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Privateer Press Reveals New Game Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika
February 20, 2020 by brennon
Privateer Press this week revealed their plans to bring a new Sci-Fi game to the tabletop which takes cues from Warmachine & Hordes but changes things up a little bit too. Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika is coming to Kickstarter soon.
You take on the role of Warcasters, the scions and master strategists who fight at the head of empires, worlds and nations. Using the power of Arcanessence you will be able to power up and use your mighty Warjacks and command your troops on the battlefield with cunning and guile.
Things are changed up a little bit when it comes to Warcaster when compared to its older siblings. Instead of being present on the battlefield, the Warcaster takes a gods-eye view of the battlefield. You will take command of a force which can range from between twenty-to-thirty models in scenario-driven games on the tabletop.
Gameplay is focused around the use of a 'Rack' which is the command console the Warcasters are able to use in battle. This is represented in the game by a deck of cards which can be customised by the players in order to bring the right array of powers and abilities to each bout.
Another nice twist is that the game uses an alternating-activation turn sequence which means that the action is constantly switching between players allowing you to feel more involved in the process. I think pretty much every game should look at this nowadays simply for a better sense of quality of life!
Starting Factions
It looks like we're going to get the chance to play as two different factions when the Kickstarter launches. Here we have the Alliance...
...and the Marchers. Both of the factions are looking very nice indeed and I like that there are similar qualities between them but also enough difference to make them stand out on the tabletop. I like the hyper Sci-Fi nature of the Alliance and they would be very handy for those who dislike painting anything organic!
In saying that, it would perhaps have been interesting to see them work on a faction that was a significant departure from the other. Maybe something a bit more alien looking with spikes and claws?
I am very interested to see what Privateer Press do to make this game an intriguing prospect. I already like the miniatures and the hints we've seen for gameplay are certainly leaning in the right direction.
What do you think to this new venture from Privateer Press?
"...the hints we've seen for gameplay are certainly leaning in the right direction"
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I like the miniatures, but… 35mm.
What’s the problem with 35mm if I can ask?
I’m not claiming there’s a universal problem, but there are problems for me with 35mm. The underlying problem for me is that it’s bigger than it needs to be for my needs, in that 35mm miniatures take up more (storage and gaming) space than, and are to some extent incompatible with, 25mm cum 28mm cum 28mm heroic cum 30mm cum 32mm miniatures. (I’m also wondering how far this scale creep will go.) I understand that in theory the larger scales, even slightly larger scales, can facilitate finer detail, which is something i’d like, but in practice i’m not seeing that happen above 30mm and instead it seems to me that larger scales are being used to make the same amount of detail (that can be found in smaller scales) easier to produce and, in theory at least, paint. Indeed, it is in the smaller scales that i’m finding the advancement of finer detail being made, so much so that on first glance i didn’t know if these were, say, 35mm, or 28mm, or even 15mm. Even if 35mm miniatures had finer detail i think would still prefer a smaller scale, be it something in the same spectrum of scale, such as 28mm, or be it 15mm, and for manufacturers to focus on finding ways to improve the level of detail at those scales.
I think the intent with them upping the scale to 35mm was to keep Neo-Mechanika a specifically skirmish-level game. With a lot of other skirmish-levels, they make the models bigger so that you can have fewer of them on the table at once; with mass-battles like 40K, Warmachine, or AoS, they make the models smaller so you can have more on the table while keeping a decent amount of detail. PP’s intent seems to return to what Warmachine originally started as, so it would make sense they would do some scale creep to keep the battle size way smaller. Though comparing them to other WarmaHordes stuff, they’re not too out of scale for some cross-game compatibility; to quote Mad Robot, there’s all sorts of people in the world, some bigger and some smaller, so there’s nothing wrong with having 30mm troops that are taller than normal. Right now, my biggest wonder is if they’ll find a way to blend this with their other offerings a la Riot Quest so you can wage battles across time as well as space. (Just imagine these guys traveling back in time to fight their ancient counterparts, finding a world that still operates using traditional old-school mechanika and magic, or return to Immoren where the savage races have been left to take over)
This is all true.
However I am not as concerned with troops as I am with terrain. Good looking sci fi terrain is hard to come by, and quite expensive.
All my current sci fi terrain is 28 to 30mm. Having a mostly non standard scale like 35mm (with scale creep increasing from there, all wargames have scale creep) is a big deal for me.
What kind of terrain do you use? I’ve found that the Sector Mechanicus stuff put out by GW works well for bigger scales.
‘Fantasy races’ and ‘mutants’ aside, humans do come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but i don’t see this being represented in (fantasy and sci-fi) miniature ranges for the most part, and i think there’s a limit to how much miniature scale crossover can be done with a bunch of miniatures that all have roughly the same physique. That limit is fairly tight for someone like me who prefers things to be as true to scale as possible.
I don’t see that making it more difficult to use miniatures for larger-than-skirmish scale games, by increasing the scale of the miniatures or otherwise, is a benefit, especially when it doesn’t make it significantly, or even any, easier to use 35mm miniatures than it is to use smaller scale, 28mm, or 30mm, or 32mm miniatures for skirmish scale games. If anything i’d say increasing the scale makes miniatures worse for skirmish scale games, for much the same reason that it makes them worse for larger-than-skirmish scale games, which is that more space is needed to do less in, with no other benefit (other than the finer detail, which i’m not seeing and i suspect i wouldn’t find to be worth the drawbacks).
Fair point there. Another possible point is that they are planning to keep the games separate, so they intentionally introduced a larger scale so that they would be incompatible on the tabletop, but I personally like to stretch my disbelief a little bit in cases like this (i.e. in 40K you’ve got guardsmen and marines who are roughly the same size, despite your average Astartes being 8 feet tall). I feel the same way about Conquest; the humans are WAY too oversized for other fantasy settings, but the Spires are perfect for a horde of bizarre, alien creatures. Of course, I do understand where you’re coming from, especially in terms of consistency.
The 40K guardsmen that are much the same height as the supposedly 1.16 to 1.5 x taller Astartes is a prime example of what i do not like. Indeed i have been constantly put off buying into those miniatures for that very reason. In short, our mileage varies.
Without commenting on the particular case of the Conquest miniatures, i agree with the general point that aliens, fantasy species and races, and mutants, et al, can quite often be given greater leeway in terms of scale because, simply, their size and physique is often meant to represent something of a different scale and physique. That said, it depends on whether or not someone has something specific in mind, and how flexible that something is in terms of its size and physique in the mind of that someone.
Looks like Infinity. One of the Alliance troops even has the helmet antenna. 🙂
Fine for me, so i can possibly play it with Infinity minis. 😀
Nothing wrong at all with cross-compatibility! Just like Warmachine, even if you don’t like the rules, you can use the minis for a plethora of other things.
I’m not too crazy about the scale difference, but OH MAN those models! The weird thing is that even though they have a far-future Infinity look about them, you can still see the Warmachine influences. I can’t wait to see how the game works, and moreover what sorts of gear you’ll get for the warjacks in this box. (Hungerford mentioned those are lights in the box…what on earth will a heavy be?!)
On the lore side, I love seeing how the civilizations of the Iron Kingdoms have evolved; the Ironstar Alliance shows some elements of Khador and Menoth as teased in the Oblivion campaign, and the Marcher Worlds have some elements of Cygnae and mercenary. I can’t wait to see what else is coming down the pipe (fighting aliens?!)
This looks awesome.
I just hope its not as tournament oriented as warmachine/hordes is, and by that I mean not as reliant on exacting measurements meaning the difference of winning or losing a game.
Warmachine being more functional with 2d terrain became a real issue for me. The players I played against becoming so “anal” about exacting measurements was also a thing. Then the combo list building came along, and Im still out on whether I like that or not.
It was just to hard for me to get into. Which sucks because I really like the setting and models.
Based upon what Hungerford said in their latest livestream, it sounds like they’re making an effort to streamline the terrain rules, expand them into 3D spaces, and make it possible to fudge measurements and rules depending on what works best. (Personally I liked his mention of utilizing a “cypher” to blast one of his opponents off a catwalk) Overall, it sounds like they’re trying to get back the sense of “fun” that Warmachine started out with and kind of lost as it became more about exact measurements and buying models you didn’t really like just to get winning combos. (Which, given I run an all-trencher army, I really don’t care about)
I’m really sorry the player base you’ve encountered has been like that; nothing ruins a wargame faster than people so focused on rules that they forget how to have fun.
Indeed, that is always the bane of a more casual narrative wargamer like myself. It usually only takes one person who wants to win above all else to really skew an entire group towards gradually changing their play style as well, which I always see coming.
All those changes really sound good to me, so I will keep an eye on this game for sure.
Great looking game figures could be a good idea.
Nice enough idea.
I wander what it says about the state of the PP’s finances that they are forced to use kickstarter to finance it though? At one point they were serious contenders for “the next GW”, now they’re back at indie level. Bit of a shame. All been econmically downhill really since mid-MkII as far as I can see.
I think the reason they’re going the Kickstarter route is because they want to gauge how much interest there will actually be before going all-in. With Riot Quest, it was a safe bet since even if people didn’t like the new game, they could still use the models with their existing WarmaHordes armies, so it wouldn’t be a total loss. Neo-Mechanika is a brand-new game entirely with (as far as I can tell) no compatibility with WarmaHordes yet, so if people aren’t as interested, going with a massive release would be a serious financial hit; this way they can determine if going whole hog with this new game will be profitable, or a short-term thing.
I agree entirely. Just at one time of day they could have swallowed that without blinking. E.g 1st ed Monsterpocalypse. The very idea of having to mitigate that risk demonstrates a lack of confidence which can only really be implied by financial weakness. Look at Mantic – they are going the opposite way because they are becoming financially stronger and so able to take on more risk.
Ultimately I’m just guessing, but my spidey senses are tingling on this one.
The other thing that I should say is that at first glance I don’t see anything much to differentiate it from other sci-fi “troops and mecha” style games out there. I’m sure the gameplay will be solid (to begin with, until it descends into a combo-cheesefest a couple of years down the line) but it lacks the x-factor for me from what I see here.
Anyhow, its pretty moot for me based in the uk as PP import prices are humongous. Here’s hoping for a US-UK trade deal soon! 🙂
Mehh —-
meh
With swords and staff this really looks like a warmachine repaint in space. It is “MEHH” all the way.
…Well, it is still set in the same universe, so it’s kind of a given that some design cues would carry over…
Models look quite nice (not sure how they’re “infinity” given that CB pretty much robbed every cyberpunk anime and manga for their designs, making it the most generic sci-fi game ever), but I am worried about the supposed mix of resin and metal within models..that is never easy or fun to put together.
I’m rather happy about this I was wondering when PP were going to make the foray into sci fi.
I did think they’d been quiet recently this would explain why
Altenrating activations is something I’m really pleased about, I’m a big fan of warmachine/hordes but my biggest complaint about the game is the favouring of the Alpha strike” I find it’s not so bad in larger battle games like 40k or kings of war where your army can endure but in smaller games it could spell doom before you even start.
Either way me and a mate are backing the Kickstarter
I think P Press needed to do something, their games were getting a little dry and losing market share to other brands. I was expecting more of a reboot. The step to 35mm I think is a reach to be different from Infinity. I don’t care for a successful company of this size going to Kickstarter. I will get to see what is being said and maybe how this looks next month at Adepticon.
Looks more like a Warmachine “reskin” than a whole new game. If you’ve gone all sci-fi why does the caster still retain the staff (wouldn’t a laptop and wifi connection be more apt).
And (for me) I think that’s the problem, why shoehorn Warmachine into a sci-fi setting (and a game that plays 75% like the old one) when you could have done a TOTALLY different game?
But the final deal breaker is the change in scale, not going to rebuy all the terrain again (although “strangely” if they had done it in 15mm I would have been VERY keen). We need to urge the creators to stop doing statues and shelf ornament sized minis and going UP in scale all the time (it’s bad enough with the scale creep we have as it stands), INSTEAD we need to prompt them to go smaller in scale of minis to allow BIGGER battles (I’m getting tired of Warband sized games, it seems that nearly every game put out lately is a “Warband” game. Lets see something not only different from PP, but different as a game (full stop) come out of a kickstarter if your not going to risk it by going with a kickstarter.
If you want to be technical about the mechanics, the guy with the staff isn’t really the warcaster, he’s a “weaver” – basically a arc node. The warcaster is represented by the player character and a deck of cards and tokens for manipulating troops and “cyphers” on the battlefield, and all of the ‘jacks and soldiers on the field have those receivers on their suits, so the “laptop and WiFi” aspect is present, just not overtly so. I guess you could look at the staff as less of a wizard’s staff like in Warmachine and more of a portable cell tower; given that this is still the same Iron Kingdoms setting in a way, it makes sense that some of the old design cues would still be there. Just look at our world for example: the helmets our modern troops use feature an updated design first introduced by the Germans in WWI.
Based upon what I’ve read in the press releases, Warcaster is more or less a different game and not just in terms of scale or mechanics. The old design cues are still present, but it’s intended to be a standalone product. I think the reason they went with this is because they’re trying to see in what ways they can expand the IP; Warmachine is already a unique IP in the wargaming sphere, so it’s probably an experiment to see what ways they can play with it to change it up. They’ve done similar things with their sub-faction releases, i.e. expanding out the game across the wider world, so doing something across time could be interesting. You’ve got similar stuff with other IPs like 40K that do both the current meta and the Horus Heresy setting.
As for the scale…honestly, I’m not a fan of smaller scale minis. Bigger minis are appealing to me because not only can you have big, good-looking armies, but all the minis have a lot of detail that sets them apart as individual “characters” of a sort. The problem I have with 15mm minis is that while you can do good-looking mass battles with them, a lot of the detail gets muddied when you try to paint them and they lose a lot of their uniquness. With mech- or ship-based games this isn’t an issue as they look good at any scale, but it’s a little hit-or-miss when it comes to foot soldiers. By doing these “warband” games, manufacturers are trying to provide a decently-detailed army for newcomers to paint up and look nice on the tabletop without intimidating them by trying to create a massive 2000-point army. There’s this very delicate balance of “scale of battle,” “paintable details” and “size of army” that seems to keep fluctuating; hopefully with improved digital sculpting we’ll one day get 15mms that look as good as 28mm, but for now we’ve got what we’ve got.
This is to all intents Warmachine in a Scifi setting, no need to beat around the bush. Some people will find this great, others will be underwhelmed. Using the same basic IP or gameplay principles between two settings is okay, others have done that.
Five yours ago I would have probably have gone for this, but personally this strikes me as too little too late. This comes across in terms of trying to do bits of Infinity, Gates of Antares, 40K and to appeal to the existing Warmachine community. 20-30 models is starting to move out of skirmish territory and quite an ask in investment and time to get ready. By todays standards PP’s models aren’t the greatest or the most reasonable either.
Very much agree. It feels like PP were positioned very favorably for the minis craze, but the market upswing basically seemed to pass them by. They tried Company Of Iron a few years back (a more skirmish-based WarmaHordes minus the big models) and it basically went nowhere. I can’t speak for Riot Quest, but those models are tremendously expensive for what they are. And it just feels like PP went from legit player to flailing about among a dozen better games that all seem to be doing better than what PP push out. Shame, really.
Agreed. Underwhelming. And PP has a limited distributionmodel to boot. WM also turned out too dry and competitive for my taste. The scale does not bother me though. Warbands of 12 to 20 models per side and streamlined would have won me over. For now i will wait… and see!