Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm considering starting a warmachine/hordes faction, and was having difficulty selecting the one that fit my play style best (Probably because I'm a picky bastard). And was hoping the wonderful folks on dakka could help steer me in the right direction.

There are three major things I'm looking for in an army, the first being able to be infantry based without the use of warjacks/warbeasts/battleengines. Being able to out last your opponent through attrition is another, not as important but would still be nice. Now this last is probably crazy but is there a faction that would allow me to essentially ignore my caster? What I mean is an army that can hold its ground without the casters spells or feats.

Thank you for Reading and may your dice roll well,
Jaceevoke

Hmm the first 2 sounds like Khador, but then their infantry really love being buffed and what not by their caster.

But remember, you will need at least 1 jack.

Khador, Cryx & Retribution are the most infantry-centric factions. Keep in mind all lists require at least 1 'Jack/Beast, it's baked into the list building rules.

Cryx probably will generally see the builds where your 'Jacks contribute the least directly to combat, however they tend to be used to extend your casters power.
Retribution will often rely on what 'Jacks they do have to provide some special ability.
Khador takes 'Jacks as an additional brute force combat element, but largely because the rules dictate they have to.

No faction will let you ignore your caster as they're pretty much what defines an army. Lists live & breathe on spells and abilities a caster provides, they're like the soul of the game man. The closest you're going to get is casters that have a relatively broad approach where their spells & abilties are more broad army buffs or powerful personal abilties than select effects. See Dark Price Vlad, who pretty much is just a dice modifying effect on legs.

In general though I'd like to emphasize that casters are the heart & soul of Warmachine/Hordes and the entire game revolves around them, they are to a great extent. There really are no exceptions to this.

EDIT: That said every faction in warmachine has infantry-centric builds, and a variety of them. Probably every faction short Convergence and Protectorate can see you basically dismiss 'Jacks entirely beyond that required ones and not be hamstringing yourself.

You must always have at least 1 Jack or Beast because Warcasters/locks give you Jack/beast points and you cannotm be more than 2 points under the value.

Second, while Warcasters can operate just fine without a jack, the same is not true of Warlocks. Without beasts they don't have a source of Fury to cast spells or buy/boost attacks.

Third, there is no escaping using your Casters feat or spells. Without those, you are crippling your army. You'll get crushed simply because the support they give is invaluable.


I second Khador as your faction. They are infantry focused and almost never run more than a single, very large and stompy, Jack. But again, they enable their infantry, and single jack, with their spells.

Without a caster, attrition becomes very difficult to achieve as it is often enabled by a particular spell. The Winterguard Deathstar is heavily reliant on the caster giving a buff spell, particularly Iron Flesh from Sorscha. The only non-caster buff is from Kovnik Joe, which is good but its hardly amazing without Iron Flesh on top of it.

This game is largely based around the synergy between different elements in your army, your warcaster is one of those parts. Losing that will put you at a very serious disadvantage.

I suggest a warmachine faction, not Hordes. Pretty much all the warmachine factions other than Convergence do well running a lot of infantry.

Khador and Cryx run a lot of infantry very well. I think Cryx infantry can be a bit less reliant on the caster. Both of them work much better with minimal jacks.

I think all factions have the ability to fight attrition. Khador and Cryx definitely can do this. IMO Cryx better than Khador, but it depends on how you want to do it.

Your caster will be an integral part of your list. Period. In fact, a proper list is built around the caster. They may be important by buffing your army. They may be important by being basically a super solo. Or they might fall somewhere in between. But you can't just ignore them and expect to win. However, if you just want a list that the troops are not reliant on the caster that is very doable. There are plenty of super solos out there that pretty much run themselves and not much else.

Hopefully you have a bit more info now and can give us a better idea of what you want your warcaster to do and we can give you better ideas.

Thank you everyone who has commented and helped me, can't say I'm not disappointed by the reliance of the caster and the requirement of a warjack/warbeast. But I'm not surprised considering what I've seen reading and watching warmahordes battle reports. With this in mind, if I had the option to, I would probably want a warcaster that buffs the army and have the warjack/warbeast acts as a guard for them.

As for attrition I'm more a fan of being tough to withstand attacks or creating/reviving more models, than being something that just does more damage than the opponent can. If that makes sense.

Once again Thank you for Reading and may your dice roll well,
Jaceevoke

 Jaceevoke wrote:
Thank you everyone who has commented and helped me, can't say I'm not disappointed by the reliance of the caster and the requirement of a warjack/warbeast. But I'm not surprised considering what I've seen reading and watching warmahordes battle reports. With this in mind, if I had the option to, I would probably want a warcaster that buffs the army and have the warjack/warbeast acts as a guard for them.

As for attrition I'm more a fan of being tough to withstand attacks or creating/reviving more models, than being something that just does more damage than the opponent can. If that makes sense.

Once again Thank you for Reading and may your dice roll well,
Jaceevoke

I suggest Cryx. Very good casters who can buff debuff and control.

And a variety of ways to create and bring back troops. And some very hard to kill units. You have a large variety of choices.

For jacks you can often get away with one or two arcnodes.

And the troops do a lot of work.

Khador is a close second but their casters tend to be much more up front.

If its not to late to chime in, eKreoss's tier list is pretty much what you are looking for.

Yes it heavily uses his feat, but in general his abilities are there to make your infantry better. The infantry you are running with are awesome on their own, but become insane on feat turn.

Essentially what his list is a swarm of weapon master knights that get better the more your enemy kills of them supported by crossbow/sword+shield wielding guys that are among the best tarpit/attrition units around. With the tier support they are in the enemies face right away inflicting effectively army wide weapon master attacks that on feat turn double in number and auto hit. Not on feat turn? Well you are still hitting with P+S=11+ weapon masters.

Outside of tier you will tend to be more warjack focused, but you don't have to be. Menoth has good infantry baseline stats and several casters that can enhance their strength reasonably well. Add in good "mess with the opponent" units and solos and you can make a strong balanced list with an infantry focus. Also with all the burning available you can definitely pursue an attrition game with menoth.

Jaceevoke wrote:I'm considering starting a warmachine/hordes faction, and was having difficulty selecting the one that fit my play style best (Probably because I'm a picky bastard). And was hoping the wonderful folks on dakka could help steer me in the right direction.

welcome to the iron kingdoms. feel free to ask away.

Jaceevoke wrote:
There are three major things I'm looking for in an army, the first being able to be infantry based without the use of warjacks/warbeasts/battleengines.

You're outta luck on this one buddy. Warbeasts and Warjacks are rather integral to the game, and to all the armies in it. With hordes especially, warbeasts are a requirement for heavy lifting, animi, fury generators and wound sinks. With Warmachine, they make up the heavy lifting and "concentrated power" aspect of a lot of lists. they're both also kind of iconic.

Hordes armies effectively will not go into battle without warbeasts, and the same is true for warmachine factions.

Jaceevoke wrote: Now this last is probably crazy but is there a faction that would allow me to essentially ignore my caster? What I mean is an army that can hold its ground without the casters spells or feats.

Not really. can you play chess without the king, and queen? in warmachine, casters are a king/queen hybrid that chucks fireballs.

Feats and spells are a very integral part of the game, and wishing to ignore them is rather foolish.

that said there are "selfish" casters that dont like to hand out spells to their minions, and would rather spend their focus themselves. I know this isnt what you're looking for as while they dont support the army, the army supports them, and acts as a caster delivery system - take butcher 3 for example. they tend to be "super solos" and do a lot of work themselves; that said, as someone who wants to ignore their caster, this isnt viable, as this approach puts even more emphasis on the caster, rather than the army.

essentially, what you want is a "units and solos" only variant of the game. Its fine for a home brew, but there is no official support for it. its simply not warmachine.

Jaceevoke wrote:Thank you everyone who has commented and helped me, can't say I'm not disappointed by the reliance of the caster and the requirement of a warjack/warbeast.

why? its a feature, not a bug.

Jaceevoke wrote: With this in mind, if I had the option to, I would probably want a warcaster that buffs the army and have the warjack/warbeast acts as a guard for them.

this is doable.however, if all you want out of a warjack is a bodyguard, you're missing out on a lot of their uses.

Jaceevoke wrote:

As for attrition I'm more a fan of being tough to withstand attacks or creating/reviving more models, than being something that just does more damage than the opponent can. If that makes sense.

perfectly.

in warmachine, attrition is accomplished by a variety of means.

you can go for high defence, and seek to dodge all the attacks that would kill your guys. that said, high def has hard counters.
you can go for high armour, and "soakage", and seek to soak up all the damage that is inflicted. that said, there are hard counters.
you can go for spammed numbers and have more bodies than the other guy has bullets. again, there are counters.
there are also ways and means of recycling/reviving units. cryx is the forerunner here, with lots of spells and feats, and abilities that let you recycle and bring back things that die. that said, other factions have access to gator bokurs, alexia and the risen and other ways of bringing back the dead for a second round. essentially, a lot of factions can build for an attrition game.

Wonderful, so it sounds like my best bet would be to buy the card decks for Cryx, Khador, and Menoth along with all of the "generic" rule books. And then proxy the models to see what suites me best.

Thank you, and may your dice roll well,
Jaceevoke

Yup, that would be a good course of action to take, IMO.

Though the card decks only have the old Mki models. The newer models will not be in them. Unless you are meaning the digital ones in which case they are auto updated with all the new stuff.