Warhammer/40k vis a vis Warmachine

[GlassJaw]

I was in London recently and popped in a GW store while I was there and was fairly impressed. It definitely made me miss the wargaming hobby.

I have a lot of experience playing Warmachine (and a LOT of models!) - including doing fairly well at tournaments. I have little to no experience playing Warhammer or 40k, although I am somewhat familiar with the models and armies.

A lot of people in my area were playing Warmachine for a while (which is why I originally got into it) but there was definite burn-out and people went back to 40k.

Assuming I would get back into one of them, what I'm looking for is some thoughts and comparison of the Warmachine and Warhammer hobbies themselves. What I don't want is "game XYZ sucks, blah, blah, blah", however.

From what I've seen, Games Workshop definitely stresses the modeling/painting aspect of the hooby much more than Privateer Press. I really like that, especially considering how much time you spend on painting and modeling versus actually playing the game.

GW also places importance on making sure BOTH players having a positive experience while playing. The rulebooks seem to encourage each player to try to make the fun for their opponent as well. I guess this is simply defined as sportsmanship.

This isn't to say Warmachine encourages players to be jerks (a bad player is a bad player) but there is definitely more of a cutthroat mentality, which can be good and bad. The game itself seems much more competitive and rules/combo-driven. If you are not up on the latest and greatest rules for ALL the factions, you can be at a great disadvantage.

The newest version of Warmachine - MkII - may have remedied that somewhat but I'm not sure. From what I've seen, some of the mechanics have been streamlined but there looks to be the same "volume" of rules as before.

Any thoughts or comments? Has anyone that has played both seen differences in the hobbies?

Thanks!

 

[AJCarrington]

Interesting questions - particularly about the "attitudes" of the different game systems. I don't have a lot of experience with Warmachine or Hordes, but never found their rule systems particularly indicative of the gaming community - I think that it is much more a question of what kind of game/experience you're looking for. I think all the systems you've mentioned have segments of the community that are highly competitive (typically, the tournament scene). That being said, I think that the hobby aspect is promoted very strongly by both PP and GW; differences seem to be more the targeted audience(s) of each company, IMHO. I think that the players involved are far more indicative of the kind of gaming experience one get.

Enough of that rant...

I suggest you check out some the Dakka Forums. They lean strongly toward the GW side of the community, but you can get a pretty wide variety of opinions. As well, as an FYI, GW just launched the new edition of WFB, which looks to be a pretty solid game.

Good luck and have fun!!

AJC

 

[Thanee]

You can say a lot of bad things about GW (some might actually be true), but they definitely make good games.

From those three games, I have only played WHFB myself, mostly because WH40K is a bit too much of a "kiddy game" to me (the last edition seems to have made vast improvements in this area, though WHFB is still the game that attracts the more mature players (those can be young players, too)) and the 40K fluff does not really appeal to me, and Warmachine because of the killercombo-stuff you mentioned, and the "overimportance" of the leaders (warcasters?) and big mechs (warjacks?).

In WHFB the importance of characters and big monsters (like dragons) has continuously been toned down to a support role, and the new edition puts a lot of focus on infantry, which is a good thing. You can actually play an army that looks like a fantasy army now without gimping yourself.

But games tend to become bigger, which means you need a lot of models to put a decent army on the table (way over a hundred usually, much more if you play one of the horde armies). It also takes a lot of time to play a single game. I think both the other games are usually smaller (much smaller in the case of Warmachine) and faster.

As for the hobby aspect... the new WHFB rulebook (which is a monster of a book, especially the very nice limited edition) is about 1/3 rules and 2/3 hobby. The game itself has become a bit simpler (the downside of which means there is more luck involved now). The WHFB models encourage making model conversions and giving the models a personal note that way, which is really cool. They are making a lot more plastic models nowadays, which are easier to convert and have tons of small bits and pieces usually. They are also a bit cheaper, but cheap is certainly not the name of this game.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Dire Bare]

Warhammer Fantasy players more "mature" than Warhammer 40K? Ah, okay. We're all playing pretend with miniature toy soldiers, I've never seen one game as attracting a more "mature" audience than another.

 

[Jhaelen]

Warhammer Fantasy players more "mature" than Warhammer 40K? Ah, okay. We're all playing pretend with miniature toy soldiers, I've never seen one game as attracting a more "mature" audience than another.

Well, I have.

As a general rule teens are more attracted to everything labeled as intended for a mature audience...

 

[Thanee]

Well, at least around here, that is definitely the case.

WH40K just has more of the "Wow! Cool!" stuff.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Dire Bare]

Well, I have.

As a general rule teens are more attracted to everything labeled as intended for a mature audience...

Well, I was specifically talking about miniature games, but the "mature audience" media (video games, movies, etc) attract both the actual "mature audience" and the teens that the media is "forbidden fruit" too.

 

[Dire Bare]

Well, at least around here, that is definitely the case.

WH40K just has more of the "Wow! Cool!" stuff.

Bye
Thanee

I currently play W40K (perhaps why I got a bit defensive) and I am contemplating starting WFB now that the new edition is out. I do find W40K models more "Wow! Cool!" than WFB (although fantasy models are cool too), but I don't feel that makes me less mature. Or at least, not any less mature than someone who prefers WFB over W40K . . . as I said, we're all playing with toy soldiers here . . .

Perhaps you are noticing a legit trend in your area, but I suspect it's just a difference in preference.

 

[Thanee]

Just for the record, I am not saying, that playing WH40K makes anyone immature, or anything like that. Or that the game itself is immature. In fact, the latest edition seems pretty well done.

Just that, at least around here, when looking at the overall crowds who play these two games, there is a very clear trend to see (and it's not like I am the only one who thinks so).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Neonchameleon]

From my experience, more even than 3e D&D, Warhammer suffers from being 30 minutes of fun wrapped up into a 4 hour game. (I'm a few editions out of date). Warmachine is more like thirty minutes of fun wrapped up into an hour and a half game - and each side gets to add twenty minutes of drinks breaks where they don't have to focus to that. It's quicker, faster, and harder.

And to me the harder nature of the blows is a bonus. You get knockout blows - rather than any sort of grinding that rankles afterwards. If the warcaster dies, that's it. Game over. Which means that while there's life there's hope. The outcome isn't often inevitable until the knockout. It's the slow, agonizing defeats that rankle.

Which means that IME Warmachine/Hordes players will be a lot harsher with each other across the tabletop - but at the end of the game it's shake hands and both parties unhurt whatever happened. 40K/WFB you see more whinging, more complaining, and generally more rankling post-game. But this might be a local phenomenon.