War Room 1.3 Update Released, Has It Been Fixed?

War Room is Privateer Press' in-house app for players who want to keep their lists, cards, and other information for Warmachine and Hordes digital. Since its launch a lot of players have remained skeptical of the app's performance, many with good reason. The app has been known to crash, delete saved information, and for some it won't even start.

The app currently has 2.3/5 stars on the Android market, and the iOS ratings are nearly the same. Users are reporting poor execution in the app's presentation, claiming that the app will freeze over time, gamers are losing purchased content when switching to a new device, and some are reporting that it still hangs on startup. The idea behind War Room is a great leading off point, but can Privateer Press make the app work?

The company just posted a video on their site for War Room 1.3, the newest update for the app. From the video, here are the main points about what's changed in the app:

• added changelog feature that allows you to see all the changes that have been made to the app in one place
• new quick navigation button added to the top-left side of the screen that makes navigating the app much faster
• quick search function added, allowing users to search through the rules from any rules reference view
• theme force list option added, lets users check out theme lists while looking at warcasters/warlocks
• warjacks, warbeasts, and attachments have been removed from their own categories and added under a new attachment function
• theme force function added, lets players select a theme force from a warcaster/warlock's list, and the requirements to build the force will be shown for players to meet
• War Room automatically calculates bonuses for theme forces while building them, taking into account lowered point costs and more

You can see all the news in the video below. For those who use War Room already, what do you think of the changes? The new update will be live on February 24th.

Privateer Press Keynote Announcements 02/10/2014

This past Friday was the annual Keynote Panel from Privateer Press at Templecon. The company took to the stage to unleash a host of new announcements on the gaming community, and some of these announcements had the capacity to blow players away. We didn't get the new Horde faction announcement like we wanted, but we did get some pretty awesome information to hold us over. I'll cover the important bits from the Keynote below, and if I missed anything feel free to post a comment.

First up the company showed some stuff from Warmachine: Tactics. There was some concept art shown as well as 3D models for the Menoth 'jacks. We saw some environments the team is working on, though no video was shown for the game.

Next up, things switched over to the Iron Kingdoms RPG. A new book, Iron Kingdoms: Unleashed, was announced. This book will take the Iron Kingdoms RPG into the wilds of Immoren, getting closer to the Hordes side of things. Apparently this book will run as a standalone game, though it can be added to the IKRPG game as a supplement as well.

Moving on to Hordes, a new book called Exigence was announced. The book introduces some new warlocks, such as Helga - a new Farrow warlock, and an epic version of Xerxes riding a rhino, along with a new female Gatorman warlock. A Heavy Nephalym warbeast for Legion was announced, and it looks completely badass. Farrow and Gatormen Battle Engines were announced, and a new style of unit was announced called a Beast Pack. Beast Packs are part unit, part warbeast. They don't have life spirals, can be transferred damage, and can acquire fury.

Switching gears to Warmachine, a new sub-faction for Mercenaries was announced. This new faction is the Cephalyx, and they are the stuff of nightmares. The Cephalyx have Monstrosities instead of Warjacks, and make use of all sorts of mental magic. The warcasters can still gain and spend focus, though it will mainly be for casting spells. Monstrosities don't have a cortex, rather they work off of a brain system, and the models for the Cephalyx all work together as one sort of collective.

 

Finally, it looks like a new LEVEL 7 game will be coming, called LEVEL 7 [INVASION]. Aliens are invading Earth and you must pew-pew them.

Out of all this, I am most excited for the Cephalyx. The more I read/see about them, the more I want to give them a shot. I wrote on I:T that I feel they'll play too closely to Cryx, but now that I've seen more about them I feel like they're going to be something completely different. I think the ability to use mind magic on the field will definitely be unique, especially when dealing with non-living models. Apparently the Cephalyx will be at Lock & Load, so we'll have just a bit to wait and see what they're made of. What do you think about the announcements?