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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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.