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Literally as new as you can be besides maybe walking into a store seeing a Warmachine/horde box and saying I'll buy it. Haven't played a mini war game in 11 years since I was 13 and that was 40k. Was just going to get back into 40k but I stumbled upon this and it seems well....better in its current state. So literally all I've done is clicked through some of the armies, anyways here are some of my questions.

1. Are warmachines and horde COMPLETELY 100% compatible they are just different uhhh "factions" I'll say? Is either better to start with or anything like that?

2. What must an army consist of? The different types of units I've seen people talk about are confusing the hell out of me warjacks warbeasts warlocks....confused af.

3. Basically cousin and I are going to buy some tonight and I want to know exactly what units I'd need to make a legitimate legal army?

1. Yes. And pretty balanced, too.

2. A warcaster or warlock.

3. I highly highly suggest you each get the battlbox for the army you are most interested in our split the 2 player one. They are legal armies and designed to help you learn the game.

1. Yes they are compatible. The core rules for how models attack, deal damage, etc. are exactly the same. The difference is that warmachine uses warcasters commanding warjacks and hordes uses warlocks commanding warbeasts. The first uses focus the other uses fury, both are similar and different but still compatible. So yes you can play a hordes army vs. a warmachine one, people do it all the time.

2. Every army has at least one warcaster/warlock or more depending on the size of the game. Large games can have more than one warcaster/warlock. Each warcaster/warlock will have what is called a battlegroup which is him/herself and the warjacks/warbeasts they control. Also you can have then solos, which is models taken by themselves, or units which consist of 2 or more models that act together as a group. The game uses pts similar to 40k and everything costs pts, warcasters/warlocks give you pts that can only be spent on warjacks/warbeasts in that warcaster/warlocks battlegroup. Different warcasters give different amount of extra pts to spend on jacks. Some warcasters for example come into battle with a helper or sidekick and don't give as many pts as other who don't.

3. I would take a look at the two player starter sets for either warmachine or hordes. They come with premade 20pt armies with a warcaster/warlock, some warjacks/warbeasts, and a unit of infantry. They also got the mini rulebook and some other stuff so you can start playing. If the factions that come in those don't interest you I would start with just battleboxs for the faction you want, and you can download the quick start rules from PP website. http://privateerpress.com/files/WarmachineMKII%20Quick%20Start%20Rules%20Front.pdf

A Warlock is the leader/general of your Hordes army. A War caster is the leader of war machine armies. They are all characters with backgrounds and stories. They are incredibly diverse in what they do. Some sling offensive spells, others specialize in supporting your warriors, others focus on their war jacks/war beasts and others just focus on smashing face on their own.

After that you have war jacks and war beasts. These are basically to war machine/Hordes what tanks were to WW2. War jacks are large machines (some are 15' tall, colossal are even larger) that have a sort of mechanikal brain called a cortex that their controlling war caster is mentally linked to. War beasts are the living (usually) hulking monster version that are controlled by warlocks. Think giant lumbering trolls, massive werewolves, hulking six legged war elephants. There are also light and heavy versions of these.

After that you have the wide assortment of warrior models that fill the ranks of your army.

1. Warmachine and Hordes are both fully compatible by design, and you can play a Warmachine army against a Hordes army with no issue. There are even models and units in Warmachine that specifically interact with Hordes, and vice versa. They have slightly different rules on how they handle certain resources (Warmachine uses focus, which powers Warcasters and Warjacks, and Hordes uses Fury, which powers Warlocks and Warbeasts) that that doesn't impact how they play against each other. They both have the same learning curve so starting with either is acceptable.

2. An army must consist of a Warcaster/Warlock and practically speaking at least one Warjack/Warbeast. To clarify, Warcasters and Warlocks are the 'leaders' of your army whom your force resolves around. Warcasters are found in Warmachine armies, and Warlocks are found in Hordes armies. While they have different inherent rules depending on the system you are using (Warcasters have the rules for focus and controlling Warjacks, and Warlocks have therules for fury and controlling Warbeasts), they behave in fundamentally the same way. Warjacks/Beasts are similar.

As an aside, there is a hypothetical but currently non-existent case in the rules where you could have an army without a Warjack or Warbeast, practically speaking you will always have at least one. Its nothing that you should worry about now, but I'm including this in case in somebody tries to get lawyer-y with me :p

3. As others have said, the best choices are to buy a battlebox for a faction you are interested in. They are fairly cheap (about $50 US/CND) and contain a starting block of 3-5 models to get you aquianted with the rules. If both you and your cousin are interested in factions from the 2-Player Starters (Khador and Menoth for Warmachine, Circle of Oboros and Legion of Everblight for Hordes), pick that up instead (since they are the battle box +), but only do that if you BOTH want the factions from the set (its better to start with the faction that you like rather than the one that's cheap). From there, once you've got the basics of the rules down, think about expanding outwards.

Ok about to buy!!! I really like a few of the horde armies. Specifically trolls, minions and the one with wolves. If any of these are bad/boring/very hard to grasp please let me know now. Also I would rather not buy a starter box I'd rather pick each of my first few units individually. So the most important question is what do I buy??? A warlock, a warbeast and????

Start small! Don't jump in and buy a ton of models until you have had practice. For hordes, you need a few war beasts as they generate Fury points which your warlock will use to power their spells. There are tons of threads that give you a brief rundown of each faction but all factions are competitive, there is no one faction that is better than another faction. If you are set on hordes, you will need to run more Beasts than a war machine army needs war jacks. This is due to the Fury mechanic so you will want to start with one warlock, probably one or two light beasts and a heavy beast. If you like circle , I will recommend Kromac the ravenous for your warlock, a Gorax light beast, and either a warp wolf Stalker, feral warp wolf, and/or Ghetorix who is Kromac's axe wielding warp wolf. Ghetorix is a kit that you add on to a feral so you would need both but the new plastic warp wolf kit gives the option of magnetizing and switching between all the wolves. I would hold off on Minions as a first army pick. They are mercenary units and their options are quite limited. However, once you get the hang of the game, minions isthe best second army for you since you can use ssome of them in your circle army

Neverhood wrote:
Ok about to buy!!! I really like a few of the horde armies. Specifically trolls, minions and the one with wolves. If any of these are bad/boring/very hard to grasp please let me know now. Also I would rather not buy a starter box I'd rather pick each of my first few units individually. So the most important question is what do I buy??? A warlock, a warbeast and????

IMO start with a warlock for your chosen faction. Then do a little research to see what beasts and units they like in their force.

If there is something you are really sold on that is not a warlock (for me it was gunmages) then you can see what warlocks work with them and then pick a warlock.

But you can't really build a list without choosing the warlock. Kind of like trying to build a magic deck without choosing a color.

I'd also recommend starting with a full faction, not minions. Not that they aren't good, just that they tend to have not have a great variety of models and options to pick from.

Yeah, minions is very limited, because they're newish and because of the way they're divided up into mini-factions called Pacts with very little cross-over. They can be a lot of fun, but they tend to be something more for an experienced player who knows what they're getting into

By "Wolves" I assume you mean Circle Oboros? They're good, a main faction with lots of options and quite competitive (all the major factions are). They do have a somewhat steeper learning curve because they're a tricksy glass-cannon faction, and learning how to properly make use of their abilities (especially things like Teleportation using Standing Stones) takes a fair bit of time and practice.

Trolls are a lot of fun, though they tend towards blunt force and bricking up compared to Circles more fluid game. If you like the idea of a meatwall taking a solid beating and then still eating your opponents forces, these guys might be for you. Don't think that's all they do, however, they have a lot of fast and tricky things of their own (every faction can play in many different ways), it's just they tend towards a base line of simply outlasting opponents in the attrition game.

Anyway, I'd start with a battle box, and get used to the core mechanics first. If you're planning on purchasing a bit more at the same time anyway, we can recommend you a few things, depending on which faction you choose.

It doesn't seem anyone has mentioned this yet, but for the love of Pete, buy the rulebook first! Then get an idea of your faction, then buy the models.

Although, if you buy one of the battleboxes, they come with a basic rulebook.

Every army must have 1 Warcaster or Warlock and 1 Warjack or Warbeast(the latter because you can never be more than 2 points under and you have a certain number of points which have to be spent on jacks/beasts)

Other than that, you have free choice over army composition and the game is very well balanced.

Word of warning though, this doesn't mean every unit/model is good or works well with every other model. There are almost no bad models, just some that are very situational.

The game is heavily focused on synergy so if you have less than normal you'll get fried.




If you pick a Hordes faction, you'll want to run at least 3 warbeasts because of how Fury works. Your warlock needs extra Fury generation because he needs it to cast spells.

If you pick trolls, I'd start out with either pMadrak or pDoomshaper(the P stands for prime, or the first version. There are epic versions which are basically that same character later in the story) for your starting Warlock.

Then get a plastic heavy Dire Troll kit, which can be magnetized. And then get an Axer and Impaler. Thats a good starting battlegroup. Then for units and solos pick up a Krielstone bearer unit, whelps, and Janissa Stonetide.

 Todosi wrote:
It doesn't seem anyone has mentioned this yet, but for the love of Pete, buy the rulebook first! Then get an idea of your faction, then buy the models.

I think that is kind of a given.

And there are multiple forms of the rulebook. The main one, the mini one in the two player set and an e version along with the start rules in the start boxes.

Neverhood wrote:
Ok about to buy!!! I really like a few of the horde armies. Specifically trolls, minions and the one with wolves. If any of these are bad/boring/very hard to grasp please let me know now. Also I would rather not buy a starter box I'd rather pick each of my first few units individually. So the most important question is what do I buy??? A warlock, a warbeast and????

WHOAH!!!

slow down, and i mean that sincerely.

buying a starter box isn't a bad thing...depending on the starter box, they normally come with some good stuff in them. more importantly, it gives you a controlled way to learn the rules. Warmachine/Hordes isn't a game you can jump into and just play and do ok with. All factions in the game have very specific strengths and weaknesses, and you should probably do a little reading to make sure you know what you want and understand it a little better.

In terms of good/bad/ugly, so on and so forth, all warmahordes factions are hard to grasp. the game is simple to learn, but very VERY deep. In any given situation, misplacement by an inch could mean the difference in winning and loosing. take your time and read the rules. I really suggest starting off with a battle box, as it gets you in the game and going, but doesn't flood you with rules that you aren't familiar with.

the last thing i really have to recommend doing before you do any of this is decide on whether your going to play hordes or warmachine, and get a Prime or Primal MK II rule book and go through it. read the back of it and get a feel for what you like about each faction, then make purchasing decisions.

Most importantly, READ and UNDERSTAND THE RULES OF PAGE 5. they will help, because while your new, this game is tough, and new players get frustrated easily. start slow and build up, and if you do, the game will play better for you and you will enjoy it longer.