exliontamer

Amen. For anyone who has ever played Mordheim these rules ARE simple and easy to understand. I see exactly where Grand Exemplar is coming from and it would be cool and useful for me if I could find other Mordheim fans to try it out with...unfortunately I don't have access to any Mordheim players atm in my LGS scene. And to Criti's point, it can be hard to convince players to give something old or something homebrewed a try. That is a fact for sure. But it doesn't change that this is a great hybridization of AoS simplicity and Mordheim campaign rules (and some of the better functional rules). I find it very useful and I will tuck it away until I can find someone who is willing to experiment with me ;)

I hear you, but I think Yoshiya hit the nail on the head: So much this. They half-assed the narrative rules to cater to people who don't even want to play narrative games to begin with. Yes Mordheim was "unbalanced" and "broken" at times...that's kind of the point. You are telling a story with your friends week to week, more like D&D, and sometimes those skewed matches happen and they are (or should be) hilarious. And in the aftermath, along with rolling on injury tables and acquiring more gear/loot, you gather yourself up and prep for next week. And the horrible losses or storied victories add to the flavor and shape your warband's characters. Warcry's sterile tickboxes have none of this feel, and for me that is what I miss. I will check out the thread you mention though for sure...I saw its initial post but never really caught up on it.

Personal opinion (which is highly unpopular around here, I know)...the "campaigns" are complete garbage. They are simply afterthought rules that were thrown together without much design or testing so that they could use their favorite catchphrase..."THREE WAYS TO PLAY!!!11!!!1!" I am maybe exaggerating a bit here, but not really... Now I will admit, that's an unhelpful answer. I would say that they have a sliver of potential if you and your playgroup/opponent are willing to do a bunch of additional homebrew work to make them have even an ounce of narrative flavor AND still be fun matches of Warcry to play instead of ticks on a sheet of paper (or impossible slogs, as in the example you have given). So yeah, I would recommend just agreeing to alter the rules when there appears to be a very glaring design oversight. You will have likely spent more time thinking about said rule than GW did. I am coming around on "fun" Warcry and matched play Warcry...they are a game, a game I didn't want, but a fun-ish (with a bit of tweaking) game nonetheless. But as somebody who really wanted a flavorful narrative option (simply in the vein of Mordheim, not its second coming mind you) I continue to be thoroughly disappointed with that part of the book (by this I am referencing everything from the campaign rules, to the lack of meaningful character progression, to the lack of equipment, etc). I hold out hope that one day maybe they'll release a more detailed narrative book, or maybe do the rules in White Dwarf...but from disappointment often comes ingenuity, so if anyone in my area ever were to express interest in home-brewing flavorful narrative rules and campaigns for Warcry I'd be willing to try. However it seems for the moment people are happy to ignore that aspect and just stab each other to death in a matter of minutes and call it a day. That's totally fine too. I didn't buy the box, just the book, so for me the investment is low and I am happy to wait and see where the game goes.

It's not that they suck, it's just that they are one two action activation and not hugely better stats (and a very mediocre ability) for more than double the price of two activations (four actions) if you had taken two Awakened Ones instead. That's not to say in some matches that the better stats of the Ascended Ones wouldn't make the difference, but for many objectives out activating your opponent, while it isn't a guaranteed win, is a huge advantage.

Yup! Malifaux had some real fun ones too, so worth looking at those and adapting them. One I remember fondly is that you designate one of your own models as a patsy and essentially try to get the other team to kill them...and you score if they do. If that one is in the pool the opponent has to really second guess each time they kill one of your dudes...and you have to decide do you put it on an obvious threat or just some silly grunt? Soooo many mind games.

I think it would be good in competitive/matched play to come up with a slate of victory conditions based on the existing ones, but modified to all generate a certain amount of VP (either per round of doing something like holding an objective or all at once when the objective on the card is "completed"). Then you could deal out 3-4 of them and each player picks two (in secret?). Or perhaps deal out one "major" victory condition and always have 3-4 minor ones available and each player chooses one of the minors in secret and doesn't announce which one until they score it. This is all basically ripped off from Malifaux 2E...I always loved having at least one "secret" objective as it really requires you and your opponent to think tactically...allowing for feints, tricks, etc. It also allows you to basically get rid of the twists, which are not really good for matched play imo. It makes the "twist" entirely dependent on player choice and interaction instead of a random card draw.

Amazing work! Reminds me of one of my favorite follows on IG: ingrimmson (which is meant to be a HUGE compliment...dude is legendary)

I hear you. And if I'm being honest I really hope they introduce more universals in an expansion. They could be tied to the under-utilized role runemarks maybe? Like there's all these rules for falling damage (pretty complex given the largely simple rules of the game)...there should be a universal "Push" action for beefier fighters where if you are within 1" of a model you can push it 2-3" away from you (maybe require an opposed strength roll or something if it seems too good to auto succeed...I dunno), that way you could push people off of buildings/platforms, or break enemy lines and be able to move through them without triggering the 1" rule on Move actions. Or push them into the 4" death zone at the end of round 4 in some missions. Wouldn't that be cool?

Oops, I missed that. Yeah that does make it significantly worse (though still more useful than the damage abilities with the 33% chance success rate IMO).

Horrifying Visage, for the low cost of a double greater than one, allows even your lowliest grunt 60 pt fighters to tie up any model on the opposing team with only a 1" range weapon and essentially nullify their activation (seriously, all they can do is "Wait"). This is very powerful against some warbands, and just meh against others. It does of course have its downsides: 66.6% success (haha, the BIG obvious one I missed) Only really works against a fighter who hasn't activated yet...if opponent sees it coming and is going first they will just activate the endangered model first. (Of course then you have forced their activation order which can be its own benefit.) Only really nullifies targets with 1" range weapons...many warbands have access to fighters with mid- and long-range weapons, or multiple weapons. Only really works in a game where victory condition relies on movement (though it can be used to take a big melee damage dealer out of action dropping the opponent's ability to kill your models in killy missions) Disproportionately affects warbands with lots of elites/low model counts, high model count opponents will likely just shrug it off. I do think it is a really powerful tool, and unique from what I've seen so far(?)...and in conjunction with what I was suggesting above with taking lots of the 60 pt Awakened One models it could really just stop a smaller force dead in its tracks. If you're already out-activating them by 3-5 fighters and then take one of their guys out of action every turn...that's gonna hurt in most scenarios. Of course for me this is all based on analysis of rules/theory. I hope to get my spooky bois built and painted up this weekend to start playing with them ASAP.

So I just picked up the box and haven't had a chance to play with them yet, but what kinds of lists are people running outside of the designated contents of the box? Just fooling around via the warband builder app on the GW site I noticed you can take 13 Awakened Ones of either flavor and a leader. Is there any reason to take the other two "special" guys. 13 grunts is a LOT of activations. The other guys' abilities seem a little too random (requiring a roll of 5 or 6 to do any real damage)...and it seems like your doubles and triples would be better spent on generic abilities in the first place. Are their stats (Dmg 2 base is nice, I admit) really worth it? Their cost seem WAY too high. Thoughts?

That Blissful One is really one of the most inspired minis GW has released in a good long while. Seems like they might have been trawling the #aos28 and #darkageofsigmar hashtags on Instagram 😁

Yes I have. And sorry, that final paragraph likely should have been a more clearly defined separate thought. I think it's the right direction for matched play, I just wish there was more tactical variety. In fact the "randomness" of the card draws in the other play modes isn't inherently bad, it's just implemented poorly. Imagine if you drew three cards for victory conditions/goals and could choose two of them (and your opponent could choose two of their own, not necessarily the same two)...that's the type of thing I'm talking about. It would instantly make the game better and it is so easy to do. It's something I will definitely playtest with my group given the opportunity.

Yeah, I hear you. Believe me I understand that my wants/desires/expectations aren't necessarily going to line up with GW's business plan (or even their philosophy for the game). And that's fine. There are reasons I love Warcry and reasons I am severely disappointed in it. And I agree with you, the reasons I am disappointed are actually pretty easily remedied through homebrew and house rules and such. I'd like it if GW wanted those same things that I do, but I am realistic that it probably won't happen...or won't happen for a long time. Also to be clear, I am totally glad that other people are having fun with the game. I don't want to be a curmudgeon. In fact I have had fun playing it, believe it or not

That's not good game design...that's just arbitrary and random. Sometimes goals will be not only challenging but impossible. Take by comparison Malifaux where you have multiple goals and victory conditions to choose from and in many cases you keep them secret from your opponent until the first time you score so that they can't just move the unit you have to kill as far away from you as possible. And most of them require actions other than standing or killing or moving so you have to make real choices with your economy of actions. I am not saying Warcry can't be fun, but the inherent randomness to the mission/deployment/twist is just lazy development...not a cleverly built challenge. I won't even get into the standardized terrain because it is literally just a cash grab. EDIT for clarification: <break for separate thought about Matched Play> Now my hope is that matched play goes way more towards the Malifaux side of things with standard but varied scenarios and [adding in] some element of surprise or scheming against your opponent [eventually]. We will see what the future brings. But for now to claim that randomness = tactical depth...I just fundamentally disagree with you. But that's cool. Different strokes.