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[Game-On] WARMACHINE & HORDES - WARMACHINE MK II is out!
OtakuD00D
Can I hit the exploding rocks?San DiegoRegistered User regular
Can I hit the exploding rocks?San DiegoRegistered User regular
Previous thread can be found here.OP is shamelessly lifted from TheOtherHorseman's post, with a few changes to update the fact that a few years have passed since then.
TheOtherHorseman wrote: »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.
The Skinny
Here's a good rundown of the basics of both games, etc by Anon.Anon the Felon wrote: »WM/Hordes is about 100-150 for 500 point army for pretty much any faction. Keep in mind that you can also buy the 50 dollar battle box, and find games easily at your LGS (local game store) to learn the game before you expand.
You play the game on a 4' by 4' table (most of the time, larger for 750/1000 point battles) with terrain pieces placed around in a fair fashion (i.e. if your army doesn't have the ability to walk over rough terrain, you shouldn't cover your side of the table with trees/craters/water). Terrain is usually just Styrofoam painted or modeled to look like mountains and such. I suck at making terrain, but some people are fantastic at it.
Its a really really fun set of games, with all kinds of tactical nuance that drives you to plan and direct your troops rather then "everyone fires/everyone dies".
Warmachine is a game of resource management, where as Hordes is a game of risk management. In WM you can allocate your "Focus" to direct and power up your machines, put to much into them and you can't cast spells or defend yourself properly. To little and you might not kill what you wanted to kill, and are left with an angry opponent ready to beat your face in.
In Hordes, you gather resources from forcing your beasts to perform actions. To little, and you can't cast your spells, fight well with your leader (warlock), or heal if needed. To much and your beasts might go nuts, and you will lose control of them...perhaps they will attack your own troops even!
Beasts are just as powerful as Warjacks, and a Hordes caster can mitigate damage to himself, by transferring it onto one of his beasts. A Warcaster (WM leader) can increase his armor (lessening damage to himself) by retaining focus, but he can not transfer it.
Its a game of tactics and proper planning.
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 "Gun Mage" and "Storm Glaive" make you sexually excited, you might be a Cygnar player in your heart of hearts.
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.
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.
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.
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 beardless fellows who like money.
It takes all kinds, right?
Warmachine information can be found in three books:
Warmachine: Prime Remix
Warmachine: Escalation
Warmachine: Apotheosis
Warmachine: Superiority
Forces of Warmachine: Pirates of the Broken Coast
Warmachine: Legends
Prime Remix is an updated take on the original Rulebook, chock full of Errata and rules updates from the other supplements through Superiority, such as Cavalry/Dragoon rules, Epic Warcasters, and Warjack bonds.
Pirates of the Broken Coast focuses on the Talion Charter, a mercenary contract focusing on Privateer-themed mercs! Full of awesome characters and adventure.
Legends is the newest book and brings the storyline started in Prime to a climax. It also introduces new character jacks, character units, hell, almost everything in this book is a character!
Reccommended purchases for starters: Get your battlebox. Play with it. If you don't like it, trade with friends until you get one you like the feel of, then go and get Prime: Remix and your faction's faction deck. Faction decks contain all your faction's stat cards up until Superiority. This will help you figure out a good army to use. You might want to get the Mercenary deck too, unless you're Cryx because hardly anyone likes working for them. ( :P )
Then get Pirates of the Broken Coast and Legends if you really want to have stats on absolutely everything.
Play like you've got a pair.
OtakuD00D on
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RELEVANT LINKS
Tabletop Commander: A really good WM/Hordes army builder.
Armies of Immoren: The other army builder. Site is currently down now, I think.
The Warstore: Awesome online store for all your Warmchine needs. Flat 5 buck shipping, solid selection, great prices. Neal is a cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything.
The Battle College: A really comprehensive Wiki to get you started. No actual stats, but in-depth info of just about everything released so far to give you an idea of what does what.
Vassal!
Vassal is a really awesome java-based Tabletop gaming sim. It provides a generic token/damage box/measuring/die roll system. You make modules for it for whatever miniature game you want. In this case, there's a Warmachine one. You can play it against other people! It's really fun for when you aren't able to go to the game store.
Get it here.
Get the Warmachine module here.
GAME STORE LIST
So you moved or you want to start playing? Maybe one of us plays at a game store near your area and you don't even know it. Here's a few, for example.
California
San Diego: Game Empire - Sundays and Mondays from 4PM ish until closing.
Players: OtakuD00D (Cygnar, Circle)
Idaho
Boise: All About Games - Thursday from 3PM until closing.
Players: Anon the Falcon (Trollbloods)
Legends flat out made me quit warmachine, but I'm hoping that meta is better.
It better not be more infantry spam and $60 dollar models that are bloody useless though.
I am more interested in what the new 'locks are for Trolls...
Mulg spoilers, along with some other things brought up. If you don't want to be surprised, don't click or don't read past the first paragraph if you just care about Mulg:
There's some rune sorcerers too, as well as a unit of "Fennblades". They apparently have some nasty anti-Cav tricks and can attack you first if you charge them.
Whelp hordes. Cheap, used to clutter the field. You can opt to have them appear when a Troll warbeast (Dunno if it's heavies only or both.) takes damage. Said warbeasts can eat them to help regenerate better.)
Troll Dragoon helps the Bison Riders follow up after a Bull Rush. Holy shit. (Skorne gets a Ferox rider, Circle gets a dude on an armored wolf, and Skorne gets a sorceress riding a flying dragonspawn mount.)
New Trollblood Warlock is a sort of female gypsy queen. Her feat makes all trollbloods in her range (Dunno what it's specific to) immune to knockdown and gives them a 3+ tough save. She's supposedly one of the best support casters for the Trollbloods at the moment. One of her spells, 1 for 1 fury, helps her remove a damage point from all friendly Trollblood beasts in her control area. Another one gives an enemy model/unit an extra damage die at the cost of removing the highest one. The next one she has innately but can also cast on others: Precognition- +2 DEF against Ranged/Magic and the victim can move 3 inches if the attack misses. She does extra damage against wounded enemies and buffs her allies near her (Presumably CMD) in some form if she kills her target. Crazy stuff.
She's Fury 7.
Care to elaborate? I loved Legends. It added some awesome warjacks and other stuff that makes warjacks better. Then again I play Cygnar so I think I got a pretty good deal.
Also, those spoilers are nifty.
Indeed. Cast Venom on something with deneghra and the Cankerworm is a BEAST! (not to mention its "meat grinder" ability!)
TB got that one, and eDoomshaper, who else? Plus I am a big fan of seeing the models, some of the best units have the ugliest models
Edit: Buying a Grim Angus to lead my trolls, he strikes me as a total bad ass and death machine.
List like this:
Axer
Impaler
Impaler
Krielstone & Scribes (6)
Stone Scribe Elder
Trollkin Champions
Either: Saxon Orrik
or
Lose one scribe and take a fell caller
PP did their typical "we are awesome, everything we do is awesome, therefore any concerns you have are totally being addressed 100% by any product we are releasing because everything we do is awesome" routine and led people to have expectations that jacks would be addressed by Legends.
I've got Cryx, and prior to Legends, the Deathjack was our only really useful heavy. After Legends, the Deathjack is our only really useful heavy.
He is useful because necrovent makes him effective against infantry spam because only reach infantry and multi-wound infantry can charge him. 10 dudes with 1 hitpoint and POW 10 weapons will beat the piss out of a warjack because the charge rules are absurdly stacked in the favor of infantry. Oh, and they are faster, so they are gonna charge.
His soul furnace allows him to regenerate lost systems (like warbeasts), meaning like a warbeast, he has actual staying power. He might lose an arm to a lucky shot, but he can get that arm back, which makes him infinitely better than any other jack out there. You can buy a heavy or buy a squad (or two if your Cryx), and a boosted handcannon pot shot has a chance of completely neutering your heavy, but a squad or a warbeast are 100% immune to such neutering, because one hit can't inflict catastrophic damage that you can't recover from.
His skulls of hate generate focus for free, and that focus can be used on spells. Warjacks without arcnodes make warcasters worse. They steal their resources, fielding a heavy and making it do anything means your NOT casting a spell. The Deathjack not only ignores this, but like a warbeast, he actually makes the warcaster BETTER as a result of him being on the field.
So, when Legends delivered nothing to change the fact that heavy jacks are expensive, fragile, highly vulnerable to basic infantry with no special rules (and rapecaged by the new lolinfantry they keep putting out), and just an all around bad choice that they keep making bigger and bigger models for...
I'm not playing a game where experience with the system tells me that I can make any list I've got a heavy jack in better by removing the heavy jack and putting in Bane Knights, and PP keeps putting out new infantry that need to be as good as Bane Knights.
Jacks might be a fist in the face if you used properly. But removing the heavy jacks from your list and putting in more infantry is like slipping on a pair of brass knuckles.
But PP is awesome perfect, and heavy jacks are AWESOME and USEFUL and don't need to be tweaked or addressed at all. Just like how they said that about the Sentinel prior to remix.
That being said, Hordes is a vastly superior system to Warmachine, so their refusal to fix things they screwed up won't be an issue as long as meta and the books after don't shit things up.
Yea, I'm bitter, but I promise to stop being bitter when I can play with my Slayers or my Reaper (that I bought for $20 each) without the other guy saying "your playing with a shit to handicap yourself aren't you".
I have to argue a bit, but I have to say I DEFINITELY see your point. The Nightmare jack is all kinds of cool when compared to a Slayer, but.... its just a slayer with reach and little higher MAT. But warjacks have definitely been overshadowed by infantry, especially since you have to spend an insane amount of focus to do what a squad of infantry can do for free... and better.
Yet, throwing an enemy (or better you friendly) jack into a squad to squish them never gets old. And the fact that they are often the only unit (non warcaster) that can even damage an enemy warcaster fully charged makes them very valuable. The ability to arcnode is also invaluable especially since everyone sends a wave of infantry your way. (Strange then that NONE of the new bonejacks have nodes...)
Oh, and I think and play the Combine as basically 3 really powerful bonejacks since thats what their stats are like. They're jacks without the drawbacks! Oh, and they can kill enemy arc nodes to make more arcnodes of my own.:P
I'll agree that there is room to argue with what I said, because I'll fully admit I'm really unhappy with the viability of jacks so I hit the point pretty hard. I agree with your overall summary of infantry being able to do what jacks do but better and for free. I guess that doesn't make jacks *bad*, but it really isn't saying something good about jacks.
But like I said, Hordes is a really good system. When I saw someone not put enough warbeasts on the table, my reaction was always "this is going to be easy". If the meta stuff maintains that feeling, I'll likely pick some stuff up.
As a side note, IIRC jacks you make with the widowshadow combine are not under control of a warcaster, and warcasters may only arc spells through or assign focus to warjacks under their control. Which I think honestly underscores how bad the Slayer and the Reaper are, since a unit can give you one for FREE and its not OP, or even considered one of their good abilities.
I personally don't see much of the problem. Warjacks have their role and so do Infantry. At least Legends offered plenty of buffs to allow specific types of Jacks an edge over Infantry.
• Kraye + Guided Fire makes pretty much any ranged jack he controls, especially Sentinels, infantry munchers.
• Beast-09 and Drago are both very potent Infantry annihilators. Especially Beast-09. Beast-09 can pretty much do it all. ...Except ranged combat, of course.
• Fire of Salvation, especially with Kreoss, laughs at pathetic attempts to slow him down with magic, and really clears up infantry clumped around him.
• Thorn's really good. He can't be tied up in melee with Haley around, and Kraye makes him immune to free strikes and lets him cripple shield wall units from up to 17 inches away (19 on Feat Turn) with a well-aimed charge.
• Nightmare. Nightmare. I can see using him more than Deathjack. It's an even better assassination 'Jack than Deathjack, at least unless you're going after highly armored warcasters. Mortenebra does really stupid stuff with him.
• Speaking of Mortenebra. Harrowers are completely ludicrous with her. Scythe and Terminal Velocity means he'll hit every living model within reach of his front arc with boosted attack rolls. If that doesn't wipe out infantry, I don't know what doesn't. Nightmare can kill a caster turn 2 with her, too.
• Reznik offers Jacks some pretty good support. Brand of Heresy will save you a ton of focus since all your jacks' attack and damage rolls will be boosted against the branded target. This includes an entire unit of infantry. Last I checked, Menoth had some pretty good AOE-making Jacks. Put that to good use.
• Epic Goreshade gives Dark Shroud + Stealth to his entire battlegroup. Can't go wrong with that.
I just think you're kneejerking a bit too hard and expected Hordes. They're seperate games and Warmachine has to fix its problems a step at a time without stepping on Hordes' shoes. Legends was a great step in the right direction.
Faction: Protectorate of Menoth
Army Points: 992/1000
Victory Points: 38
Feora, Priestess of the Flame:
-Devout
-Revenger
-Hierophant
Grand Exemplar Kreoss:
-Fire of Salvation
-Blessing of Vengeance
High Exemplar Gravus
Vassal of Menoth
Wrack
Choir of Menoth (6)
Daughters of the Flame
Exemplar Vengers (5)
Holy Zealots (8) + Monolith Bearer
Knights Exemplar
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
(Keep in mind this is for pre-Bastions release.)
Feora can actually work quite well with Epic Krieoss just due to the fact she can hang back a little and make good use out of her Node+Hierophant and fling her nice spells from practically across the table. and well, Feora is used a lot less than Severius when it comes to long range Protectorate casters, but then again, regular Severius is overused as it is, and I'm gonna get looks for not jumping on the Epic Severius bandwagon. (I just think you'd have to be legendarilly thick not to put eKrieoss with Fire.)
Ah, thanks. Havent had a chance to field test them yet with their ability really. The re-roll and anti-upkeep effects are what I've used so far, as well as the most epic Skarr-bomb ever.
Moved the Deathjack forward and necrovented second turn, cast Pupper-Master on Skarre after moving the Withershadow up within 6" of the Deathjack, then ran the Celephax overlords into the necrovent (thus powering up the withershadow). Moved skarre and, popped her Feat (+5) and targeted Maelovus, and boosted the roll. The enemy warcaster took a power 24+3d6 hit, and died an amazing death. End game. :P
On Skarre's feat turn, if you go with the Withershadow Combine, you can pull off a Pow 27 Skarre bomb that does double damage on a half-armored target.
Just thinkin, they would look pretty rad. Now if only PP would do a reptile Hordes army on their own...it would fit well as another "good guy" race.
Edit: not saying TB looks bad (hell I love the models) I am just partial to lizardmen armies/styling.
You make some good points.
I think my problem is that I've got several thousand points of Cryx, and my expectations for Legends was that they were going to *fix* the problems with the things I already own. Where are the 'unit attachment' patches for the jacks?
I think the other problem is that the people I've played with have bloody well learned how to protect their warcaster like a pro.
I've found it takes some pretty serious heroic measures to catch a caster with a heavy after people have played enough. I think the last time I caught a caster with a heavy was when I used eSkarre to chain-ram a Levi into position so the Deathjack could 2-hand throw it over their blockers and onto their caster. It takes something pretty crazy to catch them off guard. It also took every last single point of focus I had, plus two free points of focus from the deathjack to make it happen.
-
As for the Skarre bomb thing, I always find it far more effective to use sac-strike to pick off solos and unit leaders and only use her feat when your going to crush their army beyond repair. If you get one bad roll when you use her feat to go after their army, it still won't save them. Skarre Bombs are one thing, but 20 McThralls throwing out 40 POW 16 punches under dark guidance is a force of nature. The look or horror on their face as their entire army melts in a single turn is simply priceless.
As for unit attachments for jacks, something along the lines of Darius' halfjacks would be awsome.
Played with Mortenebra much? With a Leviathan, Deathjack, and Nightmare, she can really take casters down.
So you can do all this hokey shit and end the game on round 1 or 2? doesn't that kind of....ruin the fun?
I don't mind playing smart, or getting totally shut out by a good list. But an unstoppable magical smiting that outright kills shit on turn 2 strikes me as dumb.
Cygnar, for instance, can use Precursors with the UA to completely nullify Mortenebra's Death Race-assisted Nightmare assassination run. Death Race depends on destroying a model to make Nightmare move again. Precursors + UA and any friendly model within 3 inches of them get Removed From Play instead. No destruction, no movement.
I am pretty excited about the opportunities with Grim I will have, with 3 beasts I can lose one and not get fury screwed....plus he can shoot what...17" with his sniper rifle with the impaler animus? Bait the line + Rush = that axer having a...12" charge and can still boost his hit on that slam to own some face.
Snare gun seems semi-useless, but I figure it can annoy some heavy beasts and stuff. Snare it, maybe throw a spear at it to make my point, then move away the next round while he bitches about not being able to move.
Odd as she is, I really dig eSkarre. She has shades of Cygnar Caster in her. Very supportive caster and Black Spot can make a Leviathan shoot a surprising amount of times per turn. Black Spot is hot shit, period.
She is really well balanced, its just that when you play against her you NEED to pay attention to what she is doing.
She is the deadliest warcaster in the game by a huge margin. Playing against Skarre is all about paying attention and avoiding sudden death.
If your just paying attention to what your doing, but not paying attention to what she is doing, then she is going to whomp you. Hard.
Spending all of your focus to try and kill stuff, isn't paying attention to what Skarre is doing. Skarre is standing there with the potential to bomb you, and if you spend all of your focus, the bomb is a really good move. So don't hand her a very good and very obvious move on a silver platter. She can't force you to spend focus, so don't. You control her as long as you pay attention and don't give her an opening, because she isn't any good at forcing the situation.
Also, don't EVER get into melee with her (loludead. No exceptions.), or let her army be in a position to reach all or most of your army on a single turn (Feat + Guidance = everything they can reach dies). That last one is the big one, because the bomb and the melee murder are actually her minor threats.
She is awful at sustained support and Cryx is awful without support, and her army will run out of gas sooner than later.
Necrosurgions, Necrotechs (and scrap thralls for more bombs!) and of course the Revenant crew with Rengrave. Ohhh so you thought you could outlast me? Bwa ha ha haaaa
I have the opportunity to play about 2 or 3 times a week, but am currently deeply involved in painting my guys.
I mostly don't get to play because I hate driving 45 minutes to go beg people to let me flail at them ineffectively. The next league that starts up, I might end up driving up there, though.
I have so far painted all my stuff, waiting on grim and the rest of krielstone squad to get to 500, but that won't be much painting.
Nearly everyone else plays with silver armies, one lady has a base coat army, another is fully painted (and very well actually). But still theres about 5 or 6 pewter armies.
Having an entire army that is base coated looks a lot better than having a silver army with one or two squads fully painted and based. It hardly takes any time at all to base coat either.
1) Do skin.
2) Do armor.
3) Quitari.
4) Leather.
5) Basing and fiddly bits.
The stone scribes usually have way too much crap on them. They look great, but I didn't realize how big of a task that was going to be. I have about 9 of my 30 trollblood models painted. I at least assembled them all and primered 'em, though.