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ShumaGorath wrote:I probably wouldn't be playing this game if squats were still around. There's an acceptable level of camp, and thats way beyond it.

That's nice. It'd still suck if I had a full army of them and a new version of the rules completely obsoleted it. I don't feel quite for some of he oddball 3rd edition stuff that required a lot of conversion anyway (like spamming the Acid Blood Mutants for the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex) but removing 'stock' units is frustrating.

The guys I've been working with over at Dream Pod 9 are trying to avoid this and doing a lot of tweaks... For example, when they released the new HT-68 and HT-72 hovertank models they adjusted the scale to fit the current game, which means the miniatures got significantly bigger. Instead of just handwaving the old tanks, they reimagined the models as the LHT-67 and LHT-71 "light" hover tanks. No one had unusable models, they just had some cheaper point value models. (And, admittedly, some motivation to buy the fancy new models.)

ShumaGorath wrote:

malfred wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

At its core I think thats because of the tremendous set creep that was present in that game. The power creep in warmachine makes the power creep in 40k look tiny and insignificant. A player using only the first two or three books can not compete. Period. He will be trashed. The reason for this is because the balancing mechanisms in that game were placed via power creep upgrades to units (IE infantry additions, jack replacements, and caster upgrades). There is a definitive and easily followed power curve. The game really needed a reset.

When you say creep I think you really mean that newer things completely trump older things
and I've never seen that to be the case. Armies I've played against have a mix of
models from across the game, which is what you want. Why release an expansion
when no one will want the models?

Because you see so many ironclads and slayers. And gunmages without captains. Because skarre got played after the bomb got erratad and captain free banethralls came out. Honestly, the vast majority of the first book is outdated. Only a few of the jacks are still useable in any fashion, and most of the infantry is brutally underpowered without their neat little addons that got heaped on in the later releases. New things don't completaly trump older things, but they don't have too. Being just a little bit better is enough to ensure that the older jacks will never see a table again.

Wait, what?

There's nothing wrong with Skarre. She's just as powerful as ever. People still cringe when you put her down on the table. Prime models are still some of the most powerful in the game, especially the warcasters. Heck, they hit Sorcha and Hayley with nerf bats and they're still complained about as being overpowered.
I can't speak too much for the other factions, but an all-Prime Cryx list has little trouble trashing a mixed-book list from the other factions. Sure you miss out on some new shiny toys, but the power is still there in the older models.

Now, Heavy Jacks. Yes they've largely been replaced with newer models. But while iconic to the game, Heavy Jacks did not make up the majority of Prime.

I'll play Deneghra or Skarre (or Asphyxious if I had him) any day of the week and twice on Sunday, and win.

Since I discovered that she can kill Gudrun and prevent him from getting up (Sac strike isn't an attack) I have even more love for Skarre. Shame the model is't a patch on her Prime Remix picture.

I am not a fan of having to buy all new cards for my units that I have already paid for.

Not that they ever even released faction decks for Hordes...

Mattlov wrote:I am not a fan of having to buy all new cards for my units that I have already paid for.

And that is different from buying new Rulebook and Codex rules, how?

Well PP wasn't using the GW model before, but it's no different to me.

I'm all for it, especially if the rules aren't 1point font.

Perhaps they will come a step closer to edging GW out of their ironclad dominance of the market. Granted, it will take quite a few steps up to actually come close to threatening them, but a good poke in the eye may get Jervis and Co. to start listening.

warpcrafter wrote:Perhaps they will come a step closer to edging GW out of their ironclad dominance of the market. Granted, it will take quite a few steps up to actually come close to threatening them, but a good poke in the eye may get Jervis and Co. to start listening.

IMO, this won't happen because PP is making too much money. PP costs just as much, if not more than GW, so they won't grow as fast as GW. If PP were to bring their prices down to build share, GW should get scared.

This definitely is good news, as a rebalancing of relative power levels done by an incredibly competent design team plus months of player-testing should iron out any major issues... But at the same time it makes me not want to buy any more models until I see how good they are relative to each other

Smart move long-term for sales, but I think they'll see a dip at least until we start the beta.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Mattlov wrote:I am not a fan of having to buy all new cards for my units that I have already paid for.

And that is different from buying new Rulebook and Codex rules, how?

I have never had to before. I got into 40K with 5th Edition.

And GW is dead set against a new Tyranid Codex, so I may never know the feeling!

Mattlov wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Mattlov wrote:I am not a fan of having to buy all new cards for my units that I have already paid for.

And that is different from buying new Rulebook and Codex rules, how?

I have never had to before. I got into 40K with 5th Edition.

And GW is dead set against a new Tyranid Codex, so I may never know the feeling!

Hahaha. OK, got it. I got in at the end of 2nd, so I've had to replace quite a lot of Codices. Anyhow, welcome to the GW Hobby, where the dues never stop.

No, no, GW is dead set against a new Dark Eldar Codex.

GW actually likes the Nids, which is why you seem to get a Codex with plastic models in every edition. If you like 'nids, try to scare up a copy of their 2E Codex - it's pretty neat from a historical / Fluff standpoint.

Yeah and the 2nd edition Tyranid codex was the last fully official Genestealer Cult list, which is also cool. I got to say though the old 2nd Edition Hive Tyrant was one heavy lump of badly fitting metal (as was the screamer killer)

George Spiggott wrote:

redstripe wrote:Come back to me Sam McHorne!

I'd like to see an even hand with abilities and points this time round. A little more love for Sam and a little less for Alexia and Alana.

I doubt anything much wil happen with alexia. shes there emperor. I mean take a look at all of the rpg books..

I just hope they actually fix Boomhowler to be effective. It would be easy too... just give them reach and they are done.

Or knock fifeteen points off the cost of the unit.

I wonder how thick this new book will be? I mean, there's a lot of rules that were introduced over the 4 sets, and all bundled into one book is pretty big. Add to that, if they choose to reproduce all of the fluff and all of the character/jack/unit profiles to update stats and costs, and this thing's going to be encyclopedia sized.

Well all of the rules from Prime to Superiority were already included in Prime:Remix so I assume that the book will be around that thickness.

With the army books coming I expect that the main rule book only includes rules for a limited number of minis and the all of the rules and fluff are found in the army books. That way they can keep the main book in decent length and sell more faction decks as the source of complete set of faction's models stats.

I suspect we'll see a lot of combining of rules into more generic keywords/phrases.

They already mentioned a few rules that got that treatment. They'll probably do stuff for the various smoke/cloud/whatever effects.

That will cut down extensively on the clutter. Then we'll also see more Ability[X/Y] deals where that Ability has certain values that for X does Y damage when so and so happens.

That alone could really help speed up the game.

So, it's going to be similar to how 40K4/40K5 collected a bunch of wildly differing Codex rules into the USR section of a main rulebook?

That would be alright. I wish they hadn't gotten rid of the various different coherency distances. All they should have done is made it mandatory for the entire unit to form up a single distance or they get none of the benefits of any of them. Oh well.

The Unit attachment and Warcaster games/sales mechanic is one of my favorite features of Warmachine. A Unit attachment breathes new life into older unloved units for minimum outlay, same thing for new Warcasters.

Pity their going army books through, the gradual releases for everybody stopped any one force becoming the omg l33t list as each got a boost at the same time which is something I like.

That's a pretty good point I hadn't thought of, Llamahead.

It will be very interesting to see how PP deals with army books, as it's a pretty big change in approach for them. Hopefully they'll be able to balance them well without each new army being the flavor of the month.

I suspect the army books will just be compilations of everything. They're making all these changes all at the same time, rather than one at a time. Not to mention we'll have the testing rules in our hands early to try, that's for every unit out there.

So it's clear they're not going to have the army book escalation of previous games.

The recent Podthralls interview with Kevin indicated that the faction books are compilations and that thing would return to how they were before.

Sounds good to me then. If that's the case I think I'm solidly in the "looking forward to 2.0" group.

ShumaGorath wrote:

What kind of expansion did you want? One from which people didn't use stuff for their armies?

I would prefer expansions that didn't require new purchases every edition to stay at all competitive. It's a CCG format in a custom minis game. 40k at least only releases a new codex once every four years or more (usually a lot more). I don't have to "keep up" with current editions. When heroclix did this I didn't mind, heroclix are a fraction of the cost. When Magic the gathering does this I don't mind, because I can make tons of decks with my new cards, and its still a fraction of the cost.

WARMACHINE balanced its game with its new editions. It balanced its infantry and jacks by coming out with new ones to one up/improve the old ones. It didn't start with a balanced game, and it refused to alter points or stats to reflect the true values of its units. Its too expensive and too competitive for this to be an enjoyable format for many players (myself as an example).

With the restart hopefully they can patch the issues they started with and new expansions will expand options rather than require purchases.

A Fraction of the cost? What game are you playing, And what is your discount? Magic requires about 3 boxes of cards per expansion (to be competitive), that's easily 300$. They come out quarterly for the most part so thats $1200 a year. If you're only playing Cryx, you might have a new unit semi-monthly, depending on a book coming out. Spread out over time that's hardly the same cost. Heroclix is an even more bizarre situation since every expansion you might have to buy several cases to get a full set. This is ignoring singles purchasing which can correlate to similiar costs to buying Miniatures.

Secondly, any day of the week I guarantee you someone could build an all Prime list and completely bury you. Its highly possible and one of the strengths of Warmachine. Its not just the army composition, it's how you use it. While newer models make more competitive lists "easier" to build and more combinations happen, play skill is still extremely important.

Third, No one is forcing you to buy new models or play at the ultra-competitive level you seem to think is required. If your playgroup wants to play for fun then you should have no problem. If they aren't then you could always ask them to build more "fun" or "themed" lists. So you can enjoy a more casual experience. If they still aren't up for that, then they're douchebags whom you shouldn't be gaming with anyway, and I'm sorry you can't enjoy the game on the level you want.

strange_eric wrote:
A Fraction of the cost? What game are you playing, And what is your discount? Magic requires about 3 boxes of cards per expansion (to be competitive), that's easily 300$. They come out quarterly for the most part so thats $1200 a year.

This is flat out wrong. I played Magic competitively* once upon a time^ and I spent only what it cost me to enter sealed and draft tournaments, plus odd singles here and there. Mostly I traded for cards I needed. "Competitive" does not equal "Collect a playset just in case". Of course I did collect playsets for Legend of the Five Rings (in which I was also competitive), that was more expensive but still not $1200 a year.. (and that's with australian dollars.). I haven't bought many Magic cards but I could walk into a prerelease or draft tournament and be on even footing with everyone else (aside from my atrophied skill levels!).

* "Competitive" as in "Win the odd local tournament or prerelease and top 8 Regionals" not as in "Pro Tour"
^ "Once Upon a Time" was Mirrodin through Ravnica