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Some huge Primecast announcements for this week – on a new Organised play campaign and Lost Legion gameplay teaser

Ghost Ship League – Organised Play Packet

A league containing 6 new narrative scenarios, following a story of a long dead Ghost Ship with the following concept:

When humanity was first working out the void gates, they sent scout ships everywhere, and most of them were lost and never returned. Now one of them has returned, ripped to shreds, it has come back through a gate. Players will follow the ‘black box’, retrace the ships steps, and once they work it out it will reveal new secrets of the Hyperuranion. These are unrevealed secrets, and we will be terrified to hear it.

I love everything about this

• new lore exploring the ghost ships, which were one of the more intriguing parts of the Thousand Worlds background
• 6 new scenarios: being developed by Jon from War Budgies I have every hope they will be wacky fun
• Promise of new lore about the universe

I speculate there will be some connection to the Lost Legion. Admittedly, the Ghost Ship was launched within a few hundred years of humanity arriving in the galaxy, while the Lost Legion only disappeared a few hundred years ago, making them about 4,000 years apart. Maybe there’s just too much similarity in the concept of something ‘lost’ returning.

Anyway, very excited to see what will happen. Did I mention the Lost Legion?

Lost Legion Gameplay teaser

This was a splattering of concepts behind the rules, rather than anything too specific

• They were built by Marchers, so they are relatively shooty, but technology is a few hundred years old and not as advanced as the Marchers.
• The units will be very specialised, sounds like they tend to have only 1 weapon. The rifleman just shoots, but he is really good at it. Compared to base Marcher Rangers that have diverse options with melee, range and grenades.
• Battle Network: Each Unit will get buffs / new abilities if they are near another unit. Some examples are seeing around walls or through units. It sounds like it is not conditional on which unit is near.
• Battle Network makes them really powerful if you can stay in formations, or in pairs. However this will be challenging if claiming multiple objectives, since that will force them to spread out. A hint for opponents is to try to force them to split their forces more to shut down the Battle Network.
• They don’t have weaver solos – instead their arc relays (fury channelers) are built into light warjacks. This makes them super versatile (Jon jokes they get every stat, from Str to Focus), but also high priority targets. The reason for not having solos is related to difficulties synthesizing the arc node function of organic souled weavers, so put it on a warjack instead.

It sounds like Battle Network will be their main ability that swings the Legion playstyle. They will need to brick up and stay together to get the most out of their forces. The idea that they are hyper specialised plays into that: since they need to support each other to handle situations that they aren’t equipped for alone.

It will be interesting to see how powerful they are as specialised units, and how much they benefit from Battle Network. Warcaster is designed so everything dies very easily: I wonder how easy it will be to keep the buffs on the pieces that need it if opponents can keep swatting the clusters of models that support the more powerful Battle Network effects. Will that mean they have to be more resilient, or that each formation will need more units to guarantee that enough survive to keep the effect.

I hope they get a centrepiece heavy warjack or vehicle that is individually weak, but starts to get really powerful Battle Network effects, potentially scaling with more models. An absolute god of the battlefield with a massive cheer squad around it charging it up.

Very keen to hear more!

You can hear the Ghost Ship and Lost Legion announcements early in the most recent primecast: around the 5min mark.

https://home.privateerpress.com/2023/05/09/primecast-episode-15-2/

Gen Con

This one was separate from Primecast, however they announced a Gen Con Warcaster mini-campaign themed around the neutral monsters announced so long ago. They mentioned it will be a first run of the campaign system. I am looking forward to hearing people report back on the campaign and monster rules, as I’ve been excited for both since I first heard of them.

They also promise rewards – hopefully the lucky folks who play will get the first monster models in the wild. Although it is reward enough just to try them out.

With Gen Con in August 2023 and sounding like monsters and campaign are on the table, hopefully that means the final campaign will release by end of 2023. PP has had a big year though, and I can wait (reluctantly) if I have to.

WARCASTER: NEO-MECHANIKA *HOSTILE ZONE* MINI-CAMPAIGN

Friday, August 4, 11:00 AM

Primary Format narrative event—Achylys Secundus is rich in Protoworlder bounties while teeming with hostile fauna. Seize bounties while foisting monsters on your opponents in this mini-campaign event with awesome prizes!

Play through a one-day Warcaster campaign and bring back big loot to your homeworld! This event will be the first run for some of the upcoming Warcaster campaign rules, so you’ll be putting the new system through its paces. And we’re going to make sure you’re rewarded for your efforts!

https://home.privateerpress.com/2023/05/04/gen-con-events/

What do you think of the announcements? Anyone brave enough to join me in wild speculation?