Warmachine:Quick Start Rules

Warcasters
A warcaster is a tremendously powerful soldier-sorcerer with the ability to control a group of warjacks telepathically. Every warcaster has a certain amount of focus points he can spend to enhance his combat abilities and cast spells or allocate to individual warjacks to increase their fighting capabilities. All warcasters are unique characters.

Warjacks
A warjack is a huge, steam-driven metal construct built for war. A magical brain known as a cortex housed within its hull gives it the ability to reason. Armed with the most fearsome melee and ranged weaponry yet devised, a warjack reaches its full destructive potential only when controlled by a warcaster.

Stat Cards
Every model comes with a stat card that provides a quick reference of its profile and abilities. The primary card's front shows the model's stats, abilities, and damage grid, while ability explanations appear on the back. Warcasters have a second card that describes their spells and feat.

Other Materials
In addition, players will need a handful of six-sided dice, a flexible ruler or tape measure, and some tokens (coins or glass beads work fine) to represent focus points and spell effects.

=Fundamentals=

Starting the Game
After setting up the battlefield, both players roll a d6. The high roller chooses who goes first. The first player deploys his battlegroup up to 10" in from a table edge, and then his opponent does the same. These battlegroups should be deployed on opposite sides of the battlefield with at least 20" separating the opposing forces.

WARMACHINE battles are fought in a series of game rounds. Each game round, both players take a turn. The player who deployed his army first takes his turn first every game round. After the second player takes his turn, a new game round begins. A game effect with a duration of one round expires at the beginning of its creator's next turn.

The player turn is divided into three phases:

Maintenance Phase: Remove your previous turn's unused focus points and any effects that expire on your turn. Resolve any continuous effects on your models.

Control Phase: Replenish your warcaster's focus points. You can then spend them to upkeep spells or allocate them to eligible warjacks.

Activation Phase: Activate your models in any order. Each model can move and then make a combat action.