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Evening all.

First up, I would like to say that in my opinion, Warmachine sucks. Don't like Steampunk. At all. I find it a singularly uninspiring bit of Sci-Fi and vastly overused and overrated. I also found their background decidedly lack lustre when I dipped my toe into it (shortly after the second book. Apotheosis I think?).

But I was in a FLGS today on my way back from Gatwick, and I found myself looking at Hordes. Now the powergaming aspect of it I can probably handle, as with the Hydra Games Club up and running (Wednesdays from 7p.m. Robin Hood pub, Royal Tunbridge Wells) I can get a number of fellow NooBs together, thus lessening the risk of what happened with Warmachine (thought it to be a bit powergamey, and the only opponents I could find were all TFG. Like he'd been cloned. Or perhaps cut in half several times like a Worm).

No steampunk involve, and the universe it takes part in has evolved somewhat (or at least I bloody hope it has) since my last daliance.

So sell Hordes to me. Primarily, I want to know about the races and species involved, and their backgrounds. (don't like the term faction. Faction implies an offshoot of a larger body) Who are? What do? And Why? Please keep it to the background only, as I can find out the gaming stuff (whats good and what sucks) on my todd should I decide to delve a little deeper.

But on the subject of rules, how do the Summoners (Warcaster equivalents) or whatever they are called work? Is it like Warmachine where you kill the caster, and you bugger the Jacks? Or do you simply lose flexibility with their demise? The Warmachine way was another thing that put it down in my estimation, as it felt like just fighting the Undead, where the effort required to crack the head reaped massive rewards, and that made the game a tad too predicatable for me!

So, off you go. Please. And indeed, yespleasethankyou.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and please try to keep any better/worse than comparisson to Fantasy or 40k to a minimum. Telling where it differs etc is fine, as is indeed any point of reference I might be familiar with, but the first moron with a 'It are betar than Wahamster lol' will at some point in the future find a Ferrett in an unlikely orifice with no explanation of how it got there.

Just sell me on Hordes.

They're warlocks. They work similarly to Warcasters, but have Fury instead of focus. If a warlock dies, it's usually game over as you lose control of your warbeasts. But if you have enough infantry and the other army is suitably messed up, you can still pull off a victory.

Fury is a more fluid resource than the Focus mechanic. It's a bit of a risk reward mechanic. Basically, your warbeasts generate fury by "forcing" them. Forcing a warbeast is basically doing anything with them that a warjack needed focus to do, but basically you need to force them to run, buy extra attacks, use some special abilities.

Each warbeast has a Fury stat that's the limit of the amount of fury they can have on them at one time.

Each Warlock also has a fury stat. At the beginning of your turn you siphon off fury from your warbeasts that your warcaster stores and uses to cast spells on his activation.

If a warbeast still has fury on it after the siphoning phase, you have to roll to see if the warbeast frenzies, adding 1 to the roll for every point of futy on the beast, trying to get under or equal to its threshold value. If not, you lose control of it and the warbeast will charge and attack stuff based on the frenzy rules. They still generally prefer enemy units, but it's bad enough to lose control since warbeast means you can't use even more fury to your advantage.

Warbeasts are as deadly, but not as physically tough as a warjack. The key to them is they have their fury which is essentially free if you can siphon it, and can be easily healed so that they fight at full strength even if severely damaged. A warlock can simply spend his own fury to heal any spot on a warbeast's damage columns, which means if any aspects (basically systems) are damaged that would hinder the warbeast, 1 point of healing will bring it back up allowing a nearly dead warbeast to full.

As for the Armies, well you can read for yourself how they work. Suffice to say, Trollbloods fight for a land of their own after being used then betrayed by Cygnar.

Circle Orboros are deceptively evil, wanting to bring the world back to chaos, they are opposed to the Order and civilization that is the Protectorate and Cygnar.

Everblight is a splinter of evil dragon essence, coming from the Cryx's dragon, but opposed to them. They just want to mess stuff up.

Skorne are evil samurai romans, big into animal cruelty, domination, clans. They've in-fighting for as long as they can remember, but when Cygnar booted out it's tyrant of a king he fled and found the Skorne, and eventually killed enough that they made him Emperor. Now the united Skorne are marching on Cygnar so that he can get revenge on and reclaim his kingdom.

Can you give me a little bit more about the various forces in the game?

How do their skill sets match up to their background? Circle Orboros sound intriguing to me, but if the closest they get to being 'fluffy' is just some well named abilities, without the abilities matching, I'd be disappointed.

How do the various forces regard each other? Are there major rivalries? Do they tend to ignore each other? Seems Trollbloods and Skorne just want to knack Cygnar. And do they go beyond in style and theme than fleshy equivalents to the Warmachine forces?

IMHO, if you don't like Warmachine you won't like Hordes either. The backgrounds intermingle (even more so now as the storyline has developed). I would suggest skimming through the 3 Hordes books at your LGS as it is too complex a storyline to summarize it here. As far as skill sets for the various factions, well that can be varied within in each faction depending on which warlock you choose.

The four armies in Hordes are Trollbloods, Circle Orboros, Skorne, and Legion of Everblight.

Trollbloods consist of Trolls (duh), their larger cousins the Dire Trolls, Trollkin, and Pygmy Trolls. The latter two are intelligent and form the army's infantry and characters. The former two are the warbeasts. All trolls are able to regenerate from injuries, but IK trolls take it a step further. Trolls adapt to whatever their environment/diet is. For example, the Slag Trolls eats rocks and metal deposits and as such are good at tackling warjacks and can spit acid. Trollkin and Pygmies don't have that level of regenerative ability, but they do heal faster than humans. Their mages are a mix of regular arcane sorcerors and clerics of Dhunia (think Gaia).

In the fluff, the trollkin kriels (tribes basically) were scattered all over Western Immoren and they suffered collateral damage from the battles between the Warmachine armies. Cygnar armed them with some old guns and promised the refugees land, but then reneged on that promise. Now the Chief Madrak is trying to unify all the kriels into one nation so they can make their own home and defend it themselves.
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Circle Orboros worships (Worship is a bad word for this. You'll see why.) the god Orboros, known to outsiders as The Devourer Wurm, god of chaos. He draws power from the beasts and storms and all natural areas of Caen. Currently, he is occupied with fighting Menoth in the underworld (Urcaen). The Circle seeks to keep Orboros there by preventing the expansion of civilization, thus keeping Him strong enough to fight Menoth. If the Circle fails in this, Orboros will return to Caen to reduce everything to rubble, keeping his power base solid, but killing millions of people in the process.

Most Circle warlocks and infantry are human. The other humanoid race Circle has is the Tharn. They suffered from a curse that prevented them from procreating very often, and the race was dying. Some Circle druids showed up and fixed it, and the Tharn pledged their allegiance to them for it. They have a connection to the Devourer Wurm that allows them to turn into bigger, more feral version of themselves. The males do this, but the females choose to use their natural gifts and blood magic to fight. The warbeasts consist of warpwolves (werewolves basically, but each of Caen's three moons affects them differently), satyrs (PP's satyrs are goat-based minotaurs), and elemental constructs (wood and stone golems that shoot lasers).

Currently in the fluff, the Circle is trying to counteract the actions of Everblight, but has been unsuccessful. Dragons exist outside the natural order of Caen and Urcaen, and their blight blocks the energy from the wild areas that keep Orboros strong. Since they cannot stop Everblight, one Circle warlock has enlisted other dragons to stop it.
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Skorne are ancient enemies of the elves. They believe in strength and not much else. They worship their ancestors, and the souls of dead Skorne are kept in stones (like the Eldar). The good warriors have their stones put into stone bodies to fight again (again, like the Eldar). Very militaristic. Their magic is based off of the power blood releases when it is shed and souls in general.

The Skorne warbeasts are Titans (two-legged, six-armed elephants), Cyclopses (Theirs aren't giants like in Greek mythology.), and Basilisks (lizards that shoot lasers). All of them are enslaved and tortured to be made compliant and combat ready.

Currently in the fluff, they have overthrown ex-Cygnaran king Vinter Raelthorne who conquered them after being exiled from Cygnar and brought the Skorne from Eastern Immoren to exact vengeance on his brother, King Leto. Also, they are trying to open a hole to the Void that exists between Caen and Urcaen, and one warlock wants to examine a dragon's athanc.
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Legion of Everblight's backstory is fairly involved. Toruk was the first dragon and he wanted underlings to do his bidding. So he sundered his athanc (soulstone) into many pieces and from each stone came a new dragon. They didn't like being servants, so they rebelled. He was able to reclaim some of his athanc by defeating and eating the athancs of other dragons, but the other offspring banded together and a stalemate was reached.

Lyoss was the ancestral home of the elves until they tried to bring their 8 gods from Urcaen (They call it The Veld). The bridge they made blew up, killing millions of elves. The survivors made a new home at Ios with their gods, but they had to return to The Veld and left. The followers of Nyssor, god of winter, went after him and found him way north of Khador. They became winter elves (Nyss).

Back in Ios, the rest of the elven gods, except for Scyrah, never returned. To make matters worse, Everblight was chilling in that area, causing trouble. Eventually, they slew him, and sent his athanc to the highest peak in the world, way north of Khador. Other than another dragon devouring it, no way is known to destroy an athanc. Everblight's athanc was frozen for hundreds of years, but eventually he found an ogrun (ogre) passing by and called out to him. The ogrun found Everblight's athanc and shoved it into his chest. Now they are one being. Everblight has the ability to control his blight so he stays under the radar of the other dragons. He also has not assumed his draconic flesh. Finally, he can sunder his athanc to implant in other beings and they will not form new dragons. Since the Nyss were nearby, he corrupted their water supply, turning many of them into blighted Nyss.

Their beasts are dragonspawn and their infantry are blighted Nyss and Ogrun. They have sorcerors, but all of their warlocks possess an athanc shard. In the fluff, Everblight just devoured the athanc of the dragon Pyromalfic and is regrouping near Rhul (kingdom of dwarves).
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Warlocks function differently than warcasters. Warcasters generate focus every turn and allocate them to their jacks to improve their performance. In Hordes, warbeasts are forced to be more efficient, generating Fury. The warlocks then siphon this Fury to them to fuel their spell-casting. If you generate too much Fury, you run the risk of your warbeasts attacking whatever is closest to them including your own guys. Unspent focus on a warcaster increases their ARM by one for each point of focus. Fury works differently. Instead, they can spend one fury to transfer all damage to a friendly warbeast near them. This makes them fairly resistant to assassination with just a few points of fury.

When a warlock dies, his warbeasts go Wild (basically run off the board). In a single 'lock game, this doesn't matter as the game still ends. In a multi-warlock game, only the warbeasts that are in the dead warlock's control, that are not in the other still alive warlock's control area, go wild. And you can reclaim them before they run off the board, too.

i'll toss out some info on trolls, since thats the army i collect

first off, trolls are kinda slow in general, but are tough, your basic units generally have an ability that lets you make a roll when they "die" to see if they shrug it off and just get knocked down. Your warbeasts have regenerate, allowing you to heal them up a good deal faster then the other armies generally can.

Troll abilities tend to boost each other, the fellcaller for example, is a solo that chants battle calls to inspire the troops, giving varies bonuses, while another unit carries a stone with ancient clan deeds engraved on it, which can provide defense bonuses.

model wise, the trolls are almost all on median/large bases, other then the pgymy trolls. your basic troopers and warlocks wear tartans, and a lot of models have barrels of ale on their belts (one warlock had a model that follows him around with a keg).


As for the fluff for hordes-i rather enjoy the fact that i'm getting a book each year with a decent chuck of fluff for my army helping to add to the storyline (if PP started putting out books on adventures of the trollkin, or the goblins of their world, i would buy them)

all in all, while i do play 40k, i find hordes to be a lot of fun

If you think "Warmachine Sucks!" I doubt you will find Hordes to be much better...

For those worried about me not liking Warmachine, do read the opening post, where I explain what I didn't really like about Warmachine (namely Steampunk being lame in my opinion)

You can't blame them for warning you even more MDG. The two games are joined at the hip practically. If you get into hordes, you're also getting involved in Warmachine and odds are that you'll face a warmachine player more than you will a Hordes player and that will affect how you perceive it.

But, perhaps you can channel your dislike of steampunk into Fury that will power your warbeasts to destroy those steampunk abominations.

Let's go at it from this perspective: Have you read the rules and, if so, do the game mechanics (regardless of background) appeal to you?

For quick and easy comparison with GW:
Legion of Everblight are like Dark Elves crossed with Chaos crossed with Tyranids. On speed.
Trolls are a bit like Dwarves and maybe a bit like Orcs. They're sort of a "good guy" defensive faction, who have the Heroic Last Stand thing going on in spades.
Skorne are nasty, honourable (by their strict, alien honor code) and driven. They're very Eastern themed. Closest analogue would be Warriors of Chaos.
Circle are ruthless and tricky, and are like a cross between Beastmen and Woodelves.

Skorne also uses torture. Eastern themed with Roman discipline and a smattering of torture. Oh yes.