Khador Gun Carriage Coming soon

[Game Empire Travis]

Hey everyone, Privateer Press has officially put up the first of the new Battle Engines up on the "Coming Soon", so it looks like we'll be seeing them all sooner than expected.

Here's the link:

http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/ga ... n-carriage

I'm reserving judgment on these, as many of you know; It's a pretty bizarre addition to the game, in my initial assessment. Finally... $85? That's a lot of scratch for one model.

What do you guys think?

-Travis

[Sand]

I have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach feeling that these engines will be either hit or miss. Some will be taken in every list, and the others will never see the light of day (or they can all be broken and make Warmachine Warengines). The $85 price tag creates a limit on how many people will run them if they're not strong; a situation quite similar to cavalry. All cavalry units have a high price tag (~$100 for a full unit), and we only see the best being played because of it.

Assuming the above, Battle Engines will probably be either overpowered in order to make sales, or as nonexistent as Menite heavy cav.

[Game Empire Travis]

The current speculation is that they'll be costed around 10-13 points, which puts them in the realm of the marquee heavy jacks and beasts out there... If the Khador Gun Carriage is just a couple big guns and a burly impact attack from a charge, I'd expect it to fall short of a model like Beast-09 in terms of awesomeness.

At this point, I'm starting to frame my speculation somewhat, and I'm ready to say that it looks like the War Engines are all focused around ranged/support tech; With the exception of the Wraith Engine (or whatever the Cryx one is called), none of them look like they're supposed to be charging anything. I suspect this is intentional; without a raft of special rules that diverge from the entirety of the current movement and model placement rules, there's just no way something on a base the size of a CD is going to make it to close combat in any meaningful way. Even with Bulldoze, it's really hard for even a large-based model to shoehorn it's way into combat through a lot of other models.

Here's my call, based on the conjecture out there now: either 1. War Engines get some rule like Ponderous or Juggernaut or something like that that allows them to displace other models (potentially only small and medium based models, but could be all models), or 2. War Engines are primarily ranged and support pieces that act as mobile command posts and the Wraith Engine gets Ghostly.

-Travis

[Sand]

10-13 point support units better fulfill multiple roles in the army (ala Covenant of Menoth status) or they'll be displaced by purchasing numerous support pieces already set forth. I'm also concerned about their protection; everyone and their mother can see them and therefore shoot them. Support pieces that are expensive and easy to destroy won't see much play.

Still, this is just speculation. Unlike GW, I have some faith in Privateer press and their ability to create balanced models.