Topic: Warcry ...

[warhammerlord_soth]

It is quite long!

cue Midaski

[GamesPoet]

So after over two months of my Warcry starter set sitting on a bench in my hobby room, I finally found time to connect with Artoban over Zoom and we both opened up the boxes on the last day of the 100 Days of Hobby 2020 project thread.

Here are my initial impressions ...

1.  There are 7 large scenery sprues.  These alone are making this box worth picking up!  There are so many parts, and these can be made into items for mix and match to create different looks to the scenery.  There is an assembly booklet that seems quite useful for these scenery pieces, as well as for the figures.  However, make sure that you wash these dudes in a bin of soapy water.  I did, and there was definitely some grayish gunk coagulating in the soapy water after I pulled the sprues out for rinsing under a faucet.

2.  For the figures there are in essence 12 half sized sprues as follows.  The Chaotic Beasts are on 2 sets of the connected half sprues, and 2 half sprues.  Meanwhile, each of the humanoid factions has 1 connected sprue and 1 half sprue.  These figures are nicely detailed, and at second glance I noticed they will be a bit tricky to match the parts without using the instructions provided in the manual previously mentioned.  Although, think I'm going to enjoy these, and more than first thought that I would.  Both teams look like they are barbarians in nature.  One team would fit in nicely with a Khorne army, could even probably be used in a 40K Chaos army of some kind.  The other team might be used as allies in a Beastmen army, yet could just as easily be used in a Chaos army as Maurauders or whatever, too.  Both teams would make great figures for enemies of role playing characters as well.

3.  The game comes with a quick play set of rules and a Core rule book which looks awesome.  At first look, the latter item, besides having the rules, has three, maybe more, different styles of play.  Plus over 5 dozen different scenarios, most of which are looped together in sets of three for narrative play, match play, or whatever you might create on your own.  I have just barely scratched the surface of these, and looking forward to reading through them.  The scenarios are all with different terrain setups, and there are cards that look like a person can randomly determine what is going to happen on any given terrain scenario.  It all looks like plenty of ideas and help for players to have some great gaming sessions.  And I've got plenty of reading to do yet in this Core book.

4.  There is a double sided game board that covers 30" x 22".  It folds into quarters for easy storage in the box.  One side is of grays and greens with blue and black highlights, which is beginning to grow on me.  The other side is my favorite with it's tans and creams having red and black highlights.  Looking forward to getting the scenery pieces done first, and eventually using this double sided game board.  And by the way, the box that the game comes in seems well worth holding on to as a storage place for all the gaming material and figures, it is large and very sturdy.

5.  There also are 5 decks of cards (haven't opened them yet), a board of tokens, 3 sets of 6 dice (in tan, red, and black), seemingly just enough bases for the figures, 4 large plastic storage bags with 2 smaller bags as well, and a set of faction attribute cards.  Oh!  And a nifty little 12 inch measuring ruler that seems way better than those measuring sticks that the old WFB starter sets would have inside, but only one is included here.

So ... after all that ... I have started with the scenery sprues first.  My thought is these can be used with so many things and it does seem to be enough of a minor project to get this game up and moving in the correct direction for eventual completion.  I am liking the two humanoid factions that come with the starter set more, but I also bought a Splintered Fang set of figures and considering painting those up first, but we'll see.

[Gankom]

Excellent write up GP. From what I've seen the scenery out of that kit is fantastic, and I quite like the models.

[GamesPoet]

Been taking a closer look at the seven scenery sprues this evening.

One thing I noticed is that these are definitely for fantasy use, and they could be used for sci-fi/40K as well.  The iconography has an Imperial/Empire/Sigmar theme to it.

2 of the sprues have walls with windows, and walls with the windows bricked over.  There are two items that seem can be formed for a low ruined wall piece, and also there is an item that can be used as a scatter ruin terrain piece. Oh, and one piece intended as a second level floor piece.

2 of the sprues have more wall pieces, although these have iron bars for windows and doors.  There are also some walls that have frames that can be walked through by figures, and these seem possible to insert them into some of the other walls.  And there are two different second level floor pieces, one small and one larger, the latter similar to the ones on the sprues mentioned above, except positioned in the opposite direction.  PLus two pieces of scatter terrain, one that seems to need some glue for the two parts.

1 sprue has bell tower with bell and various other parts like wooden ladders, stairs, wooden floors, and various skeletons.

Another sprue has a relatively large and multi part ruined sculpture, plus wooden steps, floor,  a sizeable piece of ruined scatter, and some wooden fence like structures.

And the last sprue has a pair of  wooden walkways that can be placed as second level bridges between structures, 7 more fence like structures that could be used as various scatter terrain as well, some of them having Chaos pieces, some with stone ruins.  And there are a few more skeletons.

- - -

Probably not tonight, need to do it when I am fresh, but looking forward to cutting these items from the sprues, beginning to glue some of it together, and see how the rest of them might be used interchangeably to create different set ups.

I'm also contemplating priming them with a cream colored/off-white look and then using lots of wash, light or dark brown, maybe with some dry brushed highlights.  There is a lot of scenery items here, and I want to give most of it a similar look.  Also, it is my sense that figures will stand out decently against this coloring idea rather than using some sort of gray as the primary color.

[GamesPoet]

This morning I took a second and closer look at the Warycry rules.  At first I got curious about all the terrain set ups shown in the back of the book.  However, after having begun reading the fluff in the new 40K 9th edition full sized rule book, opened up the Warcry riules from the beginning, and started there.  The fluff up front has quite the bleak story to it all, and lots of Chaos since the Warcry story seems to be based on some sort of world that was once human, but now taken over by Chaos.

Eventually I turned through the rest of the booklet, it is soft back and not even close to the size of the 40K hardback.  The rules seem interesting and different in tactical make up and I am looking forward to seeing how these play out on the table top at some point.  There are also 3 kinds of play guidelines, which seems to be the direction GW has been taking recently ... open, matched, narrative.  It seems they have also made a good effort at providing cards and narrative ideas for lots of different scenarios which can be random or taken from the back of the book.  It looks like there are also rules for varying warband size and items being carried by the leaders or some such.  There are also other rules that seem to allow for mixing in some character to the warbands as well.

Probably 1st priority needs to be getting the scenery completed, than at least two warbands, plus need to more thoroughly read the rules section of the booklet at some point.  Who knows when all that will happen with my tendency to move around from one project to the next, although this does have a sort of calling to me at the moment, but we'll see ... lol.

[Novogord]

Well, I'm working on my terrain. So when the "lock-down" is over, I can start playing it again.
It didn't seem to work for us with Zoom.
And we just played some stand alone games, to learn the rules.

[GamesPoet]

Interesting that you had an issue using Zoom, and wondering what the complication was

- - -

The humidity cleared up the other day, and I laid out some brown paper to prime the terrain.  Then I remembered that I'll need to cut from the sprues and glue first if I am going to avoid having to prime the spots where the pieces get cut from the sprues.  So no progress until I figure out what I am going to do for glueing.

However, started reading the core rules section of the Warcry booklet yesterday.  It does seem like a different set of rules, and it seems to take into account figures being on different levels of the terrain, plus besides regular moves it has provisions for jumping, climbing, and flying.  Still more for me to read though before being able to play.  And then there are of course getting the figures ready eventually.

[GamesPoet]

Here's a video showing the terrain configurations in 360 degree views, and needed for the Terrain Cards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2GF9RSrID0

My understanding is that some of these don't need to be completely glued together in order to create these configurations and still be able to create others, and that is what I'll be aiming to do.  I imagine that as long as the terrain pieces are in L shapes, then they can easily be used to create many different configurations for things beyond what is being used on the Terrain Cards.

[GamesPoet]

Here is another video on Warcry terrain ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQSaPvCS-Mo

I fast forwarded through some of it at the beginning, but the last 2/3rd shows how keeping some of the items unglued will enable a person to create the terrain pieces used on the cards and setup suggestions, while at the same time making the terrain set more variable for your own creations as well as the ideas that have been provided.

By the way, the colors used here is closer to what I'm looking to do than the typical gray coloring schemes I've seen in so many places.  I'm not thrilled with the red coloring that has been used in under the covered areas.

[GamesPoet]

Here's a video on how to simply paint the Warcry terrain ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpNbL0c7bf4

The terrain in this video is actually from one of GW's other three terrain sets for Warcry and not from the starter box set, although the painting techniques seem like something that can easily be used with the starter set terrain.

I don't mind the look the guy got with the colors that he uses, but I'm not really thrilled with the ruddy red color he uses first and then the orangish color is a bit more than I want as well.  I'm seeking more of a brown to cream color.

[GamesPoet]

Here are some terrain painting techniques as well ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pkg3XcO8Z8

I liked the greenish undertone look on top of the initial black or brown primer.  However I'm not interested in having such a light gray look, but perhaps the greenish idea under the brownish to cream color that I'm wanting to do could also work nicely.

[GamesPoet]

Here's  quick video on the core warbands of Warcry ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugUxOWX1sBE

The starter set comes with the Iron Golems and the Untamed, and a band of Chaos creatures too.

I picked up the Splintered Fangs mainly because I liked the figures, but I like their description as well.

This video has me considering picking up the Corvus Cabal at some point.

[StealthKnightSteg]

haha, you are really digging into this aren't you?
I'm curious on how you end building and painting this stuff... I really like the terrain also, but not currently into AoS at the moment so my focus is on 40k and getting terrain done for that as soon as I get to plan that in besides doing my armies

[GamesPoet]

Have decided this morning that I need to finish getting my wordpress website asap, and begin using it as a place for hobby photos.  Then I can really get this project moving along from a glueing and painting perspective.  The Warcry game system and fluff is set in the W:AoS world, but it seems to be enough of a different game for me to not care, despite my low interest in W:AoS.

For 40K, Got out my Orks, I've read the core rules that seem straight forward, and dabbling in reading the hardback core rules, although currently slogging through the frontal fluff sections.  I'm contemplating painting some of my older space marines to have two forces available for giving the rules an eventual go.

With any of this, including Warcry, I'd be able to go to a hobby store and get in a game, but with Covid 19, yesterday's trip into a hobby store for the first time in 6 months, and there wasn't a soul around except the employee and one dude rooting through his magic cards.  I have been enjoying the read of Warcry rules though, and looking forward to moving this project along.

[GamesPoet]

Snipped some more pieces of the terrain from the Warcry sprues.

Also, opened up the instruction booklet and it isn't really fully clear as to constructing these terrain pieces.

Glad I picked up on the idea that what is shown reflects the terrain construction used on the cards.  I'm beginning to see that there could be ways of constructing the terrain so that both the cards and one's own experiments and imagination could both come into play when building the terrain.  I'm thinking the more I can make this terrain modular, the better, but it does seem as if I'm going to need to think it all through so that I can also make both my own terrain as well as the shown on the cards for the narrative and game play.

I'm going to go slow, not rush this process, and construct before priming as well

[StealthKnightSteg]

maybe also magnetizing stuff so when you are building it up with those modular pieces it won't get knocked off so easily.

[GamesPoet]

Hmmm ... that might be a good idea.  Need to see how this is going to work before finalizing.  And find my magnets!

[GamesPoet]

Bad me.  Was out and about today, and stopped into a favorite local shop to pick up the set of Corvus Cabal figures.

With the Iron Golems, Untamed Beasts, Splintered Fang, and Corvus Cabal I now have 4 warbands for this game.  The rules have been read, I'v started constructing the terrain, and at some point I may construct the figures as well.  Might even start playing before everything gets painted, alhtough if I can come up with simple paint schemes, then I will wait a bit longer until I can get two bands painted.  I'll probably do the Iron Golems and the Splintered Fang first.

By the way ... previously I wrote of there being open play, matched play, and narrative play, although didn't learn until I read in detail about these, and there are actually two ways for the matched play ... Coalition of Death where it is 2 warbands/players vs. 2 warbands/players and there is Triumph & Treachery where it is four warbands on the table top with everyone out for themselves.

However, I just want to get in a game of open play using the rules and see how they go, plus perhaps get in some narrative play at some point as well.  If I can keep from being too overly distracted by all my other hobby interests, maybe this can happen by Xmas.  Then again there's all those 28mm Wars of the Roses figures that need painting, so maybe ... lol.

[GamesPoet]

Probably wouldn't ever use these colors in painting scenery pieces, although an interesting painting style found here ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7cgK1ERptk

I'm really not interested in having purple looking scenery like this though, and definitely not the Warcry scenery.

[Gankom]

Its an interesting colour scheme, very pretty, but I don't think it fits with any of my lore places. Could be good for a different planet or more chaos enthused realm!

[GamesPoet]

I agree.

[GamesPoet]

Almost pulled the plug on buying the Warcry Sigmar eternal crud warband yesterday.  Almost.

Also, gave up looking for my magnets.  They will turn up at some point, I'm sure, and when I least expect them of course.

However, picked up some more magnets, and it looks like some of these new ones are smaller and can be used for a new idea that I have.  When I get around to doing up an initial warband, probably the Splintered Fangs first, I'm thinking of magnetizing some of the arms and bodies to be able to swap things around for different warband builds.  Suspect this could be the situation for some of the other warbands as well, and looking forward to doing the Iron Golems.

Additionally, seriously contemplating not doing any of these figures in the usual colors that I'm seeing, which are mostly similar to what is provided on the boxes.  And I wasn't really thrilled with the  color schemes shown in the campaign article that is included with White Dwarf 456.  The Unmade looks the best of the four warbands that are shown in that event.

For my Splintered Fang, this war band reminds me of ancient Greeks, and so I am contemplating Red/Gold/Black combo, including for the snakes.  The large snake on the Serpent caller I am imagining as being like the Eastern Coral Snake.

For my Iron Golems ... I'm contemplating black and white for Malal.  But might go with the blue for Tzeentch.

For the Corvus Cabal ... might go with black and yellow ... for some sort of an evil cult, maybe even in Averland.

For the Untamed Beasts ... very much undecided, and not finding anything inspirational about them nor for them yet.  Perhaps I will go back and reread them, and hopefully something will click.  If not, I may just let someone else have a go at them.

[GamesPoet]

As I continued to contemplate colors for my Warcry warbands, I have decided yellow is definitely going to be the main color for my Corvus Cabal, and with some black, although the yellow will be predominate.

Then I can use these figures for my yellow hooded cloak criminals that exist in my Tilean city of Silgrog on the coast south of Tobaro, mostly for roleplaying with nephews.

[S.O.F]

As I continued to contemplate colors for my Warcry warbands, I have decided yellow is definitely going to be the main color for my Corvus Cabal, and with some black, although the yellow will be predominate.

I mean it could work but my mind makes it come up like a band of punk Goldfinches

[GamesPoet]

Ha!  Well the birds they carry will be black, as will the feathers they wear.

Interestingly, most of the figures are wearing pants, except for the one's that could be interpreted to be women and wearing garments to cover their chests.  Even the Shadow Piercer could be a woman, although some might challenge that idea.

Regardless, it would be nice to have more of them with hoods, yet looks like just the Piercer and the Shrike Talon.  Perhaps I will green stuff some of them having such, but will see.  So pants will be yellow, maybe a few other items, like hair ties.