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I've been playing Warmachine (Khador) since the release of MK. II. However, my entire gaming group has been into both Hordes and Warmachine since their initial releases.

I've held my own against the group in Warmachine, and even while I was learning the game, I felt I was IN each game...like the chance for victory wasn't THAT far out of reach.

Now that Hordes MK. II has been released, most of the guys in my group have switched over to playing their Hordes factions. I've played three games against Hordes factions, two against the Legion and one against the Skorne and I have yet to feel as if I am even in the hunt. I know that PP advertises the games as being playable against one another, but honestly, I'm finding very few options to deal with what the Hordes factions bring to the table.

The one observation I've made that leads me to believe that Hordes factions are a bit stronger than the Warmachine factions is this...

Each turn, Hordes factions are able to do SOOOOO much more than Warmachine factions. Warcasters are limited by their focus, whereas a Hordes warlock can push his beasts to their limits for a caster kill or scenario win and only ever "risk" frenzy....which is really not that bad.

Secondly, the Warlocks can add to their spell lists - making them more effective - by taking certain beasts and using their animuses (animi?). Again, Warcasters are limited by what is on their cards.

It may be that I am losing so badly because of my lack of familiarity with the Hordes factions, but it just doesn't seem so.

What do the Dakka-ites think? Any suggestions for Khador vs. Hordes (Legion and Skorne in particular)?

Hordes had a field day with me in Mark I. Mark II, I have yet to lose to a Hordes faction in a 1v1 game. Hordes is about risk management. Remove his ability to generate fury or mitigate the risk of running hot.

Focus on crippling or killing beasts first. You cripple his ability to generate fury and transferring damage by doing so. If you try for a fast kill like against a warmachine army, you will fail if they have more than two fury on the caster.

Frenzy is bad. The caster can't use the animus off that beast and it can't force to do additional attacks. Running beasts hot can be bad if they do not have ways of getting that fury off, either by shepherds or paingivers. Take that support out and he will quickly lose control of his beasts. If they generate 10-11 fury / turn and can only leech 6 of it, they're going to be losing control of their beasts quickly. Eating one attack is better than a full set of attacks and chances are you will pull that beast out of position.

By and large, warlocks have less spells on their card so adding the animi from the beasts evens it out.

Depending on what you have available, here's suggestions from what I run with my Khador and does very well against both.

Juggernauts are crucial. They will kill about any warbeast in one turn. Even more fun, use Beast 09 and let him murder every infantry unit that gets near.

Doom Reavers: Charge + Weapon master is usually going to be about 4d6 - 4ish. That's a dead beast.

Yuri + Manhunters. Same as the reavers.

IFP + UA. Get in the middle of the board and sit there at armor 18 and be a tarpit.

Koldun Lords and blizzard are good as well. Blocking LoS is very important if they are the beasts hot. If the beast can't see you, it can't frenzy on you.

You also have to take out the beasts.
Putting a chunk of damage on the heavies and taking out the lights can be crucial.
Its a lot easier to kill the warlock if his beasts are dead.

If the warlock is squishy, going for them can be the better option for taking out the beasts by making them transfer onto stuff you can't hurt easily.
But hitting the lower Def beasts is usually easier than hitting a warlock.

I would target the low def stuff first, then if I have a run, go for the lock, expecting to kill beasts, not the lock.
Each animi they lose hurts, as well as losing a damage soak. And because so many beasts can heal, make sure you finish them off.

So killing the beasts (not all that easy against either the Legion or the Skorne) seems to be the key.

Infantry-heavy WM armies then are almost useless against Hordes? Should I be taking three or four 'jacks to get the job done?

I included Man-O-Wars last game against the Legion and they were just too slow to be effective. My opponent ran away from them when they were close enough to charge, choosing instead to chew up my poor disposable Winter Guardsmen!

Warmachine doesn't need Jacks, Hordes can't operate without beasts

A Hordes caster will start a game with more spells at their disposal thanks to Animi, but Animi can be removed at the source. You can't remove spells from a WM caster by popping a jack (or at all at least at this point). Beasts generally cost more than their jack counterparts, but have weaker stats in terms of armor and boxes. They can usually wreck a heavy jack in a turn thanks to having 4 fury, but one very important feature to remember is that unlike a jack that only needs to be in control at the start of a turn, a beast must constantly be in control range to be forced. This limits the threat range of beasts unless they have a model that can force outside of control (Sheperds for Legion can, but I don't think Skhorne has a way to) or a caster with a pretty considerable control range; meaning Hordes casters usually have to lead from the front.

Always remeber a WM caster will win the attrition game 9 times out of 10. A Hordes caster without beasts is effectively crippled, the only way they can get Fury is to take damage, while a WM caster will regenerate focus every turn. Without beasts the Hordes caster can't do anything to mitigate damage, while the WM caster can camp focus. If all beasts and jacks are dead, the conclusion of the game is usually just waiting to see what desperate last ditch effort the Hordes caster launches before the WM caster murders them.

For Khador I'd reccomend using Strakhov. Strakhov with Supremacy on Beast 09, and some Doom Reavers will easily wreck most beasts on the feat turn thanks to stupid threat ranges and hitting power. Even if you lose 09 and the reavers, getting the beasts out of the way is a worthwhile trade.

StormHalo wrote:Each turn, Hordes factions are able to do SOOOOO much more than Warmachine factions. Warcasters are limited by their focus, whereas a Hordes warlock can push his beasts to their limits for a caster kill or scenario win and only ever "risk" frenzy....which is really not that bad.

Secondly, the Warlocks can add to their spell lists - making them more effective - by taking certain beasts and using their animuses (animi?). Again, Warcasters are limited by what is on their cards.

I played a lot of both Warmachine (WM) and Hordes (HO) in MK1, and just starting up again in MK2 now that the HO books are finally coming out.

Although the two game systems are compatible the styles and strategies are actually quite different. Which means the strategies you have to utilize to defeat a WM army will not work too particularly well against HO armies. Going out on a limb and stereotype the games a bit, so take my generalizations with a grain of salt.

Unlike WM, HO armies derive power from their Warbeasts. As already mentioned, HO gets fury, animus (spells), and hitting power from our beasts, while warjacks taxes the warcaster by sapping away their focus, and dare I say restrict their overall effectiveness. Hence MK1's infamous "InfantryMachine" problems. Of course, they compensated for some of the problems in MK2, by keeping a lot of the powerful Warcaster feats, spells, and increasing the overall effectiveness of warjacks. In toe to toe fights, I would put my money on Warjacks most of the time.

That being said... I still see many WM player heavily depend on "InfantryMachine" tactics. Which is fantastic against other WM armies, but they tend to have more problems against HO armies. As good as Ironfang Pikemen (IFP) are, they still have problems standing toe to toe against heavy warbeasts; beasts will typically have enough fury to get mutliple attacks in, and when/if they frenzy, they can just continue swinging away at your IFP infantry. Back in MK1 there were a few infantry units capable of taking down heavy beasts or jacks solo in one round (Black 13th, Great Bears, etc.), but I don't think they're as feasible in MK2.

I know some people still feel that HO is more powerful than WM, but there's been multiple occasions where I slightly over extended and lost in one round due to Sorscha, Kreoss, Haley, Deneghra, etc. feat.

skrulnik wrote:You also have to take out the beasts.
Putting a chunk of damage on the heavies and taking out the lights can be crucial.
Its a lot easier to kill the warlock if his beasts are dead.

As "skrulnik" mentioned, heavily damage their heavy beasts and KO the light beasts. I will go out on a limb and say that you're chance of winning is directly corolated with the number of remaining beasts your opponent has. Without beasts, your opponent basically has no effective means to generate fury. No transfers or fury makes warlocks sad.

No transfers or fury makes warlocks sad dead.

-Fixed that

Another consideration is the mental load on the player. I play both Skorne and Protectorate, and as esoteric as some of the combos can be for PoM, I find that a bit more concentration is required with hordes. If you aren't careful with your control area in WM, your 'jack can't do much. If you make the same mistake with Hordes, neither your beasts OR your Warlock can do much.
Exploit this fact. If you find yourself unable to effectively smash warbeasts quickly enough, try to force the enemy to overextend himself. This is especially effective against Skorne, as alot of our casters have lower fury, and really require close control to fully use our slow warbeasts.
Example:
pMorghoul+Titan Gladiator 10 inches apart: Titan superslams at 11" with p18(i think)
pMorghoul+Titan Gladiator 11 inches apart: Titan walks up to 4" and punches with p16.

Of course, if you ever face me, forget I told you any of this!

Ya know, I have seen alot of warmachine vs hordes battles and I used to have the same feeling as you. It just seems like their beasts can destroy our jacks so easily, and they can, but after they stack up all that focus, they will quickly lose control of those beasts. I just played my first game vs hordes, a legion player. He was running Thagrosh, typhon, shredder, and a raek. I was at a huge disadvantage because I didnt know what any of their abilities or stats were and he didnt feel like clueing me in on many of them until he used them. I ran Karchev, behemoth, 2x manhunters, and a mechanik squad (15pt list). After the raek pounding my behemoth for 11 points in one round of combat, I proceeded to crush his beasts one after another. He overextended himself and ended up failing two threshold checks, on the shredder and typhon, causing them to try and charge into melee, but falling short. This left typhon open to my fully buffed (unearthly rage) behemoth and two charging manhunters from the flank. Behemoth ended up crushing typhon in two swings, and a manhunter one-shotted the shredder. Lucky on my part because he rolled high on his threshold, but once his beasts were down, he couldnt do anything to stop karchev/behemoth from smashing his skull in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On another note, I saw a merc army of steel heads vs circle. The circle player charged a pureblood warpwolf into a full squad of steelhead halbrediers and took down the entire squad in one round of combat = /. The next turn, it tore apart his entire cavalry squad, and proceeded to rip apart his 4 jacks as well. you cirtainly cannot play against hordes in the same way as you would again warmachine

You know, some throw power attacks could help toss beasts out of control.
Just make sure you have a patsy to take the frenzy on, and you don't leave your caster exposed.

slayer, DJ, and Seether for Cryx can do this well.

I actually garnered myself a win last night against the Skorne, though I would still say I am not entirely convinced about the equality of the two games.

I brought in a 35 pt. list:

Strakhov
Beast 09
Juggernaut
Berzerker
Yuri the Axe
Doom Reavers + Greylord Escort
Widowmakers

My opponent moved Xerxes up in the first turn of the game, protecting his one flank with a Bronzeback, a cyclops and a canoneer while camping no fury. On my second turn, I popped Strakhov's feat, charged a "Superior" Beast 09 in and then used a combination of thresher and focus-bought attacks to knock Xerxes out (the cyclops had enough room around his base for Beast 09 to charge his right side and still reach Xerxes).

I felt a bit cheap, though I DID offer my opponent (and he reviewed) all of my unit cards in a nice organized card sleeve. He should have known that on the feat turn, Beast 09 has a 15" threat range (when buffed by Superiority).

Anyhow, despite the win, I was looking down at the table and wondering how the heck I was going to be able to kill enough beasts to maintain the suggested strategy/battle plan proposed on here...

In short, I still feel as if Warmachine players have an up-hill battle to be fought against the Hordes players...though your suggestions have shown me that we have tools to make that climb a bit easier.

I've been zapped by that same scenario against Strakhov. If you don't know what to expect, he can give some very unpleasant surprises.

StormHalo wrote:
In short, I still feel as if Warmachine players have an up-hill battle to be fought against the Hordes players...though your suggestions have shown me that we have tools to make that climb a bit easier.

That is THE oldest discussion in the game, its been around sence Hordes came out, pretty much.

To counter it, just go look up the tournament results on things like Gencon:
- Hardcore (Cygnar);
- Death Race (Khador);
- Rite of Passage (Skorne);
- Triple Threat (Legion);
- CHAMPIONSHIP (Khador).

And PAX:
- Masters (Khador).

So, if anything we could argue that WM (and Khador) is overpowered in relation to hordes, but we won't do that because its not true. The actual facts are that both games are pretty balanced against each other and it will come down to individual player skill. There are some exceptions to this of course, namelly Retribution, Mercs and Minions ( none of them have the range of options to be considered trully competitive at this point IMO).

So your problem has probably much more to do with your comparative lack of experience playing against Hordes armies than with any real imbalance between the factions.

Beast 09 actually has a 21" threat range in a Strakhov list. Superiority + Whatever the spell is that lets a model full advance whenever a battlegroup model kills something + feat + reach = 21" threat range. Don't see it that often compared to Beast with just SUperiority and the Feat, but it's important to note it can happen.

StormHalo wrote:In short, I still feel as if Warmachine players have an up-hill battle to be fought against the Hordes players...though your suggestions have shown me that we have tools to make that climb a bit easier.

I think a lot of WM players felt this way. Personally, my best remedy is to play a "normal" game, and switch armies with your friend. You'll quickly learn it's not much of a "up-hill battle" but more of a "speed bump".

Historically, WM have always done better at the major tournies. WM is pretty solid, the main reason I play Hordes is because at our FLGS, WM players already outnumber HO, and many of the HO players use Circle for some reason.

KingKodo wrote:I was at a huge disadvantage because I didnt know what any of their abilities or stats were and he didnt feel like clueing me in on many of them until he used them.

Give your opponent a choice, they can either explain things in a few minutes, or have them come back in 20 minutes after you've read all the cards and studied up on their ...

I always get annoyed when players hide information during friendly games. At a tournie, fine... Gloves can come off, but between my friends and I, we usually start off the match with a brief 2 minute, "explain the " session. "This combos with that, and my feat does X, which makes Y uber because of yadda-yadda-yadda."

Personally, I don't find it particularly satisfying when I have a fast win, especially because one of my units have a special rule my opponent didn't know about. I'd much rather explain a little and have a "good game" then a first turn victory where we spent more time setting up than playing.

Ironically, I've found that the people who are willing to explain "the cheese" are often stronger players. A lot of people who hide all the information are usually very dependent upon their "one trick or two trick pony" to win. When it doesn't work (because you've seen it before or their dice flubbs), they over extend (usually on their feat turn) and their game completely falls apart afterwards.

Here's one more thing I find about Hordes more than Warmachine is finding the lynchpin in the army. This is like stealing the Reliant, catching the Enterprise with it's shelds down, and blowing the living hell out of the engineering section, only not monologging about how great you are. What keeps beast or unit keeps the army going? Find it, kill it and you're way ahead in the game. See what they depend on for the first couple turns and hit it hard. This will take some time to build up the ability to do, but once you can spot it...

And it's usually the smaller, faster, weaker-appearing dude that you usually ignore...

If you really, really want to kill Beasts quickly with Khador, run pButcher w/ the Great Bears. Fury + feat allows a single Great Bear to one shot a heavy beast (I lost a Dire Troll Blitzer, Bomber, and Earthborn in a game a while back). Great Bears were hitting on 4s, dealing dice -3 damage with 5 dice and then 4 dice. Thats only 5 points too, so for the rest of the list I would personally mix in a Pair of Destroyers, some Winter Guard w/ UA, and then whatever I was feeling like.

In general, winning vs either system is more ensuring that you get the charge / first strike (if you're using lots of ranged) while limiting your causalities with a protective or ablative screen. Time your feat correctly while also achieving the above, and you'll win more than you lose against any faction.

I wouldn't say hordes factions were stronger than warmachine factions , since both gencon and pax tournaments were won by warmachine faction this year

PhantomViper wrote:So your problem has probably much more to do with your comparative lack of experience playing against Hordes armies than with any real imbalance between the factions.

I don't disagree with that, and the more posts I read in this thread, the more you all are convincing me that the games are more balanced than I originally assumed (or, it's the win over Skorne that is forcing me to turn neutral). It could also be that I am playing against some extremely talented Hordes and Warmachine players.

The more I play against Hordes factions, the more likely I am to rest in the middle of the argument and simply identify the differences (and the strengths and weaknesses) between the systems.

The problem with fury is that, while it's not entirely fair to assume that you'll be able to push each of them as hard as they can due to fury constraints, if you can win the game, then you don't have to worry about what to do with all that fury. Trying to weather an assassination run can be a tricky thing when your opponent is generating two or three times the normal amount they'd be able to

If you've got access to medium-based troops, they make a good screen to block trampling warbeasts. Apart from the "kill the Warbeasts" tactic, I find that anything that helps me keep them away from me for as long as possible to be useful. If it looks like your opponent is setting up for an assassination run, then camp focus, move warjacks in to block charge lanes and/or engage models and generally make it as difficult as possible for the run to work.