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http://privateerpress.com/community/privateer-insider/insider-4-5-2017

4/10 Grymkin ends
4/19 Steamroller 2017 begins
4/26 Battle Engines, Bane models, and other stuff not named begins

Battle Engines for me have always seemed like weaker and worse Warbeasts.
If the circle one is what it says on the Tin, being a support piece AND a Gun Platform, color me excited to get one.

Battle engines are big and impressive models, but never had the stats to really back them up. They need to be on a power scale between warjack and colossal IMO to equal their stature and huge base.

One of the appeals of Battle Engines was that they required
no resources of the warlock/warcaster. Power up has changed
the calculus in including them for Warmachine which was why
they have always had secondary effects as opposed to just
raw power.

Excellent that they're looking at battle engines, most really are a rare choice and could use some tweaking.

Battle Engines really have no place in the game.

They are irrelevant for Warmachine thanks to Power Up and how Warjacks have been buffed. They are not in the Battlegroup, they are not infantry, they are their own class of model, meaning they can't benefit the same way from a lot of spells, feats, and abilities the way other models (infantry, Warjacks) can.

They are a mistake in Hordes, where they cost more than a heavy Warbeast, and provide zero Fury for your Warlock. You need Warbeasts in Hordes, because they are what give your Warlock resources- spells, animi, and fury. If you don't replace a Warbeast, then you are replacing infanty/solo's, which you use to fill in the gaps of your list.

Can you make them work? Sure. You can make any model "work" in Warmachine/Hordes. But it's a lot of work, and in the end, why work so hard when you can just use a heavy Warjack/Warbeast and get far more out of it?

The CID for them is a joke. Battle Engines can't be buffed- they will replace Warjacks/Warbeasts or whole units of infantry. They can't be included in a Battle Group- or they might as well be made into Warjacks/Warbeasts. Heaping more abilities onto them just to make them more attractive to take will push them into a category of "Must Take" and is something PP has taken great pains to avoid in MK III.

At the end of the CID, Battle Engines will be tweaked, tuned, whatever you want to call it, but they will still remain in the same weird, odd place.

There is one positive that non of the other types of models can do like battle engines and that is take up board space. I particularly like the Siege crawler. High armor and a lot of damage boxes does make it a hard object to remove. If they tweeked them a bit, it would be nice. Maybe lower their points by 2-3 or increase their range or power of their guns - maybe make their guns something that jacks really need to fear.

I'm thinking that most will move to a high box support piece with a few lower box ones staying combat oriented (khador and CoC). That helps give them a unique place/list choice vs jacks/beasts or infantry.