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I've had a bit of experience with Mk II Warmahordes (or Hormachine lol).

I've played my Cygnar army since November and have played a ton of games without a single win. I noticed that their playstyle doesn't suit me and neither do they do well vs my main opponent (Retribution). I've decided to sell them on (keeping the Stormwall and Squire as they were Xmas presents from my girlfriend).

I played Cyriss to great success, but the fact that they were not a full faction seriously put me off them. Waiting ages for the models didn't sit well with me as I wanted to try competitive play, so they were sold off too.

I play Legion as well, which I had my first two games today (losing both but the army is a lot more fun to play than Cygnar or Cyriss), but this has become more of a modelling and painting project than an army to game with.

I'm looking for an army that can take a pounding and be able to dish one out as well. Straight forward, tough as old boot and can knock the seven hells out of it's opponent.

For a comparison of what I've played before in other games... I played Deathwing in 40k and Ogres in WHFB.

I'm interested to see what Dakka thinks.

What do you recommend?

Thanks.

Tough and High Damage?
Skorne Skorne Skorne Skorne
Skorne Skorne Skorne
Skorne Skorne
Skorne
Skorne Skorne

~ Signed by Skorne

Skorne, Eh?

Really?

I know they can pack a punch, but can they take one too?

Skorne, Trolls, Khador even Menoth are all factions that I think of that can play tough.

And dealing damage is not usually a problem in this game.

That said, the game is balanced pretty well so it will be hard to play the hardest to kill army while also playing the highest dmg output. It almost sounds more to me like you want to play elite, low model count armies. In which case you might be much more happier with a Hordes army since Warmachine lists tend to want numbers. Hordes supports more beasts which, by their very nature, are expensive, elite and low model count.

Can they take a punch? Xerxis with his Cataphract block, a Krea, and yeah. Take a beating and still wallop them with your Pillars of Awesome.

Well Skorne have a strong mix a light infantry (crazy bezerkers charging head long into battle with no shirts on) and heavy infantry (Cataphracts).

Skorne can play hard the slow moving brick but they have more faster/fragile elements as well. They also have a lot of support models/units that are all generally pretty fragile. Those would be paingivers and things like Extoller Soulwards.

I would take a look at trollbloods personally. They run the brick strategy rather well. All their infantry has tough, and all their beasts can heal themselves. They also have arm buffs, all the light elemental trolls that can an animus to give other models immune to their element, and have a solo that can summon a wall. They are more of a infantry faction with lots of solos and spells to interact with their infantry and buff them and some debuffs to the enemy. Their shooting isn't bad either.

Between Skorne and Trolls

Skorne will be on the Higher damage end of the Spectrum
Troll will be on the Higher toughness end of the Spectrum

So the question becomes which do you value more

Khador is pretty kickass. Take a gang of Man O War Shocktroops which are each basically a light Warjack and pack on the heaviest, slowest MFers in the Iron Kingdoms for a surprisingly affordable price tag and voila.

Plus you get access to one of the most hard-ass Warcasters in the game, the Butcher. Sure he's really not much of a commander but he hits like a train and is just about as hard to knock over as one.

 Mordekiem wrote:
Skorne, Trolls, Khador even Menoth are all factions that I think of that can play tough.

And dealing damage is not usually a problem in this game.

That said, the game is balanced pretty well so it will be hard to play the hardest to kill army while also playing the highest dmg output. It almost sounds more to me like you want to play elite, low model count armies. In which case you might be much more happier with a Hordes army since Warmachine lists tend to want numbers. Hordes supports more beasts which, by their very nature, are expensive, elite and low model count.

After playing my first Mk II Hordes games today, I know now I much prefer playing Hordes than I do Warmachine.

Elite style armies are things I really like. I play Absylonia Tier 4 and have barely a dozen models including 4 beats. I also play Shredder Spam as well, just for the lols. My pThags list is balanced, but still only has a few models. My only complaint about Legion is the lack of toughness.

That's what I'm looking for mainly as the Retribution are regularly kicking my ass on a weekly basis.

I know and love Trolls. I won an Extreme Mauler at a tourney back in Mk I and it's sat on my desk unpainted ever since. I've been told that the Troll army as a whole is bad though and severely lacking in a lot of things. As such, there are NO troll players in the meta. I mean that too as even the FLGS has a full selection of Troll models.

I played Khador in Mk I. Had a lot of fun at tourneys with them. Butcher was my main caster. I got crazy good with him, winning my first two tourneys and coming second in the next two. Not sure how they play in Mk II, but the local meta is flooded with Khador. I had to sell my Khador to fund moving house.

Menoth are the most well played in the Meta. Love the army and the way they play, but only like the Bastions and Paladin models. Hate their other models, the Jacks especially as they are all too static.

Skorne are well played locally, but I'm not a fan of the models or their rules. Love the fluff... Very similar in style to the Persians from 300. Xerxis is one of my all time favourite models and his Epic Form is on a War Rhino. Other than that, little else interests me there.

Skorne and protectorate strike me as the two factions that are the toughest. Trolls and Khador have moderate durability but they don't play to take a hit.

If you dislike Skorne and Protectorate models, I think your best bet is to wait a few months until convergence has everything released and reboot the machine.

In the interim, try double or triple angelius in Legion all with tenacity. That has a whole different kind of staying power.

Puscifer wrote:

That's what I'm looking for mainly as the Retribution are regularly kicking my ass on a weekly basis.

If the whole reason you re trying to come up with another army is to deal with Ret then I think you are going about it wrong. I don't know a lot about legion, but from my experience they should have plenty of stuff to take on Ret. If you are having issues it is probably your tactics, skill and/or not using the right models.

Now if you have other reasons to build another army then great. There are a plethora of reasons to build one. I myself have 5 right now so I can't really say anything.

 Mordekiem wrote:

Puscifer wrote:

That's what I'm looking for mainly as the Retribution are regularly kicking my ass on a weekly basis.

If the whole reason you re trying to come up with another army is to deal with Ret then I think you are going about it wrong. I don't know a lot about legion, but from my experience they should have plenty of stuff to take on Ret. If you are having issues it is probably your tactics, skill and/or not using the right models.

Now if you have other reasons to build another army then great. There are a plethora of reasons to build one. I myself have 5 right now so I can't really say anything.

My main reason is to get another army I like.

I love my Absylonia Tier 4 list and came quite close to winning one of the games when all for of my Forsaken erased 90% of his forces in a single turn. My opponent was being smug when he killed Typhon and Scythean in one turn, but got worried when I assploded my girls in his frontlines.

I love the assassination aspect of the Legion, but they are not tough. I'm looking for a force that can take a beating and be good at scenario/attrition.

Khador are a very solid attrition based faction. Remember, in khador the word for 'bigger' is the same as the word for 'better' and there is no such thing as 'excessive force'.

I've had another look over the Gator Faction.

They're pretty tough and hand out a beating.

Since when were trolls bad ?

First time ive heard that one...

Trolls have special rule called tough and various spells that makes the more resilient, all whilst being able to put out a lot of damage.

I also hear that skorne titans have at least ARM 20 and have seen them wreck collasals by themselves a few types.

 Spyder68 wrote:
Since when were trolls bad ?

First time ive heard that one...

They do have a few problems on the competitive scene.

1) Their best lists rely on character choices like Mulg and Janissa, which hampers which ever lists don't have them.

2) Very few viable theme forces due to some bad restrictions. This means they often can't skew as hard as other factions can afford to.


By no means does this mean they are bad, they just have fewer competitive options and builds which makes facing Trolls a little predictable.


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 sing your life wrote:
Trolls have special rule called tough and various spells that makes the more resilient, all whilst being able to put out a lot of damage.

I also hear that skorne titans have at least ARM 20 and have seen them wreck collasals by themselves a few types.

Nah, Titans are Arm19. But yes, the Bronzeback can easily wreck colossals on its own.

Last night, my BB charged a Woldwrath. I rolled way below average, which meant I needed all 5 Fury to actually kill it

And I've killed heavies before without spending a single Fury too.

Funny, I remember them having Khador Jack style Statlines.

 sing your life wrote:
Funny, I remember them having Khador Jack style Statlines.

But Khador doesn't have Paingiver Beast Handlers or Rush for that matter...

The Gladiator and Bronzeback are Def12/Arm19

Cannoneer is Def12/Arm 18

Sentry and Tibbers are Def11/Arm19(21)

The Mammoth is Arm20


Maybe you got confused by the Krea. Her animus gives +2def and arm against ranged attacks, which would put all the titans at arm20 or above.