Fighting the Hordes

[Kevin B]

Over the last few weeks I have been happily busy painting up and learning to play Warmachine and getting use to the might of the Khador military.

Overall I am getting the hang of it but the hardest armies for me to battle are the Hordes armies. This is down to a number of reasons:

-We have fixed focus we must hand out at the start of the turn and hope we carry out the paln right so as not to waste focus where Hordes seem to be more reactionary and can produce twice as much fury as we can a turn.
-If I get hold of the Warlock they just seem to transfer the damage away so my turn of winning becomes me with my pants down waiting for the big insert.


Now I feel if I can learn to play Warmachine well I "should" be able to counter most of the Hordes toys as they almost (and I mean no disrespect here) seem to be like Warmachine armies but with the stabilizers still on so to speak.

How do others deal with these tricks? Im mainly asking as I will be going to a tournament soon (list to be posted ASAP) and I dont want to just be easy points for everyone else.

[John Q.]

This is funny because there are loads of Hordes players elsewhere on these boards crying out about how they can't beat warmachine.

Your points are valid, there is a much larger potential well of fury for a hordes player to work with, but this is balanced in some fairly simple ways;

If you run your beasts hot (on full fury) you are less likely to be able to pull all the fury back off them, and they are therefore more likely to frenzy, leaving you with no control over them. Also, if your beast is on full fury, you can't transfer damage to it.

The other thing is that Hordes Warlocks need their beasts to able to use fury. Without beasts generating fury for them to leach a Hordes caster has to resort to damaging themselves for fury. So kill the beasts and you neuter them somewhat. Kill all the 'jacks in a warmachine army and you're just leaving the caster with more focus for him/herself to cast spells and camp on.

[Kevin B]

It could be the armies I play as they have sheppards (circle) and Trolls who have comfort food both of which mean it stops the beasts running "hot".

I will try to focus on hitting the beasts more but my current list is very combat heavy with very little shooting to soften the beasts first.

Thanks

[Marth]

The thing is, though: even if you keep them from frenzying, that Fury is not going to go anywhere by itself. It's still on the beast, limiting it's potential, especially if it wants to use it's animus.

And, as was already said, every dead beast means less fury to work with (a case due to which most locks keep something small around to rile for them) - unless they choose to go Emo on you.

[vytzka]

I haven't played them yet, but will and it seems like Hordes really don't like attrition. Load up on mechanics. Concentrate on taking down the beasts one by one, finishing them off. The warlocks, when left alone, can't go Vlad on you.

Oh, and obviously use a balanced list if you want good results. Have some ranged power at hand.

[mladjanobugarce]

Don`t go for warlock go for beasts.

Bucher + 4 jacks (2 Jugggy, 1 Kodiak, 1Marauder) that I have(4X Juggy would be better) almost have auto win against Hordes in 50 p. games. You just run one Juggy in front of others so they have to spend their heavy hitter to neutralize it. After Hordes heavy hitters go down it`s almost game over + you have 28 points left to use. Full WG + Kovnik, manhunters and Yuri and eAjris are my common choices.

[OrsusSmash]

I feel your pain komrade. When my friends and I first picked up Hordes, I had the worst time dealing with Hordes when using Warmachine. After fighting against it quite a bit, here are the things I've found useful (some of which have been mentioned already):

1) The number one rule of fighting Hordes: all warbeasts must die, ASAP. They are the lifeblood and lynch pin to any Hordes army's effectiveness. In addition to their ability to affect the table directly (killing models, providing army support, etc,) they bring valuable resources to the table in terms of Fury, Transfers, and Animi.

Every warbeast you kill is one less transfer target (making it that much harder to not overload the last transfer target with Fury, or kill it with transfers.) Every warbeast you kill is less Fury for the warlock for the rest of the game, which typically makes a big difference. And removing warbeasts removes animi from use (minus any Bonegrinders, of course,) which can save you from having to eat nasty debuffs, or from your opponent buffing his stuff up.

2) Pressure is key. Though it can be difficult given the speed of the Hordes army (and the relative slowness of Khador,) put as much pressure on your opponent as you can, as often as you can. Make him run his beasts full throttle just to be able to keep up.

This serves two purposes. First, it may result in frenzies due to having to exceed the amount of fury your opponent can comfortably work with (not something to bank on, but its a nice bonus when it happens.) Second, and even more important, is the idea that Fury is a double edged sword. Your opponent can run his beasts full throttle, but maxed out warbeasts can't be transferred to. So your opponent has to either throttle back his offense slightly (which makes it easier to weather the storm,) or go all the way and limit his transfer options, which makes it easier to kill the warlock.

3) Continuing the above two thoughts: don't go after the warlock directly until they're strained for survival options. Almost no one who has played Hordes for any amount of time will leave themselves without any Fury, so they'll always have a few transfers queued up. While it can be great to punch a warlock for free warbeast damage (they're often much softer than their pets,) only do so if netting the free warbeast damage/getting rid of the fury wouldn't cost you a key piece. Otherwise, it may cripple your ability to deliver the killing blow next turn.

The best time to strike is when the warlock is overtaxed (several warbeasts maxed on Fury) and/or low on warbeasts. Go for the throat then, and the warlock is likely to have to dump all the damage onto one warbeasts, which can result in death by transfers, which results in that fury going *poof*. One or two solid hits at that point is enough to send most warlocks back to the case.

4) Warbeasts are soft. There are exceptions to this, to be sure, and they're very easily healed, but the fact remains that most warbeasts have a lower ARM than their warjack analogues, fewer hit boxes, and are unable to heal themselves for as much as one can repair a warjack in a turn (i.e. all warbeast healing is d3, typically once a turn per source, whereas repair is a d6 as many times as you can make the check.) The bottom line is that if you dump the same effort into killing a warbeast that you would use to kill a warjack, you'll usually off them with power to spare. Its the greatest strength Khador has: if we can get a hold of a warbeast, with few exceptions its already dead. Just keep your eye on the prize, and your opponent will have to play very carefully to avoid his warbeasts getting dropped left and right.

One more bit: a huge part of PP games is tempo. You set the tempo of the fight with the speed of your army, and your opponent responds to it as best they can. Both games are all about either taking the initiative, or denying your opponent's ability to set the tempo how they want it.

I've noticed (in both fighting with and against Hordes) that Hordes armies tend to be a bit leaner than Warmachine armies. Thus, they rely more on setting tempo to really be effective.

A key thing, then, when fighting Hordes is to do whatever you can to disrupt your opponent's tempo. Whenever you make a move, make sure its going to change what they're capable of doing on their turn. Kill a warbeast. Cripple/destroy a unit. Eliminate important solos.

Because your opponent is likely to have a small pool of resources, any cut you make into that pool is going to hurt, bad. Make sure every strike is a killing strike; don't just fish for casualties or damage, unless you have nothing better to do that turn. Hordes armies tend to capitalize in bursts (big push turn, recovery turn, big push turn, etc,) so any resources you can clean up on your turn make a huge difference in the following turns. A dead warbeast gets no attacks. ;)

That's a lot to digest, and its more than a little "rambling", but I hope there are a few nuggets of info there that can be helpful. Just remember: you fight Hordes backwards. In Warmachine, you go for the throat as early as possible, while the warcaster is weak from having to spend resources (in this case, focus.) In Hordes, you have to take out those resources (i.e. warbeasts) before you can even think of going after the warlock.

[alchahest]

don't bother playing infantry against legion. take as many jacks as possible. even without focus your jacks can match up to legion heavies, and legion lights have a very hard time getting through armour. The biggest problem legion players are having against WM is how damn good the jacks are - so take more of them, and watch your theoretical problems disappear.

obviously, your tactical choices will make a huge impact on the game. there's no such thing as an auto win. taking a jack-heavy force will help you out alot, though.

[Kevin B]

@OrsusSmash


Thanks for all that really good stuff to learn and take in.

I have found if I can get hold of them they cant take it as well as they give it and so the grind can start and then advantage Khador.

[Avecrien]

Yup :)
The summary is: Attack their strengths. Instead of trying to be sneaky and assassinate you wipe the board clean.

Don't neglect the power of throws in mucking up fury management, though.

[rocky sausage]

I find when playing hordes i forget to take the beasts out. If you can get the charge with most Khador 'jacks your likely to wipe them out quickly but if you fail and they heal back some the the bigger beast will be hitting back with a lot. So when going for the beast make sure you wipe them out in a turn. once the beast are gone you can work around an units solos and warlocks you need to wipe up.

Games with hordes players seem to last longer because you need to clean up the field before you can make any real attempt at the warlock.

[i_like_tool]

I'll post more on this topic tomorrow when I have more time to talk/type. I've gone out of my way to test heavily with and against Hordes to really see if there is a noticeable power difference between the 2 systems. And I've come to realize. Not really. Player skill plays a big part but there are bad matches on both sides of the fence. Let me ask this

a) What casters are you using?
b) What Jacks are you using?
c) What Units/Solos are you bringing?

Some key things that other people have touched on that really need to be driven home

1) Kill the beast. Most Warmachine armies lack the attacks(outside of our caster doing the deed)to kill a Caster in one go.
Is it funny to hit a Caster with a Jack(say Doomy)and watch the transfer damage damn near kill a beast? yes
Should you actually kill the caster that way? Not if they have beast/fury

2) We have damn good infantry. Use em.
Ironfang Pikemen can deal with lights and put a solid dent into heavies with some decent rolling.
Great Bears still make a great mess of anything that gets near them
Winterguard + Bells and Whistles is really hard to kill in either system

3) You WILL be charged. Watch what's being setup, heavies will greatly damage if not scrap our Heavies still. Make sure your not loosing pieces because you didn't know a threat range. if in doubt, ask to see the cards. We can take the charge and go to plow town

4) Throws/Slams are your friend. Make them loose some fury by having to shake that off. Kodiak's two handed throw is fantastic for this. Knock down and proceed to murder

The main casters I've now, Khador at least, against Hordes with good to great sucess has been Karchev, pIrusk and eButcher. Most Horde armies can't deal with Karchev + a few Jacks at most point lvls. The larger the game, the more infantry I get to piss them off with.