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Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?


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1 hour ago, Battlefury said:

But is it actually awesome?

I'd like to ask those, who do now own it for some days and had time to play it. Is it good? Might it be a long term game? What is your experience until now?

As you told correct, it might take some time to catch flame. But hopefully it won't be a dumbster fire.
In my local area, really nobody plays it out of 25 AoS players. No interest at all, as it looks like. We have a promo pack for play testing, that is just not used.

There are some reviewers out there that have the game from GW for review/hype purposes.  All of the stores should have a demo copy set up and ready to play.  But, at least here in the US, the game doesn't actually come out until 8/3 (this Saturday).  I have a feeling we'll know a lot more about the game in about 10 to 20 days or so when many people have had time to paint up a Warband of their choice as well as the Terrain.  And, after that, had plenty of time to play the game (Matched, Open, and Narrative play).  While there will be some on this forum that will be able to answer your question now, I have a feeling that it'll be a while yet before you get several true gamers' thoughts on the game.

SG

EDIT: Necromunda is the same way at my local GW.  There seems to literally be no interest in it at all.  They have the core game at the store, but they have ZERO of the additional gangs.  My FLGS down the road a bit has the core game and all of the additional gangs. 

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When Necromunda 2017 first came out, it was super popular here.  But the release of Kill Team just ended all the campaigns and purchases.  People wanted skirmish in the 40k universe and were simply settling for Necromunda.  I'm not sure if that's universal, but I bet it's a pretty common thing.

I have no idea how Warcry is going to shake out, but having tried the game and seen a number of games played, I think it's at least playable and solid.  Who knows how long it will last as a product line and how many people will go on playing it for years.  It's the sort of game I like and I especially like chaos stuff not associate with the 4 powers. I find the breakdown of chaos into 4 distinct powers with pairs of them being especially opposed and them cycling through prominence in a great game to be inherently orderly.  Having all sorts of great daemons and minor powers and unknown dark gods worshipped by particular sects is far more chaotic than the known four equal power breakdown.

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1 hour ago, Nin Win said:

When Necromunda 2017 first came out, it was super popular here.  But the release of Kill Team just ended all the campaigns and purchases.  People wanted skirmish in the 40k universe and were simply settling for Necromunda.  I'm not sure if that's universal, but I bet it's a pretty common thing.

I have no idea how Warcry is going to shake out, but having tried the game and seen a number of games played, I think it's at least playable and solid.  Who knows how long it will last as a product line and how many people will go on playing it for years.  It's the sort of game I like and I especially like chaos stuff not associate with the 4 powers. I find the breakdown of chaos into 4 distinct powers with pairs of them being especially opposed and them cycling through prominence in a great game to be inherently orderly.  Having all sorts of great daemons and minor powers and unknown dark gods worshipped by particular sects is far more chaotic than the known four equal power breakdown.

Considering that AoS really doesn’t have a current functioning Skirmish game, if AoS gamers want a Skirmish game, it’ll take off.  Yes, AoS Skirmish exists as well as Underworlds.  But neither offer gameplay and/or decent balance like Warcry might (and hopefully will).  Plus, you can use all your own models in Warcry if you want to play Order, Destruction, or Death.  That’s a big positive for me.  I’m really hoping that they allow other Chaos armies to be played in the near future.   While Chaos is represented by the Warcry warbands, I can’t think of any reason (narrative or gameplay) why current chaos factions couldn’t be included as well.

SG

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The math looks like actions aren't as important as damage per turn across the entire warband.  So you've got a bunch of actions?  That's nice.  You very likely don't have the same actual damage output as a mixed group with access to sources of damage from abilities which don't require actions.

Furthermore, the splitting of forces into groups could well end up with a small group of chaff/basic grunts having to face off against some truly excellent fighters and being defeated in detail before their reinforcements arrive on later turns.  So it's not just average damage per action/activation/warband but also the damage output of each of the dagger, shield and hammer.

I'm expecting my skeleton heavy Legions of Nagash warband to really struggle against my friend's Iron Jaws.

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17 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

The math looks like actions aren't as important as damage per turn across the entire warband.  So you've got a bunch of actions?  That's nice.  You very likely don't have the same actual damage output as a mixed group with access to sources of damage from abilities which don't require actions.

Furthermore, the splitting of forces into groups could well end up with a small group of chaff/basic grunts having to face off against some truly excellent fighters and being defeated in detail before their reinforcements arrive on later turns.  So it's not just average damage per action/activation/warband but also the damage output of each of the dagger, shield and hammer.

I'm expecting my skeleton heavy Legions of Nagash warband to really struggle against my friend's Iron Jaws.

But if your 40 point guys are tying up their 250pt cav, they are forced to waste activations on your chaff while you dominate the board with numbers.

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17 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

The math looks like actions aren't as important as damage per turn across the entire warband.  So you've got a bunch of actions?  That's nice.  You very likely don't have the same actual damage output as a mixed group with access to sources of damage from abilities which don't require actions.

Furthermore, the splitting of forces into groups could well end up with a small group of chaff/basic grunts having to face off against some truly excellent fighters and being defeated in detail before their reinforcements arrive on later turns.  So it's not just average damage per action/activation/warband but also the damage output of each of the dagger, shield and hammer.

I'm expecting my skeleton heavy Legions of Nagash warband to really struggle against my friend's Iron Jaws.

That's an interesting point. It's true that even abilities have to be considered in the context of which fighter can use it, and 3 part deployment does cause some tactical headaches. I wonder if the chaps at the design studio didn't set out to make a game that would be impossible to play WITHOUT battleplans, terrain etc as factors. Of course people will still try to compare unit stats as if they were fighting all at once on a barren plane, and claim that stormcast are definitely OP and so on ;)

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34 minutes ago, Moldek said:

That's an interesting point. It's true that even abilities have to be considered in the context of which fighter can use it, and 3 part deployment does cause some tactical headaches. I wonder if the chaps at the design studio didn't set out to make a game that would be impossible to play WITHOUT battleplans, terrain etc as factors. Of course people will still try to compare unit stats as if they were fighting all at once on a barren plane, and claim that stormcast are definitely OP and so on ;)

The three part deployment system in a limited turn format is massive. It does my head in to see so many of the big YT names gloss over it for Warcry and Meeting Engagements both.

Discourse inevitably keeps circling back to whichever unit has the scarier numbers in a vacuum because, honestly, I feel that's just what some people want the game experience to be.

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27 minutes ago, soak314 said:

The three part deployment system in a limited turn format is massive. It does my head in to see so many of the big YT names gloss over it for Warcry and Meeting Engagements both.

Discourse inevitably keeps circling back to whichever unit has the scarier numbers in a vacuum because, honestly, I feel that's just what some people want the game experience to be.

Yeah I guess a lot of people like things that can be measured and ranked efficiently. My theory is that most players (myself included) actually rarely get to play and spend more time discussing the game and watching / reading about it. So a vast amount of the discussion is held by people who have little actual experience to put these numbers in context, especially when the game isn’t even out yet...

I’m sure there will be a few broken lists and subpar choices, but I’m not too worried about it. Mostly because I’m not playing super competitive, and I don’t think that’s the main purpose of warcry anyways. As long as I have a fighting chance and I have an exciting game with cool minis I’m happy!

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5 hours ago, Battlefury said:

But is it actually awesome?

I'd like to ask those, who do now own it for some days and had time to play it. Is it good? Might it be a long term game? What is your experience until now?

I tried a game at my local GW store last week. Before I ramble on, Keep in mind that I am not much of an competitive player though I do enjoy Matched Play as well as narrative.

I think the rule system is very simple and solid. Not much to memorize except for the warband abilities which I have no doubt will be easy after a few games.

By the 2nd turn we knew the rules well enough for us to only ask the shop assistant for the stuff we did’t want look up.

The rules seem like a mash up between, AOS, Meeting Engagement, Necromunda and Warhammer Quest.

I really like the initiative system, which is simple and yet there were many things to consider before using wild dice. Like. Do you wanna spend wild dice to assure you get the first move? Or is it better to spend them on powerful abilities? Or maybe you should save them all for the right moment to take full control of the turn.

The first thing that hit me when playing Warcry was that the game was so soaked in 80’s Heavy Metal theme that it felt like we had to listen to Iron Maiden or Metallica or something while playing.

Im talking heeps of skulls, blood, fire and spikes. No time for armour save, Warcry is about dealing a ton of damage with your band of deranged killers. Like when my armoured Ogor faced off with some weird lion/goat on top of a building. Only for some other Conan looking wannabe to do a Scorpion (Mortal Kombat, not the band) move on him and gutted him with a hapoon and ripped him off the building. All the time we awaited the arrival of the Harpies, and lets be honest they look like something straight out of a Meatloaf album cover!

So where am I getting at? We had a ton of cinematic moments with highfives and curses thrown over the table. 

Like others have said, do not take this foe a new Mordheim. It is not and if you are looking for that, Warcry will get you dissapointed.

In our gaming group we usually meet to play for a whole day, about once a month. Warcry will come in very handy as the game played when we don’t have the time or energy for a full game of AOS. Or maybe it should be like that game we end the evening on after a particularly salty game, to assure that we all spend the last part of the session laughing.

I spend lots of time painting, designing scenery and writing campaigns for AOS. For me Warcry will be the game that takes up a little space and time yet it provides a good experience.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Injuryprone said:

But if your 40 point guys are tying up their 250pt cav, they are forced to waste activations on your chaff while you dominate the board with numbers.

Sadly for my horde the cheapest skeleton is 55 points.  That 15 points might not seem like much but when you take 10 such fighters, you're now missing a 150 point medium strength bruiser from the list.

My prediction for tying up good models with cheap ones is that you'll think it's going great into late turn 1, early turn 2 but then you'll suddenly lose a ton of bad models and go into late turn 2, early turn 3 with no longer having a numbers advantage and now having a major quality disadvantage.

I think the real way to use numbers will be in layers set up past objectives.  Where the elite warband has to be one the one to attack and fight through them.  I think when the scenario/situation has the horde as the aggressor, the lower quality warband is going to have to go for an outnumbering to kill rather than a tying up.

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2 hours ago, Nin Win said:

Sadly for my horde the cheapest skeleton is 55 points.  That 15 points might not seem like much but when you take 10 such fighters, you're now missing a 150 point medium strength bruiser from the list.

My prediction for tying up good models with cheap ones is that you'll think it's going great into late turn 1, early turn 2 but then you'll suddenly lose a ton of bad models and go into late turn 2, early turn 3 with no longer having a numbers advantage and now having a major quality disadvantage.

I think the real way to use numbers will be in layers set up past objectives.  Where the elite warband has to be one the one to attack and fight through them.  I think when the scenario/situation has the horde as the aggressor, the lower quality warband is going to have to go for an outnumbering to kill rather than a tying up.

Maybe it's the bat reps I've watched, but they were mainly used to screen movement and as a sacrifice to tie up a unit for a full turn.  With most games ending turn 4 and not being won on bodies dead, hordes seem like the way to go.  Maybe not a full horde but definitely not 5 elite units.

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On 8/1/2019 at 5:02 AM, Injuryprone said:

Maybe it's the bat reps I've watched, but they were mainly used to screen movement and as a sacrifice to tie up a unit for a full turn.  With most games ending turn 4 and not being won on bodies dead, hordes seem like the way to go.  Maybe not a full horde but definitely not 5 elite units.

Hordes are tough especially legions of nagash. I played against them with a 7 man nighthaunt warband (15 models in the legion list. I got lucky by having 2 rounds with quad 5s for reap like corn with my grimghast. As he was so bunched up it hit nearly every Skeleton. Had it not been for that I would have no way to win. Don't let the 3 inch move fool you they can be quick with van hels ability

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Played 2 games of WarCry today, using Stormcast and Nighthaunt. Lots of fun - in my opinion, better than Kill Team or Shadespire. I really appreciated how quick it was and how natural the rules were.

The only issue we had while playing it was potential imbalance with the non-Chaos warbands. Both Nighthaunt and Stormcast seemed highly specialized and could be strong or weak depending on the matchup, terrain layout, and objective.

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1 hour ago, LoopyZebra said:

Played 2 games of WarCry today, using Stormcast and Nighthaunt. Lots of fun - in my opinion, better than Kill Team or Shadespire. I really appreciated how quick it was and how natural the rules were.

The only issue we had while playing it was potential imbalance with the non-Chaos warbands. Both Nighthaunt and Stormcast seemed highly specialized and could be strong or weak depending on the matchup, terrain layout, and objective.

Good to know! I have bought the book and cards for these factions and my first few games are probably going to be between them. Would you say they are a good matchup?

I think these faction cards were a really smart decision as it’ll hopefully help warcry be more than another specialist game. I hope it sticks around, it’s the perfect format for me! I’m even considering going to store events...

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Got 3 campaign games in today, first I've had against an actual other person (have had a bunch solo against myself, too).

Bonesplitterz vs Stormcast twice, and Gitz vs Stormcast once. Both were fairly down to the line, except for the first one where he didn't focus on chasing the target down for a treasure hunt mission.

The games are incredibly tight, as most people have noted. You don't have a lot of decisions to make and all it can take is one bad choice to doom your fellas to defeat. Looking back to previous discussions on how this game works, I have a very hard time seeing how people could possibly interpret it as "you just move to the center and hit each other". The game's very close to Underworlds levels of move management and risk mitigation.

The rando gen can hurt certain warbands on a bad draw, but I think the chances of that being absolute are pretty slim. Consider the ability to pick your shield/dagger/hammer, from a roster of 20 models, while being able to see the composition of your adversary's. If you build a flexible warband, and make good deployment decisions, this shouldn't happen often if at all.

But I think the one thing I've appreciated the most about the system is the sheer ease of everything. By our third game we were rolling for the full three turns without consulting the rulebook. We both commented that we could easily keep going all day. There's barely a hit on your mental fatigue, especially compared to a full 2 and a half hour game of AoS/40k.

I've got more detailed battle reports on these three games in the Stormcast warcry thread if people are keen to get a gauge on how they do (they're oppressive, intimidating, but from what I've seen definitely not OP.)

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10 hours ago, Moldek said:

Good to know! I have bought the book and cards for these factions and my first few games are probably going to be between them. Would you say they are a good matchup?

I think these faction cards were a really smart decision as it’ll hopefully help warcry be more than another specialist game. I hope it sticks around, it’s the perfect format for me! I’m even considering going to store events...

The Stormcast are quite tanky, with high health and armor, and as the units include Vanguard Hunters and Raptors, have strong ranged attacks. The Stormcast also have more unit variety than Nighthaunt. The Nighthaunt have higher mobility than the Stormcast, especially with flight, and the ability to bring units back. Nighthaunt units are cheaper so it's easy to have more Nighthaunt models on the board than Stormcast, particularly if the Stormcast player picks expensive models.

With this particular matchup, terrain and objective matter a lot. For terrain, I used the Azyrite Ruins and Stormvault sets as that's what I had ready, so there was not as much verticality as the box set terrain. This, combined with the Stormcast ranged weapons, significantly reduced the value of the Nighthaunt's ability to fly. The first game had an objective of killing the enemy leader - the Nighthaunt player was able to use his superior mobility and numbers to isolate my leader and keep his relatively safe. That said it was quite close - his leader only had 2 wounds left by the time mine died. The second game had "kill half the opposing team" as the objective. The Stormcast formed a gun line behind cover and kept firing / stabbing as the Nighthaunt resurrected. This particular objective definitely played to the Stormcast's strengths and they won.

When using the cards, I'd recommend discussing with your opponent whether the draw makes sense. Our twist for the first game was an ability to deal damage to any model on the board. Given that the objective was to kill the enemy leader, we both hit each others leader once with this before we decided it was too powerful for this objective and agreed not to use it anymore.

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On 7/31/2019 at 9:27 PM, Battlefury said:

But is it actually awesome?

I'd like to ask those, who do now own it for some days and had time to play it. Is it good? Might it be a long term game? What is your experience until now?

As you told correct, it might take some time to catch flame. But hopefully it won't be a dumbster fire.
In my local area, really nobody plays it out of 25 AoS players. No interest at all, as it looks like. We have a promo pack for play testing, that is just not used.

It is ****** awesome. Played 5 games with my girlfriend. It is lovely.

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During the testgame of Warcry I had a week back we were taught one rule that I find it a shame  isn’t in the rulebook. We were, by mistake, taught that players has to roll for falling (as after suffering a critical hit close to a ledge) whenever a model made a ‘dangerous’ jump.

I wonder why that rule isn’t official as it would have made jumps just a wee bit scary. 

We can always just house rule it but still it would have been nice.

That being said I am really looking forward to really get into this game. 

 

Btw. Does the extra terrain sets (Corpsewrack Mausoleum and Shattered Stormvault) come with anything interessting, ruleswise? Like new Twists or scenery rules etc. Course at first glance they strike me as rather open to long range and stripped off dangerous terrain and most things climeable. Or am I missing something here? Anyone tried the Corpsewrack out yet?

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10 minutes ago, Greasygeek said:

Btw. Does the extra terrain sets (Corpsewrack Mausoleum and Shattered Stormvault) come with anything interessting, ruleswise? Like new Twists or scenery rules etc. Course at first glance they strike me as rather open to long range and stripped off dangerous terrain and most things climeable. Or am I missing something here? Anyone tried the Corpsewrack out yet?

 

No clue what's inside in terms of cards but just the terrain itself is pretty light for warcry. Shattered Stormvault is pretty good because there's so many hard LoS blocking in that set, but i can imagine people being annoyed by the stairs. It doesn't really have anything climbable either.

 

I haven't gotten to measure the Corpsewrack fences, but unless you rule em as hard LoS blocking. It'll be a board that's 85% cover terrain. It might be interesting, since the climb actions to pop over the fences makes for some interesting movement situations. Not sure if the box rules the fences as dangerous, but that'd be an engaging setup.

 

Either one or both mixed with the warcry terrain will make for some awesome set-ups I think.

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I know there are likely to be new chaotic beasts added sooner or later, but is there any reason why you couldn't sub in thematically appropriate fighters from the existing warbands as random twist deck monsters instead of/in addition to using the ones from the starter box ? 

E.g having a particular area be infested with chainrasps/savage orcs/squigs that attack everyone. Or for the "Apex Predator" twist card where you add one 30-wound variant of a monster, you could add an ogre/troll/chaos spawn and use the rest of the Ogor Breacher statline for it 

Idk I just I like the idea of a mighty chaos warband finally brought low by the rogue squig herd that chased it across the bloodwind spoil for eight days and nights

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13 hours ago, Jefferson Skarsnik said:

I know there are likely to be new chaotic beasts added sooner or later, but is there any reason why you couldn't sub in thematically appropriate fighters from the existing warbands as random twist deck monsters instead of/in addition to using the ones from the starter box ? 

E.g having a particular area be infested with chainrasps/savage orcs/squigs that attack everyone. Or for the "Apex Predator" twist card where you add one 30-wound variant of a monster, you could add an ogre/troll/chaos spawn and use the rest of the Ogor Breacher statline for it 

Idk I just I like the idea of a mighty chaos warband finally brought low by the rogue squig herd that chased it across the bloodwind spoil for eight days and nights

I thought of the same thing, and even a little more when it comes to convergence missions, using non chaos warbands to represent an "NPC" warband that the enemy has to chew through for thier story mission games.

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On 8/3/2019 at 4:16 PM, ageofpaddsmar said:

Hordes are tough especially legions of nagash. I played against them with a 7 man nighthaunt warband (15 models in the legion list. I got lucky by having 2 rounds with quad 5s for reap like corn with my grimghast. As he was so bunched up it hit nearly every Skeleton. Had it not been for that I would have no way to win. Don't let the 3 inch move fool you they can be quick with van hels ability

Honestly, I played a horde guy who tried that very same strategy, and I beat him fairly easily. I did play as the cypher lords. I would not go full elite though because this is an objective game. Plan your movements and make use of your abilities. Most models that make up the hordes are easily taken out. For example, the skeletons only have 8 wounds. When I played them, against a known power gamer at my store. He listen to the video reviews/batrep..and decided to horde with LoN. My luminate wipe out three  skellies in one turn. With the quad ability. All because he tried to tie me up...lol. I ended up winning the battle  qnd it was very one side.

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