Economic Guide to Warmachine/Hordes

Years ago I played Epic from Games Workshop. It was a great game that then triple-bounce crashed and burned when the "third edition" of the game (Epic40K) came out with an atrocious rules set. In the years between Epic40K and Epic: Armageddon I continued to collect the miniatures via Bartertown in hopes that the game might have a comeback. One of the things I noticed was that some of the miniatures were harder to find than others. Once you took into account for various reasons why some were harder than others, there was one model that really stood out: the Capital Imperialis.

The biggest reason why it was hard to find: almost nobody bought it. I think the reason why nobody bought it was because it was financially expensive yet had a low points cost and some really poor rules. I think a lot of players did a quick and dirty bit of mental cost / benefit analysis and decided against buying it. After all, why spend money on a stinker? After thinking back to all of the other wargames I have played I created what I call "The Capital Imperialis Rule."

The Capital Imperialis Rule: The more expensive a miniature, the better / more worthwhile the rules for it should be.

I like what Vyngynce did with his analysis because it pretty much plays into The Capital Imperialis Rule, but it did so on a very broad, superficial level. One of the assumptions inherent in his work is that all of the models have equally good rules. That is where his analysis falls apart.

For example: Vyngynce called out the Khador warjacks as being typically priced yet having a low points cost. Fair enough, but we all know that the Marauder and the Juggernaut are worth their points, enough so that Khador players are willing to pay for the jack kits to get the Marauder.

The colossals are interesting in that they are really expensive, yet they have so many rules that give them special abilities that they start to become worth the investment. The fact that they have gotten cheaper with the plastic kits has made them more worth getting for more players. I think why we don't see a lot of the gargantuans on the board is because a lot of them are not worth the financial expense for their rules.

Then you get into the large and huge-based casters. How many of them have rules that make their financial expense worth bearing?

The followup article by Vyngynce is published: An economic guide to warcasters and warlocks midwestwargaming.com/economic-guide-warcasters-warlocks/

I think that's probably a factor, plus they have a Battle Engine that's only 13 points, a caster that is one of the most expensive models in the whole range, and I'm pretty sure they have a lot of resin in general. They also generally have lower point models. 

Seeing as I am getting the OW2/3 for Christmas I figured it would be a good time to start collecting Grymkin.


Then I checked out the prices and I was like mneh, maybe I'll wait and go buy a house first.

Faction boxes, All in One boxes, starting battleboxes, etc., definitely give you a discount toward playing the game. One of the funny stories from this last month is that when PP put their MK2 battleboxes on sale for $10, every CoC player was buying 10 of them because it was the cheapest way to get a galvanizer.

I will definitely be adding these discounted packages to my guide to playing this game on the cheap when I put it together.

Their one advantage is that they are a smaller faction. You also don't have to have as much variety to play them competitively. I'd take Doopsie's advice and buy a starter or two if you can get your hands on it. Plus, if you have Old Witch 3, you already have their most expensive model. Outside of her, the price of their faction is pretty similar to every other faction. If you avoid Mad Caps and Cask Imps, the CPP is very much in line with other factions. The actual ticket price on the Death Knell is dead on average for a Battle Engine, as most them cost $85. I hope that helps.