yool1981

New purchases are fine. The main issues are: To be "forced" into them by major changes in the ruleset. To have minis (often assembled, based and painted) unusable because you don't want to get into the faction they end up in. There are actually some changes I am very happy about. As an NB player, I found the Gatreauz Bokors quite cool to add some voodoo vibe to my Zoraida crews. My dream has come true and I will happily purchase and paint them. I only wished Sammy Lacroix was Swampfiend also :p. As the themes are reinforced, I keep NB and Arcanists as tournament / exhaustive collecting factions but I may dabble into other themes I've always liked without liking the faction as a whole (in Outcast, I like Viks, Freikorps, and Hamelin, I am neutral to Tara and Bandits and I really dislike Daw and Levi). So all in all I find the themes very motivating and they help set up achievement goals for my painting schedule. However, some changes hurt a lot, especially in NB as both my bases and paint jobs are decided and executed per faction (so my Lynch crew will never fit in TT if I play them one day). Additionally, I anticipate that Versatile models will be needed for crew variations (and possibly competitivity). This means that any TT Versatile model I buy and paint for Lynch will have to be bought and painted anew if one day I decide to get into TT.

Except everything is painted in my NB theme and I have no interest in playing Guild now and certainly not Dashel. 10T maybe one day but not now and I have to repaint everything to keep painting coherence: So no this is actually a big deal. NB players got hit badly. fortunately I play arcanist also

I'm not much into the Cult's trend towards body horror but I can understand the appeal. And ECB Black Ops' art & concept are awesome! It is my favourite unit aspect-wise in TOS (with the motorized scouts of Abyssinia). The art for TOS is great imho. Even "standard" steampunk stuff like King's Empire looks very sweet in a certain way (although Edmonton definitely has something he tries to compensate for with this big rifle of his ...). When I look at the art I just want to buy everything :D. It used to be the same with Malifaux.

Thx for sharing the list. I like the idea of themes driving the game. As do many people, I think NB took an enormous hit for this edition, which I am not entirely comfortable with (see below). But hey, "c'est la vie". If the game is even better than before, I'm OK with the changes. I am surprised to see that Broken Promises let us get upgrades increasing the recruitment pool and then, the next book shrinks it. Are there planned upgrades or card abilities increasing the recruitment pool in M3E? For example, just before the M3E announcement, I bought journalists for Pandora and Austringers for Lucius... I cannot even imagine what the McMourning players must think. When M3E was announced, I made a list of models that were in danger of not being played in Neverborn anymore. That's a lot of invalidated purchases and / or pain jobs (I have one colour scheme per faction I play)... In red, not playable anymore In orange, only via henchmen In green, via master or in-faction In black, no news LYNCH Old Key Word – DARKENED · Jakob Lynch · Hungering Darkness · Gwyneth Maddox · Mr Graves · Mr Tannen · Illuminated · Stitched Together · Beckoner · Depleted LILITH Close to Lilith in Game or Fluff · Lilith · Cherub · Barbaros COLLODI Old Key Word – PUPPET · Collodi · Vasilisa · Hinamatsu · Hodgepodge Effigy · Bunraku · Marionnettes · Mysterious Effigy · Stitched Together · Wicked Dolls · Lucky Effigy · Brutal Effigy · Arcane Effigy · Coryphee · Shadow Effigy · Carrion Effigy · Mannequin LUCIUS Old Key Word - GUARDSMAN · Captain Dashel · Master Queeg · Guild Sergeant · Guild Austringer · Guild Guard · Guild Hound · Guild Investigator · Guild Pathfinder + Traps · Guild Rifleman · Mounted Guard · Warden Old Key Word – MIMIC · Mr Graves · Mr Tannen · Beckoner Guild Lawyer · Terracotta Warrior · Ferdinand Vogel & Beast Within PANDORA Old Key Word – WOE · Journalists ZORAIDA Old Key Word – SWAMPFIEND · McTavish · The First Mate · Bayou Gator · Wild Boar Old Key Word – WP <=4 (Most Common hires) · Nurse · Papa Loco MOST COMMON MERCENARIES · Anna Lovelace · Aionus · Hans · Johan · Lazarus · Sue · Freikorps Trapper

PP has indeed released the Grymkin faction that at times looks heavily inspired by Malifaux. http://privateerpress.com/hordes/gallery/grymkin-the-wicked-harvest Fortunately for Wyrd, PP's miniatures are a hundred miles below Wyrd's miniature quality imho. However, PP's artworks usually feature humans with correct proportions between their limbs...

Thanks a lot for this show. There is even more depth to the fluff of TOS than I expected. Is there a world map in the book showing the borders of all the world countries (or at least the main ones)? I will definitely grab the rulebook once it is out in .pdf format (I mean the book with fluff in it). The only small disappointment is that the Guild Fluff Portion of the book was already provided in Above the Law (TTB). I may even play TOS once the French faction is out (I know it will be out one day :p).

I finally understand one of the issues I have with the new art. Besides the abovementioned problems, I always found the characters disproportionate (small heads, big limbs, especially at the bottom). It is as if one was looking at the drawn character from below (child or small person view). Do you think this is intended?

There is always an excuse. It is not a M3E thing because it existed before, it is just a flaw. Release schedules are late, supply chain management is aweful if you don’t order things from Wyrd directly. That’s just Wyrd, they are the Laureen Hill of miniature gaming :D.

At least 3 shops I know report the same issues... My experience is that if you order directly from Wyrd everything goes well but shipping costs and high price per product are deal breakers for me. If you order from stores, prices vary but supply chain issues are the same for all of them. I have been involved in miniature gaming for 23 years now and I played a fair share of games. Wyrd is as bad in supply chain management and/or distribution network set up and management as it is good in designing games.

There has been some improvements on that part on the online stores lately. Well they had a hard time handling M2E alone. The delays were already significant when there was no TOS nor M3E. Especially in France, some LGS just stopped bothering due to the poor distribution structure and the unreliability of the release schedule. It is very fortunate that, once we get our hands on Wyrd's products, they end up being awesome :D. Design is Wyrd's strength. Supply Chain management is Wyrd's weakness. If I have to chose I prefer the current situation but a little improvement wouldn't hurt either.

Just received a notification from my usual store that Brotherhood of the Rat was being reprinted and unavailable. It is however currently sold on Wyrd's webstore... I don't get how the distribution network works. It's a big weakness from Wyrd.

The artwork is nicer than usual. Igors are still a thing. Still a problem in the proportions of the head (too small) and the rest of the body as was the case for many spoiled artworks. May I humbly suggest to change the colour of the background of those previews? White and bright yellowish green distorts the colours of the art imho.

I thought the Grave Spirit was not a Tyrant but something else, more powerfull, coming from another dimension.

Themes could also collide / converge with faction identity, especially in the case of dual faction masters. For example, how would Hoffmann / Zoraida / Lucius /Marcus... play differently depending of the faction you declare if all the theme models are available? Or do they play roughly the same? I guess it would be a matter of the declared faction versatile models (and maybe non-versatile models but the 1SS penalty may be a killer as the themes flesh out) or perhaps generic upgrades. It would be really interesting to first see how a theme is built by the game designers and how they ensure the variation of playstyle (or at least a constance in competitivity) in both factions a dual faction master is in. One of the problem of dual faction masters in M2E was that they were often only competitve in one faction and the performance in the other was lackluster.

For next topics, perhaps things like: _ Planned new crewboxes and other boxes (art & contents). Perhaps with the amount of new refs in the M3E. _ Artworks for new masters & models (Eurdipides for example...) _ Theme contents for those where the Beta is advanced enough to tell _ How you built themes (content & option choices) & the design philosophy (for example is a theme built to play in all strats & schemes or be optimum in some of them to avoid all rounders) _ Fluff evolutions Happy Thanksgiving ! These are very positive changes. Thx for sharing this news.

I think you refer to p.9 of the TTB 2E core rules.

Thx a lot for the recap. It is always interesting to hear how other people see the fluff. Also I realise that with time my memories may have altered. I recall the shifting loyalties events and the fight between Kitchener and Mei Feng differently but maybe it is bad memory on my part (I remember Kitchener being in an armoured vehicle and his avatar clashing with Mei Feng’s as she tried to defend the workers). About the Neverborn if I remember correctly many of their mutations from their original forms come from being enslaved by the Tyrants they are not all self inflicted. The Nephilim inflicted black blood upon themselves but if I remember correctly their Nephilim form and growing mechanics come from enslavement by Shezuul.

If I remember the spoilers correctly, the Horsemen should also be Versatile. What is the reasoning motivating having other Versatile models? Won't it be a bit counterproductive with a theme driven M3E? Won't it limit future design space?

I certainly hope Versatile models are not the most cost efficient in any role in a vaccuum or it will invalidate other thematic models. I hope that they have enough "versatility" to bring something different but not "compulsory" to each theme (eg not always the same thing and not something that is badly needed by a given theme) or else it will kill list diversity and/or reduce design space. It would become similar to the Merc issue from M2E. The Versatile trait is imho a hard one to balance for M3E. I am ok with paying 40 USD for the sculpts of the Arcane or Mysterious Emissaries alone. As a matter of fact I did :D.

Yep I liked the previous sculpt better. Here it's just another woman waving a magic staff. A sculpt and pose we have seen a thousand of times.

I understand why some may be disappointed by losing the master specific upgrades for the Emissaries. I am quite ok with the change, it’s fluffy to see the Effigies grow. If Masters have an edge over Henchmen leaders, shouldn’t the Effigies the Henchmen get for free be upgraded ones or would that be too powerful? Shouldn’t there a rule forbidding to have the Effigy and the Emissary into the same crew?

Less upgrades may not be such a bad thing. Emissary upgrades were sometimes more or less successful fix attempts to some masters. I do not think this is a coincidence they appeared in the 0SS errata upgrade book. Generic faction model upgrades were plentiful in theory but the competitive variety was in practice limited. Masters upgrades included staple upgrades, situational upgrades and straight unuseful upgrades. So all in all, less upgrades but homogeneous usefulness seems a good choice imho.

I don’t know about Infinity but I have played Warmahordes extensively from the start to the end of Mk2 and I found the standard abilities to be very useful. I don’t remember Mk2 Gunfighter to be as long as you say. Perhaps it is a bad memory on my side or a change in the last Mk3 edition . For example, Pathfinder that is the equivalent of Unimpeded is just an icon on the card. As it works very simply (you ignore severe terrain when you move) and is very common on cards I prefer to have it in the rule book. I understand. On my side I prefer to see just a few words of common abilities so that I immediately know what the specific abilities of the model are. I find it easier to apprehend but I understand I am in the minority.

Ah Ok. I guess I am in the minority then. I’d rather have a reference card (such as the one that was shown at Gencon for conditions and actions or even bigger ones of the size of a leaflet ala seven wonders) to avoid referring to the rulebook and lighter text on the cards for very common abilities (hard to kill, terrifying, unimpeded, incorporeal, flight...). I think it makes cards easier to apprehend and less scary for new players. It also makes errata much easier to handle.

Speaking of Streamlining why not defining some common abilities such as Terrifying in the rulebook? This makes the card unnecessarily text heavy imho. I understand this may help game play, especially for new players, but a reference card may be enough, as there are already ones for actions and conditions.