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Post by Stormsmith Dropout on Jul 14, 2017 18:11:35 GMT
Hey, look at the Keynote! So many merc releases incoming! And so many for the Llael theme! Wait... they are exactly the same: one. But Minions are doing pretty darn good. ;D Oh. And Convergence is getting a new caster.
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Post by Azuresun on Jul 14, 2017 18:22:55 GMT
But Minions are doing pretty darn good. ;D Oh. And Convergence is getting a new caster. I'm gravely disappointed that the Valkyries are not Farrow with Acme rocket packs. But on the plus side, it seems that the Resistance may be getting the jetpacks.
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benkei
Junior Strategist
Posts: 244
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Post by benkei on Jul 14, 2017 18:23:55 GMT
I'm Firetruckin fed up with PP. So now the freakin Order of the Golden Crucible, which had its headquarters in Llael, is a entirr faction instead of being part of the Resistance?
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benkei
Junior Strategist
Posts: 244
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Post by benkei on Jul 14, 2017 18:24:26 GMT
It's great Skorne got all that minions to play with tho
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jul 14, 2017 18:26:07 GMT
That Dracodile looks pretty bad ass. Too bad half the Minion Player population quit this week and burned their minis But hey apparently asking people to be rational and level headed is something one doesn't do this day and age. Also, as a loyal Khadoran, Firetruck that Gastone guy lol The Dracodile is badass, but as it stands, Skorne still gets to use him better that Minions do (which was the crux of the issue.)
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Post by streetpizza on Jul 14, 2017 18:27:41 GMT
I'm Firetruckin fed up with PP. So now the freakin Order of the Golden Crucible, which had its headquarters in Llael, is a entirr faction instead of being part of the Resistance?
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Post by Stormsmith Dropout on Jul 14, 2017 18:28:12 GMT
I'm Firetruckin fed up with PP But this is more evidence that when the Llael theme comes, it will get some nice stuff. I mean, just look at all the releases each of those themes comes with. Isn't this good news?
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benkei
Junior Strategist
Posts: 244
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Post by benkei on Jul 14, 2017 18:29:57 GMT
No, the point is "real faction" themes get a gazillion releases, but Soles' statement makes clear merc themes are not gettinfg them. That has been my point the whole time
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Post by Blargaliscious on Jul 14, 2017 20:22:56 GMT
I think theme forces are important to Privateer Press for a couple of very big, very different reasons.
Mr. Soles hit on one of the reasons why in his post: “The plan is to make sure that every model in the game has a theme force to call home as soon as is possible.” Tie in Privateer Press’ assertion that they want to stir up the stagnation that was being seen in list generation and you see one of the very big reasons why theme armies are going to be the way that Privateer Press is going: The theme armies are going to be a means to make sure that *ALL* of their miniatures have purchasing demand. If you have stagnant armies going after each other in the tournament scene you have 2 big problems: a lot of capital costs tied up (master molds, production molds, work in progress, Kanban tubs, rack space for all of that – and that is just at PP) that is not moving (or not turning over quickly enough) -and- a stagnant game that is not dynamic enough to warrant prolong attention.
I think there is another huge reason why the theme armies are very important to Privateer Press.
Marketing.
Let’s face it, a lot of us got into this game because we first saw the warjacks (or the warbeasts) and said: “Cool! Big robots fighting each other! (Big monsters fighting each other!) I want to play that!” Now, how many of you saw the game WH40K and said: “Cool! Space marines fighting aliens and each other! I want to play that!” The central fighting units in the wargames that we play are the stars, and they are what draw us into the game. But are they the only thing that draws us in?
GW doubled down on space marines by giving us chaos marines, and then doubled down again by giving us a variety of loyalist and traitor marine chaptors, and then doubled down again by putting out more of them and inducing greater variety between them. Hey, did you know that WH40K has space elves and space orks also?
Privateer Press started with warjacks and doubled down when they came out with Hordes. Then they doubled down again when they came out with Colossals and Gargantuans. Then they hit the #Designspace wall. How many more warjacks can you really design before things get silly? (Cryx Corruptor, anyone?) When you look at warcasters, infantry, and solos they can only really release so much more stuff before it just looks like they are bloating the breadth of what they have. At least in an unstructured manner…
Add some structure in the form of the themes, tapping into the significant variety that is already present and Privateer Press now has a second dimension in which they can attract new customers. Want to play a World War 1 army with robots? Trencher theme army. How about a gunslinger army all firing magical bullets? Sons of the Tempest theme army. Want to play a crusader army with robots? Exemplar Interdiction theme army. How about a higher-tech spearman phalanx army with robots? Legion of Steel theme army. Old-time Russian / Soviet Army with robots? Winter Guard Kommand theme army. Did you like that movie “Pirates of the Caribbean – Curse of the Black Pearl?” Ghost Fleet theme army. Would you like to play a Squat army Mr. Former-40K-Player? Hammer Strike theme army. How about a Swiss shot and pike army with robots? The Kingmaker’s Army with Captain Damiano and all Steelheads. How about an army with not 1, but several Incredible Hulks? Operating Theater theme army. Got a thing for Art Deco and stainless steel décor? Destruction Initiative theme army.
I haven’t even hit upon the Scottish Highlanders, the upcoming funny beer drinker, druids, werewolves, samurais (from the desert, no less), stone golem, dragons, voodoo swamp gators, big professional wrestler gators, or cyborg pig theme armies from Hordes.
Soon, when some complete newb comes into the FLGS and sees you and your friends playing Warmahordes and they get excited about playing, you can direct them to one of the many factions just simply based upon the look or you can, based upon their likes, direct them to a more narrow theme army.
So, yes, the theme armies are the future of Privateer Press, and they have an interest in making them all equally competitive.
<<< --- >>>
One other thing to keep in mind: All of that stuff that was mentioned in the teaser videos are probably not the only stuff that is going to be released in the next year. It is the “Hey nerd! Here is some stuff for you to go drool over,” releases that they know they want to release. Hot female Black Dragon IFP Officer: drool-worthy. Assault Kommando Officer and sidekick: not drool-worthy.
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Post by Azuresun on Jul 14, 2017 20:25:17 GMT
I'm Firetruckin fed up with PP But this is more evidence that when the Llael theme comes, it will get some nice stuff. I mean, just look at all the releases each of those themes comes with. Isn't this good news? And when we know what that stuff actually is, then I'll get excited. Right now, all we know about the Resistance theme is that a big chunk of possible source material just got cut off and made into its own faction. (Well, okay, we know that Gastone2 has the same gun he has now. That's something.)
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Post by Azuresun on Jul 14, 2017 20:36:01 GMT
I think theme forces are important to Privateer Press for a couple of very big, very different reasons. Mr. Soles hit on one of the reasons why in his post: “The plan is to make sure that every model in the game has a theme force to call home as soon as is possible.” Tie in Privateer Press’ assertion that they want to stir up the stagnation that was being seen in list generation and you see one of the very big reasons why theme armies are going to be the way that Privateer Press is going: The theme armies are going to be a means to make sure that *ALL* of their miniatures have purchasing demand. If you have stagnant armies going after each other in the tournament scene you have 2 big problems: a lot of capital costs tied up (master molds, production molds, work in progress, Kanban tubs, rack space for all of that – and that is just at PP) that is not moving (or not turning over quickly enough) -and- a stagnant game that is not dynamic enough to warrant prolong attention. Which is fine, but then the priority should be on getting themes for everything out the door, and balanced against each other. Right now, they're wildly uneven in terms of both quality and faction access to good themes--you can have a Circle player with a load of warpwolves and a Troll player with a load of dire trolls, but only one side gets free rules and points. And I'm unconvinced that themes are going to help with stagnation until themes are equal and the models that qualify for any given theme are flattened in terms of power level--for example, High Shields might now count towards a theme, but I'm still going to avoid them like the plague when I can take Forge Guard instead.
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benkei
Junior Strategist
Posts: 244
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Post by benkei on Jul 15, 2017 5:02:44 GMT
And then when that totally newb player comes into the store and is wowed by the game and tells you "I want to play that cool voodoo crocs!", you tell him: "yeah, sure, but you better play them with this samurai from the desert guys, because they are the same, just better" or "you know what, if you want to play these cool Resistance fighters, it's better if you just play Cygnar and paint them purple, black and yellow (like a bruise)" or "You sure you don't prefer your pirates undead and with horns? Because they are getting cool toys the normal pirates won't"
That's not cool.
In a game as competitive as WM is I don't think is too much to ask to be able to play the faction (or theme) you want without feeling heavily handicapped for your decision
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on Jul 15, 2017 8:55:34 GMT
In a game as competitive as WM is I don't think is too much to ask to be able to play the faction (or theme) you want without feeling heavily handicapped for your decision In principle, it's not unreasonable to expect that. That is what PP originally set out to do, I think. The game when published in 2003 had four themes. Cygnar, Khador, Protectorate, Cryx. They all had the same number of almost everything. So your only decision was which of the four flavours you wanted to play. In terms of options, they were all equal. It all changed with the release of Magnus the Traitor. People quickly realised that hmm... since he is a warcaster as well as a merc, can't we just play him in a one-caster game, and thereby not play a faction at all? Play non-faction by playing Magnus? PP were like "sure, why not?" And wrote some rules for merc contracts for the three merc amigos they had accumulated by then (Magnus, Gorten, Ashlynn). That's when the equality between factions/themes stopped. In 2005 or whenever it was. The idea of faction equality is still there in some form, clearly. I think it just applies in an uneven fashion based on history. Basically, you start by choosing a game line. Warmachine or Hordes. Once you have chosen that, each has four core factions. These four, within each game lines, are meant to have faction equality. Generally same amount of warcasters/warlocks, generally same amount of releases overall. Then within that gameline you also have subfactions. These are the random bags of randomness. They have options, but not the same as the core factions, and not as many as each other. Retribution is the biggest subfaction, because they have almost as many releases as the core factions, they are just lagging behind because they didn't exist in Mk1. And then on the other end of the scale you have something like a subfaction within a subfaction, such as Cephalyx, who have extremely few releases and are unlikely to get more any time soon. It sounds like you are describing that you think it really sucks that the concept of subfactions exist. You feel like if Cygnar and Cephalyx are both presented as options for a new player, then they should both be equal. Same amount of options, same amount of new releases, and such. Same for Searforge, Talion, and so on. It does kinda suck I agree. But I would rather that the subfactions exist than that they don't exist. The alternative to having them exist is that WMH should be like MtG. MtG has five colours. Period. They have never added any new colours and probably they never will. If PP had followed the Magic model, then we would have four factions today. Cygnar, Khador, Protectorate, Cryx. Nothing else. And they would be equal. Each of them would contain a huge amount of variety of course. The dwarves might be Khadoran. Elves might be Cryxian. And so on. PP have instead gone the route of making new colours and subcolours. Whether you like that or not.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Jul 15, 2017 14:16:17 GMT
I think theme forces are important to Privateer Press for a couple of very big, very different reasons. Mr. Soles hit on one of the reasons why in his post: “The plan is to make sure that every model in the game has a theme force to call home as soon as is possible.” Tie in Privateer Press’ assertion that they want to stir up the stagnation that was being seen in list generation and you see one of the very big reasons why theme armies are going to be the way that Privateer Press is going: The theme armies are going to be a means to make sure that *ALL* of their miniatures have purchasing demand. If you have stagnant armies going after each other in the tournament scene you have 2 big problems: a lot of capital costs tied up (master molds, production molds, work in progress, Kanban tubs, rack space for all of that – and that is just at PP) that is not moving (or not turning over quickly enough) -and- a stagnant game that is not dynamic enough to warrant prolong attention. Which is fine, but then the priority should be on getting themes for everything out the door, and balanced against each other. Right now, they're wildly uneven in terms of both quality and faction access to good themes--you can have a Circle player with a load of warpwolves and a Troll player with a load of dire trolls, but only one side gets free rules and points. If their priority was on making the hard-core Steam Roller players who have already bought a lot of miniatures happy, then yes. But they cannot stop releasing new miniatures & product to stop and re-jigger all of the theme forces - the impact to cash flow and reputation would be staggering. They will probably pick one or two theme forces a CID cycle to get gone over for updating. They will probably also release a new theme force based off of existing miniatures The themes are not going to help with stagnation, the army lists being derived from the themes are rather stagnant in design. I think PP is trying out allowing Mercs and Minions in the army lists to prevent the stagnation and increase sales in the miniatures that are not seeing a lot of purchases. The High Shields may not be the optimal choice for seizing a quick victory in an SR game, but in a casual game between friends they look like a fun unit to play.
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Post by pangurban on Jul 15, 2017 14:30:28 GMT
The themes are not going to help with stagnation, the army lists being derived from the themes are rather stagnant in design. I think PP is trying out allowing Mercs and Minions in the army lists to prevent the stagnation and increase sales in the miniatures that are not seeing a lot of purchases. The High Shields may not be the optimal choice for seizing a quick victory in an SR game, but in a casual game between friends they look like a fun unit to play. I have a hard time seeing how this would work to any significant extent. It's already been indicated the merc/minion selection allowed in a theme will likely get restricted, making CID effectively a hunt for what's interesting to include and what isn't. Then, such models will replace others in the theme. Unless they're somehow closer to equivalent than the existing options, themed list design will simply evolve to a new set of "best" lists. Models in those will sell, others won't. Finally, if you think High Shields look like fun for a casual pickup game chances are you just want to play a Merc list with High Shields instead of plugging them in another faction's theme force where they're often completely unsupported.
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