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Deadnight wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
AoS probably got away with it's model line gutting because most of the 'existing' audience wasn't even buying into AoS when the squat'ing occurred.

I'm sure both of them were very upset.

Judging by how badly AoS 1.0 tanked, apparently very.

 Arbitrator wrote:
AoS probably got away with it's model line gutting because most of the 'existing' audience wasn't even buying into AoS when the squat'ing occurred. If a tree falls in the woods and none is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If GW turned around and suddenly squat'ed say... Cities of Sigmar tomorrow, you'd see a much louder backlash compared to AoS 1.0.

Well, Bretonnians had not had a book since 6th Edition. Tomb Kings had a book in 8th Edition that was very well received, at least until the next Vampire Counts book came out and pretty much invalidated the good things that allowed Khemri's Core to catch up to their cousin's 7th Ed book. These two things would sour a lot of players.

Interesting comment came up in their facebook group for warcaster regarding PGs - apparently there is room for such a volunteer group to work, but it has to fund itself and form itself totally from the fanbase. The volunteer company can then ask the parent company for sponsorship and such.

But legally the community has to basically form its own organisation. From what the short comments suggest one of the major hurdles isnt' just organising but also raising the money to get it all running (esp since PP is not allowed to pay toward it)

This is an interesting development. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/594047361b631b47dc20906b/t/5f9d875b9e7da9554f2be484/1604159333138/Brawlmachine+1.0.pdf

marxlives wrote:
This is an interesting development. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/594047361b631b47dc20906b/t/5f9d875b9e7da9554f2be484/1604159333138/Brawlmachine+1.0.pdf

Seems unofficial, though, so hard to say what impact it will really have.

 Valander wrote:

marxlives wrote:
This is an interesting development. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/594047361b631b47dc20906b/t/5f9d875b9e7da9554f2be484/1604159333138/Brawlmachine+1.0.pdf

Seems unofficial, though, so hard to say what impact it will really have.

It currently is, but there has been thoughts about the next generation of competition moving to smaller game sizes and apparently have been made in one of their recent podcasts.

So far it is having pretty big impact. It seems to be getting a lot more buzz than basic WM&H. PP are aware of it and are going to offer Brawlmachine deals for Black Friday.

Brawlmachine leagues are actually the only successful events where I play, regular WM&H tournaments pre-COVID had 6 players at most (2mln capital city of an EU country with top WM&H players, judging by WTC placings) and were often cancelled.

Quoting LOS Jaden from the Lormahordes forum:

We're excited to announce the third Brawlmachine League! Registration closes November 24th, round 1 starts on November 25th. Players play one set of two games every week for three weeks. Our last league had 110 players in it, think we can break that record?

A huge thank you to @lancerx and @pook for running this portion of the league, we really appreciate you guys!

Please see the attached article for registration links and more complete details. Come play some Brawlmachine, it's fun!

www.loswarmachine.com/brawlmachine/2020/11/15/brawlmachine-league-part-3-announcement-and-registration

Also check this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ZjqUltEC4&list=PL0NZ-mZKCFY_xhxfRJhKwg1l78JgXuAxH&index=11 ie relevant time stamps at the end of the video.

It basically turns out long, tedious games with big, extremely expensive armies are not the best option for attracting new players Who'd have thought!

I've heard from my more competitive circles that Brawlmachine requires a fair amount of social contract to work, but I think that's the important thing to take from it. It's popularity has little to do with whether its better than the full game, but simply that people are playing it to have fun rather than too much concern over winning it.

 LunarSol wrote:
I've heard from my more competitive circles that Brawlmachine requires a fair amount of social contract to work, but I think that's the important thing to take from it. It's popularity has little to do with whether its better than the full game, but simply that people are playing it to have fun rather than too much concern over winning it.

My experience differs, although I'm more than a little biased

Also hi everyone!

Fair enough, though perhaps a better way to say it is just that people are approaching Brawlmachine with a different mindset and attitude than I'd seen out of the last 3-5 years of Steamroller.

I still enjoyed the games we played that were larger versions of company of iron. a normal 50 point game with no warcasters and a focus on the wider conventional WM armies with only jack martial equivalents to bring limited jacks.

LunarSol wrote:I've heard from my more competitive circles that Brawlmachine requires a fair amount of social contract to work, but I think that's the important thing to take from it. It's popularity has little to do with whether its better than the full game, but simply that people are playing it to have fun rather than too much concern over winning it.

Ummm.

Name a single game that doesn't require a fair amount of social contract to work. Even Steamroller requires that as it requires people just agreeing to it in the first place.

 Charistoph wrote:

LunarSol wrote:I've heard from my more competitive circles that Brawlmachine requires a fair amount of social contract to work, but I think that's the important thing to take from it. It's popularity has little to do with whether its better than the full game, but simply that people are playing it to have fun rather than too much concern over winning it.

Ummm.

Name a single game that doesn't require a fair amount of social contract to work. Even Steamroller requires that as it requires people just agreeing to it in the first place.

There isn't one, but the expectations of balance in competitive Warmachine have been such that much of the community expects to work without one. The contract is simply that you play 75 point steamroller with the competitive subset of lists. Break that contract at your peril. A part of me has always enjoyed the simplicity of that; similar to putting a quarter on the arcade, but over the course of a decade, that singular attitude has burned out a lot of players and created enough of a barrier to new ones to dwindle the overall playerbase.

Whether its more or less balanced, people are enjoying Brawlmachine in part because they're treating it more like a game again. They're trying things out and having fun in the process. It's an attitude I've found sorely lacking in the community that's kind of irrelevant of the quality of the game.

What do we mean exactly by the social contract?
Not being a dick about the game or what?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
What do we mean exactly by the social contract?
Not being a dick about the game or what?

Loosely. In this context I'd interpret it as "if you find a thing that breaks the game/renders it unfun don't play that thing".

 LunarSol wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

LunarSol wrote:I've heard from my more competitive circles that Brawlmachine requires a fair amount of social contract to work, but I think that's the important thing to take from it. It's popularity has little to do with whether its better than the full game, but simply that people are playing it to have fun rather than too much concern over winning it.

Ummm.

Name a single game that doesn't require a fair amount of social contract to work. Even Steamroller requires that as it requires people just agreeing to it in the first place.

There isn't one, but the expectations of balance in competitive Warmachine have been such that much of the community expects to work without one. The contract is simply that you play 75 point steamroller with the competitive subset of lists. Break that contract at your peril. A part of me has always enjoyed the simplicity of that; similar to putting a quarter on the arcade, but over the course of a decade, that singular attitude has burned out a lot of players and created enough of a barrier to new ones to dwindle the overall playerbase.

You're incorrect. It is not going without a social contract, but going with a pre-defined one. By accepting Steamroller, that is just a short hand of the social contract because it already has that fair amount of social contract already written.

It's the same way with the Warhammers. Do you play tournament or not? I've seriously had people not accept a game because I didn't have an army big enough for the standard tournaments of the time. Sometimes it has even been if you're willing to follow a certain tournament standard.

I literally just said that there isn't a game without a social contract but for Warmachine the only accepted one was Steamroller 75 point tournament standards. I'm not sure what you're arguing unless what I was saying just wasn't very clear.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
What do we mean exactly by the social contract?
Not being a dick about the game or what?

Loosely. In this context I'd interpret it as "if you find a thing that breaks the game/renders it unfun don't play that thing".

So. Much. This.
That’s all that it requires and all that it takes.
If playing gotchas and turn 2 kill armies is fun, then I have a very different definition of fun.
This is the main issue I had with the community - play stuff that curb stomps or get curb stomped.
That’s not fun for anyone.

See this was slightly different for what i was thinking.
You go in understanding your oppoenent was going to try to destroy you and vice versa. Thats how it seems with every game. The Social Contract is dont get upset when the opponent won.
I always saw that the problem with Warmachine is no one was willing to play anything other than steamroller to help people get into it. That when game night would come, no one would play with you if you had below the standard to help you learn the basics, it was Steamroller to plan for the next big Tourney. That is what i ran into, no one willing to play me, while i was learning.
at my local group, we are all hardcore tourney heads, but we are 100% willing play an new person(When we had a montly league, we had an unofficial rule that, if a kid came in with just a starter box looking for a game, anyone who played the that night would get automatically full points)

After reading this thread and being a long time fan of warmahordes I think I am going to check out brawlmachine a bit deeper.

Where Privateer Press could turn itself around would be to offer small battle boxes with the new rules (like they did) for new players, keep the game size smaller, ditch the whole themes as it limits what models people can take. Put out new models solos or what not. Put the rules up for free. Sell card packs with updates for all the new fractions and also sell the update for their App.

Having smaller starting size will hopefully get people in. Physical card sets you can buy that are updated for new rules and points / etc. (list a simple version of what each spell does or requires on the card, so you don't need to reference anything else). Make a new starter box for each faction and maybe a 2 player box set.

Where Privateer Press could put pressure on the market is they have a solid rule set. Unlike Geedub you don't need 4-5 books to play one army. A thing GW kinda got away from at first but now codex, books etc are back in full effect... which was always the reason i stopped playing after 5th ed.

If they can do small things it can make them money, not have to totally phase out old models just give the new models better rules. They can sell the App update, new cards, and new starters without taking a lot of effort and still put out some income.

LunarSol wrote:I literally just said that there isn't a game without a social contract but for Warmachine the only accepted one was Steamroller 75 point tournament standards. I'm not sure what you're arguing unless what I was saying just wasn't very clear.

Let me refresh your memory.

LunarSol wrote:There isn't one, but the expectations of balance in competitive Warmachine have been such that much of the community expects to work without one.

Now, you could have been saying that there hasn't been one besides Steamroller, but it didn't quite come across as that.

angel of death 007 wrote:Where Privateer Press could turn itself around would be to offer small battle boxes with the new rules (like they did) for new players, keep the game size smaller, ditch the whole themes as it limits what models people can take. Put out new models solos or what not. Put the rules up for free. Sell card packs with updates for all the new fractions and also sell the update for their App.

How much smaller than 0 points can you get? As it is, I've heard they are setting up Black Friday deals centered around Brawlmachine for help in quick starting, but that could have just been a rumor.

The problem with Warmachine's game size is not from Privateer Press. They have presented other game options besides Steamroller. The problem is the people who only play for the next tournament, i.e. Steamroller, so that's all they play.

Rules have been on PDF since before the latest Mark's launch, and they even have the updated Oblivion version, too. One can download PDFs of card updates for free from cards.privateerpress.com as well. War Room updates for free, but you need to purchase the packs beyond the Prime/Primal cards for the faction to use them.

Themes actually help focus a collection once you know what they are and what they offer. Heck, there is literally a Mercenary subfaction which cannot be played unless it is in Theme, and that Theme is presented in the rulebook. Where the problem lies is that not everyone knows about Themes and how useful they can be when they start the game.

angel of death 007 wrote:Having smaller starting size will hopefully get people in. Physical card sets you can buy that are updated for new rules and points / etc. (list a simple version of what each spell does or requires on the card, so you don't need to reference anything else). Make a new starter box for each faction and maybe a 2 player box set.

They did all that for Mark 3. The problem was that 40K literally was rebuilt in to 8th Edition at the same time.

What they need is to get people back interested in the game. There is currently four problems with that at present.

Their kits are still largely metal and expensive as a result. When compared to what you can build for Star Wars Legion or for skirmish games, it is less desirable.

Distributors either don't want to carry them or can't. I don't know the politics there, but there is some shenanigans going on.

The competitive community is what has been the main buyer and as such they control the local tempo. Brawlmachine by Line of Sight is helping to curb that a little, but with so many people being scared to gather, it may be a too little too late thing. 25 points can be expensive, but is not nearly as much as the 75 points of Steamroller.

Not enough people are willing to step up to promote it. When they dropped their Press Ganger program because of Wizards' mistakes, it left a hole. In part, it makes me wonder just how many of those Press Gangers were not in it for the game, but for the rewards, because they act like they can't do any of it any more. We've had a guy or two trying to help keep in going locally, but it has been competing with the leaner (ruleswise) 40K, the upgraded Age of Sigmar, and Star Wars (a lot of competitive players went to X-Wing, and Legion is generally cheaper), to say nothing of all the low entry skirmish games that have come out since, including GW's.

 Charistoph wrote:
...Distributors either don't want to carry them or can't. I don't know the politics there, but there is some shenanigans going on...

SKU bloat and minimum volumes. Demand crashed, distributors couldn't move the minimum orders, and stopped stocking the minis.

Adding context to clarify:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Ummm.

Name a single game that doesn't require a fair amount of social contract to work.

There isn't one

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
...Distributors either don't want to carry them or can't. I don't know the politics there, but there is some shenanigans going on...

SKU bloat and minimum volumes. Demand crashed, distributors couldn't move the minimum orders, and stopped stocking the minis.

This isn't a uniquely PP related problem. A lot of it has to do with local stores not really being able to compete with online discounts, but still being the bulk of initial orders on a product run. It's lead to an industry where distributors rarely reorder product and most things are really only viable during the new release window. This is a big part of why GW has turned to its limited run box set model, as have companies like Wyrd notably Corvus Belli. PP's SKUs are an absolute relic compared to the rest of the industry at this point.

Brawlmachine looks really interesting, and I'd be very willing to give that a go.

I had a talk with the owner of my FLGS a few weeks ago when they moved all of their remaining WM/H stock to their clearance section. Basically, even before the pandemic closed their gaming space, there were only 3-4 people playing Warmachine, and they would hardly ever buy anything, so it's not even like they were 'paying their share'. They bought the army they wanted to run and that was that, meaning there was hardly any special ordering or impulse buying as players really focused exclusively on the most competitive models for their faction, so the store itself wasn't nearly as motivated to try and grow the game or community because it simply wasn't financially rewarding.

I know I've said it before, but I still feel like the problems with WM/H are mostly visual. HUGE armies, crammed on a tiny 4'x4' board, with 2D terrain, and a massive blob of models (often unpainted, and if they are painted, rarely painted with the attention that many other games seem to get from painters), just did NOT lead to an inspiration for new players to see and go "I've got to get me some of that!"

I think that this could easily be where Brawlmachine can shine, and I think PP would do well to get on board in a big way. The ability to have MUCH smaller armies, the flexibility of a sideboard to allow for tactical changes, and the ability to get several games in during a short evening of play seems like a really big step in the right direction.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to print out the Brawlmachine rules and go raid my FLGS' clearance section...

deleted

 godswildcard wrote:

I know I've said it before, but I still feel like the problems with WM/H are mostly visual. HUGE armies, crammed on a tiny 4'x4' board, with 2D terrain, and a massive blob of models (often unpainted, and if they are painted, rarely painted with the attention that many other games seem to get from painters), just did NOT lead to an inspiration for new players to see and go "I've got to get me some of that!"

I think that this could easily be where Brawlmachine can shine, and I think PP would do well to get on board in a big way. The ability to have MUCH smaller armies, the flexibility of a sideboard to allow for tactical changes, and the ability to get several games in during a short evening of play seems like a really big step in the right direction.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to print out the Brawlmachine rules and go raid my FLGS' clearance section...

I find a game of Warmachine in progress to be one of the most visually impressive out there.... if people put effort into it. Mid game, the kind of interwoven scrum that develops is really organic and mixed with a few towering models in the mix really becomes the kind of epic brawls the covers of their books depict. That said, that's only true when people put in the effort and all too often boring tables and unpainted armies diminish its potential.

It's too bad, because the unpainted thing was once a strong point of the community. It was a lack of expectation that made the game welcoming. Even to this day, (well, not mid pandemic) there's still a lot of praise for a well painted army, but that's where tables look their worst. At the casual level, the focus on list testing definitely created a culture where a well painted army is almost a sign you're not taking game night seriously and has definitely lead to a dearth of attractive games at the FLGS.

Mr. Grey wrote:

Themes actually help focus a collection once you know what they are and what they offer. Heck, there is literally a Mercenary subfaction which cannot be played unless it is in Theme, and that Theme is presented in the rulebook. Where the problem lies is that not everyone knows about Themes and how useful they can be when they start the game.

My big issue with themes is that before I stopped playing, I was a fairly casual player. That meant that my Khador collection is scattered all over the place, with a unit of this, a unit of that, maybe 1-2 of several different warjacks, etc. From what I understand, if I wanted to play in theme and take advantage of that, I'd have to heavily invest in buying more models just to fit in theme - and I think we can all agree that playing out of theme isn't worth it because of all the bonuses you get for playing in theme. This is literally what killed Warhammer 40K at the end of 7th edition - the bonuses you got for playing certain types of detachments were so extreme that it made no sense at all to play anything else, ever.

Yeah, I played 3 games at 25 points last year along with 3 way Battlebox game with my Brother-in-law and his son, and that was the most tabletop games I had ever had in a year since I sold or gave away my Battletech stuff in 1997, despite collecting Warhammer since Christmas 2008.

When Mk 3 launched, I had been building to a Mercenary Four Star Army and started to build a Skorne army at the same time. Even with that, my collection was still a bit all over the place, especially for my Skorne. I had been building my Skorne with combined arms in mind. Now the only "combined arms" I can get is put melee Beasts with my Venators or ranged Beasts with my Cataphracts (which wasn't allowed till recently).

So I get you. For those of us who hadn't already gotten FA for the army, welcome to the shallow river of manure and your paddle is long gone.

And I agree with the Themes doubling down on the mistakes of 40K's Formations. It's gotten a LITTLE better since the Requisition went from how much of a certain model type you had to how big the game was (especially for Mercenary's Irregulars), but now it is more just a factor of how the army builder is than being a complete janky pile (what goes in to the Requisition can be what makes it janky).

BUT, I still stand by the fact that Themes do help for focusing an army's build through that Theme and do it better than what we had before. While not quite as characterful as the Mk 2 Themes, they are now more consistent across the Themes.

The problem with Themes was that in order to still be good in a tournamnent, with one theme having a glaring weakness, you would be forced to take another theme with a totally different requirement,

 Ghool wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
What do we mean exactly by the social contract?
Not being a dick about the game or what?

Loosely. In this context I'd interpret it as "if you find a thing that breaks the game/renders it unfun don't play that thing".

So. Much. This.
That’s all that it requires and all that it takes.

Understand that in US culture the sentiment is often the opposite--the goal is to win, the only way to have fun is to be winning, and losing reflects badly not just on you as a player but you as a person. Now this isn't some mantra chanted by the crowds, but it is a very broad and very consistent subtext across almost everything that can be defined as competitive.

Mr. Grey

i play khador as well and i built my army specifically to play models i liked, not a theme list . i had 2 requirements when i started-clam jacks and the gun carriage. i picked up irusk II because he worked best with the carriage and then i picked up a few other items. a friend talked me into the behemoth and i was sold on the look of the new manowar striker and supressor.
i have fun with the list in the casual setting i play in so the theme thing does not really impact me.


LunarSol

I agree i absolutely hate the 2d terrain players. the table has to look good to really draw you into the game.

Understand that in US culture the sentiment is often the opposite--the goal is to win, the only way to have fun is to be winning

Ninth that is textbook WAAC player right there. i have known people in the hobby that were like that. not very fun to play games with. fortunately there are many aspects of the hobby that draw people in. Avoiding the tourney scene and the steamroller crowd lends itself to a very different game.