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I've recently gotten into the Warmachine scene and have found (at least locally) that most people play Hordes factions. I have played a few games as Menoth against Legion and see how the mechanics play against each other. My question is why do so many people favor Hordes? Is it simply a more powerful system, with Fury being a more manageable resource? I realize this is largely anecdotal but when I look at the tournament winners I have found that the majority are also Hordes players. Seeing as how I would like a competitive game and would not like to play (or spend money on) a system that largely favors one set of mechanics over another, I ask you all to honestly weigh in on this question: is Hordes a more powerful system when brought against Warmachine?

Kingdom Con Qualifier:

1st - Lee Horn : Protectorate
2nd - Jason Flanzer: Trollbloods
3rd - Craig Conroy: Circle
4th - Peter Lippardt: Skorne
5th - William Rutan: Khador
6th - David Henry: Circle
7th - Winston Clark : Cryx
8th - Mike Strickland: Protectorate
9th - Ryan Luchesi: Skorne
10th - Greg Vaughn: Cygnar

RIW Hobbies Qualifier Breakdown of Players

Garrin Clark - Circle (eKrueger/Morvahna)
Brian Debbler - Legion (Abyslonia/Kallus)
Jake Pigeon - Trolls (Borka/Jarl)
Justin Messingham - Cryx (pDeneghra/eAsphiyxious)
Bob Klotz - Skorne (eHexeris/eMakeda)
John Paul - Khador (eButcher/pIrusk)
Chris Gore - Cryx (eDeneghra/pGoreshade)
Tom Lundberry - Circle (pBaldur)
Chris Halcomb - Khador (pVlad)
Scott Strongmatt - Cygnar (Blaize/eStryker)
Mike Clark - Protectorate (Harbinger/pSeverius)
Dan Holbrawski - Khador (eIrusk/pSorscha)
Mike Stokes - Khador (eSorscha/Harkovich)
Matt Landry - Cygnar (pStryker/pNemo)
Jason LaFave - Khador (pIrusk/eSorscha)
Isiah Thompson - Legion (Bethayne)

Final match was a battle across the pond with Will "Wild Bill" Pangani defending the American homeland vs. Jamie Perkins, the British Master. The Queen will be proud as Jamie pulled out a victory with the Old Witch over Will's pBaulder army.

Congrats Jamie Perkins on qualifying for the Warmachine Weekend 2012 Invitational. Will "Wild Bill" Pagani came in second, Jordan White followed with third.
TempleCon Masters Breakdown of Players

Tom Hoffman - Cryx
Jamie Perkins - Khador
Micheal Winters - Cryx
Jordan White - Skorne
Jarred Robitalle - Gators
Josh Pearson - Trollbloods
Jeremy Miller - Cryx
Will Pagini - Circle
Jason Flanzer - Khador
Keith Christianson - Cryx
Erik Nelson - Cryx
Chad Shonkwiller - Trollbloods
Billy Robin - Legion
Jason Watt - Skorne
Solomon lapel-Kuni - Trollsbloods
John DeMaris - Protectorate of Menoth

I think they're fairly well balanced.

You might find that Hordes factions can run out of gas in a
drawn out slugfest and that Warmachine factions can get
ripped a new one if Hordes beasts manage an alpha strike,
but I think the game rules balance each other out.

Thanks for the response, malfred. I've been reading some older threads on this topic but wanted to know the current consensus. I'm curious to know what Lee Horn's list looked like, as it appears PoM barely ever makes a showing in tournament play.

Lazy googling brings up eFeora. I didn't see the rest.

Not sure if that's even for this particular event.

Maybe he got lucky and burned everything to the ground. Not a bad way to win.

As a khador/dwarf/circle player, I find them to be very balanced. Most warmachine armies will be better in the long run, except maybe cryx and retribution, if the game makes it to the long run. You see, a big strength in warmachine is that warcasters dont lose power when a warjack goes down, in many cases, they actually get stronger themselves (since they have more focus for themselves), whereas warlocks get weaker as their beasts die, but generally are stronger in the early game, since they can effectively fully boost all their warbeasts.

Fury is a delicate beast of it's own though, you want enough to fuel your warcaster, but not too much so that you cant transfer or leach it all off, risking a frenzy from your beast. Also - I find that models with the ability to leach or remove fury, is far more destructive than when you remove focus, mainly because it makes the warlock so so vulnerable. Look at Reznik's feat, and be afraid warlocks.

All in all, they are all balanced, in general hordes is better at alpha striking early game, while warmachine is better at attrition, but these generalizations are not consistent across the board.

Fury is a stronger mechanic, but it seems to be made up for by all the other components of the games: points, stats, army composition, etc.
The games are equal but not identical and it really comes down to how you perceive the inequities whether a game (or faction for that matter) will seem more or less powerful. Certainly the metagame and tournament formats will influence this.

Fury is stronger than Focus....Focus is stronger than Fury too.

Different times and situations. You don't look at an Arm 24 Butcher or an Arm 19 Borkawith 6 Fury (but no beasts) in anything near the same way. Likewise there's a world of difference between a 5 fury hordes caster with 3 heavies and a 5 focus WM caster with 3 heavies....

I like the fluffiness of the Fury -Focus discrepancy

Focus is "weaker" as humans are relatively "new" at magic while Fury has been around for a long time

Marz wrote:I've recently gotten into the Warmachine scene and have found (at least locally) that most people play Hordes factions. I have played a few games as Menoth against Legion and see how the mechanics play against each other. My question is why do so many people favor Hordes? Is it simply a more powerful system, with Fury being a more manageable resource? I realize this is largely anecdotal but when I look at the tournament winners I have found that the majority are also Hordes players. Seeing as how I would like a competitive game and would not like to play (or spend money on) a system that largely favors one set of mechanics over another, I ask you all to honestly weigh in on this question: is Hordes a more powerful system when brought against Warmachine?

A protectorate player complaining? pots and kettles come to mind! Heh, i dont think you need to worry mate.

I play competitively. I play both Warmachine (Khador) and Hordes (Circle) armies. Most people certainly dont play, or favour hordes. Take it from a guy with a lot of competitive experience. Hordes is not "better" than warmachine. heck, we had a tourney last weekend where the top 3 factions were warmachine ones - cryx, my khador, and retribution. And its not the first time either. I've been in quite a few tournaments where my circle were the only hordes faction in the top 5.

Fury is better than focus in a lot of ways. that is not the same as saying hordes is better than warmachine. You dont play focus versus fury. fury also has more limitations, and far more hurdles to jump through than focus.

Look at what you have. the moaning interwebs will tell you that "obviously" hordes/fury factions are better, as they have "moar". they are not limited by a small resource pool, and can boost on the fly, without needing to plan expenditore of limited resources, against boosts, more attacks, and spells. fair enough, but that is a short sighted argument. it simply is not that simple/ Look at the games objectively, and analyse them.

Hordes beasts can do more with fury. but they also cost more. and warlocks tend to take more of them. in my basic 35pt Kromac circle army, before i've done anything, 20points +WB pts are given over to a basic set up of gorax, feral, and stalker. thats over half my points! It doesnt leave me much room to manoevre when it comes to taking infantry. Oftentimes when i play my circle, im envious of the ease of list creation, and freedom of design my khador have. Being so battlegroup focused, while it has its advantages, has severe limitations too. Armies tend to have a lower model count, lower attack output, and lower board presence - you cant swamp a board with 4 heavies to the same extent that 30 infantry and 2 heavies can do.

and the army suffers greatly when one warbeast dies. Kill a warjack, and you've killed a heavy hitter. Kill a warbeast, and you've taken out a heavy hitter/wound sink/animus/fury generator. tactically, sure - fury does more, but strategically? strategically, in many ways fury has huge weaknesses. strategically, while focus offers less in terms of amounts, its far more reliable. you can count on it, and build plans on it 3 turns away. in a late game scenario, when all the beasts are engaged and/or dead, the potential of focus shows through, as its still there in all its glory, while plenty warlocks will struggle, and are reduced to cutting themselves. at which point, they're doing my job of killing them for me. and thats essentially it. Fury is great for early game play, and fantastic for risky moves and alpha striking, but those things can be planned for, expected and built around by a warmachine player, and fury based factions have huge issues with a game based on attrition, where my Khador, and warmachine factions in general, tend to excel.

to the argument that beasts are better than jacks. yes they are, and no they arent. they cost more, they tend to be squishier and in terms of damage output, they wreck face. primaled ferals with wild aggression for example. they're monstrous. then again, all those attacks are not always needed. Im confident that with the right bufffs, my juggernaut with less focus than that amount of fury is more than capable of killing anything in the game. damage wise, jacks can be repaired (just as fury can be mitigated by the right support solos) so i fail to see the issue. the fact that a beast with cn be healed for 2 fury to (essentially) full combat capability means little to me. my first lesson against hordes factions was "dont wound them. kill them." and it works. its worth investing in killing a beast. whether it takes extra buffs, attacks from multiple sources, focus, or whatever. its called tactis. all well and good. but what people dont realise is jacks and beasts play differently, and mean different things to different factions. in a lot of ways, they're not directly comparable. as pointed out above, to my khador, its just a beatstick. to my circle, its far more important, is priced as such, and when it dies, my army suffers all the more for it.

here is an excellent cross-faction analysis for you. It was from the Templecon tournament, which is one of the "big names" when it comes to warmahordes tournaments. the analysis is exhaustive but very readable and well laid out, and gives an excellent breakdown of the game.

http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?96216-Templecon-by-the-numbers&highlight=templecon+analysis

Deadnight wrote:
A protectorate player complaining? pots and kettles come to mind! Heh, i dont think you need to worry mate.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, and I hope it didn't come across as complaining. I honestly wanted to know the opinion of the metagame from experienced players such as yourself. That Templecon statistics post is very helpful and it appears the majority of the factions have a nearly 50% win/loss ratio, with the exception being Cryx and Skorne coming in closer to 60%. I've just recently hit 35 pts with my PoM army and plan on playing quite a few tournaments this summer so I'm sure I'll have plenty to complain about in a few month

To add to malfred's tournement listings there is a thread on the Focus & Fury boards that is pooling large tournement results for Steam Roller 2012.

http://www.focusandfury.com/forum/index.php?topic=3569.0

The first thread is just raw data but if you jump to page 19 the data's been sorted a bit. For those that don't like coming to one forum only to have to go to a different one I've copied the information bellow, but all credit belongs to Paradox on the Focus & Fury Boards.


From the tournements of: Mayhem Cup, UK RHQ Invt., Arcanacon, Cancon, Templecon 2012, GottaCon, Crucible, OrcCon, SmogCon, Spring Conquest, Colonial GT March, KingdomCom, Adepticon, and Central Coast Championships. Which are either large attendenace tournements or multi-tournement convention with large attandence.



Total WM Top 5 Placements 73
Cryx: 27
Khador: 16
Menoth: 16
Retribution: 6
Cygnar: 5
Mercs: 3

Total Hordes Top 5 Placements 58
Legion: 14
Circle: 13
Trolls: 12
Skorne: 12
Minions: 7

Total WM 1st Place 21
Cryx: 8
Khador: 4
Ret: 3
Menoth: 3
Mercs: 2
Cygnar: 1

Total Hordes 1st Place 16
Skorne: 6
Legion: 5
Circle: 2
Minions: 2
Trolls: 1

Total WM 2nd Place 19
Cryx: 8
Menoth: 4
Khador: 3
Ret: 2
Cygnar: 2
Mercs: 0

Total Hordes 2nd Place 16
Trolls: 5
Circle: 4
Legion: 4
Skorne: 2
Minions: 1

Total WM 3rd Place 14
Menoth: 4
Khador: 4
Cryx: 4
Ret: 1
Cygnar: 1
Merc: 0

Total Hordes 3rd Place 17
Circle: 6
Minions: 4
Trolls: 3
Skorne: 2
Legion: 2

Total WM 4th Place 11
Menoth: 3
Khador: 3
Cryx: 3
Cygnar: 1
Mercs: 1
Ret: 0

Total Hordes 4th Place 5
Legion: 2
Trolls: 1
Skorne: 1
Circle: 1
Minions: 0

Total WM 5th Place 8
Cryx: 4
Menoth: 3
Khador: 3
Cygnar: 0
Mercs: 0
Ret: 0

Total Hordes 5th Place 4
Trolls: 2
Skorne: 1
Legion: 1
Circle: 0
Minions: 0

Said data is not corrected for faction participation numbers. Personally I don;t feel like I have anything to complain about. Cryx is a bit high on top 5's but not all that much when I refect on the number of Cryx players I saw at the tournements on that list I attended.

Thanks for those. i had no idea where to find them.

I think it's more where you are. In Minnesota my buddy has a trollbloods army and he says he has yet to face another Hordes army.

Everyone has warmachine builds instead.

I enjoy both systems.

I recently parted with my legion, and i will soon own over 75% of the menoth models.

Warmachine usually has stronger Infantry, Hordes has stronger beasts at times.


but.. bar a titan gladiator, my menoth Jacks have no issues of dropping a heavy warbeast in 1 turn.

To me though, having stronger infantry, makes up for running less jacks.

Then again, there are some warmachine lists that can run many jacks.. For my Harbinger list, i can run for 35pts


Harbinger

Crusader
Crusader
Crusader
Crusader
Avatar of menoth

Max Choir

Vilmon
2x Paladins

Marz wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
A protectorate player complaining? pots and kettles come to mind! Heh, i dont think you need to worry mate.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, and I hope it didn't come across as complaining. I honestly wanted to know the opinion of the metagame from experienced players such as yourself. That Templecon statistics post is very helpful and it appears the majority of the factions have a nearly 50% win/loss ratio, with the exception being Cryx and Skorne coming in closer to 60%. I've just recently hit 35 pts with my PoM army and plan on playing quite a few tournaments this summer so I'm sure I'll have plenty to complain about in a few month

i certainly dont take it as complaining Marz. Quite simply, its "new syndrome". so many people, upon first experiencing fury (and usually at the receiving end) instantly hit on a 40kesque rant of "firy is THE BORKEN!! its OP". seriously though, go and analyse both games. see beyond the "give 3 somethings to a jack and win" argument. look beyond "list building" and the idea that the number of focus/fury defines the game. look at what theydo. look at what they mean. look at what they're needed for. and its warmachine. not 40k. you can actuallt kill stuff. if someone has something that is brutal, look into killing it, or neutralising it long enough to claim the objective/.assassination.if possible, experience hordes for yourself - pick a faction and build a small force. do that, and you'll see its not all greener pastures.

both games are different; the synnergies (hordes is battegroup centric, warmachine is combined arms) are radically different. neither is strictly "better". those templecon results give a snapshot. most factions got a 50% win rate, plus or minus a few percent/. another tournament will give slightly different results. overall though, the balance is there. hordes win/lose as much as warmachine.

seriously though, if you're having issues or queries with the game, PM me, and i'll be happy to lend a hand.

Deadnight wrote:seriously though, if you're having issues or queries with the game, PM me, and i'll be happy to lend a hand.

Thanks! I just might take you up on that in the near future...

I do not think Fury is "better" than focus. Look at your daughters of flame, they automatically deal at least 1 dmg and have two attacks. A warlock's damage transfer is next to pointless against them. Plus. Focus never diminishes, while warlocks can lose their ability to gain fury as they lose their beasts. Combine this with the general fact that Most (but not all) warbeasts are softer than Most (again but not all) warmachines, and warlocks can find themselves in alot of trouble very fast.

Out of our regular group, I'm the only one that consistently plays Hordes... We have 2 players with almost every faction (one of them does) and they tend to stick to their warmachine armies. Another only has Khador, and yet another has Cygnar. The store owner has Trolls and Pirates, but he doesn't play much. The final guy that is in our group plays Pigs, but he doesn't show up very often, leaving me pretty much the only Hordes player...

My practical reason for pick up warmachine: The 2 player battle box. It's readily available and makes getting started with PP products easily.

I didn't need the rule book, I bought Mk II when it came out just because of the excitement and cool art, and because I like owning gaming books. Been trying to convince people to play it with me, but no one wants to spend any more money on a game. The 2 player battle box lets me buy everything to play, and no one has any more excuses!

KingKodo wrote:I do not think Fury is "better" than focus. Look at your daughters of flame, they automatically deal at least 1 dmg and have two attacks. A warlock's damage transfer is next to pointless against them. Plus. Focus never diminishes, while warlocks can lose their ability to gain fury as they lose their beasts. Combine this with the general fact that Most (but not all) warbeasts are softer than Most (again but not all) warmachines, and warlocks can find themselves in alot of trouble very fast.

Daughters of the flame have anatomical precision powerfield overboosting does nothing against it either.

On the whole it's pretty apparent that Fury is the stronger mechanic. Even if you're just running your beasts at your Warlocks FURY stat you're still getting that many fury worth of both attacks/boosts and spells/upkeeps. If you get the additional benefit of being able risk frenzies by running your beasts hot. This added versatility you can't do with focus. Secondly beast support is better than, 'Jack support in fact much better when compared to any faction that isn't menoth. Shepards/Wilders/Whelps and what have you give more effective FURY to work with than marshal, reclaimer or junior and they always keep the beasts in the battlegroup unlike each of those options except to reclaimer.

Transfers are also better protection against ranged assassinations, since these tend to rely on just 1 or 2 hits and are limited by RoF. Melee assassinations tend to be much harder to stop by either mechanic because they are so much more rapid fire.,

That said it does have two downsides:

It can stall in the late game, so if you've lost most of your beasts at the same time they've lost most of their 'Jacks you're out your protection and your power source. However I find most games end earlier this.

You can't force outside your control area. This is a big one, and not easily cheated around outside legion. 'Jacks are really only tied to control area for allocation and a few spells for specific casters. Particularly if you're running a caster with a small control area you can charge out of it and still use focus. In a game where positioning is important this a big deal.

That said the game isn't unbalanced in favor of hordes, it just has nothing to do with FOCUS and FURY mechanics being equally strong. I typically find the Warmachine lineup of spells & effects available to single caster to be stronger (even when taking animi into account) for Warcasters. 'Jacks tend to be a little more cost effective on the whole. Infantry is just as good as 'Jacks/Beasts if not more so, so being able to run them instead of hordes higher beast counts work just fine.

Focus vs. Fury? Well, I understood the focus concept a bit easier, then I looked deeper. I just started Warmahordes. Like, I just started assembling my Cryx. Why did I choose Cryx? Well, I think the models are wicked cool looking, the fluff is neat, and it's different from my typical gaming associations, thus expanding my horizons.

I'm not a power gamer, so why bother with trying to find "the best?"

From what I've heard, HORDES dominates the Tournaments, but personally, I find it hard to say what's "better". When I look purely at the stats, it seems like 'Jacks have the advantage. On the other hand, you can really go overkill with your beasts in a way, that some WARMACHINE chasters need to pop their feat for.

So far, I've only had 3 games with Hordes but I plan to change that in the future. Can't wait for the showdown between my brother's steampunk pirates and my undead voodoo alligators.

Anung Un Rama wrote:From what I've heard, HORDES dominates the Tournaments, but personally, I find it hard to say what's "better"..

not really...

any recent tourney i've been to, hordes has done no better or worse than warmachine. look at templecon. khador won...

Anung Un Rama wrote:From what I've heard, HORDES dominates the Tournaments, but personally, I find it hard to say what's "better". When I look purely at the stats, it seems like 'Jacks have the advantage. On the other hand, you can really go overkill with your beasts in a way, that some WARMACHINE chasters need to pop their feat for.

So far, I've only had 3 games with Hordes but I plan to change that in the future. Can't wait for the showdown between my brother's steampunk pirates and my undead voodoo alligators.

It doesn't. At a local event, Cryx won out overall. Minions came second. Third
was Menoth.

At another event, Legion came first.

In my experience, a hordes army can be defeated by getting rid of the war beasts. A war machine army that loses a 'jack may be in trouble but has not lost the ability to cast spells.

Anung Un Rama wrote:From what I've heard, HORDES dominates the Tournaments, but personally, I find it hard to say what's "better". When I look purely at the stats, it seems like 'Jacks have the advantage. On the other hand, you can really go overkill with your beasts in a way, that some WARMACHINE chasters need to pop their feat for.

So far, I've only had 3 games with Hordes but I plan to change that in the future. Can't wait for the showdown between my brother's steampunk pirates and my undead voodoo alligators.

Looking at major tournements, the sort that gather people from distances far enough to make travelling by plane realistic or day long car trips for multiple day tournements, the split for top 5 spot is about 60-40 in favour of Warmachine factions. The data is out there. It's been linked in this thread even, more data have even been added to it since then. For as long as I've been involved in this game (the relase of Hordes) the tournement scene, with respect to winning, has never been dominated by Hordes as a collection of Factions. Who ever told you otherwise is lying.

I've played against hordes players and find everything pretty evenly balanced as your right the first strike capability of Hordes is pretty good, however I always will target my beast eating units at them first, and it will really play havoc with the warlock. But between Hordes and WM it really depends how well a player understands and plays their army, as I feel both systems have their strengths and weaknesses it's how well you know them that makes you a good player and will most likely be the difference between winning and losing.

malfred wrote:It doesn't. At a local event, Cryx won out overall. Minions came second. Third
was Menoth.

Minions? Now that is (pleasantly) surprising. While I love the look and feel of the Minion contracts I thought they couldn't keep up with the main factions because of their lack of options.

Niether sytem is stronger than the other. You cant netdeck in WarmaHordes like you can in other games. Sure you can take a list that another guy won a National tourney with, but in the end its your piloting skills that are going to win the game.

Any player can win with any faction at any tournament. It all comes dowm to player skill not list composition.

Cryx and Legion have the largst player base, so you will see them more often.