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My buddies and I are debating whether or not to get into Warmachine/Hordes due to the ever increasing rise in GW prices. No we will not be quitting 40k altogether but since creating new armies is out of this world expensive in the GW sector we were thinking of putting together some small forces from Warmachine since having a truly playable force seems to come in much less in the price category.

I guess my question is are the Starter Battlegroups enough and worth buying to simply get a feel for the game? If not what other purchases would have to be made (outside of books and such) to make the game enjoyable on a small scale. Again this is not going to become our main wargame but something we can do for a change of pace.

Any insight to the PP world would be fantastic thanks everyone!

2 player Boxes are good starter points if people would want either of the armies to play the game.


If all else, Battlebox of the faction you choose is good enough as you get the choice of faction.

Over all, its a good balanced game, tight rules and a nice fresh change from 40k.

Glad to see more people interested in Warmahordes. Just so you know, the only book you have to buy to play the game is the rulebook. The faction books are more for background IMO, and all the stat cards ship with the models.

I got into the game by splitting the warmachine 2-player battlebox, and I liked it. Generally the battleboxes/2-player boxes are great for value and getting the feel of a faction (at least the menoth/skorne ones are, I've got both), though there are some support pieces that I definitely would pick up. (For menoth and skorne, I would nab a choir and vassal and an agonizer/paingiver beast handlers respectively, for legion look into shepards/forsaken, and for circle nab some shifting stones.) That's about all the feedback I can provide now, and remember, this is all my opinion.

Lastly, what warcasters/warlocks are your group looking at?

All I really know at this point is one of my buddies likes Cryx. I am still trying to determine if I want a Hordes list or a Warmachine list.

I love Orboros on the Hordes side of things. As far as Warmachine I am thinking Khador or Cygnar but I do not have anything set in stone.

With regards to specific casters/locks I do not know much about the games yet and I know more than my buddies so I couldn't give you specifics on them the only ones I know are the ones I have seen in battle reports i have been watching to get a feel for gameplay but I do not know anything about them specifically.

Its mainly what Models do you like.

Every faction can be good.


The game gains alot of Depth once you start adding in Infantry units and more then just a couple of warjacks/casters.

Though with that... game is still alot of fun with just the battlebox.

The Cygnar battlebox is how I got started (along with purchasing the main rulebook), and I think it went pretty well. As has been mentioned, if you have couple of people who would be into the armies contained in the either of the two-player sets, those are definitely the way to go as they have a copy of the rules (think the mini-rulebook that came with AoBR), two full armies, and several other goodies.

The game is fairly straightforward in its basic mechanics. And its quite well balanced overall, so really just pick the faction/caster you like. You can make anything work.

One quote that is pretty true with Warmachine/Hordes is that EVERYTHING is broken. I walk Kreoss up, pop his feat, your entire army falls down. Now I charge your army with all my autohitting weapon masters and wipe out your army in one turn, leaving your caster flat on his arse waiting to get the s*** kicked out of him next turn. The good news is you can pretty much do the same thing to me, but in a different way.

The game really comes down to skill, and since you and your friends are all starting you'll all be on a level playing field.


Buy the battleboxes for your chosen faction and play 10-20 games with just the contents. Just to get a feel for the game. After that you can start adding new stuff.

The faction books arn't necessary because the models come with their cards, but they are nice if you are looking to proxy a model before you buy it to see how it works. A good plan because the models arn't cheap and a single model/unit is almost always a fairly major purchase.

One other thing, while every model and unit can work they may not work in particular lists. This game is all about synergy and some models in factions don't synergize with each other or with the chosen Warcaster/Warlock. This is why its best to proxy play with a model before buying it, to see if it works well with your army.

Very informative so far... Something I just thought of do Hordes armies have a disadvantage playing against Warmachine battlegroups?

I mean I know that the lists are compatible just curious if there is any disadvantages to choosing a hordes army if the rest of my buddies are playing warmachines battlegroups.

Not at all. Hordes and Warmachine are pretty well balanced as far as I know. THough a thing to remember is that Warmachine armies tend to be more infantry-heavy, and Hordes armies tend to have more beast-heavy armies.
It's not that your Hordes army will be awful if you go mostly infantry, it's just that Hordes players are better off with lots of warbeasts.

Wonderful i am really liking circle orboros the druids look sweet them or khador i think.

If you are trying to decide between the 2 unless you are supporting a local gaming store you can buy the factions of the 2 player sets on ebay that will set you back about $40 for either one, and this will give you around 20 points worth for Khador or Circle, add a rulebook from the same seller for around $15 and save on shipping if available. The Circle kit is a great starter to round off to 25 you could add the Alpha UA coming out and probably the Blackclad Wayfarer. For the Khador maybe add Battle Mechaniks and officer and a war dog, though personally I would trim the Jugg and add in Winterguard+UA+WAs with Jozef

The Fury mechanic is better early game while Focus is a better late game mechanic. Fury is also more powerful at a point in time. If you have a Warbeast with no fury on it and its in charge range of something it can generally kill whatever it charges.

I always heard it was the other way. Focus for learning the game but then fury becomes a better tool when you learn how to manage it.

@Hargus56 - I think that Grey Templar meant that 'in a particular game' fury tends to be better early on while focus is better later on, rather than talking about the learning curve.

This is because in hordes, warlocks use the fury generated by their warbeasts, so can run out of fury if all their beasts die, while in warmachine, the warcasters generate the focus and give it to their warjacks, so if their jacks die it just leaves more focus for the caster, making them uber powerful.

In terms of difficulty, I'd agree that focus is easier to get your head round than fury as a new player, although that could be because I started with warmachine long before hordes ever came out.

TheMostWize wrote:
My buddies and I are debating whether or not to get into Warmachine/Hordes due to the ever increasing rise in GW prices. No we will not be quitting 40k altogether but since creating new armies is out of this world expensive in the GW sector we were thinking of putting together some small forces from Warmachine since having a truly playable force seems to come in much less in the price category.

I guess my question is are the Starter Battlegroups enough and worth buying to simply get a feel for the game? If not what other purchases would have to be made (outside of books and such) to make the game enjoyable on a small scale. Again this is not going to become our main wargame but something we can do for a change of pace.

Any insight to the PP world would be fantastic thanks everyone!

I'd recommend splitting a 2-player starter box with one of your wargaming buddies. It's the best deal for money. You get more stuff between the two of you, and you have a mini-rulebook that you can both reference.

My buddy and I were just talking about splitting the 2 player box as he wants to play Menoth and I have been growing more attracted to Khador.

I have one problem and that is eHaley and the gun mages. I am not sure what it is but I like the models and eHaley's abilities seem absolutely superb.

Anyone have any experience with Cygnar and Khador that could maybe give me some insight as to the major differences between the two? I thought I read somewhere that Khador is very in your face and smash it type army while Cygnar has the ability to do everything but doesn't really "excel" at any one particular task.

Khador is basically the "Axe to the face" faction. They have no light jacks, all are Heavy Warjacks. Except for the Old Witch who comes with the Scrapjack.

Khador is all about durability and hitting hard. Their units overall are very slow, although they do have a couple fast units.


Cygnar is a good mix of durability and speed overall. They're the "Jack of all trades" faction, see what I did there

eHaley is widely considered one of the best, if not the best, casters in the game.

While it is partly true that Cygnar doesn't excel and any one thing they do have a couple specialities.

1) Disruption. They have many weapons that cause Disruption to the Cortexs of enemy warjacks. It basically means that jack can't be allocated Focus for a turn. Pretty powerful ability. They also have a few weapons that on a hit will automatically cause a point of Cortex damage to the effected warjack in addition to actual damage from the blow.

2) Electricity. This is Cygnar's element. While not always super powerful, the main ability of it is the ability to leap between models. So they can cast Electroleap at one dude in a squad of infantry and end up killing a few extra guys because the it leaps. One other trick is that many of their own units are immune to electricity. So not only do they not have to worry about the electricity leaping to their own guys and killing them, but they can also target their own guys deliberatly and have it leap to the enemy models. Useful if they may be out of range or untargetable for some reason.

That is one thing to remember, you can target your own guys with attacks. Both ranged and melee. You could have one of your own warjacks that almost dead and surrounded by tons of weak, but hard to hit, enemy infantry. You could shoot your Warjack with a large AOE weapon, most likely get a hit, and catch all those guys in the blast. Sure you probably lose your warjack but it was almost dead anyway and it was a perfect opprounity to take those dangerous infantry out.

Damn I like versatile armies but the Khador in the 2 player battle box are so tempting I mean 50 bucks for 26 points worth of models seems like a pretty dang good deal to me. Plus the rule book. Even picking up the cygnar box wouldn't get me Haley :(

Some other things-khador doesn't really like a lot of warjacks, and they love their infantry (WGI and Kayazy are sexy-especially with UA). If you did cygnar, eHaley is probably their best caster and probably one of the best casters in the game. Be aware that your buddy may not enjoy playing against eHaley a lot, and isn't a fun game for someone (as in your opponent) who you are trying to get into the game.

I would wish you luck, but since you have decided to play the filthy heathens instead of the servants of the true law, I'll have to root for your buddy

Of course eHaley does require a certain levelof skill to reach the levels of broke she is capable of. Her feat for example. Screw that up and you basically waste the main point of her feat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BTNeophyte wrote:

I would wish you luck, but since you have decided to play the filthy heathens instead of the servants of the true law, I'll have to root for your buddy

Indeed

Haha I assume you are Menoth players then. Really the main reason I am going with Khador is because it is in the 2 player battle box.

Don't go with a faction just because it is convenient. Seriously, pick the faction you like. They are all good. For the sake of just a few bucks (and it really isn't that expensive to build up around 35pts of any army) don't just settle for something. Not to mention, you may not even end up using everything in the box anyway. My housemate plays Khador, and doesn't use several of the box things any more.

I first bought my Circle models about a year or so ago, but didn't really play, I just liked the models. I'm just starting to play quite recently and will be expanding my army greatly quite soon. I'm extremely happy I picked Circle, because it's what I like. The 2-player box didn't exist when I bought mine, but it is a decent starting point. Or you can just start an army with your own choices. The main Warmachine or Hordes rulebook is nowhere near as expensive as the 40k rulebook, and it's nice quality imho. Unlike 40k, the book for the army you choose is NOT mandatory. I didn't know this and bought the Circle book, but I don't regret it because it is a nice book, wasn't very expensive, and gives me a bit of fluff to read and a good selection of stats/rules on most of the models. However, most of my friends have not bought their army book. They do research on the net then just buy the models. They all come with their cards in the pack, which is all you need to play that model.

Another thing that I really like, is that buying a new warcaster/warlock is really quite cheap most of the time. (Some casters are more expensive because they might be larger than others, or contain multiple models). And a new caster/lock can radically change how your army plays, even if you change nothing else except the caster. That's pretty good! For example, probably about half the casters in Circle cost less than $10 each (australian, don't know the prices for you but they should be equivalently cheap). For roughly the cost of a McDonalds meal I can have a new caster which will change my army significantly. I have played a good number of games with pKaya (comes in the battlebox & two player box) and now that I have a grasp on the rules of the game and mechanics of the army, I can look at the other Warlocks in my faction and actually understand what they do. As a result, my next purchases will be a couple of new warlocks which suit my playstyle better.

Cost-wise, as a comparison to 40k. Honestly, it's kind of tricky to compare for a couple of reasons. Firstly, you play with smaller forces. The largest games anyone around my local area plays would be 50pts, which depending on your faction might be say 30 models total, and could be a lot less. Most of my friends still play 25pts, as like you, we're mostly 40k/Fantasy players who dabble in some other systems and our armies aren't that big yet. The last 25pt list I ran contained 16 models. Also, since I'm Australian, its hard to compare fairly because we get the supreme shaft on GW prices but our Warmahordes prices seem about normal world prices.

I still play a lot of 40k/Fantasy. I like both of those games a lot. For me, Warmahordes is a great complimentary game. While I am only really very much a new player, it seems to play quite quickly. We have really enjoyed it for that reason, it's really easy to fit in a game in a relatively short space of time. The caster kill mechanic can make for some very quick games if you make any severe mistakes... like the time I lost in turn 2 . It also takes less table space, so we can often set up an additional table in a different room where a 6x4 wouldn't fit, or sometimes we split a 6x4 in half and play two games of Warmahordes side by side.

Also for what it's worth, don't be put off by the Fury mechanic if a Hordes army is what catches your eye. I have learned to play using Fury, and it's fine. There are things about Fury that are easier to work with than Focus, and vice-versa. I'm certainly not the greatest player and I haven't had any problems figuring out Fury.

In summary, if you take nothing else from my post then take this: Pick the faction you like. Don't worry about being underpowered/overpowered. Pick what interests you. It's so easy to change warcasters/warlocks and thus playing style, you'll find something that suits you, so you want to make sure you pick the army that appeals to you above all else.

I am looking at Khador because I like infantry not hard hitting slow jacks. Gimme some army men for my army men game!

Cygnar is a very flexible, toolbox army, but you can't always get in all the tools.

Khador isn't exactly inflexible. Just not the same as Cygnar.

All factions have a variety of casters and playstyles. So you can probably get an army you like in any faction. Some just tend towards certain things a bit better.

And competitive Khador armies aren't really all that slow. They have plenty of speed options. Just not nearly as many or to the degree of say Cryx or Legion.