Ok - What Army should I play?

How many points do I need to play a game equivalent to 1850 in 40k?

In length of time it takes to play? 35ish. maybe closer to 50, but that's a lot of points in WM. In terms of amount of stuff on the table, 75+ but nobody I know plays at that level.

The tournament environment for WM is going to float between 35 and 50 points, so I'd aim for that. 35 point games, when you're playing with people who know the rules can play very fast (less than 1:30) so in tournaments you're looking at more rounds rather than bigger games (which I actually think is a great outcome). You can't do it with 40k sadly b/c so many armies are unbalanced at low points levels, WM doesn't have that problem and the new competitive environment (as evidenced so far in TempleCon results) is that every army is very balanced.

What faction are you thinking of starting?

To add on to what Mike said. My 35pt list has my caster, one Warjack, 2 units of 12 models each, one unit of 6 models, a cavalry character model, and some support models. This is also a relatively high model count for 35pt. You could probably have an army with half or less the infantry models, and one extra Warjack.

Also, in response to the title of your thread, you should go with whatever army seems cool to you. I chose my army because I thought it had awesome models, although the next army I choose will be more-so based on the play-style of the army, instead of purely for looks.

Could someone give me a break down of what these armies are about

Khador

Cryx

Legion

Skorne

Thanks

Cryxian forces boast the most flexible and devastating selection of magical abilities in the game. Their forces are capable of crossing the battlefield with frightening speed and swarming opponents. Many of their units can act as devastating suicide bombs or, true to their undead nature, return to the battlefield after being destroyed. The plentiful abundance of arc nodes in Cryxian armies, combined with their numerous special abilities leave this faction with a reputation for "dirty" (but perfectly legal and intentional) tricks.

In a game mechanics sense the Cryx faction represent expendable/reliable non-living infantry backed by fragile but aggressive and destructive warmachines (Bonejacks and Helljacks). A few notable generalities are;

High Defense: the Defense score of a model in the game is the target number to be acquire by adding a dice roll to an attack score. The Cryx warjacks have higher than average defenses making them harder to strike than other warjacks of similar cost and size.
Straight from the wiki and it's pretty accurate.

Cryx:
High Speed: the Speed score in the game denotes, in inches, the distance the model may be moved in a variet of movement options. This score on Cryx warjacks tend to be slightly higher giving them greater closing speed and mobility.

Weaker Construction: a Cryx warjack will have a lower Armor score (which prevents damage) and fewer boxes of Hull Points (the effective hit points of the model) representing their lighter, yet more fragile, build.

Troop Morale: tends to be a non-issue as the majority of Cryx infantry are dead, and the dead do not run in fear.

Versatile Spells: Cryx gets the best offensive spells, including debuffs, direct damage, etc. They have slightly cheaper arc nodes and the highest focus scores in general.


Khador:
Khador's units are a mix of slow, highly devastating units, such as the Iron Fang Pikemen, Man-O-War Shock Troopers, and Devastators, and nimble, disposable, specialty units such as Widowmakers, Winter Guard, and Doom Reavers. Khador has the largest number of Advance Deploy units (units that can begin the game far further across the board than is normally allowed), and many players use these units to harass and distract the enemy while the "heavy hitters" advance.

Khador's warjacks are built with the idea that "bigger is better." Their jacks are incredibly large, slow, and deadly. Their defense is very low but their armor is extremely high. They are therefore easy to hit but very difficult to damage, and capable of absorbing the highest amounts of damage in the game. Their attack values are low, but their damage capabilities are the highest available. Thus, while they do not hit as often as other factions' warjacks, their hits are devastating when they do connect. Khador warjacks are capable of crippling or outright destroying non-Khadoran warjacks with a single blow.

Khador's warcasters are typically extremely powerful in melee combat. They have average or better-than-average amounts of Focus Points (the measure of magical power in WARMACHINE), though most of their spells must be recast on each turn. Many of their spells help conceal and screen their forces as they slowly advance (such as Sorscha's Fog of War or Vladimir's Wind Wall), or force their opponents to fight on the Khador player's terms (Irusk). Their feats are almost singularly based around creating a single massive offensive burst, either by freezing the enemy in their tracks (Kommander Sorscha), giving their Warjacks a massive and unexpected burst of speed (Vladimir), or simply making all of their attacks brutally powerful (The Butcher of Khardov).

Legion & Skoren:
Can't really speak for these as I have not played either in a long time so don't know how they've changed

Broadly speaking:

Khador is very direct, heavy armor, slow, some shenanigans, but mellee heavy for the most part, not a lot of subtlety.

Cryx is fast, lightly armored, hard to hit, relatively low wounds lots of shenanigans and has army builds unlike any other (all undead or all stealth for example).

Legion (I actually have these) very fast generally, lots of sprays and flying models. Like all hordes, they're faster, harder to hit and easier to wound than comparable WM models. I like them, but I don't have a huge amount of experience with them. If you're interested I can bring some next week and you can see them in action.

Skorne: hordes cryx mostly I think, they seem interesting but the models have never really engaged me so I've not focused on them much. Molik Karn is their best model I think and a lot of their strategy seems to be around making him work best.

sweet thanks guys for the help so far i like the khador and skorne armies

I learned a lot of tactics and about other armies in general from cruising the PP forums and listening to two podcasts: Focus and Fury and Iron Agenda. You only have to go back a few months to capture all the Mk2 stuff, but they'll talk about tournament lists and counter strategies, army builds, which models they like etc. I'm not saying it's gospel, and in fact I'd recommend just playing with whatever you like the look of more often than not, but they can be helpful, fun, and a good way to learn a lot about the game very fast.

yeah i am just picking my army off of how they guys look haha