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Infinity is one of my favorite games and one I love has facing, but its a big example of where I don't love 180 facing. Its so common for characters often face weird directions to cover both directions of a corridor rather than the direction they're really focused on.

Personally I feel a decent rule of thumb is 'could this model spin around in place on demand?' If the answer is yes facing rules for it would still provide additional depth, but such would probably (though not always) cost more fun than it provides.

This is not to say it is rare for the answer to be no; quite the opposite. Vehicles (not including mecha-style) be they on land, sea, air, or space, are a common item to receive facing rules. Some games manage better than others. Bringing things back to WMH, there are definitely models which fall into this category for which I feel such rules would not only be appropriate, but gameplay would feel clunky without them.

The one thing I generally like about removing facing is it guarantees you can move things in a way that looks cool. Too often facing rules force you to avoid eye contact for tactical reasons, which always feels lame. Granted, the direct facing rules in WM generally kept this to a minimum.

I think the thematics are to weak. People don't want to play 'Armored Steel Division Whatever', they want to play Khador. Or Cygnar. Or the rest of them. Investment into a faction is the core underpinning any collectible miniature game.

I understand why pp wanted to split things into subfactions - model bloat. But themelists tried to brute force it. Not the way to do it. There were other issues with the old game that compounded into it falling away, but the theme lists were a big one.

Start with the thematics. Before you even do lore. Figure out what the factions mean for the players, not what the lore says they are. Then demonstrate you understand that. That'd be the way to try and bring some players back.

Nah, factions are irrelevant. Go look at 40k fans. How many of them are "Imperium" faction players, as opposed to "Space Marine", "Imperial Guard", "Adeptus Custodes", or "Sisters of Battle" theme players? You can go even further with Space Marines and Guard, in that you have "Space Wolf", "Blood Angels", "Dark Angels", "Salamanders", "Black Templars" players, instead of Space Marine players, and likewise "Death Korps of Krieg", "Cadian", "Catachan", "Vostroyan", "Elysian", etc. players instead of Guard players.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Nah, factions are irrelevant. Go look at 40k fans. How many of them are "Imperium" faction players, as opposed to "Space Marine", "Imperial Guard", "Adeptus Custodes", or "Sisters of Battle" theme players? You can go even further with Space Marines and Guard, in that you have "Space Wolf", "Blood Angels", "Dark Angels", "Salamanders", "Black Templars" players, instead of Space Marine players, and likewise "Death Korps of Krieg", "Cadian", "Catachan", "Vostroyan", "Elysian", etc. players instead of Guard players.

Except Imperium is more an alliance, the factions in it are guard/marines/mech/custodes/sisters. When building a list faction is the level you chose what group your playing as, you don’t chose imperium, you chose a faction and imperium is just a keyword that means your “mercenaries” integrate with your army and don’t just show up alongside it. Like how Kazay are technically mercs in mk3 but are Khador partisans and actually count as Khador models in most situations.

Personally a cohesive faction theme is super important. When I got into Warmachine I wanted Khador except for winter guard and doom reaver units. I wanted an elite fantasy steampunk tsarist Russian army.

At the same time Space Marines are an enigma that even GW has never managed to copy. Not other wargame has a single faction who have subfactions (who started out as just paint and minor rule differences) who sell as much as main line armies.

The other problem with fragmentation of a single army into many other smaller ones is that you fragment the playerbase. This means 1 "race" has perhaps 5 or more sub-groups. Each player within those subgroups might play only 1 subgroup.

So now a new Khador model might only fit a few of those subgroups. This leaves other players of the same faction group without any new model. It means longer gaps between models unless you can up your production.

Even Games Workshop suffers from this with regard to Space Marines dominating releases at certain spots during its lifecycle.



Yes taking a big faction and fragmenting it means smaller individual armies to balance; means creating new gaps within those smaller factions to release models into; but it can also mean that you've got more individual customer groups to support.
Another issue is visual identity. You go from a handful of very visually distinct forces to a sea of forces, but where many of them are very visually similar.

 ChaoticMind wrote:
When I got into Warmachine I wanted Khador except for winter guard and doom reaver units. I wanted an elite fantasy steampunk tsarist Russian army.

So what you're saying is that you also wanted to play an "army" rather than a "faction"?

You just said it yourself - you didn't didn't want to play Wolves of Winter or Winter Guard Kommand. PP has made it easy for your, because now you don't have to worry about your armies being balanced around the inclusion of models from those Themes/Armies, instead you can just play Armored Korps and Legions of Steel with the confidence that your army will be fully supported and balanced as a standalone force.

The other problem with fragmentation of a single army into many other smaller ones is that you fragment the playerbase. This means 1 "race" has perhaps 5 or more sub-groups. Each player within those subgroups might play only 1 subgroup.

So now a new Khador model might only fit a few of those subgroups. This leaves other players of the same faction group without any new model. It means longer gaps between models unless you can up your production.

I think the goal here is basically "churn". Players can be confident that a roughly ~$400 or so investment gets them a reasonably complete and well balanced army that they won't necessarily need to continually update with new models to chase the meta with, i.e. theres not quite an "upkeep" cost like there was in previous editions where you could be reasonably certain that you would have to drop 50 bucks every few months on each of your factions in order to remain relevant. Instead every few months players might drop a few hundred on buying an individual army and be done with it, including one-offs from different factions, without feeling like they are committing to a lifetime of continued investment. On top of that, there are cadres which allow more listbuilding flexibility and will likely attract additional investment from players. So basically, players "churn" by buying into different armies and/or cadres every so often at a higher cost, rather than by dropping smaller amounts on a regular basis into individual model purchases to expand a single army as is the case with GW.

As the multi-list SR format is rumored to be based on lists chosen from one *army* rather than from a faction, my guess is that players are going to definitely want to invest into cadres relating to the armies that they are committed to playing by default, in order to ensure they have the flexibility and tools needed to remain competitive. But I also imagine that many players will get sick of playing the same army constantly and will diversify into other armies, potentially from other factions. I think its a solid approach to business model and will pay out to PP in a good way.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 ChaoticMind wrote:
When I got into Warmachine I wanted Khador except for winter guard and doom reaver units. I wanted an elite fantasy steampunk tsarist Russian army.

So what you're saying is that you also wanted to play an "army" rather than a "faction"?

You just said it yourself - you didn't didn't want to play Wolves of Winter or Winter Guard Kommand. PP has made it easy for your, because now you don't have to worry about your armies being balanced around the inclusion of models from those Themes/Armies, instead you can just play Armored Korps and Legions of Steel with the confidence that your army will be fully supported and balanced as a standalone force.

Not really, they have theme lists that support going all in on MoW or IFP but the benefits are so overwhelming doing a mix of MoW, and IFP Ulhans leaves me way behind. I play factions, in infinity I can play my Combined Army and get benefits for staying in just the Morat/Shasvasti/Onyx sub faction but lose out on what the other two offer or I can forgo the subfaction buffs and get a mix that aren’t as specialized to a specific style of play and have my psycho mob draw fire while my sneaks and elites get into position.

I think the goal here is basically "churn". Players can be confident that a roughly ~$400 or so investment gets them a reasonably complete and well balanced army that they won't necessarily need to continually update with new models to chase the meta with, i.e. theres not quite an "upkeep" cost like there was in previous editions where you could be reasonably certain that you would have to drop 50 bucks every few months on each of your factions in order to remain relevant. Instead every few months players might drop a few hundred on buying an individual army and be done with it, including one-offs from different factions, without feeling like they are committing to a lifetime of continued investment.

No.

Completely wrong here. i love MKIII and i have never done anything of the sort. i play what i play because i like the models. i run a mix of winter guard and manowar in the same list. i didn't even care about the faction when i started because i was after certain models. i joke about khador now because i know more about the lore in the iron kindoms but the army build isn't based off stupid things like SR. we play casual fun games without theme force restrictions/bonuses so we can use what we like, and because it is usually 50 point games i can switch out things to keep the list fun between the 5 jacks, 4 units, 5 solos, 3 attachements, 2 casters and a single battle engine i can make some interesting combos without having to buy another model.

MKIVs proposed cadre/army restrictions are exactly the opposite of what i like to do with WM/H and one of many reasons i will not be playing it.

Ok. That doesn't make me completely wrong. You aren't the typical warmachine player/customer and very clearly not their intended customer - that much is obvious from your posts about the other games you play as well as your own statements here. If you don't like it and don't want to play it, then thats fine, nobody is forcing you to.

Unlimited format includes all models, including all Prime models. So it's still possible to play that way.

That said, you can be sure PP will make Armies that are a mix of various units, but with restrictions elsewhere to prevent it from getting out of control. I'm thinking Armies that represent specific moments of time and specific team ups out of a much smaller pool of mixed units.

Not only is it a good idea to allow more interesting army combinations, it allows PP to sell more units. But, let's hope they don't let their idea of business get in front of making a good, balanced, and manageable game as they have done 3 times before. It has to be done very carefully.

Further commentary on their resin, and an update to their policy of included magnets.

https://home.privateerpress.com/2022/08/15/resin-and-magnet-safety/

Good they've twigged this before shipping started

"However, we have recently learned that in many countries outside of the United States, there are consumer protection laws that prohibit the inclusion of small, high-powered magnets in toys and model kits because of the dangers the magnets pose to small children in the event they are swallowed. In compliance with these laws and out of an abundance of caution, we will not be including the magnets in the kits but will instead offer them as a separate, paired product, with the magnets contained in child-resistant bottles for an increased measure of safety."

oof - that's a pain in the ass. You would think they'd just be able to slap a "Ages 12 and up" sticker on the box or something.

Distributor info for the Khador Winter Korps starter set is in the wild. Oddly none of it seems to line up, so I can't really tell what's in the box. A lot of it is just stuff I already have, its very much classic Khador, but the sculpts are looking like huge upgrades. The stuff in the new video is looking particularly sharp:

The problem is sometimes its a nightmare actually finding out the codes and restrictions and jumping through all the right hoops to make sure that you are compliant. Then you've got to do it all for the next country and the next etc...

Sometimes its a headache that takes a simple idea and makes it complicated. Plus game companies have to be careful when it comes to age restrictions, it might not just mean a mark on the box; some stores might simply not stock products over X age; some approvals come with costs for inspection and approval.

 Overread wrote:
The problem is sometimes its a nightmare actually finding out the codes and restrictions and jumping through all the right hoops to make sure that you are compliant. Then you've got to do it all for the next country and the next etc...

Sometimes its a headache that takes a simple idea and makes it complicated. Plus game companies have to be careful when it comes to age restrictions, it might not just mean a mark on the box; some stores might simply not stock products over X age; some approvals come with costs for inspection and approval.

Same thing with the new VAT regulations from last july. I now have the option of not selling to the EU or engaging a company to act as my official surrogate in remitting VAT simply because one of the new requirements is said representative must be in an EU country.

This is a nightmare for small US businesses, as we've either been kept out of the EU market or have to pay monthly fees simply to remit sales tax.

When, in all honestly, the EU could open a secure online portal and achieve the same result of getting paid.

This is huge and in more than one ways.
I honestly thought PP was slowly going toward a slow and sad sunset, but ho boy was I wrong.
I’ve always thought that PP had way better design and business model than GW, but sadly they never got the legs to walk into the light.
Seeing them making big moves could have an broader impact on the TT industry as a whole, especially on GW and its quickly degrading business model.

Jack Customization
At a time were GW is slowly backing away from the concept of wargear PP is finally getting around having different loadout for their minies rather than having completely different kits for what could have easily just been additional weapons.
This is good, but I don't really see how that makes it not retro compatible with older models.
What exactly prevent them from releasing a new Hammersmith chassis, with Centurion bits, and a bunch of other stuff too, yaknow, like a 40k dread?
When you think about it, warmachine could have easily merged most of the jacks into a single light and heavy chassis per faction, with different weapons.

Command Cards
It's pretty funny to see PP roll out with what many have asked GW to do with the stratagems:
Make them part of the army creation, limite the number you can bring at the start of the game and make sure your opponent knows what you have in your hand ot greatly reduce the burden of knowledge and gotcha moment the system bring.
This is EXACTLY what stratagem should have been.

Digital Age
And the best part? Thos cards are free and the models rules and related app are free, this is MASSIVE. They already did the whole free rules thing but solidifying that way will cast a clear shadow on GW buy cards/books/app model that not only create many massive barrier to entry for any new players (wana pay 100+ bucks of paper before being able to get into the miniature game?) but also kneecap hard the balancing of the game by hanchoring it around books.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t keep up with the current “up to date” version of 40k without wahapedia. The game is caked in layer after layer of update, expension, addons and errata to the point of being totally unusable. Having a place that centralize every single up to date rules is necarssarly both for new and old player.
Hell, I’ve bought a couple of armies that I probably would never have just because I could take a long and hard look at their rules before jumping in.

Moving the books into a “more of a world guide than a rules manual” is EXACTLY the right move.
I’d buy codexes for most armies, if they were actual great lore, painting and hobby guide than overpriced PDF delivery that will be outdated before hitting the shelves.
Think of the Heraldry books of Warhammer fantasy, but with way more lore and painting on top of it.
And that app will continue PP legacy of betatesting rules and taking feedback from players, something all game desperately need these days.

This is one of the area where PP was always century ahead of GW, and they have once again taken the right path.

This is the part I really, REALLY hope GW players take note of, and hopefully realize that there’s another way to do things out there, a better way. If enough people realize that, GW may finally be forced to adapt to that new set of standards and expectations.

Armies & Prime Format
Army sounds like a great way to design more self-contained forces, but I can also smell the very, VERY strong reek of the «The game Prime system has a rotation ala MTG, so now X army is out of Prime and a new one comes in” (basically what GW has been doing with many of their smaller games), because you know this is going to happen. The whole point of that MTG style format is to be able to rotate what is “the current thing”, keep the meta fresh, the store shelves streamlined with only the current products, and the pocket of the seller as full of possible with the cash of people having to constantly pay to keep up.

I don’t think I’d want to invest in a game where my army has a clear, and probably rather short, shelf life. It’s already bad when you have to deal with cards, but at least there you can somewhat cut your loses by selling them to collectors, here it’s going to be just awful.
On a side note, Merging Warmachine & Horde is a long overdue thing that I’m glad to see finally realized. The idea was cute, but it was more of a hindrance than anything in the end.

3D Printing
Can’t believe PP got stuck for so long on metal, but I have to admit seeing them moving to 3D printing is a very, VERY smart move.
As much as I don’t like resin, especially 3D printed resin (as a material to work with), it’s now extremely affordable to use, and can deliver quality on par, if not better, than even GW plastic.
It’s going to suck for hobbying, but PP was never much a kitbashing game anyway, and it’s still a massive step up from metal.
As long as they don’t cheap out by buying some trash 3D printer or having low quality assurance, this is definitely the wining move for them, and hopefully it will mean they’ll set a new standard in miniature pricing, way under GW, which just like with the free rules and app, could seriously give a new perspective to the many, MANY players that have been hanchored for decades by GW.
If they do it right, this could be a great improvement to the whole table top miniature market.

The Pricing
This is sadly where PP fail, and fail pretty hard at that.

200 $ for 20 intantry and 2 warjacks seems very expensive, especially for 3D printed material. That’s Black Templar level of ripoff right there, and there’s not even a book inside.
175$ for 15 infantry is just insane.
And they do that because they want to focus on retailer, when the bulk of their new business model should be just like their rules, digital.
Have an online store and make all minies print on demand, that’s literally the best part of 3D printing, you can easily print specifically what you want at any time, why focus on the dying retail market!?
And more importantly, why are you pricing your stuff at the same price than your main competitor, the notoriously insanely overpriced GW?!
“but since the armies are small, you are comparatively paying less for a full army”
Yeah, sure but I’m also paying too much for too little minies!

I get that you want to encourage your LGS, but what if I don’t have a LGS? And what if my army needs an additional specific unit? Will I have to buy a full bundle or be forced to pay the “online store tax” (this is a mindblowing concept ng).
If you really want to help LGS, just sell them your product at retailer price so they can sell it at the same price or cheaper than online rather than punishing people from going to the online store.

The Planning
As for the release schedule, that seems desperately slow More than a full year with only 3 factions slowly rolling out, leading to the release or another new faction…
Why doing all that song and dance about how “this is totly not End Times guys! We aint blowing the world” if what you are doing is basically AoS, releasing new factions while leaving the many others in the dust. They didn’t even include Cryx, one of the OG warmachine factions…

Overall I love what they are doing, but got damn man they could have had such a major and easy win here with a better pricing, a faster release shedul and some major shift toward online distribution rather than LGS focus...
I really hope their plan will succeed to save PP, and more importantly to make an impact on the TT miniature world by giving a new perspective to people that have been fed gak by GW for decades.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Oh god, the tactical rock infection is spreading... And they got duplicates poses and even just reused the same banner carrier for different units.
That's unacceptable.


Aight, if that's the quality they are going with, it's DAO.
With so many round surfaces (literally all of it is rounded), that level of striation is way beyond anything acceptable.
It's not just some stuff "you can't really see with naked eye", that's BRUTAL.

Some light sanding fixes all that. And given you have to clean mold lines and fill seam lines with other model lines means we are all used to SOME prep.

 (HN) wrote:

175$ for 15 infantry is just insane.

FWIW, while the exact contents of these sets isn't known, just going by names we've seen I suspect part of the price is due to them being larger models in general. The caster shown is large based and I suspect the Storm Lance Legionaries will likely remain mounted 50 mm models as well. The Assailers are looking to be 40 mm as well, so all in all it seems like a box of stuff that generally runs a higher price per model in general. Time will tell though, I totally reserve the right to be wrong here.

I think the sticker shock on the army starters is a real problem and I would really love to see the Warcaster C+2 Jack bundles be an SKU instead of a solo product. That said, I'm a lot happier with what you get out of them knowing that they contain significantly more than 50 points worth of stuff. You can't actually take everything in the box, even with the most bare bones jacks, and I'm finding the customization options compelling enough that dropping a unit likely worthwhile. The box not being a static 50 but something with options to build multiple 50 point army options from makes it far more palatable to me, but I still wish there was a better low cost option.

The sticker shock is a worry. Whilst GW has pushed up their own entry prices by moving from the Battleforces to the Vanguard sets, they've also doubled down on things like Warcry, Killteam and Underworlds as gateways into their product line.

I worry that Warmachine - which needs everyone they can jumping into the new system, is going to stall its initial growth potential by having such high priced gateway products.
Granted I'm guessing that their market strategy right now is to appeal to existing, former and current wargame fans. So people who are already into PP or at least wargaming and thus might spend more.

It's risky though, most games aim to start low and tempt people in. Offering cheap, small format games and packs that might not be a whole army/force/whatever; but which offer enough to get you to the table playing. You need that early connection before people start spending out the big money and that's where the more expensive starter sets work - as an expansion point and/or start point for those moving to a new force who are already bought in.



Then again perhaps they are after a really slow burn and hope that high priced sets sell well and will match their production output. So they can slowly ramp up production with steady increases of sales rather than start out with a massive surge that exceeds production too much?

 rayphoton wrote:
Some light sanding fixes all that. And given you have to clean mold lines and fill seam lines with other model lines means we are all used to SOME prep.

I'm sure. But I get better prints on my dinky desktop printer. I won't be paying premium for that.

 Albertorius wrote:

 rayphoton wrote:
Some light sanding fixes all that. And given you have to clean mold lines and fill seam lines with other model lines means we are all used to SOME prep.

I'm sure. But I get better prints on my dinky desktop printer. I won't be paying premium for that.

And I could usually get better casts in the resin shop at my old school than pretty much any company making resin or plastic models. For some reason I still bought models. Perhaps that is because I did not actually have master models to copy, just as you do not have the digital files.

If the product cleans up and assembles faster than the old stuff and a lot of competitors' product? That's what going to count.



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 (HN) wrote:

Aight, if that's the quality they are going with, it's DAO.
With so many round surfaces (literally all of it is rounded), that level of striation is way beyond anything acceptable.
It's not just some stuff "you can't really see with naked eye", that's BRUTAL.

It's not. I got hold of a kit from a gencon ninja shopper and those pictures are from a bunch of playtesters who accidentally were sent faulty product. This was after they had a falling out with the company, and they gleefully shared them everywhere, in a Some Men Just Want To See The World Burn-style.

At Gencon PP had a customer satisfaction guaranteed guarantee, you could return product for money back or new kit. As far as I know, they had one kit returned at Gencon and I have seen 4-5 instances of mispacks or individual faulty prints that they handle through the usual PP replacement portal.

most games aim to start low and tempt people in. Offering cheap, small format games

Catalyst did that in spades for classic battletech. the new plastics are good quality and since the game has always only needed 4 or 5 minis to play a normal game a buy in price of 25-30$ for a complete army with pre-assembled minis has led to a huge explosion in popularity.

So people who are already into PP or at least wargaming and thus might spend more

I already did, but not for the reason they want. i finished off my collection of models i needed for MKIII because i have no interest in MKIV so i needed to get them before they were gone or changed into something less aesthetically pleasing for the steam punk setting i like.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:
And I could usually get better casts in the resin shop at my old school than pretty much any company making resin or plastic models. For some reason I still bought models. Perhaps that is because I did not actually have master models to copy, just as you do not have the digital files.

If the product cleans up and assembles faster than the old stuff and a lot of competitors' product? That's what going to count.

I still buy models, too. But not these ones, at least not until they are as premium as their price purports.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:
It's not. I got hold of a kit from a gencon ninja shopper and those pictures are from a bunch of playtesters who accidentally were sent faulty product. This was after they had a falling out with the company, and they gleefully shared them everywhere, in a Some Men Just Want To See The World Burn-style.

That's nice and all, but that's still the quality point I have. Until they show they are better, it's a no go.

 LunarSol wrote:
A lot of it is just stuff I already have

Thats a weird way to put it. Thats like saying Khador Winter Guard and Cygnar Trenchers are the same thing because they are both humans carrying guns. The new sculpts are definitely a strong callback to winter guard, but they are clearly equipped differently - sabers instead of axes, the addition of grenades, heavier armor, more advanced firearms, etc.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:

It's not. I got hold of a kit from a gencon ninja shopper and those pictures are from a bunch of playtesters who accidentally were sent faulty product. This was after they had a falling out with the company, and they gleefully shared them everywhere, in a Some Men Just Want To See The World Burn-style.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. "accidentally".
So, did the faulty piece just rolled off the table, drop into an envelope and sent itself to them?
And ofc it was sent to some very nasty people that just shared the picture because they had a "falling out" and "wanted to see the world burn"?

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:
At Gencon PP had a customer satisfaction guaranteed guarantee, you could return product for money back or new kit. As far as I know, they had one kit returned at Gencon and I have seen 4-5 instances of mispacks or individual faulty prints that they handle through the usual PP replacement portal.

Right, so they have the same generic policy than everyone else on the market, and have clear quality assurance problem.

As I said, it's DAO.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
A lot of it is just stuff I already have

Thats a weird way to put it. Thats like saying Khador Winter Guard and Cygnar Trenchers are the same thing because they are both humans carrying guns. The new sculpts are definitely a strong callback to winter guard, but they are clearly equipped differently - sabers instead of axes, the addition of grenades, heavier armor, more advanced firearms, etc.

Oh, don't get me wrong, these are dramatically better sculpts than the existing line. Like the new Rockets are soooooo much better than what I have and the base infantry is full of character and detail the existing line lacks. The flags look great; sculpt wise it all looks great. I'm just saying it doesn't "feel" new yet; just like a heavy resculpt. It'll start to feel new once I've seen more of the new stuff. The new Shocktroopers in the art look really cool and the machine gun guys are exciting. I'm just curious to see more of that and less of the stuff that feels the same as the army I have.

(HN) 806214 wrote:Text.

Weird take. We have hundreds of kits sold at gencon with one return. And dozens of kits being reported on by customers who seem happy with them, on FB, Reddit and the discords.