http://privateerpress.com/company/mkii-rules-and-model-info-available-for-pdf-download

Seriously, this is how you know if your game company of choice likes its player-base.

Meh, more like the inmates running the asylum.

Ah now, this is a really good thing. How can you be negative about it?

This is excellent and quite unexpected.

I can't help it (comes too naturely). I assumed that it was more laziness on PP's part (why develop it ourself when the fans can), but if people feel that the game is a lot better than I'll give my kudos to PP.

I would try it, but people gave up on WM in our area a long time ago. I hope that the experiment is successful though.

Great ;P


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Great ;P PP is always awesome like this.

I will aid all those downloading in breaking their servers!

**fingers crossed** maybe Defilers will be worth something ** hope * hope **

barlio wrote:I can't help it (comes too naturely). I assumed that it was more laziness on PP's part (why develop it ourself when the fans can), but if people feel that the game is a lot better than I'll give my kudos to PP.

I would try it, but people gave up on WM in our area a long time ago. I hope that the experiment is successful though.

Spoken like someone who's never worked in software development.

"The Community" participated in the "open beta" and gave feedback. They did not "write Mark II".

But that's not what this news is. That was 2008's news.



This 2009 news is huge because:

A) A major miniature game company has released the final 'rules' to a new edition of the game early

B) All the factions in the game have had their new rules released at the same time

C) They are all FREE

Of course the books will be full of amazing artwork and background fiction to make you want to buy them. But still, Privateer Press is still being innovative in the miniature gaming space.

Ooooh Grasshopper sees now. I will admit that is pretty cool (being early and having factions ready at the same time).

Forgive me Russ?

I'm still buying books even though it has same info as cards ;P

Biggest surprise of 2009?

This kind of thing is why PP is awesome. They gave us a chance to inform the fine-tuning of the rules and then give the raw data to us 4 months early. I'm so glad I got into this game. Way to involve the community, PP!

I hate them so much, I'm giving them more of my money

It's markedly different to GW's approach, ain't it?

Sadly, this doesn't cover hordes as far as I know, so Hordes players are still left out in the dark while everyone plays with their fancy new Mk2 rules.

Belphegor [me]: **fingers crossed** maybe Defilers will be worth something ** hope * hope **

^^ Fail ^^

But the Necrosurgeon does it's job now.

Vertrucio wrote:Sadly, this doesn't cover hordes as far as I know, so Hordes players are still left out in the dark while everyone plays with their fancy new Mk2 rules.

And a final word to our Hordes players who still have a much longer wait ahead of them; please know that we are working very hard to put out the Hordes MkII field test as soon as possible. Because of what we have learned through the MkII field test, we believe our first public draft of the Hordes MkII rules will much more closely resemble what the final rules will look like. Because of that, it is our intention to make the Hordes MkII Field Test rules official upon posting so that Hordes players can continue to participate in our organized play events alongside WARMACHINE players until the Hordes MkII book comes out next summer. The caveat of course is that things WILL change, but probably much less dramatically than some of the WARMACHINE changes that we observed.

Thank you all for your patience, your feedback, and your continued support.

And play like you’ve got MkII…

Matt Wilson
Privateer Press
Chief Creative Officer

Vertrucio wrote:Sadly, this doesn't cover hordes as far as I know, so Hordes players are still left out in the dark while everyone plays with their fancy new Mk2 rules.

PP did mention the Hordes folks too in this release...

And a final word to our Hordes players who still have a much longer wait ahead of them; please know that we are working very hard to put out the Hordes MkII field test as soon as possible. Because of what we have learned through the MkII field test, we believe our first public draft of the Hordes MkII rules will much more closely resemble what the final rules will look like. Because of that, it is our intention to make the Hordes MkII Field Test rules official upon posting so that Hordes players can continue to participate in our organized play events alongside WARMACHINE players until the Hordes MkII book comes out next summer. The caveat of course is that things WILL change, but probably much less dramatically than some of the WARMACHINE changes that we observed.

Not soon enough for Hordes fans I know, but at least it's something.

Force Books: Privateer is being clever about these also. All you really need is the printed out PDF, and your faction deck. But you'll want to get the force books eventually, because this is the only place the new "Army Themes" will be covered for your faction.

"Themes" are essentially a bonus ability your army gets if it includes certain units/warjacks/casters and not others.

I think I sounded a bit too harsh in my post. I was more posting about it not having the rules, rather than overly whining. I was whining a little though.

The fact is, I'm sure the Hordes test rules simply aren't ready, otherwise they would have posted them alongside this release.

To repeat something I posed on the PP site, this online release of Mk2 is just plain common sense in today's market.

The internet is just a huge marketing tool, and companies make money of the miniatures. You release these Mk2 rules now gaining a ton of fan support and appreciation. You also get positive PR from all sorts of industry news sites, word of mouth. Then, when it comes time to do demos and such you can get people even more interested when they know they can get the full rules without shelling out $20-$50 just for the ability to look at them.

Thinking of all that, if they're smart enough to release this online, they would have been smart enough to release the Hordes test too if it was anywhere near ready, which is likely isn't. That said, they should have been working on both from the start and planned this online release better so they could have avoided the whole negativity, confusion, and lull period in the transition between Mk1 and 2.

Since the server is mega slow, I'm willing to gmail the files to anyone who wants them. Just shoot me a pm if interested.

They pretty much have to do this, to keep their game going.

People have slowed their buying because they don't know whether they want the models, without knowing what the rules are. Hordes people are wondering who they will play with after people switch to MK2 and they get kicked to the back of the bus for a few months. Retailers have stuff on their racks that will soon be outdated rulebooks, and miniatures with outdated rules cards.

And we have a holiday buying system coming, with the MK2 ruels scheduled for January. Not a good combo.

By putting out the rules online, they solve a lot of these problems and keep sales going, and people buying and painting miniatures, and interested in their games. Good move, and a necessary move.

Part of it might be be cause they appreciate their customers, but certainly some of it is because they are a business, and businesses have to stay profitable.

Anyone know where a summary is of the general changes. I looked through the Khador stuff and didn't see many changes.

I would rather have actual words or at least lettered contractions/acronyms instead of all those stupid icons. That's one of the things that turned me off of Rackham's games.

Just downloaded it. Overall I'm very impressed with the Cryx changes. No complaints here.

Someone's bound to post a complete summary of changes soon.

barlio wrote:Meh, more like the inmates running the asylum.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is awesome!

JohnHwangDD wrote:

barlio wrote:Meh, more like the inmates running the asylum.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is awesome!

batman in warmachine=batman shooting lightning bolts while the batjack stomps something.......

Techboss wrote:Anyone know where a summary is of the general changes. I looked through the Khador stuff and didn't see many changes.

You may want to recheck the Drakuhn. When dismounted he's on a small base.

You Got to Give Privateer Press Mad Props for posting their new rules for free on their site.

greenskin lynn wrote:
batman in warmachine=batman shooting lightning bolts while the batjack stomps something.......

nananananananaanana BATJACK!!

mikhaila wrote:They pretty much have to do this, to keep their game going.

People have slowed their buying because they don't know whether they want the models, without knowing what the rules are. Hordes people are wondering who they will play with after people switch to MK2 and they get kicked to the back of the bus for a few months. Retailers have stuff on their racks that will soon be outdated rulebooks, and miniatures with outdated rules cards.

And we have a holiday buying system coming, with the MK2 ruels scheduled for January. Not a good combo.

By putting out the rules online, they solve a lot of these problems and keep sales going, and people buying and painting miniatures, and interested in their games. Good move, and a necessary move.

Part of it might be be cause they appreciate their customers, but certainly some of it is because they are a business, and businesses have to stay profitable.

Surely not?!?!?! Surely it's because PP loves us!!!!!!! (And a certain other giant mini company doesn't!)
/Sarcasm

Seriously though, mikhaila, if you post truisms like this, the fanboyz have nothing to cling to.

Battlefront did something similar when they switched to 2nd edition Flames of War. They gave free mini-rulebooks to anyone with a 1st edition book (and some places you didn't even need a 1st ed. book to get a mini-rulebook) and it was awesome. This is equally awesome, and definitely increases my good will towards PP, which is beneficial for them and me. I feel like this is a win/win situation.

whitedragon wrote:

Surely not?!?!?! Surely it's because PP loves us!!!!!!! (And a certain other giant mini company doesn't!)
/Sarcasm

Seriously though, mikhaila, if you post truisms like this, the fanboyz have nothing to cling to.

Of course they love us. We give them our monies.

whitedragon wrote:
Surely not?!?!?! Surely it's because PP loves us!!!!!!! (And a certain other giant mini company doesn't!)
/Sarcasm

Seriously though, mikhaila, if you post truisms like this, the fanboyz have nothing to cling to.

I don't know which other giant mini company you're talking about. Surely they all love their customers and do everything they can to make each one happy.

Ohmygod! They nerfed Vlad! Nooooooooo!!!1

Of course they nerfed butcher - he was imba / op

lol.

Usually this is the point where I'd take a dig at GW for not being more open about their releases, let alone thinking about releasing preview Codices with which to gain feedback in an effort to improve the rules.

But I think I won't this time - you guys can enjoy your free rules from a company who cares about its customer base.

Hey HBMC, shouldn't you be digging at GW right about now? I been looking all over for it but can't find it.

Moz wrote:

whitedragon wrote:
Surely not?!?!?! Surely it's because PP loves us!!!!!!! (And a certain other giant mini company doesn't!)
/Sarcasm

Seriously though, mikhaila, if you post truisms like this, the fanboyz have nothing to cling to.

I don't know which other giant mini company you're talking about. Surely they all love their customers and do everything they can to make each one happy.

Rackham?

I am quite found of this update

grizgrin wrote:Hey HBMC, shouldn't you be digging at GW right about now? I been looking all over for it but can't find it.

Not in this thread my friend.

I can blame Jervis if you like? Y'know, for old time's sake.

whitedragon wrote:

Moz wrote:

whitedragon wrote:
Surely not?!?!?! Surely it's because PP loves us!!!!!!! (And a certain other giant mini company doesn't!)
/Sarcasm

Seriously though, mikhaila, if you post truisms like this, the fanboyz have nothing to cling to.

I don't know which other giant mini company you're talking about. Surely they all love their customers and do everything they can to make each one happy.

Rackham?

Wow!

My irony meter just broke.

Unless you mean Rackham's NEW fans?

Because they certainly didn't care about their old fans!

Techboss wrote:Anyone know where a summary is of the general changes. I looked through the Khador stuff and didn't see many changes.

You really need to take a closer look, there are a lot of changes from the MKII Field Test for Khador.

pVlad got nerfed (deservedly), Butcher lost some of the uber spells he had from the Field Test, eIrusk changed, Jack point costs changed, some abilities came back like Beast-09 getting heavy boiler back, hell a lot of stuff changed for the motherland.

mikhaila wrote:They pretty much have to do this, to keep their game going.

People have slowed their buying because they don't know whether they want the models, without knowing what the rules are. Hordes people are wondering who they will play with after people switch to MK2 and they get kicked to the back of the bus for a few months. Retailers have stuff on their racks that will soon be outdated rulebooks, and miniatures with outdated rules cards.

And we have a holiday buying system coming, with the MK2 ruels scheduled for January. Not a good combo.

By putting out the rules online, they solve a lot of these problems and keep sales going, and people buying and painting miniatures, and interested in their games. Good move, and a necessary move.

Part of it might be be cause they appreciate their customers, but certainly some of it is because they are a business, and businesses have to stay profitable.

This, this, a thousand times this!

Still, as a player it's FETHING AWESOME and I get to talk about how great PP is and how gakky GW is. Business reason or not, this clearly shows exactly how much better PP is than GW when it comes to rules development, edition changes, and community involvement. And hey, look, it's actually good business for them too.

The Grog wrote:

greenskin lynn wrote:
batman in warmachine=batman shooting lightning bolts while the batjack stomps something.......

nananananananaanana BATJACK!!

EXALT!


Great move by PP

PP i hate you.

I have to actually buy even more of your cool stuff now. No more putting off those model buys, because i dont own the new rules. Free rules i cant avoid.


Curse them pirates. ARRRRRRRR!!!!!

Alpharius wrote:

whitedragon wrote:

Moz wrote:

whitedragon wrote:
Surely not?!?!?! Surely it's because PP loves us!!!!!!! (And a certain other giant mini company doesn't!)
/Sarcasm

Seriously though, mikhaila, if you post truisms like this, the fanboyz have nothing to cling to.

I don't know which other giant mini company you're talking about. Surely they all love their customers and do everything they can to make each one happy.

Rackham?

Wow!

My irony meter just broke.

Unless you mean Rackham's NEW fans?

Because they certainly didn't care about their old fans!

Just tryin' to keep it real. We all know what mini company we are all talking about. I just think it's unfair to label one company as "the evil empire" and another company as our best buds. In both cases, they are companies concerned with making money. As mikhaila pointed out, it made the most sense for PP to release the rules this way, and can avoid alienating all their players while the rules are updated piecemeal.

So..no PP are not our friends and don't love us any more than any other company does, they just love our money.

(I'm not a PP hater, I just want to keep it real. I like their game, I like other company's games. I don't take it personal when they release stuff that doesn't interest me or that invalidates stuff I got, I just vote with my dollar. It may be a futile gesture, but it's the only one I got.)

whitedragon wrote:
Just tryin' to keep it real. We all know what mini company we are all talking about. I just think it's unfair to label one company as "the evil empire" and another company as our best buds. In both cases, they are companies concerned with making money. As mikhaila pointed out, it made the most sense for PP to release the rules this way, and can avoid alienating all their players while the rules are updated piecemeal.

So..no PP are not our friends and don't love us any more than any other company does, they just love our money.

(I'm not a PP hater, I just want to keep it real. I like their game, I like other company's games. I don't take it personal when they release stuff that doesn't interest me or that invalidates stuff I got, I just vote with my dollar. It may be a futile gesture, but it's the only one I got.)

Yeah, because the "other company" doesn't alienate their players while the rules are updated piecemeal, over as much as 10 years and 2 Editions in some cases. And they don't give playtest rules out for use of the community and open their development team for direct feedback via the internet.

This made business sense for PP, so they did it. They certainly didn't have to do the MK2 field test, giving players a glimpse of what is to come for the game and their armies. GW just announces a new edition or army book/codex with as little headway as possible and with little to no rules information (we need to get that from leaks, or scanned books from someone in their supply chain).

Voodoo Boyz wrote:
Yeah, because the "other company" doesn't alienate their players while the rules are updated piecemeal, over as much as 10 years and 2 Editions in some cases. And they don't give playtest rules out for use of the community and open their development team for direct feedback via the internet.

Actually, the "other" company has been very good about keeping their books compatible throughout the changing editions. Sure you may have to buy a few new figs here or there, but you can't argue that your army had become invalidated because of a new edition, and they completely embrace counts as.

So, Privateer Press is still a business, and this decision made the most business sense for them at this time. It doesn't also mean that "other" companies that don't do the same thing are not making good business decisions or are evil, as some posters are trying to insinuate. It's just business.

It's not a fair comparison anyway to do PP vs GW, as they are in very different life cycles of a company. The majority of people involved with both companies probably wants nothing more than to just make cool games and keep the company afloat.

PP being private, there may even be a chance that the company is being lead by that mindset. We can't know that for sure, but actions like redesigning the entire game (all rules, all models) with the intent of making it a better player experience and then releasing that work for FREE 4 months before the street date seem to indicate more than just trying to hit a bottom line.

What we do know however GW is incorporated and therefore necessarily run by the interests of the investors, which demand growth and higher dividends at any cost: http://investor.games-workshop.com/information_for_investors/default.aspx Top spots at GW are filled not by gamers, artists, or game designers but by suits with histories in marketing, sales and management in clothing and drug-store corporations.

What GW shows is what we can expect the day PP gets bought out by a bottom line chaser (a la Kirby) from within and then the keys turned over to the highest bidder. It's liable to happen eventually to any successful venture, but hopefully (for their customers) it won't happen anytime soon.

Could we expect a full redesign of 40k with every codex updated at the same time? If GW undertook such a project could you then expect them to release it for free under any conditions? To poll the players with a public beta-test of the rules? It just sounds ludicrous because we do know precisely where GW sits on this line. Where PP actually sits is a little up in the air as they're still pretty new on the block. Right now though, their position seems to benefit their gamers a great deal.

Moz wrote:
PP being private, there may even be a chance that the company is being lead by that mindset. We can't know that for sure, but actions like redesigning the entire game (all rules, all models) with the intent of making it a better player experience and then releasing that work for FREE 4 months before the street date seem to indicate more than just trying to hit a bottom line.

I challenge the above assertion. Obviously the company wants the game to be an enjoyable experience because if it's not enjoyable, people don't want to buy it. It's more enjoyable to have all the rules out at once so that your faction is not rendered obsolete/invalid. Such a move is motivated just as much by the desire to stay afloat as a business as it is a perceived act of goodwill among gamers.

The following order of events makes sense to me:

1: MKII Field Test Rules are released to open beta.
2: The value of in-store rulebooks is murdered.
3: A reduction in sales is experienced as books have no gameplay value and model purchases are slowed due to uncertainty in their value.
4: Books aren't being sold anyway so rules are released for free in an attempt to return value to models and to increase buzz about the game,

You can challenge it, but neither of us have any proof for either side of the argument. I said as much in my statement above.

All we know is that PP makes some not smart business moves like engaging in an expensive public beta test and then making a huge goof by planning their big product release for January. So to swallow the pill of their business blunder they instead release the product 4 months early, for free.

So there are two ways of looking at this. Either their objective is the almighty dollar and they are just woefully incompetent at making these big decisions, or they are really just trying to make their games better and things like release dates and beta tests are made for the sake of the games themselves.

So I like to think they are the latter. Having also met the people behind the wheel recently at Gencon, they certainly didn't appear incompetent. They seemed like gamers passionate about their game. That could've been a ruse though certainly. It's possible that the moment I walked off they put their monocles and twisty mustaches back on and returned to counting their money and laughing maniacally.

Moz wrote:You can challenge it, but neither of us have any proof for either side of the argument. I said as much in my statement above.

All we know is that PP makes some not smart business moves like engaging in an expensive public beta test and then making a huge goof by planning their big product release for January. So to swallow the pill of their business blunder they instead release the product 4 months early, for free.

So there are two ways of looking at this. Either their objective is the almighty dollar and they are just woefully incompetent at making these big decisions, or they are really just trying to make their games better and things like release dates and beta tests are made for the sake of the games themselves.

So I like to think they are the latter. Having also met the people behind the wheel recently at Gencon, they certainly didn't appear incompetent. They seemed like gamers passionate about their game. That could've been a ruse though certainly. It's possible that the moment I walked off they put their monocles and twisty mustaches back on and returned to counting their money and laughing maniacally.

I think they are both. The almighty dollar does not have to be mutually exclusive with making people happy. Actually, that's usually what makes people happy, and then turns into dollars. I'm not sure how you can equate the dollar with being woefully incompetent. In GW's case, we know for a fact that they just don't care about the rules as much as the models, and people still happily play their games, so it seems that most people just don't care either. They even say that you can play however you want! How is that evil, disingenious or malicious?

I'm just saying, PP is not your friend anymore than GW isn't your friend. It's just business.

whitedragon wrote:The almighty dollar does not have to be mutually exclusive with making people happy.

That gem took entirely too long to come out.

I don't care why they did it, I'm just glad they did.

I don't really care why they did it, I'm just glad they did. Although I'm sure it makes good business sense, what with reinvigorating Christmas shopping, letting people start building lists and testing them for the next year's events, etc.

whitedragon wrote:
I think they are both. The almighty dollar does not have to be mutually exclusive with making people happy. Actually, that's usually what makes people happy, and then turns into dollars. I'm not sure how you can equate the dollar with being woefully incompetent. In GW's case, we know for a fact that they just don't care about the rules as much as the models, and people still happily play their games, so it seems that most people just don't care either. They even say that you can play however you want! How is that evil, disingenious or malicious?

I'm just saying, PP is not your friend anymore than GW isn't your friend. It's just business.

So your stance is that they are both bad at making business decisions due to incompetence, and primarily focus on making their games better for the players. That doesn't seem to you like a company catering to its customers at the expense of profits? This particular release of MkII may be the necessary move for PP to keep the game going strong in the lull between the beta test and the final release, but a beta test alone indicates more catering to their customers at a cost to the company.

Back on GW, I also don't see anything evil, disengenious or malicious about GW. They're pretty open about not caring what their customers think as long as they keep buying. Which as you point out, they do regardless of GWs perceived lack of care over the game itself. However this also strikes me as the exact opposite of catering to your customers at the cost of profits.

At any rate. Regardless of motivations, the company that focuses on the GAME is my friend because I personally take games pretty seriously and really need a well designed and maintained one to keep my interest. So PP is my friend and lo they get my dollars because of it. GW has a pretty strong fanbase of people who just need new models, a steady release schedule, and a yearly price increase to stay happy - competent game design is not even on the list here and that's fine for them. Those traits necessarily mean that GW is not my friend (and has publicly decreed as much - looking at you Jervis).

Moz wrote:

whitedragon wrote:
I think they are both. The almighty dollar does not have to be mutually exclusive with making people happy. Actually, that's usually what makes people happy, and then turns into dollars. I'm not sure how you can equate the dollar with being woefully incompetent. In GW's case, we know for a fact that they just don't care about the rules as much as the models, and people still happily play their games, so it seems that most people just don't care either. They even say that you can play however you want! How is that evil, disingenious or malicious?

I'm just saying, PP is not your friend anymore than GW isn't your friend. It's just business.

So your stance is that they are both bad at making business decisions due to incompetence, and primarily focus on making their games better for the players. That doesn't seem to you like a company catering to its customers at the expense of profits? This particular release of MkII may be the necessary move for PP to keep the game going strong in the lull between the beta test and the final release, but a beta test alone indicates more catering to their customers at a cost to the company.

Back on GW, I also don't see anything evil, disengenious or malicious about GW. They're pretty open about not caring what their customers think as long as they keep buying. Which as you point out, they do regardless of GWs perceived lack of care over the game itself. However this also strikes me as the exact opposite of catering to your customers at the cost of profits.

At any rate. Regardless of motivations, the company that focuses on the GAME is my friend because I personally take games pretty seriously and really need a well designed and maintained one to keep my interest. So PP is my friend and lo they get my dollars because of it. GW has a pretty strong fanbase of people who just need new models, a steady release schedule, and a yearly price increase to stay happy - competent game design is not even on the list here and that's fine for them. Those traits necessarily mean that GW is not my friend (and has publicly decreed as much - looking at you Jervis).

I don't understand your point about being bad at business decisions. That statement makes no sense to me and I'm not sure what you are trying to say there.

For your second point, you are saying that GW is not catering to their customers, yet people are still buying their product and enjoying it, so I submit that they are doing exactly that and catering to what their customers want.

PP is doing the same, and focusing on their game, which is the selling point for alot of people that play warmachine.

However, this doesn't make PP your friend is what I'm saying. It also doesn't make GW your enemy, and I can't believe that they would let Jervis spout the nonsense that he does, as it is clearly divisive. (Well maybe I can believe it because they are british and look at this differently than we do.)

EDIT:

Anyway, PP is just out to make a game that you'll want to play, because obviously that's good business. If you don't want to play the game, you won't buy it, and there is no more PP.

And a beta test is a step taken by many companies and is not an act of goodwill on the part of the company. It is a valid business decision where you show allow your product or software to be tested "in the field" and can generate buzz as well as show potential flaws that need to be fixed before the final release. (Thereby eliminating alot of patching or rework to fix later on.) A beta test is just a smart thing to do. It's why beta testing even exists.

It does not matter a bit what PP intentions were for supplying this information for Free. All that matters is that I now have a free spiffy version of MKII. If this causes their sales to go up, good for them. I am Happy.

I've never played Warmachine or Hordes, but I downloaded the MkII rules to see what all the hubub is about. All in all, no matter what the reasoning its a pretty cool move where the players are concerned.

I just wish they had a model line I found appealing. Personally I just cant get into the warjacks and while I find many of the Hordes models nice, there isnt a single faction I like as a whole.

Shellfishguy wrote:I've never played Warmachine or Hordes, but I downloaded the MkII rules to see what all the hubub is about. All in all, no matter what the reasoning its a pretty cool move where the players are concerned.

I just wish they had a model line I found appealing. Personally I just cant get into the warjacks and while I find many of the Hordes models nice, there isnt a single faction I like as a whole.

That's pretty much how I feel. While I'm not crazy about the game, I do like the company's policies.

Let me know when you can't charge your own models, or shoot your own models, things like that.

If not for those kind of rules, I might play WM/Hordes.



Clay

They've removed specific spell effects and certain benefits that trigger off of friendly fire, but friendly
fire in general still exists in the game.

Primarch wrote:Let me know when you can't charge your own models, or shoot your own models, things like that.

If not for those kind of rules, I might play WM/Hordes.



Clay

You can attack your own stuff. But only if you want to. The only time your own guys get attacked by accident is when you shoot into melee and miss. Even then, there is a good chance you will miss hitting your own side.

Right now I find it useful to shoot my own stuff just so I can include invisible models in the effect. Thankfully, invisibility is not present in Mk2.

mikhaila wrote:They pretty much have to do this, to keep their game going.

People have slowed their buying because they don't know whether they want the models, without knowing what the rules are. Hordes people are wondering who they will play with after people switch to MK2 and they get kicked to the back of the bus for a few months. Retailers have stuff on their racks that will soon be outdated rulebooks, and miniatures with outdated rules cards.

And we have a holiday buying system coming, with the MK2 ruels scheduled for January. Not a good combo.

By putting out the rules online, they solve a lot of these problems and keep sales going, and people buying and painting miniatures, and interested in their games. Good move, and a necessary move.

Part of it might be be cause they appreciate their customers, but certainly some of it is because they are a business, and businesses have to stay profitable.

This is true. It is also interesting to note the fact that they realize that it is true and have taken the steps to rectify it. Credit where credit is due, and as others have pointed out in other "get over it" posts it serves as an excellent source of advertising/PR/goodwill from the community. My experiences with PP have given me a lot of good "free stuff" plus some amazing artwork and fiction that has kept my interest.

I am quite impressed with the efforts that they are putting in as it validates them as a company who knows what they need to do...therefore will be a safer bet for the ongoing hobby.

*Note: safer implies that the company might go out of business (as all companies might), I am not comparing it to GW as people are wont to do at the drop of a hat.

This is a pretty cool move on PPs part, and probably will go pretty far in boosting their popularity. I know I am going to DL the files just to see how the system works, and might well from there be tempted to build a small army.
There is definitely something to be said for the tactic of making people want to play your game they got for free, and then selling them the means to do so. You don't hear Reaper being sad about the fact they have no control over the fantasy RPGs that fuel their mini sales

This is neat and cool.

If you go to the friendly local grocery store and the store owner gives you some free fruit, you still say thanks. It doesn't matter if you're being given the fruit for selfish reasons, like the store room is full, or if you're given fruit you're more likely to shop there again. So, I'm going to take my free fruit and say thanks. (And go say it on their forums, too, after I remember my login over there...)

Thanks, Privateer Press.

Do these changes make Warjacks useful?

I stopped playing when the games climbed to 750+ and troops where much more useful than warjacks.

When I started it, it was a warcaster, some jacks and a rumble, those basic boxes where a hella fun game.

I don't want some fanboi nerdrage either. Anybody who says that jacks where worth taking before is just trying to be a fanboi, or devil's advocates. If warjacks where worth buying before, they wouldn't be free as they where when BETA started.

I mean, why take ajack when he attacks once, does massive damage, and only can kill a single model, because wounds don't effect units like in 40K.

I liked WM until the power creep, but why spend 110 on a jack that kills one gun mage an attack, when I can take 10 bane knights and wipe that whole in SINGLE TURN?

Warjacks were worth taking, not all of them and not all the time. Darius lists or bonejacks leap to mind as examples where they were worth taking.

Warjacks are a lot more resilient now, they hit more often, Power attacks are much easier to pull off and you often get at least one jack for free. Many of the overpowered units have been toned down Idrians, Bane Knights, Bile Thralls etc.

If a warjack inflicts 15 points of damage to a unit of gun mages, does he still only kill a single gun mage?

If not, then the only ones worth taking are the ones who channel spells, or others with a synergistc special rule.

Why waste points on a model that require focus and kills slowly.

Its easier to kill a jack with a much cheaper unit of widow makers, plus they can take down entire units of foot troops.

If you have to buy lots of troops to be competetive still, then once again, this game is still not cheaper than the Evil Empire's games.

I spent 450 USD on a competetive 1000 point WM army than included some extra stuff so I could have variety. I still regret it.

Warjacks got stat buffs to make them hit more reliably, don't lose full effect of systems when disabled, can shake off knockdown and stationary effects, trample and powerattack more easily with less risk, and a certain amount of points is given for free to each warcaster to purchase warjacks.

2 heavies is becoming pretty common at the least.

If you get a jack into melee with some gun mages, those gun mages can't do much to that jack. It's like getting a marine squad in CC with a dreadnought, and not having a powerfist.

Moz wrote:Warjacks got stat buffs to make them hit more reliably, don't lose full effect of systems when disabled, can shake off knockdown and stationary effects, trample and powerattack more easily with less risk, and a certain amount of points is given for free to each warcaster to purchase warjacks.

I'd say that something being free is a very good indicator of it being useless. I expect that every single Warmachine army of the future will take at least one warjack, because why not take one, but that still doesn't mean they're capable of anything on the field.

Slave wrote:If a warjack inflicts 15 points of damage to a unit of gun mages, does he still only kill a single gun mage?

If not, then the only ones worth taking are the ones who channel spells, or others with a synergistc special rule.

Why waste points on a model that require focus and kills slowly.

Its easier to kill a jack with a much cheaper unit of widow makers, plus they can take down entire units of foot troops.

If you have to buy lots of troops to be competetive still, then once again, this game is still not cheaper than the Evil Empire's games.

I spent 450 USD on a competetive 1000 point WM army than included some extra stuff so I could have variety. I still regret it.

Widomakers.. can only do 4 pt damage a turn unless you want to attempt to use their P+S to shoot down jacks.


Not quite sure how you downed jacks haha.


Anywho - think of jacks as dreadnoughts - kind of.


IF, you use your jack to simply hit and whack stuff they aren't going to kill much, in fact they are going to get tied down.

There are obvious measures behind this - use power/special attacks and go for the trample, throw, slam, push and etc.
Those are the exact things that deal with hordes of troops.


They wrote MKII in attempts to get away from infantrymachine - by giving Warjack points and what not.

Jack marshals also make it viable way to crank out more Machines under control.

I do like how Matt Wilson spent part of the last few days discussing/debating some of the changes with (un)happy people on the PP forums. Explaining some of the reasoning like why they introduced the min/max units for example. He did very well Imo.

Now if only Jervis would do the same

Agamemnon2 wrote:I'd say that something being free is a very good indicator of it being useless. I expect that every single Warmachine army of the future will take at least one warjack, because why not take one, but that still doesn't mean they're capable of anything on the field.

This just isn't the case, but whatever - it's not worth arguing here.

Other improvements for warjacks in the form of infantry typically losing their multiple swing abilities, spray attacks getting seriously buffed - weaponmaster, disruption, and cortex frying abilities being handed out more sparsely. There are still infantry units that can wreck their equivalent points (and more) in warjacks, but there are also warjacks that with even two points of damage left in the right place can find and tear your caster in half.

It's a balancing act and one that I hope they get right in this edition. Nobody wants to see all infantry swarms (MkI), and no one would really be happy with all-warjack lists either (I worry a bit about these becoming prevalent in MkII).

No, I can't think of jacks as drednaughts. Dreds cost points, and excel in several areas of combat. Warjacks, the focus of the game when it came out, need to be coddled and watched.

No focus, besides a few exceptions, no action. The fact that they are free DOES indicate that they sucked and had no point once this game turned into INFANTRYMACHINE.

For those who answered my question, thanks. I will pass on this game. I have interested buyers in my models, maybe they can find a way of having fun playing it.

See, that's funny because Dreadnoughts are pretty much garbage when it comes to being immortal gods of combat. Their weak armor and slow movement makes them perfect targets for most anti-tank units in the game.

Sounds like you're just jaded.

I will say this and can back it up with play. Jacks are just awesome now.

They're as hard to kill as they should have been, since they can no longer be just disabled, instead you have to wipe out every damage box to kill one. On top of that, mechanics have a much easier time of fixing them for a greater effect too.

If a Jack system is disabled, it's not as much a disadvantage as it was before. Instead of losing the use of a system entirely, such as a weapon, you just lose 1 die to the attack and damage for that weapon.

All jacks have had their stats boosted so they can operate without focus. If you use dedicated melee jacks, they now have MAT 7 which allows them to easily hit without focus use. I've run with 4 jacks with good success. Piling focus into 1-2 and using only 1 point in other jacks to do things like trample.

All the jack power attacks, including trample, have most of their penalties for use taken away, the majority of them have no penalties for use at all. Trample now allows you to simply wade through infantry, and any infantry affected by a trample, even if you don't hit them, cannot get a free strike back. I've wiped out entire infantry formations this way, then used the extra focus to smash whatever my jack ended up in melee with after the trample. Oh and trample also has the speed bonus of charge, so you can trample across large swaths of infantry.

All jacks now have Shake Effects ability, where during the control phase, if they're knocked down or stationary, for one focus point they can shake off those effects and act normally.

Overall, most units and abilities now have clearer methods for retaliation. It's much, much rarer for something to happen to your units that you can't simply come back and do as much damage to the enemy.

Dreds need to be coddled just as much, you don't realize it as much because 40k has gobs of units running around so you don't notice losing one as much.

I think my earlier comment was both too hasty and a sentiment not shared by the PP fan community as a whole. This to me indicates that I'm in the wrong, because I know there's a significant subset of the fandom who do crunch the numbers, run the statistics and have come to a more optimistic conclusion.

Myself, I'm slooowly building a list out of Broadsides Bart and 2-4 mercenary jacks, just on the strength of the models alone.

Bart can really make some merc jacks sing, so you'll probably not be disappointed there.

The point of jacks has always been high yield output in a pinpoint. Similar to what a warcaster could accomplish in HtH, but you don't automatically lose the game if your gambit fails with a jack.

I think a lot of the hate on jacks came down to people expecting win conditions like 'I killed more of your stuff' out of Warmachine, which almost never matters. What matters is that you killed their warcaster, and they did not kill yours. What you'd find in MkI and you'll probably still find in MkII is that equivalent points of warjacks will lose a stand up-no support fight vs. equivalent points of infantry. However, one jack can always threaten a warcaster, while one jack's worth of points in infantry almost never does.

I'm pretty new to Warmachine and have been playing with the MKII rules but doesn't the Trample attack alone make heavy warjacks worth it?

Most warjacks seem to have a movement of about 5-6 inches (4 for Khador) so that's a 8-9" trample move. With MATS of 6-7 they will hit most infantry on 6-7+ on two dice rolls and with strength of 12+ will kill on anything that's not snake eyes (and sometimes even then). So for one focus point they basically can kill any infantry in an 8" line provided they have space at the end of their move and can't be stopped since free strikes go after this action. I'm not sure how any infantry can stand up to that. Even with slow ass Khador that's 7".

Maybe I'm missing something since I'm a newbie but it seems like warjacks crush infantry now (unless they have weapon master or something).

No expectations aren't that high, it seems to be that any merc list who's not running Magnus + Renegade is more or less operating at a handicap.

Sorry Aga, but until you try the list in Mk2, best to leave the negativity for Mk1 rules talk where we know there are problems.

Right now, everything has been tweaked so bart may be the second coming for all we know.

Then again, you could actually run a quickly mangled metal in Mk2 with bart and the merc jacks.

Agamemnon2 wrote:No expectations aren't that high, it seems to be that any merc list who's not running Magnus + Renegade is more or less operating at a handicap.

Play some games man. Broadside + Mule, Buccaneers, and Mariner is really really nasty. One round of shooting is usually decent, but squeezing two rounds into every turn is going to cut swathes through the infantry that you've fixated on.

Yep, as per the link above, you can download everything you need to try it out.

As for trample, it's awesome. It's not just in a straight line too, it's anything that the heavy's base contacts, and everything that you can try to hit cannot make a free strike after the trample is over, even if you miss.

So, even if you're trampling super-elite infantry with weapon master (extra dice on damage), it's still unlikely that the 1-4 infantry models that you didn't catch in the trample will do much damage at all.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if you can do extra attacks after a trample, but I think you can, so that's even more nastiness.

Yeah I ran a Bart list and getting two shots out a Mule and a Mariner one of which was boosted by his Hot Shot spell is nasty. Add in a boosted Buccaneer throwing his net on someone you can seriously mess up a warcaster with sea dogs ganging up on it.

Other merc stuff seems kinda weak but they did get buffed a little in between the beta and these new cards. Press gangers got their Lass back and gained tough for instance.

I think what sucks about sea dogs is that they are expensive and require lots of solos to make them good and every game I've played involved infantry just being destroyed and being taken off the table in handfuls. I don't see why you wouldn't just take all heavy warjacks and beat the hell out of other jacks and trample over infantry.

EDIT: I double checked with the rules they just posted and Trample is a straight line now, but that's still awesome enough.

I like the new set of rules. It looks like they fixed a lot of my problems with the first version of the game (namely, the first version encouraged infantry swarms and the mechanics were terrible for games of this size).

That being said, I don't know if I'm going to play again. I got burned once, 2000 points of Cryx and about 1500 points of Menoth as well as 1000 points of Trolls, and I don't know if I can do it again. I'll probably wait for army books to come out as I really don't want to see units get outclassed by new units.

Also, the Retribution models look like crap. Holy hell do they look awful.

I do have a Cygnar battlebox and a few units in my closet, though, so I might get around to painting them and trying it out in a few months.

Basically I'm still on the fence and I'm having a lot of fun with 40k and LotR right now.

And on the note of Jacks being crappy.


I probably dont notice - because i play Khador ;p

haha. Strongest Stat jacks in the game. So I guess my opinion doesnt hold.

Got models with thresher - i'd smack everything in front of me.

You could even take a mangler.. for mercs. Those are devastating.


There is always a way to deal with ton of troops.




But anywho - lol:




Butcher
^Juggernaut
^Juggernaut
^Juggernaut
^Juggernaut
Mechanics (min)
Mechanics (min)
Widow Makers
Koldun Lord
eEyriss

35 points

Yeah I ran a Bart list and getting two shots out a Mule and a Mariner one of which was boosted by his Hot Shot spell is nasty. Add in a boosted Buccaneer throwing his net on someone you can seriously mess up a warcaster with sea dogs ganging up on it.

Other merc stuff seems kinda weak but they did get buffed a little in between the beta and these new cards. Press gangers got their Lass back and gained tough for instance.

I think what sucks about sea dogs is that they are expensive and require lots of solos to make them good and every game I've played involved infantry just being destroyed and being taken off the table in handfuls. I don't see why you wouldn't just take all heavy warjacks and beat the hell out of other jacks and trample over infantry.

EDIT: I double checked with the rules they just posted and Trample is a straight line now, but that's still awesome enough.

Magnus - got a boost. He doesnt have to pay focus to upkeep spells. Hes really nasty - played against him yesterday

Is it legal to use the Extreme Juggernaught in a game? Because that model is all shades of badass.

I know people who are fielding at least 4 juggernaughts and will be taking all 4 extreme poses... if you check the PP forums haha.


Not super sure on playability.. but... hell! lol.

If WM had a Jack v Infantry rule that allowed follow-up attacks for every 1-hit-1-kill, that would probably solve the problem.

The new trample seems like it solves a lot of that, to be honest. And mat bumps for jacks mean you can use that focus to push for extra attacks instead of hitting. I don't think 'jacks are going to have a big problem wading through infantry, and if they do, it will probably be through clever play by the opponent, which should be rewarded.
I can't wait to get to grips with the game, and see how Hordes changes.
Makes me really, really want to get the Dwarf Merc battlebox and a Nomad or Rockram, and a box of Shield Gunners.

whitedragon wrote:Is it legal to use the Extreme Juggernaught in a game? Because that model is all shades of badass.

The only thing that matters there is that it does in fact represent a Juggernaut, and it's
based on the 50mm base.

I've been afraid to put mine together.

Vertrucio wrote:Sounds like you're just jaded.

I will say this and can back it up with play. Jacks are just awesome now.

They're as hard to kill as they should have been, since they can no longer be just disabled, instead you have to wipe out every damage box to kill one. On top of that, mechanics have a much easier time of fixing them for a greater effect too.

If a Jack system is disabled, it's not as much a disadvantage as it was before. Instead of losing the use of a system entirely, such as a weapon, you just lose 1 die to the attack and damage for that weapon.

All jacks have had their stats boosted so they can operate without focus. If you use dedicated melee jacks, they now have MAT 7 which allows them to easily hit without focus use. I've run with 4 jacks with good success. Piling focus into 1-2 and using only 1 point in other jacks to do things like trample.

All the jack power attacks, including trample, have most of their penalties for use taken away, the majority of them have no penalties for use at all. Trample now allows you to simply wade through infantry, and any infantry affected by a trample, even if you don't hit them, cannot get a free strike back. I've wiped out entire infantry formations this way, then used the extra focus to smash whatever my jack ended up in melee with after the trample. Oh and trample also has the speed bonus of charge, so you can trample across large swaths of infantry.

All jacks now have Shake Effects ability, where during the control phase, if they're knocked down or stationary, for one focus point they can shake off those effects and act normally.

Overall, most units and abilities now have clearer methods for retaliation. It's much, much rarer for something to happen to your units that you can't simply come back and do as much damage to the enemy.

Dreds need to be coddled just as much, you don't realize it as much because 40k has gobs of units running around so you don't notice losing one as much.

Thank you for not flaming me for saying something bad about WARMACHINE. It's taboo, it seems, to say something bad about WARMACHINE.

You answered all of my questions with your post. If that trample ability is actually good now, and not just a free excuse to get struck in the back, then great. Can trample kill more than one model now? If so, then my many dollars spent on cool warjacks for my cryx will get some use after all.

I use Asphyxious, a Seether, 2 leviathans, 2 slayers, a helldiver, 2 pistol wraiths, 10 mechanithralls, a brute thrall, 10 bane knights, 2 of each death chicken, 2 machine wraiths, 10 bile thralls and a bloat thrall, necrosurgeon and the witch coven. I have some more crap too.

Not the mosr uber, but I liked the way these looked so I play em, lose all the time, but thats because I refuse to go cookie cutter and buy a huge infantry force. I would buy the pirates and ogrun pirates, but I refuse to play INFANTRYMACHINE.

If Warjacks are as good as you say, then let's see.

Well, I got out of warmachine a long while back for the same reason. I played Khador and even with my tougher jacks, I saw what was happening.

However, Mk2 is the only reason why I've bought back into Warmachine. All the changes are perfect to me.

Another example is the changes to Trenchers.

Anyone who has played WM for a while has faced a cygnar trencher line. Basically trenchers, as their action can put up a wall of smoke in front of them. Smoke in WM is a template that stays on the field for round, you can see and shoot in, or out of the smoke, but not compeltely through it. So previously, the cygnar player could lay down a wall of smoke that shut down any ability for you to retaliate against the cygnar army with a normal army, unless you want to place everything you have inside the smoke, which puts you in attack range of everything he has that's standing behind the smoke.

This would force players to take nothing but specialty units and abilities that could see through smoke, making the game boring and had nasty army escalation, in what's basically a first gen unit. Khador got a unit specifically to fight trenchers just so they could have something else to use.

On top of that, trenchers could advance deploy, which puts them half-way up the table at the start of the game, completely denying an area of the table.

Now in MK2, trenchers, when they place their smoke, they have to place it in such a way that the trencher who threw the smoke is inside the smoke, enabling you to shoot or attack him. They still have their dig-in defensive ability, and get a defensive bonus from the smoke, but at least you can shoot them with units, or charge them with units which removes their defensive bonuses.

What's more, one of the basic changes was that Advance Deployment is only 6" farther than the normal deployment, meaning they still have to move to position themselves, leaving them open to be attacked before they dig in or pop smoke.

They can start the game dug in.

However it doesn't boost their ARM (armour) any more, It just gives them cover and immunity to blasts.

Yeah, but if they want to be dug-in in a useful position, they have to move forward. Moving makes them lose the dug in status, and since you can't dig-in and throw smoke at the same time, he has to choose between the two, which leaves them vulnerable to attack.

They're not the pain in the arse they used to be. Temporal barrier has been trimmed too.

I'll be playing my first game of MKII next week. If you print out the model rules in 3x3 (nine pages to a sheet) on A4 they're about the same size as the cards, you do need a good set of eyes to read the text though.

I'm going to print them all out like this as a reference guide to the factions I don't own.

REAL MEN print them out full size

(because otherwise it's hard to read them)