Faction Decisions

I have still been going back and forth about faction options - I posted my thoughts after reading the descriptions earlier, but I find myself more and more attracted to the Menoth models and love the parts of the backstory I have read. I may find myself going that direction just because of the models and story (which is not a bad reason).

I have been trying to squeeze in a Vassal game - but I am upfront and honest in wanting just a battle box game (since those are the cards and rules I have access to). Haven't found one yet, but am going to be heading to my local gaming store to hopefully getting in a demo game this upcoming week, before making any kind of final decision about it.

So far my purchase list will be:
1) Warmachine Prime MkII (I wish Barnes and Noble had this - I have a gift card with nothing much to buy there since I am using the library so much lately)
2) Whichever faction Battle Box I end up going with
3) Privateer Press Faction Paint set

The painting is the most intimidating part of this to me (I have absolutely zero artistic ability - again, I am an attorney for a reason) and I am still looking for solid introduction to miniature techniques. This seems pretty good and warseer has a huge collection of links, but I really feel like I won't realize what I don't know until I get some paints/minis in my hand to make an attempt with. When that happens, many laughs will ensue from what I am sure will be some ugly paint jobs.

More Discoveries

While poking around the intertubes I have made a few more interesting discoveries. The first is the Iron Agenda Blogging Network which has a great collection of blogs of all different types related to the Iron Kingdom (Privateer Press' world for Warmachine and Hordes) and Miniatures. I'm really hoping to find some painting tutorials if/when I actually get miniatures in hand.

The second dicovery was BarterTown a forum/site designed for miniature trading and purchasing/selling. Hoping I can pick up a battlebox/starting minis at some kind of discount from there. One of the attractions of Privateer Press is that they have a lower 'initial investment' cost when compared to Games Workshop. Even though they are cheaper - I buy most everything used, I don't know why this would be different.

My final discovery was that there is a Vassal module for Warmachine-Hordes. I have played a couple of boardgames on Vassal before, and would love to try out WM/H via Vassal (since I haven't made it down to my game store to try out a live game). The community playing seems to be small, though, and how friendly it would be to someone with no clue, is yet to be determined.

Hopefully I can get down to the local gaming store and get a demo in, but if not Vassal may be a good stand in.

Which game, which faction?

So in preparation for this, I do the same thing I do for any purchase – research the crap out of it. First decisions, which faction to play and, for that matter, Warmachine or Hordes.

My boardgaming days involve a lot of German games which tend away from randomness and dice rolls. They are a whole lot of strategy and a little bit of randomness (or RNG for those who are WoW-inclined). Given my background (German games and WoW-type RPGs) I figure Warmachine will be a great fit – there is randomness to it (you still roll dice), but you can control the randomness by increasing your hit chance or increasing your damage.

Starting my reading, I found this post on Bell of Lost Souls (which seems to be a VERY well done miniatures blog) which does a good job of outlining the ‘feel’ of what the game will play like if you are like me and have never played a game. With that background, I can’t decide whether to go with a Hordes or a Warmachine faction as my introduction to the game. BoLS has another post outlining Hordes and they sum up the difference between Warmachine and Hordes as resource management versus risk management, respectively.

Though the idea of “risk management” appeals to me more than resource management (and the playstyle of Hordes sounds like it might be more fluid than that of Warmachine), I will likely start with a Warmachine faction just because the MKII rulebook is already out and all the cards have been updated. Important to note my recent discovery – Warmachine and Hordes factions can be played against one another. But what faction…

Warseer (a heavily visited miniatures forum, from what I can see) had a good thread on the factions here (it gives an intro to the game as well, but it wasn’t as good as the BoLS post).

They describe the faction split as follows:

Cygnar:
Focus: Ranged. Cygnar has some of the best ranged weapons in the game. Warcasters like Kara Sloan can blow away enemies before they get there and Long Gunner Infantry is powerful. But on top of that they have powerful electrical swords and powerful warjacks.

Khador:
Focus: Hitting stuff. Khador is good at beating the heck out of the enemy. They have some of the best weapons in close combat and have very high armor on their warjacks. They have no light jacks, but who needs a light jack when your heavy jacks are that beastly? If a bit slow.

Menoth:
Focus: Menoth is an army with strong close combat ability and some of the best infantry in the game. Examplars cover a strong variety of unit types with the big heavy and tough bastions to the highly flexible Errants with ranged weapons and good fighting power. They have a lot of defensive buffs and abilities to protect them from enemy magic. Menoth has some decent ranged options with crossbows and explosives and sprays.

Cyrx:
Focus: Cyrx is fast, hard hitting faction that doesn’t like it when they get beat on. They have powerful magic, sprays (think flamers, only Cryx uses a lot of acid!) and debuffs. They use a lot of “Dirty tricks” to get in and kill you, exploiting your weaknesses. They have a necromantic feel to them as some casters can bring back dead models and can make some models become ghosts.

Retribution of Scyrah:
Focus: The Retribution is a fast faction with even their heavy warjacks being as fast as many factions lights like Cryx. The difference is that Retribution can take a hit better but don’t have things to avoid conflict or exploit their enemies. But their warjacks are highly flexible with both ranged and melee weapons on the heavy warjacks. Their infantry is a combination of sneaky assassins and professional soldiers which work together to kill the enemy. Our Infantry can stand with the best and each fill a role. Halberdiers are a cheap tarpit, Sentinals can thrash the biggest and baddest of warjacks on the charge and mage hunters will pick off things from the shadows. Lore wise, they are called Iosans, in case you see a reference.

The faction descriptions have given me a lot to chew on and I’m trying not to decide on a faction based solely on the models (which is only made easy by knowing how crappy my painted models will look in comparison to what I see on the web) and am trying to see which gameplay style will fit me best. The two leading gamestyles are Cryx and Cygnar (if these descriptions are accurate) as I love sitting back and sniping enemies and/or fighting dirty, but the flexibility of Scyrah seems like it could fit me well and I love the models.

The Beginning

So I hope that this blog will follow the start of my miniatures endeavors. I am your typical geek – fantasy novels, video games, and a love of all things Tolkien. But I have never played a miniatures game. I have played wargames and am an avid German board-gamer (if you are unfamiliar, check out San Juan or Settlers of Catan – Caylus if you love strategy), I have never taken the plunge into miniatures mainly because of the prohibitive entry cost to Warhammer. I didn’t know there was anything besides Warhammer. Having discovered the Warmachine-Hordes Privateer Press games…I think this might be dangerous.

I have never painted or put together a miniature, I have never used a ruler to move a piece, and I don’t know the rules. I am going to be making decisions about which faction(s) I want to play and am going to be talking about the decision making process and anything I learn on this blog.

Hopefully.

I have never had a blog before besides keeping family in touch so I hope I keep this up.