This coming Monday, October 19th, we’re set to launch the next Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika Kickstarter featuring the Collision Course expansion alongside a whole new Faction and a slew of new models for everyone.
Unless this is your first time visiting Privateer Press or if you haven’t stopped by in the last year, then you’ve probably heard us talking about our newest hobby miniatures game, Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika. Set 5,000 years after the current events unfolding in the Iron Kingdoms and in an entirely different part of the universe, Warcaster puts players in control of high-tech combat forces battling across the Cyriss galaxy to carve out their place among the Thousand Worlds. In this game, you take on the role of the Warcaster with a customized deck of cards called a rack that represents your arcane Warcaster powers. Instead of leading troops into battle and allocating focus to your assets, as the Warcaster, you command your battle force from a flying carrier safely out of harm’s way while manipulating Arcanessence to charge the mechanika weapons and armor of your infantry, vehicles, and warjacks.
We unwittingly launched our first Kickstarter for Warcaster right at the onset of the pandemic. Just one week into it, the dung hit the windmill, and by the time the campaign had wrapped, we were getting state-mandated orders to shut operations down. Yet despite the challenges of working in a world being turned upside-down, our team found ways to keep moving forward. And while we definitely had to reconfigure some of our plans and expectations along the way, we managed to ship the last of our rewards this month, completing the project in the timeframe we had forecast before we even knew that 2020 was going to be the never-ending Groundhog Day it has become.
While we’re just as eager as everyone else to put 2020 in the rearview mirror, we’re planning on sending this year out with a bang, and the Warcaster: Collision Course Kickstarter is loaded with two things: firepower and fun!
The Collision Course expansion consists of a new deck of Cypher cards for your rack, including all-new Faction-specific Cyphers that will promote a diversity of play styles between Factions. Additionally, the new rule booklet in the expansion contains new scenarios, rules for mantlets, and a whole new way to play the game: Race Mode. Made specifically for the new vehicles featured in this Kickstarter, Race Mode provides rules for playing on an endless track with a variety of scenarios that focus on vehicular combat.
But we know what everyone is most interested in: the new models! Taking center stage in the Collision Course Kickstarter is the all-new Empyrean Faction. The first non-human Faction to enter the Warcaster fray, the Empyreans are the ancient architects of the Hyperuranion—the vast network of interplanetary void gates that connects the Thousand Worlds. Five thousand years ago, humans showed up unexpectedly from across the universe and threw a massive monkey wrench into the Empyreans’ plans to merge their souls with the celestial tides of the Cyriss galaxy for all eternity. And after a catastrophic failure to see eye-to-eye on the subject, the Empyreans disappeared to their great constellation at the center of the galaxy and haven’t been heard from…until now. While it’s been a long time since first contact for humanity, for the Empyreans—who measure time in eons—it’s been more like recovering from a bad hangover after a long weekend of poor choices. And just like we all do after such a weekend, the Empyreans have returned to say, never again. (This, right before they rid the entire galaxy of the human pestilence infecting it.)
Not to be outdone, the other three Factions of Warcaster are upping the ante with the introduction of vehicles. All of the new vehicles in Warcaster will be mounted on our new 80mm base, which gives us a new scale somewhere between heavy warjack and colossal to explore new model types. Like warjacks in this game, the vehicles can be customized with different weapon load outs. And as part of the Rewards available in this Kickstarter, vehicles can also be crewed by hero pilots with their own specialty weaponry.
The Collision Course Kickstarter also features new squads, solos, attachments, and heavy warjacks for every Faction, as well as three new Wild Card Heroes so every Faction can add a little more character to their roster. But the most exciting part of any Kickstarter campaign is the extras!
After having so much fun with our Loot Vault in the Riot Quest: Wintertime Wasteland Kickstarter a couple of months ago, we decided to translate that concept for the Warcaster: Collision Course campaign. We have a great lineup of Stretch Goals that will enhance every backer’s rewards, like Galaxy Lore cards, new Cyphers, and new Warjack Load Out cards. And at certain Stretch Goal intervals, backers will receive “Supply Drops” that provide Armory and Provisions credits to use to gain fantastic rewards from the Quartermaster after the campaign. Armory Rewards include things like the aforementioned hero pilots for the vehicles as well as Faction mantlets: deployable barriers that protect your troops while also conferring special abilities. And in the Provisions Rewards, you’ll find a variety of scatter terrain as well as Faction-specific objective markers to outfit your battlefield in style.
For those of you who prefer to purchase through your local game store, we’ve got a fantastic Retailer Reward Tier that will also receive Stretch Goal enhancements and other Rewards as funding for the campaign reaches higher levels.
The best part of the Warcaster: Collision Course Kickstarter is that you won’t be waiting forever to receive it. Rewards will deliver by April of 2021, which gives you just about enough time to finish painting your models from the first campaign before we kick things into high gear with the vehicles and Race Mode!
We hope you’ll join us in this exciting new chapter for Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika. If you didn’t get in on the first Kickstarter campaign, the Command Group Starter boxes are set to be in stores as early as October 23rd as well as available through the Privateer Press Online Store. Check out our Twitch live stream on Monday, October 19th, at 10 a.m. for a pre-launch deep-dive into what to expect from the campaign and the new models, and then brace yourself for impact as we hit the launch button on Warcaster: Collision Course!
It’s going to be a wild ride!
