Looking into Hordes

Warmachine/Hordes has been on my radar for a while now. I've been on the verge of picking up Warpborn Skinwalkers to use as Chaos Ogres for some time. A few years ago I played a demo of Warmachine and I enjoy the experience. I didn't get into Warmachine at the time because I wasn't that fond of the steampunk genre. Of course I didn't know about Hordes then.

If you don't know what I'm talking about Warmachine and Hordes are two related but different sister games. They each have mechanics unique to them. Warmachine is game base around having a wizard whom controls arcane golem-like constructs called Warjacks. Hordes is based around having a wizard whom controls monstrous beast. Both systems are compatible with each other so a Warmachine army can fight against a Horde force. Storywise both games are in the same fictional universe called Iron Kingdoms.

Iron Kingdoms on a whole seems to be a mix of traditional fantasy and steampunk. And since I'm still not a fan of steampunk, you are probably wondering what change? Well, it starts with my friend Phil. He is my Warhammer friend. He plays a lot more games than I do and sometimes he gets in the mood to play a certain game for a while. He recently told me he has the itch to play Hordes lately. For me this would be a good time to learn the game. Phil owns a large collection of Trollbloods, enough for the both of us play each other. Beside Phil, my local gaming store has a large community of Warmachine/Hordes players. I'm sure that once I get my own army I can easily setup or join a Warmachine/Hordes campaign.

The question for me is which force to pick? I was surprised when I look into what is available that there were only 4 Horde nations plus mercenaries. I had to remind myself that Hordes is technically only half of the game. Of the four nations I keep coming back to Circle Orboros. Whatever I play in Hordes, that force will be connected to the fluff I've started here on the blog. In thinking about how I want to expand my story, I came up with three ideas I could use a Hordes force. Unfortunately all three ideas would be closest represented by Circle Orboros. Those ideas are a Zifa force, a Fairy/Nature force and a off-shoot of the Shieldmaidens. My first idea for Hordes was a Zifa Winter small force. Zifa has been one of my favorite characters even though most if not all of her material has been deleted here because of cancelled campaigns. She is a chaos sorcerer and apprentice to the Chaos King. Her epithet is Dark Druid and more so than my other characters I envision her army looking quite a bit different than what my collection can show. The downside to me making a Zifa army is that I want to expand my collection beyond chaos and Zifa's Horde army would probably require more than a few conversions. The second option is a brand new army for me. I develop the idea of a nature army while working on the plot of my Holy Moon series. I haven't read the fluff of the Circle Orboros but my guess would be its similar to what I have in mind for my nature army. The third option I beginning to think would not be a very good fit. I'm still working on who and what the Shieldmaidens are and while I can imagine part of the organization could have a druid-like element to it, that would be a reach and takes them in a direction I'm not sure about yet. The reason I pick Circle Orboros for the Shieldmaidens is because the other 3 Hordes nations fit the maidens even less.

I guess with what I've said so far my choice for what to play in Hordes should be obvious. Just need to come up with a name for my fairy/nature army. I did play my first game of Hordes today and I enjoy it very much. I am confident now that Hordes will be a game I can get into though it will be a while before I will have my own army. I did pick up the Circle Orboros 2016 deck so I should have all the stats of every Circle Orboros unit in the game. This will allow me to play with proxies until I am able to purchase an actual force. Plus since I will have the rules and look up model's base sizes, I can kitbash my leftover Chaos stuff to make part of my Zifa army as well. My Zifa army and fairy army will look nothing alike but while I am short on both, I don't mind mixing them up. Let see where Hordes take me!