Want to start Warmachine

[starwoof]

Today I was in my LGS and, like it so often does, my eye drifted towards warmachine. I was wondering if any fellow playgrounders could answer a few questions for me:

1. Whats the gameplay like?
2. How many minis would I need to play? How much would that cost?
3. What is Hordes?

Thanks in advance y'all.

[Swok]

1) It's Tactical tabletop with a balance between squads and single more powerful/unique units. Both Warmachine and Hordes has a huge focus on the leader of your army, to the point that the "backbone" (Warjacks for WM and Beasts for Hordes) of each respective game effective ceases to function without leader (Infantry can still fully function as long as their squad leader is alive). This leads to a game that can be focused on army killing, but is just as often focused on assassination (and this is before scenarios are taken into consideration). The different armies are, more or less, undisputably different, with separate focuses, and each reward different playstyles.
2) Most people around where I play run 500 point armies for most matches, and those who normally run larger are perfectly fine running lower points. The cost of this varies, though I got to 600 or so points (a bit over) with just over $100. This also gives you the flexibility of being able to change up your army between different games.
3) Hordes is the sister game of Warmachine. It more or less is identical mechanically, with the only true difference the ones between Warlocks and Warcasters, and Warjacks and Warbeasts. 'Casters use Focus, which replenishes every turn, giving it to their 'Jacks, and 'Locks use Fury, which is generated by the Beasts themselves, and siphoned off by the 'Lock to prevent the beast from going berserk. Warmachine is best described as resource management to Hordes' risk management.

[TheThan]

Swok pretty much nailed it.

I’ve got about 1000 points of Protectorate of Menoth (fully painted Yay!) it cost me $316.85 for that much. I’ve collected it over about a year and a half so I didn’t just rush out and buy a crap tone of stuff all at once.

Anyway to answer your question, you only need to spend about $50 on a battle box to start playing. Naturally you can spend as much as you want. But a box will give you about 300 or so points worth to play with. You’ll get a warcaster, 2-5 warjacks, cards for them (their stats and everything are on convenient cards for easy reference) and a quick reference rules insert. After that you’re going to want to get a rule book, which will cost you about $25 for the primary rule book (warmachine prime remix). While that’s not necessary, trust me its going to be worth having.

Warmachine uses a strong steampunk style. It uses large steam powered robots that are psychically controlled by warcasters to do combat with. Combined with troops and solo units they command (normally). The game functions as a skirmish style game, with a relatively few models on the table, but most of these probably have a bunch of special rules that come into play when you get down the nitty gritty.

Short Unit rundown

Warcasters are powerful spellcasters, they can use their powers to not only directly affect the battle, but also to control the warjacks under their command. Warcasters range in style from scary powerful melee characters, to powerful spell slingers to characters that sit back and let the units under their command do all the work (they augment and enhance their army, but don’t directly get in the fight).

Warjacks are powerful robots that can do a Varity of things on the battlefield, from basic attacks to such things as trampling through foes and picking up and throwing other warjacks across the field. Like most other units in the game warjacks often have special abilities that usually supplement their generic abilities.

troops
Units are just that, units of infantry that range from 6 to 10 models. They can be your classic knights in shining armor, or a bit more modern infantry troops (complete with rifle and bayonet), they often have special abilities that make them better than they normally are. There are also specialist units like snipers and mechanics (to fix your warjacks).

Solos
Solos are powerful individual models, they supplement your military force with a tremendous amount of power. A single solo can turn the tide of battle in a moment’s notice. Aside from being powerful by themselves, they often can enhance your troops by providing buffs and other such advantages.



What I like about warmachine is the capability to design your army any way you want, there is no real force organization so you can pretty much bring whatever you want (as long as you don’t exceed the unit limit on the their cards). This lets you team up all your various units in unique and interesting ways. Like magic the gathering, each army can quite easily be unique to itself.

[starwoof]

Ah, thanks loads guys! Warmachine looks to be right up my alley! I just need to convince my friends to play now.:smallannoyed: Seriously you guys have helped me a lot.

Those Cryx guys look really cool. Reeeeaally cool. Iron Liches? Yes please.


EDIT: So if one of my friends wanted to play some kind of hordes thing, say Skorne, then they would still be able to fight my Cryx, right?
EDIT 2: Apparently yes. Awesome.