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 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Even in bare metal / resin, a Templar feels fairly different to a Juggernaut or a Defender.

When you are very used to it and notice the difference and faction-specific style, yes. To a newcomer? They are all tiny leg dreadnoughts, with pretty small differences. At least I can say this was my opinion when I started the game. The Horde side was were the beasts were all very different, the warmachine side? Most of the difference was in the infantry and color scheme.

 insaniak wrote:
While the core Jacks all share the same 'big torso, tiny legs and head' construction, they have very clear aesthetic differences: Cygnar are all rounded, Khador are square and blocky, Menoth pointy and angular, and Cryx more organic looking.

The only one where I'd notice clear difference as a newcomer were Cryx. Which clearly had a slightly different aesthetic, thanks to being weird undead creations. And I suspect that the 3rd Warcaster faction, which we haven't seen a lot of, is going to be the one that stands out the most at start.

 insaniak wrote:
and the Infantry all just look like generic sci fi guys, with the only real distinction being that one lot have bigger shoulder pads.

That's really not how I feel. The snipers have cloth and a rugged look, the paladins have a cleaner look.

 insaniak wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Heck, your Maelstrom's edge signature makes me laugh a little seeing as Spiral Arm Studios don't appear to be doing well enough to maintain their own company website at the moment; check out http://www.spiralarmstudios.com/ to see what I mean.

Our website is http://www.maelstromsedge.com ...

So what's with the dead link prominently displayed in the bottom right corner of your page?

It's a link to a holding page that we aren't currently using for anything. We're a small company, and so we use our resources to maintain the website for the product we're actually selling, rather than a corporate website that would currently do nothing more than link back to the product website.

None of which has anything to do with the lengevity of the game or, more importantly for this thread, Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika. If you really must bash Maelstrom's Edge, please take it to somewhere more appropriate.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Even in bare metal / resin, a Templar feels fairly different to a Juggernaut or a Defender.

When you are very used to it and notice the difference and faction-specific style, yes. To a newcomer? They are all tiny leg dreadnoughts, with pretty small differences. At least I can say this was my opinion when I started the game. The Horde side was were the beasts were all very different, the warmachine side? Most of the difference was in the infantry and color scheme.

I wholly disagree:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Even in bare metal / resin, a Templar feels fairly different to a Juggernaut or a Defender.

When you are very used to it and notice the difference and faction-specific style, yes. To a newcomer? They are all tiny leg dreadnoughts, with pretty small differences. At least I can say this was my opinion when I started the game. The Horde side was were the beasts were all very different, the warmachine side? Most of the difference was in the infantry and color scheme.

I wholly disagree:

They literally said Cryx were the exception in the same post.

Cygnar and Khador are drastically different as well. Cygnar has distinctive spherical shoulders. Khador tends to look like a T-34 with an early war turret in silhouette.

Of key note is that yes, Cryx uses the double knee joint style. Both light jacks in WNM use that.

Also it’s hard to notice the different aesthetic themes with a sample size of one.

Which is what we have with Warcaster ATM.

 AduroT wrote:
Also it’s hard to notice the different aesthetic themes with a sample size of one.

Not sure what you mean here. We've seen three factions so far.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the interests of not just being negative, though, I will mention that as much as I feel the factions could use more distinction, I do like the design of the jacks. They're solid looking warmachines, and look like they would be fun to paint.

Not seeing the draw between this and Infinity to be honest. Infinity has a similar dynamic with better designs.

 insaniak wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Also it’s hard to notice the different aesthetic themes with a sample size of one.

Not sure what you mean here. We've seen three factions so far.

Right, and only one ‘Jack for each. So which details are the style of the setting, which are the style of particular weapon types, and which are the styles for the factions? We haven’t seen the patterns yet to know what’s supposed to be different and how.

Are you really arguing that you don't see an aesthetic difference between the factions?

Cygnar had a very clear mixture Revolutionary War, WWI, and traditional european fantasy.

Khador was a mixture of Soviet aesthetics with diesel-punk

I notice you completely leave Retribution, Menoth, and Convergence out of your argument. Retribution was the faction that immediately caught my eye when I was a newcomer due to the fact that you never see elves with a rugged military aesthetic like they have.

The factions shown so far absolutely have clear aesthetic differences setting them apart from each other as well. The Iron Stars all have that sleek, rounded high tech look to them. The Marchers have a rugged, cobbled together look to them, very reminiscent of Retribution in my eyes. The third faction are all pointy, edgelords with long coats.

 Da Boss wrote:
Not seeing the draw between this and Infinity to be honest. Infinity has a similar dynamic with better designs.

Same here.

Plus the material the PP uses is...not my favorite to work with.

PP are metal and resin - Infinity is still mostly metal if I recall right?

 ImAGeek wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Even in bare metal / resin, a Templar feels fairly different to a Juggernaut or a Defender.

When you are very used to it and notice the difference and faction-specific style, yes. To a newcomer? They are all tiny leg dreadnoughts, with pretty small differences. At least I can say this was my opinion when I started the game. The Horde side was were the beasts were all very different, the warmachine side? Most of the difference was in the infantry and color scheme.

I wholly disagree:

They literally said Cryx were the exception in the same post.

Red herring to see if you would notice I mixed up models between the Warcaster bands.

Tbf, I would agreethat the old school faction jacks did have fairly distinctive 'silhouettes' that differed between factions, especially when you factor In The retribution and cryx. They said, I do find that the crucible guard jacks are somewhat lacking in distinctiveness. In terms of stats, I will say I got tired of seeing lots of repetition of spd4, arm20, and almost identical hit boxes across the heavier chassis between the factions. That said. I'm too familiar with the range to try to claim 'it all looks the same from the POV of a newb'. I could count the rivets on khador jacks and could tell you the tiniest of differences at one point.

When it comes to wnm, I don't think there is not enough there yet to speak about hugely distinct faction 'looks', at least in comparison to other sci-fi. Whereas with the iron kingdoms, it did present a different (usually quite imaginative and quite often, quite brilliant) twist on a lot of the traditional fantasy tropes they to me, really mde it stand out from the pack. I'm not really seeing it here. It's human-centric sci-fi. It's not remarkably different to other stuff out there. At least internally as well, the 'look' difference is more limited/subdued. To me at least. That may change. And for what it's worth, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. The models do look pretty cool.

Then again, a lot of this is perception. And familiarity. I remember at one point on this forum defending Corvus belli's Infinity range and arguing that their curious factions all had distinct looks - the person at the other side of the argument claimed they couldn't see any kind of a difference between any of the factions in Infinity and claim mash all the models on a board and you wouldn't be able to tell what was what or who was facing who.

As someone who doesn't play Infinity, I can't. However a lot of that is not because everything looks the same so much as I can't see a distinct style separating fractions. Different units on the same team often look as different from one other as those on other teams.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Even in bare metal / resin, a Templar feels fairly different to a Juggernaut or a Defender.

When you are very used to it and notice the difference and faction-specific style, yes. To a newcomer? They are all tiny leg dreadnoughts, with pretty small differences. At least I can say this was my opinion when I started the game. The Horde side was were the beasts were all very different, the warmachine side? Most of the difference was in the infantry and color scheme.

I wholly disagree:

They literally said Cryx were the exception in the same post.

Red herring to see if you would notice I mixed up models between the Warcaster bands.

I was actually pretty sure you had but was too lazy to verify.

That you felt verification was needed at all proves the point; it wouldn't be needed to tell menite infantry from khadoran, or cygnar from retribution--it would be immediately obvious.

Not that more or less aesthetic difference is an inherently good or bad thing. But there is definitely more of a difference between warmachine factions than what we have seen in warcaster... so far.

They looks for me bland and boring. What is ain't cool. Fallen Frontiers and last edition of Warzone wgot way more nice minis. And I don't mention Infinity. And I always looks on minis first then rulles and then lore. For me if PP would get good cad artist and refresh miniatures(change human proportions, better female faces etc.) for WH like Corvous Belli did with n2 to n3. And introduce system to play side to old one. I will be interested. Now, nach to generic. I dont even see one mini what I will say. Ow thats sweet.

Many companies have ditched their own personal forums because using facebook groups and independent platforms like dakka costs less and increases content visibility to those who are outside of the closed community bubble of a private game-specific forum and helps draw in new audiences etc as a marketing tool.

Its a double edged sword however, as I think private forums tend to generate better and more focused content and provide more visibility to certain topics/posts than is possible with facebooks algorithm.

Most companies that I see dropping forums tend to drop them when the forum itself is dead and other avenues have taken over. In PP's case other avenues hadn't taken over and the forum was very much alive. IT also had a decent community, it wasn't like the dark days of the old GW forum and a hotbed of infighting and fighting the company etc...

That was the real difference. Most companies that have a forum drop it once it no longer generates much activity; PP had an active forum that they self gutted which creates an entirely different situation.

Didn't most official (niche) game forums shut down due to the EU's new data laws around the same time? It was definitely the final nail in the coffin for a lot of official RPGs and tabletop forums.

As much as I LOVE Warmachine/Hordes, the lore of The Iron Kingdoms, and have a favorable opinion of Privateer Press...

I really can't get behind this game. Them using Kickstarter doesn't bother me at all, but the models look so boring, and I couldn't make it more than 15 minutes into the gameplay demo before just turning it off.

It just feels really uninspired.

 Barzam wrote:
I notice you completely leave Retribution, Menoth, and Convergence out of your argument.

Keep in mind what sparked the conversation: it was about how different factions in Warcaster looks like, compared to how different factions from Warmarchine look like. Warcaster currently only has 3 factions, and we haven't seen models for one of them.
Even for those factions, we have only one unit, one solo and one warjack, so pretty limited selection.
So we are comparing how different those few models looks like, and how different the earliest releases from Warmachine looks like.
I'd happily include Menoth in the discussion, and I think the point still stands if you include their jacks. I agree Convergence and Retribution have a style that sets them much more apart from the core 4, with cryx being quite different from the other 3.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Even in bare metal / resin, a Templar feels fairly different to a Juggernaut or a Defender.

When you are very used to it and notice the difference and faction-specific style, yes. To a newcomer? They are all tiny leg dreadnoughts, with pretty small differences. At least I can say this was my opinion when I started the game. The Horde side was were the beasts were all very different, the warmachine side? Most of the difference was in the infantry and color scheme.

I wholly disagree:

Woah, thanks to that huge distraction you planted there, AND the use of grey-scaling which made noticing, for instance, the Marcher Worlds use of cloth, cloaks and hoods that contrast with the pure metal of the Iron Star Alliance much much harder to notice, people missed that you exchanged a few marcher world infantry for paladin infantry and vice versa.

Hey NinthMusketeer, can you say without cheating if this illustration is Marcher World or Iron Star Alliance?

 Overread wrote:
PP are metal and resin - Infinity is still mostly metal if I recall right?

All metal. The first plastic mini I've ever seen from them is the Megalodron out of the Defiance expansion, which isn't out until this summer and may or may not have rules in the main game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deadnight wrote:
...Then again, a lot of this is perception. And familiarity. I remember at one point on this forum defending Corvus belli's Infinity range and arguing that their curious factions all had distinct looks - the person at the other side of the argument claimed they couldn't see any kind of a difference between any of the factions in Infinity and claim mash all the models on a board and you wouldn't be able to tell what was what or who was facing who.

Infinity's problem is that the distinct elements between armies or between units in armies tend to be small and subtle. It's pretty straightforward for someone who knows the game to take a Jannisary (inset rivets, bulkier/lower-tech weapons), a Mobile Brigada (inset angular lines, split rabbit-ear antennae), an ORC (solid rabbit-ear antennae, four eyes), and a Zuyong (lamellar-esque pauldrons, animalistic head shape) and tell you what power-armour trooper goes to what faction, but the fiddliness of the detail combined with the fact that a lot of human factions share some weapon models (which are often in-universe literally the same gun bought from the same manufacturer) can make it difficult.

(I still can't tell the difference between my Knights Hospitallier and my Montesa Knight without looking them up.)

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Barzam wrote:
I notice you completely leave Retribution, Menoth, and Convergence out of your argument.

Keep in mind what sparked the conversation: it was about how different factions in Warcaster looks like, compared to how different factions from Warmarchine look like. Warcaster currently only has 3 factions, and we haven't seen models for one of them.
Even for those factions, we have only one unit, one solo and one warjack, so pretty limited selection.
So we are comparing how different those few models looks like, and how different the earliest releases from Warmachine looks like.
I'd happily include Menoth in the discussion, and I think the point still stands if you include their jacks. I agree Convergence and Retribution have a style that sets them much more apart from the core 4, with cryx being quite different from the other 3.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Even in bare metal / resin, a Templar feels fairly different to a Juggernaut or a Defender.

When you are very used to it and notice the difference and faction-specific style, yes. To a newcomer? They are all tiny leg dreadnoughts, with pretty small differences. At least I can say this was my opinion when I started the game. The Horde side was were the beasts were all very different, the warmachine side? Most of the difference was in the infantry and color scheme.

I wholly disagree:

Woah, thanks to that huge distraction you planted there, AND the use of grey-scaling which made noticing, for instance, the Marcher Worlds use of cloth, cloaks and hoods that contrast with the pure metal of the Iron Star Alliance much much harder to notice, people missed that you exchanged a few marcher world infantry for paladin infantry and vice versa.

Hey NinthMusketeer, can you say without cheating if this illustration is Marcher World or Iron Star Alliance?

Apologies, didn't mean to trigger anyone.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Hey NinthMusketeer, can you say without cheating if this illustration is Marcher World or Iron Star Alliance?

It's Tau, corrupted by Human Sphere, or V.V. The point is moot as most players will never paint them anywhere close to this art, thus greyscale (or tin-scale) is what we will get. Now if iron star would be metal, marcher worlds - resin and whatever new necromancers are would be PVC...

I've suffered through the Staff Showdown presentation for 40 minutes. Terrible. Not even a "fanboy-in-your-face" sellable to a new player.

- 7 focus in a small game and 7 focus in a big game will end up being two very different game modes. One will definitely die of "this stuff is unplayable" syndrome.

- "Anything and a solo" will lead to solo creep and solo spam.

- 3D terrain will be reduced to "cover-or-not" and then - to templates. Volumes, S1-6, whatever, will be shortcut to "who is higher".

- Rolling lots of colored dice - it's OK. Could have been worse.

- Pulses - fishing for a victory condition, who would have thought...

I will postpone final judgement until KS starts, but so far - not a snowfake chances.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Apologies, didn't mean to trigger anyone.

That was just rude.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
[pologies, didn't mean to trigger anyone.

I haven't been following this particular discussion, but the quoted phrase is used exclusively by people who have lost an argument think it will somehow save them some face by trying to paint the other party as hysterical ro irrational.