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Hey all,

Starting this thread to discuss Warcry now that it's out and we already have 6 exclusive bands released.

I played my first two games with my Unmade yesterday, against Legions of Nagash, and really liked both games. First games was a "Kill the Leader" mission where I had to kill his Leader and he had to not die, and the deployment card made it so that at the second round my Blissful One (Leader) spawned really close to his Necromancer. He activated his Necromancer first and made a run for it at the top of the building, but with my Blissful One's 8" move I managed to do a really impressive jump and made it beside the Necromancer in two activations. Then next round I had the initiative, made both my attacks activations and a few 6 damage crits later I had won.

Next game was a "Burn the Objectives" type mission where as the attacker I had to burn 3 objectives to win, and I could only burn one per round, if I controlled it. There, the number of skellies were really useful as well as the various abilities that revolve around the Necromancer, and he barely won by respawning a 2HP skeleton on a contested objective. Really fun game.

My opinion on the Unmade is that with the 9 models in the box you can already have a balanced team (980 pts). If I had more models I don't even know if I'd change the composition. Yes, the 60 pts Awakened Ones are barely useful but the more elite Ascended Ones cost 125 pts each, and in objective missions board control is really important, I can see elite Warbands struggling with fewer models. MVP is easily the leader, the Blissful One, with her amazing 8" move that allow her to travel easily on the battlefield, as well as an impressive attack profile. Their Double ability to prevent an enemy model from moving is also really good as I thought earlier, in the first game it prevented the Necromancer from fleeing, and in the second helped me block a model that would otherwise contest my objective.

The game mechanics are also really fun, they may not be extra deep in complexity but the fun is there, and the tactical thinking is miles ahead that of 40,000. I really like the movement actions with the jumps and climbing, it feels real. Depending on your warband you may want to sell your soul for critical hits sometimes though, when you weapon profile is 3A 1/4D fights can be really long between 60 pts models.

So, how did you find your first games ? Which warbands do you like playing with, and which ones do you dislike ? Also, what do you think about the generic warbands (like Stormcast, Medusai etc.) ? It's really early to tell but do you think some bands are more powerful than others ?

I have to try my Nighthaunt band someday too !

I've had 2 Campaign games with my Daughters so far. 1st was against Untamed Beasts with the objective being at least 3" above the ground. Each model was worth 1 point every round. the twist was -1 movement on the ground. Deployment and terrain generation cards made the game. He won placement and was able to get a side that had almost all the elevated terrain.

2nd game was against Corvus Cabal. Objective was to destroy each others Hammer. It was a close game. Opponent was throwing fire (at least 1 crit for almost all of his attacks). Twist let a player call down lightning for a quad, used it twice to weaken one of his strongest characters. Managed to win and wipe out his whole warband which netted me 10 glory that I immediatly spent for a territory control. Wont get me another model yet sadly.

My list is:
Leader: Heartrender Handmaiden (245
Heartrender (175)
Bloodsister (now has a 1 time use fly artifact) (165)
3 Sisters of Slaughter with Shelids (85 each)
2 Witch Elves with Sheilds (75 each)

Total is 990

Heartrenders with 12" Fly Movement and 8" shooting are decent. Bloodsister is only S3 but gets 5 attacks at 2" and has a Double that can deal a few wound at 6". They move 7". Shields make the Witch Elves/Sisters T4 and Sisters get a nice 2" attack. They can move 5". A few of the dice abilities require the attack to be under 3" range so only my Heartrenders cannot use them. The down side is almost all attacks are 1/3 or 1/4 with 2-3 attacks unless its a leader model.

I've played five games so far, the first one an intro game with Iron Golems, the other ones with my Daughters of Khaine. It's been a fun game so far.

I'm pretty happy with how the Daughters have turned out with a lot of variation in fighters (within the confines of the simple rules). I haven't looked into the other non-Chaos warbands much, but I've played against Flesh Eater Courts and by comparison they have pretty limited choices. I'm not sure I'D find that as much fun to collect and play with.

Biggest difference between my elves and the Iron Golems for me is that I'm not particularly fond of lumbering models. I much prefer the faster movement the elves offer. Technically they're a terrible choice because my dice rolls suck and I don't get anywhere near the average amount of criticals that the warband requires to function, but at least I get to see my elves successfully go where they need to be before they fail miserably.

The biggest selling point of the game for me is that compared to 40k or Age of Sigmar, the Warcry has enough variation during the actual game that you get to make choices that feel like they matter. Resource generation and gimmicky special abilities are dialed back a good amount. The downside of the system for me is in the extra movement or attack options which are expensive but super powerful, and in the swingy criticals. The player who gets excessive critical hits in at the right time gains a considerable advantage through mere luck, which is not something I'm particularly fond of. That could have been reined in a little. Still, overall that's just a niggle and hasn't gotten in the way of my fun yet.

How is everyone finding the different battlefields? I played three games in a row on the graveyard this weekend and due to something I can't quite put my finger on, I found the gameplay around that kind of terrain lacking in comparison to the ruins from the starter set. Like having the terrain there didn't really matter.

 Geifer wrote:
How is everyone finding the different battlefields? I played three games in a row on the graveyard this weekend and due to something I can't quite put my finger on, I found the gameplay around that kind of terrain lacking in comparison to the ruins from the starter set. Like having the terrain there didn't really matter.

We've been playing with the Starter Set battlefield (Eightpoints?) and the feedback's been "need more LOS blocking". I've just got the Shattered Stormvault so we'll give that a try.

Concerning the battlefield I've only played the starter set too, and the only complaint I have is that when it's set up in some ways it's WAAAY too dense at some places and moving models becomes a tedious task, especially for measurements. We should get more terrain soon at my LGS. No real issue of LoS blocking, few abilities we've used required LoS and in the case it mattered it actually prevented some models from my band from getting hit.

We've house-ruled it that the battleplan cards are a rough guide only and to use some common sense when setting things up.

The LoS thing is probably because I'm playing a Night Goblin hoard with a load of archers, and another player is using DoK with just Blood Stalkers...

 Aaranis wrote:
Concerning the battlefield I've only played the starter set too, and the only complaint I have is that when it's set up in some ways it's WAAAY too dense at some places and moving models becomes a tedious task, especially for measurements. We should get more terrain soon at my LGS. No real issue of LoS blocking, few abilities we've used required LoS and in the case it mattered it actually prevented some models from my band from getting hit.

Cozy. The terrain is not dense. It's cozy.

beast_gts wrote:
We've house-ruled it that the battleplan cards are a rough guide only and to use some common sense when setting things up.

The LoS thing is probably because I'm playing a Night Goblin hoard with a load of archers, and another player is using DoK with just Blood Stalkers...

I haven't read most of the rulebook myself, so I may be off here, but I seem to remember it actually says the battleplans are just guidelines and can be changed if both players agree. So if I remember that bit correctly, you wouldn't even be house ruling that.

LOS being an issue may indeed be a problem of both players loading up on archers. I use a single one and she had the occasional trouble seeing her preferred target, but overall it wasn't hard to get LOS to a target at all. But then even one archer is not crippling unless you get really lucky with your dice rolls.

I can imagine that becomes a problem the more archers are on the field.. I assume with the complete lack of force building restrictions GW relies on twists to have people go easy on archers to avoid a bad matchup due to bad weather and instead build a more balanced force. Considering forces start really close together and melee fighters don't take forever to get stuck in they probably figure mass archers are not a problem.

I need to re-read the battleplan rules anyway, as I'm not sure if you're meant to keep the decks for the different battlefields / Ravaged Lands separate or mix them up.

If I had one issue with the game it's that death does not matter. At worst you lose some Destiny points and a Major Artifact. It was a bit worse in Kill Team due to how upgrades/levels work in that game. My thought is if you were to run a campaign that player's should make up a 15-20 model roster and remove the recruitment part of the after-battle. Player's could then refill their roster once they finish their personal campaign path.

I love the verticality in Warcry, it just doesn't exist in AoS. I find Warcry a more satisfying game compared to Kill Team even if it s a more swingy game.

I see a lot of you are already on a campaign. We planned a tournament by end of the month but no campaigns yet, are they really that much fun ? Haven't read the rules for this section yet.

 Aaranis wrote:
I see a lot of you are already on a campaign. We planned a tournament by end of the month but no campaigns yet, are they really that much fun ? Haven't read the rules for this section yet.

I find the Campaign part to be rather elegant. You only care about your warbands progress and you don't need to rely on other players to progress. At the end of every battle you can look for 1 minor artifact which tend to be 1-use-only and then are removed from your warband roster. At your 3rd, 6th, and 9th battle you have to play a specific mission to your Campaign Quest and cannot advance until you win that battle. When your warband finishes it's Campaign Quest you get a Major artifact which can carry over to a new Quest and you can start over again. The initial chaos warbands that GW released each have 2 different quests and the 2 unreleased chaos/non-chaos warbands only have 1

So I had two more games today ! Won both, once against Untamed Beasts and the other against Iron Golems (can't wait for other bands to start playing at my shop).

Game 1: Unmade vs Untamed Beasts, mission: kill the opponent's Hammer. Twist was "Marshy Ground" that gives -1M if starting an action on ground zero. Had two uses of Nightmarish Visage to prevent the enemy's big cat from eating my dudes, not so fun for my opponent, but my maniacal laughter was worth it. Used Vessel of Torment (Triple, gives a bonus move action then attack action to my Leader if he just killed a model) to kill two dudes in one go. Victory for me because I killed his 4 Hammers while having two of my three still alive (third was eaten by the cat when it finally climbed down in the battle).

Game 2: Unmade vs Iron Golems, mission: kill the opponent's Shield. Twist was really nice: if a model suffered 1 or more damage, he gained +1S and +1A. Deployment was peculiar for me as this time every group started Round 1 on the table. He placed his 2 or 3 models with shields + the bannerman dude in the Shield group, I placed my three Ascended Ones (elites) in mine. I played mine prudently until round 3, sneaking up from behind the terrain to strike from above, while he played his army more cluttered to benefit from the +1T ability from the bannerman and to force a brutal encounter in the middle of the table. I played my Blissful One (leader with big legs) in a manner of forcing him to make the first move, by waiting for him on the first floor. He used a bolas to inflict me 4 damage, and climbed with the big brute to try to kill me off. When my turn came, I used Gift of Agony (bonus attack action with +1A and +1S if model is wounded), and combined with the twist, the Blissful One was really pissed and used a total of 7 S6 + 18 S5 attacks that promptly slayed the brute. Then it was a matter of picking his Shields one by one while staying prudent with my own.

The mistakes he did in this game was first to use the bolas on my Blissful One, it just pissed it off and made him deal with the brute quicker. Also, used the tornado ability on 5 of my models to make them suffer 4D, it just resulted on giving my team steroids and helped me kill his dudes one by one to prevent them from benefiting from the twist.

I'll keep saying it: when playing Unmade, all your damage comes mainly from the Blissful One. Mine died for the first time in round 3 against the Iron Golems, but she killed the brute and one other dude before biting the dust. Actually I used my Joyous One to double move her between the Blissful One and the 4 other enemy models so that they couldn't engage the Blissful One. Not a fan from Chain Garotte, Bolas or such abilities as they are far too unreliable, and because my other Doubles are way better (Barbed Strike and Nightmarish Visage).

I've played about 4 games of Warcry.

Game 1 : A 3 player game - I played the Iron Golems, vs Nighhaunts vs Untamed. The untamed won only because he misread an ability and we assumed he played it properly.
Game 2: We started a campaign. Me as Untamed vs Cypher Lords. Victory condition each player picks one model that the other faction needs to kill to win. I won in Round 2 because my Beast Tamer used a whip on his marked fighter and rolled a lot of crits. The marked fighter had suffered some damage previously but it was a cool cinematic moment where we pictured the Beast Tamer choking out his marked with her whip.
Game 3: Second Narrative. Untamed vs Cypher Lords. Victory condition, Kill the Leader, or at the end of round 4 If the Leader is within 3" of the edge that player loses as the Leader runs away. This was a totally different game. The Cypher Lords were decimating my untamed. Their crits are devastating. I was wanting to concede during round 4 but being a narrative we continued, and then we realized the Cypher Lords leader was within that 3". So even though I lost nearly my entire force I still won.
Game 4: Convergence. Untamed vs Splintered Fang: Victory control most objectives at the end of round 4 or if there's a tie, the attacker, myself as Untamed wins. This game was hard for me as Untamed. It literally came down to the last die roll. I controlled one of the 3 objectives, my opponent the other, and the 3rd objective was contested. On the 3rd objective we each had 2 fighters. I had used both my move actions to get there to contest it. My opponent had a fighter there and I knew I was going to get attacked twice I just hoped he wouldn't roll well against my 10 wound fighter. He rolled well enough to do 9 wounds. I won by having one wound left.

So here's my take on Warcry.
LOS - We had one instance where LOS was an odd thing, because the Splintered Fang had a thing of snakes (basically a token with 8 tiny snakes on it) blocking their own ranged attacks. Seemed pretty dumb that those snakes block LOS. Other than that not too many issues.

Cover - I don't totally understand cover - If the defender is standing closer to an obstacle that the attacker they benefit from cover. Seems odd that a wall provides cover if it were setup Atacker/Defender/Wall.

Dominated Territory - Seems nearly pointless - I can spend 10 Glory to Dominate a territory giving me 50 more points to spend when mustering and the ability to add a Thrall to my Warband, but Thralls, the Raptors abilities really only work with each other. I can already spend 1 Glory to add 50 points or 3 to add 100 points. I understand the 50 from dominating a territory is permanent but don't really see the point instead of stacking with the other ways to spend Glory. Which leads me to and additional point if you want to spend Glory on you Warband to get more points you need more models. Getting more of the models from Untamed or Iron Golems requires finding them on Ebay which wasn't too difficult, or buy another starter. Seems like they should've made boxes for those warbands. I almost didn't play a warband from the starter box because of this until I looked on Ebay.

Prestige: After a total of 8 plays of narrative games with our group I played in 3 games. Only one of my fighters has earned prestige. Although on game 2 I didn't have many fighters left to roll for. The Cypher Lords after 3 narrative games only has 1 fighter with prestige. And the Splintered Fang after 2 games has none. Seems hard to come by.

Rolling for Artifacts: We so far had 3 Rolls of finding nothing. Pretty Bummed happened to me twice. We may house rule that, maybe make up something very minor instead. Maybe spend 1 Glory and you can Reroll if you get that nothing result.

Killed models: At first we were, no so and so died, now we are o well good thing the fighter didn't have an artifact or prestige. In fact if a fighter dies we don't even rename their replacement. It needs just something a bit smaller as consequence of dying, and maybe you can spend Glory to Reroll the Injury.

I would like to see more uses for Glory. I like the idea of using it for Rerolls in the Aftermath.

My thoughts of the Warbands.

Untamed: I love the Untamed abilities. They seem very useful, especially the generic doubles and the quad. Their abilities are the reason I chose to play with them.

Iron Golems: I love how tough they are and how hard they hit, but I found their abilities a bit underwhelming.

Cypher Lords: They hit hard and move fast. We keep saying they're like ninjas. But their a bit squishy. Their abilities are pretty good.

Splintered Fang: Very versatile group. They seem to do everything and with a bit of reach. The net ability is extremely useful. It has locked me down and then their spears come in and attack at 2 inches away basically killing my fighter before I get and action. Their quad ability is pretty useful as well.


Overall I love Warcry. We've had very cinematic moments and games have been very close.

Cover only works if the intervening terrain piece is closer to the attacker then the defender is. So if its at the Defenders back they get no bonus.

You can only spend Glory for temporary extra points if your opponent already has territory control. Can be an issue if controlling only 1 territory doesn't give you enough points to field a character.

I do wish death actually meant something beyond losing minor buffs. Using Glory to put a character back on to your roster would be a great way to do that.

warpig wrote:

LOS - We had one instance where LOS was an odd thing, because the Splintered Fang had a thing of snakes (basically a token with 8 tiny snakes on it) blocking their own ranged attacks. Seemed pretty dumb that those snakes block LOS. Other than that not too many issues.

How did the snakes block LOS? Were they trying to peek over a wall?

Cover - I don't totally understand cover - If the defender is standing closer to an obstacle that the attacker they benefit from cover. Seems odd that a wall provides cover if it were setup Atacker/Defender/Wall.

The obstacle must be closer to the attacker than the defender is (basically it is between them). Can lead to a weird situation where they are both standing by the same wall, but the attacker is closer to the wall than the defender, but if you break the wall up and use some common sense, it won't typically be a problem.

Dominated Territory - Seems nearly pointless - I can spend 10 Glory to Dominate a territory giving me 50 more points to spend when mustering and the ability to add a Thrall to my Warband, but Thralls, the Raptors abilities really only work with each other. I can already spend 1 Glory to add 50 points or 3 to add 100 points. I understand the 50 from dominating a territory is permanent but don't really see the point instead of stacking with the other ways to spend Glory.

You can only use glory to increase your points if your opponent has more territory. So if you have the same amount of territory (or more), you can't do it. Gaining territory is the only way to gain an advantage in points over your opponent.

Which leads me to and additional point if you want to spend Glory on you Warband to get more points you need more models. Getting more of the models from Untamed or Iron Golems requires finding them on Ebay which wasn't too difficult, or buy another starter. Seems like they should've made boxes for those warbands. I almost didn't play a warband from the starter box because of this until I looked on Ebay.

Gaining territory allows you to add thralls to your warband. They don't gain destiny levels or hold artifacts, but do have some advantages. The Iron Golems are slow as crap, but the Furies can move 8". Also, I think they'll definitely release independent boxes for Untamed Beasts and Iron Golems, and probably soon.

Prestige: After a total of 8 plays of narrative games with our group I played in 3 games. Only one of my fighters has earned prestige. Although on game 2 I didn't have many fighters left to roll for. The Cypher Lords after 3 narrative games only has 1 fighter with prestige. And the Splintered Fang after 2 games has none. Seems hard to come by.

Prestige? Do you mean destiny levels? Each surviving model has about a 17% chance to gain a destiny level. If all of your models survive, it should average out to about 1 or 2 destiny levels gained per match. If half your models die, it'll be 1 destiny level every other match.

(Also, don't know about anyone else, but my dice are bad. They are bowed out on one side, and if you stack the dice together on that particular side, they wobble and fall over. That's got to affect the rolling distribution.)

Rolling for Artifacts: We so far had 3 Rolls of finding nothing. Pretty Bummed happened to me twice. We may house rule that, maybe make up something very minor instead. Maybe spend 1 Glory and you can Reroll if you get that nothing result.

You can already spend 3 Glory points (once per match) to make an additional roll on the lesser artifacts table.

 Sqorgar wrote:

warpig wrote:

LOS - We had one instance where LOS was an odd thing, because the Splintered Fang had a thing of snakes (basically a token with 8 tiny snakes on it) blocking their own ranged attacks. Seemed pretty dumb that those snakes block LOS. Other than that not too many issues.

How did the snakes block LOS? Were they trying to peek over a wall?

I read that LOS if a line passes through a fighter it's blocked. I guess I assumed in was a straight line along the ground from the base. But after rereading it, it seems it can be drawn nearly anywhere from the fighter to fighter. Seems like Fighters rarely block LOS now.

Cover - I don't totally understand cover - If the defender is standing closer to an obstacle that the attacker they benefit from cover. Seems odd that a wall provides cover if it were setup Atacker/Defender/Wall.

The obstacle must be closer to the attacker than the defender is (basically it is between them). Can lead to a weird situation where they are both standing by the same wall, but the attacker is closer to the wall than the defender, but if you break the wall up and use some common sense, it won't typically be a problem.

Yeah I misread this. It was very oddly worded and hard for me to visualize.

Dominated Territory - Seems nearly pointless - I can spend 10 Glory to Dominate a territory giving me 50 more points to spend when mustering and the ability to add a Thrall to my Warband, but Thralls, the Raptors abilities really only work with each other. I can already spend 1 Glory to add 50 points or 3 to add 100 points. I understand the 50 from dominating a territory is permanent but don't really see the point instead of stacking with the other ways to spend Glory.

You can only use glory to increase your points if your opponent has more territory. So if you have the same amount of territory (or more), you can't do it. Gaining territory is the only way to gain an advantage in points over your opponent.

Makes more sense now.

Which leads me to and additional point if you want to spend Glory on you Warband to get more points you need more models. Getting more of the models from Untamed or Iron Golems requires finding them on Ebay which wasn't too difficult, or buy another starter. Seems like they should've made boxes for those warbands. I almost didn't play a warband from the starter box because of this until I looked on Ebay.

Gaining territory allows you to add thralls to your warband. They don't gain destiny levels or hold artifacts, but do have some advantages. The Iron Golems are slow as crap, but the Furies can move 8". Also, I think they'll definitely release independent boxes for Untamed Beasts and Iron Golems, and probably soon.

I can see with Golems getting Thralls may be good. With Untamed I wish the Beast master could use her ability on thralls.

Prestige: After a total of 8 plays of narrative games with our group I played in 3 games. Only one of my fighters has earned prestige. Although on game 2 I didn't have many fighters left to roll for. The Cypher Lords after 3 narrative games only has 1 fighter with prestige. And the Splintered Fang after 2 games has none. Seems hard to come by.

Prestige? Do you mean destiny levels? Each surviving model has about a 17% chance to gain a destiny level. If all of your models survive, it should average out to about 1 or 2 destiny levels gained per match. If half your models die, it'll be 1 destiny level every other match.

Out of a total of 8 matches played by us our group of 3 players only have 2 fighters with Destiny, which is what I meant.

Rolling for Artifacts: We so far had 3 Rolls of finding nothing. Pretty Bummed happened to me twice. We may house rule that, maybe make up something very minor instead. Maybe spend 1 Glory and you can Reroll if you get that nothing result.

You can already spend 3 Glory points (once per match) to make an additional roll on the lesser artifacts table.

I know you can spend 3 to get another, but I think instead of finding nothing maybe the ability to 1 Glory to reroll would be a cool use. I've actually rolled nothing 2 times out of aftermaths. The Cypher Lords player rolled nothing once out of three Aftermaths. It was quite disappointing.

warpig wrote:
I read that LOS if a line passes through a fighter it's blocked. I guess I assumed in was a straight line along the ground from the base. But after rereading it, it seems it can be drawn nearly anywhere from the fighter to fighter. Seems like Fighters rarely block LOS now.

There's some ambiguity over the "through" rule, particularly when it comes to terrain with holes in it (like portcullis gates or windows), but yeah, you don't draw LOS from the bases.

Yeah I misread this. It was very oddly worded and hard for me to visualize.

It is oddly worded. I think they adapted an AoS rule, which was intended for units of multiple models. "On the other side of" works for a single model, but maybe not a unit of 10 models wrapped around an obstacle. But, you know, Warcry could use "on the other side of" though.

I can see with Golems getting Thralls may be good. With Untamed I wish the Beast master could use her ability on thralls.

I thought they could! But looking at it now, the chaos beast runemark is oh so slightly different than the beast runemark. Geez. I'm gonna need a magnifying glass to play this game. I also have trouble telling the leader runemark from the one that looks virtually identical to the leader runemark.

I know you can spend 3 to get another, but I think instead of finding nothing maybe the ability to 1 Glory to reroll would be a cool use. I've actually rolled nothing 2 times out of aftermaths. The Cypher Lords player rolled nothing once out of three Aftermaths. It was quite disappointing.

I think the disappointment and frustration you get from rolling a nothing result is intended to be a feature, not a bug. But the nothing result is, I think, a 11-16 on a D66 chart. You should have the same chance of rolling nothing as you have gaining a destiny level. Your results here are definitely atypical when taken with not getting destiny points - not unheard of, but at the edge of the bell curve. Like I said, I don't trust my Warcry dice, so I'd probably check the dice (roll them a dozen times and see if they favor a specific number) and maybe try using different dice.

GW announced Monsters and Mercenaries at NOVA:

"As well as monsters, the book contains rules for adding the eponymous mercenaries mentioned on the cover. That’s right, you can bring in a variety of special allies to your warband, from Darkoath Warqueens prophesying apocalyptic glory for your warband to bold Knight Heraldors willing to take on Daemons, madmen and raving Cygors, armed with nothing but a fancy trumpet"

Sounds like they are going the same route as Kill Team with expansions that let you take bigger/stronger models usually with a hefty price point.

So, we had our first beta-tournament today at my shop, to try the Infernal Tower system for tournaments and get feedback for the future ones. Participants were:

- 2x Unmade (me and another)
- Ironjawz
- Nighthaunt
- Legions of Nagash
- Gloomspite Gitz
- Untamed Beasts
- Corvus Cabal
- Bonesplitterz

I had 7 games, was a really fun day, learned a lot about tactics, and how the other bands work. Won against Ironjawz, Corvus Cabal, Untamed Beasts. Lost against Ironjawz, Corvus Cabal, Legions of Nagash (twice).

All these games at once against diverse factions was really enriching, but it also made me look with a more realistic approach on my Unmade. Now that I can compare them with other factions I see they're seriously lacking in some aspects like speed, durability and RELIABLE damage. Their strengths are still the numbers sometimes, 9 models, and being able to stick an enemy in place with Nightmarish Visage, but otherwise you really on crits for damage and if your Leader doesn't oneshot her target she's bound to be killed almost effortlessly against a more elite model fighting twice. But after all the other Unmade player made it to second place, to it could be only my matchups and missions/deployments sometimes, but that's the game.

Now for the balance question, I'm now convinced that the two bands that really shone today, Legions of Nagash and the first place, Ironjawz, have serious balance issues.

The Ironjawz were a team of 5 models, so really elite, tough and hard-hitting models. Their only weakness is the lack of map control with 5 models (but that's an Elite issue), and maybe lack of ranged damaging abilities. But otherwise they're totally busted in my opinion. All the band minus one 140~ish model were Toughness 5 Strength 5, meaning always wounding on 3s and getting it on 5s against most teams. They do insane damage and can destroy at 15+W model easily with a Double. You could say "But Aaranis, they move 3", surely you can avoid them easily ?" but WRONG they're the fastest team in the game with a little luck with a Triple. Waaagh! ability, every friendly model within 6" of the Leader adds the value of the ability to its Move characteristic until the end of the Round. That's how you get 5 Orks running at 9" with just a Triple 6. Then if you're really far away there's always the Charge ability, Double, to move closer and so allow your second activation to be an attack. It'es really completely bonkers he had 3 Orks moving 16" once to engage most of my team. But the weakness is map control, the time I won was because there was 4 objectives and I manoeuvered so as to control most of them and block his moves with my own Nightmarish Visage.

Legions of Nagash are different, they're a horde army that can summon back dead models and that's what makes it powerful in objective scenarios. 2 out of 4 games he won last minute by popping a 2W dude near the objective, activating it and then controlling the objective. They have some hard hitters too, but so does other armies. They're very well balanced but the resurrecting needs to forbid the resurrected model from activating at this round.

I've had 3 games that I already described in the other thread, but here are some pics. It was FEC vs IG

Lord blackfang, I salute your scenery!

I'm really surprised how much we're loving Warcry. Usually my tastes are pretty in lock-step with Owen the Cooler, so when Ash's review dropped, my heart sunk (our copy of WC has already shipped). So glad we gave it a go anyway.

We're rocking Infinity as a more finesse-y skill-based game, but Warcry is a super light, fun palate cleanser game each session.

Owen was obviously upset that Warcry wasn't Mordheim 2.0. Apparently, a lot of people were.

Ironically, I was planning to play Infinity once Operation Wildfire came in, but it is weeks late (and who knows when it will show up), so I've just been playing Warcry instead. I do feel like it scratches that same sort of itch. Warcry just doesn't get bogged down by... well, anything, in the same way Infinity sometimes can. Warcry is an anti-bog game, while Infinity seems to be bog-dwelling. Hope N4 fixes it.

Indeed me and my group have been LOVING Warcry, it's just so fresh and easy it's pure fun.

And the more I play the more I can tell you the game is truly tactical. If the teams are balanced (because they are pretty wide unbalances as of yet) every activation needs to be part of a plan. Yesterday for example, my Unmade versus the Bonesplitterz, playing Bloodmarked (Matched Play table A, 2nd mission), in short we had a designated model that had to be killed and for mine I chose a lowly grunt that had hidden high above the bell tower for most of the game. When he was starting to get hit at I fleed with him, and a few turns later, my own assassination attempts left my target with 1W remaining, but all my other models were dead. So I had my lone dude against three Orks to finish the job. Well I had initiative for the next round, and two Doubles. As he was all alone he could use as many abilities as he could, so I use a Rush to move 10" by jumping from a scenery to another and running a bit, then when I was within 5" of my target, I threw a Chain-Garotte, rolled, and killed him, winning me the game.

This is by far the most intense game I've played !

Last game I played came down to a single dice roll. If a 6 was rolled, my opponent would win. Anything else, I would win. (It was the bolas, where on a 4-5 you do 1 dmg, on a 6 you do the double's value). They got a 6 and won the game.

Which seems bad, but the entire third round was tense as crap, as we were pulling every trick in the book in order to out maneuver each other. The advantage changed several times, and we always seemed to find some strange and unusual way to sneak the advantage back - there were some really tricky moves there, exploiting abilities, terrain, and activation order to really make it so the game could end no other way. It was probably the most exciting tabletop game I've ever played.

 Aaranis wrote:
So, how did you find your first games ? Which warbands do you like playing with, and which ones do you dislike ? Also, what do you think about the generic warbands (like Stormcast, Medusai etc.) ? It's really early to tell but do you think some bands are more powerful than others ?

Hey, nice initiative with starting the Warcry [General].

Had my first two games just a few days ago, assembled most of my Fangs just few hours prior to the game. Still had to put few models together after it, the snake charmer was PITA to put together.

The two games were against DoK.



Thoughts on the DoK:

Fly with 12" is bonkers. The opponent had only one but if he had more than two of this profile I don't know how I could compete against that. Maybe with more snakes in the band.
Incredible abilities, it does make you feel a bit strained as you want to use multiple of them.
High movement is great attribute to have.
Generally frail, except for medusas.
If critical hits start rolling no one is safe.
Ranged attacks.

Thought on the Splintered Fang:

Generalists, two fast profiles (snakes and the chaos elf with dualist blades), few relatively tough models (shields).
Can pull some nice tricks with the models that have reach and the net. Requires some positioning management.
Double and quad abilities are nice, the rest feel situational and not something I think I'll use a lot.
Snake charmer feels lacking, it's a decent profile but it doesn't really deliver a hit. He has some synergies with the snakes but I don't feel it's worth a tripple. Would much prefer to spend it on the generic abilities. I think I'll replace him with a mercenary, although the model is probably the best of the group.
Snake swarm is likely the most friendly model to scratch build, requires just some green stuff to be rolled and plopped on the base.

Have another match scheduled for tomorrow, same opponent, might get a match against the untamed beasts, if his time table permits.

Had 3 games now. Always Gobbos against Golems.

The games were interesting and fun.

The two very best feature of Warcry compared to other GW games:
You have to think about what you do and the decisions you take have influence on the game. In many other GW games the decisions are at least semi-automatic or standardised or have often little effect and it feels like all the conscious decisions have to be taken taken while building the army list and probably deploying.
The relation of "time spent on decisions" to "time spent rolling dice" is very high compared to other GW games. I hope they will not unmake that with the expansions.

Negative points are mostly "cosmetic" like the terrain cards, which could do with a color coding for the different terrain pieces, or rune marks which are easier to distinguish. This may only be a problem for us older guys.
The Terrain assembly instructions also should be updated to show how to build all parts and what to glue or not to be able to build all the maps in the terrain deck.

"Fly" seems to be a (too ?) useful attribute especially if paired with a good fighting profile (Hoppers I'm looking at you).

The plastic is fantastic. The terrain pieces look good, are practical and easy to paint. What I like is that the walls do not have endless detail that has to be painted.
As a general rule I do not like Chaos miniatures, but I have to admit that from a technological/craftsmanship point of view the miniatures are brillant. Plastic miniatures have come a very long way.

I will keep playing and "promoting" Warcry.

 Sqorgar wrote:
Owen was obviously upset that Warcry wasn't Mordheim 2.0. Apparently, a lot of people were.

Ironically, I was planning to play Infinity once Operation Wildfire came in, but it is weeks late (and who knows when it will show up), so I've just been playing Warcry instead. I do feel like it scratches that same sort of itch. Warcry just doesn't get bogged down by... well, anything, in the same way Infinity sometimes can. Warcry is an anti-bog game, while Infinity seems to be bog-dwelling. Hope N4 fixes it.

I think Ash did his best to say it isn't Mordheim, and that is ok too. Mordheim is still a game we find time for every year in my home, and as big a fan as I am, I manage to like Warcry very much as well. :-p

Infinity, from my early games definitely seems like almost a design opposite of Warcry, but again, I am loving them for very, very different reasons.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I think Ash did his best to say it isn't Mordheim, and that is ok too.

It kind of irritates me that something like that even needs to be said. In the past thirty years, there's been maybe two dozen noteworthy miniature games (most of which are remakes of each other), and I'm sure that most people could name them off the top of their head - that's how limited the variety in miniature wargaming is. Even Warcry isn't really venturing too far off the well trodden path, but at least it isn't a remake.

Infinity, from my early games definitely seems like almost a design opposite of Warcry, but again, I am loving them for very, very different reasons.

Infinity is like a cross between X-Com and Valkyria Chronicles, while Warcry is more Final Fantasy Tactics. Where they are similar is that I think both Infinity and Warcry make terrain into a first class citizen that fundamentally changes your tactics and movement, while most skirmish miniatures games treat terrain as an afterthought (if that). If GW was smart, they'd backport the terrain cards to Kill Team

The design of Warcry is very lite. From profiles, faction style and diversity of units. I wish they'd increase the complexity of the system for just a bit, although as I say that I feel they can easily do that in the future. It wouldn't surprise me to see a second wave of models for the factions with different faction abilities.