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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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,… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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,… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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).… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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!