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.