Anyone who joined the wargaming hobby after 2017, and specifically the launch of Warhammer 40k eighth edition, could be forgiven for thinking that Games Workshop’s stranglehold over the wargaming hobby is eternal and unbreakable. It isn’t. Many times other games have conquered sections of the hobby landscape as their own kingdoms, driving Warhammer back. And one game that has done it before is now poised to do it again – Warmachine.
Last weekend’s Adepticon had one of the most stacked slates of announcements from different game makers that I can remember. And while I covered the Warhammer 40k reveals – ace new models for the Space Wolves – the surprise reveal of Cathay for Warhammer: The Old World, the packed new Star Wars Legion roadmap, and even a spinoff of Battletech, the game that I think ‘won Adepticon’ was Warmachine.
In the space of one 45 minute Adepticon broadcast, publisher Steamforged Games revealed more good ideas than most firms manage in a decade. Its plans harness everything that made Warmachine successful during its heyday, steer around many of the problems that eventually brought it low, and take advantage of modern technology to do things no-one even expected.
Here’s why Warmachine is a big deal, and why I think it’s about to stage a monumental comeback.
The rise of Warmachine
If you’re not familiar with Warmachine, I’ve got to lay some groundwork. Warmachine is a fantasy wargame set in a world of arcane technology and primeval magic. Powerful spellcasters control battlegroups of magical robots, called Warjacks, or primal Warbeasts, and lead armies of varied infantry, war machines, and other monsters in open battle.
When Warmachine released in 2002, and as it developed as a game, it did many, many things that – at the time – Games Workshop was not doing. That started with the game design, which gave the Warcaster or Warlock many powerful options, making small model count games just as exciting as full army battles – and making it cheap and easy to start playing the game with just four or five models.
Original publisher Privateer Press regularly updated the game’s rules with FAQs, errata, and balance updates, and there was masses of support for organised play. Expansions added new models for all armies at once, advanced the ongoing plot of the setting, and even gave new models and updated rules for old characters as their narrative progressed.
For the younglings who started wargaming after Kevin Rountree took control of Games Workshop, it’s going to sound wild that these were ever unique selling points, but boy howdy were they. Warmachine grew and grew, and when its second edition launched in 2010, it was the big game at wargames conventions and tournaments.
Warmachine never achieved the recognition among general audiences and first time wargamers that Warhammer 40k enjoyed – there’s just something about the Space Marine chapters that taps directly into the pleasure centres of the eleven year old brain. Not to mention that Games Workshop has its own retail chain, the breakout hit of the Horus Heresy books, the many Warhammer 40k games…
But lifestyle wargamers, the tournament and convention regulars, are a big audience with distinctive taste and deep pockets. And at a time when GW didn’t know how to treat them right, they belonged to Warmachine.
The fall of Warmachine
Warmachine’s dominance didn’t last. In 2012, Star Wars: X-Wing arrived and pulled in a big chunk of the competitive gaming scene. Privateer Press faced several problems with manufacturing, creating some epic models designs that could not be properly supported by the resin used to cast them. Repeated production delays stymied attempts to get new hard plastic kits to market.
The game struggled to recruit new players, too. Warmachine has a very high skill ceiling. An increasingly experienced competitive player base made it more and more daunting for new players to join. Fewer new players meant less enthusiasm from retailers, meaning fewer stockists, even as the product line grew increasingly wide.
Warmachine launched a rules app during the game’s second edition – years ahead of the Warhammer 40k app, and very welcome for regular players. But this effectively killed the market for printed expansion books, and they died off early in third edition. This made it far harder for fans to keep track of the game’s developing lore, further solidifying the idea that this was a game for tournament grinders only.
And then, Games Workshop got better. People who gripe online about Games Workshop being incompetent are either very forgetful or very new to the hobby, because GW on a bad day today is still more competent at making, selling, marketing the Warhammer 40k factions, and engaging customers with its games, than it ever was before 2016. For the rest of the hobby market, it was like an 800 pound gorilla waking up in the middle of the room.
By the time Covid restrictions arrived and shut down all organised play, Warmachine was reliant on a very hardcore fan base. And when it emerged from that disruption, it went straight into the tumultuous launch of Warmachine IVth edition in 2023.
This was a hard reset on the game, wrapping up a long running narrative, and discontinuing all old model lines (though still supporting them with rules). Model production swapped to 3D printing, and products were boxed primarily in extremely large all-or-nothing bundles.
Some of these changes were necessary, others were prescient, but they weren’t popular with a fan base that had by then distilled down to the most dedicated and competitive players with the largest investment in old armies. Development continued, but Warmachine was effectively moribund.
In June 2024, Privateer Press sold the Warmachine brand – and the development team working on it – to Steamforged Games.
The rebirth of Warmachine
Steamforged Games is most famous now for its massive strategy board games – Monster Hunter World, Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and so on. But it was founded by two Warmachine tournament players and organisers, Rich Loxam and Mat Hart, who could see room for improvements, and created a new company to make their own skirmish wargame, Guildball.
When I say that Steamforged’s co-founders are genuine fans of Warmachine, I can point to the fact that Hart actually painted two of the models used in the Adepticon 2025 presentation – the gnarly four-limbed war-walkers in the image above.
And the Adepticon presentation demonstrates that Steamforged has an incredible understanding of what made Warmachine great, what an opportunity it represents, and what the team must do to recapture the game’s former glory.
New models
The most obvious element of the Adepticon presentation was a host of cool new minis. First, the full reveal for the Cygnar Gravediggers range, a hard boiled regiment of professional soldiers with a slight WW2 vibe, who can call in air-dropped supplies, including new armaments to bolt onto their heavy warjacks.
Then there’s Old Umbrey, druids and monsters from the wild hinterlands of the Russia-coded nation of Khador. Concept art showed off designs for a new faction of the primal Trollbloods; a Warcaster for the undead Cryx who looks like an MMO raid boss, a bewildering Colossal warjack for the doomed elves of Dusk. And the Gargantuan Trikhymaerax, a hydra of cybernetic serpents that uses a 120mm base, was revealed and went on sale at the show the same day.
Better production
New models are all well and good, but customers need to be able to get their hands on them. Steamforged provided an update on its manufacturing capability. It has tripled the capacity of its American manufacturer, and has built in contingencies to scale that further. In Europe, a new manufacturing partner is already providing stock to retailers, and will soon be able to supply direct sales to customers.
3D printing was a contentious production method when Privateer Press adopted it, with concerns about quality foremost. Steamforged has reiterated a pledge to ensuring very high quality control, and providing a Games Workshop level of no-quibble part replacement when customers do receive misprints. The general opinion in fan communities is that they’re delivering on that promise.
Old models returning
Because 3D printing has no need for tools or molds, there isn’t really a cost to offering an extremely wide figure range, at least on the manufacturing side. To the welcome surprise of long time players, Steamforged announced it was going to bring back into production the complete range for four Armies of Legend: the Convergence of Cyriss, Crucible Guard, Infernals, and Grymkin.
Other Armies of Legend have miniature ranges stretching back twenty years, and digital files aren’t available for every model. But Steamforged plans to organise made-to-order months for these models. Rich Loxam stated in the presentation that he’s sympathetic to long term players who are stuck with incomplete collections, and wants to offer them a solution.
These Armies of Legend are ‘locked’ ranges that will never receive new models. In some cases there are even lore reasons for this – the third edition of the game ended with the Infernals being banished back to hell and the Convergence of Cyriss opening a portal to another space system and leaving the planet. But they remain legal to use in the ‘prime’ game mode, and are playtested for in matched play balance updates.
It’s an excellent olive branch to old players who were burnt by the launch of Mark IV. And for new players, it brings in four miniature ranges with very distinctive aesthetics and play styles to consider.
A better app
The full rules for Warmachine are available in an army builder app. While it’s pretty serviceable, Steamforged pledged at Adepticon that it was prioritising making it perform better. The app is free, and up until now came with an (extremely optional) subscription that gave access to narrative scenarios and some other features. Steamforged has decided to make that subscription a little more tempting.
If you purchase the new $69.99 annual subscription, you’ll receive the new Exulon Nostilla and Aberration models when they release in August, mercenaries that can be used in any army. This kit is going to retail for $69.99. Just look at it.
Now while this subscription doesn’t come with a streaming service attached, I find it much easier to recommend this deal to a Warmachine player than I do Warhammer Plus to a Warhammer 40k player. (I subscribe to both, because I am a glutton).
Steamforged states that it wants to bring the lore and narrative of Warmachine into sharper focus, and to better promote casual play. So it’s moving narrative scenarios and lore are moving from behind the paywall and onto the free side of the app. Meanwhile, short stories and novellas published over the game’s twenty three year lifespan will be added into the subscription.
This is part of a concerted effort by Steamforged to change the focus of Warmachine. The game has a truly excellent setting, a distinctive art style, and great models, but these elements have often been overshadowed by the pre-eminence of competitive play. Steamforged has pledged to keep casual play, narrative, and the hobby front on an equal footing with matched play.
Digital subscription
A new digital miniature subscription, developed in partnership with TitanForge, is also being used to bolster the hobby side of Warmachine. Each month it provides with base toppers, variant sculpts of army leaders, terrain, and themed conversion parts, to encourage players to personalise their armies.
Warmachine has a reputation for being played on 2D terrain, partly because 2D terrain enables precise measurement in competitive games, partly because there wasn’t really a dedicated Warmachine terrain range that captured both the aesthetic and the dimensions necessary to make a good game. The digital terrain packages aim to address that.
The $10 level of the subscription comes with a chunky welcome pack in addition to the first month’s rewards. As well as a whole bunch of necromantic terrain, it contains a fully playable starter army, the Hive Mind Cephalyx Cadre, who you’ll see at the top of this section. Those without a printer will be able to order them directly from Steamforged.
And as if that wasn’t tempting enough, Steamforged will give you all this for free if you subscribe during April. You can immediately cancel if you like, too – it’s free real estate. You’ll find it here.
Organised play – return of the Pressganger Program
The new focus on getting a wider audience for Warmachine is reflected in a new plan for organised play. The core organised play pack for event organisers will come with two kinds of optional bolt-ons, the Iron Gauntlet for serious competition, and custom narrative events, which could come with bespoke extras, such as 3D files for custom scenario pieces.
The firm detailed other organised play events, from paint and takes, to Iron Gauntlet seasons, to the return of its premier Lock and Load event to the EU. But perhaps the most critical news of the whole presentation was the return of the Pressganger Program.
The Pressganger Program was a highly successful scheme to recognise and reward community event organisers for running Warmachine tournaments and growing their local scene. Warmachine’s grass roots organisers made the game.
Reward programs for tournament organisers are surprisingly tricky. Giving key members of the community free product can sour relationships with retailers; schemes have to be well administered to minimise the risk of abuse; and if someone does labor for a business in expectation of reward, some territories’ labor laws may classify them as a worker, creating all kinds of legal liabilities.
Steamforged is promising exclusive merch, with details to follow later this year. This may well be enough to recall lapsed Pressgangers to the fold. They’re doing it for the love of the game, and a reward that recognises their commitment is – if nothing else – well deserved.
Can Warmachine beat Warhammer 40k?
When Warmachine got big around 2010, fans talked about it potentially dethroning Warhammer 40k as the world’s best-selling wargame. I don’t think that was ever going to happen, at least not in simple terms.
Games Workshop’s customer base is the broadest possible audience for miniature wargames. It has an unassailable advantage – its own retail chain, its own distribution network, decades accumulating cultural recognition. Warhammer is synonymous with ‘miniature wargame’ for many people. If Warhammer 40k ever collapses, it will be because Games Workshop cocked up badly, not because another miniature game ‘beat’ it.
But Warmachine isn’t trying to be the wargame for everyone. I’ve received samples of both of the new Warmachine starter sets. They’re good products, with great plastic miniatures that provide an excellent gameplay experience out of the box, and competitive pricing. But holy hell, they are not aimed at newcomers to wargaming.
There are several internal synergies within each of the starter set forces, and passive and active interactions with the opposing force. Using them requires making many decisions each turn, deciding on the order in which you activate units and use abilities. You need to use every advantage available to your units, and be mindful of everything your opponent has access to, to succeed.
Warmachine is not supposed to be someone’s first wargame. But – trust me on this, I don’t have the word count left to justify this claim – it is deep and interesting enough that for many people, it could be their last wargame. Warmachine was once the wargame for lifestyle wargamers, hobbyists who want to revel in rich rules, deep gameplay, and delicious model designs.
Steamforged Games’ plans are laid perfectly to make that happen again. I cannot wait.
If you want to learn more about Warmachine, we’ve delved into it a little bit previously: this feature sees me waxing lyrical about how its excellent dice system creates really dramatic moments, and we had the great pleasure to reveal the model for Orsus the Betrayed, aka “a psychopath on a horse”.
Want to chat about the return of Warmachine? I sure do! Join the brand new Wargamer Discord to join the conversation.