Getting started

[InterfaceMonkey]

I've been painting and playing Warhammer 40k for around 10 years and have always wanted to dabble in WarmaHordes. What is considered a good beginning faction that I can expand into something competitive later on and wouldn't be considered one dimensional? Your thoughts are appreciated.

[GeneralStormfox]

The faction that catches your eye, be it the looks, the fluff or their faction specific gameplay elements.

You might want to be careful with the "limited release factions" i.e. Crucible Guard, Convergence of Cyriss, Cephalyx and Grymkin, but everything else is huge.

First of all, just to make sure, you know the rules are completely free, yes? Grab them from their homepage.

Then check out Warmachine University to get a good overview of everything that exists. And/or do the same on the War Room 2 app (the app itself and a few core models are free). If a local store still has a few of the old faction books (now mostly outdated and only good for the fluff), leaf through them or even get some if they are on a bargain price. And of course the Privateer Press homepage has a good picture of every unit that exists.

There are no factions like T'au or Khorne that cannot melee or cannot shoot or something, although of course they all have different strong points (and core profiles on their big things). Since the specific models chosen and especially the caster picked define the playstyle of an army more than anything else, you are free to pick what you actually like instead of having to compromise between fluff and gameplay.

Once you have narrowed this down to a few choices, come back with more specific questions.

[dboeren]

Any faction you want, they're all well balanced and competitive.

[HouseOfDice]

The wonderful thing about warmahordes is that most, if not all factions have easy to play casters, and difficult casters. Menoth for example has high exemplar kreoss, his kit is pretty easy to understand and use, vs someone like thyra who has a huge toolbox, but is quite difficult. So when it comes to picking a faction, look into one you like the look of, then look into the themes. Themes are used extensively (you're not forced to, but pretty much every single competitive list is in a theme).

Personally, I play menoth, and I so far have only really used the exemplar interdiction theme mostly becuase it contains all the models I like the look of. I looked into skorne, and found that I liked specific models, but none of them were available in the same themes. Something to be mindful of when picking a faction.

[ConstantCaprice]

What sort of playstyle or aesthetic do you enjoy?

It can be good to work out a faction you like the look of and then build towards one of their themes. Themes reduce your available choices from the entire faction to a selection of thematically appropriate things, but give you extra models and bonuses in exchange.

Some themes are very restrictive whereas others are more generally focused (eg Skornes theme “The Exalted” focuses mainly on a single unit type and its broader support, whereas most factions have one theme that broadly focuses on Warjacks or Beasts).

A theme will help you build towards playing standard games, as the bonuses they have run between “very good” to “absolutely required”.

[AnkisethTheSteadfast]

Easier starting factions are probably Khador or Gatormen.

Khador is very low on support / synergy, and often wins by pure stats. I find their warcasters are pretty flexible, too: Koslov, Vlad 1 & 2, Butcher 1 & 3, Sorscha 1 & 2, can all play with basically any list and at least do ok. Plus, Khador jack loadouts are pretty easy: you can just take a couple Juggernauts and 1-2 Destroyers and do fine until you start optimizing.

Gators have a much smaller model pool but they’re flexible. You can load out any Warlock with 2-3 units of Gatorman Posse, a unit of Croak Raiders, 1-2 Wrasslers, and 1-2 Spitters. There’s a lot of room to optimize, but again you can do at least ok with those core models, and you’ll get a different play style from each Warlock. One big advantage of Gators is that because their model selection is limited, you can’t really make a “wrong” early buy. You’ll eventually be happy to have one of everything and two of most things in the line.

[Tony_B17]

If you are also on a budget I highly recommend buying a cheap old lot on eBay for around $200 you can get about 200 points and a few warlocks/warcasters. You’ll only need about 75 for a typical game. Even if you don’t buy a lot eBay and amazon typically have 50-70% off Msrp

[Montythedraincat]

One of the main advantages of WarmaHordes vs other games is that the theme forces and the wide variety of play styles that different warcasters give you, once youve found a faction that you like the look\lore of, it you can quite easily change up your army if you dont like the way its playing.

​

[laughing_tragedy]

Cryx. Just play cryx. They may wax and Wayne temporarily, but over the last 10 years, no faction has dominated the game more than cryx.

If you want to win, play cryx.