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So... marketing has subsided and...is there anything happening with the game? On YT I don't see any battle reports or informed impressions after several games. Here on Dakka, similar silence.

Is anyone actually playing Warcrow? Or is it another example of "we cranked up marketing to sell boxes but we don't care if anyone plays it, as long as we incite them enough to buy it" and "playing it sounded like a cool idea so I bought it only to realise later, once the rush of marketing eased off, that I don't need more games in my life anyway" ?

I think it's a bit early to tell.

The starter set only officially came out this weekend, and a lot of people seem to be waiting for more units and factions to be released.

Personally, I'm not as enthused as I was.
Don't know if I got a bad set or what, but the minis needed a lot of prep work to get them to the table, my Ice Bear and Orc Leader in particular need more advanced gap-filling skills than I have.
I'm still planning on get the Beyond box, but if the minis haven't improved I'm calling it a day.

Here in aus the sets are only now beginning to get into player's hands. Give it time.

Oh, ok, I understand.

I assumed that CB turning off the hype machine marked the launch of the game.

Cyel wrote:
So... marketing has subsided and...is there anything happening with the game? On YT I don't see any battle reports or informed impressions after several games. Here on Dakka, similar silence.

Is anyone actually playing Warcrow? Or is it another example of "we cranked up marketing to sell boxes but we don't care if anyone plays it, as long as we incite them enough to buy it" and "playing it sounded like a cool idea so I bought it only to realise later, once the rush of marketing eased off, that I don't need more games in my life anyway" ?

I received mine yesterday. Built a couple of models last night, but the 3rd one I started on (Orc Evoker) seems like it has a missing part, or one part is miscast.
It's going to be a while till I've built them all and started playing.

EDIT: And remember this is Dakka, the Land of GW fans. I can't see there's going to be a vast amount of discussion here.
The facebook group I'm in has lots of painted photos appearing.

And I will say this... The hardback is fantastic.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

Cyel wrote:
So... marketing has subsided and...is there anything happening with the game? On YT I don't see any battle reports or informed impressions after several games. Here on Dakka, similar silence.

Is anyone actually playing Warcrow? Or is it another example of "we cranked up marketing to sell boxes but we don't care if anyone plays it, as long as we incite them enough to buy it" and "playing it sounded like a cool idea so I bought it only to realise later, once the rush of marketing eased off, that I don't need more games in my life anyway" ?

I received mine yesterday. Built a couple of models last night, but the 3rd one I started on (Orc Evoker) seems like it has a missing part, or one part is miscast.
It's going to be a while till I've built them all and started playing.

EDIT: And remember this is Dakka, the Land of GW fans. I can't see there's going to be a vast amount of discussion here.
The facebook group I'm in has lots of painted photos appearing.

And I will say this... The hardback is fantastic.

I heard that the gaps in the models are terrible and the badly written rules don't help.

You might be right about Dakka Dakka being the land of GW fanboys but a bad game is a bad game which is a same because i really wanted to like this.

Perhaps the Corvus Belli marketing has probably moved on to the new Infinity edition?

Firestorm Games (the HQ) in the UK have a display of the starter box and rulebooks. It seems a little expensive, £25-30 rulebook I might have taken a look at but not £45. The (Angel Giraldez painted I am guessing?) minis look lovely - especially the Orcs, which looks like they are straight out of World of Warcraft.

If they do separate miniatures I might get hold of them. Infinity's rules are excellent so even if CB haven't got them right out of the box, they will probably work to improve them.

Sasorijap wrote:


I heard that the gaps in the models are terrible and the badly written rules don't help. (Have you read them?)

You might be right about Dakka Dakka being the land of GW fanboys but a bad game is a bad game which is a same because i really wanted to like this.

I cleaned up my models and put them together. Not much effort. 2-5 simple jigsaw pieces that fit together really well. (The one I thought was a miscast/missing was me not looking at the original painted version to see its wierd pose). I see some on facebook with bad gaps, but I think that's down to people being impatient holding them together as glue dries. I used a spray on instant super-glue drying product and all the models came out fantastic.

As for the rules... I've been through them twice (once on pdf before I got a physical copy) and find them really good. I'm looking forward to getting some games in.

The only worry I have is painting them. I always use a primer spray, but had issues with Mantic's Terrain Crate and Bones' material going sticky after spraying. The Mantic stuff didn't start getting sticky till a few weeks later. I'm not sure how this Siocast stuff works in with aerosol primer.

Octobers releases are popping up for pre-order.

Hegmony Bulwarks:-



Tundra Marauders:-



Looks to be about £35 each set.
It's a shame the Bulwarks don't have the individuality of the Marauders but I like their shields.

Those bulwarks are the first models in the range to get my attention.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Those bulwarks are the first models in the range to get my attention.

Those guys with the one human leader from the starter set would be about all I want from models so far.

oooh those Bulwarks are gorgeous.

I don't really judge a game by how hard their models are to assemble, because I have to pay someone to put most of them together anyway. The Warcrow upon arrival will be going straight to my commission guy.

The rules are good, a bit crunchy, but my biggest issue is going to be to add it to my rotation. If I could wiggle my nose and go back about three months, I may not have pre-ordered. But It is a solid system, I played a demo and enjoyed it and we have a local rep so it already has a following here. that's enough for me to paint up the starter and have a bit of fun until we see where it goes.

So I tried Warcrow at freakwars. I was pretty keen because yaldabaouth minis look sexy.

And... i was pretty disappointed?


So, I will say this is partly because most people don't know how do a demo. Doing a demo is essentially teaching, and IMO you have to do that step by step rather than explaining the whole of the game before the player gets to throw a dice or move. That's a recipe for people clocking out. I think they also failed to angle the demo and the mechanics in an interesting way, as it basically boiled to 'hold the center point'. Maybe spread the units and whatnot, rather than have 2 trains ram at each other.


So, on the good, alternate activation rocks!

Now, unto the game. Movement felt super awkward, particularly once you factor in coherence. Your move is in straight lines in set amounts but actually you move further than that given how placement works, which is a bit odd but not that big a dealbreaker. It follows an order system akin to infinity, but also mixes stamina and over-activation. I think that's great, but it's not gonna see too much use given the way stamina (or stress) works. Or at least i felt that way and the demo teacher seemed to be of that mind.

Action economy felt super restrictive, and the 'no one gets left behind' (that is, a free move at the end) mechanic felt like a massive crutch. Yes, necessity is the mother of invention... but i want something to chew and play.

As for combat resolution... i'm mixed. On the one hand the pools and different dice types is a neat concept, on the other it means you better not lose any dice and buy from CB. And I think here laid the majority of the issues i had in my experience. I just, had no clue what was going on. Oh, I understood that stars and shields are successes but then exclamation marks being tied to unit specific rules that you need to check on unit cards that had too small a font for my taste. I think you can do either specific pools of dice or add rules, or sacrifice some of each. As is, it felt murky and lacking visual clarity.

Overall, I spent roughly a bit more of half an hour doing 2-3 moves, a charge, and about two combat rolls. It didn't feel a cerebral experience like toying with AROs and positioning in infinity. And it sure as hell didn't feel intense and dinamic because, frankly, it all amounted to 2 bucklermen dying over the whole game. Toying with the propietary ruler felt clunky (particularly the 2'' bit at the start). and we didn't get to see magic.

It's frankly a frustrating experience.I wanted to like the game and I got out of it with the opposite experience. Which is downright sad.


EDIT:

Also, gonna say. The current state of factions is pretty dismal. I'm sorry, 2 factions with... what, a pair of units each? The game won't have yaldabaoth until mid-late october, and that will be just the dungeon crawler bits. The faction proper won't come til 2025. Which i feel will make the game 'feel' pretty stale FAST.

I've played a demo a few days ago as well. I was familiar with the dice and switch mechanic cause I played Defiance before, so that part was very easy to grasp for me.

That being said, I don't know if it's the fault of the very small game size you can play with just the starter box, but it felt like I was doing a lot, and accomplishing nothing.

My big issue is that inclusion of the plague doctor means the bucklermen are basically near-immortal, whoever decided the damage mitigation ability should have no restrictions was surely having a laugh.

Then there was the fact that combat involved a lot of trading tokens, removing those tokens and pushing models around, but not much else, which was largely tied to how durable the hegemony infantry was.

And finally- magic felt incredibly underwhelming. They invented a whole system of punishing people for casting spells, all in service of the most generic and mild spells one could think of. Again, I imagine when more units are released this might change, but during the demo magic felt like it was not worth the risk at all.

November Pre-orders are out:-

Orc Officers.


Darkmaster.


Black Legion Officers.


Marhael the Refused.


Not too keen on the Darkmaster and his big lump of cloud, but the rest are quite snazzy.

Unfortunately, I'm continuing to have bad luck with the minis I'm getting from the range, so I won't be buying any, for now at least.

I'm still waiting to see if this really takes off before jumping in, but so far this is turning into the World of Warcraft game I always wanted.

The Darkmaster mini looks fun to paint.

 .Mikes. wrote:
I'm still waiting to see if this really takes off before jumping in, but so far this is turning into the World of Warcraft game I always wanted.

Taking a wait and see approach as well, but these are fantastic. Really would like to get a sense of some of the other factions before I get too excited though.

December pre-orders are popping up!

Aggressors:-



And Battle Scarred:-



Really like the Aggressors, particularly the commander lady in the big, puffy hat!

Well now these are very lovely models, now I need to see if my FLG is carrying any of them.

I genuinely like the greatswords which surprises me a bit as I haven't been a fan of prior models in this line. It's probably due to the more realistic styling as opposed to the World of Warcraft in all but name proportions and style of the non-human figs.

I have ot admit the more I see the more I like.

 .Mikes. wrote:
I have ot admit the more I see the more I like.

Maybe you have some gameplay videos that made you think that? The only ones I saw pre-launch just used the starter box and gameplay looked very stale, static and boring with a lot of procedures to be conducted but no memorable moments of "damn, it was a neat move! Kudos for creative problem solving with the tools given!". But maybe it was due to the small scale of the battle.

No, purely visuals. Nothing of the gameplay so far appeals to me.

Yup, that's my issue with the wargaming market nowadays - dozens of games with wonderful minis, far too many to paint in a lifetime. No shortage of choices on that front.

However it's really good rules that seem to be in short supply. This is the choke point that severely limits my interest in new titles.

Cyel wrote:
Yup, that's my issue with the wargaming market nowadays - dozens of games with wonderful minis, far too many to paint in a lifetime. No shortage of choices on that front.

However it's really good rules that seem to be in short supply. This is the choke point that severely limits my interest in new titles.

Armoured Clash, Conquest and Battletech have great rules.

Cyel wrote:
Yup, that's my issue with the wargaming market nowadays - dozens of games with wonderful minis, far too many to paint in a lifetime. No shortage of choices on that front.

However it's really good rules that seem to be in short supply. This is the choke point that severely limits my interest in new titles.

I don't think its just quality rules, its also learning curves. It takes time to learn a new game and get settled into actually playing over learning to play. Even well written rules take a bit of time.
What interests me now is what happens with OPR (One Page Rules) because that system is spreading itself out to incorporate other model lines from different creators. More so in the 3D print market right now, but you can also use GW forces. I can see it being a great way to get actual games with a shared system whilst being able to bring your niche army against another opponents army where neither of you has to learn a whole new game to play; nor have to probably build two armies so you can get a game etc...

Sure it loses out a bit on the lore front unless you create your own for the situation; but it wins on the practical "we can have a game we both understand tonight with very little learning of new rules/mechanics/systems"







Back to Warcrow I agree these latest few models are looking more interesting than their initial launch ones. It's nothing massive, but there is a subtle change/evolution/maturity? in the designs that just feels a bit more interesting/exciting than some of the early stuff.

The Darkmaster brought some weird weapons that looks like its perhaps tools for carpentry. Guess thats what happen when you are in a hurry and wear your bandana to cover your eyes.

As a concept, I really enjoy the Conan aspect of a big barbarian assassin/rouge