On Thursday, the Wargamer Discord Community played host to the talented team at Steamforged Games as they answered questions from the Warmachine community about the future of the game. We’ve condensed down all the answers here for you to peruse at your leisure.
Steamforged Games’ co-founders Rich Loxam (RL) and Matt Hart (MH), Warmachine product owners Jamie Perkins (JP) and Sherwin Matthews (SM), and lead sculptor Russ Charles (RC) all had answers for various questions.
We’ve already shared the incredible miniatures that they revealed during the AMA. You can also find the original AMA transcript in the Wargamer Discord community for a few more off-topic comments from the team.
Here’s what Steamforged revealed at the Wargamer Discord Warmachine AMA:
Lore
Question: Are there any plans to better unearth the lore for new or returning players, and make the lore content in the app more readable?
Sherwin Matthews: I’m currently working on exactly that, funnily enough.
Q: How much of the Henge Hold Scrolls should be considered canon?
SM: A large amount of that will be addressed as we go forward, but there isn’t any attempt to dramatically shift a lot of what’s gone on – more massaging some things to course correct. For example, Deathjack and Karchev aren’t the same being anymore (Riot Quest is non-canonical).
Q: Does that mean Karchev is dead?
SM: I mean, do you think anything could actually be capable of putting Karchev down?
Q: Has Riot Quest been retconned?
SM: Speaking for my side of things, Riot Quest is non-canonical.
Q: Are the Order of Illumination still around in the current lore?
SM: They are indeed – the predominant faith of Cygnar is Morrowan, and the Order of Illumination work alongside the Strangelight Workshop.
Q:What have the Skorne been up to in the last few years?
SM: Great question – you clearly know your audience… Post Infernal War, the Skorne have returned to their empire, where Makeda consolidates power amongst the houses.
Q: Will Mordikaar return as the Worm Emperor?
SM: I will crawl into the void to save Mordikaar myself if I can.
Q: What’s going on with Llael?
SM: Llael are probably looking quite nervously at Ord about now… the Orgoth aren’t hanging around as they march through Western Immoren.
Q: Will Circle Orboros return soon, or are they all dead?
SM: They’re still around, although at the moment pretty chill – the end times came, and a lot of their goals were met.
Q: Any chance of a consolidated lore and artbook?
Jamie Perkins: The rulebook we announced at Adepticon may be of interest to you.
Q: How far down the road are we from a refresh of the Menites?
Matt Hart: At the Adepticon keynote, I mentioned I’m working on something that I will talk about next Adepticon…
SM: The Protectorate is still around, just not in a good state. We actually have some new interstitial story content coming for them soon (non-related to the main story arc).
Q: When can we expect to see the old novels and other stories added to the app?
SM: That’s a great question – I’ll follow up with my colleagues in marketing.
Q: Which faction’s lore are you most excited to dive into?
SM: Really great question. I’m currently having a lot of fun working on Old Umbrey with the PP team.
Q: How is Barnabas doing these days?
SM: Still picking bits of Harbinger from between his teeth.
Q: Any chance of Goreshade 5?
JP: Veil of dusk is torn— silent steps of death return, Nyrro’s whispers rise.
Q: Can you tell us anything about what’s going on with the surviving Convergence leadership in the current timeframe?
SM: Honestly, not presently. Some elements are lying fallow so to speak, while we build the rest of the world 10 years on.
Q: Can you tell us anything about Ashlynn d’Elyse specifically?
SM: She’s certainly still alive. One of the things that I feel it’s important to do is to develop the new characters, and bring back the older characters when is most impactful / meaningful to the story arc… like we’ll soon see in the Old Umbrey fiction.
Q: OLD WITCH!?!?!
SM: Yes, mate. But not just her…
Sculpts
Q: Will Winter Korps get a super heavy jack? Will they get cameo casters, an in faction battle engine, or a structure?
JP: Never say never, but 80mm solos are currently taking the place of battle engines for newer factions The other three I can neither confirm nor deny right now.
Q: Are there plans to bring more 80mm jacks into the existing armies with Deathjack growing to 80mm? Like Thunderhead and Behemoth.
JP: [redacted]
Q: Will Gravediggers get a cavalry unit?
Russ Charles: Horses are not fans of parachutes.
Q: Can we expect something about the Phantasm anytime soon? Render, rules, anything?
Rich Loxam: Soon.
Q: The Kithguard art we’ve seen so far seems pretty inspired by the Kriel Company style of trollbloods, will there be units inside of it more analogous to the Champions and Warders of yore or will we be leaning on the Sluggers and Barrager side of things?
RC: Style wise, they draw on both sides of the earlier trollblood factions but there’s a lot of new elements too – they’re pretty damn great.
Q: Will the Kithguard have more units than the Brinebloods?
RC: For sure there are- I’m super hype for the unit selection the faction has.
Q: Have you snuck any people from your personal life into sculpts for Warmachine?
RC: On Warmachine…not yet…but there is time.
Q: With the Trikhymaerax, I’ve noticed one is styled like a Shadowflame Shard beast, one I can only assume is styled like the Emberfrost Shard, and a third styled as an unknown/unannounced third Shard. Was the model’s design an intentional tease or accidental?
SM: The Trikhymaerex is a pure Shadowflame Shard model – it doesn’t include any elements of Emberfrost Shard or another Shard.
Q: Will we see more light warbeasts for other factions? Right now only Trolls have them.
JP: Rhyas doesn’t like light warbeasts
Q: What about Saeryn?
SM: Time will tell…
Rules updates and balance
Q: The once a year update causes some bad feels due to things that are too weak or strong potentially being that way for a year. Is there any plan or consideration for making updates happen every, say, six months?
JP: We’re not currently committing to more than an annual balance update for the whole game. However we retain the capacity to make one-off changes if they’re negatively impacting the game to a significant degree. It’s likely we would have acted on Carver and Kruger in 2024 if we hadn’t only just taken custodianship of the game half way through the year.
Q: Yeah, playing into Carver and Krueger felt REALLY BAD in the Iron Gauntlet 2024 season.
JP: I experienced it myself at the WTC, happy with the changes we made in January there!
Q: How aggressively are you checking and balancing new armies vs old?
JP: Armies of Legend are included in our annual balance pass to ensure they remain playable against the newest releases. Miniatures that only exist in Legacy are only impacted by global changes that also impact Prime or Army of Legend miniatures.
Q: What should we expect from the rework to Dark Operations?
JP: We’re doing some elements of redevelopment to allow Prime miniatures, Hive Mind, to play with an Army of Legend, Dark Operations. We can confirm Kythos is going to have fixed spells when playing for Dark Operations rather than a spell rack. There may be some other adjustments as a result of the redevelopment.
Cadres
Q: How will Old Umbrey use their Warcaster Cadres? Will Warcasters still be restricted to only warjacks while Umbrey Warlocks can only use Warbeasts? Will we use Junior Casters and Warlocks to get Jacks and Beasts in the same list?
MH: Yep, you’re pretty close with that! We’ve got some significant re-engineering going on with the cadres and command sets (more on that to be announced) and mixing Focus and Fury in the same army list is a part of that conversation.
Essentially the cadre Warcaster / ‘lock will be fully formed in their primary army list but then in the other list they will feature as a set combination choice similar to Magnus and Invictus, Carver and Big Pig etc…so for Old Umbrey you will have primary Warlocks, and the ability to take Vikhul and her warjack as an army choice…her units and solo will also be useable as per usual…
Q: Will those cadre Warcasters and their character Jacks be similarly costed to Carver or Magnus?
JP: Similar, not necessarily the same.
Q: Are we ever going to see any non-character Cadres again?
RL: We are currently pretty happy with our Command Starter / Cadre loadout
Q: How will Yana work in Old Umbrey?
MH: She has been reworked to be a Fury caster just for Old Umbrey…
Manufacturing and distribution
Q: Is there any chance you could ship to Brazil?
RL: In territories that are difficult to ship to (Brazil being one) we will try where possible to work with local distribution partners.
Q: When does the Warmachine Stockist program roll out? I think I heard June?
RL: The program is live now, if you get your LGS to reach out to us they can get you the info needed!
Q: Will we ever get prints for Mountain King, Glacial King again?
RL: We did announce at Adepticon that Black Anchor will be returning with ‘made to order’ months for products like this.
Q: For product distribution: can we expect stores to be able to order everything at some point?
RL: If they are US based, this is already available to our Warmachine Stockists stores (Warstores). We are currently looking at this for UK/EU territories.
Q: What is SFG doing to improve the survivability of resin models in transit to customers? Breaks continue to be common, frustratingly even for replacement prints.
RL: We continue to look at improvements to our processes, packaging and processes to help here.
Q: I’m in Canada and the shop local to me has been asked to have a US forwarding address for shipments. Are there country by country plans to improve distribution?
RL: Right now this is very much a Tariff position – however we are working closely with Canadian distribution to help.
Q: Now that the first two plastic cadres are being split up into separate boxes, do we have an ETA on when the Shadows and Scum one will be split too?
RL: Soon- typically we aim around 4-6 months post-release.
Q: Will Boom Boom be able to be ordered by LGS Stockist stores? Or is this direct only?
RC: Stores in the Warstore stockist programme will be able to order him.
Q: When will Dusk get its colossal?
MH: Print test is happening this week so its clearing through engineering…ready to go into full production soon and then ready for retail in the summer.
Warmachine App
Q: Some models in the app don’t have pictures, which makes it confusing for newcomers – is anything being done?
RC: Yes this is being updated.
Q: Many older models are still 3d renders in marketing photos and the app, are there plans to get them painted?
RC: Yes, this is ongoing as an initiative.
Q: When will Dark Operations be updated with the new cadre on the app?
RL: End of June.
Q: Are you able to describe the specific procedures for how someone will be able to get their Nostilla and Aberration?
RL: Yep – we will be releasing a redeemable code nearer the time to all those who have the 12 month subscription [to the Warmachine app] – this can then be used on steamforged.com to get the model on its way to you!
Q: Will the model received from subscribing to the app change? If so, when is the cut-off to subscribe to get the current one?
RL: It will refresh in a 12 month cycle (so April 1st 2026)
Other games
Q: Any plans to collab with the Epic Encounters team to provide some critters that likely don’t have a place in a Warmachine army?
MH: We have talked about this….
Q: Any chance we will see expansion of the old Privateer Press IK board games, Undercity and Widower’s Wood?
MH: Definitely but not for a little while.
Q: When will Strangelight Workshop be available for those who didn’t kickstart it? I’ve been told the pdf is out there, but it’s not for sale anywhere.
SM: Strangelight Workshop will be coming to retail later this year, in Q3.
Armies of Legend
Q: Is Dark Operations being setup as second Cryx army, or will Cryx receive a second army (with another Cadre working for Necrofactorium and the second army at some point?)
RL: Dark Operations will remain as the Army of Legend currently – we are just revisiting/updating them before locking as we re-release.
Q: My favorite legacy army is the Morrowan/Order of illumination that didn’t get into prime, is there a chance I could see a mark 4 incarnation of them?
MH: Not in mk4
Q: Is there any concept art for the Hive Mind Cadre?
RL: We have a different process for the Armies of Legend so in this case, no.
Q: Any chance more Armies of Legend will be added to prime?
RL: They will still be Armies of Legend so are Prime compatible (i.e. playable in Prime).
Hobby
Q: Any chance of painting demos/tutorials making a comeback?
RL: As P3 rolls out we will absolutely be increasing our Hobby content – a big part of Warmachine’s pillars of growth.
Q: I’ve noticed after using some of the new P3 colours that some of them are significantly different to the previous ones, (such as Greatcoat Grey and Blighted Gold both being a lot darker) is there a reason behind this?
MH: Depending on how old your OG Greycoat is, I guess? Every color was reimagined with the modern pigments etc. and during that process I did look to strengthen the gaps between paints to make the range a little less compressed in places.
RL: There were some alterations but the majority of colours are exactly the same.
Q: Any updates on P3 paints for US backers?
RL: They have now finally cleared customs – we will be updating the main crowdfunding page with the info! (Tested, approved, and released!!)
Organised play support
Q: What are SFG’s plans for the Press Gang program?
RL: We will be revealing more on the Press Gang program this year – work is well underway on this and we are pretty happy to bring the new vision for it back.
Q: Steamcon 2026 ?!?!?
RL: Lock and Load US is coming in November – Lock and Load EU 2026.
Q: What is the rationale for making the narrative events at GenCon Prime only?
JP: The Adepticon narrative events allowed miniatures from Prime, Armies of Legend, and Legacy. GenCon 2024 was the same. GenCon 2025 will be the same (we need to update the event listing).
Q: Does Warmachine have a good new player introduction game? I am very interested to go on a test drive.
RC: The two player plastic box sets are excellent for this!
Q: Will there be ticketed events for Lock n Load and if so how would one register for them?
RC: This info will all come along in due course! Make sure you’re signed up for the newsletter for when that all drops!
Q: Do you guys still plan on attending Adepticon in person so I can hug you for bringing my favorite game back to life?
RC: A whole bunch of us are at events as much as we can.
JP: We love attending events and conventions as much as we can, so, chances are high.
Q: Are there plans for SFG to release rules for different point size games?
MH: Yes, the casual [event] pack should have plenty of new ideas in there for you.
RC: It’s in development at the moment.
Q: What’s the team’s current feelings on the uptick of players and hype?
JP: Absolutely amazing. Truly nostalgic for those of us that were around during MK2.
Warmachine 3D
Q: Can we expect to see any STLs for older MKIV armies like Winter Korps or Storm Legion?
RL: Right now our focus is Dark Operations roll-out over the next few months – after that who knows – its been great to see the popularity and we will continue to explore the possibilities.
Q: With the success of Warmachine 3D, do you guys plan on going back over previous armies and adding alternate Warcasters/Warlocks, as well as custom arms for the cohort models?
RL: We’re currently assessing lots of options and routes with the 3D line – we have been super happy with its reception.
Q: Since announcing the return of some of the Armies of Legend, if there are any models that are hand sculpted, are they going to be re-done digitally, or will they be removed from the army?
RL: We will assess on a case by case basis on what makes sense.
Q: Since the materials have changed since the original run, would you guys ever consider bringing back some of the first round of 3D Printed Minicrates on a made to order basis?
RL: We know there has been interest in old Minicrate models, especially as popularity has grown of the game… we will look at this.
Q: Gravedigger objectives when?
RL: Month 3 of Warmachine 3D.
Q: Wondering if we’ll see some Old Umbrey STLs in June?
RL: We absolutely will see them, Month 4 of Warmachine 3D!
Q: Will Boom Boom McCoy get an alt sculpt (even if just the guy sticking out the top) on Warmachine MyMiniFactory?
RC: Maybe – he would be very cool.
Many more questions were asked, and a few more were answered, though those were mostly requests for cat pictures and they fell a bit outside the scope of this article. Still, you can always join the Wargamer Discord community if you want to see what a wargame designers pets look like – and to be ready for more great events and AMAs!
Wargamer covers all kinds of miniature wargames. Naturally we have guides to all the Warhammer 40k factions; the Star Wars Legion roadmap of upcoming releases for 2025 and beyond; and we cover indie games, from the animal skirmish warfare of Burrows and Badgers, to family friendly wargames like Necromolds.
Source: Wargamer
