As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Warmachine and Hordes: Steam, Blood, & Magic
TheOtherHorseman
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
What is it?
Warmachine is a game of steam, blood, and magic.
Steam, you say?
The most noticeable aspect of Warmachine is that while it is most definitely a fantasy game, it incorporates things called Warjacks. Warjacks are steam-powered mechs. They make things die. It's pretty cool. You'll see a few later.
Blood? This intrigues!
Warmachine is set within the world of Caen, on the continent of Immoren. More specifically, it takes place within the Iron Kingdoms, which are four in number. They all hit eachother with swords and shoot eachother and blow eachother up. Hence, blood.
MAGIC!? FIREBALLS! BOOM!
Magic pops up in a variety of ways in Warmachine, but the most noticeable way is the inclusion of Warcasters. These are the leaders of your army, capable of casting mighty spells and pulling off a special game-changing Feat every match. It is these Warcasters which control the mighty and hella-awesome Warjacks I mentioned earlier.
So, yeah. They're pretty important.
CRYX
So, there's this island, right? It's a pretty sweet little island, all happy and stuff. Then Toruk, Unholy Father of All Dragons, lands there. It's less happy now. A haven for abominations, Cryx is ruled by Toruk and his 13 Lich Lords. Two of these, Lich Lord Terminus and Lich Lord Asphyxious (known as the Iron Lich prior to his promotion), are well known in the Iron Kingdom due to their propensity for leading armies to pillage and destroy. They're good at what they do.
CYGNAR
Cygnar are the technological innovators of the Iron Kingdom. Their prowess at developing new weaponry in addition to their highly trained troops have ensured their place as a major power in the world. If words like "gunmage" and "shocklance" make you sexually excited, you might be a Cygnar player in your heart of hearts.
KHADOR
The Russia-er, Khador is a massive and cold land inhabited by a fiercely independent people. They're rather expansionistic which leads them to a great deal of conflict with their neighbors. Mainly, Cygnar. The armies of Khador are bolstered by ponderous warjacks that could punch your head through your ass if they weren't careful while shaking your hand.
MENOTH
The Protectorate of Menoth was formed due to a religious conflict in the aforementioned kingdom of Cygnar. The devotees of Morrow were the majority, and got to keep their nice cushy kingdom. The disciples of Menoth were given a piece of crappy land to placate them and made into an independent nation. They found oil, built up some military forces which don't technically exist as such, and now they're fond of making their heathen enemies explode and die. Nice people, all around.
MERCENARIES
This is a world where conflict rules and wars are always ready to flare up. What kind of moron could pass up a chance to make a buck? Mercenaries come in all shapes and sizes. Some are exiles from their own land, called traitors by those they once called brother.
Others are short bearded fellows who like money.
It takes all kinds, right?
Warmachine information can be found in three books:
Warmachine: Prime
Warmachine: Escalation
Warmachine: Apotheosis
Another book, Superiority, is forthcoming. The books are completely unnecessary to play. All rules can be had with a battlegroup starter set and unit specific rules are included with the purchase of that unit.
Although,
This applies to Hordes rules as well.
Play like you've got a pair.
Warmachine is a game of steam, blood, and magic.
Steam, you say?
The most noticeable aspect of Warmachine is that while it is most definitely a fantasy game, it incorporates things called Warjacks. Warjacks are steam-powered mechs. They make things die. It's pretty cool. You'll see a few later.
Blood? This intrigues!
Warmachine is set within the world of Caen, on the continent of Immoren. More specifically, it takes place within the Iron Kingdoms, which are four in number. They all hit eachother with swords and shoot eachother and blow eachother up. Hence, blood.
MAGIC!? FIREBALLS! BOOM!
Magic pops up in a variety of ways in Warmachine, but the most noticeable way is the inclusion of Warcasters. These are the leaders of your army, capable of casting mighty spells and pulling off a special game-changing Feat every match. It is these Warcasters which control the mighty and hella-awesome Warjacks I mentioned earlier.
So, yeah. They're pretty important.
CRYX
So, there's this island, right? It's a pretty sweet little island, all happy and stuff. Then Toruk, Unholy Father of All Dragons, lands there. It's less happy now. A haven for abominations, Cryx is ruled by Toruk and his 13 Lich Lords. Two of these, Lich Lord Terminus and Lich Lord Asphyxious (known as the Iron Lich prior to his promotion), are well known in the Iron Kingdom due to their propensity for leading armies to pillage and destroy. They're good at what they do.
CYGNAR
Cygnar are the technological innovators of the Iron Kingdom. Their prowess at developing new weaponry in addition to their highly trained troops have ensured their place as a major power in the world. If words like "gunmage" and "shocklance" make you sexually excited, you might be a Cygnar player in your heart of hearts.
KHADOR
The Russia-er, Khador is a massive and cold land inhabited by a fiercely independent people. They're rather expansionistic which leads them to a great deal of conflict with their neighbors. Mainly, Cygnar. The armies of Khador are bolstered by ponderous warjacks that could punch your head through your ass if they weren't careful while shaking your hand.
MENOTH
The Protectorate of Menoth was formed due to a religious conflict in the aforementioned kingdom of Cygnar. The devotees of Morrow were the majority, and got to keep their nice cushy kingdom. The disciples of Menoth were given a piece of crappy land to placate them and made into an independent nation. They found oil, built up some military forces which don't technically exist as such, and now they're fond of making their heathen enemies explode and die. Nice people, all around.
MERCENARIES
This is a world where conflict rules and wars are always ready to flare up. What kind of moron could pass up a chance to make a buck? Mercenaries come in all shapes and sizes. Some are exiles from their own land, called traitors by those they once called brother.
Others are short bearded fellows who like money.
It takes all kinds, right?
Warmachine information can be found in three books:
Warmachine: Prime
Warmachine: Escalation
Warmachine: Apotheosis
Another book, Superiority, is forthcoming. The books are completely unnecessary to play. All rules can be had with a battlegroup starter set and unit specific rules are included with the purchase of that unit.
Although,
Echo wrote:One comment on the Warmachine rules: the full rules are in Prime; the ones that come with the battlegroups are very simplified.
This applies to Hordes rules as well.
Play like you've got a pair.
TheOtherHorseman on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Hordes is Warmachine's young, feral brother. It is roughly as large and it tends to bite more often.
Warmachine is steam, blood, and magic.
Hordes is rage, blood and magic.
Warcasters in Warmachine use their focus to drive their lumbering warjacks across the field and into battle, as well as to cast spells. The Hordes equivalent of a Warcaster is a Warlock. Warlocks don't have some internal well of power like focus to tap. Warlocks feed their magic with the collective Fury of their warbeasts (the giant, fleshy Hordes equivalent of warjacks).
It works like this:
1. Warlock forces warbeast to do something
2. Warbeast gets super pissed about it
3. Pissiness is drained off to cast Magical Fist of Groin-hurting +2
4. Repeat
If you don't drain off the pissiness and do something with it, the beast gets ubersuperduper pissed and decides it wants to kill everything, including you. Neat, huh?
Anyway, let's move on.
Elsewhere in the world of Caen, trouble is a-brewin'. In what might seem a familiar situation, there are four groups of badasses that want to beat the snot out of eachother.
THE LEGION OF EVERBLIGHT
Remember the Cryx and their giant honking dragon godking who sits snugly in the center of their undead island of horrors? Remember how I mentioned that Toruk, said dragon, is the Evil Father of all Dragons, Who Are of Equivalent Evil but Not Power? Allow me to introduce you to my friend, the dragon Everblight.
You see, dragons are nasty because when they die, they always come back. Their soul is bound to an athanc (kinda like a Lich's philactery, for the D&D types) and can rebuild a body with time. Everblight decided he didn't want to rebuild jack shit because Toruk would mess him up again for fighting with daddy. Everblight is acting through mortal agents, twisting them into sick monstrosities that are rather good at killing things.
The Skorne
The Skorne are a sadistic, heavily militarized race that are invading the land. They are highly disciplined. They are well-armed. They want to eat your babies. Or, at the very least, to hurt your babies and giggle about it. Why are they invading? Look at the Warmachine post again. Do you see that first mercenary picture?
The reason he is a traitor is that he is serving the deposed king of Cygnar, who was a dick. That deposed king proceeded to go to the Skorne Empire. The Skorne pretty much hate everything, so they tried to kill him. He killed everyone they sent at him. Since the Skorne have a boner for killing things well, they made him their leader, and he's driving the invasion.
The Trollbloods
We last saw the Trollbloods in Warmachine as some ragtag mercenaries (well, not in the last post you didn't). The Trollbloods are a bunch of different troll races that are getting super duper angry at everyone else because everyone else keeps invading their land. This is similar to the situation that the Native Americans faced when the colonists started expanding.
Unlike the Native Americans, the Trollbloods are big-ass trolls with magic, guns, claws, and unyielding rage the likes of which could quite literary incinerate any number of children.
Also, the Trollbloods are, like the Cygnar from Warmachine, the default "good guys," except their skin is more prettily colored. Yay!
The Circle Orboros
The Circle Orboros is an ancient order of druids with powerful magic. In battle, they are fast as hell and stealthy. If you don't expect that when you throw down with them, if you come out at all you don't come out as a happy camper. Since they are an ancient druid order with the power of nature itself at their command, they are probably angry that you're stepping on their grass or some junk like that.
Cut it out and the wolf-monsters won't eat you, I guess.
The Hordes book is much like the Warmachine books: It is nice to have if you want all of the rules collected for you and in your hand before you buy things, or if you just like the fluff.
It is called Hordes: Primal
One cool thing to note is that Hordes armies are fully compatible with Warmachine armies. They can go to town on eachother's asses without any tinkering with the rules.
I don't know about anyone else. But I pick my armies based on how they look and how cool their story is.
It's pretty bitchin'
My response to this was to buy 3 battlegroups (Cryx, Menoth, and Khador) on the cheap on Ebay. This way I can force friends into battles, have some options on who to be, and hopefully try to hook them.
I'll finish painting eventually, I guess
oh yea, sorsha owns you
http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/1503/scale2jm.jpg
That pic was a scale comparison, since I've convinced at least two people to use Sorscha as a 40k Inquisitor. :P
Seriously, Khador owns everything:
They stick guys in steam-powered armor suits because having Light Warjacks is for girls!
They have sexy female sniper captains with an eyepatch!
Their mages are so manly that they carry axes!
Vladimir, the Dark Champion is pure awesome. I want to sex him repeatedly.
Or the man in the machine, Karchev the Terrible
The Iron Kingdoms setting is the same one as Warmachine and Hordes. There are five major books available for it:
Character Guide:
World Guide:
Those two are more or less staple as they define the setting in everey aspect and detail imagineable, with an enormous amount of information, stats and plot hooks.
There's also the Monsternomicon which is a collection of all possible creatures in the IK:
Liber Mechanika:
And the Witchfire Trilogy, which is an awesome campaign that can be played with a new group:
I like the legion as well and am verrrrrry close to plunking down on some Horde stuff.
But for now I'll stick with confrontation and warhammer.
Legion is the most played army atm because they have the best models out for their armies atm. Skorne is a synergy army and alot of the pieces to make them work brutally are not out yet. Circle is a delicate army, fuck up once and its GG, not fun to learn with. I am personally selling off my Skorne and Legion army to focus on my Khador force.
The tabletop is how I got introduced into Iron Kingdoms; I didn't find out there was a mini game about it until some time later. I need to buy the rest of the books though. All I have is the Monsternomicon, but it's really goddamn good. Between the art and the writing, it's probably one of my favorite RPG monster books ever. It reminds me a bit of the monster manuals of old, giving a fairly in-depth look into the monster and including a knowledge table of commonly and not-so-commonly known things about said creature.
But soon, they will be done...
...and I can begin similar cycles of procrastination for Cryx and Khador.
I needs me some Trollbloods.
The other books aren't really needed though. All minis come with a stat card with all the info you need, but the books are full of fluff and longer descriptions of units.
TheWarStore has all that is currently available up for purchase.
Hordes is a very young game, so don't be put off by the small variety in units. It'll change fast.
full rules are actually in Hordes : Primal, Prime is out of date.
not as much as say a 2000 pt 40k army but will still run you around 200 im guessing.
The thing about privateer press that you have to remember is they price on the "weight" of the model not the point value like GW. So, the new calvary that just came out that are huge and heavy cost 100 for a unit of 5, but the majority of their stuff is actually priced well.
100 US dollars for a unit of 5?
I had asked that in the hopes that you would elaborate, perhaps by offering a name, or link, or something. I haven't seen any kind of unit that would cost 100 dollars. Are you sure you haven't seen some big clunky solo and resolved in your heart to put it in groups of five?
The cavalry is beyond awesome, but I'm not buying any until they lower the prices, and neither are many other players.
Wah? Warmachine rules are in a Hordes book? What are warcasters doing there?
Ah, okay. I was looking for a 100 dollar box of five. :P
http://www.dungeontrader.com/store/item-detail.cfm?ID=PIP33043a&storeid=1
never saw a $100 unit?
Clearly you don't play games workshop games
I in fact do not play Games Workshop games, mainly due to the fact that one morning I woke up, looked at my body, and realized it wasn't made out of some kind of self-replicating precious stone. When I said I hadn't seen a 100 dollar unit, I had meant in Warmachines.
This is mainly because the unit pack is sold in a threesome and I didn't know it goes up to five. Heh.
How many points are the units worth, in total, that come in the Warmachine group packs and Hordes warpacks? I just want to get an idea of how many models it would cost to get a 500 point army. I seem to recall that the Warmachine boxes were 350 points, but I could be wrong about that, and I have no idea about the Hordes box.
Thanks in advance!