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I'm an experienced WM player, but I have only played one game in mk1 hordes.

I play Cygnar with Siege and eHayley and I'm looking for a hordes force that is different to Cygnar and is cheap on the pocket while being a bit competitive.

Any pointers or guidance welcome.

But please no Trollbloods. I just helped a friend build their army it was hellishly pricey.

I've been playing Cygnar for two years and just recently bit the bullet on Skorne. They are very different from Cygnar. Minimal shooting, ridiculous ARM, and far more aggressive in melee. I've had a lot of fun with them so far and they're definitely a change of pace. I don't know if they're the cheapest option, but if you want a faction that will falcon punch the opponent I would definitely recommend you check out Skorne.

Try legion maybe? Lots of beasts and beast support, far less expensive infantry. Also, it plays fairly differently to Cygnar from what I gather, though there is still a fair bit of shooting.

Cygnar doesn't really play like any of the hordes factions. But I'd say Skorne are the most different.

Skorne do appeal to me, but there is a massive problem with their army... There isn't a universal build where certain units transcend lists.

My Cygnar army can be used by multiple casters, even with the character restrictions.

Skorne from what I can see, can't do this as their Warlocks are too finicky in unit choices to best compliment their spells.

How does Circle work?

I'd have to disagree with you to an extent about the Skorne. We have a strong stable of "core units." For example: Bronzeback Titan, Titan Gladiator, Agonizer, Paingiver Beast Handlers, and either Nihalators or Swordsman form the backbone of MANY lists.

Circle works very different per caster, Morhana requires some infantry, where as pKaya requires more beasts, you can run with the same list basically but you will need to switch a unit for beasts depending on who you run with.


If you want I can do a quick rundown with every caster from Circle.

Kruger is very popular.

I gotta 2nd Skorne here. They are a great army Fez mentioned a very strong buy list for essentials (I would recommend proxying nihilators and swordsmen to see which one you like better, I slightly prefer nihilators as they are a more self sufficient). I don't know why people recommend Legion as a beast army Beast Handlers make Skorne so much more efficient and they can take a hit and dish it back. They also run a Gator Posse better than Blindwater. As for competitiveness we probably have the 2 best items in the game for holding objectives in Cetrati and Tiberion, and some really great casters in all versions of Makeda, eHexeris, Zaal and Rasheth.

Puscifer wrote:
Skorne do appeal to me, but there is a massive problem with their army... There isn't a universal build where certain units transcend lists.

My Cygnar army can be used by multiple casters, even with the character restrictions.

Skorne from what I can see, can't do this as their Warlocks are too finicky in unit choices to best compliment their spells.

How does Circle work?

If you want a single strong core army Circle is not for you. The warlocks there can vary quite a bit as to what they find useful. And some of the warlocks want living beasts, some want constructs, etc.

Sounds like that leaves you down to Legion. If you magnetize your beast kits you can get much more mileage out of them.

I am curious as to what your universal Cygnar build is, though. I was not aware there was one that worked well for each caster.

Is there a good alternative to the Bronzeback?

I can't stand the model with its Grand Canyon like mold faults.

Hogwash.

Or Gatorwash.

Point being, if you want to minimize your costs and play different than Cygnar, look to Minions.

Limited choices, so they -have- to economize units across the various caster lists. With the new book, gators (my choice) will have 5 different casters to choose from. Personally I lean on Bloody Barnabas and the Grave Walker more than the other two, but they all have the same basic choices.

Puscifer wrote:
Is there a good alternative to the Bronzeback?

I can't stand the model with its Grand Canyon like mold faults.

My Bronzeback kit was quite good, especially with the resin central body.

If you're looking for a 'heavy hitter', you can try the Tiberion character. P+S 18 on his main weapon, reach, immovable outside of activation, no KD, shield guard, higher base armor, and a useful animus for mitigating damage.

Drawbacks: Is a character so can only be in one tourney list, lower Fury stat than a Bronzeback, no frenzy protection to other titans, higher point cost, lower defense stat, fewer movement shenanigans.

It's a metal addon to the standard plastic Titan Sentry kit.

Cheers for the assist on Skorne.

Just another quick one...

Aside from Cryx, which army deals in debuffs?

Puscifer wrote:
Cheers for the assist on Skorne.

Just another quick one...

Aside from Cryx, which army deals in debuffs?

Circle has some debuffs, mostly movement restrictions. It does make them very strong in scenario play.

Skorne has at least one debuff tossing caster in Dominar Rasheth. Naaresh has Lamentation which increases spellcasting costs. They're about to release the Despoiler kit, which when combined with Mordikaar has an armor debuff. Hexeris2 has a very strong defense debuff.

Retribution largely just ignores the buffs you do have.

 CIsaac wrote:

Puscifer wrote:
Cheers for the assist on Skorne.

Just another quick one...

Aside from Cryx, which army deals in debuffs?

Circle has some debuffs, mostly movement restrictions. It does make them very strong in scenario play.

Skorne has at least one debuff tossing caster in Dominar Rasheth. Naaresh has Lamentation which increases spellcasting costs. They're about to release the Despoiler kit, which when combined with Mordikaar has an armor debuff. Hexeris2 has a very strong defense debuff.

Retribution largely just ignores the buffs you do have.

My main opponent is Ret. I always have trouble with my Cygnar against them, hence the move to Hordes or something with a fair whack of debuff.

Saying that, my two games today were really close. Came down to a dice roll in each that lost me the game.

I'm strongly considering Cryx as they have mental debuffs.

Cryx is very, very strong. Definitely one of the top three factions (usually seen as Cryx, Legion, Circle, maybe Cygnar). They typically perform well vs. Ret, though some of the new releases Retribution has received (Houseguard Thane, Issyria) have some very specific anti-Cryx uses to them.

Deneghra, specifically, is absolutely crazy nasty with the debuffs.

Yeah, our local tourney organiser said the top 4 armies in our meta are Cryx, Legion, Menoth and Cygnar in that order. Followed by Circle (all Morvhanna2), Khador and Skorne. There is a smattering of other forces and no Trollbloods players locally.

I had a look at eHexeris. He's a bit tasty with his spells and feat. He would cripple an army or help with his own fury management.

Might give him a look as it looks like he can be run quite beast heavy.

Puscifer wrote:
Yeah, our local tourney organiser said the top 4 armies in our meta are Cryx, Legion, Menoth and Cygnar in that order. Followed by Circle (all Morvhanna2), Khador and Skorne. There is a smattering of other forces and no Trollbloods players locally.

I had a look at eHexeris. He's a bit tasty with his spells and feat. He would cripple an army or help with his own fury management.

Might give him a look as it looks like he can be run quite beast heavy.

eHexeris is very top tier. He is an excellent caster, and runs a "combined arms" sort of force quite well. You can lean the army more towards infantry (as supported by Ashen Veil and Black Spot), or run more towards beasts (as supported by Skorne's excellent beast management, eHexy's feat, and battlegroup heals).

He's the caster I've focused on most as I learn Skorne and he's a blast to play. I typically bond him to a Titan Sentry and the opponent ends up going 'ALL FIRE ON THAT SUPER STAR DESTROYER!' on him and he can weather the storm with a Krea and an Agonizer at his back. Locker is also a fantastic animus.

He spell slings like crazy, but he's no slouch in melee if the opponent runs something up. I've had him trash lights in three hits.

Some variant lists I've been building towards with him are:

System: Hordes
Faction: Skorne
Casters: 1/1
Points: 48/50
Lord Arbiter Hexeris (*6pts)
* Basilisk Krea (4pts)
* Cyclops Shaman (5pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
* Titan Sentry (9pts)
Cataphract Incindiarii (Leader and 5 Grunts) (9pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Agonizer (2pts)
Extoler Soulward (2pts)
Mortitheurge Willbreaker (2pts)
Paingiver Task Master (2pts)

That gives you 2 points to play with (a solo of your choice), usually. The Shaman takes debuffs off your units and lets you hand the Rush animus to more targets. It can also cast Paralytic Aura. Your infantry, aside from solos, are all medium bases with 8 boxes (so can't be trampled), so are not easy to remove and the low(er) volume of attacks benefit greatly from Black Spot.

If you want to lean more to beasts then drop the Shaman, drop the Incidiarii to a minimum unit, and then add a Bronzeback. Your hitting power goes up dramatically, though you'll be more vulnerable to debuffs. You can also keep the Shaman, drop the Krea, and shuffle some points around elsewhere to get the Bronzeback, but you lose some durability to shooting.

Can any of the casters go Cyclops heavy?

I love the models and the background to them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Shotgun wrote:
Hogwash.

Or Gatorwash.

Point being, if you want to minimize your costs and play different than Cygnar, look to Minions.

Limited choices, so they -have- to economize units across the various caster lists. With the new book, gators (my choice) will have 5 different casters to choose from. Personally I lean on Bloody Barnabas and the Grave Walker more than the other two, but they all have the same basic choices.

I really like the Crocs, but I've heard some really really bad things about them. They have some of my all time fave models, but they seem to lack a lot of units. Doesn't this hurt them?

Puscifer wrote:
Can any of the casters go Cyclops heavy?

I love the models and the background to them.

Naaresh loves having multiple Savages and Brutes. I've heard of Zaal doing Cyclops spam as he turns them into suicide killers. Makeda loves one Cyclops in particular, Molik Karn, in all her incarnations. She turns him into a Merry Murder Monster. Morghoul likes at least a Brute as a knocked down Morghoul is a very sad Morghoul.

Shotgun wrote:
Hogwash.

Or Gatorwash.

Point being, if you want to minimize your costs and play different than Cygnar, look to Minions.

Limited choices, so they -have- to economize units across the various caster lists. With the new book, gators (my choice) will have 5 different casters to choose from. Personally I lean on Bloody Barnabas and the Grave Walker more than the other two, but they all have the same basic choices.

I really like the Crocs, but I've heard some really really bad things about them. They have some of my all time fave models, but they seem to lack a lot of units. Doesn't this hurt them?

Gatormen Posse, by itself, is a very strong unit. If you want to have some gators but don't want to be stuck with Blindwater Congregation, Skorne is known for running that unit better than Gatormen themselves due with the use of the Paingiver Taskmaster. The ability to hand out tough to a unit of 8 box medium bases while giving them "No Sleeping on the Job" (can't be KD) is very, very good.

Dominar Rasheth can also give them Carnivore, so they heal when they kill living models AND can use them to channel spells through. He lurves them.

Puscifer wrote:
My main opponent is Ret. I always have trouble with my Cygnar against them, hence the move to Hordes or something with a fair whack of debuff.

Saying that, my two games today were really close. Came down to a dice roll in each that lost me the game.

I'm strongly considering Cryx as they have mental debuffs.

If buffs are bugging you then look at a caster with purification or other upkeep removal.

That said, Cryx has a pretty good game against Ret currently, but that is going to change dramatically in the next few months. Ret currently has no good answer to stealth which Cryx has in spades.

Also, I always recommend people run a second faction just to mix it up and learn your opponents. I started with Cygnar and won a free Cryx battlebox so tried it out and fell in love. Cryx is now my main faction. But I still have plenty of Cygnar and play it on occasion as well.

When I played Mk1, I went to three tournaments with my Khador and basically won my old Troll army.

Completely fluke wins in two and second place in my third.

Having one faction can get boring mighty quickly. I've found this out as many of things I've bought aren't all that good and now I've got excess Cygnar (that aren't in my lists) that will be hitting eBay soon.

I think I'm going to go with Blindwater Congregation.

Too many awesome models - there isn't a model I don't like in the range.
Small army of big dudes.
Option to mix it up with Rask and Troggs.
They have debuffs and a fair amount of trickery all while being resilient as old Gatorskin Boots.

I'll have a look at the book tonight.

What is the Battlebox?

Barnabus, Spitter and Wrastler?

Puscifer wrote:
When I played Mk1, I went to three tournaments with my Khador and basically won my old Troll army.

Completely fluke wins in two and second place in my third.

Having one faction can get boring mighty quickly. I've found this out as many of things I've bought aren't all that good and now I've got excess Cygnar (that aren't in my lists) that will be hitting eBay soon.

I think I'm going to go with Blindwater Congregation.

Too many awesome models - there isn't a model I don't like in the range.
Small army of big dudes.
Option to mix it up with Rask and Troggs.
They have debuffs and a fair amount of trickery all while being resilient as old Gatorskin Boots.

I'll have a look at the book tonight.

What is the Battlebox?

Barnabus, Spitter and Wrastler?

Look for the Journeyman rules on the Privateerpress website. They should have the 'official' battlebox for Blindwater.

They don't have one like Cygnar, you have to put it together individually.

Barnabus, Wrastler, and Spitter is the battlebox.

We'll get more infantry variety when the Shamblers hit (also very cool models).

Not to mention the new Altar we're getting in Exigence. You'll enjoy your time in blindwater

I ended up going with Legion after listening to a lot of podcasts and watching battle reports.

I got fifteen points, but I've planned for my first 50 already. I'll be posting a list up later.