For anyone who reads this blog with any regularity you know that while I have spent a great deal of time writing about board games, miniature games and role-playing games, at the end of the day, I’m a theme guy and I tend to want to play games (whatever they are) with a deep rich theme. I don’t think that makes me unique, in fact, more and more games these days are a departure from the straight “great game mechanics” to the world of “great story games” side of the theme scale. Simply put, people want story in their games and so do I.

When I did my Runewars: The Miniature Game first impression article a while back, the one place where I strongly felt the game let me down was in the theme and story setting of the game. I can summarize the theme/setting and story of Runewars as lackluster, predictable and generic. Without question one of the primary factors as to why my group lost interest in the game almost immediately, for me personally there were other issues, but this definitely didn’t help.

That said my more recent foray into Battletech was driven strictly on the basis that I loved the setting and theme of the game, thinking that I had outsmarted myself I dove head first. As it turned out I was as impressed by the story as disappointed in the games mechanics. The game floundered for me very quickly, despite this amazing setting which brings me to my point.

It’s easy to conclude from those two experiences that at the end of the day, in order for a good miniature game to be successful and attractive to me, it must have the best of both worlds, great story, great mechanic.

In comes Warmachine and Horde by Privateer Press. The promise of a game that has an imaginative and deeply detailed setting while simultaneously rumored to have a robust and high level tactical game mechanic. A friend and I couldn’t resist, we picked up a couple of starter sets, painted up some miniatures and played our first few games. This article is all about my first impressions of the Warmachine -Horde by Privateer Press.

The Trollbloods Rule

I think the first most notable impression the game made on me was that I instantly fell in love with one of the factions, which I think is really key for me (and I assume anyone) to make an attachment to a game that helps to identify the you behind the miniatures you will be spending hours lovingly painting and pushing around. The story of the Trollbloods, the mechanics of how they approached the battlefield, the amazing miniatures. It all just clicked for me instantly at least just based on what I saw and and initially read prior to even having painted any miniatures or played any games. I spent all of 2 minutes browsing the Privateer Press catalog before I zeroed in on them, they would be mine and I knew immediately.

I think the most unique aspect of Warmachine and Horde is how each army is very distinctively visually different, reminiscent of Warhammer 40k. This is not in itself unique to miniature games, but what really attracted me was the attention to the detail of each individual unit. Inherently in many miniature games, once you choose your army, many of the miniatures are themed so closely together that the units kind of blend into one another unless you really know your own faction well. It wasn’t just about an army theme, but really about how each character and unit in the game had its own very distinct personality matched up with its own core advantages and mechanics to boot. I guess what I’m saying is that the factions have a lot of personality.

Now with the box set you don’t get much in the way of choice/selection, its just enough for a zero point game but because each unit (each model) is a distinct member of a team as well with his own abilities, powers and weapons, their is an association to the game that you get with it that you might not with say an army of indistinct Stormtroopers in Legion or the piles of Skeletons you get in Runewars. They aren’t just models, they aren’t just units, they are individuals that are part of a core strategy for the faction, or optional tactics that synergize not only with the units that come with your box set but potentially with any other very distinct unit in your faction. They are also distinctly unique miniatures you paint, so when you paint a Troll Bouncer, your going to paint that miniature one time rather than painting 20 exact copies of him. This makes the whole experience a lot more approachable from a hobby stand point rather than what you get with most miniature game, that tedious task of getting your army painted by painting the same skeleton model over and over again.

This idea of distinct units was really attractive to me, both because you ultimately didn’t have to assemble and paint Legions of exactly the same units that form squads, instead being able to lovingly paint these individuals, but also because it pushed you towards researching the game on a much deeper level right away. Synergies in the game don’t just come from combos, but rather from concepts, so you were theorizing and imagining the fights as well as the many options long before you get them to the table. It was in a way an experience closer to opening a booster pack of CCG cards, where even without playing you could see how the combos and synergies might unfold.

For example The Bouncer Warbeast in the Trollbloods has an ability that allows him to take the damage another unit would receive from a ranged attack. He is a kind of protector with a high Armor value allowing him to soak a lot of damage. This synergy can combo in a lot of different ways, but conceptually this unit is also incredibly tough, so you could ignore that ability and instead send him to the front lines where he could hold that line. Or you could make use of his Animus and simply make him a sort of spell battery as his Animus called Earth Blessing prevents a number of effects like being knocked down for example, which you might simply want for your Warlock to siphon so that he can avoid being easily assassinated through shutdown effects. Or you might use that ability to prevent terrible things from happening to more important units in your protection radius.

This might not all make sense to you if you don’t know the rules of the game, but the point I’m trying to make here is that this single unit has many different potential uses and that’s just one unit in your army (a single model). This model alone will change your approach, your style of play and how you manage your resources, as well as open up different tactics for you in response to your opponents actions. I love that a single unit can have this much impact on your game and open the door to so much theorycrafting, it’s wonderful to see how much diversity and mileage you get out of your models.

Now the drawback to this is of course complexity. With each unit having several abilities, effects and potential uses, even with only 4 units at the table (A Warlock and 3 Light Warbeasts in my case) in our first game, the experience was rather overwhelming. I’m sure it gets easier over time but with the average cost of a unit being around 6-15 points and a battlegroup with a value of ZERO points consists of a Warlock and 3 Light Warbeast you can imagine how high the complexity can become if you play a standard 75 point game. A game at 75 points might have anywhere from 10-20 unique units, each with several unique abilities to keep track of. It’s a bit daunting to even imagine how complicated the game can become, which comes with all sorts of interrelated benefits and drawbacks. Intimidating to be sure, but the flexibility and sheer options are outstanding in particular if you consider that there are 14 factions in the game each with several dozen unique units to choose from. The combinations are near infinite.

The point I guess is that this is a very heavy game, a true miniature war game unabashed by claiming the “for veterans” branding it definitely deserves. Now it doesn’t market itself that way, but it surely is. I have played many miniature games in my day and this one certainly ranks up their in the complexity of strategy, tactics and rules. Which brings us to the next impression and topic.

The Complexity of the Core Rules

When it comes to miniature games, most of them rank pretty high in the complexity of rules, at least when compared to other types of tabletop games. So when I say the game is pretty complex, it’s a comparison to other miniature games. For me personally as a gaming veteran this is not a drawback, I like a robust ruleset, it’s only a drawback if the rules are unclear or lead to irreconcilable situations (aka, rules that don’t cover the majority of potential situation that could come up) and if you actually try to achieve that, you won’t be able to create a game without a heavy ruleset. So to me, a heavy ruleset in a miniature game simply means that the publisher of the game took the time to be super clear about what the rules really are. It’s far worse to have a simple rule set that leaves you hanging at the table all the time without an explanation, then a 300 page rulebook that covers everything.

The question than becomes, how practical is the ruleset. Having a clear, concise and deliberate rulebook is great, but are the rules easy to remember. Will you be able to keep it all in your head as you apply the rules to list building and table tactics?

I definitely don’t think Warmachine/Horde is for the weak of heart or the amature miniature gamer, lets just at least say that. This is not a introduction to the hobby game, this is a graduation gift for the seasoned veteran. Is that a bad thing? I suppose it depends on how you evaluate games. For me personally, if a game endeavours to be a long game for example, you don’t give it negative marks for being long (see Twilight Imperium the board game as an example). You can’t say “this game sucks because their is too much luck involved” when rating Yahtzee, a game about rolling dice and hoping you get lucky.

It’s the same with Warmachine/Horde, it’s a deeply tactical, heavy ruleset that endeavours to challenge seasoned miniature gamers. With that acknowledgement and goal, Warmachine/Horde rules in my book are excellent.

The clarity, efficiency and organization of the rulebook is bloody pitch perfect, this is not a game where you will run into a situation and not find in the book how to resolve it. You might not be able to remember every detail of the rules (which is an issue, more on that later) or you might get the rules wrong at the table (highly likely at the beginning). Suffice to say, rules referencing is something you will do with regularity until you reach an expert level of familiarity I would imagine, but unlike many miniature games, you won’t find yourself trying to interpret how to resolve a situation based on vague rules. It should be noted that when I watch battle reports online, after having become more familiar with the games over several readings of the book and a few plays under my belt I would say 90% of the people I have watched play, even the experts, are doing a stuff wrong quite regularly. This at least illustrates the complexity of the game, a lot of attention to detail is required to get it right.

Now the miniature game hobby is called a hobby because as much fun as the game is to play, much of the activity of a miniature player revolves around the preparation to play, which brings us to the next topic.

List Building and Miniatures

When it comes to Warmachine, List building is a thing, but less so in the modern sense that we see in a lot of games today. While certainly every miniatures statistics, special powers and unique application is something you will consider, from what I have seen so far in the game it appears any unit and pretty much any combination of units is viable. There are very few distinctly bad units or what is more common, outdated units. Match “fairness” will certainly vary depending on how two opposing lists match up, circumstances of the scenario, player skill etc.. which we definitely witnessed in the games we had, but individually when you assess any given unit you can clearly see a use for it in the game and in a potential army list. You might argue with your friends about how good a unit is or isn’t, I imagine units always appear stronger when facing them rather then using them but I found very few units that I looked at and went “Ok these guys suck balls, I would never use them”. Every unit has that “ah ok, I see what I can do with him” kind of feeling which really strengthens the games overall presence in our group as we very often find many of the miniature games to have some, often many units that we look and disregard as “unusable shit”.

The design of the game is such that you can really pick units based on aesthetics to create your army and come up with a reasonbly viable force. That is not to say that synergy is not important, it is, (probably more important in competitive play) but warmachine/Horde seems to be more the type of game that it’s virtually impossible to conceive it as a whole. What I mean is like some of the larger games like Warhammer 40k and unlike games like X-Wing and Armada for example, in Warmachine there are so many factions, so many unique units and so many possible combination that trying to establish a list that is “ready for anything” is a monumental task that I think would take some pretty serious experience. Warmachine is definitely one of those games that you could potentially play for years and never face certain factions and the bulk of the units that are available.

Unless you have some clear idea about what you might be facing, your list building is largely focused on your own army strategy rather than a response strategy. There are just too damn many units to do it any other way. There are of course some staple units in certain army (looking at you Dire Troll) but beyond that there is no telling what a player might or might not throw into an army you will face.

More than that though, most units stand on their own two feet. Add a Troll Bouncer to your army and any other choices you make are largely irrelevant, his abilities and synergy is universal and will be useful regardless of what else is in the army and your opponents army. Tactics will determine how you will use him and this will change from game to game, but he will be useful regardless. What that boils down to is that you can go into the product catalogue for your faction, pick a model you will enjoy painting and seeing on the table and you are certain to find a use for him in whatever army you currently have. In a sense the pressure is a bit lessened on focusing on purchasing and acquiring units based on abilities.

This approach to me is a lot more fun, at least as compared to some of the more modern games I have tried. For example in Runewars when I was running my Skeleton army, I knew I absolutely had to have 1 or 2 Skeleton Archer formations in every army list I built, it was just mandatory as a key synergy to the faction was practically based entirely on this unit. Grant it Warmachine has 10+ years on Runewars and so that may one day change for it, but suffice to say I love the idea of picking models on aesthetics and not having to worry too much about whether they would be a good addition to my army mechanically or not. Barring a couple of redundant units here and there, from what I can see, any unit is viable and has a place in your collection and while synergizing with other units, can be seen an independent addition thanks to all units having these multirole layouts.

Now it’s fair to say that this is just perception at this stage in my experience with the game, I could be completely wrong here. It will take a great many games to really get down to the nitty gritty of this game.

Rules Lawyering Is A Must

This is a game with a pretty robust ruleset and while I tip my hat to the clarity of the rulebook, in practice at the table you must apply these rules correctly and in Warmachine like most miniature games this is absolutely vital to maintain the intended balance of the game.

I played my first three games and lost miserably resulting in a bit frustration. I felt that with the Trollbloods battlegroup of 3 light warbeasts I just I had no chance against the Cygnar forces who had 2 light and a 1 heavy. I wasn’t just getting beaten, in one of our games I was crushed by round 2 with zero chance of making a comeback.

Then I came home and read up the rules and boom, realized that I had forgotten a couple of things, one rule in particular I was completely ignoring, a rule that would have turned that 2nd round crushing defeat into a potential victory.

This is where I think a game like Warmachine and many other complex miniature games have an inherent flaw, in that, the rules must be followed 100% and you really have to remember all the little intricacies of what your army can do, what individual units can do and what the exceptions to the rules and sub-rules are to the letter or you can end up coming up very short, in particular if your opponent is tapping into all of these resources. As such, if you are like me and have trouble remembering a lot of rules, abilities and special circumstantial possibilities in the moment, you can find yourself losing a lot of games that can be summarized in “I should have or could have” talk at the end of the match.

For example in my case I forgot that I could heal my units with Fury from my Warlock to remove the disabled effects of having all of your damage boxes in a single zone marked. You may be reading this and not fully grasping the impact here but let me tell you that this is HUGE. It’s the difference between night and day and this one very simple option/rule you have can make the difference between losing horribly and winning overwhelmingly. As such being a stickler for the rules is absolutely vital to maintain the integrity and balance of the game.

That said and simply put I don’t want nor enjoy being a rules lawyer to my opponent in general, I’m a social player, I want to get together with a friend, roll some dice, drink a beer and relax but I also don’t want to play a grossly unbalanced game that frustrate me. I want the rules to be simple enough that we don’t need to read the exact wording of every card, rule, sub-rule and indexed FAQ clarification to have a good balanced game, but in complex games that just isn’t a thing. You really need to know this stuff, which means the learning curve for Warmachine/Horde is pretty considerable. In fact, in my perspective this is one of the most complex miniature games I have ever played to date.

In short, forget a simple thing and it could cost you the whole game. In a game this complex, that is a very harsh reality and simply speaks to the fact that this game is exclusively for hardened veterans of the miniature game genre and rules lawyering is a necessity to ensure the integrity of the game.

Balance of The Battle Boxes

For anyone doing research on the game this may be a repeated opinion and information as it is one of the most common complaints about introductions to the game of Warmachine and Horde but I believe and fully agree with the internet consensus that the battle boxes are not particularly well balanced against each other. In fact, I would argue further and say that virtually no effort was made at all to create balanced starter sets. It’s not a commentary on the balance of the game, I certainly am in no position to speak on that in this article, but you don’t have to be an expert in the game to note the pretty staggering flaws in the match ups of these starter sets.

I’m not going to waste text here describing the issues, you can pretty much google every discussion on battle boxes anywhere on the internet and find the complaints. Suffice to say the balance of the boxes is a problem and I had the unfortunate luck of playing the Trollbloods which are at the top of the list as being considered one of the worst by a wide margin. In fact as I researched strategies and tactics to be deployed hoping to get some information from experts who know the game well and I found a grand total of ZERO information on the topic with one exception. This Article Here which was quite literally the only good advice on how to potentially succeed with the Trollblood starter box. The rest basically suggested that you not participate in zero point matches at all which I found very disappointing.

Now that is very disappointing and frustrating, playing a game you always lose is not fun and might even deflate your interest in the whole endeavour. However it’s worth pointing out two core things about the battle boxes and miniature games in general.

Generally games miniature games and it is clear to me it is the case with Warmachine/Horde is that they don’t balance the game on a unit level. What that means is that if you take a 10 point units from Cryx and compare it to a 10 point unit from Trollbloods, you aren’t going to get two units that are of equal strength or value.

What you will find is that each of those units in the scope of the army serves an important purpose and those 10 points can be escalated to be worth far more than the single unit’s abilities might suggest.

Take for example the Cryx Slayer Warjack (see picture below). You don’t have to be a mathematician to realize that the Slayer is superior in every single possible way to the Axer. He moves faster, is stronger, is more likely to hit, has a higher defense, has more hit points, gets more attacks, has more options and arguably has a better special ability. There would seem to be no conceivable way you could argue that the Axer is a better buy for 10 points than the Slayer.

Yet I will make that argument and here is why. The Axer serves a core purpose in the Trollbeast army and with synergies from the Trollbloods army is a far bigger threat than the Heavy Warjack could ever be. There are several reasons here.

First the Animus. Remember that your Animus can be cast on your Warlock, which means that your Warlock has an extra spell (Rush) that he can use for himself. Giving your Warlock Pathfinder and 2 extra move is HUGE. Secondly the Troll Axer has the ability to hit as many units as he has in his 2 inch radius with a single attack. Now in a one on one fight this might not be useful but he can charge into a unit of many and potentially wipe it out with that single attack. He also has a smaller base, which is a big advantage as he can slip past units easier and fit into smaller zones while still threatening a 2 inch radius. Further more with Pulverizer he could get his POW to 16 just like the Slayer has by default, but with a Dire Troll could get that up to a POW 19!

Suffice to say, circumstances matter, synergies matter and if the Trollblood was cheaper, in the scope of the Trollblood army synergies he would be grossly unbalanced despite the fact that in a tit-for-tat comparison its no contest, clearly the slayer is superior.

The problem is that in a Battlebox fight, most of the purpose of the Axer and the synergies of the army serve no purpose and its here that there is a mismatch and the core reason for the complaints about balance of the core boxes. For example there are not grouped units for the Axer to attack, there is Dire Troll to bump his strength and while you could put pulverize on him to make his stronger, in the Trollblood Battlebox its far better to put those spells on your Impaler who can make a powerful attack from range.

I guess the point here is that the balance issues for the battle boxes are just circumstantial in a small zero point fight and it’s here where tit-for-tat comparison have greater impact, as the whole of the different armies synergies don’t have the same impact on the game as they would if you were playing say a 25 point game.

That doesn’t really alleviate the burden that comes with learning to play the game with an army at a disadvantage and so I do understand and sympathize with the complaints, in particular as a Trollblood player who gets the shit end of the stick in the deal. That said the point of playing zero point Battle Box games is to learn to play the game and in a way, trying to figure out how I could win despite the disadvantage has lead me to digging deeper into the rules, into my battle box synergies and in trying to come up with a strategy that might give me a fighting chance. In a way, being at a disadvantage as frustrating as it may be, is probably doing more good in getting me to understand the game then bad.

The Conclusion: The Advice on Trollbloods

First impression articles are always filled with poorly informed opinions and badly constructed theory crafting, it’s just the nature of being a noob and trying to assess something you simply don’t have enough experience with to do so intelligently. Any time I have ever done articles like this in the past, when I go back to them a year later I cringe at my own ignorance. None the less, I think first impression articles are always the most important to read when I’m researching the game because its more relatable. Discussions about 75 point games and high level faction tacticals are completely meaningless at this stage. As such in my conclusion, rather than saying anything more than that I love the miniatures and I love the ruleset so far, I’m going to offer some specific advice based on my limited exposure to my Trollblood Box set seeing as there seems to be such a shortage on the internet of such advice when I was trying to find some. Remember I’m a noob!

First thing you need to realize is that Ragnor is your workhorse. Everything in this battlebox hinges on using him well and if you stand any hope of winning any zero point games, it will be by using this guy to his maximum potential.

Your first play is to always get Ragnors pulverizer (+2 damage) spell out on your Impaler and to set up your line so that your Bouncer can protect everyone from range (within 3 inches) with his animus on to ensure that at very worse he will be facing ranged damage with a 19 ARM. Done right you have little to fear from any ranged attacks and you could further bolster your ranged defenses on the guys in the front by using the very cheap Earth’s Sanctuary to gain cover if you can’t find any on the table.

Get your Impaler in range of your enemy making sure to be out of charging range of anying using Far Strike (total 12 range) and soften him enemies up with a POW 15 attack. In subsequent rounds make use of the Impaler at ranged and use Ragnor Shockwave to both slow your opponents advance and cause some additional damage. Remember keep him out of charge range and remember about weapon reaches and any movement boosting spells. Don’t let players trick you, you can’t calculate SPD+3, you need to account for weapon ranges.

What your ultimately trying to do with your force is set your Axer and Bouncer up for a charge so that you can one shot one of your enemies warjacks or warbeasts, preferably the biggest threat on the board by using Ragnors Shockwave to first knock them down and then charge in with the Axer and Bouncer (preferably with one or both having pulverizer on them).

In a zero point game the first 1-3 rounds are critical. It pretty much works out that if you can take out one of your enemy warjacks/warbeasts before he does any serious damage you have your shot to win. It’s not a guarantee in particular in scenarios with control zones where you will be forced to engage perhaps before you really want to, but by and large the Impaler’s spear attack and Ragnors Shockwave are two of the most useful ranged attacks that I have seen in any of the box sets. You may think because you are Trollbloods you should boldly charge into battle and this is probably true of the army as a whole, but in the zero point game you are definitely not doing that until your enemy is softened up a bit.

In general you can assume that any Heavy Warjacks or Warbeasts will one shot any one of your warbeasts, even the bouncer. So you don’t want to be in a melee with your Light Warbeasts with these guys unless they are severely crippled in some way so that you could survive a volley. Ultimately I don’t think you can win without taking great risk in the end game as you will need a fully charged (6 Fury) Ragnor to at some point charge in and bring his immense melee strength into the fight. Remember that in most cases you will be facing Heavies and you have none, so timing is key. Also remember that often with Warjacks, crippling two can be better than killing 1 and leaving the other unharmed. You just need to survive the volley’s when you are in melee.

The main thing to avoid is facing a fully operation heavy warjack with Focus on him in a melee. Your warbeast won’t stand up to any heavies and even most light warjacks/warbeasts will make short work of them with full focus. You have a good ARM but very few hit points so your light warbeasts are easy to kill. You have to really make use of your ranged attacks and the bouncers defense against ranged attacks and pay close attention to the ranges so that you can get the charge. Your a threat from range so it will be on your opponent to close the gap.

Oh and don’t be afraid to heal and regenerate, in particular when your units get any of their spheres disabled.

This strategy is not perfect and certainly guarantees nothing. With good positioning, some decent die rolls and well time charges, while the odds are stacked against you, you definitely have a shot at a win.