Warmachine Mk II / Protectorate: the Awesome and the Meh

First off I want to say one thing I love about mk II: the point system.  By removing the GW-ish high point cost for units, I can pretty much make army lists in my head on the fly.  Forget 19 point and 21 point and 26 point solos.  Now they are all 2 points.  I can easily remember warjack point values as well.  Thank you, thank you PP.

Now, onto Forces of Warmachine: the Protectorate of Menoth

In the eternal battle between wargaming and my wallet, wargaming has reliably won. Sure, I face buyer's remorse at regular intervals but most of the time I'm pretty happy with my purchases.  This book makes me feel like I should have listened to my wallet. Don't get me wrong... I adore my PoM army and I have praise for the mk II ruleset, but this latest book, at a fairly steep $35, seemed like I was buying "Menoth's Greatest Hits" more than a new book.

Allow me to explain...

One of the things I love most about new books is new artwork.  Almost all the artwork for FoW:tPoM is artwork I have elsewhere, even if you don't count artwork included in No Quarter.  It's great artwork, but I've already bought Prime, Escalation, Apotheosis, Superiority, Prime:Remix, Legends and Prime Mk II.  That's almost as many books for my single army of WM as I've bought for all my Warhammer Fantasy and 40k armies combined.  I know recycled artwork is common practice in this industry as you get more and more editions under your belt, but I guess my expectation levels were artificially high because of how great all the other books have been.  If I'd taken a good hard look at the book before buying it, I would probably have only bought the Protectorate card deck.


EDIT!!!  Just got my Exemplar Bastions and Crusader/Vindicator/Templar in the mail!  Wow!  The Bastions might  be difficult to convert because of the peg/hole assemble, but they are soooo easy to put together.  No more glue and hold with the model exploding in your hand multiple times.  Plus, $35 for a unit of 5 is a breath of fresh air next to what Man-o-wars cost.  You can bet I'll be buying Cinerators!