nerdelemental
09-01-2009, 02:28 PM
It's hard to generalize how a faction plays as there's so much character and abilities built in to every model of the game that I might play Ramos very up front and aggressive while everyone else plays him way back on the table making spiders to slowly chip away at defenses. However, there's some generalizations we might be able to agree upon to help form impressions in your mind about which set of models and/or groups would fit you the most appropriately.
I recently wrote the following to a friend that's got a lot of experience in the Warmachine/Hordes universe, but you'll still follow what I'm talking about:
It's also tempting to make WM/Hordes comparrisons to explain, but the games are so dissimilar that it's very misleading to say "this plays like Khador mixed with Cygnar" but I might do that once or twice because I'm very familiar with that system and know many players are here, too.
Guild: physical damage, healing, buffs. the "jack of all trades" faction (because each Master/sub-group are designed to hunt a different faction and are very like what they hunt)
* Lady Justice and the Deathmarshals: Brutal sword damage, the most straightforward of them. In your face and tear it up. Hunts Resurrectionists. Lady Justice=the Butcher
* Perdita and Ortega family: Hunts neverborn. Very fast and flexible. Focus on ranged attacks. Perdita is the fastest model in the game, high defense, walks through town as bullets graze her hair and she pops caps in the enemy. Perdita=Caine.
* Sonnia Criid and the Witchhunters: hunt Arcanists. Magic users. Sonnia hunts the illegal wizardy-types of Malifaux. She's = to Feora. She even burns stuff up. Big on fiery explosions.
Arcanists: Magic and magical attacks, constructs and elementals.
* Ramos: the clockwork and tricky machine maker. His team are the small arachnid spiders he makes in the heat of battle with the scraps of the machines he sent out and blew up. Ramos = ENemo blended with a strong dose of Darius.
* Rasputina: commands the wintry elements (she's possibly possessed by a Neverborn demon named "December") and builds Ice Golems/demons out of the snow. Powerful magics at a range and can bounce her spells through "ice mirrors" (her Ice golems count as her ice mirrors). She's freezy but not very similar to Sorscha otherwise.
* Marcus: His team is the wilderness creatures and druid-likes. He's neat in that he can beast out by choosing beast characteristics to go faster, hit stronger, hit better, etc. His army plays most like a Circle force, but with more hit and less run.
Neverborn: Speed, deception, using your own stuff against you.
* Pandora: nickel and dimes you to death by causing mental anxiety and willpower checks against everything you wish you could do as she drives you slowly insane. The babies bring nightmares to life and they all make you cut and stab yourself with your own weapons and survive your attacks by dumping the damage onto their "woes" - ghostlike apparitions of their own dark psyches. But they crumble when you finally get 'em.
* Lilith and the Nephelim demons: Most like Legion even in their names! Demons grow as they drink blood of their enemies and they're crazy fast and hit stupid hard. Just like Legion. Simplest of the Neverborn as they just jump in and start slashing. This Lilith=Rhyas (ironically).
* Old Hag: based on Baba Yaga legend. She's about control with voodoo dolls at a distance and can pop around the board and slow you down. She can also take control of one of your things for a turn.
Resurrectionists: decay and reanimation.
* McMourning: makes Frankenstein creatures and undead dogs and can use body parts from the battle to rebuild/heal his own crap.
* Seamus: is the Mad Hatter with his undead hooker pile. They lure you in by showing you their irrisistable undead boobies and then eat you and make your corpse an undead hooker. Hot.
* Nicodem: the standard zombie master. He's big on staying in the back and making wave after wave of wimpy swarms of mindless zombies. Most "magic-y" of them.
Outcasts: oddballs - good at all, master of none. All of them are the most tricky and rules-breakiest of the game.
* Leviticus: He's a machine guy without a soul. He doesn't draw cards, but can inflict wounds on himself to. When he dies he pops up into a "hollow waif" on the field so he might not ever be killable. His crew are machines similar to Ramos' only more swarmy.
* Viktoria "Sisters" and the Mercenaries. These are the mercs that can be hired out to every faction. Together, they hit stupid hard but are all expensive so you'll be outnumbered in most games. but they hit stupid hard.
* Sum'er Teeth Jones: he's the Gremlin guy in charge of the dumb gremlin force with the pigs. They're funny and will either explode all over you and tear you a new asshole or blow themselves up instead. Abilities include: Pull my finger, Deliverance, Didn't Happen (make your pigs fly) and others. The warpig's ranged attack is "thrown rider" where it hurls its Gremlin rider at the opponent.
I recently wrote the following to a friend that's got a lot of experience in the Warmachine/Hordes universe, but you'll still follow what I'm talking about:
It's also tempting to make WM/Hordes comparrisons to explain, but the games are so dissimilar that it's very misleading to say "this plays like Khador mixed with Cygnar" but I might do that once or twice because I'm very familiar with that system and know many players are here, too.
Guild: physical damage, healing, buffs. the "jack of all trades" faction (because each Master/sub-group are designed to hunt a different faction and are very like what they hunt)
* Lady Justice and the Deathmarshals: Brutal sword damage, the most straightforward of them. In your face and tear it up. Hunts Resurrectionists. Lady Justice=the Butcher
* Perdita and Ortega family: Hunts neverborn. Very fast and flexible. Focus on ranged attacks. Perdita is the fastest model in the game, high defense, walks through town as bullets graze her hair and she pops caps in the enemy. Perdita=Caine.
* Sonnia Criid and the Witchhunters: hunt Arcanists. Magic users. Sonnia hunts the illegal wizardy-types of Malifaux. She's = to Feora. She even burns stuff up. Big on fiery explosions.
Arcanists: Magic and magical attacks, constructs and elementals.
* Ramos: the clockwork and tricky machine maker. His team are the small arachnid spiders he makes in the heat of battle with the scraps of the machines he sent out and blew up. Ramos = ENemo blended with a strong dose of Darius.
* Rasputina: commands the wintry elements (she's possibly possessed by a Neverborn demon named "December") and builds Ice Golems/demons out of the snow. Powerful magics at a range and can bounce her spells through "ice mirrors" (her Ice golems count as her ice mirrors). She's freezy but not very similar to Sorscha otherwise.
* Marcus: His team is the wilderness creatures and druid-likes. He's neat in that he can beast out by choosing beast characteristics to go faster, hit stronger, hit better, etc. His army plays most like a Circle force, but with more hit and less run.
Neverborn: Speed, deception, using your own stuff against you.
* Pandora: nickel and dimes you to death by causing mental anxiety and willpower checks against everything you wish you could do as she drives you slowly insane. The babies bring nightmares to life and they all make you cut and stab yourself with your own weapons and survive your attacks by dumping the damage onto their "woes" - ghostlike apparitions of their own dark psyches. But they crumble when you finally get 'em.
* Lilith and the Nephelim demons: Most like Legion even in their names! Demons grow as they drink blood of their enemies and they're crazy fast and hit stupid hard. Just like Legion. Simplest of the Neverborn as they just jump in and start slashing. This Lilith=Rhyas (ironically).
* Old Hag: based on Baba Yaga legend. She's about control with voodoo dolls at a distance and can pop around the board and slow you down. She can also take control of one of your things for a turn.
Resurrectionists: decay and reanimation.
* McMourning: makes Frankenstein creatures and undead dogs and can use body parts from the battle to rebuild/heal his own crap.
* Seamus: is the Mad Hatter with his undead hooker pile. They lure you in by showing you their irrisistable undead boobies and then eat you and make your corpse an undead hooker. Hot.
* Nicodem: the standard zombie master. He's big on staying in the back and making wave after wave of wimpy swarms of mindless zombies. Most "magic-y" of them.
Outcasts: oddballs - good at all, master of none. All of them are the most tricky and rules-breakiest of the game.
* Leviticus: He's a machine guy without a soul. He doesn't draw cards, but can inflict wounds on himself to. When he dies he pops up into a "hollow waif" on the field so he might not ever be killable. His crew are machines similar to Ramos' only more swarmy.
* Viktoria "Sisters" and the Mercenaries. These are the mercs that can be hired out to every faction. Together, they hit stupid hard but are all expensive so you'll be outnumbered in most games. but they hit stupid hard.
* Sum'er Teeth Jones: he's the Gremlin guy in charge of the dumb gremlin force with the pigs. They're funny and will either explode all over you and tear you a new asshole or blow themselves up instead. Abilities include: Pull my finger, Deliverance, Didn't Happen (make your pigs fly) and others. The warpig's ranged attack is "thrown rider" where it hurls its Gremlin rider at the opponent.