General WM question

[me_in_japan]

The above advice is good, I'm sure, but only works, unfortunately, if one has access to the rules. Primarch and I are so shiny and new that neither of us has the rulebook or army book. Thus, speaking for myself at least, I was shooting entirely in the dark when I bought my minis. I'll find out their rules when they arrive and I can look at their wee card. Isn't it all so exciting?!?!

[ennui]

In that case, I HIGHLY suggest you buy the Mark II Prime book, as it has the basic units for all factions but the elves, PLUS the rules! It's a bargain!

[The Other Dave]

On th' other hand, since learning by playing beats theorycraft any day, you can get off to a pretty good start by just using whatever you have - if you have a caster and a couple jacks, it's extremely unlikely you'll have a force that's outright terrible. After a few games, you'll start to notice you're lacking in function X, and that's when you can start poking around on Battle College to see what they recommend that does that.

Ooh! One more nice resource for figuring things out. There is (or rather was) a very nice podcast called Fell Calls, which retired recently. Although it's obviously Mk I information, they had a lot of very good discussions about tactics, army building and what-not, based strongly on their own extensive actual play experiences. The individual podasts are well-annotated in the archives, so you can poke around and find something about what you're interested in. I learned a lot from them.

[me_in_japan]

In that case, I HIGHLY suggest you buy the Mark II Prime book, as it has the basic units for all factions but the elves, PLUS the rules! It's a bargain!

hardback already ordered and in the post, sah! *dave rips off a snappy salute*

I was looking at my currently-ordered force, and I have a sneaking suspicion that what it lacks for is a second heavy warjack (to force my oppenent to think before he shoots everything at my deathjack), an alternative warcaster (for some variety), and some o them thar cryxian arc node bonejacks (for, um, arcnoding. whatever that means. I hear its important, though...) Fortunately for me, all of the above is wot comes in the starter box set. Once I get a few games under my belt, and have at least a passing familiarity with the rules, my second wave purchase will likely be the starter box and the cryx book. I know, its a bit ass-backwards getting the wierd stuff first (witch coven of garlgast does not seem like a standard warcaster to me, althho what do i know...) and then getting the starter box, but hey ho, what can I say. Im wierd

tbh, Im pretty sure that regardless of what I bought, Im going to get my bum handed to me for my first few games. Such is life, and if you're winning your first few games of something then your opponent aint teaching you properly. Given what people have been saying about the importance of killing of warcasters, Im quite happy that the witch coven has the ability to be in 4 different places at once (due to being, well, 4 different people. Well, 3 people and a rock). means you have to hunt em all down one at a time

[me_in_japan]

Oh dear. It would appear, after a certain amount of perusal, that my Satyxis Raiders box was a Mk1 box. Thus, i have the rules for Mk1 Satyxis raiders, including such useful snippets of info as "pts: 64, plus 10 for each additional trooper." My undertstanding of WM is limited, but I'm thinking that since a regular game is 25, 64pts for a unit of laydees is a bit...okashi...

so, this means that i dont have rules for my raiders, and potentially for whatever else maelstrom send my way.

agh. What to do. Do I just buy the cryx book and hope it gets here on time? or what? any ideas? save me, trebor...

[me_in_japan]

sod it. ordered the cryx book. Maelstrom's 15% off finishes today - might as well save a bit on the book, altho its somehow embarrasing to find myself scurrying back to the inter-shops to buy something I should maybe have just bought in the first place. Its also kinda scary to be buying a second-wave before half of the first-wave stuff has even arrived...

[jus]

While waiting for the rule book. Might I suggest downloading the FREE MKII basic rules and taking a gander at if you haven't already. Its almost completely identical, word for word, to the Prime MKII rulebook, minus all the pictures, diagrams and painting guides. However, I found that the format and order of the rules rather beginner unfriendly because it leaves out important relevant information in one section, only to have it 15 pages laters. So it had me flipping all over the place. Despite the confusion, its beats waiting for the rule book to arrive. Heres the link:

http://files.privateerpress.com/warmach ... 091124.pdf

[me_in_japan]

Ah. Lets just say that i already have an "online" (hemhem) version of the rules. I would say more, but Prim would probably look at me sternly, and I don't think I could cope with that kind of intimidation...