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Hi guys and gals, your favourite Dark Lord here! :p

Just a quick question. Been in 40K since 3rd edition, and WHFB for slightly less. I have been very keen to get into ye olde Warmachine & Hordes for a while now, especially with the excellent work I see here at Dakka. My question is "Where do I start?". I am slightly bamboozled about how to go about getting into this game, and any and all advice would be well appreciated

Start by downloading the MK2 rules,they are fully legal:

http://privateerpress.com/company/mkii-rules-and-model-info-available-for-pdf-download

Then perhaps read up a bit about the faction you would like to start on battle college:

http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/

As for the buying of actual models and so on,I would suggest going with your chosen factions battle box.Hope that helped a bit, I am newish to it all myself but found that the WM community is rather friendly and always willing to help.Welcome to the Iron kingdoms.

The downloadable core rulebook lacks a lot of the example images, but it's still good.

A battle box is your best bet to get started. It contains a good basic starting force for Mk2 and a lot of people like playing small games.

You could get by learning with a battle box and 1-2 units for a long while.

It's important, though, that you field things you like, not just what's effective. Thankfully Mk2 has rebalanced everything so everything's effective.

Kool

Been thinking about either Khador or the Trollbloods Is there any 'set' way to paint you forces. All the images I find tend to have a very unified scheme for each faction?

The armies have their colour schemes from the fluff, but you can paint them any way you want.

Also, Trolls are awesome, but are still on Mk 1 rules. Mk 2 beta test rules are out in november though, so you will be able to play some Mk 2 games with them soon.
I love my trolls.

The thing here is that Warmachine and Hordes are two fully compatible games, but the MkII fieldtest for Hordes is still a bit away (November), while the official MkII rules for Warmachine are out (just some typos etc. in there). However, I think that playing MkI until the Field Test comes out isn't too much of a problem if you like Hordes.

Paint schemes are entirely your choice. There are examples of extremely cool-looking alternative schemes on the web. However, I've still painted my minis in (roughly) the official colours because I think they look cool and I couldn't come up with something better. But that's just me.

when i started, i picked up the battle box
after a couple games, i picked up an infantry unit (the one i thought was the coolest looking at the time, honestly), and a couple of the cheaper price wise warcasters

just sort of expanded from there on what i thought had a cool model/filled some army need

Did the same here, picked the box with the nicest stuff (for me it was cryx) and went from there. A unit mechthralls (cheap warriors who are pretty good) and bilethralls soon filled in my troop-needs. then a pistolwraith and a skarlock where taken for solo's. Most is picked for looks, but the biles are more for effectiveness. Not that I despise the models, they are just less pretty then a lot of the other ones.

For khador I would say the box. after a few games the widowmakers and maybe a democorps. Then a manhunter (or 2) and maybe the merc eiryss...

trollbloods I can't say. never played against them so...

I'm gonna go for the Khador starter set and possibly some pikemen I know Mk II is vailable as a pdf now, do alot of people use it as opposed to mk 1?

OH and I noticed as well that the leader character in the starter set is a named character. Does your character need to be an official named individual or can they be tailored to how you want them>??

All Warcasters (Leaders) are named. One thing about WM that is different from other games (40k), is that all units are pre-developed. The trick in WM/Hordes is to use all their spells and abilities to create synergies and killer combos to smack the enemy. BTW, Sorcha is the warcaster in the Khador battle box, and she is one of the most effective casters in the game. Privateer does do a good job with their Battle box mixes. They are almost all built around really good warcasters. Welcome to the War!

Dark Lord Seanron wrote:I'm gonna go for the Khador starter set and possibly some pikemen I know Mk II is vailable as a pdf now, do alot of people use it as opposed to mk 1?

There are still a few MKI players out there but people are changing over all the time. MKII has the largest percentage of players (judging by forum chatter) and by January MKII will be official. My guess is that MKI will all but vanish when the Hordes beta is released next month.

We're still using MK1, mostly because we have Hordes players and we don't
want to switch over until we can play them together.

Is Hordes any better than Warmachine?

Dark Lord Seanron wrote:Is Hordes any better than Warmachine?

They are sister games, one older and one younger. A lot of the differences between
the two are cosmetic.

The most important difference is the warlock/warbeast/fury relationship vs. the
warcaster/warjack/focus relationship.

Warbeasts are very symbiotic with their warlocks. They generate fury, add to the
warlock's spell lists, and can have damage transferred to them if the warlock takes
hits. A Warbeast's main limitations are its operational range, lower armor values,
and potential risk (leave too much fury and you can possibly lose control). A warbeast
can run at peak efficiency with only three hitboxes left.

Warcasters generate focus, allocate focus per warjack, use highly armored warjacks,
have more base spells, and warcasters use their focus to increase their personal armor
values. A warjack's main limitations are its Focus limit and having fewer repair options
in the game (warcasters can't heal warjacks but warlocks can heal warbeasts). Warjacks
can be given focus near a caster and then be sent out to use that focus whereas the
warbeasts are constrained by a warlock's control area.

K, thanks ^^ definately going for Khador, wait until January for Mk II Hordes, and if I really like Warmachine, start a Trollblood ary as well thanks guys, you are being most helpful!

Another thing that is generally true in Hordes, but may change is that Warbeasts are better than 'Jacks, but Warmachine Infantry, solos and casters are better than Hordes infantry, solos and casters.

Another huge change coming in MKII are all the Card revisions to reflect the relationship between WM and Hordes. Many of the Warcasters in MKI don't have abilities that affect Hordes units. That will all change...

Got the PDF...my god, Warmachine is cool ^^

That's just the text, without any fluff too.

Oh and make absolute sure that you read over the Power Attacks that warjacks can do. Only warjacks can do them, and while highly situational, a great deal of why jacks are so powerful are those power attacks. They can trample over small based infantry to both kill them, and reach targets behind them to attack on the same turn. They can throw models around to hurt, knock over, and rearrange the models on the battlefield. Almost all of which are (in MK2) no more difficult than your basic attack to pull off.