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Which books for rules are needed to play the game? For 40k you usually just need the rulebook/ your armies codex + supplements.

You will need the rulebook, Prime Mk II or Primal Mk II, depending on if you're playing Warmachine or Hordes. Battle engines, colossals and gargantuans have some extra rules that aren't in the rulebook; the easiest place to get these might be the War Room app's reference section, but they are originally from expansion books.

Other than that, you might want the Steamroller rules, which are used in most tournaments and casual games, especially for the scenarios. You can download the Steamroller rules for free from the links down the bottom of that page.

Unlike 40k, you generally don't need the "codex" for your army (though there are a couple of exceptions, I think? Convergence and Mercs/Minions, maybe?) because the unit stats are on the cards that come with the unit. The rulebook is the main thing you need to play. Note that Prime Mk2 and Primal Mk2 are slightly different and you want the one you are playing.

 fables429 wrote:
Which books for rules are needed to play the game? For 40k you usually just need the rulebook/ your armies codex + supplements.

Hi, you just need the Warmachine or hordes rulebook, nothing else, the rest come in a card with the minis you buy.

Well, there's a little more to it than that.

95% of the stuff in the game just needs the main book and the card it came with.

However, rules for certain model/unit types are found elsewhere: Colossals/Gargantuans, Battle Engines, Ranking Officers and Warlock/Warcaster units are all in various expansion anthologies, and Retribution of Scyrah and Convergance of Cyriss have just a couple of special warjack rules for their army contained within their faction books, and Mercenaries and Minions have their special army construction rules in their faction books. There are also Theme forces for each caster, contained within each faction book/expansion and in some No Quarter magazines.

The good news is, however, that all those rules and theme forces are contained in War Room, the PP app for Apple and Android. If you buy any faction on War Room for $6, you get the full set of cards for all the units in that faction updated with any new model/units that come out until the end of the edition, all the theme forces and the full rules reference. The Faction Books are still great fluff references, however, and well worth getting.

That said, all the rules for anything found outside of the main rule book are generally pretty simple and straight forward, and easy to remember if you read them once.

Hope that helps

To start, you really only need the main rulebook.

The other rules come up at times, but you probably won't use them for awhile and if you play someone who does they will probably have the books/rules.

Also, most of those minor rules can be gleaned from the interwebs.

When they changed over to MKII, didn't they release the rules for free as a pdf? Just curious because I feel like I had that at one point on my old computer, but I haven't been able to dig it up yet.

 bbb wrote:
When they changed over to MKII, didn't they release the rules for free as a pdf? Just curious because I feel like I had that at one point on my old computer, but I haven't been able to dig it up yet.

You probably have a version of the MkII "field test" rules that was given to the community as a means to playtest MkII and give feedback to PP.

They also have the basic rules for free on their website and in the battle boxes. Its just the here is how to get started stuff.

But the BRB is what $35? And WarRoom works well on iPhone 4s and up.

Quick Start Rules are at the bottom of the page in this link.

http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/the-game