Myself and Phil play most weeks, but it’s nice to get together to catch up and play games. The last time we met was in Dublin and we played a bit of Necromunda. Last week I journeyed to Hamburg with a case full of toy soldiers and plans to advance our Syrlene campaign (more on that later) and play a bit of Warcry. With that in mind I got stuck in to painting my Corvus Cabal, called the Hooded Crows, and here is the result:

I hadn’t played Warcry, but I read through the rules a couple of times and hit up YouTube to watch some gameplay videos. I found the Creaky Gamers channel, which was very helpful. Guerrilla Miniature Games have plenty of videos too, but form past experience I find they make too many rules mistakes to be useful for learning games – they’re entertaining, but sloppy.

Phil and I played a few games of 40k, over a couple of days, and then played two games of Warcry. I loved it. The Hero Phase is very reminiscent of games like Chain of Command and SAGA, but it has some advantages over both of those (very different) games. Firstly, no matter what you roll all of your models will get to activate. Secondly, the Wild Dice give a bidding mechanism for players to try to win initiative. This, combined with the variety of double, triple and quad abilities a warband can pull off makes for an interesting game within a game. It can also lead to come pretty cinematic moments when playing the game!

The first battle had Phil’s Iron Golems trying to escape of the lefthand board edge. They’re more durable than my Crows, but my speed paid off nicely and I was able to secure the win. Just like in Kill Team, the small board size and the availability of terrain makes for an attractive gaming experience.

In our second game Phil used his Nighthaunts, which are both beautiful and really cool. The mission this time was to take down the model with the most wounds in the Dagger group (each warband is divided into three groups and they deploy in different areas and at different times). This was a nice and tense game. With so few models neither of us could afford to have our chosen models run away and hide, so it became a tense game of cat and mouse. I eventually game out on top, but a certain amount of luck was required… rolling 6s and seeing those critical hits land is pretty sweet.

That brings me to my final points on Warcry. I mentioned earlier how much I enjoyed these games and this system. I’ve ordered another warband and an environment terrain set. The things I enjoy most are the Hero Phase and the departure from roll to hit, roll to wound and roll to save, which has been the staple of most GW games forever! Everything is boiled down into a single (often multi-dice) roll, which is satisfying and efficient.

I’m looking forward to looking at the Campaign Quests. They are interesting and could open up a new style of campaign play in other games we play.

I look forward to playing more of this intriguing game. Thanks for introducing me to it Phil.

Until next time,

Owen