Golden Kris 2014

Following my success from last year, I figured I would go and try again in this year's Golden Kris painting competition.

This year proved a harder competition; with more entries and an overall higher standard than last year. As it should be - these things should keep getting better!

I entered three models this year:  

Trollblood Impaler

Starting from Scratch: A Treatise on Picking Your First Warmachine/Hordes Faction.

Introduction

Starting a new game is often a daunting task; with years of rules to read, understand and memorize. This often means that new players seek the guidance of others – which, depending on the source, may or may not be a good idea. Having been into wargaming for almost two decades and a tragic sufferer of gaming and factional ADD¹, I might have something to say about the process though! In this article, I’m going to (hopefully) break off from traditional understanding on picking your first faction in this game.

Getting Your Priorities Straight

A common concept I see often is “play what you like looking at”. While this is a good rule, I do not think it is necessarily the best piece of advice to give to a new player. The important first step is to get your priorities sorted out. To me, there are three criteria:

1)    Aesthetics/Fluff – If you pick this as your main criteria, know that there is a possibility that the model(s) you love looking at or love reading about/love the concept of might not suit your playstyle, or might be poor at competitive play. The unfortunate reality is that in almost any game, fluffy options are often not as competitive, and model appearance does not necessarily correlate with power in-game.

2)      Playstyle – A complete newbie to wargaming would not necessarily know their playstyle well, but chances are a veteran wargamer that is getting into WM² would at least roughly know their inclination. I elaborate on my definition of “playstyle” later in this article.

3)      Competitiveness – Some people derive their joy from winning. Know that if you prioritize this, your army might not appeal to you aesthetically, and the playstyle might not be to your liking.

The crucial thing to remember is that it is highly improbable to get an army that fits all the categories. Naturally, you do not need to go “all in” into one of the three criteria – you simply need to define from early on what your main priority is, and realize that your decisions may change over time as you mature in the game. Since aesthetics/fluff is a highly subjective matter, I want to talk more about playstyle, and competitiveness.

Playstyle

Playstyle is a fairly difficult topic to discuss, so I will try to convey my thoughts as succinctly as possible. 

The first thing to understand is that a good, experienced player does not have a true “playstyle”. If at all anything, his/her playstyle is simply “adaptable”. Such a player will know their models, your models, and has a flexible plan. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, and such players know this concept very well. Effectively, believing you have one fixed playstyle is a potentially crippling mental block. 

So, why do I even talk about this?

While I could have named this “playstyle” category as something else, I wanted to (hopefully) show a distinction between the “simpler” definition of the word, and my take on it. Playstyle to me isn’t so much a matter of “I like shooting” or “I like chopping people with axes”, but rather, your mind set.

I am no psychologist, but I understand that different people have different inclinations. Some are more aggressive, some are more patient. There are those who prefer reliability, while others prefer to gamble. Those who prefer a simple, straight-forward plan over a complicated yet equally-effective plan (and vice versa). 

In my opinion, the game ultimately rewards three traits: adaptability (which I mentioned before), patience, and reliability. Patience should not be confused for passiveness – it merely means being willing to take a longer but safer route to victory, as opposed to just being a proverbial chicken. This is why most experienced WM players prefer attrition and/or scenario as a means to the end, rather than assassination due to its inherent risks. Reliability is a combination of factors that enables that model/unit to perform its role, and prominently features in list building decisions.

Competitiveness

Talking about which faction is currently the “most competitive” is opening a can of worms that I’d rather not do. However, as one would expect from a game that is highly skill-based, simply taking a list from the internet (“netdecking”) would certainly not guarantee your success with it. That said, netdecking is not without its benefits – for one, you would be purchasing what someone else has deemed/proven to be competitive, thus potentially saving you some money. 

The big problem however, is that netdecking players tend to get stuck in a rut; either they get beaten so many times that they ragequit, or as a result of their success they become afraid to try new things without someone else of repute telling them that so-and-so is clearly better than what they’ve been running all this while. Unfortunately, some models are strong enough to carry a poorer player by virtue of its strength, making it a “crutch” that the player may become reliant upon.

So how does one figure out which factions/lists are the most competitive? Research. MuseOnMinis and EndGameGaming.net are my recommendations. While the official forums are an active place with occasionally good discussions, keep in mind that there is a lot of bad advice out there which a new player would not be able to distinguish.

Depending on the type of people you play with, remember that coming into the game declaring that you "are in it to win it" might make you a nice, juicy target for senior players that want to remind you of your place in the local meta (i.e. they might intentionally beat you really, really hard). To avoid this, I recommend not declaring your (potential) superiority and to always be courteous and friendly (or at least pretend to be). Oh, and paint your miniatures. That instantly gives you the air of a casual gamer, until you break someone and (quietly) gloat (behind their backs) about your triumphant victory⁵.

So Which Faction(s) Do I Recommend?

I did a faction rundown some time ago, which although in need of slight updating, is still mostly accurate. I do, however, have strong opinions on certain things; this unfortunately means some might disagree, or even get offended, at my thoughts on this last section. Please do keep in mind that these are my thoughts at the point of writing this, and may change over time (in fact, they probably will as new releases come out).

In my opinion, the easiest factions for a complete newbie to start with are Protectorate of Menoth, Skorne, Trollbloods and Legion of Everblight. The first three I feel are self-explanatory – they are fairly forgiving factions, the internal synergy makes your combat models very strong, and is good practice for getting order of activations done correctly. Some may be shocked at my inclusion of Legion given that it is the “glass cannon” faction, but I feel that the combination of widely-available good ranged attacks, incredible Fury management, low model count and overall raw power makes the faction reasonably easy to pick up. Also, all of these factions (except arguably Trollbloods) have a “core” of models that are often-included, making it possible to create new armies by simply swapping the Warcaster/Warlock and maybe a few of the models around.

The mid-range factions difficulty-wise are probably Khador, Mercenaries and Cygnar. While I personally find Khador fairly easy to play, an infantry-heavy Khador army is daunting to pilot for a newbie, and not necessarily easy to use optimally. Newbies also tend to be attracted to jacks, and I don’t think jack-heavy Khador is currently the best option for the faction. They do however have “core” choices, making it a reasonably affordable faction to get into early in the game. Mercenaries similarly have the potential to go on the infantry-heavy route, and is one of the better, more flexible options for a new player to start with. It is however an expensive faction to play; between character restrictions, Mercenary Contracts and the differing optimal choices for their Warcasters, be prepared to pay a lot for a solid Mercenary collection. Also, as Mercenary models/units are balanced with the concept that many factions can take them, they may not always be on the same power level than their equivalents in a normal faction.

Cygnar, I feel, is somewhat of a special case. Pre-Stormwall it was certainly a high-difficulty faction to play, and possibly one of the costliest of factions to purchase; chances are, your Cygnar collection would also be a massive Mercenary collection since most of them work for Cygnar. The difficulty of the faction pre-Stormwall was clearly evident in the negativity on the forums during that period. Silly thing was, part of this negativity came from people who complained about not wanting to play Mercenaries in their Cygnar to preserve their concept of “faction purity”. This is a classic example of players who place high value in aesthetics/fluff, but still insist on wanting competitiveness – a concept which I had aforementioned as being unrealistic. Stormwall fixes many of Cygnar’s previous problems, but runs the risk of becoming a crutch if overused. Cygnar does remain one of my all-time favourite factions, and is very rewarding to a skilled player.

 The high-difficulty factions would be Circle Orboros and Retribution of Scyrah, both of which are exceptionally unforgiving, but not in any way what I’d call “weak”. If you pick these as your first faction, resign to the fact that you would probably get beaten into the ground by more experienced players until you finally figure them out (tens of games later, probably). I personally feel that Circle has more mileage at the current time of writing, and scales very well with player skill.

An observant reader would have noticed at this point that I had left out three factions: Convergence of Cyriss, Minions, and Cryx. Convergence isn’t out yet, and although I already know most of their rules, I cannot make any comments until I see them on the table. Minions suffer from a notable lack of options. Thus, while one could still play Minions successfully, it will be an uphill battle against the other major factions. It is also unusually expensive, as a proper Minion player really needs to have both pigs and gators – sticking to only one of the two is incredibly crippling to the point of practically-uncompetitive; unless perhaps you are a very experienced player, and got rather lucky.

Cryx on the other hand deserves its own paragraph. While touted as being very forgiving and thus good for newbies, I am personally fairly against Cryx as your first faction, especially if you plan to play other factions at some point. My problem with Cryx is that it skews the new player’s perception of the game. I should preface this by saying that I do not think Cryx is overpowered – I just think that what they do is not a proper reflection of what everyone else can necessarily do. Discounting their (almost) universal lack of morale checks, incredible infantry and insane armor cracking power, my main issue is with some of their Warcasters. Long story short, I’m not a fan of ARM 25-35 Warcasters³, and I think a single spell being able to potentially kill half an army⁴ was a game design oversight. Again, I am not complaining about them being necessarily “overpowered”; I am merely saying that a player that starts with these Warcasters might find it unusually difficult to transition into anything else. All that said, Cryx does have other Warcasters that are still very good, and rewarding to play with. The faction itself is not difficult to play, and perhaps stands as one of the easier factions to get into the game with.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the decision is in your hands, but I do hope that I’ve given you some food for thought. Please feel free to give me constructive feedback; your thoughts and opinions on this matter. Until next time!

¹ I have played the vast majority of the miniature games and collectable games out there. I have owned every faction in the game except Legion, and currently still own and play seven factions. Thankfully, I think I’m *almost* rid of my addiction towards CCGs :X

² I will refer to Warmachine/Hordes as WM for simplicity.

³Terminus. To a lesser extent Asphyxious1/2/3 and Venethrax. 

⁴Excarnated Bile Thralls
⁵Author does not claim, nor dispute, to doing this intentionally and maliciously.

*Pictures other than the triangle were taken from the internet, not my own*

Golden Keris, Malaysia Painting Competition

We at ABO would like to congratulate our very own painter extradonaire, Joash Tan for his wins at a recent Malaysian painting competition. Called the Golden Keris, it was a painting competition. He had won three gold awards, People's Choice Award and the Overall Champion. These were for his Hordes models.

"I entered into my first painting competition ever. Its a local event called the Golden Keris - its kinda like a local version of the Golden Daemon, right down to the demonic statues, and a sword-like object for the ultimate winner (a keris instead of a sword, with the keris being a local traditional bladed weapon). As far as I know its the biggest miniature painting competition down here, but at the very least, its the one thats most applicable to us gamers.

Won triple Gold with my Kromac, Megalith and Bloodtrackers, voted People's Choice and won the Slayer Sw....I mean, Golden Keris :P"

Congratulations again and well done! All the hard work is certainly worth it! 

I will let you guys enjoy the pictures!

Joash is the chap in the orange tee in the centre

Golden (Silver) Keris, People Choice and 3 Gold Awards

Battle of the Bro's (Black Steel Batrep)

Foreword
The second round of the Black Steel Tourney was a slightly perculiar round; although the pairings were random, a number of us faced off against our closest friends during this round, and I wasn't exempt. As it turns out, I was paired against Alan Mok, a guy I've been friends with for well over a decade, whom I introduced the game to.

Understandably neither of us wanted to face each other during this tourney since we've played so many games against one another, but I believe to some extent both of us were also happy to face one another since it was a comfortable match. Mok also figured that he might as well take this opportunity to take photos of this match with his DSLR, which is why this is the only batrep I have :P

So we sat down, and rolled off, with me winning the roll and getting to go first.
Funny note: When Mok and I play, we almost always tie the first die roll, and this game was no exception. Its a rather strange and creepy trend we've noticed over the years.....


Army Lists
Joash Tan:
pKreoss
- Reckoner
- Vanquisher
- Redeemer
Max  Exemplar Errants + UA
Min Choir of Menoth
2x Vassals of Menoth
Gorman Di Wulfe

List Concept:
I jokingly refer to this list as my Cygnaran Menoth list, simply because it plays very much like my shooty Cygnar lists that I'm used to. In the months leading to this event, I was playing Cygnar almost religiously but decided just a month prior that I was going to take the Protectorate instead as I realized Cygnar sometimes really struggles with high-ARM lists, which I had a feeling I'd see a lot of due to the advent of Colossals, and the sheer number of Khador players attending.

I'd probably say the list isn't exactly original as it is quite close to the typical pKreoss Pop-and-Drop, except that I'm not an assassination player by nature. Its probably my 40k-based upbringing, but I'm more of an attrition player as often, a failed assassination simply leaves you flapping in the breeze, and I'm not too keen on letting one or two dice rolls decide the entire game unless I absolutely have to.

The core of the list is a blob of shooty models, all of which hit hard in close combat as well. It was somewhat of a toss-up between pKreoss and Harbinger, but I decided to go with pKreoss as he still brought a good toolbox, and I was more comfortable with him.

Why The List Was Chosen:
For the tourney we were required to bring two lists, but by the third game we must have played each list at least once. I had taken eFeora in my first game, so I figured I'd take pKreoss instead since its anti-infantry nature would work against both of Mok's lists, and Mok had played against my eFeora list several times, but not against this list.

Deployment:
Rather typical, with my Errants right in front of my line of jacks, with my Choir in between. pKreoss stood to the side ready to get into the forest (that flat piece of terrain in the picture).

Alan Mok:
 Strakhov
- Spriggan
- Khador War Dog
Doom Reavers
Manhunter
Max Kayazy Assassins + UA
Man-O-War Drakhun + Dismount
Lady Aiyanna & Master Holt
pEiryss

List Concept:
As with any Strakov list, the list was designed around the concept of delivering the army, as fast as possible, to the face. The meat of the army would be the unit of Kayazy Assassins, hopefully biding enough time for the rest of the army to come in at full force. Typically, Strakov lists struggle with hitting power and he doesn't have enough focus to fuel multiple jacks effectively, but the list makes good use of several Weaponmasters to somewhat offset this problem, together with A&H for the potential additional -2 ARM debuff. Reach was also abundant, further increasing the threat ranges of the entire army.

Why The List Was Chosen:
His pButcher list lacked movement buffs, and might have had a rough time against both my lists that have comparatively longer threat ranges. The Strakov list was a more logical choice, as the high speed meant that he could silence my guns a lot faster. In addition, Mok had played his pButcher list in game one, so it was also chosen to prevent a lockout.

Deployment:
I was surprised that the Doomreavers were right in front - in an earlier practice game we had agreed that his Doomreavers do better when used more conservatively as they usually die when left in front. The rest of the deployment however was rather typical.

Scenario and Pre-Game
The scenario was a modified Supply and Demand, which involves the capture of either the objective (marked with the red marker) and/or controlling the zone (marked by the larger translucent circles) with 10" Killbox in effect, and no Interactive Objectives. Frankly it was a fairly troublesome scenario to win via scenario; both of us even joked about not caring about the scenario since we expected a bloodbath either way.

The game also had several other things to note: there was a penalty for anything being within 12" of our deployment zone, so both armies would have to move up further. Also, points were awarded if our caster was in the opposing player's half of the table.

Round 1
Joash
I started by allocating one focus to each of my jacks and casting Defender's Ward on my Errants. My army shuffled into position, being mindful to not allow him to run into me on turn 1. The Redeemer popped off a couple of shots, but failed to deviate in the correct direction, while my Choir sang Passage (no shooting). pKreoss hung behind the forest, with Gorman popping smoke to increase the hiding area.

Mok
Mok started by casting Superiority on his Spriggan and Occultation on his caster, then ran everything forward except for eEiryss, which held her position for for fear of being within the threat range of my Errants on the next turn.

Round 2
Joash
I maintained my upkeeps and allocated all my remaining focus to my jacks in hopes of a successful carpetbomb, as the charge was coming on this round if I didn't stop him. My Choir sang Battle (at this point we both jokingly realized his list didn't really have any guns, so Passage was kind of moot), and my fully-loaded Redeemer opened fire. When the dust settled (post-Ancillary Attack), seven Kayazy had fallen in a feat of monumentously lucky deviations. My Reckoner moved up into within 5" and shot a boosted gun at his Manhunter, killing him, and my Errants/Vanquisher opened fire on the Doomreavers, killing all six. The Vanquisher shot via Ancillary Attack at the Drakhun, dealing six damage and setting him on fire. pKreoss moved into the forest and Gorman continued sitting back popping smoke.

Mok
Although things were not looking too well at this point, both of us realized that my Reckoner was pretty much flapping in the breeze, and in my gambit to take out his Drakhun via an Ancillary Attack, I did not Enliven it instead. Capitalizing on my mistake, the fully-loaded Superiority'ed Spriggan and Drakhun charged, wrecking it with ease. The Kayazy ran to engage my Errants, while pEiryss disrupted by Vanquisher as she had no LOS to my caster that was further than 3" into the forest. Holt opened fire on my Errants, but the first shot missed and the second failed to penetrate.

Round 3
Joash
Things were a little wonky for me at the start of Round 3; my only remaining heavy was Disrupted, and most of his army was pretty much already in my face. I maintained my upkeeps, allocated three focus to my Redeemer, and started by singing Battle. My Redeemer then walked up behind my Errants and shot his Kayazy at nearly point-blank. The three grunts died and I boosted damage on the Underboss, but he made his Tough check. I then proceeded to shoot the Drakhun, dismounting him, and used Ancillary Attack on the Underboss in an attempt to clear a charge lane, but he made his Tough roll again. The Vanquisher then shot twice at the Spriggan (Ancillary Attack), dealing some minor damage.

I then activated my Errants, and declared a charge: two on pEiryss, one on Aiyanna, one on Holt, three on the Underboss, three on the dismounted Drakhun, and one on the Spriggan. Those on A&H failed, but pEiryss and the Drakhun were felled, and the Spriggan was nicked for some more damage. The Underboss however, made three more Tough rolls. Many "like a boss" jokes were made this round :P

Mok
Mok upkept Superiority, but didn't allocate focus to the Spriggan on this round. By the time we realized this it was a few minutes into the round, and Mok chose not to take back. In hindsight, this was probably the correct call, as had he allocated focus to kill a few Errants, he might have died in the following turn. Holt made his four Gunfighter/Virtuoso attacks but managed to fail on every one of them, either failing to hit their DEF 14 or failing to pierce their ARM 18. Strakov himself got down and dirty, charging and killing one Errant, and camped five focus. The Spriggan missed with both its initials.
(The Spriggan is turned around in the picture as his lance was getting in the way)

Round 4
Joash
At this stage there wasn't a whole lot to do as the lines had already met. pKreoss kept his upkeeps, allocated three focus to the Vanquisher and two to the Redeemer, and popped his feat, knocking down everything except the Spriggan which had Superiority. My Errants went in, three of them wailing on the Spriggan doing little, while A&H and the Underboss were dispatched by the remaining Errants, as was the War Dog via Quick Draw. My Errant Officer charged Strakov but only managed to squeeze out four damage against Strakov's ARM 21. The Vanquisher went in and took the Spriggan down to only its arms. Gorman continued to pop smoke since bombing anything would have been rather risky for me as well.

Mok
Superiority was again upkept, but the Spriggan's cortex was out. Strakov activated and killed my Officer twice-over after buying four additional attacks, which I shunted to the grunts. Spriggan then activated, dealing some damage to my Vanquisher via his lance, and killing an Errant with a shield attack.

Round 5
Joash
Due to the nature of the points system for the tourney, I figured I'd best bide time and try to get all the points possible, including scenario points and running my caster into his half of the table, as opposed to going for the kill on this round. I allocated three focus to my Vanquisher, sung Battle, and took the Spriggan down by the second swing. My Errants then moved around, getting three on Strakov but failed to hit with all three of them. Gorman ran into base-to-base with the objective, netting me one point while pKreoss moved forward.

Mok
At this stage it was pretty much just Strakov, so he dispatched the three Errants engaging him after buying four additional attacks, and camped two focus.


Round 6
Joash
I allocated three to the Vanquisher, ran pKreoss into his half of the table, sung Battle, and walked the Vanquisher into melee with Strakov. A single boosted attack roll later, the game ends and I manage to net all the points possible.

Post-Game Overview
I've always enjoyed every game against Mok, and this was no different. The game was great throughout, and Mok was always a great sport even when the game went sour rather early on.

Some thoughts and lessons learnt:
1) Always go with something you are comfortable with. Prior to the tourney, the idea of dropping pKreoss for Harbinger was suggested quite a few times, both through personal communications and via the forums. In theory, Harbinger probably is better than pKreoss in many ways, but I learnt the hard way that changing something at the last moment is a bad idea - back when I played CCGs, very often going into a tourney I'd do some heavy last minute modifications to my deck to make them more "acceptable" by conventional standards, and end up doing poorer with it than my usual deck.

2) Memorize your rules. I am actually comparatively inexperienced with the faction as a whole, having only picked them back up in the three weeks leading to the tourney. The only thing I could do other than getting in a couple of practice games in this short period was to memorize my cards. Thankfully there was some overlap between my two lists so there was less to remember, but I memorized all the stats and ran some scenarios in my head so that I'd know how to execute my plans properly.

In some ways my story appears to somewhat contradict point #1, but to be fair I've had some prior experience with the models I chose, and I had been thinking about this for quite some time before finalizing the decision a month in advance, giving me enough time to meditate on my lists and decisions.

3) Do not get greedy. I tell myself that Enliven is usually better, but I often still end up going Ancillary Attack because I just want to kill stuff. Trading my 8-point Reckoner for a 2-point Manhunter wasn't a good play at all.

4) Round 1 positioning matters. People often consider Round 1 of any Warmachine game as the "run forward" phase, but positioning is still crucial even when the lines aren't close to one another. Two examples come to mind in this game:
a) I intentionally held back my Errants, as had I run them forward willy-nilly, they might have been within charge (or at least run) range of his Doomreavers.
b) The Kayazy were a bit too tightly packed, which brings me to my next point...

5) Spacing. AoE's kill stuff thats clumped together, so don't clump them together if you can help it. Especially against a list with many AoEs, it is crucial to fan out the squad as much as possible, while being mindful of the position of the Officer and Leader, should the Officer die.

6) Don't always advance deploy with Advanced Deploy.  One thing is for sure; Doomreavers in front die. At the same time, he couldn't have held them behind his Kayazy, since his Kayazy and A&H would be at risk of breaking. Possibly a flanking maneuver would have served him best, or side-by-side with his Kayazy (with some space between them, of course). One of the strengths of Advanced Deploy is to be able to put down your models after seeing where your opponent places his - do not feel it to be necessary to get them in front of everything else just because it can.

Thoughts on the lists:
I'm quite happy with mine; it did what it was supposed to do, albeit in my twisted attrition-centric way as opposed to the more logical assassination route. Although it never came up in this game, one of the other reasons I took pKreoss in one of my two lists, was for Purification. It is a downright game-breaking spell against certain lists, although admittedly this wasn't one of them.

To be honest, I'm uncertain how I would have piloted Mok's list should the tables be turned. I personally feel Strakov is extremely dependent on the alpha-strike as his primary mode of operation, hence possibly why he's sometimes considered a one-trick pony. Again, I'd probably be a lot more conservative with the Doomreavers, and set up the second round Feat by charging one of my own models and popping the feat to get a good 21" on it.

Overall, it was a fantastic game, and I truly enjoyed the event as a whole. Mad props to Mok and my other two opponents (Adrian and John) all of which were great and very sporting opponents. Of course, not forgetting the tourney organizers (Dick and Alan) for how smooth the event went, and Legio for hosting us. Hopefully we will see a Black Steel 2013!

Black Steel Tourney 2012

So the first-ever proper Warmachine tournament, Black Steel, has come and gone down here in Malaysia, and its been a great day! We even had a contigent from Singapore come down to play, a bunch of nice guys too.

 I figured I'd post these pictures here, since Raymond has been pushing me since forever to post, but I just haven't gotten around to it in a while :P

These are pictures of my army (my two lists; there was some overlap in the lists), and overall, it was a blast. Also got the best painted score, which was flattering :)

Thanks!

Starting Warmahordes – My Take

When I was asked to write an article about Warmachine and Hordes (“Warmahordes”) for this blog, I asked myself; “what would benefit the readers of this blog the most?”

Quite a number of the frequent visitors to the blog primarily play GW games, so I figured a beginner article would be the best, hopefully to inspire many of you out there to try this game out for yourself.

Beginner articles for Warmahordes are a dime a dozen out in the interwebs, but I figured I’d take a more critical look at the game, and leave it to the readers to decide for themselves whether they want to try this game out, and if so, which factions would suit them the most.

Remember that these are all my opinions, and may differ from your own. Feel free to leave comments :)

The Nature of Warmahordes

Its been said time and time again, but the main gist of the game is that it is an aggressive game with ever-shifting tides of battle, as opposed to the more attrition-based style popularized by GW games.

This type of playstyle rewards those who plan every move carefully, and in practice the game is fairly balanced; skill generally takes precedence over list building and theory. The downside is that sloppy play is often (dramatically) punished, particularly due to the “kill-the-king” nature of the game where a Warcaster/Warlock death is instant defeat for the player.

Speaking of Warcasters (Warmachine) and Warlocks (Hordes), they are the central piece of your army. They act as this brilliant combination of your “life”, your “spell list” and (sometimes) a combat piece in their own right, although there is great diversity in the specific capabilities and abilities of each one of them. Some play more aggressively, while others are more defensive, or favor control tactics. Others may be able to take the fight to the enemy themselves, while many act more as enablers for the rest of your army.

Warjacks (Warmachine) and Warbeasts (Hordes) are the second key type of unit. Their functions diverge slightly due to the difference in game mechanics; Warjacks are fueled by the “Focus” generated by the Warcaster, while Warbeasts generate their own “Fury” and use this Fury to fuel your Warlock.

Essentially, both systems work in reverse but are fairly balanced out despite these differences. Warmachine armies tend to use Warjacks like tanks, supported by a network of infantry and solo operatives, while Hordes armies tend to use Warbeasts as their main offensive power. Although the game is so diverse that these sweeping statements do no justice to the myriad of possible army builds, in general Warmachine armies do better in the long attrition game, while Hordes armies often hinge more on the alpha strike.

The Factions

There are currently six factions in Warmachine and five factions in Hordes.

This is my take on the factions based on a gameplay perspective, rather than a fluff/aesthetic prespective. Remember that these are general statements about the factions – the game is diverse enough to have exceptions to the “norm” in every faction.

Warmachine

Cygnar

Cygnar is a combined arms faction with a heavy tendency towards ranged combat. Most of their units have a bunch of special rules which give them considerable flexibility, but cost more as a result. Many of their infantry choices tend to be considered sub-par, leading to the heavy reliance on Mercenaries in competitive lists. List building is exceptionally important, as it tends to be difficult to balance survivability and hitting power, neither of which are outstanding aspects of the faction.

Cygnar does however have quite a bit of threat management; they may not necessarily kill everything they face, but are able to reduce their effectiveness and possibly long enough to pull an assassination (Cygnar’s favored win condition).

The greatest strength, by far, is their incredible Warcaster selection. Almost all their warcasters are incredibly powerful (matched possibly only by Cryx) and enable their armies in a variety of ways that would make the faction downright broken if they were in other factions.

Overall, I think that resourceful and adaptive players would find the most enjoyment out of the faction.

Protectorate of Menoth

The Protectorate is a synergistic, self-buffing army. It tends to be slow and the army tends to stay clumped together, but have considerable offensive and defensive abilities. Offensively, the faction has the highest number of Weapon Masters (a special rule predominantly on infantry that makes them hit very hard) and the Choir, the trademark Warjack support of the Protectorate, makes their Warjacks hit a lot harder. Defensively, the Protectorate is all about denial; denying status effects, denying shooting, denying magic – you name it, and they have it. As a result, they are often considered the king of denial and attrition in the game. It should also be noted that they have the best Warjack support in the game, but also have access to great, cheap infantry thus giving them the reputation of being more of a horde army.

This however can make them rather boring to players who expect a faster game, and this is compounded by their horribly squishy Warcasters – even those that look like fighters are poorly equipped to do the job themselves. They rarely get the first hit, but are designed to survive being hit and then proceed to grind the opponent down. They also have to pay a decent amount of points for their support, which are integral to their playstyle but do not directly contribute to the fight themselves.

I think Protectorate would appeal to those that like control-through denial, and don’t mind slower, somewhat more defensive/counterpunch-based armies.

Khador

As one would expect from the Russian analogue, the entire faction is full of hard-hitting, survivable models with no bells or whistles. This makes the army horribly predictable (their biggest weakness; you often play as if your “hand is revealed”), but their raw stats tend to make it so that they don’t really care anyway. However, Khador is an infantry-based army; Warjack armies are viable, but generally inferior to infantry armies in this faction. On the plus side, Khador has quite possibly the best infantry in the game in terms of sheer quality – most are a combination of considerable survivability, incredible hitting power and good accuracy. It is however easy to overestimate their survivability, particularly that of their warjacks.

Khador looks slow but is deceptively fast, and even in games where the enemy is even faster, they have the ability to take the punch and counter with vicious force. They also have fewer Magical Weapons, which can sometimes matter particularly against Cryx and Protectorate. If you like raw power and no pantsy tricks, this is the faction for you.

Khador is a great starting army, and would appeal to those that like reliable, independent models.

Cryx

Cryx has a reputation for being “tricksy” often due to its heavy tendency towards magic (particularly debuffs), but to be honest, for the most part Cryx is an undead infantry swarm that just runs screaming towards the enemy. Its Warcasters are amongst the best (probably tied with Cygnar) but with swarms of cheap infantry and/or good infantry, and being undead, they tend towards being able to regenerate their number when they kill others.

The faction has the worst ranged firepower, but considerable melee hitting power particularly due to the numerous debuffs that they can put on the enemy. Their heavy Warjacks tend to be pretty bad (except the Deathjack) but they have more Arc Node choices than other factions, enabling them to sling spells from unexpected directions many inches away from their Warcasters.

The best way to describe Cryx is simply “Black in Magic the Gathering”. It is a combination of magic, debuffs and hordes of low-cost infantry. If this appeals to you, then Cryx is hands-down the choice for you.

Retribution of Scyrah

A new faction that came about in Mk.II, the Retribution is quite possibly the premier ranged faction, although some Cygnar players may contest this statement. Many things in the faction have guns (all their heavy Warjacks have a gun!) and they have access to the Mage Hunter Strike Force, quite possibly the most disliked shooting unit in the entire game. They are also quite fast.

However, just as good shooting and speed is something you’d expect from an Elven faction in any setting, they are similarly often few in number and not overly tough, nor do they hit exceptionally hard. The faction has a fairly steep learning curve and currently has fewer choices due to its status as the newest faction in Warmachine.

Although PP does a good job at trying to hide the Elven nature of the Retribution through their oddly chubby Warjacks and infantry, the fact is, this is an Elf army – they shoot, they are fast, but they are also fragile, don’t hit too hard, and cost a lot. Players with a natural tendency towards Elf armies in other games would find themselves at home in this faction.

Mercenaries

Mercenaries are a difficult faction to categorize, as they themselves are not officially recognized as a single faction, but are categorized into different Contracts. Note that in addition to being able to stand alone as its own army, Mercenaries are also able to work with other factions.

To minimize confusion, I won’t go into the breakdown of the Contracts, but rather just talk about the faction as a whole. The faction has a diverse selection of models, so incredibly diverse that it is practically impossible to discern their playstyle. What they do have, however, is scores of great solo’s, and dirt cheap Warjacks and infantry which appeal to those who want simple efficiency. The downside is that their effectiveness is fairly middle-of-the-road and lacking sheer offense/defense that the major factions have.

Players that like Mercenaries tend to be those that like the underdog, or those that like flexibility and/or cost effectiveness.

Hordes

Trollbloods

Trollbloods are the infantry faction of Hordes, with amazing infantry, that are literally Tough (a special ability that effectively gives them a 5++ save in a game that doesn’t usually have saves) coupled with Warbeasts that are able to regenerate themselves. They are divergent from the other Hordes factions in that they don’t usually rely too much on their Warbeasts as the major thrust of the force, and play a little bit like the Protectorate of Menoth with the clumped-together-synergistic-buffing-type playstyle, but have the toughness and hitting power that brings makes them somewhat a little similar to Khador as well.

They tend to be fairly predictable and not necessarily very versatile, but they remain a good faction for those looking into having a very hard army to crack with good hitting power. However, be warned that Trollblood armies hurt the wallet since most of their models are medium-based.

Circle Orboros

The tricksy faction in Hordes, Circle is all about movement and terrain shenanigans, and they have some denial elements (particularly against magic). Almost everything in the faction is a glass cannon (despite being often melee-oriented), fairly costly points-wise, and most of them don’t hit too hard. This horrible combination of traits makes the faction quite possibly the most unforgiving of all the factions in Warmahordes, but their ability to create threat vectors in impossible locations makes them by far one of the most highly-respected factions in the game when handled by an experienced player.

Players that favor guerilla warfare-type playstyle would love this faction, as would those that feel confident in trusting their own wit to out-think their opponent and win the skill matchup.

Skorne

Despite having some good infantry, the bulk of Skorne’s firepower comes from its Warbeasts, and it has the support to match. Extremely aggressive and fairly survivable, they play like a combination of Khador (tough and hard-hitting with deceptive speed) and Protectorate (buffs and support), but lack the ranged ability of the two aforementioned factions and the control/denial aspect of Protectorate.

To be honest I find it difficult to say anything more about them, due to the simple nature of the army. If you like just getting into grips with your opponent with some quality Warbeasts and infantry, this is the right faction.

Legion of Everblight

Legion has some poorer infantry, but hands-down amongst the best Warbeasts, Warbeast support and Warlocks in the game. They are capable of playing both the ranged and melee game well, but are a glass cannon faction with an extreme bias towards sheer firepower. All the Warbeasts also have Eyeless Sight which enables them to ignore a vast majority of the LOS rules in the game, and Pathfinder/Flight is fairly prevalent, meaning they also ignore a vast majority of the terrain rules in the game.

This in part lends to their infamy; there is sometimes a risk of losing friends when you play Legion, but they are not without their weaknesses; while they have quite a lot of shooting, a massive infantry swarm will still give them a headache, and while they have considerable hitting power, too much armor would also give them a headache.

If you like losing friends and being a loner, this is the faction for you.

(Nah, I’m kidding. This faction is good for those that like aggressive armies with a lot of Warbeasts).

Minions

Minions are divided clearly into Thornfall Alliance (pigmen) and Blindwater Congregation (gatormen) with little in-between. They are by far the least developed of all the factions in Warmahordes, and at the time of writing, they are not recommended as a primary faction, although it is possible to have success with them.

Thornfall Alliance – They have a well-rounded combination of staying and hitting power. They are currently fairly bland somewhat, as they just do that, and do it well, but not much else.

Blindwater Congregation – There is a little more synergy in this faction, and have the (arguably) best medium-based infantry in the game (Gatormen Posse). They do very well against armies with lower armor, but lack hitting power against heavily armored targets. They are however not short on staying power.

Why would anyone play Minions? If you like the underdog, or bacon/turtles/octopi then this is a good faction. They are a great second faction for those on a budget, since their extremely limited range of models won’t strain the wallet too greatly.

I hope this article has shed some light on the game, and inspired some of you to try it out.

Images used are owned by Privateer Press, the Warmahordes logo was taken from a Google search result without permission.