In the early 2010s Warmachine dominated competitive wargaming, marginalising Warhammer 40k at tournaments and conventions. There were many reasons for that success: Warmachine zigged where Warhammer 40k zagged, from its model count, to the length of games, to the clarity of the rules. In the years since, a lot of what it did differently has become standard practise for firms supporting a competitive wargame. Steamforged Games, Warmachine's new owners, have just released the annual balance update and competitive 'Steamroller' mission pack - what are they doing to try and reclaim Warmachine's title as the foremost competitive miniature wargame?
This isn't a deep dive into specific rules changes, since there are literally hundreds, and better nerds than me have already covered them. It's more of an assessment of the strategy Steamforged is using, the direction it's developing the game in, and the way it's interacting with its community.
First, lets cover a strategy that's been fixed for years now and which Steamforged hasn't changed: the rules are free and they're available digitally. The changes to the rules dropped in the Warmachine app on Wednesday, with players immediately scurrying into the list builder to fix any armies that were suddenly under or over the points limit. The benefits of free digitally distributed rules for competitive games are obvious: players can check the rules for every model in the game, and nobody has to carry a folder of FAQ and errata printouts with them as well as a stack of rulebooks.
The tempo of rules updates matters too. Steamforged is sticking to a once per year cadence for major rules updates, though has acknowledged it will make emergency updates if anything starts to spoil the meta. This keeps rules changes in step with the release of the annual tournament mission pack. While in the early 2010s Warmachine was remarkable just for having balance updates at all, towards the end of the decade the pace of updates got so fast that it was tricky for even dedicated players to stay current, and impossible for new players to get on board.
Combining free digital rules with the fact that it only has to make one big update a year has allowed Steamforged to substantially overhaul the game. Units, factions, and particularly army leaders (who really define an army through their spells, abilities, and once-per-game feat) that were badly underperforming or didn't have a clear identity have been reworked. One mechanic, the Spell Rack - a library of spell options that army leaders could pick from at the start of a battle - has gone entirely, because the competitive scene had worked out the best spells on each list and nobody bothered to take anything else. Now each caster has a bespoke list of spells.
The lethality of the game has also been tuned down, with almost every unit slightly less accurate than it was before. It's a change intended to cool off the game. Competitive Warmachine scenarios aren't a score chase, but are won when one player pulls ahead of their opponent by a specific amount, or assassinates the opponent's leader, with other victory conditions far rarer. Players have to apply continuous pressure to scenarios - but the current edition had heated up to the point where just about any commitment of force would kill its target, encouraging a very cagey playstyle on the expectation that any attacker would be killed when the enemy cracked back.
Whether any of these changes are the right ones remains to be tested by players. What's interesting is that Steamforged identified the tempo of the entire game needed to change, and was willing and able to deploy sweeping changes to every army midway into an edition.
The last major thing I want to cover is communication. Steamforged has been very open about the changes before they were implemented. That included spoiler articles on its own website, and divvying up the spoilers for each faction among the community of content creators following the game. Then, a week before the balance update went live, the firm released the full changelog of everything that was going to be implemented. If nothing else, this gave the most highly engaged players time to process the extent of the roll-out and grieve for any favorite combos that had been shut down.
None of this is, individually, remarkable - it's just good practise and common sense. Once, that was all it took to be among the most tournament-friendly wargames on the market. Fortunately for gamers as a whole, the rest of the industry has caught up. Steamforged is now refining an already developed formula. Then again - in my humble opinion, at least - Warmachine utterly slaps, so maybe good practise and common sense will be enough to bring Warmachine to the fore once more.
If you're intrigued by Warmachine, returning after a hiatus, or already several battlegroups deep into Mk IV, you'll find a warm welcome in the Wargamer Discord community. For a weekly roundup of all our best stories, make sure you're subscribed to the Wargamer newsletter.