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| A Christmas present from my folks |
My Warmachine adventure began in January of 2014. I was initially hesitant to follow the majority of Team Waynedale into Warmahordes; Valus, Abusch, Clint, The Claw, and Sir Dragon had all begun playing but there were about 3 of us who hadn't yet jumped onto the bandwagon. My qualms were two fold, one money being a masters student I am not flush with cash and two time, being a masters student and working a job on the side I don't have enormous portions of free time. However, Team Waynedale after 2 or 3 wargaming weekends began to see the problems with the other miniature game we used to play, 40K. The increase in price and unbalance faction rules and the news of an edition change coming too soon after the last, began to give us all a bad taste.
Also, we have begun to realize that we all have lives that demand more of our time then previously. Gone are the days that we can regularly spend 8-12 hours playing games. We used to do this weekly playing D&D. This brings us to the other large problem with 40K, the game takes 8-10 hours to properly play and at this point feels like all you do is set up units make a few pew pew noises and then put the models away. The set up looks amazing but, it isn't conducive to game play anymore.
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| 40k with all the grim dark. This is portion of my 40k ork army... not pictured the 100+ boyz and grots that are still largely unpainted. This collection began over a decade ago and had reached its end point here. Affectionately refered to as the orkish circus or the the carnival of the damned. |
The answer to the 40K problems was warmahordes. For one thing PP has a balanced game system; another PP doesn't have outlandishly priced models, also the scale on which PP is played is smaller and so you don't need an entire army to play which makes things cheaper still.
I was lucky enough to be given a battle box and a few other models to start out as a gift. Later, I was also given a few more models which was immensely appreciated and helpful. I've picked up a few myself those have for the large part been chronicled on this blog in my previous posts.
Now that, that bit of explanation is out of the way lets get talking how my style has changed.
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| Cygnar or The Swans (as some affectionately cygnus) (also some not so affectionately refered to as the guys who always have guns) |
I'll start out by saying the swans aren't a pick and go faction, there is a learning curve and a big one at that. This was mitigated early on by the fact that none of us were experts in our given factions or in the rules as a whole. That being said my early games were pretty successful. Cygnar has several thing going for it but in the beginning the two that stood out were the ranged attacks and disruption. In the initial 15 to 20 point games these were major components of my victories. As we progress my playstyle leans more mercinar. As I acquired more models I invested heavily in mercenary solos. I did this because for one they were cheap and two the filled in gaps in what I could do. They added a little more randomness to what could be expected out of my swans allowing me to come up with a few surprises. My major problem is I don't always put together lists that synergize well and I need to pickup a few more infantry models. But I think I've weathered the learning curve well and I am finally getting the hang of things.
My advise to beginner players pickup your collection slowly, learn the basics first with your basic casters. eCaine and eHaley are powerful but don't jump on their bandwagon too quickly. They alone will not win you the game. If you wait a bit and pickup how things work first then it will be much more enjoyable and less frustrating.
Also, join the cygnar page on facebook. It is great group of people ranging from casual players and lowly blog authors and contributors, to some of the big name people you see on chainattack streams and tournaments. We are friendly helpful bunch that share lists and strategies as well as questions and answers about specific rules.
Cygnar players are as a community pretty critical of the battlebox. This is due to the puzzling selection of lights and a mediocre heavy that you are given. For one the charger is focus hungry; needing 3 focus to operate at full capacity. The lancer provides an arcnode and some antijack capacity. Finally, the ironclad a heavy that is cheap and all around balanced but in my experience isn't outstanding. Pstryker is a jack of all trades but master of none. Really alot of this could be fixed by replacing the ironclad with a defender and the charger with a hunter. Or just swapping one of these two jacks.
The next step after the battlebox is usually suggested as either jr, a squire or the black 13th. Either one of these are good plans. In casual non-tournament play these are both auto includes, the b13 are amazing for 4 pts, the magestorm ability alone gives amazing board control and damage potential. The fire beacon also allows for cygnan guns to hit those pesky stealthed units and solos. Jr provides 3 extra focus and arcane shield. This is the main reason that cygnar will never be given a great stand alone infantry unit. The plethora of arcane shield, very cheaply and easily we can make mediocre unit good, so just imagine if cygnar got a great unit and place arcane shield on it. This is what is referred to as the arcane shield tax. Jr is also a warcaster, up until recently cygnar had the only jr warcasters in the game, he has all the same perks except for a feat and can allow for some more warjack fun. The squire absolutely one of the most ridiculous models cygnar has access to. This little r2d2 attachment construct is super cheap, gives a warcaster extra focus, spell rerolls, and extra control area. Once you have the battlebox and these few models you can start building any way you want. Gunmages, stormblades, stormclad, hunter the possibilities are endless. The other benefit cygnar has is the most access to mercs. The reliance on merc units is fondly refered to as mercinar. This often includes nyss hunters, boomhowlers, hammerfall and honorhold dwarves or the tactical arcanist corp. This all due to one single ua the ranking officer jonas murdoc, who makes the merc units actually count as faction models. I only recently picked up the tactical arcanist corp. But I have many merc solos.
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| pNemo and the tactical arcanist corp |
To summarize:
battlebox
b13 or jr and a squire
then what every you want a few jacks and at least 1 infantry
Optional
jonas and mercs.
More warcasters
Specifically I progressed through the Cygnar warcasters like so
pStryker
pCaine
eCaine
eHaley
pNemo
I've won some and lost a lot but I've always had fun doing it. My playstyle is bound to change yet again.
Everyone in TW has had a year full of fun and learning in regards to Warmahordes we've gotten our playtime way down we can now play a 50 point game in a few hours. We've added new models, purchased colossals, picked up second factions, sold those for a different faction, sold those and invested the profit into the original faction, and switched factions all together. It has been an awesome road so far and I can't wait for what 2015 has in store for us. In the end it isn't the game or the time it is the people you are playing with that really matter. When you've been playing games be them board, miniature, RPG, or a combination of those as long as we have together it is hard to not have a good time. I am going to take this moment to wish all of you readers a Happy Holiday season, and wish my fellow writers and contributors a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year. Hopefully we will get a few games in, in the coming weeks if not then at least throw down a few drinks together.
That is all I've dug up at the moment.
I started with the battle box and my second caster was eNemo. Good times with him. I have spent the last year or so building up to having the models to run him at tier 4. Finally there!
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