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 Overread wrote:
I was just working up to trying that new "its not everblight but it is" bunch of models. I was a little surprised as they went into 3D print production that they didn't try and at least do what Mantic and Mierce have done and start doing STL sales as well of their models for additional income.

From what I understand, the 3d printing was the most cost effective way of producing out of house rather than an actual desire to support the format, hence why no STLs.

Personally, I think this collaboration has a ton of potential IF handled right. Privateer press has some great game systems, but clearly is struggling financially, logistically and has never been the best when it comes to marketing.... SFG can make up for those deficiencies and then some.

And for people mentioning the Guildball situation, I think you need to consider where the company was at that point of time, I personally think it was a financial decision more than anything else.... this was back when they first had a huge investor come in and take the reigns, investors like that want profit profit profit,, which is what they have been delivering through their Kickstarter campaigns. Guildball was probably barely breaking even...or certainly not making anywhere near what these bombastic kickstarters were and likely felt like wasted manpower to the suits in charge. So it got ruthlessly cut, likely via pressure from above. Right now their situation is very different, millions in the bank and have the ability to take more risks and invest in passion projects that may take longer to yield profits. They have recently began re supporting GB too, with plans to expand on that in the future.

Lets not forget the original group at SFG were all hardcore wargamers, many ex warmachine players themselves, many of which still seem to be there and if you follow them at all, you can see there love for wargames is still very much there.

Not saying this will definitely work out, but there is way too much pessimism surrounding this right now, and honestly I think if PP didn't make this move, that ship sailing solo would have sunk within the next few years, with the space being so competitive right now. Also, there are no other wargaming companies beside GW that have serious money behind them, SFG getting involved in this space gives them more serious competition. Its rather ironic though that one of the co founders of GW (Ian Livingstone), happens to be one of the key figures in SFG, at least he was some years ago, when the initial investment came, I don't know if that's still the case.

 rybackstun wrote:
As I said in the other, earlier, thread: I wonder if this is because PP just can't handle it any more or if the Mythic Deal really did put them under.

I don't think Mythic really impacted them at all. It obviously killed MonPoc 2.0, but that was already having issues of bloat and the Mythic thing seemed more of a way to keep it going while PP put their focus back on Warmachine.

I'm pretty sure its entirely about distribution. It's been impossible to get PP products in stores for years now. For a whole bunch of reasons both industry driven and of PPs own making, their products have effectively been direct order only for most of Mk3. They've needed a distribution partner for quite a while, which I suspect is how Asmodee ended up with most of their staff and MCP. I'm not sure if they went with SFG out of desperation or the promise of more autonomy, but it seems like that's the driving force of this deal.

The big question is whether SFG is just looking to pad their portfolio to get bought out. No clue who they could sell to at this point, but there's a bit of brand fluffing going on there in general.


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 Overread wrote:
I was just working up to trying that new "its not everblight but it is" bunch of models. I was a little surprised as they went into 3D print production that they didn't try and at least do what Mantic and Mierce have done and start doing STL sales as well of their models for additional income.


Fingers crossed something good comes of this

STL sales can support a single artist or two, but not a company. There's a reason you don't see STL lines with an actual game behind them.

Eumerin wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm not sure what PP thinks they're focusing on now. They sold.... from what I can see everything except MonPoc?

I would imagine no one wants to touch MonPoc right now until the Mythic Kickstarter fiasco reaches some sort of resolution, one way or another.

Yeah- if PP wants to divest entirely, the logical people to sell to would be Mythic- but Mythic can't afford to pay anyone for rights right now.

At best, they could sell Monpoc to someone willing to finish the Kickstarter fulfillment for them (the way Mythic sold some of their projects to CMON).

Privateer Press also have Level7, but I don't know if that's worth very much.

A little behind the curtain, i have known for a while now the original owners of WM/H at PP were trying to sell and get out of the industry. as a fan of the game with a sizable MKIII army we have an active group that still plays MK III ( i do not care for the MKIV rules) . the problem for us is that we have to many games the group plays so we don't play it very often. the current hot games are classic battle tech and MCP. the rest of the time we are usually bouncing between infinity, old hammer, DUST, heavy gear etc....

All I know is that SFG seem to be doing AMA's on various channels about this. FB, Reddit etc. That's more comms to the wider community (other than the immediate fan base) that PP has done since end of MK3... In addition is the most iv seen PP and WM/H mentioned on general wargaming news. General tone is "SFG buys failing PP". Everyone is seeing this as a rescue bid/move.

I'll watch with interest. I loved WM/H bit I walked away due to PP as a company and the community it fostered in many places.

I think in the short-medium term it will be good for the IP, because whenever a discussion around Warmahordes comes up it inevitably turns to people who bought into it during 2015-2017 and got burnt by everyone running back to GW at the first sign of trouble.

"Feth PP for messing up with MkIII and everything else!" is a pretty damning statement you see all too often, anywhere that isn't a committed PP fan space. Having a different company on the label is probably going to salve some of that wound, though probably not to the extent that people who dipped their toe out of the GW circle for the first time and got burnt will likely give it another chance (and it's still my belief we're feeling the repercussions of that today).

In the longterm I have little faith Steamforge will do much to reverse the IP's fortunes. I mean this is the company who already binnned off Guildball so they could chase the lucrative IP Kickstarter bandwagon.

 rybackstun wrote:
As I said in the other, earlier, thread: I wonder if this is because PP just can't handle it any more or if the Mythic Deal really did put them under.

I'd wager as Monster Apoc was about their best thing game wise (Minicrate also did really well though I've not heard how good its doing now); and with that whole disaster its been not just a huge problem but also a huge pause on really being able to capitalise on what that campaign should have brought them. IT should have fullfilled and then PP Would have been able to market to a huge happy Monster Apoc fanbase with more stuff

I have Gatormen, Trollbloods and Legion of Everblight armies. Am I right in thinking PP did an End Times and my armies don't really exist in the same form any more?

 Da Boss wrote:
I have Gatormen, Trollbloods and Legion of Everblight armies. Am I right in thinking PP did an End Times and my armies don't really exist in the same form any more?

They exist as their themes in Mk4, but there's changes to unit sizes and stuff. So for example, Gatormen are still very much a Gatormen army with those units and Warlocks and beasts, but the Gatorman unit itself is locked to 3 mans. Anything that was a 10 man is capped to 5 now.

Trollbloods got broken up into their Storm of the North army with Northkin stuff and a United Kriels army with a lot of their gunline units as the focus. Legion was split into an army of the Ogruns and Grotesque stuff and an army of Blighted Nyss. There's an Unlimited option for every faction that has rules for everything they've had in the past all in one, but its not considered part of the "standard" army range.

 Da Boss wrote:
I have Gatormen, Trollbloods and Legion of Everblight armies. Am I right in thinking PP did an End Times and my armies don't really exist in the same form any more?

PP Basically did an AoS but kept some legacy rules for the old armies around.
They then have the issue that they finally said that Warmachine and Hordes would be the same (one system); but then focused on Warmachine factions at the start and haven't really re-released any of the Hordes ones at all. So yeah Hordes fans kind of got shafted for legacy armies. There IS a Trollbloods and Everblight styled new set of armies out there. So those themes and concepts and model styles are not dead; just the armies and old models.


I get it and I don't get it. Same as how PP at launch of MKIV didn't want to do cheap starter sets but £100 sets as their main products and seemed to only come around to cheaper sets later.


There are certainly some choices they've made that feel like one step forward two back.

At the same time I feel like they would have brought the classic armies back as new forms with new updated models and so forth; its just a project a LOT of years in the making to get there which requires all these early steps to grow right and the market to stay stable to make it work long enough to get there.

 Overread wrote:
Same as how PP at launch of MKIV didn't want to do cheap starter sets but £100 sets as their main products and seemed to only come around to cheaper sets later.

PP was really focused on how their out of control SKU bloat killed them with distribution once warehousing kind of stopped being a thing. Honestly, the new army sets are pretty great, fairly equitable with Combat Patrol and give you a ton of game. The real issue is just that they really should have also seen the value in those preview battle boxes right away and made them a product as well rather than turning them into 3 SKUs which....was kind of the whole thing they were trying to avoid....?

There's a balance and I think the issue is PP's plan at launch was few SKUs at high price, which works warehouse and distribution wise; but hits the roadblock that a lot of people won't spend that much on a new game just for the models (no glue, paints or anything).


They absolutely needed the cheaper sets even if it bloated the SKU a bit, because they need to get fresh blood in; and after a few years and with the re-set they did new-blood is also former customers not just totally fresh ones.

I think if they'd gone live with them and built up toward the big expensive sets it would have done their marketing a lot better. Sure its more units and SKU, but its sets people can afford to take a punt on. Old customers with big armies that are defunct (in all but name); new customers totally new to PP and gaming - something affordable to get in.

Then scale back to big expensive sets once you've got a vibrant market.

Thanks for the information, that was very clear.

Themes were one of the things that drove me away from the game, if they still work the way they used to (bonus models and extra rules for having specific combos of troops).

It's not surprising that they focused on Warmachine, they pretty much always have. I just like the Hordes models and rules better (risk management is more fun than resource management).

I think they had a problem with bloat due to their expansion model. Constant addition of new units to the game. It was really nice in a way - if you had a unit, you could use it and it never got retired or changed in a way that made you have to buy it again. But that meant new sales were coming from new units, which meant stocking the game became a real challenge.

It's cool that "mix it all together" still exists in the rules though.

It's crazy that they moved away from battleboxes, those were awesome for introducing people to the game. I had lots of buddies pick one up to try it out. And battlebox games were a lot of fun.

 Da Boss wrote:
Themes were one of the things that drove me away from the game, if they still work the way they used to (bonus models and extra rules for having specific combos of troops).

They do not. Themes are just about unit restrictions in MkIV.

The best thing about dead games is that they can't be killed.

Go back, Play the edition you want and have fun. Seeing their downfall is delicious Irony, though.

They did it to themselves. No sympathy here.

Ok so it looks like there’s 2 deals here. The first is PP selling the Crown Jewels of their company. Normally this is the end of it, the new company then go off and decide how to move on with their newly acquired IP/asset. But here there’s a 2nd deal for PP to be involved still in some way, hence the “partnership” chat. That partnership will have a time scale set to it obviously (you don’t buy an asset then hamstring yourself to another company to develop it long term) and this 2nd deal must have been a requirement by PP for the 1st deal to happen - as there’s not really any benefit for SFG here that i can see. It’s not like PP have a great reputation they’re taking advantage of lol. The announcement makes it clear they’re locked into mk4 for the foreseeable so SFG are lacking the ability to launch a new SFG edition, a clean slate so to speak. They’re stuck with the decisions/mistakes already made. Then to jump back into the arena of competing directly against GW (who’ve already sent them packing out of the wargame market into KS board game land once before) without the flexibility to redevelop Warmachine seems like a tall order.

Longer term it gives SFG an IP asset that’s not entirely been screwed over yet, so as long as they don’t go blaming players for playing their game too well or somesuch and trash it entirely, it could be a benefit for the company. I don’t see this being a game changer tho.

What is absolutely clear is that PP is done for in the medium term. They now own very little of note, and what they have is not worth anything. I expect this “partnership” to last maybe 3 years before PP shut up shop for good.

One shaky company buys another shaky company ☹️ yeah this is always bad. RIP PP

 LunarSol wrote:
It's also likely to fall victim to Steamforged's hubris.

I don't think I agree with this, but ST's handling of the ending of Guildball was overly aggresive to the player base. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and would love to dust off my old WMH's minis, but then they go and respond to a comment on Reddit with this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warmachine/comments/1d786a1/comment/l6xpgb5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Yes that could be entirely transparent and just the psoting of somone genuinely excited about the game, but after Guildball it's hard not to read more into it.

 .Mikes. wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's also likely to fall victim to Steamforged's hubris.

I don't think I agree with this, but ST's handling of the ending of Guildball was overly aggresive to the player base. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and would love to dust off my old WMH's minis, but then they go and respond to a comment on Reddit with this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warmachine/comments/1d786a1/comment/l6xpgb5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Yes that could be entirely transparent and just the psoting of somone genuinely excited about the game, but after Guildball it's hard not to read more into it.

So, I say hubris as someone who's honestly been a big fan of Steamforged... just in spite of the arrogance the company has always swaggered. Their games are good, but their owners have always spoke of them as perfect; immune to all the mistakes "the other guys" make. Honestly, I didn't even take offense at the way they killed Guild Ball, because that's just the way they've always acted about their designs, even when talking about the endless ways they need to change them. I legitimately like their work, but long term support has never been one of their strong suits and they have a perfectionist tendency to need to constantly tweak things and then get bored and give up when perfection isn't as easy as it seems. And I stress, I say this as someone who's a big fan of their games.

I am glad this is at least happeneing in the age of 3D prints. One of the things that kinda killed GB me before they killed GB was the switch from models with a great sense of fluid motion to PVC sculpts that were mostly in flat footed poses. That's really killed a lot my enthusiasm for their more recent games, even if I'm a big fan of the games themselves.

If, and that's a big if, they bring back Warmachine as a contender in the local market, I might buy in.

 Da Boss wrote:
I have Gatormen, Trollbloods and Legion of Everblight armies. Am I right in thinking PP did an End Times and my armies don't really exist in the same form any more?

Pretty much. i understand they had loads of redundant models that led to sku bloat. but the legacy armies were being held to 2 casters (4 for mercs) and a handful of old units. with battle engines and colossals being put on the back burner. retribution is just gone, replaced by vampire elves. they are trying to push new product and have moved the setting forwards. While i think the 3d printing direction was the right way to go, not only do i dislike what they did with the rules(no templates, no facings etc...), the aesthetic is no longer black powder/steam tech (hell cygnar has rail guns). So it is more gathering storm/8th ed 40K than WHFB end times.

I have a huge khador army i built in MK III and happily i still have enough local players who play MKIII to use it. i'm not even averse to people breaking out the MKII cards and units. although when the switch was announced i went and downloaded all the MKIII cards for every faction just in case i need them.

 aphyon wrote:
While i think the 3d printing direction was the right way to go, not only do i dislike what they did with the rules(no templates, no facings etc...), the aesthetic is no longer black powder/steam tech (hell cygnar has rail guns).

This is my thought too. I'm not a competitive player by any means, but when they started to streamline the rules and put in pre-measuring it took out the heart of the game. I could handle 2rd ed, but only if I couldn't find someone to play 2nd with. 40k already has the 40k crowd. No point trying to re-create what GW is already providing at the expense of your existing players.

 Overread wrote:

I'd wager as Monster Apoc was about their best thing game wise (Minicrate also did really well though I've not heard how good its doing now); and with that whole disaster its been not just a huge problem but also a huge pause on really being able to capitalise on what that campaign should have brought them. IT should have fullfilled and then PP Would have been able to market to a huge happy Monster Apoc fanbase with more stuff

If I had a nickel every time PP ran MonPoc into the ground I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but weird that it happened twice.

 .Mikes. wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
While i think the 3d printing direction was the right way to go, not only do i dislike what they did with the rules(no templates, no facings etc...), the aesthetic is no longer black powder/steam tech (hell cygnar has rail guns).

This is my thought too. I'm not a competitive player by any means, but when they started to streamline the rules and put in pre-measuring it took out the heart of the game. I could handle 2rd ed, but only if I couldn't find someone to play 2nd with. 40k already has the 40k crowd. No point trying to re-create what GW is already providing at the expense of your existing players.

Yeah the feel of MK IV is the streamlined simplified version of the game. it doesn't feel like WM/H to me. i also love the old steam punk look of the game. i felt the same about modern 40K so my group went back to playing 5th ed. at least with battle tech the core rules mechanics have remained pretty much unchanged for over 30 years. variety comes in the tomes of official "optional" rules you and your group can choose to use or not to use in any combination. couple that with being able to play any era, hex terrain, 3d terrain or alpha strike if you want something simpler for bigger games. you don't have to re-do the game rules every 3 years to keep it fresh.

 LunarSol wrote:
There's a reason you don't see STL lines with an actual game behind them.

Blood Fields. Full Spectrum Dominance.

Their games are good, but their owners have always spoke of them as perfect

I don't have a lot of experience with SFG, but those boardgames I am familiar with I wouldn't even call "good", truth be told, not even mediocre, but outright badly written.

 SgtBANZAI wrote:

Their games are good, but their owners have always spoke of them as perfect

I don't have a lot of experience with SFG, but those boardgames I am familiar with I wouldn't even call "good", truth be told, not even mediocre, but outright badly written.

I think you’ll find that they were perfect, it is you as the customer that is the problem. 😂

Oh, I wish the game was as streamlined as advertised. The amount of exceptions, corner cases, unintuitive interactions and clarifications just for unit movement ( which was supposed to be simplified) takes as much space as rules for some full board games.

I get mail notifications from the current PP forum and 90% of topics seem to be rules questions...

MaxT wrote:

 SgtBANZAI wrote:

Their games are good, but their owners have always spoke of them as perfect

I don't have a lot of experience with SFG, but those boardgames I am familiar with I wouldn't even call "good", truth be told, not even mediocre, but outright badly written.

I think you’ll find that they were perfect, it is you as the customer that is the problem. 😂

Lets see, as I own a lot of them:

Dark Souls: Great miniatures, awful game play. The reboot fixed a lot of the issues, but it feels like trying to make lemonade with eggplants.

Horizon Zero Dawn: Great miniatures, boring gameplay. I just wish the rules were as good as the miniatures.

Monster Hunter World: This is a win. I love the miniatures, and the gameplay. A lot.

Bardsung: Great miniatures (I sense a theme), really good gameplay but does NOT scale well for later campaigns. I do like this game.

Resident Evil 2 (played, don't own): Again with the good miniatures, and the derivative rules. Just not fun.

Godtear: I wanted to like this game. But I did not.

Guildball: THIS WAS THEIR BEST GAME. Time will tell if the reboot is justified. Cautiously optimistic.

I am looking forward to my Rivet Wars KS (I already have all of the previous) and am also cautiously optimistic about this too. But is has a solid base.

Sad you missed out on Devil May Cry. I feel like that's the best of their Capcom board games, though the boss battles are hugely disappointing compared to what they accomplished with Dark Souls.


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Cyel wrote:
Oh, I wish the game was as streamlined as advertised. The amount of exceptions, corner cases, unintuitive interactions and clarifications just for unit movement ( which was supposed to be simplified) takes as much space as rules for some full board games.

I get mail notifications from the current PP forum and 90% of topics seem to be rules questions...

It's streamlined in play but reuses too much Mk3 rules to be streamlined in text. The actual experience of playing the game is significantly snappier, but the core rulebook could be cleaned up significantly.