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Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?


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23 minutes ago, Stealth_Hobo said:

So, basically what you are saying is that GW's marketing has an effect on some people. :P

What else do people have to go on?

This scenario seems to come up constantly in online Warhammer communities:

GW: We're releasing a new thing which is like X!

People: Wow can't wait!

*thing comes out*

People: Oh no, it's more like Y.

Smug people: What, you expected X? You fools, it was clearly Y all along. 

 

I get it, people's hype often leads to them trying to fit a square peg into a round hole (see all the posters declaring the return of Tomb Kings at the drop of a hat) but people are allowed to have expectations, and if they end up not matching reality it's not invalid for them to feel disappointed.

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11 minutes ago, Jefferson Skarsnik said:

Is shooting actually a thing in this game?

Obviously there's no dedicated shooting phase but will the missile-armed Stormcast and Idoneth models just have weapon options with higher range that they use in the combat phase?

I wonder how effectively it will fit in if so, obviously it's a melee combat focused game but I'd like there to be a role for sneaky snipers given all the cool terrain options available

I also kind of want to explore a proxied Deepkin warband using Wildwood Rangers, Glade Guard and hawk riders (if I can find any) instead of Namarti and eels. Have em be really grizzled, battle-scarred elf guerillas like the Scoia'tel in the Witcher

 

Yeah it seems like shooting is just attacks with longer ranges. It seems like everything's kept pretty short, though - Boltstorm pistols seem to have an 8 inch range, for example. Ranged attacks seem to always be weaker than the mini's melee attack, too (so e.g. a Stormcast's axe is better than their pistol). Definitely a melee-focused game through and through.

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11 minutes ago, robinlvalentine said:

What else do people have to go on?

This scenario seems to come up constantly in online Warhammer communities:

GW: We're releasing a new thing which is like X!

People: Wow can't wait!

*thing comes out*

People: Oh no, it's more like Y.

Smug people: What, you expected X? You fools, it was clearly Y all along. 

 

I get it, people's hype often leads to them trying to fit a square peg into a round hole (see all the posters declaring the return of Tomb Kings at the drop of a hat) but people are allowed to have expectations, and if they end up not matching reality it's not invalid for them to feel disappointed.

I disagree. I think people should manage their expectations if they don't want to end up disappointed. You don't ever hear a company saying something along like "this is intended for fast games, narrative and campaign players need not apply". They want to be as inclusive in their marketing as possible.

Also, I have followed Warcry pretty extensively and I never heard GW saying it will be like Mordheim. In fact, they were pretty vague about how it looks up until now. But I've seen some people from the community hyping up the game in that manner, so there's a bit of that broken telephone effect where the actual message gets all muddled. Then the result will be disappointment because the game wasn't "what GW promised".

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1 minute ago, Stealth_Hobo said:

I disagree. I think people should manage their expectations if they don't want to end up disappointed. You don't ever hear a company saying something along like "this is intended for fast games, narrative and campaign players need not apply". They want to be as inclusive in their marketing as possible.

Also, I have followed Warcry pretty extensively and I never heard GW saying it will be like Mordheim. In fact, they were pretty vague about how it looks up until now. But I've seen some people from the community hyping up the game in that manner, so there's a bit of that broken telephone effect where the actual message gets all muddled. Then the result will be disappointment because the game wasn't "what GW promised".

GW has specifically sold this as:

a) the equivalent of Kill Team e.g. intended to be a catch-all skirmish game for AOS that will be an active part of the stable for years to come

b) perfect for narrative gaming and campaigns

If you were able to see past that to some hidden truth, fine, but it's not unreasonable for people to take that at face value and be disappointed if it doesn't meet those points for them. 

Obviously it was never going to be a new Mordheim, and GW would never invoke that name, but I don't think it's crazy for people to expect a new narrative skirmish game from GW to include some things they liked from past narrative skirmish games from GW (or even current ones, like Kill Team, Necromunda, or Blood Bowl). 

People are allowed to feel things about things, just because we disagree doesn't mean we have to dismiss each other. For me personally seeing both positive and negative opinions is helpful in informing whether I want to buy in to this or not. 

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7 minutes ago, robinlvalentine said:

People are allowed to feel things about things, just because we disagree doesn't mean we have to dismiss each other. For me personally seeing both positive and negative opinions is helpful in informing whether I want to buy in to this or not. 

Yes, people are free to their feelings, but my crux of the argument and where I'm disagreeing with you is that people should also take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings. Just because some had lofty expectations that doesn't meant that GW lied to them. Simple as that.

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Gave it a go in my local today. Really enjoyed how quick and brutal it is, terrain and miniatures are gorgeous. Looks like their is great potential, as with kill team. I'd expect to see in a little while expansions, maybe big beasties with additional scenario cards like black fortress.

I can see some scope for tournament play also, though that will depend on the viability and how much disparity there is between the new warbands and aos factions. 

 

Looking forward to people's home brew additions.

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Talking about homebrew, do you think we can use the basic infantry like savage orrucks, squeleton warriors, chainrasps etc as NPCs like the furies and the birds ?

I can clearly see myself having an horde of orcs appearing at the end of turn 2 because they heard things smashing each others 😁

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19 hours ago, robinlvalentine said:

Yeah Owen particularly really drags it down - obviously we each have our own tastes, but he barely seems interested in doing the review, let alone the game itself. Still, definitely made me ponder more than I had been on the possible negatives.

Owen hated on AoS so much when launched. Yet, AoS got me into Wargaming 3 years ago. I even loved AoS pre-Generals Handbook. It was my introduction to the hobby. Warcry might be the same entry point into the hobby for other people.  I'm getting it because of the awesome models and terrain. Watching a few Battle Reports I'm really sold on the initiative roll that grants power ups and the double damage on crits. 

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6 hours ago, CJPT said:

I came away with a good impression from the demo game I played in store this weekend. Figured it might be helpful to lay out some thoughts.

The core game has a lot of Jervis Johnson to it. It's very much about movement and dice maths, with most of the complexity/skill coming from being able to recognise and capitalise on opportunities within a limited number of activations. Other than that, it's relatively rules-light compared to Necromunda or even Kill Team.

It actually reminds me of Blood Bowl more than Mordheim in some ways. Warbands have particular tricks and strengths, but they all fit on a single card and they're fairly easy for both you and your opponent to wrap your head around. Very few 'actually,  I've got this special rule'-type surprises. The really important thing is understanding how to create an opening, exploit it, and defend your advantage - that might feel a little abstract, but fighting to claim and hold an objective in three turns of Warcry felt a lot like breaking open a defense and making a run to the endzone in BB.

The initiative dice system and the wild dice are the standout bits of design, for me. They introduce lots of mindgames and make rolling for initiative a really interactive moment where neither player really 'wins', just tries to build an advantage across a few different axes. You can cede the initiative but stock up on doubles/triples/quads for big ability combos. You can do the opposite and play for the first activation. Neither is abstractly better - it's all situational and a judgement call, which is great. Way better than 'going first is always best'.

A few other subtle rules are really important too - the 'disengage' action, for example, limits you to a 3" move ending more than 1" from any enemy models. This is a really big deal because it introduces the idea that all characters are equal when disengaging. It doesn't matter quite so much how speedy your Untamed Beasts are after I've tagged you with an Iron Legionnaire - I'm going to slow you down, at least for your first action in that activation. This encourages you to create traps and chokepoints, rather than just stand on the objective and wait for opponents to come piling in - again, similar to Blood Bowl.

The 'wait' action is also cool. You effectively give up an action, but being able to shunt a fighter to the end of the activation queue while leaving your other options open denies your opponent information and can lead to some tense moments.

One thing I'd add is that the various scenario generation cards and extra features seem absolutely essential. I suspect a lot of players will be tempted to ignore the terrain layout suggestions, weird deployment positions/timings, and Chaos Beasts - don't. The game seems to be at its best when there's a bunch of factors in play that neither player has total control over. My game involved deployment from every board edge, hidden objectives, including characters coming in later in the game, and a massive Raptoryx with 30 health rampaging around in the backfield. Extra mechanics like this are how you avoid the 'run into the middle and fight' issue. I suspect that some players will bore themselves by deciding to avoid what feel like 'optional' rules, but are actually essential.

I can't feed back on the campaign side, obviously, save to say that I kinda appreciate that they're not going too deep on gear or character progression. I definitely miss some of the sense of customisation that you get from Necromunda or Mordheim, but I suspect that Warcry has a stronger cure rules that work because listbuilding is less of a factor in who wins. Likewise, this is probably how you get a lot of people interested in playing skirmish games - it's way more accessible, the penalties for losing or falling behind are less severe, and you're not constantly having to add to or replace models as loadouts shift.

Sorry for the essay! Overall, a very positive first impression.

Thanks for that. Great writeup.

I'm really looking forward to getting to play the game myself.

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1 hour ago, pseudonyme said:

Talking about homebrew, do you think we can use the basic infantry like savage orrucks, squeleton warriors, chainrasps etc as NPCs like the furies and the birds ?

I can clearly see myself having an horde of orcs appearing at the end of turn 2 because they heard things smashing each others 😁

I could see doing something with the ambull from Blackstone Fortress. :) Those neutral creatures offer some nice element for custom scenarios. I'm really looking forward into what stuff the community come up with!

 

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8 hours ago, soak314 said:


And I don't think it'll matter that the chaff units are bad. Consider this: if I tie you up in melee in warcry, you have to take one of two actions.

a.) retreat, only up to 3 inches in most cases
b.) attack me

That means if I have six dudes, and you have four dudes, and i send in four of my dudes to do nothing but waste your four dudes turns by engaging them in melee, I'm already at a mathematical advantage because I have two dudes left to sit on points/murder you.

Taking your custodes vs orks scenario: I'm an Ork player in KT. KT, especially arena, is also an action economy game. How does an ork...  hell let's step it up even further, how does an all GROT team beat a custodes one? You rush your grots into melee, one at a time, wasting the custodes' severely limited turns via the limitations of melee engagement (waste a turn whacking things or running away). This is the exact situation that Warcry is in at the moment!

KT curbs the horde advantage with the morale phase, but warcry doesn't have that at all! This is why the black haired boy from GMG was so worried about the action economy, because he'd seen how it could be gamed in a more complex system, and recognized the immediate flaws of a similar system with no shooting and no morale phase to curb a numbers advantage!

The numbers advantage isn't that extreme in this game.  We haven't seen the grot shootas and stabbas yet, but the points costs of the plainsrunners is just too high to get the weight of numbers you need for these type of tactics to work  You're going to get a turn of tying people down, lose a ton of models and then play turns 2 and 3 at a huge disadvantage.  12 guys vs 8 is not the 15+ vs 2-4 of the Kill Team situation.  The 6 dudes vs 4 dudes you talk about will very quickly end up being you losing 2 of the guys tying up the 4 and then having to play the rest of the game with even numbers but with way worse guys.

The other thing that cuts down the proportionate advantage is how you split things up into the dagger, shield and hammer.  You'll need to think very carefully about how to weight your chaff across the 3 different groups and it will be so easy to hit a combination of deployment, scenario and objectives where you just don't get the weight of numbers available when and where you want them.  I'm sure as people get more experienced they'll figure this out, but a lot of the time you might end up with even numbers fighting in one part of the board for a while but with the higher model count force to arrive.

The other major issue with spamming the basic fighters is you lose access to loads of faction abilities.  Without them you end up with a very low damage output per point.  When your opponent can spend some 5s and do 5 additional damage over and above the damage per activation shown on the cards and you can't, it's going to push the more elite fighters ahead of the swarm.

Given that this is a GW game and they always seem to produce games where a small group of lists end up being "the best" I'm sure that there will be a place in the more competitive side of the game for a high model count list, but I don't think it's anywhere nearly as strong as in KT.  No doubt the points on various models will be slightly off and people will find the most efficient ones and that will be how things go for the competitive players, but I highly doubt it's going to be about bumping up your model count as high as possible.

There will no doubt be a high powered list that is about having a high a model count as possible without going too far as to weaken the list.  I don't know what faction it will be.  Probably not the Untamed Beasts.  Likely Legions of Nagash, Gitz or Nighthaunt, but it's too early to say.  If I had to place a bet, I'd bet on lots of shoota grots.  They'll have the numbers and their ranged attack will mean they'll be able to concentrate fire enough to ping down harder targets whereas the melee guys can only fit so many around a target and will have to leave objectives to get there.  But all it takes for my prediction to be wrong will be the shootas costing a bit more on the points side than we  would otherwise think.

Edited by Nin Win
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There's a lot of hate on here for the gmg review of this game, but for me it is a good review. I had serious reservations about this game before seeing any play throughs or review and Owen confirmed a lot of them. They are basically professional wargame players as they have wargame channels providing their income, they play alot of games and i respect their opinion. The name of this thread is 'killteam/mordhiem?' We have had so little information for so long that how can anyone say it should be this way or that way. I have pre ordered the starter and i will play it and make my own opinions, i really like the snake handlers and the bird men and will probably buy them, but i am not convinced it is a good game yet. They have played it, and they have no agenda to say it is great or rubbish, they are just saying what they feel after a number of play throughs.

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I found the review incredibly biased.  Ash literally had to remind Owen more than once that a 1 out of 5 means the game does not work at all in that area.   And he still tried to give it a 1. And when time came to talk about the work you had to put in to get everything to a playable state, again he went for a 1.  As if building and painting miniatures means it doesn't work.  By their own review rules, he was not being an fair reviewer.   In the actual rules review section he cited negatives that were literally true of every wargame.  You move your models and act with them in every miniature game.   In most wargames you don't even get to choose whether you move or fight first.

And the point about there not being player interactivity is kind of laughable in a game with individual models with alternating activation.  Your wait time until you get to do something is going to be at most a couple of model movements and a couple of attacks (and it will only be  that long if someone uses an ability that gives more actions).  I get that rolling a save makes people feel like they are doing things, but to pan it as not interactive was a bit much.  Especially when he plays Warmachine/Hordes, a game where you largely do nothing at all for the entire opponents turn except tell your opponent the defense and armour of things they attack and then record damage (with the exception of some rare abilities like counter charge or a similar shooting ability).

If the criteria used to evaluate Warcry was applied to games Owen actually likes, he'd have to score them incredibly low as well.   When the reasons you state for not liking a game are also even more applicable to the games you do like, something is off.

Edited by Nin Win
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My own negative review would be as follows:

How fast things are into the action -- some people love stuff happening right away, I find I like a turn to maneuver in and generally like choosing to risk a given piece.  In Warcry with the small board and the pretty rapid rate at which even slow models can move, combat is a given on turn 1.  I'm sure I'll get used to this, but my preference is for games with a set up and risk turn.

Alternating Activation and unequal model counts -- one of the strengths of alternating activations is that you don't have to wait a long time between turns.  If you end up playing 12 models vs 8, you can have a period where 4 models are moved at once while the other player waits.  I get that there are no good solutions to this, but I still don't like it.  Battletech has this thing where it forces people to move multiple but that has damage applied in a separate phase and simultaneously.  If you did something like that in Warcry you'd be giving the person with more models a huge advantage.  Going last really is worse in Warcry given that damage happens in the single phase and not later, so I guess being able to move a block of guys at the end of the turn won't be that big of an advantage, so I don't think it'll be game breaking, but it might make for some unpleasant surprises with the right combination of models and abilities.  You can move-counter move for everything else, but suddenly a block of guys coordinates with no reaction possible.

Campaign not to everyone's expectations -- there's no winning here as people have selective memories when it comes to 90s GW campaign rules.  They remember the times when blood bowl leagues finished out their seasons or when necromunda leagues played out alright and then don't really remember the fizzles and massive power imbalances late in the leagues.  So I like that GW made the campaigns so that those issues won't crop up, but I think there's probably a way to make things a bit more like the older campaigns.  Perhaps a later supplement with more narrative focused campaigns with set rounds will come up.  I'm not really interested in doing 90s style campaigns again, but people seem to really like the idea of them and get excited for them.

Massive damage swings - it's actually pretty easy to really put out the damage when you roll 4 or 5 dice needing 3+ to hit.  Especially with models where the crit damage is more than double the normal.  There will be times when a very rugged fighter just gets removed by a lucky roll.  It'll be fine as it'll happen to both sides and the games are short, but there will definitely be moments when your guys die out of nowhere.  Having guys be unkillable in a timely fashion would also be bad, but this game will definitely surprise people and sometimes that surprise is going to be really negative. 

Things arrive from every direction - some deployments and scenarios will have the enemy just show up behind your initial deployment.  If people don't think ahead about this they'll be caught out and have a negative experience.  It can also make the game seem pretty all over the place.  Definitely something to watch out for.

Warbands sort of incomplete - I plan on magnetizing any guys that can be built more than one way, but it also feels like you'll want some duplicates.  But not all duplicates.  So getting a second warband is going to produce some dead models like duplicate leaders.  I have a Stormcast and Legions of Nagash army so I plan on leaning heavily on that rather than buying multiples of the new warbands.  I might also convert my 2nd of given fighters for the chaos warbands I do end up playing

Stormcast - Easy to build Castigators and Sequitors would have been great.  They even come with a gryph hound.  Concentrating on the vanguard chamber to start definitely minimizes how easily new players can jump in compared to if they had used the easy to build intro models as a basis.

I have loads of positives to say about the game, but I figured I'd post a negative take given how I bashed Owen at GMG for having a bias.


 

Edited by Nin Win
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I don't see how it makes it biased, if Owen had liked the game he would have said so in the review. GW sent them a copy of the game for an honest review, if they had not enjoyed it and then said they loved it, it would be a biased review. 

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No, that would be a dishonest review.  The bias is that the reasons he state for not liking the game are even more true of games he does like.   I'm saying he's acting honestly but inconsistently.    He literally tried to rate the game a 1 on set up because you have to build and paint miniatures before you can play.  Think about that.   I could see that rating from someone who was just into board games and prepainted miniature games like X-Wing, but the channel is about miniature games and the guy plays and paints all sorts of games with a larger table and more miniatures than Warcry. 

The review was honest and informative, but it was inconsistent even with their own reviewing system where a 1 is literally reserved for things that do not work at all. 

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From what I've seen it would work with some of the cards.  You'd have to pull some of the deployment cards that wouldn't work if you wanted a safe area out of which you risk your fighters by moving them forward.

I'll live with my guys dying on turn 1, I just need to remind myself about it during deployment and make sure my key models are protected a bit by the grunts blocking lines of approach.  It's their job to die for their betters, after all.

Edited by Nin Win
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2 hours ago, Jefferson Skarsnik said:

Is there any scope to house rule the deployment options so that warbands start out further away with more of a tactical first turn before everyone's bogged down in melee? Or would that ruin the card based battleplan setup?

 

It'd be dead easy to houserule. The cards have no words on em, just symbols and measurements, so making your own will be a piece of cake once you figure out which ones are paced to your taste.

Also the staggered deployment stops things from dying off all at once with little counterplay ala most of gw's larger scale games.

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Not familiar with this channel, but just found his read through of the rules leak. One thing that has stood out to me is he has some pages that aren't included in the other leak that was shared here. His leak included the pages that let you know what the actual names of the runemarks are. One of those runes is apparently for Gargantuans. 

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38 minutes ago, CitizenX said:

 

Not familiar with this channel, but just found his read through of the rules leak. One thing that has stood out to me is he has some pages that aren't included in the other leak that was shared here. His leak included the pages that let you know what the actual names of the runemarks are. One of those runes is apparently for Gargantuans. 

I had the rulebook in my hands like 2 days ago and i feel like a massive dunce for missing that.

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1 hour ago, soak314 said:

I had the rulebook in my hands like 2 days ago and i feel like a massive dunce for missing that.

Honestly it and the Mount rune have not shown up yet (neither of the mounted cards we have seen have had it), so I am assuming those are in for future proofing/planned expanded rosters. 

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30 minutes ago, CitizenX said:

Honestly it and the Mount rune have not shown up yet (neither of the mounted cards we have seen have had it), so I am assuming those are in for future proofing/planned expanded rosters. 

The Idoneth models will almost certainly have mount runemarks.

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