Mk. III

Wow! All the news about Mk. III hit me like a well-placed Time Bomb. As with everyone else I assume, I had no idea that it was coming. I have a few thoughts on the matter and additionally this impacts my near future, so here's a blog post about what I think of the incoming release of Mk. III.

First of all I started working on new casters following Lund and Crusade to get a better feel for how our various options play. Not only was this to get some variety in my gaming from Haley, it was also to expand my horizons and perhaps have a Dark Horse list or two at the ready. With the upcoming Champions ruleset possibly being only casters from ADR, you never know what you need to know how to play either. Now, all of the above motivation is gone. From June onwards we have absolutely no idea what will be our strong picks. Because of that I am doing a 180 and switching to Haley2 and Haley3 again for the rest of Mk. II, probably. I have to play them while I still can.

Personally I wasn't nearly done with Mk. II. Having started in August last year that might not come as a big surprise, but I feel I had so much more to explore and learn about the game, factions and even Cygnar. At the same time I totally see the need for balancing the worst offenders in this game, but I had really wished PP would take an incremental approach instead of these major revisions that have been the staple of miniature gaming for as long as I can remember. In this digital day and age, would it be so hard to distribute patches such as computer games have been doing for a long time instead? Games like StarCraft have evolved incrementally since its inception and that takes away a lot of the risk that comes inherently with big revisions. I have absolutely no idea what will be playable for example when Mk. III hits us. Will Cygnar still be the kind of faction I love to play even? So many unknowns which just puts me off.

A lot of this might be irrational thinking: PP has been doing a great job with this game and from the leaked changes it seems they are moving in the right direction. However, having invested literally thousands of hours in a miniature game that was all but destroyed last year when Age of Sigmar came out, I can't help but fear a déjà vu. At the end of the day I trust in PP's ability to make this a great improvement and I'm looking forward to seeing the new rules.

I was working on a big piece: A huge case study on Haley2. At this point in time it is in an early drafting stage. Given that this caster only has 2 months to live though I no longer see a reason to complete it as it will become obsolete right after it's finished. I was really looking forward to working on this project, but I am certain there will be other chances for this once I get the hang of Mk. III.

I have probably 2 more tournaments with Mk. II: One this weekend and one in the end of May. My goal is to send Mk. II off with a bang by sending the Haleys on a killing spree. The first game with the Haley pairing is tomorrow already and I will face Cygnar. I anticipate a Haley on either side of the table... Don't worry though, I'll keep posting reports and evaluations of my games until the very last, although my motivation for bigger case study type articles no longer exists there is still a lot to learn which I believe will be applicable for the new edition as well.

Warmachine & Hordes Mk. II is the best game I've ever played, hands down. Let's hope Mk. III is even better!