Rampant Unfounded Speculation - The Other Side

[Swiglitz]

Is it me, or does that big gribbly monster at the back look a bit like a variation on the Nothing Beast. There's a distinct Deep One vibe to the smaller, man-szed monsters and a cloaked dude with a staff in the back. Maybe bad stuff happens with the Breach and a bunch of Neverborn/Tyrants get stuck Earthside, bringing the fight to us?

 

Either way, very exciting

[zFiend]

This really seems like a cool project for sure, but I wonder how expensive it'll be. Taken that Wyrd plastics aren't the cheapest one's out there and it has been balanced by the amount of models you need to play. But now if you need an army scale amount of models that might become quite expensive. Will there be a kickstarter to this? 

[trikk]

I actually find Wyrd models to be quite cheap compared to others. 

I really would like to play a Warmahordes scale game with 30 or so models. 

 

Also:

 

Mx Wave 1 is almost done (Austringers being the last ones AFAIR)

Mx Wave 2 is around 60% done (around 8 models per faction missing)

Mx Wave 3 is a lot smaller (Crossroads 7 is already done, so its 4 models per faction (3 + emissary), which is a lot less than Wave 2)

[Absolution Black]

I am thinking that you could possibly utilise a lot of the models already available in Malifaux in the new game, certainly scope for minions like Guild Guard etc..

 

Potentially a "squad" box containing 10 models for example will likely cost about the same as a crew box?  Each model does not need to be individual, could have say 3 poses per box?

 

I can't see it being any more expensive than Warmahordes, and certainly cheaper than 40k for example!

[Phinn]

I do not think that new game necessarily means less support for the old one. For example once somone has finished painting the artworks, it's not like he can go and help with writing the lore or designing rules for new models.

[Absolution Black]

I think Wyrd will just focus on the main three.  As I said earlier, I can't see much more needing to be introduced into Malifaux, just additional minions/henchmen etc over the next couple of years.

[Rathnard]

I do not think that new game necessarily means less support for the old one. For example once somone has finished painting the artworks, it's not like he can go and help with writing the lore or designing rules for new models.

 

This. I had a much longer response, but you summed it up nicely.

[-Loki-]

I'm guessing it went something like this in the office.

 

[Rob Lo]

I tend to look at it as showing that Wyrd as a company is doing well enough to feel they can move into another segment of the miniatures market, rather than only supporting their one main game and occasionally putting out one off board/card games, and that the reason they're doing well enough, is the success that Malifaux 2E has been. If they approach the new game with the creativity they've shown and continue along with what they've learned from the Road to Plastic, it's got every chance of being an interesting, successful game. To think this means a 'lessened focus on Malifaux' is quite a stretch, and really unlikely.

[jonahmaul]

Why would you "support" one off board/card games? I mean sure some such games are designed for a boatload of expansions, but is hardly the default. Most only get expansions if the original game is highly successful in the first place.

Well Puppet Wars is certainly set up for expansions which have never come to fruition.  I don't really know the other games well enough but whenever there's been a fuss about a new game it's died down very quickly.

 

The Other Side may end up being excellent.  But at the moment it feels a bit like a cash cow to me and Wyrd's attempt to run before they can run.  They are still a relatively small company (in a dense market place) and they could lose customers as a result of trying to do too much.  Again not saying this will happen as we have no way of knowing at this point.  But I do feel they need to finish off Malifaux M2E and not let attention be diverted elsewhere (for example being more cautious with release dates or marking sure that models get released when they say).

[trikk]

Well, from what I see Malifaux is rising in popularity rarely- its getting more accessible in Poland and we`re starting to build a community as the mechanics are excellent (IMO of course). Eric J also said that the queue for Wyrd booth was the biggest ever on Gencon AFAIR, so it might not just be Poland.

 

I also prefer a new game than the Nth expansion to Malifaux as its getting hard to avoid repetition and repetition kills games (if you have X units that are basically the same)

[Bengt]

Well Puppet Wars is certainly set up for expansions which have never come to fruition.  I don't really know the other games well enough but whenever there's been a fuss about a new game it's died down very quickly.

 

The Other Side may end up being excellent.  But at the moment it feels a bit like a cash cow to me and Wyrd's attempt to run before they can run.  They are still a relatively small company (in a dense market place) and they could lose customers as a result of trying to do too much.  Again not saying this will happen as we have no way of knowing at this point.  But I do feel they need to finish off Malifaux M2E and not let attention be diverted elsewhere (for example being more cautious with release dates or marking sure that models get released when they say).

Were there expansions promised for Puppet Wars 2nd edition? Or was it just an expectation because 1st edition had it? Just because it's possible to expand something doesn't mean it's planed.

 

But anyway, if they keep up the release rate there wont be a lot, if any, unreleased Malifaux by the next GenCon. So I'm not really surprised that they are planing another miniature game. You really want to keep the new releases flowing if you want attention and sales.

[moxypoo]

Just look at 40k and the amount of shiny new toys they have to cram down their fanbase's throat every update, and the amount of time and money it takes to do that year after year. If Wyrd expanded Malifaux 5-6 models per faction per year, then that's a pretty good flow. We haven't seen every kind of Beast, or Undead, or Spirit, etc imaginable yet, so there's still plenty of wiggle room. 

 

Completely agree with this.  From my superficial following of Privateer Press releases they seem to follow a schedule where they release a handful of models for each faction per year, and it seems to work well for them.  I don't know anything about running an international company, but it seems to me that diversifying your product line is definitely a good thing, as long as the company avoids a huge bloated catalogue.

 

In terms of game life, I wouldn't mind seeing Malifaux rest at 2nd edition for awhile with a trickle of new models for each faction every year.  First edition had gotten bloated and a little imbalanced, which was corrected with M2E.  In my opinion, M2E is such a well balanced and complex game that it'll take a long time for players to "figure it out" and come up with the best options for any scenario (if there even is a series of best options).  In fact the VP system with partially asymmetric objectives actively discourages "one list to rule them all."  Compare this to Warhammer 40K where it's entirely possible to figure out the most powerful lists within a few days of getting the rules, and you can see why GW has to constantly churn out huge volumes of new stuff to keep players interested.

 

To avoid the same fate as 40K, Wyrd will have to slow down on new Malifaux units eventually (which is a good thing!) and release other miniature games like the Other Side.  I have to say that I'm really excited to see what this game is all about and how it plays.  No guarantees that I'll buy into it since my hobby time is extremely limited, but I'll make judgements when we know more about it.

[Astrella]

I hope this doesn't mean Malifaux will lose support, makes me a bit iffy to get back into it since I also worry a bit that this might end up pulling the community in two between players of either game.

[Bengt]

Thinking a bit more about the "not compatible", it may just mean that a lot of Malifaux models aren't appropriate in larger engagements. Even some of the factions doesn't have much reason to have a presence on earth. So while there will be a Guild Rifleman (or something very similar) model, enough of other models from Malifaux wont have rules so it doesn't make sense to call this game an extension of Malifaux.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Well, and Malifaux has an advantage over a lot of games with more "defined" paths to victory. Even in games like Warmachine and 40k where there are theoretical paths to victory other than killing, from what I've seen its just more efficient and easier to get kills in 40k and caster kill in war machine. The fact that Malifaux was built on very general paths to victory, that change to some extent every game, gives the player base the experience of things changing. That allows Wyrd to change the VP conditions on a fairly regular basis without incurring backlash or wildly upsetting an established meta that has calcified over the years.

 

So Malifaux has an additional path to keeping the game current and fresh, and to shift the power balance among models without having to constantly create new masters, new crews, and slews of new models year after year. Wyrd can release a handful of models for each faction, and change the stats each year, like they did with gaining grounds 2015. Eventually they can potentially create a new scheme pool, allowing more flexibility in how the game gets played. 2014 strats & 2016 schemes for example.

 

Given that, I don't think a new game will hurt development of Malifaux. I just hope the game doesn't draw players away from playing Malifaux as a primary game, as I don't really personally have any desire to play a game the size of war machine.

[CannibalBob]

Completely agree with this.  From my superficial following of Privateer Press releases they seem to follow a schedule where they release a handful of models for each faction per year, and it seems to work well for them.  I don't know anything about running an international company, but it seems to me that diversifying your product line is definitely a good thing, as long as the company avoids a huge bloated catalogue.

 

 

 

While the Privateer Press release cycle has worked well for them, I think it is really starting to widen the cracks in the game.  I think the constant horizontal expansion of that game is going to really hurt it in the end.  I think that Privateer Press has already reached the point where Warmachine and Hordes have rather bloated product lines.  A lot of the things they are releasing anymore, despite having some nice models, have very niche roles in the game or are very close in rules to other units.  They have used up a lot of the design space in the main factions.  I think that their expansion method would have worked out better if they had introduced multiple smaller constrained factions rather than keep dumping into the main factions.

 

They are reaching the point where they really need another game because they cannot keep dumping new stuff into Warmachine until the end of time.  I have an entire room at my house for miniature and board games and I own thousands of dollars of miniatures across various games going back twenty years.  I own 3 factions for Warmachine/Hordes and I now question every single purchase for that game.  I realistically have more stuff than I could possibly play regularly in a year  (even if I had more time to play regularly than I do) due to the way the game is designed.  They keep dumping new stuff into the game and at a certain point you step back and look at your collection and think "this stuff is not super compelling rules-wise, and I already have far beyond the amount of stuff I can regularly use.  Should I bother buying any more?".  Warmachine/Hordes is the first game that I ever considered selling any parts of my collections.  The game is not designed in such a way to allow you to rotate through a lot of models on a regular basis and the game is not built to effectively allow the regular use of niche-models since you do not realistically know if their niche will have a use in any particular game until the game starts.

 

I think Malifaux is better designed for horizontal expansion and has a ways to go before it ends up being bloated.  For Warmachine to continue to grow Privateer Press really needs to move it to be a full-scale battles game.  Otherwise they simply have too much crap in the product line for the scale of game that it is.

[trikk]

This is what I kind of wanted to say. Book 3 is ok, but you cannot expand Malifaux in this way forever.

[decker_cky]

Were there expansions promised for Puppet Wars 2nd edition? Or was it just an expectation because 1st edition had it? Just because it's possible to expand something doesn't mean it's planed.

 

But anyway, if they keep up the release rate there wont be a lot, if any, unreleased Malifaux by the next GenCon. So I'm not really surprised that they are planing another miniature game. You really want to keep the new releases flowing if you want attention and sales.

 

There were rules released for models that never even had 1.0 puppets. I believe the puppet art continued to be developed after puppet wars dropped. I think it just wasn't a success so they dropped it. 

[CannibalBob]

This really seems like a cool project for sure, but I wonder how expensive it'll be. Taken that Wyrd plastics aren't the cheapest one's out there and it has been balanced by the amount of models you need to play. But now if you need an army scale amount of models that might become quite expensive. Will there be a kickstarter to this? 

 

I think that a lot of the current cost of the Malifaux models is based around the scale of the game.  The game is meant to play with a fairly low model-count and so they need to charge a relative premium on the models in order to make ends meet with a product that requires purchasing less physical product. 

 

My guess is that if they are creating a larger scale game that they will be able to lower the price per model to keep the cost of playing the game within reason.  I am not an expert, but I believe that the main cost in the production of plastics is the tooling of the metal mold.  Once you have that it costs very little to produce lots from that mold.  The problem with Malifaux is that due to the character-driven nature of the game you cannot expect a ton of sales from most molds.  Most of the time you will only sell a single copy of any particular box to a player.  Even in the case of minions most sets come with enough of a minion in the box that people rarely double up (Bayou gremlins and piglets come to mind).

 

So the costs per model is fairly high in Malifaux to compensate for the small sales each model/set is likely to generate.  But it should be entirely within their ability to create sets that can generate larger sale runs for a larger scale game.  This should allow them to push down the price of certain sets (units and models that will see duplicate sales per player) due to economies of scale coming into effect.  The only way for Wyrd to bring economies of scale to Malifaux would be for the game to accumulate a massive player-base.

 

In my opinion, Wyrd has shown that they are pretty shrewd and intelligent in their business decisions, so I have faith that they could do a good job bringing another miniature game to market.  Sure, they have made some slip-ups and goofs along the way, but they have recovered and grown in a better fashion than any other miniature company that I have seen in the last few decades.  I have not seen a single decision that they have made, good or bad, that does not seem to be motivated by a benefit to their customers, the game, and themselves.  

[DeleteAccount]

I´m all for a new game. Malifaux is fantastic, but I don´t think adding much more references will do it any real favors. I´d hope it can avoid the horrible amount of bloat I feel warmachine and hordes is suffering and the best way would be another new core game to take the heat off from Malifaux and allow it to simmer down and have a slower new content release.

[CannibalBob]

I was thinking about this, and I think that if Wyrd can pull off a good rule-set and good price-point for a large scale game that this might be their ticket to a big spot in the market.  As long as they can generate a good buzz, deliver a quality game, and not have too many production issues then I think this is a really smart idea.

 

I think game companies need to diversify their product lines in order to grow and stay healthy.  Companies like Privateer Press do show that you can do well and grow from a single game, but if Warmachine/Hordes were to rapidly tank then they would have serious issues and probably cease to exist rather quickly - or at least scale down significantly.  You only need to look at what happened with Rackam and Confrontation to see that.  You can see that these companies also recognize this by their attempts to create games for other genres such as card games, board games, RPGs, etc (both Wyrd and Privateer have been doing this the last few years) to varying success.

 

The miniature games market is pretty competitive right now, but I think the Board/Card game market is even more competitive.  There are a lot of successful players in those markets and the barriers to get in are lower.  Plus if you move into those markets then you have to compete with Fantasy Flight and I think that is really tough to do right now.  Fantasy Flight has a lot of resources at their disposal since they were purchased by Asmodee.  They have a fantastic games design team, a very good art department, and good distribution chain (which lets them sell in big-box retail stores and hit a wider sales base).  Every game they put out tends to be pretty high quality, regardless of how good the game is (I rarely see complaints about the quality of the components in the boxes).  They also tend to be the go-to company for IP licensing.  It is really tough to compete with the stable of high-selling IPs that Fantasy Flight has.  Seriously, who can compete with the Star Wars IP?  Slapping Star Wars on a box is almost  a license to print money, and FF has a good track record of making good games with that IP to boot.  I think Wyrd can do a better job leveraging their experience and name in the miniature games market.

 

If you look at the current state of the market for miniature game you will notice that it is full of niche products.  Not many companies make directly competing products.  The only companies that I see who are duking things out in the same design space right now are Spartan and Hawk Wargames who are fighting for the Space Fleet & 15mm planet assault spaces.  Everyone seems to have managed to carve out a specific niche.  But it also appears that the "skirmish" area is getting pretty saturated.  I think Wyrd has a really good presence and foot-hold in the skirmish games space, but with even Games Workshop trying to move into that area with Age of Sigmar it is rather crowded.

 

Privateer Press seems to be slowly moving away from the skirmish space, but they are moving at the rate of molasses.  They seem a lot like GW and 40k in that respect.  They started out with a skirmish game (Warmachine mk1 and Rogue Trader 40k) and then created a 2nd edition that moved to a strange design space that is a bit big for skirmish but a bit small for company-sized games.  Eventually 40k moved all the way to being company scale.  Privateer needs to do this as their product lines and game-design space is getting bloated really fast, but I don't think they have plans to do this anytime soon.  But there is only one real game in the company-sized game and that is 40k.  Nobody else has managed to break into that space, and it seems that GW is not having the best time as they have shown negative profit-growth for a number of years now and they just dropped Warhammer Fantasy like a sack of bricks.

 

I think there is a current window for another company-scale game right now.  I also think there is a window for someone to jump into that space and establish themselves before Privateer Press figures out that is the direction they need to go with Warmachine.  In my opinion Wyrd has a very good opportunity here, the question is if they can pull it off.  But of all the current miniature companies, I think Wyrd is probably the smartest in regards to knowing what they are doing so I think they are well suited to the challenge.

[valhallan42nd]

I have faith in Justin, Aaron, and Mason to put out a tight rules set. I also think this is going to destroy my wallet.

[Malistrad]

I'm excited because I see the possibility of something hinted at since Malifaux first started; playing Tyrants mayhaps?

[CannibalBob]

I'm excited because I see the possibility of something hinted at since Malifaux first started; playing Tyrants mayhaps?

 

I understand your point, but I have to point out that you can currently play as 2 different Tyrants in Malifaux.