Sin City Dispatch Special Report: Mark II is coming!

Hey everyone and welcome to a special issue of the Dispatch!

The latest issue of No Quarter has finally hit the shelves and it includes an interview with Jason Soles, one of the game designers for Privateer Press. Not too many details were revealed but here are some of the things that caught my attention.

• Formations will now be centered on the unit leader, meaning that the unit will have to cluster around the leader instead of trailing out in a long line. In addition, the leader stat line is being dropped and it will use the regular stat line instead. All units will also effectively gain the Field Promotion ability. This means that if the leader is killed, one of the regular troopers immediately takes his place and becomes the new unit leader.


• Out-of-turn movements and attacks have been limited to streamline play.


• All models are able to charge through rough terrain, though they will suffer the usual movement penalties.


• A majority of the warjacks will have their MAT and RAT increased, plus most of the power attacks will lose their minus to hit. They will also be more durable as you will no longer be able to disable them, only destroy them.


• All of the factions will have some kind of mechanic so those 'jacks will stay up and running that much longer.


• Force creation and the point system have been drastically changed, including the basic aspects of force composition from the sounds of it.

When does all this new goodness come into being? Well, the Mark II field test begins on April 6 with all of the information being made available online. The important thing to note about this is that this is a "field test", not a "play test". PP is releasing this information so that the Warmachine community at large can help iron out the fine details so that when the books finally do come out they will be the best possible.

Speaking of books, the next big question is when will Mark II be officially released? The new Mark II will be released in the beginning of 2010, with the new faction books coming out after that. The good news is that the faction decks should be available about the time that Mark II is released, so people will be able to play with all of their minis without having to wait for their faction book to come out.

And it doesn't end there! After Warmachine Mark II will be Hordes Mark II. This will not be as drastic a change from a rules point of view as most of the rules carry over between both games, but no doubt there will be changes made to the various units as well.

Well, that's it for now but I'm sure there will be another Special Report going up once the field test begins. Until then, may all of your dice come up Dragons!