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On learning Privateer Press games:

I think that the ruleset for the most part is fairly easy to learn and understand, it's getting the nuances down that takes practice and time.

In Warmachine and Hordes, you activate and complete each model/unit's actions in full before you move on to the next model/unit. There isn't anything like the movement phase in Warhammer, where the entire army moves before doing anything else. That means that if you're not careful, you can make mistakes during play because it's possible to forget to cast crucial spells/buffs on things before they activate.

Order of activation is important, and you can use it to your advantage.

I'll take an example from one of my games a few weeks ago, and try to be as concise as possible.

I have a warlock that can cast a spell called Warpath. The spell is an upkeep spell that lets you move one of your warbeasts 3" in any direction once per turn whenever one of your other models kills an enemy model. I had the spell in play, and one of my warbeasts, a Gnarlhorn Satyr, was standing behind a hedge. That means he wouldn't be able to charge across it. (You can move across linear obstacles as long as your base can clear them completely, but you can't charge across them without special rules.) I used one of my infantry units to charge and kill some of my opponent's models. This triggers Warpath, and allowed the Satyr to walk across the hedge. I then activated the Satyr and used it to charge at my opponent's big warbeast.

Had I not been paying attention, it would have been easy to activate my models in the wrong order, and the Satyr wouldn't have been able to do anything that turn.

It's interactions like that which make Warmachine and Hordes really interesting games to play, because each and every list has the possibility to pull moves like that, and it forces you think ahead a bit and plan your next moves.

Mr. Grey wrote:
I have a warlock that can cast a spell called Warpath. The spell is an upkeep spell that lets you move one of your warbeasts 3" in any direction once per turn whenever one of your other models kills an enemy model. I had the spell in play, and one of my warbeasts, a Gnarlhorn Satyr, was standing behind a hedge. That means he wouldn't be able to charge across it. (You can move across linear obstacles as long as your base can clear them completely, but you can't charge across them without special rules.) I used one of my infantry units to charge and kill some of my opponent's models. This triggers Warpath, and allowed the Satyr to walk across the hedge. I then activated the Satyr and used it to charge at my opponent's big warbeast.

Had I not been paying attention, it would have been easy to activate my models in the wrong order, and the Satyr wouldn't have been able to do anything that turn.

By special rules I'm guessing you meen pathfinder right?

I've been looking at Skorne for a while now and always wanted to get some ideas. Now with the themed forces and the bonuses, are they more effective in game than wanting to just take snippings from different units with no theme bonus in mind?

Metsuri wrote:
I think that the cryx are actually one of the easiest factions to learn. You have to put the list together correctly, but there are less activation order problems than in Menoth, the units tend to be self supporting like khadors and you don't need the combined arms like Cygnar. Of course winning constantly requires practice, but they are not the most difficult faction to learn. I would focus on checking the warcasters and looking at one that is more clear cut and not go for the more complex ones at first.

Good to know! Depending on how I manage my cash, I may look into picking up their Battle Box and one or two additional miniatures sometime over the next month or so. How does the Warcaster that comes with the Battle Box stand up against others in the line, and what would be a good additional purchase to make to add onto the contents?

Kurgash wrote:I've been looking at Skorne for a while now and always wanted to get some ideas. Now with the themed forces and the bonuses, are they more effective in game than wanting to just take snippings from different units with no theme bonus in mind?

No, not necessarily. While they do confer bonuses and are really nice if you want a background oriented army the bonuses do not make them necessarily better. If you build a list that just so happens to match someones theme list then good on you. Otherwise you're robbing yourself of a lot of options usually.

Metsuri wrote:
Good to know! Depending on how I manage my cash, I may look into picking up their Battle Box and one or two additional miniatures sometime over the next month or so. How does the Warcaster that comes with the Battle Box stand up against others in the line, and what would be a good additional purchase to make to add onto the contents?

I'm not sure about what to add in particular as I don't play cryx, there is however a unit that just regnerate that are insane. If I were you, the next thing I would buy in any faction after the Battle Box is the faction deck. On the second question, the caster from the Cryx Battle Box, I think it's Deneghra, is absolutely amazing. She is one of the best casters in the game in many peoples view, and most certainly in my view the best Battle Box caster. To add another rule to this guide, I'll talk about feats.

Feats: Every caster has what's called a feat, it's a one shot ability that can be used once per game, they are basically the game changers.

Deneghra's deat for example, is the main thing that makes her so powerful. Simply put, it debuffs every stat of all enemy models within I think 12" of her for one round. It is amazing anyway, but additionally to that, with a reduced speed models cannot charge, which makes them doing anything much turn extremely difficult.

To sum it up, don't worry about how the Cryx caster fares against others, she's fine.
As an additional note, I thought I'd point out that the Cryx box is larger than others, with a total of I think 14 points. The Legion of Everblight box is similar with I thik 13 points.

-scarskull5

Whoa, sounds like you actually get a really nice deal with the Battle Box. Now I'm seriously interested in starting up a Cryx force sometime in the future once I get a little cash. Very cool, thanks!

The 3 stages to Deneghra

1. I keep dying! I cant kill anything! wtf!
2. Huh. I cant believe i pulled that off
3. I win again. Why do I feel dirty?

while I am exaggerating a bit, a well constructed denny list is tough to fight against. Almost every faction out there focuses on making their stuff better

Denny makes everything the opponent has on the table stupid

she takes a lot of finesse though but once those pieces click into place...

infinite_array wrote:

Bakerofish wrote:The 3 stages to Deneghra

1. I keep dying! I cant kill anything! wtf!
2. Huh. I cant believe i pulled that off
3. I win again. Why do I feel dirty?

while I am exaggerating a bit, a well constructed denny list is tough to fight against. Almost every faction out there focuses on making their stuff better

Denny makes everything the opponent has on the table stupid

she takes a lot of finesse though but once those pieces click into place...

The 4 steps for any Cryx player:

1. Assemble models.
2. Play game.
3. Win.
4. Begin another army, as your friends and fellow gamers no longer wish to play against you.

Oh, come on. Cryx aren't that hard. Now let's talk about retribution....

WarmaHordes does have a transition from Warhammer 40k in a few areas:

I am just starting Warmachine, (6 games under my belt so far and just got my first two wins) -

As others have stated the "Activation" stage is important to learn and understand and is the most different. Also remember that turns are one side only for things like melee - (you attack -> end turn then on the the opponents turn he attacks. Not like 40k where both sides punch each other per turn).

Selecting what goes first and planning out your moves is very important. Warmachines is more like chess then 40k because you really do need to plan ahead - (example: how much focus do I give this Warjack and how much do I need for spells? Will I charge and what is in the way or what do I need to move first.......)

Some of that of course happens in 40k, but this is per model that you decide. I have had a hard time remembering to allocate focus, then pick a unit + move/charge + attack/shoot as I often try to move everything before I even allocate focus.

Hordes uses Fury which works a little different, but not enough to throw you. I actually plan to have a couple of Warmachine and a couple of Hordes armies.

I think it might be worthwhile to point out the information around PP's business practices and behavior.

1) PP has out and out stated what factors they claim go into a model's price. Quantity of material used, number of pieces to be cast, number of models expected to be sold (a model they don't expect to sell many of has a harder time recouping than a high volume mini). In general PP has been pretty darn good about this. When prices go up, you often see the owner get on the forums and explain it, often leading to stuff like posting charts of tin prices over time. Is he telling the absolute truth? I can't rightly say, but I don't think he is telling absolute lies and he is at least attempting to explain his side to his customers. I know that I've always felt like I was treated fairly by the company.

2) PP makes an effort to protect independent retailers from PP. The PP web store only sells bits and special odds and ends like alternate version sculpts. They do this because they have explicitly stated that they do not wish to compete with or harm independent retailers. For a fairly long time you literally couldn't get a subscription to No Quarter magazine (PP's version of White Dwarf), and the reason PP gave was that they wanted you to purchase a copy at your local retailer. Eventually PP folded and offered NQ subscriptions due to it not always being practical for all their customers to get them from local retailers.

3) PP has stated flat out that they never want to "un-support" a model. When they switched from 1st edition to 2nd edition, it was never an option to cut any models from the system. If anything, the new edition of the rules re-tuned the models to the point that you had more models that you really wanted to play with, and the other models were at least viable. When I switched from MK1 to MK2, it felt like my model collection got bigger and better.

4) PP is privately owned. They have no legal obligation to their share holders, and they don't switch vision. Matt Wilson does what he wants to do. In the Apotheosis expansion they included "artisan" warcasters and warjacks with Darius, Karchev, The Harbinger, Terminus, The Thunderhead, The Behemoth, The Avatar of Menoth, and The Deathjack. The models are crazy detailed and take a lot of modeling and painting skill to finish. They did that simply because they wanted to and thought it would be awesome even though it created some issues.

5) PP likes to talk to customers. You can go to the painting forums and ask the studio painters how they painted something. Their fluff/lore writer often answers lore questions on the forums and gives background on the issue. Their rules writers were on the forums explaining some of their decisions on a couple models during the MK2 switchover.

6) They have a VERY good rules forum where you can get official set in stone answers to issues. This isn't random customer service which-ever-way-the-wind-blows answers either, you get a proper and consistent answer and if they don't know they have the means to go ask the designers.

Has PP made mistakes? Yes, yes they have. Off the top of my head I can point out that in their paint line they couldn't get a good formulation for several of their metallic paints and they sometimes became gloppy and people complained. PP stopped producing those paints and they haven't said if those colors are gone for good or they are trying to re-formulate them. It sucks if you used one of those metallics on your army. We don't know why they are mum on the issue, but the lack of response is mostly highlighted by the fact that they are usually rather good communicators. I'm sure that isn't the only mistake they've made.

No company or product is perfect, but PP has worked pretty hard to earn a reputation of being at least reasonably fair and respectful towards their customers.

I think an overview of the Mercenaries/Minions should be given as they do have some unique army options new players may like. I have a Mercenary pirate army that has some fun synergy and cool models in it. There's also the dwarf army with warjacks only they can use and several other fun themes. On the Minions side they have a mutant pig army, an alligator army, and a Dr. Frankenstein type caster. Not too sure how those themes are, but they are worth bringing to a new player's attention as an option to play. Perhaps one of these themes appeal where another "big" faction doesn't.

Another issue that should be brought up is figuring out how to build/grow your force one you chose a faction. For those that have it the battle box is a good choice to start. But where do you go from there? Or what do you do if you don't want to use the box or don't have one? There are a lot of choices.

One other thing I'm curious about is the battle boxes for Warmachine and Hordes from the site. Of course I'm tempted by the tshirt. Are all of those kits all metal when you buy them from the site? I quite like the idea of big metal models for my starter force, be them robots or animals.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Category:Building_a_Warmachine_Army

The Hordes army building articles about the war packs are rather empty. Also I'm still wondering on the info about the boxes on the site, whether they're all metal or not.

Besides weight, is there any disadvantage to the metal models? Never really got into that when learning about 40k and my HQ from my SW army is still unpainted.

Very helpful link there, malfred. Looks like the next thing I get is the rulebook for Warmachine, I'm officially interested in picking up a Cryx army sometime this summer. Hopefully I'll be able to find enough time to play and paint.

Portaljacker wrote:The Hordes army building articles about the war packs are rather empty. Also I'm still wondering on the info about the boxes on the site, whether they're all metal or not.

Older sets were all Metal, but now PP has changed to resin. If you really want the metal sets however I'm sure you'll be able to find them on eBay or something, I'm fairly sure they were from the year 2008.
I however, actually prefer the resin sets. Whilst you still have to use superglue to put them together, they are a lot lighter, which makes transport easier. Also I think it makes them more resistant to breaking if I drop them or anything, as there isn't as much wait trying to break off as such.

All of the main faction starters are resin plastic for Warmachine. The discontinued Merc starters are metal. All of the Hordes starters are metal.

As this is a thread inspired by disgruntled GW players switching to Warmachine/Hordes, I think it's also worth pointing out that the plastics that PP are using in their kits are nothing like the plastics GW uses.

The plastics composition is harder and more like working with resin, and you can't use plastic cement on the pieces but must use super glue. Just so you know, should you pick up one of the all-plastic Warmachine starter boxes.

I am not disgruntled........ I still like and play 40k. I just think that the game play for WarmaHordes is better overall and I like that Privateer Press is for the most part, "Made in America".

Da-Rock wrote:I am not disgruntled........ I still like and play 40k. I just think that the game play for WarmaHordes is better overall and I like that Privateer Press is for the most part, "Made in America".

USA! USA! USA!

I still can't believe people actually chanted that non-ironically.

scarskull5 wrote:

Portaljacker wrote:The Hordes army building articles about the war packs are rather empty. Also I'm still wondering on the info about the boxes on the site, whether they're all metal or not.

Older sets were all Metal, but now PP has changed to resin. If you really want the metal sets however I'm sure you'll be able to find them on eBay or something, I'm fairly sure they were from the year 2008.
I however, actually prefer the resin sets. Whilst you still have to use superglue to put them together, they are a lot lighter, which makes transport easier. Also I think it makes them more resistant to breaking if I drop them or anything, as there isn't as much wait trying to break off as such.

Metsuri wrote:All of the main faction starters are resin plastic for Warmachine. The discontinued Merc starters are metal. All of the Hordes starters are metal.

That's good for Hordes stuff, I like the Circle box, they're the only of the four I really think I like the look of for Hordes.

For Warmachine the pages say metal battle group but it doesn't have product numbers for me to check. I may just call customer service and ask during the week, or email like a modern person.

For anyone interested. The legion battlebox is one of the best buys in there. It has 4 shredders, these are pretty much the most used model in the faction. Carnivean is one of the hardest hitting beasts in the game too. And pLylyth is just a charm :3 Just add a deathstalker to the list and your done for 15 points.

Bakerofish wrote:we need this stickied

2nd , sticky worthy!

We've made this an article for now, and there's a link in
one of the stickies in the forum as it is. We're avoiding stickies
as much as possible.

I haven't gotten a chance to actually sit down and read the rulebook yet ( ing reading for my courses cutting into my time... grumble), but as I was flipping through I noticed that there are epic versions and standard versions of some warcasters. Are the two versions separate models, or are they the same model with different rules?

I was in the closest FLGS today to play with some guys, and I took a look at the Warmachine stuff they've got there. Not a huge selection at all, pretty much a few blisters of metals and a light and heavy 'jack for the major factions (the new plastic multi-jack kits), but they've got the paperback rulebook and the Cryx starter box (the older one, with the metal miniatures). So it looks like should be set when I want to get started. My only concern is that I've no idea about who plays Warmahordes at this particular FLGS - 40k really is king there right now, since they've got very limited space for both stock and for playing, and not very much stock in any other gaming systems, so I'd likely have to go out of my way to another gaming store that's about an hour away in order to get any games in. Not really a light trip to make with gas as it is, but if I wind up getting the models it'll probably be worth it.

grayshadow87 wrote:I haven't gotten a chance to actually sit down and read the rulebook yet ( ing reading for my courses cutting into my time... grumble), but as I was flipping through I noticed that there are epic versions and standard versions of some warcasters. Are the two versions separate models, or are they the same model with different rules?

Separate models with a different card. Epic casters are different to their Prime counterparts, though not necessarily better.

Having never played Warmahordes before (but looking into it seriously in light of GW's latest shenanigans) I'm a bit confused by the points system - is this correct?

1. You are allowed a maximum number of warcasters based on the size of the game.
2. Each warcaster is free and gives you free points to spend on 'jacks (presumably better 'casters give you fewer points in the interest of game balance?)
3. You then spend the rest of your points allocation on the army as you see fit (within whatever unit-by-unit restrictions apply)


On another point, I am thinking about getting the Cygnar starter box this week and one other purchase. What would be the best 'extra'? I'm looking at trenchers and long gunners as they seem to be the basic PBI to supplement the 'jacks. Is this sensible or just noob dumbness?

Thanks in advance, C_C