Warmachine/Hordes - Privateer Press

[elph]

A local buddy of mine & I are looking into getting into this. However, it's a miniature wargame, with painting, modeling, etc.. and they get expensive fast. So, I found a way that it can be played, online, for free.

I got in touch with my demon friend Tory to get all the books (I just have to read them now). But I was curious as to who plays or is interested in playing.

Some info on the game itself...
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine
http://privateerpress.com/hordes

In Warmachine, your main person is known as a Warcaster. They control steampunk like mecha's known as Warjacks. In Hordes, your main person is known as a Warlock and they control Warbeasts.

For the most part, they are 2 different games with the same mechanics except in Warjacks/Warbeasts. A sidenote in the Hordes book says that Warmacine is about resource management, while Hordes is about risk management.

Next year Privateer Press is relaunching the rules into what's become known as Mark II and streamlining a lot of things.

To play online, you will need a few things.

Vassal:
http://www.vassalengine.org/community/index.php
It's an online game board thing that's actually fairly simple to use (from what I've played with) to create modules for just about any kind of board game out there.

Warmachine/Hordes Module:
http://vassalwmh.ipbfree.com/index.php?showtopic=121

 

Mr. ZM plays this on occasion at his Sunday game, which is otherwise 40K, usually. He gets almost all his minis through ridiculously good deals on eBay and elsewhere, but that does takes some time and effort, especially when you're only getting bits.

Vassal isn't all that easy to set up, and it's also easier to cheat using it, but it's nice if you don't have friends locally to do the tabletop version.

 

[elph]

Have him take a look at http://www.dungeontrader.com/ . It's a site my friend & I are looking at for getting our miniatures, with a decent cut in price. Plus, over $250 and you get free shipping (not hard to do with a mini's game at times), $2.10 for paints. Their turn around is pretty fast. We ordered the books last Tuesday and got them on Thursday or Friday.

 

Thanks! Thing is, he almost never buys new and then it's only because there's some particular awesome model. He pays $10 or $20 for big batches of assorted minis, but he also enjoys doing a lot of work on them (including casting) so he's happy getting old, badly painted crap that he can strip and remodel.

Admittedly that's probably not a good system for someone new to the game. I'll mention the site to him anyway.

EDIT: Aha, maybe it's just the 40K stuff he get off eBay. He says "oh yeah, I bought a lot from him years ago... a good portion of my warmachine collection came from him."