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Myself and Chris have been feeling a little 40K'd out after the throne of skulls tournament and whilst looking at different makers of paints for Chris's Dark Eldar we found ourselves on the Privateer Press website. They're an American company which are best known for producing the Warmachine and Hordes games. Having seen some of the miniatures while trawling the internet I suggested we take a look at some of them on the galleries....they are awesome! so much detail and character they really remind me of the stuff GW was producing back in the mid nineties when they were more about making models and games than making money!!
Anyway after spending at least an hour looking through the website we came across the clincher.... I don't know about you but starting a new army is daunting let alone starting a whole new system. Taking 40K as an example you need the rule book £35.00, a codex of your choice £17.50, and if you want to play at a decent level 1500 points which is around £150-£300 depending on the army, now this is a worse case scenario but its exactly what put me off doing a fantasy army.
Now the Privateer press games are a little different,for a start they are classed as skirmish games so in a standard sized battle you are looking at having between 10 & 30 models on the table maximum,. for each faction they do a starter box set for £30.00 which gives you 15 points worth of units (the average points cost for a battle is 50 points, doesn't sound a lot for those of us used to 1500 point games) to start playing against each other and learning the rules with...because a basic rule set is supplied in the box sets too!! So for a grand total of £30.00 your off & running!! The game is also played on a 4' X 4' board with minimal scenery, much more suited to playing in my flat.
The game revolves around your Warcaster (for warmachine) or Warlock (in Hordes) these guys control the big guys in your army the Warjacks (Warmachine) or Warbeasts (Hordes) they're both extremely powerful and incredibly weak (most games end when either your or your opponents caster dies) they use they're abilities to boost your army or to unleash spells upon they're foes. Units and solo characters bolster your armies power, bring they're own abilities and strengths. The game depends on how and where you use these "buffs" to produce game winning combos with multiple elements of your army, Synergy is the name of the game!!
Me, Chris and Jon are heading off to Darksphere in a couple of weekends time to have a chat with one of the guys from Privateer Press and to pick up our starter boxes, I'm going with the Trollbloods from the Hordes range, Chris is either looking at the Cryx or the Protectorate of Menoth from Warmachine and Jon is also thinking about a Warmachine faction, Khador (we're not looking to move on from 40K but instead to play something a little different, so don't worry you guys can still kick my arse on a weekly basis
).If anyone's ever played either of these games before let us know what you think or if what I've written sounds interesting to you check out the links below. I'm going to updating this topic as we go and hopefully some of you guys from the club will be inspired to join us?
http://privateerpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warmachine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordes_%28war_game%29
Next post I'll be looking at the rules and game mechanic which is pretty different to 40K
