Privateer Press has already stated that when Warmachine MkII is released, the Hordes MkII Field Test will begin.  At GenCon they confirmed that the Hordes MkII Field Test will be essentially "tournament legal" and that MkII will be the supported format.  And that's when I get my new faction.

All of the doomsaying aside, most people are expecting some fairly significant change to the Legion of Everblight come MkII.  If Terminus is any indication, wings are expected to no longer evade free strikes; a major blunting of the Legion's maneuverability.  Other models - like the Seraph, Incubi, and Raptors - have a reputation as being overpowered or open to abuse and are expected to be rebalanced.

I'm not going to whine about the changes.  I'm fully ready to adapt to and embrace the new play-style, but that's ultimately my point - the Legion is expected to play differently.  The magnitude of this change is still up in the air, but in all honestly I'm excited about it.  I get to take the models I really like and the army whose fluff I dig, and experience them from a new perspective.  In addition, it will hopefully mean hearing less whining about facing the Legion as well, which will make playing them an all-around better experience.

Once I started looking at Legion MkII in this way I realized there wasn't a need to go looking for the new hawtness, the new hawtness is coming to me in just a few months.  The Retribution is still interesting, but the temptation isn't as strong as it was before.  Maybe at the end of 2010 when all of MkII has been released and we've played with the final version of the MkII rules I'll revisit the idea of expanding to a new faction but for now I'm ready for some MkII Blightning.

It was a blast meeting and talking to fellow Warmachine players from across the country like the SOBs. We recorded Episode 50 of the Iron Agenda in the Wabash room late Friday during open play and I think by the end of the episode we had cycled 11 people behind the microphones.

The downside of the Con this year was getting sick, missing the last Hardcore of MkI, and now I'm fighting off some sort of cold/sinus infection.  Still I had a great weekend and am already looking forward to next year.

We'll be talking about the news surrounding Privateer Press, their Next Big Thing, the Retribution, and more here and on the podcast in the near future, so keep an eye open.

The GenCon 2009 Masters event encourages players to not only demonstrate mastery with a single warcaster or warlock but with their entire faction line-up. A warcaster / warlock that appears in one of a players’ lists cannot appear in another list for the remainder of the Masters event. Mercenary warcasters can only appear in a players’ list[s] if that player is playing Mercenary contracts for the whole of the GenCon 2009 Masters event.

The Masters event takes place over three days, each at a different point level (500, 750, then 1,000).  Each day a player brings new lists.  With this new change a competator is going to have eight different warcasters/warlocks in their lists over the course of the weekend.  Even if they only play one list each day that's four warcasters/warlocks that they have to be able to play well to succeed.

There's also an added tactical element that I think is interesting.  Every player has their go-to caster(s) but now they have to decide when to use them.  Do you bring your big guns out early to try and maximize your chances of advancing from round to round or do you gamble and save them for the finals?

This is an interesting aspect to add to what is effectively Privateer Press's National Championship event.  I hadn't planned on playing in Masters this year but the challenge that's added to event preparation intrigues me.  I look forward to seeing the impact it has on the format meta.

I have to say though that I think Privateer Press dropped the ball on this timing-wise.  By this time many people who planned on going to Masters - who already purchased tickets - have spent a couple months tuning their lists.  Since there was no similar restriction the last few years there was no reason to assume things would be changed this late in the game, but changed they were.  And with just over a month left before the event, too.

A rules addendum like this should have been announced when registration for the event was first opened at the latest.  Doing it this late in the game after registration has been closed and players have already been refining their lists adds a bad taste to what could otherwise be a good addition to the format.