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Hey gang I have been a 40k nut for years and i tried out warmachine once when it first came out. I really liked it, but the problem was that i played with some god awful players that abused that "it's a man's game GTFO" rule or whatever that it use to have. I always laughed at the rule but i found people making it an excuse to be completely rude and mean (keep in mine i play 40k... so i am use to that sort of thing). Anyway because of this, it was a major turn off and i pushed the hobby aside; I have been willing to give it a try again but I would like to ask some honest input about the general level or civility of most players and see if the game has it's nice guys at all.

Also I am straining to decide which faction to get into I'd like a cheap army with alot of tactical flexibility which has me thinking cygnar, but hordes critters seem like where the cheese it at . O was just hoping that maybe some suggestions about cygnar or maybe another army that fits my tastes perhaps and generally would be worth the investments (good units over bad)

There's going to be jerks playing any game and whether they concentrate on warmachine in your area or not is something you can only go and check yourself. I like to think that most players of warmachine -or any game really- are good folks, but it really does depend on your local group.

As for choosing your faction, I've been pimping this guide I wrote on a different site for the last few weeks since I am still looking some feedback. http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/warmachine-general-discussion/forum/topic/choosing-your-faction-in-warmachine-and-hordes/ I can't copy the entire thing since it is so long but I will copy the cygnar section over for you.

Cygnar:
Background- The kingdom of Cygnar is an affluent nation in the heartland of the iron kingdoms. In recent decades this nation has come under fire from a multitude of threats from a ruthless king’s inquisition, a civil war in which that king’s brother deposed him, Khadoran Invasion, Cryxian incursions and raids, a second civil war with the Protectorate of Menoth, a Trollkin uprising, And the same deposed king retuning with an army of Skorne invaders to retake his crown. Cygnar has endured all of this but the battles are taking their toll. This nation was the home to the only city that withstood the ancient Orgoth invasion and the birthplace of the steamjack, arc node, and many other technological marvels.
Aesthetics- Cygnar has a number of subthemes from modernized knights with electrically charged mechanical swords, to revolutionary/WW1 era soldiers, to weird science tesla coil-wielding mad geniuses. The themes all carry a few unifying threads such as rugged nobility and blending the old and new. The steampunk genre is best represented by Cygnar. Their elemental theme of lightning is strong and represented by the many electrical weapons and constructs they bring to the battlefield.
Gameplay- Cygnar was known as the shooty faction during the first edition rules, but has grown into a combined arms faction in mark two. There are still proportionally more ranged attacks, but gunlines don’t perform well. Cygnar’s infantry are generally frail with more emphasis on offense than defense. They also have below average hitting power in lieu of generally high accuracy. Cygnar is in fact a highly accurate faction across the board; they lack the proficient mat 8 melee specialists, but most models sport above average mat and rat. Cygnar has few area of effect or spray attacks but frequently uses lightning jumping from model to model as an analogous solution. Cygnar jacks are rather average but most trade a bit of armor for higher accuracy. Infantry are effective at both ranged and melee combat and can prove adaptable -even if frail. Cygnar support is spread across many specialist solos and tend to be more utility or defensive in nature than offensive. Cygnar warcasters are generally rather powerful and support their army with a wide array of buffs with almost no effects that hamper enemy models. Cygnar seems to have an early edge on huge-based models with one of the better battle engines and a remarkably strong colossal. A special mention must be made for the very wide spread of mercenaries available to cygnar and the many additional units and solos which can be hired.

I have been playing trolls and really, really struggling with them against the local players and my first couple tourneys.

First off whatever faction you choose, get the starter and play it 20+ times and get to know the mechanics of the game and the rules and stats for your guys (and opponents models) inside out. Then add solos/units/etc to flavor, and play them until your eyes bleed.

I started with the starter, jumped ahead with new purchases, never got enough infantry and am still struggling through a lack of variety in models I own (i.e. infantry units) to take on different factions.

My next purchases will be x2 pyg units (not sure which yet), Troll Scouts, 2 more caber throwers, and then long riders. Swamp gobbers and alten ashley will also be in there.
I'll be getting a couple of storm trolls during all that to help with my beast fetish.

Sorry the first people you played with were Jerks. Maybe they didn't read Page 5 completely. Specifically #5


Anyway, the real deal with Warmachine is practicing with your chosen army.

Warmachine is very much about the combos your army can pull off, and what things in your opponents army can stop your combo.

Hordes do have an advantage in that Fury is a much more powerful mechanic then Focus. Thus Hordes armies are much better at that one turn suicide caster kill run that the game almost always ends on.

No army really has any bad units. They have units that are bad with certain casters and casters that arn't great unless you build a specific list.

@Gonads: I find you're much better off taking a variety of units rather than multiples of the same (outside of filling a specific need i.e. multiple forasken/shepards in Hordes, or multiple Vanguards for shield guard). Warmahordes doesn't really reward spam the same way that 40k does, outside of a few specific theme lists.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sorry the first people you played with were Jerks. Maybe they didn't read Page 5 completely. Specifically #5


Anyway, the real deal with Warmachine is practicing with your chosen army.

Warmachine is very much about the combos your army can pull off, and what things in your opponents army can stop your combo.

Hordes do have an advantage in that Fury is a much more powerful mechanic then Focus. Thus Hordes armies are much better at that one turn suicide caster kill run that the game almost always ends on.

No army really has any bad units. They have units that are bad with certain casters and casters that arn't great unless you build a specific list.

Fury is better early game, Focus is better late game. Keep in mind fury is warbeast dependent. take them away and the warlock is hurting.

LITERALLY hurting. Without any beasts they have to damage themselves to generate fury!

That aside, most of the folks I play with seem like decent folks. Page 5 is not to be abused, and mostly involves friendly smack talking and fun playing rather than camping in the corner. I haven't met too many jerks. A few people take it a bit too seriously or fudge rules on purpose, but they're few and far between.

 darefsky wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sorry the first people you played with were Jerks. Maybe they didn't read Page 5 completely. Specifically #5


Anyway, the real deal with Warmachine is practicing with your chosen army.

Warmachine is very much about the combos your army can pull off, and what things in your opponents army can stop your combo.

Hordes do have an advantage in that Fury is a much more powerful mechanic then Focus. Thus Hordes armies are much better at that one turn suicide caster kill run that the game almost always ends on.

No army really has any bad units. They have units that are bad with certain casters and casters that arn't great unless you build a specific list.

Fury is better early game, Focus is better late game. Keep in mind fury is warbeast dependent. take them away and the warlock is hurting.

True, but I find that it rarely comes down to just Warcasters duking it out. If someones lost all his Jacks or Beasts he's probably lost anyway. Regardless of whether he still has magic juice to throw around.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 darefsky wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sorry the first people you played with were Jerks. Maybe they didn't read Page 5 completely. Specifically #5


Anyway, the real deal with Warmachine is practicing with your chosen army.

Warmachine is very much about the combos your army can pull off, and what things in your opponents army can stop your combo.

Hordes do have an advantage in that Fury is a much more powerful mechanic then Focus. Thus Hordes armies are much better at that one turn suicide caster kill run that the game almost always ends on.

No army really has any bad units. They have units that are bad with certain casters and casters that arn't great unless you build a specific list.

Fury is better early game, Focus is better late game. Keep in mind fury is warbeast dependent. take them away and the warlock is hurting.

True, but I find that it rarely comes down to just Warcasters duking it out. If someones lost all his Jacks or Beasts he's probably lost anyway. Regardless of whether he still has magic juice to throw around.

Beasts maybe. I've got a friend who doesn't particularly like 'Jacks and is more than content to run just a single 'Jack.. maybe 2, in most of his lists.

True, it does depend on the list.

There is that nasty Daughter of the Flame list that only has like 2 jacks and tons and tons of daughters.

Fun fact: If you want to find out everything you ever wanted to know about Fury vs. Focus, go by the Privateer Press forums. It's been hashed and rehashed over and over again in dozens of threads.

Cygnar is a good faction if you want a flexible playstyle and access to alot of Mercenaries. Individual lists may not be as flexible, but with a reasonable collection you can go from a shooty list to a melee beatstick list. In fact, you can come up with some good lists and with a simple caster change they play very differently. That all said, most factions give you more than one option. Just is sometimes harder to play the other options.

For warmachine, my experience is most casters like 2-3 jacks at most. A few can run more, but most like only a couple. Usually a main one and maybe a support one or two. All the factions have infantry and solos they like to put out there. Again, most factions offer a "warjack caster" who is good at running multiple warjacks. But then you tend to get locked into a particular style of play with one caster.

As for the game, I find it tremendously fun. I started a few years ago and have pretty much given up on 40K. Warmachine is a much more tactical and interesting game. And the rules are so much better written and more balanced.

This games far more bad ass than 40k IMO. Gave up when 6th dumped its ever living "buy new models lulz!" on my head after spending nearly $3k building 4 armies to 2k.... eff that jazz.

Warmachine/Hordes is an excellent game, and every meta has their "downers" as with any hobby game. Just figure who to avoid, and who to play... its an amazing game though, and theres so many tricks, combos, abilities, etc. that you'll be building sooooo many lists that look nothing alike, and rarely will you ever see doubles of a unit/model on a field. EVERY model (with few exceptions) has a use to some caster, unlike 40k where there are units that are just "bad" and never get used.

I play both 40k and WM/H But honestly, I just find them to be very different games. I enjoy 40k for the massive battles, cinematic feel, and the universe. I enjoy WM/H more as a tactical challenge, like a game of chess with giant steampowered robots and ravenous trolls (I would be more into the WM/H universe if there was more fiction, BL-style)

As for people playing the game, I've played consistently at 2 stores and at Gencon 2 years in a row, and I've rarely had an opponent I didn't enjoy playing against, and almost never players of the type OP described. There will always be TFGs somewhere, just play everyone else.

Wow, alot of posts! dang! Thanks for all the replies gang i wanted to make sure you all knew that, and 40k isn't that bad but if you had only a specific kind of army yeah i could see it really upsetting people with the new edition lists, I have about 8k of orks so it wasn't any real huge change for me I had a decent amount of everything Anyway onto these posts

darefsky wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sorry the first people you played with were Jerks. Maybe they didn't read Page 5 completely. Specifically #5


Anyway, the real deal with Warmachine is practicing with your chosen army.

Warmachine is very much about the combos your army can pull off, and what things in your opponents army can stop your combo.

Hordes do have an advantage in that Fury is a much more powerful mechanic then Focus. Thus Hordes armies are much better at that one turn suicide caster kill run that the game almost always ends on.

No army really has any bad units. They have units that are bad with certain casters and casters that arn't great unless you build a specific list.

Fury is better early game, Focus is better late game. Keep in mind fury is warbeast dependent. take them away and the warlock is hurting.

It sure felt that way, but I never thought about it near the end game style and that makes a lot more sense in the battles between warmachine v hordes because i would see hordes get an early lead and just HOLD IT and crush the warmachine models. I knew players and skill factor in but I was still shocked to see the utter damage one could generate combat to a warjack but yeah if you flip the tables with some good shooting for example i do see that in order to gain focus without it going insane means you limit your casting potential. *nod* okay nice yeah, that encourages me a bit to stick with the idea of Cygnar then but i am about to check out that link from the first poster.

codemonkey wrote:I play both 40k and WM/H But honestly, I just find them to be very different games. I enjoy 40k for the massive battles, cinematic feel, and the universe. I enjoy WM/H more as a tactical challenge, like a game of chess with giant steampowered robots and ravenous trolls (I would be more into the WM/H universe if there was more fiction, BL-style)

As for people playing the game, I've played consistently at 2 stores and at Gencon 2 years in a row, and I've rarely had an opponent I didn't enjoy playing against, and almost never players of the type OP described. There will always be TFGs somewhere, just play everyone else.

Yeah, i mean i understand exactly what you guys mean i think it's become popular enough now that the decent players have come. The store i use to go it had them in and they were in stock i mean the fist month the game came out, hordes didn't exist or anything. And in my first few demo matches the champion of the store was playing me and everyone was offering him advise to kill me while they watched over our shoulders. I didn't mind cause I was trying to learn but when i said things like "Aw what? I cant hit you cause I am 1/4 of an inch off? That sucks!" to which they would reply "yeah you could have charged in though and hit him we don't know why you didn't! You had the focus and everything"

Which clearly my reply would be "...ugh cause i didn't know charging was something we even had till just now. This is a demo remember?". the replies were more or less "Gotta learn the hard way then since you didn't buy a book" or "See this page?! right here it says if you can't handle someone being better than you then GTFO the game, it's a man's game" and of course my favorite "If you don't like the game then you shouldn't play, you had every chance to read the rules while i took my turns!" Which i stared at the guy saying "you wouldn't let me read your book..."

I am not the type to shy away from interesting games, but i am glad to hear it sounds like this type of player not only isn't the standard but also is probably reviled just like in 40k. He just convinced me with nearly slamming the book in my face to make me read it when i was upset they weren't giving me the tools to even have a challenging experience that these rules supported his behavior and that everyone who played wants to just shout at people who said "but i didn't know." even if it was their first time. It's silly to think cause i don't think most people would enjoy being this mean but they did a good job at flustering me to the point where it sounded like a group of absolute jerks.

Worst part to the whole story... that was the store owner and his personal friend trying to "teach me" since then i watch my buddy from time to time play and was always just so gun shy that it took nearly 2 months of watching and waiting to see if it was common or not.

I've seen other examples in the past like 2 grown flabby men screaming at one another in a nearly empty store about rules when they both owned a rulebook. But ultimately this topic has done alot to make me think that maybe they are worth the investment even if it's just for fun.

Alright after looking over the text i still feel like cygnar is probably the way i want to go i like the flexibility of both melee and range combat with my jacks if need be and I know cygnar's guns are to be respected for accuracy and damage. A bit discouraging is the fact we are frail... which worries me a bit. So like i said I am about 80% sure i'd like to be cygnar could people give me some major pros and cons, basic pumped out tactics and ways to mitagate our weaknesses. I always heard good things about Kane as well so what warcasters would you suggest?

Wow those guys seemed to have no social skills and completely missed the concept of a demo game. shameful. I'd like to think that sort of behavior has been quashed in the last seven years.

People screaming about the rules is certainly anomalous, I don't think I've ever heard of that happening between WM players before. The rules are spelled out right there for you and not open to interpretation.

Yeah, the ruleset is really tight. There are very few times that reading the rulebook won't solve your issue.

I also came from Wathammer 40K. Warmachine and Hordes seems to scale alot better than 40K. Battles are just as entertaining and diverse at lower point value games as they are in bigger point value battles.

The Ruleset, to me, is much more straight forward which makes for faster games and less arguing.

When I was having the same questions as you, before investing into Privateer Press, people told me that it was a cheaper game. This is a yes and no scenario. Because the game scale better it is possible to play smaller battles and still be entertained, making for less money spent. There is a "But" though. But if a player is so inclined they can field big armies, with lots of infantry making for large model counts like 40K and bring along expensive items like Battle Engines or Colossals/Gargantuans. Typical battles do have fewer models though. It all comes down to how a player wishes to kit out their army. After that, it's just a battle of will power to resist buying more armies or expanding an army or armies out to huge forces of dice chucking devestation. It's still an expensive game, and whether it's cheaper than 40K is completely up to the player.

Overall I am happy with the system. If I didn't have such a sentimental attachment to my Dark Angels I would have pulled them out of their display cabinet and sold them to have more money to spend on Warmachine.

 Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:

Alright after looking over the text i still feel like cygnar is probably the way i want to go i like the flexibility of both melee and range combat with my jacks if need be and I know cygnar's guns are to be respected for accuracy and damage. A bit discouraging is the fact we are frail... which worries me a bit. So like i said I am about 80% sure i'd like to be cygnar could people give me some major pros and cons, basic pumped out tactics and ways to mitagate our weaknesses. I always heard good things about Kane as well so what warcasters would you suggest?

Cygnar has very good ranged firepower, rivaled only by Retribution with some casters, and Cygnar has more ways to mitigate anti-ranged abilities. Cygnar can get ridiculously accurate very easily. The main things that people dislike about Cygnar are that one of their signature mechanics, disruption, doesn't work against Hordes, as well as the general opinion that a lot of Cygnar's infantry isn't very good. However, Cygnar does have great units like the Arcane Tempest Gun Mages, Rangers, and the Black 13th, as well as access to mercenaries who can fill a lot of gaps.

Both Prime (Lieutenant) and Epic (Captain) Caine are great casters. Caine1 is more of a support caster, with good buff spells to make his infantry more effective. He doesn't do much for his jacks, but he runs them fine. He is a personal powerhouse who can put out a lot of infantry-murdering shots from his pistols every turn, and his feat lets him take a free shot at everything in his control area. Infantry swarms will weep bitter tears. Caine2 also has some good support, but is better at doing things himself. He can make himself ignore most forms of protection from ranged attacks, his guns have rate of fire infinity so he can keep shooting as long as he can buy more attacks, and with his feat adding damage for every hit he can bring down almost anything in the game. Both Caines have high Defense, but low Armor and Health, so while it's very hard to hit them, a few good hits will probably kill.

If you want to start with one of the Caines, I would recommend Caine1, just because he seems a bit easier to get the hang of.