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I'm not sure if anyone's managed to download the MKII stat cards for Hordes factions, but I'm whether underwhelmed by some of the Skorne changes. It seems like some of the units got a rather drastic overhaul, while others got the serious nerf bat beat down... To name a few: Molik Karn, Basilisk Krea, & Ancestral Guardian. I haven't had the chance to review other faction's stuff yet, but why do I have a feeling that Circle will still be as sneaky / as ever... What are your impressions thus far?

EDIT: Typo

The biggest Skorne gripe, no Pathfinder, got reduced as a limitation in MkII. Skorne did pretty well out of that across the board.

And ancestral guardian can now run and charge without spending a soul.

Not really affecting me, but guys in my group The sisters in legion got some changes up in debate whether it is good or bad maybe after this weekend when we get some games in we will be able to tell. Also grim angus for the trolls seems to be better as his focus seems to be more effecent. Again I am a strict warmachine player and these are observations off of looking at what my close friends play.

Legion looks pretty much the same. They kept most of the things that I played the faction for, so I'm pretty happy. There are some oddities though; the Carnivean and Seraph are oddly priced, the Angelius' animus still doesn't make a lick of difference in 99% of games, and MAT 5 RAT 4 on the Carnivean are among the lowest in Hordes.

But other than that, it's looking good for the Legion.

I'm pretty happy with the changes to the trolls.

Legion I thought would get changed slightly more at least the Twins, who I've always felt were really insanely good. I was delighted to see the seraph lose slam and go up in price, and the teraph and raek go down in price and get better. Really pleased about that, as I'd love to run a list with raek, teraph, carnivean, shredders and Typhon.
Still, on the whole Legion also look pretty good to me, the changes make sense I think.

Death March - Hexeris spell - got a pretty big downgrade. If you cast it on a unit, only the first model to die gets the attack, then it expires...hmmm. Also, his feat only moves the models 3", rather than their speed. We will see how this all pans out in the end, I suppose.

George Spiggott wrote:The biggest Skorne gripe, no Pathfinder, got reduced as a limitation in MkII. Skorne did pretty well out of that across the board.

It's not great, but it's a little better than MKI. At least the Bronzeback got Stampede for a little pathfinding... Of course the movement synergy with other Titans went out the window...

Metsuri wrote:And ancestral guardian can now run and charge without spending a soul.

Right, but the Ancestral Guardian lost 2" on spirit driven AND Weapon Master!?! I'll take the 2" and weapon master over a free charge any day of the week!

ForceVoid wrote:Death March - Hexeris spell - got a pretty big downgrade. If you cast it on a unit, only the first model to die gets the attack, then it xpires...hmmm. Also, his feat only moves the models 3", rather than their speed. We will see how this all pans out in the end, I suppose.

Downgrades? Hrmm, let's see...

Molik Karn lost Guided Strike
Basilisk Krea lost Paralytic Field
Rhinodon lost its horn and its animus Amuck is totally different
Void Spirit lost Death Spirit (+D6 vs living models) & Void Leap
Ancestral Guardian (see above)

MKII Field Test Stat Card wrote:Amuck
When target friendly Faction warbeast destroys one or more enemy models with a normal melee attack during its activation, after
resolving the attack it can advance up to 1˝ if there are no enemy models within its melee range. Amuck lasts for one turn.

Wow really? I can move ONE whole inch after my SPD4 Warbeast kills with its "normal" melee attack? You spoil me! Versus the old Amuck I can do two *attack from a single model that can interupt movement... Hrmm tough choice. Skorne seem to have been fairly brutalized all around the board... I haven't gotten a game in yet, but maybe it's not that bad, but its a little disconcerting when so many of my favorite abilities are gone...

On a positive note, the Cyclops Brute is pretty sweet now. Safeguard is significantly better now, and it has a new shield guard ability.

Karn was insane before and is still good, honestly he needed to be nerfed. The titans got additional attack from tusks and the paingivers are now almost free.

So yes skorne got some serious downgrading, but also some nice boosts.

Skorne have been nerfed but I had seen this coming with thier recent success in tournament/competetive play. Now we shall have sub par showings again.

The Arcuraii and Cetrati were both boosted nicely. The Arcuarii may have lost hog tie, but the whole unit is 8 wounds, and if a model harpoon drags someone into it's melee range, it can make a melee attack against it, too. The Cetrati lost brutal charge for weapon master and also went to 8 wounds/dude.

Circle made out all right. The only things I didn't like were the Druids losing The Devouring (though if they received a price drop, I'd be okay with it), and the Shadowhorn Satyr. P+S 13 on a heavy? Come on.

Trollbloods did pretty well.

My beloved DT Blitzer is now awesome, although people won't realize it at first glance. You can now boost the ranged attacks with the blitzer, and it can still fire while in melee. However while in melee or during a turn where it charges, tramples, or slams the gun gets a -2 to attack rolls. It's still only RAT5 though, but it leads to a nice combo where you 2 handed throw a model to knock it down, or knock down a model, have the blitzer charge into combat with a different model and have the blitzer beat up that model while the gun shoots the knocked down model. At power 13 on such a highly mobile gun with boostable damage, whatever it hits will feel it. The only downside is that it's range is now only 10" as opposed to 12" previously, but that's a small price to pay for a model that can lay down a beating in melee and ranged at the same time.

I'm also a big fan of the Pyg Bushwackers and especially the Burrowers, and it looks like both of those units got significant upgrades. The burrowers are much faster underground, potentially moving up to 6" a turn with no way for the enemy to attack them while burrowing, or a 3" move and pop up from underground. However, they can't re-burrow themselves, again a small price to pay for the threat it provides that can't be countered in any way except to avoid it, and that's hard to do if you deploy the pygs right in the middle.

My first impression, and I have been reading some Trollblood comments on the Privateer forum so far, is that they made fury management even harder than it was before, and they did that to the faction that needed it to improve the most.

And they took away Hoarluk's connection to the Dire Trolls. The only thing I have to say about that is: WFT Privateer, really? You spend so much fething time and fluff on this and now you take it away? Really?

Trollblood beasts are now arguably the worst and most expensive among the four factions. So that severely limits our ability to play beast heavy, which happens to be, for me, the only reason to actually play the game (just like jacks in WM). I do not want WM/Hordes troops.

Let us hope it turns out better than the first impressions.

Legions beasts are more expensive I think?
And the Axer got a good boost getting reach, it's a monster against infantry now.
The elemental trolls are pretty good too. Not sure about the dires at the minute but 5 fury has always been awesome.

We'll see. Possibly not having fury management is our thing you know?

Don't listen to those complaining about fury management. I think people are reacting to losing the privelage to playing so loose and consequence free with the Fury/Frenzy mechanics. Now, in order to balance things properly against Warmachine as a base, there's a good amount of risk involved. And if they want to avoid frenzying, all you really have to do is count how much fury you're using.

To put it in another way:
A Warcaster with 6 Focus only outputs 6 focus worth of effects (boosts, spells, etc.). That's not including some of the WM focus management options.

A Warlock with 6 Fury can safely output 12 fury worth of effects.

This is because the Warlock leeches fury at the start of his turn, granting him that 6 fury, then can use that fury to cast spells/animus, boost his own attack and damage rolls, and transfer damage. Then he can force his warbeasts up to 6 points of Fury. To top it off, a warlock can still decide to run his beasts hot for a turn, maxing out the fury on his beasts, especially frontline beasts, because he knows that 1-2 of them will die the next turn in retaliation, even if he doesn't reave that fury back from the dead beasts, he's still output way more that 6, let alone 12 fury.

Hordes, in general, are supposed to have less fury management because fury management is practically built right into their core mechanic. If you want more fury, you risk the frenzy.

So trolls do have lower fury stats in general, except Calandra, but we're still outputting plenty, and we have some really good beasts.

It's best to divest yourself of any attachment to Mk1 before going into Mk2, it's a completely different balance scheme from Mk1, and I really do mean completely different even if things are deceptively the same. Some things may look worse at first, but changes in wording, or just changes to the overall game, even to other units make units more powerful. Perhaps one of the reasons why I'm responding so well to Mk2 in general across the board is that I got back into Warmachine and Hordes right at the time Mk2 game out, having dropped the game several years ago. This means I came in with a mostly fresh mindset.

TBD wrote:
I do not want WM/Hordes troops.

I've always been the opposite. Warbeasts are different, but the warjacks never fully
conveyed the character of a faction the way that the diversity of troops did, so I
started up to play a game that used lots of different types of units within the factions,
which is probably why I'm addicted to painting the darn models.

The changes to thresholds and frenzying are very good ones. It makes fury a lot more balanced as opposed to focus. (even if it means that the poor carnivean never gets more than MAT 5/RAT 4 )

But there are still some wrinkles in Shake Effects and in Reaving.

Even if fury is a more powerful mechanic than focus, Shake Effects shouldn't be as dangerous for beasts as they are right now.

No reaving from beasts that die to collateral damage, continuous effects, damage that aren't attacks, and from transfers is a bit rough on warlocks, as it requires you to plan even further ahead.

I'm all about Fury and Fury related activities being weaker than Focus for the reasons Vertrucio pointed out. For a 'caster with a Focus stat of 6, he can do 6 FOC worth of stuff, and that's about it, barring some oddities like soul tokens. With a 'lock, there can be stupid amounts of Fury on the table, especially with that turn when you run hot. Of course you'll be reeling in the rest of the game, but that blitz is brutal. Even playing conservative, you can have double your Fury stat of effects (boosts included) out on the table.

Others also do have a point though. I think a majority of these side issues we're seeing such as reaving not happening with continuous effects, non-attack damage, etc are more just oversights in the wording.

Heck, a good example is that they released the Mk2 Hordes field test rules and omitted the actual rules on fury management, reaving, transfers, and more which were core to the game. So yeah, a big oversight there, so it's likely they didn't do a detailed look through of the rules, or were in the process of major rewrites when they posted it.

I suspect that reaving will be fixed so that deaths via friendly fire and transfers won't be reavable, but everything else will.

I'm not sure if the shake effects need to be changed, but others have recommended a change where the Shake effects happens after the threshold check, but to shake off an effect you move 1 fury from the warlock to the warbeast, effectively denying you 2 fury worth of effects, which fits nicely considering the differences between focus and fury.

I get the impression that I'm going to enjoy Hordes MKII a whole lot more. Especially now with pKaya as my main (I got into the game to play with big beasts mainly).

Played tonight with the additional Fury text. Not being able to Reave Fury from beasts you transfer to makes a big difference.

Yeah, I think that was to combat the "Popcorn" strategy, especially in relation to shredder spam.

Precisely where it came up, my opponent forgot he couldn't popcorn.

Second game I played tonight I used a Feral Warpwolf to deny transfers. An angry Kromac did the rest.

How is Hordes MKII holding up against to WM MKII? Most people I know are hooked on Hordes vs. Hordes to try out the new stats...

I got my arse kicked by a mercenary list with three heavies and a light in 15 points. It was my first MkII game so I may have just been playing crap.

I haven't got to play Hordes yet.

But since whitekong prefers Hordes, I have a feeling I will at least play against them soon.

How was the Baldur Construct build affected?

Quite a bit by the sounds of it. At least Baldur has reach now.

I know the little constructs are less good at spewing spells now.