Thoughts on Warcry

So today I gathered my nerves, swallowed my Valium and went into my local GW store today to give the skirmish game Warcry a go. The results:

It was a lot of fun.

I not only got taught how to play, but was taught by some gamers/customers, who were both nice and fun. The game had my Gloomspite Gitz vs his Fleash-Eater Courts, the mission was board quarter control and I lost the game 2-3. I learned a lot about how the game works, how my faction works and the mistakes I made.

As far as a skirmish game goes, it is still somewhat basic, but mistakes early on can cost you down the road. So I guess it's best to talk a bit more about it.

Warbands have a set point value (usually 1,000pts) with one champion model being chosen to be your Leader. Stronger models have a higher point value while weak ones have a lower point value (so some factions can have the option to have few but strong or lots but weak). The stats of each model type have been reworked for this game, so looking at a models Warscroll is pointless if you want to see which ones are best to pick (a bit more on stats later on).

So for example, my Warband consisted of:

+ Boingrot Bounderz Boss (Leader)
+ Boingrot Bounderz
+ Squig
+ Squig
+ Squig
+ Squig Herder
+ Stabba with Barbed Net

Total Points: 995pts

This brings us to the turns. Each turn both players roll six dice. Numbers that are double, triple, quadruple get set aside while single numbers are used to determine who gets initiative. So say player one rolls 3,3,4,4,5,6 and player two rolls 1,2,2,2,4,6. Player one has rolled two sets of doubles and two single numbers, while player two has rolled a triple and three singles. Because player one has two singles and player two has three singles, player two wins initiative and goes first that turn. Should both players have the same number of singles, then a roll off occurs to determine who goes first.

But those doubles, triples and quadruples are still needed as they are used to activate abilities (both general and faction specific). One good example of this was in Turn 2 of the game I played, where I rolled three doubles and during that turn both of my Squigs were under attacked by one of the larger Fleash-Eater monsters (a Crypt Horror I believe). I used one of my doubles to active an ability which added 1 to my Attack and Strength characteristic for that models activation (he had to be within 1" of a friendly fighter which was the second Squig) which gave that Squig 5 attacks at Str 6, which increased the amount of attacks and hits I could place on that enemy. After he activated a Ghoul to come in and attack the second Squig, I activated that second Squig and since he was both in base range with his buddy Squig and the Horror, I used another double I had to use that same ability on that Squig and after that fight the Horror was no more.

That's not to say having them can be beneficial all the time, as in Turn 3 I had a triple aside and had no real way to use it in the game that would help and so it was wasted that Turn.

Combat is simple, with there being combat range (usually 1"- 3" for melee, with range attacks being 3"+). Your attack characteristic is the number of dice you roll to attack, Strenght and Toughness are used to determine if you attack wounds or not with a roll of 6 always being a critical hit (so if your Str is higher then their Tough you need a 3+, equal Str/Tough is a 4+ and if Tough is higher then your Str it's a 5+). There is also a damage stat shown as X/X (X being a number). This is your average damage and your critical damage, so to use the Squigs again, they have a 2/4 stat, with 2 being the damage you deal on a normal hit and 4 being on a critical hit. You then add these all up in a fight to determine how much damage you will do.

So lets do another example: You attack with you model that has four attacks attacks against a model with the same toughness as your strength and you damage value is 2/5. You roll a 3,4,4 and 6, so you have made two normal hits and one critical, so your damage is 0+2+2+5 for a total of 9 wounds to that model. Simple, but I found that when most models have a more equal Str/Tough can make more tension in a fight (better when someone decides to use an ability to shake things up).

Man, this is sounding more like a review then an experience. So back on topic, the game itself lasted around 20 - 30 minutes, give or take the learning curve. Short but fun, which is what I seem to like these days. I imagine more factions will be included as new faction releases happen and I can easily see this game having campaign expansions in the future. While you can just have the rulebook and a faction card pack or so, much of the campaign section has a layout for setting up the terrain what comes in the starter box, which can be confusing. I'm sure there are ways for everyone to go around this (given they are selling other terrain box sets to go with it), so I'll wait a bit longer to see how that one goes.

If you are interested in this game, I highly recommend either going into a store and ask about a demo game to teach you or look up various Age of Sigmar channels on Youtube to see games played and determine for yourself if the game is more suited to you (I remember one of the staff saying that 40K Kill-Team was more about harder to kill models while Warcry is all about getting in and killing).

Speaking of the staff, big thanks to the Warhammer Brisbane CBD store staff for doing their best to make me feel as comfortable as they could and a massive thanks to the two gentlemen who played and taught the game with me, it really made my day (because being in a small crowded store full of talking people is terrifying for me due to my mental health issues. Planning on writing a series to explain my life with it so that it might help people understand some of the issues we have).

Sorry for turning this into a bit of a ramble, but I had fun playing the game and enjoyed the day (a rarity, but still good).