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Well, as the title says I am a "new" player looking to start Skorne. I say "new" because I played once upon a time at the release of Warmachine and have a small Cryx army left from those days as well as a small amount of Legion that my brother bought me when he was really into the game, never got around to playing them.

After so long of dealing with the drama of 40k and playing games that so few people play in my local meta I want to go back to playing a game with decent rules and decent balance. The problem I had with Warmahordes in general was the caster kill ending the game, I get that is part of the core design but I hope it can be mitigated somewhat and games can actually play out without people just sniping each others casters.

I am looking to get back into the game with Skorne, specifially Zaal and Immortals because I love the way they look and would have a great time painting them. What do I need to know if this is the route I want to choose? Aside from Zaal and Immortals what would be some good purchases?

Caster kill is a main win condition for the game but honestly the ability to snipe out casters depends a lot on the list. Many lists in warmachine don't go straight for the caster kill and instead try play the scenario wins or just try to grind out the game by attrition. Skorne usually does the later unless you trying to deliver Molik Karn to the enemy caster for the kill with Makeda 1 or 2.

As far as Zaal goes I think versions are good. pZaal ( the version where is still flesh and bones) can run in tier with lots of immortals or out of tier. Both types of lists are good it just depends on how you wanna play.

Zaal2 (the one where he is a ancestral guardian) is a little weird. You generally want lots of cheap infantry to gain souls off when the die and some immortal style units to benefit from the feat. I have had good success with him but a lot of people don't like him.

As far was what to buy I would definitely get the new immortal unit attachment sense he is really good with them. Hakaar the destroyer is really good with either version of zaal. Zaal1 lists out of teir and zaal2 both want living infantry to collect souls off of, in this case nihilators work well but other units like slingers or praetorians keltarii/swordsmen can work too. The other main essential unit for skorne would be pain giver beast handlers, but beyond that it kinda depends on how you want to build the list.

Wow I guess I have a lot to pick up on, I have no idea what in tier and our of tier means. I assume that it is in relation to the themed forces in the Skorne book? If not I have a bit more research to do. All I have picked up so far is the core rule book and the Skorne force book, no models yet.

Thanks for the advice on picking up mortals, after reading the rules a bit I thought that it might be necessary to running this list. Does anyone have any input on the Aradus as a unit? I love the model and would love to run it but I know that Hordes is very much so a game of synergy and don't know if it would run well with the list I have planned. On that note, where can I find the rules for it? Will I have to buy the box just to get the card or is there a book I can buy?

Yea when I say tier lists I am referring to the theme forces. Zaal1 theme force that is the skorne force book is called The Immortal Host. If you really like the construct units then that may be something to build towards in the long run.

Honestly though if you just starting out I would take a look at the battlebox. It is rather good deal, morghoul1 is a really good caster especially at lower pt games and the gladiator finds his way into a lot of lists. Battlebox level games are supposed to help players learn the game

Edit: For Ardus warbeasts I haven't used them myself but the sentinel is really good but needs support in the list to be truly effective. Most people field the cyclops raider with him for the animus to increase range of the gun, the extoller to help deal with stealth/incorporeal, and the willbreaker to make ancillary attacks. I am not sure how people use the soldier to be honest.

All cards come with the models when you buy them. The army books came out awhile ago and all the models that game out since are in one of the expansion books for hordes or warmachine. Rules for the ardus are in Exignece I believe.

Seeing this post now, I would honestly not suggest entering warmachine/hordes using tier lists. In many cases you are pigeonholing yourself into a specific set of models that, generally speaking, will only work for that specific list. Basically theme lists are a great way to expand your faction, but when you are new I would recommend staying away from them so as to make the best use of your money. Immortals are, imo, the coolest looking unit in skorne (also the reason I own skorne), but I would consider looking at nihilators (great with non-theme zaal), cataphracts (namely cetrati and incendiarii), a titan gladiator, molik karn, tiberion, and beast handlers. I would say these 3 beasts and 4 units are relatively core to the entire faction. I am not saying you should buy all of these models, but that these are the "core" of the faction and are the most commonly played models, so if you dislike them (visually or play/rules wise) you will probably dislike Skorne as a faction.

If you have a phone I would suggest downloading the Warroom App and buying the skorne set. You can also use bluestacks to view the warroom app on your PC. This will allow you to never have to buy forces of books again as it has the rules for all the skorne models released and that will be released(other factions or all are available also). For visuals, simply google the models and look at pictures.

Something of important note is how hard are you planning to start? Are you looking to get in at the literal basic level of 15 pt armies or a more advanced 35 pt or straight near tournament wise at 50 pts? The level of initial investment greatly affects initial recommendations. For instance I would recommend entirely different purchases at each level, namely until you are planning to play at least 35 pts I would recommend not considering Zaal as hes much more of an infantry caster and needs a base level of points to become decent, let alone if you are running immortals who at the very least need a full unit + an ancestral guardian (or/and hakaar) that is 11 points at least.

For starting at 15 pts I would recommend something like Supreme Archdomina Makeda or Tyrant Xerxis as an initial warlock. Both are +5 point casters so something like below as initial purchases for 15 pt games.

Tyrant Xerxis
-Titan Gladiator
-Molik Karn

Expanding up to 35 pts, with the goal of playing zaal also, you can keep playign with Xersis or Makeda and purchase Xaal as a second warlock with your intent of eventually expanding to having 2 lists total (what is needed at the minimum for tournaments at 50 pts assuming they are your jam), one being a Xersis or Makeda list while the second is a zaal list.

Tyrant Xersis
-Titan Gladiator
-Molik Karn

min beasthandlers
Max Immortals
Max Nihilators
Ancestral Guardian (Use hakaar proxied as the model since when you switch to zaal you have an additional point so would want to use hakaar instead of a normal guardian and it minimizes your purchases by only buying hakaar who is more useful then a normal guardian)

Overall this would be my general recommendation for getting into Skorne with wanting to use zaal and immortals and the information you have given.

Well with that, plus with talking with my local Warmahordes players...I think I might just not take the plunge. I bought the core book and the Skorne book already but from everything I have heard I probably wont have much fun with the game. I didn't generally like it when it was first released because of the casual ease I dominated games with because I played the premiere caster kill faction. It sounds like the game still revolves around caster kill with an added layer of "Gotcha!" type combos that unless you have played your opponents caster before chances are good they will catch you with your pants down.

Then you are telling me that in order to play the models I want, I will have to buy a bunch of models I don't want? The Titans all look silly to me and I don't really want to play them. I like the cataphracts and some of the infantry but I don't like the idea that the models I want to use wont run without using models I have no interest in. This is why I have left 40k behind years ago.

Thanks for the input guys, guess I have to keep looking for a new war game.

To expand on your thoughts, it seems you are misinterpreting or simply don't know how Warmachine/Hordes really works. If you are planning to only play entry level games then yes....the game will be caster kill, but this is like playing a 400 pt 40K game where you must take a character HQ, the game is entirely different then at 1850 tournament level play. For warmachine 50 pts is the competitive level, involving list pairs.

Going back to assassination, it matters, but it is not the primary win condition for the game, unless you consider killing the majority of an opponents army and forcing their caster into a bad situation, then killing them after that. Assassination does matter, but is more a backup plan, a desperate chance to win far from behind, or taking advantage of bad play. Further you mentioned you played cryx and said they were a premiere caster kill faction...I would say they are at best middle of the pack for assassination. Factions such as mercs, retribution, legion, etc would be considered the best assassination factions mostly because their general caster pairings will have at least 1 caster who is largely advantaged towards assassination, though most factions have one or more caster more geared to assassination though (out of like 15 caster choices). In skornes case this would be Makeda and Molik Karn and its considered one of the best "Gotchas!" in the entire game, but not even used by competitive skorne players because gimmicks are just that...gimmicks.

The main points levels in the game are 15, 35, and 50. As for models you don't want, you want to use Zaal and Immortals and mentioned aridus later...and then asked for good purchases, so I told you by far the most competitive and cost-efficient way to get to a 35 pt list involving these models as Zaal is an infantry caster, he basically needs at least 2 units of infantry for his feat to be usable, aka he needs to be run at a higher points level then base. I could tell you to just buy whatever, but you didn't give enough information, hence my questions for your initial investment level. For example you could just buy and run the following list:

35 pts Zaal Immortal Host Tier 2
Zaal
-Kovaas
-Aradus Sentinel
-Aradus Soldier

Full Immortals x 2
Hakaar
Ancestral Guardian

Its playable, thematic, and you can win games with it even against competitive lists, but you are choosing specific units/models that don't represent the faction as a whole. If you later plan to expand your purchases to another caster...literally if you went to 10 skorne players all 10 of them would recommend entirely different models with Hakaar being the only one with a possible mention. From a monetary standpoint if you are fine with that, thats great, hence I said theme lists pigeonhole and asked what your initial investment was.

SilverSaint wrote:
To expand on your thoughts, it seems you are misinterpreting or simply don't know how Warmachine/Hordes really works. If you are planning to only play entry level games then yes....the game will be caster kill, but this is like playing a 400 pt 40K game where you must take a character HQ, the game is entirely different then at 1850 tournament level play. For warmachine 50 pts is the competitive level, involving list pairs.

Going back to assassination, it matters, but it is not the primary win condition for the game, unless you consider killing the majority of an opponents army and forcing their caster into a bad situation, then killing them after that. Assassination does matter, but is more a backup plan, a desperate chance to win far from behind, or taking advantage of bad play. Further you mentioned you played cryx and said they were a premiere caster kill faction...I would say they are at best middle of the pack for assassination. Factions such as mercs, retribution, legion, etc would be considered the best assassination factions mostly because their general caster pairings will have at least 1 caster who is largely advantaged towards assassination, though most factions have one or more caster more geared to assassination though (out of like 15 caster choices). In skornes case this would be Makeda and Molik Karn and its considered one of the best "Gotchas!" in the entire game, but not even used by competitive skorne players because gimmicks are just that...gimmicks.

The main points levels in the game are 15, 35, and 50. As for models you don't want, you want to use Zaal and Immortals and mentioned aridus later...and then asked for good purchases, so I told you by far the most competitive and cost-efficient way to get to a 35 pt list involving these models as Zaal is an infantry caster, he basically needs at least 2 units of infantry for his feat to be usable, aka he needs to be run at a higher points level then base. I could tell you to just buy whatever, but you didn't give enough information, hence my questions for your initial investment level. For example you could just buy and run the following list:

35 pts Zaal Immortal Host Tier 2
Zaal
-Kovaas
-Aradus Sentinel
-Aradus Soldier

Full Immortals x 2
Hakaar
Ancestral Guardian

Its playable, thematic, and you can win games with it even against competitive lists, but you are choosing specific units/models that don't represent the faction as a whole. If you later plan to expand your purchases to another caster...literally if you went to 10 skorne players all 10 of them would recommend entirely different models with Hakaar being the only one with a possible mention. From a monetary standpoint if you are fine with that, thats great, hence I said theme lists pigeonhole and asked what your initial investment was.

You are the only person I have spoken with that says that assassination isn't that big of an issue and a backup plan. I don't know which is true or not, but I am just going off of the majority of what I have been told. Cryx may not be the best assassin faction now, but at release they certainly were and that is where all of my experience with the game comes from. When I watch battle reports on youtube most of them seem to end in caster kill more than anything else.

As for Skorne I am not to interested in any other casters, Zaal is the only guy I really liked the look and theme of. Warmahordes in general doesn't really capture my imagination like other settings because I am not huge into steam punk. The reason I am thinking of getting into Warmahordes is because I want a game that is relatively balanced, has a decent fluff, and has some interesting models to paint. I like some of Warmahordes models, but most of them I think are at best boring, the fluff I know very little about but it looks interesting enough, and all I hear is how much more balanced this game is than many others so I want to give it another try.

As for point levels, I have no idea what level my local meta plays at. I haven't been able to make it to a Warmahordes day yet because of my newborn daughter, I have only been able to talk to the guys who work at my FLGS and their opinion on the game.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
You are the only person I have spoken with that says that assassination isn't that big of an issue and a backup plan. I don't know which is true or not, but I am just going off of the majority of what I have been told. Cryx may not be the best assassin faction now, but at release they certainly were and that is where all of my experience with the game comes from. When I watch battle reports on youtube most of them seem to end in caster kill more than anything else.

As for Skorne I am not to interested in any other casters, Zaal is the only guy I really liked the look and theme of. Warmahordes in general doesn't really capture my imagination like other settings because I am not huge into steam punk. The reason I am thinking of getting into Warmahordes is because I want a game that is relatively balanced, has a decent fluff, and has some interesting models to paint. I like some of Warmahordes models, but most of them I think are at best boring, the fluff I know very little about but it looks interesting enough, and all I hear is how much more balanced this game is than many others so I want to give it another try.

As for point levels, I have no idea what level my local meta plays at. I haven't been able to make it to a Warmahordes day yet because of my newborn daughter, I have only been able to talk to the guys who work at my FLGS and their opinion on the game.

I will 100% agree with the bold statement, the majority of games will end with a caster kill, but this doesn't mean assassination, though like I previously said assassination IS a large part of the game and affects it greatly (namely in that my strongest piece has to be used more tactically instead of as a hammer). Also the better the opponents the lower the role of assassination in the game, outside of clearly specific assassination lists (aka you know what their game plan is from the start). In terms of balance and PP's willingness to try and balance the game, its incomparable to something like 40K. Bad match-ups do exist, but not to the severity of 40K and they are MUCH less common, with (tournament level) list pairings and some current attempts to move to a sideboard like system further helping insure fair games. If for any reason in the future you would want to get into warmachine I would try and find a faction you like at least a few casters from as this would greatly open your options for recommended models.

Here are some Skorne videos of some local level tournament play or practice of a good skorne player that give a general idea of the faction. I didn't see any zaal videos here or in any of the WTC (World Team Championship) videos I browsed as he is rarely used for competitive skorne play.

Hexeris2 vs Axis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FaKZmXWaf8

Makeda1 vs Bradigus(this player is relatively new to circle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FKEuxU-yuA

Rasheth vs Rask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dzGnHjSy80

If you are looking for Zaal videos, here are a couple:

http://youtu.be/GuuZwGusoYE

http://youtu.be/z0bAMV2N46o

http://youtu.be/MFdItJvSFe4

This channel has 33 skorne videos and is always a fun watch - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqLCdDhdPokk4CLAqsgCoKB3PHj-Ep0BR

There is a distinction to be made about assassination. I would only call it assassination if a caster is killed with most of their army intact. If most of a caster's army is dead and that's why they're vulnerable to being killed, that's not really assassination.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Well, as the title says I am a "new" player looking to start Skorne. I say "new" because I played once upon a time at the release of Warmachine and have a small Cryx army left from those days as well as a small amount of Legion that my brother bought me when he was really into the game, never got around to playing them.

After so long of dealing with the drama of 40k and playing games that so few people play in my local meta I want to go back to playing a game with decent rules and decent balance. The problem I had with Warmahordes in general was the caster kill ending the game, I get that is part of the core design but I hope it can be mitigated somewhat and games can actually play out without people just sniping each others casters.

I am looking to get back into the game with Skorne, specifially Zaal and Immortals because I love the way they look and would have a great time painting them. What do I need to know if this is the route I want to choose? Aside from Zaal and Immortals what would be some good purchases?

Not going to lie, but it seems that you started this thread with only limited knowledge of the current edition of the game and had already made your judgement beforehand. I see nothing wrong with taking the advice of your FLGS worker/owner. But, what is their experience with the game? I have been playing off and on since Mark I kicked off, and have had plenty of people who played say the game sucks, 'caster-kill is dumb, game is all about stupid janky combos, and I am way too good at the game so I don't play it anymore. Only thing is, I do my best to get said people to actually play me because I want to see what it is they are doing.

More often than not, those guys who bash the game or are too good, are absolutely terrible players who make bad decisions. Yea, the game isn't for everybody, and I won't try and make somebody enjoy something I know they won't. But, before deciding against the game after reading a whole bunch of articles from some keyboard warrior who barely knows what they are doing, take out your old models and give the new rules a try for yourself instead of taking somebody else's opinion. Yes, there are combos in the game, there will be "gotcha" moments, but information in the game is open. Ask your opponents to see their cards and make your game plan. If you don't see the "gotcha" after that, than they are a real sly opponent and I would love to play a game against them, or you need to work on your own skills.

If you are only playing 'caster-kill games you are really missing out on what scenarios do for the game. They force you into hard choices when list building and on the table top.

Skorne focuses on Damage, That is their #1 by far!

Then they have a few interesting secondary focuses.

Toughness - They are one of the tankiest factions, maybe 2nd or 3rd.

Speed - Despite their natural low speeds, they have an insane amount of speed buffs. Making them dangerously and deceptively fast. Even outspeeding some of the faster factions.

These factors makes them very well rounded, and deceptively powerful in many situations.

The down side to Skorne is that while they are pretty good... They are also kinda of bad competitively, so at the TOP OF THE TIPPY TOP they are a little underpowered due to lacking control elements.

I've played Skorne for years. To sum them up, they can handle almost any match up.... If you brought the right tools. There in lies the crux of the faction. Skorne has a lot of situational pieces that are good/amazing in some matchups, & useless/ok in others. There are very few pieces that are general purpose.

On top of that "Skornegy" is a very real design flaw that PP works into the faction, where certain pieces negate the effects of other pieces. This can be frustrating, but is a definite part of the army.

Skorne doesn't do very well at the top levels of competitive play, because of the 2 list format. I have a lot of success during league/casual play because all the tools the army has available.

I personally feel Skorne is one of the most (if not the most) synergetic armies in the game. The problem is that you usually have to take a lot of support pieces to get to that point.