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Apparently there is a second alien race mentioned as well, but who knows if they'll ever be made in to their own army, just a few individuals being Wild Cards, or just a background force.

 Kanluwen wrote:
As far as I've seen, it hasn't hit retail just yet.

I really have enjoyed what I've played with my Marcher Worlds.

October release I believe.

 Charistoph wrote:
Apparently there is a second alien race mentioned as well, but who knows if they'll ever be made in to their own army, just a few individuals being Wild Cards, or just a background force.

The Keepers.

Their fluff points more towards them being a background force.

Although their production capacity is likely stressed, it'd be a bad idea to go to full launch without a few aliens. They're a staple of scifi settings.

The full launch will be without the Aliens, just the two three factions already created.

Aliens are in the second KS which, in theory, should also see new models for the other 3 factions and be a much bigger seller having the interest of a new 4th faction and larger ranges for the 3 current ones.

Remembering that the KS policy for this isn't steep discounts so there won't be vast savings over retail - instead its far more of a simple pre-ordering system so that PP isn't screwing over retailers by flooding their own market since ultimately they are short term KS and fast retail release once KS are over.

 Overread wrote:

Remembering that the KS policy for this isn't steep discounts so there won't be vast savings over retail - instead its far more of a simple pre-ordering system so that PP isn't screwing over retailers by flooding their own market since ultimately they are short term KS and fast retail release once KS are over.

And by all means, if you can, pledge through your FLGS to help them get a cut.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Apparently there is a second alien race mentioned as well, but who knows if they'll ever be made in to their own army, just a few individuals being Wild Cards, or just a background force.

The Keepers.

Their fluff points more towards them being a background force.

The elves of Ios were just a background force for a long time, and the Crucible Guard were just a Mercenary supplier for some time. Now, I'm not saying that we'll see the Keepers next year, but if Warcaster hasn't died in 5 years, that may change.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/privateerpress/warcaster-neo-mechanika/posts/2971584


KS 2 is coming next month (November). There's also a video in that link of the new alien race, though not a huge amount more detail than we already know but some neat still shots of concept art and such (again much we've seen already but its all in one place and getting slowlyready for the KS buildup)

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Mr. Grey wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
It's interesting to me GW fail time and time again, but people will give them infinite chances. Other companies mess up once and they're sworn off forever.

I suppose that's really the secret to GW's success more than anything else.

Yep, they sure are failing a lot right now with their ever increasing profits even during a pandemic and higher sales year after year the last 4-5 years running. I don't know what it's like in your area, but in my local meta even a lot of long-term, die hard WHM players dropped the game like a hot rock and went back to Warhammer 40K when 8th edition dropped. Pandemic aside, my local game store(one of the biggest in the southeast US) doesn't even keep more than a bare minimum of PP stock on the shelves anymore. Rather, they do a weekly or bi-weekly PP order and more than once I've seen managers complaining about the difficulty of getting stock from Privateer.

That's my point. We're back to a similar position we were in 7th, wherein GW have cranked prices to the absurd, the balance is completely out of whack, they're doubling down on Space Marine explosions, etc, etc. By fail I don't mean financially, as even at their worst (7th) GW were still pulling in millions in profit, just that profit was shrinking more every year. Yet people will gripe, moan, bitch, whatever and see keep paying hand over foot for it. Most of the people who made WHM boom were disgruntled 40k'ers who were always going to go sprinting back to GW the second they started showing the slightest sign of improving. I'd say WHM is no in worse or better a position it was prior to 7th edition, it just had a very brief, but memorable, time in the sun.

Pretty much it. PP is in the same place Infinity/Malifaux/Mantic and many other non-publically owned businesses were in. And I agree much of the bump game from disgruntled 40k players. I think profit over time all of these companies will be okay.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Apparently there is a second alien race mentioned as well, but who knows if they'll ever be made in to their own army, just a few individuals being Wild Cards, or just a background force.

The Keepers.

Their fluff points more towards them being a background force.

I think the Keepers are not an alien race, but figures like Nemo Prime and such who travelled with the refugees during the Oblivion event and are still alive. The lore paints them as still being clockwork and that if you want to be a Warcaster, your training has to go through them because they are the only ones who know how to do it. The Empryean want to kill the Keepers real bad doe.

https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Artificer_Prime_Nemo_%26_Arcane_Mechaniks

It’s really fun, I prefer it over warmachine currently. They’ve simplified the rule set in positive ways. The model count is significantly smaller than warmachine and the game is capped at a resource level of 7 “arc” (pseudo focus) with which to manipulate your dice or do “fancy tricks”. Squads are 3 man currently and use a movement akin to legion where you move one model and place the other two within two inches in coherency of the “mover” which eliminates a lot of “precise, let’s play trig aspects” of warmachine that have mostly turned me off to that game. Warjacks murder things like you would’ve probably hoped they would in warmachine.

Yeah, overall very fun game (I’ve probably played around 80 games or so so far between online and in person). I’m looking forward to getting into 40K though.

I think one big thing for Warcaster is the whole summoning mechanic.

With 40K as the diversity of models has grown, armies have grown as well. Whereas in the past a handful of gaunts was a squad, now its 30. Whilst that has downsides of its own, it is one means to allowing players to put more models on the table.

With Warmachine you hit a hard limit because of the focus mechanic and the way the game works; it gets too technical and the way they've tried is with themes. But I don't think that worked well, if anything it has had the opposite effect - you can't so easily "free build" and have to build within themes instead.



Now both those approaches have the issue that optimal models will get chosen over the suboptimal. Themes tries to get around it by letting each model have themes in which it shines, but that means you're taking one theme over others.


Warcaster lets you cast models into the game; you basically have a near infinite sideboard option. This, I think, makes niche and situational models FAR more viable in a wargame. Models that otherwise might get overlooked in generalist and take-all-commers armies, now get a look in. You can have that special model that looks cool and only tends to work well in a set situation because when that situation arises BAM it goes down.

With a simpler and less finicky system it also leaves itself well to growing over time and expanding the system. Plus whilst the warcasters are cool, they do directly hamper expanding armies beyond a certain point in warmachine/hordes; with no caster as such in warcaster that limit isn't there to break.

For me as it stands, this game is a hard pass right now.

While the rules and game mechanics are definitely solid, and I absolutely love games with solid rulesets, I just can't get past the... boring nature of the setting combined with the factions all having very same'y aesthetics. Without really staring at the models close up its really tough to see much unique aesthetic features for the different factions. You know its bad when the only way to tell the difference between factions is what accent color is being used.

The setting really seems incomplete. A half-baked idea which can be summed up as "We blew up Warmachine and nuked it in the microwave for 10 million years". They sneak in references that humans escaped Caen and spread across the galaxy, nods to the existing product line in an attempt to engage players of that setting. But the attempt falls flat. Only humans managed to escape, big FU to everybody else, and the only one true god is Cyriss, a 2-bit side deity.

It would really be easier to swallow if they didn't try to tie it into Warmachine and just made it a 100% new setting. Its a bit of a turn-off for people who like the setting of Warmahordes.

They'll really need to fix the background and give the factions some visual definition to get me interested.

"Warmahordes...In Space!!!" would have been more interesting. Like literally just having the descendants of Warmachine species in a sci-fi setting would have been more intriguing. A couple human factions, Skorne, Elves, and Dwarves, and the successors of various religious and political groups in Space would have been fascinating IMO. Maybe some aliens in there too!

 Grey Templar wrote:
"Warmahordes...In Space!!!" would have been more interesting. Like literally just having the descendants of Warmachine species in a sci-fi setting would have been more intriguing. A couple human factions, Skorne, Elves, and Dwarves, and the successors of various religious and political groups in Space would have been fascinating IMO. Maybe some aliens in there too!

A LOT of things can change in 5000 years. We only guess at what the cultures were in 5000 years of our own past, and as far as we know, they didn't come from an age of industrial revolution. I see no reason to expect an actual Cygnar or Khador in them. Nor have they finalized who made it through to Cyriss. Skorne weren't really close to the portal, as far as I know. Right now, they are starting off slow with 3 human factions and 1 alien. The original Warmachine was 4 factions, and it wasn't until the first update that Mercenaries were introduced, but Warcaster has them now.

I think the lack of consistent color schemes makes it harder to appreciate how much the factions really carry the design of existing Warmachine factions in space.

Marcher Worlds are somehow both the most and least obvious. The tattered cloaked armor large orbs for shoulders are clear pulls from the original Mercnar nature of the Iron Kingdoms with a bit of Cyriss thrown on their spellcasters. The jacks have a very Talon/Nomad/Ironcald kind of look to them that's a blue paint job away from being far more recognizable. ISA pulls a similar trick with their priestly spellcasters and cyber-Menofix shields.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
"Warmahordes...In Space!!!" would have been more interesting. Like literally just having the descendants of Warmachine species in a sci-fi setting would have been more intriguing. A couple human factions, Skorne, Elves, and Dwarves, and the successors of various religious and political groups in Space would have been fascinating IMO. Maybe some aliens in there too!

A LOT of things can change in 5000 years. We only guess at what the cultures were in 5000 years of our own past, and as far as we know, they didn't come from an age of industrial revolution. I see no reason to expect an actual Cygnar or Khador in them. Nor have they finalized who made it through to Cyriss. Skorne weren't really close to the portal, as far as I know. Right now, they are starting off slow with 3 human factions and 1 alien. The original Warmachine was 4 factions, and it wasn't until the first update that Mercenaries were introduced, but Warcaster has them now.

Yeah, a lot can change, but at the same time I find it hard to believe that only humans escaped. Plus what is the point of connecting the settings if you're not actually going to do anything with that connection? The previous setting's lore is irrelevant in the new one, so why even tenuously connect them? Just start from complete scratch.

Technically I think Nemo is still alive and running things in some form, but I'm no expert on the lore of this game.

Just had my first game, felt pretty decent although those white dice seem to hate me.

 Overread wrote:
I think one big thing for Warcaster is the whole summoning mechanic.


Warcaster lets you cast models into the game; you basically have a near infinite sideboard option. This, I think, makes niche and situational models FAR more viable in a wargame. Models that otherwise might get overlooked in generalist and take-all-commers armies, now get a look in. You can have that special model that looks cool and only tends to work well in a set situation because when that situation arises BAM it goes down.

It also allows you to create two lists in one if your preferred list has a couple extremely bad matchups.

Marcher Worlds, for instance, is supposed to be the shooty hit and run faction, but Aeturnum gets a lot of Stealth. Being able to field 9 long range units and then 6 shorter range ones for that particular matchup could be a thing we see a lot of people doing depending on how specialized certain other lists end up being.

 B0B MaRlEy wrote:
Just had my first game, felt pretty decent although those white dice seem to hate me.

That is me in every dice game I have played. I even curse dice when I touch them. I touch another man's dice just out of light fun and he went from rolling hot to rolling like me the whole game. Never did it again. If I had a superhero name it would be No Chance


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 LunarSol wrote:
Technically I think Nemo is still alive and running things in some form, but I'm no expert on the lore of this game.

Nemo is one of the Keepers referred to in the Lore. Basically, warcasters who still know how to type into warcaster powers and crossed the gate into the Cyriss galaxy. They are the ones who train you how to use warcaster powers. They wander around in secrecy and have godlike powers. The Empereans want to dissect them badly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
For me as it stands, this game is a hard pass right now.

While the rules and game mechanics are definitely solid, and I absolutely love games with solid rulesets, I just can't get past the... boring nature of the setting combined with the factions all having very same'y aesthetics. Without really staring at the models close up its really tough to see much unique aesthetic features for the different factions. You know its bad when the only way to tell the difference between factions is what accent color is being used.

The setting really seems incomplete. A half-baked idea which can be summed up as "We blew up Warmachine and nuked it in the microwave for 10 million years". They sneak in references that humans escaped Caen and spread across the galaxy, nods to the existing product line in an attempt to engage players of that setting. But the attempt falls flat. Only humans managed to escape, big FU to everybody else, and the only one true god is Cyriss, a 2-bit side deity.

It would really be easier to swallow if they didn't try to tie it into Warmachine and just made it a 100% new setting. Its a bit of a turn-off for people who like the setting of Warmahordes.

They'll really need to fix the background and give the factions some visual definition to get me interested.

"Warmahordes...In Space!!!" would have been more interesting. Like literally just having the descendants of Warmachine species in a sci-fi setting would have been more intriguing. A couple human factions, Skorne, Elves, and Dwarves, and the successors of various religious and political groups in Space would have been fascinating IMO. Maybe some aliens in there too!

There are other races who escaped the Empyreans cleansing and reordering of the galaxy, however the gatelike travel that is required to get around and near genocide of them makes them rare. But there are suggestions, Mooregrave's sword, Oblivion seems to come from a race that is not Empyreans (https://store.privateerpress.com/baron-cassius-mooregrave-wild-card-hero-solo/) and as humanity uses the essence of the goddess Cyriss to power their own innovations, Infernals are a future thing.

#wargaming Got three Marcher Worlds Hunters painted for Warcaster. Unlike the two Ranger Fire teams, I wanted these guys to look like they are made for urban fighting. First time doing camo, so hard for the camera to focus.

https://pin.it/1ZpkkQD

marxlives wrote:
#wargaming Got three Marcher Worlds Hunters painted for Warcaster. Unlike the two Ranger Fire teams, I wanted these guys to look like they are made for urban fighting. First time doing camo, so hard for the camera to focus.

https://pin.it/1ZpkkQD

Isn't the point of camouflage making it difficult to see? But I think it's more operator error than the paint job making it difficult to photograph.

Here's a couple really good videos about taking pictures of miniatures with a cell phone.

This one by The Mini Witch is pretty technical as she is a professional photographer. If you really want to get into the nuts and bolts of lighting, contrast, white levels, focusing planes, ranges, reflectors, light boxes, etc. etc. then this video is for you.

This video is much more generalized and has some good techniques and advice. Tabletop Minions He references everything off an older iPhone (iPhone 8 I think?) using the stock camera. There is no reason why most of his advice wouldn't work on any cell phone camera.

GW did one as well, but it was such a simplistic and general video that it can be summed up as "use a sheet of paper as a background and use bright light".

Good Luck! Nothing is worse then an awesome paint job that you want to share with everyone but the pictures just don't do it justice. Miniature photography is an art unto itself, but just a few simple things can make a dramatic improvement in your pictures.

 Charistoph wrote:
Apparently there is a second alien race mentioned as well, but who knows if they'll ever be made in to their own army, just a few individuals being Wild Cards, or just a background force.

I hope they are space rhinos.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
I think one big thing for Warcaster is the whole summoning mechanic.

With 40K as the diversity of models has grown, armies have grown as well. Whereas in the past a handful of gaunts was a squad, now its 30. Whilst that has downsides of its own, it is one means to allowing players to put more models on the table.

With Warmachine you hit a hard limit because of the focus mechanic and the way the game works; it gets too technical and the way they've tried is with themes. But I don't think that worked well, if anything it has had the opposite effect - you can't so easily "free build" and have to build within themes instead.



Now both those approaches have the issue that optimal models will get chosen over the suboptimal. Themes tries to get around it by letting each model have themes in which it shines, but that means you're taking one theme over others.


Warcaster lets you cast models into the game; you basically have a near infinite sideboard option. This, I think, makes niche and situational models FAR more viable in a wargame. Models that otherwise might get overlooked in generalist and take-all-commers armies, now get a look in. You can have that special model that looks cool and only tends to work well in a set situation because when that situation arises BAM it goes down.

With a simpler and less finicky system it also leaves itself well to growing over time and expanding the system. Plus whilst the warcasters are cool, they do directly hamper expanding armies beyond a certain point in warmachine/hordes; with no caster as such in warcaster that limit isn't there to break.

Ya, with Warcaster, the focus really limits how much you can summon so your bench becomes more about options. And if you play your cards right you can cast spells in 3 different phases!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:

marxlives wrote:
#wargaming Got three Marcher Worlds Hunters painted for Warcaster. Unlike the two Ranger Fire teams, I wanted these guys to look like they are made for urban fighting. First time doing camo, so hard for the camera to focus.

https://pin.it/1ZpkkQD

Isn't the point of camouflage making it difficult to see? But I think it's more operator error than the paint job making it difficult to photograph.

Here's a couple really good videos about taking pictures of miniatures with a cell phone.

This one by The Mini Witch is pretty technical as she is a professional photographer. If you really want to get into the nuts and bolts of lighting, contrast, white levels, focusing planes, ranges, reflectors, light boxes, etc. etc. then this video is for you.

This video is much more generalized and has some good techniques and advice. Tabletop Minions He references everything off an older iPhone (iPhone 8 I think?) using the stock camera. There is no reason why most of his advice wouldn't work on any cell phone camera.

GW did one as well, but it was such a simplistic and general video that it can be summed up as "use a sheet of paper as a background and use bright light".

Good Luck! Nothing is worse then an awesome paint job that you want to share with everyone but the pictures just don't do it justice. Miniature photography is an art unto itself, but just a few simple things can make a dramatic improvement in your pictures.

Are you trying to ruin my reputation as King of Suck. Cause I can't compromise that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
"Warmahordes...In Space!!!" would have been more interesting. Like literally just having the descendants of Warmachine species in a sci-fi setting would have been more intriguing. A couple human factions, Skorne, Elves, and Dwarves, and the successors of various religious and political groups in Space would have been fascinating IMO. Maybe some aliens in there too!

A LOT of things can change in 5000 years. We only guess at what the cultures were in 5000 years of our own past, and as far as we know, they didn't come from an age of industrial revolution. I see no reason to expect an actual Cygnar or Khador in them. Nor have they finalized who made it through to Cyriss. Skorne weren't really close to the portal, as far as I know. Right now, they are starting off slow with 3 human factions and 1 alien. The original Warmachine was 4 factions, and it wasn't until the first update that Mercenaries were introduced, but Warcaster has them now.

Yeah, a lot can change, but at the same time I find it hard to believe that only humans escaped. Plus what is the point of connecting the settings if you're not actually going to do anything with that connection? The previous setting's lore is irrelevant in the new one, so why even tenuously connect them? Just start from complete scratch.

I can. The Infernals were hard core about getting human souls since the Infernals are responsible for the humans Gift of magic. If you ain't human, they don't care. Non-human intervention in the (shudder) Twitter account seems to point to wanting to capture the Infernals, demolish them into soul juice. Other ones like Trollbloods. I don't even know if they can exist off planet.

Humans, we are always the problem.


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 B0B MaRlEy wrote:
Just had my first game, felt pretty decent although those white dice seem to hate me.

BOB Marley, you just leave the door open like that.

Eh in the end its a very light connection and since its so far removed the old lore isn't really impacting it - I think its just there as a tease much like how in the old days 40K and Old World could be connected through Chaos and there were always those "Maybe the Emperor is Sigmar" type chats etc...


That said Warcaster only has 4 factions out and of those 3 are already pure human. I do hope they reach a little outside of the box as they explore more factions - even perhaps to four legged basic mechs and such. Right now the 3 human factions have a lot of equivalent mirror units - which aids balance, but can end up with things feeling a touch bland here and there. Even something as simple as a mech with snake body or more than 2 legs or tracks etc.. .can start to add some casual differences and flavour.

Already the first alien race has introduced some of that with support models looking very alien and different with bodies atop tentacles.


Hordes was really great at that, each race was really wildly different ;whilst with Warmachine 2 factions had mechs that almost looked the same (big hulky upper body and tiny legs).

marxlives wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 B0B MaRlEy wrote:
Just had my first game, felt pretty decent although those white dice seem to hate me.

BOB Marley, you just leave the door open like that.

Sorry, it seems you were hoping for a follow-up? Had another game, in skirmish the warjacks are terrifying, notably my opponent's Marcher worlds ones. It didn't help that it took me a few months to finally get the second one I wanted.
I'm curious about how full games feel, as the larger battlefield, necessary squads for scoring and other scenarios should prove interesting. The upcoming wave of releases seems to bring good stuff for my faction, too.
(I skipper the kickstarter, as shipping basically negates the freebies and the "early" access is inexistant 'round my parts, so buying local, yey!)

Mommy, I am scared. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arXByW6dng0

We finally got a few skirmish groups up and going and have played a few games. It is quite interesting. The dice feel extremely swingy compared to WmH, but they are more stable than, say, Infinity or most single-d6 games I have played. The placement and board control is REALLY important and the Arc management, summoning and card mechanics gives you a lot to think about even on the small 30x30 tables.

You need a lot of terrain. Infinity-level amounts of it with a lot of scatter terrain. No real need for towers, but a couple of levels of terrain is lots of fun.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:
We finally got a few skirmish groups up and going and have played a few games. It is quite interesting. The dice feel extremely swingy compared to WmH, but they are more stable than, say, Infinity or most single-d6 games I have played. The placement and board control is REALLY important and the Arc management, summoning and card mechanics gives you a lot to think about even on the small 30x30 tables.

You need a lot of terrain. Infinity-level amounts of it with a lot of scatter terrain. No real need for towers, but a couple of levels of terrain is lots of fun.

That is my experience too. I call it a momentum game since atrittion is not a thing. And when you are in that 3rd round you really feel the impact from the previous two unfold.

I think I’m in on Empyreans after looking into it more. Now I just need to wait 3 months so I can buy them.

I was a little worried about the Empyreans early on when their infantry were basically the same model 3 times over. However the new concept art has been outstanding and really rekindled my enthusiasm for them - which is great as I've got a box of them from the KS on its way to me once they start shipping

It wouldn't surprise me if the 3rd KS does a lot better in terms of expanding all 4 armies with a lot more flavour. I do wonder how their pricing and bringing to market affects the KS in that PP isn't steep discounting and is bringing things to market pretty fast after the KS ends so its much more like an early pre-order with small discount rather than major discounts and super early deliveries.

I know for myself it makes me feel a LOT less pressure to back to insane levels during the KS because I know that not long after the KS I can get them retail. Though, of course, I still know that the more I back a KS the more it helps toward unlocking new products