It occured to me that I've never seen any internet hype for these games. Given they're table top games but they're the best darn tabletop games I've ever seen. Thinking about it today made me wonder how widely known they are. As they were developed in my living area has always made me wonder if that has any influence on the player base or not.

Warmachine and Hordes are defeloped by Privateer Press and are two interplayable war simulators you play with minatures and dice. Don't let "mini" and "dice" throw you off how cool they are. I can guarantee that they're the awsomest games I've ever seen. So far Warmachine has 3 rule books and Hordes will have their second one this month and already they're more immersed in story, strategy and adrenaline pumping war than any of Blizzard's games.

I wish I had some people to play it with around here that had my schedule but was wondering if anyone else out there have even heard of it. You can probably see some of their books or magazines in stores on the shelf or have walked into a gaming store and see people play it. But I'm sure if you open one and look one of the many aspects will engage you. There's four factions each for the two games so that's 8 different play styles for two different game mechanics. Something there I'm sure has to grab you.

the last time I was in the local gaming store for a magic the gathering launch tourny I saw some of the rules books and miniatures there. my friend mikey says it's essentially a slimmed down warhammer with much cheaper figures, any truth to that statement? I just haven't seen anyone actually playing it so I have no idea what it's system is like.

I don't know the exact differences on the costs but there are a few differences between Warhammer and Warmachine in that sense. Warmachine can be played at more varying levels with varying degrees of product. With Warmachine you can buy a set amount of figures and have it playable for a long time with a minimum of tweaking. The only difference with Warhammer in that sense is they change the rules of their game constantly. That means you have to keep buying new rulebooks to keep up to date. Warmachine comes out with new content but they don't replace any of their old product so it'll always be just as viable to play.

If you can find someone called a Press Ganger they're really useful and can give a broken down explination of the game really well. And I'm sure they'll even let you play their figures to give you demo games. I only get to play Warmachine every once and a while but I haven't found any disagreeable or rude players so it should be easy to learn about the game.

Warmachine and Hordes are based a lot around a system of focus or fury which you use to make effects in the game. Your armies are generally based around a super hero type character from your faction who are abnormally magically inclined called a warcaster or warlock. They can use these systems of focus or fury to command groups of specialized units in war called Warjacks or Warbeasts, respectively. Warjacks are giant steam powered (giant as in ~10") robots with magical brains which the warcasters can use fucus to command them to fight to greater effectiveness. Or if you're playing a Warlock from hordes you use fury which you use to command giant beasts into battle whose system works slightly different. In general your guys can use focus or fury to cast spells but warbeasts can also use fury for special abilities or just to better combat effectiveness normally.

Your army always consists of a warcaster or warlock (or multiple) and according to those you add in your warjacks or warbeasts and to suppliment your army you can add in infantry. Infantry come in a wide variety of choices. You can have groups of troops who have huge skill sets depending on which ones you want to bring and from what faction. You can get a lot of different infantry including calvary, weapon crews and even unit / weapon attatchments to give your units added effectiveness or utility. Then you also have solos who are like a single warrior from an infantry unit who is generally a little more combat effective and has a lot of abilities in combat. You can even use mercenaries in your army who add in tons of variety to what you want to fight with.

The game is all based on the same rules and has very seamless play. That's not to say weird rules questions come up or other weird things because as games expand there are always things to bring into question. But your first time charging your 9 ton warjack at your opponent's warcaster or using a throw power attack to throw one of your opponent's warjacks into his own warcaster you'll never forget.

Also, if you're into them, Privateer Press has other games to play as well. Using the same setting they also have a pen and paper game called Iron Kingdoms and a new non collectible card game called Infernal Contraption. They're also coming out with a new miniatures game seperate from their current product line. It's going to be based around sort of Godzilla type stuff of giant monsters fighting it out in cities. They've only released the press release on it so far but it looks very interesting, also.

Ooh! Ooh! I'm a War Machine/Hordes player! :)

I've recently got into it (re: a few months ago) and I've quickly become immersed in it. My interest actually started with the role-playing game Iron Kingdoms because it looked like such a unique setting. Then my brother met someone online who played it and he got into it and so I started into it to give him someone to play with. Since then, we have found a store where we can play with several other players and we've just finished our first League session.

Anyways, I'm primarily a Hordes player and my brother started with War Machine and we both have sorta sizeable armies put together. I've been building models for many years and so I typically do the assembling and painting of the models. (Will have to try to take some pictures and post them).

Although it is oversimplifying things, the four War Machine 'factions' have a lot of similar equipment. They all use different forms of what are called Warjacks, several-ton, ten-foot-tall, steam-driven mechanika that are magically controlled by battle mages called warcasters. But each faction has a different flavor. There's Cygnar which is kind of the vanilla-flavored British/American/Western European force that has developed a lot of gunpowder and ranged weapons as well as a electrical-arcane power. Khador is quite simply Soviet Russia thrown into a steampunk setting. :P They have lots of manpower, heavy equipment and are very aggressive. Menoth is a kind of blend between Spanish/Moorish/Middle Eastern flavor, being very religious and arguably fanatical. Cryx is the most fantastical, being basically undead forces ruled by a dragon that use 'death energy' to power their machines. You can think of them as being 'Dragon Zombie Pirates'.

Now, since I'm a Hordes player, I can talk about the different factions better. And actually, I kind of prefer Hordes because the different factions are a bit more distinct. The main difference between the two is that in Hordes, instead of using machinery, you are using large animals (warbeasts). There is the Circle faction, which is a collection of wilderness druids who use a lot of 'natural' beasts like wolves and satyrs as well as constructs made out of stone and wood. There's the Trollbloods which mainly use a lot of beefy trolls and their smaller, more intelligent 'trollkin' cousins. Then there's the Legion of Everblight which are a bunch of 'blighted' creatures created by a dragon. If Cryx is Dragon Zombie Pirates, the Legion is Dragon Ninja Zombies. And then there's the Skorne who are invaders from the east who have a very Japanese flavor that's mixed with a bit of Imperial Rome.

A lot of people who talk about War Machine and Hordes often discuss the reasons why they picked their specific faction and most often people say that they made their choice based on the flavor or the artwork or the story of their faction as opposed to the actual game mechanics and interactions of the rules, which I find to be interesting. :)

Awesome, so there are other warmachine players out there! What hordes faction do you play? I try to dabble in Cygnar and the Circle of Orboros. I can't really figure out how to play either faction but Cygnar is my favorite faction out of warmachine. As for the Circle they solve the problem of having to decide between druids or assassins. Thats how I solve my problems: I teleport in front of your face and smash it in! :D

The fact that I'm not very good doesn't give me very many problems since most of the time I can at least do something against my opponent. Except against the Legion of Everblight. They just come in and tear my army apart and I just sit there feeling a little stupid.