As we near the end of the month, we want to provide an update on where things stand with the production of WARMACHINE MKIV models, the upcoming WARMACHINE app (beta), and more developments to look forward to in the weeks ahead.

At this point, we have completed production of 80 percent of the contents of the Orgoth Sea Raiders Core Army Starter that will be produced at Privateer’s production facility, and we’ll be starting in on the Cygnar Storm Legion very soon. The warjacks and warcasters that were outsourced to our UK partner are due to ship by November 15th, and our hope is to be bringing everything together by the end of next month so we can start shipping in December. This will most likely put delivery of the Winter Korps starter in January. From there, we’ll be playing catch up in hopes of regaining our originally planned release schedule for 2023.

Meanwhile, progress has continued on the WARMACHINE app. Data for the Prime Legacy armies is being entered daily as we have moved into our testing phase, putting the various functions of the app through their paces as they come online. It’s really starting to feel like a working app, with card browsing and basic force-building working. We’ve identified aspects that require more attention through the testing process, and as such we are adjusting our priorities for what will be available for the launch of the beta later this week.

Our biggest compromise was the decision to delay match play in order to focus on key elements of force-building, like force validation, as well as the feedback tools that will allow early adopters to communicate any bugs or issues to our team. What this means is that you won’t have the ability to share lists across devices at launch, and you’ll have to use some good ol’ fashioned pens and paper to track health of models and which command cards you’ve used during gameplay. Match play will follow quickly, but we have decided to delay it until the week after Warfaire Weekend (November 4th–7th) out of an abundance of caution. We know MKIV is going to see play there, but introducing a major function without much beta time right before the event increases the potential for bug-induced friction, so we’re going to ask that you do your recordkeeping with a notepad until after Warfaire Weekend, and then you can expect the match play function to activate shortly after that.

This is also giving us a little more time to work out the library functions, which will allow us to start adding documents to the app for things like Faction and army lore, so that information will start to coalesce in one place rather than you having to search for it through dozens of Insider news updates every time you want to recheck the spelling of an Orgoth warcaster name.

While we’re putting the app through as much testing as we can, we are just a few people, and making it available to thousands of people is going to provide a whole new level of perspective. So please expect that you’ll encounter bugs or rough spots in the early days following the launch—it’s the nature of software development. We will have feedback tools built into the app so if you identify a bug or an error, you can easily bring it to our attention. We’ll be following up with bug fixes and polish as quickly as we can.

After the app launches, we’ll be introducing the second Prime Legacy armies for any Factions waiting on a second army at the pace of about one army per month, with the expectation of having all Prime Legacy content updated before the end of next year. This will allow us to refocus effort on new MKIV development, chiefly the development of next summer’s two warlock-led army releases, which are already well underway with concept art creation. If you’re craving HORDES news, you can look forward to a preview closer to the end of the year.

Perhaps the most exciting news after the upcoming WARMACHINE app beta launch is that thanks to our new UK manufacturing partnership, we are going to be able to offer a preview for Dusk House Kallyss, and we’ll be unveiling them next week—much sooner than we had expected to! So, if you’ve been patiently (or impatiently) waiting for your first look at what became of the Retribution and will be the next army in WARMACHINE, your wait won’t be much longer. And if you’re going to be attending Warfaire Weekend next week, you might even be able to put some Dusk on the tabletop.

We’ll have another update in about three weeks once we have confirmation of our shipment coming from the UK, and we should have a more accurate picture of when production will finish up on the Sea Raiders and Storm Legion Core Army Starters at that time. In the meantime, set some time aside this weekend to download the WARMACHINE app and try out the browsing and force-building tools, and then stay tuned in through next week for the first reveals from the Empire of the Eternal Dusk!

And one more note worth sharing: at 12 P.M. CDT/10 A.M. PDT this Thursday, October 27th, Privateer Press is hosting a demo and Q&A session for the new WARMACHINE app! We’ll be demoing its usage on iOS, Android, and Windows. We’ll be live on twitch.tv/nekuraizou for roughly an hour and will be happy to answer as many questions as we can. This is your chance to get a “how-to” before the application releases on Friday, October 28th.

This is also your chance to see some sneak peeks of models, as we’ll be using live data. Tune in!

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