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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
IDK how you can poaint with P3, I can never get a good solid basecoat with mine.
But they aibrush like no ones business so i do love them for that.

You have to work out which ones are for basecoating and use those. I paint mostly with P3 since I do a lot of glazing and the transparency works well for me, and the trick is to pick something like Frostbite or 'Jack Bone that gives you a bright opaque base, then shade and add colour.

Ehh not to go too off topic, but i have mostly switched to vallejo and GW, mostlyout of ease of getting it. no one carries p3 anymore and i prefer to get my paint that day.
Jack Bone is one of my favorite colors however.

 LoS_Jaden wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
Tamwulf, I’m still around and never went anywhere!
I just moved my hobby scene to YouTube instead.
Once they killed Hand Cannon I didn’t really have anywhere to post stuff so I started making videos instead.
Mostly it’s board games and stuff and the occasional PP model. Still using P3 as long as I can find it (and that seems to be changing around here as well).

I had no idea that you'd been stranded when Omnus deleted HCO - we would love to host any articles you're interested in writing, I've been a huge admirer of your content for years.

Then check out my channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/GhoolsWorld
I haven’t written any articles for a long time as it’s much more expedient to record it on video.
I was blindsided by the deletion of HCO. But I’m not really surprised, as I was the only one posting any content for the last two years it was around.
I love P3 but my LGS has stopped carrying PP products.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
...Distributors either don't want to carry them or can't. I don't know the politics there, but there is some shenanigans going on...

SKU bloat and minimum volumes. Demand crashed, distributors couldn't move the minimum orders, and stopped stocking the minis.

I also heard that PP tried to get them to pay full-price, arguing that their products will "drive traffic", but how much of it is true and how much someone being salty at PP? The sad part is, I could see them try it, even if it's a lie.
PP burned through a LOT of good will while doing very little change with the changing market. I've seen people not pick up Warcaster purely based on "page 5 cringe" that PP is still associated with. Heck, I don't want to give them a second chance either, because they've proven to be just...not fun.

I picked up Warmachine Prime back in the day when the game was starting to trend up. Then I started reading the book.

I read Page 5, put the book down and ultimately never played the game.

What would PP need to do to get a player like me to pick it up? That is a good question? I honestly do not know the answer to it.

I guess they would need to convince me that there were interesting themes and stories I could tell on the tabletop with their miniatures and world. I am pretty sure that is far out of the realm of what PP is interested in.

Ultimately what sold me on pp, or more specifically the iron kingdoms was the lore.

The lore is a crucial aspect of any wargame I play. For years when I had no time for gw games, the lore and the setting always appealed.

It was the same for me with pp.i dived in completely at the start of MK2 (but had dipped my toes in at the dawn of mk1). I was done with gw at the time but felt the hobby itch again. Anyways I decided if I was gonna get back into a game, I'd need to be serious about it, and if I was serious about it I'd need to be grabbed by the lore.

So que an exhaustive search for all the old dnd material, back to 2001s 'witchfire trilogy'. I have it all. I dived in. I read. I literally got lost in the world. I could hear the clanking of metal. I could hear the hissing of steam. I could smell the coal burning. I could feel the heat of the furnace. I got lost in thousands of years of extremely well written gritty and grim lore. The history felt real. The nation's and cultures were linked and fed off of each other. The art was great. The mythologies were breathtaking. The familiar fantasy tropes, but inverted and reimagined were engrossing. The cities cry out. Corvis. Five Fingers. Trenton Crag. Korsk.

It was a fantastic setting and I genuinely felt this was a world i could dive into. It really was and is a magnificently crafted setting. For that alone, it was worth investing in.

Even if I never play wmh again, the setting will always grip me.

I do love the setting. Steampunk with a lot of the Victorian trappings stripped out for more raw industrialism. It's nations have great history that makes for conflicts that are easy to get behind. The Hengehold scrolls are far and away the most exciting thing that PP has done in this regard and I'm really looking forward to see what happens when they make good on this post apocalyptic setting they've built to. I just get the impression everything is in maintenance mode until they can work out the future of the franchise.

deleted

 Easy E wrote:

What would PP need to do to get a player like me to pick it up? That is a good question? I honestly do not know the answer to it.

I started playing WM&H ~6 years ago, having been increasingly dissatisfied with how silly and nonsensical WH40K was rules-wise. Even though after these years I have a dozen things I would like WM&H to do better, it's still BY FAR the best wargame I have ever played and one of the best games in general.

I absolutely love how the game presents you with a huge menu of viable choices for every situation, and the more experienced you are, the more and the better solutions you can see. This game rewards creative problem-solving in a way that I find immensely satisfying. For exactly the same, difficult situation a total newbie will have no solution whatsoever, he'll be stuck. A beginner will find a single, mediocre solution. An experienced player will find a few ways out and will be able to determine which is the best. But a truly talented (not just experienced!) player will solve the problem in a way that will make everyone watching the game go "Wow! That was awesome!". And whenever you do something like this it gives this wonderful sense of intellectual achievement! "Damn, I'm smart!"

It's a bit like with those chess-riddles which say "white check-mate in 4 moves". You look at them and can't find a solution and then some chess veteran comes and does it in 3 moves You want to be such a player and in some games you get to be one.

WH40K feels like playing with toy soldiers doing pew-pew and vroom noises in comparison. Can't find much gripping in a game like this, relative irrelevance of my decisions makes me emotionally divorced from both the outcome and the game itself.

WH40K feels like playing with toy soldiers doing pew-pew and vroom noises in comparison. Can't find much gripping in a game like this, relative irrelevance of my decisions makes me emotionally divorced from both the outcome and the game itself.

Well it is good to have a variety of game that all play differently. 40K used to be the fun "lore inspired" rule set game for fast simpler play, after 5th edition it almost completely lost that. (which is the reason many of us have gone back to playing old editions) by the same token alt activation games like dust and infinity are both very good in their own ways but also play very different. much like WM/H many of the games i play have far more complex rules interactions which can be fun but sometimes you need a break from that.

I purposely try to avoid going overboard with focusing on one game system. i have had mostly the same units for WM/H, infinity, and battletech that i have had for years. even my 40K collection for normal scale play has basically been "done" for many years with no interest in buying anything new as i do not need it to play any variety of the game.

I play what i enjoy with like minded players. for WM/Hs that is MKIII 50 point or less non-steamroller games with 3d terrain, or 5th edition for 40K, or classic battletech (not quick strike) etc...

 Easy E wrote:
I picked up Warmachine Prime back in the day when the game was starting to trend up. Then I started reading the book.

I read Page 5, put the book down and ultimately never played the game.

What would PP need to do to get a player like me to pick it up? That is a good question? I honestly do not know the answer to it.

I guess they would need to convince me that there were interesting themes and stories I could tell on the tabletop with their miniatures and world. I am pretty sure that is far out of the realm of what PP is interested in.

Just curious, but when you say 'interesting themes and stories', what do you mean by that?

 Easy E wrote:
What would PP need to do to get a player like me to pick it up? That is a good question? I honestly do not know the answer to it.

I guess they would need to convince me that there were interesting themes and stories I could tell on the tabletop with their miniatures and world. I am pretty sure that is far out of the realm of what PP is interested in.

Well, they exist and have been provided for years. Unfortunately, the loudest in the market only care about themes and stories if it can get them a leg up in a tournament. That isn't to say that there aren't a lot of players who do like the stories and themes, its just that it's been hard to hear them over the Steamroller-only crowd. It's starting to rise a little with Brawlmachine, but until people are playing together regularly again, it's hard to say what level of impact it will have.

Privateer Press has been incorporating story in to the game for years. There used to be Themes based on the Warcaster and what they would normally bring. This was expanded so that there were Themed forces in the army which one could incorporate a Warcaster in to. There have been quite a few campaigns run in the last few years, with Oblivion being the latest one to be presented. There has also been narrative scenarios presented in their magazine when it was live. However, purchasing power from the customers has been limited in those veins, so even if you have a group in your area, they probably haven't been playing them.

So Privateer Press has done their part on that front, but aside from restructuring their supply and getting it popular in local stores, there isn't much else they can do.

I think WM and Hordes are actually really good at telling stories at that warband level the game is great at (you know, a leader, his beasts or jacks, a couple of units and a cool solo). I never felt a clash between the mechanics and the story at all.
I also had the Iron Kingdoms books (the ones for 3.5 D&D) and they were really cool. The mechanika stuff was really poorly balanced and the Warcaster class was not suitable for the system at all (just way too powerful) but the setting was piles of fun to mess around with and I really enjoyed myself running a campaign in that world.
I stopped playing after Mk2, because I don't really like themes. Themes force you to play with certain set models, and PP's models are far too variable in quality for me to want to be forced into using certain ones. I like the ones I have, and what I loved about Mk2 was that they were pretty balanced and I could make a workable list out of my stuff that could do well in games without worrying too much about the listbuilding phase. I feel they built more of a listbuilding phase into Mk3 but even more restrictive than it usually is, and that was just really offputting to me.

Mk2 was a brilliant game though. Really satisfying to play and rewarded knowing and using your guys really well. That connection with the big beautiful models that came from learning them in and out was really nice, and I miss it. I am sad that the game is pretty dead in my region and that I would have to do a lot of work to get engaged with Mk3. I have fully painted Trolls and Minions, and a half painted Everblight force sitting idle.

Ah well. The models always get incredibly positive comments when I bust them out for my RPGs.

Honestly, one of the best parts of the game is just how thematic and varied some of the better warcaster designs become. Casters like Butcher 3 who can charge in and pull a huge crowd into a thresher feels fantastic. Borka2 and his army of ambushing bears. Haley3 and her time echos, Caine's gunslinging, Gearhart's big game hunter ol'sport style, Gaspy's flailing horrors.

There's few games that allow a character to bring as much character to an army as Warmachine. I think that's one of the big things the community loses out on when it focuses on just the single best pair of casters at the moment, but when PP really puts their heart into a caster, they make armies with more character than anything out there.

Da Boss wrote:I stopped playing after Mk2, because I don't really like themes. Themes force you to play with certain set models, and PP's models are far too variable in quality for me to want to be forced into using certain ones. I like the ones I have, and what I loved about Mk2 was that they were pretty balanced and I could make a workable list out of my stuff that could do well in games without worrying too much about the listbuilding phase. I feel they built more of a listbuilding phase into Mk3 but even more restrictive than it usually is, and that was just really offputting to me.

Mk2 was a brilliant game though. Really satisfying to play and rewarded knowing and using your guys really well. That connection with the big beautiful models that came from learning them in and out was really nice, and I miss it. I am sad that the game is pretty dead in my region and that I would have to do a lot of work to get engaged with Mk3. I have fully painted Trolls and Minions, and a half painted Everblight force sitting idle.

The funny thing is the Themes in Mk 2 were far more restrictive than what's available in Mk 3. However, most felt only encouraged to use those Themes rather than forced, even though some Warcasters and Warlocks were only really useful when in their Theme (Xerxis' Fist of Halaak, for example). The ones who stood out were the ones who were great in their Theme or out of it, like Haley2.

Mk 3 Themes did go overboard with the initial forms of Requisition, though, I'll grant that.

LunarSol wrote:There's few games that allow a character to bring as much character to an army as Warmachine. I think that's one of the big things the community loses out on when it focuses on just the single best pair of casters at the moment, but when PP really puts their heart into a caster, they make armies with more character than anything out there.

I think Malifaux and Infinity do a pretty good job at it (I admit that I haven't played them, though).

It seemed to me from my investigations and talking to my friends that Themes are basically mandatory now? Like you get lots of free points and stuff. Back when I played Mk2 basically nobody used Themes so I never worried about them, but it seemed that Themes were basically a big part of the game now. I dunno, I don't like that. I liked being able to use my core set of models that I really liked without feeling like I was being penalized by the system.

MK3 Themes are basically mandatory.

It's like how in Age of Sigmar you can use factions or a grand alliance army, but the GA army, whilst it can use any model in a grand alliance, has weaker allegiance abilities.


Only for PP they have used it on armies rather than collections of armies so it feels rather rough and odd.

It is being forced to use specific combinations that I don't like. Like if I don't go buy a certain unit or solo to use with a certain warbeast, then this warcaster is really negatively impacted. And some of those models might be really fugly, or not fit with what I want in my collection. But due to the points deficit, I can't just make it work, because I am losing out on too much.
Seems really weird to me and removes freedom from the game.

It's mostly just splitting things into subfactions. Once they got rid of the points threshholds for free solos and replaced it with requisition, I've found there's far fewer problems with needing specific models to fill points. I don't feel like they have near the impact on a collection they did early on, at least assuming that if there's models I want, I want more aesthetically similar models.

 Da Boss wrote:
It is being forced to use specific combinations that I don't like. Like if I don't go buy a certain unit or solo to use with a certain warbeast, then this warcaster is really negatively impacted. And some of those models might be really fugly, or not fit with what I want in my collection. But due to the points deficit, I can't just make it work, because I am losing out on too much.
Seems really weird to me and removes freedom from the game.

I play in a casual gaming group. we don't do steamroller and we usually play at no more than 50 points. i have the same models i have always had that i got for my army because i liked them. in fact the warcaster i use is the opposite of what most players do. i didn't build the army around the caster i build it around the models i wanted to use namely clam jacks and the gun carriage then found a caster that would help them.

Nobody i play with really care about themed forces in the sense of list building requirements. theme for us is based on the overall look of the army. one guy has a circle army that is all about wolves he has skin walkers, warp wolves and the like because he likes wolves in real life and thought it was cool to be able to build an army around it.

The game still works fine without the comp players/theme list requirements.

 Da Boss wrote:
It is being forced to use specific combinations that I don't like. Like if I don't go buy a certain unit or solo to use with a certain warbeast, then this warcaster is really negatively impacted. And some of those models might be really fugly, or not fit with what I want in my collection. But due to the points deficit, I can't just make it work, because I am losing out on too much.
Seems really weird to me and removes freedom from the game.

Aside from a few instances, like Warcaster/Warlock Attachments not being universally available (but still only restricted from one or two Themes), it's not as common as you think. The Themes are set up more as a cohesive group that were in that part of a battle rather than being more ramshackle. They tend to synergize better, for the most part, so it's not so bad. I think the worst situations are like Cephalyx only being allowed in a single Theme, or Skorne where "combined arms" means having Beasts do the job the allowed units can't.

Groups can deny Themes in their interactions if they want to, of course, but they tend to be only in one off situations like Who's the Boss. So they have been well received by the ones who have kept playing, especially once Requisition changed to army size as opposed to army makeup.

 Charistoph wrote:

LunarSol wrote:There's few games that allow a character to bring as much character to an army as Warmachine. I think that's one of the big things the community loses out on when it focuses on just the single best pair of casters at the moment, but when PP really puts their heart into a caster, they make armies with more character than anything out there.

I think Malifaux and Infinity do a pretty good job at it (I admit that I haven't played them, though).

Certainly any small model count game is going to do a pretty good job of it. Malifaux certainly and particularly with M3E where they focused crews more around the master than previous editions. Infinity I think a little less so, but that might just be that it has more of a simulation feel to me than something designed to express personality out of its characters. Two of my favorite games for sure though.

I suppose what makes the difference for me in Warmachine is probably the size of the game itself. I just find that when the game is at its best, whole armies have this sense of identity you don't find in other systems. I listed off some of my favorites already, but the game is just full of mechanically interesting pieces that do so many interesting things with positioning and movement to make the most of their attacks. Characters like the first Sorscha or Wyrmwood or Madhammer just come together to give the armies you put them in so much identity. It's part of why I'd really love to see PP work on consolidating themes and casters. They've gotten stuck over the course of MK3 trying to make things "fair" but as much as I want it to be balanced, the more I get off the competitive treadmill, the more I realize the game's appeal is in its ability to create mechanics that result in these wild and memorable effects on the table.

 LunarSol wrote:
Certainly any small model count game is going to do a pretty good job of it. Malifaux certainly and particularly with M3E where they focused crews more around the master than previous editions. Infinity I think a little less so, but that might just be that it has more of a simulation feel to me than something designed to express personality out of its characters. Two of my favorite games for sure though.

I would think that the cheer-leading system would favor characters. Admittedly, characters are of a very small number in Infinity, which is why it isn't as much as Malifaux with their crew leaders or WarmaHordes with their Warcasters and Warlocks. A really good model can lead the game without being a character.

For those who don't know, cheer-leading is Infinity's interesting interesting system that allows models to giver their activations up for another.

 LunarSol wrote:
I suppose what makes the difference for me in Warmachine is probably the size of the game itself. I just find that when the game is at its best, whole armies have this sense of identity you don't find in other systems. I listed off some of my favorites already, but the game is just full of mechanically interesting pieces that do so many interesting things with positioning and movement to make the most of their attacks. Characters like the first Sorscha or Wyrmwood or Madhammer just come together to give the armies you put them in so much identity. It's part of why I'd really love to see PP work on consolidating themes and casters. They've gotten stuck over the course of MK3 trying to make things "fair" but as much as I want it to be balanced, the more I get off the competitive treadmill, the more I realize the game's appeal is in its ability to create mechanics that result in these wild and memorable effects on the table.

WarmaHordes does lend itself to games of larger scope in which you can see the army running around. Infinity can get close at times, but most often numbers more like a Brawlmachine event. I've only seen Malifaux played with crews about double what on can get in a starter.

GW can't seem to find that balance. Either it's Lordhammer, Monsterhammer, or, Unithammer, and it would be easy for non-Monster characters to get lost in the crowd if GW didn't bling them up.

As a side note, with the closest I ever got to painting a full 40K force, I differentiated the Characters of my Marines with a different paint scheme. It was sort of inspired by the Dark Angels' Inner Circle and ran with it. I never did get a picture of all I painted of that force, missing out on a Devastator squad and Vanguard Squad. I did get individual squad shots of them, though.

Themes in mk3 ultimately split my local community into two groups.

The larger casual group who just wanted to field our armies of models we loved and liked fielding together (Having my Trollkin champions supported by trolls lugging heavy machine guns? aww hell yeah!!!)

The smaller themes only group which whilst fun to play, only played themes saying "Its in the rules, you're gimping yourself by not taking a theme to get max free points!"

Sad to say, Warmahordes has basically dried up to about 4 players who complain on the FB group no one else wants to play them. mk3 just got less fun, the CID was so much to keep up with and 2d terrain tournaments used sucked terribly.

What does it need to be salvaged? Burn parts of it to the ground and either commit to being a skirmish level game and reduce required model count or abstract some more and be a squad level game. Currently Warmahordes doesnt do anything I think another war game does better with a larger available player base.

CID was a balancing dream, but in the end it was a computer game style level of continual change that just doesn't easily translate to a wargame hobby environment. It devalues physical rules components which in turn meant that they were pushing more and more for app use, abstracting the physical game. Furthermore I think when that was coupled to fewer and fewer rule and lore books they lose the fluff connection. Like it or not the codex/battletome system for GW works fantastically well as a joint product. Sure the rules can fall out of date with updates and long term fans "don't see the need" for the fluffy side. But in the end ever so many GW fans come back to the game purely because of that fluff and all the new gamers get hooked on it.



As for wargame vs skirmish - do BOTH.
Start by going back to the original oldest models and revamp a skirmish steam of infantry, leader and warjack/warbeasts for each army. Then promote a new skirmishing focused game that gets back to the games roots and core - that you promote heavily because its for new and existing customers. Alongside you also promote a new larger scale wargame style game which lets you put far more models down onto the game board.

This you promote a little later than the skirmish and its designed to be the big game for existing fans, but also new fans getting into the game fast.



HECK GW found that by splitting the rules into two separate books that not only could you profit off both, but also you had an easier time promoting and marketing both systems. Skirmish/Killsteam is nothing new - its been around for years in the back of the big rule book. Splitting it off to its own game system allowed it to be a little more developed, but at the same tiem also meant that when GW was marketing it they could market it and have direct products on the shelf to sell to people.



I think MK3 for all its gains, is a dead duck for PP and they need a big revamp and a big reason to make a lot of noise. Redesigns mean that they can perhaps rebox things into fewer boxes (put a few warjacks/warbeasts together in teams etc..); but also means they can release new products for old and new gamers whilst not bloating the game either in sku nor in rules elements. That's how GW has lasted for 30 odd years; many of their core models have been redesigned many times over those years (we are what, 5-6 different versions of marines now? At least 3 full design approaches to Tyranids). Heck the massive popularity and update to Necrons is half new models have redesigns. Meanwhile things like the several new psychic units are just the old mode variation rules split out into their own models instead of one model with various options.

 Charistoph wrote:

I would think that the cheer-leading system would favor characters. Admittedly, characters are of a very small number in Infinity, which is why it isn't as much as Malifaux with their crew leaders or WarmaHordes with their Warcasters and Warlocks. A really good model can lead the game without being a character.

For those who don't know, cheer-leading is Infinity's interesting interesting system that allows models to giver their activations up for another.

Getting a little off topic, but I find Infinity such an interesting system. Once I finally really got into it, I realized it does so many things differently that a lot of my assumptions about how it plays based on individual mechanics don't pan out over the course of a real game. Some of that is a result of the mission system, but cheerleading/ramboing doesn't work out on the table the same way you'd assume if you view it from the perspective of something like "this solo sacrifices its activation to let this colossal activate again".

The ARO system turns so much of what you do on your head its really hard to appreciate, even in a demo. I think the main thing to consider is that whenever you activate a model, your opponent's reaction has a chance to succeed and kill it. It might only be like 20%, but it becomes something of a push your luck system where if you keep spending orders on one model, sooner or later the dice aren't going to go your way.

The other big element of the system is just how its often not about stopping your opponent but making them spend orders inefficiently. If you hide everyone in the back and send one model out to do all the work, you find yourself spending a lot of orders trying to get into a position where you're not at a huge disadvantage (3 on 1 kind of encounters) or just that after your rampage your opponent is able to take the board very easily if your own models aren't in a position to fire back. Stopping your opponent is often less about killing them and just making them run out of orders. It might take 2 orders to reach and complete an objective, but 2 cheerleaders, even if they don't really threaten a dedicated combat piece, might take 3-4 orders to safely clear. Stuff like that makes cheerleading not really work the way it seems like it would and the ARO system makes cheerleaders important combat elements even if they're mostly acting as NPCs during the opponent's turn.

Deadnight wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I picked up Warmachine Prime back in the day when the game was starting to trend up. Then I started reading the book.

I read Page 5, put the book down and ultimately never played the game.

What would PP need to do to get a player like me to pick it up? That is a good question? I honestly do not know the answer to it.

I guess they would need to convince me that there were interesting themes and stories I could tell on the tabletop with their miniatures and world. I am pretty sure that is far out of the realm of what PP is interested in.

Just curious, but when you say 'interesting themes and stories', what do you mean by that?

Great question, and I will try to answer as best as I can.

I like a big sandbox world where I make up what is important in it. For example, I have played 40K since Rogue Trader until 5th edition or so. To me, what made the 40K wargame "great" was not mechanics or personalities but the fact that I could build my little corner of the galaxy and play games set there. The high point for me for 40K was really the Eye of Terror campaign and the Medusa V campaign. There was so much to be a part of and so many people doing really cool and creative things related to it.

Since, I have drifted from 40K "official" stuff and just do my own thing but the themes and ideas of 40K still resonate with me. Things like what is "good" and what is "evil" in this setting? What makes the heroes "heroic"? Are my heroes actually heroes? Do the ends justify the means? Is the life of one worth that of thousands? How about 1 planet versus 100's of planets? The scale can be intimate or huge depending on what you want to do with it. These were ideas and themes driven home by fellow hobbyists, authors, and the works themselves.

I never got the same feel from Warmachine or its fans. I only heard about the "tactics" and tournaments. If I wanted that, frankly I would have turned my attention to Chess. I didn't want that. I wanted to play in the sandbox with a game system on the tabletop. I wanted RPG-lite and free form world building-lite. I wanted a cooperative wargaming experience. War Machine NEVER promoted that, and so I knew it was not for me.

40K still promotes the idea of Cooperative gaming as do many other wargames and systems. In a sense, I wanted the "British- Model" of Wargaming over the "American-Model" of Wargaming. Therefore, I stuck with games that focus more on that British Wargaming feel. I wanted friends getting together to enjoy a gaming experience together more than I wanted to get together with friends and see which of us was the "best friend".

So, for WM/H to interest ME, it would really need to expand its base appeal beyond "A really tight tournament game" which is probably asking FAR too much of it (or any niche game really) to do.

 LunarSol wrote:
Getting a little off topic, but I find Infinity such an interesting system. Once I finally really got into it, I realized it does so many things differently that a lot of my assumptions about how it plays based on individual mechanics don't pan out over the course of a real game. Some of that is a result of the mission system, but cheerleading/ramboing doesn't work out on the table the same way you'd assume if you view it from the perspective of something like "this solo sacrifices its activation to let this colossal activate again".

The ARO system turns so much of what you do on your head its really hard to appreciate, even in a demo. I think the main thing to consider is that whenever you activate a model, your opponent's reaction has a chance to succeed and kill it. It might only be like 20%, but it becomes something of a push your luck system where if you keep spending orders on one model, sooner or later the dice aren't going to go your way.

The other big element of the system is just how its often not about stopping your opponent but making them spend orders inefficiently. If you hide everyone in the back and send one model out to do all the work, you find yourself spending a lot of orders trying to get into a position where you're not at a huge disadvantage (3 on 1 kind of encounters) or just that after your rampage your opponent is able to take the board very easily if your own models aren't in a position to fire back. Stopping your opponent is often less about killing them and just making them run out of orders. It might take 2 orders to reach and complete an objective, but 2 cheerleaders, even if they don't really threaten a dedicated combat piece, might take 3-4 orders to safely clear. Stuff like that makes cheerleading not really work the way it seems like it would and the ARO system makes cheerleaders important combat elements even if they're mostly acting as NPCs during the opponent's turn.

Yeah, AROs (Automatic Reaction Order) combined with how deadly everything is definitely takes a lot of teeth out of the cheer-leading system. Currently Infinity is in their 4th version of this setup and from what I have read it gets more efficient at making cheer-leading be more strategic than about pushing a Rambo (which was really bad in their first edition).

WMH has forms of AROs with Counter-Blast, Counter-Charge, and Free Strikes, but the latter is avoidable (if not ignored on some models), and rather rare for the former two. Even with as rare as they are, there is a lot of stuff that can easily absorb those interactions which is hard to do in Infinity.

Da Boss wrote:It is being forced to use specific combinations that I don't like. Like if I don't go buy a certain unit or solo to use with a certain warbeast, then this warcaster is really negatively impacted. And some of those models might be really fugly, or not fit with what I want in my collection. But due to the points deficit, I can't just make it work, because I am losing out on too much.
Seems really weird to me and removes freedom from the game.

While I get your point, I do somewhat disagree. With respect, not taking certain things with certain other things and coming up to a disadvantage is an aspect in pretty much every wargame I've ever played. Same with being forced to take ugly models.

Thing is though, I found most things had a place and creative players would and could make it work. Don't get discouraged by those of us who relied on crutches.

Easy E wrote:

Great question, and I will try to answer as best as I can.

I like a big sandbox world where I make up what is important in it. For example, I have played 40K since Rogue Trader until 5th edition or so. To me, what made the 40K wargame "great" was not mechanics or personalities but the fact that I could build my little corner of the galaxy and play games set there. The high point for me for 40K was really the Eye of Terror campaign and the Medusa V campaign. There was so much to be a part of and so many people doing really cool and creative things related to it.

Since, I have drifted from 40K "official" stuff and just do my own thing but the themes and ideas of 40K still resonate with me. Things like what is "good" and what is "evil" in this setting? What makes the heroes "heroic"? Are my heroes actually heroes? Do the ends justify the means? Is the life of one worth that of thousands? How about 1 planet versus 100's of planets? The scale can be intimate or huge depending on what you want to do with it. These were ideas and themes driven home by fellow hobbyists, authors, and the works themselves.

I never got the same feel from Warmachine or its fans. I only heard about the "tactics" and tournaments. If I wanted that, frankly I would have turned my attention to Chess. I didn't want that. I wanted to play in the sandbox with a game system on the tabletop. I wanted RPG-lite and free form world building-lite. I wanted a cooperative wargaming experience. War Machine NEVER promoted that, and so I knew it was not for me.

40K still promotes the idea of Cooperative gaming as do many other wargames and systems. In a sense, I wanted the "British- Model" of Wargaming over the "American-Model" of Wargaming. Therefore, I stuck with games that focus more on that British Wargaming feel. I wanted friends getting together to enjoy a gaming experience together more than I wanted to get together with friends and see which of us was the "best friend".

So, for WM/H to interest ME, it would really need to expand its base appeal beyond "A really tight tournament game" which is probably asking FAR too much of it (or any niche game really) to do.

Fair. I don't think it was the game holding you away, I think it was the players you came across. There's no reason those things were not possible. Back home when I first started playing, the guy I played against most had some truly inspiring and inventive scenarios. Wmh had campaigns, home brews, narrative scenarios, fun scenarios (I remember a halloween special where you had one caster against limitless spawning thralls), painting comps, conversions (Google the khador gun carriage to airship conversion) etc. The hobby was what you mad of it.

The iron kingdoms is very much a sandbox, the characters, goals, and storylines of nation's both nuanced and ambiguous. See the relationship/storyline between Caine and Magnus for the perfect example or the tortured monster that is the Butcher. I will give pp many criticisms but one thing they could do brilliantly was great characters and background. see my previous post - I challenge anyone to read the d20 material or the gavyn Kyle files in no quarter and not find it enthralling.

I will say, i personally loved that in WM/H you where using names characters at the center of your army. Narratively it felt like every battle you where having was important, and not just some random skirmish.