Tabletop Game / Iron Kingdoms

The Iron Lich (Asphyxious) and the Butcher of Khardov (Orsus Zoktavir) duke it out alongside their titular warmachines.

"Play like you've got a pair!"

— The oft-quoted Page 5 of the WARMACHINE Prime and HORDES Primal rulebooks

Iron Kingdoms is a fantasy setting created by the gaming company Privateer Press. Originally designed as a campaign setting for the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons, it is now known chiefly as the setting for the miniatures-based tabletop strategy game Warmachine^note in its first three editions, Warmachine was only one of the two brands used by the wargame; the second brand Hordes was dropped in 4th edition.

The term "Iron Kingdoms" specifically refers to a collection of human nations in the western portion of the continent of Immoren on a planet known as Caen. In the past, Western Immoren used to be a fairly typical fantasy setting, where warriors used swords and bows, wizards cast spells, and parties of human, dwarven, and (occasionally) elven adventurers would wander the land, beating up goblins, ogres (called ogrun in Immoren), trolls, and other monsters in order to take their stuff. All that changed when the Orgoth invaded from across the western ocean. A race of humans whose immensely powerful sorcery put Immoren magic to shame, the Orgoth easily conquered the squabbling human city-states of Immoren and ruled the land as unbeatable overlords for the better part of four hundred years. No longer able to rely on standard swords and sorcery, Immorese freedom fighters were forced to develop new technologies in order to counter the Orgoth's immense magical advantage — technologies such as steam engines, gunpowder, and magic steam-powered robots that made use of both. The rebellion also forced the humans of Immoren to put aside their old racial grudges, and goblins, ogrun, and trollkin (the most intelligent and civilized of the trolls) stood side-by-side with humans against the Orgoth invaders. After another two hundred years of fighting, the inhabitants of Immoren finally managed to drive the Orgoth from their shores. In order to prevent their lands descending into chaos once more, the human rulers of Immoren met in the city of Corvis and drew up a series of treaties that officially divided their lands into the titular Iron Kingdoms:

• Cygnar, the largest and most technologically advanced of the Iron Kingdoms, and considered (by its inhabitants, anyway) to be the most lawful and just of them as well. The country recently had a(nother) change in leadership, after King Leto abdicated the throne to his own nephew Julius, the arguable rightful heir.
• Khador, located in the northern part of the continent; ruthlessly expansionistic and very Russian.
• Ord, a rustic nation on the coast with a strong naval presence and little in the way of land-based military. Its most famous city is the port town of Five Fingers, a wretched hive of scum and villainy (but also of freedom and opportunity).
• Llael, a small but rich nation whose alchemists hold the monopoly on blasting powder, situated between Khador and Cygnar. With little else in the way of mineral wealth or military might, a woefully inefficient government, and no actual ruler, it came as no surprise to anyone when Khador took half of it over. Then the Protectorate took half of what was left in their Northern Crusade. Cygnar is moving back to the kingdom, after the marriage between King Julius and Llael's last living member of the Llaese Royal Family.
• The Protectorate of Menoth, the youngest human nation, created in the wake of a religious civil war in Cygnar. As it's technically still part of that nation, the Protectorate is officially prohibited from maintaining a standing army or building warjacks... and yet its military presence is somehow greater than that of Ord and Llael combined.

In addition to these five human kingdoms, there are a number of other power blocs on the continent:

• Cryx, an island nation ruled by the kaiju-sized dragon Lord Toruk. Seems to be populated entirely by The Undead and Always Chaotic Evil humans and ogrun (most of whom are pirates).
• Ios, home of the elves; rarely seen by outsiders, as the elves are not the friendliest folks on the continent. Also home to one of the two remaining elven Physical Gods, who is comatose and dying. The Nyss have the other encased in a block of ice.
• Rhul, home of the dwarves, a nation which has not seen any major political or societal upheavals in over a thousand years. Of all the fantasy races in the Iron Kingdoms, the dwarves are probably played the straightest, the sole exception being their lack of animosity towards the elves and full beards.
• The Skorne Empire, which lies on the other side of a vast desert to Cygnar's east. A nation of Proud Warrior Race Guys, the skorne have only recently begun to stir up trouble in the western part of the continent.
• The Nyss, an arctic subgroup of elves who are marginally more friendly than their woods-dwelling counterparts. Currently engaged in a desperate life-or-death struggle with the disembodied life force of a dragon that's trying to turn them all into monsters.
• The Trollbloods, a collection of trolls and trollkin desperately trying to reclaim their ancestral homelands. They get understandably short-tempered when the other power blocs try to muscle in on their turf.
• Circle Orboros, a faction of druids who seek to maintain the delicate balance between civilized order and natural chaos, in order to prevent The End of the World as We Know It. They tend to pick fights with anyone who encroaches too deeply into their forests and are most concerned at the moment by the rise of Everblight and other dragon spawn.
• The Legion of Everblight, a growing empire ruled by a disembodied dragon that is two parts The Virus to one part Demonic Possession, with a Hive Mind thrown in for good measure. Their numbers comprise the Nyss elves who weren't lucky enough to escape Everblight's grasp, and Ogrun tribes that were in the region.
• The Convergence of Cyriss, Transhuman cultists of the goddess of science, mathematics, and engineering, who consider uploading their souls into clockwork bodies to be divine works. They seek to control ley lines and natural magical sites to power their Great Work of turning all of Immoren into a vessel in which Cyriss can manifest; unfortunately, most of these sites are held firmly by the Iron Kingdoms or other powerful organisations, such as the Circle.
• The Grymkin come straight from hell with an army of Halloween monsters to ruin the creations of Menoth. For allowing them to invade Caen, they have gifted Zevanna Agha the ability command Grymkin armies — so she can stop the Infernals (who are classic demons from another hell in Urcaen) from invading Caen.
• The above-mentioned Infernals, evil non-corporeal entities from the darkest corners of Urcaen the Outer Abyss. These are specifically of the Nonokrion Order, one group of Infernals among many which compete against each other, and against the gods, for souls. Basically The Legions of Hell. Barred from just entering Caen, they typically gain influence on the mortal world via a Deal with the Devil. The Nonokrion Order gained a foothold on Caen after one such deal centuries ago, and now they invade to claim their due: two-thirds of Humanity.
• The Orgoth, the ancient oppressors of Western Immoren who were driven back centuries ago, have now returned. They are aided by Fellgoeth Order of infernals, rivals to the above-mentioned Nonokrion Order. Learning from their past defeat, they developed their own version of mechanika, fuelled by dark magics and tormented souls. Having developed their own infernally-tainted warjacks and technology to rival the Iron Kingdoms, the Orgoth seek to redress their defeat from centuries ago.
• Large numbers of Mercenaries that by and large operate outside the confines of the Iron Kingdoms' political structure, and fight primarily for coin. Mercenaries are often seen fighting alongside the troops and warjacks of one of the other factions, though dedicated Mercenary armies also exist. Mercenary characters run the gamut from noble to villainous, idealistic to cynical, and coldly calculating to flat frickin' crazy. Many of them are also pirates.
• The minor non-human races of Western Immoren, collectively known as Minions, that often serve as warriors for hire in much the same way as the Mercenaries. Like the Mercenaries, dedicated Minion armies also exist; many of these center around the boar-like farrow or the alligator-like gatormen, both of whom have started banding together to push interlopers out of their tribal lands.

Of course, for all this political and technological mucking about, Western Immoren is still by-and-large a heroic fantasy setting. It's just that nowadays, the warriors' weapons are as likely to be guns as swords; the wizards' wonders are as likely to be mechanikal as arcane; and the goblins, ogrun, and trolls are as likely to be adventurers (or hapless townsfolk) as adventurer-bait.

A new version of the Iron Kingdoms RPG was released in 2012, using a modified version of the wargames' rules system and a 'dual-class' character-creation system. A quick-start introductory adventure can be found on the Privateer Press website, titled Fools Rush In. A sibling game has also been released in 2015, Iron Kingdoms Unleashed and covers the savage wilds of Immoren. It was originally going to be an expansion book for the 2012 game, but expanded beyond the scope of an expansion. A free starter adventure for it can be found on Drive Thru RPG. After the standalone RPG was discontinued, in 2021, a Kickstarter campaign was held to fund Iron Kingdoms: Requiem source books compatible with 5th edition D&D.

Other media includes:

• Grind (2009) A miniature sports game with Warjacks forcing a huge spiked ball called the grinder into their opponents goal pit.
• WARMACHINE: Tactics (2014): A Video Game unveiled at Gen Con 2010 with an actual trailer shown at E3 2011 (which can be found here). The Gameplay Footage from 2010 can be found here. Was re-tooled as a turn-based tactics game funded through Kickstarter and achieving well-beyond its initial funding goal.
• Warcaster Neo Mechanika (2020): A sequel miniatures game with different rules and set 5000 years after the events of Warmachine and Hordes, funded with a Kickstarter campaign with 2,330 backers pledging $459,633.

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Trope like you've got a pair!:

A-B

• Abusive Precursors: The Orgoth check all the boxes, and then some. Their oppressive reign on Western Immoren had to be ended by a coalition of the occupied nations, who hate each other's guts. Their mastery of The Dark Arts was such that they could teach the Lich Lords of Cryx a thing or two about Black Magic.
• Action Bomb: Khador Berserker 'jacks have the "Unstable" special rule, meaning they can go Kersplode! when a Warcaster allocates Focus to them. Thus, it's possible to use up all the Focus they naturally accumulate to get a heavily damaged berserker right up close to an enemy, and then pile on Focus until catastrophic failure occurs. Cryxian bile thralls have the "Purge" ability, which allows them to explode, causing everything in Line of Sight to take Corrosion Damage-it's actually more useful than their Bile Cannons.
• Aerith and Bob: You'll find "normal" names applied mostly to humans (Coleman, Vladimir, Fiona, etc.) and "fantasy" names applied mostly to non-humans (Madrak, Vyros, Ossrum, etc.).
• All Crimes Are Equal: The urban RPG supplement has a list of fourteen crimes; the Protectorate of Menoth judiciary can sentence you to death by burning for no less than eleven of them, including "improper speech".
• All There in the Manual: Multiple tabletop battle rulebooks, no fewer than five hardcover RPG volumes, the "No Quarter" magazine, and the Privateer Press website, all of which contain fiction and background information that fleshes out the world and the people who live in it. The core book for the 2012 RPG has about 100 pages dedicated to setting information, possibly to help alleviate this trope for people unfamiliar with the setting.
• Alternate Continuity: Canonically, as depicted in Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, the Battle of Henge Hold ended in victory for the Iron Kingdoms: the infernal threat was vanquished, the infernal masters were thrown down or driven off, and thousands of refugees made it through the gateway to the distant galaxy of Cyriss. In the Riot Quest (a board game whose models can also be used in a game of Warmachine) timeline, the infernals instead won the war and claimed their due, leaving behind a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Essentially the only reason any single dragon, most notably Toruk, hasn't conquered Immoren, is because they're all concerned about each other.
• Amazon Brigade: Tharn bloodtrackers, wolf riders and bloodweavers, Daughters of the Flame, and all Satyxis.
• Ancient Tomb: Many locations in the Iron Kingdoms could qualify as this, though Orgoth temples are considered some of the most dangerous.
• Anime Hair: Many Cygnarans. Commander Coleman Stryker, whose hairstyle resembles a lit match, is both a particularly egregious example and an in-universe trend-setter. The elves of the Retribution of Scyrah also have hair the color of which you'd only find in anime. Assuming they don't just shave it all off. Partially justified, however, because Cygnarans tend to spend a lot of time near arcane energies, electricity, or both at the same time. The in-universe reason Commander Adept Nemo has Albert Einstein's hair is because of the gigantic tesla coil powering his armour that's mounted right behind his head.
• Animesque: The Retribution of Scyrah.
• Animorphism: The Tharn. Also, Warpwolves can switch between their wolf and human forms, though they prefer the former.
• And I Must Scream: All skorne that do not get exalted or chosen by an exalted to be its revered companions (that is, the majority of them, including all non-warriors with very few exceptions) will, upon death, be flung into the yawning Void to experience endless pain and agony and inevitably go mad.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The Khadoran High Kommand's reaction to the apparent death of Kommander Zoktavir, one of their most veteran and feared soldiers? A collective sigh of relief. His random bouts of insanity made him just as much of a nightmare for them as he was for the enemy.
• Anti-Magic: Several people and things in the game have the ability to prevent magic spells from being cast by certain models or by multiple models within a certain area (Grissel Bloodsong, Orin Midwinter, etc.). Soulless who have been conditioned like Nayl have this effect when they die.
• Appropriated Appellation: When the elves still ruled much of central Immoren, before the Abyss was created, they called the primitive skorne godless. The skorne took it as a compliment, in the belief that the elven gods pampered the elves, making them weak and dependent on the gods.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Vinter Raelthorne IV takes the gold for this in the IK universe.
• Arm Cannon: Bartolo Montador has a powerful gun concealed in his artificial arm and a large minority of warjacks, such as the Sentinel or Destroyer, have guns in place of arms.
• Artificial Limbs: Given the setting, there are many examples to be had, but Master Necrotech Mortenebra takes this as far as possible, replete with Spider Limbs and a body to match. The Necrotechs of Cryx share similar, albeit less advanced versions of the same general anatomy, and as a whole the Necrotechs are responsible for the developement of Cryxian warjacks and the more... mechanical troops at Cryx's disposal. Notable examples outside of Cryx include Asheth Magnus (bionic arm and leg), Major Victoria Haley (bionic arm), and Captain Bartolo "Broadsides Bart" Montador (bionic arm with a built-in cannon).
• Artifact of Death: Whenever Madrak Ironhide is wounded in a fight his axe, Rathrok, will automatically transfer all the damage to a friendly trollkin trooper who happens to be standing next to him at that exact moment. It always results in the other guy's death, even if Madrak was just grazed.
• Artifact of Doom:
  • The axe Rathrok has a nice, ugly doomsday prophecy tied to it. Madrak initially didn't believe it, but the more time he spends with it, the less he doubts it very well may mean the end of all life on Caen. And now Kromac the Ravenous has it.
  • Many Orgoth relics exist in the lands they used to occupy and are sought after by all kinds of ruthless people, most prominently the Lich Lords of Cryx or the Khadoran Greylords.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: All of the dragons are gigantic. Toruk especially; his toe nails are larger than trucks.
• Ascended Meme: Khador players joked that their Grolar jack was a myth and would never be released. The official lore now states that its production suffered numerous setbacks. From issues with the mechanisms, to the train carrying the first batch being sabotaged.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership:
  • Most warcasters and some warlocks are this. The thing is, the warcaster talent is rare, so they tend to be promoted to officers once they finish training. Allister Caine was an exception, having the lowest rank of any warcaster in Cygnar (he was demoted for inappropriate behavior), but he has since been promoted back up. Even when fighting alongside people of a higher rank (ie; Captain Haley leading a force including Major Laddermore), the warcasters will typically be given operational command in the field - their ability to see through the senses of their warjacks means they have a far greater sense of how the battle's going by being able to see it from multiple vantage points simultaneously.
  • Vinter Raelthorne IV. Full stop. After being kicked out of his own kingdom by his brother, he proceeds to wander across the desert and conquer a new kingdom for himself. By himself.
• Awesome Backpack: The smoke-belching Warcaster armor worn to generate an energy field, enhance their physical abilities, and nullify the chance of arcane spells fizzling when casting while wearing armor (although this last function's been dropped in the new version of the RPG as, unlike in the DnD version, armour no longer interferes with spellcasting).
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Firearms in the original RPG rules. They were slow to reload, had little more stopping power than a bow and arrow, and were insanely expensive to own and maintain. Made somewhat more practical by the official errata dropping all ammunition costs by an order of magnitude, and averted completely for firearms in the new version of the RPG.
  • The Cygnar Thunderhead Warjack is seen as this in universe. Unlike other warjacks which run on coal, it runs on electricity, which while powerful, means very few warcasters can actually understand how the thing is used. Some may have had this opinion about the project even before the Thunderhead was finished - the warjack's fluff mentions a lot of its prototypes violently exploding.
  • Original Colossals that the Human kingdoms built to overthrow the Orgoth were replaced by smaller, cheaper, and more numerous warjacks, due to the high cost of building and maintenance.
• Awesome by Analysis: While most feats are often described as a burst of arcane energy, Supreme Kommandant Irusk's feat is described as basically him being Sun Tzu. Even writing a book.
  • Several Mercenary Warcasters do this, meshing foresight with luck (Ashlynn d'Elyse), planning (Magnus The Warlord), or decades of experience (Drake MacBain).
  • Gifted characters in the 2012 version of the RPG can learn an ability to read a spell's runes (which appear around the caster) and decipher what spell is being cast.
  • Major Victoria Haley has probably the only feat that actually produces a real-life example of this trope. It lets you determine the order in which your opponent's models can activate during their next round. If you don't know how their models are supposed to work together, the feat is nearly useless. If you DO know how they work together, you can utterly cripple their next turn. Her Telekinesis spell works the same way. You'd think the ability to move an enemy model a couple of inches in any direction would be fairly useless. Then Vickie grabs the model, moves it a couple of inches, and turns it around. Suddenly (1) it cannot charge at her models; (2) it's in range of one of her attacks; (3) her models get a bonus for hitting it in the back; and (4) she now has line-of-sight on the enemy warcaster!
• Ax-Crazy: Tharn Ravagers, Doom Reavers, Nihilators, Warmongers and the Butcher of Khardov.
• Back-to-Back Badasses:
  • Khador's Great Bears of Gallowswood are a trio that fight in this manner.
  • Models with the "Defensive Line" rule get extra melee defense when their bases are touching.
• Badass Longcoat: Pretty much everyone. The d20 rules specifically encouraged this, by giving reinforced and armored greatcoats Damage Reduction (something that's otherwise very hard to get without magic) and allowing their protective benefits to stack with light armor; as a result, the combination of armored greatcoat and chain shirt was one of the most effective, and therefore most popular, non-magical armor choices in the game.
• Bald of Evil: Most of the Retribution of Scyrah's basic troops and several of their commanders shave their heads.
• Bears Are Bad News: Brun Cragback is a powerful mercenary warlock that is accompanied by his friend Lug. Who is an enormous, bad-tempered bear.
• Beast Man: The Tharn are an entire species of beast men and women.
• The Beastmaster: Warlocks are powerful magic-users defined by a telepathic bond to warbeasts, which allows the warlock to siphon off fury and control these creatures.
• Beast of Battle: The entire point of warbeasts, with many other examples besides.
• Berserk Button:
  • Orsus Zoktavir is Berserk as it is, but if he ever finds out you hurt a woman, he will END you.
  • For some of the dragons, the fact that Everblight's first gargantuan, the Archangel, looks so much like one of them is this, to the point that one demanded the destruction of every single Archangel as condition for his joining an alliance.
• BFG:
  • The Commodore, a massive ship's cannon owned by Phinneus Shae. Capable of holing any ship of the line, it is wheeled onto shore by sheer man-power, and the force of its blasts can send warjacks flying yards back at extreme ranges... and then there are its other ammo types. Add to this that a man was executed by being tied to the barrel of the cannon and broken from the sheer force of the cannon's repeated fire and that, except for his legs, his skeleton still hangs from the barrel, and...
  • No love for Gunnbjorn?◊
  • The Ogrun Assault Corps◊.
  • Kara Sloan's Spitfire◊.
• BFS: Many, many examples. Cygnarans in particular often wield variants of the Caspian battleblade, whose blade can be upwards of a foot wide at its widest point. Cygnar also has a fair number of big friggin' hammers, while Khadorans often carry big friggin' axes, and a great many Menites wield big friggin' maces. And that's before you get to the melee weapons the 'jacks and warbeasts wield. Bonus points to Tyrant Xerxis, who dual wields a pair of big friggin' maces so heavy most skorne can't lift even one of them.
• Big Eater: Pygmy trolls and trollkin are known for their big appetites. Trolls and dire trolls are known for their insatiable appetites. In all cases; their appetites get greater the more their regenerative powers are put to work.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The vast majority of factions in the Iron Kingdoms actually fall under Gray-and-Gray Morality; some are lighter or darker than others, but pretty much all of them contain noble souls and despicable scumbags alike. And then at the far end of the scale you have the dragons and their followers, who are entirely and unrepentantly evil.
• Black Comedy Burst: Farrow troops have the Special Rule which allows warbeasts in base contact to eat their corpses, healing a small ammount of damage. Its name? Bacon.
• Black Magic: Anything related to dragons, Thamar, or infernalists.
• Bloody Murder: The Blood Horror variant is demonstrated by Everblight's warlocks. They create their warbeasts by spilling their athanc-enhanced blood. This still carries the risk of exsanguination, so the Legion has been developing tools to allow creation of warbeasts using someone else's blood.
• Body Horror:
  • Much of what the disembodied dragon Everblight is doing to the Nyss elves, but particularly the forsaken, the grotesques, and the incubi.
  • Absylonia, so very, very much. She even has a spell called Playing God that warps and twists the beasts under her command. Also she has Carnivore, a spell which lets any model or group of troops get a lot better at hitting living models. If they happen to kill something, they eat it. They eat it so hard they eat its soul, but Absylonia's stomach gets full.
  • The Nephilim as well, they're not blood spawn like other Legion beasts, they're birthed by Nyss women.
  • The spell martyrs. Dear God, the spell martyrs.
  • The cephalyx indulge in the surgically-induced side of this trope. The story Mind Over Matter in Called to Battle: Volume 2 gives a horrifyingly-clear demonstration of this, coupled with a rather unusual case of And I Must Scream.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Borka Kegslayer. Captain Bartolo "Broadsides Bart" Montador.
• Bond Creatures: Warbeasts and warjacks.
• Boobs-and-Butt Pose: A very odd and rare male example with Shae. Hard to tell beneath his coat and such, but it's there.
• Brain Washed: This is what will happen to you should you ever be caught by a cephalyx. To eventually be followed by surgical Body Horror.
• Breath Weapon: Many Legion of Everblight warbeasts and Thagrosh the Messiah employ blighted breath as a primary weapon. The blighted Lich Lord Terminus as well.
• The Brute: General Gerlak Slaughterborn.
• Burn the Witch!: The Protectorate's favored method of execution is by burning them at the stake. This is the usual fate of those born with the wilding if the Circle doesn't get to them in time.

C-E

• Cannot Spit It Out: Rutger Shaw to Taryn di la Rovissi.
• Can't Argue with Elves: Played with. Very few elves that deal with other races show any arrogance, and in fact most are rather friendly and easy going (granted some of it is an act). However, this is partly because very few elves deal with other races at all, and the ones who do are generally the friendly ones. You can't argue with the unfriendly ones because you can't get close enough to do so — and if you try, they will kill you.
• Captain Ersatz: Many, usually folk characters
  • The Old Witch, Khador's own Baba Yaga, complete with chicken-legged personal robot.
  • Morvanah the Autumnblade, twin sister to Morgan Le Fay
  • Siege Brisbane, bears a striking resembalance to John Henry.
  • Captain Damiano, Don Quixote, right down to the name of his personal jack.
• Cast from Hit Points: Skarre's gimmick. All warlocks in Hordes can be made to do this, although you are probably losing badly at this point.
• Chained by Fashion: Pyre trolls, several dire trolls and the Khadoran warjack, Drago. In each of those cases, the chains are a safety measure. Drago in particular since it has a curious habit of firing up its own boiler when it should be physically impossible.
• Chainsaw Good: The Renegade light warjack and Man-O-War Bombardiers. Their chainsaws also shoot GRENADES!
• Chain Lightning: A signature anti-infantry spell for those with any connection to electricity.
• Chainmail Bikini: A number of examples, particularly among the Cryx. It has been expressly stated that the satyxis wear revealing armor in order to throw male opponents off guard. However, outside of the exceptionally evil and magically mutated Cryx and Legion factions (I guess dragons have a thing for sexy female minions?), this trope is averted as often as it's played straight. Take◊ a◊ look.◊
• The Chessmaster: Toruk. It's constantly hinted at in the backstory that Toruk has a grand scheme to take back his athancs and conquer the world. The details of this plan, however, are extremely vague and the only thing we know for sure is that he is biding his time until the proper moment.
  • The vagueness of the plan could just be his fanatical followers' refusal to accept that he isn't as omniscient as they think he is. His Chessmaster status is still something of an Informed Ability.
  • Everblight also likes to think of himself as a better Chessmaster than his father.
• Church Militant: The Protectorate of Menoth, an entire nation of mask-wearing Knights Templar.
• Clingy MacGuffin: Madrak tried his hardest get rid of his axe, but it always comes back when battle is joined. As of Hordes: Devastation, he has finally gotten rid of it. And now Kromac has it.
• Clockwork Creature: Almost every battlefield unit the Convergence of Cyriss fields, most of them directed by vessels for Soul Transference.
• Coat, Hat, Mask: Gorman di Wulfe.
• Cold Sniper: Grim Angus, Kell Bailoch, Khadoran Widowmakers and Retribution Ghost Snipers. Subverted with Kara Sloan, a Cygnar warcaster who holds herself apart from her troops to compensate for her guilt over being in an intimate relationship with one of her junior officers.
• The Collector of the Strange: The totem hunter takes trophies from certain defeated enemies in order to make himself stronger through some kind of magic.
• Combat Tentacles: The thrullg, the Legion warbeast Proteus. Turned up to eleven by the Throne of Everblight and Kraken.
• Combat Medic: The aptly named Doc Killingsworth.
  Get up and walk it off, son [...] Those knives have seen more men than a Five Fingers madam.
• A Commander Is You:
  • Cygnar: Technical/Ranger: Cygnar is almost exclusively a ranged army, with everything having some level of ranged capability. Consequently, a lot of their abilities and spells are tailored to buffing that to ridiculous levels. Unfortunately Cygnar units often have issues with survivability. Cygnaran warjacks tend to be middling, well-rounded, while warcasters are generally support-based.
  • Khador: Generalist/Brute: Khador has warcasters and units for every style, every role, but it specialises in aggression, with some of the best frontline warcasters in the game (Orsus Zoktavir being a prime example). Khador's warjacks are big, stompy, slow and fairly expensive, however their warcasters can make them much quicker. Khador can be built for speed, resilience, shooting or magic.
  • Protectorate of Menoth: Elitist/Brute/Technical: The Protectorate relies very heavily on synergy: combining elements of an army to be more powerful than their stat lines might suggest—and denial. The basic idea is that their units all work much better as a group than individually. Protectorate warjacks are rather lackluster if examined in a vacuum, but make up for this by fielding hands-down the best support units in the game. No one stacks buffs and de-buffs as well as the Protectorate, and their powerful support spells and abilities can make even the humblest fanatic strikingly effective - so long as you can keep your support units alive.
  • Cryx: Spammer/Technical: You can expect a typical Cryx army to be numerous, fragile and fast: lots of light infantry and warjacks with high SPD that can ignore terrain but will die as soon as you hit them. Cryx warcasters usually do more casting, something emphasised by the fact that Cryx has access to a lot of arc nodes which allows to extend the range of its spells and cover much more of the battlefield without putting its casters too close to the front lines. Unlike other armies, Cryx does not tend to buff their own troops, instead they will debuff the enemy.
  • Retribution of Scyrah: Elitist/Unit Specialist: The Retribution is a faction of versatile, high-quality units. On one hand, it has the Mage Hunters and Battle Mages—generally easy to remove if you can engage them but with many special rules that can turn the tide of a battle. On the other hand, there are the Dawnguard and Houseguard—generally more durable, slower, and more focused in a single role.
  • Convergence of Cyriss: Generalist/Technical: Each unit is very adaptable, but there are simply not many. The most important thing when running a Convergence army is to keep in mind that there are definite synergies in the army and, if you ignore them, you are just running around with sub-par models. On the other hand, if you can make it work, your opponent will be hard-pressed to find weaknesses. This is also reflected in the building of your force, which is a lot more difficult than with other factions. The Convergence of Cyriss also requires much more finesse and attention to order of activation than most other factions.
  • Trollbloods: Elite/Brute: Trolls are big, slow and hard to kill due to their abundance of regeneration and healing. Enemy heavies will lament not being able to trample over your battle line. And they have all kinds of abilities that make them bigger and tougher.
  • Circle Orboros: Guerrilla/Ranger: The Circle army is fast and maneuverable, but many of its models do not hit terribly hard and most cannot take a lot of damage. It often plays as one might expect a hunter to behave: setting traps and ambushes, manoeuvring opponents to vulnerable positions, and controlling where the battle will happen. If you can get your opponent to spring one of your traps, you will likely win. The Circle has a lot of synergy, a few powerhouses, decent range, and unpredictability, with a teleportation theme and convoluted assassionation runs.
  • Skorne: Brute/Technical: Skorne are the slowest, tankiest army in Hordes. They have several retaliation effects, can take a hit and strike back. For this reason they excel at attrition. And they are in particular known for their support, especially Beast Handlers turning melee warbeasts into wrecking machines and providing fury management.
  • Legion of Everblight: Elitist/Ranger: The Legion of Everblight, with a combination of fast speed and low durability, must hit first, outmanoeuvre the enemy and pick them apart while controlling their losses carefully. Legion warbeasts are, apart from the lesser warbeasts, some of the most powerful and cost the most points of all the Hordes factions. With Eyeless Sight (universal among Legion warbeasts), Legion armies can effectively ignore many common advantages that other factions struggle to deal with or, in some cases, rely upon to defend themselves entirely.
  • Grymkin: Technical: The Grymkin playstyle is based around punishing the opponent for certain actions and reaping corpses to power their abilities. They have the worst ranged abilities of any faction.
  • Mercenaries and Minions: Balanced/Generalist: They do a little bit of everything, with the intention of filling in any missing pieces in a player's army.
    • Hammer Strike: Elitist/Brute: They tend to have expensive troops, slow speed, moderate ranges, and high armour values. For example, lists which have cheap infantry might consider Horgenhold Forge Guard an elite unit to be screened by more expendable elements, whereas in the Hammer Strike theme, the Forge Guard are the cheapest infantry around.
    • Talion Charter: Ranger/Technical: The pirate infantry are a little... vanilla, but they've got access to a lot of buffs in various ways. They tend to be squishy, fast and struggle with high armour values.
    • Operating Theater: Spammer/Brute/Gimmick: Most of your drudges and monstrosities are cheap and awful, but when assisted by an Agitator drudges have the effective MAT and armour cracking ability of an elite unit like Stormblades. Otherwise you need to keep your unit leaders safe. Losing a Mind Slaver, Mind Bender, Overlord or Agitator is crippling; everything else is disposable. This means that a Cephalyx list is basically a massive wave of tough infantry that gets destroyed by enemies with good spot-removal abilities.
    • Blindwater Congregation: Elitist/Unit Specialist/Brute: The Blindwater Congregation specialises in confronting the enemy with a core of very resilient and powerul Gatormen, while the Bog Trogs and Croaks flank and ambush the unwary. They have tough troops who won't go down easily, debuff-heavy warlocks, and terrain manipulation (with swamps).
    • Thornfall Alliance: Balanced/Brute: The Thornfall Alliance covers all the major bases even if its advance deploying infantry is a little lacklustre. Thornfall armies have access to hard-hitting warbeasts that dish out a lot of attacks, and each battlegroup can easily contain six or more beasts.
• Confronting Your Imposter: The rules say that if there's ever more than one of a character on the board, one is an impostor. The one who dies or is on the losing side is the fake.
• The Corruption: Blight, as it is called in the Iron Kingdoms, is projected from dragons and is responsible for many terrible things like:
  • Everything in Everblight's hosts, from their rabid land sharks to their ginormous betentacled flying death platforms.
  • The Satyxis, a race of amyzonian satyr ladies blighted by the blood of Shazkz.
  • The Bloodgorgers, blighted trollkin that serve the Dragonfather.
• Credits Gag: Each new expansion and the core rule books have one at the end of every copyright statement. A tradition they are continuing with the new version of the RPG.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Plenty of models and armies fall under this if they meet a hard counter to their shtick.
• Critical Hit: While not universal, a great many weapons in the game have special effects if one rolls doubles on a to-hit roll, ranging from useless to game breaking.
• Critical Failure: Even if it is mathematically impossible for you to miss, if the dice turn up all 1's, you miss. Period.
• Cute Monster Girl: Every Satyxis, though "Sexy Monster Woman" would be more accurate.
• Cyclops: The one-eyed, large, brutish cyclopes are one of the most common warbeasts used by the skorne.
• Deadly Upgrade: Lord Commander Stryker's armor can fry him, but grants him a strength boost.
• Deflector Shields: One of the unique features on the Myrmidons of the Retribution. Warcaster armour projects one of these as well. The wargame includes it with the warcaster's actual health, while the RPG uses basically the same mechanics as a myrmidon's field (save that there's no generator to knock out).
• Deity of Human Origin: Morrow and Thamar, who are NG and NE, respectively. Neither is as big of a jerk as Menoth (Thamar is more self-centered then anything else). The Twins also believed that ANYONE can become a god and indeed a few dozen humans have since ascended (although not as powerful); the most recent was a hundred years ago.
• Determinator: Asheth Magnus. See The Unfettered, below. Karchev the Terrible is another prime example of this. After losing his arms and legs in a disastrous military operation, he still demanded to be put back on the front lines to put his warcaster talent to use for Khador. He proved this at the final hearing to decide whether he should return to active duty - to convince the board that he could still fight, he directed a Juggernaut warjack to charge into the room, race towards the large, marble table the officials were sitting at and cleave it in two with the 'jack's axe. Then basically asking them if they still thought he couldn't serve his country.
  • Taken up to eleven in the Alternate Continuity Riot Quest takes place in. In the midst of fighting so fierce it shredded his warjack body, and even claimed the infamous Cryx monstrosity known as the Deathjack, Karchev used the steel stump of his one remaining prosthetic limb to drag himself to the Deathjack's wreck and install its Skulls of Hate into his own body so he could continue fighting
• Devil in Plain Sight: Toruk has taken up residence in a volcano in Cryx, mobilized an army of the undead and is actively trying to implement a far reaching plan that centers around taking over the world. Everyone knows he is there, though his centuries of seeming inactivity and the fact that he is akin to godhood in terms of power have dissuaded the peoples of Western Immoren from trying to get rid of him.
• Disability Superpower: Karchev takes the cake and the prize, but more commonly any impairment to the eyes or being born without them seems to only augment their perception. This is seen prominently in the "Eyeless Sight" ability that allows certain models without eyes or who have covered them up to ignore concealment and concealment-like effects when targeting and attacking models in the game.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In the RPG, Menoth's legal system is incredibly brutal. Public drunkenness? Torture! Petty theft? Wracking! No less than eleven crimes on a list of fourteen have death by burning as a possible punishment, including burglary, smuggling, tax evasion, counterfeiting, and improper speech.
• Diving Save: The "Self Sacrifice/Sacrificial Pawn" rule on some units/models in the minis game. Special mention for the "Sucker!" ability as well, a Distracted by the Sexy flavor possessed by models such as First Mate Hawk and Madelyn Corbeau.
• Dodge the Bullet: Some warcasters/locks actually have a spell called "Bullet Dodger." Guess what it does?
• Dragons Are Demonic: In this setting, dragons are the equivalent of Eldritch Abominations. They do not need food, water or air, and do not breed as other species do. They also radiate a mutagenic effect known as the Blight that gradually transforms the landscape and mutates creatures around them into their servants.
• Dual Wielding: Pre-Epic Vlad, most Praetorians (including Makeda), many warjacks, and trollkin champions, among others.
• Dumb Muscle: 'Jacks are powerful machines with some small degree of functional autonomy due to their cortex, but they are... not very perceptive, or very agile, or generally bright in any way. But with a warcaster's mind to guide them, they become much, much more deadly.
• Eat Dirt, Cheap: The onkar, a little-known creature described in the first d20 Monsternomicon, is a subterranean beast that somewhat resembles a squig from Games Workshop's Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 franchises. It feeds on metal ore, and domesticated ones are used by dwarves as living metal detectors and mining equipment. Depending on its diet, an onkar's excrement resembles either fine clay or sandy cement, and is used by the dwarves as such; now that Viktor Pendrake (the Monsternomicon's in-universe author) knows this fact, the thought of eating anything off an onkar-clay dish leaves him a bit... queasy.
• Egomaniac Hunter: Alten Ashley is the most famous and skillful monster hunter to ever walk Western Immoren. A fact he is quite plainly aware of and eager to tell anyone he meets. He also uses it to get free drinks.
• Eldritch Abomination: The dragons and whatever they can create/influence. For dragons, see Our Dragons Are Different below. In particular, the battle engine Throne of Everblight looks like this.
• Electronic Eyes: Mentioned in the 2012 RPG corebook. They're powered by a clockwork capacitor and must be removed from the owner's eye socket and wound once a day.
• Elves Versus Dwarves: Fairly common amongst the various factions, most explicitly between the steampunk-inspired WARMACHINE factions and the Primal Powers of HORDES. Amusingly enough, averted by the setting's actual elves and dwarves: the elves hate humans and skorne, while the dwarves don't feel particularly strongly one way or the other.
• The Empire: The Skorne Empire and the New Khadoran Empire, after its invasion of Llael. This is also how denizens of the Protectorate see Cygnar.
• The Emperor: Empress Ayn Vanar of the New Khadoran Empire, and Supreme Archdomina Makeda of the Skorne Empire (after she overthrew Vinter Raelthorne).
• Epic Flail:
  • High Exemplar Gravus has himself a flail with four heads and Kreoss had one when he was High Exemplar. One of the weapons of Menite forces.
  • Dire troll bouncers and Templar and Mangler heavy warjacks all wield over-sized flails in combat.
  • A curiously-designed flail is one of the weapons wielded by Great Prince Vlad.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: The addition of Doom Reavers to standard military forces has prompted more level-headed Khadorans to reassert that Orgoth artifacts are too dangerous and best left to the past.
• Evil Twin: Warwitch Deneghra is actually Gloria Haley, the long-lost twin sister of Captain Victoria Haley. For decades neither twin knew the identity of the other.
• Evilutionary Biologist:
  • Everblight revels in experimenting on lifeforms to continually improve his blight-enhanced soldiers and blight-born dragonspawns, and considers himself an artist and a creator. He is notably fascinated by the elves whom he studied for centuries, unfortunately for them.
  • The mysterious cephalyx also qualify.
• Evil Versus Evil: At the end of Metamorphosis, Kruger the Stormlord informs the dragon Blighterghast that his sibling, Everblight, is raising an army and intends to kill every other dragon and absorb their athancs, the source of draconic power that every dragon has in place of a heart. This disturbs Blighterghast greatly and he flies off, presumably to gather other dragons to put Everblight down.
• Evil Weapon: As befits Orgoth creations, the fellblades unearthed by the Greylords of Khador have a nasty tendency to whisper to the mind of those who wield them, driving them to bloodthirsty madness and turning them into hulking muscle-bound killers. Despite, or perhaps because of their tendency to blindly slaughter whatever happens to be in their way, Khador military uses those Doom Reavers as suicidal shocktroopers. There's also strong implications that the Greylord Covenant have learnt how to manufacture new fellblades.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
  • Long Gunners, Gun Mages, Sword Knights and just about every other type of soldier that comes out of Cygnar.
  • Every unit of the Steelhead Mercenary Company. Even their warcaster from Wrath has the title Steelhead Warcaster.
• Exact Words: Julian agreed to a treaty with Kardor that saw the other country withdraw from the Thornwood in exchange for Cygnar publicly recognizing their hold over Llael... as long as there were no other living memebers of the Llaelese royal family remaining. As soon as they were gone, he betrothed himself to the last living Llaelese heir.
• Extreme Omnivore: Trolls can and will eat anything. The slag troll, for instance, subsists by eating metal ore.
• Eyeless Face: A staple of all dragonspawn, most prominently Everblight's warbeasts. Their heads are basically just a big mouth.
• Eyepatch of Power: Vinter sports one and skorne extollers ritually cut out an eye and replace it with fancy Green Rocks.

F-H

• Faction Calculus: While factions have begun to bleed together due to sheer quantity of models, there are still signs of diversity.
  • While there are many models in each faction that break the standard, overall the original 4 Warmachine factions fit the 4 Faction standard fairly well: Cygnar (Cannons), Khador (Powerhouse), Cryx (Subversive), Menoth (Balanced). If you add Retribution of Scyrah, it fits the 5 Faction standard pretty well, with Cryx becoming The Horde and Retribution becoming the new Subversive.
  • If you look at the Hordes factions (excluding Minions), they also fit the 4 Faction standard fairly well: Legion (Cannons), Skorne (Powerhouse), Circle (Subversive), Trollbloods (Balanced).
• Fallen Hero: Several characters in the Infernals faction, including Alain Runewood, Nicia, and Eilish Garrity, were previously introduced in a more heroic light as members of other factions.
• Fanservice: The Convention exclusive models, Druid Gone Wilder◊, Blindwater Brew Witch Doctor◊, and Bombadier Bombshell◊ among others.
• Fantastic Caste System: All skorne have a caste which largely defines one's role in skorne society. The skorne castes are, in descending order: warrior, worker, slave, and outcast. Typically a character’s caste is determined early in life, but some skorne belong to castes other than the one they were born into.
• Fantastic Racism: Trollkin, gobbers and ogrun are sometimes viewed as second class citizens by the human dominated kingdoms of Western Immoren. The Retribution hates all human arcanists, for the timing of the Rivening just so happened to nearly coincide with the time Thamar gave the humans the gift of sorcery.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Khards are unapologetically the Immoren equivalent of Russians, Umbreans are Romanians, Skirov are Scandinavians, Kossites are Siberians, Caspians are basically Americans with British accents, Midlunders are English, Thurians are Irish, Tordorans are a blend of Spain, Italy, and Portugal, Ryn are French with Welsh naming, Idrians are Bedouins, Radiz are Romani, the trollkin are a mix of Scots and Native Americans, the Tharn are pre-Roman Celts, the skorne are Japanese (when it comes to their armor, iconography and language) with a few signs of Persian Empire, the Morridanes, Arjun and gatormen are stereotypically Louisianian (complete with Cajun accents and bokors in the case of the gatormen) and the Orgoth are infernal-worshipping Vikings. According to Word of God, the Bolotov are based on the Sámi and (to a lesser extent) the Picts and Ainu, the Yhari-Umbreans are the Alans with some Mongol and Eastern European influences, and the Olgar are the Polynesians.
• Fantasy Counterpart Religion:
  • The Church of Morrow is this setting's analogue for Christianity.
  • The Thamarite cults are a weird blend of theistic and LaVeyan Satanism, with a vaguely-Objectivist moral philosophy, emphasis on magic, and worship of the Morrowans' Satan equivalent (and Morrow's twin sister).
  • The Menites are more of an Interfaith Smoothie; they worship the creator of humanity, Menoth, exclusively, and are the religion that Morrowans grew out of, making their religion an obvious counterpart to Judaism (complete with being a persecuted minority in strongly-Morrowan Cygnar). They also have elements of the more sinister side of Catholicism (their scrutator priest-judges are heavily inspired by the Inquisition, and they really like burning heretics), and in the Protectorate, they have elements of Islam (they even recently converted the Idrians, the setting's resident Arab equivalents) and possibly Mormonism (forming a new nation in the desert after the rise of a new prophet and violent conflict with America-equivalent Cygnar).
• Fashionable Asymmetry: The Retribution's House Vyre myrmidons.
• Fat Bastard: Dominar Rasheth. For extra bastard points, he's carried into battle by a team of agonizers, which are basically baby elephants subjected to such cruel treatments that they are surrounded by an aura of tangible pain. He's so bad even the other skorne hate him.
• Fearless Undead: A model with the undead special rule can never flee due to other models with the Terror/Abomination special rule or due to taking heavy casualties.
• Flaming Sword: Paladins of the Wall carry around swords called Firebrands, which can cause an enemy to catch on fire if they are hit hard enough. Exemplar cinerators have giant swords... with flamethrower nozzles on them.
• Flesh Versus Steel: The factions of WARMACHINE base their weapons of war around different flavors of Steampunk Magitek, while the Primal Powers of HORDES generally accomplish the same ends with various fantasy monsters instead.
• Fluffy Fashion Feathers: Common among Nyss elves, be they Everblight's army or those who want him dead.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Ride By attacks for Cavalry models and Trample power attacks.
• Friend to All Children: Strangely, this is a trait developed by a warjack — Captain Damiano's Rociante — of all things.
• Full-Boar Action: The farrow, with the War Hog being the most extreme example.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Prolific throughout the setting, with amateurs usually referred to as "bodgers" and experts referred to as "mechaniks." Notable GGs include E. Dominic Darius, Sebastian Nemo, Dirty Meg, Thor Steinhammer and Arlan Strangewayes. Add magic and you've got arcane mechaniks, which make-up the majority of Mercenary Warcasters, Master Necrotech Mortenebra, E. Dominic Darius, and several others.
• Gatling Good: The Cygnaran chaingun, used by Trencher infantry as a support weapon and by the Sentinel warjack as its primary armament. And the Cyclone. Dear God... the Cyclone.
• Gender-Blender Name:
  • Ethnic Khards (the most numerous of the indigenous peoples of Khador) mostly have normal Russian surnames with one exception: they are not inflected for gender like in real life; so we have the female warcaster Sorscha Kratikoff who has a masculine surname, and there are plenty of male Khard background characters with surnames ending in the feminine suffix -a.
  • One of the mercenary solos is a male ogrun named Gudrun, which is a Nordic female given name.
• Gentle Giant: Harkevich's beard and sheer bulk is intimidating, but he is a Papa Wolf to his men and the civilians that he is protecting. Truly fitting of the title "Iron Wolf"
• Giant Flyer: Storm raptors and archangels, both flying, gargantuan-sized beasts.
• A God Am I: Lord Toruk believes himself to be a divine being. He may have a point; in the original D&D 3rd Edition RPG rules, clerics of Toruk could pray to the Dragonfather and receive divine spells just like clerics of any other deity.
• God Is Dead: Some Iosians hold out no hope of their gods and goddesses returning or getting better (or being recovered, in the case of Nyssor). As of Wrath and Colossals, Nyssor has been recovered... by the Iosans.
• God of Evil: The basic portrayal of the Devourer Wurm in the game — there's a reason that those who aren't part of the Circle Orboros sometimes speculate that dragons (immortal, vile predators that poison everywhere they go) are the Wurm's truest offspring. The Circle Orboros is the only faction that doesn't think of it as evil, just one of the less pleasant aspects of Orboros (nature itself).
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: Averted. Every deity in the Iron Kingdoms has had some kind of interaction with the world at some point or another and many of them still do have direct dealings with their worshipers.
  • In the past during the Orgoth invasion when the Human Kingdoms were overrun, Menoth the God of Humanity, did seemingly nothing to help. Letting his followers be enslaved and slaughtered. It wasn't until The Protectorate of Menoth, a nation of zealots sprung up centuries after Humanity overthrew them that he started showing interest.
• Godzilla Threshold: The Orgoth invasion has been the only time Lord Toruk has had to personally fight to defend his empire, and it's heavily implied that it wasn't the Curb-Stomp Battle his followers think it was. Bonus points for Toruk actually being a godzilla sized dragon.
• Goggles Do Nothing: A great many Cygnaran characters wear goggles, which have no effect in the strategy game or the 2012 RPG (and a fairly minor effect in the old roleplaying game). In their defense, most of them also work in situations where goggles would be a good idea (e.g. around steam-powered fighting robots that have a tendency to emit sparks and shrapnel).
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: We have Cygnar, the Crucible Guard, the Trollbloods as the Good; Khador, the Circle, the Thornfall Alliance and the grymkin in the middle; the Protectorate, the Retribution, the Convergence and the Blindwater Congregation as the Bad; Cryx, the skorne, the Legion, the cephalyx and the infernals as the Evil. And except for the Cryx-cephalyx alliance and the Cygnar-Crucible Guard alliance, none of these factions get along well with each other.
• Grass is Greener: A constant source of Warmachine vs Hordes debates, and the primary reason for people investing in multiple factions.
• Grim Up North: Especially now that Everblight has woken up.
• Gun Fu: Allister Caine is all over this trope. To a lesser extent, so are gun mages, pistoleers who use magic to augment their weapons and their fighting abilities. The game itself has a special rule Gunfighter, which means that the character can use a ranged weapon at close combat. Obviously, a gun wielder who has Gunfighter can be thought to practise Gun Fu. Either that, or No Range Like Point-Blank Range.
• Guns Akimbo: Allister Caine, Garryth, Master Holt, Taryn di la Rovissi, pistol wraiths, trollkin highwaymen, Braylen Wanderheart, Lieutenant Darcy Ryan of the Black 13th...
• Guns Are Worthless: In order to encourage melee over ranged combat, many guns in the game are short ranged, require focus/fury to pump additional shots, or have accuracy lower than melee attacks. Melee only armies will still get hosed though.
• Hand Cannon: Common firearm for models, often found across multiple armies. Common to the point where every POW 12 is described as a handcannon.
• Hand of Glory: The Gatorman Bokor from HORDES has a Hand of Glory attack that forces the target to remain stationary, mostly to hold them still so their Shamblers can swarm over them.
• Handsome Lech:
  • Lieutenant Allister Caine of Cygnar. He also exhibits some strong Jerkass tendencies — specifically, a tendency to sleep with men's wives and then use his super-speed powers to shoot them dead in the ensuing duel. It is eventually revealed, however, that much of his behavior is a very specific form of Obfuscating Stupidity.
  • For a non-human equivalent, there's Greygore Boomhowler, one of the most notorious trollkin Fell Callers, a mercenary who dedicates himself to wenching his way across the world and who has had countless lovers of all races. Despite the fact that, as a trollkin (basically looking like an orc with elements of frog), he really couldn't be considered too handsome by most people. Greygore's appetite is not unusual: Bragg himself, the first Fell Caller, was such a prolific lover that it's said that all Fell Callers are blood-descendents of his. Meanwhile, stereotype holds that all Fell Callers do their best to spread their seed as far as possible — even the relatively few female Fell Callers are just as lusty and eager to spawn. It's not necessarily TRUE (see Grissel Bloodsong, for one), but the very visible nature of the ones who do drowns out the Silent Majority.
• Harmful Healing: The healing spell can eliminate an injury, but is described as a complex process that qualifies as a minor miracle. Such a miracle may cause a temporary toll on the body, but excessive use of the spell will eventually cause permanent degredation.
• Have You Seen My God?: The central focus of all the Elves in the setting.
• Healing Factor:
  • The troll faction shtick. Large chunks that don't get reattached quickly grow into degenerate miniature trolls called whelps, with the part they grew out of being bigger than the rest of the body. While all trollblood species have Healing Factors, trollkin have the weakest of them and are the only troll species unable to produce whelps. A severed arm can take months to regrow (a few weeks if it's a clean cut and the limb can be sutured back into place). In comparison; pygmy trolls can regrow a severed arm in about a week.
  • Characters with the Mighty archetype in the RPG can take an Archetype benefit like this; by spending a feat point, they regain up to their Physique in vitality points. Trollkin characters start with this ability regardless of their Archetype (and have a rather high starting Physique, as well).
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Averted strongly by the Protectorate of Menoth, where every single character has face protecting/obscuring gear. Averted by Durgen Madhammer, who likely wouldn't survive repeated use of the detonation feature in his hammer without his helmet. Played straight with many other characters who wear no helmets at all.
• He Who Fights Monsters: It's actually a she in this setting: Alexia Ciannor carries around a sword which contains her dead mother's soul. Her mother is able to talk to Alexia telepathically and never seems to shut up....
• Hero Unit: In the miniature wargame, each player's army is led by a named character within the Iron Kingdoms universe—either a warcaster, warlock or infernal master, who fulfils a role akin to a chess queen and king combined. They are (usually) powerful combatants, boast an array of spells, and most notably have forged a mental link with their battlegroup (consisting of warjacks, warbeasts, monstrosities or horrors, depending on the specific army), allowing them to make use of Focus, Fury or Essence. No two warcasters, warlocks and infernal masters are alike—what they do and which units they synergise with is one of the most important parts of building an army. In a standard game, each army can only field one, and if they die, you automatically lose the game.
• Hidden Elf Village: The elves of Ios are very reclusive, to the point of xenophobia. They have closed their borders to the rest of Immoren, and any unwelcome intruders quickly find themselves picked off by snipers.
• Hordes from the East: The skorne are an invading race from eastern Immoren whose culture seems alien and cruel to those in the West. Their aesthetic style also contains strong Persian and Japanese influences, further driving home the "eastern" associations.
• Horse of a Different Color: Female Tharn ride duskwolves, Nyss raptors ride ulks, trollkin long riders ride bisons and Praetorian ferox ride sabretooth cats. Averted by humans and elves, who only ride horses, and the other races who have no mounts.
• A House Divided: Every faction in the game has some kind of in-fighting going on at all times.
• Humanity Is Superior: One of the main tenets of the Church of Menoth.
• Humongous Mecha: Colossals. One of the rare cases where giant mecha actually were abandoned for being too large and impractical — the original colossals were were replaced by the smaller, semi-autonomous Warjacks. Due to the arms race between Western Immoren's warring factions, Colossals are back! However, the concept has been revisited with all the technological progress made since their ancient incarnations to suit the needs of modern warfare. They are no longer mere giant-sized versions of existing warjacks, but dedicated weapon platforms equipped for heavy suppression fire and still able to mow down infantry by the dozen in a sweep of their fists. And these are still a great deal smaller than the original colossals.
• Hulking Out: Kromac's beastial form is this. After claiming Rathrok from Madrak Ironhide, not only has this state been beefed up even more, it now seems like he's stuck in that form.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Dire trolls exemplify this trope. Their bigger and ancient cousins, the mountain kings, even moreso.

I-M

• I Call It "Vera": Just about every single distinguished warrior/soldier in the Iron Kingdoms has a named weapon. The Butcher of Khardov's axe is named Lola, Lanyssa Ryssyl has a sword named Sorrow, Borka Kegslayer's mace is named Trauma, the list goes on and on.
• I Can Still Fight!: Any model with the Tough special rule.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • Field mechaniks and arcane mechaniks tend to go into battle wielding an absurdly large wrench, which is ostensibly intended for use in warjack repair.
  • Originally, Cryxian satyxis wielded bladed, hooked whips that resembled Ivy's weapon in Soulcalibur. Following a 2018 remold, their weapons resemble nothing so much as a spiked bicycle chain with a meathook at the end. In real life, either weapon would be both insanely difficult to wield and insanely hazardous to the wielder's health.
  • Mage hunter assassins wield an over-sized scimitar attached to an eight to ten foot length of chain. Their preferred method of attack? They whip their targets at the chain's full length. This gives the model four inches of reach when attacking, in a game where pole-arms only give two inches of reach.
• Instant Runes: A hallmark of magic in the Iron Kingdoms, as depicted the artwork in Mk.II. These aren't just for sprucing up the artwork, though, but exist in-universe. Characters in the new IKRPG (including the pre-made Arcanist character in the quick-start rules) can learn to identify a spell purely from the runes that appear as it's being cast.
• Jack of All Stats: The Khador Juggernaut is something of a gold standard for heavies. This literal 'jack combines good armour, lots of hit boxes, a powerful axe, and the ability to perform power attacks. All for a modest 13 points.
• Jerkass: Every faction has at least one of varying degree.
• Jerkass Gods: Menoth big time; this is the reason why most humans stopped worshiping him. His remaining followers, however, see him more as a stern father who doesn't want to baby his kids forever. The Devourer Wurm is even worse, in previous wars between it and Menoth's followers, the former's devouts would convert to worship Menoth because he was actually benign by comparison.
• Katanas Are Just Better: The Nyss claymore is essentially an elven daikatana or no-dachi specifically called out its high standards of craftsmanship. It has a shorter reach than a more traditional greatsword, but is more nimble and capable of hitting targets that could dodge a more cumbersome weapon; in game terms, a character wielding a Nyss claymore can spend a Feat Point to boost his attack roll. Otherwise, this trope is averted — the Skorne and the Nyss both possess other swords that resemble katana, but they have the same stats as the European-style broadswords wielded by everyone else.
• Kill It with Fire: The Protectorate loves to employ flame based weaponry and many of their warcasters have fire based spells and abilities.
• Killed Off for Real: In Mark I and Mark II, if a playable character with a mini was seemingly killed in the story, then (s)he will not stay dead. In Mark III, this policy was rescinded, so no one is safe anymore.
• Klingon Promotion: After the death of Makeda's grandfather, her father took control of House Balaash. Her brother assassinated their father, and then Makeda assassinated her brother.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Commander Coleman Stryker's original personality. After a Heroic BSoD (and a promotion to Lord Commander), he became more like a Knight Templar. Ironically, he then got a suit of electrical armor that literally shines. He has recovered from the BSOD and is closer to how he used to be now. Paladins of the Order of the Wall have long been heroes to the common people because they prioritise protection of innocents over obedience to priests, most often scrutators.
• Lady of War: Pretty much every female warcaster.
• Ley Line: They run across Caen, though most are ignorant of them. They are of particular interest to the worshipers of Cyriss, who build their temple complexes along junctions of them and draw from them to power their generators and consider tapping enough of them essential to completing their Great Work. Unfortunately, they have exhausted most of their practical opportunities to build temples covertly after centuries of pursuing the Great Work clandestinely, and the need to secure more locations is fueling their recent militant expansionism.
• Left-Justified Fantasy Map: The setting is Western Immoren, after all. Larger maps showing the entire continent do exist, but any map that focuses on the Iron Kingdoms themselves is going to be left-justified.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Lord Commander Coleman Stryker is quite tough even by warcaster standards, can overload his warcaster armor to reach absurd levels of hitting power and can magically enhance his mobility; as a result, he is essentially a one-man homing missile generally aimed at the enemy leader for a quick and brutal victory. While he lacks the overload ability, Lord General Styker retains some of this by nature of being on horseback while still wielding a hard-hitting melee weapon.
  • On a less extreme level, Paladins of the Order of the Wall are this when they don't assume their special stances (see Stone Wall).
  • The spell Engine of Destruction provides a hefty boost to the warcaster's melee power and speed on top of their above average defensive statline.
  • In the RPG, combining the Duelist and Storm Sorcerer Careers can make for a very nimble melee warrior - able to move freely about the battlefield with no concern for free strikes and potentially having a teleport-esque spell called Wings of Air, allowing them to reach any enemy they need to and still be able to attack them. Can also emphasise the 'lightning' side of it by learning spells like Chain Lightning or Lightning Tendrils.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: Cygnar can use it as artillery, a steroid, magnetic shield, and a tractor beam.
• Mad Doctor:
  • Dr. Arkadius, the setting's equivalent to Dr. Frankenstein, who is obsessed with unlocking the secrets of anatomy and biological enhancement. He "works" with the Farrow because he found that their anatomies were most receptive to his experimental surgical techniques, and eventually their current overlord, Lord Carver, decided to "accept him as an assistant" because his monstrous creatures add valuable muscle to the farrow forces. His most preeminent creations are the War Hogs, which are oversized battle-crazed farrow turned into cyborgs with stolen warjack components, and Road Hogs, a new variant of the War Hog with prosthetic lower legs for enhanced speed.
  • The Cephalyx are an entire race of these; once human, they transformed themselves into something inhuman, and now regard their distant kin as mere fodder to transform into grotesquely warped, cyber-enhanced biological monsters to serve as their laborers.
• Mad Scientist: Sebastian Nemo, right down to the crazy hair and the obsession with Tesla coils.
• Made of Iron: Warjacks, warbeasts, ogrun, Khadoran Man-O-Wars, and Trolls of all kinds.
• The Mafiya: The Khadoran kayazy. They are wealthy tycoons all too willing to resort to violence to deal with the cut-throat competition; as they take interest in the conflict, they lend hired elite assassins to Khadoran forces to "protect their investments".
• Mage Marksman: Gun mages are arcanists who combine firearm skill with the ability to channel magic through rune-inscribed bullets.
• Magic Is Evil: One of the teachings of Menoth, and consequently a hallmark of the Protectorate's worldview. They resorted to use mechanika only by adding extensive purification rituals, such as engraving prayers of penance and passages of the True Law into 'jack hulls to sanctify them. Their arcane engineers are considered guilty of blasphemous witchcraft and treated as slaves, but kept alive because their talents are much needed and in scarce supply.
• Magic Knight: Many warcasters and warlocks qualify as this, as do some other non-warcaster/lock named characters. Naturally, combining the Gifted archetype with a melee-focused career will get you a character like this in the RPG. Combining Stone Sorcerer with a career like Knight or Man-At-Arms makes for a very durable tank-style character.
• Magic Misfire: Varies from incarnation to incarnation.
  • Averted for the tabletop wargame. A vast majority of spells in the game carry no penalty for casting them. You just spend the focus/fury required for casting them, and then they are cast. Sometimes you need to roll to hit an enemy model, but there is almost never any chance that a spell will backfire and blow up in your face.
  • Played straight in the old RPG, particularly with regards to healing magic and especially with regards to resurrection magic. Death Is Not Cheap in the Iron Kingdoms.
  • The RPG, since it uses the same basic system as the wargame, has only two things that could fit this trope (so far, at least). The first is the only healing spell in the game, which can only be used when someone's been incapacitated (reduced to 0 vitality points) and everytime someone has it cast on them, the greater their chances of permanent weaknesses (loss of stats, for example). The second is that will weavers (any non-warcaster spellcaster) can over-exert themselves by casting too many spells in a turn. The only drawback here is that their turn immediately ends and they won't be able to use any magic next turn (they'll be back to normal the turn after).
• Magitek: "Mechanika." So common, it's the technology that doesn't run on magic that's considered cutting-edge.
• Magma Man: Rhulic mercenary warcaster Gorten Grundback takes this trope quite seriously, and is essentially a walking Lethal Lava Land for opponents to overcome. Add to this that he summons up walls of rock for he and his troops to hide behind, can shield his entire army from most splash damage and falling prone, and is nearly impossible to kill.
• Man in the Machine: Khadoran warcaster Karchev the Terrible is the Trope Namer. Basically, he's a Warjack with a person where its Cortex should be.
• Manly Facial Hair: Harkevich's beard reached meme status on the forums before he was released. Incidentally, he shares this characteristic with Bartolo "Broadsides Bart" Montador, in addition to their common signature spell Broadside; this prompted people to jokingly assume the beard was a requirement to master the spell. Sadly, this trope was not a requirement for learning Broadside in the RPG.
• Mars Needs Women: Inverted by the satyxis, who seek out human men worthy enough to sire their dragon-blighted children. Played straight (and then some) with Greygore Boomhowler, a trollkin who happens to be quite popular with the ladies of all species.
• Massive Race Selection: In the RPG, the list of playable races consists of: humans, dwarves, gobbers, Iosans, Nyss, ogrun, trollkin, satyxis, Tharn, pygmy trolls, farrow, gatormen, bog trogs, skorne, blighted Nyss, blighted ogrun, striders, efaarit, bogrin, swamp gobbers and croaks.
• Meaningful Name: The liches of Cryx seem to have this one down pat, Asphyxious (asphyxia, suffocating) and Terminus (the end/limit of something) being two examples.
• Mechanical Monster: The Deathjack is rumoured to be an ancient Orgoth construct, and is gifted with a form of malevolent sentience and the ability to cast necromantic spells. Its furnace doesn't run on necrotite like ordinary helljacks; the Deathjack is powered by raw souls, and used to roam Immoren slaughtering entire villages to fuel its hunger. Certainly the most feared model on the tabletop.
• Metaplot: One of the few examples out there in which the metaplot has had less effect on the RPG than it has on the tabletop games.
• Mighty Glacier: Heavy warjacks and warbeasts are typically this, this being one of the main focuses for those of Khador, Trollbloods, and Skorne. Some warcasters as well. Typical rule, the stronger and tougher something is, the slower and easier to hit it is, with some excepts like the Deathjack.
• Mind over Matter: House Shyeel of Ios is the premier provider of magic users for the elven military; their abilities all revolve around varied forms of force manipulation, be it deflecting incoming projectiles, tearing foes apart with force blasts or messing with their positioning and knocking them down.
• Mini-Mecha: Most non-Colossal steamjacks are humanoid walkers that range from two to four metres tall.
• Mons: Warjacks in WARMACHINE and warbeasts in HORDES. Sort of.
• Monstrous Cannibalism: Farrow have a special rule that allows warbeasts to eat their corpses when they die. Most farrow are themselves classed as warbeasts.
• More Dakka: Of the Napoleonic infantry line variety, mostly, in the form of combined ranged attacks (which give even basic infantry a chance of taking down big things like warjacks and warbeasts).
  • Cygnar's higher tech level allows it to field the more traditional variety.
  • The Dire Troll Blitzer also qualifies for this trope.
  • The Epic version of Cygnar Warcaster Alister Caine is this; he has a pair of ROF infinite pistols. As long as he has the Focus, he can fire them for as long as he wants. Under Feat, they also gain a cumulative +1 to POW for each consecutive shot!
  • Cygnar's Stormwall Colossal embodies this with two gatling guns and two large cannon.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Every warbeast from the Legion of Everblight.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Trollkin, skorne, some elves and several other species have white pupils and corneas.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: The inhabitants of the snowy land of Khador are known for their rugged, relentless and even brutish nature. Their military goes a long way in reflecting this.
• Mundane Utility: The majority of Rhulic warjacks are actually nothing more than excavation equipment re-purposed to use against hostiles instead of rocks.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: The Animosity rule in the war game prevents certain models from being taken in the same army. Specifically, Alexia Ciannor and Thamarites don't work with Morrowans; Viktor Pendrake, Lynus Wesselbaum and Edrea Lloryrr don't like Saxon Orrik.

N-R

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Madrak Ironhide the World Ender, Hoarluk Doomshaper, Krueger the Stormwrath, Kromac the Ravenous, The Butcher of Khardov, Karchev the Terrible, High Executioner Servath Reznik and pretty much everyone from Cryx.
• Nature Hero: Pretty much everyone from the Circle Orboros, minus the "hero" part.
• Necessarily Evil: Scrutators are not evil for evil's sake or out of some arbitrary desire for malicious characters. This caste has a very specific purpose as the dark protectors of the Temple. They need to develop merciless qualities in order to perform their function, which is to pragmatically preserve the faith regardless of the cruelties they must inflict on other human beings. Torture and execution are two of their primary functions and have been since ancient times. When Menoth was the majority religion it was the scrutators who served the community by punishing and executing criminals as well as those who were deemed to be traitors to the faith. This requires them to divorce themselves from empathy and to master practices which eventually remove their ability to sympathize with other human beings. This is why they are evil. They are not expected to randomly lash out nor to seek power for their own sake. Actions done which are not in the interests of the Temple can lead to them being placed under the lash just like any other violators of the True Law.
• The Necrocracy: Cryx is an extreme example of a Type I necrocracy (though there are some living subjects, they are all just as evil and kill-crazy as their dead counterparts).
• Nerf: Since this is a miniatures game, nerfs inevitably happened to many models during the transition to Warmachine/Hordes Mk.II. The consensus is that the second edition is largely balanced, with Privateer Press designing subsequent additions to the game to adjust things without modifying preexisting rules and models.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
  • Not all four in one, yet, but Pirate Zombies, Zombie Robots, Pirate Robots, and Pirate Zombie Robots can all be found in the Iron Kingdoms, mostly Cryx.
  • Those ninja that do exist in the setting tend to be elves, rather than pirates, zombies, or robots. With the creation of the Retribution character myrmidon Moros, however, the elves now do in fact have a Ninja Robot.
  • On the other hand, the nation of Cryx, home of the Pirate Zombie Robots and variations thereof, utilizes lots of stealthy, fast, and assassination-oriented strategies. Almost like a... gamer playing Assassin's Creed.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Vlad Țepeș, prince of Wallachia => Vladimir Tzepesci, prince of Umbrey. Khador!Vlad even has a spell called "Impaler."
• The Nothing After Death: Skorne philosophy does not include an afterlife. Avoiding this fate is the goal of hoksune, earning enough glory and prestige through battle to deserve preservation in a sacral stone so the warrior may advise future generations.
• Obviously Evil: Dragons.
• Older Than They Look: Karchev is 140, and many female casters have fabulous figures and faces despite many of them pushing 30 or more in constant war conditions. And no one knows how old the Old Witch of Khador really is, not even Menoth.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Being Zombie Robots controlled by an Eldritch Abomination, the Cryx qualifies as an entire race of omnicidal maniacs. The Skorne and the Protectorate aren't far behind, if you're not part of their Warrior Guy/Knight Templar hats respectively.
• One-Gender Race: The satyxis are all female. Males are occasionally born to the line, but every one is quickly killed — and, whenever possible, so is the man who fathered the child.
• One-Man Army: Vinter Raelthorne IV, ex-King of Cygnar. Years before the setting's "starting point" with the RPG he out-fought his brother and twenty Storm Knights single-handedly, when normally twenty Storm Knights can take down a warjack. After surviving the coup that overthrew him, he crossed a previously-thought-to-be uncrossable desert and found the Skorne, who were a fractious species of warlords at the time. He then, starting without an army, single-handedly conquers the entire skorne species, uniting them into the Skorne Empire. He wins hands-down every single fight he's ever in in any of the fiction where he fights, which does include warbeasts and warjacks.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Iron Kingdoms warlocks, who are very specific in their role and their natural affinity for warbeasts, share the name with a vanilla Dungeons & Dragons class, who make contracts with and channels magic from very powerful entities and forces. In the original D&D 3rd Edition version, the former did not exist as a playable class; in D&D 5th Edition, they are referred to as warlocks and OGL warlocks, respectively.
  • While they do share the same name and some themes, Iron Kingdoms druids (specifically, blackclads of the Circle Orboros) are built different from vanilla D&D druids, being less summoning woodland allies and more calling down lightning or hurling a boulder at your face. In D&D 5th Edition, the blackclads are represented as a completely different class (that isn't so reliant on the Wild Shape ability), while the traditional druid class can be used to represent Devourer Wurm worshippers among the Tharn and certain human cultures, who can change their form.
  • The (pre-wargame) Iosan eldritch miniature is officially called Vyros, sharing the same given name as Retribution warcaster Dawnlord Vyros Nyarr.
  • Played straight with Khador warcaster Strakhov, whose first name was originally meant to be Viktor, before being changed to Oleg to avoid conflict with Viktor Pendrake.
• Orcus on His Throne: Toruk, a Physical God, mostly stays in Cryx and lets his followers do all the work and mostly all the planning. Justified due to the Always a Bigger Fish above.
  • Averted with a vengeance in Wrath of the Dragonfather, though. And it shows exactly why the people of the Iron Kingdoms should hope he stays there.
• Our Angels Are Different:
  • The angelii, seraphim and archangels are angels In Name Only; they're just as monstrous as the rest of Everblight's warbeasts.
  • The Harbinger of Menoth is sort of a High-Warrior-Priestess who also floats, although she doesn't have wings.
  • Now that the forces of the Infernals have begun stirring up trouble on Caen, the gods have sent down Archons to help deal with the problem. Most of these fit the Winged Humanoid mold, with the exception of the Primal Archon, which is more of a vaguely-humanoid conglomeration of wood and tree roots, and the Dhunian Archon, which is a plump, green-skinned woman that looks like a cross between a Trollkin and a Croak.
• Our Dragons Are Different:
  • Immortal creatures that have existed for millennia, dragons stand apart from all other creatures on Caen. They require neither food, water, nor air. Although they vary slightly in size, all known dragons resemble enormous reptiles capable of great destruction. The pure essence of a dragon is a perfect crystal called an athanc; a dragon cannot be destroyed permanently as long as its athanc endures, but destroying one has been so far impossible. Dragons of Caen warp and taint the land and creatures around them. Land blighted by a dragon often appears as a twisted shadow of its natural state.
  • Drakes (who are classified as dragons under Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition rules) are large reptilian creatures that bear a superficial resemblance to dragons and thrive in environments as diverse as the chasms of the Stormlands and the ice sheets of the Howling Wastes. These large predators inhabit isolated regions seldom explored by humanity. Although not as deadly as true dragons, drakes are nonetheless dangerous and quick to anger.
• Our Dwarves Are Different: Apart from being gun-wielding, mecha-commanding little lunatics, the dwarves of Rhul often have no beards.
• Our Elves Are Different: They're Animesque religious zealots in shining white Magitek armor. Some even have beards!
• Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Genzouls, degenerate undead skorne cannibals often found in desolate wilderness regions. They are afflicted with karovoul, a ravening hunger that causes a compulsion for cannibalism.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Most of the goblins in Immoren subvert the cliche of goblins being Always Chaotic Evil Cannon Fodder.
  • Gobbers, the "standard" goblin of the setting, are a widely spread, intelligent and peaceful (for the most part) race that can be found all over Immoren, often becoming traders, alchemists and mekaniks.
  • Boggers, a larger and more aggressive strain of the Gobber race, are more hostile towards other races, but are territorial rather than outright malevolent.
  • Pygmy Trolls, or "Pygs", are the Trollkin equivalent of goblins, being small, weak versions of the common Trollkin who are fully aware of their puny physiques and so compensate for it with brains; they form the most adept gunners, scouts and ambushers of the Trollblood forces.
  • Fans of Dungeons & Dragons can clearly see that the Skorne are based on D&D's Hobgoblins, visually and culturally, although skorne have a very distinct cultural flair, especially with their culture's basing itself around pain-fuelled Blood Magic.
• Our Orcs Are Different: Both Trollkin and Ogrun can lay claim to being the "orcs" of Immoren. Both are Proud Warrior Race Guys noted for being taller, tougher and stronger than humans. Neither are evil, although the Ogrun do have an evil counterpart/subspecies called the Black Ogrun. In one of the biggest subversions of the cliche, Ogrun are actively allied with dwarves, and typically devote themselves to serving dwarven masters!
• Our Sirens Are Different: Never seen, but sometimes heard, sirens are thought to be the spirits of passengers who died aboard doomed vessels lost at sea, or a kind of sea-spirit, similar to those that haunt marshes and swamps. Sirens are usually encountered on starless nights or in heavy fog. Their call, first heard at a distance, compels those who hear it to move towards its source—and siren calls almost always occur near jagged rocks or hidden obstructions that can damage ships. Survivors describe the call as a cross between crying and soulful singing. Some reports claim that the voice offered them their heart's desire.
• Overly Long Name: Lord Carver, BMMD, Esquire, The Third. What does BMMD stand for, you ask? Why, "Bringer of Most Massive Destruction," of course!
• Perpetual Storm: The Stormlands is an area in eastern Immoren constantly suffering from fierce lightning storms due to a magical cataclysm that happened millennia ago.
• Personality Chip: While not purposely installed, warjacks who remain in service to certain warcasters long enough will pick up personality quirks.
• Physical God: Toruk, to his benefit, and the two remaining elven gods, to their detriment.
• Pig Man: The farrow, full hog. They're much less anthropomorphic than some examples, with hulking forms, elongated and forward-jutting necks, trotters for feet, fully porcine heads, bristly hides and pig tails.
• Pirate: Lots and lots of them, mostly in the Cryx and Mercenary factions. It was to be expected, what with the company being called "Privateer Press" and all. The Talion Charter mercenary contract is an entire pirate army.
• Pirate Girl: The Satyxis are a whole island-nation of Sexy Monster Pirate Girls, of whom the best known is the Pirate Queen and Cryx warcaster Skarre Ravenmane.
• Plot Armor: During Mark I and II, no one who has an in-game model have been killed. Any character who appeared to die, or actually did, either narrowly survived or came back to life somehow, becoming a new "epic" version to show that they've changed. In Mark III, this safety net has been removed, averting this trope.
• Powered Armor: The magical steam-powered armor worn by most warcasters, and the more mundane (and generally larger) version worn by ironheads and Khadoran Men-O-War.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Most Cryxian magic is powered by the captured souls of slain foes.
• Power Fist: Asheth Magnus has himself one of these built into his prosthetic arm.
• Power of Rock: There are several things in the game which use music or their voices (the Piper of Ord, Fell Callers, etc.) to buff their friends or de-buff their enemies.
• Private Military Contractors: WARMACHINE has an entire Mercenary pseudo-faction (Privateer Press has stated on many occasions that Mercenaries are not an offical faction, despite the fact that they can be taken to tournaments by themselves) with contracts dictating what kinds of warcasters/soldiers will work with the other factions and each other. The Minions pseudo-faction in HORDES is now receiving the same treatment. Example: Asheth Magnus is an ex-Cygnaran traitor, so he can't be included in a Cygnaran army. He can be included in a Khadoran, a Protectorate or a Cryxian army, or he can be in an army comprised entirely of Mercenaries that will work for him.
• Punk Punk:
  • Steampunk + Dungeon Punk = "Full Metal Fantasy."
  • Clock Punk + Cyberpunk (yes really) = Convergence of Cyriss.
• Rain of Blood: The satyxis were corrupted and changed when Toruk killed one of his offspring in an aerial battle above their homeland. The dragon's blood rained down on them and turned them into the evil she-devils they are today.
• Random Number God: Mercenary warcaster Ashlynn d'Elyse has one on call. Her feat, Roulette, adds two dice to each roll any model makes to determine whether they will hit something with an attack, and then takes any two of those dice away from the roll. Suddenly, all of her models are nearly automatically hitting and pumping out critical effects, and all of the opponents' models are always missing by a thread.
  • This is pretty much Calandra Truthsayer's defining quality. Her feat lets her troops reroll 1's and 2's on attacks, she lets her army spend her fury for rerolls, and she has a spell that makes enemies roll an extra die and remove the highest. She's all about getting some control over the RNG to swing the dice in your favor.
• Really 700 Years Old: The Old Witch of Khador isn't just old, she's old enough to have met Menoth himself while he walked on Caen. Karchev is also over a hundred, likely due to the magic life support he is on.
• Reality Warper: Victoria Haley.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Leto Raelthorne, Baldur, Madrak Ironhide, Irusk, Vladimir, and a few more.
• Reign of Terror: Vinter Raelthorne IV is not known for being a benevolent ruler. He's so ruthless that the skorne overthrew him when they figured out he was only using them as stepping-stones to get his old kingdom back.
• Reincarnation: Dhunians believe in a cycle of reincarnation. They do not deny Urcaen exists or that many souls travel there after death, but theirs are instead embraced by Dhunia. Rather than crossing over into the afterlife, their spiritual essence rejoins the Mother and can arise again as new life. It is from this vast collective reservoir that all life is reincarnated. The most refined and strongest spiritual essence becomes the souls of intelligent races like trollkin, ogrun, and gobbers. Most Dhunians expect to live multiple lifetimes, their souls strengthened by past experiences even if they are forgotten.
• Religion is Magic: Protectorate forces can use hymns to buff their army, and one of their character 'jacks is powered by Menoth's divine will. Paladins of the Wall can't be hit unless hit by magic attacks
• Religion of Evil: Dragon cults. The Devourer Wurm worship, with its themes of human sacrifice and cannibalism, isn't exactly a saintly faith either.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Clip-loading or detachable box magazines don't seem to have been invented in this setting, so while repeating-action pistols and rifles exist, they use a revolving cylinder chamber. In most cases the entire cylinder is detachable and can be replaced with another fully loaded cylinder, so it seems a lack of necessity will keep revolvers around as the most common repeating firearm for a while yet.
• Runic Magic: Both mechanikal and magical items are enchanted by inscribing their "circuit boards" or the items themselves with runes. The exception are the Skorne, who power their magic items by linking them to the souls of their dead ancestors.
• Rule of Cool: Prevalent throughout the entire game and setting.

S-Z

• Sand Worm: Razor worms, enormous soft-bodied worms native to the deserts of eastern Immoren. Although blind, they are extremely sensitive to vibrations in the ground and capable of sensing footsteps from far away.
• Scary Black Man: Doc Killingsworth, Markus 'Siege' Brisbane
• Scary Dogmatic Aliens: The skorne, of the "aliens as conquistadores" variety. To be fair, the main reason for this behavior is that the playable skorne faction is currently being led by a deposed Cygnaran king who wants his throne back; still, that doesn't change the fact that the skorne are pretty damn scary even without the "conquering invader" aspect.
• Schizo Tech: Depending on where in Immoren you are at the moment, the tech level varies from Stone Age to World War I, with most of the setting hovering somewhere between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution.
• Screaming Warrior: Trollkin Fell Callers.
• Screw You, Elves!: Privateer Press really seems to have it in for elves:
  • If you are one of the 10% of Nyss elves that hasn't been infected by Everblight yet, then you are in hiding while mourning for those who have.
  • If you are an Iosan elf then you are desperately trying to find a way to cure your last ailing deity before she dies of a mysterious illness thus dooming you and your kinsmen forever.
• Seasonal Baggage: Dhunian paragons develop a predilection for a particular season of the year. The paragon can access Dhunia’s gifts throughout the year, but they are particularly strong during this favoured season. Spring paragons are often especially healthy, resilient, and virile, much like the wilds of Caen after a long winter’s sleep. Summer paragons channel the brutality of a summer heat wave, making them potent forces of aggression and wrath. Autumn paragons are turbulent and full of change and can use their gifts to protect others and to help them hunt prey when food is scarce. Winter paragons can be harsh like the cold air and frozen earth, but their abilities protect them and others from enemies and the harmful effects of nature.
• Separated at Birth: Well, separated at "very young". For decades Captain Victoria Haley didn't realize that her nemesis, Warwitch Deneghra, was actually her twin sister Gloria, stolen at age 5 by the Cryx raiders who killed their parents.
• Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: Going by the miniature scale of one inch = five feet, most rifles have a range of 50-70 feet. The artillery's not much better.
• Shotguns Are Just Better:
  • Asheth Magnus certainly thinks so, as does Bartolo Montador, whose scattergun is built into his left arm, and it's hard to argue. They have decent range, and ignore a great deal of conventional defensive abilities.
  • Lord Carver even carries a Sawed Off Scattergun into battle.
  • Grundback Blasters are small Rhulic warjacks that are designed to bound across the field and lay into troop waves with what are essentially huge Gatling Scatterguns. They're extremely effective.
  • For a while, the exception to this were the actual trollkin scattergunners, who despite being an entire unit wielding the things, were pretty much universally reviled. This was mitigated after they got their unit attachment.
• Shoulders of Doom: A number of models exhibit these, but Epic Kreoss and especially Epic Vlad have particularly ridiculous examples.
• Shout-Out: Privateer Press modeled Grim Angus (a Trollblood warlock) after lyrics from a Front 242 song called "Headhunter."
  • The Totem Hunter is just a way to get the Predator into the game.
  • At least two made it into the RPG core book: A retractable dagger strapped to the inside of the user's forearm and the Farsight Goggles mentioned up under Goggles Do Nothing.
• Shrouded in Myth: Invoked by the Orgoth: despite centuries of rule, very little is known about them. They actually did this on purpose when it was clear they were losing control of Immoren - destroying every record they kept and demolishing their citadels. It seems adhering to this trope is part of the Orgoth MO. (It helps that, even at the height of their power, the Orgoth ruled through proxy nobles and never directly interacted with the local populace.)
• Sickly Green Glow: Anything Cryxian.
• Sinister Scythe:
  • Moshar the Desertwalker has himself a very nasty looking scythe.
  • The Cryx warcaster Scaverous does him one better, with a chainsaw scythe.
  • Kommander Sorscha has one that freezes folks when hit with it. Although hers is less of a scythe and more of a hammer/pick combo.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Warjacks in the Iron Kingdoms range from enormous Bricks in most cases to Robo-Monkeys on the Cygnaran/Cryxian end of things... before warcasters, high-level mechanikal engineering, gods and/or age get involved. Most warjacks are capable of high-functioning Robo-Monkey levels under a warcaster's direction, and the more time spent with their warcasters, the more likely a warjack is to form a personal bond as the warjack's cortex adapts to the warcaster's mind. Character 'jacks have also emerged, either from bonded warjacks sticking around for a very long time ala Sorscha's Beast 09, or being personally built, ala Lich Lord Asphyxious' Cankerworm. They're actually so potent that machine wraiths, Cryxian ghosts specialized in warjack possession, can't manipulate their cortices.
• Spider Tank: The Cryxian Leviathan, Harrower and Desecrator warjacks, and the Cygnar Storm Strider. To a lesser extent, the Retribution of Scyrah's Arcantrik Force Generator, which vaguely resembles a crab, though the fluff implies it hovers and the legs are simply for stability while firing (and so the model can stand up).
• Soul Jar: The Skorne have no concept of an afterlife and instead trap the souls of their dead in enchanted stones (or at least the souls of those who are powerful or have connections), which can in turn be used to animate statues or enchant items with special qualities.
• Stone Wall:
  • Men-O-War Drakhuns, basically Khador's replacement for light warjacks. Any opponent will struggle to put this man and his horse into the graveyard before he's able to wreak havoc on the field. Despite this, the Drakhun is an expensive model that brings only one reliable attack to the field. This means he's a model of attrition at his core, but if you want a model that can take a wallop and dish it out against a few specific models, it doesn't get much more elite than the Man-O-War Drakhun.
  • Paladins of the Order of the Wall can forfeit their movement or action to enter the aptly named Stone-and-Mortar stance, which bumps their armor into the high end of heavy warjack numbers.
  • High Paladin Dartan Vilmon takes it to a whole new level with his Impervious Wall stance; for the same cost, he becomes immune to knockdowns and non-magical attacks. Combine the two and he can neither move nor attack, but he will hold his position against a small army. When Vilmon has Impervious Wall and Stone-And-Mortar Stance active he has armor higher than all but the most powerful of Warjack's and is immune to almost every weapon capable of getting through it.
• Subsystem Damage: Warjacks and warbeasts can be crippled long before they die if certain parts of them are damaged enough. A variation of the warbeast "life spiral" system is used for PCs and significant NPCs in the RPG.
• Superstitious Sailors: Sailors can be superstitious, and many believe that certain items, creatures and occurrences are signs of good or ill fortune. There is often truth to these beliefs.
• Tactical Superweapon Unit: Colossal warjacks and horrors and gargantuan warbeasts are the largest and most powerful of their kind to stride the battlefield. They are undoubtedly the hardiest models on any gaming table, with the same defensive stats and twice as much health as a heavy. On the flip side, they are also the most expensive models in the game, taking a significant percentage of your list, meaning that they need to pull their weight and losing one can be disastrous.
• Take Cover!: Most types of terrain offer bonuses to models that make them harder to hit with ranged and usually magic attacks.
• Tank Goodness: The Khador Gun Carriage is essentially a horse-drawn tank.
• Testosterone Poisoning: The intro to each of the wargaming books has shades of this. The setting in general has it as well, but this is often considered one of its strong points.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When learning to play Warmachine/Hordes, if you can't get into this mind-set, be prepared for numerous moments of complete failure. The more accepting you are of this, the more satisfying it is when you finally find your niche. The less comfortable you are with loss, the more likely you are to turn into someone who completely misses the point of playing games.
• Throw-Away Guns: Mr. Walls likes to have an assortment of one-shot pistols strapped to his chest whenever possible. A gun brace lets a character in the RPG do this as well, though if they use repeating pistols then they'll get five shots before having to throw a gun away.
• Too Many Belts: If you look through the artworks in the books, chances are you will see this. Some RPG characters will want a gun brace so that they don't have to spend an action drawing a gun, most gunmen will also have an ammo bandolier so they don't need to spend an action retrieving a new round for their gun and if they're using grenades then they'll also probably have a grenadier's bandolier so that they don't have to spend an action retrieving a grenade.
• Torture Technician: The entire skorne paingiver caste.
• To the Pain: Skorne society has an entire caste (appropriately known as Paingivers) devoted to this concept.
• Transhuman Treachery: The Cephalyx were originally a culture of humans who began seeking to perfect themselves, unlocking Psychic Powers but transforming into an insane, twisted race of Mad Doctors in the process, according to their army sourcebook.
• Turn Undead: Some things in the minis game and RPG have abilities to do extra damage to the undead (such as Precursor Knights).
• The Undead: Pretty much half the army of the nation of Cryx; the other half consists mostly of pirates and creepy, death-themed warjacks.
• The Underworld: Urcaen, a spiritual mirror of Caen, is the afterlife realm where the souls of those born on Caen would travel after death. Most of Urcaen is dangerous and foreboding, a spiritual mirror to the wilderness between cities. The only hope for an afterlife beyond wandering lost amid this spiritual wilderness is to spend one's life in pious devotion. After death, the pious are guided to the sheltered domain of their god.
• The Unfettered: Asheth Magnus. He has developed quite the track record over the years as he tries to get one of the most reviled Cygnaran kings back on the throne.
• The Virus: Prolonged exposure to dragon blight of any kind will eventually turn you into a mutated mockery of what you once were.
• The Voiceless: Protectorate reclaimers are all required to take a vow of silence.
• Walking Wasteland: Dragons radiate a mutagenic effect known as the Blight that gradually transforms the landscape and mutates creatures around them into their servants.
• War Elephants: Titans (which can be described as small, trunkless, bipedal, four-armed elephants) and their larger cousins, the mammoths, are widely used as warbeasts by skorne warlocks.
• We Have Reserves: Go ahead and destroy as many of the Cryxian robot-zombies as you want. They can always make more. Out of the tattered corpses of your own fallen warriors. And their gear. And their own casualties. And the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. And some dead guys they stumbled across last week. Better yet, just start running for your lives now. This is the purpose of the Everblight Spawning Vessel, which lets you turn the corpses of 3 creatures that die near it (friend or enemy) into a new warbeast.
• Weird Science: Not much of the technology in the Iron Kingdoms is ever explained very well and the small bits of info we do get don't make very much sense either. For example; the most we know about how steamjacks work is that a conventional (albeit highly-efficient) boiler provides steam pressure to move the body as well as drive a device called an arcane turbine. This turbine spins canisters of certain alchemical compounds that react to the movement and each other, turning the motive force of their spinning into arcane energy that powers the 'jack's cortex and any mechanikal weapons attached to it. Once the cortex is "awake", it takes over finer control of the body — directing steam pressure to move its body as well as controlling an iris mechanism that regulates the rate coal is dropped from a hopper into the tinder box, letting the 'jack control the temperature and pressure of its boiler. This is the most detailed any fluff has gotten on the tech of the Iron Kingdoms and even this is spread out between at least one article in No Quarter magazine and fluff from the old d20 RPG. Even then, it says nothing about how the cortex works, merely how it's powered.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Gunnbjorn's story. Although he betrays his culture, and didn't return for years, he gets forgiven pretty easily.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • The Retribution of Scyrah see human magic as the cancer that's killing their goddess. The only thing that prevents them from becoming completely Unfettered is that they don't kill needlessly. Humans who "can still be saved" will be spared as long as they agree not to pursue magical studies.
  • This is how the Circle Orboros justifies the things they do. Yes, they aim to destroy all civilisation and revert humanity back to primeval savagery, and yes they unleash natural disasters of all sorts to cull thousands of people at a time, but they sincerely believe that if they don't, civilisation will eventually interfere with the flow of Orboros to the extent that it will compel the Devourer Wurm to come back to their world and destroy humanity entirely in order to replenish the flow of nature's power that sustains it.
• Wrench Wench: The pirate character Dirty Meg is the most prominent example.
  • A less prominent one is the Field Mechanik/Military Officer Colbie Sterling◊, one of the pre-made characters for the RPG's quick-start adventure.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: It has been noted that by casualty statistics everyone in Cygnar has died already... twice. Did we mention it holds about half the of total human population (about 20 million humans, with Cygnar holding 9)?
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Asphyxious speaks this way, mostly because he is a few thousand years old and totally insane.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Toruk and Everblight are each trying to bring about their own Zombie Apocalypse:
  • Everblight by infecting every living thing on the planet with his blight, thus corrupting their minds and making them his slaves.
  • Toruk by pretty much killing everything and raising them as zombies.

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