Current opinions on Hordes

[Blank]

So I did some searching on the forums and found an older post about this from months ago, so I'm apologizing in advance for bringing a topic back up, but opinions can change in that timeframe.

I wondering if anyone active here on the forums, plays or paints the minis for Hordes. As I'm fairly new to the whole mini industry, I came across Hordes from Privateer and found myself loving the massive 50mm based models (Warbeasts) and thinking they're just plain cool. I really want to paint them but my real question is... are they worth the money?

I can't exactly see myself spending $30 for a single mini, if all I'm going to do is paint him. I don't really want him to sit there and collect dust until I decide to re-paint. Which kind of leads me to my other question... is the game itself any fun? Obviously, I'm sticking with Malifaux because I love everything about it, but hopefully you all understand what I'm trying to get at here.

[DangerousBeans]

Warmachine (Hordes' mechanical sibling) is what got me back into gaming after GW broke my heart and I still play it regulary. It is awsome. WM's basically the same as Hordes but with one major difference in the way you obtain Focus (WM) and Fury (H) (both can be likened to "mana"). You can easily play both systems against each other, although Hordes tends to fare better vs Warmachine in larger games, while in smaller games WM tends to have the upper hand. (WM you get your focus back automatically at the beginning of the turn, Hordes you need to generate it through warbeasts so you NEED to take a few warbeasts)

It's fast, it's brutal and a very competative game by its nature. Also your warcaster/warlock will dictate how your army works, something that works well with one character may not work so well with another so you really do need to build your army accordingly or you'll get trounced!

My advice would be to play a few games at your LGS or club, it's a pretty big community so shouldn't be hard to find a demoer. Once you've tried that I'd buy the card deck for whatever faction you're wanting and use the forums/battlecollege to plan your purchases as they sure ain't cheap!

I've never looked back after buying into it, my Cryx army takes up the majority of my gaming storage!

[Aberration]

Warmachine (Hordes' mechanical sibling) is what got me back into gaming after GW broke my heart and I still play it regulary. It is awsome. WM's basically the same as Hordes but with one major difference in the way you obtain Focus (WM) and Fury (H) (both can be likened to "mana"). You can easily play both systems against each other, although Hordes tends to fare better vs Warmachine in larger games, while in smaller games WM tends to have the upper hand. (WM you get your focus back automatically at the beginning of the turn, Hordes you need to generate it through warbeasts so you NEED to take a few warbeasts)

It's fast, it's brutal and a very competative game by its nature. Also your warcaster/warlock will dictate how your army works, something that works well with one character may not work so well with another so you really do need to build your army accordingly or you'll get trounced!

My advice would be to play a few games at your LGS or club, it's a pretty big community so shouldn't be hard to find a demoer. Once you've tried that I'd buy the card deck for whatever faction you're wanting and use the forums/battlecollege to plan your purchases as they sure ain't cheap!

I've never looked back after buying into it, my Cryx army takes up the majority of my gaming storage!

I have the same backstory, GW destroyed me with constant pricing increases and just having to pay billions of dollars for an army to be functional/competetive.

I play Warmachine myself (Khador all the way!) and am just starting a Skorne force for Hordes. I like the models for both factions and find them enjoyable to paint...the game is also very enjoyable as well. Hordes seems like a lot of fun, a new variation of a game that I already know and love!

TL;DR- If you can find opponents I'd definitely recommend buying a small force...like 15 points...and just playing around with it to see how you feel. See if your LGS has people that wouldn't mind helping you out!

[ChaosLenny]

I'm with you guys...GW is evil, and I don't think the new editions of 40k are as good as the 3rd (especially tournaments which I have seen take on hey how many special characters can I cram in a list, my Black Legion was all fluff based and awesome...now chaos isn't fluff based at all)

the prices are insane too, it should not cost 90 bucks for a squad of five horsemen...I'm a somewhat decent painter and converter so I don't care for out of the box armies so with conversions armies are a major investment...plus it's kind of a joke if you get the 40k starter set you get like three ork bikes, a dreadnought, captain, etc. etc. if you buy that on it's own it's like 300 bucks...and GW is snotty...I saw a guy had a wonderfully converted sister of battle army he used lots of Privateer Press stuff...wouldn't be legal in a tournament and that's just wrong

On the subject of Warmachine & Hordes I have a few hardcore gamer old 40k buddies who love it...I dig the mechanics I don't care much for the model range though...even still been thinking about picking up that Cyngar set just cause the game is really decent.

I think that's why I dig Wyrd...the models visually are in my opinion up there with GW and old metal Rackham, and the game and fluff behind it are fairly awesome as well

sorry for the long post but I love to rant on the evils of GW:)

[HPSoundwave]

I still go to my local crack dealer....I mean GW store...lol. Istill play but I completely scaled back to play non GW games. Though I am totally sad about my loss of Night Lords...Now there is nothing that makes my Company of Batman Marines special like last edition's book. And all I have to say is thank god my Dark Elves had like 11K before this new edition all I had to do was buy one battleforce to get my infantry up to snuff.

I would love to get into hordes myself I am definatly liking the Ouroboros. Mainly because I love werewolves and wolves. My problem is I do not know anyone who plays it. I got into Alchemy and only 4 other people play that, malifaux and I only know 3 others who play that. But hordes it is a big 0.

[PhineusPhule]

A major difference between Malifaux & WarmaHordes is the alternating activation. In WH40k & Warmachine/Hordes each player activates ALL his models then play moves to the next player. I have been an active Warmachine & Hordes player from the beginning and having been on the receiving end of a number of beatdowns it can be frustrating to sit there & watch an opponent decimate your army to such an extent that when your turn comes there's not much left for you to do.

The greatest appeal of Malifaux for me is the card mechanic used instead of dice and the alternating activation. Malifaux and other skirmish games I have tried like Dark Age & Hell Dorado seem to have more of a flow to the game rather than the act/react of 40K & Warmachine/Hordes.

From a modeling/hobby view the Hordes models are indeed fantastic(I own a huge Circle army myself). Consider approaching Hordes from a hobby aspect first. Buy whatever box set appeals to you, paint it, & show it off to your fellow gamers. Maybe the sight of ravenous beasts with that new paint smell will convince other players in your area to take the plunge. If not be prepared to maybe buy 1 more box set you can then use to run demos in your area.

Hordes is a great game but it is more costly requiring many more models than Malifaux(but certainly less than most GW games). If time for painting and expendable income for miniatures isn't an issue for you then by all means take the plunge.

Edited July 30, 2010 by PhineusPhule

[notmikehill]

Warmachine/Hordes was definitely and still is a pretty decent game (Skorne will enslave you all!) I really enjoyed the tournaments we had in our local community, but once everything went Mark II on us not many people like the play styles of their current armies, which is when Malifaux almost came into stock and it's history from there.

[WookieeGunner]

I'm in a Warmachine/Hordes escalation campaign right now. I've lost every game so far and still having fun.

[Xango]

Same story, played 40k, then discovered wm and then hordes, i like hordes more because of fury, you have to push your minions to give your master fury, in wm your master have focus and he manages it, hordes is a great game, the most savage i know, you can stampede your enemy, grab him and throw him against his own men, or smash it in a wall, i play trollbloods and i simply love them, so you wont throw your money away.

[DangerousBeans]

I know this is slightly off-topic but I really don't get the MKII hate that's going around. As far as I can tell my Cryx still play pretty much the same (although Death Raged bile thralls are missed, but that was totally bent!) Every figure is as least as viable as it ws before. The game mechanics are almost identical aside from some small streamlinings and clarifications (the new timing mechanic is a god send!). In many ways it's far superior to the old edition and the best part is I didn't have to go buy a ton of new stuff just to keep up!

I'd wait until the new Hordes: Primal MkII book is released and pick that up, it will contain a fair bit for each faction so you can proxy some games to see what army suits you best. Or just go for your favourite models and learn how to play them well, that's what I did. I was very confused to find the Undead are the fastest and most fragile army in WM! (aside from puny elves) In most other games they're slow and tough. How strange.

I lost my faith in GW when I found out I couldn't use my Khorne Berzerker army anymore, "just use them as bikers with an icon" they said, eh, naw mate.

Blood Bowl still rules though.

[Happy Skrewk]

I too got into the WM/H after GW got greedy for the nth time.

The games play great and often the winner ain't decided until the last die roll; many times has defeat been snatched from the hand of victory! It's fast and brutal and your force plays completly differently just by altering your leader. I never regretted buying a single mini for either game. Well maybe the Raek.

The whole mkII thing though sparked me into Malifaux, the cost of upgrading both Warmachine and Hordes was over £100 before buying any new minis, whereas starting Malifaux about half of this. For a new game!

[Chucklemonkey]

I can't exactly see myself spending $30 for a single mini, if all I'm going to do is paint him. I don't really want him to sit there and collect dust until I decide to re-paint. Which kind of leads me to my other question... is the game itself any fun? Obviously, I'm sticking with Malifaux because I love everything about it, but hopefully you all understand what I'm trying to get at here.

Understand exactly what you are trying to get at.

I have only recently started playing PP games - Warmachine in my case - and it was playing Malifaux that led to it, as the people in my area who took to Malifaux were all WM/H players so in weeks when Malifaux wasn't played it seemed only fair.

As I say I can't speak for Hordes but WM is a fun game, I have only been playing using the starter sets - had been all set to place a big order when Wyrd showed the Gencon releases - and even that has a good learning curve.

[ddot]

I'll leave out the anti-GW hatred.

HordesMachine (HM for short) is a fun game with some really cool mechanics. As stated already, it plays totally different from malifaux, but there are a lot of superficial similarities that should make the learning curve a lot easier.

I started with the Legion and Skorne box sets to get my regular gaming buddies into it... right about the same time a revival was going on at the LGS. Both armies were fun, but I prefer the Skorne. Just so much cool stuff going on with them, especially after Evolution (1st Hordes expansion). Anyone who doesn't believe me, I've got one word: BRONZEBACK!!!!

If you haven't played yet, you can pretty well ignore the MkII hatred. While a lot of stuff got toned down on a global scale, there are really only a few specific beefs I have. MkII plays a little quicker and is better streamlined than MkI. MkI got a bit ridiculous with the stat cards towards the end. (Honestly, Rhyas' stat card was in a font that mice had problems reading. And she came out 3 years ago. A lot of stuff much worse than her came out since.))

As I said, I love my Skorne. The models are pretty cool and there really are no bad choices in the entire army. Their troops are inherently good, and the warlocks and solos generally synergize beautifully with them. True for any army, but the Skorne get extra style points doing it.

[Raven28256]

Like pretty much everyone else here, I got into Warmachine/Hordes after being burned by GW. I got frustrated with GW back when I played 40k, and just quit miniature games altogether. About 8 months ago I started building up my Retribution army in Warmachine because the game has effectively dethroned 40k/Fantasy for most played miniature game at my local store. About four months ago I started picking up Skorne in anticipation of Primal Mk II.

I love the games, and they are actually my main miniature games (I love Malifaux, but it is still new in my area with only a handful of other players that are really into it right now). The big difference between WM/H and Malifaux is scale, and you activate all your models at once before handing it off to your opponent. Warmachine/Hordes CAN be played as a small-scale game with just a few miniatures, but it is designed to be played at around the 35-50 point ranges, which generally consists of one Warcaster/Warlock (Master), several Warjacks/Warbeasts, several squads of infantry, and several independent warriors called solos. As such, you'll need to buy a lot more stuff to play "average sized" games.

Another thing to remember is that Warmachine and Hordes can be played together. They use the same core system, but just have a different way of handling Warcasters/Warlocks and Warbeasts/Warjacks. In Warmachine your Warcaster has a set amount of "Focus" that they regenerate at the beginning of your turn. They can use this to cast spells, buy extra attacks, "boost" attacks (Add an extra die on their attack or damage roll) or they can leave it on them to boost up their armor. They can allocate Focus to their Warjacks to allow them to buy extra attacks or boosts as well.

In Hordes it is the other way around. Warlocks don't generate "Fury," the Hordes version of Focus. Instead, their Warbeasts generate Fury when they boost attacks or buy extra attacks or charge, or so on, and the Warlock must pull the Fury off the Warbeasts at the beginning of your turn so that they have Fury to do the same things that require Focus in Warmachine. However, Fury left on your Warbeasts after you leech causes a Threshold check, and if they fail then the Warbeast goes insane.

So Warmachine is more about resource management, while Hordes is risk vs reward.

If you want to get into a larger scale miniatures game, I'd recommend Warmachine/Hordes over anything else. They have a great system, the games are cheaper than other large scale miniature games, and I love the minis.

I must warn you though, don't get into the game if you are the type to complain about things being "unfair" or "cheesy." While WM/H are more balanced than, say, 40k (Where newest codex = instant win), the games still have plenty of stuff that may seem really overpowered. However, this is balanced out by other things being ridiculous. There is a saying among WM/H players: Nothing in WM/H is overpowered because EVERYTHING in WM/H is overpowered.

[Martin_Fierro]

The main question was, is it fun? The answer is a resounding YES! I recently got back in with the MK II rule change (Jan 2010 if you didn't know) and I'm enjoying the new rules a lot more. I really like the miniatures, there are a few, as in any range, that I'm not a big fan of, but very few that I actively dislike and a lot more that I think are just awesome.

If you've got the cash you should definitely go for it as it is a lot of fun to play.

[Atticus]

I'll post the dissenting view as usual. I've played Warmachine from the beginning and then Hordes from the beginning. I never played any GW games, I came to it from Mage Knight and HeroClix after they started dying.

The game was originally billed as a "skirmish" level game, but it quickly outgrew that, and now is somewhere between a true skirmish level and a large army game like the GW games.

My complaints are less with the game and more with the play-style the game seems to promote. So my complaints aren't with Mark II; in fact I think Mark II is very good, PP addressed many power creep issues and did an excellent job of having the players involved with the open beta testing of the new rules.

As others have pointed out, the game is very much about powerful combos; it's almost like a 3-D CCG in that respect. The fact that you get to activate your entire army while your opponent sits there feeds into that. An extreme example of that is one of our local players won a Hardcore match at Warmachine weekend here in one minute and 31 seconds, his opponent didn't even get a turn (I wasn't the loser in that game, just so you know it's not sour grapes). Again, that's an extreme example and Mark II has effectively limited if not outright eliminated the ability to do the "first turn caster kills" of the old system.

Now having played several games with alternating activations, and/or reactions allowed to the non-active player (AROs in Infinity) and usually an opposed system to determine results, I find I like those systems much better. In WarmaHordes, I often felt like I could leave during my opponent's turn and come back and ask "Am I dead yet?"

The game is extremely competitive (especially around here), so much so that even in "friendly" games (i.e. league or campaign games), I've been subjected to some pretty egregious (in my opinion) behavior. Most players always seem to lhave the tournament mind-set. So that coupled with having played the game for so long, I stopped having fun and felt burned out. I began experimenting with other games and found that I started having fun again. I still have several Warmachine & Hordes armies and have toyed with getting back into it, but now it would be an expensive proposition to get back in with new books, stat cards and the new models to keep up with the power curve.

[HPSoundwave]

Some more people I know actually play hordes and warmachine. I am thinking of getting into it, but heres the thing I want to play circle of Oroboros and I want Gaint wolves and werewolves can it be done and how, what do I need to get aside from the basic rules.

As for Warmachine Proper I play CSM for 40k aswell as guard and wolves, for fantasy Dark Elves and empire. For Alkemy I play mainly Jade Triad and Avalonian. For Battletech I play Clan Coyote and Draconis Combine....so seeing all this what do you believe my play style for warmachine would be best suited for since I know nothing about it?

[n0valoco]

I've been playing WM for a long time and Hordes for a few years. I definately don't have a good w/l record but I do enjoy both games. I just don't get out as much as I would like to, that's for sure.

I totally agree that Hordes is fun, just give it a try. 15 pt Tooth n Claw games are a hoot!

[Atticus]

Some more people I know actually play hordes and warmachine. I am thinking of getting into it, but heres the thing I want to play circle of Oroboros and I want Gaint wolves and werewolves can it be done and how, what do I need to get aside from the basic rules.

I don't know anything about GW games, so I can't comment on what play-style you are looking for.

When Hordes came out I bought all four factions starters and played around with all of the factions for a while. I sold my Circle and Trolls stuff though as they were my least favorite. Any faction can be played a variety of ways. As Druids Circle can really take advantage of terrain and have a fair amount of magic. One Warlock is the construct guy and can heal constructs and create forests. Another Warlock is the Air & Lightning guy, one is a shapeshifter himself, there is the beast friendly female Warlock and there is a newer desert themed Warlock. With Mark II, the push has been more towards jacks/beasts over troops. In Hordes you always had to have beasts but in Warmachine many lists could be run more effectively without any jacks. You can still run no jacks or beasts but it is not as effective.

You can certainly run a wolf themed list and it will probably do pretty well, especially in the new environment. Kaya, the beast friendly female Warlock is probably good for this type list or the shape changing Warlock. Argus are two-headed dogs that are much better in Mark II than in first edition. Warpwolves (werewolves) got even more powerful in Mark II and the Pureblood Warpwolf is still pretty good I think. Tharn Ravagers are wolf-men type troops, the shape changing Warlock is a Tharn, I forget his name. There are also female Tharn that have some neat powers, some even riding wolves. So a wolf themed list is certainly doable and may even be competitive.

[HPSoundwave]

what about warmachine what do the forces in that game thematically what are they like and how do they play?

[Nate]

Wow, why is this on a Wyrd website? I love 40K (yep, there it is), Warmachine (and Hordes), and Malifaux. I own Eldar, Plague Marines, Protectorate, Circle, Neverborn, and Outcasts.

To answer the above the question: on the Warmachine side of things everything is very "Jack" oriented (esp in MK II)... you could say Cryx is the undead, Skorne is the evil, Cygnar is extremely shooty (the Americans), Khador is very hearty but less models (compared to Russians), Protectorate relies completely on Jack support (buffs)... and then, you have all the Hordes factions: Legion is pure evil glass-cannons, Trolls are very resilient and don't rely as much on Warbeasts/Jacks w/ exceptional cavalary, Circle are the druidic nature people that can either go w/ killer Beasts or a more magic-based Construct army. Alright, well that doesn't cover everything, but I'm tired of talking about another game! :boom: