I'm by no means an expect at ACDC but if you're new to the game, yes, I would recommend it. However, if the tourney format is an unlimited qualifier it probably won't be enough on its own unless the competition is equally new to the game.

War Machine scores pretty well if the spinner is nice and spinny, plus you're working toward Tour multiball. You notice in the video Bowen talks about hitting the object shot for a song mode, but then hitting some other shot, since hitting the same object shot over and over is crappy points. War Machine still scores well if you get a good spinner rip and shoot it over and over. If you can get 2x going at the bell, each war machine spinner rip can net you 3M+ points once the value is up.

On all the ACDC's I've played, you can backhand the spinner easily, and the fore hand is not hard either.

I think the newer software nerfed war machine a bit but it's still pretty valuable.