Warmachine: Miniatures Game Review

I’ve been a huge fan of WARMACHINE for a few years now. Who wouldn’t be interested in a game built around gigantic ten-ton steam powered robots and their supercharged magic-fueled masters? The thing is, the game has been around for a while, and things have changed since its early years. I don’t think anyone has done a review of the game as it exists now. As a long time player, my aim is to deliver something more than first impressions to anyone looking for a review of a game that favors aggression and challenges you to “play like you’ve got a pair.”

The World

WARMACHINE is set in Western Immoren, which is half of a large continent of a world known as Caen. It’s an age of industrial revolution. where steam powers everything from trains to factories to engines of war known as “warjacks.” Not surprisingly, Western Immoren is a land of constant conflict, be it border skirmishes or full-out war.

Starting with their first expansion, Escalation, the nations of Western Immoren (referred to as the Iron Kingdoms as a whole), fired the volleys that sparked the first full-blown war in a few decades. What makes WARMACHINE different is that other fantasy races, such as dwarves, elves, and goblins, while present, generally keep out of the affairs of their human neighbors. There are plenty of mercenaries and rogues of these races willing to sell their services to the human nations, but there is very little representation of them otherwise.

A strong storyline ties everything together and drives each expansion along as each nation mobilizes new things to try and get an edge in the war that grips them all. Many of the models represent characters instead of nameless faces amidst the turbulence of war, and while this sounds like a great thing, it is somewhat lacking. The amount of space available per book severely limits the amount of fiction which makes it nearly impossible to fully flesh out the majority of the characters. This leaves you with no insight into the thoughts, feels, and motivations of many of the characters people have come to love.

The Core Mechanics

The core of the game is built around rolling two six-sided dice, adding the relevant stat, and comparing it to the appropriate stat on the target model. It’s a fairly simple concept, and it works relatively well. Each player makes actions with their entire army before it is the other persons turn, and each model or unit completes all its movement and actions before moving on to the next. This deviates somewhat from the typical way things were done before, as usually all models would move at the same time, then shoot at the same time, then make melee attacks at the same time. It adds a much more tactical feel to the game.