Warmachine Tactics - Photo Breakdown

I'll be honest, I had a lot of fun with my Countdown to Cyriss series. The excitement of a new army was one thing, but I really enjoyed taking limited information and trying to extrapolate what the army could be. I'm getting excited for the Warmachine Tactics Kickstarter project that starts on July 10th, so I hope you'll indulge me as I take a walk through the three images they've released so far and try to figure out what it could mean for this potentially amazing game.

This one is the least telling, but definitely gives a good idea of the varied battlefield. We see a Charger crawling out of a trench, with a Wingterguard Infantryman either staring him down or messing his pants.Above that trench we can see a pillbox, making me hope that there will be some longer-ranged options in infantry and warcasters.

Although they said it in the announcement, I didn't originally catch that this is a squad-based game. Looking at the pictures on the left, you can make out a Warcaster, warjack, a trencher, and what looks to be two storm blades. This means that we won't be controlling full units, but hopefully a single infantry can do something to heavy armor, otherwise the game would probably devolve in to similar pieces fighting one another.

Finally, if you look on the grass you can see a very light grid, confirming that they made this a typical grid-based tactics game (yay!).

Ahh, this one made me happy. One thing I love about tactics games is seeing my hit chance and damage. I don't know why, but something about having that information right there is darn satisfying when making decisions.

Infantry health has also been boosted slightly. The Winter Guard has 20 hit boxes, which is quite different from his typical "Oh you passed my defense? Don't worry about rolling for damage."

If WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) is in effect, then this Long Gunner is going to be chucking grenades in addition to standing out in the open and firing his rifle. It's also another good look at terrain, showing a small labyrinth of stone walls, open lanes for warjacks, and wide open ground for silly Cygnar troops to die in. I really hope terrain is destructible - I'd love nothing more than to charge my Juggernaut through those walls and get to a squishy warcaster trying to hide on the other side of them.

And the answer to whether we'd be controlling the likes of Caine or Sorscha. Allion Jakes isn't a model available in the game, and I don't recognize her from the fiction. It's hard to tell whether this is a stock name from the game or created by the player (a Khador caster named Allison Jakes would be more telling). Odds are very good that this is a journey warcaster - no where near the level of major warcasters, but it's safe to assume that there will be some character progression.

On the interface we can see that Jakes has

• 20 health 
• 4 focus 
• a handcannon or magelock
• If this follows the Journeyman Warcaster, the bottom image is an Arcane Bolt, and the top-left is an Arcane Shield. 

Pretty standard fare so far, which is why I really hope there's character progression that lets you unlock focus, powers, warjack bonds, etc. Don't get me wrong, characters in tactics games can have a basic attack and some utility options (a spell, a bomb, a fast move...) all the way up to 10 different spells. The breadth of options isn't as important as what the game lets you do with them, but since this is based on an existing game I hope we get a bit more control, even if it's something like picking between 2 ability options everytime you level a la X-COM.

Speaking of X-COM, next to her health bar is a familiar faded shield. If this follows X-COM at all, and it should, that means that a full shield means "cover" and a half-shield would mean "concealment" (or partial-cover in X-COM).

Finally, all these images say one thing to me: "Nothing about this can't exist on a mobile device." Seriously, Warmachine Tactics would be such an amazing game to play on PC or on the go. Its asynchronous multiplayer also lends itself to mobile gaming, letting people sneak in a turn of WM:T every time their boss isn't looking (admit it, you'd play this at work!)

That seems to be all they're giving us so far. I know I'm stoked for the 10th to roll around so we can see what this Kickstarter is all about. The worst part about it is that all the Kickstarter projects I've followed usually need about a year to see the actual project completed. While I'd rather they take their time and make a good product, I also want it now!

See you tomorrow!

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