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... is that because fewer people play it, or because it creates fewer arguments than GW games due to its more clear-cut ruleset?

I only started Warmachine a week ago, finished painting my first 'Jack today (a Khador Destroyer) and had a single game vs. a friend who doesn't know the rules too well yet either. It was an awesome game, and while I looked up a lot of rules during the game, there was very little arguing involved.

I really like how the game plays, quick and brutal (probably especially at the massive 5 points level we played at - I had Kreoss, a Crusader and a Repenter, and my opponent fielded Sorsha, the Destroyer and Reinholdt). I haven't quite figured out how to really use the warcaster most efficiently, but I guess that's alright at this stage.

I'm going to have my first "real" game against an experienced WM player tomorrow who is going to field Rhulic Mercs, so if anyone has any hints what to watch out for or general advice, feel free to share. We're going to play at the 15 points level, I'll bring:
- Sorsha,
- the Destroyer,
- 5 Man-o-War Shock Troopers and
- Reinholdt,

I don't really expect to win, but I at least want to try.

Skylifter wrote:... is that because fewer people play it, or because it creates fewer arguments than GW games due to its more clear-cut ruleset?

A little of both. But mostly because PP have their own forums that create a defacto central hub for warmachine discussion.

If your friend brings a solo called Thor Steinhammer, try to kill him early. he can do some amazing support actions. Also watch out for slams from a basher and try not to be charged by anything with the strength of granite spell. You're going to want to engage early, but on your own terms.

Dais wrote:

Skylifter wrote:... is that because fewer people play it, or because it creates fewer arguments than GW games due to its more clear-cut ruleset?

A little of both. But mostly because PP have their own forums that create a defacto central hub for warmachine discussion.

If your friend brings a solo called Thor Steinhammer, try to kill him early. he can do some amazing support actions. Also watch out for slams from a basher and try not to be charged by anything with the strength of granite spell. You're going to want to engage early, but on your own terms.

That's possibly true, I only found that board myself, and it seems awesome.

So I basically need to smash them in CC but need to get the charge, right? Well, I'll try that then. Sounds fun!

Skylifter wrote:... is that because fewer people play it, or because it creates fewer arguments than GW games due to its more clear-cut ruleset?

Its complicated!

fewer people play it than 40k in general but its not the whole story. Warmachine/Hordes is very much the "other game", and PP very much the "young upstart" in this industry.

If you'd come along 4 years ago, i'd have told you quite honestly that warmachine had its players, but was very much a niche experience. table top gaming was very much dominated by GW. since Mk2 hit, the games' popularity has all but exploded, and went through the roof. Now, its the "other game", whereas before, it was a game that "i've heard of, but i dont know anyone who'd even play".

that said, if you check the internet traffic, "40k" gets more hits than "warmachine" but that doesnt take into account whether its more people, or the same people being on multiple forums arguing the same thing. 40k has a few hubs. bolter and chainsword, BOLS, Dakka, Warseer, librarium online primarily and quite a few other smaller ones. With Warmachine, its very much centred on the Privateer Press forums (hey, remember the time when GW had its own forums? )

is is smaller? there are probably more 40k players in general, but in most gaming spheres, warmachine/hordes will have an active, and expanding player base. but again, thats not the whole picture. Im a minority in that i dont play 40k at all. 5th burned me. plenty others play both. a lot of 40k players have a warmachine army as their "other game", just as i have Infinity as mine. And i think now, with all GW have done in the last 2 years to alienate their players, plus with the slow death of 5th (not through badness, just staleness - its been there long enough that people have gotten bored of it) warmachine is seeing a lot more table time. which is great.

Skylifter wrote:
That's possibly true, I only found that board myself, and it seems awesome.
So I basically need to smash them in CC but need to get the charge, right? Well, I'll try that then. Sounds fun!

its more positive than what you'd be used to from 40k forums, but there is a surprising amount of whining getting in there lately.

and smashing things in cc is fun, but the alpha strike isnt everything. a player who gears his army for attrition will set up to receive the charge, and will in turn wreck face in the counter attack. which brings into play attrition, alpha striking, control/denial, trading pieces etc. its an incredibly deep game. you'll never master it, and its all the better for it

Oh yeah, the tactical depth is something I really like about it.
I love how you have to plan your complete turn with all its dependencies and contingency plans before even allocating focus points. And I think this will only get better the more I learn of all the different units people field.

I think it is quite fine to play both 40K and WM - 40K is for simple, straightforward point & click games when I'm too stressed out to want to think a lot while gaming, Warmachine is for having an actual tactical challenge and a more in-depth game.

There's actually quite a large player base for WM at my LGS, which is very cool, as you can almost always arrange a match on short notice.

And yeah, I remember when GW had its own forums. It was absolutely, massively awful. When you browsed it for more than five minutes, you completely lost all hope and all faith in humanity. No matter the whining that may be starting up on the PP boards, it'll take a lot of hard work to make it as bad as GWs. But that probably has to do with GWs marketing.

Anyway, let's not do a PP vs. GW thing, that's kinda repetitive quite soon I think.

I'll try to give you a summary of my first real game tomorrow.

Deadnight wrote:PP very much the "young upstart" in this industry.

I've never understood why people keep saying this. The company's a decade old...

Deadnight wrote:[

its more positive than what you'd be used to from 40k forums, but there is a surprising amount of whining getting in there lately.

The powers that be are pretty efficient at causing those who desent to dissapear.

spiralingcadaver wrote:

Deadnight wrote:PP very much the "young upstart" in this industry.

I've never understood why people keep saying this. The company's a decade old...

Probably because WFB has been around since 83 or so, 40k since 87. A lot of the historical systems have been around since the 80s or so too. Compared to them, PP is still the new kid on the block; just not as new as they used to be.

I used to frequent the PP boards a lot until the whining and the doom cycle got to me. Every single expansion always seemd to be the death knell for PP and WMH and that disagreeing with the doomsayers made you "sheeple"

ugh.

Now I only visit to look up Infernal rulings and news

The PP boards get quite a good vibe across to me atm. I tend to simply ignore whiners and doomsayers, though. You get them everywhere, and it has nothing to do with any real problems of any game, but more with the fears of some people. If they couldn't whine about their hobby, they'd whine about something else - they probably do anyway. Not because they are idiots, but because they are afraid of something without realising what it is and that they are afraid in the first place.

Doesn't mean it couldn't get annoying at times, but it doesn't really reduce the enjoyment of reading a forum as long as there is enough positive content, too. Which, sadly, was not the case on the old GW boards, which is why they were annoying.

Now, off to assembling the Men of War - else the game is going to be a short one!

Skylifter wrote:... is that because fewer people play it, or because it creates fewer arguments than GW games due to its more clear-cut ruleset?

I think there's 3 main factors:

1. Smaller playerbase
2. Tighter rules with interactive dev team/no YMDC forum or 30 page 'Deff Rolla' discussions
3. Much tighter balance, much different 'theory hammer', 2 list formats

#3. probably needs a bit of explanation. With much tighter balance, and an elaborate, interactive unit/group playstyle, list creation is important but it's far, far harder to discuss than in 40k because player skill carries far more weight in any given matchup. You could be 40k Jesus and there's still nothing that you can do if you have 180 slugga boyz against Crowe Purifier spam; that matchup simply doesn't work.

With 2 list formats, there is no 'One List to Rule Them'; you make a more specialized list that goes towards an extreme 'like heavy armor', for example, and a more generalist list that you can revert to in case you run into an extremely unfavorable matchup.

This means that there's both a lot more and a lot less to theoryhammer, and it's more likely that decisions come down to player skill. Discussions on the PP boards can still be very vibrant, but when the default answer is often 'just play better/practice more' it cuts down on a lot of the volume.

spiralingcadaver wrote:

Deadnight wrote:PP very much the "young upstart" in this industry.

I've never understood why people keep saying this. The company's a decade old...

like i said, while its been there for 10 years (i got my first bits in 2004 or 5 i think, it never really "broke through" as GW was "it". its only since Mk2 came along that WMH has had exposure to a large degree, and like i pointed out, its exploded in popularity, by and large. young upstart might be a leaky term, but PP are a company that is young, vibrant, energetic and one with a positive attitude. at least thats how i see it.

I feel like PP has great PR, but has really stagnated, in terms of creativity, since mkII*, so wouldn't say young (age already mentioned) nor vibrant/energetic (see above), though, I guess I'd agree on positive attitude (though this can have an ugly side, as seen in their forums, which feel like they're ruled by the iron fist of "keep it positive and clean, or we'll lock and/or ban"). To each his own, I guess.

*MkII itself was a good change, but I don't like much of any of their releases since that one

So I'm back from the game - it was great fun, although I did lose as expected. My opponent brought Cryx instead of Rhulic Mercs, so I was playing vs. the Cryx battlebox. I managed to destroy or cripple all three bonejacks, but my Destroyer was mauled by his Slayer on turn three - he used parasite and Denny's feat to reduce his armour to 15 and then smashed it with the 'jack. And since my MoW were under some spell the name of which I forgot, they had 2 movement and couldn't run or charge, so they couldn't stop the slayer from attacking my caster - and that was how it ended.

By the way, here's a few (bad) pictures of my completed Destroyer: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/450324.page

On the matter of creativity, I think trying to be creative no matter what is actually a bad thing. So yeah, a few nice updates now and then are cool, but if they try to reinvent the wheel every two years, they'll end up with all the problems GW's games have - or like BattleTech, which was completely sold to WotC for cannibalisation, and I for certain wouldn't like that. Advance the storyline a bit, create a few new units here and there - and that don't need to be something totally new, either - and be done with it.

BattleTech actually did this quite well for a time, first having the 3025 era, then adding a few units for 3031/2 with a storyline advancement, and then another major one with new factions at 3050. Then they started going too fast, I think. They released new hardware handbooks and storyline advancements in short order, 3 or four within the space of just a few years, with massive amounts of new units. That way there were too many different units in the game and people couldn't keep track of the new ones, so most people stopped playing. This combined with killing one of the major clans in the fluff killed the original BT, at least from my perspective. Even now, people really only like to play either the 3025 era or the 3050 era, but only rarely like to include all the mechs from the later books, as it gets confusing after that.

I agree with what you're basically saying: I prefer slow release schedules. This isn't what I'm talking about, though: I feel like PP hasn't had interesting ideas in a while.

Also, don't feel bad about loosing-- Deneghra is one of the nastiest casters in the game, and even more so against a typical Khador list.

Oh, I wouldn't even have felt bad about losing to anything - this was only my second game in a very complex ruleset, after all. I'll get into the winning zone at some point, I'm not going to be hasty about it.

I'm actually looking into what I can do with my Menoth minis, too, as the caster - Kreoss - really has a few cool things going.

Anyone have advice on how to spend the four points left in the battle box Menoth list to get to 25? The list is this:

- Kreoss
- Crusader
- Vanquisher
- Repenter
- 5 Exemplar Cinerators

I'm probably going to buy a faction book tomorrow - not sure which though. I'm tempted to buy Menoth, but I'd actually like to focus on Khador in the beginning. Choices, choices. Life is just so immensely hard.

I'll do the honourable thing and chime in with the usual answer. A choir would be a good addition, i think thats 3 pts . so that leaves 1 pt. A mechanic?

A choir was something I considered, but wasn't sure. Isn't it a bit on the squishy side? How does one go about keeping it, as it has to be rather close to the 'Jack - which will likely be on the front lines.

And mechanics.. Aside from that I don't know its stats, isn't there something more aggressive one could get for a point? Maybe some mercenary?

The choir are squishy and most opponents will try to take them out but generally you'll have your units up front as they are faster than the jacks. Warjacks as a second line and the choir behind them. So that's a load to get through. (This is a big generalisation)

To get the effect on the jack each choir member must be able to see the jack and be within 3" when they sing, but that's the only restriction. So you can move the choir, sing being 3" behind the jacks and then the warjacks can activate and do whatever they like so there's a 6"-9" gap between the jacks and the choir. Given that most ranged weapons are 10"-12" if they are in range of the choir they have much bigger things to worry about.

Okay, so trying to keep them alive is not completely futile then from the start. That's good.

If I take the 3-point-choir, would a Vassal be a good addition? Is a Vassal even a point, or does it cost more?

Skylifter wrote:Okay, so trying to keep them alive is not completely futile then from the start. That's good.

If I take the 3-point-choir, would a Vassal be a good addition? Is a Vassal even a point, or does it cost more?

The Vassal is 2pts, and worth them both. Enliven can go a long way towards keeping a 'jack alive and ancillary attack lets you get two shot out of your RoF weapons - which can really change things.

I'd honestly take the 2pt Choir unless you're running a ton of 'Jacks. Unless someone is running a list that is particularly good for gunning at support models you're probably not going to lose them at rate fast enough to keep them from supporting your 'Jacks. Really the choir is pretty much an auto-include if you're running anything more 'jack heavy than an Epic Kreoss tier list.

Doh, I only just realised the choir can be 2 points instead of 3 - thanks for the heads up. I think I'll try going with a choir and a vassal then. That'll be both cheap and quick to paint and may in fact do a lot to help my 'Jacks to stand up to other factions.

Yep, Chongara is right. I bought the 2-player battlebox, and my next purchases were a Choir and Vassal. I've played in a bunch of 15 & 25pt. games, and I always run the minimum (2 point) Choir and a Vassal in the 25 point games. You don't need a full Choir yet at that level.

Cool. Now I only need to get to painting, since I want to do it right this time and not buy new Warmachine models until I have painted all I have from that faction, something I never really had a chance to do with my GW stuff. And hey, for Warmachine it is only 9 models for Menoth and 7 models for Khador.

I'll probably end up buying a swathe of merc' models, justifying it to myself by telling me "They're from another faction, even though I use them with my Khador/Menoth..."

Ahem.