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So I may be looking to take a break from 40k because the scheduled play time at my FLGS just doesn't work with my schedule. there are two play times scheduled there for WM/H that would fit better. the thing I'm wondering about however is if the learning curve is really as large as people seem so suggest, like playing over twenty games before you get the hang of it. I'm just wondering if this really acurate or if people are exagerating, because I'm at school half the year, and if I come home on Chrismas break I doubt I'll be able to fit that many games in before I need to head back to school. I'm just wondering if WH/H is the game for me if I can only play half the time.

there is however an alternative if I can convince mt buddy at school to play WM/H with me, then I could play any time.

The curve is steep, but considering there are thousands of people that know how to play and the playerbase is expanding, it isn't all that bad. I suppose it could be if you dove in headfirst to a highly competitive local scene, but by the time you started winning there you would have become a very strong player.

In general do expect to lose a lot as you learn what enemy models can do, it isn't enough to know your own army, you have to learn the top tricks from each opposing army as well. That takes time. It helps to start small in that sense so you don't get overexposure to new models every game.

I believe the difference between the two games, is that in Warmachine and Hordes, models aren't summed up by their stat lines, but by their special abilities.

Every part of your army will have it's own special rules, it's own part of the combo that is your army.

Most of the learning is just getting down your own armies combos and learning what your opponents combos are.

Wait you're saying you can get better at the game by studying? that's right up my alley. now just one question:

this is most of my Menoth that I picked up last time I thought about starting WM. I've heard they're some of the tougher armies to get the hang of. so should I trade them in for something like Khador, or should I stick with my mentites?

Learning how to play Warmachine is not that hard or take that long. Learning how to be tournament competitive can take a fair bit longer as that requires you to know what your Opponent's stuff does.

I'm about 10 - 15 games in and am starting to get the hang of using my units. I'm starting to be able to dictate the play and make people adjust to me, but still at the point of making stupid mistakes like not checking charge lanes before moving my caster and putting too much focus on a jack hence wasting it.

Also still really kicking myself with activation order and little stuff like that, that can make a huge difference in winning or loosing.

Still an awesome game, and cant wait to really get going in it.

Menoth is not more difficult to play over other factions. In fact I think they can be relatively easy and new player friendly. They have a very simple concept. Basically, most of your models are slightly inferior by themselves when compared to other factions. Take their standard heavy warjack, the crusader. It is very similar to khador's Juggernaut. Most of it's stats are just a little bit worse- it doesnt hit as hard and doesnt take hits as well. However, add in the chior of menoth and now the crusader hits slightly harder and has better chance to hit. That is basically how enoth works. You take units that are inferior and you buff the crap out of them. It is nice because it means everything in your army can find a place in any game, whereas khador has units like assault kommandos and kossite woodsmen who rarely see play because they dont have the right buffs available to them to make those models useful.


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If you need more practice but dont have time to get to a flgs , look up vassal. It is a tabletop game simulator that has helped me alot. I play nearly all of my games over it although i still collect armies to paint

From what I see there looks like you have a solid base for a Menoth army.

As for learning to play it took me about 10-12 games before I picked up a win against anyone other than a battlebox against another new player. I finally felt pretty good with my models that I could start paying more attention to what the bad guys do. At about 20 games I had a much better understanding and was able to enter a local tournament (I'd say semi competitive. Seemed like the tourny lists were played by newer people and the competitive players played toned down lists) and got 3rd out of 9. Coulda been first, but I made a newb mistake, LOL.

So yeah, I'd say it is steeper than 40K. Alot of it has to do with each unit having so many abilities and options. In 40K your assault marines assault and the devastators blow stuff up. In WM units can do a variety of stuff and casters in particular usually have more options than they have focus for. Oh, and learning to manage your focus is the hardest part I think.

 darefsky wrote:
I'm about 10 - 15 games in and am starting to get the hang of using my units. Still an awesome game, and cant wait to really get going in it.

I paraphrased darefsky above because it illustrates an important point: even though you lose a lot early on, you have fun doing it. Most games are very close with a good bit of back-and-forth. You will learn the basics fast, the intricacies slow, and have fun all the while.

I suggest going to download the free rules that are on privateer press website. Its a brief starter rules, meant for small games. You can probably read it 4-5 times and have the basics of the game.

The game is very easy to learn, takes time to become moderately decent, and once you get into advantage tactics, it makes 40k / WFB look very simply in my mind. WMHD is about move, action, resolve. You activate a "unit" at a time. So order of activation is huge. The "unit" moves, does an action, and resolves it. A unit is either warlock / warcaster, a solo, a warbeast or warjack, OR a physical unit of multiple models.

That's the gist. You only need a handful of dice at best. And in common play its a smaller game system and plays faster. All gaming systems have merits. My suggestion is try out the Menoth, maybe you like the game, maybe you don't But its pretty easy to pick up the basics

The reason people say "expect to lose." Is there's really no way not to at first, because if your learning how order of activation is important, your going to make mistakes. Its also a game where if you general dies you lose.

Oh I already know the rules and have the books. Like I said I tried to play before, but not being able to get the stuff I needed due to stock shortages made me rage quit. From what I can tell PP has solved this issue, so I should be fine.

I assumed when you mentioned trying before you were during Mark 1.. sorry about that, that's why I mentioned downloading the free rules for Mark 2, there are subtle changes to the game.

ah but that's the new Kreoss you see in that bag(bottom left in between the paladin and the machanik), if I have a plastic Kreoss I must have been around during Mark 2. anyways I don't mind losing a lot. if I got mad over the number of times I lost in online games of Total War well I'd never stop (although it is infuriating when lag costs you the game)

The biggest key to most games, is knowing what your opponets army does.

Thats what makes the curve sharp.

Its easy to a new player to go against Sorcha for example, and she freeze's your caster, then wind rush and dead.

If you know what her feat does, and what he spell does.. You know the threat ranges and how to avoid it.

I do not find the learning curve with WARMACHINE/HORDES to be steep. The rules are plug and play and don't require much interpretation and the system functions at low point margins.


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 Spyder68 wrote:
The biggest key to most games, is knowing what your opponets army does.

Thats what makes the curve sharp.

Its easy to a new player to go against Sorcha for example, and she freeze's your caster, then wind rush and dead.

If you know what her feat does, and what he spell does.. You know the threat ranges and how to avoid it.

That's why it's important to have friendly people to play against to teach you the game and systems initially. You can't just walk forward and win like in 40k. The game requires a level of interaction and knowledge. That can be a slow burn process though, you don't have to sponge it all up until you get to tournament level games. Just ask your opponent what their army does and ask them to help you out a bit with knowing what their capabilities are.

The mechanics are easy to get and start playing with. To me it reminds me of MtG in the sense that the basic rules are easy to grasp, but at the same time very deep.

How far the rabbit hole do you want to go? You can learn just how to move and attack and leave it at that, or You can get heavy into the best activation order, when to special attack vs regular attack, throwing, slamming, trampling, locking, arc nodes, ...Oh My!

To win against seasoned players you'll have to go deep. In 40k you never have to think about what you are going to do in a melee attack. In WM/H you have options galore. The same goes with shooting.

I agree with everyone here in that you will lose a lot in the beginning, but you will also learn a lot from each of those losses.

Interesting... I saw the title and didn't think that there was much of a learning curve with the game.

I got my demo, played a few starter box games, and went from those to like 35 point games. I didn't have much issue with the game besides activation order, but I've played in a few tournaments never placed, but did alright for myself. I took a couple of months break from my Trolls and picked them back up during the summer Rampage, won a few games and then won all 3 of my games during the Colossal Release event with my Trolls (I didn't want a coin lol)


I will definitely agree that the basics are easy, it's the minor things like power attacks, activation order, knowing when to feat, etc... is the stuff that takes a while to get the hang of.

 Alfndrate wrote:
Interesting... I saw the title and didn't think that there was much of a learning curve with the game.

I got my demo, played a few starter box games, and went from those to like 35 point games. I didn't have much issue with the game besides activation order, but I've played in a few tournaments never placed, but did alright for myself. I took a couple of months break from my Trolls and picked them back up during the summer Rampage, won a few games and then won all 3 of my games during the Colossal Release event with my Trolls (I didn't want a coin lol)


I will definitely agree that the basics are easy, it's the minor things like power attacks, activation order, knowing when to feat, etc... is the stuff that takes a while to get the hang of.

I think the real issue with conversion from 40k is how differently the games work in a design sense. There is no granularity in 40k (the system is generally pass/fail), there isn't much for maneuvering, there isn't much pre planning, and with sixth there is very little the player needs to know for zone control or ranging. In a way, and especially with certain armies (orks for instance) 40k plays itself once the sides are set up, and victory can often be determined by a casual look at the competing forces on turn one (this isn't that much of a criticism, there is value in an elastic playstyle that has a lot of inertia (40k is still kind of a bad game though)). Privateers games work on a fundamentally different level, player choice and specifically player mistakes can be incredibly costly, matches can turn on a dime with a few favorable decisions or a clever play. This creates a game that feels incredibly tough to master and thus gives the feeling of a harsh learning curve. This has a lot more to do with opponents than actual learning though, one can really soften the blows to confidence by playing more considerate foes.

But I came from 40k lol... I've had the costly mistakes in both games, again it's my observation :-/

I wouldn't call it a learning curve as much as it is a experience curve. You'll learn the basics of WM/H pretty quickly, but the intricate stuff will only come from experience.

 Spyder68 wrote:
The biggest key to most games, is knowing what your opponets army does.

Thats what makes the curve sharp.

Its easy to a new player to go against Sorcha for example, and she freeze's your caster, then wind rush and dead.

If you know what her feat does, and what he spell does.. You know the threat ranges and how to avoid it.

Exactly like kreoss pops feat knocks everyone down and stands a 'jack on your casters head

Hi guys, I'm not trying to derail the thread but I had a few questions, as my friends and I are now moving to Warmahordes from 40k and WHFB.

I didn't want to start a whole new thread when this seemed like the perfect place to ask...

When selecting a faction I tend to go with what I want to paint more than what the army/race/faction is capable of.

Personally I'm not really a fan of a lot of PP models but there are a few I'm really interested in.

My questions are:

Is the Mercenary faction a stand alone force or are they ment to be combined with other factions?

If I can use the Mercenaries as a stand alone faction are they worth the trouble?

I really want to collect Avalancher, Rockram, Rover/Mule/Nomad, Highshield gun corps, Forgeguard, Artillery corps, Madhammer, Ossrum, Grundback, Stienhammer, Bokur and some Blasters.

Is that a capable force? Would I be happy owning that group of models? Around how many points is that?

I intend to get these models eitherway but I don't want to get excited to play only to find out what I own isn't really useful.

Thanks for any help!

*Yes you can run mercs on their own. In doing so you're limited to either a Mercenary Contract (basically a mini-faction made of a subset of merc models), or a Warcasters theme list (a fluffy list of what a given Warcaster was commanding at some given point in the games timeline).

*Yes you can build a worthwhile mercs list, they're not topping tournaments as much as other factions but it's hardly hopeless.

*Those are mostly Rhulic (Dwarven) models. As a collection of models it isn't really a list unto itself but you could probably get a non-gakky 35pt list out of that collection.

 DeffDred wrote:
My questions are:
Is the Mercenary faction a stand alone force or are they ment to be combined with other factions?
If I can use the Mercenaries as a stand alone faction are they worth the trouble?

Mercenaries are still an oddity in some respects but they are getting better as a stand alone force all the time and currently give most opposing lists a real run for their money. As stated above, they aren't topping the tournament scene yet, but they are highly competitive even a half-step down from that national tournament level. They can be a little more confusing to start up since you are limited to contracts within a larger faction, but they don't take long to get used to. There is also a great list building website that helps spell everything out for you: http://www.forwardkommander.com/ You may also want the mercenary forces book since it has the contract information and a very large list of models compared to the others. Alternatively, you could get the war room mercenary deck for much cheaper if you have a smart device, but the app is a poor list builder.

You seem to like mostly rhulic models which sets you up very well to play the searforge commission, but the dwarf warcasters can't use the human warjacks (nomad, mule, rover) that you like so at 35 or 50 points consider branching out to highborn covenant or fourstar syndicate with your dwarf casters still leading and taking a few humans as support models and one as a jack marshal. The elf, Sylys Wyshnaylar, is particularly strong support for any merc. warcaster.
For now try this list as a good starting point:
Points: 25/25
General Ossrum (*5pts)
* Ghordson Avalancher (9pts)
* Wroughthammer Rockram (8pts)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Thor Steinhammer (2pts)

Mercs are fine.

Im Currently Building a Highborne Ashlynn and Damiano list


yes there are Contracts but its not bad.. i can take Dwarves in my lists still.

You can go to a tourney with 1 Highborne list and 1 Four star list.

Its not that restrictive. You are character heavy though, and with the new SR2012 rules it can be a bit harder.

 DeffDred wrote:


My questions are:

Is the Mercenary faction a stand alone force or are they ment to be combined with other factions?

If I can use the Mercenaries as a stand alone faction are they worth the trouble?

I really want to collect Avalancher, Rockram, Rover/Mule/Nomad, Highshield gun corps, Forgeguard, Artillery corps, Madhammer, Ossrum, Grundback, Stienhammer, Bokur and some Blasters.

Is that a capable force? Would I be happy owning that group of models? Around how many points is that?

I intend to get these models eitherway but I don't want to get excited to play only to find out what I own isn't really useful.

Thanks for any help!

both. mercs are designed to be useable by the main factions. However, it is entirely possible to have a mercenary army. However, unlike, say, Khador, where everything red is fieldable in any khador army, "mercenary armies" are obliged to follow a contract, or sticking to a theme force. you cant just pick and mix stuff in the mercenaries book and call it an army. why? Well, mercenaries arent an "army" so much as a collection of sub factions. each subfaction is defined by a contract. your choices will be more limited, as will your tactics. However, you have huge variety between the contracts from the llaelese resistance (highborne) to a dwarven army (searforge) to pirates (talion).

based on your list of likes, id suggest looking at searforge. unfortunately, the nomad is out as its not a rhulic jack, but the rest is fair game. and searforge are pretty good. gorten and osyrun are pretty damned nasty.

took me 7 games and I'm pretty well off with the rules... little things here and there still get me, but its not hard at all if your coming from another mini wargame

I have been playing 2 years and I am still learning the game. Learning the basics takes 2 or 3 games. Then you start to learn your army and that is a process that never stops as new combos/models/lists are always being made. To make the curve less steep choose an army whose playstyle resembles your 40k army then its just applying different rules, then you can gradually move to other armys/units. You can also borrow sets from people that play and get a feel for the different playstyle. Going from 40k shooty to warmachine shooty isnt that big a leap but melee is a rather long jump. Be aware that you will also probably get the rules from 40k and warmachine mixed up alot at first. Hope I helped.

Also Rulics are a hard army to play but very easy to learn. And when used effectily they blast away my stealth banethralls and defense 20 raiders with that stupid stupid pow 12 cloud (both are some of the meanest units in the game) . (gorton grunback) Before picking a merc army also think about a main faction that you are intrested in so that when you are ready to expand into a main faction you can fill in the list with units you are already familar with.

A good help to getting used to the game is Battlecollege. Its a site that breaks down each unit in the game. Now going to the learning curve it took me a quite a few games to understand how play tactically but I never really understood the statline until this summer but keep in mind I really starlted playing about last spring so I'm about around at my seventh game.

When I teach 40k players to play their biggest (and was mine as well) speed bump was not moving everything and then firing and then assaulting.

Most of the people I've taught to play have picked it up pretty quickly. I've always looked at Warmahordes as more like Chess where 40k is more about how many dice you can throw on the table.