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Well, it's all about the dices and the importance given to them by the game designers.

For GW Design Studio, the dice is very important and randomness is everywhere in all their games from the very beginning. They always loved random tables and in the V7 of 40k, you can see they are going back to their roots in that view. That's quite an "old school" view in game systems: randomness is fun in itself.

Privateer Press isn't like this; they acknowledge randomness can play its role but for them, it's not fun in itself to throw dices; it's just a tool to decide if the results of your actions is a success. It's not an end in itself. That's why many of their rules are quite rigid and precise; because they want their players to have the most control on their actions on the board - not just using a barrel of dices and cover the models with them just for the "pleasure" of doing it. Terrain is handled differently in Warmachine/Horde 'cause it's not just a stupid dice deciding if your troopers are slowed down or not; it is a parameter you know from the beginning and you can precisely take it into account in your own strategy, rather than "if I have a good result on my dices, then I can do that - if not, well too bad for me".

Of course, you have that random factor in Warmachine/Horde as well...but the most important for us players is that you can more easily control it. In 40k, especially in V7, the designers made it clear that randomness has actually increased, as if it was THE balanced factor of their games (which can never be, obviously). What's fun about not knowing if you have that Warlord Trait or psychic power? Is your warlord dumb enough to go into battle and say "well, this time, I think I will be more deadly in challenges, it looks fun" or your psyker going like "this battle, I will take this power, it sounds cool". For some people, there is no fun in that (and no logic as well, but that's another debate).

I've never played Warmachine or Hordes, therefore all the Warmahordes players will tell me that the entirety of the following post is completely wrong. :-D

However, from what I've read on here (and looking at the quick start rules) it appears that Warmahordes is a warGAME, i.e. it's a game first with conflict as its setting. If the designers so wished they could change the setting to running a restaurant or playing dodgeball or something and the game itself would lose nothing by it, other than aesthetics. The interaction of pieces and their abilities is king, and the pieces as individuals are worth far, FAR less than the sum of their parts. In this context, terrain is also a piece, since from the discussion above it appears that one individual piece of terrain can have an extreme impact on a game.

(This also makes the game, to my mind, quite tricky to learn for someone who only manages to get in 2-3 games of anything a year, and would rather that those games weren't spent being annihilated due to unfamiliarity with rules interactions. But that's not Warmachine's problem, it's mine.)

40k, on the other hand, is a WARgame, in that the objective is to simulate an abstract version of war and the game is the mechanism by which this is achieved. Other (better) WARgames exist. I'd say that a characteristic of most of them is that they don't totally depend on unit-to-unit interaction, with one unit causing another to work in a different way. Most units can do most things, though not necessarily with the same ability. And quite often, Things Go Wrong in a way that's at least partially out of your control.

Frequently, as in those other, better games this take the form of your troops not doing what they're told because they're suppressed/running away/pinned/didn't receive the order. I'm thinking specifically of Stargrunt, Necromunda and Epic Armageddon for these things, but they appear to be present in Bolt Action, Flames of War, Warmaster and it's derivatives, Tomorrows War, etc. etc. It's in Warhammer, too, especially if you play Orcs. An element of control is taken out of the player's hands, and they player then has to deal with the consequences. I like this, I can understand that many people don't. It strikes me as part of the "simulating war" thing.

40k USED to be better at this, but they've been essentially removing Morale and Pinning for years which is a bit of a shame.

Individual terrain elements don't have a great deal of effect, but if you've got a lot of it the battle changes and it tends to be vital to force manoeuvre. Playing Stargrunt on an empty table is an exercise in both sides being pinned for an entire game.

(As a side note, as I'm aware that the individual abilities of troops won't tend to make an enormous difference and I don't have a bunch of interactions to learn I'm much less hesitant about giving this type of game a go - the principals of concentration of force etc. will generally work whichever set of rules mechanics you throw it at).

So, in summary, I think if you've decided not to play Warmachine for a while, or whatever, it may be worth it to try a different style of game rather than due to some inherent flaw or virtue in the rules of Warmachine or 40k. Try some of the wargames I mentioned above, as well as 40k! Stargrunt is free! GO GET IT.

Warmachine/Horde is a skirmish game. Warhammer 40k...was that at the beginning (and still is a "big skirmish game", imho). It was never meant to be a true wargame, since the size of the models is way too big to have actual mass battles. That's why big battles in 40k take an insane amount of space and time to be played.

Epic Armaggedon or Warmaster, those are (were) a better suited wargame. Hell, even War of the Ring was made to be a true wargame...too bad they sucked at the marketing and that the rules weren't exactly the best.

Graphite wrote:
I've never played Warmachine or Hordes, therefore all the Warmahordes players will tell me that the entirety of the following post is completely wrong. :-D

However, from what I've read on here (and looking at the quick start rules) it appears that Warmahordes is a warGAME, i.e. it's a game first with conflict as its setting. If the designers so wished they could change the setting to running a restaurant or playing dodgeball or something and the game itself would lose nothing by it, other than aesthetics. The interaction of pieces and their abilities is king, and the pieces as individuals are worth far, FAR less than the sum of their parts. In this context, terrain is also a piece, since from the discussion above it appears that one individual piece of terrain can have an extreme impact on a game.

(This also makes the game, to my mind, quite tricky to learn for someone who only manages to get in 2-3 games of anything a year, and would rather that those games weren't spent being annihilated due to unfamiliarity with rules interactions. But that's not Warmachine's problem, it's mine.)

True. One of the main complaints that I see (and some that I have from time to time) is the emphasis on the game part. There is a story, and it's a good story, but it's kind of suspended for game purposes. Also all the use of counters, markers, etc. (see the tournament streams where there's a big piece of... I'm not sure, it looks like a round mousepad with the WM/H logos in the middle of the board to represent the control zone for the scenario) really jarr the feeling that you're doing anything other than playing a game. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's there.

40k, on the other hand, is a WARgame, in that the objective is to simulate an abstract version of war and the game is the mechanism by which this is achieved. Other (better) WARgames exist. I'd say that a characteristic of most of them is that they don't totally depend on unit-to-unit interaction, with one unit causing another to work in a different way. Most units can do most things, though not necessarily with the same ability. And quite often, Things Go Wrong in a way that's at least partially out of your control.

Frequently, as in those other, better games this take the form of your troops not doing what they're told because they're suppressed/running away/pinned/didn't receive the order. I'm thinking specifically of Stargrunt, Necromunda and Epic Armageddon for these things, but they appear to be present in Bolt Action, Flames of War, Warmaster and it's derivatives, Tomorrows War, etc. etc. It's in Warhammer, too, especially if you play Orcs. An element of control is taken out of the player's hands, and they player then has to deal with the consequences. I like this, I can understand that many people don't. It strikes me as part of the "simulating war" thing.

40k USED to be better at this, but they've been essentially removing Morale and Pinning for years which is a bit of a shame.

To a point. 40k is more on the "simulation" aspect than the "game" aspect (whether it does a good job or not is another story, and for another thread). It definitely feels more immersive than Warmachine. You CAN come up with lore reasons in Warmachine, but outside of the leagues nobody does this, while in 40k it's a really fun thing to do

Really I liken Warmachine to MtG: There is lore in MtG and a backstory, but how many people who play really care that they're supposed to be duelling wizards who can summon monsters to fight for them? You'd rarely, if ever, see a MtG game with a narrative behind it, even though there's room for that narrative, because the game part is the emphasis. Warmachine is nearly the same way in tabletop format, while 40k encourages the story more.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Warmachine is nearly the same way in tabletop format, while 40k encourages the story more.

Sure, but then, why buying the rules of 40k? If you can make your own stories, you don't have to use generic and character-less V7 codici while most of their rules are "copy and paste" from the last edition...

I disagree that terrain is not important in 40K! Actually, a chokefull of terrain is mandatory to have at least some semblance of a playable game

In 40k terrain is important in that if you don't have enough line of sight blocking terrain, whoever can shooter better will just win if they happen to go first. So it's very important in 40k, not as some great tactical consideration, but in making the game function at all.

Graphite wrote:
Frequently, as in those other, better games this take the form of your troops not doing what they're told because they're suppressed/running away/pinned/didn't receive the order.

You also have morale rules in WMH. Units can flee because they have suffered too many casualties, or are facing a terrifying enemy, etc, and individual troopers may not obey the order that the rest of the unit is doing because they are outside their command range.

PhantomViper wrote:

Graphite wrote:
Frequently, as in those other, better games this take the form of your troops not doing what they're told because they're suppressed/running away/pinned/didn't receive the order.

You also have morale rules in WMH. Units can flee because they have suffered too many casualties, or are facing a terrifying enemy, etc, and individual troopers may not obey the order that the rest of the unit is doing because they are outside their command range.

Fair enough - as I said, not familiar with the Warmachine rules. How often do these things happen? Similar to current 40k where being "out of coherency" is an accident and fleeing generally only happens when a unit isn't combat effective any more?

Graphite wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

Graphite wrote:
Frequently, as in those other, better games this take the form of your troops not doing what they're told because they're suppressed/running away/pinned/didn't receive the order.

You also have morale rules in WMH. Units can flee because they have suffered too many casualties, or are facing a terrifying enemy, etc, and individual troopers may not obey the order that the rest of the unit is doing because they are outside their command range.

Fair enough - as I said, not familiar with the Warmachine rules. How often do these things happen? Similar to current 40k where being "out of coherency" is an accident and fleeing generally only happens when a unit isn't combat effective any more?

The out of command part is much more common than in 40k, because in WMH models charge on a per model base rather than as a single unit, so a unit often times gets spread out over a large front fighting against different enemies. Not only that but, since models are targeted individually, your opponent can target and kill the unit leader possibly causing a part of your unit to be left out of the command range of the new promoted leader (that is another example of why tactical positioning of individual models is a pivotal thing in WMH).

Morale checks for units happen when a unit suffers 50% casualties in a single turn (counted from the number of models remaining at the beginning of the turn), when they are engaged with a model that causes Terror or within 5" of a model with the Abomination rule (and some spells also cause morale checks).

Note that since WMH is a skirmish game, there is no such thing as a combat ineffective unit (with some rare exceptions). Even when a unit only has a single model remaining, that models still has the potential to win the game and cannot be discounted out of hand. Also units range in number from as little as 2 models up to 15, so their resilience to morale checks due to casualties varies a great deal as well.

 frozenwastes wrote:
In 40k terrain is important in that if you don't have enough line of sight blocking terrain, whoever can shooter better will just win if they happen to go first. So it's very important in 40k, not as some great tactical consideration, but in making the game function at all.

Uhm, this is true of ANY shooting heavy wargame with long range weapons. Ever played FoW on a flat board?

 Las wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
In 40k terrain is important in that if you don't have enough line of sight blocking terrain, whoever can shooter better will just win if they happen to go first. So it's very important in 40k, not as some great tactical consideration, but in making the game function at all.

Uhm, this is true of ANY shooting heavy wargame with long range weapons. Ever played FoW on a flat board?

I have. Apart from artillery firing bombardments, most other weapons in FoW have a sub-24" range, combined with infantry's ability to create their own cover and the existence of ranged modifiers to hit, this makes the game allot less deadly at range than 40k is.

The only other game where the phenomenon "I can see you, I go first, I've won" can even be compared to 40k is Infinity.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Las wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
In 40k terrain is important in that if you don't have enough line of sight blocking terrain, whoever can shooter better will just win if they happen to go first. So it's very important in 40k, not as some great tactical consideration, but in making the game function at all.

Uhm, this is true of ANY shooting heavy wargame with long range weapons. Ever played FoW on a flat board?

I have. Apart from artillery firing bombardments, most other weapons in FoW have a sub-24" range, combined with infantry's ability to create their own cover and the existence of ranged modifiers to hit, this makes the game allot less deadly at range than 40k is.

The only other game where the phenomenon "I can see you, I go first, I've won" can even be compared to 40k is Infinity.

That's true, and part of the reason why FoW is my go to for a more tactically deep wargame. You can't say that the game is very playable without terrain. FoW units are resilient and meant to be bull dogged to death, the same is just not true for 40k. Everything is soft, which is why terrain is more important.

It's part of the reason why the game is a much more visually appealing game than warmahordes for many. This also adds to the level of immersion.

 Sarouan wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

Warmachine is nearly the same way in tabletop format, while 40k encourages the story more.

Sure, but then, why buying the rules of 40k? If you can make your own stories, you don't have to use generic and character-less V7 codici while most of their rules are "copy and paste" from the last edition...

Are you being serious right now?

People seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY need to throw more terrain on their 40k boards. Big, solid, LoS blocking things. Get a couple of cereal boxes and paint 'em grey, something, ANYTHING. Otherwise you're trying to have a machinegun fight on a tennis court.

 Las wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Las wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
In 40k terrain is important in that if you don't have enough line of sight blocking terrain, whoever can shooter better will just win if they happen to go first. So it's very important in 40k, not as some great tactical consideration, but in making the game function at all.

Uhm, this is true of ANY shooting heavy wargame with long range weapons. Ever played FoW on a flat board?

I have. Apart from artillery firing bombardments, most other weapons in FoW have a sub-24" range, combined with infantry's ability to create their own cover and the existence of ranged modifiers to hit, this makes the game allot less deadly at range than 40k is.

The only other game where the phenomenon "I can see you, I go first, I've won" can even be compared to 40k is Infinity.

That's true, and part of the reason why FoW is my go to for a more tactically deep wargame. You can't say that the game is very playable without terrain. FoW units are resilient and meant to be bull dogged to death, the same is just not true for 40k. Everything is soft, which is why terrain is more important.

It's part of the reason why the game is a much more visually appealing game than warmahordes for many.

In that we are 100% in agreement. I just disagree with the "which is why terrain is more important." part because apart from blocking LoS and being outright impassable, terrain isn't very important in 40k from a tactical point of view. It generally doesn't give you better saves than what you have already, it doesn't prevent or favours any CC since charge distance is already dice dependent, etc...

PhantomViper wrote:

 Las wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Las wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
In 40k terrain is important in that if you don't have enough line of sight blocking terrain, whoever can shooter better will just win if they happen to go first. So it's very important in 40k, not as some great tactical consideration, but in making the game function at all.

Uhm, this is true of ANY shooting heavy wargame with long range weapons. Ever played FoW on a flat board?

I have. Apart from artillery firing bombardments, most other weapons in FoW have a sub-24" range, combined with infantry's ability to create their own cover and the existence of ranged modifiers to hit, this makes the game allot less deadly at range than 40k is.

The only other game where the phenomenon "I can see you, I go first, I've won" can even be compared to 40k is Infinity.

That's true, and part of the reason why FoW is my go to for a more tactically deep wargame. You can't say that the game is very playable without terrain. FoW units are resilient and meant to be bull dogged to death, the same is just not true for 40k. Everything is soft, which is why terrain is more important.

It's part of the reason why the game is a much more visually appealing game than warmahordes for many.

In that we are 100% in agreement. I just disagree with the "which is why terrain is more important." part because apart from blocking LoS and being outright impassable, terrain isn't very important in 40k from a tactical point of view. It generally doesn't give you better saves than what you have already, it doesn't prevent or favours any CC since charge distance is already dice dependent, etc...

I disagree. Choosing to go into difficult terrain to receive a save against low AP weapons while risking being bogged down by a bad difficult terrain roll is a tactical choice. Forcing the enemy to lose 2'' to his charge distance by being in terrain is a tactical choice and advantage. Skimmers upping their jink save or camo netted vehicles upping their cover save by being in terrain but risking an immobilized roll is a tactical choice.

In my experience, terrain is both more interactive and more impacting in Warmahordes than 40k. That being said, someone could make a 24" long LOS blocking piece of terrain in 40k and play scenarios with it--whereas Warmahordes Steamroller is fairly specific in terrain placement in scenarios. I guess the reason I mention that, is that someone can trot out an ad absurdum piece of 40k terrain and state it is more game impacting---and while that may be true, we should look at it in terms of realistic terrain that is placed on a table in a competitive environment.

And in that case, I would reassert that Warmahordes has more interactive/impacting terrain. Slamming models into obstructions, two hand throwing models over walls, slamming models into shallow water, concealment, etc etc.--all of those things can (and often do) have a large effect on game play--and in general, a +2, +4 is a pretty big deal when effecting the probability curve on 2d6.


@PhantomViper
Just a few nitpicks if I may . Abomination is 3", not 5"---and terror causing enemies actually cause morale checks on anyone that passes through their melee range (You can advance past a non-reach unit for example with a terror causing reach model for example, not end in melee with them--but since you passed through melee they still are forced to check). An example of this is a Void Spirit running through a model/unit. I think you are spot on for your general unit analysis.

 AgeOfEgos wrote:

@PhantomViper
Just a few nitpicks if I may . Abomination is 3", not 5"---and terror causing enemies actually cause morale checks on anyone that passes through their melee range (You can advance past a non-reach unit for example with a terror causing reach model for example, not end in melee with them--but since you passed through melee they still are forced to check). An example of this is a Void Spirit running through a model/unit. I think you are spot on for your general unit analysis.

I had forgotten about the 3" for the Abomination, as for the Terror, I know, I was just simplifying because quoting the whole rule was unnecessary.

Right on, I felt a little nitpicky mentioning it but just in case it was quoted...

Las wrote:

 Sarouan wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

Warmachine is nearly the same way in tabletop format, while 40k encourages the story more.

Sure, but then, why buying the rules of 40k? If you can make your own stories, you don't have to use generic and character-less V7 codici while most of their rules are "copy and paste" from the last edition...

Are you being serious right now?

I am dead serious. The fact is changes from V6 to V7 are quite minimal. When you see the Codex for Astra Militarum or Orks (even Space Wolves very soon), there are of course fixes and added/removed things here and there...but this is nothing any experienced player can't do by himself just by using the previous books he has.

Anyone making a "fan-dex" while playing in a club is enough, since GW Design Studio is just a band of buddies playing together and having fun rolling plenty of dices (yeah, "playtesting" they say they do - as much as any regular club playtest their fan-made units/scenarios, I believe). After all, Space Marines stats are the same since quite a lot of editions. It's not that hard once you are used for so many years with the same old game system.

It's just they want you to think that what they do is "outstanding change so much that you have to buy ", while it is not. Truth is...I can play the old codex for my previous "Imperial Guard" just fine with very minor adaptations to the V7 "spirit".


Anyway, when GW designers make new rules, they still manage to screw it up. Just see the wonderful wording about a "psyker unit" in the psychic phase. I'm sure they don't even understand the matter with their own definition of what is a "unit" in their game system (funny it can be two different things at the same time). That's what happens when you're not serious about the wording of your rules when making games...and that's why some people got tired of this and turn to another game more precise in this field.

The terrain rules are definitely a weakness of Warmachine, at the very least in terms of making a beautiful battlefield. It's just not that people are like, "oh, we Warmachine players are way too cool to use terrain, we want to just have a mindless scrum in the middle. Let us have a mostly blank board (except for an irrelevant bit around the edges that we put there to pretend we're not playing on a wholly empty table) and charge mindlessly towards each other!" It's that terrain is so powerful in its effect (and, to some extent, that different armies have differing ability to ignore it) that it has to be used carefully and sparingly.

I think you'd find a lot of Warmachine players would like to see the terrain rules improved so that we could have some more beautiful tables!

PhantomViper wrote:

 Las wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
In 40k terrain is important in that if you don't have enough line of sight blocking terrain, whoever can shooter better will just win if they happen to go first. So it's very important in 40k, not as some great tactical consideration, but in making the game function at all.

Uhm, this is true of ANY shooting heavy wargame with long range weapons. Ever played FoW on a flat board?

I have. Apart from artillery firing bombardments, most other weapons in FoW have a sub-24" range, combined with infantry's ability to create their own cover and the existence of ranged modifiers to hit, this makes the game allot less deadly at range than 40k is.

The only other game where the phenomenon "I can see you, I go first, I've won" can even be compared to 40k is Infinity.

In Infinity that is only true if you set up badly, after a few games only the simple minded still have this issue. Like in real life you don't want to be shot, don't let any of your model show.

About terrain, in fact it is like it used to be in Warhammer Battle, when forests were deadly traps for units that weren't skirmishers. GW changed it so that terrains were a lot like in 40k and the result was...well, terrain being just totally useless and games in Warhammer Battle not using that many of them since it didn't matter that much anymore (Battle plays quite differently from 40k, since moves aren't so free and firepower isn't as "easy" in the future where there is only war).

I have seen wonderful tables for Warmachine/Horde, though. It's purely a question of people; since Wamarchine/Horde is quite known for being a "competitive/tournament game", you usually see battle reports that are more "technical" than just "awesome looking".

But if you put enough time and work into it, you can still do a lot of beautiful things with the tables.

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

I think you'd find a lot of Warmachine players would like to see the terrain rules improved so that we could have some more beautiful tables!

You'll find a lot of amazing terrain heavy tables at conventions and during casual games. TempleCon for example has over a dozen scenario tables with varying levels of terrain and special rules. It's just that for tournaments, it's very hard to balance anything beyond a basic set up.

Sarouan wrote:
I have seen wonderful tables for Warmachine/Horde, though. It's purely a question of people; since Wamarchine/Horde is quite known for being a "competitive/tournament game", you usually see battle reports that are more "technical" than just "awesome looking".

But if you put enough time and work into it, you can still do a lot of beautiful things with the tables.

Precisely!

I've seen some impressive Warmachine terrain. Here's Larry Correia, author of "Into the Storm" and "Monster Hunter International" playing Warmachine with Jordan Sanderson. (Author of Mistborn) That's one heck of a board.

That's a lot of Terraclips, my wallet cringes at the thought.

Well, as an example of the rules not handling creative terrain very well, distance between models is measured from base to base in 3D. Vertical distance is only ignored when the vertical distance between the two models is less than an inch. This means that, for example, your colossal cannot hit an enemy if that enemy is on a ledge 2.1" high, even though the colossal's volume is defined as a 5" tall cylinder. Your poor non-reach heavies can't even hit someone standing on a 1"-high ledge.

That board would also get frustrating very fast if you were playing against e.g. Retribution and they could just fire directly through all the houses.

You can work around these problems by house ruling, but that sort of underscores that the default rules don't handle them all that well, I think.

Here are some of the finals tables for various Warmachine tournaments.









I would also invite you to look at this threat on the PP forums.
http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?125912-2012-Warmachine-Weekend-Themed-Table-Preview!!!

this cant be a true post...

no one who actually wargames finds 40k to be more fun, or fun at all, then warmahordes...

also how did you spend 100's of dollars on WMHs? everyone knows its like, 50$ at most for a complete army of random units that will compete with even the most cheesiest of cheese WMH lists.

That second one isn't a finals table, it's a diorama by PP themselves.