Getting Warmachine Ready

A few years back, when I only bought stuff from Games Workshop, I learnt about a game called Warmachine that existed, but wasn't produced by Games Workshop. Teenage me then went and bought more Space Marines, deciding that since it wasn't GW, it wouldn't be worth it as people around me didn't play. Plus, at the time, nothing screamed out to my "ooh shiny" syndrome and demanded purchasing.

Fast forward a few years and I became aware of the Retribution of Scyrah faction. Part of me went "oh cool, elves. I like elves." Another part of me said "I have nobody to play against, and they would take away spending from my armies I could be playing. I'll pass."

Zip forward through time to the present day and I'm getting ready to eat my words.

A few weeks back now, I was invited to take part in a Warmachine test game at my local club. Since the guy doing the demo was my usual Batman opponent, I wasn't likely to get a game of Batman so thought it would be worth a shot.

It turns out it's quite a fun little game, and it also caught the attention of a couple of others who have since picked up (or are in the process of picking up) warbands? gangs? whatever the collective term is, people are getting them, which means that the old "they won't get a game" reason isn't valid any more.

With that in mind, I picked up a few things.

A rulebook. Always important, and for roughly 1/3 of the cost of the 40k rulebook, I thought why not? Even if I never get a game, there was bound to be some cool artwork in there. 

Of course, I haven't managed to find time to even open it yet to see if there is any cool artwork in there.

War Room. This is a free app produced by Privateer Press for Android and iPhones that allows you to look at all sorts of reference material for both Warmachine and Hordes. You do have to pay for decks of cards on it though. Say you had a Khador army and fancied looking at stuff on the go - £3.50 will get you access to all the cards available to that faction and once bought, will update automatically when any more are released or updated. I haven't tested it out fully yet, but in the Fight section you can build and save army lists, allowing you to also add damage to your troops. Pen and paper begone!

The Retribution of Scyrah faction book. As indicated above, I'm an Elfy person. For a long time my main army was High Elves in Warhammer Fantasy and a large chunk of the models I have bought in recent years have been elves of various sorts. So being the most elfy looking faction, they have the visual appeal to me that a lot of the other factions don't. Plus the warjacks look awesome, all swooshes and curves. 

There is also a perverse part of my brain that is telling me that I'll enjoy the challenge of painting this much white. I'm not sure I agree yet, but it remains to be seen whether it will be true or not. 

To go with these, I ordered a set of Retribution tokens and the marker set.

So what's missing? 

Well, the miniatures of course! I mentioned them in a post not long ago when trying to decide what project to be getting on with (In the end that didn't work out too well as I lost all painting mojo straight after picking up my Guild Ball Masons to paint). It sure is coincidence that PP are releasing All In One army boxes around the time that I want to get into the game. It's as if they wanted me to give in.

Well, give in I did as later this month is the release of the Retribution box, which contains a full 35 point army. I decided that it would be best for my wallet to get the suffering over quickly (unlike my Batman addiction, which is ongoing) so ordered one.

It's due in at Element Games on 17th June so hopefully by the end of the month I should be full steam ahead with Warmachine!

For those that may still be confused as to why there is a picture of Don Cheadle at the top of the post, who does he portray in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? ;)