Warmachine & Hordes Lock & Load Outpost Live Blog (MK III Demo Game Today!)

Lock & Load Outpost Is going to be held at the North West Gaming Centre this weekend and we're covering it with a Live Blog over Saturday & Sunday.

Since we're going to be taking a look at MK III of Warmachine & Hordes we want you to include your questions below that we'll try and get answered.

You can win yourself a Con Exclusive bundle simply by commenting throughout the day on the Live Blog...

It includes a Skorne Agoniser Plushie, A Privateer Pins Starter Set and two exclusive miniatures including the Blindwater Brew Witch Doctor and the Brute Thrall Femme Fatale Variant

This event is running 24/7 throughout the weekend and that means even during the early morning there were gamers here who had powered on through the night playing Mangled Metal.

The guys who love Warmachine & Hordes are tough it seems!

One of the big games from event is the Spell Draft where people get some interesting lists where they lose their Warcasters and Warlocks BUT they draw some random spells to replace them.

This means you can be lumbered with an insane list or something rather off the wall and crazy...

The Iron Arena is a great way of getting to play some Warmachine over the weekend. These are casual games where you can compete for points which then allow you to pick up prizes from the event.

People are really enjoying just being able to turn up and play games n this rather neat gaming space here at the Northwest Gaming Centre.

As well as the Spell Draft there's also the Team Games where you pick lists/players to face off against and then duke it out to see if you can come out on top.

I like the idea of team games where the different factions can complement each other.

A fair few of the armies have actually got painted forces here for Warmachine & Hordes and we thought we'd show off a few of the nicest looking pieces.

We'll check back in with some more awesome looking miniatures over the two days.

As well as actually playing Warmachine & Hordes the folks here are also showing off some of the board and card games from Privateer Press.

They have cracked open Undercity, High Command and zombies Keep Out!

If you're here at the event tomorrow morning (Sunday) then you can get your hands on this rather awesome Con Exclusive miniatures. She won't be painted of course but she's rather awesome we think...

Additionally you might even be able to nab yourself breakfast for that early 4am start before the Keynote Speech.

We continue to look at what's been painted up by the people here at Lock & Load Outpost.

It's really nice to see some painted miniatures for Warmahordes and I will continue to scout.

From what we've shown so far what caught your eye?

So Mangled Metal finished at 4am last night and Michael came out on top. We have a chat with him about his army of choice - well, Butcher, and then what else he plays in MK II.

You can see some of his great Trollbloods below that were painted up to match his tartan.

Keeping with a painting theme we take a look at some of the entries in the Golden Thrall Painting Competition.

We'll see if we can see more of them as the day moves on.

Element Games are hosting Lock & Load Outpost here run by Privateer Press at the newly re-branded Element Games North West Gaming Centre. We talk to Tim who is the Events Manager here and learn about the growth of this company.

We're also going to be delving into how things have worked out during their big refit AND where things could be going in the future with new tournaments and more.

We're getting to talk to some more champions at this event and that means talking to Ed who won the Spell Draft which is a really new format and a lot of fun.

We talk about the list that he took, the spells that he ended up with, and what he's looking forward to in Mk III

As the day continues more folks are pouring to the tables and getting Iron Arena games on.

It's great at events like this where they're focused on a specific game to simply turn around and get a game as and when you want.

Of course it helps that points and prizes are up for grabs meaning that the games are still competitive regardless of their casual nature.

One of the things that they've looked at doing here at Lock & Load is showing off some better tables with some more characterful terrain.

If you play on these tables then you tend to get some more points. Also, check out the fantastic Circle Orboros miniatures.

While we know that Warmahordes players were fanatics for their game and there are some cosplayers out there we didn't think we'd see any here in Stockport - until - a Shredder popped up looking for her Tenacity.

We get to sit down with Undercity and see how the game plays out.

So far its going well as we bash bandits

Come and join us (see above & below) to watch the Keynote Speech from Privateer Press for Warmachine & Hordes MK III.

Watch live video from PrivateerPress on www.twitch.tv

What are you looking forward to seeing from the new edition?

Some key points from the speech earlier today...

• Themed Forces Are A Key New Thing
• Two Types Of Book...
• Command Books (Contain Rules for you Faction)
• Themed Books (Contain Rules for your Faction in a themed setting - this means new units and new profiles that will help you build proper themed forces)
• New Hordes Faction Teased - Got a Creepy edge to them!
• Rebuilding & Resetting for War Room - Now Up & Running

The lucky gamers here in the UK now have their Battlegroups for Warmachine & Hordes and they have been enjoying cracking them open and having a look at the new models, rules and cards.

Watch out for some neat stuff from us on this front soon today.

So, as well as getting stuck into building their models some of the folks here have actually started gaming as well. This means there is a lot of errr and ooooh as they start to work out the changes to their models.

You can also see the finished Khador Warcaster by Jon who we talked too yesterday below.

All of the tables here have great looking Frontline Gaming F.A.T Mats which have been themed for Warmachine & Hordes.

Have you picked any of these up? They went very quickly here...

Some answers from the Privateer Press team to questions posed by the EU fans...

1) The big drive behind MK III they were looking to try and avoid awkward interactions on the tabletop and get people playing bigger games allowing for bigger point games.

2) It's been weird playing with the new edition rules over two or three years as they keep having to switch back and forth.

3) They have increased FAs in different places in the case of many themed forces allowing you to take a few more or a few less on a case by case basis.

4) Wrapping Up The MK II Storyline - It wasn't easy and they placed a lot of importance on the story and narrative for the game. They based the release around how long it would take to finish off the story.

The last two books for Warmachine & Hordes that they did were there to wrap things up for the story and put it on a new path.

5) Few new versions of rules popping up in War Room that give you a heads up as to what's coming within the world of Organised Play

6) Their favourite factions? - They have a lot of love for Skorne and Cygnar. Also really looking forward to what's coming for the Mercenaries.

7) Will there be a House Shyeel Themed Book - We'll have to wait and see but...maybe? It might end up in the Command Book.

8 ) King Makers Army - Mercenaries, will be available soon for folks to pick up. No Quarter might be used to show off some of the themed lists before they arrive as books.

9) Will the Hardcore Rules be Updated - Yes they will be tweaked a little bit as things go.

10) Diving into Themes and Themed Lists - They will add units that they think will work for each faction. They won't make everything uniform but they will maintain a global balance and make things look awesome - not everyone will get similar units.

11) What Will The Next Plushie Be? - The Deathripper!!!

12) Which model went through the most iterations before its final form - the Vindictus had a lot of work done to him. Haley 2 also went through a lot of different phases. All of the Warcasters went through a few changes over the period of development.

13) Spoiler for the new faction... Hollowmen (spooky?)

14) There IS a new Cephalyx Caster - but they won't say when it's coming

15) Will they be coming to SmogCon 2017? Yes Privateer will be coming along to different conventions in the EU.

16) Overall World Ranking System? - Errr... Mars 2030. So....no, probably.

17) Light Character Warbeasts - Big Ol' Vulture Warbeast...maybe, possibly, in a few years haha.

18) New Troll Gargantuan - He comes with a big ship on his back and he looks awesome.

19) No - they have no plans to give the Shredders Tenacity (ah well!)

The Trollbloods are getting themselves a new Gargantuan as you've heard in some of the answers from the Q&A. With that in mind we have a bit of a rules spoiler in that it vomits up crabs and spawns them on the table.

As well as that they've shown off some more renders including Kallus 2. See what you think of more spoilers below.

Thanks to Advanced Maneuvers & Party Foul for the images.

So you've seen what's inside the box and here is what you get when you've painted them up.

As much as I'm not really a fan of the boys (and girls) in blue and gold I think these models have turned out really nicely. Building up from the basic blue plastic you'd have a lot of fun working on these.

I also have to admit that the nice lightning effects would be fun to get right on Cygnar.

Not bad right?

We sit down with Peter to talk about what's inside the Trollbloods Battlegroup Box. A lot of the components are the same between the boxes that you'll be seeing from Privateer Press but they have a great synergy so friends can snap these up and get stuck in quickly.

Watch out soon for Peter's Pink Trolls!

I'm a big fan of the Trollbloods from Hordes and so it's a delight to see them painted up like this. Here we have Ragnor Skysplitter alongside a Troll Axer, Troll Bouncer and a Troll Impaler.

Ragnor has been great in games it seems and everyone is liking him. How do you tackle painting your Trollbloods?

We said we'd be showing off some fantastic Trollbloods - shamelessly I'm a big fan of these epic creatures so of course I had to show them off properly.

Here we have a selection of his force which I think is packed full of character. Pink might not be the first port of call for the Trollbloods but I think that it looks great here.

The other neat move is having that ace tartan design done too

We have a chat with Craig who has been playing Convergence Of Cyriss and learn a bit more about how the weekend has gone for him and what changes Mk III has made to his force.

It will be interesting to see how things change over the next couple of weeks/months but the one big thing everyone has been saying is that they love having more 'Jacks at their disposal.

It's been quite a long day today but as things wind down we still have a few people getting stuck into the game and playing their MK III bouts out.

After a lot of long hours playing almost 24/7 these folks have some incredible stamina. I think the excitement kept them going!

We're back with another Player Interview for Warmachine & Hordes and learning more about MK III. Ben (epic name) is a Menoth player and so talks about his experience with MK III now he's got a few games under his belt.

It's also good to talk about the venue and the weekend as a whole and also a few plans for the future.

We're announcing the winner of the small competition we did during the day today AND getting some final thoughts from the organisers and folks behind the gaming here over the weekend.

It has been a great time and we hope that you enjoy the Demo Game and the Unboxings. Get stuck in and let us know over the next couple of days what you think of the game.

A big thanks to Element Games and Privateer Press for helping us get stuck in here and inviting us along.