"My Thoughts On Warjax Games Club Podcast #50"

I'm going to preface everything that I write below by emphatically stating that this blog is written in the spirit of fun discussion & maybe a little bit of respectful debate. It's not at all meant as a judgment or negative statement on anything the Warjax crew talked about in the episode in question.

In episode #50 of their podcast (which by the way, CONGRATS on 50!), they discussed their newfound love for the 75 point Steamroller variant of Warmachine and how they're gravitating to it a bit more than Brawlmachine lately.

I have the utmost respect for Brandon, Craig, & Shaun. I have been a fan & proud Patreon supporter of Warjax ever since I first heard about them last year. I continue to support them & enjoy their content. As a matter of fact, I believe it was through their YouTube channel that Donna & I first learned about Brawlmachine & the LOS crew originally.

I also want to point out that before I ever put fingertip to keyboard, I reached out to them through DM with Brandon to ask permission to discuss the episode; giving them a 2 week heads up & chance to tell me to kick rocks, which I would have accepted and understood had they said "no". 

Thankfully, Brandon said they were not only cool with the idea, but excited to hear what I had to say. If you've watched the episode (or any episode for that matter), this shouldn't come as a surprise. If I can sum up the Warjax crew in one sentence, it'd be: a solid group of guys who love the game & are passionate to share their love of it with others.

Also, nothing that I write below is meant to insinuate that "I'm right. They're wrong". I'm simply offering my own thoughts on points they brought up. Nothing written here is meant to be argumentative or combative. It's written with respect for their opinions on the matter, but just exploring my own experiences / thoughts in relation to the things they discussed. If I word something that gives the wrong impression in that regard, I apologize ahead of time for my lack of clarity.

If you haven't had a chance to watch the episode, it can be found here: 

Warjax Podcast Episode #50 

While I'm primarily going to address the points in the chronological order the guys brought them up during the podcast, I may at times bundle a few related points together. A few times in the podcast, they came back to a previous topic when another member touched on it. In those cases, I'll join the different conversations in the same point in the blog for the sake of clarity & keeping things concise. 

Faction Hopping

Early in the discussion, Brandon mentions how "faction hopping" is a problem they experienced with Brawlmachine that isn't an issue at 75 points. That is to say bouncing from playing once faction to another in rapid succession without giving either of them a decent amount of consistent table time.

While I will absolutely agree that faction hopping is easier to do at 25 points, it isn't at all something you have to do. You can definitely build a 25 point list for 2 different factions for less than the cost of building a single 75 point list for a single faction. However, there's no reason why you have to do that.

In the year that Donna & I have played Warmachine / Hordes, we've played Brawlmachine exclusively. In that time, I played Cryx for 6 months straight followed by playing Skorne for 6 months. I just recently started playing Protectorate a couple weeks ago. 

I gave each faction at least 6 months of playing at least twice a week to get plenty of experience and exploration of each faction's pros & cons. In that same time frame, Donna played Protectorate for about 7 months and has played Circle for the last 6 months, with no signs of moving to another faction any time soon.

Craig mentioned later in the episode that their faction hopping was driven by the schedule / frequency of their batreps & the desire to keep things fresh for the fans who enjoy them. I can definitely empathize with that subconscious motivation. 

Several times over the last year, I found myself trying to rush to build / paint a new model or unit for one or both of our current factions to throw something fresh into our batreps. I recognized that a while back & I've tried to ease off on doing too much of it. Of course, I'm still working on new models / units to add to our lists, but we try not to change more than 1 or 2 models in our lists until we've played with the current version of each lists for several games. 

Can't Play Huge Based Models / Restricted Models in Brawl

There's no counter to this point. This is most definitely a restriction to Brawlmachine that there is no workaround for, but to my mind, that's not really a problem. 

Donna & I have collected a few huge base models. I've got a Desert Hydra for my Skorne and we both have a Colossal Warjack for our eventual Merc armies: a Galleon & a Ghordson Earthbreaker. We do plan to eventually get them built to bring to the table, but even when we do, we're likely to only play around 35 points at most in our lists. Truth be told, our day to day schedules are hectic. We're grandparents who are quite active in our granddaughter's life, we both work more than one "day job", and we're both black belt instructors at our Jiu-Jitsu gym here in town.

So, when we do get the time to game, it's usually limited and as such, playing more than 35 points would just be difficult to put it plainly. Also, we've found that the amount of models we field in Brawlmachine hits the sweet spot as far as what we're looking for out of the game.

We've discussed playing larger point games on the clock to keep them as short as our plays of Brawlmachine, but we both agreed that we don't want the restriction of the clock. We recognize that playing under the threat of the clock adds a juicy form of tension that I'm sure adds another enjoyable aspect to the game. However, while neither of us tends to suffer of "analysis paralysis", we still like the laid back freedom of playing without the clock hanging over our heads.

Ok...I kind of got off on a tangent about clock as it relates to game sizes, something they didn't mention in the episode, but I think it fits here. 

As for not being able to play certain models / units that are overpowered in Brawlmachine, we're okay with that too. The Epic List isn't really all that long and there are plenty of other options from all the different factions to choose from. Of course, it helps that we got into the game playing Brawlmachine from the beginning. So, we've played under the umbrella of the Epic List restrictions from the start. As such, we've made sure not to buy any of the "banned" models along the way.

Oh, yeah...that's another thing. The rules state that players should not feel forced to restrict themselves to the Epic List; especially in casual games. The models / units are really only "banned" in tournament in the spirt of fair and balanced play. 

Can't / Don't Play Expensive (Points-wise) Models In Brawl

Shaun notes that there's the feeling that the points cost of some models / units feels too restrictive to field them when you're limited to only 25 army points. To that, I'll simply quote the great philosopher Forrest Alexander Gump, "I am not a smart man".

I fully admit that neither Donna nor I let the points cost of any particular model or unit keep us from playing it in Brawlmachine. After we'd played our first handful of games, Donna mentioned that playing the game felt like being immersed in a movie or story playing out on the table where the 2 of us wore the hats of both script writers and directors. I couldn't agree more. 

With that in mind, the choices we make in the lists we build are driven much more by our excitement at the look of the model(s), the story we think they can tell on the tabletop, or a combination of both. 

In fact, playing more costly models in Brawlmachine brings up a good point that Craig noted about list building at 25 points. He talked about how you have to be creative & economic in building lists for Brawl. That statement hits the nail on the head and is one of the things she & I really enjoy about playing Brawlmachine. It adds another level of fun to the game for us to make the best out of what we have.

Neither of us are motivated by designing the "perfect" or "strongest" list simply by the numbers. That feels too much like playing a spreadsheet to us. Of course, there are lots of people who do enjoy that aspect and to that I say, more power to you. Go for it.

It's just not for us.

We find much more enjoyment in taking the models we like and then finding synergies, combos, and strategies that can emerge as we play them together more.

Restricted to FA:1 In Brawlmachine

Brandon notes the fun he's been having playing multiples of certain models / units lately in Steamroller games. I totally get that. As a Cryx player, I've seen people running lists spamming Slayers and giving their opponents fits dealing with a horde of SPD 6, MAT 7 metal monstrosities that can charge in with a P+S 22 Death Claw Combo Strike. 

However, Donna & I have talked quite a bit about how we thoroughly enjoy the FA:1 restriction of Brawlmachine. It forces us to bring in some diversity to the tools in our toolbox. It drives further creativity in our list building & keeps things feeling fresh & fun for us at 25 points. 

We've even discussed that when we decide to play a 35 point game every now and then, we'd very likely stick to FA:1 even though we weren't playing under Brawlmachine rules.

Accounting For Differences Between Brawlmachine & Steamroller

This point was kind of hit from both sides at different points in the podcast & I wanted to address them both together. At one point early on, Brandon mentioned that losing a good model in Brawlmachine has a huge impact that can change the dynamic of the game in an instant. Later on, Shaun notes that one detractor of Steamroller that he found is how the score can swing drastically in a single turn with some scenarios. In response to Shaun's point, Craig noted that this was a good thing because as a player, you have to take it into account going in & be ready to adapt when it happens.

I'd posit that the exact same statement can be made in regards to Brandon's point about losing a key model in Brawlmachine. Knowing that's a possibility & having to adjust if it happens adds a juicy layer to the emergent strategies that reveal themselves as the game unfolds.

One example of this is in a recent play of Brawlmachine that Donna & I had. I was running Protectorate of Menoth against her Circle Orboros. Grand Scrutator Severius was my caster & anyone familiar with him will know that he is 100% a support caster that has to be kept away from the action. With that in mind, Severius NEEDS to have an arc node to unleash his fiery spells of death onto the enemies of the Lawgiver. In the 2nd round, a combination of her Winter Argus & Agata utterly demolished my Repenter. Severius only got to benefit from the Revenger's arc node once before the jack was shredded & off the table.

While she did end up winning, I was able to adjust on the fly after losing such a critical model to my overall strategy. The game ended up being a scenario victory for Circle, but I was able to shift to plans B, C, & even D to change the game state to my favor despite Severius being left without a critical part of his army so early on. 

The challenge of having to be able to adjust in the heat of battle like that provided so much rich tension. To be honest, it made the game more enjoyable than I think it would have been if I hadn't been faced with that uphill climb early on.

The Game Is Designed Around 75 Points

Craig says that Warmachine is designed around 75 points. To this, I'd respectfully disagree. I'd say that Steamroller & most major tournament events are certainly designed around 75 points. 

However, there is nothing in the actual rules of the game that lean it to any particular point scale. Bear in mind, that the Steamroller packet is not the rules of the game. It's essentially a variant that lay out some additional rules you can play as it relates to scoring. 

The game is designed around a range of points values that players can go to war with. Steamroller brings in an aspect of scoring, but the game itself is not designed around it as presented in the core rulebook(s). 

Tagging onto this point is another one that Craig notes later on in the podcast. He mentions that the 75 point Steamroller format has a larger player base...and then shortly afterwards notes that that's the case when it comes to events / tournaments. Now, I wholeheartedly believe that is the case when it comes to events. However, I'd point out that there's no real accurate way to gauge what the numbers are as far as casual fans are concerned. 

How many people play WMH primarily with just a few friends locally, either at home or at an LGS? Or at home with their spouse? 

I remember a story from 10 or so years back from an exec from Wizards of the Coast giving a speech where he pointed out that while all the attention with Magic the Gathering is on the events, but that sales figures showed that their casual player base was substantially larger than the serious competitive scene would lead you expect it to be.

I'm not saying that in WMH casual players are in equal number or outnumber competitive players. I honestly don't know. I'd wager that getting the exact numbers on that would be difficult. I'm not bringing up this point to disagree with Craig, but more to pose the question. 

Social media does not equal real life. What we see at gaming cons doesn't equal the entirety of the player base of any game. I was always surprised as a game designer & super active, heavy board gamer when I'd meet fans & other gamers who didn't even know what BGG was, but who were playing the newest games and otherwise in the know of most of what was going on.

I've seen a few posts recently of people who are either coming back to WMH or just getting into it who note that they're playing Brawlmachine. An old school WMH gamer from the MKII era, Guerrilla Miniature Games did a batrep of Brawlmachine last week after being introduced to the format & said that he was looking forward to playing / recording more.

Again, I'm not saying that 75 point Steamroller or 25 point Brawlmachine dominate the overall player base (including all casual & competitive players). I'm just saying that I don't think any of us know for sure how it breaks down, because if it weren't for all the posting I do, nobody would have a clue that Donna & I are playing. The same can be said for Dessa & Thomas O'Neale (Disgruntled Wargamer) who play regularly at home together. How many more of people like us are there that don't post about it or don't even have an online presence in the gaming world?

Wrapping Up: Play What You Like

It was funny & heartwarming to see that as they were midway through the discussion, they noted that for an episode titled, "What Is The Best Way To Play Warmachine? And Why Is It 75 Point Steamroller?", they ended up giving a lot of good points about Brawlmachine. Craig even noted that if the Brawl format was officially adopted by Privateer Press, they'd likely play it even more. Shaun also speculated that he thinks once they get into playing team events, they'll be drawn more to it than to regular Brawlmachine or Steamroller solo events.

Shaun summed it up perfectly towards the end when he said, "at the end of the day, it's all Warmachine". To which, Brandon followed up with, "yeah. It's all Warmachine. Play what you like".

Regardless of whether you're playing Brawlmachine, Steamroller, or even just having fun with a battlegroup-sized game with a friend, the key is that you're having fun. The fact that WMH offers us so many different legitimate options that fit whatever our wants, schedules, meta, etc might be is the key point to me. 

Play what you like.