Warmachine/Hordes MKIV coming! Update 11/10/23

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**Siygess**

While I remain miffed about the lack of an army for my predominantly Ordic / Llaelese models, I somewhat forgive PP because there will be a new Alexia model to buy!

Also, yet another Eiryss!

**NH Gunsmith**

These and the other " Mercenary" minis from their post are probably the only minis from the new edition I actually like.

The Cygnar, Khador, and Orgoth stuff shown really doesn't do it for me.

**.Mikes.**

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:
Khador once again defeats Cygnar in the facial hair department

And that's just the women.

**Cyel**

Am I seeing correctly that taking high heels to battle isn't en vogue anymore in the Iron Kingdoms?

**The Black Adder**

Cyel wrote:
Am I seeing correctly that taking high heels to battle isn't en vogue anymore in the Iron Kingdoms?

It looks that way but you must instead have a waist the same dimension as your thigh

**rayphoton**

Has..anyone here..gotten their little preorder battle box thing? The Warcaster and 2 jacks?

I know they got alot of orders but..man...this delay is taking the shiny off the game for me

**LunarSol**

rayphoton wrote:
Has..anyone here..gotten their little preorder battle box thing? The Warcaster and 2 jacks?

I know they got alot of orders but..man...this delay is taking the shiny off the game for me

Locally its about 50/50 have them in hand. Seems like Cygnar > Orgoth > Khador in terms of delivery time. I ordered Khador

**Asmoridin**

I've read from various sources that they are getting the orders out to people who ordered one box, and the people who ordered more than one are a bit delayed. No idea if that was official, but seemed to be all over Facebook and Discord.

I ordered all three, so no, I haven't seen mine yet :(

**LunarSol**

Asmoridin wrote:
I've read from various sources that they are getting the orders out to people who ordered one box, and the people who ordered more than one are a bit delayed. No idea if that was official, but seemed to be all over Facebook and Discord.

I ordered all three, so no, I haven't seen mine yet :(

I've got a friend who ordered Orgoth/Cygnar and has it, but yeah, they're definitely not done shipping them out.

**chaos0xomega**

Yeah, still waiting on my Cygnar/Khador box here.

**AduroT**

home.privateerpress.com/2022/09/13/warmachine-mkiv-cadres-mercenaries/

“Cadres will include battle engines, colossals, and gargantuans, as well as a small menu of other models. We will be introducing the first MKIV Cadres in late 2023.

Legacy Factions in the MKIV Prime Arena will also include Cadres of models that can be shared between their armies. Each Legacy Faction will include roughly five Cadre offerings that will be shared between their two Prime Arena armies consisting mostly of the Faction’s battle engines, colossals, gargantuans, and primary support models.

As an example, the Legacy Legion of Everblight Faction will include the Spawning Vessel, Blighted Nyss Shepherd, and the Succubus as Cadre models that can be shared between the Faction’s two armies. Once we introduce battle engines and gargantuans, the Throne of Everblight and the Archangel will be added to their Cadre offerings.”

“Mercenaries, on the other hand, are models that can be included in multiple MKIV armies. Each army that a Mercenary can work for will be included in the Mercenary model’s profile. However, just because a Mercenary can be included in a particular army doesn’t mean that Mercenary can be included in every army belonging to a specific Faction.

For example, Alexia, Queen of the Damned, can be included in forces with the Cygnar Storm Legion or Khador Winter Korps armies. However, this does not mean that Alexia can be included in the Khador Lords of Umbrey army. Mercenaries are army-specific, not Faction-specific. The armies that Mercenaries can be included with may update over time as new armies are introduced.”

**Siygess**

I read that and went "Wait, what? Did I just read the same thing twice?" and then I recalled having the exact same experience when reading the rules for every previous edition of Warmachine. Exacting clarity to the point of obscurity

Still, it's nice to know that even if I agree to buy into a new Mk4 Warmachine army, my money is no good to PP as a filthy mercs player. Time to go team red or team blue (or team off white?).. or go home.

**stonehorse**

'We took this approach to simplify army construction and development going forward. With a focus on smaller armies, rather than building out Factions as a whole, tailoring Mercenaries to specific armies reinforces the design goals for MKIV.'

I agree that this needed to happen, the unit and solo bloat was just too much for the game. What we ended up seeing were a lot of lines being blurred between differnt units and solos.

That being said, I am still not sure this is the best way to go about it. I think sticking with say 6 units and 3 solo entries for each army (Khador, Cryx, Skorne, Trollbloods etc). While having a wide selection of Warcaster/Warlocks and Warjacks/Warbeasts would be a way to reduce bloat, and still allow players room for creative list building.

Back in Prime/Primal days changing the Warcaster/Warlock while keeping the rest of the force the same radically changed how a force played. That was one of the game's main strengths, and a great selling point.

**chaos0xomega**

The problem PP ran into over time is that as they added new models/units to each faction they closed off potential design space to themselves due to the potential for abuse. By hyper-segregating everything they ensure that they will basically always have a "blank slate" to work with where they don't have to concern themselves with the balance implications of giving faction x access to a certain spell or unit type, etc. and how that might interact with other stuff that already exists.

**LunarSol**

I really felt like not limiting casters to specific themes was one of the big mistakes of Mk3.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Siygess wrote:

Still, it's nice to know that even if I agree to buy into a new Mk4 Warmachine army, my money is no good to PP as a filthy mercs player. Time to go team red or team blue (or team off white?).. or go home.

Mercenaries have been the Mk4 "army" design from the beginning. Everything we're seeing today just spins out from that early "Contracts" concept. We'll just have something like the Rhul: Mountain Guard or Ord: Steelheads instead of putting them in the Mercenaries banner going forward. Making armies for these smaller countries without needing to commit to keeping them in line with the established factions has been kind of the big thing they've been looking to solve for years now.

**stonehorse**

Theme lists and allowing the units and Solos to bloat were the main issues with the game.

Did we really need Trench Long gunners, they made Long Gunners more or less redundant, the game catalogue had 20 years of releases, with each expansion making more and more redundant. That was the main issue, PP focused on the wrong things with the expansions.

**LunarSol**

Trencher Long Gunners absolutely should have been resculpts of the originals. That was just silly.

**Kanluwen**

LunarSol wrote:
Trencher Long Gunners absolutely should have been resculpts of the originals. That was just silly.

Nope, they were fine. Gravediggers didn't get regular Long Gunners.

**LunarSol**

Kanluwen wrote:
LunarSol wrote:
Trencher Long Gunners absolutely should have been resculpts of the originals. That was just silly.

Nope, they were fine. Gravediggers didn't get regular Long Gunners.

But the game no longer needed regular Long Gunners. Sword Knights either for that matter.

**stonehorse**

Kanluwen wrote:
LunarSol wrote:
Trencher Long Gunners absolutely should have been resculpts of the originals. That was just silly.

Nope, they were fine. Gravediggers didn't get regular Long Gunners.

Nope, just highlights that themes were an utterly stupid idea. If the work around them was to make Trench Long Gunners, because the theme didn't allow Long Gunners... yeah, the problem there is with theme lists.

**chaos0xomega**

and they solved that critique with armies. Now Long Gunners and Trencher Long Gunners can co-exist as two separate units in two separate armies without anyone perceiving them as being "redundant", because they could never be taken together anyway.

**stonehorse**

chaos0xomega wrote:
and they solved that critique with armies. Now Long Gunners and Trencher Long Gunners can co-exist as two separate units in two separate armies without anyone perceiving them as being "redundant", because they could never be taken together anyway.

Nope, themes are gone in MKIV, and those two will not likely both be grandfathered into Prime, but rather both be in Unlimited... where players can build a Cygnar force as they please, and not be restrictrd to what models from those made for Cygnar they can take. Plus themes as they are in MKIII are non-compulsory... so a player could take both units if they wish.

MKIII was (sadly) a disaster for the game, here in Ireland it pretty much killed the game off. Their solution to the issues are I strongly believe going to bite them in the arse. They had the chance to make the game into a great success, but they made too many bad decisions... and now we are where we are.

**tneva82**

Theme, army. Both limit units you can use from faction.

Themes didnt go. Just got renamed.

**stonehorse**

Pretty sure they are not used in Unlimited, players can take what they want from the faction. Allows players to dabble and play around with their lists.

Edit.

'New Edition
• The existing catalog of miniatures for WARMACHINE and HORDES is overwhelming for players, retailers, and distributors, and continuing to expand upon that catalog exacerbates the problems that result from it.

• In order to maintain the playability of the entire catalog of existing models, we have created two arenas of play: Unlimited, which will allow all existing and new MKIV models to be playable; and Prime, which will provide limited model options in building armies from the preexisting catalog as well as incorporate all new MKIV releases.'

So yeah, Unlimited allows for full list creation with no restrictions other than nation/faction (Skorne, Trollblood, Khador, Cygnar, etc).

**Platuan4th**

stonehorse wrote:
Pretty sure they are not used in Unlimited, players can take what they want from the faction. Allows players to dabble and play around with their lists.

Edit.

'New Edition
• The existing catalog of miniatures for WARMACHINE and HORDES is overwhelming for players, retailers, and distributors, and continuing to expand upon that catalog exacerbates the problems that result from it.

• In order to maintain the playability of the entire catalog of existing models, we have created two arenas of play: Unlimited, which will allow all existing and new MKIV models to be playable; and Prime, which will provide limited model options in building armies from the preexisting catalog as well as incorporate all new MKIV releases.'

So yeah, Unlimited allows for full list creation with no restrictions other than nation/faction (Skorne, Trollblood, Khador, Cygnar, etc).

That statement doesn't say what you think it does.

**chaos0xomega**

stonehorse wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
and they solved that critique with armies. Now Long Gunners and Trencher Long Gunners can co-exist as two separate units in two separate armies without anyone perceiving them as being "redundant", because they could never be taken together anyway.

Nope, themes are gone in MKIV, and those two will not likely both be grandfathered into Prime, but rather both be in Unlimited... where players can build a Cygnar force as they please, and not be restrictrd to what models from those made for Cygnar they can take. Plus themes as they are in MKIII are non-compulsory... so a player could take both units if they wish.

MKIII was (sadly) a disaster for the game, here in Ireland it pretty much killed the game off. Their solution to the issues are I strongly believe going to bite them in the arse. They had the chance to make the game into a great success, but they made too many bad decisions... and now we are where we are.

Erm...

I did not say a single word at all about themes. And you rather missed the point - I was not literally talking about long gunners and trencher long gunners, I was using them as an example. My point stands, the situation you described is no longer an issue, because they resolved it fully with armies as stand-alone entities. You will never have an issue of unit redundancy again, because a unit of "long gunners" in army x and a unit of "trencher long gunners" in army y are never co-fieldable.

Discussions about Unlimited are irrelevant, unlimited is basically the "Open Play" of Warmachine - just like GW barely pays lip service to Open Play and very few people actually play it, so too will Privateer Press barely acknowledge or support the existence of Unlimited and Warmachine players never touch it.

**stonehorse**

chaos0xomega wrote:

Erm...

I did not say a single word at all about themes. And you rather missed the point - I was not literally talking about long gunners and trencher long gunners, I was using them as an example. My point stands, the situation you described is no longer an issue, because they resolved it fully with armies as stand-alone entities. You will never have an issue of unit redundancy again, because a unit of "long gunners" in army x and a unit of "trencher long gunners" in army y are never co-fieldable.

OK, now I see your point... why you couldn't have just explained it like this to begin with made bit a lot clearer. Their solution is a dilution to a problem they created, and it reminds me of what GW did with AoS initially, and we all saw how poorly that was received.

Edit. They can be fielded together, just in a format you want to dismiss to prove your point. In Unlimited they can be fielded together. In Prome Arena they can not be fielded together.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Discussions about Unlimited are irrelevant, unlimited is basically the "Open Play" of Warmachine - just like GW barely pays lip service to Open Play and very few people actually play it, so too will Privateer Press barely acknowledge or support the existence of Unlimited and Warmachine players never touch it.

If MKIV core rules are good, I'll most certainly play Unlimited. As for lack of support, meh... you are talking to someone who plays WFB 6th edition, Epic 40,000, and 2nd edition Space Hulk, so I couldn't care less about support from PP.

Seeing as people have collections going back 20 years, I'd say that Unlimited gets a lot of play, especially with how long it is going to take PP to flesh out MKIV new stuff, Hordes lot is a good few years off.

**Sunno**

chaos0xomega wrote:

Discussions about Unlimited are irrelevant, unlimited is basically the "Open Play" of Warmachine - just like GW barely pays lip service to Open Play and very few people actually play it, so too will Privateer Press barely acknowledge or support the existence of Unlimited and Warmachine players never touch it.

So I largely agree. It think its pretty cute that people think PP is going to do anything other than a rough one-and-done for all the non-prime legacy stuff (i.e. 80% of the existing line). But it must be fairly worrying for PP that most of the talk in the FB page and other places (that i have seen) is all about "how does x work in Unlimited", "can I use X in unlimited" Very little chat from the community about Prime. I know our local group is just intending to stick with their legacy models.

PP is going to have to make the Mk4 Prime stuff "better" and hope that the old crowd is swayed by the new shiny stuff. Because if most of the community just sticks with their old Mk3 models and plays unlimited or even worse for them, MK3, then the company is going to struggle. That would be the worse case scenario.

**LunarSol**

There's a lot of confusion of the difference between Unlimited and Legacy Prime that I suspect drives this. I suspect most people will find themselves pretty happy with Legacy Prime from what we've seen though I won't disparage anyone looking to run an Unlimited army and will be happy to play against it (and probably make a few with my old favorites).

**stonehorse**

Sunno wrote:

Because if most of the community just sticks with their old Mk3 models and plays unlimited or even worse for them, MK3, then the company is going to struggle. That would be the worse case scenario.

This is what is going to happen. The community will be very reluctant to just stop using 20 years worth of collected models, while paying the frankly ludicrous asking prices for 3D printed models that PP seem to have put the future of their company on. I suspect that the battlegroups at Gencon sold well, due to being a cheap entry point. Those were sadly a limited deal, and the full forces they are doing as deals will struggle to sell I imagine.

MKIV could be the thing that kills off PP. Shame as I think there is a great game in it, just sadly PP seem to make so many daft decisions that just become their undoing.