My Eternal Struggle With Warzone

 Now that's some shit tier wordplay.

I've made it no secret that I have nothing short of a love affair with Mutant Chronicles, and the subsequent tie in miniatures game Warzone.

That art still gets me...

Warzone was my introduction to miniatures wargaming back in the 90's, the first miniatures I ever painted were some Bauhaus Venusian Rangers and I had a decent little collection of models for said faction. I fell absolutely in love, and second edition came out with an amazing new starter set featuring Bauhaus and Imperial (my brother's faction of choice) right around the time we really got invested.

God I miss the glory of old school models.

And then Target Games, the company who made Warzone, imploded, and Warzone died. 

The history of Warzone is long and filled with tears. It came back with Ultimate Warzone in the early 2000's, and promptly died again. Then Fantasy Flight Games made their ill fated attempt with their Mutant Chronicles miniatures game, which promptly died because who the fuck wants to play a game with 54mm pre-painted models that took one too many creative liberties with the designs?

In 2014, a scant 15 years since the original run ended, we got Warzone Resurrection on the scene. It was a fresh take, new rules that evoked the original and updated designs without straying from the classic looks too hard (with some very noticeable exceptions). It was fun, I had two armies and got several of the crew at Blue Table Painting playing it (you may have seen some of the videos I did about it while there) and we even got the US rep for the company to come hang out with us and send us all sorts of free goodies. I loved it. It was a solid game and I had a blast playing it. But, as is the history of Warzone, the game met an inglorious end. Cabinet Entertainment, who own the rights to Mutant Chronicles, apparently had some disagreements with Prodos Games who were producing the game, the license was pulled, and Warzone died yet again in 2016 or so.

And now here we are, creeping up on 2024 and a new Warzone game is on the horizon with Warzone Eternal. And it fills me with dread.

I briefly covered this is my post about how being a journalist has kind of ruined me, but as the game nears completion and gets ever closer to hitting retail I find myself with mixed feelings of joy at Warzone being back and a looming sense of terror at getting excited about it again.

I want to be excited, I really do. I've looked at the game and it looks good, but I've watched Warzone live and die so many times. This is the fourth iteration using the Warzone name (I don't really count the transition from first to second edition because they were fairly similar to each other in terms of mechanics), and having gotten invested and excited twice to watch it unceremoniously taken behind the shed and shotgunned I am, I feel justifiably, just a little hesitant. I've read the rules documents the guys at Res Nova have put out, and it's got Brian Steele on as the rules guy and he knows how to write a good game, but I can't shake the feeling of it all being a trap.

The models look to have all the charm and great style of the older stuff, which as I get on in age I find myself really appreciating the simplicity of the older models and single piece miniatures in particular (trust me, the whole thing about modern model design is a post I plan to write one day). I mean, just look at these things:

Venusian Rangers are pure sex.

Those look super god damn sick, with all the classic design cues run through a filter of not having to be stupid huge to get the needed detail and now being able to have more poses between models.

I want to get hyped, I want to jump with joy that a true Warzone skirmish game is coming, I want to buy in and show my support and demo the ever loving shit out of it. It is 100% my jam.

But I'm scared, and wary and not sure how to approach the IP anymore. How long will this one last? Resurrection was doing well sales wise, had a good sized player base and new models were coming out on the regular before Cabinet yanked the license and left it to rot. And with how many skirmish sci-fi games are out there, will this stand out? Will it have legs to support it and keep it alive beyond the existing Warzone fanbase? Resurrection had a little over a hundred more backers, and made roughly $40,000 more (adjusted for inflation) than Eternal did. Is this a sign people are losing interest? Or is just a sign of the economy and people maybe getting over crowdfunding?

Warzone is my first gaming love, and I absolutely cherish it and adore it and want it to do well. I want to see Eternal succeed and grow, I want to see some of my favorite units make it into the game, I want to see Apostles other than Algeroth get some fucking models for a change. At the same time, though, I can't help but wonder if that's exactly the problem. Are we, the fans, the issue? After watching our beloved IP suffer and be raised from the dead to be struck down time and again, how much more abuse can we take? How much more abuse should the IP take? When do we finally say "maybe it's time to just let it rest?"

I keep thinking I've hit that point. I didn't back the Eternal Kickstarter for several reasons, but that voice saying "maybe it's time to let it go" certainly played a role. And yet, I keep finding myself looking at it, popping in and reading the updates on the campaign, reading the rules, looking at pricing to see how much I'd need to save up to do proper demos in the future for people who, likely, won't give a shit and will just go back to Killteam or Infinity because playing more than one game in the same genre is too scary or something like that. 

I want to let it go, to move on and just enjoy what I've got and the happy memories associated with Warzone. Those warm feelings in my heart for it, knowing that it was how I started and that it will always hold a special place in my heart and mind. But I also want to see it succeed. I want it to be good, get a playerbase and become a hit. And I can't have it both ways.

So I struggle with Warzone. It tears me up a little thinking about it, knowing that I can't figure out what the fuck I want. I guess I'll keep watching it, occasionally re-read the old rulebooks, look at the old catalogs and admire the models that introduced me to this whole crazy ass hobby. Sometimes I'll smile, other times I'll spiral into an almost existential terror at my place in the world of wargaming and maybe one day I'll bite the bullet and finally come to a decision.

Until then, best of luck Res Nova and crew. And I hope you, hypothetical reader, will maybe take a look at a truly wonderful IP because of this.