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Arcanists also die to a stiff breeze. It's not really directly
comparable. I was just saying that the faction had Power
Booster available to it. Whether or not people wanted to use
it was another question entirely.

 malfred wrote:
Arcanists also die to a stiff breeze. It's not really directly
comparable. I was just saying that the faction had Power
Booster available to it. Whether or not people wanted to use
it was another question entirely.

So do koldun lords. 13/13 with a few hit points isn't exactly what I call 'surviveable'.Everything dies in this game if you point stuff at it, so saying arcanists are fragile kinda goes without saying!

At the end of the day, Its an apt comparison, and a useful example of the jack support I'm referring to.

There is a difference between having the illusion of options, and having valid options. Whilst it's a lot more visible in 40k, IMO despite his uses, the koldun lord lies on the formers side of the spectrum. He has his uses, but falls short of opening up khadoran play book. Which is the issue of most jack marshals. Which is my issue with the lack of battlegroup support units in the game, and what I see as a failing in jack marshals. Whilst not being broken as it stands, or being a serious fault in warmachine, It could be something that could add a lot to the game.

Deadnight wrote:

 malfred wrote:
Arcanists also die to a stiff breeze. It's not really directly
comparable. I was just saying that the faction had Power
Booster available to it. Whether or not people wanted to use
it was another question entirely.

So do koldun lords. 13/13 with a few hit points isn't exactly what I call 'surviveable'.Everything dies in this game if you point stuff at it, so saying arcanists are fragile kinda goes without saying!

At the end of the day, Its an apt comparison, and a useful example of the jack support I'm referring to.

There is a difference between having the illusion of options, and having valid options. Whilst it's a lot more visible in 40k, IMO despite his uses, the koldun lord lies on the formers side of the spectrum. He has his uses, but falls short of opening up khadoran play book. Which is the issue of most jack marshals. Which is my issue with the lack of battlegroup support units in the game, and what I see as a failing in jack marshals. Whilst not being broken as it stands, or being a serious fault in warmachine, It could be something that could add a lot to the game.

Hey, you never know, maybe PP have been planning a no-Warcaster format for a while, and then all of a sudden jack marshall will make sense? *blatant wishful-thinking*

Shoot, I always have a jack marshal in my highborn list, but besides Thor Steinhammer, I never really use them. I think the issue with Khador is that the cheapest jack you can take is a 6pt heavy that needs to take up space in your front line whereas I can marshal a 3pt gunner to thor that can sit back and provide ranged support. Khador just doesnt have any uses for a jack marshal.

Perhaps if the power booster ability could allocate a focus to a jack that already has focus on it, then those support pieces like the koldun lord would be better. I mean, that is basically the same effect as Cygnar's squire that we see so often, except it has no limit and it would be harder to kill.

Deadnight wrote:

the greylord costs too much for what he does - give a focus. "moar focus" is all well and good, but the simple fact is "moar focus" isnt necessarily what is needed to increase the viability, and visibility of more-jack-heavy armies. he's on the right path (kind of) but falls short, as is. imagine more jack support pieces costing a point that could confer things like artillerist, re-rolls, ignore stealth, make-attacks-count-as-magic/fire/corrosion-attacks, ancillliary attack, or even what jack marshals already do now(albeit for only their own marshalled jacks)-free run/charge and one boost to a/all battlegroup jacks.

So just play Skorne?
artillerist - nah, but who even has this?
re-rolls - check
ignore stealth - check
make-attacks-count-as-magic/fire/corrosion-attacks - check
ancillliary attack - check
free run/charge - check
one boost to a/all battlegroup jacks - its +2 damage, but close enough for - check

Deadnight wrote:

 malfred wrote:
Arcanists also die to a stiff breeze. It's not really directly
comparable. I was just saying that the faction had Power
Booster available to it. Whether or not people wanted to use
it was another question entirely.

So do koldun lords. 13/13 with a few hit points isn't exactly what I call 'surviveable'.Everything dies in this game if you point stuff at it, so saying arcanists are fragile kinda goes without saying!

At the end of the day, Its an apt comparison, and a useful example of the jack support I'm referring to.

There is a difference between having the illusion of options, and having valid options. Whilst it's a lot more visible in 40k, IMO despite his uses, the koldun lord lies on the formers side of the spectrum. He has his uses, but falls short of opening up khadoran play book. Which is the issue of most jack marshals. Which is my issue with the lack of battlegroup support units in the game, and what I see as a failing in jack marshals. Whilst not being broken as it stands, or being a serious fault in warmachine, It could be something that could add a lot to the game.

Except a Koldun Lord does a lot more than just jack support. He's a battle wizard, gives all Greylord Ternions battle wizards and has a MAGICAL 8" spray -_- That triggers off battle wizard....

Talamare wrote:
So just play Skorne?
artillerist - nah, but who even has this?
re-rolls - check
ignore stealth - check
make-attacks-count-as-magic/fire/corrosion-attacks - check
ancillliary attack - check
free run/charge - check
one boost to a/all battlegroup jacks - its +2 damage, but close enough for - check

So “go play another faction”. Thanks. Whilst it gives me what I want, it doesn’t really address, or solve the issue, especially in relation to warmachine factions. What i enjoy about this game is how no one faction is pigeonholed into doing one thing, or one faction being the "thing" faction- all factions, by rights, have a large, viable playbook. Sadly though, i do think a few pages could be added to the warmachine one.
Regardless, I already play multiple factions. I play khador, and circle, actually. Whilst missing my point, you do illustrate in a very good way why hordes factions are generally able to run beast heavy so effectively – excellent beast support, and excellent anciliary beast support (I’m surprised you don’t mention paingivers by name though). Regarding all those things you mention – I think it’s a shame more warmachine factions don’t have more ways to gain access to some of those abilities and confer them to their jacks. Khador in particular suffers from a dearth of effective ways to run multiple warjacks – thankfully, iron fangs and doom reavers are more than awesome enough to make up for it (I’ve got 8 squads of the nutters for my butcher 2 theme list). Whilst not having cross faction battlegroup support doesn’t hurt the game in any meaningful way (warmachine/hordes is still awesome), I do think having them only benefits the game.
When I play my circle army, I enjoy playing heavy, and running lots of warpwolves and other heavies with my warlocks. I have lots of support pieces in play that facilitate this – for circle, its shifting stones, blackclad wayfarers, heck even druid wilders. Skorne, trolls and legion all have excellent “pack” support.
But warmachine factions generally lack this level of jack support, aside from the protectorate, and CoC. Personally, I don’t really care. “moar jacks” is not a style I am particularly interested in – I like a handful of jacks, backed up by a heavy backbone of infantry. But I’ve seen enough folks lament the lack of effective ways to run jack heavy armies to believe that its lack is a bit of an issue. And even I think having a solo that could supercharge a jack could bring my game something.
Unfortunately, too many folks see the answer as completely changing how focus works, or other ridiculous gimmicks (the second pool of focus for jacks, as well as a pool of focus for spells particularly irks me). I see the answer as more effective battlegroup support tools. I think having some of these in play wouldn’t require changing the game, but it would enhance the game.

Sining wrote:
Except a Koldun Lord does a lot more than just jack support. He's a battle wizard, gives all Greylord Ternions battle wizards and has a MAGICAL 8" spray -_- That triggers off battle wizard....

Thanks for missing my point. I was specifically referring to him as a jack support piece, in the context of what I see as a general lack of effective battlegroup support pieces. As you say, you take him for the spray, and the ternion buff. He’s a great cheap solo for what he does. But specifically as a jack support piece (which is my issue) he falls down. As a jack marshall, he is “OK”. But you don’t really take him for this. Because jack marshalls are themselves lamentable., I feel if every faction had an arcane mechanic unit in the vein of the retribution arcanist, it could add a lot of variety, and a lot of versatility to warmachine battlegroups which they currently do not have. You don’t need to take it, you don’t need to change your lists, but some folks get something out of it that they want, whilst not breaking the game.Things like Jack marshals being able to independently buff warcaster controlled jacks would be a huge boon, and add a lot of versatility to warmachine battlegroups. Like I said, it doesn’t affect me particularly – I’m happy with a solid backbone of iron fangs and some winter guard riflemen. Or as many doom reavers as I can fit into a list. With Butcher3 leading the charge. But when I stand back and look at the game, I see battlegroup support as an area worthy for a bit of attention, and an area that could bring a lot to the game.

It fully addresses and solves the issue, since the game is overall designed to be similar but not equals. Not every faction has everything, and not having everything does not mean they are pigeonhole. Khador should not and does not need all the things you list. It would be if I played Scyrah and started saying that Scyrah really needs some ARM25 Jacks that can detect stealth in its CMD range.

Sometimes trying a new faction IS the answer. They may fit better to your playstyle. They help get rid of the "Grass-is-greener" syndrome. And sometimes it is just good to get away from something for a little bit and come back with fresh eyes.

And one of the nice things about this game is it doesn't cost a huge amount of money to get a decent 35 point army together to play around with.

I guess that is why I have 4 armies plus a 5th one that is unassembled.

 Talamare wrote:
It fully addresses and solves the issue, since the game is overall designed to be similar but not equals. Not every faction has everything, and not having everything does not mean they are pigeonhole. Khador should not and does not need all the things you list. It would be if I played Scyrah and started saying that Scyrah really needs some ARM25 Jacks that can detect stealth in its CMD range.

i will disagree. all hordes factions having excellentbeast support does merely highlights the lack of jack support in warmachine armies. "hordes has it" doesnt fix the problem of "warmachine doesnt have it".

i never said khador needs everything i listed; i merely listed out various ideas of things that could be interesting additions. are you telling me that, for example, a solo with ancilliary attack, or artillerist wouldnt be useful? or add to the game? or help along a caster like harkevich? or help along neglected jacks like destroyers? are they not there because they dont fit the faction (odd how jack support wouldnt be a facet of factions with jacks...) or because PP simply havent got round to grappling with the issue? we'be had plenty of things added to the game that have enhanced it that were contentious at the time - cavalry, epics, gargossals, battle engines, heck even ranking officers had people worried. a bit of jack support? IMO, nothing to get your knickers in a twist over. arguing they shouldnt get it because it doesnt fit the factions is rubbish. IMO you can still have a typically khadoran arcane mechanic that buffs khadoran jacks in a thematic way, whilst his opposite, a cygnaran arcane mechanic can buff cygnaran jacks in a similarly thematic way. heck, PP fit in ranking officers for all the factions, i dont see how they couldnt do thematic jack support.

However, on topic, i do genuinely think khador does need some of those things i mentioned. I feel Khador, of all the factions suffers from a limited playbook. As an example of how jack support would help khador? Case in point: Harkevich. I really want to like the guy. But as cool as he is, and as much as he wants to step up, he falls just that little bit short. Harkevich promised to bring in a few new pages to the Khador playbook, but unfortunately, he is a few key support pieces short of filling that role. Imagine Harkevich as a menite caster. he would be an utter beast of a gunline caster. but in khador? khador lacks the pieces to really make him shine. And harkevich isnt the only one either. its something that i feel is inherent across a lot of factions. and its a failing that doesnt necessarily even need to be a failing.

With respect, you seem to be stating "this is the game as is, it must never change. How dare you come up with new ideas to expand the factions and bring them something new". Im not asking for retribution to have an ARM25 jack (but i'd have few issues with one of them getting arcane shield in its place). I am asking for warmachine factions in general to get more pieces to support the actual warmachines that give the name to the game, especially for people that want to play with more heavy metal in their lists.

With respect, not having everything does limit the scope for armies, especially when what im referring to is jack support, as opposed to tactical plays (and ironically, i'd argue that circle, as a faction is pretty complete in what it can bring to the table. why not khador?). Without the key support pieces, our jacks languish as the "meh" units of khador. there was a recent breakdown of statistics of the WTC games, and most warmachine lists took only a bare number of jacks. khador lists were the most guilty of this, and most simply took along one jack because they had to. because frankly, khador players had no means or ways to get more out of them.[u] I geniuinely regard that one simple fact as a failure.(as an aside, are you OK with this? Are you arguing that this is "right", and "a good thing" and "how things should be"?)Dont get me wrong i love my infantry horde, but i dont want this game to be just about infantrymachine all over again. And sadly, im not the only one. I've seen too many other complaints from folks stemming from this one simple fact to dismiss it as irrelevant, whatever my personal favourite styles of play are (like i said, i'm that guy with 8 squads of doom reavers). As much as i will dismiss a lot of the nonsense solutions to the issue, the issue remains. the question i'll ask at the end of the day is this: "what exactly are you losing when another player gets something to enhance his style of play, that you're simply not going to take anyway"? while he wins, you dont lose either. think about it.

 Mordekiem wrote:
Sometimes trying a new faction IS the answer. They may fit better to your playstyle. They help get rid of the "Grass-is-greener" syndrome. And sometimes it is just good to get away from something for a little bit and come back with fresh eyes.

And one of the nice things about this game is it doesn't cost a huge amount of money to get a decent 35 point army together to play around with.

.

why do you think i play circle as my main faction now? trust me though, its not about the grass being greener Mordekeim*. warmachine factions are as effective as they've ever been, but i genuinely feel the playbooks could be expanded a bit. thats all (and like i said, its not for my sake - i've got my 8 squads of doom reavers to keep me occupied!)

*Sadly Irusk 2 destroyed Khador for me. He is such an awesome caster, everyone else in the faction felt limited afterwards. He was the caster that made me see how limited the rest of khador playbook was (not through them being bad though, just through irusk2 doing all the typical khadoran stuff -buff damage and surviveability)-whilst simultaneously allowing movement shenanigans and having an utterly disgusting control feat to boot). Although im not doubting vlad 3 and butcher 3 will be tempting me back to the motherland. butcher 3 is simply "win" manifested as a model. he's my favourite caster, i genuinely cant wait to get him.

Deadnight wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
It fully addresses and solves the issue, since the game is overall designed to be similar but not equals. Not every faction has everything, and not having everything does not mean they are pigeonhole. Khador should not and does not need all the things you list. It would be if I played Scyrah and started saying that Scyrah really needs some ARM25 Jacks that can detect stealth in its CMD range.

i will disagree. all hordes factions having excellentbeast support does merely highlights the lack of jack support in warmachine armies. "hordes has it" doesnt fix the problem of "warmachine doesnt have it".

I wouldn't call "Whelp Management" excellent beast support.

Legion and Skorne have excellent beast support.

Circle and Trolls have some options, but nothing spectacular.

Minions have nothing that I can think of.

So two factions have excellent 'beast support. I think that's fine.

Minoins have Targ who does have herding, medicate, and Ancillary Attack. Which helps but doesn't help the warlock keep his pigs from frenzy. Gators (which in my experience are more popular) don't have anything.

Edit: About Khador though, they do have some REALLY good jacks though. They tend to be hardy and hit hard. Clam jacks, I HATE them because they always stand in zones or bulldoze their way and kill half my troops with rain of death.

@Deadnight: So functionally your overall complaint is that Jacks don't have appropriate support across all factions? Did I summarize appropriately? Of course, from a design perspective, there is more to consider than just that. For example, since you're going into the WarMachine vs Hordes comparison:

-Jacks are mostly cheaper
-Jacks have more boxes
-Jacks tend to have higher base P+S
-Jacks are more likely to have a gun
-Jacks generally have higher arm (lower def)

So there are mitigating factors to consider. In addition, the design of the game has inherent imbalance as well:

-Warcasters are generally better than Warlocks (stats, spells, feats)
-WarMachine infantry is generally superior, as is infantry support

When you take all of that together, you have to be willing to concede some things. One of those is that jack marshalls are not that strong. Else you'd have high focus spell casters running hyper efficient jacks. Do you see an issue there? Step outside your specific faction bubble.

Currentlyunknown, that's about half my issue.

You do not need to describe the differences between jacks and beasts and focus and fury. I already fully appreciate and understand the fundamental differences of both. I'm often the one explaining it when the inevitable (and misguided) 'waaagh fury is broken and so op compared to focus debates' pop up, and so on. Believe me, I fully appreciate both systems. I've played both for long enough(since mk1 really)! And I play against some of the best players in Scotland (masters champion is in my group) I'm only going into hordes v warmachine in the context of the support options horde factions have for their beasts (point taken malfred) in order to better explain the point that I'm trying to get across with regard to warmachine.( and failing miserably, despite my best efforts. Crazy work hours are not good!)

In fact what I brought up wasn't even an issue that means all that much to me, and how I play. I'm quite happy with one or two jacks And a backbone of infantry - as I've said multiple times already. I do see it as an issue in the sense that I think it's a failure of the system that more warmachine factions are so limited in being able to run jack heavy due to a lack of support. Recent data from tournaments backs thus up, and I don't necessarily think what I saw was a 'nice' breakdown of faction statistics. Quite a few folks want to be able to play viable jack heavy lists (by all accounts, it's what gets a lot of people into the game... Butcher did it for me...) that aren't originating from the protectorate, and honestly I'm sympathetic to them, that's all. Giving them options to expand their game won't necessarily hurt mine.

Now, you mention better casters and better infantry. Which is true. But support pieces won't imbalance the equation. Surely more support pieces costing points, and more jacks takes away from this excellent infantry? More jacks means less banes, after all, to use a frequently touted cryx list...

I've given examples of the types of support pieces that I talking about,repeatedly. It Just seems to me folks are thinking I'm saying something completely different. The protectorate have the choir, but really, it's the retribution arcanist who I think is a wonderful piece. A 1pt solo that hands out a few simple buffs, and yet he really enhances the battlegroup. He most certainly doesn't allow, as you put it 'high focus spell casters to run hyper efficient jacks', but he is a huge asset to a retribution battlegroup all the same. He certainly makes two or three hacks more enticing, and for factions like khador or cryx, that's two more than is normally taken.

I think jack marshals are weak, but it's not because they were deliberately powered down when balancing them against the other mitigating factors of the game, I think it's just their rules have been shown to be somewhat lacklustre over time as the game has evolved, and been explored more fully, as evidenced by the fact that so few are generally taken.

As to stepping outside my faction bubble, that's a bit snide mate, and not fully appreciated. I've got a pretty good handle on both my factions, with enough placings at tournaments to know that I'm not just talking wind. And.ive got a healthy appreciation for the other factions. Pp do a great job, warmachine and hordes is by far my favourite wargame. But I was asked what I thought was wrong with the game. It's not the damage output. It's not that one faction dominates. It's that I'd like to see a less seen, underused and frequenltly dismissed and lsmbasted play style gives a bit of a buff. That's all. But for some reason, it's like I'm advocating the third reich... (Yay, nazi reference. This thread is complete)

I have been rather meh on jackmarshals personally as well, IMO the fix to give them all better drives (or a drive at all) and don't require a command check to activate it. So make drives more like field marshal.

Though about the Arcanist, I really liked that guy on the drawing board until I actually played some games against the elves and I don't like him nearly as much as I did before. Most of their heavies are expensive as it is and also rocking damage values that are only seen on Merc bargain bin jacks (such as the vanguard). Also with power booster a lot of elf jacks are very focus hungry with either getting abilities like fleet (for the griffin) or getting better stats with focus and it is not like the elf warcasters have any higher focus stats than warcasters of other factions.

Found this somewhere, perhaps my main issue was this, and was being exasperated by warcaster, jack and unit choices.



Does this hold water?

 juraigamer wrote:
Found this somewhere, perhaps my main issue was this, and was being exasperated by warcaster, jack and unit choices.

Spoiler:

-assuming both players are of equal playing skill-

Of the big four, only Khador has any feeling of being slightly less impressive than the other three. (Due to the Colossals meta shift messing up the old ways of Khador high-def infantry spam) Though its safe to assume this next book will help that out.

Mercs and Ret are both a tiny fraction lower in power tier, but not significant enough that they can't do well in any competitive scene. And CoC is currently suffering from a lack of models released yet so that's yet to truly be seen.

Hordes wise, Skorne was probably the only one of the main four that suffered greatly since mk2, but Gargants gave them a significant push up.

Then minions are basically a piece of @#$% but fun to play.

So tiers:
Toppest Tier: Cyrx. Menoth, Cygnar
Topper Tier: Legion, Trolls, Circle, Skorne, Khador
Top Tier: Ret, Mercs, CoC*
Mid Tier: Mercs as single contract
Bottom Tier: Minions

Does this hold water?

I'd say it's close to accurate, but armies in the two highest tiers generally move up or down depending on the local Meta and according to releases book to book, so it's pretty fluid. I know a lot of people would argue with Legion and Circle being anything but "toppest" tier as well, or with Cygnar being up there, so it's not exactly an easy thing to call.

The only other things are that Minions is probably on the level of Mercs taking pure Searforge or Pirates (the other two contracts are much better and shouldn't be a separate entry), so you probably don't need an extra tier for each of them, and CoC probably shouldn't be on there at all just yet (give it a year for all the basic models to come out).

 juraigamer wrote:
Found this somewhere, perhaps my main issue was this, and was being exasperated by warcaster, jack and unit choices.

Spoiler:

-assuming both players are of equal playing skill-

Of the big four, only Khador has any feeling of being slightly less impressive than the other three. (Due to the Colossals meta shift messing up the old ways of Khador high-def infantry spam) Though its safe to assume this next book will help that out.

Mercs and Ret are both a tiny fraction lower in power tier, but not significant enough that they can't do well in any competitive scene. And CoC is currently suffering from a lack of models released yet so that's yet to truly be seen.

Hordes wise, Skorne was probably the only one of the main four that suffered greatly since mk2, but Gargants gave them a significant push up.

Then minions are basically a piece of @#$% but fun to play.

So tiers:
Toppest Tier: Cyrx. Menoth, Cygnar
Topper Tier: Legion, Trolls, Circle, Skorne, Khador
Top Tier: Ret, Mercs, CoC*
Mid Tier: Mercs as single contract
Bottom Tier: Minions

Does this hold water?

I wouldn't say skorne suffered to any major extent - skorne are a veritable powerhouse of a faction.

Regarding the tiers you list, again whilst nice as a rule of thumb, it's not entirely accurate. The tiers are extremely fluid and with the liquid meta evolves in this game, no defined tier of faction can exist. I've seen dozens of tiers rating the factions, and all were different. This is no different to any of the rest. Match up and releases will play a role.

The only caveat I'd bring in is to not put minions, Mercs and the coc alongside the others. The former toe are fractions, not factions and direct comparisons are not fair. The latter is just released so any kind of rating should wait until it has all it's stuff out.

Deadnight wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
Found this somewhere, perhaps my main issue was this, and was being exasperated by warcaster, jack and unit choices.

Spoiler:

-assuming both players are of equal playing skill-

Of the big four, only Khador has any feeling of being slightly less impressive than the other three. (Due to the Colossals meta shift messing up the old ways of Khador high-def infantry spam) Though its safe to assume this next book will help that out.

Mercs and Ret are both a tiny fraction lower in power tier, but not significant enough that they can't do well in any competitive scene. And CoC is currently suffering from a lack of models released yet so that's yet to truly be seen.

Hordes wise, Skorne was probably the only one of the main four that suffered greatly since mk2, but Gargants gave them a significant push up.

Then minions are basically a piece of @#$% but fun to play.

So tiers:
Toppest Tier: Cyrx. Menoth, Cygnar
Topper Tier: Legion, Trolls, Circle, Skorne, Khador
Top Tier: Ret, Mercs, CoC*
Mid Tier: Mercs as single contract
Bottom Tier: Minions

Does this hold water?

I wouldn't say skorne suffered to any major extent - skorne are a veritable powerhouse of a faction.

Regarding the tiers you list, again whilst nice as a rule of thumb, it's not entirely accurate. The tiers are extremely fluid and with the liquid meta evolves in this game, no defined tier of faction can exist. I've seen dozens of tiers rating the factions, and all were different. This is no different to any of the rest. Match up and releases will play a role.

The only caveat I'd bring in is to not put minions, Mercs and the coc alongside the others. The former toe are fractions, not factions and direct comparisons are not fair. The latter is just released so any kind of rating should wait until it has all it's stuff out.

Yes and no on the Mercs. They have 2 really good Colllasals now and with a new caster or two I think they will be up there with the rest of them.

 juraigamer wrote:
Found this somewhere, perhaps my main issue was this, and was being exasperated by warcaster, jack and unit choices.

Spoiler:

-assuming both players are of equal playing skill-

Of the big four, only Khador has any feeling of being slightly less impressive than the other three. (Due to the Colossals meta shift messing up the old ways of Khador high-def infantry spam) Though its safe to assume this next book will help that out.

Mercs and Ret are both a tiny fraction lower in power tier, but not significant enough that they can't do well in any competitive scene. And CoC is currently suffering from a lack of models released yet so that's yet to truly be seen.

Hordes wise, Skorne was probably the only one of the main four that suffered greatly since mk2, but Gargants gave them a significant push up.

Then minions are basically a piece of @#$% but fun to play.

So tiers:
Toppest Tier: Cyrx. Menoth, Cygnar
Topper Tier: Legion, Trolls, Circle, Skorne, Khador
Top Tier: Ret, Mercs, CoC*
Mid Tier: Mercs as single contract
Bottom Tier: Minions

Does this hold water?

Khador just won the WMW Masters Invitational in a final against Trolls. And in a 16 player field 8 out of 11 factions were represented (I don't believe that CoC can be counted in any of these because less than half the faction has been released yet).

The missing factions were: Retribution, Mercs and Minions.

So I would say that that list is a pretty fair assessment if we stick with the qualifier "assuming both players are of equal playing skill" which is pretty much impossible to uphold seeing as in a tournament where the players were arguably the best in the US, the "toppest tier" factions lost to factions that are from the "topper tier".

I'll throw my two cents in here too, since I've been trying to explain some of these same concepts to friends of mine.

I started off wargaming in general as a 40k player. I loved it and I still do enjoy aspects of it, but Warmahordes has ruined 40k for me.

Short answer: the rule interactions are so tight that it's never really ambiguous as to what will happen when I play. And if I"M not sure, then it's easy to look at the "Rules" subsection in the forum to get an answer 99 times out of 100 (which may be the actual number that I've looked up).

I think the fact alone that PP gives you a forum to discuss rules/tactics (and get official rulings) is leaps ahead of GW. Plus erreta are usually small changes (I don't think I've seen anything as big as "this gun no longer works the way everyone assumed it did")

Big picture though, it goes back to what everyone has said to an extent: given how smoothly the rules work, every unit can be used well (some are more situational than everyday though).

My best personal example? In 40k my last big army was a Wych focused Dark Eldar army. 6th edition gutted my tactics for army delivery (with other things) making my army almost unplayable. In essence, if I had a bad matchup (which now included most armys) there was little I could do to remedy that.

On the other end of that, in warmachine, I've started messing around with the Witch Coven in Cryx. On paper they have quite a few bad matchups as they are a VERY low armor caster who mostly rely on stealth. In reality, their feat actually mitigates their greatest weakness, and the army list I choose can push the line of engagment to a point where they arn't always about to die.

Which (in true rambling style) brings me back to an idea about balance. I can have two identical warmahordes armys and only change the caster/lock and most of the time it will play pretty differently. (Lookin at you, "Who's the boss?" tournaments). If I change my HQ in 40k, it usually won't signifigently impact what each individual role a unit wants to do. Warmachine is balanced around the idea that the army composition is important. 40k is based around the idea that each unit's designated role is important. If I just picked the "strongest" units in my warmachine faction, they'd most likely be terrible due to bad synergy or at the least, not optimized for what they do best.. If I picked the "strongest" units from a codex in 40k, I have an all-comers list more often that not

I just played in a tournament with 12 people and 9 factions. The 1st place player ran Gators!

In the right hands, Maelok is a tough little fether.

The only time I've ever felt the game was unwinnable or imbalanced (I've been playing ~ once a week for a year) was when I brought a heavily anti light inf./stealth list (expecting to play agianst cryx) and ended up playing against a troll heavy infantry based list. Which was my own fault. But I still knocked the enemy 'lock down to 1/3 of his health, which to me indicates that you can do well even in a bad situation.

I'll bite.

This has probably been said time and time again over the pages upon pages of posts... But why not say it again. So I came from playing 40k for about 8 years and I absolutely loved the game. The models are amazing, I feel the rules, for the scale of the game, are solid enough. And I just had so much fun seeing the massive amounts of models in every game, not to mention rolling fistfuls of dice. So after a while I started taking the game pretty serious and wanted to start playing at a competitive level... This is where I soon realized with exactly how unbalanced the game really was and how you HAD to have the newest thing out or you just couldn't compete. When you go to a GT and 8 out of the top 10 are running almost identical lists, to me, there is a problem. So after that I began looking at warmachine because I heard it was balanced and blah blah blah. Of course I didn't believe it because I was a GW fanboy. So I beg can playing the game and I will say, once you learn the game and understand the mechanics of the game, it is about as balanced as it can get. Yes you have some extremely powerful casters, or units, but with the nature of the game and the rules set, you are never out of the fight. At the tourney level with how the games are run, you have multiple ways of winning. That right there is absolutely amazing, not to mention the multiple list formats. So from a competitive standpoint the game is extremely balanced and the rules are extremely tight... So you may have a hard time believing that his game is balanced, but I'm here, as well as multiple others, to tell you that it is. If I had to chalk it up to one thing, it would be lack of experience and skill outside of your local meta.

End rant.

You'd also be surprised just how often low level casters and other models show up at high level tournaments.

You get good enough at this game you can make anything work.

The fact Khador won while running Assault Kommandos says a lot. Its all about player skill.


Now its best to acquire that skill while using the "better" models simply because its easier to use them. This allows you to not worry about understanding how the model works and instead concentrate on how to win the game with them.

After that you can branch out into other stuff.