Privateer Press Summer Deals (Warmachine)

Greetings ladies and gentlemen, Whitestar333 here with a different sort of article for you today.  For those unaware, while Games Workshop is raising prices on 200+ items, Privateer Press is offering special 25 point deals on products through their online store.  Unlike the GW online store, you usually cannot purchase models through the Privateer Press store and so when these items do come up, they are often at a pretty nice discount.  Kirby asked me to do a quick review of them for all of you who've been interested so that's what I'll do.  I'll be rating these on a 1-5 scale on Longevity (how often you'll use the models in the deal), in a similar style to when I rated the Battlegroup boxes on my own blog, but I'll also rate these based on the Power of the 25 point list in the deal.  Since each of these deals has a savings of about 25%, you at least know that you're getting a pretty good deal here.  There are packages for Warmachine and Hordes factions but instead of having you wait for both at once, I decided to write them separately.  Naturally, let's start with Warmachine first!

A curious monetary point about the new Privateer Press plastics...

This was pointed out by me to an emailer. Recently Privateer Press has been working on releasing more and more Plastic kits, specifically multi-part plastic Warjack and Warbeast kits which allow multiple (generally three) potential models to be made from one purchase. You basically get one body and then the bits to make any of the options provided and with some nifty magnet use, you have an all in one purpose Warbeast/Warjack. This is a great step in the right direction as one of the major advantages Games Workshop has over any other model company is they produce excellent multi-part plastic kits. Regardless of the asthetics or detailing on the models, plastic is much easier to work with and coming with lots of little bits makes all of us happy. Closing that barrier down is good.

The Balance of Warmachine & Hordes

So my actual playing experience is still pretty limited and mostly done on Vassal with Warmahordes currently. Hopefully one day Vince won't moan and complain when I want to have a game with him and then we can start going to clubs/groups/etc. However, a lot of reading has been done into the game and factions and one of the most polarising discussions is that of balance.

Warmachine Colossals

So ya I'm late to the party in noticing this but um...cool.

A Company Embraces the 'Net

Recently, I've become quite charmed by Dystopian Wars. (That's a portion of my badly photographed fleet to the left. WHY U NO WORK CAMERA?!)

For those of you who don't follow the 'lil wargames that pop up, Dystopian Wars is a combined arms steampunk wargame, primarily focusing on naval engagements. It plays quite well, even though the rules are quite MK1.

The first thing I always do when I start up a new game is go look at the forums and fansites. I don't think I have to tell any of the readers of this blog that the e-community is probably the fastest way to getting good at your wargame of choice.

Comparison: Games Workshop & Privateer Press

I'm going to pre-face this by telling everyone to be nice in the comments. Don't flame and don't be fanbois/fangirls - this is an objective post and nothing is going to be gained by whining about companies or flaming each other.

With that out of the way... This post is going to look at some of the good and bad points of both companies in a comparison. Puppy has already done this alone with Games Workshop. As we move towards 2012 there is a massive disparity in terms of what each company does well. Whilst their gaming systems are very different in terms of size and scope, they are some of the largest tabletop wargames out there. Combined with the Privateer Press' founders seemingly basing their company off what many believe Games Workshop does poorly, it's only natural to see such comparisons made (and knowing the Internet and people in general - the flaming and fanism [<-- new word]).