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 LunarSol wrote:
Not really how the law works. The extent of the abuse is irrelevant. It was ruled that the volunteers qualified as employees. That sets a hard precedent that if other volunteers meet employment criteria, even if that employment is extremely limited, they still have to fall under the rules of that type of employment. You might not be able to sue for as much as the Magic judges did, but sue you can and likely win.

Well, my point is, there's a difference between a magic judge working under the direct supervision of WotC, and a Press ganger running an event when and as they please.

Independent contractors status has been wildly abused by companies, but Press Gangers, at least outside of conventions, really do qualify.

Still, and I concede this point gladly... the cost of fighting it may not be worth the value in keeping the program. Especially since the general feeling among PP players was that the PG program was a pretty sweet gig.

Yeah, and the PGs actually at conventions were another thing entirely. Particularly as things ramped up into the official judge program for conventions, there were definitely people putting in 30 hour weekends at certain events. Very much by choice, but that's never stopped a good lawsuit.

I could tell a lot of stories about the Privateer Press PG program. I wasn't one of the Original PG's, but I got into the program in 2005. I'd started playing Warmchine in 2002 when the Butcher had just been released at GenCon, and they had a few boxes of the new Magnus mercs box set. At the time, the only boxes available were Cygnar and Khador. Asphyxious had just been shown, but the Cryx Box and Menoth Box weren't available yet.

One of my most proud accomplishments of being a PG was being awarded my PG Old Salt coin- for being an active PG for 7+ years. There was talk of another coin at the 10 year mark for PG's, but the program was abruptly canceled.

Anyways... the PG program for good or ill is gone. Has it affected the game? Yes! Has it affected the community? Yes! Was it a mistake? I think so. PP has been very consistent in one regards though: they always sail against the wind.

I have a lot of strong opinions about Warmachine, Hoards, and PP. But if you like the game, and you have a good community to play with, then by all means! Jump in, have fun and play!

I thought the original release was the Cygnar and Menoth starters, The Butcher and the merc Warjack with the spear. Certainly the original rule booklet only has Cygnar and Menoth. IIRC Magnus was available the following year.

I’m not sure press gangers had any positive impact on the growth of the game locally to me. There were a couple running the odd tournament in the pre-Steamroller days, but that was it. It was seeing the original miniatures on ... The Warp? TMP? I can’t remember where they first appeared, but part of the appeal was Mike McVey’s involvement after WotC packed Chainmail in.

Wow so much negativity. when WMH first dropped I resisted it since I already played so many different systems and I was more focused on getting into infinity, I finally broke down and got into it just as MKIII dropped.

As a game it is very much a chess style game-there are objective but killing the enemy warcaster/king is almost always a win condition. the old joke was that everything is broken so everything is fair.

I only built a single 75 point khador list, I don't get to many games in since the players in our area also play lots of different games along with WMHs
there are probably a half dozen regulars in our group that play-cygnar, circle, convergence, rhulic, crucible guard

The best thing I found when picking an army is the rule of cool. pick the models you like best and build a force around them. for me it was khador for the gun carriage and clam jacks. then I found a caster that had abilities that worked best to support them. I added to that with suggestions from veteran players, and some stunning new units like the manOwar solos.

If you dive into khador remember that most of the army is super slow and heavy armor. I would love to add some manOwar drakuns for some faster heavy infantry (on mounts) .