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I've been dabbling in Warmachine on and off since it was first released. I even took part in the tournament scene for a good while, but one thing has always stopped me from being able to really invest (financially and in hobby terms) in the system: the inability to make my own Warcaster! My games always felt that I was telling someone else's character's story, rather than creating a narrative of my own.

So, what I'm wondering is: at any point has someone come up with a system for creating your own Warcaster? If so, can someone point me in the right direction? I can't imagine anything like this would be tournament legal, but it would help to capture my interest in the game for longer than a month or two at a time if I could at least create or customise a Warcaster of my own for friendly games at the local club

Alternatively, did anyone ever come up with an experience system where you could start with, say, a Journeyman Warcaster type and gradually build them up into a new, full Warcaster by earning and spending experience points?

I'd love to hear about it if anyone has.

I think the game would quickly break down if you got you choose your own spell list.

Oh, I agree 100% in a tournament environment like the game was created for. But in a simple pick-up game at the local club or in a friendly campaign it would be an interesting and (for me at least) attractive new dynamic.

I almost never use Special Characters (to use a 40K term) in any game system I play (except at the tournament level) and the fact that every Warmachine/Horde's list needs to include at least one special character type model is a major turn off for me. It's the single reason why the game hasn't been able to hold my interest for more than a few months at a time.

Is it just that you don't like using established characters? If so, just convert a model using the same equipment and have it stand in as a current Warcaster(maybe even print out a sticker to replace the name on the card). It'll be your character, they'd just happen to be using the same style of gear and spells as another, more famous member of their nation.

Or is it that you just want a customizable character? If that's the case, this probably just isn't the game for you. There's just no way to balance it in the system(there's really no difference between "tournament" and "casual" play in Warmachine beyond the time limits I've found).

Gear I get, but spells or psychic powers are at random in the GW games.

Hi Platuan4th, thanks for your comments. I've considered doing just that. I have a converted Hayley miniature that I've been considering re-painting and using as a stand-in for Magnus (Magnette? :/), Ashlynn or Damiano for the better part of a year. I might very well just go with that option.

I'd just been wondering if there were other options though. I vaguely remember a conversation I had a good few years back about starting off a campaign using Journeymen Warcaster level 'casters for each faction and gradually buying other faction spells and new focus points using XP as the campaign went on. Wasn't sure if it was something Privateer Press had created rules for (in No Quarter maybe?) or just some idea's that my mates and I had been tossing around in the pub after a game.

The IKRPG runs on a similar engine to the tabletop game. You can even reverse-engineer some characters alright into it, but not exactly. The upcoming supplement which details the five main Iron Kingdoms will also have some more on how each of those Factions do their magic a bit.

Besides that PP has never given rules for customizing warnouns.

It probably is the closest you'll find in much capacity to what you are describing.

And stuff.

The best you can get is making a Counts-as character.

The game itself would break down quickly if people could customize their Warnoun. even for a pick-up game it might not go over well. But if its ok with them go for it. I made a 4th version of Kreoss just because.

The PP forum does have a Fan Creation's section where people post their rules creations.

 LeadLegion wrote:
I've been dabbling in Warmachine on and off since it was first released. I even took part in the tournament scene for a good while, but one thing has always stopped me from being able to really invest (financially and in hobby terms) in the system: the inability to make my own Warcaster! My games always felt that I was telling someone else's character's story, rather than creating a narrative of my own.

Maybe whats needed isnt necessarily rules for your own caster, but maybe a change in perception? And im not trying to be rude when i say this, so may i explain this POV? premade characters are a feature, not a bug.

I understand the desire to create your own footprint - especially coming from players used to 40k, but in my experience, when it gets down to the nitty gritty, its less about the options, and more about the 'idea' of the options - 40k and games like it that allow custom characters - well, do they? Or do they merely offer the illusion of choice? Out of the hundreds and hundreds of possible builds, i only ever see a bare handful of 'builds' are ever taken, despite any amount of options being present.

You allow custom characters in warmachine, and every player will do the following: upgrade the 'hand weapon' to a 'magical weapon with reach and weapon master', upgrade the caste to 7 focus, and will buy/swap for the following spells: 'purification', 'defenders ward','crippling grasp','temporal barrier', and 'curse of shadows'. you will not see options, you will see 'the best build', and it will ruin the game.

With regard to the 'unique narrative' perspective - again, i feel there really isnt the space in the iron kingdoms for eveybody's 'special snowflake' warcasterlock. its a small setting. Also, you have to acknowledge that 'your' character, whilst it allows for your personal experience, it also detracts from everyone's shared experience. there is a reason people talk about caine, the butcher and marneus calgar, and not forumposter101s 'name'. your character, whilst it can mean everything to you, means nothing to me. i have no 'stake' in him as a character, as a part of the iron kingdoms, and i feel more and more disconnected from it. because what does it matter. even in 40k, despite your ability to customise, it almost doesnt matter, as 'whatever happens, you will not be missed'. Its harsh, but fairly true. And ill say it for 'my' character as much as yours. Now, if we are talking about a 'shared character', a character we both know, its far easier to get behind them, and discuss them, and get involved in their story. you dislike the idea of playing someone elses story, and fair enough, i can appreciate that, but i genuinely enjoy the set characters as PP have designed them, and genuinely enjoy pushing the butcher, or irusk around the board. Just as easily as i can get behind rocky or solid snake when i watch movies or play computer games.

 LeadLegion wrote:

So, what I'm wondering is: at any point has someone come up with a system for creating your own Warcaster? If so, can someone point me in the right direction? I can't imagine anything like this would be tournament legal, but it would help to capture my interest in the game for longer than a month or two at a time if I could at least create or customise a Warcaster of my own for friendly games at the local club

Not to my experience im afraid. generally, its just not something most folks in the community have all that much interest in.

 LeadLegion wrote:

Alternatively, did anyone ever come up with an experience system where you could start with, say, a Journeyman Warcaster type and gradually build them up into a new, full Warcaster by earning and spending experience points?

I'd love to hear about it if anyone has.

IKRPG is the closest thing mate. But i still think warmachine isnt the place for it. my $0.02.

As for picking spells. What if you do a purchase system? Like you are alloted ten points for spells. A cetain spell cost 3 points, another 1 and another maybe 5. Gear can work the same way, you are alotted 2 slots for weapons of any type. Some you can get for free, some not(Like a simple sword you can have fore free or something)

The thing is, the effectiveness of a spell depends entirely on what the stats of the caster are and what faction its in.

Getting a Pathfinder spell for Menoth, that can be cast on jacks, would be very powerful. But that same spell would be almost useless on a Legion Warlock.

There are rules in the back of the Prime book about leagues and campaigns and acquiring jack bonds. Not a full Xp system, but does allow you to get some goodies that are not normally available.


And the IKRPG would easily make a great Mordheim style game, including experience and a wound/death table all ready to go. And the new book has career options, equipment and jacks to create any of the basic troops, units, etc from the Cygnar, POM and Khador army books. And using their character creation system you could easily create cool custom warcasters.

Thanks guys for all your input. I'm going to take a long serious look at the IK RPG system and see if there is some way to go about combining the Prime Book campaign rules with the Iron Kingdoms RPG system. If I can get a workable system out of it, I might start an Iron Kingdoms "Journyman" Warcaster campaign where the Warcaster's get to spend XP on improvements from game to game.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that some of the players will be able to create throughly broken Warcasters. But, if I limit players to giving their 'casters spells from their own factions spell lists, it should cut down on the brutality a bit.

If I ever get the concept of the ground, I'll be sure to start a blog here on Dakka featuring the campaign rules, as well as a report on the campaign itself.

@ Dreadknight: I appreciate your thoughts, but I have to disagree on one vital point: While no-one outside of my little gaming circle might ever get excited about the exploits of Phineas Egg, a Journyman Warcaster who progressed from a 3 Focus nobody to a 7 Focus powerhouse in a year of campaign play, I can guarantee that absolutely everyone inside that gaming circle will get more excited about his latest exploits than they ever will about Styker's. Or those of any other pre-generated setting character. All the more so if everyone in that gaming circle has similar stories about their own home-grown war-casters. Just as my oldest gaming buddies and I still laugh about the exploits of Capo Shotgun, the Orlock Ganger who never missed in a shot in six consecutive games of Necromunda, or the Black Legion Sgt with the Powerfist who survived every game of 40K he ever appeared in for the whole of second edition. Sure, you'll never get excited about them. Nor will anyone else outside of that small circle of people who know about them.

But that being said, nearly twenty years on, my old gaming buddies from high school and I still sit around the pub whenever we can get together and laugh about the exploits of our home-grown "special" characters. No character created by anyone else -not Styker, not Rocky, not even Luke Skywalker- will ever get the same emotional investment out of me (or any other like-minded gamer) as a character I've created myself.

I agree it's all about perspective. But my perspective just happens to be vastly different than the perspective of most war-machine gamers. I even have trouble getting invested in computer games where I can't create my own character.

Even limiting them to their own faction's spell list can still be broken.

A melee orientated menoth caster getting Creator's Wrath would be brutal.

Yeah. How to balance it? By allowing other factions to create equally broken characters or by introducing a points system more complicated than 3xp= gain a 3 focus spell.

It'll take a lot of thought

It would take thought, but honestly I dont see the problem.

Maybe have different groups of casters- ex. assassination beatstick, assassination support, attrition beatstick, assassination support. This is based on A) physical stats B) spell and feat stats C) focus limit and D)self contained combos, given combos

Once you have all the information down, you determine its point cost based on which category these stats give you. For example- support caster- buff spells and debuff spells cost less than for a beatstick caster. For example, beatstick defense and armor cost less than for a support caster

One of the things I like most about WM is that by and large, I can sit down to play a game, and someone tells me they're running X caster and I generally know what their army does. There is no gotcha factor. I'm not against counts as models (I made my own female eCaine with from an Ashlynn), or conversions, even heavy conversions like AduroT's Cryx. But when you start putting Homebrew characters into the setting, that is something I just don't want to play.

from an Ashlynn

That lady must be one of the most used conversion pieces in the game.

 derek wrote:
One of the things I like most about WM is that by and large, I can sit down to play a game, and someone tells me they're running X caster and I generally know what their army does. There is no gotcha factor. I'm not against counts as models (I made my own female eCaine with from an Ashlynn), or conversions, even heavy conversions like AduroT's Cryx. But when you start putting Homebrew characters into the setting, that is something I just don't want to play.

That is the biggest problem for me. My leader is the leader. Why is the most famouse general(Like Irusk) Out in the field directing peons?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

That is the biggest problem for me. My leader is the leader. Why is the most famouse general(Like Irusk) Out in the field directing peons?

so a general shouldnt direct peons? because he cant cast iron flesh from behind a desk and because warcasters are extremely rare and must go where they are most useful (ie the front).

i often feel that 'fluff' and 'game' should be viewed as things slightly apart, kinda like 'church' and 'state'.

look at the fluff. the last three operations irusk was involved in were the following:
(1) leading the 4th assault brigade to try and take point bourne. he commanded 'dozens' of warjacks, 'hundreds of menowar' and thousands of iron fangs and other infantry.
(2) after bad stuff happened and the cryxians overwhelmed both the khadorans and the cygnarans, irusk formed an uneasy truce, and with nemo, led a massive breakout from point bourne.
(3) along with most of the staple of khadoran and cygnaran warcasters, he orchestrated a massive assault on the cryxian fortifications in the thornwood with their new colossals, though it ultimately repulsed, with presumably thousands of casualties.

Irusk is not just an armchair general. thanks to his skills and his magical abilities, he goes where he is needed. he cant simply hang back. he's a warcaster. that simple fact means he is the most devestating thing on the battlefield.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 derek wrote:
One of the things I like most about WM is that by and large, I can sit down to play a game, and someone tells me they're running X caster and I generally know what their army does. There is no gotcha factor. I'm not against counts as models (I made my own female eCaine with from an Ashlynn), or conversions, even heavy conversions like AduroT's Cryx. But when you start putting Homebrew characters into the setting, that is something I just don't want to play.

That is the biggest problem for me. My leader is the leader. Why is the most famouse general(Like Irusk) Out in the field directing peons?

That is a problem common to every mainstream wargame that uses special characters (with the exception maybe being Infinity, since they are meant to be spec ops and I think most of the characters suit that concept; Van Zaant, etc). You can ask why is Irusk leading these 3 units and 3 jacks and odd solos, you can ask why is karl franz leading 3 steamtanks and some swordsmen, you can ask why is belial leading a squad of termies and a tac squad.

Its because people love these characters, and want to play with them.

It wasn't uncommon for generals to be out in the field until the advent of modern communications. Before that they needed to be in the field to see what was going on and to direct their subordinates. They may have hung back from the very front lines but they were still on the battlefield.
In warmahordes warcasters/locks have a very special gift of being able to control jacks/beasts. By that very nature they need to be both where they can control their beast/jack and where the beast/jack can be effective. So that means that they have to be up towards the front lines.

It is definitely possible but it would require a lot of 'programming'

I would suggest using a point buy system, but as was said, each faction might need some fine tuning on specific costs

As a core I would suggest a Chassis system

For example, there are 4 Chassis - Assassin, Ranged, Bruiser and Caster

This Chassis you choose determines the base stats, focus, amount of spells

From there each Chassis has a specific spell list, but they can choose any spell found in their faction, but if it is not part of their Chassis they must pay a little bit more for it

In addition, their points can be used to buy everything from higher stats, weapons, abilities, spells, amount of spells, focus, higher warjack points etc

There should also be a depreciating system, in which the more of something you buy the more expensive it becomes. So going from 4 focus to 5 will cost 2, but going from 5 to 6 will cost 3 (5 total), and going from 6 to 7 will cost 5(10 total)... etc

Since you are implementing this system, the most logical thing to add would be XP/Levels, so that as your caster ages he gets stronger

All this is of course all very complex and would require a very fleshed out league system, with everyone willing to play under the league rules. If even a single person wants to play an 'official' caster, they would either be too strong or too weak by comparison



The real difficulty of this system, BY FAR is the Feat
Do we just allow you to buy a Feat that your faction already has? That is kinda of boring
Should we let you use you to create your own Feat? but how do we accurately judge and gauge the strength of your feat

What if you want a character who is weak with a strong feat, or strong with a weak feat (and these characters do exist in the current official game)

Should we make an insanely complex system to buy customization for your feats similar you everything else that is being newly programmed? but the problem with that is that in and off itself it would be as complex as the entirety of the rest of the system! perhaps even more so!

Deadnight wrote:

(2) after bad stuff happened and the cryxians overwhelmed both the khadorans and the cygnarans, irusk formed an uneasy truce, and with nemo, led a massive breakout from point bourne.

Stryker, not Nemo. Nemo was elsewhere, looking after Haley, receiving a promotion, receiving the Stormwalls and then teaming up with Sorcha.

 Talamare wrote:



The real difficulty of this system, BY FAR is the Feat
Do we just allow you to buy a Feat that your faction already has? That is kinda of boring
Should we let you use you to create your own Feat? but how do we accurately judge and gauge the strength of your feat

What if you want a character who is weak with a strong feat, or strong with a weak feat (and these characters do exist in the current official game)

Should we make an insanely complex system to buy customization for your feats similar you everything else that is being newly programmed? but the problem with that is that in and off itself it would be as complex as the entirety of the rest of the system! perhaps even more so!

Well, I think what we would want to try would be a layering of spells- for example, Capt. Jeremiah Krayes feat basically allows you to shake knockdown, then casts full throttle (a spell he does not have) for free, and then gives everyone in his battle group +2" charge. I think for feats you would want some system to "buy" spells that the feat casts- basically, they are cheaper than if they were on the spell list and any focus increases needed to cast them.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:Maybe have different groups of casters- ex. assassination beatstick, assassination support, attrition beatstick, assassination support. This is based on A) physical stats B) spell and feat stats C) focus limit and D)self contained combos, given combos

Once you have all the information down, you determine its point cost based on which category these stats give you. For example- support caster- buff spells and debuff spells cost less than for a beatstick caster. For example, beatstick defense and armor cost less than for a support caster

Yeah, I definitely think that would work better than having everyone start from the same basic warcaster template. It would also make it easier to prevent broken spell combo's by charging more points/XP for certain chasis types to do certain things. I think you're on to something there.

derek wrote:One of the things I like most about WM is that by and large, I can sit down to play a game, and someone tells me they're running X caster and I generally know what their army does. There is no gotcha factor. I'm not against counts as models (I made my own female eCaine with from an Ashlynn), or conversions, even heavy conversions like AduroT's Cryx. But when you start putting Homebrew characters into the setting, that is something I just don't want to play.

Then don't. No one would force you take part in a game with a home-brew warcaster. It's not as though we're talking about an official rules supplement here, just a set of house rules that players can use if all the players involved agree to allow them.

motyak wrote:

from an Ashlynn

That lady must be one of the most used conversion pieces in the game.

lol, Yeah. I think her unnatural looking pose is probably the main reason for that.

Talamare wrote:It is definitely possible but it would require a lot of 'programming'

I would suggest using a point buy system, but as was said, each faction might need some fine tuning on specific costs

As a core I would suggest a Chassis system

For example, there are 4 Chassis - Assassin, Ranged, Bruiser and Caster

This Chassis you choose determines the base stats, focus, amount of spells

From there each Chassis has a specific spell list, but they can choose any spell found in their faction, but if it is not part of their Chassis they must pay a little bit more for it

In addition, their points can be used to buy everything from higher stats, weapons, abilities, spells, amount of spells, focus, higher warjack points etc

There should also be a depreciating system, in which the more of something you buy the more expensive it becomes. So going from 4 focus to 5 will cost 2, but going from 5 to 6 will cost 3 (5 total), and going from 6 to 7 will cost 5(10 total)... etc

Since you are implementing this system, the most logical thing to add would be XP/Levels, so that as your caster ages he gets stronger

All this is of course all very complex and would require a very fleshed out league system, with everyone willing to play under the league rules. If even a single person wants to play an 'official' caster, they would either be too strong or too weak by comparison

The real difficulty of this system, BY FAR is the Feat
Do we just allow you to buy a Feat that your faction already has? That is kinda of boring
Should we let you use you to create your own Feat? but how do we accurately judge and gauge the strength of your feat

What if you want a character who is weak with a strong feat, or strong with a weak feat (and these characters do exist in the current official game)

Should we make an insanely complex system to buy customization for your feats similar you everything else that is being newly programmed? but the problem with that is that in and off itself it would be as complex as the entirety of the rest of the system! perhaps even more so!

Yes, building on that concept would work exceptionally well. It would take a lot of work, but it would almost certainly be worth if to create one of those campaigns player's talk about for years afterwords. I'm going to go with this idea and run with it to see what I can come up.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:


Well, I think what we would want to try would be a layering of spells- for example, Capt. Jeremiah Krayes feat basically allows you to shake knockdown, then casts full throttle (a spell he does not have) for free, and then gives everyone in his battle group +2" charge. I think for feats you would want some system to "buy" spells that the feat casts- basically, they are cheaper than if they were on the spell list and any focus increases needed to cast them.

The feats might be a problem, but I think that by distilling the feats down a bit in the manner Crazy_Carnifex suggested, we can put together a feat using a "chain" effect of spells. The cost system in terms of buying spells and building feats from spells would help to mechanically balance out feats. Using the points method and "spell-chain" feats, we could copy the in-game mechanic or having caster's with great feats but with poor stats or spells and casters with weak feats (I'm thinking MacBain or Domingo here) but great spells or stats.

Now we've all hashed that out, I no longer see any reason why this couldn't work. Provided the customisation mechanics were robust enough to maintain some form of balance. Even if a player did create an uber-spell build war-caster, it should be possible to make him so weak in another area (stats, damage, focus points, feat) that it balances out.

I'm more convinced than ever that this is not only possible, but that it would work very well within the framework of a campaign.

Oh, and upkeeps should reduce the focus cost. So instead of buying 6 focus and 3 spells, you buy 5 focus and 2 spells and 1 upkeep spell+ 1 focus.

If you finish the system send it to me to proofread/playtest. I will send the proofread version and a edited version back if school doesn't get in the way.

Here is what I was thinking. So all casters are costed 10 points. For every left over point you get a warjack point. You have 100 points to spend- this is to allow for the level of fine tuning you need to maintain balance.

Lets build a support caster. You start on a 12 15 chassis or a 14 12 with power 8 weapons. You have spent no points yet. For focus cost add 4x + 1.2 squared where X is focus and N is the number of focus you already have.
For spell cost, divide total focus by spell cost and multiply by the base cost. base cost can be influenced by other abilities, but i am not sure how you would do this. For example, locomotion and polarity field would cost more to field together. So maybe give every spell a type, and spells that can be cast in the same turn that are of the same type cost more together. The penalty is reduced by 80 percent for every upkeep that is on the caster that would take up the focus. So for example, polarity and locomotion cost an extra 20 percent and cast together cost X focus. Your warcaster has X+1 focus and 2 upkeeps. So the penalty costs 4 percent of the base costs as opposed to 20.

Edit- oops! lets assume polarity field isn't upkeepable.