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 Kalamadea wrote:

TL: DR - Having had a chance to go over the leaked cards It just feels like PP screamed to the world "major changes and rebalance EVERYTHING", but really they just settled for "Tone down the OP, maintain status quo, minor changes so people buy a couple new units"

Exactly how I feel with what they done to my PoM, I'll have buy an almost new army for them to stay current/competitive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Has anyone got a link to the leaked cards?

They're on reddit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yeah, mk3 feels very much like a touch up around the edges, a bit of evolution, certainly nothing revolutionary.

Very safe, which probably won't lose them many existing customers but doubtful it'll get many new customers (or entice back former customers) either.

To quote someone else
"The issue is that PP took an axe to the killing power in the game and an axe to defense and stealth. The changes are about how fun the game is to actually play. Basically, since Legion is going to have to take infantry (ish - Legion players are already considering how to get around it) your anti-infantry tech will have a job. Because Cryx has to take jacks, your anti-ARM tech will have a job. Because very few units are stealth now, your shooting will have a job.

The point of all these changes is so that in the end you won't have to worry if someone brought a list parts of your list just won't have a hope against. You can fearlessly take Trenchers because the Khador player across the table isn't going to have a screen of Def17 infantry with boosted sprays rushing down your throat."

This is kind of what I think they're going for in MK3, and explains why all the extreme def bonuses went away. Every single Khador unit is now def 12 it seems. No more iron flesh

 .Mikes. wrote:
Huh, Heart Eater seems to include undead models now too. Pretty cool.

Did you notice it no longer specifies Enemy models?

I did not. Good catch.

 Kalamadea wrote:

And that's my problem with a lot of the MK3 stuff I've seen: a lot of the already good stuff got minor buffs, the crazy OP stuff got solid nerfs (usually), but the mediocre and bad stuff got minor buffs at best and often they got even worse.

That and the more interesting, outlandish abilities get deleted wholesale. Which is all the same as what happened when Mk1 --> Mk2, so I'm not surprised. At least this time I think the core rules weren't changed so much as to invalidate entire factions' playstyles?

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Kalamadea wrote:

And that's my problem with a lot of the MK3 stuff I've seen: a lot of the already good stuff got minor buffs, the crazy OP stuff got solid nerfs (usually), but the mediocre and bad stuff got minor buffs at best and often they got even worse.

That and the more interesting, outlandish abilities get deleted wholesale. Which is all the same as what happened when Mk1 --> Mk2, so I'm not surprised. At least this time I think the core rules weren't changed so much as to invalidate entire factions' playstyles?

Maybe not a core rule, but there is certainly a lot more infantry hate still which puts a damper on Cryx's play style.

Sining wrote:
To quote someone else
"The issue is that PP took an axe to the killing power in the game and an axe to defense and stealth. The changes are about how fun the game is to actually play. Basically, since Legion is going to have to take infantry (ish - Legion players are already considering how to get around it) your anti-infantry tech will have a job. Because Cryx has to take jacks, your anti-ARM tech will have a job. Because very few units are stealth now, your shooting will have a job.

The point of all these changes is so that in the end you won't have to worry if someone brought a list parts of your list just won't have a hope against. You can fearlessly take Trenchers because the Khador player across the table isn't going to have a screen of Def17 infantry with boosted sprays rushing down your throat."

This is kind of what I think they're going for in MK3, and explains why all the extreme def bonuses went away. Every single Khador unit is now def 12 it seems. No more iron flesh

Oh there's Iron Flesh alright, but it buffs armor instead of defense

As a bonus, it prevents blast damage.

 Kalamadea wrote:
TL: DR - Having had a chance to go over the leaked cards It just feels like PP screamed to the world "major changes and rebalance EVERYTHING", but really they just settled for "Tone down the OP, maintain status quo, minor changes so people buy a couple new units"

+1. I feel like the majority of the edition could have been wrapped up in a 2.5 prime book and fat errata deck for $20 or something across the whole game.

I'm not going to argue exactly what would and wouldn't work there, but what I'm saying is that the scale of their changes are largely superficial, and then there's some stuff where it just doesn't feel necessary- for instance at first I thought tried & true was great little flavor, but then looked at it for another 30 seconds, and +1 health when healed is really not worth the space it takes up to write. It's like 2/3 of the time they're talking about streamlining and the other 1/3 they're adding superfluous rules.

IDK. my response to the edition shift is pretty lukewarm. Maybe it'll fix things. Maybe I'll even play. But it sure doesn't have me lunging over to my old collection to sort my minis/start prepping minis to paint.

A 2.5 edition would be a nightmare with the points values as
they are currently. 2.5 would be just cleaning up frenzy language,
but it wouldn't include all the feat changes, all the additions
of field marshal. I think people are used to codices staying
the same between edition changes, and that wouldn't work
with some of what they've done without just acknowledging
that they want points to go to half points or whatnot.

I don't think there's anything wrong with introducing a half-point scale if it means that all of the basically stable things didn't need to get reprinted.

What I'm saying is that this is a surprisingly conservative new edition. I haven't actively played 40k since, like, the early 2000's and certainly don't use it as my main reference point.

IDK, they've done what they've done. I was kinda' excited before but it's so conservative that I'm not sure what they're actually achieving with it.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
I don't think there's anything wrong with introducing a half-point scale if it means that all of the basically stable things didn't need to get reprinted.

What I'm saying is that this is a surprisingly conservative new edition. I haven't actively played 40k since, like, the early 2000's and certainly don't use it as my main reference point.

IDK, they've done what they've done. I was kinda' excited before but it's so conservative that I'm not sure what they're actually achieving with it.

Pretty much. I last played just as Colossals were coming out. Heard about mk3 and followed this thread. The result? A resounding "meh". Nothing new really, nothing to be excited about. Won't be getting out the Khador again.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
I don't think there's anything wrong with introducing a half-point scale if it means that all of the basically stable things didn't need to get reprinted.

What I'm saying is that this is a surprisingly conservative new edition. I haven't actively played 40k since, like, the early 2000's and certainly don't use it as my main reference point.

IDK, they've done what they've done. I was kinda' excited before but it's so conservative that I'm not sure what they're actually achieving with it.

But they would have had to reprint more than it would have been worth to simply
"patch" things.

Change how powerfields work for one.

Another is that it seems as if Cavalry rules are changing
since everything that was a cavalry model gets Reposition. Artillery
rules are different.

Mechanic repairs.

There are enough differences that an errata document would have
been a mess.

That's why it would take a new book. There are plenty of x.5 editions where the stats etc. changed little enough that it survived in the same edition with core errata. All of those things could have been addressed in the core rules, except mechanics, unless I'm misremembering.

Even PP made a x.5 or w/e edition nearing the end of 1st, which had errata for the outliers plus fine-tuned rules.

IDK, it's not what they went with, just saying that I'm not a fan of the half-assed new edition. Either perfect your current edition or make radical changes, don't kinda' change things but mostly leave them the same but not enough to keep the current edition. It didn't get me excited to play a new innovative version of the game nor was it minimal enough to just address the corner case issues.

I'm saying that these rules are enough to warrant a new edition,
not just a .5 book. It's also allowed them to re-release the
existing models as a whole (kind of like how convergence
was imagined) rather than piecemeal (which is how you get
weaponmaster warders). As you've said, they've done a .5
book, and in the end maybe they didn't like the result a .5 book
had on clearing up issues.

After looking through the leaked PDFs and taking in everything that's been said through Insiders and PP's podcast, I'm not sure this game is going to finally be the edition of Warmachine that actually is about the steam powered robots. It looks like we'll see marginally more because of higher jack points but that it'll be a small subset of warjacks that are viable along with a smaller subset of infantry and solos with the difference being that they'll be different ones than the subset that dominated MK2.

You'll see more because of that and you'll see warjack 'casters
as being more effective with some of their rewrites. The 1"
melee range on heavies will make the ones that exist more
effective, and the free focus for 'jacks will mitigate stationary/
knockdown.

I'm worried that Borka2 won't be all that much better, but I'd like
to actually try some games with him before I make that call.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see light warjack swarms be a major thing. If you pick a caster with stuff that affects their entire battlegroup and give them a bunch of light warjacks with guns, those free single focus points will go a long way.

If we can believe the leaks, you could have Kara Sloan with like 11 Chargers or like 9 Hunters.

According to the leaked cards Chargers now take one Focus to boost attack and damage rolls on both shots.

Charger gun line, anyone?

They've always done that.
Also, it's one focus for one shot

Yeah, it says "for the attack". I'm pretty sure the two shots count as separate attacks. So, if you want to do it for both shots, you'll need to give them a second focus. On the plus side, with the ROF changes they don't need a focus to actually get that second attack so the free focus plus one more is all you really need unless you want them to smack things in melee.

So, if you do the Charger swarm, you're not going to be able to fuel all of them every turn. So maybe not go full-blown swarm, but a smaller swarm of Chargers seems like a potentially efficient gun line.

Or go with Hunters. You can't have as many of them, but if you use Rangers or something to help with accuracy they probably are good with just relying on their free focus to boost damage. Fireflys have some potential too, since they would help each other's damage rolls.

Ah read it wrong. but it is still better - the additional shot used to cost a Focus also, now it's free. So, two Focus to fore two fully boosted shots, and it gets one of those for nothing, so one Focus from the Caster's when it was three in Mkii. if you don't want to boost anything, then it's just two shots for no Caster focus.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Yeah, it says "for the attack". I'm pretty sure the two shots count as separate attacks. So, if you want to do it for both shots, you'll need to give them a second focus. On the plus side, with the ROF changes they don't need a focus to actually get that second attack so the free focus plus one more is all you really need unless you want them to smack things in melee.

So, if you do the Charger swarm, you're not going to be able to fuel all of them every turn. So maybe not go full-blown swarm, but a smaller swarm of Chargers seems like a potentially efficient gun line.

Or go with Hunters. You can't have as many of them, but if you use Rangers or something to help with accuracy they probably are good with just relying on their free focus to boost damage. Fireflys have some potential too, since they would help each other's damage rolls.

You can still do the nemo2 charger swarm, which was already a thing in mk2

Grundback Blasters and Grundback Gunners also seem really swarmable.

 malfred wrote:
I'm saying that these rules are enough to warrant a new edition,

And a lot of the changes were made specifically to make it appear like there are enough changes to warrant a new edition. Again, like Mk2. For example deleting the Light Cavalry unit type and printing the rules it granted straight onto all the light cavalry unit cards, which is kinda the opposite of cleaning up the rules, but hey, it adds to the illusion of change.

I wouldn't call

powerfield changes
free focus to warjacks
dead warbeasts generating fury
pre-measuring
changes to entire spell lists and concepts
removal of fear psychology
removal of old style theme forces
application of new style theme forces
changing how mercs and minions build armies
removal of character restrictions because of rebalancing
monstrosities generating focus from damage
removal of skill repair checks
reduction in fury management options
change in terrain rules
vectors inducting all their focus

illusions of change.

And you even forgot a few.

Jack Marshal for example.

This is MARK 3 of a game. "Mark" stands for an edition with changes/improvements, not a completely new game. This isnt GW who just do stuff for the sake of doing stuff.

PP tries to actually find the flaws in their system and fix them.

RoninXiC wrote:
And you even forgot a few.

Jack Marshal for example.

This is MARK 3 of a game. "Mark" stands for an edition with changes/improvements, not a completely new game. This isnt GW who just do stuff for the sake of doing stuff.

PP tries to actually find the flaws in their system and fix them.

Oh right, Jack Marshal, artillery, yup.

RoninXiC wrote:
And you even forgot a few.

Jack Marshal for example.

This is MARK 3 of a game. "Mark" stands for an edition with changes/improvements, not a completely new game. This isnt GW who just do stuff for the sake of doing stuff.

PP tries to actually find the flaws in their system and fix them.

And oppressively label their customer base as 'parasites.' You're right, this is not GW.
Bur seriously I will be revisiting their rule set and giving it a shot. I dont know what to expect though, so many little changes....

They said that to costumers? Maybe you have a clouded memory. They said that to shops.