Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
That's awesome, super looking forward to it.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
$50 bucks for ~$200 worth of random stuff.
The very idea is like crack to me. I don't need it. I don't neeeed it.
I've not played in years, hell a decade actually, and ice never been more glad because I'd buy eight of those things based on each one being one faction like they describe.
I think this is the first year that I've not participated. Partially because I'm trying very hard to stick with one faction. And partially because I keep buying new Warcaster stuff.
I think I’m in the wrong groups for it, but I almost never hear about Warcaster. I know it exists and have rough ideas on the 4 factions, but that’s about it.
It's kinda hard to gauge it's popularity. The kickstarters have done well but I don't see a lot of discussion. I think in part that's because the game and list-building is so flexible that it's hard to discuss static tactics.
I bought two armies when it first came out and played it with my game group, resulting in 4 or 5 of them buying in. I still haven't gotten a ton of playtime in (cause Rona) but I've really enjoyed it.
One of the local-ish stores around here announced they’re doing a Warcaster event in a couple weeks. I actually need to sit down and grind out getting the rest of my ISA stuff ready. And maybe give the rules a once-over again.
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It's kinda hard to gauge it's popularity. The kickstarters have done well but I don't see a lot of discussion. I think in part that's because the game and list-building is so flexible that it's hard to discuss static tactics.
I bought two armies when it first came out and played it with my game group, resulting in 4 or 5 of them buying in. I still haven't gotten a ton of playtime in (cause Rona) but I've really enjoyed it.
Yeah, I was hoping to at least see discussions on the differences between factions (I’m presuming there are thematic differences in spells and abilities), but outside of the Kickstarter threads on various forums which died off as people got stuff, there just hasn’t been anything.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I keep wanting to call my closest game store to see if they do WarmaHordes stuff, but also they opened just before Rona I think, and they've been closed to indoor stuff while we're in lockdown.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Yeah, I was hoping to at least see discussions on the differences between factions (I’m presuming there are thematic differences in spells and abilities), but outside of the Kickstarter threads on various forums which died off as people got stuff, there just hasn’t been anything.
So far the OG three factions (marcher worlds, aternius continuum, and iron star alliance) all play somewhat similar, but with different strengths. Empyreans play really different in general. As the 2nd wave of releases came out, each of the factions got better tools to lean into what they do, which has helped give them flavor (and having cyphers that are faction restricted).
Yeah, I was hoping to at least see discussions on the differences between factions (I’m presuming there are thematic differences in spells and abilities), but outside of the Kickstarter threads on various forums which died off as people got stuff, there just hasn’t been anything.
So far the OG three factions (marcher worlds, aternius continuum, and iron star alliance) all play somewhat similar, but with different strengths. Empyreans play really different in general. As the 2nd wave of releases came out, each of the factions got better tools to lean into what they do, which has helped give them flavor (and having cyphers that are faction restricted).
From what I’m reading….
ISA is tanky and slow, but has volume of fire (thinking Cygnar and Khador flavor)
Marcher is quick, sneaky, and long ranged but can’t take a direct hit (kinda thinking Ret or Oroboros?)
AC is tricky, fast, and hits hard
Not entirely sure what Empyreans do differently from what I’ve been able to gather
ISA does generally have better armor; having composite on most troops (extra arm vs explosion weapon types), shield options on their jacks, but that does mean they pay the 'shield tax' (slightly lower arm stats on jacks to make up for the fact they can take double shields). They've also do mixed arms really well, good mixes for ranged and melee damage. My buddy picked up ISA so I'm basing it on that.
AC has super weak squads. But they make up for it by having really strong furies (attack spells) and fury related abilities. Also a really strong heavy jack and solid combat solos. They've got some interesting auras they can put out, but arc (focus) is always tight. As a faction they tend to have stats favoring melee (lots of melee weapons, more MAT than RAT).
MW is tricky to pin down, lots of movement shenanigans. They also generally favor ranged weapons and stats (RAT over MAT). That makes them sound boring, but they are better/cooler then I can describe.
Empyreans differ from the other factions because they can manipulate arc to a greater degree than anyone else. Pretty much all models in the game have an ability that gets turned on when you put arc on them, and an ability that goes off when you spend arc off a unit during it's turn (charging and spiking, respectively). But you can only usually put arc on the field once per turn. Emps have more ability to move arc on and off the table more than anyone else, usually through the rules on their units versus using cyphers (spell deck). Plus it seems like all their weapons (ranged or melee) can hit real damn hard (or have variable modes for flex).
In general, no faction is 'slow'. The ability to throw out void gates (and all games being scenario based) means that things end up deployed all over the place, and the battlelines can shift pretty crazily.
Stuff also dies a lot, and somewhat easily. There's some tankier units, but in general if you focus on something, it'll die. There are more dice spikes than warmachine, but that's mainly due to it using the Riot Quest/MonPoc dice system (and all attack rolls essentially being 'contested' rolls). But since everything but heroes can be resummoned, it's not uncommon to see thing things die and come back your next turn.
I'd say that MW is the only faction with built in movement tricks. AC really doesn't have anything special in that regard (minus a spike phase ability of dubious value).
One of the new toys my buddy is playing with in ISA is the 'gatecrasher' weapon on his jack (heavy i think). It lets him deploy a void gate during the jacks activation (normally jacks aren't an eligible target to deploy gates AND instead of in the normal play sequence) so he can actually put a gate down then summon something later in the same turn. Pretty cool overall.
I'm pretty far off of Warmachine but this is the scale of news that could actually bring me back. The game was badly in need of some pruning and this is more aggressive than I would've predicted, but as aggressive as I think it needs.
The problem is I just... don't have a lot of faith in PP's designers at this point. Mk2 was carried by a good design team with DC at the head, but the "core" of PP (Wilson and Soles) are both not good designers and bad to work for. Once DC decided to move on, they were at the whims of fate. The CID is a fine idea but it doesn't solve the problem, because the mantra of game design is that you ask your players what the problems are, but you never ask them for solutions.
I think having the beta rules out *tomorrow* and some battle group cards to actually try things out with is a smart move. You can actually see how the new rules play out first hand.
I'm assuming warjack rules are going to look like the Warcaster ones, where each warjack frame have a number of hard points to stick weapons on and a number of points to spend on weapons. And holy shit is it going to be nice to have the new sculpts designed for magnets out of the box without having to do extra drilling or work.
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This is kind of wild because it’s more or less a complete reboot. Yeah there are legacy armies, but considering they’re just talking about the new skus being stocked it’s clear that’s the intent. Having playing 2nd before falling off in 3rd, I’m not sure how keen I am on this, it would really have to wow me to win me back.
I totally forgot to post them when they started doing the Storm Legion previews, and that honestly got me thinking about what a Modern rotation/format would end up looking like. Since we’re getting three new warcasters, new jacks, and a bunch of new units (OMG FINALLY HEAVY CHONKY STORMBLADES), it really feels like a post-Infernals timeline where some of the old stuff doesn’t fit in anymore. Remember long gunners?
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I totally forgot to post them when they started doing the Storm Legion previews, and that honestly got me thinking about what a Modern rotation/format would end up looking like. Since we’re getting three new warcasters, new jacks, and a bunch of new units (OMG FINALLY HEAVY CHONKY STORMBLADES), it really feels like a post-Infernals timeline where some of the old stuff doesn’t fit in anymore. Remember long gunners?
I am low key excited for the changes. That Unlimited vs. Prime approach is something this game desperately needed for some time. Also like alot of the other tidbits in the announcement - although I am not overly optimistic if PP can execute all this properly.
Also, will I be able to buy STLs and print myself? Probably not, right? Knowing it costs less than a buck fiddy to print one of those warjacks does kinda feel lame.
Also, will I be able to buy STLs and print myself? Probably not, right? Knowing it costs less than a buck fiddy to print one of those warjacks does kinda feel lame.
Oh I know, but at least they have molding costs to pay off. I run a small 3d printing business, and have run composite shops that required extensive mold fabrication (and done some injection molded stuff for a few projects). Not having to pay for the tooling/specialists/material to make a mold is... Substantial.
Sure, sure, they're paid off within a few years and general fab is cheap. But I can wrap my brain around needing to recoup costs there. The costs to recover when you go from blender to print are... Minimal.
Oh I know, but at least they have molding costs to pay off. I run a small 3d printing business, and have run composite shops that required extensive mold fabrication (and done some injection molded stuff for a few projects). Not having to pay for the tooling/specialists/material to make a mold is... Substantial.
Sure, sure, they're paid off within a few years and general fab is cheap. But I can wrap my brain around needing to recoup costs there. The costs to recover when you go from blender to print are... Minimal.
Yeah, this is exactly it. There's costs, yeah, but when I can get some incredibly high-quality 3d sculpts for like £5 paying someone else to print it for me, well. There's no tooling here to make back, or even international shipping if they're licensing it out locally.
I am low key excited for the changes. That Unlimited vs. Prime approach is something this game desperately needed for some time. Also like alot of the other tidbits in the announcement - although I am not overly optimistic if PP can execute all this properly.
The original pewter guys. I played early and got out early, like all my stuff are metal miniatures.
After rereading all of those plans I'm shocked they've done all this work because I thought the game was just dead. Taking a shot at revitalizing the whole thing is very cool. Releasing all the rules for free via the app over the next year is also very cool.
I'm also not confident they can make this happen, but dammit Warmachine is a great game with a great setting and deserves better.
Wow, I think Long Gunners were last relevant in 1st.
2nd was all about Merc-nar (though I think one of the Mercenary themes used them?) and they were orphaned in 3rd due to the lack of Cygnar themes that seriously included them (the whole Trencher Long Gunner thing still ticks me off).
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited July 2022
Even late in Mk1 Long Gunners were out of the Cygnar meta in favor of a Trencher rush. They just didn't have enough damage output and died to everything. They were played very early on to kill Warcasters in combination with pStryker's Earthquake, but that was never really a serious part of the meta.
And yeah the peak of Cygnar in Mk2 was built largely around either mercenary infantry units (Boomhowlers, Forgeguard, and pAlexia in particular) or Stormwall and jack-heavy builds. All of their casters with in-faction infantry support were terrible until Haley3.
Even late in Mk1 Long Gunners were out of the Cygnar meta in favor of a Trencher rush. They just didn't have enough damage output and died to everything. They were played very early on to kill Warcasters in combination with pStryker's Earthquake, but that was never really a serious part of the meta.
And yeah the peak of Cygnar in Mk2 was built largely around either mercenary infantry units (Boomhowlers, Forgeguard, and pAlexia in particular) or Stormwall and jack-heavy builds. All of their casters with in-faction infantry support were terrible until Haley3.
Yeah that about sums up my experience.
The basic changes outlined above sound really good. Especially with movement, model placement, and measuring.
There were references to super-heavy warjacks and warbeasts mentioned on the new 80mm bases. I really want to see how those end up looking, since they could be a nice alternative to colossals. Something big and nasty but you can actually transport the damn thing without needing a special case for it.
Spell accuracy has finally been de-coupled from the focus/fury stat... er, I guess, ARC now. Units that can cast have a Arcane Attack (AAT) stat they use like MAT and RAT.
Units no longer have leaders, they're all troopers/grunts by default. Should make keeping track of units a bit easier, since you no longer have to worry about which one of these grunts is important... and if one *is* important, it's due to it being a Attachment you added to the unit and will be obvious. And units look to be split in half size-wise from what was the max before, so basically a full unit before will become two now.
Execution Mode is interesting as a option, and curious to how it plays. Basically if a Commander (warcaster/warlock) would get killed by anything other than another Commander's attack, they become Vulnerable instead. All their spells expire but they stay in play until they actually get damaged by a enemy Commander. If they survive until the start of their turn, they heal a point and Vuln drops off. You also get 5 HP back from spending focus or fury to heal yourself instead of 1 in this. Definitely makes it so that you have to actually get in there and risk your Commander to win instead of hiding in the back.
I'm glad to see warcasters finally get some spell book customization via the Rack like what warlocks got with animi.
Nice to see that you can't bring BE's and colossi to a 50-point Skirmish match. Total War sounds absolutely bonkers as a game mode. (100 points, players can decide between themselves how many huge-based models to bring, and those models are considered free and you don't have to pay points for them.)
PMAvers on
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
I'm hoping this might revitalize the game and bring it back in places it's dwindled, especially as I really like the look of the Orgoth and will likely want to pick some up, and I'd hate to have no one to play with :P
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Posts
OH SHIT!
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
https://store.privateerpress.com/spring-cleaning-mystery-box-2021/
$50 bucks for ~$200 worth of random stuff.
The very idea is like crack to me. I don't need it. I don't neeeed it.
I've not played in years, hell a decade actually, and ice never been more glad because I'd buy eight of those things based on each one being one faction like they describe.
I bought two armies when it first came out and played it with my game group, resulting in 4 or 5 of them buying in. I still haven't gotten a ton of playtime in (cause Rona) but I've really enjoyed it.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Yeah, I was hoping to at least see discussions on the differences between factions (I’m presuming there are thematic differences in spells and abilities), but outside of the Kickstarter threads on various forums which died off as people got stuff, there just hasn’t been anything.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
So far the OG three factions (marcher worlds, aternius continuum, and iron star alliance) all play somewhat similar, but with different strengths. Empyreans play really different in general. As the 2nd wave of releases came out, each of the factions got better tools to lean into what they do, which has helped give them flavor (and having cyphers that are faction restricted).
From what I’m reading….
ISA is tanky and slow, but has volume of fire (thinking Cygnar and Khador flavor)
Marcher is quick, sneaky, and long ranged but can’t take a direct hit (kinda thinking Ret or Oroboros?)
AC is tricky, fast, and hits hard
Not entirely sure what Empyreans do differently from what I’ve been able to gather
Is that far off?
ISA does generally have better armor; having composite on most troops (extra arm vs explosion weapon types), shield options on their jacks, but that does mean they pay the 'shield tax' (slightly lower arm stats on jacks to make up for the fact they can take double shields). They've also do mixed arms really well, good mixes for ranged and melee damage. My buddy picked up ISA so I'm basing it on that.
AC has super weak squads. But they make up for it by having really strong furies (attack spells) and fury related abilities. Also a really strong heavy jack and solid combat solos. They've got some interesting auras they can put out, but arc (focus) is always tight. As a faction they tend to have stats favoring melee (lots of melee weapons, more MAT than RAT).
MW is tricky to pin down, lots of movement shenanigans. They also generally favor ranged weapons and stats (RAT over MAT). That makes them sound boring, but they are better/cooler then I can describe.
Empyreans differ from the other factions because they can manipulate arc to a greater degree than anyone else. Pretty much all models in the game have an ability that gets turned on when you put arc on them, and an ability that goes off when you spend arc off a unit during it's turn (charging and spiking, respectively). But you can only usually put arc on the field once per turn. Emps have more ability to move arc on and off the table more than anyone else, usually through the rules on their units versus using cyphers (spell deck). Plus it seems like all their weapons (ranged or melee) can hit real damn hard (or have variable modes for flex).
In general, no faction is 'slow'. The ability to throw out void gates (and all games being scenario based) means that things end up deployed all over the place, and the battlelines can shift pretty crazily.
Stuff also dies a lot, and somewhat easily. There's some tankier units, but in general if you focus on something, it'll die. There are more dice spikes than warmachine, but that's mainly due to it using the Riot Quest/MonPoc dice system (and all attack rolls essentially being 'contested' rolls). But since everything but heroes can be resummoned, it's not uncommon to see thing things die and come back your next turn.
By slower, I meant that they generally didn't have as many movement shenanigans (other writeups suggested that AC and MW had more movement abilities).
EDIT: In any event, I was undecided between ISA and MW, and it's sounding like if I do pick it up that the ISA will probably be what I go with.
One of the new toys my buddy is playing with in ISA is the 'gatecrasher' weapon on his jack (heavy i think). It lets him deploy a void gate during the jacks activation (normally jacks aren't an eligible target to deploy gates AND instead of in the normal play sequence) so he can actually put a gate down then summon something later in the same turn. Pretty cool overall.
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I'm pretty far off of Warmachine but this is the scale of news that could actually bring me back. The game was badly in need of some pruning and this is more aggressive than I would've predicted, but as aggressive as I think it needs.
The problem is I just... don't have a lot of faith in PP's designers at this point. Mk2 was carried by a good design team with DC at the head, but the "core" of PP (Wilson and Soles) are both not good designers and bad to work for. Once DC decided to move on, they were at the whims of fate. The CID is a fine idea but it doesn't solve the problem, because the mantra of game design is that you ask your players what the problems are, but you never ask them for solutions.
I'm assuming warjack rules are going to look like the Warcaster ones, where each warjack frame have a number of hard points to stick weapons on and a number of points to spend on weapons. And holy shit is it going to be nice to have the new sculpts designed for magnets out of the box without having to do extra drilling or work.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Most interesting thing is that Standard/Vintage thing they are going to try
The whole Unlimited / Prime thing is cool and they're really going to release conversion kits for everything?
Just crazy talk.
Well. Good for them for doing something.
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....I built my entire army around long gunners
I am low key excited for the changes. That Unlimited vs. Prime approach is something this game desperately needed for some time. Also like alot of the other tidbits in the announcement - although I am not overly optimistic if PP can execute all this properly.
I have bad news for you about plastic models.
Sure, sure, they're paid off within a few years and general fab is cheap. But I can wrap my brain around needing to recoup costs there. The costs to recover when you go from blender to print are... Minimal.
Yeah, this is exactly it. There's costs, yeah, but when I can get some incredibly high-quality 3d sculpts for like £5 paying someone else to print it for me, well. There's no tooling here to make back, or even international shipping if they're licensing it out locally.
The original pewter guys. I played early and got out early, like all my stuff are metal miniatures.
After rereading all of those plans I'm shocked they've done all this work because I thought the game was just dead. Taking a shot at revitalizing the whole thing is very cool. Releasing all the rules for free via the app over the next year is also very cool.
I'm also not confident they can make this happen, but dammit Warmachine is a great game with a great setting and deserves better.
(I do if they work with Khador, give it to me)
2nd was all about Merc-nar (though I think one of the Mercenary themes used them?) and they were orphaned in 3rd due to the lack of Cygnar themes that seriously included them (the whole Trencher Long Gunner thing still ticks me off).
And yeah the peak of Cygnar in Mk2 was built largely around either mercenary infantry units (Boomhowlers, Forgeguard, and pAlexia in particular) or Stormwall and jack-heavy builds. All of their casters with in-faction infantry support were terrible until Haley3.
https://home.privateerpress.com/2022/07/27/mkiv-beta-rules-and-change-comparison/
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Yeah that about sums up my experience.
The basic changes outlined above sound really good. Especially with movement, model placement, and measuring.
Thank God facing is gone, too.
There were references to super-heavy warjacks and warbeasts mentioned on the new 80mm bases. I really want to see how those end up looking, since they could be a nice alternative to colossals. Something big and nasty but you can actually transport the damn thing without needing a special case for it.
Spell accuracy has finally been de-coupled from the focus/fury stat... er, I guess, ARC now. Units that can cast have a Arcane Attack (AAT) stat they use like MAT and RAT.
Units no longer have leaders, they're all troopers/grunts by default. Should make keeping track of units a bit easier, since you no longer have to worry about which one of these grunts is important... and if one *is* important, it's due to it being a Attachment you added to the unit and will be obvious. And units look to be split in half size-wise from what was the max before, so basically a full unit before will become two now.
Execution Mode is interesting as a option, and curious to how it plays. Basically if a Commander (warcaster/warlock) would get killed by anything other than another Commander's attack, they become Vulnerable instead. All their spells expire but they stay in play until they actually get damaged by a enemy Commander. If they survive until the start of their turn, they heal a point and Vuln drops off. You also get 5 HP back from spending focus or fury to heal yourself instead of 1 in this. Definitely makes it so that you have to actually get in there and risk your Commander to win instead of hiding in the back.
I'm glad to see warcasters finally get some spell book customization via the Rack like what warlocks got with animi.
Nice to see that you can't bring BE's and colossi to a 50-point Skirmish match. Total War sounds absolutely bonkers as a game mode. (100 points, players can decide between themselves how many huge-based models to bring, and those models are considered free and you don't have to pay points for them.)
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