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Watched a game of this in a local shop today, and has caught my interest.

I am just trying to decide on a faction. I play Necrons in 40k, and like the look of Cryx (which was the basis for buying Necrons as well) but I am also enjoy challenge/more tactical play..

So I'm curious what faction(s) is the hardest to pick up / most tactically involved? My reading so far seems to indicate this is the Cryx but just want to see what the general opinion is.

Thanks!

In my experience, pretty much all the factions are VERY heavily rewarding for tactical play. However, if you're looking for a plethora of dirty tricks, Cryx (and to a similar extent, Circle) is probably your best bet.

I was going to start Cryx, then I saw their starter box. Those ridiculous demon-turkey things they use as light warjacks made me shy away.

I guess it might be Menoth for me. I always liked fire, and being the bad guy in the rulebook intro never hurt anything.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I was going to start Cryx, then I saw their starter box. Those ridiculous demon-turkey things they use as light warjacks made me shy away.

I guess it might be Menoth for me. I always liked fire, and being the bad guy in the rulebook intro never hurt anything.

Honestly, coming from 40k any faction is probably going to greatly exceed your expectations of complexity. The game just has a lot more moving parts than 40k. That said Protectorate is probably on the lower side of the complexity side. It's definitely a faction about putting together efficient synergies and layered protection. It's a faction about having a plan, putting in motion turn 1-2 and seeing how it plays out. The faction just lacks the speed or crowd control to make wild changes on the fly. Keep in mind all this is said with that "For Warmachine" qualifier, even the most static plays in Warmahordes are an order of magnitude more nuanced than anything in 40k.

I'm not saying it's weak faction by any means, we've got the Reckoner for cryin' out loud. I'm just saying if you're looking for a complex playstyle, that makes a lot of tactical decisions on the fly and is hard to learn, something like Circle (hordes) might be more your speed.

Before you jump in look at the model ranges to get a feel for ones you don't like (I really don't like Skorne) and talk to plenty of players to get an in depth idea of the strength and weaknesses of the armies.

I started with trolls on the basis of the models and then found that I hated their play style.
I started up Cygnar and have loved it ever since.

If you want bag of tricks Cygnar is an excellent option. They have the most available mercenaries as well and while they might not be the 'best' at anything they can do just about anything and pull crazy kills out of thin air with their board control.

pyrusx wrote:
Watched a game of this in a local shop today, and has caught my interest.

I am just trying to decide on a faction. I play Necrons in 40k, and like the look of Cryx (which was the basis for buying Necrons as well) but I am also enjoy challenge/more tactical play..

So I'm curious what faction(s) is the hardest to pick up / most tactically involved? My reading so far seems to indicate this is the Cryx but just want to see what the general opinion is.

Thanks!

I'd say Cygnar is one of the tougher ones to pick up and use a lot of tactics. They do not really have anything that jumps out as OMG KILLER!! Everything takes some finesse and tactics. When you add in mercs you do get a lot of options. They generally have the answer to anything, but you can't put all the answers in one list.

Circle is probably one of the other ones that is supposed to be tough to learn and very tactical. You really need to plan everything out and hit the other guy at the right place and time then get out. Little mistakes are costly as your stuff can die fast.

Cryx do have a lot of "tricks", but they are also very effective and relatively straight forward. They catch people off guard who do not know them really well and common tactics that opponenets like won't work against them. They tend to be very infantry heavy because they have great infantry and their casters like to keep their focus for themselves. You will probably want 2-3 bonechickens for most casters so if you do not like them then you'll want to think twice. Or convert your own.

Menoth is kind of an in-between faction for using and tactics. Once you get your activation order down and how some of the unique rules interact they become very simple. Menoth has some great infantry, but also likes to run more jacks than most other factions.

Retribution is intriguing. they have some interesting options and tactics. I'd say they are also kind of a balance between learning and tactics.

Khador is relatively straight forward. Put axe to face. They also have some great infantry and do not run a lot of jacks.

Legion tends to ignore a lot of the rules in the game. They hit fast and hard and hope to break you early.

Trolls and skorne I have not played against much. But they tend to be slower "Brick" armies that are hard to kill.

The wildcard here is the Cult of Cyriss. They seem to be very much into running like a clockwork. When everything goes well they roll people. If a single gear gets out of whack then the machine has problems. They are probably the hardest to get into because they are brand new, not all the models are out and there really isn't much in the way of tactica or guides about them. From what I have seen and read they are an army you need to have some definite tactics with. OTOH, I am guessing a lot of people will pick them up because they are new so in the next 6 months or so you will be seeing a lot of them.

Circle is probably the most tactically demanding, but when people say they want heavy tactics they rarely mean it

Because every army can apply their own set of tactics, but their army often won't fall apart when their tactics fail them (or the opponent used better tactics than you)

Out of Faction difficulty I would say
Cryx, Legion and Khador are the tactically simplest, and probably among the easier factions to play well

Cygnar, Circle, Retribution being more complex only because their stuff are more fragile, making them a bit harder to play overall

Menoth, Skorne and Trolls have the advantage of requiring a fair amount of tactics but while still having reliable units, so roughly in the middle ground

Chongara wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
I was going to start Cryx, then I saw their starter box. Those ridiculous demon-turkey things they use as light warjacks made me shy away.

I guess it might be Menoth for me. I always liked fire, and being the bad guy in the rulebook intro never hurt anything.

Honestly, coming from 40k any faction is probably going to greatly exceed your expectations of complexity. The game just has a lot more moving parts than 40k. That said Protectorate is probably on the lower side of the complexity side. It's definitely a faction about putting together efficient synergies and layered protection. It's a faction about having a plan, putting in motion turn 1-2 and seeing how it plays out. The faction just lacks the speed or crowd control to make wild changes on the fly. Keep in mind all this is said with that "For Warmachine" qualifier, even the most static plays in Warmahordes are an order of magnitude more nuanced than anything in 40k.

I'm not saying it's weak faction by any means, we've got the Reckoner for cryin' out loud. I'm just saying if you're looking for a complex playstyle, that makes a lot of tactical decisions on the fly and is hard to learn, something like Circle (hordes) might be more your speed.

Saying Menoth is less complex is incorrect IMO.

Menoth is the faction of synergy, which goes hand in hand with being complex.

The simplest faction is probably Cygnar. Not a whole lot of necessary buffing.


Like you said, simple in warmachine terms is infinitely more complex than anything in 40k.

Circle is definitely much more complicated than Menoth. Fury means more micro managing, and then you have all the Circle specific synergy.

I'd say Mercs are probably the hardest tactically.

From list building for tournaments, to interactions and synergy they require the most planning and nuance by far.

I would argue that Khador is one of the most advanced tactically, because it relies on positioning /far/ more than nearly every other faction.

Everything has to be in the right place at the right time, because you have no 'tricks' to move them around. It feels very much like chess. Other factions have a lot of abilities to jump around, or avoid retribution, or move-shoot-move, etc etc. Their simplicity is what /makes/ them an interesting tactical challenge, and I think they reward it pretty damn well.

When I was looking at starting Warmahordes, I had the faction difficulty explained to me like this: "No faction is more difficult to learn than another, but each faction requires its own set of skills". Basically, its saying that to be successful with any given faction requires that you achieve a deep understanding of a different element of play, which may be easier or harder for you to pick up depending on your personal apptitudes. For example, Cygnar relies a lot on force concentration and threat ranges. Many Cygnar units hit hard, but lack durability while having only average mobility, understanding how to clear a line to your target and how much force to apply to cripple a target without over-killing it is crucial. Inversely, the Convergence relies heavily on understanding orders of activation. Due to the nature of their focus sharing and other support abilities, understanding what order you want to activate your models is far more important (ie, Do you want to activate your Inverter first, wasting the focus which could otherwise cascade to your Diffuser and leaving it unable to finish its target, or activate your Diffuser first and efficiently use the focus to kill both your targets, but leave a potential charge lane open to your warcaster?).

In summary, each faction, and in many cases each warcaster, has his or her own own playstyle which requires a mastery of a certain set of skills to take advantage of. There isn't really an easy faction or list that you can expect a player to be able to just be able to play, and factions that some players pick up very quickly others will never master.