Thoughts on Warmahordes!

Warmachine has become a very well known name in the tabletop community. Beginning to get into the commercializing gig as much as GW they are quickly tallying up players to beat down with some magictech/steam powered/voodoo powered armies. Its a pretty crazy fast paced game. Hordes, its younger brother seems even more crazy, and they are both huge fun cause of this craziness...


Ive played more than a handfull of games now, and just started a Retribution of Scyrah army, magitech elves, to go towards the warmachine side while my Circle of Orboros army taps up to just over 50 points with pKaya, eKaya and Laris, and Morvahnna the Autmnblade.

I find the game hugely fun, as big beasties and jacks are nasty but are more akin to a landraider on the table. While tough and can dish out the pain, they arent the focus. I got into Warmachine trying to do a jackless list. Everyone seemed to believe that wasnt possible. You cant not have jacks! Well, after playing a number of games and seeing how wll units can do against jacks I have to ask, why not? Ravyn and a line of Houseguard Rifle men can put a reliable 3-4 wounds to a jack per rifleman, Mage Hunter Strike forces do it even better, when feated these guys can have upwards of 5 dice being rolled per person!

When I say this, the way damage works in warmachine is you add the ranged weapons power(POW), normally 10-12, to what you roll on 2 dice. You can add more dice depending on circumstances. Mage Hunters get an extra when hitting warjacks and casters, Ravyns once per game ability to give everyone an extra dice gives them another. They have POW 10, then add the roll and compare to Jacks armor(normally 19), for every point exceeding the armor, its one more damage. When the averag roll of four dice is 14, your puting 5 points of damage per Mage hunter(squad of 10) to that jack(normally have around 30-40 wounds total) or warcaster(15 wounds).

Ive seen charging units of close combat specialists tear into jacks and warbeasts. With this in mind, how is it people think you HAVE to have jacks? Yes, without the jacks or beasts, the warcasters free points are wasted, this is true.I will prolly run a light jack or 2 with Ravyn, just to take advantage of those free points. But I think I will try a near jackless list and see how it runs.