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 Kommisar wrote:

On 2/5, War Room will no longer support pre-Oblivion theme forces. Army lists using these older, invalid themes will be deleted at that time. Re-create favorite lists using the new Oblivion themes available now. Also, online multiplayer functionality will no longer be supported. pic.twitter.com/KTn8zS0CSX

— Privateer Press (@privateerpress) February 4, 2020

No real surprise. The "Oblivion phase" Themes were always meant to completely take over eventually, and they tend to be more favorable to general builds as opposed to the restricted builds towards Jacks, Beasts, or Infantry.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Kommisar wrote:

On 2/5, War Room will no longer support pre-Oblivion theme forces. Army lists using these older, invalid themes will be deleted at that time. Re-create favorite lists using the new Oblivion themes available now. Also, online multiplayer functionality will no longer be supported. pic.twitter.com/KTn8zS0CSX

— Privateer Press (@privateerpress) February 4, 2020

No real surprise. The "Oblivion phase" Themes were always meant to completely take over eventually, and they tend to be more favorable to general builds as opposed to the restricted builds towards Jacks, Beasts, or Infantry.

It’s was in reference to the point that they’re removing functionality from an app that people paid to use

 Kommisar wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Kommisar wrote:

On 2/5, War Room will no longer support pre-Oblivion theme forces. Army lists using these older, invalid themes will be deleted at that time. Re-create favorite lists using the new Oblivion themes available now. Also, online multiplayer functionality will no longer be supported. pic.twitter.com/KTn8zS0CSX

— Privateer Press (@privateerpress) February 4, 2020

No real surprise. The "Oblivion phase" Themes were always meant to completely take over eventually, and they tend to be more favorable to general builds as opposed to the restricted builds towards Jacks, Beasts, or Infantry.

It’s was in reference to the point that they’re removing functionality from an app that people paid to use

It was never intended to last that long, anyway. And it was more about reducing confusion. Oddly enough, they bothered to take that step instead of doing what Conflict Chamber did (but CC doesn't have you scroll through everything on a Theme before going on to the enxt one).

Online multiplayer functionality wasn't intended to last?

 Kommisar wrote:
Online multiplayer functionality wasn't intended to last?

Most of the notes were about the Themes, and it is to that I addressed.

I never was able to get the connectivity function to work, so in my mind, it's not removing functionality, its removing a bug by giving up on a non-functioning feature.

 Kommisar wrote:

On 2/5, War Room will no longer support pre-Oblivion theme forces. Army lists using these older, invalid themes will be deleted at that time. Re-create favorite lists using the new Oblivion themes available now. Also, online multiplayer functionality will no longer be supported. pic.twitter.com/KTn8zS0CSX

— Privateer Press (@privateerpress) February 4, 2020

Supporting old themes caused more confusion than any real benefit. People embraced the new system immediately before it was even technically legal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh. The online play. I’ve never heard it working. Even when people have made a connection the battery drain was crippling.

Anecdotally, a lot of people are fed up with the marine meta in 40k in my local area.

Due to the recent power creep Games Workshop has been injecting into 40k and AoS...I think we might see some more new and returning players in 2020.

Also, a lot of our local Warmahordes crowd switched to Infinity. Now that a new edition has been announced (but will not be released for some time) interest in playing has waned a bit as people wait for changes.

Personally, I have shelved my Convergence army, but have also started to pick up Monsterpocalypse.

This could be a good year for PP.

It could be a good year for PP, or Neo-Warcaster may fall on its face.

I'm hopeful, but wouldn't invest right now even if I had the funds. At most I'd continue with my current collections, with a possible MonPoc development. Only problem is my LGS is poor on PP product, while my old LGS is going decently strong with it.

The local Warmahordes scene hasnt recovered from the launch of MK3. No more Saturday events with 15-20 people. I could get a pick up game any night of the week. It was because players said every single week "The game is dying"

Months and months of 4~ players showing reguarlly on one specific night sort of killed it for me. That and the lack of painting being enforced in all events.

The gamesworkshop skirmish games, xwing, and guildball/small set games took over.

 Stevefamine wrote:

The gamesworkshop skirmish games, xwing, and guildball/small set games took over.

I still play, but I don't think I could go back to playing a single system week after week like I did during the height of MK2. It's just so much more enjoyable to be able to wander away and play something new and fresh when the game or my army gets stale.

i got the same way with 40K playing 3+ games every saturday, well it also helped that when 6th ed dropped it was so bad that it killed 40K at the FLGS...... now WM is just one of several games i bring to game night so i can enjoy a bunch of things.

My theory is that by positioning Warmachine as a “perfect” competitive game, when they slipped a bit, the players looking for that play experience moved on. In my local experience, they went to Malifaux, Guildball, X-Wing and Bushido.

For me, who was actively driven away by competitive play wiping out the narrative appeal, the edition changes meant a year or so of nothing new. Now, when I play, there’s no immersion. 40k, Infinity, X-Wing all feel like battles. Warmachine ... is just pushing models around.

At least their re-release of Monsterpocalypse is an attempt at diversifying, as was Level 7. I suppose Riot Quest and this new sci fi game are too.

What got me into the game was the idea of 40k dreadnought being able to do something else besides move and shoot. I loved the fact the cards had different actions the warjack could make,
Then 40 other designs came out with certain special units that could wipe the board no matter what you took. Getting curb-stomped every game got me to stop playing, I don't need to win every game,
but never winning and always getting almost tabled every time because I didn't play regularly was the big cause of me leaving the game. Plus I only like about twenty percent of the design
of the miniatures. Some look very nice while most are not good looking.

When company creates so many separate games while being so small, you can see writing on a wall. It would require for far bigger company to properly support all these games and lack of support simply means that people get bored with a game and simply move on.

Games needs some maturing also. Wiki is full of errors. Setting and gameplay do not match. For example, Retribution is supposed to be this "elite" army, because elves are dying out. On tabletop they are all, but that. They have elite ninja cadre, but most of their units are quite average performing. Their riflemen do not reflect their extensive training and use of heavy rifles. Their bonuses and statline sucks. Hallberdeers or their warjacks simply do not give me this super advanced, elite army who is dying out feeling. All their stuff is not better than that of other factions. In fact it is worse, because of broken design, making Arcanists so incredibly powerful that every other warjack had to have gakky POW on their own. Furthermore, they are quite fragile and poor shots for supposedly elite army and their field mechanic often feels more than a gimmick than an important part of their gameplay. Nobody simply cared to mature this game where it feels right. Not to mention issue of immense alphas, point denial from gameplay perspective. There are a lot of units who have blatant balance issues of either being too important not to take if you can or being unbalanced both from points perspective and from narrative/gameplay side by lacking solid vision of what they should represent.

 Ernestas wrote:
When company creates so many separate games while being so small, you can see writing on a wall. It would require for far bigger company to properly support all these games and lack of support simply means that people get bored with a game and simply move on.

Actually so far PP is doing ok - Warmachine/Hordes are still getting releases; Monster Apoc is doing well; their MiniCrate seems to be doing well (its now up to 3 models a month) and their new game is going to be started with a KS.

They are a long way form what we saw with a company like Spartan Games where, for a few years as things got rough toward the end; they were launching lots of new games whilst having existing games without new content for a long while and missed release deadlines and things that were announced that never appeared or get forever delayed without warning.


Certainly PP isn't as healthy as it was nor as big, but I don't think they are near the doors closing.

GW fanboys gleefully running around going "DEAD GAME, DEAD GAME! TEHEHEHEHE!" probably doesn't help that online perception either I imagine.

Warcaster I think will probably be a sink-or-swim situation though. If it does well, I could see them shift gears out of Warmahordes almost completely. If it sinks I still think Warmahordes will plod along at a reduced rate, but won't be taken out back, just be less favoured compared to something like MonPoc.

I think the knowing the opponent's army or you get hit by a nasty surprise became an increasing issue as the number of factions, casters and combos increased.

Themes making 80%+ of the product on the shelf unpurchasable for a game focused so heavily on competitive play was probably the final nail in the coffin for a lot of stores that were already seeing declining sales. And when you see everything for a game discounted at 50-75% off retail in multiple stores in multiple cities across the world I think it's pretty clear just what the health of the game is like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also is Monsterpocalypse dead too? When I go to the website news section the latest item is from September of 2018.

Is Privateer really down to just ongoing Warcaster Kickstarters or bust?

where are you looking for monpoc info?

the latest stuff was on their podcast on feb 27th for march new releases of the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om1DdwrTC3M

Monpoc is doing better than Warmahordes at my flgs.

 frozenwastes wrote:

Is Privateer really down to just ongoing Warcaster Kickstarters or bust?

PP is having a lot of issues with the current state of distribution. They're pushing the Kickstarter as a way to use direct distribution to build up a playerbase, but my understanding is the game will still get regular distribution releases; PP just doesn't believe that is enough to seed a healthy community currently.

 LunarSol wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

Is Privateer really down to just ongoing Warcaster Kickstarters or bust?

PP is having a lot of issues with the current state of distribution. They're pushing the Kickstarter as a way to use direct distribution to build up a playerbase, but my understanding is the game will still get regular distribution releases; PP just doesn't believe that is enough to seed a healthy community currently.

At least that’s the narrative we’re being told anyways.
Whether that’s actually true or not is what I’d question.
It sounds to me like they don’t have the capital to fund the start up themselves, and that’s why they are on KS with a Warcaster.
To me it looks more like they need funding to try something new because they just don’t have the means to anymore.

Meh, I'll take them at their word. It's similar to what I've heard before, and what I've heard from people I know elsewhere in the industry as well.

I personally don’t think it matters either way.
Starting a new miniatures game isn’t cheap, nor easy these days. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t use KS for marketing purposes. It’s where most of my big purchases are made these days anyway.
I just question the reasoning, as it seems that they aren’t making as much capital for reinvestment.

 Ghool wrote:

I just question the reasoning, as it seems that they aren’t making as much capital for reinvestment.

The Kickstarter fee isn't really any worse than what they get when you factor in the distributors' cut.

It's about reducing risk, as Kickstarter is much better as a risk management tool than a crowdfunding tool.

Here's a link explaining it much better than I can, in the context of the tariffs the US placed on products from China:

https://pandasaurusgames.com/blogs/news/business-of-board-games-tariffs

Right. It's worth noting that once upon a time this is the role distribution provided as well, though more in the form of distributing risk.

One disadvantage of the KS model is that it will be difficult to find other players to actually game against, unless one either buys several factions to introduce others to, or can convince others to back at this early stage. It will be unlikely that many 'pick-up', casual games will occur at local games stores, which will limit playability and access to impulse purchases. Not convinced by the longevity of Warmahordes 40K because of this.

Eh Ks is no better nor worse than any other kind of distribution for that. You've always got to work at it to get a local group going no matter if a game goes through KS or just appears one day on the list of games the distributor sells to retail outlets.

If anything KS actually works better because it draws a huge amount of online marketing together around a focused platform that maintains (when properly run of course) activity and interest for a prolonged period. PP is even working it well by running short KS campaigns with short target release windows. So come the mid-summer PP will be advertising and the game will be out on retail pretty soon after you get your pledges.

A lot of KS fail because they complete the Ks, but then take a long while getting from that point to the retail release - not often helped by them missing their original release window by considerable periods of time. So the game stalls on its own marketing.



PP likely won't have those issues. Plus any release delay won't impact the duration between KS release and commercial release.




In the end yes if you are the only person that buys into it locally you will have to work to get a local group going. PPs' PG system shows that even one locally interested person can turn things around and, with the right motivation and methods, can make a game locally popular. It does take time and effort and yes if you are the only one locally buying into it you want to get two forces so you can do demo games. You've got to sell a game to your local community if you want it to take off. That's no different if it was released through KS or any other distribution method.

 Overread wrote:
Eh Ks is no better nor worse than any other kind of distribution for that. You've always got to work at it to get a local group going no matter if a game goes through KS or just appears one day on the list of games the distributor sells to retail outlets.

If anything KS actually works better because it draws a huge amount of online marketing together around a focused platform that maintains (when properly run of course) activity and interest for a prolonged period. PP is even working it well by running short KS campaigns with short target release windows. So come the mid-summer PP will be advertising and the game will be out on retail pretty soon after you get your pledges.

A lot of KS fail because they complete the Ks, but then take a long while getting from that point to the retail release - not often helped by them missing their original release window by considerable periods of time. So the game stalls on its own marketing.



PP likely won't have those issues. Plus any release delay won't impact the duration between KS release and commercial release.






In the end yes if you are the only person that buys into it locally you will have to work to get a local group going. PPs' PG system shows that even one locally interested person can turn things around and, with the right motivation and methods, can make a game locally popular. It does take time and effort and yes if you are the only one locally buying into it you want to get two forces so you can do demo games. You've got to sell a game to your local community if you want it to take off. That's no different if it was released through KS or any other distribution method.

The downside is, however, that a lot of retailers won't necessarily stock this because of the fact it was available via KS, meaning a lot of their possible/potential customers will already have it. I know, if I were managing a retail store, I'd not be taking the risk of having this on the shelf where there's a high risk of it not selling, compared to other items that I know usually would.

My store has had enough problems with distribution that they've started to prefer stocking through the retail pledge levels instead.