The Brineblood Marauders – a crew of pirate trolls from the coast of the fantasy continent Immoren – will join the faction roster of the Warhammer rival Warmachine in July 2023. Publisher Privateer Press revealed the contents of the faction’s Core Starter Army bundle on its website on Monday, making it the fourth new faction to join the Mark 4 edition of the game.
According to Privateer Press, the Core Starter Army will contain “the warlock Captain Firequill; two customizable warbeasts” – huge trolls that are the heavy hitters for the army – “each with a selection of weapons, animus options, and upgrades; two full Marauder Crew units, three unit attachments, Pygmy Boarding Party, a Galley Crew support unit, and Surgeon”, enough to field a standard army. The kit comes with magnets to make it easier to swap the weaponry attached to your warbeasts.
Previously, Privateer Press marketed Warmachine and Hordes as separate game lines, though the two were interoperable. The rules difference between Warmachine’s robot-controlling Warcasters and Hordes’ beast-mustering Warlocks has been preserved in Warmachine Mark 4, though the brand name has gone.
Core Starter Armies for Warmachine Mark 4 are available from the Privateer Press website for $199.99, as well as at other retailers; currently, the Cygnar Storm Legion, Khador Winter Korps, and Orgoth Sea Raiders are available.
If you fancy trying out the Brineblood Marauders with proxy models, Privateer Press says “stat card information for all of the new models in this army will be available for free through the WARMACHINE app from the Apple App Store and Google Play ahead of the army’s release”.
Warmachine has a kinetic, slightly exaggerated art style. Its forces are a little more sci-fi than Age of Sigmar armies and a little more fantasy than Warhammer 40k factions. The Brineblood Marauders are Trollkin, a blue-skinned race with shared ancestry to true trolls. The narrative of earlier editions of Warmachine and Hordes saw the Trollkin clans displaced from their homes by the continent’s industrialised nations and expansionist empires.