What is this game all about?

[Admiral-Badruck]

I have seen a lot of stuff on this topic. What makes this game worth getting in to? wait are there any orks in it.. .

[The Other Dave]

Once, when we were playing WM at the local gaming store in Alabama, a 40K player wandering by opined that Warmachine was "just like 40K, except you each just have a squad of terminators".

That description is completely wrong, but I thought it was funny, so there it is.

Warmachine / Hordes is a really well-designed skirmish game with awesome steampunky giant robots and/or huge slavering beasties, controlled by kick-ass fighting mages and supported by various flavors of troops. Lots of folks think that its big selling point is the (for lack of a better description) trading-card-game way the characters', robots' and units' abilities and spells interact - combos and synergy are the name of the game. You'll often have a situation where you find that this spell which this caster can cast makes that robot's special attack that much more powerful, and if you combine it with the aura produced by this other supporting model, well, it's a potential game-winner.

More times than I can count, I've lost horribly to some combination of models and abilities the first time I played against them, only to devise a strategy to mitigate or even ignore that killer combo in future games. (The reverse, of course, has also happened.) There are no "automatic win buttons" with no counters, and most of them rely to some extent on how the dice fall anyway. (As an aside, the fact that the game uses 2d6 instead of 1d6 as its base roll is also nice, because there's a wider range of potential results and a bit of a bell curve, so you can take chances with how likely you are to succeed when you decide to buy extra dice or not.)

All this is made possible by the fact that the rules are very clearly-written and very tight, so there's (almost) never any ambiguity about how two abilities will interact or when a given ability will or will not be applicable. It's no coincidence that all the Japanese guys I know who play it say the rules are much easier to translate than 40K's. You (almost) never need to "interpret" rules like you sometimes do in 40K - you just read them.

On the other hand, no, there are no orks or even ork analogues.

[Primarch]

And I am sure the admiral will also want to know, "If I turn up with a bunch of home made models that dont really look like the real ones, will people throw a fit and refuse to play?"
Actually, I'm sure the admiral doesn't really care and will use proxies anyway, but it needs to be asked.

[ennui]

Im happy proxying with circles cut out of laminated paper, so if he showed up some actual models that had the correct sized base, I wouldn't mind at all!

[me_in_japan]

The big selling point for me is the big robots. I dunno why - 40k dreadnoughts have never done it for me, but the Warjacks are just freaking ace, in my opinion.

Oh, and they're not orks, but surely even an ork can appreciate this

interestingly (i didnt know this till a few days ago) you can play hordes vs warmachine. Apparently it's designed so that it can be done and all is fair and balanced. It's even worked in to the fluff.

[Admiral-Badruck]

And I am sure the admiral will also want to know, "If I turn up with a bunch of home made models that dont really look like the real ones, will people throw a fit and refuse to play?"
Actually, I'm sure the admiral doesn't really care and will use proxies anyway, but it needs to be asked.

What is all this about proxies... I have not done any proxy modeling in a long time.. I mean I have some scratch built but that is not the same thing I mean Commander Cullen is a FW model and I have not used many other Special Characters I have the real Snikrot but I have yet to use him...

anyway I would like to see if it is worth getting in to so I am keen to learn a bit about it... before I get any models... not really keen on the Warjaks... do you have to take them... they look like a very important part of the game...

[The Other Dave]

interestingly (i didnt know this till a few days ago) you can play hordes vs warmachine. Apparently it's designed so that it can be done and all is fair and balanced. It's even worked in to the fluff.

Oh, absolutely! Hmm, I wonder if more folks involved in this sudden surge of interest wouldn't have looked at Hordes if they knew they were compatible.

Actually, Trollbloods are possibly the most "orky" faction in WM / Hordes - they have a whole involved quasi-Native-American tragic backstory, but on the other hand they like a good scrap and have a warlock whose powers center around getting drunk and bashing heads. And they have support troops (and a warlock or two) who buff friendly models by shouting at them.

Personally, I prefer Hordes to Warmachine - the usual descriptor is that WM is a game of resource management, while Hordes is a game of risk management. In WM you have a set amount of magical resources every turn and deciding how to spend it is where it's at. In Hordes you have the potential to squeeze a lot more magical power out of your beasts, but if you push too hard your beasts will go berzerk and, at best, tear the crap out of an enemy not-of-your-choosing and, at worst, eat your warlock.

edit to add: Hordes also has the bonus of not having warjacks if you're not keen on them. Although you would have to be interested in slavering huge monsters. One or the other is pretty central to the game.

[Admiral-Badruck]

that is great news as I am way more interested in the Hordes minis than I am the WM... love the big monsters in the hordes line...

[me_in_japan]

and, at worst, eat your warlock.

The old Mk I deathjack used to do that too. The Mk II one is decidedly saner...

I really like the idea of warjacks and warbeasts all ripping and stomping each other into bits. Tooth and Claw vs Sword and Steam. Ace on a stick

[jus]

Rob, warmahordes is a great game, its...dare I say it ..better than 40k haha. I've just started myself, and played about 4 and a 1/2 games. Its frikkin awesome. You'd probably feel right at home playing trolls. Or Minions alligator men, and if that doesn't tickle your fancy how about a giant cybernetic boar with a power klaw...(holding two axes)

http://privateerpress.com/files/products/War-Hog.png