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Hi.

I've bought both a Cygnar and Skorne army. The Cygnar because i like it (bought it a long time ago) and the Skorne because a friend of mine thought they looked cool (they were on sale, 50% off). So now we can battle together.
But reading myself into the rules of both Hordes Primal and Warmachine Prime (I know there is a Mk II, but the basics should be the same) I hear myself asking the question over and over again; "What is in fact the difference between Hordes and Warmachine?". So I read a bit more, and apart from semantics with movement and how units attack, what is then the BIG difference between Hordes and Warmachine?

Warmachine is about Resource Management, and if you lose your jacks it doesn't worry your caster too much.
Hordes is about Risk Management, and if your beasts die, it drops your warlock's power considerably.

In warmachine warcaster generates the focus to boost dice rolls, cast spells and enable special actions by the jacks. In Hordes beasts generate fury by boosting dice rolls and casting spells, which the warlock can then use to cast spells and boost his/ her rolls.

Therefore warmachine warcaster can function well without jacks and is more resource limited as he is the only source of focus for his army. In hordes warlock needs beasts to get fury for functioning and will be severely handicapped when he has lost all of his beasts. The beasts however can generate more fury than the warlock can use, which can cause problems.

It can cause problems but it can also be devastating.
Most Warmachine jacks (exceptions like the Deathjack aside) are limited to three focus, whereas heavy beasts have 4 Fury on average (some have 5!).
This means if you "run hot" for a turn you can do a lot of damage with your beasts, but you need a way to deal with the fury the next round. Each hordes faction has something to deal with fury in the form of a unit or a solo (AFAIK, the circle one isn't jumping to mind if there is one).

Like the posters above, focus vs fury and warjack vs warbeast is the main difference between the two systems as far as mechanics go.

Warcasters in Warmachine generate focus every turn and allocate this focus to their 'jacks to augment thier abilities, such as allowing them to run, charge, boost attacks and/or damage, or even additional attacks.

Warlocks in Hordes however must leach fury from their warbeast in order to obtain it. From this, they can cast spells among other things. Warbeasts generate their own fury by using abilities like running, charging, boosting attacks and/or damage, and gaining additional attacks up to their fury rating. However, the reason Hordes is called "risk management" is because the more fury you have on your warbeasts, the more likely one or more may Frenzy. Since a warlock can only leach up to as many fury as his own fury rating, any fury left on a warbeast means at the start of the turn, he must take a Frenzy check, passing means nothing happens, but failing means he might turn on you. This also means that the loss of warbeasts limits the potencial fury that a warlock has access to throughout the game.

Warjacks also utilize a damage grid for taking damage. So, like you probably know, all boxes need to be filled as damaged in order to stop the machine, and each column destroyed means the 'jack loses some system like his arm, cortex, ect, thus losing the use of those abilities.

A warbeast uses a life spiral with three sections for Mind, Body, and Spirit. Damage is taken exactly like in warmachine, allocating damage to one of the six arms that makes up the spiral, but the loss of one of the three sections means the warbeast loses some ability, such as losing an attack die, damage die, or being unable to use fury until healed.

This bring another difference between the two systems. Warlocks can use fury to heal damage from their warbeasts, where as in Warmachine, a player must rely on some unit or solo with the ability to repair to repair a warjack.

One other difference is in Warmachine, warcasters typically have access to from 5 to 6 spells to choose from. Warlocks in Hordes typically average only 3 spells on their list. This list is augmented by the warbeasts chosen in your force. Each warbeast as an inherent spell ability called an animus. This is a spell-like ability which can be used by the warbeast itself or tapped by the warlock which allows him to cast it as though it was a spell of his. This offers both a crippling limitation and a wonderful flexibility to warlocks and often adds an additional factor when a player compiles his army.

Da Boss wrote:...(AFAIK, the circle one isn't jumping to mind if there is one).

Shifting Stones have a Fury removing ability in MkII.