Mk3 after a year.

I think the game is in a better state than it's ever been.

The new Steamroller might be throwing us slightly out of whack, but it's a long term plan.

I love that internal and external balance are better than they've ever been,
Factions are reaching a point where 80% of models are playable and that's amazing.

Locally my gaming group is as strong as it's ever been. We're a small town in central England and have 20-30 players every week.

The price issue might be a problem, but that is UK specific as we're self destructing through Brexit.

Other than that. WHAT A YEAR! Can't wait for WTC lists.

I think I'll just copy and paste what I wrote on Facebook.

Look, if we're being totally honest:

The Mk3 launch went badly. The game was rushed and incomplete. There were a lot of problems ranging from materials and logistics to game balance and things just plain not being playtested or vetted sufficiently. There's no denying or sugar coating any of this.

In that rush, they made decisions that later had to be reversed. Several things seemed to come from nowhere, even the good surprises. Yes, it absolutely would have been better to not sell us the faction decks in the first place, or to have more of this information sooner, and so on. Communication was just plain bad, and it all looked bad.

BUT-

First of all, a new edition was absolutely necessary. Mk2 had reached a point where it was literally unplayable. Don't even get me started.

Second, right now is the most balanced and robust this game has ever been. Not even Denny and Haley are dominating the way any of the problem children did in Mk2. Building one list that an entire faction cannot answer was fairly common back then, but now it's very rare.

That's because they have made a heroic effort and done everything short of release an official apology. In the space of a year, Privateer Press has recovered from something that would have sunk a lot of companies. They're really engaged with us and done a great job of standing up, dusting themselves off, and moving forward.

I've been a bigger pain in the ass than most, but I'm managing my own pain and thinking a little clearer now, and I appreciate their efforts all the more. It's funny- I really wanted to make sure that I pulled my weight in the Northkin CID doubly so, and then 80% of the time I saw model rules and thought, "Well, I don't really have anything to add to this."

I guess that bias is part of my perspective here. Trollbloods as a whole got a lot of help, and the Northkin theme looks like a good mix of casual and competitive play. I was really looking forward to it, but it still exceeded expectations.

I must admitt that i`m getting really bored, and have been playing more and more other games.

I think the game rules and mechanics are better then ever, shure. Whats getting me down are:

1) Themes makes its more boring to build lists. Mostly a tournemant player myself, i find playing in theme obligatory. Most lists build themseselfs and its only very minor tweaking. Lists dojoing was something i enjoyed greatly. But not anymore.

2) In tournaments its ton of almost the same armies you play against, because of themes.

I don't think anyone has tried to come out and say PP launched MK3 perfectly. I think we all have our little gripes, there's things we all would like to have our 5 minutes to talk to PP about. I just don't understand the people who's reaction to MK3 was to just throw their hands in the air and scream " that's it, I'm done. Game ruined!" without giving PP any time to let the dust settle. Now that things are starting to get better it's really funny when I see the people in my local meta who did this around the store and they're like " i still hate the game because XYZ" and I'm like " they fixed X 6 months ago, they changed Y 4 months ago, Z is good for the game". They literally can't respond, it's great.

I also don't expect from a wargame the level of balance and mathematically proven consistency I want to find in an average eurogame. WM&H, like every wargame, is an Ameritrash design at heart with all its flaws, but without them it wouldn't be a real wargame.

I have some gripes about PP pricing which I find straight unacceptable (that's why I seek alternative models for my WM&H armies more and more) or about model quality. But this isn't an mk3 problem per se. Most things that used to be a bit problematic for me, like a bunch of broken casters or the Skorne problem or some rules inconsistencies, have been dealt with in various errata and I expect even more improvement with further CiD and errata.