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 Mordekiem wrote:

Makumba wrote:

What else were you fielding? That Haley list you're describing is 33 points, while yours is 13...

2 chargers 2 ironclads 1 hammersmith. I don't own any other cygnar jacks

If you are trying to run 5 jacks with Haley then that is probably a major issue. Most casters in the game usually only want one or two jacks. Both Haleys are in that group.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'll rephrase it that most casters want one or two jacks, sometimes three if 2 of them are focus efficient.

Yes, there are definite exceptions. And hordes is another story entirely.

 Mordekiem wrote:


If you are trying to run 5 jacks with Haley then that is probably a major issue. Most casters in the game usually only want one or two jacks. Both Haleys are in that group.

My major issue early on in laying was I wanted to go jack heavy with casters who don't like going jack heavy.

Work on getting some infantry, especially infantry that needs minimum support, and I think your odds will go up plenty.


And also, you need to learn your stuff and your opponents. This game is very much about knowing how both sides work. Until you know what everything does you are going to lose. A lot. At the minimum read over battle college and the other army pages on the PP boards for their tacticas. They will tell you the weaknesses of their army if you let them. Especially right after a battle. It let's you read more about the models you just played and how to defeat them next time.

If you have the money/time then get some of the other army books and the starter sets. If you can build those into 35 point armies then even better.

Just about everyone I know who plays WM with regularity has at least two factions. Some have 3, 4 or more.

Really it just comes down to knowing the rules. I love reading and knowing all the rules so am pretty good at them. But I notice a lot of people are not like that. If you don't know the rules or their rules then you usually get screwed.

I don't have haley . I run nemo , I have huge problems with glueing darius up without pining and cain seems a bit stupid for a jack/monster format. My opponent had haley and 2 big jacks , the size of that khador one with a twin navel gun . First game he did some shoting I advence with nemo behind an ironclad and he cast a spell that lets him move a jack and hit nemo 4 big guns which killed him dead even unboosted , because I used up focus to make my jacks run and chargers to shot at his jacks. Second game he run to the scoring zone and poped his feat catching my whole battlegroup . I tried to move away as far as I could without going out of the scoring zone and camped focus . On his turn he took ever my ironclad turned my hammersmith around and used my ironclad to knock down everything and put 4 big cannon shots in to nemo. that didnt kill him , but on my turn only thing I could do is to shot haley with my 2 chargers I tried but one was blocked with some sort of pods and the other one didnt do enough damge.


the BC wasn't every useful to me , it doesn't give stats of stuff or lists , even If I read a caster or a unit or a solo , I don't know how it combos with other stuff and considering there is 2 factions to learn , there is well over a 100 combinations just at the 25-35 pts lvl.

If what you're describing is called a Stormwall ( http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/colossals/stormwall ) then he cheated. You can only move a Stormwall, or any collosal, during its activation.
Also there is no way that he could force your ironclad to use its tremor attack. Tremor is a star action and domination (the spell he probably used) only allows normal attacks.
It seems like you and your friend really need to read through the rules thoroughly as well as the cards. At this point you should ask to see the card and read the spell very carefully before you allow him to do something.
So, from what you're saying is that your losing a lot. But the reason seems to be that your friends are not playing by the correct rules. Maybe you should go back to using just the starter rules and a battlebox until you become more familiar with the correct application of the rules.

no no , he was moving my jacks and turning them around and to shot at the back and stuff. And it was kind of the the store owner and TO of the whole thing . He won the whole noob tournament too.

as playing battlebox goes , non of us have one . My friends bought armies they copied from tournaments and one bought the whole legion model range . I don't have a battle box either , because there was no sold here . Am happy that they let me play 35pts , most games here 50 and people dont play lower point games at all .

Well I got the prime rulebook a couple days ago and have read through it. I've also gotten to see (not play) a couple games.

Here's how i feel:

Rules-wise, warmachine wins hands down. no question. Full stop. The rulebook is laid out amazingly clearly and the rules are pretty airtight. There was a few times I found myself thinking "ok, so can i do this... then the next paragraph in that section would explicitly answer my question for me.

Setting, conflicted at the moment. Warmachine is a cool setting, but 40k is pretty much the most awesome setting ever, so I have to give this one to 40k. Maybe once warmachine has some more time to grow the world out I'll re-evaluate.

Army building, can't comment because I've never built a list. But I think I'll miss being able to chose all the wargear and such for my commander. Warmachine is a lot more restricting, but more involved at the same time ( units don't really have options, but building your list seems to require a lot more thought about what stuff compliments each other). Hard to explain. That's a draw at the moment.

Gameplay, I actually have to give this to 40k. The game i saw was pretty much "my warjack charges your elephant and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your elephant dies." "ok, my turn, my elephant charges your warjack and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your warjack dies." You might as well have been playing chess. The only thing that stopped it from being completely boring was when the warjack player managed to slip his warcaster around the last elephant to assassinate the opponent's shaman.

As far as players, the guys who play warmachine at my FLGS seem a lot nicer than the 40k guys ("check out my flying hive tyrant. it could totally crush your army. last game I tabled my opponent on turn 3", a guy walking around with a shirt that says "mount and do me" styled like the mountain Dew logo... it speaks for itself).

So at the end of that, i have to say I'll be sticking with 40k as my primary game, but warmachine certainly looks playable when I want to try something else.

 dementedwombat wrote:

Army building, can't comment because I've never built a list. But I think I'll miss being able to chose all the wargear and such for my commander. Warmachine is a lot more restricting, but more involved at the same time ( units don't really have options, but building your list seems to require a lot more thought about what stuff compliments each other). Hard to explain. That's a draw at the moment.

Gameplay, I actually have to give this to 40k. The game i saw was pretty much "my warjack charges your elephant and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your elephant dies." "ok, my turn, my elephant charges your warjack and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your warjack dies." You might as well have been playing chess. The only thing that stopped it from being completely boring was when the warjack player managed to slip his warcaster around the last elephant to assassinate the opponent's shaman.

Yeah, that's a totally bad example. That's like me reducing 40k to "Roll dice, pick up dice, roll dice."

 malfred wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

Army building, can't comment because I've never built a list. But I think I'll miss being able to chose all the wargear and such for my commander. Warmachine is a lot more restricting, but more involved at the same time ( units don't really have options, but building your list seems to require a lot more thought about what stuff compliments each other). Hard to explain. That's a draw at the moment.

Gameplay, I actually have to give this to 40k. The game i saw was pretty much "my warjack charges your elephant and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your elephant dies." "ok, my turn, my elephant charges your warjack and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your warjack dies." You might as well have been playing chess. The only thing that stopped it from being completely boring was when the warjack player managed to slip his warcaster around the last elephant to assassinate the opponent's shaman.

Yeah, that's a totally bad example. That's like me reducing 40k to "Roll dice, pick up dice, roll dice."

I'm just calling it like I saw it. In that game the most strategic decision was bringing more jacks/beasts than the opponent. There were buffs and debuffs cast a couple times (+2 to armor, -2 to attack, that kind of thing , but none of it really mattered because everybody knew that as soon as one thing got in melee range of another thing it was over since they would attack with their 3 weapons then buy 3 extra attacks.

Not saying the game always plays like that. It's just how i saw it played the couple times I've seen it.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 malfred wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

Army building, can't comment because I've never built a list. But I think I'll miss being able to chose all the wargear and such for my commander. Warmachine is a lot more restricting, but more involved at the same time ( units don't really have options, but building your list seems to require a lot more thought about what stuff compliments each other). Hard to explain. That's a draw at the moment.

Gameplay, I actually have to give this to 40k. The game i saw was pretty much "my warjack charges your elephant and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your elephant dies." "ok, my turn, my elephant charges your warjack and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your warjack dies." You might as well have been playing chess. The only thing that stopped it from being completely boring was when the warjack player managed to slip his warcaster around the last elephant to assassinate the opponent's shaman.

Yeah, that's a totally bad example. That's like me reducing 40k to "Roll dice, pick up dice, roll dice."

I'm just calling it like I saw it. In that game the most strategic decision was bringing more jacks/beasts than the opponent. There were buffs and debuffs cast a couple times (+2 to armor, -2 to attack, that kind of thing , but none of it really mattered because everybody knew that as soon as one thing got in melee range of another thing it was over since they would attack with their 3 weapons then buy 3 extra attacks.

Not saying the game always plays like that. It's just how i saw it played the couple times I've seen it.

Were you watching a battlebox game? Those tend to be like that. "Regular" games I don't see enough 'Jacks for the game to be like that.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 malfred wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

Army building, can't comment because I've never built a list. But I think I'll miss being able to chose all the wargear and such for my commander. Warmachine is a lot more restricting, but more involved at the same time ( units don't really have options, but building your list seems to require a lot more thought about what stuff compliments each other). Hard to explain. That's a draw at the moment.

Gameplay, I actually have to give this to 40k. The game i saw was pretty much "my warjack charges your elephant and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your elephant dies." "ok, my turn, my elephant charges your warjack and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your warjack dies." You might as well have been playing chess. The only thing that stopped it from being completely boring was when the warjack player managed to slip his warcaster around the last elephant to assassinate the opponent's shaman.

Yeah, that's a totally bad example. That's like me reducing 40k to "Roll dice, pick up dice, roll dice."

I'm just calling it like I saw it. In that game the most strategic decision was bringing more jacks/beasts than the opponent. There were buffs and debuffs cast a couple times (+2 to armor, -2 to attack, that kind of thing , but none of it really mattered because everybody knew that as soon as one thing got in melee range of another thing it was over since they would attack with their 3 weapons then buy 3 extra attacks.

Not saying the game always plays like that. It's just how i saw it played the couple times I've seen it.

Actually, the more Warbeast/ Warjacks one takes for one caster, that strains what the caster can do for spells and upkeeps, ect (think diminishing returns as the best way to put it). So that might have been a bad example of game to use. Also, Battlebox games tend to be like that just to get you into the basics of the game. You get infantry and solos later on and that.

This was a pretty huge throwdown. I think they said 50 points but I could be wrong. A colossal and 3-4 jacks/elephants. (but still only one caster per side).

From what I remember and my very limited rules knowledge:

Menoth brought a choir, some mechanics, a colossal, I think 4 heavy jacks and a light jack. I don't know which warcaster he used, but the model had a really fancy mace, really fast, huge defense, and made all his jacks run through terrain.

Skorne had a colossal, 3 elephants, 2 baby elephants, a bronzeback (that's the only name I actually know), some kind of guy with a big spear that got killed by the mechanic's wrench, alligators, and some kind of troop unit that let him heal his warbeast. His shaman was the big guy carried around by baby elephants.

 dementedwombat wrote:


I'm just calling it like I saw it. In that game the most strategic decision was bringing more jacks/beasts than the opponent. There were buffs and debuffs cast a couple times (+2 to armor, -2 to attack, that kind of thing , but none of it really mattered because everybody knew that as soon as one thing got in melee range of another thing it was over since they would attack with their 3 weapons then buy 3 extra attacks.

Not saying the game always plays like that. It's just how i saw it played the couple times I've seen it.

While you may be calling it as ya' see it, I really would strongly suggest playing the game before judging how well it plays. If it were as described, veteran players wouldn't be able to so easily distinguish themselves beyond their army list.

 dementedwombat wrote:
This was a pretty huge throwdown. I think they said 50 points but I could be wrong. A colossal and 3-4 jacks/elephants. (but still only one caster per side).

From what I remember and my very limited rules knowledge:

Menoth brought a choir, some mechanics, a colossal, I think 4 heavy jacks and a light jack. I don't know which warcaster he used, but the model had a really fancy mace, really fast, huge defense, and made all his jacks run through terrain.

Skorne had a colossal, 3 elephants, 2 baby elephants, a bronzeback (that's the only name I actually know), some kind of guy with a big spear that got killed by the mechanic's wrench, alligators, and some kind of troop unit that let him heal his warbeast. His shaman was the big guy carried around by baby elephants.

Amon vs. Rasheth?

Interesting.

 dementedwombat wrote:
This was a pretty huge throwdown. I think they said 50 points but I could be wrong. A colossal and 3-4 jacks/elephants. (but still only one caster per side).

From what I remember and my very limited rules knowledge:

Menoth brought a choir, some mechanics, a colossal, I think 4 heavy jacks and a light jack. I don't know which warcaster he used, but the model had a really fancy mace, really fast, huge defense, and made all his jacks run through terrain.

Skorne had a colossal, 3 elephants, 2 baby elephants, a bronzeback (that's the only name I actually know), some kind of guy with a big spear that got killed by the mechanic's wrench, alligators, and some kind of troop unit that let him heal his warbeast. His shaman was the big guy carried around by baby elephants.

That may be why, those two are Beast/ Jack casters ( I know Amon is, but the other guy I am not sure, he might be). This is not the norm usually, since it is hard to run a lot of jacks/ beast due to how much focus you have and fury you can leech in and how much the points they are worth (Khador is a prime example. I say check out some other games, since there can be a lot of different combination of things that can synergies differently with each caster.

 dementedwombat wrote:


Setting, conflicted at the moment. Warmachine is a cool setting, but 40k is pretty much the most awesome setting ever, so I have to give this one to 40k. Maybe once warmachine has some more time to grow the world out I'll re-evaluate.
.

kaldor draigo says 40k fluff is terrible. heh.

Ill be honest. i love the 40k fluff - well, specifically the older fluff. I used to think that it was fantastic, but to be fair, everything since codex:grey knights has been woeful, whether it was the "they're so pure they bathe in the blood of dead nun" grey knights, the necrons as comedy robots and the recent 6th ed releases have been lacklustre for example. So to me, that puts paid to 40k as the greatest setting ever. when its good, its a great read. when its bad (and sadly, the older i get, the more falls into this category!) - forget about it.
With regard to warmachine fluff, its a hidden gem. Believe me when i say that whilst its a bit hidden, the iron kingdoms are as immense and as fantastic a world to get lost in as any other fantasy setting. its got 4000 years of recorded histroy, with great heroes, villains, culture, character, mystery, and scope. if you are genuinely interested, please check out the old iron kingdoms RPG material (especially the D20 stuff). I used to not get the warmachine fluff. after i did all that reading, and after getting lost in the iron kingdoms, i am utterly sold on it as a setting.

 dementedwombat wrote:

Army building, can't comment because I've never built a list. But I think I'll miss being able to chose all the wargear and such for my commander. Warmachine is a lot more restricting, but more involved at the same time ( units don't really have options, but building your list seems to require a lot more thought about what stuff compliments each other). Hard to explain. That's a draw at the moment.
.

To be fair, 40k only offers the illusion of choice. of all those builds and all that wargear for your commander, only a bare handful of builds will be useable, let alone good. I dont miss the faux-customisation of 40k characters at all. as well, to me, the notion of "my" character, as a personal experience of the game, was a lot harder to get behind (its like a single player game), and really comes at the expense of shared characters, like the named warcasters - i find it much easier to get involved with, and get behind them. set gear isnt a bug, its a feature.

 dementedwombat wrote:

Gameplay, I actually have to give this to 40k. The game i saw was pretty much "my warjack charges your elephant and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your elephant dies." "ok, my turn, my elephant charges your warjack and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your warjack dies." You might as well have been playing chess. The only thing that stopped it from being completely boring was when the warjack player managed to slip his warcaster around the last elephant to assassinate the opponent's shaman.
_____

I'm just calling it like I saw it. In that game the most strategic decision was bringing more jacks/beasts than the opponent. There were buffs and debuffs cast a couple times (+2 to armor, -2 to attack, that kind of thing , but none of it really mattered because everybody knew that as soon as one thing got in melee range of another thing it was over since they would attack with their 3 weapons then buy 3 extra attacks.
_______

Not saying the game always plays like that. It's just how i saw it played the couple times I've seen it.
.

you saw bad games with a very limited approach to the game if you ask me. either that, or it was almost a mangled metal approach.

Indeed, and once you get beyond the noob stage of "i charge first", followed by "i counter charge your charger that killed stuff", followed by "i counter-counter charge your counter-charger that killed the chargers", and start layering in control elements, denial elements, alphastriking, tarpits, attrition, board/model/terrain manipulations, spells and feats all the myriad synnergies involved between your casters, jacks/beasts, troops and solos, and start playing scenarios, you will really see the depth to this game and the sheer variety of approaches you can take. literally swapping out one piece can change an entire army's whole playstyle. 40k doesnt come anywhere close, im afraid.

compared to 40k, as a vet player of both systems, i have to give it to warmachine, personally. i found third ed 40k boiled down to either of two tactics - "rhino rush", or "shoot the rhino rush" and all armies were the same. fourth ed boiled down to "skimmer spam" if you had skimmers, monster spam if you had MCs, or 6man las/plas/camp in my deployment zone if i have marines. fifth was a tank car park. sixth is flyer spam. i see very limited elements at play in 40k im afraid.

id have to agree that 40k's options are illusions.

Every race has 1 MAYBE 2 units that actually has multiple viable combinations....the rest are "Take it this way or you are an idiot" - also its a lot more rock-paper-scissors based gameplay. Ive had far too many games with my orks/tau where i just fell apart with nothing i could do because my opponent guessed my list perfectly and countered it.

My WMH experience is very low but ive already felt like that doesnt exist. My first damn game i was expecting to lose because...it was myfirst game lol. I got wrecked by bad tough rolls and i missed most of my attacks the first turn we made contact. I still won because his warlock was JUST close enough for me to move my last warbeast up, kill something, then use eDoomie's gaod to push him up to slash at the warlock.
Up till that point i just felt like he had a scissors army to my paper. Because thats how i feel when i get crushed that fast in 40k. 40k youdont bounce back from that bad of a crush without unheard of luck...WMH you totally can without stupid luck.

Well it does exist. You have match ups like my eCaine list (admittedly it's not a perfect list but it isn't pure trash) against a bloke at my store who was running a Xerxis cataphract army. To be fair he allowed me a mulligan with my choice but I was happy to play a hard game. Anyway long story short I had maybe one chance to possibly assassinate, but I would have had to have been rolling hot, and it was really just quite brutal. But that's ok. You can't have a game without bad matchups, else what is the point of strengths and weaknesses.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Well I got the prime rulebook a couple days ago and have read through it. I've also gotten to see (not play) a couple games.
Army building, can't comment because I've never built a list. But I think I'll miss being able to chose all the wargear and such for my commander. Warmachine is a lot more restricting, but more involved at the same time ( units don't really have options, but building your list seems to require a lot more thought about what stuff compliments each other). Hard to explain. That's a draw at the moment.

I would say for unit building 40k defiantly wins (though as others point out with so many options in 40k being flat out better than others it gives you more the illusion of choice), but as far as army building goes I actually would give it warmachine. The way I would explain as someone who plays both is that in 40k many armies have play styles that are similar enough that it doesn't matter much what you take it will play the same. Prime examples are two 40k armies I play tau and Gk. Tau will pretty much play the same regardless of whether or not the tau player is using 3 ripetides or farsight bomb or whatever. It is a ranged army and it will play that way. GK is a more elite army with 2 viable builds anymore and the only difference is the did you bring mostly dudes in PA or mostly dudes in TDA?

Another way to look at is this at lot of times in 40k all you really need to say to give a general indication of what type game you had is just to list which armies and at what point value. If I say that its Tau vs. IG at 2000pts most 40k players already know how that game is going to go before you even see the lists/mission/table etc. However with warmachine you need more than just an army name, if I say I playing against a khador player with my Cygnar you won't know what to expect. Between all the different casters and army builds khador can build almost anything. All khador lists will be similar and may use some of the same models but can play very differently.

I tend to have have gamer ADD when it comes to playing lists, I only play the same list with the same army two or more games in row if I am at a tournament or practicing for one otherwise I almost never play the same list twice. In 40k this lead to me owning 4 different armies, but in warmachine I just got my cygnar. If I want to switch up my game I just use a caster I haven't used in awhile.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Gameplay, I actually have to give this to 40k. The game i saw was pretty much "my warjack charges your elephant and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your elephant dies." "ok, my turn, my elephant charges your warjack and buys a bunch of extra attacks. Your warjack dies." You might as well have been playing chess. The only thing that stopped it from being completely boring was when the warjack player managed to slip his warcaster around the last elephant to assassinate the opponent's shaman.

Then remind me to never invite you to my shootouts with IG when I playing my tau. At least the game you described had some movement involved, my tau vs. IG games is mainly just me and my opponent placing models on the table and standing still and rolling dice at each other.

Sorry if this is a bit of threadromancy, but I figured I'd add my 2 cents (or at least more fuel to the fire).

I've played 40k for a little over a year, and the guys in my gaming group just started to get into WarmaHordes, so admittedly my view may be a little skewed. From what I can tell the games only have 4 things in common.

1- It's played on a tabletop
2- There are models on said table
3- Both games use dice, templates, and measuring tape
4- Players still don't tell their parents/significant others how much they spend on the game

Outside of these, both games are totally different in scope, rules, game size, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. The oranges and bananas comment from earlier comes mind.

Fluff wise- Warmachine is meant to be a skirmish game with small groups fighting over tracks of land and/or towns. 40k represents large armies marching across blasted landscapes to annihilate the enemy and take over a planet. This, and the setting/time periods of each game, change the overall feel of the game. Warmachine may feel more tactical because most units have close range weapons and Warcasters are able to buff and micromanage their army. 40k is pretty close to how a real fire fight between armies would happen: get to cover, hope you have the bigger gun, shoot until the other guy is dead or you are. Both of these appeal to different people in different ways. A guy in my group prefers the steampunk feel of the Mercenaries from WM, and I prefer the mass mounts of infantry of the Imperial Guard in 40k. So comparing the two by fluff is kinda stupid.

Rules- Yes I'll give some extra credit to WMH and PP here, from what I can tell they have less FAQs. Other than this, the two rules are drastically different and, as with the fluff, shouldn't be compared as much as people tend to do. WMH may have tighter rules, but you're dealing with a single model against a single model (sometimes more, but not much more), not squads of models against another squad of models. As someone said before, the rules of one would not work for the rules of another. Can you imagine making some sort of test every time you wanted to use focus in a Warmachine game? Or what if you had to roll individually for each model in an IG infantry army? Both would get really old and tiresome really fast. And back to personal preference; some rules for both games may annoy some players. I hate how killing a Warcaster in WMH is an auto-win/lose, another person may hate how kill-point games work in 40k. A lot of the rules confusion in 40k seems to come from players experimenting with terrain (some of which is woefully underused and can really add to games. I'm looking at you razorwire), or players using obscure rules that may only work in a particular situation. If 40k rules are to be blamed for anything, it's that there is a lot of them.

Competitiveness- *If you're not interested in competitive play, feel free to skip this section of my rant*. This one amuses me the most I think. WMH players say 40k is rock-paper-scissors, 40k players say that WMH is rock-paper-scissors. People that play both say that both games are rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. Yes there are some match-ups in 40k that are just bad (Mech-IG vs. Greentide Orks, Tyranids vs. Everything), but I've seen the same in Warmachine. My understanding is that the tournament scene compounds this unfortunate occurrence. I've heard from both groups of players that there are some units/lists in either game that just dominate tournament play and everyone takes that unit/build. To digress for a moment, MtG also has the same problem. Deck X wins a pro-tour, everyone buys the cards to make Deck X. The same goes for 40k and WMH. Unit/List X wins a tourney, everyone buys Unit/List X. I will give credit to WMH in that each faction has that one list, whereas all of 40k has that one army list that people run.

Ultimately I feel as if the WMH vs. 40k debate can be summed up in one question: which do you like? Both have pros, and both have cons, it all just comes down to which set of rules and/or models you like more.

They're kind of hard to compare.

WM is a great skirmish level game, and with any game that relies on using not a lot of models, the rules are pretty integral to making the game interesting.

40k focuses instead on engagements at a much larger level, and simply because of the scale of the game, it's going to be a simplified system lest you run into twelve hour games or whatever absurdity.

Other points:
WM has a lower cost of entry into the hobby, but the stuff, on a per model basis, as about the same as 40k (some are lower, some are higher), so if the hobby is primarily about models, there's not much difference between the systems.

The backgrounds are considerably different as well. I will say my primary love of 40k is the background, and how it is tailor made to allow any player to customize their force to their liking. Correspondingly, my biggest beef with WM is you can't really have customization in the sense that your general will always be one of a list of guys. This obviously has no bearing on how your play the game though.

I don't think it's much of a dispute to say that WM rules are much better written, and the game requires a lot more thought.

Cost is kind of odd since I will agree that WM/H indeed is a bit cheaper to get into a Faction, it is a bit of how you get in. A friend of mine dropped $400 on Convergence recently when he was at Lock & Load. That seems comparable to what a Warhammer force is, but the army he got (with what's out) Includes a lot of repeats, Prime Axiom, and can support three different warcasters at 50pts. quite fine for what he plans to do in an event coming this September.

A big factor of cost I think is options. If you want the most opitons, you start to build a bit of a list of things to pay for. I have probably over $1,500 of Circle Orboros, but this is a result of buying literally every single model for the Faction since I started over the course of about six or seven years. This means I have the ability to support twelve warlocks, with two or three armies each, and a lot of interchangable parts. I'm not familiar how many lists you build for 40K, but the nature of how lists are in WM/H means that models move about between them a bit, and you mostly get things if you want the more specialty use after a point.

And stuff.

I think the main thing people are confusing here is that when people say 40k rules are bad. They mean they are not clear. They mean the rules are ambiguous. They mean depending on how you read it, it can mean 2 different things.

No one minds if the rules are simple or complex, they care that the rules are concise. They care that is a rules question that often pops up, they want a clear answer.

A great example of this is the Dakka 40k Tournament Rule Book that was like 40 pages long that literally took the time to clear up every issue the way they believed is the correct interpretation, the fact that Games Workshop doesn't do this themselves is rather frustrating. Especially since I know plenty of people that believe the Dakka 40k rules were slightly wrong in some cases, in how some situations should be handled. But overall they agreed to play the tournament by those rules and they appreciated Dakka for fixing the ambiguity.

and I know GW has FAQs but they usually only cover like 1/10th of all the rules issues the game has

I think the main thing people are confusing here is that when people say 40k rules are bad. They mean they are not clear. They mean the rules are ambiguous. They mean depending on how you read it, it can mean 2 different things.

Don't think so . Random terrain , warlord/psychic powers , random charge range when shoting has a fixed ranged. Stats or rules that either do nothing or make most of the factions ignore it , like LD and ATKNF . It is not just unclear writing.I played 5th with Wards GK being legal , their rules were bad because they broken even the build in specifics of 5th ed. if 5th was designed with msu mecha shoting in mind , then giving one factions all the tools to both do it and be immune to the stuff that was suppose to counter it was foolish. It also ties with how offten w40k is updated . An edition is four or more years old and if you happen to get a bad codex at the start of an edition you will be stuck with it for years. WM brings new units much more offten. One faction may seem to be weaker and then it gets a colossal or a new caster and suddenly people find new ways to play again.

Makumba wrote:

I think the main thing people are confusing here is that when people say 40k rules are bad. They mean they are not clear. They mean the rules are ambiguous. They mean depending on how you read it, it can mean 2 different things.

Don't think so . Random terrain , warlord/psychic powers , random charge range when shoting has a fixed ranged. Stats or rules that either do nothing or make most of the factions ignore it , like LD and ATKNF . It is not just unclear writing.I played 5th with Wards GK being legal , their rules were bad because they broken even the build in specifics of 5th ed. if 5th was designed with msu mecha shoting in mind , then giving one factions all the tools to both do it and be immune to the stuff that was suppose to counter it was foolish. It also ties with how offten w40k is updated . An edition is four or more years old and if you happen to get a bad codex at the start of an edition you will be stuck with it for years. WM brings new units much more offten. One faction may seem to be weaker and then it gets a colossal or a new caster and suddenly people find new ways to play again.

That is a completely separate balance issue that people ALSO complain about in ADDITION to the rules being poorly written

 Talamare wrote:

Makumba wrote:

I think the main thing people are confusing here is that when people say 40k rules are bad. They mean they are not clear. They mean the rules are ambiguous. They mean depending on how you read it, it can mean 2 different things.

Don't think so . Random terrain , warlord/psychic powers , random charge range when shoting has a fixed ranged. Stats or rules that either do nothing or make most of the factions ignore it , like LD and ATKNF . It is not just unclear writing.I played 5th with Wards GK being legal , their rules were bad because they broken even the build in specifics of 5th ed. if 5th was designed with msu mecha shoting in mind , then giving one factions all the tools to both do it and be immune to the stuff that was suppose to counter it was foolish. It also ties with how offten w40k is updated . An edition is four or more years old and if you happen to get a bad codex at the start of an edition you will be stuck with it for years. WM brings new units much more offten. One faction may seem to be weaker and then it gets a colossal or a new caster and suddenly people find new ways to play again.

That is a completely separate balance issue that people ALSO complain about in ADDITION to the rules being poorly written

Sometimes 40ks rules just downright don't work. The one I always remember was the Space Wolves (5th edition) Saga of the Hunter. As written it basically did nothing. The community basically had to handwave and go "Oh it's fine, it works this way" despite the fact there was no support in game text for it.

There were also inconsistent with terms like "Removed as a Causality" or "Killed" "Destroyed", "Removed from Play" being using interchangably codex-to-codex, sometimes meaning the same thing, sometimes not. It was just a total a mess.

40k is terrible as a game. It's a such a waste of a awesome IP and some neat models. I'm just glad the 40k video games have been pretty consistently decent.

 Ponen19 wrote:
Sorry if this is a bit of threadromancy, but I figured I'd add my 2 cents (or at least more fuel to the fire).
40k is pretty close to how a real fire fight between armies would happen: get to cover, hope you have the bigger gun, shoot until the other guy is dead or you are.

Um no, neither game is in anyway realistic because both them are first just games and two the units that are involved in both games don't exist. 40k has giant mecha, psykers (who are basically mages) shooting lightining out of their eyes and having the earth open up and swallow their enemies, and a race of giant bug monsters. Warmachine has giant robots that are controlled through peoples minds. Neither is realistic, so trying to say one is more realistic than the other is a moot point.

 Ponen19 wrote:
Competitiveness- *If you're not interested in competitive play, feel free to skip this section of my rant*. This one amuses me the most I think. WMH players say 40k is rock-paper-scissors, 40k players say that WMH is rock-paper-scissors. People that play both say that both games are rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. Yes there are some match-ups in 40k that are just bad (Mech-IG vs. Greentide Orks, Tyranids vs. Everything), but I've seen the same in Warmachine. My understanding is that the tournament scene compounds this unfortunate occurrence. I've heard from both groups of players that there are some units/lists in either game that just dominate tournament play and everyone takes that unit/build. To digress for a moment, MtG also has the same problem. Deck X wins a pro-tour, everyone buys the cards to make Deck X. The same goes for 40k and WMH. Unit/List X wins a tourney, everyone buys Unit/List X. I will give credit to WMH in that each faction has that one list, whereas all of 40k has that one army list that people run.

No offense what you wrote there is a perfect example of a argument for false equivalency. Just because every card game and minis game will have balance problems somewhere doesn't somehow mean the degree of balance problems is equal. Yes both WMH and 40k have balance problems, that doesn't mean they have the same level of balance problems. Using MtG as the example, every arch of type 2 MtG has balance problems but some to different degrees than others.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 Ponen19 wrote:
Sorry if this is a bit of threadromancy, but I figured I'd add my 2 cents (or at least more fuel to the fire).
40k is pretty close to how a real fire fight between armies would happen: get to cover, hope you have the bigger gun, shoot until the other guy is dead or you are.

Um no, neither game is in anyway realistic because both them are first just games and two the units that are involved in both games don't exist. 40k has giant mecha, psykers (who are basically mages) shooting lightining out of their eyes and having the earth open up and swallow their enemies, and a race of giant bug monsters. Warmachine has giant robots that are controlled through peoples minds. Neither is realistic, so trying to say one is more realistic than the other is a moot point.

Totally not what I said at all. Of course neither is realistic, and for the exact reasons you pointed out above. I only said that one was a simulated battle between armies, and another was a simulated fight between small groups. Both games are equally as fantastical as they are real. I only pointed out that neither game plays like the other, and that both are designed to have a completely different feel. This aspect of the games comes down to a personal preference. Someone may enjoy the feel of leading a small group of highly elite warriors, while another person may enjoy the feel of commanding entire armies of grunts and conscripts. I never said either game was more realistic than the other, just how each was as close to real as they can get for what they are.

I think WM is pretty close to an army based game as 40k is

Especially since both of them have the same ideas

Units, both large and small
Heavy Weapons, Dreads and Tanks in 40k and Jacks/Beasts in WM

Honestly they also both often have similar army sizes, the only exception is that WM 100% avoided the dirt cheap unit slot, and 40k tends to play with comparably larger points

but a Space Marine 1500 point Army will probably have roughly the same model count as an Infantry based WM list

but as I said, any 40k army that is based on dirt cheap unit spam will obviously blow the model count out of the water

There are plenty of true skirmish games that focus on true small model count like Infinity and Helldorado

 Talamare wrote:

Makumba wrote:


That is a completely separate balance issue that people ALSO complain about in ADDITION to the rules being poorly written

Now am no expert at table top game design , but to me making a codex based around bikers and forcing people to play bike armies , one codex after you make the helldrake seems like bad rules writing .

Makumba wrote:

Makumba wrote:


That is a completely separate balance issue that people ALSO complain about in ADDITION to the rules being poorly written

Now am no expert at table top game design , but to me making a codex based around bikers and forcing people to play bike armies , one codex after you make the helldrake seems like bad rules writing .

Once more and as you said yourself making codex that force you to play certain style is not what we mean by bad rules

Bad rules is literally the core of what you are allowed to do, and what you are not allowed to this. Regardless of what is good or bad, what is intended for an army or what is not


I'm having a bit of trouble explaining this to you properly, When we say 40k has bad rules. we literally mean we do not understand what we should do to legally play the game, what is allowed and what is not allowed. It means as two different people read a rule, they end up with different outcomes on what the rules allow to do and what it does not allow you to do.


What you are saying is Bad Balance and Bad Game Design. A game could be completely unbalanced with armies that are horribly designed, but could still have clear and concise rules on how the game should be played.