Chances are if you’re a fan of Warmachine or Hordes, you stayed up, or woke up early to watch the Lock and Load keynote presentation on Twitch.tv . Here’s the recap if you missed it or if your are wanting another dose of the info.
Level 7
The Level 7 universe gets another game in the version of Invasion. Matt Wilson descibes Invasion as the third act in the Level 7 storyline. He calls it a climax, not a close. The big enemy, the Hydra, are coming to Earth to eliminate the Ghin, a refugee alien race hidden on the planet.
Invasion is a semi cooperative global resource game, as described by Will Schick. Each player is a world leader working in a coalition with the other nations and the former bad guy, Dr. Chronos. He promised that the Level 7 story wouldn’t end there, either.
Aeryn Rudel announced a Level 7 narrative, Judas Protocol. This book will be a prequel story coming from Skull Island Expeditions and written by Nathan Myer. It will follow the Disco Team from Level 7: Omega Protocol. It’s a story about the team hunting down a rogue Ghin with stolen technology. Another short story will be released to parallel the story from the upcoming Invasion board game.
SmogCon
Matt Wilson, has announced that they will be partnering with Smogcon and Cerberus in the UK. This coming February, Will Schick will be headed to Smogcon to, hopefully, bring the Lock and Load feel to SmogCon for those in the UK that want a convention focused on Privateer Press games without having to travel to Seatlle for Lock and Load.
Warmachine: Reckoning
Ed Bourelle promised that Reckoning will be a big book, likely bigger than most of the Warmachine releases to date with character units, jacks, and new Warcasters. Will tells us that Reckoning will bring the Vengeance and Exigence stories to a climax that they have been building to for a while. Will Schick threw in a quick hint, “Dragons will rise!”
Warmachine: Tactics
The Kickstarted video game for Warmachine is still expected to be on track. The release is slated for August. A playable demo is currently available to play at Lock and Load. Matt Wilson says the Kickstarter pledges will have a shot at jumping into the closed beta test that will launch in the next few weeks. An open Beta test will be several more weeks after that.
The Iron Kingdoms RPG Monsternomicon Returns
Will Schick waited for the last thing to announce an IKRPG announcement. A New Monsternomicon, one of the more famous books from the first edition of the Iron Kingdoms RPG using the D20 system. The new book introduces “templates” that you can add to monsters in your campaigns including: ‘blighted’, ‘spellslinger’, and ‘Adapted to it’s environment’. A dragonspawn “building” table will give GMs a way to create pretty much any dragon they want to fit their story.
The book also has characteristics of the known dragons in the Iron Kingdoms universe so you can build a dragon similar or just like them. It has a release date of September 2014. Expect to see it at Gencon.
