I recently downloaded the quick start rules for Warmachine and Hordes. One of my Monpoc friends and I decided to give it a try. I had the Cygnar models and thought that Warmachine might be easier to teach so I taught that. I showed him the full rule book and let my opponent pick what looked good to him. He chose Cryx for our first game. We didn't use any terrain as we just wanted to focus on the rules and not worry about LOS as much.

I went first in the first game and around round 3 if would have been great to remember to use my feat. I didn't and at the end of turn 3 I had lost my Ironclad and the Lancer was quite wounded. I had killed his Slayer but it looked over to me. But, I took a look at the field and remembered something I had heard on the Blood and Banter podcast, "Kill the caster and you win!" Though things certainly looked bad for me and I had little life left on Stryker and had basically only did a little to his caster. I decided it was time to actually try to do something and got her down to two health. It was so close! He easily won on the next turn.

The second game he decided to use Menoth and asked if he could switch the warcaster from the one in the quick start rules. I believe it was Severus? I of course let him as we're just learning the game and trying to find which faction and warcasters interest us. I let him go first this game and quickly learned from one of his spells that I don't want to clump my warjacks close together like that again. We both forgot to make use of some of the special weapons and effects. There's quite a bit to remember the first games. Actually, we did pretty good. I wasn't clear on just a few rules but we agreed on what made sense to us for the sake of time. We planned to look up the exact rules later so we're both clear on the true rules for the future.

Once again, I was quite a bit behind this game. I did make a clever move in that I was able to slam his heavy jack into his caster using my Ironclad. I did a little damage to his heavy but my main goal was to wound his caster which I did accomplish. His control area was much larger than mine which definitely came into play. At the end of the game I had his two lights pinning Stryker in the corner. I was able to do one more charge with my Lancer but he was out of range once he got there. We assumed that meant I wasn't going to be able to boost his rolls or make the Lancer make an additional attack. I got him down to one health and of course lost on the next turn. I was going to slam his caster but just missed the turn before. That would have put him out of range of his two Jacks that were fighting Stryker.

I've been playing minis games for a while now. Even though I was only using paper minis for my opponents and I'm sure we messed up a few rules both of these games were awesome! I really love the system.

That being said, I showed him Hordes as well and even though we had a lot of fun playing Warmachine today ... we both like the looks and sound of Hordes a little better. As it turns out he really likes Legion of Everblight and I really like Circle of Orboros. Two player battle box coming out in September? I'll make the pre-order at my FLGS when I get a chance. We chatted online afterwards looking up different Legion things. I've already researched Circle quite a bit and liked what I saw of Legion. Now the only decision is do I pick something up for Circle or for Legion while we wait for the 2 player starter to come out. Let the research continue!