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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I will say, i personally loved that in WM/H you where using names characters at the center of your army. Narratively it felt like every battle you where having was important, and not just some random skirmish.

True but the system starts to break a bit as the armies get bigger and bigger. The assassination moment gets more muddled and becomes a hyper focus; the number of big warjacks/beasts you can bring gets more limited and in general it becomes a trickier system. The game needs to have a really nice complex skirmish mode where the caster is central; then a larger wargame mode representing a larger battle which is no less important, but where there's more support options to run more jacks/beasts and where the single caster general isn't the critical linch-pin of the entire army - ergo ok you've killed their leader, but the army is still there and its still going to beat you up etc..

 Overread wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I will say, i personally loved that in WM/H you where using names characters at the center of your army. Narratively it felt like every battle you where having was important, and not just some random skirmish.

True but the system starts to break a bit as the armies get bigger and bigger. The assassination moment gets more muddled and becomes a hyper focus; the number of big warjacks/beasts you can bring gets more limited and in general it becomes a trickier system. The game needs to have a really nice complex skirmish mode where the caster is central; then a larger wargame mode representing a larger battle which is no less important, but where there's more support options to run more jacks/beasts and where the single caster general isn't the critical linch-pin of the entire army - ergo ok you've killed their leader, but the army is still there and its still going to beat you up etc..

We played that as a version of WM and it was actually quite fun for a change-

50 point game-no warcasters, no warjacks unless you have a jack marshal to run them.

It plays to the lore of the universe that says warcasters are extremely rare and gifted individuals who are not going to be in every generic battle where the rest of the regular army actually does all the fighting.

 aphyon wrote:
We played that as a version of WM and it was actually quite fun for a change-

50 point game-no warcasters, no warjacks unless you have a jack marshal to run them.

It plays to the lore of the universe that says warcasters are extremely rare and gifted individuals who are not going to be in every generic battle where the rest of the regular army actually does all the fighting.

Sounds like fun.

I've kind of wanted to run an event where everyone was on the (huge) table at the same time, but had objectives to complete, like saving/enslaving/eating villagers. There would be faction goals and player goals to keep it interesting. I don't think I ever thought about having them not bring Warcasters, though.

Funny thing, they did an alternate-history version of a few characters a while back, and the numbered listing is *name*-1. Things like Stryker being a Mercenary Warcaster due to the Lion's Coup failing, Alexia Ciannor joining the Skorne to gain control of the Witchblade, everyone's favorite Witch Hunter Eiryss being corrupted by Everblight, stuff like that.

Well, Cygnar's version was The Vinter Raelthorne, the psychotic target of the Lion's Coup. He held the same position as Warcaster in the army, but... I'll just steal LoS's description, "Vinter is not a warcaster. He has no spells, feat, and cannot have a warcaster attachment." He amounted to being a very powerful, but technically free, solo. I imagine he would be disallowed, honestly, but he'd make for a crazy counter-Archon, I think.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I will say, i personally loved that in WM/H you where using names characters at the center of your army. Narratively it felt like every battle you where having was important, and not just some random skirmish.

It's funny, that is something I have always hated about WMH. I hugely dislike that every battle has named characters because we know from the story that those battles didn't happen (bar re-enacting), there is no forging a narrative because they already have one that dictates yours didn't happen. There is no coming up with backgrounds for your warcaster, because they already have one.

 Charistoph wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
We played that as a version of WM and it was actually quite fun for a change-

50 point game-no warcasters, no warjacks unless you have a jack marshal to run them.

It plays to the lore of the universe that says warcasters are extremely rare and gifted individuals who are not going to be in every generic battle where the rest of the regular army actually does all the fighting.

Sounds like fun.

That pretty much is Company of Iron.

Well, Cygnar's version was The Vinter Raelthorne, the psychotic target of the Lion's Coup. He held the same position as Warcaster in the army, but... I'll just steal LoS's description, "Vinter is not a warcaster. He has no spells, feat, and cannot have a warcaster attachment." He amounted to being a very powerful, but technically free, solo. I imagine he would be disallowed, honestly, but he'd make for a crazy counter-Archon, I think.

The MK2 version if Vinter was pretty brutal due to his magical equipment. I don't really know how he'd hold up in MK3 but I think he was designed to pretty much be able to take out a 25 point army by himself. He had multiple attacks (with reach), self centered aoe, free counter attack, could self heal and really high armor (17) with a 15 def and a huge health track closer to a warjack. Really would be fun to play in some narrative event.

That pretty much is Company of Iron.

Yes but scaled up a bit.

 Easy E wrote:
The high point for me for 40K was really the Eye of Terror campaign and the Medusa V campaign. There was so much to be a part of and so many people doing really cool and creative things related to it.

I actually ran a map-based campaign for Warmachine based on a similar premise. It was open for everyone and proved to have better attendance than local tournaments. We played all sizes of games from little more than battleboxes, to 150pts and 2 casters per side.

Info in these two threads is obviously in Polish, but any decent online translator should do good enough job for you to understand what the rules were and what was going on in the campaign:

CLICK - rules
CLICK - course

 aphyon wrote:

That pretty much is Company of Iron.

Yes but scaled up a bit.

TBH some of the most fun I had with WM/H in recent times was running the oblivion campaign in our group of mates (before Covid stopped it). It game us a reason to run models and caster we wouldn't normally plan and as the early games are entirely non theme force games, you got some funny combinations. The scenarios were more narrative and fun and we were including some of them in the mix during our normal game nights, mixing it in with SR.

It kind showed that WM/H can still be narrative etc, but the group has to want to do it. And where we are "the wider meta" has 0% interest in any of that.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:


It's funny, that is something I have always hated about WMH. I hugely dislike that every battle has named characters because we know from the story that those battles didn't happen (bar re-enacting), there is no forging a narrative because they already have one that dictates yours didn't happen. There is no coming up with backgrounds for your warcaster, because they already have one.

Who says the battles didn't happen? Do you have a day by day itinerary for every caster in the game? There's no reason these battles couldn't have happened and thats true for every wargame- marneus calgar hasn't turned up to every battle he has appeared on the table top for, but he could have.

And you can create your own casters using the named ones as a template. There was a guy here's whose caster was a female version of Caine - riza Hawkeye Caine. I made a female kommsndant based on a conversion of sorscha 1/2 and using irusks rules. And here's the thing. You don't need to focus on the caster as the focal point of your lore. Casters might dominate in the lore and be the movers and shakers in the setting. They're like primarchs. Naming them makes functional and narrative sense, especially when warcasters in the setting numbered in the dozens. If you are insistent on making your lore, transfer your gaze to your army itself. Name your sergeants. Name your force. Mine was a part of the fifth border legion, originally from korsk. List their battles etc. Regimental rosters are littered through the game. No reason you couldn't do your own.

NinthMusketeer wrote:It's funny, that is something I have always hated about WMH. I hugely dislike that every battle has named characters because we know from the story that those battles didn't happen (bar re-enacting), there is no forging a narrative because they already have one that dictates yours didn't happen. There is no coming up with backgrounds for your warcaster, because they already have one.

As someone whose first Tabletop game was Battletech, I agree with you. Being able to create your own characters is one of my favorite things to do. Warhammer was also pretty good at this, too, though not nearly as robust. Right now the only customization that one can officially do is adding Attachments. There is another method, but I'll get in to that down below.

Monkeysloth wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
We played that as a version of WM and it was actually quite fun for a change-

50 point game-no warcasters, no warjacks unless you have a jack marshal to run them.

It plays to the lore of the universe that says warcasters are extremely rare and gifted individuals who are not going to be in every generic battle where the rest of the regular army actually does all the fighting.

Sounds like fun.

That pretty much is Company of Iron.

Just without the cards which I don't have, and it didn't look like they separated out each unit in to complimentary solos.

Monkeysloth wrote:The MK2 version if Vinter was pretty brutal due to his magical equipment. I don't really know how he'd hold up in MK3 but I think he was designed to pretty much be able to take out a 25 point army by himself. He had multiple attacks (with reach), self centered aoe, free counter attack, could self heal and really high armor (17) with a 15 def and a huge health track closer to a warjack. Really would be fun to play in some narrative event.

He did take down Makeda when they first met, and he didn't have Focus to power a shield with or Warbeasts to transfer damage to. It really is rather amazing that he lost the Coup.

Sunno wrote:It kind showed that WM/H can still be narrative etc, but the group has to want to do it. And where we are "the wider meta" has 0% interest in any of that.

This is something I bring up every time someone says that there is no narrative play in WM/H. PP has done their part, but one needs to have a group willing to play it.

Deadnight wrote:And you can create your own casters using the named ones as a template. There was a guy here's whose caster was a female version of Caine - riza Hawkeye Caine. I made a female kommsndant based on a conversion of sorscha 1/2 and using irusks rules. And here's the thing. You don't need to focus on the caster as the focal point of your lore. Casters might dominate in the lore and be the movers and shakers in the setting. They're like primarchs. Naming them makes functional and narrative sense, especially when warcasters in the setting numbered in the dozens. If you are insistent on making your lore, transfer your gaze to your army itself. Name your sergeants. Name your force. Mine was a part of the fifth border legion, originally from korsk. List their battles etc. Regimental rosters are littered through the game. No reason you couldn't do your own.

There is also something called "Caster Draft" where you literally build your Warcaster/Warlock from stats to spells to feat. I don't know all the details, but it can be quite extensive.

 aphyon wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I will say, i personally loved that in WM/H you where using names characters at the center of your army. Narratively it felt like every battle you where having was important, and not just some random skirmish.

True but the system starts to break a bit as the armies get bigger and bigger. The assassination moment gets more muddled and becomes a hyper focus; the number of big warjacks/beasts you can bring gets more limited and in general it becomes a trickier system. The game needs to have a really nice complex skirmish mode where the caster is central; then a larger wargame mode representing a larger battle which is no less important, but where there's more support options to run more jacks/beasts and where the single caster general isn't the critical linch-pin of the entire army - ergo ok you've killed their leader, but the army is still there and its still going to beat you up etc..

We played that as a version of WM and it was actually quite fun for a change-

50 point game-no warcasters, no warjacks unless you have a jack marshal to run them.

It plays to the lore of the universe that says warcasters are extremely rare and gifted individuals who are not going to be in every generic battle where the rest of the regular army actually does all the fighting.

I agree. I think WMH has a reached a point where all the tools offer different formats to play. I think this would be cool, probably justify a PP book of just the different formats caster/skirmish/no caster/full devestation and terrain destruction etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cyel wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The high point for me for 40K was really the Eye of Terror campaign and the Medusa V campaign. There was so much to be a part of and so many people doing really cool and creative things related to it.

I actually ran a map-based campaign for Warmachine based on a similar premise. It was open for everyone and proved to have better attendance than local tournaments. We played all sizes of games from little more than battleboxes, to 150pts and 2 casters per side.

Info in these two threads is obviously in Polish, but any decent online translator should do good enough job for you to understand what the rules were and what was going on in the campaign:

CLICK - rules
CLICK - course

Campaign wise, when PP has its global campaign with map that tracked wins/losses on the map was the best time for narrative play. Really felt like your games matter to the scheme of things and you could see it play out.

Well it’s official, my LGS is no longer stocking PP. The paints are running out and the corner where PP used to be is empty save a few KS starter boxes of Warcaster.
I’m having to switch my paints to Citadel as a result, and which I am not too thrilled about.
My LGS not stocking PP is telling - they stock anything and everything in print.

Why not use the internet to get p3 paints?
I also hear war colors are similar.

deleted

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why not use the internet to get p3 paints?
I also hear war colors are similar.

When outside temperatures can drop to -50C here, I’m not taking the chance on my paints being frozen.
I will only buy local after having so many paints come up duds after being frozen.
The LGS even has the same problem.
So unless you’re in a temperate or warmer climate then mine, ordering online is out of the question.
And with the way things are going, I don’t see paints I need getting here in a shorter time period than a couple of weeks.
When I need a colour I can’t afford to wait weeks or months for it to arrive.
I have a channel I need to run with a weekly release, and I can’t depend on delivery services to get me what I need when I need it. If I need a black now I have several options that will get me one within an hour.
It might not be P3, but I think it’s more PP’s problem then mine. I’ll just spend my money elsewhere.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why not use the internet to get p3 paints?
I also hear war colors are similar.

I have both P3 and Warcolours, and can say they are in no way similar. Warcolours are a gel based medium, much more akin to Scale 75. However, for me, Warcolours have become my main go-to line of paints as they work really well for my preferred techniques (wet blending, glazing). I do still have most of my P3 tho, and still use them, but honestly haven't bought any in years now.

 Ghool wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why not use the internet to get p3 paints?
I also hear war colors are similar.

When outside temperatures can drop to -50C here, I’m not taking the chance on my paints being frozen.
I will only buy local after having so many paints come up duds after being frozen.
The LGS even has the same problem.
So unless you’re in a temperate or warmer climate then mine, ordering online is out of the question.
And with the way things are going, I don’t see paints I need getting here in a shorter time period than a couple of weeks.
When I need a colour I can’t afford to wait weeks or months for it to arrive.
I have a channel I need to run with a weekly release, and I can’t depend on delivery services to get me what I need when I need it. If I need a black now I have several options that will get me one within an hour.
It might not be P3, but I think it’s more PP’s problem then mine. I’ll just spend my money elsewhere.

I meant no disrespect for that. I didnt know paint can freeze!!!!

 Ghool wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why not use the internet to get p3 paints?
I also hear war colors are similar.

When outside temperatures can drop to -50C here, I’m not taking the chance on my paints being frozen.
I will only buy local after having so many paints come up duds after being frozen.
The LGS even has the same problem.
So unless you’re in a temperate or warmer climate then mine, ordering online is out of the question.
And with the way things are going, I don’t see paints I need getting here in a shorter time period than a couple of weeks.
When I need a colour I can’t afford to wait weeks or months for it to arrive.
I have a channel I need to run with a weekly release, and I can’t depend on delivery services to get me what I need when I need it. If I need a black now I have several options that will get me one within an hour.
It might not be P3, but I think it’s more PP’s problem then mine. I’ll just spend my money elsewhere.

My issue is the exact opposite. If I leave them out in the car from April through October, they may dry out. Average summer temp is about 46-47 C (115 F or more) here and is often dry as a bone. Inside a car's cabin it can easily reach from 77-82 C (170-180 F). Does interesting things to plastic.

So I appreciate the issue.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Ghool wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why not use the internet to get p3 paints?
I also hear war colors are similar.

When outside temperatures can drop to -50C here, I’m not taking the chance on my paints being frozen.
I will only buy local after having so many paints come up duds after being frozen.
The LGS even has the same problem.
So unless you’re in a temperate or warmer climate then mine, ordering online is out of the question.
And with the way things are going, I don’t see paints I need getting here in a shorter time period than a couple of weeks.
When I need a colour I can’t afford to wait weeks or months for it to arrive.
I have a channel I need to run with a weekly release, and I can’t depend on delivery services to get me what I need when I need it. If I need a black now I have several options that will get me one within an hour.
It might not be P3, but I think it’s more PP’s problem then mine. I’ll just spend my money elsewhere.

I meant no disrespect for that. I didnt know paint can freeze!!!!

Yep. The first set of scale color I ordered had froze on the flight from Spain. It turned into a thick mushy foam after it had defrosted.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I will say, i personally loved that in WM/H you where using names characters at the center of your army. Narratively it felt like every battle you where having was important, and not just some random skirmish.

Honestly, that's one of the main reasons I disliked Warmachine/Hordes and one of the reasons I'm looking into Warcaster.

It just feels less special/personal when people can look at who your caster is and automatically know what kind of list you're running, which is only exacerbated by themes and the hyper competitive nature of the scene. Back when I played Warhammer/40k, there was really nothing stopping you from fielding off the wall strategies like "Chaos with Range" Orcs or "Slightly less chaotic Skaven" with Goblins just by picking up the Greenskin book.

Unlike something like MTG Commander, where you can just pick a Legendary and build a deck completely separate from that, in WMH the Caster is too important to not try to focus on since losing them means you lose the game.

Most of the stores in the larger metro areas in my area all have dropped WMH, or they have reduced their inventory and the location to such a degree that it's a negligible presence.

It's pretty sad to see it go.

 Ghool wrote:
Well it’s official, my LGS is no longer stocking PP. The paints are running out and the corner where PP used to be is empty save a few KS starter boxes of Warcaster.
I’m having to switch my paints to Citadel as a result, and which I am not too thrilled about.
My LGS not stocking PP is telling - they stock anything and everything in print.

Sounds like the distributor is not carrying them or the LGS is not wanting to work with PP retail. I see this happening with alot of games that not publically owned. Basically if you are not GW, Asmodee sub, CMON, WoTC in regards to miniatures, distributors are starting to filter you out. Saller companies like PP, Mantic, Wyrd do carry direct retailer support but the will to use that support has to be there.

Which is sad, means hobby boom of early 2010's with many different games will be even harder to pull off. I don't see PP, Wyrd, Mantic, or Corvis Belle going anyway, but I don't see any other games breaking in either.

It is similiar to RPGs, DnD 5th problem.

Who knows perhaps distributors dropping more and more middleweight games iwll cause a gap in the market that a new distribution team will rise to fill.

It is odd how distributors are the bottleneck for who gets to shelves and who doesn't sometimes

Both Matt Wilson and Chris Burch (from Modiphus) were talking about distributors over the summer in different interviews. The jist of it is there's too much stuff coming out every week. Distributors no longer act as a warehouse to store and ship orders outside of a small selection of very popular items, they only care about new preorders for most things and several were going to go under pre-COVID (Diamond is an example here in the US and why DC joint with some other comic companies to make their own distribution network) and we could see a large number shut down due to COVID as most had to furlough most of their staff or running on skeleton crews as they're not essential in some places.

Sounds like Privateer really wants to get away from them but stores don't like having to have multiple billing accounts so they rarely do even though they'll get better prices. Reaper has this same issue as many stores cannot get older Bones and some of their line as Distributors just won't carry them even if they sell well.

If distributors fail Chris's thoughts are a lot of FLGS will shut down as stores will loose customers to ordering directly due to the FLGS not able to get anything in as only a small % of game companies are capable of direct sells to stores. That also means you'll have a collapse of the gaming market which is over crowded right now. Both Chris and Matt weren't sure where things will be in 2 years as everything is so volitile.

That sounds a bit doom and gloom to me.

It's a worst case scenario brought on by uncertainty around COVID. Remember, these were given in July. But I do think they're right we really won't know how the economic landscape for the hobby will look like post COVID and Diamond likely won't be around in 2 years and they're a big player.

Which is sad, means hobby boom of early 2010's with many different games will be even harder to pull off. I don't see PP, Wyrd, Mantic, or Corvis Belle going anyway, but I don't see any other games breaking in either.

So, as i think iv mentioned a few times on this thread, I also play a lot of Malifaux by Wyrd games. And apart from a period of about a month at the launch of the 3rd edition, getting product in the UK has never really been an issue. Have stock levels been unlimited? No. have i been able to get what i wanted when i wanted it? Pretty much.

My job involves a lot of travel in the UK and i find myself staying overnight in lots of major and minor towns and cities all over the country. Being a 30 something year old geek i often look to see if there is a hobby/FLGS in the area and go to it, just to burn some time in the evenings. So iv spoken to a number of games store owner and staff.

The difference between PP and a company like Wyrd is that, in instances where a store had to set up a direct relationship wit the company to get stock, the stores wanted to continue their relationship with Wyrd. Malifaux sells and the company has a stock of goodwill with most stores and a good relationship with retail in general. So when things got a bit tricky, they were able to "spend" some of that goodwill to sort our their supply issues.

My understanding is that in the UK there is now a import/distro company that deals specifically in all the "not GW" companies which has allowed PP, Wyrd, Mantic, Corvis Belle to get onto UK shelves with a little more ease. But even with that, the demand and goodwill for PP stuff just isn't coming in from the smaller FLGS and only some of the bigger UK B&M/Online stores.

It’s interesting because my LGS has cleared out a large section of their miniatures games just recently. They got rid of almost all PP product, except for the KS bundles of Warcaster. They also dropped Batman/DC from Knight Models, most of Wyrd, and there’s a few other smaller ones I missed.
I think the pandemic is hitting a lot of game stores and companies really hard, and it appears my LGS is liquidating all their slow moving stock. With the inability to play games with others (and yay for another lockdown here) I think we’re going to find fewer and fewer games and companies around by this time next year.
Because let’s face it, nothing is going back to normal until at least the summer, maybe even later. We’ll see who survives.

We might actually see games take a boom. Whilst clubs are shut down many customers are more used to ordering online and are building and painting. So there might well be that once things settle back toward normal we could see a big update in clubs running.

It's one thing to drift away from the club on choice; its another to be told you can't go at all.

So we might see a resurgance, if a bit hit and miss as different regions unlock and come online and people get confident at going out.



The real trick is surviving that long. From what I can see many of the game manufacturers should be ok - its the middlemen stores that are at greatest risk.