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Hi, I am new here, and a growing fan of PP.  I’ll give you some back ground and ask some questions.

I have played Warhammer and 40K for over 15 years.  I have loads of armies from both games.  I love GW products but I wanted to branch out.  I finally decided to take a look at the PP world.  I am very impressed!  Lately I paint and model much more than I play but I still love to game when I can.  What drew me to Warmachine/Hordes was the notion that you bring a small force to war and that force has some staying power. I hoped that your 5-10 minis last several game rounds as opposed to loosing 30 models a turn as in Warhammer Fantasy.  I have done some reading and I find that this is not necessarily the case.  Large base models not as robust as they seem? It also seems that many players favor the game’s light models or “infantry” to big Warjacks or Beasts.  Is this also true?

 

I would like to play an army that uses small numbers of exceptionally skilled/powerful troops; I don’t like cannon fodder armies.  I also like the idea of playing with a majority of the army comprising Warjacks or large Beasts.  Is their an army that embodies both of these ideas or perhaps 2?  I am not apposed to collecting a couple.

Thank you.

From what you have said you are going to be more interested in playing hordes, especially trolls. Trolls are generally very elite models very tough to kill and an overall strong army. Visually they have a lot of character and if you like painting a nice scheme will really bring them out. With that being said I play an infantry heavy protectorate army and in a 500pt game I'll feild over 30models, only 2 being warjacks. In a 500pt game a troll army generall fields 15 models possibly as many as 20 and you'll have 3-4 warbeasts. Typically you'll feild more warbeasts in hordes than you'd normally see in warmachine. They just have better synergy.


Back to warmachine, you can feild jack heavy armies, but infantry generally are far superior. Hordes has better balance, however, the general trend of the game is favoring infantry. I figure once the game has hit critical masss you'll see events that favor half your points spent in warbeasts,warjacks or situations such as this summers rampage event where you need the large base models to score meet victory conditions.

I actually bought the Troll starting box set as I loved the look of the minis. When I read the rule book I was trying to decide between Skorne or Trolls.  The later releases of trolls are kind of disappointing, much more cartoony and GW-ish than I was expecting.  I was hoping they would be really savage and primitive...the troll with a machine gun on his back really kills that look for me.  I could always just refuse to play with those models I suppose.  Do you have any thoughts on Skorne?  I have to say that the minis for Circle are amazing.  Everyone of them is appealing...cept the master Warpwolf sculpt.  hehehe   I get the idea from reading the boards that Circle is about finesse.  and I assume that Cryx is the same way?  The Protectorate also caught my eye, the warjacks are great pieces but the infantry looks great also, very characterful.  Could you give me a summary of their strong points?

If anyone else wants to chime in feel free! hehehe

Protectorate: Denial and attrition. When your troops die, there's usually a way to
build a protectorate army so that there's some kind of temporary benefit. Denial comes
from their choir making it impossible to target their warjacks with some abilities. Protectorate
is a slow army, relatively speaking, but they're my favorite army to play. What I liked
best about them was not having to rely on multiple units of the same type. Protectorate
armies seem to do well with combined forces. They're also the army with long range
deviation guns through their Redeemer warjack and Deliverers unit.

Cirle is a finesse army that can be terrain reliant. Those new Reeves with the double
crossbows? They can shoot THROUGH woods. The Tharn Ravagers can charge
through woods too.

They're fast and have a nice teleportation unit called the shifting stones. I haven't
played with them as much, however, since the League is strictly for Warmachine.

Infantry armies far superior ? *grins*
I love playing against those, nothing like seeing 15 models per turn blow up ;-)

Its all about the metagame. Take into account you could run into swarms of infantry and its actually pretty easy to defeat them.

Btw , I play Cygnar, maybe they have it easier with infantry swarms though.

As you can tell I am new to these games.  I take it your Warjacks have an easy time dealing with massed infantry?  I have a feeling that my opponents will play infantry heavy.  What is it about Cygnar that makes them competitive in general and against infantry? How do Warbeasts compare with Warjacks when dealing with Warmachine infantry?  Again I am leaning towards Hordes but my friends will probably play a Warmachine faction. 

A friend of mine is thinking of starting and is interested in LoE or Circle.  Another forum mentioned that Legion of Everblight can do everything Circle can do but better.  Comments?  Also, I am interested in the PROs of a a Skorne Army.  I am all but decided on Trolls but I would like to hear some comments on Skorne.  "I hate playing against Skorne because of..."

The problem with infantry swarms get compounded by the present of Alexia
in the enemy's ranks. She turns living killed models into zombies.

Interestingly, Circle can really punish infantry heavy lists, especially with Krueger and a Warden or two! Add in some Gators, and they have beats multi-wound infantry that aren't so fragile as ravagers (though ravagers are also sweet and can destroy lighter infantry). The whole EB>Circle was true prior to Evolution. However, Circle may just be at the top of the pack now.

If you like smaller, elite forces, Legion (shredders+WBeasts), Skorne (Paingivers+beasts, maybe Cetraadi), Trolls, and Circle all work. WM tends to be more infantry based (ironically) due to focus management, but Darius loves his 'jacks.

I suggest hopping over to the PP forums and peering at the strategy section- they discuss major trends in faction playstyle.

Any of them can to a certain degree, although I think menoth is probably least able to do it well.

I play cryx and one of the most brutal lists around is one full of bane knights/thralls and led by goreshade. These are probably the most skilled/powerfull troops in the game. You can also run a pretty effective jack heavy list with terminus (need some fodder for sure but definitely no horde needed). Also the basic assassination list is mostly jacks, piddly little jacks for sure but they aren't horde lists.

I've been playing Trollbloods since Hordes released and love them. They deal exceptionally well with infantry heavy lists, Madrake's feat, for example, and the Dire Troll blitzer are two fine example of infantry killers. (Not to mention scatter gunners)

To answer your question about infantry vs big models. Warmachine players have seemed to migrate toward more high infantry lists. This is ok in WM because your caster is still poweful without jacks.

In Hordes, you CAN field an infantry heavy list, but it is tricker because warbeasts are needed to give fury to your caster AND each warbeast provides a new animus, which increases your 'spell list'.

It also has been my experience that Hordes armies are exceptional in killing infantry, nearly all of them do it VERY well. I think this is, in part, to force the WM players to reconsider infantry heavy forces when there may be a hordes player in their tourney or league. It gives some incentive to making a good balance between jacks and infantry.

In any case, Privateer Press's games have somehow worked their way in my life from an interesting side game to my first love in table top wargaming. The more you play the more depth you discover, and the more you want to try again.

Welcome to a new world... happy gaming!!!

Thank you all for your answers I have been hanging around the main PP forums a bit and managed to play my first game last night.  I had to drive 1 1/2 hours to get there...but it was great once I arrived. I planned to use my Troll battle force set but my opponent was playing Skorne and I really was curious about them.  I used minis from his set and it was Skorne Vs. Skorne.  It was a great learning experience.  I re-read the rule book and it was all much clearer.  The only problem now is that I understand it, love it and want to play more of it but I cant decide on an army now (that and having noone in my area to play against!). hehehe.  Congrats to PP for making genuinly unique factions. I think I will probably end up going with:

1. Trolls (wish some of the units were more feral looking, more spears fewer machine guns strapped to trolls)

2. Skorne (they are really cool but utilize more infantry than I thought. I would fear that I would make cookie cutter lists with them)

3. Cryx/Protectorate (Cryx models are just cool and yes the Knights look impressive.  Protectorate, I'm not a religious man but I am a big fan of a strong army theme and the designs of the Warjacks just blow me away.)

I have more time to paint than play so asthetics also play a factor in choosing an army.  Thanks again guys.

 

PS. Anyone live near Macon Georgia USA?

Posted By UnInformed on 09/19/2007 9:54 PM

PS. Anyone live near Macon Georgia USA?

I know it's a bit of a drive, but we have a good group here in Duluth. In fact we're having a tournament this weekend, 9/29.

Here's a link for the info -> http://www.tabletop-wargames.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3521

I haven't been to Macon in a while. I hear the Macon Whoopee hockey team changed their name. So sad. We took road trips down to see 'em every once in a while when I was at GIT. Ah.... college.....

I may be biased here (who isn't?), but sounds like to me that you're looking for (in WM at least) Cygnar. The fact that on a piece by piece basis, Cygnar cost more point wise than most of the other factions speak of highly skilled, elite troops. The peak of QUALITY jacks come from Cygnar. Tough jacks are Khador, last year's model is definatly Minoth, although they are slowly catching up with Cygnar. Cryx, I'm still wondering why they're WM and not Hoardes...

Cygnar is all about precision strikes, with one of the best army speeds in WM. We aren't the toughest, but we CAN be one of the best at denial and terrain management. Check them out.