The second update is live for Brawlmachine! Come check out the updated scenarios and the changes to the epic and FA:2 lists!

https://www.loswarmachine.com/brawlmachine/2022/1/6/brawlmachine-12

I don't really feel like the situation for WMH has improved since a year ago... but it also isn't dead yet and I think if they can keep going enough to endure eventually something will come together.

I'm not sure how positive I feel about the game. Even the topic for this year is "threat" instead of "thread" ..

I really feel like its one step forward, one step back for WM/H as a game. The huge update by Faye has a great thing, really made lots of models viable and opened up list building within the constrains of theme forces and made me excited to list build again. However despite all that, 1) Nobody apart from the current player base really knows about it. There is still 0 advertising or publicity to the wider wargaming community. 2) What’s the point if large portions of the world struggle get stock other than from ebay. Its not an issue that other game systems have. Malifaux, Infinity etc have no issue getting their product into stores in the UK and Europe.

PP also seems unable to keep hold of their talented staff members and seem to be spread so thin these days. I actually think it would be best for them to focus on their other games and just put WM/H into a maintenance mode, releasing the odd patch or campaign update rather than adding yet more factions to a system they have only just managed to balance, years after Mk3.

I have seen a lot of people looking for “another game” with all the things happening with 40K. Iv seen quite a few higher profile 40K players/youtubers/social media people look at Malifaux (which I play) and I have also seen Wyrd reach out to painters to get their products to them for showcases etc. Nothing from PP. What a great opportunity this could be. Pandemic hopefully coming to an end, people looking for new social hobbies, they could bring in a new generation of players. Instead, again, they are missing out on what should be basic steps.

Its telling that the single thing that seems to be responsible for ANY growth in the game is a fan made initiative. Brawlmachine is wonderful and Id like to buy the LOS guys a beer if I ever meet them. I know they love it and do it for the good of the game. But the fact that it was required at all and its probably the only thing bringing new blood to the game is damning, quite frankly.

I think the game itself is in a great spot. As ever the issues with WM/H is not what happens on the table. It’s the company and elements of the community.

That said. I am looking forward to getting out there and seeing what my new local WM/H community is like (iv just moved house) and im keen to paint my backlog. But WM/H is probably going to remain as my secondary game and im not going to buy anything else until im happy with the direction the company is moving. I will be playing Malifaux mostly I think.

I always seem to write longer post on WM/H but its because i want it to better than it is and its a real disappointment to me that its been so poorly managed

I'm interested in seeing what they do with the Orgoth. In terms of wmh activity or pp affiliated activity on the ground here - its... sparse...

I am being active though and have 14 trenchers and 2 trencher chaingun crews on my painting desk for a wee project.

(Kill-team/achine)

Nobody had played WMH locally in the last year, then right before the holidays two people pulled their WMH armies back out and there were eight of us standing around discussing the game in play and the current state of the base rules / Steamroller / Brawlmachine instead of playing other games ourselves. I'm personally buying back in (All in on Farrow 2022!) and I'm betting we'll see it pick back up for a while. Probably just long enough for me to get my piggies painted.

On Episode 202 of Line of Sight, Bret, Chandler, and Jaden are here to discuss the brand new update to Brawlmachine! Come and get the inside scoop on why changes were made, what other changes were considered, and what the future of the format in 2022 looks like. We’ve got all that and more on Episode 202 of Line of Sight!

https://www.loswarmachine.com/line-of-sight-podcast/2022/1/7/line-of-sight-episode-202-brawlmachine-2022-update

Oh yay, this thread turning into add space for a podcast again.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Oh yay, this thread turning into add space for a podcast again.

Rather than snark about it, click the triangle of friendship.

But yeah. Big reason I didn't bother keeping up with the previous thread.

Except I don't have a problem with him or the content of the post, I just think it is off topic in this particular thread.

NinthMusketeer wrote:Oh yay, this thread turning into add space for a podcast again.

Kanluwen wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Oh yay, this thread turning into add space for a podcast again.

Rather than snark about it, click the triangle of friendship.

But yeah. Big reason I didn't bother keeping up with the previous thread.

I think that, in itself, does actually describe the state of Warmachine/Hordes: there's like one, small community that still is active, but it's otherwise mostly reminiscing about "when it was good," or wishing PP would do something more to actually promote their game. Unless PP takes some major action otherwise, I think the game is going to have the slow, painful, lingering decline until it's not much more than a cult favorite but practically unsupported.

 Valander wrote:

I think that, in itself, does actually describe the state of Warmachine/Hordes: there's like one, small community that still is active, but it's otherwise mostly reminiscing about "when it was good," or wishing PP would do something more to actually promote their game.

It used to be a really large game where I live during 40k's 6th/7th edition run. I got into the game precisely because I hated the rules directions of 40k. But after playing the game just a ton, going to tournaments, etc... The game wasn't nearly as balanced as advertised and the terrain rules just made the game plain and not very interesting.

When 3rd edition rolled around I was hoping for major fixes to balance the game, power up the gargantuan units and many of the casters but that didn't happen. I hated the fury and ability changes to horde units and that was really the end of the road. Many people in my area were just as disappointed in 3rd edition as I was and just quit playing. 8th edition 40k came out, and that really was the end. I'm sure Malifaux and X-Wing didn't help either. It would take a complete redesign of the rules to bring back players IMO. New armies isn't fixing core problems with the game.

I'm not sure why there is so much negativity around Warmachine, much more than for any other game.
Even worse, while I read quite a bit, I still don't understand why. I get that MK3 wasn't that well received? some balance issues?
Not really sure what's the problem - 40k has a new edition every 3 years or so, as for how balanced the game is...oh well.

Regarding the state of Warmachine: on boardgamegeek, a user keeps tracking of log plays for miniature games and releases monthly a list with the most played minis game. I compiled the numbers and made a list with the most played miniature games in 2021. Granted, this list is based on bgg log plays - which is more a place for boardgamers than minis gamers, and not everybody log their plays. But I still think that it can give you a hint about how popular certain games are.
The data shows that Star Wars games and GW ones are the most popular (no surprise). After that, there is A Song of Ice and Fire and Infinity, then Battletech, Bolt Action, Frostgrave, Malifaux, LOTR, Saga, Godtear.
Then comes Warmachine. It's not doing great, for certain. But it is very far from dead, also. The game took a big hit from Covid - the biggest drop was between 2019-2020. But it is still the most popular game from PP. More popular than Sails of glory, Kings of War and Deadzone. And I don't hear so much doom and gloom for KoW, even if the game has a direct competitor in Conquest.
Anyway, for those interested in the list - https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/294054/most-played-miniature-games-2021

I for one am interested in getting into Warmachine. It looks like a really cool game, with badass models, a unique universe/setting, and a strong set of rules. as a former mtg player I love deck/army building and synergy. I've found a 2 player battlebox and I think i'm gonna get it and learn the game with my family.

 emanuelb wrote:

I for one am interested in getting into Warmachine.

The GAME as it is right now, as it is on the tabletop, is genuinely super. For the record if i could just play with a small group of friends at my house and ignore all the rest of PP and the wider community i would. And i would have fun.

Most peoples issues and negativity comes from everything else around the game in the last few year. And a desperate desire for PP "become great again"

There were a large number of players that had burned themselves out on the game and the faults in MK3 gave them an opportunity to get off the treadmill. A lot of them have had a salt the earth mentality ever since, apparently spending way more time than I do on the game's social media trying to be as negative as possible.

In any case, the main issue with the game as it stands is a lack of new player content. There aren't really any good starters or other products that are friendly for stores to stock. What HAS vastly improved is the community interest in more varied game types and unofficial formats like Brawl/Clashmachine have greatly improved the communities interest in playing at scales that are approachable for new players. It's truly a great game and it seems to have finally shaken a lot of its toxic fanbase to get back to a point where all its endless variety can be fun again.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Oh yay, this thread turning into add space for a podcast again.

Fair enough, I'll make a separate thread for all of the stuff we've got going on.

 LoS_Jaden wrote:
The second update is live for Brawlmachine! Come check out the updated scenarios and the changes to the epic and FA:2 lists!

https://www.loswarmachine.com/brawlmachine/2022/1/6/brawlmachine-12

Brawlmachine offers some incentive to get back into WMH.
I've seen some typical lists in the above link.
How long will such games last?

How long will such games last?

How long will a game of brawlmachine last? About and hour?

How long will WM/H last when its possibly only community initiatives keeping it alive? I suppose we shall see.

How long will WM/H last when its possibly only community initiatives keeping it alive? I suppose we shall see.

Never understood why the game went downhill shortly after the introduction of MK3.

 wuestenfux wrote:

How long will WM/H last when its possibly only community initiatives keeping it alive? I suppose we shall see.

Never understood why the game went downhill shortly after the introduction of MK3.

Regarding my local area themes just killed off all interest, armies which were fun to play suddenly couldn't compete properly vs the theme armies getting good bonuses and like, 10-15 bonus points in support/solos which freed up more space for killing threats

Then the constant updating of rules and units in a rotating belt combo'ed with how god damn difficult getting models from PP into some parts of the UK just made the game go from great fun to throw models down to just not appealing for limited hobby time.

Plus if Im totally honest, 75 pt games were awful as the game was one huge mosh pit eventually and local communities unwillingness to go down to 50 pts for sake of ease of play over time just haemorrhaged more players until not enough to justify booking weekly/monthly hobby table space for the system.

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

How long will WM/H last when its possibly only community initiatives keeping it alive? I suppose we shall see.

Never understood why the game went downhill shortly after the introduction of MK3.

Regarding my local area themes just killed off all interest, armies which were fun to play suddenly couldn't compete properly vs the theme armies getting good bonuses and like, 10-15 bonus points in support/solos which freed up more space for killing threats

Then the constant updating of rules and units in a rotating belt combo'ed with how god damn difficult getting models from PP into some parts of the UK just made the game go from great fun to throw models down to just not appealing for limited hobby time.

Plus if Im totally honest, 75 pt games were awful as the game was one huge mosh pit eventually and local communities unwillingness to go down to 50 pts for sake of ease of play over time just haemorrhaged more players until not enough to justify booking weekly/monthly hobby table space for the system.

Okay, I understand.
Our local players have quit WMH in 2018 shortly after the release of MK3.
I didn't follow the game after this but realized this exodus.
How did PP approach these problems?
Brawlmachine is an alternative format that counters most of the problems mentioned above.

The game is bloated and prices obscene. The barriers of entry to 75pts games are insurmountable for any sane person from outside of the game (ie not already hooked) and even maintaining a playable collection became a problem - both $-wise and keeping up with new stuff which had absurd amount of special rules to memorise.

At the same time most of the community were swearing by 75pts games as the only proper way of playing the game, thus gatekeeping it from any new blood. It kind of ended with Brawlmachine, but the damage had already been done.

Thanks both for the clarifying comments.
I'll consider Brawlmachine and try to organize a few games.

For me it just felt mk3 was a rushed cash grab full of changes rather than improvements.

More importantly to me pp used to be the 'different' approach company. With mk3 they did everything they claimed gw did and they'd never do.

They had to redesign skorne from the ground up straight out of the gate. I didn't like themes and I didnt like how bloated the game was becoming, both on the tabletop and in the rosters. As a khador player I saw nothing that excited me for years. The design space was just cluttered and loads if the new ideas were just soulless. They run out of ideas. While I love the models, trencher long gunners was one example. What's next? Winter guard pikemen? Iron fang kommandos?

Add to that pp made a lot of anti-retailer decisions at that time which turned retail against them and killed their forums which alienated a lot of fans (I was glad the forum was killed; to me it was a toxic salt mine poisoned by group think and zero creativity) but still... no quarter was canned which crushed me. There was no new fiction from skull Island. Hell there was no new fiction. It was just a great reset right hack to where it all started. Mk2 had better plot lines like caine/magnus/julius. Mk3 fekt like 'the great reset'. Toruk assaulted the mainland directly. And then went back home. No change. Khador gave back point Bourne. With the start of mk2 there were seismic shifts. Mk3 didn't give me that.

Where I am in the UK the player base was struggling though the end of mk2. It was dropping off. Mk3 just didn't get people involved enough.

Add to that was the gw renaissance at this time. Like it or not gw turned a corner and were doing gangbusters on so many fronts. Combine pp's misteps with gw stepping up their game and that's only going one way.

To clear it up, the game itself is absolutely awesome. Decisions, options, player agency are incomparable to any other wargame I have played. Whenever a friend of mine talks me into playing a game of WH40K, it feels like some outdated, dumb Snakes&Ladders in comparison.

It's just that the barriers of entry are painful and the learning curve steep. But behind them lies a world of intellectual satisfaction you won't get from any GW games.

Don't forget that 40K launched its 8th Edition pretty close to that time, and that was very well received.

I know a lot of people that were on the "my ex is looking good" train at the time. A lot of the crowd that once trashed 40K and sang WM's praises flipped their tune with 8th. That's not to say there weren't stumbles, but I definitely saw people full on swan diving on toothpicks to feel suitably hurt to bow out.

FWIW, for whatever issues the game had, I think the real damage came from how they managed the market and focused on appeasing their hardcore playerbase. Online retailers had pretty heavily devalued their product to the point where it was essentially impossible for physical retail to carry their out of control sea of SKUs. Correcting that at the same time they were dropping the miserable, but affordable PVC for expensive resin meant some pretty huge sticker shock.

To be honest though, I'm not even sure if that's the real issue. So much of PP's company identity was built on this "no squatting" mindset they were always going to hit a brick wall when distribution flipped to a "new hotness"/planned obsolescence model. Getting something past launch week is basically impossible these days regardless of what game you're talking about and Warmachine really isn't capable of keeping up with that kind of market. It's advantage is the near endless variety and while a lot of themes have tried to shift to an "army of the month" style in keeping with where GW finds its success; its not at all what makes the game special or fun. I think a big part of the latest update has been a course correction away from that, which has really helped the game find its feet again, but there's still a huge question of just how to sell the physical product.

I think a big part of the latest update has been a course correction away from that, which has really helped the game find its feet again, but there's still a huge question of just how to sell the physical product.

The damage has already been done and coming back to the feet is questionable.
In our gaming group, there were lots of WMH players with armies shelved but nobody wants to come back atm.

I think a big part of the latest update has been a course correction away from that, which has really helped the game find its feet again, but there's still a huge question of just how to sell the physical product.

Communication, communication, communications.

PP needs to "get out there" and engage with people. Not its existing base of fanboys and white knights, but the rest of the wargaming community. Biggest update/balance in the recent history of the game, no messages, no engagement with youtubers, media, no articles. Nothing. Who knows about it? Where is the narrative? Where is the message?

You want to sell products, get people interested etc you need to advertise it and show it to new people. PP is once again just leaving it up to a small section of the fan base and hoping for the best. Really, as a company, PP doesn't even talk or interact with its existing fans, it just give them messages. Wyrd, Corvus Belli, Broken Anvil, Goblin King, GW and hell even the producers of historical stuff like Gripping Beasts talk and advertise to everyone. That's why i can go onto something like OnTableTop and see updates in the last few days from Malifaux to Warlord Games to Conquest to GW to Oak and Iron to Nepolionic gaming to the next kickstarter. PP, hardly anything ever.

The game is great, The company is "well wack bruv"

Cyel wrote:
The game is bloated and prices obscene. The barriers of entry to 75pts games are insurmountable for any sane person from outside of the game (ie not already hooked) and even maintaining a playable collection became a problem - both $-wise and keeping up with new stuff which had absurd amount of special rules to memorise.

At the same time most of the community were swearing by 75pts games as the only proper way of playing the game, thus gatekeeping it from any new blood. It kind of ended with Brawlmachine, but the damage had already been done.

But is the barrier of entry worse than in 40k? Getting into Warhammer is tough - a 2000 points army costs a lot, and every unit has a ton of rules, keywords and exceptions to the rules. The models themselves are expensive (duh). The same problems exist for most big wargames - AoS, Kings of War, Conquests - it's the nature of the beast, you need lots of models.
I think the only thing that bothers me regarding Warmachine is the fact that you need 2 armies in competitions. But even that can be partially mitigated by having mostly the same models, plus I have to say it adds to the strategy (it's like sideboard in mtg).

 emanuelb wrote:


But is the barrier of entry worse than in 40k? Getting into Warhammer is tough - a 2000 points army costs a lot, and every unit has a ton of rules, keywords and exceptions to the rules. The models themselves are expensive (duh). The same problems exist for most big wargames - AoS, Kings of War, Conquests - it's the nature of the beast, you need lots of models.

Regarding the barrier of entry, Price wise it depends. I'm wary about selling pp on the 'but it's cheaper!' ticket but some of thr pp stuff is obscene. Infernals for example. Or Legion chosen cavalry. Hundred quid for 5 models. I got some woefully casted long gunners for the best part of fifty quid recently.


Secondly 40k isn't '2000pts or go home'..gw present a lot of paths of entry and at a variety of scales and approaches. Even down to kill team. Wmh up until recently was very much '75pt steamroller or gtfo'. Compound this by # of players.

Now in regard to the 'knowledge burden', there is an overwhelming amount of information to take in and be aware of with wmh to the point where 40k and aos are the equivalent of homeopathic wmh. Wmh requires you to know and to be aware of a staggering amount of information. Combine this with the sheer bloat of the game and the barrier, whilst not unreachable, just isn't rewarding to a lot of people. Compounding this is the nature of the game where to 'git good' and 'stay good' you had to invest a lot of time playing and studying the game. For me for example getting into mk2 at the start was really rewarding. The game has doubled in size then and even coming from a place where I 'knew' the game, mk3 sadly just seemed more trouble than it was worth to get back into. I can only imagine someone new seeing that and just 'noping' right out. Again, this also combined with the community size and other amounts like the dismissal of the hobby component by a lot of players (I'd need to drive 1-2 hours each way to get a game in). For me I loved that 'intense' game, once upon a time. I got older. I'm less interested in investing into that. I want simple, intuitive and elegant. Games like warcry, kill team and bare bones necromunda are what I'm.after.

 emanuelb wrote:


I think the only thing that bothers me regarding Warmachine is the fact that you need 2 armies in competitions. But even that can be partially mitigated by having mostly the same models, plus I have to say it adds to the strategy (it's like sideboard in mtg).

I always liked 2 lists (I think warcasters approach to list building is very interesting) . Sure, swap a caster is a thing. But with the combo-nature and list-chicken that's out there uts not a very effective approach. And if we are talking about minimising the investment with 'same army, new caster' to make the point its cheaper can I not also point to alternative ways of playing within the gw ecosystem?

Exactly what Deadnight its saying.

Also, I'd rather not support the "game needs fewer models so they can be much more expensive" fallacy. Points cost and game size are artificially and arbitrarily imposed by the game's designers, they shouldn't be the basis for the price of physical products. Such approach leads to designers just upping the abstract points costs of models to increase their cost in very real money.

At the end of the day you pay for the toys you get and what you do with them is up to you. And you get more toys to paint and play with for the same price from GW. I have a lot of GW models as alternatives in my Warmachine armies simply because they were MUCH cheaper (like half the price or less in some cases) and as good or better than PP originals.

Examples:
https://lormahordes.freeforums.net/thread/9637/idoneth-reavers-warmachine

https://lormahordes.freeforums.net/thread/1801/bane-riders-less-half-price

https://lormahordes.freeforums.net/thread/1484/vessel-judgement-half-price

https://lormahordes.freeforums.net/thread/2031/circle-after-break?page=2

https://lormahordes.freeforums.net/thread/7292/flamebringers

@ Cyel, where is that Gallows Grove proxy from please ? I have some PP one but not having the branchs fall off all the time might be nice

Cheers

Stock and shipping issues aside WM/H is going well at our FLGS.

If you have been following my 50-point battles topic we have added several new players* and got the players who have been procrastinating back into the game.

As it is now we have active players with the following armies

.trenchers themed army (cygnar)
.crucible guard
.circle orbos/cygnar
.legion of everblight
.grimkin*
.retribution*
.skorne/trolls/khador*
.minions
.khador

That is 9 regulars helping support the community.

You are also right that players are fed up with GW and are looking to jump ship to other games.

We recently got an 8th/9th ed player to join us for our retro 5th ed 40K games (brings us up to about 10 regulars with a few more interested), he also has moved heavily to infinity, another has switched over to FOW, several have joined us for classic battletech and WM/H.

The fact people are seeing us play these games every weekend helps promote interest, motivating players to get into the games. the fact many of these games have a low buy in cost to start a working army also helps. A zero point or even 25-point list for WM/H for example will not cost you an arm and a leg to get a basic game in unlike a small force from GW.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
@ Cyel, where is that Gallows Grove proxy from please ? I have some PP one but not having the branchs fall off all the time might be nice

Cheers

It's just a couple of branches from a plastic forest by GW (you actually still have the entire forest to use after cutting those off) + superglue-soaked sponge + some bits.


Last weekend we've had the biggest local tournament in a few years! Yeah, it's been a few years since we had more than 10 players at a local Warmachine tournament despite living in a 2-million population European capital city...

The mixed format of "theoretically we play Brawlmachine in relaxed 2-hour rounds but if both players agree they can play a 75pts battle in this time" is proving to be a success.

Cyel wrote:

Last weekend we've had the biggest local tournament in a few years! Yeah, it's been a few years since we had more than 10 players at a local Warmachine tournament despite living in a 2-million population European capital city...

Out of interest Cyel, do you tend to play at stores/clubs where you are or is it more home set ups?

One thing I often wondered about WM/H is the fact that we only measure our success by tournament numbers.

But I played the game for years in a group of 4-5 people at our houses and never once ventured out into the wider London/SE meta (when I used to live there). One thing the community could do if place less emphasis on tournament play and focus more on "you can play this game with your mates". Which I the success of GW games and things like Malifaux.

But on positive news I understand that the Welsh Master is trying to make this years a 64 player / 7 rounds event. Sherwood is about 26 players. So the tournaments here in the UK are kicking into life, but it all seems like the same players.

Sunno wrote:


Out of interest Cyel, do you tend to play at stores/clubs where you are or is it more home set ups?

One thing I often wondered about WM/H is the fact that we only measure our success by tournament numbers.

But I played the game for years in a group of 4-5 people at our houses and never once ventured out into the wider London/SE meta (when I used to live there). One thing the community could do if place less emphasis on tournament play and focus more on "you can play this game with your mates". Which I the success of GW games and things like Malifaux.

This is very much a thing. Long ago in uni I played 40k with a uni gaming society (4th ed). It was all gw all the time. I was rhe weirdo wanting to push this other game. And as far as anyone knew, no one played wmh. And then through a friend of a friend I came across an 'imvisible' group that had been playing wmh since the black and white mk1 rulebook. Our communities never crossed hence how we never knew the other existed.

I do think there are more 'invisible' gw hubs than wmh ones though!

A few years ago a few friends and I got into the 'play wmh at a friend's house' thing. For me I xouldnt keep going there due to travel it it is very much a legitimate thing. Worth a try. And at least 'it's my house my rules; curb the ridiculous tourney builds' can theoretically stand.

Sunno wrote:


But on positive news I understand that the Welsh Master is trying to make this years a 64 player / 7 rounds event. Sherwood is about 26 players. So the tournaments here in the UK are kicking into life, but it all seems like the same players.

Its my experience here too. The tournaments and events are the same dozen people with the same armies from ten years ago. That said let's be optimistic - maybe it'll kick-start something.

Sunno wrote:

Cyel wrote:

Last weekend we've had the biggest local tournament in a few years! Yeah, it's been a few years since we had more than 10 players at a local Warmachine tournament despite living in a 2-million population European capital city...

Out of interest Cyel, do you tend to play at stores/clubs where you are or is it more home set ups?

One thing I often wondered about WM/H is the fact that we only measure our success by tournament numbers.

I mostly play at the club, where we organise tournaments as well. I also have 2-3 people (with some rotation over time) with whom I play at home and never at tournies.

The thing is, though, that at the end of mk2 / beginning of mk3 I had a 10+ strong group of friends I played with at home (so I didn't really feel much need to go to play with random people outside this group/at tournies, unless I fancied it). This group dissolved at about the same time the local "club-tournie" community did soon after mk3 launch, mostly for the same reasons - the game was too much pain to keep up with rules- and $$$-wise.

I was left with no choice but to play with the local leftovers at the club, if I wanted to play at all. I still see my playing at home as my golden age of WM&H gaming.


Ah, and we don't play in stores, as no store in Poland sells WM&H

Late to the party, but MK3 also coincided roughly with the end of the Press Ganger program as well as the end of their forum. My LGS had a pretty solid amount of WM/H players, but the week after the Press Ganger program ended he had the majority of that group playing Guildball, and then guided them through several other games. Haven't really been in to game in a while due to you know what, but from what I've seen on social media it looks like they've settled into a mix of Star Wars, Marvel Crisis Protocol, and 40K (especially Kill Team).

Shortly after the group switched, all the WM/H in the LGS was discounted, with the remainder getting sold on their Ebay storefront a few weeks later.

I do think there were other contributing factors. know of new players who came in tended to run into the "oh, you didn't know my army could do this?" surprise far too often, and personally I got tired of trying to chase the new "best" themes that came out of CID (Flames was the breaking point for me).


Monsterpocalypse and Warcaster both hold some interest for me, but I can honestly say I've never seen anybody play them in person, and discussion on either tends to be exceptionally rare.

nobody wrote:

Monsterpocalypse and Warcaster both hold some interest for me, but I can honestly say I've never seen anybody play them in person, and discussion on either tends to be exceptionally rare.

Both are pretty heavily centered around Discord I've noticed. A lot of the WMH community migrated there in general, particularly now that a lot of the game is played on Wartable for obvious reasons. Not my favorite platform, but I suppose its better than Facebook. Happy to chat up either though.

FWIW, MonPoc is probably my favorite system of all time. I think most people mentally have it in hibernation again until the Kickstarter delivers but its really just an exceptional game and the new edition has put the emphasis back on the monsters that was my one big disappointment with the orgiinal.

Warcaster I think is a system with a ton of potential. The core mechanics are really dynamic and fun and flip the standard ideas of attrition based gameplay on their head. The big downside currently is there's just not a lot of variety to be had. Most factions only have enough to fill out a skirmish army (which, honestly I think is a better point size than the full game anyway) so it doesn't take very long to figure out what's good. The upcoming kickstarter looks to breathe a bunch of new life into the game, but I think it'll probably take one more wave of releases to where it feels like there's some real variety in each army. It's a very solid game to have a little force for the Skirmish level. I think that might always be where it shines as kind of the anti-Warmachine. Small table with a lot of terrain, quick back and forth gameplay with model death being far less important than where you put them to die. I think its totally worth a try, particularly with the new wave of releases coming in the next few months.

I do think pp are quietly lining up warcaster as their next big hitter, maybe with monsterpocalypse and just keeping wmh on the back-burner for the long-term. I see warcaster as a game with fresh space (literally) they can innovate with, cover new ground etc, apply 20 years of wmh's 'lessons learned' and do all that without any historic baggage or bloat.

Give me that and I'm happy to watch wmh saunter off into the sunset and the history books.

I'm not sure how much it is about making it their big hitter or just something to lean on to give WMH a break. I think with all of the issues they've had adapting to the new world of distribution a lot of it is just about experimenting with different SKU packages to find something that works.

Deadnight wrote:
For me it just felt mk3 was a rushed cash grab full of changes rather than improvements.

More importantly to me pp used to be the 'different' approach company. With mk3 they did everything they claimed gw did and they'd never do.

They had to redesign skorne from the ground up straight out of the gate. I didn't like themes and I didnt like how bloated the game was becoming, both on the tabletop and in the rosters. As a khador player I saw nothing that excited me for years. The design space was just cluttered and loads if the new ideas were just soulless. They run out of ideas. While I love the models, trencher long gunners was one example. What's next? Winter guard pikemen? Iron fang kommandos?

Add to that pp made a lot of anti-retailer decisions at that time which turned retail against them and killed their forums which alienated a lot of fans (I was glad the forum was killed; to me it was a toxic salt mine poisoned by group think and zero creativity) but still... no quarter was canned which crushed me. There was no new fiction from skull Island. Hell there was no new fiction. It was just a great reset right hack to where it all started. Mk2 had better plot lines like caine/magnus/julius. Mk3 fekt like 'the great reset'. Toruk assaulted the mainland directly. And then went back home. No change. Khador gave back point Bourne. With the start of mk2 there were seismic shifts. Mk3 didn't give me that.

Where I am in the UK the player base was struggling though the end of mk2. It was dropping off. Mk3 just didn't get people involved enough.

Add to that was the gw renaissance at this time. Like it or not gw turned a corner and were doing gangbusters on so many fronts. Combine pp's misteps with gw
stepping up their game and that's only going one way.

Spot on, sums up my feelings perfectly (especially as a fellow Khadoran). In all honesty, I would say that balance issues notwithstanding and some shortcomings in some of the smaller/newer factions, much of Warmachine/Hordes is a "complete game". The design space for a lot of the core/original factions is very full and there isn't much room left to expand it meaningfully other than repackaging the same gak over and over again in different wrappers (ala "Winter Guard Pikemen"). Unlike 40k which seems to be a potentially infinitely open-ended system, Warmachine seemed like it was designed from the getgo as a more finite and constrained system in every conceivable sense, and as a result - whether intentional or not - I think its run its course and gone about as far as it can go barring a major reset and shakeup.

Like others, I forsee a transition to promoting Warcaster as they sunset Warmachine/Hordes. I think they'll keep WMHDs around for a while rather than a more direct End Times and Age of Sigmaring, but they will give the games lip service levels of support for a number of years while they try to grow Warcaster/MonPoc to cover their bills, and once they have a sustainable alternative product I think thats when they reboot WMHDs by advancing the timeline and shaking up the setting a bit, not necessarily as dramatic a shift as WHFB to AoS was, but enough for it to be a risky move. They already laid the groundwork for it with the Infernals release and Hengehold Scroll, etc. and the forthcoming Orgoth release, but i suspect COVID through a wrench into things and that Warcaster wasn't as big of a hit right out the gate as they wanted, so it might take them longer to get there than they would like it to.

Not to mention the atrocious handling of mini distribution, AKA PP's decision to cut the middle man and sell everything in-house. Which is great until your not in America and have to pay the obscene USPS cost (literally more to get a padded envelope to the UK from the US than it is to get a parcel of gunpla from Japan), a move that basically killed the supply of minis in most countries.

Didn't the UK supply used to be cast by a third party called cerberus down in Liverpool?

Another thing I've noticed is the last few metals I've gotten (trenchers, trencher long gunners and iron fangs) have been woefully cast. Gw would be staked out for their fans for that (finecast??)

 master of ordinance wrote:
Not to mention the atrocious handling of mini distribution, AKA PP's decision to cut the middle man and sell everything in-house. Which is great until your not in America and have to pay the obscene USPS cost (literally more to get a padded envelope to the UK from the US than it is to get a parcel of gunpla from Japan), a move that basically killed the supply of minis in most countries.

That wasn't really a "decision" they made, as that implies they had a choice. A number of distributors got burned by their products during the Mk3 sales collapse and don't want to carry their range anymore. The remaining few who would deal with their products aren't interested in doing restocks, they would only commit to distributing new releases and once they sold out they wouldn't restock those products and would only accept further new releases (thats essentially the state of the industry right now as a whole and not just for Privateer Press. Aside from games and products that have very high demand levels, distributors won't restock your products, everything is in one direction and out the other one and done. This is why CMoN now distributes through Asmodee and why Asmodee self-distributes so that they can ensure their products can stay on store shelves. This had a role in GW bringing everything in house a few years ago as well, though they were ahead of the curve in terms of recognizing the trends and the harm it would cause to their business). In essence, the choice was:

A - Bring distribution in-house so we can ensure steady flow of supply and restocks to retailers for our complete product range.
B - Outsource distribution but retailers would only ever be able to order new products and couldn't restock our back catalog.

There was no option C for a hybrid model, because distribution operates best "at scale" and new item releases make up the largest and most profitable share of hobby retail distribution (hence why distributors only want to do new releases and not restocks - higher overhead/lower margins and smaller volume makes it very inefficient to do them). If PP let distributors do the new releases and they only did restocks in house then PP wouldn't be able to operate its in-house distribution operation sustainably - it would also still create issues because retailers would bitch and moan that they aren't able to restock from their distributor and have to have a separate trade account with PP for it and they would blame PP for it all instead of rightfully blaming their distribution partners, etc. etc. etc. and it would still be a big shitshow.

Deadnight wrote:
Didn't the UK supply used to be cast by a third party called cerberus down in Liverpool?

Another thing I've noticed is the last few metals I've gotten (trenchers, trencher long gunners and iron fangs) have been woefully cast. Gw would be staked out for their fans for that (finecast??)

As PP switched more and more to non-metal, Cerebus found themselves more becoming a importer and distributor of PP product. At the end of last year they decided to terminate that relationship. PP imports have been taken up by Wayland Games and distributed through their trade arm: Warcradle. Whether that is good or bad (or neither) is for you to decide.

 Valander wrote:

NinthMusketeer wrote:Oh yay, this thread turning into add space for a podcast again.

Kanluwen wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Oh yay, this thread turning into add space for a podcast again.

Rather than snark about it, click the triangle of friendship.

But yeah. Big reason I didn't bother keeping up with the previous thread.

I think that, in itself, does actually describe the state of Warmachine/Hordes: there's like one, small community that still is active, but it's otherwise mostly reminiscing about "when it was good," or wishing PP would do something more to actually promote their game. Unless PP takes some major action otherwise, I think the game is going to have the slow, painful, lingering decline until it's not much more than a cult favorite but practically unsupported.

My experience of the fan base in WA, mainly Tacoma and Olympia have not been good. It's probably the only reason why I have not bothered committing 100%, though my Legion of Everblight starter box is fully painted and based. I would like to give Warmachine/Hordes another try.

I suppose it is where you play. our group is more of a social friendly group, back before the lockdowns started there was a hardcore group that played on Friday nights at our FLGS, i am usually working those hours so i only managed to hop in on a rare day off, turns out they were not very welcoming of new players, so i went back to playing with my normal group.

 Grensche wrote:


My experience of the fan base in WA, mainly Tacoma and Olympia have not been good. It's probably the only reason why I have not bothered committing 100%, though my Legion of Everblight starter box is fully painted and based. I would like to give Warmachine/Hordes another try.

If you're near Oly you’re not far from me. PNW has a fairly large amount of people out there. The caveat is that Discord is the main form of communicating. If you’re not already in the group let me know and I will toss you a link.

medikant wrote:

 Grensche wrote:


My experience of the fan base in WA, mainly Tacoma and Olympia have not been good. It's probably the only reason why I have not bothered committing 100%, though my Legion of Everblight starter box is fully painted and based. I would like to give Warmachine/Hordes another try.

If you're near Oly you’re not far from me. PNW has a fairly large amount of people out there. The caveat is that Discord is the main form of communicating. If you’re not already in the group let me know and I will toss you a link.

I'm moving out to Edgewood so I'm not near Olympia. But if you have people in the Tacoma area I'll be glad to join the discord server.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Not to mention the atrocious handling of mini distribution, AKA PP's decision to cut the middle man and sell everything in-house. Which is great until your not in America and have to pay the obscene USPS cost (literally more to get a padded envelope to the UK from the US than it is to get a parcel of gunpla from Japan), a move that basically killed the supply of minis in most countries.

That wasn't really a "decision" they made, as that implies they had a choice.

I can't comment on a lot of what chaos0xomega said in the rest of that post, but I can comment on PP's utter incompetence at both international distribution and shipping in general - because their lack of choice stemmed 100% from their own decisions.

I attempted to set up a bespoke distribution agreement with PP in 2013, as I had a business plan, and a way of penetrating a market that was mostly untapped and at zero risk to PP - all the risk would have been shouldered by me. PP was utterly inflexible in their distribution agreement - which among other things mandated taking on 40 copies of each new rulebook for sale to a non-English-speaking audience, and they also had absolutely no idea how much any of their products weighed or how large they were. This is a direct quote from my communication with them:

Unfortunately, I do not have any idea how much the order would cost to ship because it all depends on the weight and size of the order and the location it is shipping to. We could only let you know that information once we had an order packed and ready to ship.

While PP would have sent product to a freight forwarder in the US for free, it would have been extremely difficult to optimize shipping of such product, because PP couldn't give you an idea of how much volume or how much weight any given order would be until it was actually strapped to a shipping pallet. I'm not sure how any distributor is supposed to handle that sort of uncertainty.

Sunno wrote:
I really feel like its one step forward, one step back for WM/H as a game. The huge update by Faye has a great thing, really made lots of models viable and opened up list building within the constrains of theme forces and made me excited to list build again. However despite all that, 1) Nobody apart from the current player base really knows about it. There is still 0 advertising or publicity to the wider wargaming community. 2) What’s the point if large portions of the world struggle get stock other than from ebay. Its not an issue that other game systems have. Malifaux, Infinity etc have no issue getting their product into stores in the UK and Europe.

PP also seems unable to keep hold of their talented staff members and seem to be spread so thin these days. I actually think it would be best for them to focus on their other games and just put WM/H into a maintenance mode, releasing the odd patch or campaign update rather than adding yet more factions to a system they have only just managed to balance, years after Mk3.

I have seen a lot of people looking for “another game” with all the things happening with 40K. Iv seen quite a few higher profile 40K players/youtubers/social media people look at Malifaux (which I play) and I have also seen Wyrd reach out to painters to get their products to them for showcases etc. Nothing from PP. What a great opportunity this could be. Pandemic hopefully coming to an end, people looking for new social hobbies, they could bring in a new generation of players. Instead, again, they are missing out on what should be basic steps.

Its telling that the single thing that seems to be responsible for ANY growth in the game is a fan made initiative. Brawlmachine is wonderful and Id like to buy the LOS guys a beer if I ever meet them. I know they love it and do it for the good of the game. But the fact that it was required at all and its probably the only thing bringing new blood to the game is damning, quite frankly.

I think the game itself is in a great spot. As ever the issues with WM/H is not what happens on the table. It’s the company and elements of the community.

That said. I am looking forward to getting out there and seeing what my new local WM/H community is like (iv just moved house) and im keen to paint my backlog. But WM/H is probably going to remain as my secondary game and im not going to buy anything else until im happy with the direction the company is moving. I will be playing Malifaux mostly I think.

I always seem to write longer post on WM/H but its because i want it to better than it is and its a real disappointment to me that its been so poorly managed

Pretty much, game and community are awesome. Leadership needs to be changed. Hoping one day Matt Wilson sells the company off or merges it with another company that knows how to handle the business end.

Deadnight wrote:

 emanuelb wrote:


But is the barrier of entry worse than in 40k? Getting into Warhammer is tough - a 2000 points army costs a lot, and every unit has a ton of rules, keywords and exceptions to the rules. The models themselves are expensive (duh). The same problems exist for most big wargames - AoS, Kings of War, Conquests - it's the nature of the beast, you need lots of models.

Regarding the barrier of entry, Price wise it depends. I'm wary about selling pp on the 'but it's cheaper!' ticket but some of thr pp stuff is obscene. Infernals for example. Or Legion chosen cavalry. Hundred quid for 5 models. I got some woefully casted long gunners for the best part of fifty quid recently.


Secondly 40k isn't '2000pts or go home'..gw present a lot of paths of entry and at a variety of scales and approaches. Even down to kill team. Wmh up until recently was very much '75pt steamroller or gtfo'. Compound this by # of players.

Now in regard to the 'knowledge burden', there is an overwhelming amount of information to take in and be aware of with wmh to the point where 40k and aos are the equivalent of homeopathic wmh. Wmh requires you to know and to be aware of a staggering amount of information. Combine this with the sheer bloat of the game and the barrier, whilst not unreachable, just isn't rewarding to a lot of people. Compounding this is the nature of the game where to 'git good' and 'stay good' you had to invest a lot of time playing and studying the game. For me for example getting into mk2 at the start was really rewarding. The game has doubled in size then and even coming from a place where I 'knew' the game, mk3 sadly just seemed more trouble than it was worth to get back into. I can only imagine someone new seeing that and just 'noping' right out. Again, this also combined with the community size and other amounts like the dismissal of the hobby component by a lot of players (I'd need to drive 1-2 hours each way to get a game in). For me I loved that 'intense' game, once upon a time. I got older. I'm less interested in investing into that. I want simple, intuitive and elegant. Games like warcry, kill team and bare bones necromunda are what I'm.after.

 emanuelb wrote:


I think the only thing that bothers me regarding Warmachine is the fact that you need 2 armies in competitions. But even that can be partially mitigated by having mostly the same models, plus I have to say it adds to the strategy (it's like sideboard in mtg).

I always liked 2 lists (I think warcasters approach to list building is very interesting) . Sure, swap a caster is a thing. But with the combo-nature and list-chicken that's out there uts not a very effective approach. And if we are talking about minimising the investment with 'same army, new caster' to make the point its cheaper can I not also point to alternative ways of playing within the gw ecosystem?

Maybe man, but GW rules suck sooo bad and the whole community has a cultish feel to it that company has created. I tried to get back in the but rules are so boring I would rather just bow out the scene completely and load up my seXbox. Price point still sucks based on the amount of models you need to play to "really play", and even low model count armies worth a gak, still super expensive unless you putting your 3D print on bbbrrr mode. And the list of factions within factions that are actually worth a gak still is something GW can't figure out.

And you get that wierd sex cult feel where it seems like everyone in GW customer base is tied to each other by a dark secret. If you say "hey man, that game was cool, can we play this (non-GW game X) game?" they get all skeezy and freaked out. Like you asked a scientologist to go to your church, mosque, or synogogue.

And you can see it too most people who play any other non-GW game will also play a GW game. But the reverse so a unicorn. It is like GW has functionally found out how to tap into a consumer base that is all those kids in high school who where stunningly average. Not smart but wish they were, not athletic but fantasize about it, has social adjustment issues due to problems at home (mommies 5th boyfriend gets wierd when I call him dad). These the kids that even drank and drugged like dog gak.

Somehow along the way, these kids convinced their friends to play the only system where you have to buy your way to win in a limited faction within a faction and people started to follow him (after all these are this strawman's friends. If this guy is a perfectly average loser imagine the one's who call him leader?!).

Wyrd games, Infinity, Conquest, Privateer Press games, AMG Star Wars or Marvel, Battletech. But GW, sorry dude if I wanted to go broke trying to keep up with losers, I would just drink, smoke, and gamble my life way at the slots.

https://odysee.com/@RazorFist:1/it's-time-to-gatekeep-the-gatekeepers:b

I don't believe you've ever actually interacted with a 40k player before

Overwhelming majority of players I've encountered in my 20 years in the hobby basically go "man, these rules/this game sucks, but I really like the minis and lore and nobody plays those other games so I guess I'm stuck with this" (the irony of course being that if everyone who ever said that would just buy into other games the statement would no longer be true).

marxlives wrote:


Maybe man, but GW rules suck sooo bad and the whole community has a cultish feel to it that company has created.

What, and you don't think pp have their wilson worshipping cultists united by the mantra of 'anything but gw/being hypercritical of every decision/product they make' and who always give pp a free pass?

Or any other game for that matter.

I mean 'gw-hating' might as well also be a Cult.

And yes, generally gw rules are pretty terrible, at least for the 'big' games.
That said, lotr is still a brilliant wee game and I'm actuslly expanding my lotr armies at the moment. Warcry, kill team, shadespire and newcromunda are great games and AT has a very strong reputation.

marxlives wrote:


I tried to get back in the but rules are so boring I would rather just bow out the scene completely and load up my seXbox. Price point still sucks based on the amount of models you need to play to "really play", and even low model count armies worth a gak, still super expensive unless you putting your 3D print on bbbrrr mode. And the list of factions within factions that are actually worth a gak still is something GW can't figure out.

'How you play' matters. Price point can be terrible, but that's true for any game- have you priced a 2-list 75pt infernals list? My 50pt xharge of the hotselords list was something like 3-400 quid. My butcher 3 double black dragon list had zero overlap and that was something similar. And it depends on what you play. Kill team. One box of dudes and you're good to go.

And it Depends on the game, imo. I've had more fun with gw games these last 4 years than qny other company's. And I was a player who refused to play gw games for nigh on ten years.

It's obvious its not gelling for you though so your probably doing the right thing by stepping away.

marxlives wrote:


And you get that wierd sex cult feel where it seems like everyone in GW customer base is tied to each other by a dark secret. If you say "hey man, that game was cool, can we play this (non-GW game X) game?" they get all skeezy and freaked out. Like you asked a scientologist to go to your church, mosque, or synogogue.

Not in my world.

marxlives wrote:


And you can see it too most people who play any other non-GW game will also play a GW game. But the reverse so a unicorn.

I dunno. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that one of the big downfalls of pp in the mk3 era is the community refusing to step away from 75pt steamroller.

For what it's worth though, more people play gw games by an order of magnitude than other games. It makes sense theyd also be played.

marxlives wrote:


. It is like GW has functionally found out how to tap into a consumer base that is all those kids in high school who where stunningly average. Not smart but wish they were, not athletic but fantasize about it, has social adjustment issues due to problems at home (mommies 5th boyfriend gets wierd when I call him dad). These the kids that even drank and drugged like dog gak.

Somehow along the way, these kids convinced their friends to play the only system where you have to buy your way to win in a limited faction within a faction and people started to follow him (after all these are this strawman's friends. If this guy is a perfectly average loser imagine the one's who call him leader?!).

You don't need to chase the meta.

And I don't think that very toxic description of gw players is fair or accurate.

marxlives wrote:


Wyrd games, Infinity, Conquest, Privateer Press games, AMG Star Wars or Marvel, Battletech. But GW, sorry dude if I wanted to go broke trying to keep up with losers, I would just drink, smoke, and gamble my life way at the slots.

https://odysee.com/@RazorFist:1/it's-time-to-gatekeep-the-gatekeepers:b

Play with better people. And be cleverer about how you play. And I sincerely hope you are not referring to 'other gw players' as losers here...

Well, criticising GW games isn't necessarily hating. They are quite objectively just bad, outdated designs. Minimal player agency eclipsed by unmitigatable randomness, tiny decision space, bloated upkeep which takes most of the playing time. Elegant design means achieving interesting, complex gamestates with simple rules, GW achieves simple gamestates with complicated, baroque rules.

I have recently tried out Blood Bowl and boy, is it a totall mess of a game (which is not surprising, considering how ancient the base design is)!

Cyel wrote:
Well, criticising GW games isn't necessarily hating. They are quite objectively just bad, outdated designs.

Indeed, which is why I quite specifically stated gw-hating. And lets be honest, there are a lot of extremely entitled, toxic individuals amongst the wargaming community whose hobby is apparently hating on the hobby.

I've seen people weaponise the idea that sormcast helmets had a halo in their design as proof gw are incompetent and out of touch because kids are atheist these days, apparently. Just so they can get a dig in against gw.ive seen gw ridiculed and attacked for everything from reiver calves to boxy tanks. Whatever decision they make (or don't make) is attacked, whatever they do is twisted into a 'badwrongthing', the best they get is 'its not good enough'. Look at the community response to the guys who did the astartes videos. Pretty sure One of them was literally run out of the hobby. Pretty sure i remember hearing matt ward got death threats as well. Look at the response when they said 'nazis aren't welcome here'. Amongst many many other examples of gw hating.

People rage on gw, regardless of what they do. No positivity or good experiences can be attributed to gw games or allowed for, no compliments or positive reactions allowed or you're a 'shill'. This also often extendz to people who enjoy playing gw games. I've been told I am the reason everything is terrible because I home brew and houserule and accomodate. Yes, gw deserve plenty criticism but for too many, it has been twisted into something very nasty and yes, cult-ish. This kind of relentless anger is not healthy.

Anyway this is ot - We're on the pp boards.

Cyel wrote:
Minimal player agency eclipsed by unmitigatable randomness, tiny decision space, bloated upkeep which takes most of the playing time.

I don't think this is entirely accurate.

It's probably a lot more true for 40k or aos but they've long since stopped being gw's only offerings. And I'll defend randomness. Sometimes random elements and reduced agency/having some of the game state out of your hands and put of your control makes for very interesting games bolt action and test of honor for example would like a word.

Also the last time I played infinity and warmachine they definitely drifted into bloated upkeep for me. Spent more time rifling through the rulebook than playing the game.

Cyel wrote:
. Elegant design means achieving interesting, complex gamestates with simple rules, GW achieves simple gamestates with complicated, baroque rules.

I have recently tried out Blood Bowl and boy, is it a totall mess of a game (which is not surprising, considering how ancient the base design is)!

To be fair to gw; this is more true for their older games/re-releases like 40k, Bloodbowl and newcromunda. Some of theor games are a lot clunkier than others. Its less true for other games in their stables. their Adeptus titanicus game is meant to be all kinds of simple yet elegant and deep. I've not played it but it is very well regarded. And I am enjoying kill team and warcry immensely. Simple elegant and intuitive rules. Snd very interesting games. There us also the gem that is the old lotr sbg game. Still more or less the same after twenty years and it is one of their most underappreciated games - very much simple elegant and clever.

I definitely can't blame them for producing what sells for them ! I admire an efficient business even if their product is not for me.

And WM&H suffers from many of these problems, it's also quite old now. When they were advertising streamlining in mk3 I was hoping it would be the design policy from then on, but we all know what we ended up with

Cyel wrote:
I definitely can't blame them for producing what sells for them ! I admire an efficient business even if their product is not for me.

And WM&H suffers from many of these problems, it's also quite old now. When they were advertising streamlining in mk3 I was hoping it would be the design policy from then on, but we all know what we ended up with

Totally fair!

Honestly, in my opinion pp's future is in warcaster nk, not warmachine/hordes. If you can find some fellows to buy into it with you, i think you'll get some decent gaming out of it.

Warmachine/hordes is just waiting for its end times.

Deadnight wrote:

Cyel wrote:
I definitely can't blame them for producing what sells for them ! I admire an efficient business even if their product is not for me.

And WM&H suffers from many of these problems, it's also quite old now. When they were advertising streamlining in mk3 I was hoping it would be the design policy from then on, but we all know what we ended up with

Totally fair!

Honestly, in my opinion pp's future is in warcaster nk, not warmachine/hordes. If you can find some fellows to buy into it with you, i think you'll get some decent gaming out of it.

Warmachine/hordes is just waiting for its end times.

I played warcaster for the first time last night. It is a damn good system. But ... it's rolling models out fast, we are not sure we will play it enough to warrant further investment.
I know we can, "do it our way" but it just feels bloaty already.

i watched the promo for warcaster and took a hard pass. i already play infinity and it is a much better system than WC for the same sort of setting.

I never got into WHFB or kings of war so WM/H is my fantasy/steam punk game.

Infinity is probably the most technically brilliant wargame out there. Best metals in the industry too imo.

And yet for all thst, the game is a struggle for me.

I much rather warcry or kill team.

^goes and hides^

Hey not everything is a must even for war gamers. i love the models for Star Wars legion and as a sci-fi nerd i love Star Wars, but absolutely hate the game mechanics and will never play it again.

 aphyon wrote:
Hey not everything is a must even for war gamers.

IMPOSSIBLE.

you must love the exact same things I do for the exact same reasons or you're a tfg who enjoys badwrongfun!

(Said no one, ever)

Deadnight wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
Hey not everything is a must even for war gamers.

IMPOSSIBLE.

you must love the exact same things I do for the exact same reasons or you're a tfg who enjoys badwrongfun!

(Said no one, ever)

Correction, you're only suppose to be playing 40K. If you played Warhammer Fantasy and GW destroys Fantasy while replacing it with AoS you're suppose to:

A.) Get angry and burn your WHFB army. (extra points if you make a video and post it on YouTube)

B.) Switch over to 40K while bashing GW. Because anger and logic don't mix.

I like Warmahordes, I really like the models. But Privateer Press as a company really need to get it together. If they didn't make such bizarre business decisions they would be doing OK.

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Cyel wrote:
I definitely can't blame them for producing what sells for them ! I admire an efficient business even if their product is not for me.

And WM&H suffers from many of these problems, it's also quite old now. When they were advertising streamlining in mk3 I was hoping it would be the design policy from then on, but we all know what we ended up with

Totally fair!

Honestly, in my opinion pp's future is in warcaster nk, not warmachine/hordes. If you can find some fellows to buy into it with you, i think you'll get some decent gaming out of it.

Warmachine/hordes is just waiting for its end times.

I played warcaster for the first time last night. It is a damn good system. But ... it's rolling models out fast, we are not sure we will play it enough to warrant further investment.
I know we can, "do it our way" but it just feels bloaty already.

I've heard many complaints about Warcaster but "rolling out models fast" has never been one of them lol. If anything most of the complaints have been in the opposite direction.

Deadnight wrote:
Infinity is probably the most technically brilliant wargame out there. Best metals in the industry too imo.
And yet for all thst, the game is a struggle for me.
I much rather warcry or kill team.
^goes and hides^

Biggest problem with warcasters minis is Infinity IMO. Warcaster is going for the same sort of aesthetic, but IMO Infinity does it better, whereas Warcaster just feels like a soulless, uninspired, and generic imitation purchased off of Wish.

Deadnight wrote:
Infinity is probably the most technically brilliant wargame out there. Best metals in the industry too imo.
And yet for all thst, the game is a struggle for me.
I much rather warcry or kill team.
^goes and hides^

Infinity has suffered for years from poor rules writing/editing making approaching and learning gameplay an incredibly difficult chore. That part might be better now, as I've heard the most recent edition has streamlined things and made it easier to follow. The other thing Infinity suffers from is extremely poor product lifecycle management, etc. I had to quit the game after having my factions repeatedly squatted/split up one too many times. Corvus Belli keeps expanding its product range only to discover that it can't support that many SKUs and that entire subfactions, etc. are not financially viable. All the faction splits/consolidations/squattings and associated resculpts/repackagings/discontinuations have become confusing to follow and keep track of for those of us who only played casually and didn't keep up with it the way we do with Warhammer. The lack of a proper community news portal ala warhammer community doesn't really help, you need to rely on keynotes at conventions, youtube videos, facebook posts, etc. to keep abreast of the changes and updates and comings and goings, etc. As a result, a large segment of the local commuinty sold out of the game and stopped playing as it demanded more mental overhead both on and off the table than it was worth. CB would definitely benefit from hiring an experience product line manager to do a better job of how all this is being handled and communicated.

Guys, just stop having wrongfun and we can all get back to having rightfun again.

FWIW, Warcaster and Infinity are wildly different games. Probably the thing they have most in common is that neither game really plays like anything else on the market. There's definitely some aesthetic crossover, but even that kind of faded seeing both models in person.

As for Warcaster releasing models too fast, I think it depends a bit on what you're playing. The game is in kind of a weird place right now where its skirmish level is probably more worth your time and the game has just enough to fill that up but not quite enough to make it feel like build choices matter. There's actually a slightly expanded game size that still plays skirmish that I think does a better job by giving you a little more room for niche picks that the game actually supports very well since there's no real value in spamming things.

Say, is Warcaster still a thing or did it flop?

Still a thing. The third Kickstarter's items(Elite Cadres I think they were called? Basically, Theme Forces in a box) should be hitting retail soon.

Its a flop in the sense that its getting no attention from the market and not getting much market penetration, but its not a flop in the sense that the game is actually mechanically solid and (dare I say) actually good.

I just opened one of their retailer emails. I have zero idea why I get them but whatever. In it they have promotions for free demo and prize kits for Monsterpocalypse, Warcaster, and Riot Quest.

Zero mention of WMH.

Veldrain wrote:
I just opened one of their retailer emails. I have zero idea why I get them but whatever. In it they have promotions for free demo and prize kits for Monsterpocalypse, Warcaster, and Riot Quest.

Zero mention of WMH.

Oof.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Its a flop in the sense that its getting no attention from the market and not getting much market penetration, but its not a flop in the sense that the game is actually mechanically solid and (dare I say) actually good.

Riotquest is similar. Rules are pretty good though I've always felt that's Privateer's strong point. I think RQ will be better received as a boardgame as WMH players are turned off by it as a mini game.

RiotQuest is remarkably better in practice than it looks on paper, but I cannot stand the spawn mechanics. The maps are just too big and models regularly get spawned in the middle of nowhere with no real ability to contribute to the game.

I'd say its frustrating, but the game is too random to really be frustrated by any of it. It's got far more depth than you'd expect and some really solid ideas behind it, but I think to really shine it needs significantly more work on its map layouts.

Warcaster is all around very strong. I think there's some balance concerns that likely need to be worked out, particularly regarding loadout options on Warjacks, but its a really strong system that mostly lacks options. My group got into it last summer and really liked it, but also found that after a couple months we'd kind of experienced what there was to see out of the current range. The Thousand Worlds release wave that should be out very soon was announced shortly after and everyone kind of felt like that was the boost in variety the game really needed and I expect it to pop up again once its available.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

Veldrain wrote:
I just opened one of their retailer emails. I have zero idea why I get them but whatever. In it they have promotions for free demo and prize kits for Monsterpocalypse, Warcaster, and Riot Quest.

Zero mention of WMH.

Oof.

To be fair, aside from orgoth it's been quiet on the 'older' factions front. I expect pp to try to push their 'one new wmh faction every year' as they promised a while back rather than expand the older factions by anything more than token gestures.

to be fair they really do not need to expand any of the current factions. if anything, they have to many choices.

I play khador i have access to

25 warcasters
20 warjacks
19 units
11 unit attachments
23 solos
3 battle engines

101 units to choose from in a game that roughly has less than 20-30 models in a normal game depending on points level.

That is also not counting all the mercenaries that can be added in to every faction.

Now repeat that across 15 factions for all of WM/H

I definitely think they could condense the older factions some. Some of the themes can be combined and some redundant options counting as resculpts of one another (Trencher Long Gunner, Sword/Precursor Knights, etc). I think most of the Warcasters that have 3 versions could be dropped to 2. Stuff like that.

I suspect the game is on the backburner while they decide just how to revamp it. More importantly than rules, I think it's a question of the product line itself. PVC didn't work out and they've clearly stopped ordering more, but the stocks of it appear to be dwindling and there's a need for replacements. The old SKUs aren't really viable in today's FOMO boxset market and they need to find a way to repackage the way things are sold into something more modern. From the interviews I've heard, it sounds like everyone is well aware of this, its just a question of how to get it done. From what I've heard in interviews, it sounds like there's a plan and I think Warcaster is definitely a testing ground, but I'd wager things get pushed back to when the post COVID market is a little more stable.

When it comes to WMH I would be more than happy with an just occasional model thrown out now and again. But what I really want is any sign that they are able to keep the rules going. They have a good campaign system with Oblivion to build on but no one to do the work. The rebalance was a good thing with the exception that now even Faye is gone. Any plan is only to last as long as the newest person to jump ship.

I remember playing Warmachine awhile back. Friend of mine brought it over and it was actually quite fun. I enjoyed the focus (?) system and the models looked neat, so he lent me his rulebook to check out. I got to page 5, if I remember correctly, and was immediately turned off by the presumptuous and smug dissertation of the desired game etiquette. Some rank BS about respecting the unassuming black t-shirt clad person across from me as being some sort of wargaming pro. Absolute rubbish. I don't need a toy company to preach to me about the delicacies of the social contract in a book about playing with toys.

That rule no longer exists in MKIII

IMHO i am glad it is gone as it has created an environment with those like minded players making the game incredibly toxic especially for new players.

When all you get is "bring your A game because we play tournament 75 point steamroller games at all times" is a huge turnoff.

i play with the minis i like and we have fun games especially at the 50 point level or even going off on a tangent without warcasters/warlocks or jacks/warbeasts and let the regular army units fight a pitched battle in what we like to call infantry machine.

 Hairesy wrote:
Some rank BS about respecting the unassuming black t-shirt clad person across from me as being some sort of wargaming pro. Absolute rubbish. I don't need a toy company to preach to me about the delicacies of the social contract in a book about playing with toys.

Mk1's page 5 was... ridiculously over the top. Very 90s. It was funny, bit you have to realize it was being bombastic to the point of satire.

Mk2's page 5 was something I quite enjoyed. Less over the top, still quite tongue-in-cheek. Boil out the bombast and what it says is Play hard, play fair, don't 'crutch', be a gracious winner and don't be a sore loser and always treat people with respect because We're all here for the same thing. I appreciated how they stated as an absolute that page 5 was never an excuse to be nasty to people. I always read 'bring your best game' as not necessarily bringing the meanest/toughest lists either.

And sadly, I do disagree with you somewhat. The social contract should be obvious. People should be nice to each other and avcomodating. You [generic 'you'] shouldn't need to be told these things
And yet sadly within the wargaming community there's no shortage of toxic players, elitists, cutthroats and bullies. I absolutely respect where you are coming from but imo, 'This is the social contract' is sadly necessary in my view. Its a shame that a lot of people read page 5 as 'shamelessly crush your opponents' and never actually read it to the end. And sadly they're the players that often gave wmh players such a toxic reputation and have such a significant presence in the remaining 'rump' community, since the vast majority/nearly all of more casual players have left or been driven away. :(

Could anyone PM a link to the WM/H Discords for the game in general and any CoC-specific Discords?

Trying to get back into it and get my CoC in working order.

I also don't think that half-baked twitter post crying about how Page-5 from MKI is problematic has helped, but it feels like it's beating a dead horse at this point.

PM sent.

Deadnight wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
Some rank BS about respecting the unassuming black t-shirt clad person across from me as being some sort of wargaming pro. Absolute rubbish. I don't need a toy company to preach to me about the delicacies of the social contract in a book about playing with toys.

Mk1's page 5 was... ridiculously over the top. Very 90s. It was funny, bit you have to realize it was being bombastic to the point of satire.

Mk2's page 5 was something I quite enjoyed. Less over the top, still quite tongue-in-cheek. Boil out the bombast and what it says is Play hard, play fair, don't 'crutch', be a gracious winner and don't be a sore loser and always treat people with respect because We're all here for the same thing. I appreciated how they stated as an absolute that page 5 was never an excuse to be nasty to people. I always read 'bring your best game' as not necessarily bringing the meanest/toughest lists either.

And sadly, I do disagree with you somewhat. The social contract should be obvious. People should be nice to each other and avcomodating. You [generic 'you'] shouldn't need to be told these things
And yet sadly within the wargaming community there's no shortage of toxic players, elitists, cutthroats and bullies. I absolutely respect where you are coming from but imo, 'This is the social contract' is sadly necessary in my view. Its a shame that a lot of people read page 5 as 'shamelessly crush your opponents' and never actually read it to the end. And sadly they're the players that often gave wmh players such a toxic reputation and have such a significant presence in the remaining 'rump' community, since the vast majority/nearly all of more casual players have left or been driven away. :(

That is a valid point, the social contract should be obvious but we often play against new opponents and we cannot know their intent until we see it on display. One must hope that one is not caught in a two hour hell-match with an abhuman helot who wants to rules-lawyer every bit of minutiae just to squeeze out a win. That being said though, I'm under no obligation to actually be nice to such people, or to continue the game. There is a Robert E. Howard quote about a civilized man being more rude than a savage that comes to mind! I recall asking my friend about page 5 and he very sheepishly said to ignore that bit and I had to wonder, did no one in development consider the deleterious effect of said attitude? Even if it was meant to be bombastic and a bit satirical, I found myself wondering what sort of people these writers had played against and why. They had written a pretty tight ruleset (to my limited experience of it) and so the satire seemed lost. Now, if there had been some less than serious moments or even some not so serious characters perhaps the comedic value of page 5 would have shone through more but Warmachine seemed very serious and that just made the nature of page 5 seem as serious as the rest of it. Ah, oh well. It was fun pushing Warjacks around with the casters and spending tokens, I wouldn't mind playing again but my hobby interests have shrunk both in terms of my involvement and monetary support. I might be interested in some models now and then but there is simply too many other things I'm interested in for me to seriously consider WMH as worthy of the storage space or my time. I won't write the game off entirely, but at that point in time page 5 was simply a dealbreaker for me and I hope that in the future PP takes that into consideration, I know I'm not the only one who thought well ignore that bit and get on with it.

They do make great paints though!

You'll note that you are quoting a post that points out that PP took that into consideration when they made Mk2 in 2010, 12 years ago

The legacy of page 5 still haunts WMH though. They should have known that the people who needed the message were the same people who would interpret that message as something quite different.

Nothing to be done about it at this point though. If people keep insisting its a problem going on a decade when PP last acknowledged its existence.... I mean I guess we can wait for it to die out of living memory but I swear people are determined to teach that grudge to their children, and their children's children. We're all embarrassed by things said during the Daikatana era of marketing, but the unwillingness to accept that its just not a thing anymore after its been pointed out multiple times is just kind of looking for an axe to grind.

 Hairesy wrote:


That is a valid point, the social contract should be obvious but we often play against new opponents and we cannot know their intent until we see it on display. One must hope that one is not caught in a two hour hell-match with an abhuman helot who wants to rules-lawyer every bit of minutiae just to squeeze out a win.

We are more aligned than you realise. I will point out those hearts yoy mention are in every game, trying to eke out every advantage they can.

 Hairesy wrote:

That being said though, I'm under no obligation to actually be nice to such people, or to continue the game.

Or to play against them. We teach our daughters its OK to say 'no'. Gaming is the same. I'd rather not play than waste a few hours of my time playing a rubbish game against warjackass. Greatest gaming lesson lesson I learned is I don't owe those people anything, least of all my time.

 Hairesy wrote:

I recall asking my friend about page 5 and he very sheepishly said to ignore that bit and I had to wonder, did no one in development consider the deleterious effect of said attitude? Even if it was meant to be bombastic and a bit satirical, I found myself wondering what sort of people these writers had played against and why. They had written a pretty tight ruleset (to my limited experience of it) and so the satire seemed lost. Now, if there had been some less than serious moments or even some not so serious characters perhaps the comedic value of page 5 would have shone through more but Warmachine seemed very serious and that just made the nature of page 5 seem as serious as the rest of it. Ah, oh well.

To be fair, asshats are gonna asshat, regardless of whether developers do page 5, plead with you to play nice or say nothing at all. I think developers make the rules they want to make ans then go home to the rest of their lives. What people do with those rules, to a large extent is beyond their control. And unless you implement some kind of oppressive social or mind control on your player base, you won't get this.
In my experience msybe 'satire' is the wrong g word. wmh was very American and very 'sports'. Large and loud and over the top, like an iron fang shoulder plate. Jacks are based on hunched over American footballers and a lot of the tempo is drawn from sports. Who you hear the bombast you take it for what it is. Banter. Sports 101. To a large extent its not 'real' or most of us will be guilty for inciting violence when we talk about murdering the other team or what have you.

And for what it's worth there's plenty not serious moments in the game or have you never seen all the penile references or obviously ridiculous characters like lord carver, who is literally conan rhe boar-barian. Farrow on the whole are hilariously silly. They even have a special rule called 'bacon'.

 Hairesy wrote:


It was fun pushing Warjacks around with the casters and spending tokens, I wouldn't mind playing again but my hobby interests have shrunk both in terms of my involvement and monetary support. I might be interested in some models now and then but there is simply too many other things I'm interested in for me to seriously consider WMH as worthy of the storage space or my time. I won't write the game off entirely, but at that point in time page 5 was simply a dealbreaker for me and I hope that in the future PP takes that into consideration, I know I'm not the only one who thought well ignore that bit and get on with it.

They do make great paints though!

Agreed on rhe paints. I love p3. Its the main line of paints that I've used for ten years now. Traitor green and greatcoat grey are two of the greatest colours ever.

In terms of the game there was a time I loved it and thought it was the greatest game ever. I still have a lot of nostalgia for it. My tastes have moved on in terms of games but I've kept most of my khador models and my houseguard elves that I'm hoping to use for 'other' projects. And while I've seen very few 'new' models yhat I like, I still keep an eye out for the classic metals in case I find something cool.

 LunarSol wrote:
Nothing to be done about it at this point though. If people keep insisting its a problem going on a decade when PP last acknowledged its existence.... I mean I guess we can wait for it to die out of living memory but I swear people are determined to teach that grudge to their children, and their children's children. We're all embarrassed by things said during the Daikatana era of marketing, but the unwillingness to accept that its just not a thing anymore after its been pointed out multiple times is just kind of looking for an axe to grind.

Acceptance is not trying to run away from the matter by labeling anyone who mentions it as having an axe to grind.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Nothing to be done about it at this point though. If people keep insisting its a problem going on a decade when PP last acknowledged its existence.... I mean I guess we can wait for it to die out of living memory but I swear people are determined to teach that grudge to their children, and their children's children. We're all embarrassed by things said during the Daikatana era of marketing, but the unwillingness to accept that its just not a thing anymore after its been pointed out multiple times is just kind of looking for an axe to grind.

Acceptance is not trying to run away from the matter by labeling anyone who mentions it as having an axe to grind.

Agreed. That being said, every so often I will see the progressively inclined sections of the warhammer twitterverse dig up page 5 and rekindle discussion about it, often as a means to disparage the games current playerbase and dev team, etc. as though it is still a current element of the game or the community. I have been playing WMHDs since Mk1, and online discussions are basically the only time I ever hear or think about page 5, and I imagine thats probably true of most of the community considering how rarely page 5 ever actually gets brought up by WMHDs players (the only time it seems to get mentioned in the online discussion groups/subreddits, etc. is when a newbie discovers it for the first time). While healthy, mature, and sober discussions about how problematic P5 was should be encouraged, I strongly disagree that it should be used as a mode of attack on the game and its community as it exists today - there are plenty of negative things that could be said about it, but using Page 5 for that purpose is dishonest.

"Twitterverse".

See that is something people have to just quit feeding. Starve the beasts and they slink away on their own, the foul things! I'm not sure what is worse, the abhuman helot rules lawyer or Twitter.

Anyway I didn't mean to smash a hole in the boat by bringing up page 5. It was just one of those things I remember, and ultimately not too important. I had no idea WMH had even stayed alive so I was really just adding my grumpy old man opinion to the mix. I never really looked back into the game after that and as someone else pointed out, that was a long time ago. I do recall being interested in Kryx, Cryx (?) though. They seemed like they had a unique gimmick but I can't recall what it was. I thought they had cool models too. Very dark, almost a little... grim... dark...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Nothing to be done about it at this point though. If people keep insisting its a problem going on a decade when PP last acknowledged its existence.... I mean I guess we can wait for it to die out of living memory but I swear people are determined to teach that grudge to their children, and their children's children. We're all embarrassed by things said during the Daikatana era of marketing, but the unwillingness to accept that its just not a thing anymore after its been pointed out multiple times is just kind of looking for an axe to grind.

Acceptance is not trying to run away from the matter by labeling anyone who mentions it as having an axe to grind.

No one is running. The matter has been addressed. When it was brought up it was mentioned that it was addressed. The past cannot be undone. I'm not sure what more can be done to atone for this apparently grievous sin, but if people are never willing to forgive it.... what can you do?

 LunarSol wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Nothing to be done about it at this point though. If people keep insisting its a problem going on a decade when PP last acknowledged its existence.... I mean I guess we can wait for it to die out of living memory but I swear people are determined to teach that grudge to their children, and their children's children. We're all embarrassed by things said during the Daikatana era of marketing, but the unwillingness to accept that its just not a thing anymore after its been pointed out multiple times is just kind of looking for an axe to grind.

Acceptance is not trying to run away from the matter by labeling anyone who mentions it as having an axe to grind.

No one is running. The matter has been addressed. When it was brought up it was mentioned that it was addressed. The past cannot be undone. I'm not sure what more can be done to atone for this apparently grievous sin, but if people are never willing to forgive it.... what can you do?

No one else mentioned never forgiving or never moving on. But the way you talk about it makes it seem like it is you who hasn't moved on.

I guess I don't follow, but I feel like we're talking past each other. I get why it comes up, but that's exactly why it was taken out of the printed material nearly a decade ago after softening it proved insufficient. If removing it entirely isn't enough for someone and we still need to hash it out, I guess I consider that an axe grinding. I'd be happy to leave it dead and buried. I'm not the one digging it back up.

 Hairesy wrote:
"Twitterverse".

See that is something people have to just quit feeding. Starve the beasts and they slink away on their own, the foul things! I'm not sure what is worse, the abhuman helot rules lawyer or Twitter.

Anyway I didn't mean to smash a hole in the boat by bringing up page 5. It was just one of those things I remember, and ultimately not too important. I had no idea WMH had even stayed alive so I was really just adding my grumpy old man opinion to the mix. I never really looked back into the game after that and as someone else pointed out, that was a long time ago. I do recall being interested in Kryx, Cryx (?) though. They seemed like they had a unique gimmick but I can't recall what it was. I thought they had cool models too. Very dark, almost a little... grim... dark...

It was cyber undead. And then regular undead. And trolls. And pirates. And pirate zombies. And spiderjacks. And just plain folks. And barbarians. And ghost pirates. And devil women. And ogres. And mind-slavers who are their own faction now, but weren't then. And that one dead elf, because really, why not? [Not in this order]

One of warmachines biggest problems was that their 'unique gimmicks' got swamped under and faction identity died under the waves of releases.

Voss wrote:
One of warmachines biggest problems was that their 'unique gimmicks' got swamped under and faction identity died under the waves of releases.

Quoted for truth.

Warmachine and Hordes feels like it has ended up a game where the only difference between the factions is official colour palate. This dilution of themes started quite early in Warmachine as well, around the book after Apotheosis, Supremacy I think?

Really wish they'd have just stuck with the faction options as they were in Prime/Primal and expanded the rest of factions in the setting like they did with Hordes. Same core mechanics, different character resource. Anyway that ship has long since sailed, at least I got to enjoy Warmachine/Hordes while it was new & fresh.

I disagree somewhat. I liked the fact that most pp factions had a variety of aesthetics (eg retribution with their houseguard, dawnguard and mage hunters and more recently house shyel and elowyr showing different looks) and themes going on rather than everything being the same power armour models with a slightly different bolter. Cryx was always on the extreme end of it but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing imo.

That said, captain hindsight would have a different pov on some things. Kossites, idrians etc should have been 'irregular infantry' and them, along with manhunters should have been available as the infantry to the circle, rather than the plate armoures Wolves. Men o war should have always been the only human multi.wound heavy infantry etc.things like that...

Fully agree it got to the point where they were just recycling ideas (while I love the models- trencher long gunners. I mean, winter guard pikemen? Iron fang kommandos?)

The Riot Quest Boardgame Kickstarter seems to be floundering from early on.

grahamdbailey wrote:
The Riot Quest Boardgame Kickstarter seems to be floundering from early on.

We shall see but quite simply i think everyone from the WM/H playerbase who either wanted game itself or the the models has already got it from the other KS or through normal distro. What we are probably seeing here is "who else other than the existing player base is interested".

It will be the great test of "Does this game have legs to stand on by itself or was it just Hungerford's baby that he propped up by making the models useable in WMH".

I am actually considering backing it because it is the least expensive way to get a bunch of RQ models I have, so far, just borrowed from other players.

Its been up a full day and is only 20% funded... Unless they change something, I can all but guarantee that it won't reach its funding goal.

I mean.... even if you wanted Riot Quest.... I don't know anyone that's excited about 4 copies of Riot Quest. I get the plan is to roll out 4 of every model via stretch goals but "parity" is not really the point of game like this. If anything you want everyone to draft so that its all unique characters.

But yeah.... Hungerford's baby that no one really wanted but we all humored for the Warmachine content. It's a better game than you'd assume and provides some dumb fun, but its got some pretty glaring issues that just aren't going to improve.

Yea, the 4 of each model was a negative when I checked it out on launch.
I know they've talked about there being Seasons of riot quest, so why not just do the season 1 models for the boardgame instead

The problem for boardgamers and such aren't necessarily the 4 figures of each type. There are kickstarters that have pulled that effectively. It is perhaps, that Riot Quest was never anything but a tick on Warmachine and Hordes? I mean, Hungerford ensured that each expansion until this one had some sort of OP nonsense in it that also made WMH a more messy game. So as a trial balloon for how independent RQ is? I think this is a pretty clear indication of what the answer is.

I can't say I was ever even slightly intrigued by riotquest.

Deathchev was about the only interesting idea I saw.

i was never interested in anything else they did other than WM/H and monpoc. i still enjoy both games regularly.

They could probably generate more interest with some sort of animated trailer!

To be honest if I wanted to buy a skirmish style boardgame I could write a relatively long list of games I'd buy before overpriced and reportedly silly RQ : the Edge: Downfall, Godtear, Mythic Battles Pantheon, Judgement, Super Fantasy Brawl, Skytear ...

While not strictly Warmachine/Hordes, looks like they cancelled the Riot Quest Kickstarter. Guess it wasn't getting the traction they needed.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They could probably generate more interest with some sort of animated trailer!

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiot Quuuueeeeeeeeeest

Kind of interesting that it seems that a post was never even made in News & Rumours for the new kickstarter? If the fans don't even have the energy to get excited about it who else will?

Part of the problem is just that the fans already own everything on offer.

The RQ Kickstarter could have done much better if presented as a two player skirmish, as it was intended, with two unique teams.
Then as per the MonPoc KS, package up the individual models into two player expansions, and have the 4P game as another expansion.

From how it appears, PP really has no clue how to market their product to anyone who isn’t already a fan.

They should just hand it off to Mythic. They might always be late but at least they know how to market a KS to look appealing.

And that was the problem - this KS was not at all appealing and had zero value for old fans, nor the ability to pull in anyone new.

At least from what we've seen from the MonPoc campaign, Mythic is more or less in control of packaging and contents. I suspect the 4x thing was their call to begin with.

And I have just learned that here in Poland the Polish version of the Skytear starter box is going to be sold for the equivalent of less than 25$.

BGG ratings 8.2 and 7.5 for Skytear and RQ respectively.

So, yeah...

BGG isn't a great place to go for anything miniatures focused and definitely not for anything with metal minis. That's not to say I don't find that rating extremely generous....

It's not a fair comparison. Skytear is a boardgame, while Riot Quest is a minis game, so naturally Skytear has a much bigger fanbase on bgg. Plus, the games are quite different: Skytear is a MOBA style geared toward the more competitive crowd, while RQ is very casual oriented. And the miniatures's quality is way better for RQ.
I bought RQ since I think is the best light skirmish game around - cool minis, fun, hilarious, colorful. The fact that I can use the minis in Warmachine is a bonus.

New Primecast: https://home.privateerpress.com/2022/07/05/primecast-july-5-2022/

A dude on FB transcribed some of the WMH relevant stuff:

"Matt Wilson: When? Well, the reason for the gap in releases is that we're doing a lot of R&D into the future of how Warmachine gets produced. We've had a lot of effort focused on Warmachine over the past year. But I think there's a misconception that gets propagated out in the community that a lack of releases or information means we are not concentrating any effort on Warmachine. Now, as you know, that could not be further from the truth. The reality is if we're quiet on something we're probably working harder on it than ever. Uh, beyond just developing new content for Warmachine we're working on a number of new challenges.
Emmanuel: So what are some of the hurdles we've been facing?
Matt Wilson: So a huge one is that producing miniatures in metal has become almost impossible because of the rising cost of materials. At one point, uh, we thought we might be headed back to plastics, but the current supply chain issues and our current experience with overseas manufacturing has compelled us to reevaluate that strategy. Plastic is very hard to keep stocked because of the order quantities associated with its production. As we see all the time, we're feeling that now with several model kits that are currently out of stock. The problem is that when an initial run of plastic sells out, in order to restock it, you have to order a ton more. But when we know we're only going to sell a fraction of that minimum order quantity, we're staring down a loss in order to reorder them. So, this makes plastic an undesireable option for the future and we're looking at other means.
Emmanuel: Interesting. Are we doing anything to combat this issue?
Matt Wilson: Yes! We've been doing a ton of experimentation and research into different production methods we can handle internally so we're not hampered by supply chain issues like that in the future.
...
Matt Wilson: Are we Kickstarting Orgoth? No. Several months ago we thought that might be the route because we were still looking at the possibility of producing them in plastic. But with our concerns about keeping things in stock, we've ruled that out as an option. Plus we want to see them on the tabletop sooner rather than later and plastics have a very long production cycle, so we're looking at a more traditional release for them...Hopefully with a prerelease at a big event in the very near future.
...
Matt Wilson: GenCon, yes, so that's what we're aiming for. But it depends on how we determine the best methods of production for them both on quality and on maintaining a reasonable price for them. If everything goes well, we'll see Orgoth on the table before the end of summer and may even see some of the other things we've been working on following quickly behind. We've got several Storm Legion models in the queue as well as a couple of Khador models like Captain Boris (unintelligible)."

Thanks for the recap! Matt's been pretty open about production woes over the last few years. It's certainly interesting to watch. Siocast feels like a natural fit, but I'm sure they're not excited about proprietary tech.

But I think there's a misconception that gets propagated out in the community that a lack of releases or information means we are not concentrating any effort on Warmachine.

'We're completely out of touch with how modern marketing works, and fans should just innately understand that silence means progress.'

Despite the fact that almost nobody (successful) works that way in the 2020s

Also 'our production chain is broke, and despite scrambling like mad dogs, we've no solution in sight. So maybe there will be a couple Orgoth boxes at GenCon for a 'pre-release' followed by silence'

Encouraging words.

It will be very interesting to see exactly what the big announcement will be from PP over the summer and what this new round/releases/edition/wave/generation entails. With a new 40K edition on the horizon (apparently) PP needs to do something decent and interesting in a competent manner.

Not very encouraging if they can’t even figure out how to produce their products……

 Ghool wrote:
Not very encouraging if they can’t even figure out how to produce their products……

Nope, they basically said they hadn't put out any news because there really just isn't any. They are doing R&D, thats really it.

Matt Wilson: Are we Kickstarting Orgoth? No.

He can make all the excuses he wants but I think they are afraid of being embarrased on Kickstarter by lackluster participation to a mostly dead game.

Kickstarter seems like a pretty poor platform for a single faction release. That's awfully niche.

 Noir Eternal wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
Not very encouraging if they can’t even figure out how to produce their products……

Nope, they basically said they hadn't put out any news because there really just isn't any. They are doing R&D, thats really it.

Matt Wilson: Are we Kickstarting Orgoth? No.

He can make all the excuses he wants but I think they are afraid of being embarrased on Kickstarter by lackluster participation to a mostly dead game.

Warcaster still makes pretty good money despite, as far as I can tell, being far quieter on the wargaming front than Warmahordes.

Does it though? Across three kickstarters over the past 2 years they have pulled less than $1 million USD in pledges. We don't really have pledge manager data to see to what extent people increased their pledges, but the "industry average" for the board and tabletop gaming industry is around a 40% increase depending on your source. We'll be generous and say that PP has pulled $1.5 million from the kickstarter and pledge manager as a result. We'll ignore the part where about 10% of that total (~$150k) is going to disappear into kickstarter, pledge manager, and payment processing fees and just assume thats all revenue. So, thus far we have $1.5 mil over 2 years, or about $750k/yr in revenue. We have no real data to support the retail sales of these product, but I'm going to guess based on the declining kickstarter backing figures and the relatively low growth of various related social media channels, etc. that the retail/post-KS sales do *not* amount to a number greater than the KS revenues. If we assume that retail sales equals kickstarter sales, and keeping in mind that PP only pulls about 60% of the revenue of retail sales, you're looking at a total sales of around $2.4 million USD, or $1.2 million per year. While that sounds like a lot of money, once you factor in development and production costs, overhead, taxes, etc. you're probably only looking at an actual profit of around $700,000 total, or about $350k per year, which... really isn't much at all. To contextualize that, GW makes almost 50% more profit than that PER DAY.

The numbers could be way off, of course, but I think thats unlikely unless theres a monstrously large warcaster community somewhere with zero presence on mainstream western social media channels.

NVM. Thanks

I genuinely miss playing WMH, but increasingly my best memories were back in the 2nd ed in local metas, playing for fun and not constant tournaments (after we burnt all local copies of the halies and their cards)

3rd ed and themehammer was a nasty intro into the new ed and PP making the big centre piece models very pricy and hard to get in the UK didn't help, nor did the price of some of the units for what you got (Trollkin raiders, whhhhy!)

My favorite time playing Warmachine was during the beta test for 2nd edition. There was so much promise, and all kinds of enthusiasm. We still played with 3d terrain back then.

I can't remember the last time, outside of Adepticon, I've actually seen someone playing Warmachine/Hordes. And this used to be one of their strongest markets. I've never seen anyone playing Warcaster (again, outside of a small event at Adepticon).

Warcaster had the missfortune of being a game launched during Corona. It's the same as why Dystopian Wars also had a rather stalled growth.

Both are lines that have basically started (or restarted Dystopian Wars case) during the pandemic. Which appears in the wargame market to have done really well for established games, but not so well for new ones.

I put that down to the fact that established games have fans and those fans know they will get games again. They are already sold and don't need selling too as such.

New games need drive and flare and local play experiences and conventions and basically all the real world marketing that was shut down.



So I'd say that its hard to judge if those games were going to do well in a normal year based off a very inane period of time.


That said I do 100% agree that PP needs to shift things up a gear. They've almost seemed to swap management styles with the Kirby era GW period (minus the litigation parts).
DWars is steadily growing, whilst Warmachine/Hordes appear to be on life support and Warcaster isn't really seeming to grow at the rate it should. Mini Crate I think isn't getting enough rapid marketing to be interesting and it wouldn't surprise me if the company is floating on Monster Apoc

I’d be more inclined to say that the IKRPG is what’s keeping them alive at the moment.
And even the current KS for that has none of the core books available to pledge for….which is evidence that they really don’t know how to run or market a ‘proper’ KS to anyone who isn’t already a part of their fan base.
Granted the current IKRPG expansion is doing well, but I can’t help but think that if they offered a reprint of the core books it’d be doing much better in terms of funding.
What they’ve done is pretty much hamstring themselves to the audience that has already pledged for the first RPG books or somehow miraculously found them in an LGS. Which really shuts off a huge part of the market wanting to get in on their offerings.
It almost feels like they are so myopic that they can’t even be bothered to take a look at how other companies are running Kickstarters for both games and RPG books. It almost feels as though they have no one doing any marketing or research on current trends in gaming and what current gamers are looking for.
Any time I’ve seen a KS for an expansion of anything, if the base set is not offered along with it, it’s always reduced funding over the base. The diminishing returns on every one of their projects can only keep the life support going for so long.

PP needs a marketing expert. Badly. Or at least some one with their fingers a bit closer to current gaming pulse. Right now they look and feel like their marketing came out of the 90’s, which may have worked almost 20 years ago. But times have changed, and PP has not. Unfortunately.

So I’ll correct my original statement - the only things keeping them afloat right now are established fans and whales. They aren’t doing much of anything to garner any new fans or support from anyone just discovering their products.

 Ghool wrote:
I’d be more inclined to say that the IKRPG is what’s keeping them alive at the moment.
And even the current KS for that has none of the core books available to pledge for….which is evidence that they really don’t know how to run or market a ‘proper’ KS to anyone who isn’t already a part of their fan base.

While I 100% agree that they don't know how to run much of anything properly, it's also possible that they don't have the confidence that they would get enough pledges of the core books.

They would still need to have a minimum print run to make the production prices reasonable and if only 50 people pledged at the Core book level, in theory they may need to print out 2,000 books to get a decent production price. It could end up costing them way more money than they would gain by offering the core books to new pledgers.

If they really are running as light and tight as a lot of people think they are, they can't afford to take even small risks like that.

 Noir Eternal wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
I’d be more inclined to say that the IKRPG is what’s keeping them alive at the moment.
And even the current KS for that has none of the core books available to pledge for….which is evidence that they really don’t know how to run or market a ‘proper’ KS to anyone who isn’t already a part of their fan base.

While I 100% agree that they don't know how to run much of anything properly, it's also possible that they don't have the confidence that they would get enough pledges of the core books.

They would still need to have a minimum print run to make the production prices reasonable and if only 50 people pledged at the Core book level, in theory they may need to print out 2,000 books to get a decent production price. It could end up costing them way more money than they would gain by offering the core books to new pledgers.

If they really are running as light and tight as a lot of people think they are, they can't afford to take even small risks like that.

They had copies available. But they didn’t and won’t be offering them during the KS.
They’ve stated so in the comments and that those core RPG books are going to GenCon.
And what’s stopping them from figuring their costs for a new print run of core books that’s been factored into the expansions funding level?
The discounts offered to backers are insignificant or non existent, and while that helps the LGS out, it doesn’t do much to garner backers or more financial support. It’s why I don’t back their projects at all.
If it’s coming to retail anyways (and that’s what they seem to care about most), then why should I bother paying an inflated price, a high exchange rate and expensive shipping? I won’t, and I’m sure a lot of backers would agree.
The main thing most people back on KS these days is for things they won’t be able to get retail.
I back a lot of projects, and if it’s coming to retail I don’t bother, even with exclusives.
It’s a double edged sword and PP keeps cutting themselves.

 Ghool wrote:

I’d be more inclined to say that the IKRPG is what’s keeping them alive at the moment.
And even the current KS for that has none of the core books available to pledge for….which is evidence that they really don’t know how to run or market a ‘proper’ KS to anyone who isn’t already a part of their fan base.
Granted the current IKRPG expansion is doing well, but I can’t help but think that if they offered a reprint of the core books it’d be doing much better in terms of funding.
What they’ve done is pretty much hamstring themselves to the audience that has already pledged for the first RPG books or somehow miraculously found them in an LGS. Which really shuts off a huge part of the market wanting to get in on their offerings.
It almost feels like they are so myopic that they can’t even be bothered to take a look at how other companies are running Kickstarters for both games and RPG books. It almost feels as though they have no one doing any marketing or research on current trends in gaming and what current gamers are looking for.
Any time I’ve seen a KS for an expansion of anything, if the base set is not offered along with it, it’s always reduced funding over the base. The diminishing returns on every one of their projects can only keep the life support going for so long.

PP needs a marketing expert. Badly. Or at least some one with their fingers a bit closer to current gaming pulse. Right now they look and feel like their marketing came out of the 90’s, which may have worked almost 20 years ago. But times have changed, and PP has not. Unfortunately.

So I’ll correct my original statement - the only things keeping them afloat right now are established fans and whales. They aren’t doing much of anything to garner any new fans or support from anyone just discovering their products.

What you've described is very much intentional, and for (somewhat) very good reason. Kickstarter is a double-edged sword. Many retailers and distributors won't carry Kickstarter products unless they become a hot commodity and have a clear and present continuing demand at retail. More often than not, these are "sleeper hits" that made it through Kickstarter without many people noticing, and then get big reviews that suddenly spark mass interest at a point where its no longer possible to get them through kickstarter or a late pledge. The other category of things that get retail attention are "evergreen products" - stuff like Battletech that are wildly successful on kickstarter and draw more and more interest their way and don't have a limitation on product life based on people already owning it (i.e. something that you can buy multiple times over and over and get good use out of).

Warcaster thus far has not fit into either category and its unlikely that further Kickstarter campaigns are going to get them there. Short of a massive spike in interest through socials and influencers hyping the game, etc. the Kickstarter boat has sailed for them. In any case, PP is trying to make its product lines appealing to distributors and retailers so it can get their products back into distribution and into stores. Thats why their kickstarters don't really offer a discount over MSRP and don't include back catalogs, because if they did they would probably never get any new trade accounts and they would likely lose many of the ones they already have. There simply is no incentive for a retailer or distributor to stock a product that likely satiated much of the existing demand for it via another platform which undercut the retailers/distributors pricing and didn't give them any room to get in on the action. A retailer doesn't want to load up on a mountain of starter sets when most of the existing community already has them and got them from someone other than you. Hence why PP is basically treating KS as an overglorified preorder system, so that theres no bad blood with distributors and retailers and they don't feel like there is a risk of them being undercut on future kickstarters by deeply discounted product.

Unfortunately, the reality is that it probably doesn't help them anyway, many retailers are inundated with information from countless publishers big and small and just don't have the time to parse and sort through information like this. To most retailers, PP being on KS at all - regardless of how they may have structured it - is a red flag. Most either don't know or don't care how PP has structured the campaign to make it more retail and distributor friendly, and they can't be bothered to look into it further. So at the end of the day it probably does harm PP more than it helps them, but if they are determined not to become a kickstarter based publishing company (which comes with a lot of baggage in and of itself), then its the way they have to move forward unless they can find another way to raise interest and capital to produce new product.

In any case, yes they do need a marketing expert - but not for any of the reasons you've indicated here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7-iojP0Yyw

After quite a few years of no WM coverage a new Warmachine (brawl) report on MWG. The amount of positive comments is encouraging, apparently there's still audience for the game and many people just need a little nudge to start playing again.

Cyel wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7-iojP0Yyw

After quite a few years of no WM coverage a new Warmachine (brawl) report on MWG. The amount of positive comments is encouraging, apparently there's still audience for the game and many people just need a little nudge to start playing again.

Brawlmachine is definitely a hugely refreshing format. It's not even all that different from the real game; its little more than a scenario packet, but scenarios that aren't trying to spread a huge number of models across the whole table. It really renewed interest locally and pulled in a big chunk of new players when I got the locals to try it.

Painted an old metal iron fang and tharn bloodtracker recently for a wee project. Have 20 ifs and 10 trackers in total to do.

And for what's its worth these old models are still special. They just look good.

and they were made 20 years ago.

Pp have honestly not made any models thst made me go 'wow' since the minicrate female totem hunter.

I like a lot of the new Warcaster stuff. I also think that the active sideboard system is something they should consider for warmachine/hordes.

Having an in-game sideboard instead of a between game one; means that you can retain a skirmish level number of units on the table; whilst having much bigger army rosters. The issue WM/Hordes hit was that established players were getting bigger and bigger collections of models and wanted to use more of them. It wound up getting torn between skirmish and wargame.

They tried to fix it by the limited themes system and other tricks, but in the end trying to walk between the two is - messy.


I think an active ingame sideboard would be interesting. Plus I think it actually helps beat back some of the "meta" of army building. Because now you can have parts of your sideboard army which are specialist or niche in use. If you get into a fight where you don't need them, you just don't bring them to the table and you use other tools; and if you get into the niche situation you can roll out your specialist.
Even if a model isn't seeing much table time, you are bringing it to the game; you are painting and showing it off; you are getting to use it. That's a big difference to the model you buy, build and paint and then never write into an army thus it never comes ot the club (unless your case lets you carry your entire collection)

Didn't Ash say something like 'and the number of models you're probably used to playing with' at the beginning of that Brawlmachine report? QFT, buddy. I will never enjoy 75 pt Steamroller, except when I'm doing the 2-3 gargossal mambo

EDIT FOR NINJA-ING: My comment also applies to why Warcaster is attractive rules-wise and really where I thought WMH was surely going:

Having an in-game sideboard instead of a between game one; means that you can retain a skirmish level number of units on the table; whilst having much bigger army rosters. The issue WM/Hordes hit was that established players were getting bigger and bigger collections of models and wanted to use more of them. It wound up getting torn between skirmish and wargame.

I really hope Warcaster is the ground work for a MK4 rules set for Warmachine/Hordes. I just feel its set to scale better.

It does mean that they will have to play with how casters work, as I don't think WM/H would benefit from losing them entirely as Warcaster has (even there I kind of feel like a 2.0 or such might introduce caster style models into the game)

I think Warcaster is a little too fundamentally different to work for Warmchine. Matt Wilson described it as their take on Go in the same sense that Warmachine comes from a Chess origin and I think its a fair comparison. I think Warcaster only really works because of its emphasis on ranged combat making units relatively stagnant, where Warmachine would end up losing too much of that football scrum feeling that makes its melee really satisfying if it tried to take very much from it.

Really, Warmachine just needs to be smaller. The big sin to me will always be making huge bases FA:2. That bloated the game so quickly and made it really hard to reign in once things got rolling. As much as I like Brawlmachine, I do find it a little small and lacking some of the big impact elements of the 75 point game. Clashmachine appears to do a good job of splitting the difference and is probably the direction I'd like to see PP go with MK4.

 LunarSol wrote:


Brawlmachine is definitely a hugely refreshing format. It's not even all that different from the real game.

YT randomly suggested to me rewatching some old, mk2 Advanced maneuvers reports. Out of curiosity I ran the lists they used through Conflict Chamber. Modern armies that would have the model equivalents of those end-of-mk2 SR legal "big format" lists came out to be in the range of 40-50 pts. The smallest was 31pts!!! (this one https://youtu.be/chaRtndKza8?t=45) so yeah, 25pts Brawlmachine starts sounding surprisingly close to what the "big" standard used to be - and 1 hour / player hasn't changed since then...

I don't think the model count of Warmachine would be as much of an issue if the game was actually played on a full table, rather than just being the football/rugby scrum in the middle. Its an appropriate model count for a 4x4 table, but when most of the game is played in a 2x2 area in the center of the table and the remainder of it is basically "here be dragons" territory, then I think it really is too many minis for the size of the game.

Cyel wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:


Brawlmachine is definitely a hugely refreshing format. It's not even all that different from the real game.

YT randomly suggested to me rewatching some old, mk2 Advanced maneuvers reports. Out of curiosity I ran the lists they used through Conflict Chamber. Modern armies that would have the model equivalents of those end-of-mk2 SR legal "big format" lists came out to be in the range of 40-50 pts. The smallest was 31pts!!! (this one https://youtu.be/chaRtndKza8?t=45) so yeah, 25pts Brawlmachine starts sounding surprisingly close to what the "big" standard used to be - and 1 hour / player hasn't changed since then...

At the launch of MK3 a 75 point list was pretty close to end of MK2. Technically they were a little smaller because lists tilted towards heavies and away from units. Even when themes were introduced, the free points were pretty in line with MK2 themes to the point where several of my lists converted exactly. The big size creep has largely been due to PP "fixing" units by bringing their costs down pretty repeatedly throughout the edition. We've seen pretty regular 4-5 point cuts across them, which makes them desirable to the point to shift the balance back towards large units and also put a full unit or two over MK2 size. 25 points definitely isn't MK2 full game size. It's hard to run more than a single unit in Brawlmachine with any support, but Clashmachine, 50 point scale is definitely a lot closer to MK2 50 points than it was at the changeover.

Knowing how design works, there's basically no way that this point inflation wasn't intentional past a certain point.

Also, no one's really saying that they should port the WC rules over to WMH, but that they should take the design ideas and use it to allow WM to maintain its skirmish focused rules and design, but still have a design space where people can have and use large collections. Including, for example, buying the same jacks many times for more build options.

 Overread wrote:
I really hope Warcaster is the ground work for a MK4 rules set for Warmachine/Hordes. I just feel its set to scale better.

I dont want any part of the warcaster rule set (maybe with the exception of the inclusion of more terrain) anywhere near WM/H. Endless respawning models and bespoke strike dice? No thank you.

But all the nice new models and a possible MK4 are not going to mean squat if PP doesn't sort out its production issues, distribution and relationship with stores. I can't speak for US but in UK its pretty terrible and in Europe its pretty non existent.

Respawning does open up new tactics though. Sacrificial tactics are possible and the game moves outside of the "just kill stuff" angle very quickly.

I do agree that custom dice can be a bit of a pain over just regular dice; WC isn't perfect, but I think at its core its a system that can grow with a game more than WM/H did. WM/H's hit the issue that it was a skirmish game where medium to long term fans had wargame sized collections and wanted to use them. Themes are ok for cutting down, but its no fun when you've a large force and you're only able to use a fraction of it each week.

Warcaster, to my impression, allows for you to cope with that; even if just by increasing the game sideboard without actually increasing the number of models engaging in the game in itself. Even just getting to bring a model to the club with the potential to use it is a big step up from never taking the model.

I just think its a system that scales with the inevitable element of armies growing in size as collections get bigger.

When p3 paint gets rare, that'll be my sad moment.

Need more greatcoat grey, pig iron and traitor green. :p

Thing about rulesets is that once you move past a certain point in edits and changes, the game ceases to be the game anymore. Warcaster is an entirely different game engine. Theres a few concepts that they can port over to WMHDs and integrate into the WMHDs engine, but taking the Warcaster rules and making it the basis for Mk4 means that Mk4 isn't really Warmachine anymore, instead its Warcaster: Iron Kingdoms but with a different name.

Deadnight wrote:
When p3 paint gets rare, that'll be my sad moment.

Need more greatcoat grey, pig iron and traitor green. :p

Oh but it is. Due to distribution issues, my LGS no longer carry’s the line.
Nor do they carry any PP product outside of what they pledge on KS.
I’m having to switch my main paint line I use because of this, and the PP paint rack has been relegated to the clearance section of the store, with a paltry few pots of colours no one uses.
I will not order directly from PP because weather concerns and freezing paint. And their shipping to Canada is ludicrous, not including getting hosed on the exchange rate.

My LGS has a slogan due to their size - ‘If it’s in print, we will try and stock it.’
It says a lot when they can’t or won’t stock anything from PP.

 Ghool wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
When p3 paint gets rare, that'll be my sad moment.

Need more greatcoat grey, pig iron and traitor green. :p

Oh but it is. Due to distribution issues, my LGS no longer carry’s the line.
Nor do they carry any PP product outside of what they pledge on KS.
I’m having to switch my main paint line I use because of this, and the PP paint rack has been relegated to the clearance section of the store, with a paltry few pots of colours no one uses.
I will not order directly from PP because weather concerns and freezing paint. And their shipping to Canada is ludicrous, not including getting hosed on the exchange rate.

My LGS has a slogan due to their size - ‘If it’s in print, we will try and stock it.’
It says a lot when they can’t or won’t stock anything from PP.

True. I usually but online from element games or wayland games when it comes to p3 - no local indie stocks them and its a shame since their paints are excellent.

just saw PP post on facebook that an upcoming Primecast will have "big news". Maybe mk4?

That’s the rumor. July 26th

Seeing counter-chatter that it'll be official Orgoth GenCon* release plans, but I'll add my voice to the hopefuls wishing for an MK4 announcement and/or cleaning up bloat.

*Which opens 9 days after this Primecast!

It's hard not to feel like the new stuff has a fresh start nature to it. 3 new Warcasters for Cygnar alone has a heavy reboot vibe.

I would just love if they made Company Of Iron feel less like crap to play and gave it a new box set, an absolutely easy and low effort way to get people playing and introduce them to the Iron Kingdoms, and a decent way to learn the core concepts of the rules without having to worry about feats, Warcaster/Warlock rules and Focus/Fury, or having to watch your entire army be removed in a single round due to poor placement.

Brawlmachine looks fun, but I haven't been willing to drag up the interest locally to relearn the rules again, since it seems like so much has changed since we all stopped playing during Mk. III, and we all just shelved all our projects for the game.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
I would just love if they made Company Of Iron feel less like crap to play and gave it a new box set, an absolutely easy and low effort way to get people playing and introduce them to the Iron Kingdoms, and a decent way to learn the core concepts of the rules without having to worry about feats, Warcaster/Warlock rules and Focus/Fury, or having to watch your entire army be removed in a single round due to poor placement.

Hard disagree.respectfully of course!

To be fair, that isn't warmachine or hordes. And 'core concepts' minus feats warnouns, focus/fury idnt really 'core concepts' any more. You've just chopped out the heart of the game.The central 'core' of both games has alwsys been a duel between wizard characters and their toys and supporting troops. Company Of Iron wasn't great and imo while a skirmish game with a solo, 6 Iron fangs and a greyhound ternion would be awesome, imo it needs an entirely new rules set completely separate from the wmh 2d6+stat minus arm system.

Outside of that what's left imo is not very engaging. Sure, easy to learn but it's like trying to sell a car on the colour of the seat belt or pattern on the seat rather than its actual performance.

I'm all for tweaking and refocusing (pun intended) the wizard 'duel' aspect though - always felt, after having played other games (games like bushido, even the venerable lotr sbg or the flawed but very immersive fighting system in kill team) that 'taking turns to hit each other over the head' didn't feel as dynamic and interactive as it could be, as other duels in other systems could be, and imo that's worth looking at.

 LunarSol wrote:
It's hard not to feel like the new stuff has a fresh start nature to it. 3 new Warcasters for Cygnar alone has a heavy reboot vibe.

I know I've made enough Warcaster cracks about the new Cygnar designs ....... But if you told me that the new Cygnar, Khador and Orgoth were part of a WM mk4 I'd 100% believe it, and honestly it would help me vibe with the aesthetics more.

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's hard not to feel like the new stuff has a fresh start nature to it. 3 new Warcasters for Cygnar alone has a heavy reboot vibe.

I know I've made enough Warcaster cracks about the new Cygnar designs ....... But if you told me that the new Cygnar, Khador and Orgoth were part of a WM mk4 I'd 100% believe it, and honestly it would help me vibe with the aesthetics more.

New khador stuff? I've not seen any links to this komrade can you assist?

Deadnight wrote:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
I would just love if they made Company Of Iron feel less like crap to play and gave it a new box set, an absolutely easy and low effort way to get people playing and introduce them to the Iron Kingdoms, and a decent way to learn the core concepts of the rules without having to worry about feats, Warcaster/Warlock rules and Focus/Fury, or having to watch your entire army be removed in a single round due to poor placement.

Hard disagree.respectfully of course!

To be fair, that isn't warmachine or hordes. And 'core concepts' minus feats warnouns, focus/fury idnt really 'core concepts' any more. You've just chopped out the heart of the game.The central 'core' of both games has alwsys been a duel between wizard characters and their toys and supporting troops. Company Of Iron wasn't great and imo while a skirmish game with a solo, 6 Iron fangs and a greyhound ternion would be awesome, imo it needs an entirely new rules set completely separate from the wmh 2d6+stat minus arm system.

Outside of that what's left imo is not very engaging. Sure, easy to learn but it's like trying to sell a car on the colour of the seat belt or pattern on the seat rather than its actual performance.

I'm all for tweaking and refocusing (pun intended) the wizard 'duel' aspect though - always felt, after having played other games (games like bushido, even the venerable lotr sbg or the flawed but very immersive fighting system in kill team) that 'taking turns to hit each other over the head' didn't feel as dynamic and interactive as it could be, as other duels in other systems could be, and imo that's worth looking at.

Yeah, Company of Iron just had no soul for me. If anything it highlights how unremarkable the combat in the game is without the resource mechanics to decide where to shift the bell curve. The cards provide some of it, but still just kind of leave you with a bland game of combat resolution. FWIW, that's also why reducing the scale of the game seems to enliven it again I feel. You get more emphasis on the battlegroup and all of the soul of the game really shines.

Deadnight wrote:
New khador stuff? I've not seen any links to this komrade can you assist?

I've not been able to find any screen caps from the Primecasts that spoiled them, so I tore them out myself just now: https://imgur.com/gallery/16jPgYo

Deadnight wrote:

New khador stuff? I've not seen any links to this komrade can you assist?

Sure thing!

Widowmaker Caster:



80 mm Winter Guard Tank (Bison?)



Dire Wolf Warjack




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 Boss Salvage wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
New khador stuff? I've not seen any links to this komrade can you assist?

I've not been able to find any screen caps from the Primecasts that spoiled them, so I tore them out myself just now: https://imgur.com/gallery/16jPgYo

Bah, beat me to it! >.<

One of PP's biggest issues is their refusal to move away from metal and resin miniatures into (usable) plastics across the range.

Boss Salvage wrote:

Pics

LunarSol wrote:

Pics

Thanks konrades - well, they are certainly interesting at the very least. Khador seems to have leapt forward a bit in tech. Absolutely see the warcaster style there. Has the plot moved forward some years or something? I'll.accept mk4 chat on this quite easily. Reboot, maybe?

grahamdbailey wrote:One of PP's biggest issues is their refusal to move away from metal and resin miniatures into (usable) plastics across the range.

I'll.agree on the resin but metal is great. I'm putting together some bloodtrackers and metal iron fangs right now and man, they're still great models after 15 years.

Deadnight wrote:

Thanks konrades - well, they are certainly interesting at the very least. Khador seems to have leapt forward a bit in tech. Absolutely see the warcaster style there. Has the plot moved forward some years or something? I'll.accept mk4 chat on this quite easily. Reboot, maybe?

Yes, quite a bit has happened. Long story short they finally pulled the trigger on the "where magic comes from mystery" and unleashed the apocalypse on the world. A ton of existing characters died; those who didn't fled to the stars to build the Warcaster world, and pretty much every faction was left in shambles. The latest RPG books take place 15 years later after each nation has worked to rebuild itself.

Deadnight wrote:
Thanks konrades - well, they are certainly interesting at the very least. Khador seems to have leapt forward a bit in tech. Absolutely see the warcaster style there. Has the plot moved forward some years or something? I'll.accept mk4 chat on this quite easily. Reboot, maybe?

The "state of the game" is being advanced about 5 years post-Infernal invasion/Oblivion to the Orgoth invasion (or was it 5 years after the Orgoth re-appeared? I forget).

The irony about Khador is that according to one of the new Primecasts, Khador is suppsoed to be technologically behind all the other factions in the Iron Kingdoms at that point in the timeline as a result of getting pounded hard by the Infernals and Orgoth (who make landfall in Khador), as well as bein gin the midst of some sort of internal unrest or civil war.

Deadnight wrote:
[

grahamdbailey wrote:One of PP's biggest issues is their refusal to move away from metal and resin miniatures into (usable) plastics across the range.

I'll.agree on the resin but metal is great. I'm putting together some bloodtrackers and metal iron fangs right now and man, they're still great models after 15 years.

The resins are really fantastic as well; just far too pricey for the scale of the game. The detail on them is really outstanding and they use metal in really smart ways to get around the issues with resin's brittle nature.

In terms of plastics; assuming we only accept sprues, they just don't have an affordable means of production. There's a reason that mostly comes down to GW and Asmodee (and Wyrd, through some soul selling ritual I'd wager). Their style also just does not conform well to the limitations of sprues. A lot of the big, chunky aesthetic and detailed fur linings and stuff demands too many undercuts to pull off. I'm hoping all this new stuff is going to be in Siocast, but given how bad of an experience they had with overseas production, I can definitely see why they might be hesitant to move their line over to a proprietary technology.

LunarSol wrote:

Yes, quite a bit has happened. Long story short they finally pulled the trigger on the "where magic comes from mystery" and unleashed the apocalypse on the world. A ton of existing characters died; those who didn't fled to the stars to build the Warcaster world, and pretty much every faction was left in shambles. The latest RPG books take place 15 years later after each nation has worked to rebuild itself.

I was aware of the warcaster nk back-door pilot and the deaths (rip vlad) and that the orgoth had returned; wasn't aware there was a 15 year gap - thanks for that. That certainly gives time and space for a reboot or a reset. And considering how bloated the game is; it might be necessary now. Buy that's just speculating
.

LunarSol wrote:

The resins are really fantastic as well; just far too pricey for the scale of the game. The detail on them is really outstanding and they use metal in really smart ways to get around the issues with resin's brittle nature.

The plastics/resins were at best, mixed. The behemoth and grolar hips plastics were fantastic. The cheap restic crap they used for most of the infantry kits can go take a running jump as far as I am concerned - mold lines everywhere.

More of the former and less of the latter? That's me sold. But I doubt pp are in a place where they can use plastic production.

I say screw it, go back to mk1's 'eavy metal' approach and just metal all the time. ;p

The PVC stuff is awful, no doubt, but that's completely different from their in house resin. That stuff is fantastic.

The few sprue kits they produced are very solid. The rivets are a little goofy, but overall well designed. It's just attempts to use that stuff on organic creatures that did no work at all.

Metal is, sadly, becoming very, very expensive just for the raw materials. Plastic's expense rests more in tooling time and having a big enough market to justify the volume produced. Resin, preferably poured in-house, is likely the solution, as other mini companies have found.

For me this is fine, I really like PP's resin on the whole. I'd prefer if they just went all resin rather than resin-metal hybrids, tho I get the logic of casting small, sharp bits in metal.

 Boss Salvage wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
New khador stuff? I've not seen any links to this komrade can you assist?

I've not been able to find any screen caps from the Primecasts that spoiled them, so I tore them out myself just now: https://imgur.com/gallery/16jPgYo

And this is the main problem with their marketing - if you are not already a fan, and watching their proprietary podcast every week, you wouldn’t know about this stuff.
Where’s the hype? Where’s the photo bombs?
Why is this forum the first place I find out about anything new?
And that’s after a hardcore fan has to go and clip the new model shots themselves.
If they don’t do something about their marketing MK4 might struggle.

It’s crazy that there really isn’t any exposure or hype for anything new they’re putting out.

Their homepage has a ton of content these days, but its really not very well coded and very easy to miss updates. I have no idea who thought scrolling to the bottom to find an auto scrolling newsfeed was a good idea. It scrolls past the latest content before you get down to it.

I also get that IT is not their wheelhouse and they bought the site from some marketing company. It just needs updates.... badly. Outside of that I think the Primecast stuff is honestly pretty in line with what most companies are doing. They just need way more content on the channel than a monthly video to get traction on YouTube.

 Ghool wrote:

 Boss Salvage wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
New khador stuff? I've not seen any links to this komrade can you assist?

I've not been able to find any screen caps from the Primecasts that spoiled them, so I tore them out myself just now: https://imgur.com/gallery/16jPgYo

And this is the main problem with their marketing - if you are not already a fan, and watching their proprietary podcast every week, you wouldn’t know about this stuff.
Where’s the hype? Where’s the photo bombs?
Why is this forum the first place I find out about anything new?
And that’s after a hardcore fan has to go and clip the new model shots themselves.
If they don’t do something about their marketing MK4 might struggle.

It’s crazy that there really isn’t any exposure or hype for anything new they’re putting out.

This ^^^

This really annoys the hell out of me. Its like, this is billed as the most major thing PP has done in ages, possibly a Mk4/reset/revamp in a age where the competition is fierce and its know that, for all the good points about the game, PP NEEDS to re-establish its presence or alt least a bit more market share. And what do we get. A single FB post. No promotion anywhere else. No other engagement with wargaming/hobby channels.

There is a great small game called Moonstone that you may of heard of. Its all over the wargaming socials because the producers (who are like 2 guys here in the UK) get on social media and promote the hell out of their stuff, engage content producers, send out promos and free models to painters and generally raise awareness. I dont play thier game but i know a hell of a lot about it and its models from this.

PP? Not a sausage. And im an active player enjoying the game in my local community. I love WM/H. But I think PP are Dog Poo at everything outside of what happens on the tabletop.

Sunno wrote:


There is a great small game called Moonstone that you may of heard of. Its all over the wargaming socials because the producers (who are like 2 guys here in the UK) get on social media and promote the hell out of their stuff, engage content producers, send out promos and free models to painters and generally raise awareness. I dont play thier game but i know a hell of a lot about it and its models from this.

Kinda OT, but you really should try it out. It's a fantastic little game and you can download the basic rules, cards, and all the crap you need including standees to try it out. It's definitely in my top games right now.

More OT, 100% agree. If a small shop like Goblin King (the Moonstone guys, mostly Tom) can figure out how to generate buzz, then why in the feth can't a "more established" company like PP do so? I know Tom doesn't have a big budget, certainly not what we'd hope PP would have, but the guy breaks his back to get the word out. PP seems to just have this attitude of "well, the cool kids know about us, so that's enough." And in a way, they've always been like that.

As for whatever this big announcement is, I'd actually be surprised if it actually is as big as they are even making it out to be in their limited efforts to even talk about it. They may think it's "big news," but I would not be surprised if the overall market reaction is a big "meh."

PP never figured out marketing, nor where it was coming from when they had a windfall of success. The Press Gangers did the heavy lifting in this regard, and it seems many of them didn't realize the real value they were bringing to the company. One former PG I knew even said that PP had to cut the PG program because it was operating at a loss. Just because they couldn't directly quantify the value the PG program brought, I wouldn't be surprised to see a marked--if delayed--decline in retail sales across the board after the program was axed. I do think that axing the PG program was the beginning of the end, though. The PG program insulated the company from the consequences of not modernizing. As a marketer myself, it's pretty hard to really get an idea of how your company is truly perceived when you're in the fishbowl.

For what it's worth, talking to the original group of players I got into Warmachine with, who now play AoS and Infinity, they have clear interest in Warmachine ONLY if it's a full reboot and abandonment of the old models. They, like myself, have literally hundreds of Warmahordes models already, and we're ready to retire them. I'm getting kind of excited myself at the prospect--I really hope PP doesn't just keep MK3 going, hanging onto the promise of never invalidating old models just to appease a vanishing audience that hasn't bought anything new in 3 years anyway.

 Valander wrote:

Kinda OT, but you really should try it out. It's a fantastic little game and you can download the basic rules, cards, and all the crap you need including standees to try it out. It's definitely in my top games right now.

I had a few demo games of it and i agree its a really cool little game. Models are fantastic and fun. Everyone should have a look at it.

It just wasn't for me due to time restrictions. I play WM/H and I also play Malifaux which is in the same wheelhouse. Moonstone was great but not enough for me to drop Malifaux for.

 Bloviator wrote:


For what it's worth, talking to the original group of players I got into Warmachine with, who now play AoS and Infinity, they have clear interest in Warmachine ONLY if it's a full reboot and abandonment of the old models. They, like myself, have literally hundreds of Warmahordes models already, and we're ready to retire them. I'm getting kind of excited myself at the prospect--I really hope PP doesn't just keep MK3 going, hanging onto the promise of never invalidating old models just to appease a vanishing audience that hasn't bought anything new in 3 years anyway.

I've kept most of my khador (cleared out a lot of stuff that wasnt doing anything - uhlan and chopped up conversion projects of the past) and over lockdown bought some odds and ends for modelling projects - retribution houseguard, steelhead cav and riflemen and am currently 'renovating' some old models that were stripped and boxed years ago - have some bloodtrackers, iron fangs to go and have just repainted a dozen doom reavers (used to have 48 of them for 'mad dogs of war'). I'm keeping the models because theyre still great and I'll use them - maybe not for wmh but I'll use them. However, I dont actually mind if I never field them in a game of wmh ever again.


When it comes to wmh I think I'd need to be in the same boat as you and your friends. It needs a shift- both to deal with the bloat in the rules/range and to catch up with more modern game design since wmh is very 90s. A 'soft' reboot or re-imagining would go a long way for me as well since I loved the game back when I played and I still greatly like the ip as a while.

 Bloviator wrote:


For what it's worth, talking to the original group of players I got into Warmachine with, who now play AoS and Infinity, they have clear interest in Warmachine ONLY if it's a full reboot and abandonment of the old models. They, like myself, have literally hundreds of Warmahordes models already, and we're ready to retire them. I'm getting kind of excited myself at the prospect--I really hope PP doesn't just keep MK3 going, hanging onto the promise of never invalidating old models just to appease a vanishing audience that hasn't bought anything new in 3 years anyway.

Myself and the other guys in my small rump WMHDs community would 100% quit and walk away from PP if they did this. In my case, I have very large armies for Khador, Cygnar, Crucible Guard, Mercs, Convergence of Cyriss, Trollbloods, Legion of Everblight, Skorne, Grymkin, Blindwater Congregation, and Thornfall Alliance. The other guys are similarly in 3-6 factions each. We have thousands of dollars invested into the game and would continue to invest thousands more - unless PP basically says "yeah nah sorry all your stuff is worthless now".

I think there's probably a happy middle ground to be had. There's a lot of stuff I can see being retired. Some of it can be resculpted and I think we're WELL past the point of "counts as" being an okay plan. Like a LOT of casters can be focused down to 1-2 iconic versions and there's just some units like Sword Knights that could count as Precursor Knights and I'd struggle to find tears.

The counterpoint is that lettings folks like you or me - who have invested hundreds or thousands already - play with stuff we bought fifteen or twenty years ago doesn't do pp much good now. You say you snd your rump would leave. Well, OK, let's say you do... Would pp miss us if we stopped buying, especially if a reboot sucked in lots of new blood thst replaced the remaining rump? (Hypothetical!)

I mean, I'm a khador nut but im not gonna miss it if kossites, kayazy (these 2 especially!), assault kommandos, uhlans, great bears, markhov, iron fangs or black dragon iron fangs (do we need both?), non-shocktrooper mow's and the battle engines or colossals were gone tomorrow- half the casters (I mean, would anyone really miss, ruleswise or modelwise the likes of zerkova1, harkevich, vlad1, strakhov1, malakov etc?) and a good chunk of the units in each faction could easily be paired down without the game losing much - frankly the game was in a far better place at the start of mk2 than now. If it gave the game room to breathe and develop and made the game more accessible to more people, surely its worth a consideration?

All the twenty years of stuff in the past isn't moving- in financial terms its dead weight and an anchor around their necks (gw used to say their biggest threat was their back catalogue) as well as swallowing up design space and being an active impediment towards better balance, for the simple reaaon that its eaaier to balance a smaller roster than a large one, especially since pp is nowhere near as big as it used to be.

It's the warhammer end times conundrum. A small 'rump' community isnt necessarily an advantage - we arent buying much on the population level, and the alternative from a business pov is 'screw them' and target building a new game from.scratch with a new community.

It could be a primaris approach- 'legacy' things but start the active competitive scene with the new stuff only and slowly re-release 15-years later-versions of at least the more iconic units from the old range and consolidate some of the other bloat. And especially - tidy up thr damned casters.

But hey, just spitballing here.

PP shouldn't care about us vets and the thousands we might potentially continue to spend if appeasing us means keeping everyone else out or disinterested.

This is just wishlisting, but I really hope PP would release something like, Warmachine: Complete with all the current rules and profiles, with a nice letter explaining that we can continue to play the game we've loved for all these years, but it is time to move on. Just some form of closure and finality--something bittersweet is better than the raging agony GW inflicted on Fantasy players.

While I don't have every army like some people, my Mercenaries collection is vast and was comprehensive until mid-2020. My Circle army is also immense.

As someone who still plays Mordheim, the occasional game of 6th ed Fantasy, and Confrontation when I get the chance, I have no issues playing a game that isn't actively supported. Active Support just means "you'll have to continue to spend money on this product line to keep playing with our pre-structured social contract."

What are the new minis made of and what will they cost? I have a sneaking suspicion the sticker shock will kill any chance WMH has no matter how good the rules are.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
What are the new minis made of and what will they cost? I have a sneaking suspicion the sticker shock will kill any chance WMH has no matter how good the rules are.

From what iv seen from those who have been sent preview models, they all seem to be Plastic. Some were clearly 3D printed but others do look like sprue based plastic kits. Time will tell if that will be the same for the production kits.

If they turn up as metal, then i think most of the gaming community will be "lol no".

PP presently seems interested in bringing manufacturing totally in house. This means hybrid resin and metal kits which, if you give them a chance, are really nice to work with.

 Bloviator wrote:
PP presently seems interested in bringing manufacturing totally in house. This means hybrid resin and metal kits which, if you give them a chance, are really nice to work with.

Have they changed something? Because the hybrids they made before (I've got the cygnar storm-walker thing, among a couple others) were anything but nice to work with. Pieces didn't fit well, joins were terrible and often absolutely required pins and lots of gap filling was required to make things look decent.

I do believe the resin had changed between Wrath and Oblivion. The last model I got was the Steelhead Arcanist, which has a resin body and metal stave. The resin is crisp and the metal joints fit snugly. I may have just gotten lucky though.

AFAIK they aren't "bringing" anything in-house, as they have always had in-house production. The HIPS sprue plastics they were briefly experimenting with were outsourced, but the metal and resin stuff was definitely in-house. The only thing I'm not 100% sure of is the pvc material they started using in mk2 - I feel like that was also outsourced but I vaguely remember being told by their staff that it was being done in house as well.

chaos0xomega wrote:
AFAIK they aren't "bringing" anything in-house, as they have always had in-house production. The HIPS sprue plastics they were briefly experimenting with were outsourced, but the metal and resin stuff was definitely in-house. The only thing I'm not 100% sure of is the pvc material they started using in mk2 - I feel like that was also outsourced but I vaguely remember being told by their staff that it was being done in house as well.

PVC is outsourced. That's why the PVC stuff is drying up. The volume they'd need to order for another print run just isn't worth what the stuff would actually sell.


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Voss wrote:

 Bloviator wrote:
PP presently seems interested in bringing manufacturing totally in house. This means hybrid resin and metal kits which, if you give them a chance, are really nice to work with.

Have they changed something? Because the hybrids they made before (I've got the cygnar storm-walker thing, among a couple others) were anything but nice to work with. Pieces didn't fit well, joins were terrible and often absolutely required pins and lots of gap filling was required to make things look decent.

Since its in house, the resin has been the material they've probably gotten the most proficient with. The Storm Strider and other battle engines were the first batch of models designed with the stuff and they've made significant improvements since then. I know at one point one of the devs mentioned they built their own machines to improve the quality and remove a lot of casting problems. The new stuff is generally great. Extremely well detailed and generally pretty quick to clean and assemble. Much better than the first run battle engines and colossals.

Still prefer metal. ;p

PVC is outsourced. That's why the PVC stuff is drying up. The volume they'd need to order for another print run just isn't worth what the stuff would actually sell.

I thought they were talking about the HIPS plastics when they said that? Their pvc kits continue to be mostly available and generally speaking PVC has much lower production minimums that make it more accessible to small publishers. If they can't justify producing PVC then they are in real big trouble.

chaos0xomega wrote:

PVC is outsourced. That's why the PVC stuff is drying up. The volume they'd need to order for another print run just isn't worth what the stuff would actually sell.

I thought they were talking about the HIPS plastics when they said that? Their pvc kits continue to be mostly available and generally speaking PVC has much lower production minimums that make it more accessible to small publishers. If they can't justify producing PVC then they are in real big trouble.

Not sure if they can or cannot, but they've been actively trying to stop producing PVC since the Convergence release brought the quality problems to a head. They really got dragged over the coals with the stuff and pretty much abandoned it entirely once everything that was in the pipeline got released with the Grymkin.

From what I've heard a lot of the low production minimums are kind of a scam. It's true it generally has that for the initial production run, but a lot of the contracts demand much higher runs for a reprint.

While not the same as a general warmachine release the last RPG Kickstarter set of minis was 100% PVC and very nicely done. So they can still afford to make some and they've clearly chosen better factories.

Forum discussions: "I'd never buy plastaminium models, because plasbest gives me 0,54 micrometers better detail and decreases my dremel and file model preparation time by 72 seconds! They'd better give us more plasbest models or their game will die! Nobody will buy this plastaminium crap. We want quality, man!"

Game reality: "You know, I never bothered to glue riders and heads to these horses, and this Colossal wreck marker is my Battle Engine, because the model is to hard to transport. Sure, I never paint my armies, I watch too much Netflix to have time for this"

Cyel wrote:
Forum discussions: "I'd never buy plastaminium models, because plasbest gives me 0,54 micrometers better detail and decreases my dremel and file model preparation time by 72 seconds! They'd better give us more plasbest models or their game will die! Nobody will buy this plastaminium crap. We want quality, man!"

Game reality: "You know, I never bothered to glue riders and heads to these horses, and this Colossal wreck marker is my Battle Engine, because the model is to hard to transport. Sure, I never paint my armies, I watch too much Netflix to have time for this"

I take your point. One of the reasons I left WMH was how frustratingly few people painted their gak. Why was I putting the work into the hobby aspect of the game when many didn't? Do they not know that two painted armies clashing on nice terrain is the heart of tabletop gaming??

As to your first point, I feel like a lot of WMH discussions online are being helmed by people who aren't necessarily as involved in the played experience of the game. Some of us are more like hobbyists or havers of armies in storage, but all of us are consumers. Of models in general or specifically of WMH in the past and maaaaybe the present. We're debating the concept and possibility of consumption (would I want to buy this? how does it compare against the market, etc?), probably a lot less the practice of it (actually buying) or doing what PP intended with said models. Which is hopefully more than glue a body to legs and glue that to a base, tho I've faced that a few times back when

 Boss Salvage wrote:


Game reality: "You know, I never bothered to glue riders and heads to these horses, and this Colossal wreck marker is my Battle Engine, because the model is to hard to transport. Sure, I never paint my armies, I watch too much Netflix to have time for this"

I take your point. One of the reasons I left WMH was how frustratingly few people painted their gak. Why was I putting the work into the hobby aspect of the game when many didn't? Do they not know that two painted armies clashing on nice terrain is the heart of tabletop gaming??

Blows my mind too. Pp had sone great nodels that qere joys to paint. My armies are fully painted still and I've seen some spectacular conversions in my time - anyone remember stormhammer or the khadoran gun carriage to airship conversion? But yeah the amount of grey legions is disheartening.

Maybe it's a mark of successful market penetration? I would assume 40k is the single most popular tabletop miniature wargame in existence, and it's filled with unpainted armies.

Tbh I've seen a decent chunk of armies in my day I wish they HAD left unpainted, because the work was that awful.

At any rate for me what really kills the vibe is 2d terrain. I see that and it just kills all appeal immediately. I suspect I'm not the only one.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

At any rate for me what really kills the vibe is 2d terrain. I see that and it just kills all appeal immediately. I suspect I'm not the only one.

Yeah, this drives me crazy. I fight it hard and try to keep the tables looking sharp, but PP REALLY needs to make the rules more terrain friendly (pathfinder should not be a ubiquitous requirement for a model to function) and the community REALLY needs to get over the terrain thing. It's the 2D impassible stuff in particular that really gets to me.

At any rate for me what really kills the vibe is 2d terrain. I see that and it just kills all appeal immediately. I suspect I'm not the only one.

The 2d terrain thing is more of a result of the hardcore tournament players wanting exact measuring. PP has fine rules for 3d terrain. like you i cannot stand a table that does not immerse you. I have spent much time and effort (with the storage bins to match) collecting terrain for various games.

For warmachine specifically i picked up quite a collection of ESLO finished terrain.

Yea 2d terrain and high levels of non-painting being acceptable were all community decisions.

However.....

PP could have done a lot to encourage and support the community to move in another direction.

Attitudes are changing but its turning around an oil tanker that's already running aground. Its going to be long an slow.

Attitudes are changing but its turning around an oil tanker that's already running aground. Its going to be long an slow.

While that is generally true, i think it is really down to the local scene. PP has a major issue with stock supply and shipping. and has had this issue for a while. i think people forget how small the company is considering how much they were rivaling GW in the 2015's etc.. but that was more to do with GWs screwups.

Because i live effectively "right down the road" from the PP main HQ getting items isn't really an issue for my FLGS. also, because our current active group of players are far more casual (smaller points games, not using theme lists or steam roller missions, using 3d terrain etc..) the game is fun and has drawn in quite a few new players.

By player our group has-
.(myself)khador
.legion/menoth
.menoth
.convergence
.cygnar/orboros
.crucible guard
.minions/skorne/khador
.retribution
.retribution
.trenchers
.grimkin/cryx



The thing that has been exploding right now is classic battletech thanks in no small part from catalysts fantastic plastics (in both price and quality) and the general exodus of 9th ed 40K players.

Without the PG program to really advertise the game i do not see them getting back to the level they were even 5 years ago.

Agreed. They need some kind of PG program to have local reps invested in the game to help drive in person advertising.

GW can get away without such a scheme because they've got their own shops that do that and more and because they are so huge that they don't need local reps to promote their game.

Almost every other serious game that's trying to make itself a known name on the market has some form of local rep system for promotional purposes. Heck Magic the Gathering has a whole league system with judges and everything.

More to the point MTG doesn't need such a system at all, but invests into it anyways because it is good business in the long term. Which really gets to the classic pitfall of businesses making decisions that are good only in the context of short term.

If it's not a win-win a given policy will usually lead to a net loss in the long term.

MTG has national momentum but I think it benefits greatly in the long run having the scheme because it keeps things moving at a local scale too. Plus it helps keep recruitment up.

I think that's a big trick many firms miss and PP is certainly a poster example of the problems you get when you've a matured community that you aren't expanding. It becomes increasingly harder and harder to get new people in the door.


Plus it helps keep you relevant even when there's competition. MTG is a giant, but they compete with things like Yugio and Pokemon. Take out the official MTG systems and those other games have got more chance to get a foot hold; plus newer games have more chance to get a hold on the market.



Honestly there's really no good reason not to have a local rep system. At least a well run and organised one. It's basically a win win for both sides. The company benefits from the marketing and the local gamers benefit from it too.

I haven't touched WM/H since it was literally murdered overnight the day 8th edition 40k came out (and I mean that, it went from being supported/played to nonexistent in the span of a night) but one of the biggest issues I see right now is the quality of their metal miniatures is pretty much garbage. Years ago sure, I get it. But 3D printing blows them out of the water now too. Not a good look.

8th 40k didn't do it alone, it was a pretty big carrot but 3rd WMH also provided a stick.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
8th 40k didn't do it alone, it was a pretty big carrot but 3rd WMH also provided a stick.

I don't understand this at all. i looked at WM/H when it first came out and MKIII rules wise is a fantastic improvement. probably one of the best rule sets they put out with 2 exceptions- the theme lists and the hardcore tournament players...the 2 basically go hand in hand.

it was a combination of the new hopes for 8th ed 40K coupled with the death of the PG program and the shipping/supply problem.

The reality in my area is that a casual approach to the game has seen an explosion of new players enter the game.

They basically had several things all at once:

1) Closure of the PG Program

2) Closure of many subsections of their community forums as well as removal of mods. Their very active forums were basically gutted and killed which was a shock since forums being active is rare these days.
Their expectation was that 3rd party fan sites would "take over/pick up the slack".

3) MKIII Rules in themselves were good, but the balance for factions was wonky. As I recall Skorn were in a nightmare position

4) GW pulled their finger out and changed. Alongside the stick of PP making mistakes in a row, GW started making some sensible choices which was a huge lure to people.

5) Shift away from "Cards/rules" in the box. They tried but the changes toward a rapid update of rules and balance basically killed their card aspect.
This kind of meant that they wound up shifting away from paper toward forced app use for the game. Which is a rocky thing because so many people dislike being forced to use apps for physical tabletop games


6) Theme system. Whilst the theme system allowed them to improve balance it also meant that people went from being able to build armies how they wanted to being showhorned into building armies in very specific niches to fit themes. I think this is one of those things that has relaxed a bit, but its still there.

7) Issues with plastic casting. The material they had wasn't popular. It didn't quite hold the quality and wasn't nice to clean or work with compared to resins or metals. Wargamers are super fussy and whilst they were making good moves to try and get into plastics, at the time, it just wasn't working out great for them.

8) Major supply issues. This is part PP and part the way that distributor groups mess up wargames in particular. Wargames rely on a lot of "old" products as their core, whilst distributors generally only like to focus on big orders of new things to order in. So there were huge problems with PP getting reliable supply to their 3rd party retail outlets around the world.
Some part was also PP's problems as well, but far as I could gather it was a joint thing of PP having an issue and the policies and ways that distributors operate which hit PP. This resulted in burning bridges with 3rd party stores and even where those bridges weren't burnt, there were still supply problems.

I'm sure there were a few other things that I've forgotten about over the last few years.



I think the other thing is that PP has just run out of steam as well. Dwindling sales coupled to rising costs for them (they did move their HQ but they are still in an expensive area to operate) means that they've lost investment money to reinvest into their firm.


The crippling thing was all these things happening all within a very short span of time. Any one on its own might not have been a huge problem; but each one happening alongside or in quick succession with the other caused a tidal wave of people moving out and into other games and mostly back into Warhammer.

 Overread wrote:

3) MKIII Rules in themselves were good, but the balance for factions was wonky. As I recall Skorn were in a nightmare position

4) GW pulled their finger out and changed. Alongside the stick of PP making mistakes in a row, GW started making some sensible choices which was a huge lure to people.

There was definitely a significant feedback loop in these two. The number of people I saw that decided they wanted to go play 40k but desperately needed to find a hill for Warmachine to die on first. The one that will forever drive me crazy is when someone pointed out that RAW, you couldn't charge a knocked down model. The number of people that cited the week between that being pointed out and errata'd as the inexcusable failure of the MK3 rules has always made that whole thing more than a little sus. Truth be told, my guess is almost every MK3 core rules issue comes down to it originally being designed with players being unable to target their own models with offensive effects through most of the playtesting, that someone eventually argued down to just stopping charging your own models. Almost every exploit in MK3 came down to attacking your own stuff.

The other.... really super weird PR issue with the MK3 launch is how they handled Infernals for the new edition. Up to that point, Infernals had largely been a go between for players and developers but with MK3 their role became interpreting RAW to almost comical levels and, with rulings that then came across as "working as intended" when they were clearly not (and errata'd almost immediately after). Some of this is definitely a community issue, as it was deemed completely unacceptable for there to not being a 100% correct way to play out any interaction at any local game night as a single moment of uncertainty could invalidate even a single night's casual tournament practice, but it was definitely a part of PP leaning way too hard into the dream of becoming a tabletop eSport.

The thing I remember most of this time is just how....exaggerated everything became. I was playing tons of games and they were on the whole great. There was a new learning curve and new questions came up, but nothing that got in the way of the game. It's just... every minor detail defined social media. The community just ate itself alive. Like absolutely insane levels of martyrdom over any and every perceived sleight. Each night at the shop became about discussing problems; none of which actually occurred in games being played.

Even Skorne was fine, (or at least, better than they were in MK2) its just that a lot of their power shifted away from the beloved Titan Herds onto rank and file troops. I totally sympathize with players being disappointed that their preferred playstyle was gone and that their MK2 armies did not transition well and that 6 month in rebalance was a huge improvement, but like.... Skorne was terrible for the entire duration of MK2. They got fixed faster in MK3 than the entire previous edition. To me, that was a really positive thing, but for others, each fix was just a failure of the edition, as if MK2 hadn't been defined by two of its worst out of the box failures that only get the slightest attempts to reign in for the whole thing.

Ultimately for me I drifted to playing other games, not because of anything wrong with the game, but just because I tired of the relentless negativity that defined every interaction with the game. Great games would end with discussions about whatever people were mad about on Twitter and I just got tired of trying to be excited about something that people were trying so hard to not have fun with. So many people played like its their job and it just started to feel like every water cooler rant the workplace has to offer.

Yeah there was certainly some exaggeration going on. In the end it was a near perfect feedback loop on multiple fronts. PP were on a downer and GW were on an up and it only had to tip the scales enough to cause a migration.

The issue since then is that GW has continued on the up in general (up to their limits on things like game balance); whilst PP hasn't really pushed nor solidified their position well.

We know there's still growth room in the market. Spartan Games rose to a good position and then imploded on themselves with, from what I can gather, more internal problems than a lack of customers; meanwhile Infinity has really grown over the last few years.

So MK4 was indeed announced today. You can watch the video here (https://youtu.be/sLMSBidai7M) but really you should read the article here (https://home.privateerpress.com/2022/07/26/warmachine-big-news/). PP has provided bullet points for each section which I've pasted below for ease of reference:

The Driving Reasons behind Embarking upon a New Edition
• New editions are controversial but necessary.
• “Living Games” have a shelf-life.
• Maintaining positive perception requires a constant stream of releases.

Understanding the Reasons behind the Difficult Choices We Have Made in the New Edition
• The existing catalog of miniatures for WARMACHINE and HORDES is overwhelming for players, retailers, and distributors, and continuing to expand upon that catalog exacerbates the problems that result from it.
• In order to maintain the playability of the entire catalog of existing models, we have created two arenas of play: Unlimited, which will allow all existing and new MKIV models to be playable; and Prime, which will provide limited model options in building armies from the preexisting catalog as well as incorporate all new MKIV releases.
• New mechanics created for MKIV, such as warjack customization, are not “backward-compatible” with existing models.
• It will take at least until the end of 2023 before we can release MKIV rules conversions for all existing models.

The New Hierarchy in Factions and Armies and the Introduction of Cadres
• In MKIV, the force you put on the tabletop is an Army, which is a subset of a Faction.
• Models from Armies within the same Faction are not compatible.
• Cadres provide small subsets of a Faction that are compatible with all Armies within a Faction.

An Explanation of How HORDES Will Be Incorporated in MKIV
• HORDES will no longer be a separately maintained brand; HORDES rules will be rolled into WARMACHINE.
• The first four armies for MKIV will be warcaster-led.
• Two all new warlock-led armies will launch in 2023.

Details about the All-New App That Is Being Developed for MKIV
• War Room will be a function within the new, FREE WARMACHINE app.
• The WARMACHINE app will provide the game rules and all model rules for FREE; no “card deck” purchases will be necessary.
• The WARMACHINE app will offer a subscription option for storing multiple army builds and receiving monthly premium content.

The Primary Differences between the Current and the New Editions
• MKIV is an evolution of the game.
• MKIV will support 50-, 75-, and 100-point battles
• MKIV introduces Command Cards, which provide one-off effects (like mini-feats) and can be purchased as part of your force construction.
• MKIV warcasters have customizable spell racks.
• MKIV warjacks are customizable with multiple weapon and head (cortex) options.

Our Production of WARMACHINE Models Is Changing with the Times
• Metal is no longer a viable material to produce models with due to rising costs.
• Overseas plastic product is rising in cost and possesses supply chain risks as well as difficulties in keeping products stocked.
• MKIV models will be produced using 3D printing technology.
• Warjacks are supplied with multiple head and weapon options and are engineered with cavities ready for magnets, which are supplied in the warjack kits, so loadouts can be easily changed between games.
• 3D printing production allows us to localize production in overseas markets to address accessibility of the products and eliminate additional costs of shipping and import fees.

The Rollout Strategy for MKIV
• Each MKIV Army will possess a limited number of SKUs, making the line easier to stock for retailers and distributors.
• Core Army Starters will contain enough models to field a 50-point army with options.
• Adding an Expansion box to a starter provides enough models to field a 75-point army with options.
• Add a warjack to have enough models to field a 100-point army with options.

Our Plans for Events in the New Era of MKIV
• We are committed to supporting MKIII events through the end of 2022.
• Official MKIV events and Organized Play will begin in 2023.
• Privateer will focus on key signature events at conventions we attend while supporting third-party competitive events like the WTC and Warfaire Weekend, which is taking up the Iron Gauntlet.
• In-store and club Organized Play kits will be available early in 2023.

What to Do with This Massive Flood of Information
• Tomorrow, download the beta rule document, two Legacy demo armies, and the rules for both the Orgoth Sea Raiders and the Cygnar Storm Legion battlegroups, and take MKIV for a test drive.
• If you find typos, errors, or bugs in the docs, let us know at feedback@privateerpress.com
• New MKIV armies begin shipping this fall.
• WARMACHINE app beta release at end of October.

"MKIV models will be produced using 3D printing technology."

It almost sounds like PP is going to close their factory and start using the same merchanting system that 3d print firms are using. Which is bold and interesting considering the wide variety in skills in the merchant community that I've seen. From big merchants who print stupidly dangerously and even ship uncured or supports still on models - all the way to those running a really safe professional setup.


That said production and supply has been a huge problem for PP. I do wonder if they'll ever shift toward selling their STLs to the community.



Now if you'll excuse me I have to go try and justify to myself and find money for more angelus metal models before they vanish

 Overread wrote:
Now if you'll excuse me I have to go try and justify to myself and find money for more angelus metal models before they vanish

In my hype leading up to the announcement I was re-prioritizing my new Legion army ... but now knowing there's minimal Hordes support for 1 year makes me wonder if I should do anything. But maybe you're right, amassing even more cool existing sculpts might be the move While finally trying to paint the Cryx army I started over a decade ago.

Even as a Hordes player, I'm very excited and have a bunch of thoughts. A few off the top:
- 3D printing was not the solution I expected but it could well work and allow PP to meet low-to-moderate demand in house.
- War Room being free means I'll finally use it
- I'll probably hold off buying new minis until whatever the two Hordes factions are, tho the Orlock are almost cool because beasts.

EDIT: All us Horders confused about Legacy support are being loudly reeducated on FB, Hordes factions will be included in the Legacy rules in Oct 2022. The Warmachine icon threw us all off and the note didn't make it clear.

This probable needs its own thread;

That said 3D printing is a surprise to me, esp since they are still using metals for Warcaster; still using plastics for Monster Apoc and I assume metal for their one off sculpts in Loot Crate.

Meanwhile much of the rest of the market is moving toward Sciocast or plastics.


I do wonder if it speaks less about the cost of things and more about PP's long history of problems getting product out to retailers and customers. It's surprising to see them shift toward using 3D printing. I'm glad as I think it will keep Warmachine and Hordes going; but it also kind of suggests to me that perhaps they aren't in a good position to invest heavily into it and to grow themselves up again. Or perhaps they are, but they want to ride out the massive mess that is international shipping right now (esp as their current isn't the best); and will ride it out using 3d printing and then perhaps reinvest into other methods down the line.

Certainly cast models can be produced far quicker than 3D printed ones.

It's a curious move considering that I know some in the 3D print world want to go the other way toward traditional casting to scale things up for a mass market.

I am cautiously optimistic about MKIV. it appears they know about and are addressing the things the community has been complaining about-sku bloat, stocking/supply, model materials etc...


I am a bit concerned that they may invalidate the models i like to play with in the same army, not that it is a huge deal because i can always play MKIII with friends. the other concern is turning it from a skirmish style game to a 40K esq army sized game.

 aphyon wrote:
I am cautiously optimistic about MKIV. it appears they know about and are addressing the things the community has been complaining about-sku bloat, stocking/supply, model materials etc...


I am a bit concerned that they may invalidate the models i like to play with in the same army, not that it is a huge deal because i can always play MKIII with friends. the other concern is turning it from a skirmish style game to a 40K esq army sized game.

By MK2 they were already dancing between skirmish and wargame.
They just kinda never really made their mind up and tried to walk the line between the two. I also think they were leaning toward wargame and then hit problems with their plastics and the whole MK3 period

The 3d printing production is a bit surprising, but honestly, I've been saying for a couple of years (to those few who listen to my rambling) that this was going to be inevitable, as the costs and production times for medium runs is easily comparable to resin casting, if not cheaper. The distributed, localized production is a really good point, too, which can help eliminate shipping and import costs for a lot of folks.

My real question there is whether or not they'll ever sell the STLs. I suspect not, but if they did, this would get a hearty approval from me.

We shall see where the rules go...

As much as I'd have liked to have seen Siocast, I'm sure they're shy about something that's a proprietary license given all the troubles they had with prior plastic runs. Curious to see the final products.

I am glad to see that the scale seems to be shrinking a good chunk. basically seems to be min size units only.

I think the other issue is simply investment. If they can use 3rd party printing firms in local regions to produce stock for Warmachine then that's a huge huge huge saving over buying Siocast machines and then having to do shipping and production.

I think its just a sign that PP aren't in a powerful position to invest heavily into a new manufacture system. Esp if their main HQ is still in an expensive area and such.

Sounds like a disaster (and given some of the decisions they listed, an earned one).

I'm going out for popcorn.

 Overread wrote:
I think the other issue is simply investment. If they can use 3rd party printing firms in local regions to produce stock for Warmachine then that's a huge huge huge saving over buying Siocast machines and then having to do shipping and production.

I think its just a sign that PP aren't in a powerful position to invest heavily into a new manufacture system. Esp if their main HQ is still in an expensive area and such.

The distributed production aspect is actually a really strong argument, and one I hadn't considered in my previous musing about 3d printing as production. I know a lot of folks are jumping on the Siocast stuff, but I've worked with a couple of those models and didn't really like the material all that much. Plus, the cost of one machine is a lot in comparison to how many, say, Phrozen Mega 8k you can get, and apparently there's a good amount of specialized training needed to operate the Siocast effectively.

It's also much more economical to scale a 3d printer farm than buy another Siocast.

I think distribution before Covid and Brexit wasn't as big an issue, but today it very much is. Of course 3D print still has issues because you have to ensure a supply of resin and that's spotty - a few of the bigger print farms I talk too have issues securing reliable sources of volume in regular supply. So they sometimes have to shift around what material they are printing.

But you are right, 3D printing can be really robust in terms of localising production and getting around a lot of shipping concerns right now; esp for a firm that's basically not heavily involved in shipping vast volumes right now and is looking to save on costs.


It's not perfect, but if they got into say the new Saturn 2 printers or the Mega 8K printers then the resolution on them is really really good and the build plate size more than suitable for high volume.


It's a very interesting pathway to see a casting firm going into 3D print that way. It might well be a nice stop-gap pathway that PP needs to rebuild themselves and rebuild their whole setup and see if Warmachine can take off again.

Heck perhaps the transport networks will soften out over the next years and PP will gain enough that they might return to cast manufacture - which can produce at very high volumes (3d printing you have to add more machines which means labour costs go up)

The one change I'm very leery towards is Command Cards. That's an element that I kind of enjoy in Warcaster, but it's my least favorite element of a huge number of games that I otherwise enjoy.

I'll be curious to see how much the core rules change. They mention modern movement, which makes me think it may be something like Legion or Warcaster. The smaller game size has me excited. 3/5 man units is a lot more manageable and pretty high on the short list of changes I've been wanting to see in a full reboot.

 Overread wrote:


It's not perfect, but if they got into say the new Saturn 2 printers or the Mega 8K printers then the resolution on them is really really good and the build plate size more than suitable for high volume.


It's a very interesting pathway to see a casting firm going into 3D print that way. It might well be a nice stop-gap pathway that PP needs to rebuild themselves and rebuild their whole setup and see if Warmachine can take off again.

Heck perhaps the transport networks will soften out over the next years and PP will gain enough that they might return to cast manufacture - which can produce at very high volumes (3d printing you have to add more machines which means labour costs go up)

Yeah, the Phrozen Mighty 8k is a pretty astounding machine. And you can buy like 5 of them for what a single Siocast machine costs apparently. I'm betting throughput on 5 Phrozen Mighty 8ks is probably close to what you could output in a single Siocast machine, but not entirely sure. Either way, I know PP mentioned that they did look at Siocast, and decided that wasn't the way for them (which I get; more specialized training and still have to make molds and store them, etc., and they'd need more than a single machine for sure).

I got in early for the Mighty 8k preoder earlier in the year and have had it for a few weeks and it prints amazingly well. It really is a massive jump from my other phorzens (original Sconic from like 5 years ago and then the mini 2 years ago).

As for Siocast Modiphius looked at it and really didn't like how swords/spear and similar weapons came out in it. They're currently all cast resin but suffering due to some growing pains as it takes a lot of time to train up a good resin caster and so a lot of stuff has been hard to find over the past 8 months.

Yeah, part of me wants to grab a Mighty 8k to upgrade from my Sonic Mini 4k, but at the same time, I don't have space and other things vying for my time and money...

I wouldn't be surprised if PP is somewhat successful in this 3d print production model to see other smaller companies (like Modiphius) jump on that bandwagon.

 Valander wrote:
Yeah, part of me wants to grab a Mighty 8k to upgrade from my Sonic Mini 4k, but at the same time, I don't have space and other things vying for my time and money...

I wouldn't be surprised if PP is somewhat successful in this 3d print production model to see other smaller companies (like Modiphius) jump on that bandwagon.

There are little companies already doing this because it makes a lot of financial sense for companies selling small quantities. Small companies like Greebo and Midknight sell 3D prints.

It is surprising because it seems to imply that Privateer Press do not expect to sell a large volume of miniatures like they have before.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 Valander wrote:
Yeah, part of me wants to grab a Mighty 8k to upgrade from my Sonic Mini 4k, but at the same time, I don't have space and other things vying for my time and money...

I wouldn't be surprised if PP is somewhat successful in this 3d print production model to see other smaller companies (like Modiphius) jump on that bandwagon.

There are little companies already doing this because it makes a lot of financial sense for companies selling small quantities. Small companies like Greebo and Midknight sell 3D prints.

It is surprising because it seems to imply that Privateer Press do not expect to sell a large volume of miniatures like they have before.

That, or they think the method can handle the (hopefully for them) larger quantities needed than Greebo, for example.

Regardless of how other things go, that part is what I'm most interested in. I've been thinking that was going to be "the new way" for smaller to medium sized publishers soon, and looks like that time might be about here. (Don't believe me, search my post history, lol)

Not getting the warm fuzzies from rhe announcement. Most of the existing miniature range wont be getting rules for another 18 months and only a limited subset will be immediately playable on launch. As revealed elsewhere, theyre also apparently discontinuing the existing model line as knventory and molds/materials deplete. I can understand trimming the fat but it feels like a big kick in the balls to longtimers

 Overread wrote:
"MKIV models will be produced using 3D printing technology."

It almost sounds like PP is going to close their factory and start using the same merchanting system that 3d print firms are using. Which is bold and interesting considering the wide variety in skills in the merchant community that I've seen. From big merchants who print stupidly dangerously and even ship uncured or supports still on models - all the way to those running a really safe professional setup.


That said production and supply has been a huge problem for PP. I do wonder if they'll ever shift toward selling their STLs to the community.



Now if you'll excuse me I have to go try and justify to myself and find money for more angelus metal models before they vanish

Not even a little. They said they will be doing the 3d printing in house on socials, and that they are exploring options for overseas markets with the big question beong whether they own and operate the overseas ops or partner with others to do it.

They aren't releasing STLs into the wild so that "PrintNPlay601" on etsy will be printing your minis on demavd. The goal is to produce the minis and put them into retail stores.

locking this up — feel free to start a new one but for now the N&R thread is prob the right place for broad discussion

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/806214.page