee fighters mixed in. They have a caster called Kraye that gives his warjacks the Light and Heavy cavalry rules, letting you have plenty of movement shenanigans associated with them including some hit and run tactics. Cryx has a little bit of ranged power, but it's more as a nice sprinkling on top of debuffs, movement stuff, and sneaky face pounding. Menoth has some scary anti-infantry shooting, but they're more along the lines of being an impenetrable wall of buffs than speed or artillery oriented.

And of Hordes... actually, Legion might be a group you should look into. They have fast hit and run style things, a fair bit of very painful shooting, and some artillery with things like bolt throwers, ravagores, etc.

I have nto really played them or against them, but Circle seem to be very hit and run. They can teleport around and stuff.

But not much range and no artillery that I am aware of.


BTW, it is important to remember in how the mechanics are set up that shooting is usually combined with melee for the best lists. Combined arms is the way to go. And the traditional idea of artillery hitting the bad guys from a mile away are not the same. From my experience with my Cygnar a shooting unit usually gets 1 or 2 turns of shooting. If you are lucky you may get three.

So may want to think about a hit and run type combined arms force.

Mordekiem wrote:I have nto really played them or against them, but Circle seem to be very hit and run. They can teleport around and stuff.

But not much range and no artillery that I am aware of.

Circle Artillery comes in the form of Woldwyrd blasting you with magical
ranged attacks and punishing units with upkeeps and/or Woldwardens casting
spells on behalf of their warlock.

But so far they don't have an actual artillery model, which is nice and fluffy.

garoublade wrote:my play style is: Ranged Combat, Hit and Run, artillery

This screams Legion. Screams.

Legitimate ranged hit/run units like Raptors and the Raptor character, and access to Totem Hunter (the ultimate in hit-run solos). Strider Deathstalkers, which are basically hit-kill-bushwackx2.

Agile 'threat' beasts like the Raek, and left-field threat ranges like Typhon charge sprays or eThagrosh/MD/feat/Shredder Swarms.

Artillerybeasts like the Ravagore and Bolt Thrower, and eLylith the Ravagore/Bolt Thrower warlock.

So now that I've decided on an army and the rules seem pretty decent now I gotta ask the main question. Whats the competitive scene like for this game? Coming from 40k tournament scenes were watered down with comp scores and are now finally getting rid of it with tournaments like Nova, does this game suffer from something similar to that? Also while GW does support tournament such as ard boyz but its really their only real competitive tournament , does PP support the competitive scene or does it sort of ignore it like GW does?

Compared to GW, PP is brutally competitive.

The game was built ground-up for a competitive mindset. The forum community reflects this pretty well; the goal-of-the-game is clearly to win, even though the point of the game is to have fun. Tier or Theme does exist and is rewarded in-game with certain rules bonuses, but nobody will look down upon you for playing non-fluffy, optimized list X (actually quite the opposite).

There are really few/no rules ambiguities, unlike GW. There are regular structured Leagues put out by PP throughout the year with special rules and objectives, unlike GW. PP has an actual tournament support 'kit' that TOs can pick up for a reasonable price. The PP forums and publications are pretty good about compiling the higher placing lists and player name/profiles at larger gaming cons.

Warmachine is a great game, as a competitive 40K player you will love it.
I used to be a hard-core 40K player. my friends talked me into getting a small force(approx 25 pts). As a 40K player how hard is it to paint 16 models. I started with the Khador Battle box and built from there.
After my first tournament i was hooked. I still have a massive amount of 40K stuff, but never find the time to play.
Everblight are a very competitive army BTW..

BryanC wrote:Warmachine is a great game, as a competitive 40K player you will love it.
I used to be a hard-core 40K player. my friends talked me into getting a small force(approx 25 pts). As a 40K player how hard is it to paint 16 models. I started with the Khador Battle box and built from there.
After my first tournament i was hooked. I still have a massive amount of 40K stuff, but never find the time to play.

Ditto. Your experience mirrors mine to a T.

Everblight are a very competitive army BTW..

What I've come to realize is that they're all very competitive armies. A good player can take any faction, and nearly anything within a faction, and make a list capable of tearing the head off of other lists.

However players have to be willing to work within the faction's tolerances. This is why I think the #1 Most-Important-Thing when recruiting someone to WM/H is figuring out *how* they want to play. If you want a phalanx of high quality infantry, you don't go with Legion. If you want a wall of warjacks, you probably shouldn't go with Khador or Cryx--even though both of these can actually run a jack horde, they're bad matchup-prone and generally pale compared to what Menoth can achieve.

What I've come to realize is that they're all very competitive armies. A good player can take any faction, and nearly anything within a faction, and make a list capable of tearing the head off of other lists.

See Dominar Rasheth at this year's Hardcore.

So an update I suppose, unfortunately my LGS doesn't carry Warmachines or hordes but can still get them from special order. But I ran into another problem most of warmachine and horde products are completely sold out from his distributor which included 90% of legion items and he doesn't know when they'll be in stock again. Kind of a bummer, and I guess I could go online but I like my LGS and I like to spend money where I game.

SO while I'm waiting for the restock I thought I'd check out some of the other armies and well Menoth caught my eye. I don't know whether its the warcaster that sets everyone on fire or the floating mini god or the crazy awesome templar esque models but these guys seem very interesting. Could anyone explain them to me?

I also found a member in my gaming group who plays warmachine and hordes and has a army for both so were gonna try and get some games goin this weekend and maybe I'll get a feel for the game and understand the mechanics better.

Menoth runs heavily on synergies and denial. Menoth is also capable of creating what I would consider to be the most terrifying warjack walls in the game.

Menoth's ultimate weakness is a tendency to be slow (when warjack centric). This can allow more nimble opponents, or those capable of creating terrain or effects (like pIrusk, Baldur (denial) or Saeryn, eKaya (nimble)) to either circumvent or bog down your battle group.

It should be noted for anyone thinking about playing warmachine. YOU WILL LOSE. I think warmachine is an amazing game, and think everyone should give it a try, but it can be a bit harsh.

I know that I lost the first ten or so games i played. My opponent was ruthless and did not play soft against me. It wasn’t my army or army list that was failing me, I hadn't learned the nuances of the game yet. With each loss I learned more. My first victory was glorious, and well worth the losing streak.

Yeah, took me about a dozen games before I was able to really get a handle on my army. Then I started to win some games becasue I knew what I wanted to do. Then it took even longer to win consistently as I learned other armies and their tricks.

Even after a year or so I still am learning about some armies/units/combos/etc. This is especially true about hordes as I have only really played legion. Warmachine armies tend to be more popular in my area.

FInally got some games in, still haven't really decided on an army yet. But I got about three games in, lost 2 and won 1. It's so weird how focused the game is on one model. I mainly lost the other two because of the warlock/warcaster even though I was winning I'd set my warlock up to cast a spell, then I wiff with it cause him to be completely open and then get smashed by the enemy heavy.

Really fun game, I have issues with spell casting maybe it was the casters or my bad rolling but it just seem very ineffective and better spent on my warbeasts/warjacks.