Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

LuckGod has been running a campaign with a group called The Grey Lanterns, and they play on Twitch and post the recordings on YouTube. I haven't kept up with it, though.

marxlives wrote:

 LoS_Jaden wrote:
Phil breaks down the five Trollblood theme forces through a Brawlmachine focused lens in this latest Brawlmachine Primer!

https://www.loswarmachine.com/brawlmachine/2021/3/6/brawlmachine-list-building-trollbloods

How can I win if welps are FA 1 for Brawlmachine? It's like every crook I need to win LOS robs me of it. What do you want me to do? Strategize!

It's not entirely LOS's fault as they didn't change the purchasing method of Whelps. Still, they could have considered an exception in this case. They may in the future, as I hear they are looking to take MacBain off of the ban list, so nothing is purely set.

Providing feedback from games might help in making those changes.

Did all the Protectorate forces in Llael head to the Portal, or did some stay behind?

Striker died, but he did get better as an Archon.

Overread wrote:Heck I hope that the whole idea of summoning units to the tabletop that they've been doing with Warcaster gets ported into Hordes/Warmachine. I think its the ideal way to have a skirmish level game with lots of niche units and variety, whilst at the same time also having a diverse and large model range. Being able to bring in any model into the battle means that you can have those niche and situational models becuase those niche situations will turn up in games. Things that in "competitive metas" which would never get chosen because they aren't statistically "the best" at the meta. Things that might only come out a few times ,but which would have a fair chance in such a system.

I think skirmish with active in-game sideboards beats a tournament style sideboard that relies on multiple games to come into effect. That works for Magic the Gathering because each game might be only a few minutes long - its unlikely you'll get games lasting 4 hours. For a wargame its less ideal and its nearly useless outside of a tournament setting - where many clubs might only game once or twice a night.

That would be hard to justify. Portal tech is pretty advanced. Unless you can provide a way to provide such or similar for everyone, that it would lead to a very unbalanced game.

Oh, sure, some could be expected to create a form of it, either through tech or primal magic, but for others... Unless it is a ubiquitous arrangement on Caenn, or at least Western Immoren, then it just won't fly. Keep in mind that in Warcaster, those portals are at least as available as airports, if not even more common.

Ostensibly you could test it out right now, if you have a willing group. Start out with a Brawlmachine list and the put a summonable side-board list.

Still, I still say that either portals would have to become ubiquitous or some extensive tech and magic discoveries would be needed.

Of course, it doesn't require magic or tech to do it. Gatormen, for example could place a pond or river in their deployment zone, and that's how they would arrive. Legion Warlocks bleeding to summon new Warbeasts.

Of course, just utilizing a basic Reinforcements protocol ala 40K would also be in keeping. They aren't being summoned, per se, they are just arriving on scene. Units using Ambush or similar abilities would automatically be put on the side board just as Infiltrators and Deep Strikers are automatically in Reserves.

Another thing to consider, Warcry has you divide your army in to 3 groups. The deployment card says where each group sets up, and even when they arrive (Turn 2 or Turn 3). I don't know how practical it would be with a game that has a constant King-Kill condition, but it could be adjusted so that there is the Core that is always deployed, this would be a Brawlmachine-sized group, and then a 75 point list would have the remaining 50 points split in half and allowed entry at different turns.

The interesting thing is that most of the units in the main armies won't be a problem. Praetorians are all the same body and head, just arm swaps, same with most of the Trenchers, Blighted Elves and Ogruns, etc.

Where we start getting in to issues is in the Characters, particularly Character units, and Mercs and Minions have a LOT of Character in them.

Someone suggested getting all the Warcasters and Warlocks in the same box. Well, Halley, Makeda, and Morghoul, have 3 forms, one of which literally comes with 2 MORE models, of which Halley is 2 more forms.

Then there's Stryker, Vlad, and Kreoss who have 2 unmounted forms and 1 mounted. Trying to fit all 4 forms of Goreshade or Nemo in to one kit could be frustrating OR expensive.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think they could go through and narrow each warcaster/lock down to their current narrative incarnation while giving a selection of popular ones a 'classic' version chosen from more basic/iconic versions. Then do a rotating made-to-order system like what GW does sporadically, but make it annual and planned out so people can still access older sculpts.

Rebox units to replace a few grunt models with the champion/standard upgrade, then all of those separate SKUs can be cut. And like you and others have mentioned collapse similar units down into one option with a new kit representing that option while allowing players to use their older ones as well.

So we'd be dropping the dead ones like Stryker and Mordikaar, all the Cryx Goreshades, the human Nemos, etc? There are going to be a lot of people who are disappointed in the opportunities, especially if they look up old battle reports or story lines, even more who have this huge collection which are now largely unusable. It's a good way to get long-time players off the game.

There is a HUGE difference between storing Magic cards and Warmachine models, though. Also models often add a personal investment with both building and painting that Magic cards only have someone else's painting on them.

Overread wrote:Also you say that GW can kick their customers hard and still have them come back, yet when AoS landed people didn't come back. If anything they left in droves and took others with them. Sure AoS at launch had some fans, but a good number were simply buying models to then use in 9th age or Kings of War or other game systems. They were no longer GW loyal in that period, they were simply buying cool models and had GW stuck with it the 3D printing market and 3rd parties for fantasy would have had a storm of sales. If anything it would have unseated GW from the fantasy market entirely and left them relying totally on 40K.

GW only recovered because they changed a huge number of policies, attitudes and the product direction and even then it took several years to get to 2.0 and start building the game up and the fanbase up properly.

I know of quite a few people who went back to AoS after the release of the first GHB. They've been gathering more, too. They also went back to 40K with 8th Edition. They are loyal to the game because that is where the bulk of their models come from.

LunarSol wrote:What's wrong with the rules?

Personally, I think as a system Mk3 is great, but at 75 points shows its age. Playing at smaller points results in a much snappier experience more competitive with more modern systems.

There are some (I'm not necessarily including Musketeer in this) that view Steamroller as part of the rules.

Still, when compared to how quickly you can move models around in 40K or AoS, it can seem like there there is a problem with the rules.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Still, when compared to how quickly you can move models around in 40K or AoS, it can seem like there there is a problem with the rules.

Not sure I totally follow this.

WMH is a model on model game, even though there are units. By this I mean that a unit of Trenchers going after a unit of Praetorians will still focus on targeting a single model at a time, often on a model by model basis.

40K and AoS are unit games, meaning every interaction is on the unit level, i.e. a unit of Imortals shoots a unit of Intercessors, not the Intercessor Sergeant model.

Movement and range also play a huge part. While there is little difference between and Advance and Run, the Charge is +2D6 after one has Moved, as opposed to WMH +3" improvement. The average range of a Ranged Weapon in 40K is about 24". In AoS, I think it's about 15-18", though I'll admit it's been a while since I took a perusal. In WMH, it's about 10-12". That's in threat range of the average Charging unit.

With the beginning of 8th Edition, unit rules were made very very simple, meanwhile WMH kept adding more and more rules to each unit and model with Mk 3. That obviously changed as the codices came out and each unit's datasheet can be as complex, or more than any unit or model in WMH.

 Polonius wrote:
I played a lot of Mark 2 and hated 40k 6th/7th, but I"ve never played Mark 3 and I'm loving new 40k. If I were to explain why, it would simply be that WMH required more effort than I was interested in giving it. It truly is a game of skill, but I wasn't interested in busting my balls to get good at it.

I think it was that and (according to people here at the time) Themes doubling down on what 40K had just gotten rid of that was killing 40K (i.e. Formations with free units and super extra rules). The Themes weren't here right away (though there was an example with Cephalyx), they came out pretty quickly.

Deadnight wrote:
In Infinity, the game could be described as 'always being your turn. They declare an action,I declare a reaction (shoot back, dodge, etc) and there is a roll-off as to who 'wins'. Its not takinf your turn rolling against a static number and then being the static number for the other guy.

Heh, could you imagine if Counter-Charge, Counter-Blast, and Admonition were standard options for everything in WMH instead of a carefully parsed out Special Rule?

Still, the LotR turn structure you mentioned (which is similar to Battletech's, but they are AA within the Phases) would make such considerations almost unnecessary. Those above rules are incorporated because you as the player can't otherwise be doing anything else and no capacity to react to the other player's actions. By alternating such actions, reactions can be incorporated as part of the normal game structure.

SuperHappyTime wrote:
The hype this game had is long gone. Why haven't you moved on to a better game? Or better yet, why aren't you creating that better game (And making it your own?)

It's time we memorialized and buried Warmahordes. The rotting corpse is such a foul scent.

Warmachine isn't a bad game, though. In fact, it is better than most. Right now the biggest problems are PP's interactions with resellers and the competitive gatekeepers who push Steamroller. No one but PP can handle the first part, but people like those at LOS are doing what they can about the latter.

 Wehrkind wrote:
In general, I think WMH was a good game that appealed to a very different part of the mini-hobby from 40k: the part that thought it was fun to study to get better. I know I spent a lot more time studying than playing. I never quite got that from 40k. As such, I think WMH can't quite work the same as 40k in business strategy, and I think PP stumbled over that.

The funny thing is, 40K was that way for a LONG time. It wasn't as noticeable due to the scale the two games operated at, but it really came to a head in 7th Edition, which is notable for being one of the most hated 40K editions.

The reason it wasn't as noticeable in 40K was two fold. 40K fielded a lot bigger armies, which means that "gotcha" moments tended to not carry the same weight as they do in WMH. If you lose your Troop unit, that was one out of 10 units in your army, but in WMH losing a unit mean that a quarter to a third of your army is now gone, and it gets worse with Steamroller scoring.

The second part is that WMH is focused on the Warcaster/Warlock, so most of that "gotcha" is focused on all the spells and the Feat of said character. For all the power some units had in 40K, no Pysker had the spell list of a Warcaster or Warlock, nor were they so disproportionately healthy and resilient when compared to almost any other unit they were with. In many ways, WMH is still in their "HeroHammer" phase, and I don't know of a way to get out of that part. And without doing that, there is always going to be a bit of that "studying the enemy" aspect to WMH.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Oh, and I guess wishlist #3, cooler themes please. Themes are one of the reasons I threw in with WMH so hard in MK2, a feeling that MK3 has successfully 180ed to be very much a turnoff.

I agree, the Mk 2 Themes seemed more in control than they are in Mk 3. Part of that is due to how Mk 3 Themes fit numerous Warcasters and Warlocks in them while Mk 2 focused on the one. Then there is also the factor that Mk 3 Themes allow for "free" models which means playing outside of Theme is stupid. Now, some of the Mk 2 Themes did have "free" models in them, but they weren't that common or only applied to Attachments.

Wehrkind wrote:Re: Video Game: Was that actually a turn based direct port? I didn't get into the KS, and then ignored the game on Steam while it languished on my wishlist. My sense was that it was very tarted up, fancy graphics etc. instead of just solidly implementing the rules.

Warmachine Tactics had most of the mechanics from Mk 2, with the army purchasing of Mk 1 and the unit interactions of Company of Iron. Focus mechanic was there, spells were there, turn-based IGOUGO actions, but there were no actual units. Each "model" was its own thing, and never in a unit. Some models could still do unit actions like CMA, provided there was a similar model close enough to do the job. In the multiplayer army builder, you're not even required to have a unit leader.

I've not made it past the 3rd (or is it 4th?) mission in the campaign as yet. There is a bit of a crashing problem and while the models do look good, the "cinematics" tend to be more about a camera panning around statues while the characters talk (not even mouth movement). It would have been better to have stills they panned across as they could have had more impact for much cheaper. Story-wise, from what I understand, focuses on Cygnar's Junior Warcaster, Allison Jakes, as she follows her mentor, Commander Dalen Sturgis, in a response to a Khador invasion. She apparently grows in to a full Warcaster through the campaign and something happens to her mentor. It's not even very long, only comprising about 10 missions, I think.

LunarSol wrote:Alternating activations is definitely fashionable at the moment. I'm not sure its strictly superior, but it's very popular. I think it definitely has some big advantages, primarily in the form of reducing extended downtime for the inactive player, but it has a lot of quirks that can really cripple it if developers don't go out of their way to limit the power of things like activation advantage and really reduces model synergy. I haven't seen an AA game that can capture the sense of mechanical army identity Warcasters provide, even in games that have similar central character commands.

The main thing with WMH's implmentation at this point is just turn length. The opposing player is just out of the game for too long at the current game size and mistakes a player makes take too long to bare out. I'm not entirely sure what the best way to fix it is, but I definitely think something would be lost changing to full AA.

Having more of a reactionary system would help make it be more healthy. Right now, the only normal reaction system is Free Strikes, with Counter-Charge and Counter-Blast requiring the model to have the rule to use them.

The alternative is to go Warhammer and treat units as a cohesive whole with models as Damage markers instead of the model on model interaction they have been going with. Alternatively, is of course, smaller games, such as Brawlmachine or the 50 point games some have used.

 Wehrkind wrote:
I think part of PPs decision to can the forums was also due to the generally very negative response to Mk3. I feel that negativity was justified, and PP played that very badly. I think PP would have done better to acknowledge the community's frustration and admitted Mk3 had issues, they were working on them, etc. instead of taking their (forum) ball and going home. For me at least it solidified a sense that PP had become rather petulant and entitled towards their customers, much like GW had.

Eh, there was a lot of it before Mk 3 was launched. Mk 3's launch just didn't do much to reduce it.

Mr. Grey wrote:I wouldn't mind if Warmachine had some way or method of playing a more "beer and pretzels" game built into the rules. A tight competitive ruleset is one thing, but sometimes it's nice to just hang out with a buddy and have a more casual game.

It does as much as 40K or AoS does. What matters is the attitude and willingness of the people who play it. It might surprise you to know that the only limitations on scenario is what you and another person are willing to work with, same as Warhammer. It might also surprise you to know that No Quarter often had scenarios which were purely narrative and not meant for the competitive scene at all. Yet, it was the local groups which determined how hard-core they were willing to accept.

For some evidence of that, look up Brawlmachine and how the response for it has been.

Wehrkind wrote:I found the meta- tourney vs casual issue with PP pretty similar to the one with GW. There always seemed to be a group who wanted to throw down unpainted meta armies and be kind of unpleasant, others who wanted to play nicely painted and entirely unworkable fluff armies, and some in the middle who had nice armies and were trying to win but were good sports. I think the PP system maybe favors more of the former, rather unpleasant group, but really I have seen about equal numbers of both.
That said, I have been very lucky to have pretty good gaming groups for a long time, and have been able to identify and hang out with the guys who can appreciate "I want to try out a new silly list" vs "Let's try and sharpen ourselves on each other's knives" kind of games, and enjoy both.

I think one of Warhammer's advantages is that their rules are just bad enough so that people don't take it too seriously. And yes, there are as many of the tourney people in 40K in the local area as there are in WMH. But Warhammer's rules are just so dang senseless at times it is harder to take seriously without damaging one's sense of logic. Warmachine is sold on that tight design, so I guess some people get caught in a competitive trap cycle.

I think too many people were caught up with the Steamroller scene that they lost sight of the numerous other ways people could choose to play the game. I also know of some that took off more for X-Wing where the rules are similarly tight, but didn't have to deal with the hobbying side of it. WMH models are quite nice, but they do have a lot of detail which can be intimidating to paint.

Cyel wrote:I admit I find it hard to relate to what some of you describe "mk3 was not so great so people went back to WH40K".

I, personally, do not consider WH40K to be a substitute to WM&H any more than Monopoly would be a substitute for me if for some reason I couldn't play Brass or Arkwright or 18XX. So for me it is surprising that for so many players they are really no different and just the fact that both are miniature wargames makes them interchangeable.

Well, when 8th Edition came out and did away with all of 7th Ed's troubles while MK3 started doubling down on Themes, it rather falls flat to players who have both. And as someone said, most already had 40K armies. I was trying to get rid of mine at the time because I was still pissed off at the Grand FAQ from the year before, so I didn't trust the rule makers with it.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:That was a part of the game from the very beginning. The Escalation campaign for Mk1 was purely narrative, a way to play through the storyline of the book with some possibility of variation. We did some of it back around 2008-2009 but with first the Superiority and then the Legends releases coming people wanted to play the new stuff and it eventually fell off. Oblivion's campaign system is another attempt to push narrative play after NQ went under, but as you write, local groups have individual preferences. That being said, most local (and we have 3 clubs) attempts at narrative play seem to sputter out no matter the system. Our Infinity: Paradiso campaign also failed, and with a few rare exceptions, narrative play campaigns for 40k locally don't have the legs to survive more than a few games.The ones that manage it are the groups dedicated to narrative play, and they tend to give tournament types and people in the middle (like me) a wide berth. Which is kind of sad. It doesn't help that many campaign systems that try to implement an "XP" or resource gain system barely survive more than four to five games because the gap becomes too big and the losers just give up. That was the fate of the Corellion campaign we did in Armada and I've never seen a Mordheim or Necromunda campaign survive more than four or five rounds either.

There are two types of narrative play, quick scenarios that are not tied down to the tournament scene, and narrative campaigns. I agree that holding up ANY campaign is a challenge as people tend to peter out of it as life interferes. But when no one can get even a quick scenario or alternative size game in besides Steamroller, then things boil down to the most competitive players in the area who only have new Steamrollers moving in to the area as new people to play.

LunarSol wrote:A big part of THAT I put on the relentless focus on tournament play. 2 full sized 50 point (equal to 75 points today) armies was kind of the bare minimum and sadly PP's starters were in no way helping people get there. A big problem is just that for as great as the rules are, a lot of the industry had caught up. Games like Malifaux, Guild Ball and especially X-Wing all offered the same focus on clean consistent language while being dramatically easier to buy into. Selling people on Warmachine was a tall order, one which PP's SKU bloat and lack of enticing entry points made almost impossible.

The sad part is that the relentless focus on tournament play is totally caused by the players, and has little to do with PP.

I can't think of a starter which will put you in a good position to be doing tournament play right out of the box. Either one of two things happens: you get a good sized kit, but they are buried by the meta; OR, they are about one-fifth of what you are going to start out with.

Battleboxes tended to be the worst of both worlds having only a few models to start with, and most of the models being outpaced once you started growing your army. However, in terms of learning the basics of the Focus/Fury mechanics, the Battleboxes were and are still the best places to start, which is why the building league starts with them.

The larger starting boxes, tended to fall in to the first category, offering up enough models to get most of a Steamroller started with, but often were out-paced by the meta. And this is where the Steamroller mind-set continues to counter the efforts of bringing people in, especially if you run in to some of the, "We only play Steamroller here.", mentality who push new players to buy and build without really giving them any decent growing play time.

Boss Salvage wrote:Crisis Protocol! I knew I was forgetting the new hotness. Star Wars Legion seems to be riding high still too?

SWLegion is going pretty strong here in the Phoenix market, it seems. The Facebook page is pretty active at least, some were playing at home, and a few stores that have opened their doors to regular play even have a night dedicated to it. Army-wise it seems similar to WMH, but far less reliant on a key figure for everything (both a strength and a weakness of WMH).

While I have access to the local Crisis Protocol page, I have lost interest in it (I find 2 faction games to be boring) so I don't know how well it survived the store closures.

 LunarSol wrote:
All very true.

I think part of the problem on insisting for a need for narrative play is that its not really for beginners either. Generally it takes some experience to understand a game well enough to play a fun narrative experience. What's really needed is a low investment way to play. Single list, small points needs to be available and more importantly needs to feel supported.

Well, how do you define "supported"?

The Battlebox game is specifically for beginners to learn the ins and outs of Focus/Fury mechanic. So that's the 0 point game.

Line of Sight has been good enough to flesh out a Steamroller-style 25 point game called Brawlmachine. That seems to be well received.

Steamroller exists, and is the go-to for 75 point games.

Privateer Press puts out a narrative league almost every single year, and were putting out narrative scenarios in No Quarter. Funny how we rarely see people actually talking about them when bringing up narrative games.

When I see people talking about WMH support, they come across as wanting specific tight guidelines and scenarios from Privateer Press. Realistically speaking, it is the player base that needs to be supporting these variations to get anything out of it.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

While I have access to the local Crisis Protocol page, I have lost interest in it (I find 2 faction games to be boring) so I don't know how well it survived the store closures.

You're in luck! Crisis Protocol has like..... 15 factions now!

I've only seen people reference Heroes and Villains. Are they making distinctions between Avengers and X-Men, AIM and Hydra?

 LunarSol wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Well, how do you define "supported"?

xxxBy supported I mean that PP needs to promote nominal scenarios for a smaller experience similar to what 40k has been doing with Combat Patrol and Incursion. PP themselves have done a great job with it in Warcaster, and those 3 little scenarios have probably done more to get people to try the game than anything else from people I've talked to.

So you basically supported what I said about:

 Charistoph wrote:
When I see people talking about WMH support, they come across as wanting specific tight guidelines and scenarios from Privateer Press. Realistically speaking, it is the player base that needs to be supporting these variations to get anything out of it.

You're not recognizing the responsibility of the player base to actually engage with what is provided. Privateer Press does NOT have to provide everything in order to play at certain levels, even though they have in the past. Brawlmachine is a perfect example of this.

 LunarSol wrote:
What I'm saying is that a narrative league is probably a little too hardcore for the kind of support that pulls in new players. They don't need flourishes; they want to play the base game, just smaller. Battlebox games are fun, but don't last long because there's no real support for it. If you've ever watched players play more than a demo on an empty 4x4, things get weird fast. The game really needs a scenario to force engagement as the footsie nature of the game starts to click. ...

The odd part is that you can use the scenarios provided in the narrative leagues without tying them in to the larger campaign. This is even better when those scenarios are designed for smaller groups, which Oblivion has several. And it's not like there are not 9 basic scenarios provided in the Prime/Primal that pretty much are handled using the same rules as the average Steamroller or Brawlmachine. The only true limitation is the player group that you are with, and I've seen so many of the old players push in to Steamroller that it becomes sink or swim, and so new players just drop it in favor of other games.

A year and a half ago, a few gentles were willing to play me at 25 points utilizing Steamroller scenarios. They trounced me, as expected, but they were willing to talk to me and try to force me in to a full Steamroller game, and I got a few good licks in. The best game I gave was pretty much decided on The Mage Hunter hitting his Warlock while she was knocked down. Snake eyes pretty much allowed him to win on Scenario as his Legion was faster than my Mercs.

So again I will restate, it is the player base who needs to engage with these lighter games to get people engaged, and it is not encumbant on PP. GW survived for decades with them only providing an occasional nod to the building game, and that is because the players were willing to engage with the smaller games.

 LunarSol wrote:
The problem has always been that once you learn the game, anything less than 75 points just isn't fun and a lot of that is simply that PP has never put the effort anywhere else to force engagement like Steamroller. Without it, the game becomes something of a gentlemen's agreement to move forward and kind of crumbles as soon as anyone backs up (looking at you Caine....). Now, I will say that PP did try with the small table variant where you deployed on your first turn, but that mostly just seemed to show that the game really demands 4' between players to minimize the alpha strike. I'd still like to see scenarios with that kind of focused combat on a 4x4 or 4x3 though, specifically for smaller point games.

I have seen a lot of experienced players extol Brawlmachine. Maybe its because the limits that are imposed on it, maybe not, I can't say. Most of the recent games in my market are on the other side of town, too far away for me to meet up with, and the one night I can get away is currently Battletech night at a closer location with no one there showing an interest in WMH, even though they recognize the tokens I sometimes use.

 LunarSol wrote:
I don't really believe you can hoist the job of creating a path for new players on the community. If that happens to happen? Great, but no company should expect to grow sitting around hoping someone will find a way to make their product enticing for them. New players need something to have faith in and "my homebrew scenario" has never really been the kind of thing that sells someone on a game.

Then you've missed two different points. First, Privateer Press HAS provided several paths to do it, but they've been ignored by people like you for years now, even before Mk 2 was done. Second, any gaming community that wants to grow, will need to make some effort in order to make it enticing to new players. They won't come in on their own.

And as for "my homebrew scenario", that happens in almost every other game system. Dungeons & Dragons is built on the idea. I did it in the 90's with Battletech, even though I had the majority of scenario packs. The average pickup game in 40K can be set to it as a lot of the base scenarios get altered with home-rules based on the players' capacities, to say nothing about all the TC packets.

 LunarSol wrote:
Brawlmachine is definitely an outlier in that regard, but no small part of that is due to the amount of effort put not only into the scenarios that drive it, but the marketing behind it. They've done a really great job of it, but its really only necessary because PP failed to recognize the need for something like it themselves.

False. They built up the community first, and then proceeded to build Brawlmachine to help build their community even more. They recognized that the Steamroller mentality was depriving them of new players, so developed Brawlmachine to act as a second step that was a bit more flexible than the JML. Oddly enough, it follows the pattern of the Journeyman League (which hasn't been updated since the change to Requisition), and expands on it.

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm also probably not being particularly clear with what I mean when I say the narrative scenarios are too hardcore for new players. I'm not referring to the commitment to the league itself, I'm talking about the actual scenarios...

Easy to do when you immediately talk about people not following up on campaign and nothing about the scenarios involved.

 LunarSol wrote:
..New players tend to want to charge in and smash face and the league scenarios tend to overcomplicate that. Part of the reason the Battlebox works on new players is they play it "correctly". Part of the reason Steamroller has always been so popular is that it demands that aggressive clash even to players that have learned they could just back up.

That's really all 25 and 50 point needs; something that requires players to slam in the center, scaled to that game size. The biggest problem I've had with smaller games for the last several years is that the Steamroller scenarios and pushed to spread 75 armies out more and more. Trying to play them with even 50 leads to very scattered armies that can't meaningfully contest and lead to very one sided wins in a lot of situations.

And while focusing on those Steamroller at 75 scenarios, you missed all the ones in No Quarter and in the Oblivion book. Am I incorrect on that?

And if new players want to just charge in and smash things, wouldn't those narrative scenarios help train them to focus away from the center brawl?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I don't think people are asking for the popularity of the 40k scene, they are just asking that Warmahordes get back to the level of community it previously had. And really, it is on the company to convince players to spend money on their miniatures.

That's only part of the equation, though. If everyone who is involved with their product is "Steamroller-only", then people who either don't want to do Steamroller, or are just plain brand new and get intimidated by Steamroller, won't bother collecting and/or bringing those collections to play in community areas like the FLGS.

Getting a 75 point list NIB is expensive and represents a considerable investment in time. If you're lucky, you can grab what you want from people selling their collections and getting out of the game, but otherwise, it is a lot to get started with.

This also doesn't include all the information that comes at the new player, from Focus/Fury mechanics, to model rules to all the unique rules that abound on each individual card. When you add a certain charm of "surprise" added on by some players who take pleasure in beating down the noobies, it can make it hard for a game with that reputation to grow.

If you want to talk about Privateer Press having lost the trust of the wholesalers that LGS get their stock from, or their difficulties in getting a cost-effective shipping point in the Euro-sector, then by all means, this is something that is entirely on PP's shoulders. The local scene, though, has been and always will be up to the community, and PP has no control over that, with or without Press Gangers or equivalents.

As an example, a new store just opened up just a few miles from my house. They have a Battletech night. There are some people who have kept up with the game who have started getting that night reserved. This is as far on one side of metropolis as one can get, but the Catalyst Demo Agent (Press Ganger equivalent) is on the other side, and focused his attention there (can't blame him, he lives there). No Demo Agent was needed to get things going, just a bunch of people who wanted to play the game. Over the last 3 weekends since I started going, there were 2 brand new players, 1 returning player (besides me), along with myself and a few old other hats who were getting the game going, plus a couple other new guys who have shown interest on the metro's FB page.

TL;DR If you go through your gaming life expecting the company to provide everything for you to play, you will be disappointed. Be prepared to get out and help as much as you can.

 LunarSol wrote:
I think PP has more ability to affect the local scene than you give them credit for. New releases for any game out there generate buzz and fuel excitement and more than anything, bring in new players. It has been a long long time since PP released anything that really enticed new players. It's almost entirely been attempts to appease the existing playerbase that increasingly just don't need more stuff.

Releases that make players feel like they're a good jumping on point are huge for any game. The number of people suddenly interested in MCP because of X-Men for example, or every time GW releases one of these army boxes with a really cool unique hero in them. I play a bit of everything and no matter how many demo days or events I run, it's immediately noticeable when there's a new release that gets a lot of hype. These things bring in new players, whether they play other systems and like some new shinies or are complete new to the hobby.

PP needs to signal to people that they should start Warmachine. Everything for years now has been selling the game as this infinite wall with no foothold to climb.

There are two ways to do starting points: new Edition/Mark or all-in-one army sets.

While I won't argue a new edition is warranted, we've already been over the problems with the all-in-one sets in that they rarely stay relevant for very long. I don't think we'll be seeing anything until they get off their Riot Quest kick. I think part of Riot Quest is to provide the funds to keep things going while they decide what to do next. Of course, they could also be looking at refining things with Warcaster so as to decide where they want to take WMH next on a rule scale.

Next problem is their distribution systems. Few wholesalers are providing stuff to the retailers. Even few retailers are providing their stuff in stores now, and haven't for some time.

And finally, if new players still feel blocked by the Steamroller crowd, there is little that Privateer Press can do. I know that there is a big enough crowd of burned players that will talk down new players from getting in to the game for precisely this reason.

Even with all that, you're still relying on a company to do what you cannot orwill not: inspire new players to join. If you can't do that now, it's still going to be hard no matter how "new" and "fresh" new stuff is going to be.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
TL;DR If you go through your gaming life expecting the company to provide everything for you to play, you will be disappointed. Be prepared to get out and help as much as you can.

A nice sentiment. Let me tell you how reality works:

Warmahordes is competing for appeal with Warhammer. The models are similarly priced for lower quality, and harder to physically obtain. The Warhammer community is huge and easy to access, the Warmahordes community is... not that. You want to tell people to get out and work so they can enjoy the hobby, while there is another hobby without that requirement right beside it? Don't start any businesses.

If you want to go through life with the naivety of a child as to how the world works fine, but don't expect actual adults to do anything but mock you when you try to imagine you're on some high and mighty platform above us. That you think a company can't affect it's own community is even more laughable.

So many people see only the absolute in statements. Keep in mind of what you quoted, and I highlighted the significant above. Do not expect the producing company to do everything. This does not mean that the company cannot affect the situation, just that they can't be expected to do EVERYTHING. Even more so if they do not control every event for the game that is put on. It's not like they have an active control on every pickup game there is.

Actually, I find your sentiment naive in thinking that the work of the community is not needed in order for the community to grow. How much does Games Workshop actually do? The answer is, less and less. They used to have official events around the world, but nowadays, most "official" events are put on by local groups or Conventions, and have utilized their own tournament rulesets for years now. They used to have a forum, but now they don't. There are far more forums upkept by individuals and groups with no direct connection with Games Workshop, and the same could be said of Facebook groups.

This isn't to say that producing companies cannot affect the situation. Privateer Press's loss of wholesalers emphasizes this point quite well. However, Privateer Press did not require a person at one of the LGS in my metropolis to state, "We only play Steamroller here." That was all on him and the group at that store. Privateer Press made the Steamroller pamphlet, but does not require it to be the only way of playing the game. Privateer Press made the Journeyman League growth program, but one is not required to use it exclusively to grow the game in your area, even more so with Brawlmachine providing a new growth option.

 Mr. Grey wrote:

Widely available starter sets with, say 25pts armies (battlegroup, a unit, UA, some solos), somewhere around 80$ would make a lot of people try the game out, be hooked and buy more I think. Even lower quality plastic (like that in battleboxes) would do to make it more affordable for a wider audience.

I agree on the first part, but hard disagree on the second. If PP wants to recover any sort of market share(and appeal to current/former Warhammer players), they need to ditch the cheap, lower quality plastics and move on. Even less popular games like Bolt Action and Konflict '47 have better plastics than the pvc stuff that Privateer Press offers. Before they shut their forums down, there were complaints for literal years about the plastics quality, and I thought when the company started slowly introducing HIPS miniatures that they were moving on the right path. Now obviously they've had some sort of setback with their Chinese production facility - I've heard something about the facility refusing to release various molds back to PP's control - but that's a setback they need to overcome. As it currently stands, you can't expect to charge premium prices for subpar quality plastics, no matter how good your game rules are.

Maybe they should talk to whoever does Catalyst Gaming Labs' miniatures for their Battletech starters and new Lance/Star Packs. The detail on them is actually quite good, and they come assembled!

NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
TL;DR If you go through your gaming life expecting the company to provide everything for you to play, you will be disappointed. Be prepared to get out and help as much as you can.

A nice sentiment. Let me tell you how reality works:

Warmahordes is competing for appeal with Warhammer. The models are similarly priced for lower quality, and harder to physically obtain. The Warhammer community is huge and easy to access, the Warmahordes community is... not that. You want to tell people to get out and work so they can enjoy the hobby, while there is another hobby without that requirement right beside it? Don't start any businesses.

If you want to go through life with the naivety of a child as to how the world works fine, but don't expect actual adults to do anything but mock you when you try to imagine you're on some high and mighty platform above us. That you think a company can't affect it's own community is even more laughable.

So many people see only the absolute in statements. Keep in mind of what you quoted, and I highlighted the significant above. Do not expect the producing company to do everything. This does not mean that the company cannot affect the situation, just that they can't be expected to do EVERYTHING. Even more so if they do not control every event for the game that is put on. It's not like they have an active control on every pickup game there is.

You started this by depicting my sentiment as a polarized absolute that is completely different from my opinion, so I assumed that was the level you wanted to converse on. If you want your positions to be treated with respect to nuance do the same for others.

You said:

NinthMusketeer wrote:I don't think people are asking for the popularity of the 40k scene, they are just asking that Warmahordes get back to the level of community it previously had. And really, it is on the company to convince players to spend money on their miniatures.

I highlighted the point. You did not represent this as not needing anything from the community. While a company can do a lot to influence something, if a community is not there to accept it, what the company does will not matter.

Sunno wrote:
Covid not withstanding, the fact that we are still discussing the same issues, problems, pains and blockers around WM/H and PP without any real sight of resolution or improvement many years after Mk3 launch says it all. In fact its arguably got much worse.

You're not wrong. PP presence was dropping too fast for years now. The last year didn't help at all, but they were out of most of my metro's LGS had clearanced them out before anyone had heard of lockdowns.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Talk to any aging punk rocker, counter culture is hard to keep up.
Page 5 blew up in their face, it was used as an excuse to be a jerk to your opponent, to play obviously unfair combos and then laugh in your opponents face.
it doesnt matter what the intent or the true meaning of page 5 was, people used it to be jerks.

Page 5 did not blow up in their face. If it did, the game wouldn't have reached Mk 2. Mk 2's Page 5 wasn't quite the same and even elucidated on each point, and that one was 6 years old when Mk 3 started and people started dropping WMH.

To quote Mk 2 Page 5: Page 5 is not an excuse.

They dropped Page 5 in Mk 3, but people still dropped WMH. If anything, history points to Page 5 being needed more than a hinderance.

How many people playing today or who played in the early days of Mk 3, ever read Prime Mk 1 and its Page 5? More than likely, more read Mk 2's Page 5, if they read any of them at all. Heck, it took me a while just to find a copy of the Mk 1 to actually be able to read it.

Page 5 was not an excuse during Mk 1. It was explicitly stated to not be an excuse in Mk 2. it is too old for it to be an excuse today when it doesn't even exist as such in the current edition and those who did play under the original are now 11 years older, at least. If anyone wants to keep pushing Page 5 as an excuse, I'll point them back to Mk 2's and it will explain it perfectly.

Cronch wrote:I did read the Prime mk1 page 5. And it was an excuse. And in mk2 they toned it down, but by that point you managed to foster a whole community focused on WAAC and everyone and their mother knew what Page5 meant in practice. You might've soiled your pants once, 5 years ago, but you better believe the whole workplace will forever know you as Stinkypants.

Okay, point out which part of Mk1 Page says to be an a-hole.

Simply put it doesn't. It is being used as an excuse, but it isn't an excuse. There is no excuse for being an a-hole, It says to bring your A-game and not whine if you get beat. If you can't handle being beat, then don't show up. It is the spirit behind "Play like you brought a pair". This is talking to the people who AREN'T a-holes who need to buck up and get more aggressive than in games where they can be more defensive, like some armies in Warhammer.

Overread wrote:Culture divide I think has to be part of it because page 5 is something I never really heard of as a "problem" or anything in the UK at all. In fact it still surprises me that a single page in the whole thing that basically says "play nice, play well" creates such contention

I never heard about it being a problem until people started blaming it on why the game died. This was after Mk3's launch and when the population started dying down to being a majority of "Steamroller-only" in many areas. That Page 5 hadn't even been a live thing for 6-7 years at that point, and had been replaced by Mk 2's version for most of that time.

NinthMusketeer wrote:It really only takes a third or so of people reading it as 'this is a competitive game for competitive people and non competitive people should be crushed' to catalyze the descent of an entire community. They go on to recruit others of like mind, push people on the fence into arms races, and drive off more casual players. Not in dramatic reality TV fashion but rather as slow trends that build up over time. It happens a lot in this country, even to games that don't have a page 5 equivalent. The difference is that page 5 made that mentality far more contagious across the game than it otherwise would have been.

It helps to understand that in the US anything that could by any stretch become competitive, will be taken to that level. There's competitive fething Catan.

I think it takes more than that, actually. I've seen 40K communities which didn't devolve like that while having a much higher ratio of hyper-competitive people. The problem isn't the ratio, but the absolute numbers. If you're the only person in your WMH community who won't play Steamroller, and there are 5 other people there, you're stuck with either dropping the game, diving in to Steamroller, or waiting until someone who is willing to play something beside Steamroller shows up.

But yeah, there are Americans who make anything a competition. Just ask Jeff Foxworthy about a competition his extended family had in Hawaii that his Aunt Rose won.

Mr. Grey wrote:The Page 5 in Mk1 Warmachine was very much not "play nice, play well". It was more "This is a ruleset for non sissies, be a man, stomp your opponent into the ground in whatever way you can, rawr, macho!!!". ...to paraphrase slightly. I'm about 85% sure it was also meant to be completely tongue-in-cheek, but a lot of people didn't read it that way.

Mk2's Page 5 was far more along the lines of what you're describing.

People will often read what they want out of text, especially if they think it gives license to unleash their baser instincts. Page 5 was never an excuse to be an a-hole. It was a direction to play hard and as best you could, but those aren't the same things.

Monkeysloth wrote:That's, again, just a rumor but usually with these things the simplest explanation is the correct one. That blind buy Pre-paints just died, surprisingly quick, and at the time it was too expensive to do non-blind figures.

I don't know if they died, but rather never got the community support that the producers thought they would get. AT-43 came out at about the same time and while it was interesting with some very well done models, also fell flat. Part of the reasoning at the time is that they were being released in hobby game stores, but there was no hobby needed for them.

Of course, fast forward a few years and start with one of the most popular IPs and make a clean game out of it, and it will take off. While MonPoc and AT-43 couldn't quite break that hold on the market, Fantasy Flight's X-Wing could and did. Oddly enough, it didn't extend to their Legion line that is more recent.