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So I am being told that all armies do all things...which makes no sense to me. I get there is balance...but if all armies are the same why are there different armies? What makes each one unique?

I understand they look different...but is that it? Why make more models if that is it...they will all be the same.

Why not ask this in one of your 2 or 3 current active threads?

Basically because an army that is traditionally shooty can be made hitty by a warcaster & some jack/unit changes change. Or warlock change.

Edit: one of your five (5) active threads

I think each thread should handle a separate topic so they don't get muddied with multiple discussions.

And your answer is yes...so basically the only difference between any army is just looks and that is all?

PS - I do have a lot of questions...I will be investing money so I want to know what kind of game I will be supporting.

No, but the difference between a skorne army led by pmorghul and a Cygnar army lead by Kraye (beast and jack heavy with buffs for both) is much less than the aforementioned Skornelist and a Cygnar army lead by pCaine.

And if you have buckets of questions why not gather them into a 'joker learns war machine' thread and update it as you go. Far more considerate

So no...each army has its own flavor besides just looks.


That is good to know.


And again..I like each topic having its own thread so that the topics don't get muddied...as previously mentioned.

It's more like each army can be any flavor. It all depends on what you use. Some armies favor a certain style by having more units/solos that enhance that aspect but you can pretty much do any style with any army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You may want to go to battlecollege.com and look at the general entry for each faction. It may give you a better understanding of things.

That makes sense...so they each can do all...but some have more options for certain play styles...

Could you break those armies down for me...so for each faction..what play style does it favor/have more options for?

A better way to descirbe what styles each Faction has, it is better to go over their tendencies and strengths. Every Faction can do some fashion of a gun heavy list that is fairly competent. However, Retribution of Scyrah, Cygnar, Protectorate of Menoth and Legion of Everblight can build more different kinds of armies with shooting. All Factions can do a brick attrition force, but for Circle Orboros it is mostly one or two lists which can do it, while it is kind of a default position Trollbloods come from.

That's what has caused some of this weird discussion on things. Every Faction can do a lot of the "archeotypical" themes save I think some very exotic ones due to what tools the Faction may have (multi-wound infantry spam, magic attack spam or mostly Mercenary/Minion with Faction casters are just not options for some forces due ot htis0. Also, while most Factions can do everything, it is not encessarily going to work as well in one as the other. Circle Orboros or Thornfall can build a shooting heavy force, but it won't be quite as well supported or able to face as many things as a the variety of Cygnar or Legion of Everblight ones.

And stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for styles, I think the post I put in your thread here that covers the strengths and weaknesses of the different Factions. These play into their styles a bit, but I can go over at a different angle in a bit on what those are from my own seeing of things.

And more stuff.

Those descriptions, while a good rough description, are fairly prone to being wrong with one or more casters in each faction.

And where the heck did you ever get the impression that Skorne doesn't do infantry support? We've probably got the best infantry game in Hordes!

 Laughing Man wrote:

And where the heck did you ever get the impression that Skorne doesn't do infantry support? We've probably got the best infantry game in Hordes!

There is a big, bluish gentleman in that corner over there that would like to have a word with you over that statement...

J0kerrMT wrote:So I am being told that all armies do all things...which makes no sense to me. I get there is balance...but if all armies are the same why are there different armies? What makes each one unique?
I understand they look different...but is that it? Why make more models if that is it...they will all be the same.

It’s a lot less “all armies are the same” and a lot more “all armies can play a huge variety of styles”. What makes different armies? Different feel, different look, different fluff, different synnegies, different themes. A cygnar ranged army will probably be spamming lightning spells, and lots of guys with rifles, backed up with some heavy jacks. A protectorate ranged army will probably be spamming a lot of rocket ordnance and fireball-esque spells. A khador ranged army will have snipers, artillery (mortars, AOE dropping jacks and horse drawn tanks) backed up by rifle and blunderbuss wielding infantry and mercenaries. I can say the same about “melee armies” and so on. They do the same thing… kinda, but they do it all in a different way, with a different style.
Here is the thing – what makes no sense about this? Im confused. It’s a good thing that armies are not pigeonholed into doing one thing. That’s bad design, and frankly its bloody boring. The fact that Faction versatility exists is a strength.

J0kerrMT wrote:I think each thread should handle a separate topic so they don't get muddied with multiple discussions.
And your answer is yes...so basically the only difference between any army is just looks and that is all?
PS - I do have a lot of questions...I will be investing money so I want to know what kind of game I will be supporting.

Its more than looks. Its style. Its flavour. It’s the underlying synnergies.

J0kerrMT wrote:That makes sense...so they each can do all...but some have more options for certain play styles...
Could you break those armies down for me...so for each faction..what play style does it favor/have more options for?

With respect, we’ve already done that, and you weren’t happy with the answers you got.
But I’ll do one for you –Khador – as an example.
Khador is the faction of angry Russian imperialists, seeking to regain their ancient empire. As a whole, they rely on a backbone of strong, self sufficient infantry, backed up by a small number of hard, tough warjacks and support pieces. This is what you’ll see – lots of infantry, and a handful of jacks. They like playing the attrition game, and direct application of extreme force and prejudice. They can do fast, slow, ranged, melee, attriton, control/denial and assassination –basically the whole playbook. What they might lack arguable is magic/upkeep denial and arc nodes which stop them slinging spells across the whole board-although they do have access to both, after a fashion.

Khadoran infantry comes in a variety of styles, from heavily armed steampowered shocktroops (men o war) full plate wearing heavy infantry with plasting pikes, irregulars like the kayazy, kossite and manhunter scouts, doom reaver shock troops, and a backbone of winter guard conscript infantry. Khadoran infantry is generally very tough, and puts out an astonishing amount of damage, both at range, and in melee. Their ranged game is solid – with widowmaker snipers, the winter guard rifle korps, and access to mercenaries like the nyss hunters as well.their melee game is top notch with a lot of excellent options – from glass cannons like doom reavers (fragile, but an astronomical damage output) , hardy iron fangs who are great at jamming, tarpitting and general attriton, uhlan cavalry-fast and hard hitting, the great bears, kayazy (stealthy assassins), to the lighter equipped winter guard infantry. On their own- they’re not great. But with heros like Kovnik Joe, and with a standard to lead into battle, the winter guard “deathstar” as its known is one of the most versatile and disgustingly powerful units in the game. they also have support units like the greylord mages who can cast spells, wield concealing fogs etc.
Khador jacks are solid beatsticks, with good resilience and great damage output. They can do range, and they can do melee. They’re “concentrated force”. Spriggans, Juggernauts, Kodiaks are bywords for “solid” and the character jacks (beast, big B especially) are extremely good. They are slower and cruder (lower accuracy) than their peers, but this is made up for by other factors.
Now as you can see, Khador have a very versatile roster. Now, factor in the warcasters. They’re just as versatile – from Sorscha and Vlad who like to assassinate from extreme range, to irusk who likes infantry jams, to epic irusk and the old witch who play an excellent control/denial game- they control the board, and dominate scenarios, and stop enemy armies dead with their spells and feats, whilst also offering a bit of movement manipulation. Generally, khadoran warcasters bring a variety of spells and feats to the table that protect their infantry (iron flesh comes to mind) whilst having other spells (fury, blood lust etc) and feats that turn up their incredible damage output to astronomical levels. Epic Sorscha, Irusk and especially the Butcher come to mind. Casters like Vlad and Strakhov turn a normally “slow-normal” speed army up to 11, and allow the whole army to slingshot across the board.Then there are the others – harkevich who allows for a jack gunline army with his spells and feats, Karchev (who is ajack) who slingshots warjacks across the board, epic Vlad who turns humble khadorans into supermen with his feat, and allows for pinpoint accuracy/damage with his transference and hand of fate spells and Zherkova, who also acts as a control/denial caster.
So you see. Combine the versatility of khadoan infantry, with the versatility of Khadoran casters, and you have a huge playbook of tactics available to you.

Khador..sounds fun shooting artillery then bracing for the charge with the equivalent of tank armor to soak it up.

J0kerrMT wrote:
Khador..sounds fun shooting artillery then bracing for the charge with the equivalent of tank armor to soak it up.

Indeed, its signature Khador. unless you're doing a blitzkrieg army with Vlad1, Vlad3, or Strakhov, where you're the one charging! Or if you're playing a shenanigans list with kayazy where you deny the field to the enemy, then run through them with your kayazy and cut their caster to bits. Or if you're playing a high DEF iron flesh list (can be rather squishy once hit)! that said, khador having a "signature" it doesnt mean they dont do other stuff though, or that khador have exclusive rights to that style. Trolls and Protectorate come to mind as enjoying that gameplan as well. Heck, even cygnar can soak it up with the abominable tarpit that is Boomhowler and Co.

J0kerrMT wrote:
So I am being told that all armies do all things...which makes no sense to me. I get there is balance...but if all armies are the same why are there different armies? What makes each one unique?

I understand they look different...but is that it? Why make more models if that is it...they will all be the same.

Thats easy, they /can/ do similiar things, but they go about it differently and the mechanics that make the army work are different

For example an armor wall
Cygnar can use a few of its shielded jacks, with arcane shield and caster buffs to be pretty bricky, but end up with "ok" defence too
Khador innately has high armor, they can even have casters that regularly walk around at 20+ armor, they stick around 10 defence
Everblight can buff up with pthagrosh (and only really pthagrosh) to get similiar levels of armor, but have to spend a lot of resources to keep it that high all game
Circle/ret, doesn't armor wall, period

J0kerrMT wrote:
So no...each army has its own flavor besides just looks.


That is good to know.


And again..I like each topic having its own thread so that the topics don't get muddied...as previously mentioned.

While topics can sometime escape the scope of the question---from this point forward please attempt to aggregate your one-line questions into a single thread. Posting multiple one question threads not only scrambles the forum a bit--but has a tendency to push many other threads to page 2. Thanks.

Ryan

We have a PG at the shop...we should be all set. Plus it appears we have a Journeyman League of over 10 people now.

 Laughing Man wrote:
Those descriptions, while a good rough description, are fairly prone to being wrong with one or more casters in each faction.

No doubt, hence my previous post on how there are tendancies within a Faction, rather than dedicated themes to them.

 Laughing Man wrote:
And where the heck did you ever get the impression that Skorne doesn't do infantry support? We've probably got the best infantry game in Hordes!

Trollbloods are a much more infantry-heavy and support Faction I find. Many Skorne lists start with nearly half of the list taken up by two or more heavies, lights, support staff for those warbeasts, and then infnatry. I see Nihilators more than anything else, and even "infantry warlocks" like Xerxis can pull beast heavy. Zaal and Mordikaar seem to be the exceptions on what they do best with, but hte former still even can do a warbeast heavy list without thinking on it.

Trollbloods I find run the most lists with only lights. Their non-warlock buffs that affect troops (Kriel Stone, Fell-Caller, Chronicler) and their variety of quality troops mean that they will often be the Faction running the most in my experience. Things like Longriders, Fennblades, Kriel Warriors, Runeshapers nad Burrowers if anything have a much better list of things than what Skorne does i think.

This is abit subjective opinionating on that, but I think the idea that Skorne has the best troops a bit suspect overall. That combined with what is defnitely the best warbeast support in my mind make it more a warbeast Faction.

And stuff.

And stuff.

Here is an example.

The PoM is the premier warjack faction. We can and do run lots of jacks. Usually at least 3 in a typical list.

Then you have epic Kreoss, who usually only ever runs 1 warjack. Instead focusing on weapon master infantry spam.

He is an anomaly, and every faction has them. There is a general faction theme, but then there are ways of tweaking it.


Khador is generally about running 1, maybe 2, really strong and hard hitting warjacks alongside a sea of infantry and other support.

Menoth is generally about taking average warjacks and buffing them up to insane levels with support, along with solid medium and heavy infantry.

Scyrah is generally about ranged and spell slinging shenanigans.

Cryx is generally about debuffing the enemy and collecting the souls of the dead to power themselves.

Cygnar is generally about being decent at everything, with a slight focus on shooting.

Skorne is generally about beating face in melee with hard hitting warbeasts that are deceptively fast.

Trolls are generally about really durable, or regenerating, warbeasts that also hit like a ton of bricks. Also tough to remove infantry.

Legion is similar to Cygnar in they can do just about everything if they want to. They can be melee beatsticks, really durable, really fast, ignore terrain, etc...

Circle is generally about teleport shenanigans with beasts that do a good amount of damage in melee, but are fairly fragile.


All of the above generalizations have exceptions. It depends entirely on the combination of models that are taken.

Joker - how old are you?

Why are you asking my age? How is that relevant to my questions?

Maybe he's going to make some sort of out dated pop culture reference and wants to make sure you'll understand it

My take on the factions is that they all have overlapping sections of a pie chart, but no single faction has access to everything. There's some duplication between a pVyros tier list and an eButcher tier list in that they both have a solid amount of reach weapon masters, but that's where the similarities end. So part of their pie chart slices overlap, but are not equal. Similarly a Cryx player who takes lots of bane knights can also overlap that same section of the pie of options, but all three are going to be very different experiences on the table top.

it's possible that made sense.