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Constructive criticism to the Warmachine community:

This post has been brewing for a while from when I first heard about the Warmachine game and my repeated interactions with the players. I, like many I’ve talked to, have been put off on the game more due to the attitudes and reactions of the game’s enthusiasts especially when coming at the game as a 40K player. With that in mind, I’d like to put a few thoughts out there that I’ve found are not unique to myself and would help the Warmachine community as a whole.

1.“Warmachine is better than 40K”--- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this and the more I learn about Warmachine the more I’m perplexed at how you can even make the statement. It’s the equivalent of saying a First Person Shooter is better than a Roleplaying Game. While you use weapons, get them upgraded throughout and generally have to kill stuff, they’re so dramatically different in feel and flow that any comparison is pretty much meaningless. Also saying “A is better than B” gives the impression that the two are mutually exclusive and much like the FPS and RPG analogy, they really aren’t. Sometimes I feel like leveling up and dicking around with skills, but sometimes I just want to shoot things. This also hurts any conversation you have with a veteran 40K player who’s invested in the hobby as they tend to get defensive. What if I like 40K and have no real problem with the game? Does that mean I can’t enjoy Warmachine or I have to abandon my other hobby in pursuit of it. The last real point is that this wreaks of Pepsi syndrome i.e. constantly running an ad campaign that you’re better than the competition which never truly works. A game should be able to stand on it’s merits as I feel Warmachine is more than capable of. My advice here is that 40K or any other game for that matter should be excluded from the introductory conversations for Warmachine.

2.“It doesn’t feel like rolling a bucket of dice”--- Realize here that most experienced 40K players have a necessarily good understanding of statistics before I roll into the failing of this statement. What has a better chance of producing a statistical average, two dice, or fifty? The bucket of dice will generally produce results closer to average meaning if you’re not rolling a bucket of dice the game comes more down to blind chance. This means that the statement comes across to many veteran 40K players as “I prefer random chance to strategy”. Again, this is not a good selling point and emphasizing this isn’t going to encourage an astute player that the game is preferable. Really it just demonstrates an ignorance of probability rather than anything related to either game.

3.“I have to think more”--- You have to think more because the game’s difficulty curve is akin to the Cliffs of Insanity. Unless you know the abilities of every model in the game you’re going to get blindsided a lot by combos or abilities. In this respect I feel a better comparison of the game is Magic: The Gathering than 40K. You see the cards your opponent is playing, but unless you’re familiar with his deck build, how they interact and how he’s going to win the game won’t be evident. This means to get good at the game requires an immense knowledge about how things interact as opposed to an increased level of real strategy. In MTG, you’re trying to get your win condition to go off and the only consideration you have for your opponent is delaying their win condition. This is the flow I get from Warmachine more than the “cunning strategy” I’ve often seen touted.


I’m posting this not to start fights, but as someone who has previously been somewhat interested in the game, but heard some immensely bad or ill thought out sales pitches about what the game has to offer. Only recently after talking to individuals who enjoy WM and 40K and gave a good analysis of both have I gotten interested enough to start the game up.

Unrelated side note: A recent thread talked about the aesthetic of the retribution and I’ve heard negative opinions of the army’s look echoed in other places. The army looks different, it’s a good thing. As an outsider, all of the factions in Warmachine look obscene levels of similar. Regardless of how you justify this fluff-wise, games need more variation in appearance to get new players. GW figured this out a while ago and while I personally think some of their army’s look ass-ugly and would never play them, I know others who love the aesthetics and play the army because of it. Anything that gets more people into the hobby is a plus and that’s really what this thread is about in the first place, how to pitch the game so that you can get more people interested.

You're probably talking in the wrong forum.

In general, people who post here on Dakka tend to play both games.

Actually that's the preferred audience. The bulk of WM players I encounter, more specifically the ones who try to pitch the game to would-be players are converts from other systems. This is probably a more preferred audience than an exclusively PP forum. I did of course completely notice that you changed the subject.

Yeah, wrong tree. Nice barking though. I was about to write this off as trolling, except trolls don't actually write well, or this much.

Caveat: all of this is IMHO

1. Alright, true enough, unit based table top vs skirmish with a little bit of unit based table top. Different. I've never really felt that they had "Pepsi Syndrome" going on. Some fan boys may say that, but almost everyone I've talked to spoke of Warmachine's merits and compared it against the most well known, some what similar game. I don't think it is anything bad to compare it to warhammer, as it's like comparing a new MMORPG to WoW. When you dominate the market, everything is compared to you. Personally, I do enjoy WarmaHordes more than 40k, and after 5th Ed + Tyranid codex, I've stopped playing 40k. (I'm a little sad about that, but I'll still probably finish up my 'nids one day)

2. You are completely right. The more dice you roll, the steeper the bell curve & therefore the less likely to roll an extreme low or high. I personally don't get the value to the 'bucket loads of dice argument' but the other half of this point is the strategy/randomness point. That is a different issue. If you had the choice of +1 BS or +1 shot with weapons in 40k, that would be a good comparison. In WarmaHordes, every caster, beast, or Jack has to decide how to use a limited resource (fury/focus) to maximum effect. There isn't really a similar mechanic in 40k. That is the difference. It's a subtle one until you start playing and you see the "mathMachine" (mathHammer) come up.

3. Yes, combos are there, but that means you have to remember more, not think more. For me, who is still really new to it, and haven't even played 5 of the factions yet, let alone every caster and every unit, for me, the 'I have to think more' has to deal again with how to use a limited resource to maximum effect. The games pace is a lot faster and less forgiving (IMHO) and therefore the need to look ahead at your complete turn and have an idea of what every model (not units) is going to do in the turn, and contingencies, before you even touch the first model.

And as a final disclaimer, I looked into WarmaHordes on my own, then went out to the local club and started playing. After playing, I heard all the same stuff you posted, and I actually agreed. However, I don't think it's a good sales pitch. The best sales pitches to me are the models (which some of them I love, some I hate) and a demo game or two.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This thread is a good example of the people you are talking to. People that picked up Warmachine as a side game, then found it to be more enjoyable for them and stopped playing 40k.

Hey i just played a game of warmachine like 3 minutes ago, my legs are still quivery from its inherent "betterness"

1. I agree the games are not identical and it is perhaps unfair to compare them directly, though I think it becomes a necessity to find common ground when describing Warmachine to a 40k player. Both games have their merits. However a common gripe I have heard among many 40k veterans is that 40k has gotten far too dumbed down and that irritates them or has made them quit altogether. Warmachine offers a far more dynamic and skillful approach to a table top game and they seem to be very receptive to that.

2. In 40k the player spends hours working out the best wargear to take to maximize his chance of success with every dice roll or at least the competitive players do. 40k and Warmachine offer the same concepts just in different ways, in 40k you buy wargear to increase your chance of success where in Warmachine you use focus/fury to purchase an additional dice to maximize that chance same concept just different approaches to achieve the same end.

3. I think Warmachine does take a lot more thought I would give a comparison that warmachine is more akin to chess and 40k is similar to checkers in this instance. I say this mainly because of how the models interact and move. In 40k almost every vehicle moves the same distance and the same goes for most infantry. Warmachine is almost entirely about positioning, blocking movement charges vision using slower pieces to control faster pieces ends up being a huge challenge and one wrong move can turn a winning game of warmachine into a quick loss.

This is just my experience though. I Wholly enjoy playing both games, I find them stimulating in vastly different ways though. Warhammer feels like and all out fire fight or slaughterfest. While Warmachine gives me more the feeling of elite tactical units going head to head.

And like a blind man on a firing range, the point has been missed. This thread wasn't about differences/strengths of the two games, but rather how badly the sales pitch I routinely got for the game of Warmachine came across. In 2 different states and over a half dozen gaming stores the same three lines were parroted as if PP had someone in the back room ready to give them a dollar for making the statements. Agree or disagree with the statements, I know several people including myself who found they came across as almost an insult for someone who likes 40K. More a challenge than a sales pitch and it seems WM players in general are somewhat oblivious to how abbrasive it is and how many have been turned away from the hobby under the misguided impression it's just a "I hate 40K" fanclub.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing said is meant to be insulting to WM as a whole. I like the game and look forward to getting more into it. To be sure, I wouldn't bother trying to help the game out if I didn't like it. This thread is just more a degree of frustration at how badly the game is often pitched to potential players.

At first I kind of hated the random chance element of Warmachine and I felt the game was more luck-based. I put it aside for a while to retreat into the safe predictability of 40k - not in that each game is predictable, but in that generally [GENERALLY] I can expect each unit to perform to a certain standard. Even rolling 20 dice at a time, the dice have a mind of their own, but a caster assassination run can be foiled by a SINGLE snake-eyes.


And in time I just learned to appreciate that. You can go for the caster kill, and how well you've prepared for the possibility of failure kind of decides how well you pulled it off. An assassination run that leaves you vulnerable isn't very good, especially if there's no backup. And it's that risk that brought me back to the game. Sure the risk might be luck-based, but my choices on the way to it and the execution of it are where the strategy comes in. I can hang back and let my army go at his, and that's where attrition comes in sometimes. Certain armies play that game better than others, and if you make the wrong decisions you'll be standing there like a king on a chessboard facing down the advancing line of pawns and knights.

I do agree a bit on "knowing everything", though, and I've made the M:tG comparison before. You think you're safe, and then suddenly Magnus's battlegroup runs for free after their activations and surrounds your caster. NOW what?!

The way it was pitched to me... "Try it for yourself."

What a douche!!

I have to admit i read the first post and did miss the point, i in fact had to read it twice and was still left wondering what you were hoping to get from this thread.
I am sorry so many over-aggressive warmachine 'recruiters' have acted in such an abrasive manner to you, but please try to remember those are the noisy minority. most people who have quit gw games have not done so on good terms so they can be a bit caustic in regards to those games that burned them, i think that is to blame for much of this issue. I understand a few secluded warmachine communities are primarily ex-40k powergamers and jerks so you may be near one of those bitter little groups as well.
all the arguments you refereed to are subjective and can be taken in many ways. every one of us will have our own little twist on them so while you may hear the same arguments over and over they will each mean a slightly different thing to the speaker.
for what its worth I do agree with the three statements you hear the most and I wont bother you with a longwinded explanation of them that you dont care to hear. I will make one short comment on number 3 however; thinking more should never been seen as a bad thing.

Mastershake wrote:Actually that's the preferred audience. The bulk of WM players I encounter, more specifically the ones who try to pitch the game to would-be players are converts from other systems. This is probably a more preferred audience than an exclusively PP forum. I did of course completely notice that you changed the subject.

Sorry, didn't mean to change the subject so much as sidestep it. They are indeed
different games. Not comparing it to 40k is a mistake, though. When I try to explain
the game to people they always end up asking me for 40k comparisons. I try to
remain as objective as possible in pointing out the differences in attack resolutions,
game objectives, etc.

I figure my 2 cents will work here as well...

1. Better is relative, yes. But almost everyone I know that plays used to play 40k and came to WM because they felt the game was just a better experience overall. I tried 40k but just didn't enjoy the style or pacing of the game.

2. Strategy is not rolling a bucket of dice and playing the odds there vs rolling 2 or 3 dice and playing those odds. There is a TON of strategy in WM regarding your dice rolling and how many dice to roll. Also, this stands on the pacing thing again for me - I want to try and hit you, here's 2 dice + RAT + bonuses. Did I hit? No? OK - next gunner...etc I'm not saying 40k is wrong to roll a bucket of dice, I just don't enjoy that system myself and it's flawed to say that more is better/more strategic.

3. I think there's much more strategy than meets the eye. I played a demo game yesterday that ended on the top of turn 2 with my opponent arcing earthquake and sniping my caster in the face. I describe the game as Magic the miniatures game.

I taught a long time 40k player WM yesterday. His response after the game was, "Wow - really? That's Warmachine? I'll start taking pictures of my Chaos army tonight." Really, the game, in my opinion, plays a lot quicker and more strategically than 40k. Now, some people really love the 40k style and gameplay. That's entirely legit. But WM is much more of a skirmish game than 40k is. And WM does things that make sense to me - you have a unit of 6 gunners? They can all shoot at different targets. You have a blast weapon that shoots 8" and your opponent is 10" away? OK - shoot it towards him and hope that it scatters towards him. You have lightning immune guys up front there? Well I guess I'll chain lightning my guys and have it bounce into your army so I can reach it.

I'm a bit biased because I hated 40k when I played it. But I have a few friends who love the game. And I have a few friends who play both, but they acknowledge that the two games are very different games, but honestly lean towards WM over 40k. What 40k really has going for them is momentum - it's hard to stop a train of that size.

Oh yeah, and keep in mind that, sort of like you alluded to, this is the classic Pepsi vs Coke argument. I prefer Coke, friends of mine Pepsi - it's a lose lose. We sort of just have to accept that there are two instances of goodness out there and pick and choose what we prefer.

I actually agree with you on all your points, but as Malf points out, the game is compared to 40K by interested new people seeking a point of reference.
For me, a big thing that should be added to the "sales pitch" is the consistent simultaneous releases that don't favour one faction over another. That's a huge deal, as it means you can pick any army you want without worrying too much about "power", looks and playstyle are all that's important. The FAQ and general rules support is better too.

On the other hand, GW has far superior models, mostly in plastic, and more compelling (in my view) background.
Different strokes for different folks! I too like both games and am just sorry I don't have more time to play both.
40K players aren't innocent in this either though. Some of my group are outright hostile to the mere idea of Warmachine (or Gaymachine as they call it). Even something as simple as rules being on cards puts them off.

Da Boss wrote:
Some of my group are outright hostile to the mere idea of Warmachine (or Gaymachine as they call it). Even something as simple as rules being on cards puts them off.

In a sultry voice you should ask them, "Where do we sign up, big boy?"

Here is my 2 cents:

1.“Warmachine is better than 40K”--- echoing the other posters, WM Skirmish versus the 40K big battles. I prefer the skirmish because the less models on the board the easier to keep track of them. There are games where my broadside team did not fire because of the number of battles I was keeping track of, I would forget to fire their railguns. My fault but that is the reason I prefer skirmish size games.

2.“It doesn’t feel like rolling a bucket of dice”--- this is the main reason I was hesitant of getting into 40K in the first place. I saw a game where the guys rolled over 30 dice to determine hits and wounds. Though, I agree playing the numbers game will give you better averages with more dice but I do enough number crunching at work. Again, my opinion is the less dice I roll the easier to keep track of hits or wounds.

3.“I have to think more”--- Being a player of all the games you mentioned (MTG, 40K , WM), I beg to differ wth this opinion. I do not have to have an extensive knowledge of my opponents army. It is a good thing to know but you have to know your army better. Regardless of what they bring to the table, if you know your army and how to respond to your opponents moves (not actions) you have won half the battle. The other half is left to the fate of the dice. With MTG, I make sure I build a deck the has synergy with itself. Then, you build a sideboard that will deal with a specific opponent. Unlike, WM or 40K, where you do not get a sideboard, you have to build an army to deal with most threats. Both mini games are exactly like chess but not restricted to squares. Both require equal amount of brain power. Each make you think in different ways though. In 40K I think of attrition because of the large number of units played, and in WM I think of preservation because of the small amount of models in play.

My 2 cents may not be worth much but it's just my opinion.

I actually heard roughly the same three things from various places, but agree that those points aren't a great way to convince people. Like i mentioned in a post a few minutes ago,I was mostly convinced to try it out because GW's business practices can be irritating or prohibitive at times and WM's rules are (generally) straightforward in ways that GW could learn from.

My other post also mentioned that I "feel" the wins/losses more because I have a harder time attributing wins/losses to chance in WM than WH40k due to the ability to micromanage specific actions at almost every stage of every model's operation. Key word here is "feel"- there is a genuine aspect to this since there are more individual choice points for individual models, but then again a 40K unit can be thought to just be a model with a bunch of bases. But that's the thing- WM feels different to me- I enjoy visualizing the moment-by-moment aspects as jacks smash each other and the intimate feeling of the battles. I also like the practical aspects, such as the fact that I can play a 4 model battle that moves and cleans up quick and is deeply tactically satisfying. So that's my pitch- if you like the idea of honing in on a few elite models with many degrees of freedom in their actions in a close-quarters battle, give WM a try. it's simply a different angle within the general class of tabletop gaming that seems to jive well with me, and hasn't caused me to want to shelf my other games (40k and FB).

Well I was a die hard 40k player a few years back, I still have several army's boxed up in the basement. I found war machine to be more about combo's and less about list building. With war machine I couldn't think to myself ok 20 orks with 3 attacks each hit the marines 30 times, cause 10 wounds he will make 6 or 7 saves ok 3 dead. I find less dice to be a good thing, rolling 100 dice to find out I killed 3 or 4 models on average. Not my idea of a good time.
Play what you want!

I'll bite with a response that is more in line with what the OP is talking about (I think). I have head and even given the following sales pitch to people I know are disgruntled with GW. In general, I feel the points are true, but it can lead to a bad feelings if the audience is pro GW.

1) The game is more balanced -- there is no codex of the month as all of the factions get releases at the same time (split between WM and Hordes, of course). I can honestly say that I could pickup any faction and have a shot at a national tournament title.

Privateer Press seems to honestly care more about the balance -- look at the public field test and staff interaction at all most all times on their forums. When was the last time you saw a lead dev from GW pop into the forums to discuss balance about a particular model / unit?

2) You don't have to worry about your faction / unit / favorite model every being dropped by Privateer. They have held true to their promise so far that no model would ever be obsoleted. I have some old Dark Eldar models that would like that kind of love.

3) The game isn't over till its over. You can be stomping your opponent only to be caught by a well planned out caster assassination. Comebacks are rare in 40k, they happen all the time in Warmachine / Hordes.

4) You have better control over the odds. You have a 58% chance on 2d6 (need to roll a 7) to hit that enemy model that you really need dead? Go ahead and boost (roll on 3d6) and now you have a 91% chance to hit that model. You never have that kind of control in 40k -- no way to influence the odds that your Lascannon will hit and damage that land raider you really need dead.

5) Points 3 & 4 lead to the game being more skill based. A good player can recover from excellent opponent dice rolling and exploit a small mistake to win a game.

The number one thing that burns me up about GW is the inconsistent release schedule. Couldn't they pull a Privateer and release all of the Codexes for the current edition in the same year the edition is released?

The number two thing is the poor balance both within each codex and between codexes. Why even bother to print the Vespids in the Tau codex? in Fantasy, how much of a chance does Ogre Kingdoms have against Deamons of Chaos?

Endgame wrote:
3) The game isn't over till its over. You can be stomping your opponent only to be caught by a well planned out caster assassination. Comebacks are rare in 40k, they happen all the time in Warmachine / Hordes.

I think that's the distinction that people may be trying to make to you (the OP) about Warmachine when they say it's "better" than 40K. I've conceded many a 40K game after suffering losses that make it impossible for me to stage a comeback. I've never conceded a Warmachine game.

The big thing for me about Warmachine versus 40K is rules quality and editing.

For Warmachine, if something is called a magic attack or melee attack, it's actually possible to tell what precisely that means and what the resultant rules mechanics are. Compare that to the rules-as-written-by-drunkards standard for Games Workshop and psychic attacks, or special abilities which happen to cause damage. Privateer Press rules may be confusing, but the authors make the effort to spell out things like timing and resolving conflicting abilities.

My serious dilemma concerning my 40K figures is that I like playing with them but I don't know of a decent game to use them for.

solkan wrote:
My serious dilemma concerning my 40K figures is that I like playing with them but I don't know of a decent game to use them for.

I know this is completely off topic but that made me smile and gave me a good laugh.

I have a question for the OP which has been on my mind since i read this thread: How do you propose we, as warmachine fans, advocate our preferred game and generate interest without being abrasive and grating on others' nerves?
Building interest in your favorite game is one of the most important and rewarding parts of gaming, where would warhammer be without word of mouth? It is a necessity and a satisfying experience to bring new opponents into the community for any healthy tabletop game so I don't feel staying silent is an option.

Mastershake wrote:And like a blind man on a firing range, the point has been missed. This thread wasn't about differences/strengths of the two games, but rather how badly the sales pitch I routinely got for the game of Warmachine came across

It might help if you yourself lose the attitude( see above).

Most of your points are rather obvious yet poorly stated at the same time (the M:TG revelation is one that has been made since day one of WM, and isn't surprising considering Matt Wilson's resume).

Yes the people you describe exist in the WM community, but they are not unique to it, nor do they make up the majority.

One only has to do even a casual scan of the Dakka forums to see that the GW community has no shortage of people that act exactly as you describe on all points.

Ass-hats exist in all communities. Elitists exist in all communities.

So what is your point really?

well put CT GAMER

@Engame:

Disclaimer, I play both games, but prefer 40k.

#1: More balanced, maaaaaybe. What it does have going for it is that PP cares about the balance and constantly fidgets and twitches to get things in line. What it has going against it is that there are infinitely more special cases. To put it another way, WM has a better effort at a harder task. I'd expect that as time goes to infinity WM ends up more balanced, but presently I don't think you can make a compelling case that WM is better balanced than 40k.

#2: True. Utterly true.

#3: Quasi-true: It's like saying surprise checkmates can suddenly turn things around in Chess. They can, but not really once you get good. Once you understand the full ability's of all the models on the table they surprise you about as much as 40k models. Learners get surprised all the time, but that's not due to any particular game imbalance, just WM's harder learning curve.

#4: Untrue. It's true that you can boost, but once you learn to play you know when you have to boost, and frequently the game is unpredictable even with the boost. How many assassination attempts come down to chaining 4 highly likely things in sequence?

#5: Half true: A skilled player will dominate a learner much harder in WM than in 40k, true enough. But between two players of high skill the dice decide to a much greater degree than in 40k.


I'll include a few more points that I feel are in WM's favor, that haven't been brought up yet.

#1: An evolving game. Seriously. The territory lost and gained, the characters evolving, the constant influx of new fluff, the new universal rules with each edition. It's overwhelming support for someone used to GW's frozen instant game.

#2: Ease of army alteration. Say I've got a Cryx Terminus Brick. I want to play an Asphyxious list. I swap casters, 2-3 models, and bang, ready to rock. Once you have a faction list you can try out almost any of the casters without making a whole new list.

40kenthusiast wrote:@Engame:

Disclaimer, I play both games, but prefer 40k.

#5: Half true: A skilled player will dominate a learner much harder in WM than in 40k, true enough. But between two players of high skill the dice decide to a much greater degree than in 40k.

You can also remove the dice from the equation much better in WM than 40k. If I want to kill a Def 18 Sorscha, I might actually be better off to slam a friendly model into her (needing mostly likely a 2 on 2d6), and then hitting her with Melee attacks (auto hit). I can't take the dice out of the equation that easily in 40k. IMO the dice go hot and cold much easier in a 1d6 system than a 2+d6 system.

I'm actually curious what about both systems has you preferring 40k -- I haven't run into many people who have experience in both games that prefer 40k.

*EDIT*
I'm actually going to go and answer a few of your other points as well, just because.

1) Re: Balance. Could you take Necrons / Dark Eldar / Deamon Hunters to the UK GT and have a hope of winning? How about Ogre Kingdoms or Empire in Fantasy? What about in-faction balance? How many comments would I get about dropping vespids if I put them in a Tau list in the 40k lists section of Dakka?

3) Re: Caster Kill wins. Its not always the case that you will win if you're getting pounded, but the chance of caster kill at least keeps the game interesting. If I play my 3 LR Deathwing, and Lose 2 Land Raiders on turn 1 due to some lucky shooting, I might as well give up the game. I lose 2 jacks in Warmachine due to some lucky rolling and I feel I have a much better chance at still winning the game.

1. I'm guilty of this as I'll often be approached by a player from another game about on opinion on WM/H and I'll say "This is the best tabletop wargaming game I've ever played in 20 years of this stuff."

or you might be playing 40k on a table behind me and hear me exclaim "Good lord, this game is awesome."

Now in neither case have I bashed 40k in any way here. I'm just saying I like the game that I'm playing. What I find is that a lot of full-on Stockholme syndrome GW fans tend to take offense when other people are having fun playing wargames around them. "I know I know, it's not supposed to be fun - it's supposed to be tough. You've suffered through the decrease in quality and increase in prices for so long thinking that if you just hang on a little longer buddy - they're going to update your codex, and well you'll probably hate that too but you just keep the hope alive man. Look, I'll try to take my enjoyment of something out of your earshot so you can go back to doing whatever you were doing."
Then he hops onto dakka and complains about warmachine players. I don't get it.

Mastershake wrote:Constructive criticism to the Warmachine community:

This post has been brewing for a while from when I first heard about the Warmachine game and my repeated interactions with the players. I, like many I’ve talked to, have been put off on the game more due to the attitudes and reactions of the game’s enthusiasts especially when coming at the game as a 40K player. With that in mind, I’d like to put a few thoughts out there that I’ve found are not unique to myself and would help the Warmachine community as a whole.

1.“Warmachine is better than 40K”--- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this and the more I learn about Warmachine the more I’m perplexed at how you can even make the statement. It’s the equivalent of saying a First Person Shooter is better than a Roleplaying Game. While you use weapons, get them upgraded throughout and generally have to kill stuff, they’re so dramatically different in feel and flow that any comparison is pretty much meaningless. Also saying “A is better than B” gives the impression that the two are mutually exclusive and much like the FPS and RPG analogy, they really aren’t. Sometimes I feel like leveling up and dicking around with skills, but sometimes I just want to shoot things. This also hurts any conversation you have with a veteran 40K player who’s invested in the hobby as they tend to get defensive. What if I like 40K and have no real problem with the game? Does that mean I can’t enjoy Warmachine or I have to abandon my other hobby in pursuit of it. The last real point is that this wreaks of Pepsi syndrome i.e. constantly running an ad campaign that you’re better than the competition which never truly works. A game should be able to stand on it’s merits as I feel Warmachine is more than capable of. My advice here is that 40K or any other game for that matter should be excluded from the introductory conversations for Warmachine.

2.“It doesn’t feel like rolling a bucket of dice”--- Realize here that most experienced 40K players have a necessarily good understanding of statistics before I roll into the failing of this statement. What has a better chance of producing a statistical average, two dice, or fifty? The bucket of dice will generally produce results closer to average meaning if you’re not rolling a bucket of dice the game comes more down to blind chance. This means that the statement comes across to many veteran 40K players as “I prefer random chance to strategy”. Again, this is not a good selling point and emphasizing this isn’t going to encourage an astute player that the game is preferable. Really it just demonstrates an ignorance of probability rather than anything related to either game.

3.“I have to think more”--- You have to think more because the game’s difficulty curve is akin to the Cliffs of Insanity. Unless you know the abilities of every model in the game you’re going to get blindsided a lot by combos or abilities. In this respect I feel a better comparison of the game is Magic: The Gathering than 40K. You see the cards your opponent is playing, but unless you’re familiar with his deck build, how they interact and how he’s going to win the game won’t be evident. This means to get good at the game requires an immense knowledge about how things interact as opposed to an increased level of real strategy. In MTG, you’re trying to get your win condition to go off and the only consideration you have for your opponent is delaying their win condition. This is the flow I get from Warmachine more than the “cunning strategy” I’ve often seen touted.


I’m posting this not to start fights, but as someone who has previously been somewhat interested in the game, but heard some immensely bad or ill thought out sales pitches about what the game has to offer. Only recently after talking to individuals who enjoy WM and 40K and gave a good analysis of both have I gotten interested enough to start the game up.

Unrelated side note: A recent thread talked about the aesthetic of the retribution and I’ve heard negative opinions of the army’s look echoed in other places. The army looks different, it’s a good thing. As an outsider, all of the factions in Warmachine look obscene levels of similar. Regardless of how you justify this fluff-wise, games need more variation in appearance to get new players. GW figured this out a while ago and while I personally think some of their army’s look ass-ugly and would never play them, I know others who love the aesthetics and play the army because of it. Anything that gets more people into the hobby is a plus and that’s really what this thread is about in the first place, how to pitch the game so that you can get more people interested.

I don't see you as being in any position to make any kind of observations with such a one sided opinion.

You say you don't post this to start a fight, but every oither point doubles back to apples, not oranges. You post this second or third hand, without even saying anything about how many games you've played, your background, or anything relevent to being objective.

Looks like a healthy mix of "you may have a point" and "you're opinion is invalid for arbitrary reason A". About what I've come to expect from the internet. To paraphrase a mentor of mine:

I'm a grown man, you aren't going to hurt my feelings by disagreeing with me. You aren't the first and likely won't be the last, but if you fool yourself into thinking I'm alone in this, fooling yourself is all you're doing.

The points have been made and the opinions stated, so this is probably the last I'll visit this thread. This thread was started to bring up a problem I had encountered not as an isolated instance, but through repeated contact at gaming stores with WM enthusiasts in 2 different states. An issue that the community at large either seemed in denial about or oblivious to. While I'll concede every town has the mandatory idiot, this wasn't 1 person, 1 group, 1 gaming store, or 1 state, it's happened without fail with every WM community. It's a little distressing because I feel the game has solid appeal, but don't like being treated like a moron if I actually like 40K. If you honestly feel that having a sales pitch that often comes across as abrasive or outright confrontational isn't a problem, then you deserve the gaming community you get. For the rest of you that don't engage in this practice, kudos to you, keep it up.

Strategy universally feels more in-depth when you start something. A lack of understanding of the game rules and units leads one to thoughts of grand strategy. Without fail every tabletop game, card game, and computer game I've played start out like this, but over time and experience are reduced to a set of obvious moves and force/deck compostion. Doesn't seem like WM will break the mold, frankly I think it's too much to expect that with experience any game will still have the grand strategy element, but I concede I could be wrong. We'll see...

On a note from "come from behind victories" in WM. I've never actually seen one. If you don't know what's happening it may look a player is winning because he's killing more, but when only dropping the caster matters in most instances, it's hard to make the statement that you're "winning" if their caster is still alive and they still have the ability to kill yours. It's along the lines of saying you're winning in a game of M:TG because you're opponent only has 1 life while he's in a position to deck you before you can get another turn. There really is no "close" when there's a win condition that ends the game. You either do it or you don't.

Mastershake wrote:
The points have been made and the opinions stated, so this is probably the last I'll visit this thread.

So... it doesn't matter if there are replies or not?