Things I don't Like about Privateer Press, counting the ways

[souran]

I think I probably hate GW as much as PL hates Privateer press.

However, on the "who could possibly save us from GW" the answer right now is ... GW.

GW CAN make awesome games. Epic 40k and Warmaster (the 2000 version) are actually amazing wargames with high tatical complexity and rules that are designed to be about table play and not about who can paint the prettiest bloodthirster.

However, as PL has pointed out: Nobody is even really trying to compete against GW anynore and that is REALLY BAD because when GW feels like it doesn't have to try they simply DONT.

Rockham games AT-43 is a kind of interesting wargame, that is about 2/3 the cost of warhammer to play AND comes pre painted.

.... and its been almost 2 years since I have seen a game store carry it regularly.

Hordes / Warmachine was making inroads but (and I assume that this was caused by the things PL said above) after a certain amount of time the people who were saying warmachine was awesome and was like a well done warhammer came back and started saying that warmachine was now even more convoluted than warhammer.

Lets look at some othe wargames that have come through:

Vor - Dead
Starship Troops - Dead
Battletech - Miniatures are not produced to a profitable schedule for retailers, the game is on life-support as a wargame at best.
ASL - Still one of the most popular tournament wargames around, has not been produced in a DECADE
Confrontation/AT-43 Rackham sells in France to bad they don't want to share with the rest of the world.
Demonworld - A very good miniatures wargame on hexmaps. To bad that the germans won't share it with the rest of us.
Battlelore/Command and Colors - Days of Wonder stays in buisness on thsi system and I assume that people buy it and put them on the shelf in their homes because I have NEVER seen these games actually played ANYWHERE
CAV - Deader than battletech even though they actually DO produce new miniatures.
Warzone - Dead
Jev/Orge Minis - Sold well for a while then everybody rememberd that the game without miniatures costs $15.
Halo Minis - Its sells and that makes me sad, but not to people who will play wargames for more than 1 year which makes me happy.
Starfleet Battles/Saganami Island Tatical/ Full Thrust - Spaceship games have a devoted following. However they only get real play at major events and nobody bothers to play them at an FLGS.


So... The line up of dead and gone games left in the wake of the GW steamroller is pretty huge. Which almost makes it seem like getting GW to hire some talented wargames designers might be easier than trying to compete with them.

[Orion]

April First is only next month after all...

[Sir Neil]

No really you can read a lot of it at this entirely random location on the internet.

. . . they DO know that they're just making little toy soldiers, don't they?

[cthulhu]

ASL cannot really be compared to those other games. The 'realistical wargame community' has been toddling along for years and seems set to continue to do so for some time to come.

Battlelore gets played a lot, but you generally play it with friends at their place in my experince.

The WWII version is probably the best.

However, fuck off - Days of Wonder publishes ticket to ride, and any given edition of that has outsold every edition of the battlelore esque card driven games combined.

[Doom]

>>Battlelore/Command and Colors - Days of Wonder stays in buisness on thsi system and I assume that people buy it and put them on the shelf in their homes because I have NEVER seen these games actually played ANYWHERE <<

Hey, I set up Battlelore next to my computer (I have a massive custom desk), and played out every scenario multiple times over the course of six months. It's such a self-contained system that you don't need to meet at the hobby shop to play, it all fits in one box.

But, oh yeah, Ticket to Ride is the big money...never seen that one played in a hobby shop, either, though.

[souran]

ASL cannot really be compared to those other games. The 'realistical wargame community' has been toddling along for years and seems set to continue to do so for some time to come.

It can certainly be compared to Flames of War. ASL is played in more and larger tournaments than Flames of War. That doubly bad because ASL has been out of print for over a decade.

Flames of War is in print, and making some ok money but its still the SECOND most popular WWII "minis" game (ASL was sold as cardstock minis)

That is classic "historical wargamers" though, they are willing to refight wars with systems that are totally outdated.

Battlelore gets played a lot, but you generally play it with friends at their place in my experince.

The WWII version is probably the best.

I own a copy of battle lore. I have played against another human being once. Most people I have found play it solo. Supposedly it can be a hobby, but its played like a board game. It is NOT a hobby. Thats to bad because the system isn't terrible, its not amazing but its playable and interesting.

However, fuck off - Days of Wonder publishes ticket to ride, and any given edition of that has outsold every edition of the battlelore esque card driven games combined.

Where did I say that anything except the command and colors system was collecting dust on a shelf? Ticket to ride is one of the best selling non main stream board games of all time. Its probably played a ton more than command and colors.

However 1) It isn't a wargame and therefore beyond this discussion
and 2) Even if it was its still not a "hobby" style minis game in any form or fashion. So don't jump all over me.

[angelfromanotherpin]

That doubly bad because ASL has been out of print for over a decade.

Then where did the copy my store ordered and received last week come from?

[souran]

That doubly bad because ASL has been out of print for over a decade.

Then where did the copy my store ordered and received last week come from?

You got a multi-man publishing version of the game correct? Or does it say Avalon Hill on it?

I thought that when hasbro bought AH that they closed down all the ASL line entirely, looks like they sold it. I didn't realize that some of the Multi-man publshing stuff was not 3rd party or home published.

Sorry, I guess it is in print. That actually hurts flames of war even more because there is no way they are going to get ASL players if those players can actually get new "offical" material.

[Princess]

Anima seems to have the following issues.
1) No one is playing it locally.
2) Seems kinda designed for smaller scale games.
3) It's 'anime' styled and themed. I mean the art is kinda nice, but it's sorta not fashionable and will never pull in large chunks of the wargamer crowd (though that may not be a BAD thing).
...
6) It looked good when all you had was the "starter rules" and the very small set of stats on "whatever mini's you happened to have" what it looks like now the expensive and elusive complete rule book with all the stats for all the set one and set two models is out is mildly mysterious to me.

Anima is designed for skirmish games where each character is uber-powered munch by fluff. I haven't played it yet, but I have some minis. They are cheaper than GW stuff and WAY more detailed. By WAY more detailed I mean Warhammer minis are some kind of dwarves, and Anima have decent proportions so girls do not look like barrels with muscles. They have some ugly minis though.

[PhoneLobster]

April First is only next month after all...

[Zinegata]

ASL was sold to Multi-Man-Publishing. Who's currently printing limited numbers of "Starter Kits" instead of the old box set. And they're also selling all the old AH stock of expansions.

If a game store has ASL, it's probably an MMP Starter Kit (3 of them are out).

The big boy of the historical wargame community nowadays is GMT. And yeah, ASL/Historicals should really be classified outside of miniature wargames.

------

Regarding minis, AT-43 is probably the best 40K killer right now. It's actually not too hard to order from Rackham. We have somebody here ordering so much stuff for the local players that I suspect they may end up considering a Philippine distribution office.

[cthulhu]

ASL cannot really be compared to those other games. The 'realistical wargame community' has been toddling along for years and seems set to continue to do so for some time to come.

It can certainly be compared to Flames of War. ASL is played in more and larger tournaments than Flames of War. That doubly bad because ASL has been out of print for over a decade.

Meh, they are completely different games. ASL resolution takes to long and makes me want to commit suicide and/or smash all the bones in my hand with a hammer.

I'm not alone in this sentiment and there is clearly a market.

However, fuck off - Days of Wonder publishes ticket to ride, and any given edition of that has outsold every edition of the battlelore esque card driven games combined.

Where did I say that anything except the command and colors system was collecting dust on a shelf? Ticket to ride is one of the best selling non main stream board games of all time. Its probably played a ton more than command and colors.

The quote from you was:

Days of Wonder stays in buisness on thsi system

Which I read as implying that this system kept Days of wonder in business. If I was wrong, sorry, but that's what that statement means to me.

[spasheridan]

Played W40k from 1999 to 2005 about 3 nights a month.

Played WM from release (2003) until today. Less in the beginning, more as the game took off, even more as I dropped 40k for the piece of shit model selling factory that it is.

From the platonic ideal of wargames, WM (and Hordes) leaves a lot to be desired.

From the state of wargames in 2003, WM stands tall above all other games. I'm not going to brag about all the faction coins, champions coins, 1st place trophies, league pins, and gold cards I've collected over the years - OK, I will. I frickin pwn at this game.

SO - for all your talk about trap options.. I'll just say get some game. Pick a unit and I'll win with it in my list. Yes, there are easy buttons in all the factions. If you need a crutch to play they are there. Grow a pair and learn how to stand on your own, start taking mass cephalax and reapers.

This game is about order of operations, synergy, and space control. Steamroller rules show you how they envision this game being played, if you choose to play it like a 7 hour chess game you are doing it wrong.

[Sashi]

Wow, I don't even play the game and I'm going to call you a shithead. You have literally made every game design fallacy it is possible to make.

[PhoneLobster]

Pick a unit and I'll win with it in my list.

That isn't good enough. You need to win with it as ALL of your list. In a similar points match up against stuff.

At the very least you need to build a list where "that unit" is the major theme, majority or linchpin of your list.

And you need to win against not some crappy newbie with a similarly trappy list.

You need to win... against YOU, a you who picked a non trappy list, maybe even a you that picked an outright exploitative list.

Make sure to pick something REALLY terrible, like the 2.0 version of the hell diver. Make sure to use their only remaining and utterly underwhelming Burrow ability at every opportunity.

There that is your list, burrowing 2.0 hell divers. That's all you get to have. That and maybe some abstracted focus resources. Lets see you beat all comer versions of yourself with that.

Also remember that your "I have Balls" philosophy doesn't let you just wank around talking about this on forums "Theory Machine" is strictly no allowed for men with REAL BALLS. You have to HAVE THE BALLS to PUNCH YOURSELF IN THE BALLS repeatedly by actually HAVING THE BALLS to play with pretty much only burrowing 2.0 hell divers repeatedly in real actual BALLSY games. You should have the BALLS to commit to your statement about traps and never take ANY MODEL OTHER THAN A 2.0 BURROWING HELL DIVER to EVERY TOURNAMENT YOU EVER GO TO AGAIN (hell divers are unlimited, you only need a caster to make a legal list, make sure to use lots of different casters now! Finding one to mitigate the hell divers tragic failings and sticking to it wouldn't be BALLSY enough!). And make sure you take your Hell Diver swarm to every tournament ever! Now THAT is BALLS.

Really really sore balls from punching yourself in them repeatedly rather than admit that MAYBE there are Trap options laced throughout your game.

And remember to really have BALLS you not only need to prove that the 2.0 game is perfect and trap free you need to justify that SAME fan boy attitude of thinking the game was perfect we all know you had back in the Remix era when the Hell Diver was dramatically better. And you need to punch yourself in the BALLS repeatedly while doing so to PROVE YOU HAVE THEM!

Because you know, understanding or admitting imperfection in the rules of a game, that's somehow NOT ballsy, while going into denial and talking about how much you play the game and can beat anyone's dad every in a fight is you know a sign of REAL BALLS!

[PhoneLobster]

Oh and more seriously, as it is the only bit of real content in a largely hand in dick post...

Steamroller rules show you how they envision this game being played

Yeah, they envision a really really narrow, brief, shallow and unbalanced version of their own game that is far suckier than the game could be otherwise.

Steam roller is the hacky dumbed down version of the game. Just like 2.0 is a hacky dumbed down edition, when brought together by their powers combined they summon Captain Pollution.

[Username17]

Wow. A wargame should in fact be playable as a 7 hour chess game. Indeed, since a good player playing "fast" should be able to play the game at least as well as a poor-to-middling player playing "slow", then if you admit the game stops working if you take your time you are equally admitting that the game becomes degenerate if you develop any real skill. Jeebies.

In any case, I really lid Chronopia, the fantasy offering from the Swedes that used to do Mutant Chronicles. I liked the models and the clunky giant shoulder pads with gears on them aesthetic. And the rules were fairly OK. But that game is dead and so is the company. In that case, I think it was because they tried to expand the game before they got really playable model lists out to everyone. Let that be a lesson for all time: under no circumstances are you to make a new book with new options and new factions before you have a model for every unit the factions you already have can take.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Let that be a lesson for all time: under no circumstances are you to make a new book with new options and new factions before you have a model for every unit the factions you already have can take.

Try telling those fucks at GW. Wait, never mind, you mean "If you want a good game".

[spasheridan]

Burrow list. Done. To be the primary unit you can't be playing a hold ground mission, because obviously a burrow unit doesn't hold ground. so at a steamroller it's an alt list to be used on the caster kill scenario ONLY.

So - here's the list. Epic Deneghra, some pistol wraiths, and helldivers. Toss in Nightmare as well, Denny's Big Jack that can go ghostly as well. We'll take 5 helldivers (15 points), Nightmare is 10, Epic D is -6ish, so that's 2 pistol wraiths. The entire army is either incorporeal or off the board every turn, except for Denny. She has to camp focus and avoid the elf.

This list wins by denying your opponent the ability to attack and allowing you to choose when to engage, and by bypassing most defensive formations. THe turn you attack you pop feat so if you kill your targets the divers can burrow before being retaliated against, to give you 2 turns that you can attack on. This list looses to a snipe attack, so be carefull.

I can theory machine all day, but theory machine falls down because you can't play a game in a thread. You can isolate small things - eVlad + Uhlans on feat turn, threat range = 16", impact attacks to clear the path. That kind of knowledge lets you assemble the main thrust of your plan, but you have to remember that the game (tournament form) is generally about holding a position on the board instead of killing units.

As far as steamroller being a hacked up version of the game - the THEME of the game is aggression. The mechanics of the game favor aggression. The missions and rules in steamroller ask you to kindly move your army towards the middle of the board and play aggressively, and now they include a turn clock to deny stalling and force you to play aggressively.

WHY, you ask, is this so? Because the game also offers sit back and snipe playstyle that - to be blunt - blows. There's no way to include ranged units and not have the hide and shoot option in the game, so they've put the middle of the board objectives into the game to force the game into the playstyle they envision.

Wargames are not RPGs, so limitting play space is a GOOD thing.

@ Frank. OK, so a 7hour game that is filled with aggressive moves and then double checking rules because you are totally new is fine. A 7 hour game that is filled with positioning and hiding is not. The goal of warmachine is not a delicate dance in search of a minor tactical advantage and layered feints within feints. THe goal of warmachine is attacking first and attacking hard.

Games should rarely make it past turn 5, usually they end on turn 3. The board is set up so attacks can begin on player 2's turn 1, player 1's turn 2 at the latest.

[Koumei]

So what you're saying is the game is complete shit for anything other than "throw your units at each other in a closet and see who comes out on top"?

Wait, you're the one defending that pile of shit?

Seriously, I am confident that, given enough care factor* and a decision on the scale/style of stuff they want**, the people here could make a better wargame. While drunk. Sure it isn't hard: any time spent playing WM or WH or 40k could be better spent looking at pictures of cats on the Internet, but seriously.

Still, see the first footnote. It's not happening, but we could do it if it was actually worth the effort.

*I'm pretty sure it's insufficient. Even the people here who like wargames know that unlike RPGs you can design all you like, no-one will ever play it.

**As in "Do we want massive sprawling armies where units mostly use tactical formations to do their thing, ala Epic, or do we want gang-skirmish/SAS ops stuff where you have like a dozen individuals each, or do we want something the size of your average 40k army? And are do we want Three Kingdoms stuff where you have a pool to spend on your Hero and a pool to spend on the rest, and Heroes seriously kick so much ass they decide the battle or do we basically not give a shit about giving names to individual models and the important factor is numbers?"

[Username17]

Yes, he is really saying that the tactical wargame is a shitty waste of time once you start using actual tactics. It's... a weird argument.

But yeah, making a wargame that people will actually play is pretty difficult. Much more so than making an RPG or board game that people play. This is because a wargame comes is three parts:

• A competitive game.
• Collecting Miniatures.
• A universe full of fanfic.

So Hordes of the Things isa perfectly playable (if incredibly simple) rule set that is totally model agnostic. It never goes anywhere because you can't collect a Hordes of the Things army and telling other people what kind of army you play does not mean anything. Meanwhile, Reaper Miniatures are beautiful to behold. I collect them just to use as character models. But the skirmish game they put out for their minis is a boring "roll some d10s" game, and I don't care. And then there's Starship Troopers. I liked the Starship Troopers movie, it's a very funny and apt parody of the fascism espoused by the original book. But it's pretty limited, there are marines and there are bugs, and that's pretty much it. It has a loyal following of people who want to play as marines or bugs and fight bugs or marines, but it's always going to be small because that's kind of a weird niche.

And that's pretty much where we stand. I personally am not a sculptor and don't have a company worth of sculptors at my beck and call. I can't make a model line. And while I could make a derivative or unique setting (and have), it doesn't really do any good without a model line, so I'm not going to do it.

-Username17

[spasheridan]

I'm saying that THIS game rewards aggression. To emphasize this they've crafted scenarios where you LOOSE if you don't have models in the middle of the board by turn 2. You also loose if your general dies.

THe outcomes are generally:

1) One player doesn't commit enough models to the scenario objectives and looses turn 3.

2) Both players commit enough models to the center and the attrition wipes out both armies and one player with better planning comes out ahead and wins.

3) One player is too aggresive with their general and their general dies.

THen there is outcome 4:

Stalemate at the center. Attrition is equal enough that the game CAN go on to turns 5+. This is really rare, because by this point you are forced to be aggressive with your general, usually both generals clash and the player who gets the first swing in this conflict wins. But in this case you can really drag the game out because the surviving units are usually quite durable.

How, you ask, does this game reward aggression? By placing damage output well above hit points. Toss in synergy effects and you generally kill what you focus on. The tactics in this game are on the battlefield, positioning and decisions about what you will LOOSE so you can get a good kill in next turn.

I'm not saying that it's a waste of time to use tactics, just that the game rewards aggressive tactics much more than defensive ones.

The alternative is warhammer. warhammer games are a minimum of 2 hours long (play time) and setup. The game of warhammer mostly takes place off the battlefield and during army creation. Most times you can tell after deployment and army lists being revealed who will win the game - then you spend 2+ hours moving your army men around the board and rolling dice in such numbers that it's almost entirely a bell curve. 40 attacks needing 4's to hit, all hits need 5's to wound, all wounds are saved on a 4+. So 1/2*1/3*1/2=1/12 so maybe 4 models removed. 2 - 6 is a safe assumption, and you need to do that 3 times to get the unit below half...

blah. Speed it up and get the game over in 50 minutes, I want to play twice on my night out and have the decisions on the board matter more than decisions in list creation.

Please remember, though, that I totally agreed up front that compared to the platonic ideal of wargames WM/Hordes doesn't measure up. If you want mass armies this game is too small scale. If you want squad combat this game is too large scale. If you want giant robots shooting fricking harpoons at OTHER giant robots and dragging them around the battlefield then doing WWE 2-handed throws while walking bombs and wizards are blasting around the battlefield - this game is what you want. Also you can get 2 games in a night at your FLGS and still get home before midnight.

[Zinegata]

Can people please stop calling miniatures games "wargames", because us historical wargames people aren't dead yet.

[A Man In Black]

I'm saying that THIS game rewards aggression. To emphasize this they've crafted scenarios where you LOOSE if you don't have models in the middle of the board by turn 2. You also loose if your general dies.

That's not rewarding aggression. That's punishing people for not being aggressive enough.

[PhoneLobster]

I can theory machine all day, but theory machine falls down because

...because it is something specifically outside of the philosophy of the "I HAVE BALLS DHURRR" of you, your post defending Privateer, and of Privateer.

The second you start using "Theory machine" you lose because your entire argument is essentially "theory machine is for no balls wussy cooties girls!"

Burrow list. Done.

OK my opinion of the Warmachine tournament circuit and metagame community was pretty poor but how on earth do you ever win anything?

Because that list is Mr Baddy Bad McBad Pants. The only good thing on it is the damnable Pistol Wraiths. Epic Deneghra is terrible, and a bad choice for the list to boot, Nightmare is a waste of space and points, and of course there are the Hell divers. Which are Hell divers...

To be the primary unit you can't be playing a hold ground mission, because obviously a burrow unit doesn't hold ground.

So... auto lose a whole bunch of games right there then...

so at a steamroller it's an alt list

Oops, so you DON'T actually HAVE THE BALLS to take this list TO THE MAX. Alt list? WHAT ALT LIST YOU WIMP, us REAL MEN, don't HAVE an ALT LIST, instead we have BALLS, TWO OF THEM!!!

to be used on the caster kill scenario ONLY.

Which is a pity because it is a pretty shockingly bad list for caster kill what with the INCREDIBLE lack of mobility on Hell divers for a Cryx unit. I mean really THREE whole inches of burrow? Oh yeah, you're gonna assassinate someone with that!

Basically you "assassinate" using pistol wraiths, and Deneghra herself. Throw enough tricks together and Deneghra MIGHT just get the Nightmare into some serious action, but the Hell Divers are about the LEAST synergistic Cryx jack ever for ghost walk mobility caster assassination bullshit.

The entire army is either incorporeal or off the board every turn, except for Denny. She has to camp focus and avoid the elf.

Problems with this statement.

1) Denny is camping focus AND feeding focus to Nightmare to make it Ghostly, AND her spells are are over priced crap so she cant camp focus and, you know, do anything.

2) Denny is "avoiding the elf" (good lord you are still stuck in THAT archaic meta game shit? Really? You actually STILL, hell EVER, had that many problems with "the elf"? Really?). ANYWAY she is "avoiding the elf" and yet she has a list with not one arc node on it, not a single spell range greater than 8, and arguably one of the best things she is capable of doing is actually tied to her god damn MELEE attack!

3) If the Hell Divers are dived every turn they are moving slower than they could run. Which might I add is itself kinda slow for Cryx, what with their 5 speed.

4) The pistol wraiths are only incorporeal every turn in which they don't actually DO anything.

5) What exactly does all this incorporeality achieve? There are things out there that will totally not care about your incorporeality, hell "magic weapon" is a pretty ubiquitous warcaster trait thanks to 2.0 and with only 4 targets to choose from they will A)productively attack and probably kill something each turn (those pistol wraiths in particular are TOAST). and B)get a bead on Denny and prevent those stupid Hell divers from every coming back at all.

6) This list pretty much auto loses to anything with an arc node and any sort of spell attack, I mean it auto loses to a hell of a lot of other higher power combos than that, but the fact that it loses to "Arc node + a spell" is kinda bad news.

This list wins by denying your opponent the ability to attack

The only thing it is reliably denying is the ability to attack not altogether threatening and very slow moving Hell Divers.

and allowing you to choose when to engage

... chosing when to engage with your predominantly 8-10 inch threat range. Yeah. Sure.

and by bypassing most defensive formations.

As long as those defensive formations are standing on top of your burrow tokens and are no larger than 3 inches deep. Which is to say, things that are not actually defensive formations.

The turn you attack you pop feat so if you kill your targets the divers can burrow before being retaliated against,

Other armies and jacks would, if they had killed their targets simply have killed more things before being retaliated against in that scenario. Hell divers using that as an "opportunity to burrow (uses basically their whole action for the round)" instead of say, just move and attack more stuff are hell divers utterly wasting a turn of a VERY short tournament game in the steam roller format.

And of course actually any list with ranged attacks actually just attacks you during that turn anyway. So yeah, another auto lose for this "brilliant strategy"

to give you 2 turns that you can attack on.

Again a NORMAL cryx list with that feat goes "attack turn, feat, another attack turn, attack turn", your list goes "attack turn, feat, skip a turn while burrowing, another attack turn". You get one less attack turn. Also during the turn you skip the four models you leave on the surface are well screwed.

This list looses to a snipe attack, so be carefull.

How are you going to be careful again? Are you planning to screen yourself behind your one large based model, because I have bad news for you, Deneghra gives it Stealth, so it doesn't actually block line of sight to her...

You can isolate small things - eVlad + Uhlans on feat turn, threat range = 16", impact attacks to clear the path.

Lets just take a moment to look at that and remember that threat ranges massively in excess of 8-10 inches exist in this game all over the damn place.

(tournament form) is generally about holding a position on the board instead of killing units.

Which is to say that list is utterly non-competitive on a tournament level. As are most things that don't advance deploy a bunch of stuff capable of taking important points pretty much turn 1 and then maybe actually surviving to hold them for at least a turn.

Mind you tournaments CAN fall to killing units. Barring the most mindless kill scenario the general tie breaker is how many points of units you kill.

And this list fails at that too. Because if we are playing a time limited three turn steam roller caster kill scenario this is how it plays out.

Denny and her army advance really slowly.

Most or all her army arrives to the battle about a turn late.

The enemy stays out of reach.

The enemy kills her pistol wraiths, maybe the Nightmare.

Denny and her army can't make contact for the whole 1 turn they have a chance to kill stuff and probably don't kill ANYTHING, almost certainly they don't kill the value they lost on pistol wraiths alone.

Game over, opponent wins on points from dead pistol wraiths.

Who loses to this list? Only idiots with really bad lists that lack in anything other than relatively crappy melee options and minimal actual threat range and delivery mechanisms. IE, TRAP LISTS.

The missions and rules in steamroller ask you to kindly move your army towards the middle of the board and play aggressively

And as such punish you immensly for being dumb enough to bring an army strategy to the table that involves advancing only 8 inches a round when cryx can bring a 14 inch advance in it's place.

and now they include a turn clock to deny stalling and force you to play aggressively.

The turn clock doesn't do that. It does the following.
1) Dumb the game down immensely
2) Make tournaments end faster
3) Favors units and lists with only minimal and simple special rules, which takes a huge raft of options out of the game. Like for instance managing 5 burrow tokens and hell jack model replacements a turn.
4) Dumbs the game down even further

WHY, you ask, is this so?

Because they explicitly state they want a dumbed down game primarily about holding your testicles in your hands and proclaiming it to the world perhaps?

Because the game also offers sit back and snipe playstyle that - to be blunt - blows.

Then why oh why do they keep catering for it? Like they did with the accidental reverse Haley Nerf that was actually a Haley Turtle Buff? Or the whole thing where Cygnars new warcaster is a god damn ugly boring ass sniper for building snipy armies with.

Why is it that everything they have done to the game has only made Cygnar look at their unit list and increasingly realize they always have to take god damn long gunners if they want to win. And only made that MORE the case with each addition and revision. I mean, it's a whole unit of snipe.

There's no way to include ranged units and not have the hide and shoot option in the game, so they've put the middle of the board objectives into the game to force the game into the playstyle they envision.
...
The goal of warmachine is attacking first and attacking hard.

I don't think you entirely understand how ranged attacks work, including how they work in warmachine.

Ranged attack armys CAN actually advance forward and fire, and with the sort of fire power they can get in Warmachine you can field some incredibly dumb and mindless "move forward and shoot everything" armies that are incredibly powerful, even within the steam roller scenarios (well as I last saw them anyway, and they do revise them to be faster and hackier, EVERY FIVE SECONDS)

Games should rarely make it past turn 5, usually they end on turn 3.

If games are ending on turn 3 regularly due to anything other than Steam Roller time and turn limits (which DO seem to end games regularly on turn 3) you are having some massive issues with player skill or list disparity.

Any actual well balanced match of Warmachine, outside of the juvenile "your armies wave hello then the game is over and we tally the points" scenarios from steamroller, it will usually end around turn 5.

The only things that break that are the sort of players who run their warcaster in front of their army and right into the teeth of the biggest thing you have, and the odd utterly broken bullshit lists or units like that rather spectacularly flawed Everblight assassin warcaster back in the Remix era (ooh, I just BET they didn't fix her in 2.0).