A very decent article about focus vs fury

[Stormlord]

actually its a portion of a much larger article. I am cutting and pasting the relavent portions for this post, but linking to the entire article (which is about Circle of Orboros and a player that got them in a random escalation league, who isnt overly fond of them)

anyways, here is the link
http://losthemisphere.com/blog/?p=12183#more-12183





Fury Vs. Focus and the Warnouns that Love them


It’s a debate that will be debated by smarter people than yours truly until Trollbloods inevitably wins 4 major tournaments in a row based on the all encompassing power of pHoarluk (you heard it here first folks!). But it is something to be mentioned in passing, so you have some idea of the context of Warmachine’s angrier cousin.

Basically, the change from Focus to Fury and the lack of Arcnodes is going to put a greater emphasis on Warbeasts than Warmachine did on Warjacks, as they’ve moved from outlets for your opponents resources to crucial generators that power their entire strategy. When you look at any Warbeast fielded by any Warlock you should be mindful that when you kill one you are effectively denying some of their Fury to them at best, or forcing them to run several beasts very hot at worst. Early in the game, if you can find an opportunity to kill a Warbeast in a tactically sound way you should do that. Fury powers their spells as well as the defensive transfer mechanic, so the more you can do to hit them in the figurative pocketbook the better.

Because they don’t need to “spend” Fury on the crucial first combat turn like Warmachine does, this gives Hordes ‘casters (in the faction neutral sense) a great deal of flexibility in terms of target selection. They also have the option of running hot on an “Alpha Strike” turn, loading up all their beasts with fury in order to get the maximum benefit from a giant assault, even though this might result in lots of threshold checks and frenzying next turn (that is, unless they pull all the fury off with various sources of Fury management). This means that Hordes forces deal in burst damage, having a Warbeast put out multiple fully boosted attacks or vast numbers of bought attacks, but tends to struggle in the attrition game. The sooner and earlier you can hurt their offensive capabilities the better.

The change from +1 ARM to transfers is also a big deal, as it means that you can’t rely on a reasonably beefy caster camping FOC and ARM to get to obscene (ARM 22+) range. Warlock’s are very exposed, very vulnerable, and very killable. Even in the best of situations with enough Fury to transfer to beasts, pounding on a Warlock is going to result in huge damage to their beasts, perhaps even outright killing them. This vulnerability to the attrition game does somewhat strengthen them against assassination; because they can transfer big hits away at no harm to themselves, a ‘jack trampling it’s way over to your enemies Warlock and unloading two massive strikes on it might not be the assured thing it was in Warmachine.

Additionally, the last major change is that apart from a few notable exceptions, Warlock’s don’t have access to Arc Nodes and their ‘beasts are much more tied to the concept of control area, so are probably going to be much closer to the front lines than you would expect in Warmachine. This means that tramples are going to be golden, as even your bodyguard ‘jacks might be able to get in there and provide a crucial shot to the noggin. Your opponent will be wary of this limitation, so Hordes tends to alternate between an all-encompassing defense or a brutal offense. It’s not an absolute but your much more likely to see either the aggression game of someone like pMorghoul or the super-brick of someone like Xerxis than a balanced list fielded by someone like pKreoss on the Warmachine side.