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Coming from a 40K background (expert level), several friends are always trying to get me to play this game. One of their big selling points is how balanced it is.
I call shenanigans. I find it preposterous that with all of the factions\units and complexity of the game, that it could be balanced.

Let's be honest here: While each faction may be able to compete within the meta, there are optimal builds for each. I would think that each faction has 1-2 casters
that are considered the best, and supporting units that work with those casters.

Am I correct in my analysis? Be honest - no b.s.

No there are no such things as "optimal builds" for each faction. As you mentioned a game with this complexity will have pieces that are better and pieces that are worse but generally the difference between those pieces will be so small that player skill will matter more than the relative power of any individual unit.

If you don't believe that the game is balanced, go check out tournament results for major conventions and you'll generally see an almost even spread between all the factions and a fairly eclectic range of lists in each one.

Is the game perfectly balanced? No, it is not, no game ever designed by man has achieved this mythical goal!
But it is balanced enough that the differentiating factor will almost always fall down to player skill.

About 20% of stuff for each faction is pretty crap
Another 30% are narrow usage and only viable under very specific circumstances

There is a good 40% are general purpose, usually good

The final 10% on each faction is a little better than most of the things in that faction and are seen much more often, but at the same time they are often what people bring to counter

That being said, each faction has a different number of good casters

Every faction has 1 or 2 caster that are pretty crap
The rest are very viable
Every faction also has a few casters that stand above the rest, but at the same time they are not 'end all be all'

For example - eHaley would probably be the caster in Cygnar that stands above the rest, but at the same time Caine, Siege, Stryker and Nemo are all extremely competitive. Often even more so than eHaley (even tho she is slightly superior) because of the fact people bring specific stuff to counter her much more often


One more thing to note, the more "meta" something is in this game, the more you will lose for using it. This game gives you the tools to counter any tactic, so if you are using the most popular tactics expecting an easy win, get ready to lose against absolutely everyone

Okay, answer this:

Are there bad matchups in this game. Faction vs faction wise?

Aftermath. wrote:
Okay, answer this:

Are there bad matchups in this game. Faction vs faction wise?

Closest thing I can think of as a bad matchup is Legion vs Circle
but its not like its the entire faction thats better

Let me explain a bit

Circle is a very terrain based faction, they have a lot of bonuses and mobility when using terrain, and 1 or 2 casters are VERY based on terrain
but note they might be the most "terrain" based faction but that is still less than half of the faction. They are still great even outside the terrain (moving on)

A very very large amount of Legion stuff have by default the rules "Pathfinder" and "Eyeless Sight"
These rules while appearing in every faction, is way waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more common in Legion (actually Pathfinder might be slightly more common in Circle... moving on)
Pathfinder makes them ignore terrain for movement
Eyeless Sight makes them ignore forests for LoS and stuff

So Circle is all like "haha! I am abusing these forests to get an advantage"
and Legion is like "haha! My base rules naturally ignore them~"

Talamare wrote:
Closest thing I can think of as a bad matchup is Legion vs Circle
So Circle is all like "haha! I am abusing these forests to get an advantage"
and Legion is like "haha! My base rules naturally ignore them~"

I find this to be disingenuous. I play circle. And believe me, circle has forest trickery, but the faction does not solely revolve around forest trickery. In this case, I can drop Baldur, whose feat removes pathfinder, and turns everything into difficult terrain, and plop down laenyssa ryssell, who removes eyeless sight. The circle v legion match up issue does not really bear fruit, if you ask me.
Beyond this, I’ve got a whole hit and run style of play. Blackclads, kromac and the kayas let me hit and run and annihilate at will. Their beasts cant ignore forests when they’re dead, and they cant kill my stuff that did the killing when they’re no longer there any more, or when I’m tarpitting them with skinwalkers or ravagers.

Aftermath. wrote:Okay, answer this:

Are there bad matchups in this game. Faction vs faction wise?

No, not really. You will run into caster v caster issues, but as a whole, all factions are equally viable (except for mercs and minions, but they’re fractions, not factions). Regarding the caster v caster hard match up issues, PP run dual, or triple list tournaments. If one of your lists has a hard match up, you can use the other.

Aftermath. wrote:Coming from a 40K background (expert level), several friends are always trying to get me to play this game. One of their big selling points is how balanced it is.
I call shenanigans. I find it preposterous that with all of the factions\units and complexity of the game, that it could be balanced.
Let's be honest here: While each faction may be able to compete within the meta, there are optimal builds for each. I would think that each faction has 1-2 casters that are considered the best, and supporting units that work with those casters.
Am I correct in my analysis? Be honest - no b.s.

As you say yourself, you come from a 40k background. Not being cheeky, but that says enough!  its hard to appreciate balance when 40k is the status quo that you are used to. And please, don’t think im talking down to you – we’ve all gone through the transition.
But shenanigans? No sir, warmachine/hordes is one of the most finely crafted, well balanced games out there. Try it. You’ll be surprised. I ran a hell of a lot of demos for my mates back in Ireland (here in Scotland too), and one thing that struck me each and every time, was that it was like the sun came out for the first time for these folks. Like you, they’d not known (or cared), or more importantly, thought things could be different, but when they played WMH, and the nature of the game slapped them between the eyes, they suddenly saw things different. All of a sudden, their tactical choices mattered, they weren’t going to arbitrarily lose because theirs was an old codex. I’ve seen the 40k scene gutted to a large extent back home, as a lot of folks turned to warmachine. Same here in Scotland. Its popular, and now building on its own momentum. Its doing that for a reason.
That’s not to say there are issues. There are the aforementioned hard match ups, and there is the synergy based nature of the game. What do I mean by this? Everything can be built into a game winning strategy. Some stuff might be more obvious than others. But not everything works with everything, against everything else, all the time. Take two of khadors casters. Irusk and karchev. Karchev is a jack caster – he runs warjacks extremely well. Irusk is the opposite – he’s an infantry-centric caster with limited support for jacks. Now take a whole bunch of jacks with irusk, or take bucket loads of infantry with karchev, and you have a problem. Bad synergy. The casters cant support their army. Its not to say irusk or karchev are bad. Its not to say jacks are bad. Or infantry. Its your choice in the usage of these pieces that is bad. Infantry with irusk is disgusting. Jacks with karchev Is nuts, especially in mangled metal formats. See what I mean? Its not what you take necessarily, its what else you take too.
Now, can factions compete within the meta? Absolutely. Look at the tournament results. There is generally an extremely good spread of factions, and lists throughout. If you do some looking, there are also some very interesting statistics which break down the factions, and what gets taken into cold hard facts. There was one from last years templecon (a huge WMH tourney which broke down the individual faction win ratios and everything- and most managed 45-55% win/loss ratio) this statistic is also general repeated. This isn’t like 40k where a handful of top codices have a handful of top builds. No sir – some things will be seen more often (in circle, its shifting stones and warpwolf stalkers) but they don’t necessarily dominate, nor do they utterly outclass other options.
Regarding the quip of each faction having 1-2 top casters – I’ll have to disagree. I play circle and khador. When it comes to what I regard as A-class casters, or B+, you’ve got Butcher1, Butcher3, Vlad2 (small points games, personally!), Vlad3, irusk1, irusk2, Sorscha 1 (having a bit of a renaissance lately), Sorscha2, Old Witch. Butcher 2 is my personal favourite caster, and I’ve placed top 3 in tournaments with him, so he’s far from unplayable. Strakhov likewise is fun, but a bit of a one trick pony. The only dud is Zerkova, and even then, the PP khador boards have a huge “I won with Zerkova” club going. She’s not bad, just doesn’t have the right tools in faction. In cryx, she’s be great.
Now, lets try Circle. Most are top tier, or extremely solid at worst. Kromac, Krueger, mohsar, kaya, emorv etc. pkaya is underrated and under-appreciated, but she’s good too. Morvahna, when not facing upkeep hate is top tier (hard match up issues aside).Cassius is often seen as the worst warlock, especially against legion, but we had a thread recently spouting his virtues, and his (apparently) excellent uses against them. I can see his merits (hellmouth, stranglehold and a 22” forest for a feat) Grayle too has his detractors, but those that can make him work swear by him. I dunno – I’ve not played him. It’s the same with the units. Tharn ravagers are a marmite unit, but with eMorv especially, and in the post-colossals meta, a lot of folks are giving them a second look and finding that whilst situational, they’re bloody good at what they do.
Now its funny, because don’t take this as an objective look. This is my personal take. I love kromac. He’s why I got into circle. I think he’s a fantastic toolbox, with great beast support, useful control, fantastic magic denial, and a brilliant assassination run. The former holder of the UK masters title hates him, and cant stand him. My mate who recently won the Scottish masters (with cryx. Boo, and hiss!) isn’t too fond of him. Other big names that have won big tournaments in America especially love him. Some folks swear by eKrueger as a fantastic control caster, and his prime version as equally solid. Guess what? I’ve never been able to make either work for me! I just can’t do it. A lot of what is seen as “good” all boils down to personal opinion. If you like a caster, and can get the tools to run your playstyle right, then it’s a good game, regardless of what anyone else thinks. More than anything else, I’d argue this is the case. The forums are incredibly guilty of group think, and of conforming to an extremely narrow view of whats regarded as good. In actual play, I’ve seen so many things dismissed that performed extremely well. take that for what you will, but if you ask me, its a sign of a healthy, and varied meta.

Balance vs Complexity: You say it's impossible. Then you must not be an engineer.
There are no Faction vs Faction auto wins. In fact there are no caster vs caster auto wins. Not only does your force selection make a difference you make a big difference as well.
The most important thing in Warmahordes, in my opinion, is to know the rules. Many people get caught in a gotcha moment and that caused them to lose the game. However, if there is a rules problem it can usually (90%) be resolved by looking at the rule(s) and the timing chart. Warmahordes has a very legalistic way of writing rules. Meaning they define their terms in a certain way and that is the limit of that term's meaning.
In any event it strikes me as odd that you imply that you have never played a game but there must be problems that you are used to having in another game system. Play a few games for yourself and see for yourself.

The biggest balance issue in WM/H is player skill.

This is a game of millimeters and making the least mistakes. Its complex in it's interactions between models and caster, and models with other models.

This game was designed for competitive play and the rules are tight, If you look at the rules questions here and even on the PP official boards, most questions are answered with "See page....of the rule book"

Now word of caution. The battle boxes are not balanced...... they are there to give people a chance to get the rules down before working up to a proper army. I would personally not bring the Cryx box to a demo for new players as pDenny with bone chickens is not the way to introduce new players (she is arguably a top 3 caster in skilled hands). I usually run Khador vs Menoth, or Khador vs Cygnar for demo games are those boxes are fairly equal (in my opinion).

As to the "gotcha moments" they are going to happen at first. This is an open information game, you have the right to ask for any info about your opponents models and even see their cards. Where this hurts new players is you don't know what to ask or what to do with the info yet.

For example look at the Molik Karn missile, he can move almost 2 feet across the table to reach your caster if your not aware of it, but as a new player how would you know until it happens to you (seriously what mouth-breather would do that to a newb...I would at least explain what I could have done and showed them instead of clubbing the baby seal but that's just me.). Think of them as learning tools.


Casters.....IMHO they are more about your style of play, and how well they can achieve what you want them to. My favorite caster is pButcher, I love the model, Mat 9 is just sick, but he is very vanilla. everyone and their mother knows what he does there are no surprises there. Yet its still fun when he puts a colossal in the dirt (cant wait for 3Butcher for more of this) on feat turn by himself.....
.

Generally it is balanced, perhaps not perfectly but enough that player skill is king. I've seen threads of analysis looking at which faction places in more tournaments or which faction won a higher percentage of games in a tournament. It usually shows that balance is pretty good - not prefect, but good enough to imply skill is far more important than faction.

There are bad matchups, usually because a caster has trouble dealing with a certain other caster or faction. However! Warmahordes tournaments generally have two to three lists, and you choose one at the start of your match - so if your opponent has something one of your casters can't deal with, you throw down a different caster.

Some casters are more popular in tournaments definitely, and most factions have 4-5 that see most of the table time, though dark horse casters can do well on occasion. Those casters often have synergies than mean their lists have some similarities, but with so many options and subtle differences in play style, most lists are quite varied, far more so than most "cookie cutter" lists in 40k.

Now there is a point to be made that while most factions are highly competitive, some are not as competitive as others. Minions, for instance, are quite new and have very few options, and even so are broken down into two sub-factions. The far fewer options, and the fact that many players restrict themselves to one sub-faction anyway, means that minions generally have a harder time winning tournaments. Mercs have more variety but are also similarly decided down into sub-factions, which harms their competitiveness (though they don't do too badly at all these days).

Generally though, the balance is really good, and you see a fair bit of variety in which factions and list builds people are bringing and which are winning, without having to resort to 'Comp' scores, which are non-existent in Warmachine .

The factions are what is balanced. Every faction can compete. That said not every unit and warcaster within a faction is equal in terms of how useful they are, but with the right support or proper tactics you can make the less useful ones useful.

Also the game works better when you start using scenarios such as the steam roller 2013 ones. The scenarios help break up gunline style tactics by forcing towards the center of the table, as well as making certain feats and abilities more useful.

Also I have found what others are saying to to be the case, that experience and tactics are superior to just grabbing a netlist.

The game can be very rock paper scissors spock lizard. For every "power" piece there is a counter.

Also the game is very synergy based. Unit a might suck by itself. But add in unit b and suddenly both become rock hard. In fact most units casters etc are like this.

Since the game is based on point values there are always things that people find more or less efficient for the points. Nothing is perfect.

I played 40k since 2nd ed and switched to WMH a few years ago. PP does a much better job balancing things.

The game itself is balanced, but specific matchups may not be balanced.

You can end up with Rock-Paper-Scissors matchups in this game. its not impossible for Rock to beat Paper, but its definitely at a disadvantage. but skill is still the deciding factor. You can have a really solid list, but if you don't know how to play it you won't win.

That is why tournaments are always played with at least 2 lists, sometimes more.

A skilled player with an average list will almost always beat a less skilled player with a rock solid list. But the game also doesn't forgive mistakes, so if a skilled player makes an error he can lose pretty quick.

Some casters are worse than others, but that doesn't mean they won't see play. You'll often see the dark horses show up in 3 list tournaments where its safe to bring a skew list. They can still do pretty well, often because people won't be experienced against them. they don't know all the synergies.

Synergy is a big part of this game. Even if you know all the rules for a model, you need to go beyond that and think how it interacts with the army.

Warmahordes is balanced because:
1. Game philosophy. Privateer Press cares about the rules and updates them. By comparison, GW has stated the rules are there so you can play with your models. You know, move them back and forth and make noises as they strike a pose.
2. Rules philosophy. Warmahordes game system is designed so that each model uses well known concepts. Stealth is Stealth, Arcantrik Bolt is Arcantrik Bolt (except it's probably spelt differently) regardless of what army you play. This goes beyond GW's USRs, and is more in line with "imagine if half of the armies had models with Red Thirst". As a rule of thumb, you don't get codex-unique special rules, beyond a few model-unique ones.
3. Community philosophy. Privateer Press has staff who answer community questions and who promote the community. It's not in the way of calling to get an answer that changes depending on who in customer support you talk to, but rather you get answers which are canon. Also, Privateer Press doesn't shut down their facebook page when they get negative feedback
4. Tournament proof. Eldar and Tau aren't dominating each and every tournament.
5. Release philosophy. Each faction marked as a main faction get a small amount of releases with each major release. This ensures that you don't get single faction at a time that are up to date.

There are weaker factions, but not to the degree that they don't place well. There are weaker builds, but not to the degree that you don't see variations even with the top scoring players.

Disclaimer: this is my take on it after having played one game, lurked this part of the forum and having read the rules. It's fairly obvious, actually, even though Vlad seems soooo good .

Releases are better in general because models/units get released individually. Plus the model comes with its card so you can begin playing it immediately. you don't need to spend the extra money on a faction book like you would a codex.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Plus the model comes with its card so you can begin playing it immediately. you don't need to spend the extra money on a faction book like you would a codex.

I agree this is technically correct, but a lot of the time it seems to be rather disingenuous. I often ask myself, at least as a newer player who doesn't know how everything works, "how do you know which models to buy if you don't know what they do first?" Actually I think they sell "faction card decks", but at that point I'd rather just buy the faction book and get all the fluff.

One thing I will agree on though, is that the main rulebook has basic army stats in the back for the 4 "main" factions. Think 40k 3rd edition "rulebook codex" (if you've been around that long. If not just think of a basic list that has probably about 1/3 the options available to the faction in total).

Oh, and the books are all available either hardcover or softcover (for less money). Don't know why, but this idea makes me smile.

The game actually sounds pretty awesome from a balance perspective.

The learning curve sounds painful though. It is almost too much.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Plus the model comes with its card so you can begin playing it immediately. you don't need to spend the extra money on a faction book like you would a codex.

I agree this is technically correct, but a lot of the time it seems to be rather disingenuous. I often ask myself, at least as a newer player who doesn't know how everything works, "how do you know which models to buy if you don't know what they do first?" Actually I think they sell "faction card decks", but at that point I'd rather just buy the faction book and get all the fluff.

You just go onto Battle College and see what models do then decide to buy. Really though, you will end up getting pretty much everything for your faction though, because especially with Hordes changing a few models can really shift the feel of the army. Changing you caster makes it a whole different game.

But don't get the faction decks. Those were just relevant when MK2 was released, and updated the rules for all the extant models at the time. They don't have newer stuff since then, so they are only useful if you want to proxy older models.

As to balance, there was a long debate on the Circle forums about who our worst caster was. After a bit it sounded a lot like arguing which color is best, and people just decided that the gap between best and worst was really narrow, and maybe it was Grayle at worst?

In general the game is balanced because even though there is lots of crazy stuff, there are always answers, and across two lists you are going to be able to deal with all of it.

Aftermath. wrote:
The game actually sounds pretty awesome from a balance perspective.

The learning curve sounds painful though. It is almost too much.

You only hear about the crazy combo's but they are few and far between, a good player is more clever than a bad player in slamming, using throws, knocking things down, and stuff to get to your caster or to the objectives and you might be able to move 20 inches but it has to be in a straight line, if I know that I can block you.
There are some combo's that get crazy like the 24" charge but for the most part the casters that have those things only do that one thing so you know to look out for it after your first few games.
Once you get the hang of it its very much like chess, there's a lot of trading pieces and placing models "just so" they do what you want
Because of how the game is designed if you're fighting a certain army, they will usually bring a few things to every game, and then some different stuff depending on the caster, if you're super worried about not knowing things just play a defensive caster and dont spend a lot of focus or fury at first.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Plus the model comes with its card so you can begin playing it immediately. you don't need to spend the extra money on a faction book like you would a codex.

I agree this is technically correct, but a lot of the time it seems to be rather disingenuous. I often ask myself, at least as a newer player who doesn't know how everything works, "how do you know which models to buy if you don't know what they do first?" Actually I think they sell "faction card decks", but at that point I'd rather just buy the faction book and get all the fluff.

One thing I will agree on though, is that the main rulebook has basic army stats in the back for the 4 "main" factions. Think 40k 3rd edition "rulebook codex" (if you've been around that long. If not just think of a basic list that has probably about 1/3 the options available to the faction in total).

Oh, and the books are all available either hardcover or softcover (for less money). Don't know why, but this idea makes me smile.

Well the faction books don't actually have all the models. Just a good 70% of them.

They do sell faction decks, but those also do not have every model's cards in them.

The only way to get every card in a deck would be to have the Warroom app and buy the decks on there(they update as models are released)

You are better off getting the faction cards in War Room at $5 and lifetime updates (which is really nice).

Once you own a faction it also opens up the rules which is a really nice way to look something up quickly.

Aftermath. wrote:
The game actually sounds pretty awesome from a balance perspective.

The learning curve sounds painful though. It is almost too much.

Well the learning curve may be painful if you jump right into playing 50pt list single warcaster lists (which is the level that a lot of tournament players play at) vs. tournament players, but luckily you shouldn't have to. You can always start at battle-box level and work up from there, which is what the game is design around. There is even a league formant (rules are available online at PP website for free) that is called journeyman league where you start with just the battle-box and every-week work your way up, second week 15pts then 25pts etc. Battle-box is basically just your warcaster/warlock and a some warjacks/warbeats.

Also there is a lot of useful information online at PP forums and battlecollege for new players. Once you get the hang of the game you can move up to playing 25pts or 35pts.

Yea, the curve is steep. Plan to get kicked around for 2-6 months at least. Watch a lot of battle reports and read online. Probably the best thing about the game is that you can get a lot better by studying when you are not playing.

Sounds strange I know, but there are so many tricks and strategies you can learn that you will do most of your learning outside the game. Makes that time we waste at work suddenly valuable!

 Wehrkind wrote:
Yea, the curve is steep. Plan to get kicked around for 2-6 months at least. Watch a lot of battle reports and read online. Probably the best thing about the game is that you can get a lot better by studying when you are not playing.

The best thing you can do is get into a journeyman league or get a friend or two to start with you so you learn together. "oooh, so THATS how that works!"

That, or if you have a friend that plays that is pretty good and willing to dial back a bit, that is probably better.
The problem with playing with other new people is that you don't notice each other's rules mistakes, and you don't see clever new tricks as much. There is a LOT of depth in the rules and what you can pull off, and learning that is what makes you a good player (and what makes watching videos of good players so valuable.)

Also, are you starting Hordes or Warmachine? I find Hordes can be a little rough at 25 points. You tend to want multiple beasts, but can't really afford them with some infantry. WM on the other hand often is pretty good at 25 due to only wanting one jack for most casters anyway. Either way, the chances of getting a really bad match up at 25 seems to be pretty high in my experience, which makes for sad games. 35 isn't much slower or harder, but you have more options. After a few 15-25 point games I would really recommend 35, and then 50 when you can.

If/when you start to play, things will not look balanced. The first time you run into bane thrall spam with bane lord Tartarus and a caster who can cast telekinesis and/or excarnate and/or a feat that brings back models you will say to yourself how in the world is this fair and/or balanced?

I believe between factions there is a balance in that I believe with everything out currently (MK II, forces books, wrath, domination, colossals, and gargantuans) has tools for dealing with other factions shenanigans. The exception might be the Thornfall Alliance from Minions, I don't thing they have a good breadth of models/units.

As said previously, the complexity of the game comes in learning how everyone interacts together. PP has the QuickStart rules available online and if you can understand those, you can play the game. Depending how much you play, you will get your butt kicked for a good 6mo to a year if you play with an experienced player. When you learn what your army will do, you will do better. When you learn what your opponents army can possibly do, you will do even better.

The hardest part, is deciding what faction to play in the whole Warmahordes universe.

 darefsky wrote:
You are better off getting the faction cards in War Room at $5 and lifetime updates (which is really nice).

Once you own a faction it also opens up the rules which is a really nice way to look something up quickly.

I don't know about lifetime updates. I believe they caveat-ed that to MK2 only. Still so very worth it, as I don't see MK3 coming for a good long while.

 derek wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
You are better off getting the faction cards in War Room at $5 and lifetime updates (which is really nice).

Once you own a faction it also opens up the rules which is a really nice way to look something up quickly.

I don't know about lifetime updates. I believe they caveat-ed that to MK2 only. Still so very worth it, as I don't see MK3 coming for a good long while.

I hadn't heard that but even then, MKIII if its even going to be a thing will be years and years away.

Yeah, I can't see anything worth changing radically enough to warrant a new edition just yet.

Greatly balanced games (Video, board and tabletop) have three levels of units;

God-Tier
Great-Tier
Situational-Tier


Poorly balanced games (Video, board and tabletop) have two levels of units;

God-Tier
Garbage-Tier



That is to say, no matter the amount of effort or play testing goes into a moderately complex game, you will have creams of the crop and situational units. That's ok--it happens and you can adjust that by furthering releases that disrupt that game meta--moving other units from situational to God, God to Great, etc. Sounds like a marketing plan? Well, it's certainly PPs. UAs, Solos, etc.---are all ways to take those situational units and..give them the situation to be great. The game evolves with wave releases.


On the other hand, you have the poorly balanced game with God and Garbage Tier---that will pretty much remain that way in faction until their next major release (which may be years). Sure, there is always a possibility another armies release may bring your garbage unit from the heap---but given the themes present in book releases (40k for example)--if your unit doesn't fit the current meta niche in releases---well it's garbage until next release.



So yes, realistically, your friends were right with how balanced Warmahordes is. It's the best I've played or seen to date--and I've tried a lot of systems.

Also, balanced games are rarely easy.

Take chess for example. You couldn't have more balance in a game.

The game is entirely based on skill, each player has the exact same pieces and strategies available to them.


Someone coming into the game for the first time, never ever having played or heard of it, might think its unbalanced. After all, White gets to go first all the time. But really its all about the skill involved.

Warmachine is similar to chess, except there are far more possible pieces and it adds customization. Imagine if Chess was a point based game. Instead of the normal compliment of pieces you always had a King and purchased other pieces up to a set point value. you could have an army of nothing but Rooks if you wanted.

This would still be a balanced game, but it would simply take on a massive amount of complexity.

Warmachine is a tactically complex game. The rules themselves are simple and straight forward. they mean exactly what they say. And everybody knows what everything does(theoretically) because its an open game. But its up to you to actually take advantage of how the rules interact, exactly like chess. Everybody knows what the different moves are, its the combination of moves that decides the game.