Is Warmahordes being seen as a "dying game" the reason it's a dying game?

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**Cyel**

Turnip Jedi wrote:
Vertrucio wrote:
Unless Brawlmachine is an official format and promoted by PP, it's not going to save warmachine. It'll end up yet another insular thing by small groups.

But sometimes thats enough, locally the wmh playerbase consists of myself and two other chaps who due to work commitments (and us being old) tend to have to leave club nights early meaning a fair few 75pt games remain unfinished

This smaller format might be good for us, although I see my fav caster, Krueger 2, is already on banned list and Morvhana 2 is on the watch list, meenies

I played two Brawlmachine games yesterday (High Reclaimer vs Barnabus2 & Venethrax vs Helga2) and our first impression is that the scenarios are very live.

It's not even the 4Vps advantage, it didn't happen. But with only 5 turns and forces running out of models to score and contest VERY quickly even getting a 1Vp advantage early could mean that the opponent has to work double hard to beat this. Scenario-wise those games were very exciting, extremely focused on scoring and contesting.

For example this game was lost by Minions despite their huge attrition advantage. They just didn't have enough pieces to counter High Reclaimer's 2Vps scenario advantage from previous turns, before time runs out.

So no wonder such control-machines as Krueger are banned. I'm waiting for more to follow.

**LunarSol**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
I personally think what needs to happen is the game needs to actually be 75Pts, No free Solos, no free Warjack Points.
Just make the game actually represent what it is. It can be a midsize skrimish game.
Also, lets take a look at DEF and MAt and why it is a bad system now
Put simply it requires you to know your opponents models aswell as yours. When attacking, you had to ask or somehow know how to hit your opponent. Its the D&D system, but that has the benifit of being relaxed.
When i play legion all i really need to know is what kinda dice do they roll red or white, boom thats all, but even then that doesnt matter that much or effect on how many hits i might get.

I personally kind of like that solos aren't really worth their points but you get a certain amount of them free. It's kind of like the WJP system in that it helps split up the currency. I'd rather play 50 points with themes as is than 75 without.

In terms of MAT/DEF, POW/ARM, the issue is really that it messes with the how much the dice curve can be manipulated in a game that LOVES to manipulate the dice curve. MAT 6 vs DEF 12 is fine. It makes MAT 7 excellent, and DEF 13 excellent too. MAT 5 and DEF 11 are subpar, which would be okay... right up until something takes DEF 13 to DEF 15.... then DEF 17. Now MAT 5 is really useless so everyone takes things MAT 7 minimum and DEF 12 becomes bad and there's just less valid design space on the curve then it seems like there should be.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cyel wrote:

So no wonder such control-machines as Krueger are banned. I'm waiting for more to follow.

Realistically, almost every problem with the game is a result of a few casters that are just grossly overtuned for the environment warping the entire system around themselves.

**marxlives**

LunarSol wrote:
Overread wrote:

I think it was a bit of both, but I do think PP made the first step when they gutted their own forum. Which was honestly really surprising because they had a very active and engaged forum at a time when Facebook was rising up really powerfully. It was a huge waste I think and the wrong choice. I think PP sort of hoped that the community would pick up the slack, but at the same time I dont' think they realised that the community wasn't going to because it wasn't wanting too. I've seen forums die when users drift onto other services and sites - that happens. However PP tried forcing it in a half hearted way which left people half on their forums and half feeling like they'd been kicked out by the company they were paying money to support.

The forum was largely gutted because it was volunteer run using more or less the same system as the PG. The players also relentless mocked the forums and it was a mess of faction infighting. A lot of people had already jumped to Facebook and PP was putting a lot of effort into that and Twitter. It made sense to me from a squeaky wheel perspective, but I don't think PP appreciated how many new players used the forum and how much that relied on the older players hanging out there. What's left is still fine for new players, but they lack a passionate base of experience players to respond to new player questions.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

I remember that somewhat differently. PP lost its online community because it decided they were superfluous to requirements and purged them.
Telling your fans that they're not necessary or even welcome tends to piss them off.

I'm always surprised how personal of a view people take when systems get shut down. I was a PG that spent a lot of times on the forums, but I would never say I felt "purged". I still don't love Twitter and Facebook as community hubs (I'm here after all), but I also get that forums just aren't what they used to be and sometimes I need to start using something new simply because that's where the community is.

Nowadays I tend to like the independent run forums more. https://lormahordes.freeforums.net/

**Charistoph**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
I personally think what needs to happen is the game needs to actually be 75Pts, No free Solos, no free Warjack Points.

Welcome to Mark 1 where even Warcasters cost points, and people brought as few Warjacks as they could.

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Also, lets take a look at DEF and MAt and why it is a bad system now
Put simply it requires you to know your opponents models aswell as yours. When attacking, you had to ask or somehow know how to hit your opponent. Its the D&D system, but that has the benifit of being relaxed.
When i play legion all i really need to know is what kinda dice do they roll red or white, boom thats all, but even then that doesnt matter that much or effect on how many hits i might get.

I rather disagree. Such a system doesn't provide as much granularity as WMH's current system.

Now, don't get me wrong, it can be abused (and let's face it, has been), as was just pointed out above by LunarSol. It is one of the things I don't like about FFG's game systems, and I'm not very strong on Neo-Mechanica's use of it.

**SiLKY**

I think the biggest problem with Warmachine is the lack of casual interest in the game. The hobby side has always been a secondary aspect of Warmachine and the rules/playing side has always been in focus.
Their models aren't the best in the industry and almost all the models are monopose which for me personally stunted my interest in painting my models for Warmachine.
Their lore and short stories were pretty decent, though kinda linear but that seems to be lacking now that Seacat left.
In 40k there is a decent chunk of fans that don't play the game at all and are completely in for the hobby or lore side that might peek into the game if they just have models readily available.

As for brawlmachine, while it may be a step in the right direction, the fact that PP isn't supporting it as official standard will cause the community to divide. This type of community based rulesets work in games like Pokemon where the fanbase is huge and a divide splits it into two big communities, but I can't see it working in a niche game in an already niche market.

**marxlives**

chaos0xomega wrote:
Boss Salvage wrote:

Also, uh, I didn't realize there are WMH novels

You aren't alone on that front, from what I've gathered the novels haven't done very well overall, in large part because they were created in an attempt to make up for the fact that PP moved away from their old model of advancing the fluff with each new rulebook - but without having anything tangible tying the fluff back to the game ala the rulebooks, there was very little interest in the novels.

5. SKU bloat- A long time ago, PP said no model will ever be retired or made obsolete. This is unsustainable. They have to generate new models to keep sales up, but there are so many SKU's now, that it contributes to 1-3

I think an evolution to the Active Duty Roster is needed in this sense. I think most of us agree we don't want to have our older models forever invalidated because the got pulled out of rotation, it would be nice if instead each year PP published an ADR that extended to units, solos, etc. and those were the units eligible for Steamroller/competitive play for the duration of the year. I would propose a healthy ADR mix would be somethinng like 50% models from the previous 1-2 year period, 25% "legacy" models from prior to that period, and 25% new models released over the course of the season. This way players are encouraged to continue purchasing newer stuff, but their older stuff doesn't eventually become forever useless - if its not eligible for competitive play this year, it might be eligible next year. As far as retailers are concerned, I would think its a win/win - they only need to worry about ordering and keeping inventory of the latest SKUs into the shop, but if they have older inventory they don't need to blow it out at bargain basement prices because even if its not hot this year - it might become hot again next year. On PPs end its also advantageous as they don't need to worry about maintaining production/stock/distribution of their entire back catalog all the time, they can focus on the latest stuff and a curated selection of their back catalog relevant to the current years ADR, refresh the molds, etc. for the other stuff in the downtime without worrying about people bitching that xyz unit is out of stock and the game has become pay to win because they can only get it on eBay for 300% markup, and then rotate their production at the start of the next year. Alternatively, they can rotate the non-ADR models into direct only/made to order sales with a longer lead-time and a higher profit margin if they are concerned about accessibility of the back catalog to newer/casual players.

In any case, basically the idea here is that you acknowledge that a not insignificant segment of the back catalog will be more or less unavailable for somewhat lengthy periods of time, but thats okay because you are discouraging those models from being used anyway/encouraging the community to use other models instead, and also because no matter what that back catalog will never be *permanently* unavailable, because you will inevitably rotate other parts of the back catalog back into availability after a fixed period of time. In truth, I think 1 year rotations might be a bit *too* lengthy - particularly with regards to bringing in new players who might be interested in rounding out their collections, etc. but I don't see this system working to combat SKU bloat in any chunks of time smaller than that. As far as the existing playerbase is concerned, however, I don't see any issues as most of us probably already own everything for the factions we play.

I would like to see an extended ADR for competitive play over Theme lists. Basically they could pull a BattleTech competitively and only certain models per faction are available based on the era you are playing in. Even old school, Vinter is still in charge era leading up to Lion's Coup is possible due to junior casters.

**Phobos**

SiLKY wrote:
I think the biggest problem with Warmachine is the lack of casual interest in the game. The hobby side has always been a secondary aspect of Warmachine and the rules/playing side has always been in focus.
Their models aren't the best in the industry and almost all the models are monopose which for me personally stunted my interest in painting my models for Warmachine.
Their lore and short stories were pretty decent, though kinda linear but that seems to be lacking now that Seacat left.
In 40k there is a decent chunk of fans that don't play the game at all and are completely in for the hobby or lore side that might peek into the game if they just have models readily available.

I think this sums it all up. A few years back I posted a thread asking what happened to Warmahordes. The consensus at the time was

1. Edition change that was poorly tested and poorly received.
2. Killing the Pressgangers.
3. Killing the forums.
4. Pulling GW-style shenanigans.
5. GW getting their act together and re-surging.

I liked the models and the artwork. Monopose is no bother to me. Then I bought a starter box and found the worst excuse for miniatures I've ever seen. The lore was always interesting, but I don't think they knew how to properly present it to the audience. And the whole "IM IN UR FACE PLAY LIKE U GOT A PAIR" vibe left a bad taste in many folks mouths while fueling the hordes of "that guy" (who, lets face it, were drawn to this game like moths to a flame) to a whole new level of neckbeardery. Which ironically is who kept this game alive. Like the story in this thread about the guy who dumped his broken models out of a shoebox onto the table.

But really, it seems to me that the biggest problem with Privateer is that their whole shtick could be summed up as "We aren't GW".

When GW started taking players seriously and tournaments again, what did Privateer Press have to offer?

It's a question that I think Privateer themselves would have difficulty answering.

**Valander**

But really, it seems to me that the biggest problem with Privateer is that their whole shtick could be summed up as "We aren't GW".

I think there's some (painful) truth to this. When Warmachine first launched, they really pushed the idea of being the underdogs, courting all the disgruntled GW players. Sure, they built up their own community, but as many have mentioned, it became pretty full of tryhards pretty quickly.

Also, early on, there was more focus on making "cool miniatures" and the whole "we use metal, baby, not some cheap plastic, so we're higher quality" was another thing that they eventually left behind. As the game became more and more about just viewing the models as "necessary tokens," the model quality dropped, some might say significantly, when they moved to the PVC and so on. For me, a very large part of interest in any miniatures game is, well, the miniatures themselves, so when the quality there started dropping, it likewise started dropping my interest. I'm sure I'm not the only one that got sad just seeing boring 2d felt cut outs for terrain ("because it makes micro-measuring much easier"), half assembled, unpainted models, and so on.

And I think as GW really pushed the model quality (say what you want about their games, their models are definitely top tier), and many other Indies (which PP branded themselves as early on, but grew beyond that) are making models that are just flat out better than what PP is currently offering, PP started losing more from their community except all the folks who didn't care about the models as much, and the community as a whole got worse, IMO.

**NinthMusketeer**

Hm, a lot of good points being made the last few posts. Makes for good reading, thanks guys.

**Ghool**

Valander wrote:
But really, it seems to me that the biggest problem with Privateer is that their whole shtick could be summed up as "We aren't GW".

I think there's some (painful) truth to this. When Warmachine first launched, they really pushed the idea of being the underdogs, courting all the disgruntled GW players. Sure, they built up their own community, but as many have mentioned, it became pretty full of tryhards pretty quickly.

Also, early on, there was more focus on making "cool miniatures" and the whole "we use metal, baby, not some cheap plastic, so we're higher quality" was another thing that they eventually left behind. As the game became more and more about just viewing the models as "necessary tokens," the model quality dropped, some might say significantly, when they moved to the PVC and so on. For me, a very large part of interest in any miniatures game is, well, the miniatures themselves, so when the quality there started dropping, it likewise started dropping my interest. I'm sure I'm not the only one that got sad just seeing boring 2d felt cut outs for terrain ("because it makes micro-measuring much easier"), half assembled, unpainted models, and so on.

And I think as GW really pushed the model quality (say what you want about their games, their models are definitely top tier), and many other Indies (which PP branded themselves as early on, but grew beyond that) are making models that are just flat out better than what PP is currently offering, PP started losing more from their community except all the folks who didn't care about the models as much, and the community as a whole got worse, IMO.

It’s the main reason I lost interest - there wasn’t much interest in the hobby aspect and too much focus on the meta.
I played with stuff that looked cool and was fun to paint. I did t win much but I still enjoyed playing.
But the enjoyment gets sucked out of you when you’re the one of two guys with a fully painted list.
Let alone one of half a dozen that even had the models fully assembled.
After facing off against torsos on bases (not even glued mind you) grey hordes, and ‘Gotcha’ gameplay, I got tired of it.
I felt like the only person pushing the hobby aspect out of a community of 20+.

There’s some naked truth to the quoted statement.

**Valander**

@Ghool, yup, I never really "chased the meta" for any game I play (even though I was an Infernal for a while, that was just more about finding clarity in the rules and plugging loopholes when possible). The hobby aspect is at least half, if not more, of the appeal to any miniatures wargame for me (and I know, for you, too). "Rule of cool" is how I usually build any army list in any game.

Thing is, with Warmachine/Hordes, that quickly became a way to only be subjected to being curb stomped by players who instead focused on finding the most crazy combo to one shot your warcaster with. And it also started moving more and more to, as you say, gotcha-gameplay, where either you got nuked because you misjudged a threat range, or just got faced with some combo you hadn't seen before. To me, this became extremely un-fun.

**Sunno**

Ghool wrote:
Valander wrote:
But really, it seems to me that the biggest problem with Privateer is that their whole shtick could be summed up as "We aren't GW".

I think there's some (painful) truth to this. When Warmachine first launched, they really pushed the idea of being the underdogs, courting all the disgruntled GW players. Sure, they built up their own community, but as many have mentioned, it became pretty full of tryhards pretty quickly.

Also, early on, there was more focus on making "cool miniatures" and the whole "we use metal, baby, not some cheap plastic, so we're higher quality" was another thing that they eventually left behind. As the game became more and more about just viewing the models as "necessary tokens," the model quality dropped, some might say significantly, when they moved to the PVC and so on. For me, a very large part of interest in any miniatures game is, well, the miniatures themselves, so when the quality there started dropping, it likewise started dropping my interest. I'm sure I'm not the only one that got sad just seeing boring 2d felt cut outs for terrain ("because it makes micro-measuring much easier"), half assembled, unpainted models, and so on.

And I think as GW really pushed the model quality (say what you want about their games, their models are definitely top tier), and many other Indies (which PP branded themselves as early on, but grew beyond that) are making models that are just flat out better than what PP is currently offering, PP started losing more from their community except all the folks who didn't care about the models as much, and the community as a whole got worse, IMO.

It’s the main reason I lost interest - there wasn’t much interest in the hobby aspect and too much focus on the meta.
I played with stuff that looked cool and was fun to paint. I did t win much but I still enjoyed playing.
But the enjoyment gets sucked out of you when you’re the one of two guys with a fully painted list.
Let alone one of half a dozen that even had the models fully assembled.
After facing off against torsos on bases (not even glued mind you) grey hordes, and ‘Gotcha’ gameplay, I got tired of it.
I felt like the only person pushing the hobby aspect out of a community of 20+.

There’s some naked truth to the quoted statement.

To add to this. Our little basement group are mostly all big hobbyists. All of our stuff is painted to a high level. We also use 2.5D or full 3D terrain. We have a lot of high quality, accurate terrain we have bought as a group or printed. Again, all painted to a high standard. We do also have 2D terrain that we use if we are playing at another location like somebody else’s house etc.

I feel you paint about the lack of hobby in WM/H. I remember going to one of the few tournaments I ever went to and getting by well painted models out of my box and placing them down. Only to have one of my opponents literally pour his models out of a shoebox and set the broken and unpainted pieces down. His attitude was “you don’t win games with painting”. And this was prevalent in a lot of WM/H community.

But I think this attitude has actually changed over the last 2 years. As a counterpoint to the above, at the same tournament I came across one of the most beautifully painted Retribution armies I have ever seen in my life. Again, I think PP has been trying to push painting but I think they can do more on that front.

We have just opened a weekly games club in our local area now that we are opening up a bit. We had some demo/example games of WM/H on the go. Fully painted and full 3d terrain. We had 4-5 people in the space of one day express and interest in getting involved due to “how cool it looked” and our personal attitude (friendly, having a laugh, but still accurate in game play). We also had another who dropped out the game say that “he had never seen WM/H played in that way” and expressed an interest in buying back in “if that’s the way you guys play it here”.

So the simple truth is that fully painted models and epic 3d/2.5d terrain SELLS THE GAME TO OTHER PEOPLE much better than unpainted models and flat 2d neoprene templates. Im not against 2d terrain. It’s a good idea and for some it’s the only solution they have. But we should move towards 3d/2.5d being the norm in the same way it is in other games. We will attract so many more people when we show them that is a great epic war-game with a story to tell.

**LunarSol**

Sunno wrote:

So the simple truth is that fully painted models and epic 3d/2.5d terrain SELLS THE GAME TO OTHER PEOPLE much better than unpainted models and flat 2d neoprene templates. Im not against 2d terrain. It’s a good idea and for some it’s the only solution they have. But we should move towards 3d/2.5d being the norm in the same way it is in other games. We will attract so many more people when we show them that is a great epic war-game with a story to tell.

Absolutely. The game can look gorgeous, but the playerbase has gone out of its way to actively discourage doing so. Locally we have a few players who won't even put a mat down. They're pretty insistent that felt on a bare table is the height of precision (despite felt sliding all over the place on a smooth surface). It's frustrating as what was once one of the inclusive aspects of the culture of the game has really morphed into something keeping players out.

Part of it is in PPs rules. Terrain interaction is too complex and too punishing when it comes to rough terrain, leading to a lot of micromanagement when it comes to measuring. It's one of the areas of the game that could really use an overhaul without really changing the game as a whole.

**Phobos**

From everything that I have read about the hyper precise gameplay, this game should really be a hex based one, like Battletech. If we are down at the point where 10.1 vs 10.0 inches matters enough to fight over, its time to break out the grid.

Frankly, Privateer needs to decide what the hell they are doing with this game. Either beer and pretzel it like Warhammer and keep the cool figs, or come out with MK4 and set it on a hex grid with boardgame - quality precoloured one piece miniatures. Or do both, with 2 rulesets - this is totally plausible.

**LunarSol**

Phobos wrote:

Frankly, Privateer needs to decide what the hell they are doing with this game.

I suspect that's exactly what's going on. The focus on MonPoc and Riot Quest and Warcaster is mostly letting WMH rest while they figure out how to modernize it.

**Phobos**

LunarSol wrote:
Phobos wrote:

Frankly, Privateer needs to decide what the hell they are doing with this game.

I suspect that's exactly what's going on. The focus on MonPoc and Riot Quest and Warcaster is mostly letting WMH rest while they figure out how to modernize it.

I hope that is the case. I've never actually played other than a few store demo games, but it was a very cool unique setting and did have some interesting tactical concepts and the minis I've seen in their artwork look cool and different.

However, I suspect they are turning into Steamforged Games or CMON. Why bother developing a game and a product, creating rules, nurturing a community, having quality sculpts cast in a quality material, etc. Ain't nobody got time for that when they can ride the Kickstarter gravy train. You get all the money up front, know exactly how much stuff to make, and if anyone happens to buy some of the leftover you dump into the retail market well that's just a cherry on top.

**Overread**

Eh compared to Cmon or Reaper, PP are a LONG way from the "KS Gravy Train". If anything for all their former "second biggest wargame firm in the market" they actually draw quite small amounts from KS. Heck a good number of no-name brands have secured much bigger amounts of funding. If anything Warcaster shows that PP can use KS to hop along rather than leap and bound along. Which seems to be their idea too in the way they've desgined it. Which isn't a bad idea. Some big games have done huge KS that then take 3 years or so to fund and complete. That's a long time between idea and market. Instead PP has gone for smaller goals that are achieved within months whereby PP then has a game out in the market rather than lots of huge orders and a game 3 years from market.

I also can't see them abandoning Warmachine/Hordes. Whilst on the outside its slowed, its still a huge archive of models and is what grew the company. I think its just in its difficult years like Old World was for GW.

It needs a fresh take and a new angle and a big injection of energy, marketing and drive. Perhaps also retiring some old sculpts and issuing new designs after 10+ years of design and manufacture improvement.

IF anything I wonder if the hurdle for PP is that they are big enough that resin and metal are worries if they hit it big again; but they are small enough that they can't afford the plastic machines and tooling (and can't easily find a good 3rd party to do it for them).
If they could get to near GW levels of plastic quality and then strike out with some 10 redesigned original models (plus one or two new) in plastic in boxed sets and such for a big re-launch of each faction they could easily get onto a winner.

**LunarSol**

Their Kickstarter offerings are definitely different from the SFG/CMON style. I didn't buy into Warcaster, but went in for the second season of Riot Quest and its definitely a very different culture more in line with high end statue/figure preorder systems. I think its pretty clear its mostly about dealing with the current distribution issues more than anything.

I definitely agree PP's biggest issues are being big enough to need plastic, but not big enough to afford it. That was essentially the promise of PVC for so many companies, which has unfortunately driven much of the line into a place where there's just too much to efficiently update. In some ways, I think its as much as its a problem, it could be a huge opportunity to revamp and modernize the game design with smaller unit sizes. Regardless of how its done, I think it's going to take a few years to develop and produce the PVC replacements, and the game is likely to stay pretty dormant until that gets finalized for a MK4 relaunch.

**nobody**

My memory of the launch of Mk1 (at least, in my LGS) was that the GW players latched onto it hard because PP appeared to be more crunchy with their rules. Unambiguous rules with official responses to questions was something GW was actively avoiding at the time. The cheaper buy-in was also certainly a part of it as a standard Mk1 army was generally cheaper (and smaller) than a standard tournament army in 40k's 3rd ed or 6th ed Fantasy.

That being said, I do like the suggestion on the redesign of a few choice units in plastic for the relaunch. Up the quality of the starter boxes, reintroduce a box per faction that can build multiple units (Kind of like the Cygnar box that can make Stormguard and Stormblades). Focus the relaunch on these specifically with promise to reintroduce multi-boxes for other units and warjacks/beasts down the line.

And yeah, some skus (and units) need to be retired, but the models themselves don't need to be invalidated. As an example, I think at this point Cygnar Long Gunners are pretty much dead. They haven't really had a place since Mk1, and in Mk3 they introduced Trencher Long Gunners which quite frankly are better in almost every way. I'm not sure why they don't just tell people they can use their Long Gunner models as Trencher Long Gunners and axe the original unit.

**Overread**

I think the big issue with having a large product range for a game is that new people see loads of cool new models and want them all; whilst existing gamers have them all.

But if you're running a tiny squad based game, whilst the newbies can buy into it easily (great!); neither group can use "big" armies in the game. This means that, even before you consider the meta of the game, there's a high chance of a larger number of models gathering dust on shelves.

We've seen this time and again with companies building a skirmish game; building bigger factions and diversity and then steadily upping the number of models in the game.

PP has clearly been thinking about this - the idea of a "side board" for Warcaster is genius because it introduces a means by which you can play with more of your collection and vary your army whilst still taking the same "working" core. That said it could still suffer the same problem in the long run.

In the long run I think Warmachine/Hordes IF they can crack plastic, would be best steadily redesigned into a larger model wargame. Perhaps not like Old World or AoS where you have big 30 model units; but where you've more variety on the table. I think aprt of that might be making casters less powerful and allowing for a bit more operation of warbeasts/jacks outside of caster influence so that the army can operate over more of the table (even for armies that don't use many machines/monsters, people still want their big toys on the table).

**Charistoph**

I do wish more people were open to having tiers of play which were associated with game sizes, much like how 40K is divided up between Kill Team, Combat Patrol, Competitive, and Apocalypse, along with having more restrictions the farther down one goes. Brawlmachine seems to be receiving some praise around some of the circles I read, so there is hope.

To kind of use the case in point above, certain Warcasters/Warlocks would be Brawlmachine level, like the Battlebox BG Controllers, while others would be tiered in to the Steamroller category like ADR (though broader), and then there are the multi-Controller battles which would have a third tier and work well with other Warcasters/Warlocks.

But getting people to play Warmachine Apocalypse (I forgot PP's name it is referenced so little) is a bit challenging, and up to relatively recently, anything not Steamroller didn't get an ear.

**Overread**

Warmachine likely has a big issue because of its more limited population and for those that have held on being focused on the competitive scene. Whilst a competitive scene can help things, it can also hinder others. A small population focused on one aspect is going to ignore other aspects.

MTG gets away with having different modes in part because it has a huge population of fans ;but also because most of their game formats appear at competitive events.

You can compete in the standard, the limited, the open, the booster draft. Each one is an event category in its own right. Granted the game is much much quicker in general so that also helps diversity.

Wargames tend to focus on one single format for an area/region at the competitive end. I suspect in part because its a bigger thing to setup (for MTG all you need is tables and chairs - no terrain etc...); and takes longer to resolve.

**LunarSol**

Kind of a rehash, but I'll repeat. I'd actually prefer the smaller sized game, but there's never really been proper scenario support to make them a worthwhile experience and WMH demands a scenario to drive engagement.

**Cyel**

At the moment I am running a Brawlmachine league on War Table and have just finished playing with a friend who left WM&H ~2 years ago but wanted to try again when he heard about this neat format.

I am a fan of Brawlmachine. Those scenarios are very good, live and tense. You have to score and contest every single turn, which gets more and more difficult with diminishing forces. Even a single point of advantage can be successfully carried to the endgame, as the battle is just 5 turns long.

**Charistoph**

Overread wrote:Warmachine likely has a big issue because of its more limited population and for those that have held on being focused on the competitive scene. Whilst a competitive scene can help things, it can also hinder others. A small population focused on one aspect is going to ignore other aspects.

MTG gets away with having different modes in part because it has a huge population of fans ;but also because most of their game formats appear at competitive events.

You can compete in the standard, the limited, the open, the booster draft. Each one is an event category in its own right. Granted

But other formats exist, it is the organizers and groups who decide which to use. It is not PP's fault in this area when it is based on local reactions. As a point, I only played a few 40K games because few people were willing to play below tournament points. They were unwilling because all the games during the "work week" were to prepare and adjust lists for the upcoming tournament. In my area, it was at a point where you could get a 40K tournament in every weekend as we had numerous stores around (if you were willing to take the hour drive) who provided them in a staggered manner so as not to compete with each other's tournaments.

I saw this attitude start getting busted up with the 40K crew around the time that one of the stores started doing odd-ball tournaments, such as a revised FOC (back in middle of 6th Ed) which required full Elite or Heavy Support slots, games in pairs where both members of a team provided a portion of 2000 points, or just even 1000 points games with slightly relaxed FOC requirements. Interestingly enough, here the tournament-focused rules are not even provided by GW, but by an independent group that released their format on the internet.

I wonder if providing something besides locked in Steamroller would have kept WMH from falling so hard locally, but with ThemeMachine, 40K 8th Ed, and X-Wing really taking off, it may not have.

LunarSol wrote:Kind of a rehash, but I'll repeat. I'd actually prefer the smaller sized game, but there's never really been proper scenario support to make them a worthwhile experience and WMH demands a scenario to drive engagement.

PP has provided some small encounter scenarios, but people have not been supporting them as much. They were usually found in No Quarter, so if your group never looked at No Quarter (which an increasing number were not), then they would be unaware of them.

To be honest, most of those scenarios could have been put out in PDF format later on after No Quarter was closed, which is something they have missed out on, and Brawlmachine is attempting to address.