Burrowowl

The game developers over at Privateer Press have been busy. Not busy producing new IKRPG material, but busy juggling what was once a nicely streamlined skirmish game WARMACHINE. Every year since its launch, Privateer Press has released a major expansion to the product, from Prime to Escalation to Apotheosis, then Superiority, and most recently Legends. Each of the four original factions has grown into new niches and fortified early strengths. It’s quite a good game.

But after six rule books and the introduction of the HORDES product line, things have gotten unwieldy. Each of the several-dozen models available has its own special rules, often creating exceptions to a core set of rules that is quite streamlined and almost elegant. The reminds me of a beautiful woman putting on makeup and jewelry. She puts a little something on to draw attention to her eyes, maybe a pair of earings. That’s all nice, but taken a little too far she’ll look like a tramp or a clown. The interactions of special rules had crossed the line at some point. The Privateers had to put an online FAQ up to keep the errata and rules-interaction rulings straight.

So they’re hitting the reset button. In April, we’ll see previews of the rules revisions. Every model’s point cost has been adjusted, unit and warjack rules have been revised, power attacks are being overhauled, and all your stat-cards will be obsolete when the second edition hits the shelves. I eagerly anticipate not the new release (I haven’t played a game of WARMACHINE in over a year), but rather the fanbase reactions. The pro-skub and anti-skub enthusiasts will be pouring out of the woodwork on this subject.

Oh, and here’s to the Juggernaut getting an tune-up.

It remains true that Privateer Press has no intention of publishing Iron Kingdoms: Full Metal Fantasy roleplaying game material in the 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons rule set. It also true that I have no intention of doing the work necessary to convert the existing IKRPG material over to 4th edition. That does not mean that I won’t do some of the grunt work making Mediawiki templates that may be of use to those that are willing to do the heavy lifting. The Gobbernomicon seemed like a reasonable place to do the work.

The 4e Power Template had to cover a lot of variability. Some are usable at-will, some once per encounter, some only once a day. Some are attacks, some are utilities, some have side-effects, some have multiple targets, and so on. Happily, Mediawiki’s markup language allows for “if” statements and switches and such, through the addition of the Parser Functions extension.

Though I consider the power template to be a work in progress, I have also undertaken to create a creature/NPC stat-block template. A lot of the same things recur in the game-mechanics of each monster. Everything has an Armor Class and the three secondary defenses (Fortitude, Reflexes, Willpower), they all have hit points, etc. By comparison, the monsters seem easier than the player character abilities. I guess that’s appropriate.

Please feel free to hammer at them a bit, tinker under the hood if you like, or give feedback about the functionality or documentation. Otherwise it’s likely to suffer the ravages of interest drift and laziness. Don’t make me sic /tg/ on it.

Little known facts about the Butcher of Khardov:

• Khadoran Kommandants call him “sir.”
• Orsus Zoktavir does not tolerate card-counting.
• The Butcher of Khardov has a weakness for Victorian romance novels.
• Orsus Zoktavir has a gun. No, really.
• The Butcher has a preset kill-counter that’s stored as a 16-bit signed integer. He must be rebooted after every 32,768 Cygnarans he slays.
• Due to his Suio-Ryu fighting style, The Butcher’s wave-slicing stroke is unbeatable when in the water.
• Orsus Zoktavir is a vegetarian.

There’s been a fair amount of speculation about the future of the Iron Kingdoms, a campaign setting by Privateer Press ever since the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons was announced. They had put any publication of stand-alone books for the roleplaying game on hold, shifting their creative efforts entirely towards their miniatures wargames and drizzling out some RPG material in their magazine. But no word was forthcoming regarding the future of the d20 3.5 RPG product.

Now there’s word from Doug Seacat, their lead writer:

There has been considerable speculation and expectations about the RPG line so I wanted to clarify the situation before GenCon. As our fans know the RPG line has won a number of awards over the last several years and has earned a dedicated following. We have great appreciation and fondness for the readers who have stuck by us despite the occasional long wait between these books. It has been gratifying to have the support of people who have eagerly devoured every scrap of setting information and RPG rules we could produce.

As you are aware, we put future book publications for the RPG line on-hold after we determined that 4th Edition was a reality. With the future status of 3.5 edition uncertain and not knowing the shape of 4th Edition we decided it would be a mistake to invest further time and resources on upcoming products. After evaluating our options we have decided not to adopt 4th Edition for the Iron Kingdoms. We will not be converting our material for the Full-Metal Fantasy line to that system. We will continue to provide periodic RPG articles in No Quarter Magazine for the foreseeable future. This will be the best place to find information pertinent to your Iron Kingdoms campaigns in the months ahead.

As we have additional news or information related to the RPG line or pertinent to our existing books, including those which are currently out of print, we will let you know either here or in No Quarter Magazine. We are definitely aware of the difficulties being faced by those seeking the out of print books in particular.

No 4th edition, but no word of what we’ll be seeing aside from 3.5 articles in No Quarter Magazine for the foreseeable future. No big announcements in the works, either.

Seeing as I like 4e, and I like the Iron Kingdoms setting, but am more or less fed up with the d20 3.5 ruleset and do not care for homebrewing massive quantities of game information, this probably means that I will not be running an Iron Kingdoms game for the foreseeable future (by which I mean when the Privateers publish something other than 3.5 or Pathfinder).

I don’t care for the whole Khador == Soviet Russia oversimplification, but with the release of the Kayazy Underboss unit attachment and Yuri the Axe, there’s a rather solid cold-blooded-killer army available now for the Motherland:

Faction: Khador
Army Points: 750/750
Victory Points: 26

Kommander Sorscha Kratikoff
- Destroyer
Yuri the Axe
- Manhunter
- Manhunter
Doom Reavers
Kayazy Assassins (8)
- Kayazy Assassins Underboss
Kossite Woodsmen (6)
Widowmakers
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
Gorman Di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Kell Bailoch
Croe’s Cutthroats (6)

Each model is directly associated with assassination, Kommander Sorscha being renown in WARMACHINE for her “woosh” tactic, leading to the quick demise of many enemy Warcasters over the years. The Destroyer has traditionally played the role of Sorscha’s assassination-partner for the Wind Rush to Icy Gaze combination along with Eiryss. Each of the other mercenaries is explicitly a professional assassin, as are the Kayazy ally unit. The Widowmakers are snipers, not assassins, but this is a rather fine semantic point from the perspective of Khador’s enemies. The only models that are a bit of a stretch thematically are the Doom Reavers (a penal unit of berserkers driven mad by their enchanted weapons). I included them due to the criminality of their background. The Kossite Woodsmen are treated as mercenary near-criminals in the background information, and add to the “hired gun” flavor of much of this list.

It’s also almost entirely Advanced Deployment, which is big fun. Line your little gaggle of murderers up against precisely the assets you mean to. A variation is also possible for 500pt games, but doesn’t quite have the punch and lacks the thematic overkill.