privateer press!

[salamut2202]

are fucking terrific! better paints, better models (wish for plastic), better games! i was really surprised with the story of how the games interact with each other and my first thoughts of the armies being biscuit cutter being wrong, the armies are very different from each other and the leaders of each army doubly so!

i'm kinda choosing an army while i give 40k a break for a while and i'm split between cryx, scyrah, everbright and skorne, but one thing rules all - what game should i start with, hordes or war machine? i scanned over the rules but i couldn't decide! so all ye players of PP (it needed to be in there) what's a better game to start with?

[psychichobo]

I'm basically the biggest PP fan you'll ever meet on here, so let me introduce you!!!!1!

Hordes and Warmachine recently got all their new rules in, so they're all balanced and there's no weird pointing like in the mark 1 version. So either's good, and they're both relatively easy to get to grips with.

Cryx are a weird Faction. Not much shooting, so you'll have to find alternative ways of messing your opponents around (or just hire shooty mercenaries from the Mercenaries book). Lots of magic, undead, and strangely for undead high-speed high-defence Warjacks. Rely on strange effects and messing people over with the nastiest spells ever.

Retribution of Scyrah are pretty cool, their Jacks are really quite lethal, especially with that annoying forcefield thingy that keeps regenerating. High defence stuff, though no proper multi-wound units whatsoever. Decent spells and speed too.

Everblight I have, and they're awesome. Warbeasts are expensive but powerful, and the army has a tendency to ignore a lot of terrain too. No middle ground with stuff, your beasts are either tiny and cheap or mahusive and insanely powerful.

Skorne are a little slow, but have some damn good infantry and warbeasts that are either very powerful or skilled in CC.

However, each army can do a good variety of stuff. Cryx can rely on brute force just as much as magic, Retribution can also go entrenched with massed shooting, Everblight can do a damn good magic army, and Skorne can do speedy.

Plus, be sure to check the Mercenaries and Minions books. They both contain hirable units that're damn good and entertaining in their own right (Totem Hunter, for example, is basically Predator, and Boomhowler's Trolls are rock hard to down).


Which warcasters/warlocks were you looking at in particular?

[Trygon]

tbh privateer press models aren't that great, considering how many have monkey arms, giant hands and massive shoulder pads. Though I suppose GW had to go through that phase in the 90s/early 00s.

[salamut2202]

from each army, the leader i like (by model, seeing i'm shaky on tactics an rules) is:
lord venethrax
ravyn eternal light
lord hexeris
thagrosh the messiah

[psychichobo]

Hmm... kk's.

Venethrax is fair awesome, he batters Warbeasts pretty well. He needs to get in combat though, so front-line support is necessary.

Thagrosh is epic with warbeasts. So epic it HURTS.

Not sure on the other two, though Hexeris likes his infantry.



Best bet is to get an army book and then proxy a few games.

[CephaSquiddy]

I've been thinking of starting a Menoth force. Can you tell me about them Hobo?

[Trygon]

They are like Word Bearers, but they worship the wrong gods.

If I started Warmachine, I'd collect them.

[Dangeresque]

I'm fond of Cryx. Could someone better informed tell me how war machine is played? Just something general... like what follows but replace ' 'hammer with ' 'machine:

"Warhammer is played between two opposing armies, balanced (ha!) by a points system. Each player takes turns moving, shooting and assaulting with their units across a 6x4 game board littered with various terrain. The goal of the game is to complete an objective by the games end (between 5-7 turns). This objective usually involves holding onto various points and defending them or killing your opponents army. To achieve this, a variety of units are used, including heros (powerful individuals with special abilities), infantry (rank-and-file units with sparse special abilities), vehicles (Transports, gun-platforms and walkers) and monsters (large, tough and brutal creatures).

[salamut2202]

i have chosen....



....everblight! weird dragons to the rescue!

[Dangeresque]

How original... you don't even need new models!

[salamut2202]

ah right 'everblight and tyranids'. now that's unoriginal. when you get down to it they're not that similar.

[Magical Baker]

No, of course they aren't.

Cheers!

[loplod]

[psychichobo]

EVERBLIGHT

Yeah, I chose them for the Nid thing.



Ok, for info on how the actual game is played:

A model/unit's turn is done in one straight go, its 'activation'. A model can move, and it may perform an action. This action can be shooting, a close combat attack, or a spell, or some other odd ability the unit might have. You cannot do an action before moving unless you have some odd special rule. Also, moving cannot be interrupted. (You can also run, which is double movement but you can't do anything else).

So if you have, say, two single model units (called solos) and you wanted them both to attack a big nasty monster, you would move the first one into melee range, then attack, and then you would move the second one, and attack.

The odd thing is, you do this even with units. A group of knights would have to do all their movements and attacks individually, and also maintain coherency. They don't have to attack the same unit, however, though if they perform a charge (a combination of move and attack, with slight bonuses to each) they'd have to all charge the same enemy unit/model.


The big gimmick with Hordes and Warmachine is the Fury/Focus mechanic. In Warmachine, you have a single main character called a Warcaster (you can have more in very large games). The warcaster generates a set amount of Focus Points. He can in the maintenence phase (a phase that occurs before you do anything else at the start of your turn) allocate up to three focus points to a warjack (big robot thing) in his command range. Focus points can be used by the Warcaster and the Warjack with them allocated to do things like buy extra attacks, boost to hit or damage rolls, cast spells (which normally have casting costs of a certain amount of focus points) and warjacks also need to spend them to charge or run (casters don't, they're not that thick). At the start of your next turn, all your focus points vanish and your caster generates another lot, and repeat. Warcasters also get additional armour points for each point of focus on them, so the tougher ones are pretty rock hard if they castle.

Hordes is similar - you have a Warlock and big beasts instead. However, instead of the warlock generating the Fury (their version of focus), the warbeasts are instead 'forced' - they do things like extra attacks, spells, run, charge, etc for free if a warlock has them in their command range. When they get forced though, they generate a Fury point, up to a set maximum, and the Warlock in his maintenance phase must leech the Fury from his warbeasts to get any to actually play with, and he can leech upto a set level determined by who he is. Also, Warbeasts keep any fury that isn't leeched, so they need to be constantly leeched if they want to keep doing stuff. Finally, Warbeasts also have a Threshold stat, where if they have any Fury left on them after leeching, they must take basically a Threshold test, rolling 2D6 and adding any fury they have. If they exceed their threshold, they go nuts and charge the nearest model with fully boosted attack and damage rolls and stuff. Many a warlock has been royally annihilated by a frenzying warbeast. Also, Warlocks can transfer damage from an attack to a friendly warbeast, though to do this they must spend a fury and the warbeast must be forced.


You can get different game types with varying objectives, but if the warcaster or warlock is killed it's game over. So you have to protect the guy!






The fury mechanic is better than the focus one, but the armies are designed and balanced to compensate for this.



As for the Protectorate of Menoth, they basically worship the God who created mankind, and they play with a lot of fire and some good warjack buffing spells. They originally rose up in a revolution in what was Cygnar territory, I believe. I'm not sure of much about them tbh, though they do have some fun warcasters, one of which is an angel tied down for some reason.


Cryx have some good background - they're the undead servants of the Dragonfather Toruk, the first Dragon (who're basically Godlike) who split his athanc (soulstone thing) to create more dragons, who turned against him. Cryx as a result are full of liches and the undead, and a lot of various 'interested parties' who like to work for him. They live in a great series of islands and have loads of pirate cities, and have loads of humans and the odd troll who work for them (races aren't as clean-cut as in warhammer).

Interestingly, Everblight is basically one of the dragons Toruk created, and Everblight for various reasons got stuck frozen in a cave in the north after an unsuccessful attempt to off his dad. He then tricked an Ogrun, Thagrosh, into releasing him and he began to take control of the elves up north, via deception, persuasion, or good old fashioned force of threat. Their warbeasts are made from his blood and are part dragon.

[loplod]

TL;DR

[Captain Malachi]

You move and use every single model one at a time? Sounds like it could take a long time...

[Vespid]

@psychic Hobo:
Thanks for the insight to the rules. Seems quite interesting

loplod:
The Carnifex in the top picture should have had the Thornback Biomorph. Would work a lot better then

[psychichobo]

You don't have a load of models like 40k, and the games tend to last the same amount of time anyhoo (though I did see a first turn win once by someone whose opponent was way too reckless).

Besides, some stuff just sits around buffing, and often you have to basically develop an on-the-spot strategy to shatter your enemy's lines. Well, my Everblight do anyway. I've had a thorough consistent battering from Trollbloods though, didn't think they could shoot that well...

[Dangeresque]

Hmm... rules seem quite interesting. Looking at a few of the warjacks there are a LOAD of unique special rules.

One day... in the distant future... I might start Cryx. I'm loving the cheesy "We're so totally evil" approach to them.

[Custy]

I play retribution, love them so much... But hobos summary is good. Im tempted to make legion my next one but skorne are tugging at me also.