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Man, I thought I was down on Privateer Press, but y'all in here making me look like a fanboi by comparison.
HIPS isn't happening, the market for PPs product has shrunk considerably and its not feasible for them to do so. Wyrd is a terrible example to use here, because Wyrd has been struggling financially for some time and is slowly pulling back from being an all-plastic miniatures line as well.
Complaints about 35mm scale are silly. Newsflash, 40k hasn't been 28mm scale in years, nor has Warmachine been 30/32. The last few years of PP releases were already in 35mm scale, likewise the last few years of GW have been edging slowly in the same direction. The entire industry is moving towards larger minis, its a fact of life at this point, get used to it.
etc etc etc
Does it look like the next big thing? Hardly. Its absolutely derivative generic sci-fi. if you would have told me these were Infinity models I wouldn't have doubted you. Kickstarter is a terrible way to try to launch a game like this based on the historical trends, but maybe they'll surprise us. But some of these complaints are absolutely just nitpicking things which are totally irrelevant.
CoALabaer wrote: Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
Funny things about the impression's of PP's rules writing ability. I still think they write good concise rules when you look at individual rules, or smaller groups.
But they fail a lot in terms of predicting/creating metas, hence the need for CID. On top of that they stay beholden to certain "hardcore" ideas that for some reason have to stay in the game, and they do, until ages pass and they have to remove it.
Why I'm hopeful about Warcaster is, well, it sheds a lot of the baggage that made their rules style not work so well. Units are small, so you're not individually rolling giant masses of infantry. Alternating activations helps even out the most powerful abilities. You bring back units during play, which means even if you make a mistake, or someone uses a giant ability and your units get wiped? Bring them back on the table.
And that giant elephant in the room that hardcore fans loved and said will never go: No Caster Kill.
I was quite quite surprised at the changes and despite the many, many ways I dislike PP's methods, this might mean someone else is in charge. I am pretty damn impressed with what they have, and they even identified a bunch of issues and fixes that more recent games are addressing.
People who think GW has been having scale creep lately have not been playing much attention. AoS is the same scale as 8th Fantasy, 40k 8th is the same scale as 7th and 6th before it. Model lines that are bigger (Stormcast, Primaris) are bigger in the fluff as well; it isn't scale creep when they represent beings which are actually larger in size. Compare the likes of Warcry cultists to empire soldiers, or Blackstone Fortress traitor guard to cadians. The scale creep actually took place some time ago and things have remained largely static the past decade or longer.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/02/26 06:27:11
Posted on another forum I read for those who ain’t watched the stream
I can't watch the stream anymore but this is what I got:
-There are no points during army building; you get X number of units ("units" are everything in the game, including solos and warjacks) agreed upon by your opponents, and you can have a reserve that sounds unlimited, I guess? You pay some kind of summoning points for adding models during the game.
-It's I go you go, with kind of a weird system they call the Pulse Round. You activate a model and do your thing, then I activate a model and do my thing, and each round of activations you advance the Pulse Tracker towards a number determined by scenario. The Pulse Round is important to scenarios (it may be where you score objectives, etc.) and some in-game effects.
-When you activate a unit, that unit gets an activation flag and cannot activate again until that flag is cleared; you automatically clear all activation flags once every unit has one. Every time you activate, you get unit + solo - So you can go warjack + solo, unit of dudes + solo, or solo + solo. They do their thing and then your opponent gets to react. You can move or attack or attack and move, in any order you choose, but you cannot double up (no move-move or attack-attack).
-Your spells (called Cyphers) are played at the beginning of a round and again at the end. You have a hand of five; there are deckbuilding rules they didn't get into. There are buffs that affect dudes, jacks, etc. that are different kinds, global type buffs, and offensive spells called Furies. Furies have to be channeled through a Weaver, there's no range restriction on the other kind.
-You have a well of 7 ARC. You can allocate one ARC to anything you want at the beginning of a turn. Units can do cool things with it like get better at hurting stuff and have a rule called a Spike, which lets you spend the ARC once a trigger has been met to do some neat effect. I saw a Weaver able to burn an ARC to increase the range of a spell, but there's certainly other stuff they can do. Once an ARC is spent it goes back to your well. I have no idea what else the ARC does. Each unit has a Focus stat that tells you how much ARC you can allocate, I guess.
-Units of dudes move via the unit leader; you measure the move and then place the dudes in the unit in unit coherency with the unit leader, which specifically allows leapfrogging tactics.
-When you make an attack, you roll dice equal to your MAT or RAT score, and your target rolls dice equal to their Defense score. If you win they get hit, if they do you miss.
That's all I saw before I had to get back to work.
Unit is a squad of 3, a solo, or a warjack.
Starter box is a squad, 2 solos, and a jack.
Rules
30"x30" board is 8 units max per side
48"x48" board is 15 units max per side
Your "sideboard" is unlimited and costs are based on summoning
There is no kill, it is scenario and victory points
Scenario is called Recon. They mention having terrain with vertical elements being awesome and they back up the Rick and Morty idea of the 1000 worlds having all kinds of terrain.
The scenario points in Recon are permanent, others will have scenario objects that move or can/must be moved.
Pulse round is when scoring occurs and when most effects expire (every 3 game rounds is one Pulse round in Recon). Pulse rounds remove activation tokens but not Arc.
The Pulse round timer means that the games ends after a certain number of rounds.
Scenario points are equal to the Pulse round (1 for 1, 2 for 2, 3 for 3 the last round).
Deployment is done from your side of the table out to a certain distance and they both start with 2 units out and draw 5 cards.
4 kinds of cards:
Harmonics (they didn't mention the color) are global cards
Overdrives (blue) are jack cards
Geometrics (orange) are unit cards
Furies (red) are spells with ranges that come from weavers
Cypher (card), activate unit(s), Cypher, place summoning well/Summon is one turn. Can also discard a card and draw up to 5 at the end of each turn.
Arc
Arc not in play is your well, 7 total. A bigger well means more powerful spells. You can pull any Arc back at the start of your turn or place 1 Arc.
Arc on a model can be spent like fury/focus. Each unit also has charge and spike abilities. The example is a Spike ability for the Marcher World fire team, they can move 3" when spiked with Arc.
Summoning/Gates
Only 2 gates in play for each player
Summoning gates have Arc on them and it takes a turn to summon and the other player can damage the gate and delay/stop/mess with summoning.
Gates need to be placed within 5" of human model not just summoned or 5" from your table edge.
Can move through gates.
Gates you get a base and a token to put in the base.
Combat/Movement rules
Each unit moves and attacks but you can do it in whatever order you want, attack/move or move/attack.
Full pre-measure.
Cover exists and is probably similar to WMH rules.
Only white and red die, no blue.
(I have not used the Riot Quest or Mon Poc dice but it seems kinda annoying)
No facing and no arcs for models.
Jacks do not have systems or arms or anything, just HP.
LOS is volume to volume (matters for height) and RNG is base to base.
If you have the high ground you basically always have cover and cover is 2 red die.
Jacks can use all their weapons when they activate.
Can shoot into and out of melee, no freestrikes in this game, no engagement.
There is falling damage and if you get damaged when falling your activation ends.
Can climb ladders on terrain.
Can't move through models.
Blasts are measured from the hit model and sprays are just what is under your tape measure, no templates.
Slamming is a thing and adds a red die.
Units
Jacks are customized based on the cortex and the build-points (hard points). There are rules associated with building them (they play with 5 points in jack customization).
Iron Star Alliance is like the Empire
Marcher Worlds is like the Outer Rim
Iron Star Alliance squad range is 12".
Dusk Wolf has 3 HP.
Marcher World Hunter solo is SPD 7 and RNG 15 and RAT 6. Having an Arc on him added a red die to his attack. He also has an ability to move 3" after shooting.
Jacks can have up to 3 Arc and the Iron Star jack gets +1 to it's melee for each arc and the Dusk Wolf gets +1 SPD.
Iron Star Weaver has 2 HP and died in 1 shot from the Jack.
Gates have good defensive stats and when damaged Arc gets pushed off them.
Jacks are on 50mm bases (so maybe no heavy jacks?)
There are cards that can remove activation tokens meaning you can activate the same thing multiple times out of the normal order.
There are attachments in the game.
My Thoughts
Summoning is the big strategy here and how you think ahead.
The card deck is cool.
The Arc well is cool.
Stuff dies easily and in a 15 unit game I bet it gets pretty complicated.
Can't say I am a fan of the dice but I haven't used them before. Having to roll to hit, roll to defend, roll to damage seems kinda annoying.
The game basically ends at the start of Pulse round 3 because one player will win based on the positioning of the objectives and the increasing scenario point values. I think that is fine?
Skirmish seems like a good size to play, 8 units (2 starters is their example) on a 30"x30".
Im really liking the gameplay mechanics and the fact that its full 3D terrain. WM/H can sometime look naff if people go all out on 2D terrain all the time. We play mostly 3D at our place so its good to see it crossing over. I hope this game does well.
Definitely interesting. I did 'call' the shadespire link.
Cards seem like a random draw from a premade deck.
Attack/defend and roll damage dice rolls - seems fair. I like it.
Can folks confirm - standard d6 or custom? I think they're custom.
And interestingly - no points. There is a 'unit cap' on the game, but not really the same thing. I wonder how this will feed into the 'points or no points' eternal debate.
It seems to me that warcaster is a 'fresh take' on the ideas that created Warmachine. WMH is a very mature game, and it's probsbly well past the point where these lessons can be applied back to WMH. Far better to take the lessons and build something new. it seems that a lot of the game mechanics and game concepts in warcaster are based on sometimes rather ingenious solutions to the problems and limitations that WMH has. Yeah, I'm intrigued.
Too early to say whether this will be the next big thing for me and my group but I'll probsbly dip my toes in.
greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy
"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are"
Can folks confirm - standard d6 or custom? I think they're custom.
They're custom. I didn't catch the details, but the red dice score higher than the blue, I believe, and you need to meet certain conditions to use them.
As a Saga player, the mechanic aroun marking units as activited and being able to remove those marks through spells midway through the round appealed to me.
The galaxy is littered with the single-planet graveyards of civilisations which made the economically sensible decision not to explore space.
In fairness you see the same thing from "ex-gamers" in most cases. Don't forget Warmachine MK3 isn't "that old" so many who have drifted away have only done so recently and it was a fairly sharp decline rather than the GW decline of players which was typically more gradual and spread out.
So a lot of them are still in their "I don't like it" phase where even if PP was making the best of the best of the best, they'd still be against it or not enthusiastic about it.
Plus don't forget right now its all pre-release material. There's no youtube channels or twitch streamers showing games nor showing off painting and model options. There's no hype nor buzz and even if there was you can't actually play yet. Plus we've only seen the starter-set for two factions so far.
I'm not surprised that some who might not like PP at present are not bowled over by it. This might well change once the KS launches - once it finishes and also once the game ahs been out for a while.
Can folks confirm - standard d6 or custom? I think they're custom.
They're custom. I didn't catch the details, but the red dice score higher than the blue, I believe, and you need to meet certain conditions to use them.
As a Saga player, the mechanic aroun marking units as activited and being able to remove those marks through spells midway through the round appealed to me.
It’s the same dice they use for MonPoc and Riot Quest. So far they’re only using the white and the red dice, no blue. White dice have hits on half the sides, with one of those having two hits. Red dice have hits on five sides, with one of those again being two hits. Essentially it’s a 4+/2+ to hit with a crit on the six. If they do end up using the blue dice, those are your middle of the road 3+ to hit.
So after watching the demo video this is what i see
.Part heavy gear-alternating unit activation-move+ attack actions paired with attack dice roll VS defense dice roll
.Part magic-drawing random action cards
.Part monster apocalypse-specialized hit dice.
I like control sheets like those found in battletech, B5 wars, heavy gear or even the stat cards in monpoc/WM but i hate actual card deck games including malafaux, magic and the turn draw random objective maelstrom cards used in 8th ed 40K .
As such this is certainly not my type of game.
Best of luck to them but as far as PP is concerned i will stay with monpoc and WM.
My enjoyment for this setting of skirmish level SCIFI battles is already filled with infinity.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/02/26 13:11:54
GAMES-DUST1947/infinity/B5 wars/epic 40K/5th ed 40K/victory at sea/warmachine/battle tactics/monpoc/battletech/battlefleet gothic/castles in the sky,/heavy gear
The list building is straight from Monsterpocalypse as well.
30"x30" is a weird board size when most people already have 36x36 (Malifaux or Star Wars Legion) or 48x48 (Warmahordes or Infinity).
I play:
40K: Daemons, Tau
AoS: Blades of Khorne, Disciples of Tzeentch
Warmachine: Convergence of Cyriss
Infinity: Haqqislam, Tohaa
Malifaux: Bayou
Star Wars Legion: Republic & Separatists
MESBG: Far Harad, Misty Mountains
As said, the custom dice aren't all that custom. Pretty easy to play with standard D6's if you REALLY want as long as you have two different colors.
Gameplay has some intriguing elements. I think the spawning mechanic is far and away the most interesting element, particularly because there's kind of some negative incentives to spawning stuff in the activation system. The lack of points in army building seems well handled to that end and the jack customization feels well done.
Demo took me from wait and see to on my radar. I need to see a lot more, but this feels like it takes the things I liked about Riot Quest and puts them in a more tactically interesting system.
Only just peeked at that demo vid and seen the photos on PP's Insta, but I continue to be intrigued. Honestly the #1 thing holding me back is that I already own a huge amount of unbuilt or unpainted WMH stuff and frankly don't feel like I should be giving PP more money when I have minis that will otherwise never do anything but take up space in my closet, with how poor WMH's resell value is. (#2 is that I really do love the Iron Kingdoms setting and #3 is that I already have too many games!)
No criticisms on the game really. There does seem to be a lot of random in the mechanics, which is rather unexpected coming from WMH. Plus I loathe custom dice but hey, guessing you still only need 5 max? Demo should tell me more in that vein.
Vertrucio wrote: Funny things about the impression's of PP's rules writing ability. I still think they write good concise rules when you look at individual rules, or smaller groups.
But they fail a lot in terms of predicting/creating metas, hence the need for CID. On top of that they stay beholden to certain "hardcore" ideas that for some reason have to stay in the game, and they do, until ages pass and they have to remove it.
PP is really good at making interesting economic systems. Where they fail is they often leave elements of their games that don't participate in those economies, leading players to ignore them in favor of things that don't require making hard choices. The system gets "fixed" by oversupplying the resource and then it winds up overpowered. The good recent example is Infernals. The first version of the summoning rules was incredibly interesting.... except their cheap cultist unit basically gave them unlimited Essence at any point in the turn and removed any chance of being unable to pay the tithe no matter how many things were summoned.
I think Jason Soles is just kind of a double edged sword for the company. In terms of rules, he seems brilliant, but he's so biased towards specific styles and themes their metas collapse under his pet faction with all the rules. The biggest threat to NeoMechanika is honestly probably just a faction with skulls on the models.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/26 15:09:16
NinthMusketeer wrote: People who think GW has been having scale creep lately have not been playing much attention. AoS is the same scale as 8th Fantasy, 40k 8th is the same scale as 7th and 6th before it. Model lines that are bigger (Stormcast, Primaris) are bigger in the fluff as well; it isn't scale creep when they represent beings which are actually larger in size. Compare the likes of Warcry cultists to empire soldiers, or Blackstone Fortress traitor guard to cadians. The scale creep actually took place some time ago and things have remained largely static the past decade or longer.
No, I'm pretty sure scale creep is real.
Spoiler:
(edit: yes, I recognize that some of these don't meet the scope, but it's before coffee, and there are plenty of examples, like much of the chaos lines, eldar, deathwatch vs. normal marines, etc.)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/26 15:46:50
NinthMusketeer wrote: People who think GW has been having scale creep lately have not been playing much attention. AoS is the same scale as 8th Fantasy, 40k 8th is the same scale as 7th and 6th before it. Model lines that are bigger (Stormcast, Primaris) are bigger in the fluff as well; it isn't scale creep when they represent beings which are actually larger in size.
I have to disagree. You can argue that there is more justification for that sort of scale-creep (though, to my mind at least, 'we need scale-creep because the fluff we just made up now on the spot say so' is a pretty weak justification), but "justified" scale-creep is still scale-creep.
Moreover. I would argue that scale-creep can take many different forms - including pushing the game in a certain direction.
As an example, these are the special characters from the 8th edition Vampire Counts book:
Spoiler:
In case you can't tell, these are all infantry-sized models. Aside from the last one (who was just riding a regular horse), they were all on standard 20mm bases.
Now Vampire Counts technically don't exist as an army anymore (thanks, GW), so instead we'll look at the special characters in Legions of Nagash (which most of the Vampire stuff was rolled into):
Spoiler:
The first three above are on 120mmx92mm oval bases, whilst Nagash sits proudly on a 130mm round base.
I can understand Nagash being big but there is no reason beyond scale-creep why the other three all need to be riding absurdly-large monsters (there isn't even an option to take them on foot or on a smaller mount).
blood reaper wrote: I will respect human rights and trans people but I will never under any circumstances use the phrase 'folks' or 'ya'll'. I would rather be killed by firing squad.
the_scotsman wrote: Yeah, when i read the small novel that is the Death Guard unit options and think about resolving the attacks from a melee-oriented min size death guard squad, the thing that springs to mind is "Accessible!"
Argive wrote: GW seems to have a crystal ball and just pulls hairbrained ideas out of their backside for the most part.
You're not. If you're worried about your opponent using 'fake' rules, you're having fun the wrong way. This hobby isn't about rules. It's about buying Citadel miniatures.
Please report to your nearest GW store for attitude readjustment. Take your wallet.
I honestly don't see this doing well. Not from malice but because the TT market is pretty full with all kinds of established games. Add in the fact that WM/H has been in a pretty steady decline, I just don't know how it's going to go. Hopefully there's enough of an interest that the KS is successful. The models look good so hopefully that'll draw them the attention they need to succeed.
A strong man stands up for himself; A stronger man stands up for others. Be the stronger man.
LunarSol wrote: I think Jason Soles is just kind of a double edged sword for the company. In terms of rules, he seems brilliant, but he's so biased towards specific styles and themes their metas collapse under his pet faction with all the rules. The biggest threat to NeoMechanika is honestly probably just a faction with skulls on the models.
point is, a company that does not use a specific scale for their main games, cannot suffer from scale screep
GW's scale was once, "all infantry models are 28mm from Base to Eyes, no matter what they size they would be" and therefore all tanks were the same size too
than they changed to making more HIPS models, failed at the design step and called it "28mm hero scale"
GW scale means that their normal models are ~1:50-1:56 while Marines are 1:65-1:70, Tanks are 1:50 and Weapons are 1:35
there is also the problem that 28mm Base to Eyes means 32mm total for human models while some take it as 28mm total.
For PP, I don't really care what scale the new game is, als long as they use one and the models match the size of their RL counterparts
Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise
New guy is kinda neat, except hardly innovative: once you remove the Cephalyx/Cryx recycling, Infinity-esque cabling/"muscles" and extra arms (not that they have a monopoly, but they are established competition), and cyberpunk mask, what you're left with is a scary medic in a beat up coat with PP signature chunky boots.
Glad to see some more variety, but I'm really not sold on the setting.
spiralingcadaver wrote: New guy is kinda neat, except hardly innovative: once you remove the Cephalyx/Cryx recycling, Infinity-esque cabling/"muscles" and extra arms (not that they have a monopoly, but they are established competition), and cyberpunk mask, what you're left with is a scary medic in a beat up coat with PP signature chunky boots.
Glad to see some more variety, but I'm really not sold on the setting.
Once you remove all the fancy details, you’re left with a miniature without fancy details.
spiralingcadaver wrote: New guy is kinda neat, except hardly innovative: once you remove the Cephalyx/Cryx recycling, Infinity-esque cabling/"muscles" and extra arms (not that they have a monopoly, but they are established competition), and cyberpunk mask, what you're left with is a scary medic in a beat up coat with PP signature chunky boots.
Glad to see some more variety, but I'm really not sold on the setting.
Once you remove all the fancy details, you’re left with a miniature without fancy details.
It's a little bit like when people say there's "only seven stories in the world" or whatever number it is that a book made popular. Indeed once you remove much of the components of a story and break it down to its most bare structural elements you can indeed find that lots of stories are very similar to each other. It's a dangerous thing I think because it encourages a way of viewing things in such broken down concepts that you actually lose sight of the whole creation.
You know, there're a lot fewer pics than I expected in a N&R thread. Here's the minis from the two faction starter sets:
Spoiler:
Keen to see the third faction, Fleshcrafter Mercenary-Guild Nomads (or whatever) tends to push my buttons a little more than the Marchers or Iron Star (tho I guess Marchers with a gun to my head).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/27 14:09:09
The models seem nicely detailed but they really don't grab me.
blood reaper wrote: I will respect human rights and trans people but I will never under any circumstances use the phrase 'folks' or 'ya'll'. I would rather be killed by firing squad.
the_scotsman wrote: Yeah, when i read the small novel that is the Death Guard unit options and think about resolving the attacks from a melee-oriented min size death guard squad, the thing that springs to mind is "Accessible!"
Argive wrote: GW seems to have a crystal ball and just pulls hairbrained ideas out of their backside for the most part.
You're not. If you're worried about your opponent using 'fake' rules, you're having fun the wrong way. This hobby isn't about rules. It's about buying Citadel miniatures.
Please report to your nearest GW store for attitude readjustment. Take your wallet.
Boss Salvage wrote: You know, there're a lot fewer pics than I expected in a N&R thread. Here's the minis from the two faction starter sets:
Spoiler:
Keen to see the third faction, Fleshcrafter Mercenary-Guild Nomads (or whatever) tends to push my buttons a little more than the Marchers or Iron Star (tho I guess Marchers with a gun to my head).
It's like they took a bunch of unused Infinity designs and applied some sort of chonky filter in their 3d modelling program. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
