Warmachine Tactics - Kickstarter Impressions

It's finally here! The process of bringing Warmachine to the PC has begun, and I'm not disappointed. Like everyone else, I spent some time looking through everything on the Kickstarter page, and things are better than I imagined.

We will get the warcasters from the campaign as pieces for our armies! I'm so excited for this, because it opens up a lot more ways for PP to get people in to the actual game. Much like Magic's digital games are always promoting the actual card game, Warmachine can now be one of those things that people don't just stumble upon in their local shop. And the fact that they're destroying the molds after sending them to their backers will make them a huge collector's item.

And how awesome are some of those guys? If you haven't seen it yet, PP has released stats for each faction's baby warcaster, as well as stats for a new model that will work for Cryx or Cygnar. Check out the document here.

A dual-faction warcaster is also an interesting change. People have been theorizing about it ever since Karchev's fate became unknown, but this confirms that PP isn't afraid to pull the trigger on it. Looking at his stats, I really like that he's just similar enough that it's the same person, but he has his own Cygnar or Cryx twist to his spells. If I played either faction I'd probably be more excited, but I love the idea regardless!

It looks like PP is doing rewards the right way. The core game is available for $20, which I think is an absolute steal. The $40 mark is where things start getting interesting, with a variety of in-game exclusives, limited edition novice warcaster models, coins, patches... and if you really have the dough, you can get put in the game or have yourself painted as a warcaster!

As a Warmachine player, the $205 goal is super tempting. All 7 exclusive sculpts, in-game warjack skins, coins and gold cards (I assume a gold foil stat card), a patch, the soundtrack and access to the beta of the game? Yes please. 

The intro video also gave another look at the game in action. I hope they show more, because I'm really curious to learn about how the environments work. The video shows a somewhat vague, gridless field at one point, and later they show faint yellow squares. Please please give me the option to turn on a grid for more precise movement!

One of the newly announced features I'm incredibly excited to see in action is customizing your warcaster for multiplayer. I figured we'd be growing our single-player caster, but I assumed everything in the multiplayer realm would be set in stone like the tabletop game. Instead it sounds like everything in the game will have a basic set of stats and abilities, and we'll get to purchase things like "warjack bonds and special orders" with XP earned through playing. This will be awesome because not only will we be able to tailor our armies exactly how we want them, but every match will be that much more unpredictable. I would love to see this implemented in the tabletop game in Mark III!

One thing they look to be doing is giving alternate color scheme options. I doubt we'll get full control over our army's appearance, but it will be nice to field Khador in their white scheme for a change. Who knows, we may even be able to submit color schemes for PP to implement in to the game! Stuff like this could really encourage more people to paint, and that's never a bad thing.

Speaking of aesthetics, those terrain images are beautiful. Who knew trenches could be so nice to look at? And I'm so happy to see that the game will make extensive use of terrain - the videos of people standing out in the open made me a bit leery, but it looks like we're being given a lot of stuff to maneuver around so that we don't have to look like we're in a Civil War reenactment.

The only potential downside I can see to this is that I imagine further campaigns and armies will be an additional charge. I.e. you can play the Cygnar campaign out of the gate, but we'll likely be buying all future content at full-price. I hope the Kickstarter has a way to get this content at a reduced rate, because my faction A.D.D. will be so pleased that I only need to spend $10 to play a new army online, rather than a few hundred in real life. Paying for additional content isn't a bad thing by any means, but I'd prefer to pay a single sum and unlock everything, rather than slowly trickle my purchases.

As of this writing they're at nearly $300,000, with only $150,000 to go. This is Day 1, so I think it's safe to say that Warmachine Tactics is good to go. It will release in a year, which is going to be a long wait. Fortunately I'll have my PS4 to keep me company, but when August 2014 rolls around I will be glued to my PC for months.

Needless to say, I'm excited, and there's a lot more on their page worth checking out. Get your pledges in now and help Privateer Press create the game we've all been waiting for!


See you tomorrow!

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