Hordes vs. Warmachine: Fight!

[The Other Dave]

Since there seems to be a lot of interest in Warmachine from folks new to the game on the boards these days, I thought I might talk a bit about the differences and similarities between Hordes and Warmachine, so folks on the fence might have a bit more info if they're thinking about which way to go.

Q: So, are Hordes and Warmachine compatible? They're marketed as different games, after all.
A: Yes, completely, both mechanically and fluff-wise. They take place in the same world, with lore that links up the various factions' stories in interesting ways - the Legion of Everblight, f'rex, is led by a dragon, offspring of Toruk, the leader of Cryx (who wants to destroy all dragons), who also has at least one Warcaster who was once a druid in the Circle of Orboros, etc. etc. The rules are completely compatible as well, although you'll sometimes find that a WM warcaster will have some abilities that only affect enemy warjacks, and a Hordes warlock might have abilities that only affect enemy warbeasts - but such is the way of the world.

Q: So, generally speaking, what are the differences between WM and Hordes factions?
A: Well, WM factions have big stompy magitech steampunk robots, and Hordes factions have big stompy magically-controlled warbeasts. In general, WM factions have higher "tech" - more gunpowder weapons, that kind of thing - while Hordes factions are more "wild".

Q: OK, how about mechanics?
A: As I mentioned before, the base system is exactly the same. 2d6 tests for actions, you can boost and add dice, that kind of thing. But WM is a game of resource management, while Hordes is a game of risk management.

Q: Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?
A: In general terms, the economies of magic points work in opposite ways.

As y'all probably know by now, in WM, each warcaster has a Focus stat, and he or she generates that much Focus per turn - no more and no less - and divvies it up between himself and his warjacks. If his Focus stat is 6 and he has 3 warjacks in his battlegroup, he might give 2 to each jack and keep 0, give 3 to one jack and keep 3 for himself, or whatever. Importantly, you have to decide how to split stuff up at the very beginning of the turn, and there're no take-backs. Even if your plan goes South, you have to make do with how you've split things up, and indeed this is a large part of the strategy of Focus use - you can either use it to make your jacks more powerful, or use it to cast spells, and you have to make those choices every turn depending on the current situation. But if you have Focus 6, you'll get those 6 focus points every turn, come hell or high water.

In Hordes, it's kind of the opposite. Your warlock has a Fury stat, but doesn't generate any Fury on his own. To do that, he has to Force his beasts - basically, instead of spending Focus from his own reserves to boost his beast's dice rolls, he Forces the beast to boost its rolls, which places a point of Fury on the beast. He can then collect Fury up to his Fury stat total off of his beasts at the beginning of his next turn, at which point he'll be able to use it to boost his own attacks, cast spells or what have you. This means that there's the potential to pump up your beasts more than WM casters ever could - if you have 4 beasts with an average Fury stat of 3 (which is not unreasonable at the 25-point range) that's 12 Focus points' worth of potential boosting. It also means that the decisions to boost or not to boost can be more fluid, moment-by-moment choices, rather than set-in-stone at the beginning of the turn.
The problem comes when there's more Fury on your beasts than your warlock can soak up - any beast with any Fury left on it after the warlock fills up at the beginning of the turn has a chance to go berserk. Now this can be nice, because it boosts all the beast's attack and damage rolls, but the problem is that it'll just blindly attack whatever's closest by - which is great when it's the enemy, but not so great when it's your warlock (or even when it's an enemy you'd rather ignore in favor of a greater threat).
Plus, of course, every beast that dies robs you of a source of Fury - a warlock with no beasts is near-powerless, while a warcaster with no jacks simply has that much more power to fuel his own spells.

And that's the major difference in a nutshell. In WM, you get less potential power for your warjacks, balanced by the fact that the power is guaranteed, and your giant stompy robots are never going to turn around and stomp you. In Hordes, you get more potential power, balanced by the fact that as you lose beasts you lose power, and if you push your beasts too hard they'll turn around and bite your face off.

[me_in_japan]

thank ye, trebor. that was most informative.

I'm still sticking with the Ol' cryxies, though. in fact, the cryx book arrived today. i was most aggrieved to learn that the WITCH coven of garlgast cant take Satyxis Sea WITCHES in their theme list. They can take any number of Bane Knights, Soulhunters and the Withershadow Combine, but no sea witches. Hum...

*edit* ok, im kinda minging here. they can take blood witches. im just peeved cos i guessed wrong and bought the sea witches rather than the blood ones. Meh. its not like the theme list made em much better anyhoo...

[Sir Motor]

My trolls have much gunpowder!

Hordes are good to play. Good to play against.
Warbeasts are like explosive. They can do punch more than warjacks.
But if they do more puch,drawback exist. Yeah,if Warlock cant handle their fury.....beasts go mad and attack nearest things.

And Warbeasts arent made of steel. So bit low HP compare to Warjacks.
Warbeast have spell can use by them self. And Warlock can copy it and use it.


Very fun to play. Who loves to play warmachine,better to check Hordes too.

[me_in_japan]

My trolls have much gunpowder!

ace!

[The Other Dave]

My trolls have much gunpowder!

Hordes are good to play. Good to play against.
Warbeasts are like explosive. They can do punch more than warjacks.
But if they do more puch,drawback exist. Yeah,if Warlock cant handle their fury.....beasts go mad and attack nearest things.

And Warbeasts arent made of steel. So bit low HP compare to Warjacks.
Warbeast have spell can use by them self. And Warlock can copy it and use it.

This is another cool difference between the two games. Warlocks have smaller numbers of spells than warcasters with the same Focus / Fury stat. (In Mk I, warcasters always had 1 spell per point of Focus, and warlocks always had 2 fewer. That seems to have become a bit less set-in-stone in Mk II, but the principle still holds.) In exchange, each warbeast has a spell-like effect that they can either be forced to use themselves, or that their controlling warlock can use like a spell him- or herself. So again, a bit more flexibility - you can basically change your spell list by bringing along different beasts - in exchange for even more dependence on your beasts for power - when all your copies of a given beast die, you can't use its spell anymore.

And yes, Trolls are pretty well-set for gunpowder weapons, heh. They bought or stole most of them from Cygnar, but they do have them.