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This only really applies to Warmachine and not to every faction, but I often see Warmachine described as a steampunk setting. Steampunk has a variety of meanings, and I'm not disputing the label being applied to Warmachine. I was just curious as to whether or not there were any punk elements in Warmachine. Off the top of my head I guess you could include the Llael resistance and the various pirates I guess, any other examples?

IIRC "punk" is just a setting where the title thing has a much greater significance than IRL.

Besides Privateer has always IK as "full metal fantasy" [even with the recant metropolis]

Yeah, as I acknowledged in my post there's many different meanings of steampunk, the term is more of a nod to cyberpunk if anything. Was just indulging my curiosity.

You don't see much in Warmahordes, because that's about armies, which always have a pretty high level of organization.

Look deeper, and the setting is pretty grimy. there's internal politics in every faction, notable criminal elements in Khador (kayazy) and Ord (pirates/Five Fingers), and even Cygnar (more pirates). One of the iconic Cygnar casters, Stryker, is a big blue boy scout, while another, Caine, would be world weary for Hemingway protagonist.

 Polonius wrote:
You don't see much in Warmahordes, because that's about armies, which always have a pretty high level of organization.

Look deeper, and the setting is pretty grimy. there's internal politics in every faction, notable criminal elements in Khador (kayazy) and Ord (pirates/Five Fingers), and even Cygnar (more pirates). One of the iconic Cygnar casters, Stryker, is a big blue boy scout, while another, Caine, would be world weary for Hemingway protagonist.

Even the Convergence robot people have got this going for them. Our warcasters include the lady who ditched her living body for a machine at about 25 years old so she could get more political power in the organization, the guy who's completely mentally unstable to the point he forgets he's wearing his battle armor and sits there muttering hymns for a day at a time, the thing (he/it doesn't really have a discernible gender at this point) who is so absorbed in its mechanical work that it cares 0 for the troops under its command (it prefers convergence jack equivalents, they are more predictable and don't make mistakes).

Not exactly all shiny chrome and polished order.

Looking at the RPG stuff shows a lot more of it as well. My group plays Iron Kingdoms RPG, and have been doing a lot of jobs in Five Fingers. It's plenty gritty when you get down to it.

To be fair, while there are superficial elements of steampunk, in my opinion, it's not really a steampunk setting - and if I remember right, the writers have actually spoken about it, and prefer it being called full metal fantasy, rather than steampunk.

At it's heart, the iron kingdoms is a traditional fantasy setting, just one that is undergoing an industrial revolution.

As others have said, its not really intended to be 'steampunk' (which in my opinion is becoming an over-used label to describe anything that straddles the line between sci-fi and fantasy), in any case, I have always understood the 'punk' part of the term steampunk to have been a carryover from the term 'cyberpunk' (where it was aptly applied as that genre usually featured anti-establishment and counterculture elements), and not as an actual descriptive element of the genre. If you look into the supposed history of the term, it was initially used as a sort of joke term to describe the (at the time) new genre, and sort of just caught on afterwards.

Deadnight wrote:
To be fair, while there are superficial elements of steampunk, in my opinion, it's not really a steampunk setting - and if I remember right, the writers have actually spoken about it, and prefer it being called full metal fantasy, rather than steampunk.

At it's heart, the iron kingdoms is a traditional fantasy setting, just one that is undergoing an industrial revolution.

This.

"Steampunk" is more of a layman term (if you can call it that, it is getting a bit more mainstream exposure but still gets the occasional confused look) to describe the Iron Kingdoms in simple terms.

Warmachine/IK isn't steam punk, that's why you aren't seeing it. Anyone who told you it was steampunk was either confused, a liar or doing a poor job of simplifying things.

 Polonius wrote:
You don't see much in Warmahordes, because that's about armies, which always have a pretty high level of organization.

Look deeper, and the setting is pretty grimy. there's internal politics in every faction, notable criminal elements in Khador (kayazy) and Ord (pirates/Five Fingers), and even Cygnar (more pirates). One of the iconic Cygnar casters, Stryker, is a big blue boy scout, while another, Caine, would be world weary for Hemingway protagonist.

Stryker? "Big Blue Boyscout"? Loooooool.

As I acknowledged numerous times, steampunk has a variety of definitions. I also noted how the term derived from the cyberpunk label. I've never heard it being described as "full metal fantasy" before, which is interesting, but about as descriptive as any label I guess.

I've read some of the Iron Kingdoms rpg, and none of it seemed particularly gritty or "punky" in this instance. However it's "full metal fantasy" so maybe I should expect Megadeth to ride in on a Warjack, casting spells at Slayer.

Anyway curiosity sated.

I find IK to be LOTR, but in the Napoleonic wars.

Full Metal Fantasy is on the covers of the Iron Kingdom RP books (or just book, whatever), I think its also on Page 5 of the Warmahordes books (or thereabouts).

Well I've got the Rpg in pdf so I usually miss cover details, and I hate page 5 so that explains how I missed that. :-P

 sing your life wrote:
I find IK to be LOTR, but in the Napoleonic wars.

How on earth did you come to that conclusion?

I have a feeling the mental gymnastics required to get to that interpretation are gonna be impressive.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
I find IK to be LOTR, but in the Napoleonic wars.

How on earth did you come to that conclusion?

I have a feeling the mental gymnastics required to get to that interpretation are gonna be impressive.

1820s technology, same races [easterlings= skorne], magic only available to few [who can fight as well] much?

Try applying more than a second of thought into your next post.

 sing your life wrote:


1820s technology, same races [easterlings= skorne], magic only available to few [who can fight as well] much?

Try applying more than a second of thought into your next post.

That's a very glib interpretation.

"LOTR" and "Napoleonic era" are not the 2 things that immediately spring to mind when trying to explain the Iron Kingdoms to someone IMO. LOTR's magic is not really the high fantasy that is in the IK. LOTR is seen by many as being an allegory against the Industrial Revolution. Quite the opposite of the IK. Deadnight is correct. I use the same explanation. The IK is simply your traditional fantasy setting going through an industrial revolution; hence the juxtaposition of traditional elements like Pikemen (incidentally with their equipment updated for a modern era with explosives) and the Warjacks themselves.

"Steampunk" is simply used as a fallback as the IK is what many people think Steampunk is. "Full Metal Fantasy" is to the IK as "Grimdark" is to 40k. It is it's own thing.

That good enough for you kiddo?

Yeah, the tech level of Warmachine, or at least Cygnar, is second industrial revolution, which is a solid generation after the napoleonic wars.

The game explicitly discusses trench warfare, which only arose after machine guns and massed rifle fire become the norm. That means roughly somewhere between 1860-1914.

And the game world is much more classic D&D then middle earth. Sure, there's the debt all fantasy owes to LOTR, but there are many far more applicable fantasy archtypes to go with. LotR, as a setting, is like Nirvana as a band: while enormously influential, almost nobody copies directly from them. Instead, they copy from D&D/Pearl Jam.

 Polonius wrote:
Yeah, the tech level of Warmachine, or at least Cygnar, is second industrial revolution, which is a solid generation after the napoleonic wars.

The game explicitly discusses trench warfare, which only arose after machine guns and massed rifle fire become the norm. That means roughly somewhere between 1860-1914.

And the game world is much more classic D&D then middle earth. Sure, there's the debt all fantasy owes to LOTR, but there are many far more applicable fantasy archtypes to go with. LotR, as a setting, is like Nirvana as a band: while enormously influential, almost nobody copies directly from them. Instead, they copy from D&D/Pearl Jam.

Much obliged. I'm sure we'll both get a snarky reply as to why we're wrong any minute now.

One of the nicer layman explanations I've seen for the whole of the IK (that admittedly has to jump through a few mental hoops too) is "Games of Thrones; except no-one dies."

The thing is, the game itself is basicaly D&D second edition with a different skin, with the humans basically filling the role of Pre-WWI Europe.

Elves=Elves
Dwarves= Dwarves
Trollkin = Orcs/half orcs (except are good guys)
Ogrun=Ogres
Gobbers = Halfing/Goblins

I mean, this is a setting with literal Druids, Paladins, and Rangers. It was created as part of the D20 OGL. It's frikking D&D reskinned.

The pseudohistorical aspect is actually really cool, with strong aspects of many cultures in the various kingdoms. Khador is basically Russia in culture, and Prussian/German in foriegn policy. Cygnar is very Anglo Saxon, Lael is french in culture, Belgian in role. Ord is the most complex, combining aspects of Italy, Scotland, and the Barbary Pirates.

Of course, the fact that steampowered robots are armed with tesla coils, and everybody wears goggles, and "mechanika" is a big deal, all goes to explaining why people think Steampunk.

 Polonius wrote:
I mean, this is a setting with literal Druids, Paladins, and Rangers. It was created as part of the D20 OGL. It's frikking D&D reskinned.

The various races don't mean much. They are common in all sorts of fantasy which mostly comes from our own myths and fables. Ogres, Elves, Goblins were all around a long long time ago. Same with Druids, Paladins and rangers. None of that stuff is D&D stuff. Though D&D used those things liberally they didn't create them.

And while the first IK RPG was based on the d20 system the new system is anything but d20.

But otherstuff definitely has a basis and flavor from other elements. But I'd argue that so many concepts of fantasy/Steampunk/etc have been played out that hardly anything is original anymore. Yet the IK are about as original as you can get considering there is very little room for anything new.

So yes, the entire genre of fantasy takes a lot of D&D elements and most RPGs owe at least a part of their existence to D&D I think it is a bit more different than just being "reskinned" to me that just implies that names were changed. I think IK is a bit more than that.

Well if you want to describe as "Elves in Space" then I think calling Retribution of Scyrah as "Steampunk Elves" would be fine.

I mean in narrow confines steampunk would be limited to the iconic genre of Victorian Science Fiction. But since that's a term in and of itself Steampunk should be more comprehensive.

Further there's going to be more broader interpretations of the genre given we view it as an alternate past, more fantasy than science fiction. Jules Verne was writing, despite the fantastic adventures, what was very hard science fiction at the time. Now that wouldn't be as fantastic so you have to jazz it up.

The IK is a bit more advanced than typical Victorian fantasy goes in my gathering. Lots of the political elements has some pre-WWI Europe vibes ot me. And some of the technology ranges from Edwardian to close to World War II when it comes to armaments and aesthetics. The cover of the Khador forcebook makes me think Stalingrad.

And stuff.