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A friend of mine has been wanting to get into Warcry. We are both primarily 40k players, so I know very little about the AOS side of things. I'd like to pick my own faction but don't really know where to start, so my question for the community is this: if you play Warcry, what do you love about your faction?

None of the Warcry-specific warbands really speak to me, but I think you can use almost anything from the AOS universe, right? I'm mostly interested in something that is just plain fun to play rather than super-competitive. Aesthetically, Blackpowder's Buccaneers really appeal to me, although it seems like maybe you have to buy more rules to make him work in Warcry (?) I'm also intrigued by Beastmen, the Ogroid miniatures, Ogors, Skaven and Fyreslayers although if there's another faction that is simply a blast to paint and play I'm open for other suggestions. Thanks!

I'm also Cry-curious...

How is it these days? Any warbands particularly weak or strong? Is it generally reasonably balanced? Is it fun?

Warcry is a lot of fun. It's a pretty light rule set, so you can play a full game in 90 minutes or so, but there's still plenty of decision making and fun.

The balance is fine at the casual level, but for competitive play the AOS warbands are generally considered stronger than the "Bespoke" or Warcry specific warbands. There was a new FAQ which addressed some of the worst aspects, like the Chaos Chimera being undercosted.

as a rule, there's a bit of a tension to army construction in which elite warbands do better in killing and surviving missions, but struggle with loot counters or area control. So, in certain matchups, the mission may be an extreme uphill slog for one side.

The beauty of the game is that while each given mission might be unbalanced, you can play multiple missions in the time you would play one game of 40k or AOS.

Thanks, that's useful!

Realistically I ought to finish painting my Hero Quest box and my Kill Team set at least first... But good to know it's pretty much what I thought / hoped it would be...

I have really struggled with the Iron Golems, which is a shame because the miniatures are so awesome.

Mobility seems really useful in the game, as you get missions which are get to a certain point on the table. So if you have a slow warband and that point is on the other side of the board? Well, sometimes you can see the game result after turn one. I agree it can be a fun and fast game to play, but less so when the game result comes down to movement. We found we were micro-measuring and some of those measurements take so long (and you have to get them right, because the game can come down to the 1/16th of an inch) that it makes the game last much longer than it should. And that's not generally fun time spent around a wargaming board.

Also any units which favour lots of dice over individually strong hits. The mechanical limits of the game, based on wounding, means that in a lot of cases having a very tough unit is kind of wasted. And the critical hits from opponents, rolling lots of dice, more than negates toughness and wounds. So you can see the need to cut down on hit, wound, save rolls (often the criticism levelled at Necromunda or Mordheim - make the attacks faster to play out!) but in simplifying things in this way the lack of granularity in the results given by a D6 mean that a lot of units end up feeling similar.

I love the imagery, the miniatures, the terrain in particular, even the concept. It looks fantastic on the tabletop. The game mechanics themselves though are fairly limited and if I'm being brutally honest there are a lot of other games I would rather be playing.

It's worth pointing out that the game does have both a random mission generator mechanic (where you pull a terrain card, a deployment card, a mission card, and a twist card) which can create some pretty unbalanced missions.

There are also pre generated missions which are used for matched play or teaching and are a bit more balanced.

Overall, the game is probably best played for campagin/narrative. If you're measuring by 16ths of an inch, you're probably going to be unsatisfied with the game.

One thing I do recommend is for all players to either play the warcry specific warbands and go super casual, or know that the AOS warbands just have deeper unit rosters.

The bespoke warbands pretty much all follow a simply pattern: you get a leader, a bruiser, a spellcaster, a specialist figher, and then veteran and rookie troopers with a range of weapon options. If you buy one box/sprue of a bespoke faction, and build it straight up, you'll be damn close to 1000 points. Two boxes, and you'll have all nearly all the options. Some bespoke are more elite, and some are more horde, but all can be built either more or less elite if you have the options.

The AOS warbands can really be built to taste. A bespoke warband might have six different units, with some having weapon options, for 8-14 total options. A warband like beastmen might have twice that, and can also range from very ligtht forces seamlessly up to and including orge sized models.

Thanks everyone, this is all great input!