J0kerrMT wrote:Hey...so a group of us want to start WarMachine/Hordes but we need info
We are all Magic/Warhammer 40k players.
Is there anyway someone can breakdown all the factions compared to either Magic or 40k armies?
Any advice is helpful...thanks
Faction Descriptions
Khador are the angry imperialist russians seeking to reclaim their ancient empire.In khador, there is no such thing as "excessive force", and in khadoran, the word for "bigger" is the same as "better". they're generally seen as the "axe to face" faction, and are fantastic beatsticks, but they also excel at offloading ridiculous amounts of damage at relatvely short range. they also have the best artillery in the game, and while often seen as a beatstick faction, they have excellent ranged options too. khador as a shooty army are perfectly viable. In terms of armour, you're talking about the equivelants of land raiders and baneblades. khador have the widest mix of infantry types with power-armoured infantry (Men o War), heavy infantry (Iron Fangs), medium and light infantry (winter guard), irregular infantry and guerrillas (manhunters, kossites). in terms of jacks, they only make large ones. and in terms of fluff, they have fewer jacks, but make up for it with more heavy infantry, heavy cavalry and horse drawn tanks.
Cygnar are the imperium of the IK. they've got the most wealth, best technology and are surrounded on all sides by their enemies. they're forweard thinking and liberal in the sense that 19th century britain was "liberal" and forward thinking. while khador like BIG guns that put HUGE holes in the ground, and use rockets, mortars and flamethrowers, cygnarans like rapid firing long range (long in this game is 14") gatling guns and rapid firing rifles. they are more a combined arms kind of army with 2 distinct troops choices - trenchers (marines) and long gunners (army) backed up by knighty orders (sword knights, precursers etc) and by the Storm-noun units and divisions (the lightning themed units in cyngar). cygnar also makes the most use out of mercenaries of all the factions. generally speaking, they excel as a combined arms force, but you must be careful, as they do feel a bit squishy.
Menoth are the taliban of the IK. they're the denial and buffing faction. No, you cant go there. No, these guys are immune to ranged attacks, no these guys cant be knocked down. effectively, they play by stopping you doing what you want to do, and then they counter punch. and they hit like freighttrains. they like fire. in terms of their make up, they are divided aong the lines of zealous infantry, and knightly orders. they're a very synnerginistic army with overlapping layers of buffing and deck stacking. their units (jacks especially) tend to be statwise inferior to the other factions, but the buffs they bring to the table through their support pieces more than compensate. That said though, they have a very diverse access to high damage melee infantry (exemplars) and are perfectly viable in a brawl.
Cryx are the gutter fighters of the iron kingdoms. they use every dirty trick imaginable. they're the offensive
de-buffing faction. that arm 20 jack is now arm15. smash smash smach. its dead. cryx like to melt things and steal souls and use all manner of sneaky, dirty underhanded tactics. in terms of thier make up, you've got zombies/necromantic contstructions, summoned "daemons" for want of a better word (bane thralls/knights), ghost/undead pirates, amazon warrior women, blighted ogres and trollbloods, and your general assorted riffraff, scum, murderers, thugs and mercenaries. their jacks tend to be hard to hit, utterly brutal in melee, and very very squishy. they also have access to a brutal ranged game with certain builds as well. they are an excellent attrition faction, because although they're not that "hard" individually, they have numerous mechanisms available to bring things back from death, or construct new troops from what gets killed in their wake.
Retribution of Scyrah are like a sci-fi cygnar. in a way that only genocidal, xenophobic elves can be! the elves are in a bad place. all their gods bar 1 - scyrah - their goddess of spring. Thanks to this, their civilization and race are dying, and the number of soulless births are increasing. they decided that the disappearance of their gods happened at about the same time as the birth of magic in humans, that its humans fault for it. and they're out to get them. you know - when life gives you lemons, kill all humans. in ways they're similar to cygnar in terms of gaemplay, but along a parallel path, and one where they punish magic users above all else. their jacks are like Protoss from Starcraft in that most tend to have a forcefield that protects them. overall though, they're more limited in choices an options, but thats very much because they're the "new" faction. dont let that fool you into thinking they're not competitive. they are. they're quite a combined arms faction. their jacks tend to be great on utility (they can all generally shoot and perform in melee), but tend to be a bit lower on the scale in terms of
raw damage output/resilience. their infantry similarly tends to be quite focused/specialised at what they do - although the likes of halberdiers and riflemen are always solid - when you see the mage hunter strike force and invictors, they are up there with the best troops in the game.
Trollbloods: Braveheart Trolls - Large, tough, strong with a kilt and tartan wearing scottish highlander theme and a back story that begins like the Trail of Tears, until their version of "Crazy Horse" starts winning when he binds the tribes together. The most "good guy" choice, with some Dirty Dozen, Braveheart and the Incredible Hulk thrown in for spice. Pieces can cost more than average to collect because they are larger and require more metal to manufacture. trollbloods are seen as the "brick" faction. they tend to grind out an attrition based win. they hit hard, but their true strength is being able to buff themselves up with overlapping layers of buffs and snnergies (kinda like the protectorate), and absorb whatever you throw at them, and laugh it all off. they are also the "humourous" faction. No, they're not orky, and no they're not comedy, but they have some amusing moments, especially as the faction as a whole always seems to be hungry they like drinking, fighting and carousing with the trollblood maidens afterwards. they have a lot of shaman and "rock/stone" themed magic, and shamans, and they have a lot of "irregular" forces - in that i mean, they are a bunch of barbarian "warriors", instead of rank upon rank of "soldiers", and they tend to fight with a scavenged mix of guns, swords, axes, hammers, bison cavalry, lots of attitude, and general trollish badassery.
Skorne: Roman/Samurai Legions with slightly more torture and pain. A mix of Roman, Samurai and Persian influences, particularly in fancy ornate armor. A cruel empire of slavery, war and conquest revolving around a warrior society, a warrior cult that glorifies death in battle against overwhelming odds (its their only way of acheiving immortality as the Skorne reject the gods, and face only oblivion on death otherwise) and a study of death magic and ancestor worship. The Skorne despise the gods, and especially those who worship dieties, and consider themselves all the stronger for standing on their own, without any dieties to aid them. They are the hordes faction that is most likely to look like an organized army in uniform. They employ enslaved crocodiles, the elephantine Titans, their infantry tends to be heeavily armed cataphracts, light infantry equipped with spears, shields, swords, needle gun things. and then there is a soul fueled terracotta army of warrior-stone golems to bolster their numbers. they posess movement shenanigans, huge damage output and great resilience, along with nasty pain-fuelled magic. t
Legion of Everblight: Blighted evil goblin-elves who worship a dragon (who commands them with a tyranid-like hive mind) that has genetically twisted them in his own image and into his perfect army.
The Elves look more like goblins, their leader is a dragon-possessed ogre who grew wings (and promptly ate another dragon). They fight with primitive bows and swords but wield scary magic and breed dragon blood spawned monsters that are a cross between sharks-on-land and a dinosaur. They play by their own rules (ignore terrain,
LOS etc), and hope to eat the souls of all the other dragon-gods. Lots of female characters ranging from weird deformed mutants to bow hunters to ninjas to sorceresses. overall they're very fast and tend to be the most beast-heavy faction. definately a hit and run/glass cannon faction that focuses purely on assassination and "killing the other guy" as opposed to grabbing objectives and playing the attrition game. for the most part, their beasts are melee beatsticks, who are no slouches at range either. their infantry ranges from various flavours of either claymore, or bow-armed elves or halbard waving ogryn berzerkers who act as shock troops from hell.
Circle of Orboros: Faustian Terrorist Druids meet up at Stonehenge for a tree spiking or a human sacrifice.
Forget tree hugging hippies. THese guys are the wrath of the hurricane. these guys embody purely the wild, powerful, untameable and incredibly destructive aspect of nature. Fires, floods, earthquakes and disaster. These nature manipulators believe that civilization will bring about the destruction of mankind. They seek to destroy civilisation, and restore "balance" to the world. They draw their power from a being that essentially represents the end times. They will steal babies, blight the harvest and make Faustian deals to advance their agenda. Their army consists of druids, wildmen and hunters, werewolves, 8 foot tall beastmen from your worst nightmares, stone-golems, sacred stone markers, grizzly bear-sized goats, and anyone they can manipulate to serve them. They source their magics from the very wilds themselves, and use magic to manipulate terrain and nature itself(earth and stone, wind, lightning etc), slay foes, teleports or makes their minions stronger. they're a surprisingly resilient glass cannon/ guerrilla faction who can do ranged, attriton and denial as well. they have a lots of dirty tricks and manipulations and a great ability to punish magic users.
The Farrow Minions (the mercenaries of hordes- they're a subfaction, like
WMs pirates and dwarves) - the iron Kingdoms do not have ork. Instead, they have Pork! Farrow are scavenging Boars who walk on their hind legs and carry scavenged/looted rifles. They are led by a self styled, (if somewhat deluded) Conan the Boar-barian, and are allied with a Mad Scientist who created Frankenstein cyborg-pigs sewn together from spare parts of bodies and robots to do their dirty work. A new addition to the game, there are fewer choices of models if played with one of their own generals, but all units and solos can be included in almost any Hordes Army. they're a movement/damage output faction. you have cyber roadhogs, warhogs, bun boars, cleaver armed infantry, rifle armed brigands and so on.
The Alligator Minions. Hordes doesnt do lizardmen. they do Gatormen. With Bayou and Voodoo, and sinister undead undertones these Gatormen are leather hide tough, but fight with only simple spears and possess no technology not even bows and arrows. They are joined by other swamp creatures such as poison tree frogs, giant snapping turtles who spit acid, and fishmen who like to sneak up behind you. Another new addition to the game, there are fewer choices of models if played with one of their own generals, but all units and solos can be included in almost any Hordes Army.
