PAGE 5

P R I M E

Warning: Not suitable for wussies!

Sissies. Little girls. Nancy boys... go home. This game is not for you.

If you cry when you lose, get lost -- you're going to lose. If it hurts your fragile sensibilities to see your favorite character get pounded unmercifully by a rapid succession of no-holds-barred iron fury, you'd better look the other way. If you've ever whined the words, "That's too powerful," then put the book down slowly and walk away before making eye contact with anyone or they'll realize your voice hasn't changed yet.

This game is about aggression. This is the game of metal-on-metal combat. This is fuel-injected power hopped up on steroids. This is WARMACHINE -- the battles game that kicks so much ass we have to use all capital letters.

We didn't set out to reinvent the wheel with this game -- we just armor plated it, covered it in spikes, and rolled it over your grandma's house.

WARMACHINE is simple. It's easy to learn, has no reference charts, no heavy arithmetic, and doesn't require constant trips to the rulebook. At the same time, WARMACHINE possesses deep strategy. The ability to unlock combinations of abilities and spells and maneuvers is practically limitless. For every perfect strategy, there is a foil. For every immovable object, there is an unstoppable force. Just when you think you've got it all worked out, you'll be blindsided by something you never saw before. The more you dig, the more you'll find.

WARMACHINE favors the aggressor. You've got to throw the first punch if you want to land on top! Too many games set players up to be timid. Games drag out with little action because the game favors defensive strategies. Players park their soldiers behind walls like old ladies hiding from a loud noise.

Not in WARMACHINE! If you want your opponent to come to you, you're going to get steamrolled. You've got to have balls to play this game! You've got to charge your opponent and hang it all out there! You've got to break his formations. You've got to be relentless with your onslaught. You have to go for the jugular and latch on like a rabid dog that hasn't eaten in days. Anything less and you'll be hamburger.

You're playing with power now. Don't be afraid! Few things are more satisfying than slamming your opponent's warjack into a unit of soldiers and watching them fall like bowling pins! (We call this jack bowling.) Try picking up an enemy warcaster (with a warjack, of course) and throwing it across the battlefield! It's almost more fun than you should be allowed to have with miniatures game.

The miniatures of WARMACHINE deliver on every level that the game does. These warjacks radiate power! We're pouring so much metal into these things that at our current rate, we'll deplete the world of pewter by 2006. And these things were made for modeling. The incredible detail and expert sculpting will create one of the most enjoyable painting experiences you've ever had.

This is a new era in tabletop miniatures wargaming. This is a game made for you, by people like you. It's not a load of sterilized mass market drek designed by a room of corporate meatplow. This is raw. This is brutal. This is WARMACHINE.

So play like you've got a pair, or put down the metal and go find something made of plastic.

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E S C A L A T I O N

It started as a manifesto of our disposition -- the philosophy with which we created WARMCHINE. We never expected it to be the pavement of our common ground, the doctrine of a movement of players, or the center of controversy and a source of unlimited debate. Love it or hate it, though, you can't avoid it.

Is it about sexism? An anatomy lesson for the testicularly impaired?

No.

Page 5 is about honesty. It's a self awareness of what we're doing, why we're doing it, and who we're doing it for. It's a declaration of our stance, the 10-40 on our attitude. It's about the kind of people we are and the kind of people we want to face across the table.

We pour blood and sweat into this game, into the stories, into the art and into the metal. We want to see WARMACHINE experienced the way we intended it.

Escalation takes it to the next level and we're piling it on heavy. We've spent a year hammering away at this gallery of ass kickers and ensuring that everything you see is as borken as you expect it, but nothing here stands alone. Escalation raises the bar, but it stands on the shoulders of the nine-ton giants who came before it.

This is the triple shot in your 8AM espresso. This is the nitrous injection in your 426 Hemi. This is the depleted uranium tip on your armor-piercing round. We threw out anything that slowed down the fight. This is the final cut -- pure grain, grade A, distilled aggression.

You're going to need a hernia belt to lift these new warjacks. They're bigger, badder and pissed off. They don't fill the cracks in your armies; they work your opponent over like a school girl who wandered into a back-alley cage match. We've given you the warcasters to lead them too -- professional name-takers specifically designed to kick your foe in the nuts and bolts while a procession of solos, troops and blazing field artillery run through his back-entrance like a freight train on a mission from God.

Still, the new models are only half of the pants-soiling experience found within these pages. The Escalation campaign pitches you headlong into a conflict between four nations that will leave no on unscarred or uncharred. If you like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, show tunes, romantic comedies and happy endings, then you're crying into the wrong Kleenex, pink boy. This is a story about war. It's 87 pages of mud-slogging, blood-drenching, mind-blowing brutality. We've given you the lenses to see the Iron Kingdoms through our eyes. Better wear a helmet.

Page 5 was only a page number on a freshly printed book a year ago. Now it's the creed for a new era in wargaming, the banner for players looking for a challenge, and the battle cry for a game with serious stones.

You just hefted two scoops of whoop-ass for your Wheaties, Waldo. Remember to lift at the knees. We've given you a year to master the basics, and it's time to do your business or get off the pot.

And now that we're all on the same page --

Play like you've got a pair.

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A P O T H E O S I S

Remember that school girl from the back-alley cage match? Well she's all grown up now and that feeling between your legs is her yanking you tidy-whities up over your head for the holy mother of all atomic wedgies. Scream if you want to. It only makes her want to hurt you more -- just like your opponent across the table.

Welcome to the top. This is the pinnacle of power. It doesn't get any bigger than this, folks, or we run the risk of throwing the planet out of alignment. We've pushed the envelope of game and model design and taken it to the limit of human endurance. Don't look down; we're a long way from where we started.

WARMACHINE: Apotheosis will challenge your strategic and tactical muscles like never before. Contained within are multitudinous combinations of warcaster abilities waiting to be unlocked. Each on is capable of unleashing nothing less than a severe beating about the head and shoulders of your hapless adversary. Don't hold back; he wouldn't want you to. We all know we're here because we believe the next best thing to delivering a complete and thorough ass punishing is going down in a white-hot blaze of agonizing glory. This is pure power in your hands and a free license to abuse it.

The Apotheosis models are off the scale. We crammed so much detail and complexity into these mountains of metal that you're going to want to quit your day job in order to tackle them. This is no slag fest in pretty packaging meant to con you out of your hard-earned coin. These are expert works of art made with the highest standards for the most discriminating modeler. In every way, they have captured the essence of the characters they depict and radiate all the raw, relentless aggression each one embodies. Even before your opponent knows what you're packing, the mere sight of these brutal sculpts will send him running madly for his mommy's skirt.

This is the blue box, people. Time to put up or shut up. Apotheosis will rock the foundation of the world you thought you knew and understood. It's a vicious reminder that around every corner is something more merciless than what you could ever imagine. In every dark alley is a ruthless bastard waiting to carve another notch in his bat with your face. And across every table, in his unassuming faded black t-shirt, is a cold-hearted killer mentally tearing you limb from limb. Good thing you came in heavy -- now kick him right between the femurs...

... AND PLAY LIKE YOU'VE GOT A PAIR.

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H O R D E S P R I M A L - A N I M A L S T Y L E

For those who have experienced Privateer's games before, what follows will feel like a warm and cozy familiar blanket. For the uninitiated, this is the moment where we open up your bloodshot and beady little eyes to the cold, hard reality of the truth -- the truth that what you hold in your hands is nothing like you have never seen. This is going to change how you play games, and the difficult truth is that right now, most likely, you can't handle it.

But don't despair, there's a legion of die-hard, stone-cold, tabletop killers waiting to beat your ass until you can.

At Privateer Press, we inject our games with a special blend of testosterone-laden aggression and grade-A, cold filtered reality. We treat the tabletop like the battleground it is -- a place to prove your might is right. We don't suffer whiners, sissies, momma's boys, daddy's little princesses, or punk-mouthed pukes with more excuses than moves. We come for the beat down -- deliver it with gusto or take it like a trooper. There is glory in both as long as you got the rocks.

Don't be deceived. HORDES is simple on the surface. You roll some dice, you add some numbers, and you mark some dots on the cards. It's the deep strategy that is going to turn your brain into a pretzel. Whether you're a seasoned veteran of tabletop conquest or some doe-eyed rookie who accidentally wandered into this den of ruthless vipers, the mental gymnastics you're going to have to master are not going to come without some severe bruising along the way. Keep your head and hands inside the window, face forward, and pay attention because you only get to hear this for the first time once, and if you don't get it then, you're going to look like 200 lbs. of ground beef praying for the sweet release of death.

Punch first, hit hard, show no mercy, and expect none in return.

The beasts we've bred for HORDES are fury-fueled monsters, and the only way to handle them is with the same disregard they have for each other. HORDES is powered by unchecked brutality. It's not survival of the fittest, meathead. It's survival of the most badass, and the winner takes all. If you can't hand with the animals, you best get out of the jungle now before something mistakes you for a snack.

Privateer Press is building upon a tradition of untarnished honesty, unwavering respect, and unrelenting gratitude for the people who play our games, blazing away a new era where quality of game, experience, and inspiration are worth the hard earned coin you just traded. We freed the shackles of corporate mediocrity and have charged ourselves with delivering unto you only the most visceral episodes you can encounter in adventure gaming. We throw our blood, sweat and souls into these creations, and we back it up with a simple creed.

This is primal. This is savage. This is HORDES.

PLAY LIKE YOU'VE GOT A PAIR!

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+++ On being "First"

I've seen this in Warhammer and evidently, it's also in Warmachine, too ~ people clamoring and bragging about being the first: first to find out about the rules on new models/armies, first to make an army list of said new stuff, first to get the rulebooks, first to get the model. A lot more "firsts"... I guess some people get the "I'm-more-superior-than-you-because-I-got-to-it-first-than-you" kick more than everyone else. And no, I don't see that in WMPH. I just see it everywhere else.

Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck who got to what piece of shit first. It never fails to strike a nerve how people go brag about it. Most of the time I can ignore it, but I guess I'm in the mood to rant (it's probably those 711 peanuts).

I don't care if you thought of this-that combo first, because I'll still beat your sorryass army.

And if on the chance you beat me, might as well get ready for another fight because I'm just gonna get up again and have a go at dishing out more punishment as well.

I don't care if you "bought" the model first, because I know I can always paint it better than you.

And if you paint better than me now, might as well try and chop my hands off because I'm aiming to be better than you.

Learn some humility, foo'.

Because snotty blowhard braggarts are the ones I have no regret of humiliating utterly. Or beating up outside.

Take your best shot.