HORDES

HORDES is the name of the newest 30mm tabletop miniature wargame produced by Privateer Press, announced at Gen Con 2005 and released on April 22, 2006. Although a completely standalone game in its own right, HORDES was designed as a companion to WARMACHINE, Privateer Press' flagship miniatures game. The games are 100% compatible, and share much of the same rules set, although the most important mechanic - fury for HORDES and focus for WARMACHINE - remains unique to each. HORDES forces and WARMACHINE forces often face off against each other both on the tabletop and in the background fiction. The games share the same setting, the Iron Kingdoms, with much of the Hordes storyline taking place in the wild areas away from the 'civilized' areas where WARMACHINE's major action takes place.

As in WARMACHINE, gameplay in HORDES is supposed to promote offensive play; defensive play is possible, but the spirit of the game (as laid out in Page 5 of Primal) encourages "testosterone-laden aggression".[1] Play is centered around Warlocks and their attendant Warbeasts, who may be supported by units and solos. Warbeasts generate fury, which can be controlled by Warlocks and used to fuel their spells, but if left unchecked can cause the beasts to go into an uncontrolled frenzy, potentially even attacking their allies or controlling warlock.

HORDES is similar to WARMACHINE in most aspects, if you already know how to play WARMACHINE then you already know the basics of HORDES. The core mechanic is the same as companion game WARMACHINE: roll two six-sided dice, add one stat, and compare the total to an opposing stat. Additionally, almost all rules mechanics from WARMACHINE are replicated in HORDES. Together, the two rules sets form a single rules superset, which consists mostly of rules common to both games, and partially of mechanics specific to one game or the other. The game-specific mechanics are generally those used by warlocks and warbeasts for HORDES, and warcasters and warjacks for WARMACHINE, while those rules which cover generally how models move, act, and how their actions are resolved are common to both.

Replacing the Warcaster as the commander of the army is a Warlock, a powerful magic-user who draws upon the collective Fury of his warbeasts to cast spells and heal damage. As the four factions in HORDES use no steamjacks, their functional parallel are Warbeasts, large savage creatures. The Warlock is able to "force" Warbeasts to perform special attacks, which builds up Fury points. The Warlock is then able to "leach" this Fury to add to his pool, otherwise the warbeast will continue to gather Fury, eventually losing control and going into an uncontrollable rage. This system has been dubbed "Risk Management" as opposed to the "Resource Management" system in WARMACHINE.

From the beginning, HORDES was designed to be played against WARMACHINE. Playing a WARMACHINE army against a HORDES army is little different from playing two HORDES armies or two WARMACHINE armies against each other, and many of the special rules are written so that they affect models from both games in similar ways. As an example, damage is recorded differently for warbeasts (in branches) and warjacks (in columns), but most effects which let you choose a column to record damage against a warjack also let you choose a branch, and vice-versa. However, each game does have models which possess special rules which are not effective against models from the other game. In some respects, each game is separate, but in many ways they are simply two halves of a single combined game.