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Well, sort of.

Before today, I had played a grand total of 10 Warmachine games. I had lost all of them. But when Privateer Press (the creators of Warmachine) announced the release of the new game Hordes, I got interested. Maybe I'd do better once everyone was on equal footing.

So on April 22 I went to Hordes: Unleashed, the release event for Hordes. People bought the starter boxes, assembled them (some had already bought them at a convention earlier), and then played a bunch of games for prizes that included beautiful posters, ninja black t-shirts, and a signed hardcover edition of the rulebook.

Some of the prizes were awarded to top players, and some of the prizes were raffled off on a ticket system. Participants received a single ticket in the raffle, people who killed the opponent's general received a ticket, and people who bought and fully assembled their models on the spot received five tickets.

This becomes important later on as I thought that the missing pieces in my box meant that I could not qualify for the extra tickets.

The setup was a ladder system; everyone had a ranking and was allowed to challenge players ranked higher than them. You could only challenge upwards, and if you won you took that person's spot and they moved down. So if you were a player who won a lot, you could possibly sit around waiting for someone to challenge you.

I spent a lot of time looking up at the board, wondering whom to challenge.

I fought every battle using Circle Orboros, who are essentially ninja/druids with giant wolfies and foresty powers. They were lead by Kaya, a warlock (all the leaders in Hordes are warlocks). And almost every match boiled down to my leader staring down some hand to hand combat with their leader. Here's how I remember the games ending.

Match 1 (vs. Young): Kaya could have played aggressive and attacked the Troll leader, but played it safe and got axed or speared to death (the exact details elude me.

Match 2 (vs. Greg); After dancing all over the place with the warbeasts Kaya makes it into melee with Lylyth. I don't remember how Kaya died in this match.

Match 3 (vs. Travis) : Kaya fought another Kaya player, who promptly teleported into battle with Kaya (confusing isn't it?) and won the match. Unfortunately it was my Kaya who was knocked to the ground.

(At some point during the tournament, I was moved up! But only because someone left and so I was bumped up by default.)

Match 4 (vs. Drew): Both Kaya and her pet Warpwolf made it into melee with the axe wielding leader Madrak, but could not do enough damage to slay him, and could do nothing to knock him down and slay him. He either threw that axe at Kaya to kill her or chopped her up.

Match 5 (vs. Greg again): Kaya loses her warpwolf early on so we bank everything on running an argus in a zig zag pattern around Lylyth's warbeasts, and then teleporting Kaya into hand-to-stick combat. Lylyth gets knocked down! (Oh no! She's an archer! hehehe) And then...she gets up again (I don't do enough to kill her), and they all kill my last warbeast defeating Kaya forever.

And so the tournament ended.

But how did my losing streak end, you ask? Well I won the Rudy award. Patrick the event organizer gave me one of the Hordes T-shirts for playing like I had a set of testicles or something like that. I'm not sure how to take that. When you spend the entire ladder at the bottom you really have nothing to lose

But then they raffled off prizes...and I won the signed hardback edition of Primal, the brand new rulebook for Hordes. And so my losing streak ended at last.

Huzzah!

Well, their motto is "Play like you got a pair!"

Yeah, Hordes is a kickass game! I only just learned the rules Yesterday (Took me 1.5 hours!) and played it from 4 in the morning to about 5-6 at night! My local Non-GW store wasn't listed for Unleashed, but were still holding games for the whole day. I managed to use each Faction anf found Circle to be my faveourite, so I HAD to buy the rulebook and Circle's Warpack!

We played a similar Round Robin type game. This was for the die hards that stayed until 3pm. There were 14 of us, I was using Circle aswell! I managed to finish 7th overall, thanks to my tendancy to use combined charges with the Warpwolf and Kaya. The Argus were good at covering the flanks!

The most memorable point in one game was when my last Argus frenzied; killed my wounded Warpwolf; then took out a Carnivean (sp?) and their Warlock, winning me the game!

I got a newbie award and was gifted with the Minion Totem Hunter for free! After reading the rules, it looks like it will kick some serious ass! Best model ever!?

It's running leg looks kind of funny (flamingo-like), but yeah the Totem Hunter
is one cool fig. And your store opened up at 4AM? I'm guessing some of you guys
didn't bother even sleeping at all.

And your store opened up at 4AM? I'm guessing some of you guys
didn't bother even sleeping at all.

Well it actually opened round about mid-night, so that the people could get their minis first! I just got there from work after 12 hours of Nightshift 

I also didn't get to bed until 11pm that night 'cause I was putting together my Models! :S That Warpwolf is quite big!

My local Hordes Unleashed event was actually a 350 point Mangled Metal Warmachine tournament. Happily I took first place - won a hardback Hordes book, and a Trollkin box. One of the games was against a PP employee who had a Skorne group; I managed to eke out a win. Hordes stuff hits hard!

Ah, congrats on your win as well.

I liked playing Hordes. I will be sad, but happily not broke while
they slowly release the models in waves.

Im with you on that part malfred, too bad I have to catch up on my Warmachine armies.

So what faction are all of you playing?

I'm Trolls!

Circle.

Anyone getting a second? I like Everblight infantry but not the warbeasts. And
I like the Skorne EXCEPT for that atrocity that is the Basilisk. And trolls you're just
asking me to paint too much skin.

A second? Probably not; I don't really like any of the other factions. which is odd because I'm head over heels in love with Trolls.

We'll see though. Hordes is way on the back burner for me - I've only been doing Warmachine for maybe 3 months; I have yet to play a game with a caster who's not Darius. I'm barely scratching the surface of Cygnar at this point.

Sounds like a lot of fun!!! I didnt hear about the tournament until last night *cry*. And i just checked on the Privateer Press site and it turns out my local store was having a tourney, unexpected but its too late now . Still I hope to get into this game soon!

Well I'm definatley going for Circle. Werewolf type War Beasts backed up by Druids is kinda cool! Not only that, but the Warpwolfs abilities are Da Bomb! Especially Throat Ripper.

Depending on how my Chaos Mortals go (which have been pushed back for Hordes) I might get some Trolls aswell. If I do, it'll be a Scottish theme with lotsa Tartans and such! I'm still deciding on whether I want to go for a 40k army aswell? (Nids or Tau?)

I did two Hordes tournaments Saturday, (Two stores within an hour of each other) and won best of Faction for both using Circle. Here's the best tactic I've found with the Circle Warpack.

Head for whatever you want to kill, preferably a heavy warbeast, though it works on warlocks too. Charge Kaya into a warbeast or warlock. You don't have to get into actual combat range. Spirit Door the Warpwolf or an Argus (preferably the Warpwolf) into combat with the enemy. Cast Rager on your warbeast. Do a power attack: Headbutt, and boost to hit (If you upkeeped Rager, and have five fury left, you can cast Spirit Fang before bringing in your warbeast to try to get the -2 def. Or you can use Kaya's feat) Headbutt should hit unless you're after Lilith. The enemy will be knocked down, you get your two regular attacks, which you can boost, and you chain attack, which is the same as a kodiak, plus one more attack. Most warbeasts or warlocks will die in one turn.

Against light warbeasts or shredders, do a two-handed throw instead.

The only thing this doesn't work on is Trolls with Surefoot. You can still do some damage though.

(Hey Malf, my computer's down, and I can't post on the OT Zone from school.)

Yeah Rager rules. I just can never remember to throw or what have you.

Warpwolf + Rager = Death on Legs

A nasty way to use this guy is just Spirit Door or Charge in, use the +2 STR warp, headbutt for free, then wail away. Not much can survive that. Another annoying tactic is to charge in as above, then SD him away to avoid retaliation.

Argus are hilarious after throwing/slamming a model. Just have the Argus walk up and Doppler Bark- the hit model then basically forfeits his activation just to stand up!

I just have enough money left to keep playing warmachine, but when I ever play Hordes, it will be Trolls or Everblight