NagoyaHammer.com

me_in_japan wrote:just as long as these things dont break the game. What i absolutely do not want is Warmachine:Apocalypse.

In the earliest playtest rules for battle engines, a tactical tendency quickly emerged. Players would frequently devise ways to shut down a battle engine’s offense as efficiently as possible and then work around it. Even without smashing through the engine’s armor, a few Reach models in the right positions had the potential to mitigate a battle engine’s threat. This quickly changed as battle engines gained abilities like Gunfighter or the new Weapon Platform rules that allowed them to operate effectively even when surrounded by enemies.

The next hurdle was that early incarnations of the battle engines had too many support abilities, often far-reaching in their effects. During one round of playtesting, some playtest games revolved around the battle engine more than the warcaster. This was certainly not the desired effect, and each support ability was carefully reassessed when the offending ability was removed. Some were tweaked and others were replaced with abilities for the battle engines rather than the army.

All said and done, I think we wound up with a solid balance of where a battle engine fits within its army. They are powerful models, to be sure, and many still boast some sort of battlefield impact beyond raw damage output. On the other hand, they do not overshadow the core of the army: the battlegroup.