Gameplay
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". Play is centered around Warlocks and their attendant Warbeasts, who may be supported by units and solos. Warbeasts generate fury(an equivalent to focus which is allocated or not at the start of your turn), 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 its 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 covering 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.
The first rule book for the Hordes system is called Primal. It contains all the latest rules for the Hordes (and Warmachine) system, and army lists for the four 'factions' along with some Minions who will work for various armies. An expansion for the game called Evolution was released by Privateer Press in August 2007. A third expansion, Metamorphosis, was released in 2009.
In 2010 a major rules revision, called MkII, was released following a similar revision for Warmachine. The current main rule book is called Primal MkII. It contained the latest rules and stats for a subset of the released figures for each faction. After this five Forces of Hordes books were released, one for each main faction and one for the Minions, each one containing stats for all released models for that faction and some new units. MkII saw its first expansion in December 2011 when the book Domination was released.
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