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When compared to 40k, how complicated are the Warmachine rules? Personally, I have no problem learning the 40k rules but I'm having difficulty finding "friendly" opponents who have the same grasp for the rules. Warmachine seems to have a player base in my area and it has caught my attention. Thanks in advance.

I'm going to call the rules low in complexity but with a tremendous depth that can cause complex situations to arise. They might appear more complex at first since there are more things you can do. The core mechanics and flow are surprisingly easy to pick up but nothing in warmachine is vanilla, there are always special rules, magic spells, and/or other buffs in play.
One of the key factors to understand is how well structured and concrete the rules are. You are not going to roll a d6 to decide who's right in warmachine. The rules are extraordinarily broad and explicit with strong support from the company to answer questions and maintain errata on any issues that do come up.
I wouldn't say the average warmachine player is smarter than an average 40k player, but they do seem a bit more up for a challenge and accepting of the consequences of not knowing the rules (you get blindsided and stomped). This is going to vary greatly from location to location though.
The Quickstart rules are located at this link: http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/the-game
You will find the core mechanics there with the rules regarding units and terrain omitted. Look them over, proxy a game with a friend, and maybe try to get a demo in at your local gaming location.

haendas wrote:When compared to 40k, how complicated are the Warmachine rules? Personally, I have no problem learning the 40k rules but I'm having difficulty finding "friendly" opponents who have the same grasp for the rules. Warmachine seems to have a player base in my area and it has caught my attention. Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't say the level of complexity is extremely different. The rules are much more clearly written and well defined however, so there is a lot less to figure out or argue about them.

WM/H ruleset is well written and the rules are much tighter than in 40k. I've played 40k for 10+ years and WM/H switch over was really easy.

The rules themselves are pretty easy to get down and once you get some demo games in you'll pick it up very quickly, the complexity of game play comes in with certain rule interactions, order of activations and how to make your army synergize well and effeciently.

Welcome to the game, and hope you enjoy yourself. What faction were you looking at getting into?

I have only played but one game and I found it to be rather easy going as far as rules go.

The thing I like most is almost every model changes the overall army. Changing from a tank list to an assassin list can be as easy as just switching up one model. For me, this was the best part of the rules.

Every time you move 3 inches you must stand on a stool and cluck like a chicken. If you touch a warcaster, you must do 10 push ups. When a squad leader dies, you must recite Corinthians from memory.

The rules aren't horribly more complex, and are much better written. The big difference is, Warmachine has a lot more about compounding both abilities and stats. The first thing I ask when up against an unfamiliar list is, what sort of threat ranges can things get, because the first strike can be brutal.

Personally, I find the game on the slow side (especially because it was originally designed to be on a smaller scale than what they've been emphasizing for the last couple years), and, after playing some more dynamic games recently, have had trouble waiting for my opponent to get through their turn...

Surtur wrote:Every time you move 3 inches you must stand on a stool and cluck like a chicken. If you touch a warcaster, you must do 10 push ups. When a squad leader dies, you must recite Corinthians from memory.

1st or 2nd Corinthians?

spyguyyoda wrote:

Surtur wrote:Every time you move 3 inches you must stand on a stool and cluck like a chicken. If you touch a warcaster, you must do 10 push ups. When a squad leader dies, you must recite Corinthians from memory.

1st or 2nd Corinthians?

THERE'S TWO OF THEM?!?!?!

Surtur wrote:

spyguyyoda wrote:

Surtur wrote:Every time you move 3 inches you must stand on a stool and cluck like a chicken. If you touch a warcaster, you must do 10 push ups. When a squad leader dies, you must recite Corinthians from memory.

1st or 2nd Corinthians?

THERE'S TWO OF THEM?!?!?!

Last time I checked. Don't tell me you've been quoting the wrong one when your squad leader dies...

spiralingcadaver wrote:
Personally, I find the game on the slow side (especially because it was originally designed to be on a smaller scale than what they've been emphasizing for the last couple years), and, after playing some more dynamic games recently, have had trouble waiting for my opponent to get through their turn...

Start playing with timed turns or death clock, this complaint will disappear immediately.

Thanks for the input. From the sound of the responses, I get the impression that the Warmachine rules have good depth but at the same time are well written and well supported, which I'm hoping helps to make the rules a little easier to understand and less likely to result in arguments. Does that sound accurate? I'm not a competitive person by nature, and can easily have just as much fun losing as I can winning, but I'm very much a stickler for following the rules and that has been problematic for me with casual opponents and a convoluted rule set.

hivemind66 wrote:Welcome to the game, and hope you enjoy yourself. What faction were you looking at getting into?

Thanks for the welcome. I've read several of the warmachine articles on dakka but I don't really know what faction I'm leaning towards yet. I enjoy both assault and shooting, but I may enjoy shooting a slight bit more (this slight preference could be related to the function of the 40k game system though, so I'm not really certain it will hold true with Warmachine).

One thing I definitely want to stay away from is armies based on massive numbers. I quickly learned playing my Orks that I do not enjoy dealing with 100+ models on the tabletop.

Pretty much what you said. The rules are concise. It's something revelatory coming from 40k. You'll also have many bad habits to break coming from 40k as well.

As for horde armies, no such thing really. Few units will ever be duplicated and at 35 points, you may be looking at 30 models TOPS in some armies. Usually far less.

I know what you mean haendas, I've had problems due to rules-sticklerness (is that supposed to be hyphenated?), too.

As far as faction goes, I think the first thing you need to figure out if you prefer Warmachine or Hordes. When I started I picked Menoth (which I still love), but I probably wouldn't have picked them up if I had realized Hordes is (virtually) the same game. When figuring out the rules, it's probably best if you learn one of the two systems first before trying to figure out the difference.

Once you decide (steam robots or big monsters), then you can take a look at the different factions either on privateer's website or http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/ if you haven't already. Most factions have access to deadly shooting, so you can't go too wrong.

Edit: if you haven't been to http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/272107.page yet, do it. Then thank Malfred.

Thank you Malfred.

Platuan4th wrote:Start playing with timed turns or death clock, this complaint will disappear immediately.

I definitely respect that, and I did it one game with a friend who was taking insanely long turns, and it sped him up, but generally I find timed turns too high stress for a casual setting.

It's just stuff like one recent game, where I saw my opponent's position at the end of my turn, and had basically forced him to do one avenue, and I thought to myself, "consolidate, deal with the warjack, and feat," which took all of about 1 minute for me to think of, mostly during the time it took me to reposition my back field after everything else had gone.

It took the guy something like 15 minutes of pondering and measuring control and not doing anything, to come to the same conclusion, then act on it (and no, he wasn't new to the game). I'm a decent player, not amazing, but definitely experienced, but it just feels like, 90% of the time, the only exciting bits of Warmachine happen in the 4th+ turns, after all of the attrition has run its course, and the rest is waiting for my opponents to act.

I'm fine with taking your time because it's casual, but I find alternating armies way less fun than alternating pieces. It's just boring. It's like the difference between Risk and Settlers of Catan (or chess, minus the implicit value judgment on strategy etc.). One involves you getting slowly ground down, then retaliating. The other involves relatively quick decisions, since you don't have many pieces in the first place.

Maybe I should go back to Mangled Metal? At least that has a lot less attrition...

spiralingcadaver wrote:

I'm fine with taking your time because it's casual, but I find alternating armies way less fun than alternating pieces. It's just boring. It's like the difference between Risk and Settlers of Catan (or chess, minus the implicit value judgment on strategy etc.). One involves you getting slowly ground down, then retaliating. The other involves relatively quick decisions, since you don't have many pieces in the first place.

I can totally agree with alternating pieces/units > alternating armies. It's part of why AT-43 is my favorite system with Tomorrow's War threatening to replace it.

I haven't been to many other game types of events, but it always
amazes me how well players can and will resolve a rules
dispute without resorting to a d6. I ran a team event last month,
and with four players around a table the end result was fewer
rules disputes rather than more even though the mix of factions
lead to a larger number of rules interactions.

80% of the time, a Press Ganger will tell you that all they have
to say when they're called over to judge, "What does the card
say?" and when the player reads the card aloud they suddenly
see the word that skipped while reading the card silently to
themselves.

Just look at the rules forum here. Anything truly contentious
people end up posting on the PP boards. Here it's, "Answer is
X" followed by posts pointing when the answer isn't X. However,
there's never really a long drawn out dispute of answer is never
x.

I tried to tell them not to call the forum "You Make Da Call," but
it's Dakka Dakka. It's a trademark phrase or something.

Maybe I can convince them to call it "What Does the Card Say?"

Platuan4th wrote:

spiralingcadaver wrote:I can totally agree with alternating pieces/units > alternating armies. It's part of why AT-43 is my favorite system with Tomorrow's War threatening to replace it.

I'll need to look at those, thanks-- I'm finding that I don't care to have the attention span necessary to play alternating armies any more, that is, I'd rather spend my time with alternating pieces systems. I think Dystopian Wars follows a similar system? Any others you can suggest?

spiralingcadaver wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:I can totally agree with alternating pieces/units > alternating armies. It's part of why AT-43 is my favorite system with Tomorrow's War threatening to replace it.

I'll need to look at those, thanks-- I'm finding that I don't care to have the attention span necessary to play alternating armies any more, that is, I'd rather spend my time with alternating pieces systems. I think Dystopian Wars follows a similar system? Any others you can suggest?

Malifaux, Confrontation and in some ways infinity with it's responding mechanic come to my mind.

Here is what you mainly need to know: Everything can and WILL die.

Surtur wrote:Pretty much what you said. The rules are concise. It's something revelatory coming from 40k. You'll also have many bad habits to break coming from 40k as well.

As for horde armies, no such thing really. Few units will ever be duplicated and at 35 points, you may be looking at 30 models TOPS in some armies. Usually far less.

To elaborate in a very general sense lists for a lot of armies despite the details are going to be brining around 1 speedbump/screen unit. 1 Elite or Support unit. 2-3 Solos. A 'light jack (maybe 2) and 2 Heavy jacks. Obviously composition varies a lot but that's sort of what it trends twoards.

Hordes despite the name will trend towards fewer models and more beasts.

I really like the sound of the rules. I'll go over the downloadable starter rules when I get a chance. I'm a little confused about how Warmachine and Hordes interact. From the privateer press website it says that the games are fully compatible. Does this mean that games can be played with a Horde faction against a Warmachine faction?

Yes. They play against each other, they just have a different
core mechanic between generals and warjacks/warbeasts.

Thanks malfred!

Here is a hypothetical follow up question. Say that I pick a Horde faction, I would obviously need the Hordes rulebook and the army book. I imagine it would be helpful to buy the warmachine rulebook, but is it required?

Not required at all.

malfred wrote:Not required at all.

Thanks malfred! I think I'll start by reading the Quick Start Rule Guides for both Warmachine and Hordes, then I'll go through the articles that you have organized here on dakka more thoroughly than my first glance. Thanks again to all for the helpful information.

Choose one of the games and then when you have a handle on that you probably can get most of the other ruleset from the quickstart download.

Download ibodger. Get the quickstart rules. Pick up some models (if you have opponents already, great, if not then get a friend to pick up a box with you). Read the quick start rules and go! Any questions you have, look it up on ibodger.

Seriously, these first few steps helped me and my friend get familiar with the rules very quickly (coming from 40k it wasn't too difficult). You can also obviously pick up the book as well, but while the rules are very literal and straight forward, the book is somewhat poorly designed in workflow, so it's hard to follow it if you're reading it from cover to cover.

Seriously though, the rules for this game are, IMHO, much easier than 40k and less convoluted. There's not really anything left to interpretation and rules disputes are often easily resolved by carefully reading the wording of the rule.