Warmachine vs Warhammer 40,000 - A Comparison

I have been playing tabletop war games for years. I painted my first model at a library event back home when I was 12 years old. It was an Ork archer from Warhammer Fantasy. I then ended up playing GW's Lord of the Rings tabletop game for a year or two with some friends on our dining room table. Then I discovered 40K, which in my mind was superior to LOTR in every possible way. I jumped into that, quickly building up 3 armies in about 4 years. I sold one of them, and added two more in the next few years. then I dabbled in Fantasy in 7th and 8th editions, but it never really took. Last year I tried out Warmachine after getting a free starter set in my Adepticon swag bag (great move by PP there!), and have been playing that more and more in the last few months.

Why mention all of that? I have dabbled in several tabletop games (and dozens of board games) over the past few years. I'm a gamer at heart, and will play anything at least once. But once you've played several games of a similar nature, some of them will tend to capture more of your attention. why is that? what makes one game better (in one player's mind) than another? I'm sure every player has their own reasons, but I thought I would share my own reasons with players who may be debating starting a new game.

The two games I have played most extensively have been 40K and Warmachine. I find Fantasy to be incredibly dull (sorry to the fantasy guys... that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it), and LOTR is just no contest when compared to the other systems. So today I would like to go through what I find to be the pros and cons of these two systems. this will be more helpful if you are playing one of the two systems and are thinking about dabbling in the other. Hopefully, even if you're not looking at expanding to a new game, this article will help you to think about your own pros and cons for your games, and how best to explain differences in systems to new players.

Who Would Win - final round!

Today we are finally at the end of the Who Would Win contest. units from every army in Warmachine and Hordes battled it out in simulated battles to see which unit would be crowned the Best Melee unit in the game. we've narrowed it down to two finalists, one from each system. on the warmachine side, we have the Searforge Commission's Forge Guard. on the Hordes side, it's the Gatorman Posse from the Blindwater Congregation.

Today's match will be a little bit different. to get a more accurate final result for the final round, we'll be doing best 2 out of 3. Wouldn't want the entire game decided by one bad dice roll!

With that in mind, let's kick it off with round 1

Who would win - warmachine championship

Sorry for the long delay in posting to the blog. I was out of town all of last week, and didn't have time to post anything while I was out. this week, I'm back in full swing, starting out today with the final round on the Warmachine side of the game. two Warmachine factions have beat every opponent that has come their way, fighting for the title of the best melee unit in Warmachine, and a chance to fight the Gatorman Posse for the title of the best melee unit in Warmahordes.

This time we have the Forgeguard from the Searforge comm. fighting the Flameguard of the Protectorate of Menoth. both units boast very good defensive stats. the Flameguard have set defense, shield wall and terror. the forge guard have a higher natural ARM stat and defensive line, giving them one more point of ARM, even on turns when they charge or run. on the offensive side, the Flameguard have cont. fire on all of their spear attacks, along with CMA and reach. the Forge guard have reach, weapon master, and crit smite.

Looking at this match-up, I would give the advantage to the dwarves. weapon master will be a huge help against the high armor of the Flameguard, while the Flameguard have fewer options for dealing with ARM 18 forge guard. the Flameguard definitely have a chance of pulling out a win, but my bets are on the Forgeguard.

Petition to Fix Shield Guard

Before I begin this blog post, I want to say that I really love the way Privateer Press has gone about dealing with rules issues. Coming from years of playing nothing but Warhammer 40K, it's a breath of fresh air to play a game from a company who not only writes a tighter rule set, but has a plan in place for dealing with the inevitable rules issues that come up when you play a game as complex as Warmachine. In fact, if this was a GW game, there would be no point in writing this article, because nothing would ever be done by the game company.

In this article, I am going to be writing about something that has been bothering me for the last several weeks. There was a ruling made on the PP forums several months ago that I have only recently found out about. The discussion and infernal ruling can be found here: (LINK). The issue being discussed is whether a model with the shield guard rule can intercept a shot when it is not in LOS of the attacker. the thread basically boiled down to the fact that there is a "tactical tip" on several models with shield guard saying "Shield Guard - If this model cannot become the target of the attack for some reason, it cannot use this ability."

is it time to toss the Brute?

This one statement has caused quite a few questions and references back to the infernal ruling in the link above. The problem is, it seriously harms the Shield guard rule. in my opinion, this is beyond a nerf to an over-the-top ability. I believe the ruling was meant to clear up one issue without fully examining other situations that might be affected. This has led to a "trick" that a canny player can use to completely eliminate shield guard as a usable ability. Only players who happen to see the infernal ruling will know to use it, and will have an advantage over anyone who happens to bring a shield guard model.

In this article I will be examining the rules in question, along with other similar rules. I will explain and demonstrate the "trick" that has shown up in our gaming circle, and will show why this trick needs to be dealt with. I am doing this to try to convince someone at PP to errata the shield guard rule ASAP. If you're interested in this argument, read on

Who Would Win - Hordes Semi-Final

Today we have the first Semi final game of the competition. the winner of this match wins the title of the best melee unit on the hordes side of the game. Through many rounds of combat, two units have made it this far. the Skorne Praetorian Swordsmen and the Gatorman Posse. As much as it pains me to admit, the Gators have a huge advantage in this match. Praetorians are designed to take out swarms of single-wound infantry with their 2 attacks and mini-feat. they don't do so well against 8-wound, arm 18 monsters. with a charge and combo-strikes they might stand a chance, but without the charge there is not much they can do.

First turn roll-off

the Gators have the advantage in this roll, with reach and pathfinder (using one of their prayers for pathfinder). the gators roll a 3. Skorne rolls a 2. Gators get the charge.

Turn 1

the gators move into combat. with reach, each one is able to reach 2 swordsmen, leaving the officer and standard unengaged. with their high MAT, they only need 6s to hit, and pow 13 will kill a swordsman every time they connect with a blow.

the Gators go down the line, rolling very well. the first 4 gators kill off two swordsmen each. finally the last gator misses with one of his attacks. after all is said and done, the swordsmen are left with only one grunt and the UA/banner. they easily pass their cmd check, but it isn't looking good

The swordsmen try to fight back, each choosing to use a combo strike to do as much as possible. the grunt misses his attack. so much for that chance. the officer hits and rolls an 11 on damage! but, with arm 18, that still only does 5 boxes of damage and doesn't remove any gators.

Turn 2

the Gators choose to pray for re-rolls. The swordsmen grunt and Officer each have 2 gators facing them, and the banner has 1. the first gator kills the grunt easily. the second one hits with his first attack but only causes 1 damage. his second attack misses. but his prayer provides a reroll and allows him to hit, and then do 8 damage, removing the officer. the banner goes down to one re-rolled attack.

Victory goes to the Gatormen!

There's a reason so many Skorne players use the Gatorman Posse in their armies. I refuse to because of the way the models look, but you can't deny the hitting power of one of those units! The gators have proven that they are the best melee unit in Hordes. this is quite possible realistic, as many players on the PP forum claim the same thing.

Now the real question remains... are the Gators the best unit in the game, or will they be runner-up to either the Forge guard or temple flameguard?

Crack the WIP 3/5/12

So I got real busy last week and never got around to posting a hobby update. And then I went out of town this last weekend to see family up in PA (definitely a change in scenery from Central Texas...). So my hobby time has been somewhat limited lately. I have, however been working on getting my models ready for Adepticon. So far I'm right on track, and should be done in time. assuming I don't go and buy more models and add them in at the last minute. Not that I would ever do that..

Wait. He can charge how far?

so let's take a look at what I've been working on lately:

My Battlefoam Experience

my new bag, complete with journeyman league patches

I finally did it. I finally broke down and bought myself a brand new Battlefoam bag. There are a few guys in our gaming club who say all kinds of nice things about Battlefoam, but I never decided that I needed one. Part of me felt like they were saying good things about Battlefoam because they had to (the guys in our local gaming club happen to run Bell Of Lost Souls. Sponsored by Battlefoam. And Wargamescon. also sponsored by battlefoam). But soon, almost every "serious" player in the club was toting these things around and talking about how much they loved them.

Well, about 6 months ago or so, I finally got my wife into wargaming (hmm. maybe I should do an article about that sometime... maybe after Adepticon). She now has a decently sized Circle Orboros army. for a while, she just carried her stuff in a single foam sheet from my Sabol bag (rather, one sheet from my excessively large collection of foam sheets that go in my standard-sized army transport). then she needed a second sheet, and several Space wolf rhinos got displaced from their foam. when we started making 50 point lists for her army, it was clear she would need a better way of moving her models.

Turns out, she was more than happy to take my Sabol Army Transport if it meant she would have a good way of transporting her stuff (especially when we fly to Chicago in April!). When I finally sold my old Xbox, I ran out of reasons not to buy myself a new bag. Now, about a month later, I just received my Battlefoam GO pack in the mail. So here are my first thoughts on this new bag.