Mk I is dead. Long live Mk II?

So Privateer Press did the unthinkable about a month ago, and they announced the sweeping change that will herald the end of MkI Warmachine and create MkII Warmachine.
The field test is almost over. They will then be closing it. Doing their final revisions. Printing the book. Then releasing it in January of 2010.
Seriously? That’s like 8 months away?
I do truly respect the company for allowing the fans to give feedback on the models. There have been a few changes but I think it’s pretty obvious that what changes there will be minimal. Some players are crying out for massive re-writes on a figure or unit and that’s clearly not going to happen. I figure that PP already knew what they wanted out of most figures and were happy with their results. A minor rule wording change here or there is all they are really looking for. If something is obviously too powerful or too weak, they might look at it.
Here’s the problem. I, like many players, hate, hate, hate (with a side of hate) winning a game due to a rules screw up. I’m not talking about a player who is obviously cheating but when you honest to god think a rule works one way and realize, always after the game, that it doesn’t. You walked away with a victory, feeling pretty good about yourself, only to have the wind sucked out of your sails because you realized that figure X couldn’t do what you did.
Waramchine is a deeply layered game. In a recent MkII game, I had to move my Arc node just enough to avoid giving my opponent cover. It was fairly critical because my dice rolls are shit. No really, my personal luck stat is pretty low. I’m infamous for some stellar crap dice rolls. So I leave nothing to chance.
But lo and behold, my opponent has a unit that can move outside of the turn sequence. Furthermore, he can counter charge my ‘jack. Therefore, I ran another unit up to cockblock his counter-charger. However, I only did that because I honestly thought he was immune to the feat damage. My opponent agreed at the time. I ended up winning the game. Upon retrospect, my figure could not do what I thought he could do. Thus my ‘win’ was null and void. At least in my mind. It was not a win because I screwed up the rules. I could have not have done what I had done. Now I could have still won the game, but I would have accepted giving the warcaster cover and that would have likely made me miss my critical shots. (As it turns out, I was not able to kill her on the dice rolls that I had but she burned to death due to the fire).
So I hate accepting that my victory was tainted. But I’m big enough to accept that it wasn’t a real win.
Now comes the relevancy. Since they will be making some changes with MKII and that it won’t be coming out for almost a year, what do I do until then?
You see, when I play a wargame, I want to play the most authentic version of it that I can. I want to know all the errata, I want to know the rules, I don’t want to screw up any rule. I want neither player to question: well…if you had used the rules correctly, I probably would have won. The bottom line is, I want neither player to question how it ‘could have been’.
So…what version of Warmachine is authentic? I’m sure the obvious answer is MkI, because MkII isn’t released. However, there have been so many sweeping changes from MkI, I feel…I dunno…dirty to use some of the old rules.
I’ll give some examples here. The Holy Zealots were a fantastic unit. They were cheap. I’m not arguing that. Their cost was low, their damage output and defense was high. I never relied on them all the time, but I did like them and when I used them I felt that they were a well above average unit. My enemies feared them and rightly so. I fear the Khador mortar crew. I fear Eiryss. I fear lots of things. Lemme have something that my opponent fears.
So now…in MkII they are a lot more reasonably. That’s not to say that they are good. They suck compared to their old selves. They can be killed quite easily and their damage output is lowered. They are a fragile unit with a mess of weaknesses. I daresay that I will not readily include them in any army.
So if I play with them in the next year, I will feel cheap. Clearly PP felt that they were too powerful. Clearly they exceeded what the company wanted them to do on the battlefield. So clearly, when I play with them, I’m being cheap. I’m exploiting some old rules that the company has every intension of correcting.
This same issue is compounded by other units. The Idrian Skirmishers have been radically transformed from 1 type of unit to another type of unit. Nobody is arguing that they used to be powerful. But before they had excellent range and excellent melee. They were a unit that did it all (and were expensive). Now they have good range and can fight in melee if pressed into it. Their role changes entirely from MkI to MkII (something that I don’t agree with but whatever, I’m not part of the company). As such, if I use the Skirmishers, any strategy I build with them, anything I do with them, has an expiration date. Once the MkII hits, all their accolades and victories will be null and void. I still think that they are a viable unit in MkII. A LOT more than the Holy Zealots (or about 3 other units). So I have no problems playing them now or in the future. I just hate that what I do with them now will be IMPOSSIBLE in the future.
The final example is of an odd tri-man solo group. Visgoth Rhoven. I hadn’t managed to pick them up yet. This is another unit that goes from one thing to something radically different. They were tuff with two F’s before. They had this crazy armour boost by being together that was excellent. I wasn’t sure how to use them but I was keen to give them a try. They also had an excellent and potent ability to allow another figure to ignore some of the line of sight rules.
The MKII version of them…changed them. They aren’t the tanks that they once were. And they changed the aforementioned line of sight ability to something…close but not quite as potent. So…should I buy them now? They really don’t appeal to me half as much as they used to. I didn’t buy them before because I couldn’t easily find them. Now I’ve found them but am a little sad to see them change so much.
They could, between now and the future, be blessed and see some excellent changes. But I don’t want to base my purchase on what could be.
So I’m stuck. The Visgoth is sitting there at the store now, but if I do go buy them and they turn out to be exactly the same way that they were previewed, I know that I just won’t break them out too much. So why spend the money?
And this spirals into PP’s other game Hordes. I just got the new book with all sorts of new stuff all of which is guaranteed to change. Not: might change in the future. It will be obvious that within two years, all the things I did with the Legion of Everblight will be changed. That those cards full and full of wonderful, glorious murderous text will be changed. I know that ‘so will everybody’s’ but after seeing what happened to some of my beloved units, I know that there are parts of Hordes MkII that I will be delighted with and parts that I will be sad to see go. Just like Warmachine MkI.
So…I guess, over the next year, I’ll try a few more games of MkI Warmachine, and feel cheap for using my Holy Zealots before signing off on them for being a cheap filler for when I have a few points to spare in future MkII armies.
I am, ultimately, looking forward to MKII. The game does run cleaner. But with every revamp, there will be units that players will find to be an efficient use of their points and some that will be a waste of their points. Some units that I hadn’t used in a good long time will be dusted off while other units will shelved. And at least one unit that was shelved will remain that way. I guess it’s just the way of things. Some units will always be more efficient than others.