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Getting Started with Warmachine Mk IV: Faction Primers
To that end, we’re starting a series of light primers meant to get you familiar with all of the different factions’ lore, playstyles and popular units so you can figure out which you think is the coolest, and where you might want to start your list-building for both casual and competitive play. Today we're covering just the 12 factions available only through retail; we’ll be covering the Warmachine 3d factions (primarily available through at-home 3d printing) and legacy factions (supported for ‘official’ play, but you’re on your own for finding models) at a later date.
Cryx
Image courtesy Steamforged Games
Necrofactorium
What’s Their Deal?
Cryx are the Warmachine equivalent of a fantasy zombie army: Undead warriors with an emphasis on body modification and manipulating both flesh and mind to create devastatingly effective forces. The Necrofactorium is the part of the Cryx Empire that’s taken the body-recycling philosophy of Cryx and expanded it to an industrial operation, wiping out their enemies and enlisting their bodies and souls to power the Cryx war machine.Playstyle
Typical Necrofactorium lists involve a lot of undead bodies marching up the field to pressure and eventually overwhelm their opponent. They don’t have a heavy shooting presence, instead relying on bodies and a few units with the Incorporeal rule (they’re immune to attacks that aren’t magical) to get up the field and engage with the enemy. To support these goals the Necrofactorium list will often run a unit or warcaster that can heal undead units or return models to units altogether, punishing any opponent who tries to chip away at their forces without dealing a finishing blow.Popular Units
Thralls of all types make up the backbone of the Necrofactorium army. They’re often backed up by Necrosurgeon Initiates for healing and recursion. Night Terrors and The Furies make up the incorporeal block of the force, and are really annoying to deal with.Master Necrosurgeon Sepsira and Lich Lord Dekathus are the most played Warcasters by a wide margin. Sepsira is the Mechanithrall master, buffing them a great amount, keeping them alive, and straight up spawning a new Mechanithrall Swarm unit with her feat. Dekathus is a buff caster, synergizing with his army to keep souls flowing around the table and using those souls and some well-timed spells to massively increase the survivability and damage output of whatever units he takes.
Image courtesy Steamforged Games
Cygnar
Storm Legion
What’s Their Deal?
Often looked at as the default “good guy” faction, the Storm Legion has an emphasis on armor and knightly fantasy aesthetics mixed with a love for steampunk mad scientists who manipulate electricity. The Storm Legion represents the elite, high tech forces of the Cygnar army. Their bright blue colors give them a very clean aesthetic that carries through to their warjacks, nothing gets too weird.Playstyle
The Storm Legion favors a combined arms style with a combination of melee and ranged units, but they’re flexible enough to play any style you’d like to some extent. You’ll want to pay attention to synergies between your units and take solos that help your units perform in whatever role you’ve picked for them.Popular Units
The Hellslingers box is hands down the best place to start a Storm Legion army because Caine and The Black 13th show up all over the place and are models you need to have in your collection to get the best out of the Storm Legion. Tempest Assailers are great for giving your army some staying power and forming roadblocks to hold down important parts of the table.Caine is the most popular Warcaster, being a pretty self-sufficient model who can put a lot of ranged damage into an enemy model and then run away to safety. He’s followed by Madison Calder, who makes it very difficult for your enemies to hide through a combination of her Bird’s Eye ability and being able to extend charge ranges for friendly models, and Raef Huxley, who is just a giant brick of a warcaster that’s hard to kill and comes with a lot of warjack buffs.
Gravediggers
What’s Their Deal?
The down and dirty grunts of the Cygnar army. When the elite forces of the Storm Legion have moved on, this is the force you call to actually take and hold territory. Aesthetically based on the allies from World War I, the Gravediggers have become a more mobile, airborne force in Mk 4. They’re more akin to paratroopers than the static, defensive force of earlier editions.Playstyle
The Gravediggers look like a pretty standard gunline army at first, but they’re actually very technical and tricky to play. There are a lot of tools in the gravediggers’ toolkit with their airdrop rules giving you everything from placeable cover to dropped in light warjacks. Your units are relatively fragile, so you’ll need to leverage all your tricks to get wins.Popular Units
The Hellslingers box is still the best place to start Gravediggers, since Caine and The Black 13th show up all over the place in lists for that faction too. They’re often backed up with multiple Heavy Machine Gun Crew units and whichever mix of Warjacks, Gravedigger Gunmages and support solos you like.Caine is the most popular Warcaster again, followed by Buck Hasker, who’s a melee specialist that focuses on keeping units out of danger until the enemy is close enough to be charged and attacked.
Image courtesy Steamforged Games
Dusk
House Kallyss
What’s Their Deal?
Undead vampire elves that have pledged themselves to the defense of the Iron Kingdoms as a way to atone for all of their choices that led them to becoming undead vampire elves. Their warjacks are all very sleek and high-tech, almost alien looking, while the units have the sort of haughty nobility that you expect from an elven faction. If you were ever into World of Warcraft’s Night Elves, this is an army to check out.Playstyle
House Kallyss fields a lot of elite, fragile infantry units. They’ll need to be kept safe through a combination of spells, good positioning, and use of abilities like Stealth to stop them from getting shot off the board while closing to melee range. Their Warjacks tend to be a little less powerful than ones found in other factions, so they need heavy support.Popular Units
The Last Watch from the Final Hunt seem to be the hottest new unit, while standbys like Dreadguard Archers and Mage Hunter Assassins remain staples in all kinds of lists. House Kallyss is one of the few factions where I’d advocate buying their colossal warjack, Phantasm, early in your collecting journey, Phantasm synergises with two of the top casters in the faction and is also just really, really cool looking.Morayne, Scyrafael, and Hellyth are your top three most used Warcasters. Morayne focuses on keeping your units alive by giving them concealment and bringing models back from the dead, while also hitting enemies with a pretty powerful debuff. Scyrafael is Kallyss’s Warjack support caster, focusing entirely on supporting them with spells. Hellyth is a gunline specialist, greatly boosting the efficiency of shooting, and is a really good pair with Phantasm.
Fane of Nyrro
What’s Their Deal?
Also vampire elves, but real freaky about it. While House Kallyss has a dark nobility to them, the Fane of Nyrro embraces a more beastial, primal version of their curse. Think Nosferatu to Kallyss's Dracula. They’re the newest army to be announced, so we don’t know a ton about them yet. They’re the original Eldritch elves, turning their back on their gods to achieve a twisted sort of immortality. They were driven into hiding by the rest of the Iosian elves, but now that everyone left is undead they’re back to show off how right they were the entire time.Playstyle
We don’t know yet! The only models released so far are the Final Hunt Command Cadre, and they don’t play into any of the vampiric “hunger” mechanics that SFG has teased. The Final Hunt synergizes around cold damage and punishing models that don’t have cold resistance. They’re a pretty compact package to drop into any House Kallyss lists you’d like to run them in, and hopefully we’ll see some more Cold type synergies with the full faction release.Popular Units
There’s only the one release, so all of them! Pretty much the entire box shows up in various popular House Kallyss archetypes, so it’s a useful purchase for both Dusk subfactions.
Image courtesy Steamforged Games
Khador
Winter Korps
What’s Their Deal?
Very much based on Russia during the First World War, with a little bit of “what if the Tsars made it to World War II” mixed in for good measure. Lots of infantry, mixed with warjacks that have the subtle design sensibility of a bulldozer. Some of the new, larger warjacks are even tracked, making them more tank-like than the walking jacks.Playstyle
The Winter Korps is a combined arms force with a tilt towards shooting. Your melee threats will generally be either Warjacks or the occasional unit of Man-O-War or pikemen. While their jacks look like they’d be big and slow, there are plenty of support pieces that can buff their speed and charge distance.Popular Units
The Khador roster is deep and a lot of things get played, but the things that make consistent appearances in tournament lists are Shock Troopers of both types, Pikemen, Winter Korps Snipers, and The Hounds. Just a lot of really efficient units that take buffs well. Depending on how Warjack heavy the list is, you’ll see a lot of Battle Mechaniks as well.Ekaterina Baranova and Tatiana Sikora are the Winter Korps’ two most popular casters. Baranova is a jack-of-all-trades support caster, supporting all the parts of her army pretty equally, but shines during her feat turn. Her feat greatly debuffs any enemy models in her control range, cutting their speed and leaving them unable to charge or effectively make ranged attacks. It’s often used as a tool to charge your army deep into enemy lines while mitigating retaliation. Sikora is a melee specialist who’s built to run with a force full of Man-O-War models. Her leadership and spells can make MOW units extremely fast, especially if your opponent is forced to actually engage with them, while her feat makes faction models even tougher in melee combat and allows them to reroll missed attacks.
Old Umbrey
What’s Their Deal?
Old Umbrey represents the deep, dark forest of Eastern European folk horror. The people of Umbrey, in their fanatical loyalty to Khador, have embraced dark magics at the risk of their very humanity to defend their homeland. If you like werewolves and apex predators that lurk in shadowed forests, this is the faction for you.Playstyle
Melee specialists, Old Umbrey plans to take advantage of its Warbeasts’ and units’ long threat ranges to hit the enemy before they can hit back. The faction has a lot of control elements to keep their opponent’s units at perfect ranges and reduce their damage output. The melee specialty comes with a rather pronounced weakness to ranged opponents, so be prepared to need to take specific models in your army to deal with that.Popular Units
Ursine Shifted are Old Umbrey’s main tool against ranged attacks, so many lists include a pair of them if not more. With the shifted models you need to bring marked units, and Liegemen Ursans usually fit the bill but all of them see play depending on what you want the rest of your list to be doing. All of the warbeasts are decent at worst, but the Gorger looks really cool so I recommend you take one.Kazimir Morozov and Yana Kovoskiy are the two casters taken most often. Morozov is basically a Shifter theme caster, with a feat that allows him to drop any of your Shapeshifter models that haven’t been deployed yet into play all at once. Very simple, but very powerful. He also shapeshifts himself into a very potent assassination threat. Kovoskiy usually hangs back in support of her army, giving boosts by killing enemies with her javelins, but by the end of the game when her opponent’s biggest threats are gone she’s more than capable of finishing off heavies or assassinations by herself.
Image courtesy Steamforged Games
Khymaera
Shadowflame Shard
What’s Their Deal?
Cyborg dragon monsters. That’s it, that’s the concept. With power stolen from a dragon and a machine god, the Khymaera leave their underground home to raid for souls and other bulk materials to expand their forces. They’ve found themselves in conflict with the Orgoth, because they both want souls and there aren’t quite enough in the Iron Kingdoms to go around.Playstyle
Hit and run melee attacks, leveraging the army’s higher DEF values and movement tricks to mitigate their relatively low armor values. You really want to hit without getting hit back, the Shadowflame Shard is not here to brawl with other armies. Of course, if you’re playing Lylyth, you just blow the other army off the table before they can hurt you.Popular Units
Lylyth is the most popular caster by a wide margin. She almost single-handedly enables Shadowflame Shard to play a gunline, and so she tends to run ranged units like the Quick Fang Stalkers and the Hydrix with a bunch of ranged weapons that other casters don’t. Next most popular is Vallyx, who tends to build around generic good stuff combined with Warbeasts and units that have critical effects on attacks. Warbeasts with Horned Piercer for armor debuffs, Talon Lashers for knockdown, things like that.
Image courtesy Steamforged Games
Orgoth
Sea Raiders
What’s Their Deal?
Immortal Vikings that sold their souls to the devil. The Orgoth invaded and conquered the Iron Kingdoms long ago in the setting’s history, which is the event that ended up causing most of the sorrows to come in later history, as the leaders of the Kingdom made a pact with a different faction of devils to drive them out. Now they’re back for round 2 and the Iron Kingdoms don’t have a trump card to get rid of them this time. Aesthetically, they’re a mix of your traditional fantasy Viking, all abs and curved horn helmets, with a mixture of demonic technology in their warjacks and monstrosities.Playstyle
Be aggressive, b-e aggressive. Orgoth isn’t super tricky, their models have relatively high stats but they’re not doing surprising things to get into combat or trap your opponent. Sea Raiders leverage those stats with a few key movement buffs to get into combat and destroy opponents. Sea Raiders warjacks are good, especially Tyrants which almost always make their points back if they can get stuck into combat with enemy heavy jacks.Popular Units
You’re going to see at least one and likely multiple Tyrants and Jackals in any given list. Jackals are incredibly efficient arc nodes at 6 points, and if you don’t need the node for whatever reason they’re still useful as advance-deployed rifles. Tyrants can be loaded out to be effective in either shooting or melee as the need arises, they’re very flexible beaters. Units like Ulkor Axers or Barragers are key, providing either melee or ranged attacks on a unit that takes a lot of effort to remove.After the January balance changes, the two most popular casters are Orsus the Betrayed (nee The Butcher of Khador) and Kishtaar, the Howling Silence. Orsus is a brutal melee killer who specializes in making his melee units incredibly mobile through spell buffs and an ability that lets models move forward after they kill something in melee. His feat strips many defensive effects from models and prevents healing, making things even more vulnerable. Kishtaar is a dedicated support Warcaster, but can’t be counted out as a damage dealer, especially during her feat turn. She spends most turns buffing her cohort models and taking shots at lighter infantry, trying to guarantee kills in order to move models forward, positioning for her feat turn where all of a sudden everyone has semi-boosted attack and damage rolls.
Reaper Covenant
What’s Their Deal?
We don’t know too much about them yet. The caster and units that have been released so far were all entombed long ago during the first Orgoth invasion of the Iron Kingdoms. Now that the Orgoth are back, they’re awake and ready to get back to slaughtering for their Infernal masters. So far, they look like Orgoth but even more undead, with everyone being skeletal where the Sea Raiders tend to be humanoid, or at least fully formed with flesh and muscle.Playstyle
No idea, they’re too new. Anathia, the warlock that’s currently out, falls into the spellcaster archetype and pretty much everything else in the one existing box is a big, bulky beater. To be frank, with no new releases until at least 2027, you’re buying the Graveborn cadre box in order to use it in a Sea Raiders army.Popular Units
The Execrators character unit is showing up in all kinds of Sea Raiders lists right now. They’re high armor bricks with magical, blessed weapons, rules that allow them to deal with all kinds of threats and ignore any buffs those threats are loaded up with.
Image courtesy Steamforged Games
Southern Kriels
Brineblood Marauders
What’s Their Deal?
Driven out of the mainland of the Iron Kingdoms, the Brineblood Marauders are a group of trolls that have decided to get revenge through piracy. They’re themed around seafaring stereotypes, ranging from some warcasters that look like traditional big-bearded pirates and a whole bunch of characters and units dressed like Napoleonic sailors. They’re also the most whimsical faction, featuring lots of fun little creatures and a lot of comedy in the unit designs.Playstyle
The Brineblood Marauders are all about taking a few mediocre units like Marauder Crew or Dire Trolls and layering buffs on them to make them incredibly effective. Brinebloods play the mid-to-close ranged game, with a bunch of sprays and blasts available that make them good at clearing out other units. Everyone has Tough, which isn’t the most reliable form of defense but can be really annoying if your dice are hot, keeping things alive long after they should be dead.Popular Units
You’re going to see Marauder Crews with some kind of attachment (depending on gameplan) and Pyg Boarding Parties in every list. They’re basically mandatory. Boarding parties screen your other units while throwing grenades at anyone who misses them with a ranged attack, while the Marauder Crews are the backbone of your list. The Lochabash Brothers and Pyg Battle Brigs show up a lot as they’re just all around good units, and the Abyssal King is a very good colossal beast if you’re in the market for one of those.The two most popular casters are Captain Firequill and Admiral Boomhowler, with everyone else seeing marginal play. Firequill greatly improves your shooting by making your cohort models very deadly, boosting their accuracy and potentially giving them multiple free shots per turn. Boomhowler is the opposite, a defensive Warlock focused on making your army tough and hitting back when hit. With Boomhowler, you want to use your feat on the turn before your enemy is going to launch their big attack, since it buffs everyone’s defense and gives them rapid healing, hopefully wasting a lot of what your opponent was planning. After their go turn, you hit back and take advantage of your opponent having used the biggest tools in their kit and take that game over.
Kithguard
What’s Their Deal?
Instead of pirates, these Trolls stepped straight out of the jungles of the Vietnam War. They’re guerilla fighters, with everything that entails. There are snipers, people coming out of trap doors to launch ambushes, and units with machine guns and flamethrowers. The only thing they’re missing that would be super on theme is a variant of the Pyg Battle Brig that looks like a helicopter.Playstyle
They’re not all released yet, but so far we’ve seen a lot of tricky play out of the Kithguard. Their trap door mechanic allows models to leave the table and be set up again in ambush, either from the side of the table or from another trap door. This is really cool and can lead to lots of really satisfying attacks out of nowhere, but you’ve gotta keep in mind that if your models aren’t on the table they aren’t playing the scenario. It’s also possible for your opponent to destroy your trap doors by trampling them with big based models, so be careful you don’t get stuck deploying your ambushers out of the way on the side of the table.Popular Units
Not everything is out yet, so the things being played are more a function of availability than any kind of real qualitative analysis. Take what looks cool, like the Mistborn Dire Troll. It has a giant gun on it, it’s rad.
Image courtesy Steamforged GamesFinally! That's every faction that isn't 3d printable or only available second-hand. Remember, these are just brief overviews and a look at what models are commonly played in tournament lists. The factions are much deeper than I can cover in one article like this, so if you find one you like the look of make sure to spend some time sitting down with their rules (all free in the app, remember) and really explore the synergies and combos you can come up with on your own.
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