Retribution of Scyra:
Background- The Retribution of Scyra was once a group of outlaw extremist elves waging a secret holy war on human magic-users but has recently gained favor within the elven nation of Ios. They have gained the favor of the people and are now escalating their operations to full-scale war with the aid of the Iosan military. The reason for their intense enmity toward human spellcasters is based on the belief that human magic is slowly killing their last goddess and their race will go extinct if she is not saved. Ios has a mystique about it in the setting that no other nation can match, They have silently held their territory for millenia and withstood even the Orgoth. No outsider who enters Ios has ever returned. The nation itself has been insular and had closed borders for as long as anyone can remember, but even their emissaries and ambassadors were withdrawn about a hundred and fifty years ago due to a brutal civil war they have thus far kept as secret as anything else that goes on behind those veiled borders. Most recent events have had retribution forces recover Nyssor, the god of their Nyss cousins after the Everblight tragedy thought to have been lost ages ago with the rest of the missing elfen pantheon.
Aesthetics- The Retribution has a very distinct and alien look. Their curved armor plates and interwoven crosshatched straps provide highly recognizable themes throughout the various types of units in the army. The warjacks, or as they call them, myrmidons, are odd constructs not even built from the usual steam-powered pistons and gears but instead interlocking hinged plates and run on ambient environmental magic. They, like the Iosan heavy infantry, are clad in odd curved plates. Members of the regular army tend to have either heavy armor or a lighter military uniform while more exotic auxiliaries like battle mages have their own distinct visual cues, such as huge armored gauntlets manipulating magical force. The forces of the original retribution maintain their cloaks and leather armor, but now work in strike force teams as well as lone agents. The elements of this force that make them depart the most from traditional elves is their weaponry and equipment. Ios has had thousands of years of technological advantage over other races that has slowly slipped away, but they have reverse-engineered some of the mot effective firearms known to exist. These are used along side the crossbows employed by the old mage hunters from the time they had to operate in the shadows. The Retribution elves are also perhaps a bit more grounded than the stereotypical fantasy elf sometimes seen shaved bald, smoking a cigarette, or sporting an unshaven beard.
Gameplay- The retribution is an infantry-centric army who use their warjacks more as Swiss army knives more than battle-axes as most other factions do. They are a strong combined arms faction with moth melee and ranged specialist troops and hybrid warjacks. Their strongest options are their highly effective infantry and outstanding combat solos. While most factions have an eye to make solos support models, retribution solos are predominantly meant for combat. On the topic of support, Retribution support is scarce and most models are meant to stand alone with only indirect support; indeed most of what they do to help their allies affects enemies far more directly than their own models. Retribution warcasters typically have less to offer their army than their contemporaries from other factions, but each does have his or her own unique assets to provide. As a newer force they have fewer options and have no central gameplay themes, but seem to be slowly building on a theme of altering model placement.

Cryx:
Background- The undead forces of the dragonfather work tirelessly and mercilessly in hidden conclaves across Immoren to support the dark industries that fuel their hidden war machine. They build horrible machines and undead abominations under the nose of mortal forces using the corpses of the fallen and battlefield debris as material. Their only objectives are to bend the world to their dragon god’s will and slay his draconic offspring.
Aesthetics- Visually, Cryxian models have a gruesome and dangerous look to them. Their warjacks have an almost insectoid appearance while many of their undead infantry embrace either the twisted steampunk or classic fantasy aesthetic. Cryx can be very eclectic with their undead knights, steam zombies, ghost pirates, living pirates, celaphax allies, and other assorted nightmares. Cryx has an elemental affinity of poison, acid, and corrosion that is represented more through theme than actual gameplay, though it can appear in the game on certain acid-spewing models.
Gameplay- Cryx is a highly melee-centric offense army. Some of their jacks have ranged attacks but they have virtually no ranged infantry. Defenses in cryx are stronger on the evasion side than being heavily armored. They have a larger stable of strong stealth models than any other faction -possibly being rivaled by Circle. Cryxian forces have fairly strong magic including several solos with strong spells and warcasters that tend to average a touch higher than the norm. Cryx tends to have offensive upkeeps on both friendly and enemy models. They have few defensive buffs, finding it much more fun to debilitate their enemies and watch them squirm. Cryx is seen as a very strong infantry faction, but they have more tools to run more jacks than Khador. Their warjacks tend to be more glass cannons with an emphasis on speed and melee accuracy over armor -they are in fact the most lightly armored heavy jacks in the game. On the surface they appear very much like Circle, but their playstyle is based more on dirty tricks than subterfuge.

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.

Thanith wrote:
I'm looking to get into the game too but I'm also unsure on which army. I like the look of Cryx but I don't like the idea of having to field a lot of units. I really like Khador but to be honest, even though many people say the game is balanced, I haven't seen many Khador players winning tournaments (at least the ones I've seen online) so that is worrisome. I think if I could see that Khador can and does get results at higher level tournament play (not just local hobby stores or personal experience) I'd be more willing to go with them.

 Maddermax wrote:

Thanith wrote:
I'm looking to get into the game too but I'm also unsure on which army. I like the look of Cryx but I don't like the idea of having to field a lot of units. I really like Khador but to be honest, even though many people say the game is balanced, I haven't seen many Khador players winning tournaments (at least the ones I've seen online) so that is worrisome. I think if I could see that Khador can and does get results at higher level tournament play (not just local hobby stores or personal experience) I'd be more willing to go with them.

Here's the thing, both Cryx and Khador love their infantry, so if you don't really want to field units much you'd be quite limited in them (they each have a couple of casters who can run lots of jacks, but it's still limiting). A lot of people see the big heavy jacks of Khador and think they're all about Jacks, but actually most of their casters don't have the focus and the support pieces to run more than one or two Jacks, and so rely on their infantry to get most of the leg work done. The Protectorate of Menoth is the undoubted king of running jacks at the moment, with many options to help and support running jacks, and every force able to run quite jack heavy. They'll still want units, of course, but the balance is more in favor of jacks. Meanwhile, Cygnar can also support quite a few jacks, and has some of the best jack marshals in the game to help run them, along with some great jack casters.

If you want even more of a battle-group focus, you might also look at some of the Hordes factions, which tend to run Beast heavy a lot easier than the Warmachine factions run Jack heavy. Skorne and Legion both have quite a strong focus on using their warbeasts, and generally don't need too much infantry to support them.

Thanith wrote:
I'm looking to get into the game too but I'm also unsure on which army. I like the look of Cryx but I don't like the idea of having to field a lot of units. I really like Khador but to be honest, even though many people say the game is balanced, I haven't seen many Khador players winning tournaments (at least the ones I've seen online) so that is worrisome. I think if I could see that Khador can and does get results at higher level tournament play (not just local hobby stores or personal experience) I'd be more willing to go with them.

RegalPhantom wrote:

Thanith wrote:
I'm looking to get into the game too but I'm also unsure on which army. I like the look of Cryx but I don't like the idea of having to field a lot of units. I really like Khador but to be honest, even though many people say the game is balanced, I haven't seen many Khador players winning tournaments (at least the ones I've seen online) so that is worrisome. I think if I could see that Khador can and does get results at higher level tournament play (not just local hobby stores or personal experience) I'd be more willing to go with them.

You may not have seen any Khador players win tournaments, but they typically do well. The most significant reason you rarely see them win is that they are under-represented compared to some of the other factions like Cygnar or Cryx (inversely, the attitude that Cryx is the most powerful faction stems from the fact that they are also the most popular one, which means that you see more players do well with them due to the shear volume of players). Somewhere (I can't find the link at this moment) somebody did a breakdown of each factions performance relative to the number of people playing it across several events, and saw that each quartile for each faction had roughly the same win rate (ie, the top 25% of players for any given faction had a 70% to 80% win rate). So in short, Khador isn't less powerful than any other factions (I think the data even suggested that the best Khador players did better on average then the best Cryx players), it merely appears that way due to the fact that Khador is somewhat less popular than most other warmachine factions (the data I saw suggested that the popularity was Cryx>Cygnar>Menoth>Legion>Khador>Skorne>Circle>Trolls>Ret>Mercs>Minions).

Also, just go with whatever faction you like the most. This game isn't like 40k where you can just pick up a power list and do well (even the 'best' list, eHaley with 2 Stormwalls, isn't even close to an auto-win), you have to know how your faction plays and how to interact with your opponents, and it will be easier to achieve success with an army you like than one you dislike.

Templecon 2012 results

Total WM Top 5 Placements
Cryx: 48
Menoth: 35
Circle: 33
Trolls: 28
Khador: 28
Skorne: 24
Legion: 21
Retribution: 16
Cygnar: 12
Minions: 9
Mercs: 6

Total WM 1st Place
Cryx: 13
Menoth: 13
Skorne: 9
Legion: 8
Khador: 8
Ret: 7
Circle: 6
Trolls: 6
Mercs: 2
Minions: 2
Cygnar: 2

Thanith wrote:
I'm looking to get into the game too but I'm also unsure on which army. I like the look of Cryx but I don't like the idea of having to field a lot of units. I really like Khador but to be honest, even though many people say the game is balanced, I haven't seen many Khador players winning tournaments (at least the ones I've seen online) so that is worrisome. I think if I could see that Khador can and does get results at higher level tournament play (not just local hobby stores or personal experience) I'd be more willing to go with them.

 Talamare wrote:
Khador does fine

Templecon 2012 results

Total WM Top 5 Placements
Cryx: 48
Menoth: 35
Circle: 33
Trolls: 28
Khador: 28
Skorne: 24
Legion: 21
Retribution: 16
Cygnar: 12
Minions: 9
Mercs: 6

Total WM 1st Place
Cryx: 13
Menoth: 13
Skorne: 9
Legion: 8
Khador: 8
Ret: 7
Circle: 6
Trolls: 6
Mercs: 2
Minions: 2
Cygnar: 2

RegalPhantom wrote:

Thanith wrote:
I'm looking to get into the game too but I'm also unsure on which army. I like the look of Cryx but I don't like the idea of having to field a lot of units. I really like Khador but to be honest, even though many people say the game is balanced, I haven't seen many Khador players winning tournaments (at least the ones I've seen online) so that is worrisome. I think if I could see that Khador can and does get results at higher level tournament play (not just local hobby stores or personal experience) I'd be more willing to go with them.

You may not have seen any Khador players win tournaments, but they typically do well. The most significant reason you rarely see them win is that they are under-represented compared to some of the other factions like Cygnar or Cryx (inversely, the attitude that Cryx is the most powerful faction stems from the fact that they are also the most popular one, which means that you see more players do well with them due to the shear volume of players). Somewhere (I can't find the link at this moment) somebody did a breakdown of each factions performance relative to the number of people playing it across several events, and saw that each quartile for each faction had roughly the same win rate (ie, the top 25% of players for any given faction had a 70% to 80% win rate). So in short, Khador isn't less powerful than any other factions (I think the data even suggested that the best Khador players did better on average then the best Cryx players), it merely appears that way due to the fact that Khador is somewhat less popular than most other warmachine factions (the data I saw suggested that the popularity was Cryx>Cygnar>Menoth>Legion>Khador>Skorne>Circle>Trolls>Ret>Mercs>Minions).

Also, just go with whatever faction you like the most. This game isn't like 40k where you can just pick up a power list and do well (even the 'best' list, eHaley with 2 Stormwalls, isn't even close to an auto-win), you have to know how your faction plays and how to interact with your opponents, and it will be easier to achieve success with an army you like than one you dislike.

 NickTheButcher wrote:
I'm in the same boat as the OP.

But influencing my decision is also based on trying to convince someone to play it with me. Once I find an opponent I want to be sure we both don't pick the same army, so my top 2 choices at the moment are Khador and Cryx, leaning more towards really wanting to use Cryx. Aside from that, aesthetics (that deathripper and Man-O-War shock troopers are pretty sweet looking) and lore are how I tend to choose armies as I'm comfortable playing many different playstyles.

My gaming Circle are big into 40k and have been for years, so convincing them to try something new is gonna be hard.

Grabbed the rulebook and plan on taking it to the next gaming night to see if I can get a few of them to at least grab a battlegroup (I mean it's only like $30 on Ebay, so why not?)

 ChaoticMind wrote:
Khador and Menoth come in the 2 player starter box so that could be an option for you. 2 armies your interested in for the price of one with a free rulebook, win win right? Get a Khador War Dog and it's even a fair fight.