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 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
I'd love to go back to try WMH but god the issues in 3rd killed entirety of the game in my area.

Flat 2d terrain focus was bad and game tournaments look really unappealing to other gamers who were used to a very nice collection of terrain

Rules in 3rd changed so much towards the end and theme machine made us longer mk2 players have fragmented lists or play 15+ pts down.

The price was frankly too high and needed too many models. Factor in tournaments and multiple lists and each being totally different themes with not many non warbeast/warjack crossover and its even MORE unappealing than just getting 2k of 40k/AoS and having fun.

The changes to 4th basically gutting my Trollbloods was final straw for me. I check semi frequently but it's done nothing to draw back me or anyone else in our group back.

It's just all strange here with MK IV. My son and I loved MK I & II. Dabbled in III, and after some nostalgic discussion we each bought starter boxes for IV.
But after one game each, his interest seems to be drifting. we play tournament Ages of Sigmar at the moment as our main game. the community is fun as hell, and the game is satisfying. We wanted a side system, however, and WM is not holding our interest. There's a few hardcore Privateer fans that are asking us to play, but he and I are really digging Conquest LAoK as our 2nd system. Well, his. I play a ton of stuff.
I don't know what the hump is we haven't gotten over with the new launch, but it's floundering pretty badly here and we were one of the larger west coast groups playing MK III.

Funnily enough, despite my personal... malaise towards wmh my group actuslly asked that I demo/run a few small games.

Using mk3 rules and 'cards', we've been doing aone small games. As a reault I'm trying to flesh out and finish my 'other' armies - ret and cygnar and am still keeping an eye out for good deals.

PP announced the Preview Battlegroups are coming back as permanent parts of the range via their webstore. not clear if it will be available in stores through retailers, but all in all a positive development.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit - Confirmed its coming to retail distribution:

https://community.privateerpress.com/t/battlegroup-boxes-available-again-per-primecast/2736?u=randall

Are these those starter pack sets? If so that's really great news!

Yeah, caster + 2 jacks/beasts.

Glad they saw the light there. They're a really solid entry point and round out the product line a lot better than the random solo caster.

The newly released alt pose Warjack bodies do a great job of adding to the range as well. Being able to buy a body and field it with extra arms from the starter is a pretty great deal.

Yep, that was also a wise decision on their part.

It's something they talked about quite a ways back; it seems like they've actually just been more successful with this than they expected. It feels like they're just now getting a handle on production capacity, which is a good thing to see. I know locally a lot of people are starting to ask about giving it a go as it seems like models are becoming available.

On the retail side, I've had a couple stores ask me about the game. Seems like they're seeing adds in retail catalogs. PP seems to be making progress, its just a pretty deep hole to dig out of.

I'm really excited to see what they have cooked up for SR24. The first true Mk4 scenarios are going to have a big impact on what I think going forward. Hoping I can get ahold of some of the preview material they're sharing this weekend and test it out.

To be fair, there is now some people crawling out the woodwork locally. So its possible that a year or so after launch PP has done enough to get people interested. But im not seeing any stores wanting to stock.

One thing that does disturb me a little is the void between what's left of the old crowd and the new crowd. Old crowd don't seem to want to play the new guys because they are "too casual". Seems like PP has ported those issues from Mk3 to Mk4 in terms of their community.

Doesn't seem to be the case here, quite the opposite. The "old crowd" is really happy that their effort (and there has been a lot of that recently!) pays off and we have multiple new players join the local community with mk4 armies, something we never managed to achieve in the last few years of mk3.

I mean the new crowd are going to be new to the game so they won't be "super competitive top tier players". Which is an issue PP had - their market shrunk back and left only the super keen. Creating a huge skill divide which is totally normal in such a situation.

Now some experienced people will have the desire and skill to welcome and teach newbies and bring them up and engage with them; others won't and will clique off in their own separate group.

As long as PP can grow the newbies and keep growing them, this problem will eventually settle itself out because as time passes some of those newbies will become new oldies and pros and such.


The issue is more hte huge gap and divide and that's always very difficult to bridge. Doesn't matter if its skill, age, gender, social background or such - when there's a really big divide it can be hard to bridge it.

Sunno wrote:
To be fair, there is now some people crawling out the woodwork locally. So its possible that a year or so after launch PP has done enough to get people interested. But im not seeing any stores wanting to stock.

One thing that does disturb me a little is the void between what's left of the old crowd and the new crowd. Old crowd don't seem to want to play the new guys because they are "too casual". Seems like PP has ported those issues from Mk3 to Mk4 in terms of their community.

These kinds of players have been choking the life out the game since Mk2. Best ignored. They can lord over a dead game all they want.

SR24 preview is in the wild. Some interesting stuff. No big zones anymore. Closer to a 40k style objectives with 3" contesting. Different size objectives function like the old zones. Feels a little convoluted but I suspect they've got an objective pack in the works that makes it a bit more meaningful.

Flags now turn area terrain into a scoring zone. There's a cache that you can destroy for a point by sacrificing your combat action.

Notably you now have to be up by 3 at the end of your opponent's turn to win. No more checkmate style scenario wins.

These kinds of players have been choking the life out the game since Mk2. Best ignored. They can lord over a dead game all they want.

Largely agree, build the community you want to see. I just can't get my head around people who see a group of new player who they could mentor and link up with and go...."nah, f those casuals". Seen it so much over the years. Sadly watched a guy on the local chat trying to persuade the old crew to meet/link up with the new crew, tear his hair out and then leave the group after being told "we only need serious players" and "we will come play them if they run a decent Steamroller comp".

Hopefully the new guys will be great to play with. Despite my ongoing pessimism and bias towards PP, these appear to be tiny green shoots. So that's good.

And then they wonder why nobody wants to play the game.

I've noticed that within every community are those who consider whatever they do to be "serious" and they consider that they will welcome no others unless those others are "serious".

What counts as "serious" varies and is often based on some concept that any causal/non serious person allowed in will soon destroy the community entirely and reduce the skill, quality and enjoyment.

It's not unique to Warmachine nor wargaming; I've seen it in photography where some will try and hound off newbies and the less skilled and those who are "just taking snapshots" with arguments that fostering it will destroy all the art of photography or such.



In general that kind of person just lacks the appreciation for different levels of skill and dedication. Not everyone wants their hobby to be the 24*7 living breathing focus of their lives; and many don't even have the total free time to dedicate like that anyway.
They are often present, but when the community shrinks drastically, they can become more of a problem as they are often the most keen and invested so they are often some of the last to leave the hobby (they might well leave and form their own communities though).




They can also never really realise that they are doing this because their focus and reason is to preserve the skill and quality of the group. They want to have bigger communities, they just want only a certain kind and certain skilled kind of person to join. They lack the realisation that broader groups are healthier and that all "pros" only come from newbies.

Sunno wrote:

These kinds of players have been choking the life out the game since Mk2. Best ignored. They can lord over a dead game all they want.

Largely agree, build the community you want to see. I just can't get my head around people who see a group of new player who they could mentor and link up with and go...."nah, f those casuals". Seen it so much over the years. Sadly watched a guy on the local chat trying to persuade the old crew to meet/link up with the new crew, tear his hair out and then leave the group after being told "we only need serious players" and "we will come play them if they run a decent Steamroller comp".

Hopefully the new guys will be great to play with. Despite my ongoing pessimism and bias towards PP, these appear to be tiny green shoots. So that's good.

Agreed.

Gaming has no shortage of self-important elitists, bullies, seal clubbers and toxic miseryguts within its ranks. Pp games are no exception.

Sometimes you have to burn everything to the ground to move forward. When the old guard are largely toxic and actively start being a detriment, they need to be put out to pasture. You dont 'owe' them anything. Move on without them. The community and game doesn't need them to thrive.

Like sunny said, build the community that you want to see.

Thats more or less what GW did with Age of Sigmar. Kinda through the baby out with the bath water, but at the end of the day the majority of people who stuck around were the most open-minded of the fanbase, and then they brought in new blood with great models, half-decent rules, and interesting storytelling.

Shame page 5 wasn't a "don't be a gakhole, this game isn't about stomping your opponent out of existence at all costs and seeking personal glory, its about you and your opponent having fun and telling stories in the setting we have built. If thats not what you're interested in, then this game isn't for you." type message, things might have worked out differently.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Thats more or less what GW did with Age of Sigmar. Kinda through the baby out with the bath water, but at the end of the day the majority of people who stuck around were the most open-minded of the fanbase, and then they brought in new blood with great models, half-decent rules, and interesting storytelling.

Shame page 5 wasn't a "don't be a gakhole, this game isn't about stomping your opponent out of existence at all costs and seeking personal glory, its about you and your opponent having fun and telling stories in the setting we have built. If thats not what you're interested in, then this game isn't for you." type message, things might have worked out differently.

I'd argue GW didn't really do that intentionally with Old World to AoS. GW more just threw the whole product under the bus. Don't forget at the start of AoS GW wasn't even intending it to be an actual game, the only rules were insanely casual joke rules. GW wasn't trying to clean out the old guard, GW was flat out just removing the game and starting a boutique model line. Plus don't forget it failed so hard it triggered a cascade of management changes and a huge turn around of AoS as well as some aspects of GW.

If anything it was more about throwing out the old guard/methods of GW's practice than the customers

Well, we know (thanks to James Hewitt) that AoS was actually originally designed as a serious game and that they had a full size rulebook and everything written up and ready to go and the decision to launch it as a rules-lite novelty product was done at the last minute by a middle manager with more authority than brains.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, we know (thanks to James Hewitt) that AoS was actually originally designed as a serious game and that they had a full size rulebook and everything written up and ready to go and the decision to launch it as a rules-lite novelty product was done at the last minute by a middle manager with more authority than brains.

Yeah though I'd argue that whilst that was a huge nail in AoS early on; I think the hallmarks were earlier. The total lack of any marketing from the end of Old World till almost launch day of AoS was a MASSIVE mistake. I think reception - even with joke rules - would have been a LOT better if GW had been upfront and said.

"Ok we are blowing up old world - it is going away; but we are making a brand new game based on a continuation of the story with a new setting that lets us do amazing new things and stuff".

Yes people would still have raged, but no where near as much as "Old World is gone - its dead - fantasy is dead - 40K only - MORE MARINE LIEUTENANT MODELS!"

Yeah, James has said that that was basically not what was originally planned for the transition to AoS and was a result in the last minute shelving of the core rulebook and the other changes in how they were to proceed with the release in AoS vs what was originally planned.

chaos0xomega wrote:Thats more or less what GW did with Age of Sigmar. Kinda through the baby out with the bath water, but at the end of the day the majority of people who stuck around were the most open-minded of the fanbase, and then they brought in new blood with great models, half-decent rules, and interesting storytelling.

I've said the same thing myself. Or rather, even if it wasn't the official 'the aim', if it did happen that the nuking of the old world/introduction of aos would drive the perceived toxic old guard away in favour of a new demographic/audience, gw wouldn't shed many tears..

chaos0xomega wrote:

Shame page 5 wasn't a "don't be a gakhole, this game isn't about stomping your opponent out of existence at all costs and seeking personal glory, its about you and your opponent having fun and telling stories in the setting we have built. If thats not what you're interested in, then this game isn't for you." type message, things might have worked out differently.

I dunno. Final paragraph is pretty explicit.

'Most importantly - and let's state this loud and clear for the record - page 5 us not permission to be a jaxkass in the name of competition. Its not a shield to hide behind when you're playing like a sissified cheeseball, running down the clock, gaming a scenario, or rules layering your hapless opponents to death. Page 5 doesn't discriminate between genders. And page 5 is never ever EVER a license to diminish another player so you can inflate your own vertically challenged self esteem.
Remember, we all come here to battle out of common love. Respect page 5. Respect each other'.

As over the top as some of the language us (plygap etc), fundamentally it is about not being a jerk. Anyone who was was doing this in spite of the game's manifesto.

Overread wrote:

Yeah though I'd argue that whilst that was a huge nail in AoS early on; I think the hallmarks were earlier. The total lack of any marketing from the end of Old World till almost launch day of AoS was a MASSIVE mistake. I think reception - even with joke rules - would have been a LOT better if GW had been upfront and said.

"Ok we are blowing up old world - it is going away; but we are making a brand new game based on a continuation of the story with a new setting that lets us do amazing new things and stuff".

Yes people would still have raged, but no where near as much as "Old World is gone - its dead - fantasy is dead - 40K only - MORE MARINE LIEUTENANT MODELS!"

Nah, gw can never win. People would hsve raged if gw did anything, really.... or didn't do anything. Or did the other thing... a group of 40k players is called a whine for a reason.

I mean, earlier advertising would have just flatlined the end times sales for a start. The 'lack of marketing' was also peak kirby and based on a contemptuous view of the fanbase - anyone here 10 years ago will remember gw actively being hostile to their own fans and essentially viewing them as being willing to buy whatever they produced just because the gw logo was on it - remember his annual statement that the gw hobby was buying gw? 'Jewel like wonders' and all that guff? Aos not being an overnight sensation, along with several other things at the time was the final kick in the nads thats brought them back down to earth in a lot of ways.

Overread wrote:

I'd argue GW didn't really do that intentionally with Old World to AoS. GW more just threw the whole product under the bus. Don't forget at the start of AoS GW wasn't even intending it to be an actual game, the only rules were insanely casual joke rules. GW wasn't trying to clean out the old guard, GW was flat out just removing the game and starting a boutique model line. Plus don't forget it failed so hard it triggered a cascade of management changes and a huge turn around of AoS as well as some aspects of GW.

If anything it was more about throwing out the old guard/methods of GW's practice than the customers

See above. It was a bean counters game rooted in contempt of the fanbase. But I'm pretty certain that ridding themselves of the toxic old guard would have been seen as a positive - I even remember posting at the time that this would be their motivation. And it worked, ultimately.

I don't think most people read to the last paragraph of page 5, if they dud the message was drowned out by all the HEAVY METAL TESTOSTERONE RAAAAAAAGE on the rest of the page.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I don't think most people read to the last paragraph of page 5, if they dud the message was drowned out by all the HEAVY METAL TESTOSTERONE RAAAAAAAGE on the rest of the page.

I didnt get the 'RAAAAGGE!!', I just saw standard issue trash talking like youd get from football punters in any pub in the land on a saturday when the game is on. It just falls under 'banter' for the most part. Admittediy, Mk1s page 5 was as cringeworthy as it was hilarious and cheeky, whilst still being on point despite being over the top - 'steamrolling over your grandmas house et al'. But I'm glad they toned down the silly for mk2. Personally I always found Mark 2s page 5 to be quite empowering. Kept some of the ott language (though it's toned down and less silly) whilst still communicating the ethos of the game.

Thou shalt not whine.
Come heavy, or don't come at all. Get stuck in.
Give as good as you get. Don't seal club. Don't rely on a crutch list or fail-safe formula. Go after the big names
Win graciously and lose valiantly.
Page 5 is not an excuse to be a jerk.

Not quite 'RRRAAAAGGGGEEEE!' imo. It's slightly more mature. :p

Deadnight has it right, Page 5 was actually quite explicitly against things like copying cookie cutter lists or curbstomping newbies.

The Mk2 version was, but there's a lot of people still offended from interactions they had 15 years ago. (and likely players that still act that way sadly)

 Overread wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, we know (thanks to James Hewitt) that AoS was actually originally designed as a serious game and that they had a full size rulebook and everything written up and ready to go and the decision to launch it as a rules-lite novelty product was done at the last minute by a middle manager with more authority than brains.

Yeah though I'd argue that whilst that was a huge nail in AoS early on; I think the hallmarks were earlier. The total lack of any marketing from the end of Old World till almost launch day of AoS was a MASSIVE mistake. I think reception - even with joke rules - would have been a LOT better if GW had been upfront and said.

"Ok we are blowing up old world - it is going away; but we are making a brand new game based on a continuation of the story with a new setting that lets us do amazing new things and stuff".

Yes people would still have raged, but no where near as much as "Old World is gone - its dead - fantasy is dead - 40K only - MORE MARINE LIEUTENANT MODELS!"

Uhhuh could be my memory being leaky but the gap wasn't that long and info of new game came pretty quickly. Even the end of last end time book hinted it's not complete end.

Big rulebook being shelved if true would at least explain where GW spent over 3 years producing AoS...


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chaos0xomega wrote:
I don't think most people read to the last paragraph of page 5, if they dud the message was drowned out by all the HEAVY METAL TESTOSTERONE RAAAAAAAGE on the rest of the page.

Or they read the mk1 one. The paragraph quoted above came in mk2. Mk1 was missing.

tneva82 wrote:


Or they read the mk1 one. The paragraph quoted above came in mk2. Mk1 was missing.

You're right. Though I dud allude to how ott mk1s page 5 was.

That said, the game exploded in popularity between 2010 and 2015, which was the era of mk2, not mk1. During the mk1 era, it was a very niche game with a small community.

Imo a lot more people reas mk2's page 5 than mk1s.

 LunarSol wrote:
The Mk2 version was, but there's a lot of people still offended from interactions they had 15 years ago. (and likely players that still act that way sadly)

I mean, I'm still annoyed about Pete haines' iron warriors rules in the 3.5ed chaos codex but there does come a point where you have to move on and acknowledge the current 'game' rather than being angry and bitter about what was there when we were kids.

tneva82 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, we know (thanks to James Hewitt) that AoS was actually originally designed as a serious game and that they had a full size rulebook and everything written up and ready to go and the decision to launch it as a rules-lite novelty product was done at the last minute by a middle manager with more authority than brains.

Yeah though I'd argue that whilst that was a huge nail in AoS early on; I think the hallmarks were earlier. The total lack of any marketing from the end of Old World till almost launch day of AoS was a MASSIVE mistake. I think reception - even with joke rules - would have been a LOT better if GW had been upfront and said.

"Ok we are blowing up old world - it is going away; but we are making a brand new game based on a continuation of the story with a new setting that lets us do amazing new things and stuff".

Yes people would still have raged, but no where near as much as "Old World is gone - its dead - fantasy is dead - 40K only - MORE MARINE LIEUTENANT MODELS!"

Uhhuh could be my memory being leaky but the gap wasn't that long and info of new game came pretty quickly. Even the end of last end time book hinted it's not complete end.

Big rulebook being shelved if true would at least explain where GW spent over 3 years producing AoS...

I seem to recall there were 3 or so months between Old World and AoS.

Which when GW pulled the game and only left a "hint" in the lore - I think that was enough to say "we've killed it, maybe it continues at home because you've already got models, but we aren't going to make anything more."

Basically there was no clear information so everyone went nuts and there was no clarity. Was GW going to go all in with Middle Earth; was GW going to bring Old World back earlier; Were they going to make a brand new IP and new game; Were they just bean-counting and cutting games. Don't forget this was the tail-end of the Kirby days which were noted for having a lot of short term releases of specialist stuff and short term focus. So the idea that they killed it to maximise sales in other areas was very possible. It was also the time when GW was doing basically zero online marketing. All the news people got was from leaks and White Dwarf. Otherwise you stayed up late to see what was previewed for sale on the New Zealand website.

The other thing is that AoS was a vast departure from Old World in style, theme, lore and everything. Old World always had that duality of being both presented as low magic and high magic all at once - whlist AoS is full on insane overloaded hyper magic setting. Even without the whole rules aspect AoS is very very different even though its running with many of the same models and themes.

tneva82 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, we know (thanks to James Hewitt) that AoS was actually originally designed as a serious game and that they had a full size rulebook and everything written up and ready to go and the decision to launch it as a rules-lite novelty product was done at the last minute by a middle manager with more authority than brains.

Yeah though I'd argue that whilst that was a huge nail in AoS early on; I think the hallmarks were earlier. The total lack of any marketing from the end of Old World till almost launch day of AoS was a MASSIVE mistake. I think reception - even with joke rules - would have been a LOT better if GW had been upfront and said.

"Ok we are blowing up old world - it is going away; but we are making a brand new game based on a continuation of the story with a new setting that lets us do amazing new things and stuff".

Yes people would still have raged, but no where near as much as "Old World is gone - its dead - fantasy is dead - 40K only - MORE MARINE LIEUTENANT MODELS!"

Uhhuh could be my memory being leaky but the gap wasn't that long and info of new game came pretty quickly. Even the end of last end time book hinted it's not complete end.

Big rulebook being shelved if true would at least explain where GW spent over 3 years producing AoS...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I don't think most people read to the last paragraph of page 5, if they dud the message was drowned out by all the HEAVY METAL TESTOSTERONE RAAAAAAAGE on the rest of the page.

Or they read the mk1 one. The paragraph quoted above came in mk2. Mk1 was missing.

Yep, James also has discussed that the ~3 month gap in silence after they killed the Old World was also not part of the original plan. IIRC the expectation was that they would start teasing and hyping within ~2 weeks of the final End Times book releasing, and that obviously didn't happen. IIRC James said that he was never sure why that delay was there or what changed, etc. I think he said that "marketing" or whatever was outside of the studios control and in the hands of other managers.