A friend and I were looking for a new game to play,we've both been getting increasingly disgusted with 40K and games-workshop in general and thought it best to step away for awhile and take in a breath of fresh air.One of the other guys in our gaming group gave us each an AT-43 armies,but we are both modelers and painters as much as gamers.We just can't seem to get that excited about AT-43,don't get me wrong,it looks like a cool game just doesn't tickle my fancy.It was at this point, I recalled seeing a War Jack I had seen on ebay a year or two back,I showed my friend the Warmachine site and he decided to give it a try.
The problem is that we nothing about the game.I thought maybe you guys can help me out with some questions I had.
1)My buddy believes the game is played on a 4x4 table, is this true? Is that the standard? What is the usually point cost for a standard game? (what do they play at tournaments? we like to play with tourney points and board size in case we ever go to one)
2)How big are these figures? The War Jacks look pretty big,but the characters on foot are what I'm most curious about.(I don't really know scales 1/35 or 28mm and the like,a simple 40K reference will do,bigger-smaller-same size as a terminator will do) Will my 40K scenery do? I have a 4x4 and a 4x6 table with enough scenery to completely pack both with some to spare.Is a table set up like 40K (25%),more or less cover? Is cover even as important in this game as it is to 40K.I don't want to unknowingly give a faction an unfair advantage.
3)Are the factions set up the same as most other games? One group are better shooters,while others excel at hand to hand and still another has more powerful mages or are they all the same and the leader you take makes the armies different?
4)Is hordes and warmachine the same game and you just have the options of taking creatures instead of steam powered robots or are they 2 different things?
5)What should we use the rule book,the PDF I've been reading about,both,neither?
6)At first glance, I really like the look of the mercenaries,can you field an army of just them, where can I find the rules for them? Do they have army books of are their lists in the rulebook used? Is there a starter box for them (been looking around,but can't find anything).Lastly are the mercenaries a good choice for a pure noob? Is there a better group to cut my teeth on and then start collecting mercenaries?
Thanks for reading and please answer as much or as little as you can, any help in anyway will be greatly appreciated !