A disheartening orientation.

[Faultie]

And this game offers incredible amounts of fun regardless of whether you win or lose.

I will just second this. Some of my favorite WM/H experiences have involved losses, most often via some crazy, dastardly plan that "just might work"...and, quite often, doesn't.

[odinsgrandson]

Warmachine tactics have a fairly strong learning curve. It is actually my kind of game- where the tactics are more complex than the rules.

A few things to note- you do not have to face down his army to win. Your objective is to kill his warcaster, and that can happen in a lot of ways. From turn 3 onward, you should be looking for ways to take out the 'caster.

Don't be discouraged by defeat. This is a case of him having a finely tuned force, and he knows how to play it well (I think he doesn't know how to not play it well). You are still learning how to best use your troops. With that sort of set up, it stands to reason that he should have a sizable advantage.

[Bean]

Mercs are a little weak, and the Ret Mage Hunter list is balanced, but in a rock-paper-scissors way--it's quite strong against some things and quite weak against some other things. Unfortunately, your list is one of the things it's pretty good against.

That said, what other people have said are generally true. Warmachine has a relatively steep learning, tactics-wise, and it's not unsurprising that you end up getting ruined your first couple of games. Give it some time, don't let the losses get you down, and you'll eventually start winning games.

Also, don't feel like you need to switch to battle-box games to learn the game. This is a bad idea. The battle-group-on-battle-group fight is very, very non-indicative of how Warmachine actually plays, and you'll end up doing little more than teaching yourself bad habits if you make this your primary learning tool. Battle-boxes are a waste unless you need to do a lot of quick demos or you like the stuff that comes in them--quick demos are about the only worthwhile game they produce on their own.

Keep playing lists that include the units that you like, and play against lists that are built like real, competitive lists. That and making sure you learn the rules thoroughly (including all the rules for individual units--even those in other armies) are the key tasks in getting good enough to start winning games.

[scadugenga]

Mercs are a little weak, and the Ret Mage Hunter list is balanced, but in a rock-paper-scissors way--it's quite strong against some things and quite weak against some other things. Unfortunately, your list is one of the things it's pretty good against.

Also, don't feel like you need to switch to battle-box games to learn the game. This is a bad idea. The battle-group-on-battle-group fight is very, very non-indicative of how Warmachine actually plays, and you'll end up doing little more than teaching yourself bad habits if you make this your primary learning tool. Battle-boxes are a waste unless you need to do a lot of quick demos or you like the stuff that comes in them--quick demos are about the only worthwhile game they produce on their own.

I pretty much disagree with these two points categorically. Mercs--weak? Maybe with specific merc caster combos. But that's symptomatic with any faction. I find Mags to be even more rock hard than he was in Mk 1. With the addition to the charter rules allowing Long gunners, arcane gun mages & trenchers--as well as certain hordes lesser warlock minions--the merc lists have the capability to excel in almost any theatre. They may not have the fancy jacks that the other factions do, but what they have is typically less expensive and gets the job done.

Battle boxes are perfect introductories to the game--that's what they were intended to be. Small points to start getting a feel for how the rules work, and how the game flows. What you're suggesting (ignoring the battle box and playing with full armies) is akin to telling someone to jump on a harley davidson before he learns how to ride a bike w/o the training wheels attached. Crawl-walk-run is still the best paradigm for learning anything new.

[Bean]

Battleboxes are useful for teaching you the mechanics of battle-group operation, so if you're really such a slow learner that you can't pick up both battle-group operation and infantry operation at the same time, I guess they have some value.

For those of us who are somewhat more competent, picking up infantry along with battle-groups isn't really all that hard, and since almost every game of Warmachine involves significant amounts of non-caster, non-jack units (usually more than caster/jack units) playing battle-group only games doesn't really help develop generally useful tactics.

In battle-box games, caster assassination is everything. All four boxes win by assassination, and battle-box games among people who know what they're doing are just games of chicken where both players dick around until one player takes a shot at the assassination run and either wins or fails, overextends, and loses as a result.

Now, that might not be how newer players end up using the boxes for their first handful of games, but it still makes no sense to teach players tactics with a set of units which promotes such a silly paradigm--especially when that paradigm is fairly different from how the vast majority of games actually proceed.

It is a common myth that the battleboxes were designed to teach new players the game. They weren't. They were designed to sell the product before there were any other models in production. They are a marketing tool. They showcase the game's most unique set of mechanics--the one that sets it apart from other war-games--and they include the first few models that Privateer created for each faction, rather than models which actually make for balanced or interesting games.

Battle-group games aren't particularly good teaching tools. The upside is that they tend to be a little faster to play than games with infantry and solos, but they still fail to accurately describe the way most Warmachine games play out--infantry and solos are too vital part of the system, and excluding them makes the game significantly different, giving a warped view of what Warmachine is actually like.

Even if you're set on playing battle-group games, the actual set of 'jacks and casters found in the battleboxes aren't really the best picks for teaching games. Again, all four boxes are assassination focused, rather than focused on 'jacks beating each other up (which is the fun part of battle-group games). Remember that they weren't designed to be balanced. They weren't designed by the people who are making the game now, but a much, less experienced, much more naive group who had a far less thorough grasp of their own rules and mechanics--and those early selections, despite making for bad games, has survived even into mark II.

Even if you're going to go with battle-group games, selecting a more balanced, less assassination-focused set of 'jacks and casters is still a good idea. It is an error to stick blindly to the battle-boxes just because PP has decided to try to extend their relevance by declaring them a good learning tool. They're not.

[scadugenga]

What you're actually doing is expressing your opinion (re battle boxes, intentions etc. of PP) as fact.

Which, unless you a) designed the game, b) work for PP are are privy to their inner thoughts and intentions, c) can cite references from PP to prove your point, and/or d) are telepathic, your entire statement is a logical fallacy.

I'm 100% with you that infantry and solos are a vital part of the game--don't get me wrong there. But your opinion on how best to learn/play the game is no more valid than any other.

Personally, I disagree with you (as mentioned before.) But that doesn't make you necessarily wrong, either.

[Bean]

What you're actually doing is expressing your opinion (re battle boxes, intentions etc. of PP) as fact.

Which, unless you a) designed the game, b) work for PP are are privy to their inner thoughts and intentions, c) can cite references from PP to prove your point, and/or d) are telepathic, your entire statement is a logical fallacy.

I'm 100% with you that infantry and solos are a vital part of the game--don't get me wrong there. But your opinion on how best to learn/play the game is no more valid than any other.

Personally, I disagree with you (as mentioned before.) But that doesn't make you necessarily wrong, either.

If we're approaching this from a standpoint of logic, then you're wrong. What I am expressing are not opinions but facts. They may be false, but the nature of my assertions is factual, which is to say that they have truth values at all. Opinions, in logic, lack truth values--mental states, essentially, such as happiness, satisfaction, or dislike.

If we're not talking in terms of logic, then it's reasonable to say that my assertions are opinion, which is to say that they lack supporting evidence. That's certainly a fair complaint, though not one that renders them fallacies. In fact, if we're talking about this kind of assertion, then you're still wrong. Under this model, opinions and facts don't differ in a way which affects how they are expressed, and so the dichotomy on which you base your assertion is spurious--I didn't assert an opinion as fact, I asserted it as an opinion, which just happens to look exactly the same as an assertion of fact.

Either way, most of what you accomplish, here, is demonstrating that you really know very little about the concepts of fact and opinion.

Of course, if what you're trying to say is, that my assertions didn't come with any particular supporting evidence, then you're right. If you need some, here you go:

The central claim in my argument has two parts:

First, that battle-group-only games are not a good way to learn to be good at Warmachine.

Second, that the battle-boxes are particularly poor sets of models for beginner-level battle-group-only games.

The first part is actually fairly easy to produce from basic principles and easily confirmable facts. Consider:

Learning to be good at a game (in general) requires learning its rules, and for a complex game like Warmachine (with "core" rules and "unit-specific" rules) it involves, for newer players, at least learning the set of core rules. In addition, it involves teaching methods for resolving in-game decisions in good way (a way which is conducive to victory, in keeping with the rules, and in some situations, conducive with standards of fair play).

A game (which, here, means a specific instance of the game being played--we'll call these "instances") which is intended to teach a player how to be good at the game do so by providing examples of the application of the rules which need to be learned in order for the learning player to be good at the game, as well as specific decision resolutions (we'll call them "tactics") which serve as exemplars of good decisions for similar potential situations.
Battle-groups contain none of the following types of models: models belonging to infantry units, models belonging to cavalry units, solos, and models belonging to artillery units.

Each of these types of units is reflected by a significant set of core rules.

Instances which fail to include these types of units both fail to provide examples of the core rules for these types of of units and fail to provide exemplar decisions for decisions regarding situations which involve these types of units.

Instances which only use battle-groups therefore fail to fulfill the requirements of a good teaching instance in that they fail to demonstrate several significant portions of the core rules as well as tactics for a significant set of potential situations.


Now, it's fair to say that not all instances can contain every possible type of models. That's fine, though, because we presume that a new player will be taught through some set of multiple instances, and we can fit all of the necessary types of rules into these instances given enough instances. However, a proscription like, "learn with the battle boxes" specifically contradicts this fundamental goal, and thus constitutes bad advice.


In addition to this line of reasoning, we have the issue of fun. One is likely to have more fun playing with models that one likes--for whatever reason--than with models that one doesn't like or about which one is ambivalent.

It should also be a goal of instructional instances that the player being instructed have fun.

Battle-group only instances heavily restrict the variety of models from which a player can choose, potentially reducing his or her ability to play with the models that he or she likes and potentially obligating him or her to play with models that he or she doesn't like. In fact, the likelihood that a battle-group only instance will suffer from failing to include models that the new player likes is fairly substantial.


The second part of the assertion is based on two similar threads of reasoning.

It is easy to see how the second applies: if battle-group-only instances are particularly restrictive in terms of model choice, battle-box only games are extremely restrictive, and will almost certainly fall afoul of the "making the game less fun" flaw.


In addition, all four of the main Warmachine battle-boxes (ignoring, for the moment, the Merc options) constitute armies which favor caster assassination as a victory condition. To be clear, this refers to focusing on killing the caster while ignoring the rest of the battlegroup to the extent that is possible.

In every case, the easiest, most effective, and most straight-forward route to victory involves inflicting a status on the enemy caster which makes it very easy to hit (knockdown or Deneghra's feat effect in the case of the Cryx box, knockdown in the case of the cygnar and menoth boxes, and stationary in the case of the khador box) then killing the caster with arced spells, ranged attacks, or (in the case of Sorscha) melee attacks coming with a very long threat range. In all cases, the most effective tactic generally doesn't require engaging enemy 'jacks at all, and generally benefits from avoiding them as much as possible until the killing blow combo can be delivered.

Why does this matter? It means that the battle-boxes actually encourage a minimum of variety in overall approaches, and discourage many situations which are required to provide good examples of core rules in effect or exemplars of particular decisions.

Again, this is clearly contrary to the interests of the instructional instance.


It's kind of funny, really. What you decided to pick on was an amusing anecdote, but not a particularly important part of the argument. While it, too, has plenty of basis (and your assertion that it is a fallacy unless backed up by telepathy or whatnot is obviously laughable) but, frankly, its basis doesn't matter: my point rests on something else entirely. You can certainly disagree, but I have very good reasons for my assertions, and your post did nothing to invalidate any of them.

I absolutely believe that my opinion on how to learn the game is more valuable than at least some others--specifically the one which instructs people to learn the game with battle-boxes only. It is backed up by a number of good reasons.

At the end of your post, you seem to fall back on the notion that my assertions are opinions and thus lack truth values inherently. This is simply false. My assertions do have truth values, and they are the sorts of things which can be based on reasoning, which, in term, can be evaluated in terms of validity. The word opinion can mean two things, but what you've done here is either just stupid (deciding my assertions are opinions of the type which cannot be true or false) or an actual verbal fallacy known as the undistributed middle: a false equivocation of the term "opinion" (which means a belief that lacks apparent basis) and the term "opinion" in the formal-logic sense of an assertion that lacks a truth value. These are not the same. My assertions were the first type of opinion (they aren't anymore, since I've presented their bases), but that type of opinion doesn't lack truth values--a notion on which your argument certainly appears to rest.

Perhaps it's time to retrench and revise your believes.

[scadugenga]

Ad nauseum

Nah. You're still wrong. You claiming something as true that is really your own particular viewpoint. You want to prove yourself right? Post supporting evidence from the PP design team.

Anything less is pure speculation. And is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on.

believes

Oh, and if you're going to get all high horse on your great intellectual/logical diatribe...you may want to revisit your basic grammar skills. The word you were looking for is "beliefs."

[Bean]

Nah. You're still wrong. You claiming something as true that is really your own particular viewpoint. You want to prove yourself right? Post supporting evidence from the PP design team.

Anything less is pure speculation. And is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on.

What? You didn't actually read it, did you. Supporting evidence from the PP team isn't relevant to anything in that last post. Also, you're still messing up your terminology: viewpoints are things which can be true or false. Saying that I'm claiming that my particular viewpoint is true doesn't constitute a cogent objection to my claim in any way.

Oh, and if you're going to get all high horse on your great intellectual/logical diatribe...you may want to revisit your basic grammar skills. The word you were looking for is "beliefs."

Fair, but it's no worse than your use of an ellipsis, or your use of "you" instead of "you're" in your third sentence.

If all you've got against my argument is that it contains a spelling error and that you didn't read it carefully enough to actually figure out what I was talking about at all, then I think I'm in pretty good shape.

[whitestar333]

While Bean is trying very hard to prove his superiority, I'll just say that introductory games are just that - introductory. I think the important part isn't what list you're playing, but your attitude about your first batch of games.

Your first few games, you will lose. What's important is your attitude and that you ask your opponent for advice. Warmachine/Hordes has a difficult learning curve. Although the rules are quite simple and straight-forward and well-written, the difficulty comes in that every single unit in the game has special rules and is used differently. Simply exposing yourself to other armies and casters will help a lot - both watching and playing games.

Additionally, a neat little trick that I've found to be very helpful - in all miniatures games - is to swap lists with a seasoned player to see how he/she would play your army. It's very enlightening to see how someone plays your same army, as they will likely try something different that you never thought of. I recently had a friend borrow my army to play a game, and he totally opened my eyes up to new possibilities. I encourage anyone to do the same.