soak314

I don't quite get how it would though? The convergences, from what I've read, are just roadblocks on the narrative that require a win for you to advance it further. If anything it'd push the player gunning for a convergence to be a bit more tryhard for that game, possibly picking on a warband with less glory to get the win. It does award the opponent for that convergence battle an extra lesser artefact though, but in the grand scheme of things I don't think that'll mean too much. The primary issue I have with the campaign's progression as it stands is twofold: First is the ability to grab territories, getting a higher point cap and the ability to field more bodies. Looking at the pic i snapped of the Gloomspite Gitz campaign rules, it maxes out at 300 additional points. This isn't limited anywhere by my convergence states, I could theoretically languish in the first convergence forever while farming up glory. If the gitz are anywhere near as cheap as the UB Plains Runners (and I bet they'll be even cheaper), that's 2-4 more bodies on the ground for one player. And as the GMG boys pointed out in their review, the game is one of action economy, where the player with more activations will have a direct advantage. Second is the lack of stakes. Death and injury in campaigns has always been fascinating a concept to me. Older systems tend to revel in it, newer ones tend to be much more shy about giving the players penalties. In warcry's case, all you effectively do is take away a fighter's destiny dot and artefacts. Your leader can't even die! Now I do understand where this is coming from, as character death can be mondo demoralizing and is often enough to make a person quit when it happens in a particularly bad fashion. But proper permadeath managed to make a game like No Man's Sky a riveting experience for me, and I think it'd work amazing for Warcry's grimdark chaos setting.

Counts as skeletons in the meantime maybe? The non-chaos factions have a distinct hobby + modelling advantage, I think. Much easier to say X is Y when X is just 'skeleton with sword' or 'grot with spear'.

IMO the trickiest thing with campaigns is the progression. Progression gives campaigns their tremendous mystique, it's the siren's call that can pull even the stodgiest of tourney players into the wondrous realms of narrative play. But it's also a campaign system's biggest failing. Progression will always result in someone snowballing, and the losing players carrying on losing. It's why you'll start a campaign with 23 people and end it with 8: statistically most of the participants are just gonna get shafted, left to lose interest and eventually wander off to other games. The basic Warcry campaign hasn't dealt with how progression can hurt a campaign, but also hasn't given the players a progression toybox as seen in necromunda or mordheim. I've got a few ideas for how to try and curb this, but nothing solid yet.

I'd like a release of the playable non-chaos (and unrepresented chaos) factions, staggered out over a period of time so more and more people get into playing the game, while I'm also bought a bit of time to figure out how to properly run a campaign for it!

Now I've never played Mordheim, but I have played a lot of modern Necromunda, and Gorkamorka. IMO those systems lean heavily on two things: progression, and complexity. Basically they have *loads* of moving parts. These things give the player a metric **** tonne of agency, they're practically RPG's in a sense, ones so crunchy the crunch turns into a sort of weird, passive roleplaying! But I didn't like Necromunda much, if at all (Gorkamorka's infinitely dumber, more of a spectacle you sort of direct, and then watch, utterly bewildered, therefore I like it more). I immediately recognized that the progression and mechanical fiddlyness was carrying them as systems, elevating an otherwise un-narrated narrative with little story beats filled in by the player. "This guy knocked out a huge mutant ganger with this same gun he used to shoot down a chaos spawn with, it must be blessed/cursed" "This big Goliath passed 3 agility checks in a row, he's got cat like reflexes!" "Oh no, he couldn't pass the int check to open this box, he must be having a stroke!" Etc, etc. You get the point! But man, my personal biggest gripe with munda was that behind the bells and whistles, after the layers and layers of rolling, it just translated into a whole lot of making a gunline and shooting at each other. This really stood out to me because this is also the shy black haired fella in the GMG review's main criticism of Warcry. Oh but I do largely agree about the campaign failings. When I eventually run one for my store I'm going to rehaul how it works, because there's a solid, snappy core there that is tremendously easy to build up on. Seriously, first thing that came into mind when I saw GW's structure for these campaigns was making my own. It's as if they were saying "look, here's a bunch of premades for you to work off, if you're so good at making good gaems go to bloody town".

Being a fan of smaller scale formats myself, I had a really good feeling about ME and wanted to see loads of games of it as soon as it came out. Thing with my local meta is everyone's utterly fixated on the next tournament, which is usually run at 2k. Games are almost always practice games for the next coming tourney, which can honestly drive me up the wall because I feel 2k AoS is a pretty flimsy competitive format, and not one I'd like to play in every single time. Having been part of the limited Kill Team scene, and having watched it slowly die, I knew I had to do something if I wanted this format to become more popular. So I made a list of all the active players, and started hitting them up one by one for ME games. I started with the people I knew would immediately bite: the more experienced tourneyheads who I knew would get a kick out of the fresh tactical experience. And people with underperforming factions keen to try anything to get some of the game's math back in their corner. The games went pretty great! Easily curbing an FeC player's gheist, while also getting stomped by BcR and Idoneth players made it feel like I was in topsy turvy land. Some people would finish a game, look at the mere 1.5-2 hours that had passed, and immediately ask me if I wanted another. I made sure to let people know about it back on the group, and I kept popping into people's DM's asking for meeting engagement games. Some felt the format was indeed a very good competitive option. Others shared the same trepidations as people on this site. But what's important is I've made people aware of it as an option. We've got an upcoming 1k narrative event shift to Meeting Engagements completely, but I've yet to badger the shop's tourney runner to start some events up. I'll be sliding into their DM's soon to see if I can do anything about that, too!

Consolidation was always the most efficient option, wasn't it? I told myself when I started up Bonesplitterz that the best case scenario for 2.0 was a mixed book ala Gloomspite, because it increases my unit options and modelling prospects while keeping things tidily in one allegiance.

I think they just mean you can't play with all your toys, ie the maximum bonuses certain units get when they're taken at max count. Some of the non-tome armies are surprisingly potent in the format. I'm taking a break from constantly playing this week, but once I get back next week, I'll be facing someone bringing Tomb Kings, which should be interesting.

The first list will probably make everyone hate you at 500 pts! You'll be spending time rolling a lot of dice and not be doing a whole lot of actual wargaming per se (unless you count moving a blob up and tarpitting everything it runs into as a wargame). The second one's similar, but I'd say the addition of boingrots will make it a lot more interesting to both play against and and with. You've got a flanking unit now, one you can buff to a pretty intimidating state with your snufflers. This is the one I'd go for personally. I'll also recommend playing to a goal of 1k Meeting Engagements, maxing out at a table size of 4x3.

I've played a dozen games of it at this point, and while it has lots of ruling issues in particular I'm pretty dead set in it being the better competitive format. Shorter play time, less model and painting investment, in a tighter tactical framework. What's my basis for this? It's pretty simple: I consider things for ME that I wouldn't even look at for 2k. (Also the fact that I've been beaten repeatedly in ME by players who I would regularly, effortlessly table in standard AoS.) Issues with behemoths and morathi being in the spearhead etc. are overblown. I'd be more wary of Tzeentch Enlightened, Idoneth Eels, Troggoths, and similiarly moblie/punchy units than I would be of morathi or a gristlegore list with a bat in it. See: the one batrep where I beat a list consisting of Alarielle and 2 treelords with nothing but fanatics and squigs. Only reason that's the way it is, is because GW hasn't flat out stated "this is the new way to play competitive AoS". People cling to what they know, because they have a vested amount of time and money's worth of models in that format. And even if they DID point at ME and say "this is how you tryhard now", you'd still get detractors! Consider the case of KT Arena. Arena is objectively, hilariously more tight and balanced a system. But unlike Meeting Engagements it was actually packaged as a bloody literal official *kit for running tournaments with*. But to this day people still cling to the 3D terrain of standard KT for competitive play, for some reason or other. Some think the Arena format doesn't suit their factions, others don't like the boardgame feel. But IMO the main reason is that people can't let go of the broken combos that let them reliably win in standard KT. It's the same reason you see fervent tourneyheads drop meta armies entirely once they're made more reasonable: some people don't want a good, tight game, they want to win. I personally would LOVE a rewrite of the rules to be a bit more tight, especially when it comes to deployment, and especially with regards to the scary bogeyman units deploying in funny places and making people nervous. Biggest issue with the format so far is having a massive Main Body and trying to get it out in the Death Pass battleplan's MB deployment zone (12x3", good luck lol). The rules for reserve units will also typically need some more specifics, I've found those in particular required a bit of logic puzzling for certain deep-strike centric factions and units.

I think chaos orcs were a thing in the old world? Modern GW has made ork/ruks fairly incorruptible I think. Afaik their communal waaagh field makes them immune to the personal temptation side of chaos. Either that or they're just too dumb to care?

After last night's game: S: Wurrgog, Boarboyz M: Big Boss, 2 Stacks worth of Boyz, 2x Big Stabbas (??) R: Maniaks It's all very WIP, since I'm just one game in. The gargant was still a very iffy choice (aaaargh), as you could ally in either troggoth option for a far punchier 140/150 pts. Alternatively take more boyz, but I'm finding their big 32mm footprint to be really restrictive in ME. It's hard to take em in multiple stacks of 20, just from a logistics standpoint. Also you'll find there's a fair few people who'll say you lose the units you can't fit into the smaller deployment zones (Death Pass battleplan is bad for this). I think that's bull, but it's something to consider when building for bonesplitterz, since our blobs have massive footprints. One other option is to go Morboyz, Spearboyz, Big Stabba for your main battleline. Morboyz eat the majority of the wounds, spearboyz can attack from the second rank, and the Big Stabbas can happily wail at things from a relatively safe 2.5ish inches out.

Yeah, they did pretty great in the game! Their high damage and threat range in melee makes them a super hot target, and I did hide them behind a line of morboyz. I think they're a pretty legit choice for Meeting Engagements since just one unit by itself can be a considerable threat to most any monster that would also be sensible to bring into the format. I lost by a small margin, but I also forgot the monster hunter rules, the FnP's on mortal wounds, and the wurrgog's anti-horde spell. New army pains!

Been gravitating more and more to the Cypher Lords, too. At first I just thought it was neat that we were getting some more overtly eastern influenced models in the setting. Then I had a think about how good all the cloth on the models would be for painting fancy patterns. Now the summary of their playstyle has me pretty sold, and I'm likely gonna get them once I end up getting tired of playing my grots in everything I can shove them into.

Hey all, taking my freshly re-based boyz out on a Meeting Engagement later today. SPEARHEAD: Wurrgog, Boarboyz, Big Stabbas Main Body: Morboyz x2, Aleguzzler Gargant, Big Boss Rearguard: Boarboy Maniaks Super gimmicky but I bought this gargant and gosh darnit I'm gonna squeeze some use out of him if it kills me.

Goin through the leaked rules, and Warcry works a whole lot like Meeting Engagements. Warbands are split into 3 groups and deployed in staggered waves. I can't tell what comes first but I'd say the team at GW are fond of the new concept. Which is good, because so am I!

All that fighting on the ruin walls + the Unmade stilt model (look at the size of it!) can't possibly be a good combination! Looks like another awesome value box ala the KT set.

I'd say most of the time AoS doesn't really suit interpretation in the classical warfare context. I think units are pretty easily broken up into a few categories: MURDER: Monster Blob UTILITY: Screens Point Grabbers Murder may come in shooty or stabby forms, and there's a fair bit of overlap between the sections in plenty of cases. It looks oversimplified, but that's because I feel the game actually is oversimplified if you look at it as a strategic, combined arms war game. It's rarely ever a question of "is this unit of this role effective against the unit of THIS role". It's always "how fast can I get this/these thing/s into combat and how many wounds can it/they do before dying."

What's doubly sad is that flayers and a vhargulf are far from what would be considered 'meta' for FeC to run! That said I do think with a biiiit more intelligent positioning (and also some nicer rolling on my Unforged) I would have been able to clip the spearhead before it healed itself, then set up a battleline and gone to town on the remaining ghouls with my shooting. See that's the thing with ME, when you lose it doesn't feel like you did just because the other guy has better maths on their dudes, it's usually because you made some dumb decisions with the very limited amount of moves and attacks you can make. Also next time I'm replacing the rearguard with something other than cannons, those just aren't pulling their weight in the format. In any format, really 😭

Had a Meeting Engagement game vs FeC! Nothing too tryhard, mostly just a learning game. Ran GA Order with a couple of cannons and gunmasters, and some deepstriking miners. My main punch was 20 warriors and 10 irondrakes backed up by an unforged with sword of judgement/legendary fighter. Aaaand the FeC spearhead by itslef (Vhargulf + 3x flayers) proceeded to wipe out about 800 points worth of duardin. Provided the wave 2 archregent kept the flayers topped up with an insane amount of attacks, and the Vhargulf itself was casting the Ghoul King black hunger spell to give em even more attacks. While also butchering 5 dwarves a swing and bringing the flayers back to full strength *every bloody turn*. Getting constantly lucky on CP gen also let the FeC attack twice with either unit once they hit my bodies. The FeC were running blisterskin, and we were on fat deployment, so I may as well have started the game with them 6 inches away from my face. The blisterskin have an artefact that gave the entire spearhead a -1 to hit from ranged attacks. That paired with some truly dismal rolling pretty much invalidated my one full strength irondrake volley. The cannons and the gunmasters killed a bunch of ghouls before being swamped by the 20+ they couldn't get to, and it was overall a very sad time for the dwarfs who played the role of FeC uber eats for that evening.

There's a whole thread on the rules questions section dedicated to this, but throw the rules up so we can get a look at how they go. Rule of thumb is: if you're deepstriking something it HAS to come out with or after it's contingent. I.e. I wouldn't be able to put loonsmashas in my rearguard and hide them in my spearhead. Good to hear! It's a bit frustrating how dismissive people can be about ME as a competitive format when it's clearly had AoS's competitive flaws in mind with its design. And I'll definitely have to give infinity a shot now! One of the guys I play with calls it 'something you don't play for fun' as the scene here is very tourney oriented, so that's put me off in the past.

Cheers for confirmation! For post launch support, I don't think they're going to go for any more big boxes like the KT Rogue Trader one. As a whole I don't think it was too well received as a product and a ruleset. I think the same is also true for Arena, which is a pity because KT Arena is a damn good system. I'm not sure about more warbands, but we might get more of the existing factions integrated into the setting. They might get repackaged for warcry along with some terrain, as I feel those sets did really well for both KT and general 40k players. These alternate ways to play are a great way to push unit choices that are considered sub-par in the main game, and I think GW acknowledges this. KT Orks for example are marketed around the Burnas, and with Elites, the Flash Gitz. Both aren't the best choices for core 40k, but are pretty great in KT. If you look at the non-chaos factions we have lined up so far from AoS I think the trend is still there. Footslogging Idoneth, FeC knights, the snakegirls from DoK, a big chunk of stormcast + nighthaunt, and just orruks in general could be reinvigorated in a new ruleset made with their less popular units taken into account.

Does anybody know if the fella who wrote Hinterlands is associated with Warcry? Last I heard those were the whisperin's. I'm still not sure where this system will fall on the Narrative/Matched Play spectrum. Given that Underworlds exists as a perfectly robust competitive, sorta-skirmish game for AoS, I'm thinking Warcry will lean more into focusing on campaign rules and progression.

Have you tried KT arena and underworlds? When people say 'GW skirmish' he first things that come to mind are necromunda and regular kill team. The former is a heavily narrative system with a garbage ruleset and the latter isn't much better as a competitive game than AoS or 40k. KT arena and underworlds, however, feel properly robust, balanced, and compelling. It always surprises me how almost nobody in my local GW based tryhardosphere wants to play em competitively.

My one's working fine for Other units (4 of the 5 gobbapalooza!). Try deleting the list and starting again? Most of my old ones were acting really weird post-update.