15 points: This is still a small game, and often features a prominent battlegroup element, but there is usually a solo and/or unit in the mix. For warmachine armies, often a jack or two from the battlebox will get dropped for more troops. Warcasters rely less on warjacks than warlocks do beasts, and powering jacks costs focus; one is often enough. Warlocks regain fury each turn from warbeasts, so they need them as fury batteries.
In this pic the sword knights represent steelhead halberdiers.
Games at 15 points tend to be quick, tense, and interesting. The Poor Bodgers series at my FLGS is always a single list, 15-point tournament. When I go I get to play 3 games in 3 hours. Since I play warmachine I can mix and match my troops, warjack of choice and so forth, depending on the 'caster I want to try. It's more difficult to do that with Hordes, but hordes runs multiple heavies better at low points, so there's some give and take.
The short, small games at this point level make the lose-your-king, chess, assassination aspect of the game less frustrating. It's super easy to lose at WarmaHordes. If the warcaster or warlock is left vulnerable (even only slightly so) it can mean the end of the game. At 15 points it still feels alright when I lose to a silver bullet assassination run.
25 points: this is kind of a no-man's land for WarmaHordes games. Most games are played at 35 or 50, and the quick, new player friendly tournaments and games are closer to 15. 25 is stuck between those game sizes.
I quite like this level as well, since it builds on the 15 point paradigm, but doesn't add too much more. An extra 10 points is another infantry unit and support, or an extra heavy warjack. Things are escalated, but not to a great degree. Early 'casterkill still doesn't feel too much like a nutpunch.
It's much easier at 25 to create a balanced list, with both ranged and melee forces, jacks and infantry, and a couple solos that support the force.
35 points: this is one of the standard tournament list sizes. At this level there are a lot of models on the board. If a cheap infantry unit like Sword Knights costs 6 points for 10 guys, fitting 25+ models onto the board can be easy.
It is at this level that deploying things correctly becomes a huge part of the game, IMO. Don't get me wrong, mistakes can be made at any level, but "deploy centrally" as a strategy works well up to 25. At 35 there simply isn't enough room. For warmachine armies that feature only one or two heavy jacks, the remainder of points will be spent on troops, meaning several units on the board. Hordes can run beast-heavy better, so some hordes lists will have 4 heavies in a list at 35.
Getting casterkilled early at 35 feels more like a nutpunch than at smaller levels. It takes 10 minutes to set up 30 odd models and get moving around. If the game is over before the armies clash because one player saw an opening and exploited it, that's good on them but disheartening for the assassinated.
I tend to build most of my lists at this level. It's fairly easy to cover most of the bases and plan out the first few turns still. Many times I use self-supporting modules to keep things moving nicely, since it's much harder for a caster to support a larger army with buffs than it is a smaller force. It's also at this point that warmachine and hordes can get seriously asymmetric. Hordes can have multiple heavies kicking around, buying attacks and wrecking havoc, dealing with the consequences next turn. Warmachine tends to get troop heavy because even though there are lots more opportunities for warjacks, the caster has the same amount of jack-powering focus that they did at 15 points. There are exceptions, of course, but in general this is true.
Nemo jack-heavy 35 PTA:
50 points: this is the standard game size for Hardcore events, where the whole army must be painted and turns are timed aggressively. Many tournaments also use this size for games. It's a big force. There are often upwards of 30 or 40 models on the board, and even lists with multiple heavies will have plenty of troop support.
Constance's infantry swarm.
Several of my friends prefer this game size to all others. It allows them to play huge modules and run piles of troops downfield, causing a ruckus. I tend to think that the board gets cluttered at this level, and since I'm still relatively new I sometimes make mistakes in deployment that ruin my game 45 minutes or more later.
Game length is another factor. With 35 models on the board even the first turn advance can take time, and losing to an easy assassination really sucks after setting up a huge array of warriors. There are also an incredible amount of things to take into account at this level. A misstep can have serious consequences, and with 3 units of differing speed and combat abilities, and several large jacks or beasts, there is a lot going on all at once.
Perhaps I'll enjoy larger games more as I get more experience. I'm of the opinion that 35 points is a real sweet spot for WarmaHordes games. It's not enough to cover everything, and the troops don't clutter up the board, but there is enough stuff to have a huge tactical game.
75 and 100 points: these games are off the chain. Sometimes they're played with multiple casters. In the team tourney it was 100 points with two casters. Talk about attack vectors. These games can drag on a bit as well. Privateer Press has recently released a new set of rules for extra large games that make them look more fun, but we'll see about that. Games at this level would take several hours to complete.
I quite like the fact that WarmaHordes scales around at several levels. I'm fond of 15-35 points myself, but 50 is still alright.
-Merlin out
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone y'allz
Thanks for this, very helpful insight for me as someone new to the game!
ReplyDeleteyou are most welcome!
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