Hot Takes on Warmachine MK4

I've had a few hours now to digest the Warmachine MK4 rules, and here are my newborn hot takes.

Command Cards

New to Warmachine MK4 is the concept of command cards. Before a game, you choose a hand of five cards, which can do various things from grant pathfinder, extra range, stealth, reposition, et cetera. The basic cards are free, but cards with more potent effects are available if you pay for them with the points you'd otherwise be using for your army list.

My read on this is that the command cards will take a similar role to what objective abilities once did. They'll be able to grant pathfinder or magic weapons at a key moment, and help solve problems that models in your list might not otherwise be able to get around.

No Free Strikes, No Facing

Eliminating free strikes and facing might simplify some things, but it's going to really take some getting used to. When a model leaves melee, instead of being attacked, it now must forfeit its combat action.

This kind of feels like D&D's disengage action. Not having to worry about facing will simplify things, but it will feel odd for a while.

Unit Movement

Units no longer have a leader, and there's no command range, no formation, and no more press forward action. You choose to run or to charge. 

The way they move now is supposed to speed things up. One model moves, then you place all the other models within two inches of it. All models in the unit that started unengaged get to attack, but only models attacking targets engaged by the model that initially moved get the charge attack bonus.

"Remember that a model in a unit that was engaged prior to being placed as a result of its unit charging must also forfeit its Combat Action that activation unless it is placed within the melee range of any models that were previously engaging it"

Again, this whole process by which you move one model and place the rest is going to take getting used to. 

It seems like it could lead to some odd outcomes, like charging a model up to a small obstruction and placing unit members on the opposite side. On second thought, I think you need to place models in the unit with line of sight to the model that moved, so maybe that's not an issue.

Another thought on this change: any effect that grants a single model pathfinder or gives a single model extra speed will now be able to speed up the entire unit.

Swappable Heads and Arms

Warjacks and warbeasts will now come with supplies to magnetize them and switch parts. It's an interesting idea. It really does seem like they're planning to produce fewer warjacks overall, but include so many different arm and head options that you can recombine them to form warjacks that fill the roles of all the jacks that existed previously in MK3.

For example, the four different heads on the Cygnar Corsair warjack will give the jack either an arc node, shield guard, advance deployment, or dodge.

Arms are swappable too, giving you the ability to put ranged weapons, melee weapons, or shields on your warjacks, as well as choosing more or less expensive parts to alter the warjack's point cost.

They've also announced that warjacks and warbeasts will be more powerful, and all of them will have what amounts to dual attack.

Terrain Changes

Hills and elevation are back, although the complex method by which line of sight is determined from a hill seems to have been simplified. Ladders and stairs are also included in the terrain rules, which should let me build some fairly cool terrain, given that falling damage is also now back. When an enemy model climbs up to the roof of a building, I can force hammer it off the building and it will take fall damage. Maybe I'll build a flat-roofed terrain with an acid pool to push somebody into.

Rough terrain no longer halves movement. Instead, it requires a flat two inches of extra movement. That should make it easier to calculate and speed up play.

Armies and Cadres

Themes are gone. Instead, they're breaking factions apart into "armies" that seem to roughly correspond with what used to be theme forces. The primary differences here are that you can no longer play themeless, and that casters are now locked to specific armies.

There will be "cadres" which can join multiple armies within a faction, but which are which have yet to be revealed.

Game Formats

One of the biggest questions players had alongside all this is whether we'd be able to continue to use the thousands of dollars in models we've accumulated over the years. The answer? Yes. Kind of.

The "unlimited" format will allow all MK3 models, but some MK4 content, such as swappable warjack parts and customizable spell racks for warlocks and warcasters won't be included. I'm actually not even sure whether command cards will be allowed in the unlimited format.

The "prime" format will include mostly the new models, but will allow a curated selection of legacy models. That list has yet to be announced.

There's also a couple different game types. Whereas "assassination" is exactly the game we've always been used to playing, there's also a "execution" game type, wherein only a caster can kill a caster. If another model brings your warcaster or warlock to 0 boxes, it becomes "vulnerable", which sounds like a temporary knockout.

Miscellany

There are a lot of other changes that are difficult to group. Sprays and AoE attacks no longer use templates - sprays affect models in a straight line, and AoEs affect X models within X inches of the target. There is no more deviation. Electroleaps are now 3 inches instead of 4 inches. Running models, instead of doubling movement, will add five inches. There are also no more half inch melee ranges - all models have at least a one inch reach.

But what about my faction?

We don't know everything yet, but the four announced MK4 factions are Cygnar, Khador, Orgoth, and Dusk. Dusk appears to be a mash-up of the destroyed remnants of Retribution and Cryx. This, from what I gather, means that Retribution, Cryx, and likely Menoth are gone, having been destroyed by infernals. 

It sounds like Convergence has likely been rolled into Cygnar, and Mercenaries will likely remain in some way, although it's hard to say whether merc casters will still be a thing or whether it will just be mercenary solos and units joining other armies. Crucible Guard is also an unknown.

The former Hordes factions are something they've said they'd announce in 2023, but it seems likely that not every faction will survive. With only four full factions, plus grymkin, infernals, and minions out there, it seems safe to say that we'll lose grymkin and infernals, and keep probably two of the main factions. 

There's more information every day, so I think I'll post this before it becomes irrelevant or outdated.