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Toofast wrote:
I thought 3D printing was supposed to prevent the supply issues they had in the past. Looks like new format, same old problems from PP.

Some of them, yes - mainly that of having their crap stolen by overseas manufacturing partners not beholden to the US justice system, as well as the quality of the minis. I don't think Privateer Press anticipated the level of demand for their products that was actually out there once they got around to producing and releasing new goods - its a good problem to have, but only if you can actually fix the problem in a reasonable timeframe and scale your production. It seems PP is still struggling with that part of it. Likewise, while the quality is way better, the fragility is way worse, so a bit of a pick your poison situation there.

 .Mikes. wrote:

I've forgotten what the deal is - are the cards avialable on an app or something to check out?

Yeah. The Warmachine app is free and has all the rules released so far. There's a subscription option, but its just to unlock the narrative fluff they're releasing each week and isn't at all require for play.


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 stonehorse wrote:

Just checked the app, and nope a lot if the old stuff is still missing from the Unlimited format. Thus is what is, I beg putting people off. They will have large collections and can not use it. As is I can only build forces for a few of the factions.

I may just stick with MK2 and incorporate some of the changes that work in MKIV.

Right. Everything for Prime is released with the Unlimited options mostly being Mercenaries. The full rules for Unlimited models was always scheduled for end of 2023.


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Sasorijap wrote:
They are way past their golden days. I have spoken to a few former employees and they all say that the owner is problematic. Don't expect things to get better.

Matt Wilson is obviously very focused on maintaining ownership of his brand and remaining independent. It's good in the sense that it keeps them from becoming just another Asmodee cog, but definitely limits their ability to grow and keep up with a market that's rapidly growing beyond the means of manually spun model production.

 Overread wrote:
Tough financial times can make manages do odd things

Tough financial times? Tabletop gaming has absolutely EXPLODED in the past few years. It's like video games in the 1990s. That's why I think PP is in real trouble. GW had to upgrade the power grid in their entire town to increase their production capacity and then build a bigger warehouse. Still half their core range is out of stock online, FLGS haven't been able to keep product on the shelf for months, etc because of the increase in demand.

Toofast wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Tough financial times can make manages do odd things

Tough financial times? Tabletop gaming has absolutely EXPLODED in the past few years. It's like video games in the 1990s. That's why I think PP is in real trouble. GW had to upgrade the power grid in their entire town to increase their production capacity and then build a bigger warehouse. Still half their core range is out of stock online, FLGS haven't been able to keep product on the shelf for months, etc because of the increase in demand.

GW is certainly seeing insane demand and multiple other firms have grown too.

But some haven't.

PP has honestly shrunk - even their RPG material feels like they don't put out as much as they could/should in theory because that market has grown even more (seriously random 5thed compatible books on KS regularly fund for near or over $100K). They've made mistakes, had setbacks (Monster Apoc KS is a huge setback on what is probably one of their best selling model lines right now) and more.


They aren't alone - Dropfleet Commander and Dropzone Commander basically got left the entire market in both their games because GW hadn't invested into them in decades and Spartan Games went bankrupt and whilst Dystopian Wars is back, Warcradle are playing a slower game at releasing and are no way near returning to land games nor space games for a good while. So both the Drop games should have erupted in popularity and grown fast - and they haven't and if you check the threads on them there's also theory that the firm that they were sold too has missmanaged/not managed correctly to capitalise on having an open market.

Dropzone is going to feel it with GW now pushing into that market of games - then again it could spark interst and GW are being slow in making it 30K only so its all Imperial VS Imperial so there will be more than enough "I want aliens/other stuff" fans to excite and capitalise on.

 Overread wrote:

They've made mistakes, had setbacks (Monster Apoc KS is a huge setback on what is probably one of their best selling model lines right now) and more

Yeah, as someone who joined the MonPoc KS, it's been an absolute disaster. I'm hoping PP got paid at least partially in advance for that because right now I'm wondering whether I'll ever see the product I paid for (meanwhile, I keep getting "Darkest Dungeon is awesome! Buy it now!" e-mails in my inbox). Hopefully it'll work out in the end. But PP's probably kicking themselves right now, and wishing that they'd never heard of Mythic.

Eumerin wrote:

 Overread wrote:

They've made mistakes, had setbacks (Monster Apoc KS is a huge setback on what is probably one of their best selling model lines right now) and more

Yeah, as someone who joined the MonPoc KS, it's been an absolute disaster. I'm hoping PP got paid at least partially in advance for that because right now I'm wondering whether I'll ever see the product I paid for (meanwhile, I keep getting "Darkest Dungeon is awesome! Buy it now!" e-mails in my inbox). Hopefully it'll work out in the end. But PP's probably kicking themselves right now, and wishing that they'd never heard of Mythic.

PP just seems to do a ridiculously poor job of vetting business partners.
The Warmachine tactics video games - disaster. Never fully finished. It could have been a real boon had it even been a decent game.
The people they worked with in China literally stealing their molds, etc - and models were always kinda gak.
Farm out the MonPoc KS game and it's another disaster.
From what I remember the Warmachine app was a buggy, reviled mess and drew a lot of flack it's first year or two of existence as well.

Schmapdi wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 Overread wrote:

They've made mistakes, had setbacks (Monster Apoc KS is a huge setback on what is probably one of their best selling model lines right now) and more

Yeah, as someone who joined the MonPoc KS, it's been an absolute disaster. I'm hoping PP got paid at least partially in advance for that because right now I'm wondering whether I'll ever see the product I paid for (meanwhile, I keep getting "Darkest Dungeon is awesome! Buy it now!" e-mails in my inbox). Hopefully it'll work out in the end. But PP's probably kicking themselves right now, and wishing that they'd never heard of Mythic.

PP just seems to do a ridiculously poor job of vetting business partners.
The Warmachine tactics video games - disaster. Never fully finished. It could have been a real boon had it even been a decent game.
The people they worked with in China literally stealing their molds, etc - and models were always kinda gak.
Farm out the MonPoc KS game and it's another disaster.
From what I remember the Warmachine app was a buggy, reviled mess and drew a lot of flack it's first year or two of existence as well.

There were bugs to begin with but War Room app ended up being far and away the best in game army stat/wound/reference I have ever used, And it got better with the second version. Also for about $100 US you got the rules for every unit/character in the game and could use them in battles. A one off payment, unlike GW.

As someone who plays games with apps whenever possible, I'll say that outside of the Malifaux app (which didn't exist for the first couple gens of WarRoom), the Warmachine app has consistently been the best availble to actually play with. Infinity has generally been up there but it took a bit for it to make weapon lookups functional.

A lot of people's complaints around WarRoom come from really only wanting a list builder and finding easy fan made options for that without rules or gameplay. While there were definitely some excellent alternatives, they always have the problem of their creator getting tired of doing all that work for free. It also, in its early days was a battery hog and better optimized for tablets than phones. What PP really had developed was not so much the app itself, but the backend that allows their rules team to update stats without needing work from the developer.

The new app is still one of the best, though the competition is definitely tighter. It's still one of the few that feels fully optimized around playing a full game from my phone.


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Toofast wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Tough financial times can make manages do odd things

Tough financial times? Tabletop gaming has absolutely EXPLODED in the past few years. It's like video games in the 1990s. That's why I think PP is in real trouble. GW had to upgrade the power grid in their entire town to increase their production capacity and then build a bigger warehouse. Still half their core range is out of stock online, FLGS haven't been able to keep product on the shelf for months, etc because of the increase in demand.

Exploding popularity is only helpful if you can scale up to meet demand. At the moment, the tech to do so is fairly limited and VERY expensive. That's why you're seeing so much growth out of a few publicly traded players. GW, Asmodee, Hasbro/WotC are really the only companies that can afford the current climate of manufacturing and distribution and we're seeing a ton of consolidation around those companies.

There are a few outliers. CMoN has effectively dominated the KS market and turned it into a nearly private distribution network and Wyrd made some Faustian bargain that I'd love to know the secret of but has managed to find a sustainable niche. In general, smaller games just don't grow beyond the bounds of in house manufacturing and direct distribution. They remain small, but stable.

PPs problem is they got too big around the time that the technology and market that got them there got swept up by the bigger fish. The materials affordable to a small studio like pewter or resin just don't create competitively priced armies of the kind of scale Warmachine has gotten to. We're in a world where the big fish dominate and while you can get by as a small fry, there's just very little means for anyone stuck in the middle.

 Overread wrote:

.

PP has honestly shrunk - even their RPG material feels like they don't put out as much as they could/should in theory because that market has grown even more (seriously random 5thed compatible books on KS regularly fund for near or over $100K). They've made mistakes, had setbacks (Monster Apoc KS is a huge setback on what is probably one of their best selling model lines right now) and more.

This is common with any RPG setting. The core book sells really well and each one after that has diminishing returns as only a fraction of what the core did. I've heard numbers ranging from around 15-20% thrown out for years by people. It's a running meme in a lot of th Shadowrun communities on how they can predict a new edition in the pipeline. This is why Wizards really doesn't do much with setting specific stuff in 5th. One book and one campaign at most and then move on to the next while releasing stuff that works in any setting.

All those random books you mentioned pulling in 100k would easily see a massive drop for their next book so I don't think it's a fair thing to hit PP about as even D&D and other larger games have these issues.

The real question to me is if they'll manage to grab casual players' attention with this new version instead of doing the mistake on focusing on competition scene only like in the past.

That's how they can grab enough new blood to have a healthy playing community on long term. If it's filled only with hardcore competitive players, it can only die quick.

I think Mk4 is well suited to do just that, but PP has kind of failed to make it happen. Falling back on SR22 for scenarios and not having models for the new armies ready has pretty quickly forced the community to drift back to the 100 point level that's both too large for new players and too large to take advantage of the Mk4 changes. I'm hoping they can manage some kind of soft Mk4 re-relaunch towards the end of the year with a 50-75 point focused SR, a good selection of product for new armies and full legacy model rules.

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2 x 26008 Nissak, Totem Huntress Champion – Mercenary Character Solo
2 x 26009 Madam Moriarty – Mercenary Character Solo
2 x 26010 Bellighul, Master of Pain – Mercenary Character Solo
2 x 26011 Zacchaeus, Winter’s Chill – Mercenary Character Solo
2x 26012 Greygore Boomhowler – Mercenary Character Solo
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Master Mechanik Adept Figmund Sparkhammer
Specialist Tyson Vos
Storm Callers Unit (3 models)
Storm Vanes Unit (3 models)
Weather Tower Weapon Crew
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Bellighul will work for the Shadowflame Shard as well as a forthcoming army.
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Zacchaeus will work for the Shadowflame Shard as well as a forthcoming army.
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TRADE POINTS
Greygore Boomhowler will work for the Brineblood Marauders as well as a forthcoming army.
Boomhowler’s Fellcall ranged attack is a spray weapon menu of Attack Types.

We're post Gencon now.

Can we tell how well the new edition of Warmachine is doing?

Locally it seems like we don't have a lot of takers (yet). But I'd like to paint many of those new minis.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
We're post Gencon now.

Can we tell how well the new edition of Warmachine is doing?

Locally it seems like we don't have a lot of takers (yet). But I'd like to paint many of those new minis.

I haven't really seen any activity for the game locally, a few players in the area have had musings of playing Brawlmachine with Mk. III rules just to find something to do with our old armies, but no real interest in Mk. III in my area.

I've not seen any sign of it,

id guess the new model (and bad feelings from getting stuck with now dead stock) means it's not going to show up in many stores so even if it is rebounding it's probably going to be with home playing groups out of sight unless your in their gaming circle

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I've not seen any sign of it,

id guess the new model (and bad feelings from getting stuck with now dead stock) means it's not going to show up in many stores so even if it is rebounding it's probably going to be with home playing groups out of sight unless your in their gaming circle

Do a lot of retailers consider it a personal affront when new stuff phases out old stuff?

I figure that any store that has a big regular Warmachine showing will be able to keep it up with the Mk4 releases.

Then there's the question- will stores want to pick this up if they previously phased out their stock of Warmachine? Many stores around here clearanced out their Warmachine stock already- I wonder if they'd be more or less inclined to pick up the new version.

From their talk, it sounded like the new format of giant mega bundles was to appeal to distribution (who seem to disapprove of having a thousand SKUs for a single game).

You don't need to take something personally to be burnt by a business model and not want to work with them again.

Zero sign of PP, or interest in PP here in the West of Ireland.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Then there's the question- will stores want to pick this up if they previously phased out their stock of Warmachine? Many stores around here clearanced out their Warmachine stock already- I wonder if they'd be more or less inclined to pick up the new version.

Given that the new version largely revolves around print-on-demand rather than retail stock that stores can actually sell, there's going to be very little incentive for stores to support it.

and this-

From their talk, it sounded like the new format of giant mega bundles was to appeal to distribution (who seem to disapprove of having a thousand SKUs for a single game).

Stores that were already stuck with unsellable stock from the previous edition are unlikely to be particularly interested in investing in slow moving mega-bundles. Cutting down the number of SKUs is one thing, but chucking out any opportunity for impulse sales in favour of expensive army boxes is not going to be an attractive option for retailers.

The game died in both of my local metas when 40k 8th edition came out. People had sat out most of 6th and 7th to play WMH and XWing. 8th launched with the indexes and no codexes, along with a fairly big revamp, and it brought people back to 40k. Since then, Battletech and several other Star Wars games have come along, GW relaunched most of their specialist games, Infinity got a slight bump in popularity, and it's going to be 10x more difficult now to gain players than it was when MkII came out.

 insaniak wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Then there's the question- will stores want to pick this up if they previously phased out their stock of Warmachine? Many stores around here clearanced out their Warmachine stock already- I wonder if they'd be more or less inclined to pick up the new version.

Given that the new version largely revolves around print-on-demand rather than retail stock that stores can actually sell, there's going to be very little incentive for stores to support it.

and this-

From their talk, it sounded like the new format of giant mega bundles was to appeal to distribution (who seem to disapprove of having a thousand SKUs for a single game).

Stores that were already stuck with unsellable stock from the previous edition are unlikely to be particularly interested in investing in slow moving mega-bundles. Cutting down the number of SKUs is one thing, but chucking out any opportunity for impulse sales in favour of expensive army boxes is not going to be an attractive option for retailers.

Nor customers. If the game is flagging then mega-bundles are only ever going to sell in hotbed locations. They won't expand out into new regions or get old game groups coming back.
By all means have them, but they really need to push cheaper starter sets.

Honestly I've a feeling PP will soon be following Mantic, Mierce and Creature Caster into providing both cast/printed and STL versions of models.

Locally there is a few guys who play Warmachine on Monday nights. It uses one table out of the 32 tables the store has. The store does not carry Warmachine that I have seen.

Overall, it appears to have very little interest.

FLGS has about 10 kits on the same shelf as Fallout, Skyrim, and World of Tanks stuff

Used to be Massive here, home of the Muse on Minis guys, but third edition really killed it off and forth failed to bring them back. I keep thinking I wanna check it out but have never bothered to actually sit down and read all the new rules. Oddly enough the flgs still has MonPoc and even some Warcaster, but no Warmachine.

 AduroT wrote:
Used to be Massive here, home of the Muse on Minis guys, but third edition really killed it off and forth failed to bring them back. I keep thinking I wanna check it out but have never bothered to actually sit down and read all the new rules. Oddly enough the flgs still has MonPoc and even some Warcaster, but no Warmachine.

Warcaster... are PP even supporting that game anymore, or is it done.

Whizzing through my usual online plastic crack dealers?

Darksphere, Element and Goblin Gaming don’t carry Warmahordes. And I’ve never seen it on Chaos Card’s shelves in the year and a bit since I lived in Folkestone.

So….pretty dead in the UK so far as I can tell?

Firestorm Games are also pretty empty of stock and they've always held an ok amount of WarmachineHordes over the years. Warcaster is stuck - I think PP moving away from production and metal means they aren't making anything new for it and whilst they did get things out REALLY well during the Pandemic; launching them seriously aborted the games growth potential.

Which is a huge shame because I really love the system they've got going for it.

But yeah I figure Warcaster is sitting there waiting for them to 3D print design it and go that path; which as Warmachine is already stalling on stock supplies from 3D printing; means Warcaster is just out to pasture right now.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Whizzing through my usual online plastic crack dealers?

Darksphere, Element and Goblin Gaming don’t carry Warmahordes. And I’ve never seen it on Chaos Card’s shelves in the year and a bit since I lived in Folkestone.

So….pretty dead in the UK so far as I can tell?

Pretty much every meta I knew, both down in London where I used to live and up north where I now happily reside are pretty much dead. yes there are people playing but they are the die hard subset of the competitive scene from years past. I see no evidence of any new blood. Some stores have PP MK4 stuff "to order" but don't have it in store because 1) its not selling and 2) they can't get hold of it anyway. Every player knew in Mk2 and Mk3 have now walked away or like me are "going to come back later and see".

Its not been advertised by the company, its not pushed by anyone, its not stocked, PP is behind on getting stuff out, UK stores can't/wont get it and the product is price a premium levels for a game/company that has a really bad reputation.

Im only one person but it seems like a reoccurring theme. Its pretty dire for the game if im honest. And im sad about it. But the company and community is reaping what it sowed.

I feel like it's more a question of a shift of the community, since PP focused more on 3D printing and, most importantly, crowdfunding sites like CMON. It's not really a surprise we don't see a lot of return from traditionnal clubs and retailers.

I'd say the fans are less vocal in these channels naturally, because they don't use them anymore. So they play in their own circles through their own social media (mostly closed) circles. Doesn't mean PP doesn't make money, but it simply means the game is less "publicly shown" than before. It's a very vicious circle.

Thing is 3D printing as PP are doing it is purely production. Consumer wise it should be no different to casting because PP are still intending to distribute through normal channels. It really should be just like shifting from metal to plastic. It shouldn't influence the market in the sense of suddenly changing demographics.