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I've only ever played Warhammer 40k and Warmachine/Hordes.

I am definitely of the opinion that Warmahordes is more balanced than 40k due to the aforementioned nature of 'tiers'.

Is this really a well-balanced game in comparison to any of those other games out there (like Kings of War or Mercs or Infinity)?

There are a few bad match ups, and at low 11-15 point range the game can get a little unbalanced. However you'll never find really bad match ups, where one army is destined to lose before the game even starts like you would if you put down an all melee Dark Eldar army against flyer spam Necrons in 6th edition.

For example in my local Journeyman league I played a battlegroup game that was

Me:*
Kara Sloan
Defender
Hunter
[Please note I chose to run 2 points down for the first week of the Journeyman league so I could afford Rienholdt and a Minuteman week 2]

Him:
Vlad1
Decimator
Kodiak

He ran Vlad1 with windwall activated so that I couldn't shoot his army with my Defender or Hunter basically negating my entire army. IE my almost purely ranged shooty army could not shoot. This is by definition a bad match up.

So what I did is position Kara so he couldn't charge her.

He feated and charged both of my 'jacks almost killing them both; each had about 5 health left at the end of turn 2.

He though he had the game in the bag.

However I popped my feat, moved up shot him with Kara. Activated my Defender, tried to move him out of melee range, but the free strike killed him. Activated my Hunter, who is immune to free strikes, moved him out of melee range, shot the Decimator and thanks to her feat was able to get a second shot off with Kara assassinating Vlad.

So even in a "bad" matchup where most of your army isn't even a threat it is still possible to win.

Aftermath. wrote:
Coming from a 40K background (expert level), .

"expert level"

Aftermath. wrote:
Coming from a 40K background (expert level), .

Er, what?

The game isn't balanced. It will never be balanced. There are stand out casters and units. Optimal builds? None that I can think of, but there are many synergistic templates it might be wise to follow with certain Warcasters/Warlocks. Privateer Press actively try to a reasonable extent to balance units. Some overpowered units might recieve hard counters, underpowered units might recieve unit attatchments or other synergistic figures to enhance their original purpose. If thatls your preferred style of balancing a tabletop game then you can pick up Warmachine, Hordes, or the myriad of other game systems that operate in this manner.

Like all games however its not for everyone. There might be other reasons the game is unappealing to you, which is perfectly fine. I struggle to play the game due to the PP is best attitude kindly displayed by some posts above me, or by the hardcore page 5 rule applications.Maybe your friends are coming on too strong or you simply don't want to move on from 40k?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, I can't see anything worth changing radically enough to warrant a new edition just yet.

I think they need to redo two holds or otherwise give light jacks like the vigilant a purpose again (since they changed it so you cant hold a colossal with a light or something stupid)

Zond wrote:
The game isn't balanced. It will never be balanced. There are stand out casters and units. Optimal builds? None that I can think of, but there are many synergistic templates it might be wise to follow with certain Warcasters/Warlocks. Privateer Press actively try to a reasonable extent to balance units. Some overpowered units might recieve hard counters, underpowered units might recieve unit attatchments or other synergistic figures to enhance their original purpose. If thatls your preferred style of balancing a tabletop game then you can pick up Warmachine, Hordes, or the myriad of other game systems that operate in this manner

Just because there are some standout casters/units etc doesn't mean the game is not balanced. It will never be 100% perfect on all things and a lot of "balance" is just perceptions. I think your next statement about optimal builds is more indicative of if the game is balanced. Synergy is definitely important and that is the intention of the developers.

I've also noticed that some "power" casters/units etc vary from person to person and meta to meta. And generally these "power" casters generally only make a noticeable difference at the highest levels of play. Between your buddies and at your LGS it is usually more about skill and knowledge than what you are playing with.

garf wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, I can't see anything worth changing radically enough to warrant a new edition just yet.

I think they need to redo two holds or otherwise give light jacks like the vigilant a purpose again (since they changed it so you cant hold a colossal with a light or something stupid)

I disagree, I can't see a tiny little jack holding a colossal. But heck just the strength check would be hard enough to role.

 Mordekiem wrote:

Zond wrote:
The game isn't balanced. It will never be balanced. There are stand out casters and units. Optimal builds? None that I can think of, but there are many synergistic templates it might be wise to follow with certain Warcasters/Warlocks. Privateer Press actively try to a reasonable extent to balance units. Some overpowered units might recieve hard counters, underpowered units might recieve unit attatchments or other synergistic figures to enhance their original purpose. If thatls your preferred style of balancing a tabletop game then you can pick up Warmachine, Hordes, or the myriad of other game systems that operate in this manner

Just because there are some standout casters/units etc doesn't mean the game is not balanced. It will never be 100% perfect on all things and a lot of "balance" is just perceptions. I think your next statement about optimal builds is more indicative of if the game is balanced. Synergy is definitely important and that is the intention of the day.

Yeah, exactly what I said then. The game will never be 100% balanced, people make mistakes after all. It also has stand out units, but the designers try their best, like most games out there. It's essentially Magic: The Gathering with miniatures. Each expansion brings new combinations, some better or worse than others.

 darefsky wrote:

garf wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, I can't see anything worth changing radically enough to warrant a new edition just yet.

I think they need to redo two holds or otherwise give light jacks like the vigilant a purpose again (since they changed it so you cant hold a colossal with a light or something stupid)

I disagree, I can't see a tiny little jack holding a colossal. But heck just the strength check would be hard enough to role.

But a light holding a heavy makes sense. They should allow locks on any size model from any size model. The strength difference will make it not a big deal anyway. Colossal would have a very low chance of getting locked in the first place and they could easily break it.

Otherwise all those lights with two open fists are basically pointless for their power attack potential.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 darefsky wrote:

garf wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, I can't see anything worth changing radically enough to warrant a new edition just yet.

I think they need to redo two holds or otherwise give light jacks like the vigilant a purpose again (since they changed it so you cant hold a colossal with a light or something stupid)

I disagree, I can't see a tiny little jack holding a colossal. But heck just the strength check would be hard enough to role.

But a light holding a heavy makes sense. They should allow locks on any size model from any size model. The strength difference will make it not a big deal anyway. Colossal would have a very low chance of getting locked in the first place and they could easily break it.

Otherwise all those lights with two open fists are basically pointless for their power attack potential.

I agree with what you are saying. As is you can still use your lights to throw small based models into the enemy to knock them down. Works wonders on high def casters......

 darefsky wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 darefsky wrote:

garf wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, I can't see anything worth changing radically enough to warrant a new edition just yet.

I think they need to redo two holds or otherwise give light jacks like the vigilant a purpose again (since they changed it so you cant hold a colossal with a light or something stupid)

I disagree, I can't see a tiny little jack holding a colossal. But heck just the strength check would be hard enough to role.

But a light holding a heavy makes sense. They should allow locks on any size model from any size model. The strength difference will make it not a big deal anyway. Colossal would have a very low chance of getting locked in the first place and they could easily break it.

Otherwise all those lights with two open fists are basically pointless for their power attack potential.

I agree with what you are saying. As is you can still use your lights to throw small based models into the enemy to knock them down. Works wonders on high def casters......

it doesn't work most of the time because the light doesn't have the str to get the distance to the caster.
I agree that colossals shouldn't be locked by lights, heavies should, the problem is, if i remember right, that you can't move after breaking a lock, so a light in your back arc can just relock you turn after turn and you can't do anything about it besides kill it.
also colossals should be able to slam and throw other colossals, just because!

The issue that caused that Errata was;


Abs
Raek
Playing God


Raek gets behind the Colossal, arm locks. Abs Blight Fields the Stormwall (Not really needed but fun to stack). At the start of the next turn, it must first break the lock (which it does automatically with its strength). However, it cannot move or turn to face the Raek and it doesn't have virtuoso so its activation is dead now unless it was in melee range of something else. Even then, it must spend Focus (which it can't because of Blight) to get more attacks out of that arm. Most times though, it just sat there as the Legion player would need to be foolish enough to run something into its front arc.

Zond- I would really like to know how you define a "balanced" game. Do you require absolutely every model to be perfectly mirrored or is it something a bit more reasonable.
The only perfectly balanced game that I can think of is tossing a coin in the air and lettting it fall on a perfectly level non-porous frictionless surface with one person being unable to see the coin while in the air and calling heads or tails.
Considering the various major tourney results in which many different factions have won and the players use many different casters/sorcerors. Include the fact that almost any given game is decided by players planning and counterplanning (ie., auto win/loss is a very rare thing) and I think that Warmahordes is a very balanced game.

The OP is asking if Warmahordes is balanced. I, and others, have stated that it's not perfectly balanced. What game is? I then went on to say the designers and developers try their best to make it balanced, but sometimes units are under or overpowered but it's often addressed through rule update a such as an errata or expansion.

I have never claimed one side is over or underpowered, or that certain combinations are broken. I have pointed out that optimal combinations or synergies exist, which again exist in every game.

I'm struggling to understand what's unreasonable about what I have stated. I never said it was unbalanced. I was simply stating that perfect balance untenable, and tried to establish if some other reason was putting the OP off trying the game.

My apologies if that was what you were trying to achieve.
The way your statement came across to me, is that the game in unbalanced and very biased toward certain builds. You didn't say the game was not perfectly balanced but you did say that the game is not balanced. and sounded pretty much as if it could never be balanced. I'm sure that the OP realizes that no game is ever perfectly balanced.

IMO it is not balanced. Not when there is a faction that Ignores quite a bit of defense tricks and ignores half the board(Legion)
If this game is "Rock Paper Scissors" that you requires multiple lists, you are basically saying it is not Balanced, In a balance game you should be able to beat any faction with any build

See, this is where people mistake what balance actually means.

Balance is not where everything you can possibly take of X value is equal to everything that's also of X value.


Its where everything together balances out. Rock, Paper, Scissors is actually a very good example of a balanced game, and Warmachine fits that model fairly well.

Sure, we can make jokes about how Legion of Everbroke ignores basically all the terrain on the board, but its not actually broken. It is balanced out by their beasts being expensive and fairly fragile.

The Carnivean is quite powerful, but its only arm18 with 30 boxes and it costs 11 points. That's as much as the freakin Avatar of Menoth!


Balance is not being able to beat anything with anything. Its having a complete set of options available to deal with anything that may come at you. Multiple lists allow you to build to specific strengths.

You build a list you really like and are quite skilled with, but its not good against one specific faction for some reason. Thats just how it is. You can use your second list option to build a list that counters the specific weakness of the primary list, and hopefully the other list covers this list's weaknesses as well. Now you have everything covered, you have an answer for each situation.

That is what real balance is. Balance isn't there to save you from yourself, your own list building failings, but rather its simply the big picture. If you fail to take advantage of it that's your fault.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Balance is not where everything you can possibly take of X value is equal to everything that's also of X value.

Absolutely correct. Otherwise, anti-infantry units would always be 'unbalanced,' which doesn't seem right on the face of it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
See, this is where people mistake what balance actually means.

Balance is not where everything you can possibly take of X value is equal to everything that's also of X value.


Its where everything together balances out. Rock, Paper, Scissors is actually a very good example of a balanced game, and Warmachine fits that model fairly well.

Sure, we can make jokes about how Legion of Everbroke ignores basically all the terrain on the board, but its not actually broken. It is balanced out by their beasts being expensive and fairly fragile.

The Carnivean is quite powerful, but its only arm18 with 30 boxes and it costs 11 points. That's as much as the freakin Avatar of Menoth!


Balance is not being able to beat anything with anything. Its having a complete set of options available to deal with anything that may come at you. Multiple lists allow you to build to specific strengths.

You build a list you really like and are quite skilled with, but its not good against one specific faction for some reason. Thats just how it is. You can use your second list option to build a list that counters the specific weakness of the primary list, and hopefully the other list covers this list's weaknesses as well. Now you have everything covered, you have an answer for each situation.

That is what real balance is. Balance isn't there to save you from yourself, your own list building failings, but rather its simply the big picture. If you fail to take advantage of it that's your fault.

I absolutely agree. This is an excellent summary of the concept of balance.

 Grey Templar wrote:
See, this is where people mistake what balance actually means.

Balance is not where everything you can possibly take of X value is equal to everything that's also of X value.

I have a better idea lets make everyone be able to ally with just about everyone else reducing the game to slurry where everyone can take X!

garf wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
See, this is where people mistake what balance actually means.

Balance is not where everything you can possibly take of X value is equal to everything that's also of X value.

I have a better idea lets make everyone be able to ally with just about everyone else reducing the game to slurry where everyone can take X!

Gah! What is it with the Newbies and Horrible attempts at trolling recently? That alsoisn't what balance means.

 Grey Templar wrote:
See, this is where people mistake what balance actually means.

Balance is not where everything you can possibly take of X value is equal to everything that's also of X value.


Its where everything together balances out. Rock, Paper, Scissors is actually a very good example of a balanced game, and Warmachine fits that model fairly well.

Sure, we can make jokes about how Legion of Everbroke ignores basically all the terrain on the board, but its not actually broken. It is balanced out by their beasts being expensive and fairly fragile.

The Carnivean is quite powerful, but its only arm18 with 30 boxes and it costs 11 points. That's as much as the freakin Avatar of Menoth!


Balance is not being able to beat anything with anything. Its having a complete set of options available to deal with anything that may come at you. Multiple lists allow you to build to specific strengths.

You build a list you really like and are quite skilled with, but its not good against one specific faction for some reason. Thats just how it is. You can use your second list option to build a list that counters the specific weakness of the primary list, and hopefully the other list covers this list's weaknesses as well. Now you have everything covered, you have an answer for each situation.

That is what real balance is. Balance isn't there to save you from yourself, your own list building failings, but rather its simply the big picture. If you fail to take advantage of it that's your fault.

Very well said, sir!

I still wanna know what expert level 40K is!

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

garf wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
See, this is where people mistake what balance actually means.

Balance is not where everything you can possibly take of X value is equal to everything that's also of X value.

I have a better idea lets make everyone be able to ally with just about everyone else reducing the game to slurry where everyone can take X!

Gah! What is it with the Newbies and Horrible attempts at trolling recently? That alsoisn't what balance means.

I think he was being sarcastic regarding 40K's table of allies...

Aftermath. wrote:
Okay, answer this:

Are there bad matchups in this game. Faction vs faction wise?

short answer: yes.

long one: I play mainly Warmahordes, it is the game (among the ones I've tried, and they're a lot) that I like the most. I feel it pretty balanced, and most important, I feel that where some unbalance arise it's because it's almost impossible to balance everything in a so complex and rich of option game, not for selling needs. This said even here there are subpar miniatures, and top tier lists, BUT it's also very true that nothing is so unbalanced at the point that the skill difference between player doesn't count anymore. So I honestly feel this is the best game available on the market (for my tastes and needs, ofcourse), far superior (again for my tastes and needs) in every aspect to 40K but one: the bad matchup is here more influent than in 40K. apart the obvious fact that *generally speaking* in any game the more you specialize your list (or your deck, or whatever), the more you'll be influenced by mactchups (in a good or bad way) and the more you keep your list versatile, the more you 'll be able to ignore matchup (but also never having a crushing win or loss), apart this, in Warmahordes the matchup is more influent than in WH40K, imho.

Please, keep in mind that the above is my thought and feelings about the game, don't jump at my throat =)
Also, even with this, I still feel this is the best, most fun and rewarding game to play: the rules are so well thought and developed, the skill of the players are so influent, that widely compensate for a bad matchup.

 Gabbi wrote:
the bad matchup is here more influent than in 40K. apart the obvious fact that *generally speaking* in any game the more you specialize your list (or your deck, or whatever), the more you'll be influenced by mactchups (in a good or bad way) and the more you keep your list versatile, the more you 'll be able to ignore matchup (but also never having a crushing win or loss), apart this, in Warmahordes the matchup is more influent than in WH40K, imho.

I disagree, I've watched games in 40k (and even played a few myself), where the matchup was so bad that there was literally nothing that one of the players could do to influence the outcome of the game. I've never saw anything of that type in WMH.

I think the imbalances in warmahordes are such that they simply provide the capacity for greater or lesser shenanigans- meaning players must know how to exploit the units for them to be powerful. As opposed to 40k, where the broken units are basically easy mode.

Just yesterday I fought a Harbinger list that had the covenant of Menoth and Errants against my PKreoss list. I got destroyed. Eg of a game where one list dominates another list, but if I had taken something different, than it becomes a different game altogether.

asianavatar wrote:
Just yesterday I fought a Harbinger list that had the covenant of Menoth and Errants against my PKreoss list. I got destroyed. Eg of a game where one list dominates another list, but if I had taken something different, than it becomes a different game altogether.

Why? It could just as easily be construed as an example of you having been outplayed... What were the elements in his list / tactics that gave you the most trouble? What was your list? What did you do? How / why did you loose?

Blaming your list selection or matchup without any critical thinking behind it just ensures that you'll never become a better player.