I got into Warmachine for one reason, and one reason alone: Giant Robots. I love steampunk, and I love the idea of fighting robots, so Warmachine just seemed like a perfect fit for me. Of course, when I started playing, I discovered that it wasn’t quite that simple. While warjacks were the thematic focus of the game, in gameplay terms infantry tended to be a much better bargain. They operate more independantly, they’re often harder to wipe out in one swoop, and they do some tricky things with probability through the sheer quantity of dice they roll.
Now, as it happens, the game had one warcaster who could handle multiple warjacks… and by a fluke, he was the same faction as the battlebox I’d bought purely for looks. Edward Dominic Darius is, in Mk.I at least, the premier warjack caster. Other warcasters make their jacks move, but Darius makes his dance. Others make their jacks strong, but Darius makes his into gods.
He was hard to learn, but once I figured him out, that was when I truly started to enjoy the game. I spent nearly a month, and nearly $50 in parts, converting his model into something worthy of his rules. Darius truly defined for me the way this game should be played: load up on walking steel and slam it into your opponent’s face.
Fast forward to the afternoon of April 6th. The Mk.II rules have come out, and Darius is… gone. He is completely and utterly gone. Every one of his tricks– not just “most”, but all– has been deleted. Put simply, the new version is only a Jack caster by exclusion– he has no infantry buffs or self-buffs, so by process of elimination he’s a jack caster. But that’s about as far as it goes.
), and they gave us the breakfast room right off the lobby to play in all last night!
