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Hello to everybody!

I'm new to the world of warmachine, and i would like to read some books about its background.
I only have the rulebook mkii and some army books, but they have not a lot of background.
Can someone tell me were i can find other books about its history?

Thanks to all!

I would suggest the RPG books, if you're looking for deep background information. Particularly "Kingdoms Gods & Nations:"

http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Kingdoms-Kings-Nations-PIP406/dp/1933362901/

and the old d20 IKRPG World Guide - if you can find it.

They go in-depth into the history, background and cosmology of the universe in a level that's well beyond the depth of anything in the Wargame sources.

If you have the PP Digital app, they have all of their Mk I books, both for Warmachine and for Hordes, for about 1,5 € each. If you get those, you'll get practically the entire backstory of all of the casters up to this point.

Other than that, you can get the novels from Skull Island Expedition or the RPG source books for some more in depth background story.

the RPG books do have some excellent background info.

Here is a link to sitckied thread collecting Doug Seacat's many posts further elaborating on many fluff issues(Doug is PP's fluff master)

http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?77295-Doug-Seacat-on

Alternatively, you can go on the PP forums and ask a question. He's fairly likely to answer fluff questions eventually(post in general discussions)

And of course light the Seacat signal while you do it.

Sasunzi David wrote:
Hello to everybody!

I'm new to the world of warmachine, and i would like to read some books about its background.
I only have the rulebook mkii and some army books, but they have not a lot of background.
Can someone tell me were i can find other books about its history?

Thanks to all!

Hi Sasunzi, welcome to the iron kingdoms. Im actually quite glad you're here asking about the fluff. too few people do this. And its a shame; PPs game has some very well developed fluff as background for their game.

first up: complete chronological list of fiction.
http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?195787-The-Complete-Chronological-Iron-Kingdoms-Fiction
check out the forums as well - often Seacat will step in and elaborate on the fiction that has been written.

Now, first up, the fluff is in no single place. this is not necessarily a bad thing in my mind, but it can make accessing it that little bit harder, if you dont know where to look.

the first place, as you can guess is the rulebook and army books for both warmachine and hordes. they have the ongoing fiction, as well as character back stories, unit descriptions and the FOW books often describe some of the logistics, and actual nuts and bolts of army organisation, and history. they're good solid reads (i love the retribution book in particular, itsbackground material is phenomenol!) but generally, act as a great intro. If you are interested, the fluff goes all the way back to Mk1 and the original books from over 10 years ago. if you get the PP reader app, you can download all the old books for a song. its well worth it, IMO. the hordes expansions (mutagenesis and evolution iirc) have some really excellent story material.

the second place is PPs magazine. No Quarter. it is an excellent read. pick it up at your FLGS, and if you want the older copies, check out the PP reader app, where you can get all the old issues for a few pence. there are short stories throughout the magazine. they also run very popular and very well written fluff articles in the magazine. For example, you have the Gavyn Kyle files, which elaborates on, explores and deepends the fiction behind a lot of the "names" in the game. Not just casters. But other famous individuals too. Sometimes its units (there was one exploring the history and culture of the kayazy). Another great one is the Guts n Gears files, which are like the GK files, but are less about individuals, and more about the fluff behind unit types and warjack chassis (where they were made, how long they were in service for, development history etc). the NQ magazine is well worth a read - it has some excellent content and is well worth its price tag. i think they're re-releasing some of the fiction via skull island as well (see below). there is also regular fiction which includes both once off short stories, and stories that continue on the arc from those in books - for example, what happened to Kallus at the end of Domination is explained in one.

the third place (and my personal favourite) is the RPG material. Warmachine originated as a D20 RPG using the DnD open source licence. their very first adventure was called "the witchfire trilogy" and is a great read, with some interesting little nuggets. the "old" D20 material comprised the character guides (which ahave a lot of the basic information, cosmology, history etc) 2 monsternomicons (with huge bits of info on infernals, and skorne culture/history, although its generally about the monsters that inhabit immoren), a small exansion on the port of Five FIngers, and the excellent world guide. I cannot recommend these enough; the World GUide in particular. its epic. you can literally smell the smoke when you read it. they're very, very engrossing, and do a fantastic job of bringing the world to life - not just the history, but crime&punishment, trades and learning, entertainment, finance, language, cosmology, and lots of information on locations, towns, cities, forts, and the big names in all of them. Now, the old material is still online (if you know where to look; winkwinknudgenudge) but they're also all being updated by PP into a new RPG series using a proprietary rules system based off of the wargame. So far they have the IKRPG core rules, five fingers and the excellent Kings Nations and Gods books. again, all well worth the read. upcoming is a new monsternomicon and the iron kingdoms: unleashed "complimentary" RPG which focuses on adventures in the wilds, and expands on the races to include tharn, farrow etc. Im quite looking forward to that one! i think thw RPG material on its own is stellar, and really does a fantastic job of bringing the world to life - far more than youd expect from a regular wargame.

the fourth place is PPs publishing wing. skull island expeditions.https://skullislandx.com/
they dont yet have the volume or the library of titles of the black library, but whats there is very solid. i will particularly recommend the warcaster chronicle series (caine, butcher and shae so far), warlock chronicles (makeda and thagrosh), extraordinary zoology (brilliant little read!) and top of the pile is Into the Storm by larry correia (award winning author). the iron kingdoms excursions series is a series of short stories that are quite fun to read too.

hope that helps! enjoy the reading. Make sure you get the complmentary goggles while youre there!

Hey, thank you for your replies!
I think that with all the material that PP had written, I wil not have any problem to choose what to read this summer.

But, first, some questions:

1) @grey templar, what do you mean by light the seacat signal?

2)@deadnight, of course i will have some trouble to understand what to read first: i have find "iron kingdoms- kings, nations and gods" , but i don't undertand what it is: is it a rpg rulebook?it doesn't matter if it is or not, just want to understand if it has a lot of background about the kingdoms, in witch case, it will be mine!
Also, i would like to start some novel, perhaps about cygnarian heroes or, better, magnus the traitor. Do you have something to suggest?

Its a bit of a joke, but Doug does have an uncanny ability to show up if you invoke his name on the PP forums. Posting the picture I did doesn't hurt either.

Sasunzi David wrote:
Hey, thank you for your replies!
I think that with all the material that PP had written, I wil not have any problem to choose what to read this summer.

But, first, some questions:

1) @grey templar, what do you mean by light the seacat signal?

2)@deadnight, of course i will have some trouble to understand what to read first: i have find "iron kingdoms- kings, nations and gods" , but i don't undertand what it is: is it a rpg rulebook?it doesn't matter if it is or not, just want to understand if it has a lot of background about the kingdoms, in witch case, it will be mine!
Also, i would like to start some novel, perhaps about cygnarian heroes or, better, magnus the traitor. Do you have something to suggest?

I can answer both.

1) The 'SeaCat signal' started as a funny wee joke on the pp forums. It's based on the bat signal that you see in the batman movies. Posters often repost the image in fluff debates when the 'official' word from the settings main writer (ie SeaCat) is requested. It goes up when someone is in trouble (ie asks a fluff question) and batman, er, SeaCat often steps in with useful explanations and discussion.


2) it is an rpg source book. It's an expansion to the core rules and has some additional nation-specific player material (nation specific classes, equipment etc like if you wanted to play a storm smith, exemplar or assault kommando) and vastly expands on the fluff and general information in the core rulebook. The core rule book covers a bit of everything, with a big focus on the actual rpg mechanics (races, careers, equipment, skills etc) and the broad brush strokes of the fluff and history whereas kings,nations and gods goes into extensive detail on the main human kingdoms (cygnar, khador, protectorate, ord. Llael, )and their respective histories, cultures, organisations, laws, cities, provinces etc. cryx, ios, Rhul and the wilds aren't covered in it, but they will be in a future book they're covered in the old d20 world guide however, so for them, the older material will have to do, at least for now.

But yes, it has what amounts to an exhaustive level of detail.

ReGarding a book about a cygnar hero, may I recommend 'the warcaster chronicles: Caine' and 'into the storm' from the skull island expeditions page? excellent reads. I really enjoyed both. Into the storm is an especially good choice.

To get specific. The page count for "Kingdoms, Nations, and Gods" is 380 pages or so. Of those, maybe 50-60 are game "Crunch" with another 20 or so spent on overhead (index, etc..). This means it's roughly 300 Pages of Fluff/Background.

Hell, it even has and index for important figures sorted by their cause of death.

Well, i already finished the warcaster chronicles caine, and it was surprisingly good. You know, because of warhammer books, i thought that this book would have been another "kill him! Shoot him! Catch him!" (cit. From a game on a lovecraft story). Thankfully, not at all!
The only defect is that it only 120 pages, too short, but this will be that i can now start another book.
Probably i will start another book of the same author, or you have another better?


@deadnight, i was laughing when it appeared magnus in the story. Even if his appearance was short, you granted my wish of a book about him.

Sasunzi David wrote:
Well, i already finished the warcaster chronicles caine, and it was surprisingly good. You know, because of warhammer books, i thought that this book would have been another "kill him! Shoot him! Catch him!" (cit. From a game on a lovecraft story). Thankfully, not at all!
The only defect is that it only 120 pages, too short, but this will be that i can now start another book.
Probably i will start another book of the same author, or you have another better?


@deadnight, i was laughing when it appeared magnus in the story. Even if his appearance was short, you granted my wish of a book about him.

Heh, yeah the books are on the short side, but to be fair, for what amounts to £3, I'm quite happy with what I get!

What's next?

Well, as mentioned, I'd seriously recommend into the storm. It's equal parts band of brothers and the dirty dozen. It's probably the best pp book to date, the writer - Larry correa is an actual New York Times best seller and award winner. You can tell he knows his stuff from the first few words. It really jumps off the pages and is a very engaging and well written novel. Another very enjoyable one is extraordinary zoology. The warlock chronicles following makedas rise to power and thagrosh's transformation from runaway slave to dragon blighted prophet of everblight are great too. And a shout out to the warcaster chronicles for the butcher as well. I think you've got enough reading there for a wee while, eh

I can't recommend this book enough.
It's by New York Times Best Selling author, Larry Correia. He loved the game and when they found out that he posted on the PP forums, they asked him to write something for them and he jumped at the chance.
http://www.amazon.com/Into-Storm-Larry-Correia-ebook/dp/B00EUSMLLE/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405188060&sr=1-9&keywords=into+the+storm

Into the Storm is the best one. More are coming.

I also liked the Extraordinary Zoology book. It was a lot of fun, especially if you are into the flood and the world.

O.o i think that into the storm is a really enjoyable book. I didn't know that someone could write a book about a war without making it "waaaaaagh" ( just joking, it's all because of warhammer books, very bleah, although the first book about gotrex and felix was strangely well done, the waaaagh stuff was not the protagonist).
Thanks for your help. And now?

Sasunzi David wrote:
O.o i think that into the storm is a really enjoyable book. I didn't know that someone could write a book about a war without making it "waaaaaagh" ( just joking, it's all because of warhammer books, very bleah, although the first book about gotrex and felix was strangely well done, the waaaagh stuff was not the protagonist).
Thanks for your help. And now?

Butcher of Khardov, probably. Or extrodinary zoology if you want something fun.

Butcher already read, so i will go with extraordinary zoology

Sasunzi David wrote:
Butcher already read, so i will go with extraordinary zoology

Good choice!