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Primarch wrote:Let me know when you can't charge your own models, or shoot your own models, things like that.

If not for those kind of rules, I might play WM/Hordes.



Clay

You can attack your own stuff. But only if you want to. The only time your own guys get attacked by accident is when you shoot into melee and miss. Even then, there is a good chance you will miss hitting your own side.

Right now I find it useful to shoot my own stuff just so I can include invisible models in the effect. Thankfully, invisibility is not present in Mk2.

mikhaila wrote:They pretty much have to do this, to keep their game going.

People have slowed their buying because they don't know whether they want the models, without knowing what the rules are. Hordes people are wondering who they will play with after people switch to MK2 and they get kicked to the back of the bus for a few months. Retailers have stuff on their racks that will soon be outdated rulebooks, and miniatures with outdated rules cards.

And we have a holiday buying system coming, with the MK2 ruels scheduled for January. Not a good combo.

By putting out the rules online, they solve a lot of these problems and keep sales going, and people buying and painting miniatures, and interested in their games. Good move, and a necessary move.

Part of it might be be cause they appreciate their customers, but certainly some of it is because they are a business, and businesses have to stay profitable.

This is true. It is also interesting to note the fact that they realize that it is true and have taken the steps to rectify it. Credit where credit is due, and as others have pointed out in other "get over it" posts it serves as an excellent source of advertising/PR/goodwill from the community. My experiences with PP have given me a lot of good "free stuff" plus some amazing artwork and fiction that has kept my interest.

I am quite impressed with the efforts that they are putting in as it validates them as a company who knows what they need to do...therefore will be a safer bet for the ongoing hobby.

*Note: safer implies that the company might go out of business (as all companies might), I am not comparing it to GW as people are wont to do at the drop of a hat.

This is a pretty cool move on PPs part, and probably will go pretty far in boosting their popularity. I know I am going to DL the files just to see how the system works, and might well from there be tempted to build a small army.
There is definitely something to be said for the tactic of making people want to play your game they got for free, and then selling them the means to do so. You don't hear Reaper being sad about the fact they have no control over the fantasy RPGs that fuel their mini sales

This is neat and cool.

If you go to the friendly local grocery store and the store owner gives you some free fruit, you still say thanks. It doesn't matter if you're being given the fruit for selfish reasons, like the store room is full, or if you're given fruit you're more likely to shop there again. So, I'm going to take my free fruit and say thanks. (And go say it on their forums, too, after I remember my login over there...)

Thanks, Privateer Press.

Do these changes make Warjacks useful?

I stopped playing when the games climbed to 750+ and troops where much more useful than warjacks.

When I started it, it was a warcaster, some jacks and a rumble, those basic boxes where a hella fun game.

I don't want some fanboi nerdrage either. Anybody who says that jacks where worth taking before is just trying to be a fanboi, or devil's advocates. If warjacks where worth buying before, they wouldn't be free as they where when BETA started.

I mean, why take ajack when he attacks once, does massive damage, and only can kill a single model, because wounds don't effect units like in 40K.

I liked WM until the power creep, but why spend 110 on a jack that kills one gun mage an attack, when I can take 10 bane knights and wipe that whole in SINGLE TURN?

Warjacks were worth taking, not all of them and not all the time. Darius lists or bonejacks leap to mind as examples where they were worth taking.

Warjacks are a lot more resilient now, they hit more often, Power attacks are much easier to pull off and you often get at least one jack for free. Many of the overpowered units have been toned down Idrians, Bane Knights, Bile Thralls etc.

If a warjack inflicts 15 points of damage to a unit of gun mages, does he still only kill a single gun mage?

If not, then the only ones worth taking are the ones who channel spells, or others with a synergistc special rule.

Why waste points on a model that require focus and kills slowly.

Its easier to kill a jack with a much cheaper unit of widow makers, plus they can take down entire units of foot troops.

If you have to buy lots of troops to be competetive still, then once again, this game is still not cheaper than the Evil Empire's games.

I spent 450 USD on a competetive 1000 point WM army than included some extra stuff so I could have variety. I still regret it.

Warjacks got stat buffs to make them hit more reliably, don't lose full effect of systems when disabled, can shake off knockdown and stationary effects, trample and powerattack more easily with less risk, and a certain amount of points is given for free to each warcaster to purchase warjacks.

2 heavies is becoming pretty common at the least.

If you get a jack into melee with some gun mages, those gun mages can't do much to that jack. It's like getting a marine squad in CC with a dreadnought, and not having a powerfist.

Moz wrote:Warjacks got stat buffs to make them hit more reliably, don't lose full effect of systems when disabled, can shake off knockdown and stationary effects, trample and powerattack more easily with less risk, and a certain amount of points is given for free to each warcaster to purchase warjacks.

I'd say that something being free is a very good indicator of it being useless. I expect that every single Warmachine army of the future will take at least one warjack, because why not take one, but that still doesn't mean they're capable of anything on the field.

Slave wrote:If a warjack inflicts 15 points of damage to a unit of gun mages, does he still only kill a single gun mage?

If not, then the only ones worth taking are the ones who channel spells, or others with a synergistc special rule.

Why waste points on a model that require focus and kills slowly.

Its easier to kill a jack with a much cheaper unit of widow makers, plus they can take down entire units of foot troops.

If you have to buy lots of troops to be competetive still, then once again, this game is still not cheaper than the Evil Empire's games.

I spent 450 USD on a competetive 1000 point WM army than included some extra stuff so I could have variety. I still regret it.

Widomakers.. can only do 4 pt damage a turn unless you want to attempt to use their P+S to shoot down jacks.


Not quite sure how you downed jacks haha.


Anywho - think of jacks as dreadnoughts - kind of.


IF, you use your jack to simply hit and whack stuff they aren't going to kill much, in fact they are going to get tied down.

There are obvious measures behind this - use power/special attacks and go for the trample, throw, slam, push and etc.
Those are the exact things that deal with hordes of troops.


They wrote MKII in attempts to get away from infantrymachine - by giving Warjack points and what not.

Jack marshals also make it viable way to crank out more Machines under control.

I do like how Matt Wilson spent part of the last few days discussing/debating some of the changes with (un)happy people on the PP forums. Explaining some of the reasoning like why they introduced the min/max units for example. He did very well Imo.

Now if only Jervis would do the same

Agamemnon2 wrote:I'd say that something being free is a very good indicator of it being useless. I expect that every single Warmachine army of the future will take at least one warjack, because why not take one, but that still doesn't mean they're capable of anything on the field.

This just isn't the case, but whatever - it's not worth arguing here.

Other improvements for warjacks in the form of infantry typically losing their multiple swing abilities, spray attacks getting seriously buffed - weaponmaster, disruption, and cortex frying abilities being handed out more sparsely. There are still infantry units that can wreck their equivalent points (and more) in warjacks, but there are also warjacks that with even two points of damage left in the right place can find and tear your caster in half.

It's a balancing act and one that I hope they get right in this edition. Nobody wants to see all infantry swarms (MkI), and no one would really be happy with all-warjack lists either (I worry a bit about these becoming prevalent in MkII).

No, I can't think of jacks as drednaughts. Dreds cost points, and excel in several areas of combat. Warjacks, the focus of the game when it came out, need to be coddled and watched.

No focus, besides a few exceptions, no action. The fact that they are free DOES indicate that they sucked and had no point once this game turned into INFANTRYMACHINE.

For those who answered my question, thanks. I will pass on this game. I have interested buyers in my models, maybe they can find a way of having fun playing it.

See, that's funny because Dreadnoughts are pretty much garbage when it comes to being immortal gods of combat. Their weak armor and slow movement makes them perfect targets for most anti-tank units in the game.

Sounds like you're just jaded.

I will say this and can back it up with play. Jacks are just awesome now.

They're as hard to kill as they should have been, since they can no longer be just disabled, instead you have to wipe out every damage box to kill one. On top of that, mechanics have a much easier time of fixing them for a greater effect too.

If a Jack system is disabled, it's not as much a disadvantage as it was before. Instead of losing the use of a system entirely, such as a weapon, you just lose 1 die to the attack and damage for that weapon.

All jacks have had their stats boosted so they can operate without focus. If you use dedicated melee jacks, they now have MAT 7 which allows them to easily hit without focus use. I've run with 4 jacks with good success. Piling focus into 1-2 and using only 1 point in other jacks to do things like trample.

All the jack power attacks, including trample, have most of their penalties for use taken away, the majority of them have no penalties for use at all. Trample now allows you to simply wade through infantry, and any infantry affected by a trample, even if you don't hit them, cannot get a free strike back. I've wiped out entire infantry formations this way, then used the extra focus to smash whatever my jack ended up in melee with after the trample. Oh and trample also has the speed bonus of charge, so you can trample across large swaths of infantry.

All jacks now have Shake Effects ability, where during the control phase, if they're knocked down or stationary, for one focus point they can shake off those effects and act normally.

Overall, most units and abilities now have clearer methods for retaliation. It's much, much rarer for something to happen to your units that you can't simply come back and do as much damage to the enemy.

Dreds need to be coddled just as much, you don't realize it as much because 40k has gobs of units running around so you don't notice losing one as much.

I think my earlier comment was both too hasty and a sentiment not shared by the PP fan community as a whole. This to me indicates that I'm in the wrong, because I know there's a significant subset of the fandom who do crunch the numbers, run the statistics and have come to a more optimistic conclusion.

Myself, I'm slooowly building a list out of Broadsides Bart and 2-4 mercenary jacks, just on the strength of the models alone.

Bart can really make some merc jacks sing, so you'll probably not be disappointed there.

The point of jacks has always been high yield output in a pinpoint. Similar to what a warcaster could accomplish in HtH, but you don't automatically lose the game if your gambit fails with a jack.

I think a lot of the hate on jacks came down to people expecting win conditions like 'I killed more of your stuff' out of Warmachine, which almost never matters. What matters is that you killed their warcaster, and they did not kill yours. What you'd find in MkI and you'll probably still find in MkII is that equivalent points of warjacks will lose a stand up-no support fight vs. equivalent points of infantry. However, one jack can always threaten a warcaster, while one jack's worth of points in infantry almost never does.

I'm pretty new to Warmachine and have been playing with the MKII rules but doesn't the Trample attack alone make heavy warjacks worth it?

Most warjacks seem to have a movement of about 5-6 inches (4 for Khador) so that's a 8-9" trample move. With MATS of 6-7 they will hit most infantry on 6-7+ on two dice rolls and with strength of 12+ will kill on anything that's not snake eyes (and sometimes even then). So for one focus point they basically can kill any infantry in an 8" line provided they have space at the end of their move and can't be stopped since free strikes go after this action. I'm not sure how any infantry can stand up to that. Even with slow ass Khador that's 7".

Maybe I'm missing something since I'm a newbie but it seems like warjacks crush infantry now (unless they have weapon master or something).

No expectations aren't that high, it seems to be that any merc list who's not running Magnus + Renegade is more or less operating at a handicap.

Sorry Aga, but until you try the list in Mk2, best to leave the negativity for Mk1 rules talk where we know there are problems.

Right now, everything has been tweaked so bart may be the second coming for all we know.

Then again, you could actually run a quickly mangled metal in Mk2 with bart and the merc jacks.

Agamemnon2 wrote:No expectations aren't that high, it seems to be that any merc list who's not running Magnus + Renegade is more or less operating at a handicap.

Play some games man. Broadside + Mule, Buccaneers, and Mariner is really really nasty. One round of shooting is usually decent, but squeezing two rounds into every turn is going to cut swathes through the infantry that you've fixated on.

Yep, as per the link above, you can download everything you need to try it out.

As for trample, it's awesome. It's not just in a straight line too, it's anything that the heavy's base contacts, and everything that you can try to hit cannot make a free strike after the trample is over, even if you miss.

So, even if you're trampling super-elite infantry with weapon master (extra dice on damage), it's still unlikely that the 1-4 infantry models that you didn't catch in the trample will do much damage at all.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if you can do extra attacks after a trample, but I think you can, so that's even more nastiness.

Yeah I ran a Bart list and getting two shots out a Mule and a Mariner one of which was boosted by his Hot Shot spell is nasty. Add in a boosted Buccaneer throwing his net on someone you can seriously mess up a warcaster with sea dogs ganging up on it.

Other merc stuff seems kinda weak but they did get buffed a little in between the beta and these new cards. Press gangers got their Lass back and gained tough for instance.

I think what sucks about sea dogs is that they are expensive and require lots of solos to make them good and every game I've played involved infantry just being destroyed and being taken off the table in handfuls. I don't see why you wouldn't just take all heavy warjacks and beat the hell out of other jacks and trample over infantry.

EDIT: I double checked with the rules they just posted and Trample is a straight line now, but that's still awesome enough.

I like the new set of rules. It looks like they fixed a lot of my problems with the first version of the game (namely, the first version encouraged infantry swarms and the mechanics were terrible for games of this size).

That being said, I don't know if I'm going to play again. I got burned once, 2000 points of Cryx and about 1500 points of Menoth as well as 1000 points of Trolls, and I don't know if I can do it again. I'll probably wait for army books to come out as I really don't want to see units get outclassed by new units.

Also, the Retribution models look like crap. Holy hell do they look awful.

I do have a Cygnar battlebox and a few units in my closet, though, so I might get around to painting them and trying it out in a few months.

Basically I'm still on the fence and I'm having a lot of fun with 40k and LotR right now.

And on the note of Jacks being crappy.


I probably dont notice - because i play Khador ;p

haha. Strongest Stat jacks in the game. So I guess my opinion doesnt hold.

Got models with thresher - i'd smack everything in front of me.

You could even take a mangler.. for mercs. Those are devastating.


There is always a way to deal with ton of troops.




But anywho - lol:




Butcher
^Juggernaut
^Juggernaut
^Juggernaut
^Juggernaut
Mechanics (min)
Mechanics (min)
Widow Makers
Koldun Lord
eEyriss

35 points

Yeah I ran a Bart list and getting two shots out a Mule and a Mariner one of which was boosted by his Hot Shot spell is nasty. Add in a boosted Buccaneer throwing his net on someone you can seriously mess up a warcaster with sea dogs ganging up on it.

Other merc stuff seems kinda weak but they did get buffed a little in between the beta and these new cards. Press gangers got their Lass back and gained tough for instance.

I think what sucks about sea dogs is that they are expensive and require lots of solos to make them good and every game I've played involved infantry just being destroyed and being taken off the table in handfuls. I don't see why you wouldn't just take all heavy warjacks and beat the hell out of other jacks and trample over infantry.

EDIT: I double checked with the rules they just posted and Trample is a straight line now, but that's still awesome enough.

Magnus - got a boost. He doesnt have to pay focus to upkeep spells. Hes really nasty - played against him yesterday

Is it legal to use the Extreme Juggernaught in a game? Because that model is all shades of badass.

I know people who are fielding at least 4 juggernaughts and will be taking all 4 extreme poses... if you check the PP forums haha.


Not super sure on playability.. but... hell! lol.

If WM had a Jack v Infantry rule that allowed follow-up attacks for every 1-hit-1-kill, that would probably solve the problem.

The new trample seems like it solves a lot of that, to be honest. And mat bumps for jacks mean you can use that focus to push for extra attacks instead of hitting. I don't think 'jacks are going to have a big problem wading through infantry, and if they do, it will probably be through clever play by the opponent, which should be rewarded.
I can't wait to get to grips with the game, and see how Hordes changes.
Makes me really, really want to get the Dwarf Merc battlebox and a Nomad or Rockram, and a box of Shield Gunners.