Is the Fury mechanic REALLY that much better than the Focus mechanic?

[Reuben]

The only thing that still erks me a little bit is the how Warlocks can heal their beasts with in their control to make them fully functional again.

Mechanics aren't expensive, and save you from facing Order of Activation mess ups.

[GaspysInhaler]

Mechanics aren't expensive, and save you from facing Order of Activation mess ups.

The ultimate order of activation "mess up" is the fact that a mechanic cannot heal a disabled cortex to make the warjack fully functional that turn. If a warjack loses his cortex the prior turn, he is going to miss out on 2+ focus the subsequent turn -- no ands, ifs, or buts about it. If a warbeast loses his spirit, a Warlock (or paingiver beasthandler, etc), can "heal him" that turn, and then he can go on to force himself as many times as he wants. This is an inherent advantage for hordes over warmachine.

Besides, WM mechanics usually need base to base to achieve repairs, plus they need to pass a ridiculous skill check. Whereas a Warlock can heal a beast 10 to 16 inches away. It is precisely these aforementioned reasons that WM players go "infantry-machine", and only field jacks when they grow their own focus -- ala Deathjack, Avatar, etc.

The repair mechanic is "irreparably" (ugh, lol) broken, when compared to hordes healing/medicate.

[PG_LEJKaya]

For someone who wants to pick up and play in 10 minutes, I agree that Focus is easier to play. BUT, once you know the rules, For the first couple of months, Hordes is a lot more forgiving (because you spend as you go).

Hordes is the harder system to play well (At least in a vacuum) as with Warmachine the skill is to learn how much resources it takes to achieve an objective and allocate correctly for that turn.
With Hordes the decisions are much more complex as not only do you have to spend correctly to ensure you have the right amount of fury out but it also carries over and affects turn after turn after turn....
Also the calculations change as you go through the turn, instead of CTRL phase and done, as in WM you have to realise that each beast you activate has its potential in part determined by the previous activations unless you go over fury!

Warmachine if you make a mistake, no big deal, all is reset next turn and you start from scratch.
Hordes if you make a mistake you can lost activations from expensive beasts and they can even attack your own stuff.

This is all devils advocate of course but you can see its not as clear cut as you say.
Its easy to say Warmachine is the Easy Mode of the game (But then you have to counter with Forsaken/Shepherds and Beast Handlers basically being like riding with stabilisers).

[Rightfin]

I don't believe there is any inherent advantage of fury over focus, but the capability of spending up 4, or in special cicumstance more than 4 on a single beast is definitely a plus over the rule of three focus.

[Kuarnix]

In terms of defensive capability the two systems have different weaknesses. Warlocks usually die to multiple low power attacks. They can avoid suffering damage from the big hits (though it's shunted off somewhere else with negative effects, usually in a bonus to damage and a single point of damage to the warlock). Warcasters die to a couple of big hits, but sitting on focus means that damage literally is negated - it just vanishes, unlike with a warlock where it's essentially shuffled. Jacking your ARM up to 18 or higher means those pow 10's +2d6 aren't very impressive, but being stuck at 15 means you're going to have a bad time with those accurate pow 10's.....

It's really an interesting balance. Most warcasters can afford to sacrifice any and all of their warjacks, because they're just losing a tactical asset. It doesn't actually hurt them more than the loss of the damage the model can do (and in some cases help, because now there's more focus for the caster). Most warlocks can't afford to sacrifice many beasts because they're literally losing access HP, a spell, and a source of Fury generation, as well as the raw damage the beast puts out.

I think the biggest disadvantage the Fury system has is that you can't "wait and see" what happens during your turn to decide if you want to advance with your warlock, like you can with a warcaster. By that I mean you can use a warjack very aggressively to take out a serious threat to you, etc, before you actually move into it's threat range. I find that often with my warlocks (Circle and Farrow) I have to advance into some kind of threat range I'd really rather not be in so I can force the beast I want to use to kill it or do whatever (for example, slam and follow up into a warcaster/lock - I have to make sure I can force from the follow up position, where a 'jack could just move and do it, and I could decide to move up later). If I come up short on distance or wiff hits/damage, I can have a serious problem. You can usually avoid this problem with a warcaster. I like the balance though, you really manage a lot of risk with Hordes. You get some insurance pieces to help, but once you start losing things can really go downhill very quickly.

[Finnigan2004]

Ask them if they're sure that Fury gives an advantage over Focus. If they respond "yes"; then grab a Gaspy, Skarre, or Deneghra and some random Cryx models. Tell them that you are about to take them to school, and the lesson for the day is exactly how limited their little warlock is. Laugh evilly when you do this.

The truth is that they have kept track of quite a few tournament results over at focus and fury. The results have been pretty even with the only faction showing any sort of an edge being Cryx. Even in the case of Cryx, it's not anything very far beyond the pale.

[West996]

In terms of defensive capability the two systems have different weaknesses. Warlocks usually die to multiple low power attacks. They can avoid suffering damage from the big hits (though it's shunted off somewhere else with negative effects, usually in a bonus to damage and a single point of damage to the warlock). Warcasters die to a couple of big hits, but sitting on focus means that damage literally is negated - it just vanishes, unlike with a warlock where it's essentially shuffled. Jacking your ARM up to 18 or higher means those pow 10's +2d6 aren't very impressive, but being stuck at 15 means you're going to have a bad time with those accurate pow 10's.....

It's really an interesting balance. Most warcasters can afford to sacrifice any and all of their warjacks, because they're just losing a tactical asset. It doesn't actually hurt them more than the loss of the damage the model can do (and in some cases help, because now there's more focus for the caster). Most warlocks can't afford to sacrifice many beasts because they're literally losing access HP, a spell, and a source of Fury generation, as well as the raw damage the beast puts out.

I think the biggest disadvantage the Fury system has is that you can't "wait and see" what happens during your turn to decide if you want to advance with your warlock, like you can with a warcaster. By that I mean you can use a warjack very aggressively to take out a serious threat to you, etc, before you actually move into it's threat range. I find that often with my warlocks (Circle and Farrow) I have to advance into some kind of threat range I'd really rather not be in so I can force the beast I want to use to kill it or do whatever (for example, slam and follow up into a warcaster/lock - I have to make sure I can force from the follow up position, where a 'jack could just move and do it, and I could decide to move up later). If I come up short on distance or wiff hits/damage, I can have a serious problem. You can usually avoid this problem with a warcaster. I like the balance though, you really manage a lot of risk with Hordes. You get some insurance pieces to help, but once you start losing things can really go downhill very quickly.

I think it is being made far to easy and almost a given that a Warcaster can afford to camp focus. There are only a few who can reliably do this well and not totally take themselves out the game. Camping focus is a big investment and it often means sacrificing much more damage output than what would be coming in. Yes that lets the game continue of said damage was going to kill you but it also basically takes your caster out of the game for a turn and still does not guarantee survival.

A warlock has to sacrifice one or two fury to shunt that damage and his damage out put that turn is not reduced at all.

[Octavius_Maximus]

I don't want to fuel the flames or anything, but let me tell you about a game i had last night.

So i was playing as the Butcher against an Ethagrosh beast only (except for a forsaken) list. I had already captured both incursion flags on turn 2, so he decided to go for an assassination, He moved Thagrosh up and killed a bunch of Iron Fangs with Rapture, he ravager left a scather template so it was almost impossible for all of my infantry to charge Thagrosh. Good move on his part.

He floods the objectives with beasts in order to hold them.

So next turn I start my attacks. Butcher Feats, casts fury on the Iron Fangs, Fully boosts a Blunderbuss shot to kill a shredder in the way, camps 2 (should have Iron Fleshed himself).

My Rifle Corps with Joe start firing, with all 8 hitting and each one doing small amounts of damage to Thagrosh, 2's, 3's. One 5 is made and a Harrier pops out.

So Thagrosh is left on Zero Fury after giving damage to all of his beasts and on around 5 wounds left. My first Manhunter is in melee range of the Shredder and the Harrier, he kills the Shredder, giving 2 more Fury to Thagrosh! Then moves over and kills the Harrier.

My Second Manhunter Charges Thagrosh in the Rear, Both damage rolls get pawned off to his beasts, killing some.

So ive used my entire army at Thagrosh now, and he's still alive.

He starts his turn, Typhon Tramples through my force, kills 1 model with it, and dies to Free Strikes! This then gives Thagrosh 2 more Fury! So he's up to 5.

Thagrosh charges through, gets to the Butcher, and kills him on his last attack.

Now im perfectly fine, i was outplayed and the Butcher was in a bad position.

BUT, there were 2 times in this battle in which killing enemies resulted in a worse position for me. I mean, that just sucks in a game that is about aggression, isnt it? I would have won if i hadnt killed those models, which just seems wrong to me.

[Bad monkey]

I know someone who'd be interested in giving war games a try, however I don't have multiple hordes or warmachine forces... and where I usually visit him, there isn't a local game store. Would you guys think in general the menoth and skorne battle boxes are fairly balanced against each other? or would hordes vs wm be a bit much at once for someones first play?

[Ordrek]

As someone who plays Legion exclusively, IMO Fury ridiculously outclasses Focus. It isn't even close. But like many have said, there is far more to the balance mix than just Focus and Fury. My experience is that the Fury mechanic shines most with high Fury casters who have reliable means of protecting their beasts from trading attrition (eVayl is the poster child for this).

[Earthcrosser599]

Fury works better than Focus because of the defensive properties behind it. Camping 2 fury goes a long way to keeping your warlock alive. Camping focus generally doesn't do much unless you camp lots of it. Something I've never really understood about Warmachine; keeping your caster alive is critical, but most of my opponents go out of their way to make it easy for me to kill their caster by casting random stupid spells.

Not having to plan out your turns in advance is another advantage, and the "risk management" idea is a joke. If I have my beasts go nuts and blow all of their fury to smite my opponents, I usually don't have to worry all that much about counterattacks since my heavies are so destructive. If 4 of my 5 beasts frenzy, I lose their activations and take a few boosted high-powered hits. It's going to be much less damage than what my opponent would have done to them with his guys.

[MathPasta]

Fury is better then Focus but there is more too it then that.

Though fury makes it easier to run beasts then for casters to run jacks.

[niceas]

Now im perfectly fine, i was outplayed and the Butcher was in a bad position.

BUT, there were 2 times in this battle in which killing enemies resulted in a worse position for me. I mean, that just sucks in a game that is about aggression, isnt it? I would have won if i hadnt killed those models, which just seems wrong to me.

And that's the rub, isn't it? You spent resources to kill models unnecessarily, where the consequences of doing so should have been known. It sounds to me like if you had activated the second Manhunter first, you would have won the game.

[ExiledinElysium]

Is anyone else going to realize that everyone's saying the exact same thing over and over again?

[Cronix]

Fury is better in terms of flexibilty, not having to plan out your turns in advance, the end game where your warlock can sling spells and warbeast can go on rampage. But warlocks needs warbeast to make them better, ones warbeasts start dying they lose punch and warlock becomes weaker and weaker.

An other thing that makes focus a little bit better, it replenish automatically, with 3+ focus they can resist most low power attacks (while a warlock must take them or transfer them). Warjacks are an option and not a must, this gives them more options for infantry machine.

I think that both systems are balanced...

[Blackraine]

1. It will most certainly do something of note to a warcaster. The potential of a free strike or two doing damage possibly prevents him from allocating to his warjacks (because then the damage taken is multiplied per focus given away). It also prevents him from casting spells before he moves out of the enemy's melee range to trigger the free strike, for the same reason. Even a fully camped caster is never "immune" to free strikes. A fluke damage roll can always damage a fully camped warcaster significantly. A measly POW-10 free strike can put 5-6 damage on a fully camped caster if you roll high enough. That's almost 1/3rd of many warcaster's hit boxes in the game. These figures are only magnified if you have a weapon master doing the free strike.

Given that Warmachine and Hordes are games about Risk vs. Reward, if my Warcaster is looking at taking a free strike from anything less than POW 17 (or POW 14 Weaponmaster), and I have focus, I'll take that chance every time. Will I take some damage? Sure. But if I'm "stuck in" with someone and looking at taking a free strike, it's most likely because I'm making an assassination run, so that 5-6 damage won't matter in the long run.

The duality of this conversation is part of the problem I'm having with it. You talk about the damage you're doing to the caster as if he should be concerned, because it's making it that much easier for you to kill him later. But at the same time, you're acting like the Warlock loses nothing when he transfers a boosted damage roll against his 14 or 15 armor to his 17 or 18 armor warbeast, but that's not true. If it's going to matter down the road because the warcaster took some damage, it's also going to matter down the road that that Warbeast just took 10 or so damage wouldn't have otherwise (which is nearly half of a Warpwolf's hitpoints, and almost a third of a heavy Wold's hitpoints). It's going to matter, in either case, if there's a "next turn" to go to because either the warcaster is that much closer to death, or the Warlock's going to find himself that much closer to not having any beasts to generate fury for him. But if there's not going to be a "next turn", then it has an equally unlikely chance of mattering for either character. Either the Warcaster takes a statistically improbable damage roll and gets killed somehow, or the Warbeast that gets transferred to takes that statistically improbable damage roll and gets taken out, potentially before he can contribute that turn. One case loses you the game and one doesn't, granted... but both are fairly unlikely (and, honestly, it's a lot easier to kill off that beast through transfers from his Warlock than it is to kill that 20-something armor caster).

[SteakAndSpirits]

I can't believe this thread is still going on. It's really simple:

Focus has an opportunity cost for use. Fury does not. End of story.

Evaluated strictly in a vaccuum, Fury is dramatically more powerful than Focus. It isn't until the debate moves from Focus vs. Fury to the game systems that use those both resources, that they become balanced. (Which they do, unquestionably.)

-s&s

[Hai-pe-neki]

BUT, there were 2 times in this battle in which killing enemies resulted in a worse position for me. I mean, that just sucks in a game that is about aggression, isnt it? I would have won if i hadnt killed those models, which just seems wrong to me.

Playing aggressively doesn't mean "kill everything that moves, even if it's dead it's counter-productive". It was REALLY needed to kill that shredder with the manhunter, knowing that he could catch back the fury on it? You were playing with attrition in mind (so killing more models is usually good) or you were going for a casterkill (so giving furies back to him was not a good move)?

Chess is about eating enemy pieces, but you wouldn't sacrifice a queen or a tower to eat 2 pawns, usually.

[Txe]

Playing aggressively doesn't mean "kill everything that moves, even if it's dead it's counter-productive". It was REALLY needed to kill that shredder with the manhunter, knowing that he could catch back the fury on it? You were playing with attrition in mind (so killing more models is usually good) or you were going for a casterkill (so giving furies back to him was not a good move)?

Chess is about eating enemy pieces, but you wouldn't sacrifice a queen or a tower to eat 2 pawns, usually.

Key word being usually. Sometimes sacrificing pieces or making moves that seem horrible on paper opens up the way to the win.

[Hai-pe-neki]

Key word being usually. Sometimes sacrificing pieces or making moves that seem horrible on paper opens up the way to the win.

Sacrificing, or better, trading is vital, yes, if done with cognition. For sure if killing those two pawns open me the victory, i will sacrifice everything it's needed.

But in his example he sacrificed the chance to kill the caster (so a victory) to kill a shredder, "because in aggression game killing more is supposed to be good". Not a very good trade.

[Kuarnix]

I think it is being made far to easy and almost a given that a Warcaster can afford to camp focus. There are only a few who can reliably do this well and not totally take themselves out the game. Camping focus is a big investment and it often means sacrificing much more damage output than what would be coming in. Yes that lets the game continue of said damage was going to kill you but it also basically takes your caster out of the game for a turn and still does not guarantee survival.

A warlock has to sacrifice one or two fury to shunt that damage and his damage out put that turn is not reduced at all.

I disagree about the camping, but that's not really here nor there. A lot of it is up to list composition, placement, turn to turn decisions, and awareness of threats in a given turn. My feelings about this mostly come from playing eButcher, where you can never depend on getting a a lot of focus for your next turn. I found he can have a really hard time against shooting armies because of the uncertainty that you can jack up your armor to weather a rough turn. Not having the guaranteed option to camp and jockey for position can really change the dynamic of the game.

In any event, sitting on fury does affect a warlocks potential impact in the game - it leaves them less fury to cast spells and less that they can leach on the next turn, and if they transfer they may have to heal a lost aspect from a beast (costing them fury for spells on the subsequent turn), or they might lose a beast altogether (which certainly reduces what they can do). Each fury point they sit on is two they could have been using for offensive purposes - one for their spells, and one for forcing a beast. They can still force the beast but run the risk of frenzy. My experience is with Circle and Farrow warlocks, so take that as you will.

Two focus might save you from dying to a bunch of low power attacks, but two fury probably won't. But two focus isn't going to save you from dying to a pair of boosted pow 19's, while two fury probably will.

[Dark Fledgling]

Fury and Focus are not balanced.
Warmachine and Hordes are.

-DF

[PG_somnicide]

Fury mechanic is much stronger early game and much weaker late game. Sounds like balance to me.

[The Buoyancy of Water]

Fury mechanic is much stronger early game and much weaker late game. Sounds like balance to me.

Except when that stronger early game means you win before you get to the late game..?

I think that's the issue newer players have. They don't get to see the weaker late game because they have been wiped off the board by the stronger start.

I think Warmachine and Hordes are balanced though

Cheers,
Dave

[West996]

Fury mechanic is much stronger early game and much weaker late game. Sounds like balance to me.

Even in saying that it highlights an advantage of the fury system not a balance. I would argue that in this game having a stronger early game vs a stronger late game is more of an advantage.

[Defenstrator]

Well it didn't help me win last night.

[PG_Asa]

Even in saying that it highlights an advantage of the fury system not a balance. I would argue that in this game having a stronger early game vs a stronger late game is more of an advantage.

But it allows for the WM players to see a way into late game pretty easily. Cut the fury source and it gets pretty simple. Beasts TEND to have a lower armor. Typically a fully loaded heavy can kill a heavy a turn. Identify single targets and take em out one at a time. That being said Tiberion wont be easy to kill in one turn...
I like Tiberion.

[Sanctjud]

The answer is: use both.
Play warmachine and use the available lesser warlocks, profit!

Cryx + Wrong Eye & Snapjaw FTW??!?!??!?!

[Aylw]

Hordes is the harder system to play well (At least in a vacuum) as with Warmachine the skill is to learn how much resources it takes to achieve an objective and allocate correctly for that turn.
...
This is all devils advocate of course but you can see its not as clear cut as you say.
Its easy to say Warmachine is the Easy Mode of the game (But then you have to counter with Forsaken/Shepherds and Beast Handlers basically being like riding with stabilisers).

It's fine to play devil's advocate, but it hasn't been the experience in my group at all.

Once they get a handle of the basic rules, Hordes players seem to have an easier time at first. If I were to guess why this is, it'd be because beginners tend towards alpha instead of attrition, and a Hordes alpha is in general stronger than a Warmachine one. It also doesn't help that almost all beginner armies are beast / Jack heavy.

Like I said, once you get a lot of games under your belt, things definitely even out. Hordes is not an 'easy mode', in that you won't beat an intermediate warmachine player just cause you're using a Hordes army, but it definitely comes easier at first.

Maybe things would be different if the games were called Warbeast and Infantry as someone said, and most first warmachine armies were mostly infantry.

That said, this is just my experience. If beginners playing Hordes and Warmachine both seem to win equally using either system, then sure, tell people they're equally easy / hard for beginners. That just hasn't been the case for me.

[West996]

But it allows for the WM players to see a way into late game pretty easily. Cut the fury source and it gets pretty simple. Beasts TEND to have a lower armor. Typically a fully loaded heavy can kill a heavy a turn. Identify single targets and take em out one at a time. That being said Tiberion wont be easy to kill in one turn...
I like Tiberion.

Easier said then done. If I am playing in such a way that I can pick out beats in my opponents list and eliminate them one by one, I'm probably winning the game regardless of mechanic.

Beasts tend to be faster, higher defense and with plenty of movement tricks. It is not impossible but it certainly isn't as easy as 'Remove the fury source.'

I think that WM/H are basically balanced and I think the differences are not big enough to ever pose a real problem, but I do think that fury has a few perks that just don't shore up on the other side.

[W0lf]

Fury is so obviously better then focus that it has to be intentional.

Luckily it was, and thus PP balanced to account for it.

Warmachine wins more tournaments. Fact.

Also i play both, there are no hordes casters that overtly scare me. Several warmachine ones really have me scratching my head. Go figure.

Hordes is just harder for new players to get used to. Theres a reason i teach new players using my khador not legion.