Tag: Warcry

Rumours and Reveals

Well then! We had a fairly exciting set of reveals from Games Workshop at the weekend, though as seems to be the standard for them these days, it ended with more teases…

To start with, we’ve now seen the new Warcry box in its full glory, and my goodness it looks good. It’s very different from what we’ve had up to now, which has been very firmly set in civilisation (albeit a ruined one, for the most part). We’re heading into the swamp, and they have really managed to get the kind of jungle theme of rope bridges and bamboo platforms down well. There are also weird statues, which I like, but it could probably do with more levels to it – it feels very much like the recent Ash Wastes box for Necromunda, actually, with a lot of platforms connecting to two treehouses.

The warbands do look good, even if the online community seems to be less than enthusiastic. However, I feel a bit sad to be saying it, but I think I’m going to pass on this box, as I have done on the Necromunda box. I have far more Warcry stuff than I have time to play it, so as the game moves forwards into the realm of beasts, I think I’m going to stick behind at the Eightpoints. Though I’m thinking I’ll pick up some Horns of Hashut when they release separately…

Speaking of Necromunda, the other houses will be getting their vehicles it seems, starting with the Goliath. They look suitably over the top with roid rage, so that makes perfect sense! I wonder what Delaque will have…

The next warband for Underworlds has been revealed as a Witch Hunter and his crew, and Blood Bowl are getting an Amazons team. The preview ended with this, however:

The Space Hulk preview from the other day has been shown as a bit of a red herring – we’re getting close-confines games, of course, but it’s Kroot vs Imperial Navy, of all things!! I’m really quite excited for this one, as I feel the Navy guys will be similar to the Elucidian Starstriders from the last Kill Team close quarters box, and show us another side of the Imperium that we rarely otherwise see. I’m glad it’s not Space Hulk with Primaris marines, because like many people, Space Hulk means something very specific and very precise to me.

However…

The last week or so has seen the beginnings of what I suppose is much more serious speculation about 10th Edition 40k, rather than idiots like me jokingly talking about it in terms of “aren’t we due a new edition soon?” and so on. If these rumours are to be believed, then the new edition is coming out next summer, and will be launched with a Tyranids vs Space Marines box, with the bugs getting a range refresh much like the Necrons had for 9th. There are all manner of rumours about plastic Dante and Primaris Furioso Dreadnought, as the poster boys will be the Blood Angels this time around.

Tyranids will get new Genestealer sculpts, and a bunch of other bugs, with what I guess will be a Silent King equivalent.

Now, the rumours have already proven to be false, because they were prefaced with the news of a new Kill Team box set on a space hulk featuring the new Kasrkin models vs new-sculpt Genestealers. Which obviously isn’t happening. In the past, though, rumour mongers have claimed to be talking from pictures rather than text, and the Navy sculpts do bear a similarity to the Guard models, so maybe the spiky crests of the Kroot were mistaken for scything talons? Who knows.

Personally, I hope we can get some more mileage out of 9th edition before they go shifting things around again. There’s no real need to do this, as we lost certainly one full year to the pandemic, so I would imagine that very few people were actually able to play this game for its entirety. I’ve spent quite a bit of money on this edition, codexes and the like, but it’s continually baffling to me when GW had been releasing actual gaming supplements when the majority of the world couldn’t get together to use them, and then promptly outdated them with yet more supplements. 9th edition has been such a weird time, hasn’t it?

However, the fact remains that 9th Edition is two years old this month, and recent editions of 40k have only lasted three years, so it’s possible…

Primaris terminators and Primaris devastators? Primaris Death Company? Primaris Dante? Who knows… but it’s going to be an interesting time seeing if there is any substance to these rumours…

Warcry content in White Dwarf

Hey everybody,
I’ve been going through the archives, so to speak, and taking a look at all of the stuff published for Warcry through White Dwarf since the game was launched in 2019. If I’m honest, there’s not as much new content in there as, say, for Necromunda, but even so, I thought it might be useful for others like me, who are curious as to what else is out there for this great game!

While there hasn’t been a great deal of content in the way of new rules and so on, I think it’s interesting that White Dwarf has been giving us new cards for fighters, particularly recently with these pull-out sections they’ve been doing. This really goes back to the Jakkob Bugmansson fighter card that came in with a slew of other game “expansions” within the magazines, as an actual printed card for use in the game.

Back when Warcry was released, we had a Designer’s Diary in the September 2019 issue that showcased the initial six warbands, and talked through the influences and such for the miniatures. We also had two battle reports. A couple of months later, the December 2019 issue had a Realm Focus article on the Eightpoints, and included a two-page painting guide for the ruins showing four different colour schemes using Contrast paints. I think this is quite useful, as I still don’t know how I want to paint my scenery from the original core set!!

The first new rules for Warcry came in the February 2020 issue, Issue 451 in the new numbering system, when we had the rules for Fyreslayers. At this time, GW had already released a bunch of card packs for some of the various Age of Sigmar factions, but Fyreslayers weren’t one of them. While they would release further waves of packs, it felt like a lot of people saw the White Dwarf release as “righting a wrong” or something, but anyway.

The Spire Tyrants were the seventh original warband released for Warcry, and in Issue 452 (March 2020) they got their own campaign rules, Lord of the Pits. The very next issue began the Tale of Four Warbands, which was a great way to raise the profile of the game, in my view, showcasing four warbands and some amazing colour schemes, as well as featuring battle reports to show just how awesome the game is!

In Issue 454 (May 2020), we had rules and a campaign for the Lumineth Realmlords, who were a new army when the Sentinels of Order expansion book had been released, so weren’t included. The Lumineth were also expanded in the article on the Warhammer Community site, of course, which was partly later folded into Tome of Champions 2021. The Lumineth were treated to a box much like the Slaanesh Sybarites that I picked up last month, though, giving all the fighter cards for the faction.

We had another warband release with Issue 456 (September 2020), with Cities of Sigmar getting cards and a campaign. I say “cards”, of course, but they’re just printed in the magazine – you know what I mean, though! This was followed with the Jakkob Bugmansson card in Issue 458 (November 2020) as I mentioned above, which was a physical card, as well as a challenge battle for using him in games.

Things went very quiet on the Warcry front for the whole of 2021 though. It wasn’t until Issue 473 (February 2022) arrived that we got our next Warcry fix, with rules for gaming in Thondia, within the Realm of Beasts. Everything Age of Sigmar seems to be focusing on Ghur right now, so it’s no surprise really. There are a bunch of charts in this update, which allow us to generate new Victory Conditions and new Twists, as well as new charts for gaining artifacts and command traits when playing a campaign in Thondia. In addition, all beasts in the battle get +1 toughness, which is a nice thematic bit.

Issue 474 (March 22) gave us the first of many tie-ins to Age of Sigmar releases, when we had updated rules for Idoneth Deepkin and Fyreslayers, which accompany the two new characters that came out in the boxset. These characters also have cards in the magazine. Campaigns for each warband are also included here, all battles of which make use of the Red Harvest terrain, something I thought was interesting as it seems to suggest that this will be the new starter. At least the box is still available to buy, which is a nice change!

The next issue, Issue 475 (April 22) gave us Oath of Ascension – four linked games for Chaos warbands, each one fighting to become a Daemon Prince. It’s a really interesting mini-campaign idea, I think – you each have an Annointed fighter, who is trying to become a Daemon Prince, but whoever fares the best over the first three games then finds that Chaos has turned on them, and that Annointed fighter becomes a Possessed fighter under their opponent’s control. The “winner” needs to take down their former champion, but each time the Possessed fighter takes out another member of their former warband, they gain 10 wounds. Very nice!

Finally (for now!), in Issue 476 (May 22) we had updated rules for Nighthaunt and Daughters of Khaine, which goes alongside the recent boxset much like the Fyreslayers and Idoneth. We get new campaigns for each as well, once more using the Red Harvest terrain. The rules are more substantial for Nighthaunt, as they had more new models, but even so, it’s nice to see that GW are keen to keep the Age of Sigmar model range relevant in Warcry as well. Interesting, too, because the more models you have available to your warband, the bigger your collection becomes, until you might as well invest in Age of Sigmar as well…

At any rate, that brings us up to date with the stuff White Dwarf has made available for Warcry so far. I’ll be keeping this page updated as time moves on, so that it provides (hopefully) as complete a picture for what is out there. While a lot of stuff, like the early Fyreslayers and Lumineth stuff has of course been superseded and replaced, it would be nice if we had this collected in one of the annual books. Looking through my little Warcry library so far, I don’t think the Spire Tyrants campaign was ever reprinted, for instance, and as we seem to be getting much more stuff coming out this year, I would hope that it doesn’t disappear into the mists of time as things move on.

May 2022 retrospective

Hey everybody,
What a month May has been! I’ve been on quite the writing spree this month, and have been able to write a blog every day for the whole month, which is just unheard of normally in my little corner of the internet! How is this possible, I hear you ask? Well, I have no idea. I suppose quite a bit has been going on, though, resulting in more to talk about, and there have been some planned bits and pieces that I was intending to cover in here regardless, but it’s been good to see the posts come out!

To start with, I’ve continued to be interested in a wider variety of games than usual, something that began in April really when I seemed to go into a bit of a hobby slump around Easter. Rediscovering such games as the Star Wars LCG, as well as playing more Arkham Horror LCG and Lord of the Rings LCG has definitely helped, I think, to give me fodder to talk about. While I have recently been getting back into the plastic crack, predominantly thanks to the upsurge of interest in Age of Sigmar, I think so far this spring, I have seen a much more varied games focus than usual.

Lord of the Rings in particular has been really great to get back into playing, as it feels like a really long time since I have properly been involved in that game. Indeed, it feels like years since I last built a deck from scratch, but that’s what I’ve been doing, and I’ve really enjoyed it! In the past, I’ve been in the sort of position where I play a couple of games, enjoy them, but then don’t follow up for ages (if ever), but I am hopeful that this will change now.

Age of Sigmar always seems to get me somewhat excited, as it is a really nice-looking game in many respects. I’ve talked about it many times now, but I think it is significant that Fantasy is what got me into Games Workshop stores back in the day, so it’s perhaps to be expected that AoS will fire up my imagination like that.

I’ve been working on the Khorne Bloodbound models that I had started around the time I moved here, so summer 2019, and have finished the first five Bloodreavers. I’m sure I’ll need to add some Blood for the Blood God at some point, but for now they’re done! I’ve started on the next five, as well, but this is where I’ve become distracted by Slaanesh once more, and have moved on to painting the Exalted Seeker Chariot that I’d built up in the winter of 2018, I think it was.

Slaanesh is a big thing for me, and always has been. I think it’s one of these armies that I’ve just always wanted to have, but have so often been distracted away from. This time, however, I’m hoping to actually make it happen! Slow and steady, like. We shall see, anyway.

I think I’m going to end up with three armies for Age of Sigmar – Slaanesh, Khorne, and the Ossiarch Bonereapers. I don’t think it’s going to be too excessive, but I need to make sure I don’t go mad! I was hoping to get a game in with James at the end of last week, but we had to cancel as his little boy wasn’t very well. Hopefully soon, though, I’ll get to see what third edition has to offer! We’re starting very small, with just a couple of units to see how everything works, so stay tuned for more of that!!

I’ve finally started to build up the Defiled Ruins terrain box for Warcry, as well. This thing has been in and out of the project queue for ages now, so it’s nice to finally have it built, if not fully “ready” in terms of painted as well! I think the original Warcry stuff has got a great look to it, but these more generic Azyrite ruins look great as well, and the set mixes nicely with the other ruins that I’d already painted up around 12 months ago. Indeed, I’ve also built up some more of those ruined bits that I had picked up from the Mortal Realms magazine, so that I have some nice bits to add further variety to my boards. I now have four Warcry environments, and I’m at the point where I’m thinking that I probably have enough to be going on with now. The new box that seems to be suggesting we’re moving into the swamp hasn’t grabbed my attention yet, but I remember being underwhelmed by Red Harvest until I’d seen exactly what we were getting!

For the scatter terrain that I painted up last year, I followed the scheme in the magazine. However, I’ve now come across this beautiful stuff that has got me considering a lighter grey colour scheme. I suppose it’s testament to how good the terrain looks that it would work well with so many different colour schemes!

It’s been a very productive month on the reading front, too, as I’ve made my way through quite a few Star Wars books in my Great Prequel Re-read! This month, I’ve enjoyed revisiting one of my all-time favourite Star Wars novels, Cloak of Deception!! I’ve reached the first movie milestone, The Phantom Menace, and have begun to read the long line of Republic graphic novels that follow, starting with Outlander. It’s exciting to come back to these books, as I think it must be easily ten years since I last read them, possibly longer.

Something that I didn’t mention in my episode one blog is the short story Darth Maul: Endgame. It’s by James Luceno and I think was written for a re-issue of Shadow Hunter, and is set during the timeline of the movie, as we follow Maul after his duel with Qui-Gon as he returns to Naboo to wait for the Queen to return. His principal task, it seems, is to root out the Gungans, but along the way we get to meet Captain Magneta, former chief of security to King Veruna, which I thought was fascinating. Indeed, the whole story, while perhaps a little needless, was nevertheless an interesting look at both the Naboo invasion on the ground, and also a look at Maul as a character. He learns of Hego Damask, and begins to question his role at Sidious’ side. I think it’s interesting because this really seems to crystallise Darth Maul as a character, where he is portrayed as such an obedient servant to Darth Sidious, with such a one-dimensional hatred of the Jedi, that you have to wonder where the character could have gone if Obi-Wan hadn’t bisected him. I don’t think he would have been an effective Sith Lord, otherwise, but clearly being killed has done him the world of good in terms of his criminal empire!

I’ve also watched the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which was really quite sensational, I have to say. In a nutshell, Obi-Wan has given up, and works on the production line very much in a rut. When Bail Organa contacts him for help when Leia is kidnapped, he is very reluctant to intervene, thinking he needs to stay on Tatooine to look after Luke. However, he is eventually persuaded, and travels to the planet Daiyu to track her down. Turns out the kidnap was a ruse by the Imperial Inquisitor Reva, known as the Third Sister, to draw out Kenobi. She has heard that Darth Vader has been looking for Kenobi, so reasons that bringing him in will elevate her position.

It is from the Third Sister that Kenobi learns about Anakin’s survival following their duel on Mustafar.

It’s a really good-looking series so far, I’m very impressed. I think it’s feeling very much like this is an event in terms of Star Wars tv, like it’s much more important than what we’ve seen before. I mean, up to now we’ve been getting Luke in a very marginal role only, but here we have Obi-Wan going to rescue a child Princess Leia, while being pursued by the Inquisition and, by the looks of things, Vader himself. It’s like a movie sequel, told in 6 parts.

I’m very impressed, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where it goes next, though I’m still a bit annoyed with how it’s going to potentially mess with the dialogue in A New Hope, where it feels very much like Vader and Obi-Wan shouldn’t meet until the Death Star corridor…

It’s been a very busy month, but I don’t think I’ll be able to keep this up through June as well… We shall, of course, see!!

Warhammer Fest 2022

Oh man, this was an exciting one! Four days of previews that are really pretty great, for so many in the hobby. Let’s try to break down some of the new stuff and see what’s coming our way in the next few months!

To start with, Chaos is back on the menu! We’re getting a lot of new Cultist varieties, including a ten-man squad, a sort of command squad, and mutant cultists of various stripes. Delightful! There’s also going to be new Possessed, which will presumably be accompanied by the Chosen and the Warpsmith when the big release comes.

Oh yeah, and there’s also gonna be a new Daemon Prince!

Points values will be made available for free, but the upcoming Chapter Approved will be tinkering with the rules, specifically around command points, and giving everyone new secondary objectives. There has been some outcry about why CA is coming out when armies like the Guard still don’t have their Codex, which I think is pretty valid, but 9th edition has been so strange to me, I suppose I’m not really surprised.

World Eaters will be getting a Codex, too, but it’s too soon to show off any new models. And the new Squats are getting a trike, which people seem to be excited for. I’m still underwhelmed with the Squat news – I’m happy for those players who have wanted this to happen, of course! I’m just happy, also, that I don’t feel the need to get any!

Next up, we have Age of Sigmar! Leaks from the Slaves to Darkness book have been on Facebook for about a week already, but it’s great to see these big lads in high definition glory! There’s a new Skaven model coming out, and Sylvaneth are getting a lot more new models!

This has been quite a surprise, to me. Seems like each iteration of the game grows this army, and they’re getting further away from their Wood Elf origins. It’s great to see, and I think I’ll need to exercise some restraint because Sylvaneth are an army that I really would love to try out. I mean, the Treelord mini is one of my absolute favourite sculpts of all time!

Big news from AoS is that Cities of Sigmar will be getting what I suppose we’re now calling “the Battle Sisters treatment”, and there will be updates for the redesign online. Could be interesting…

Big news in Specialist Games comes once more from the Squats, as we’ll be getting them in a new gang of Ironhead Squat Prospectors. Interesting, seems like 2022 is going to be the year of the space dwarf.

The next Kill Team box has been announced, Moroch, and will be Phobos Marines vs Traitor Guard, with the new Sector Frontieris terrain! I’m unsure about this one, as I don’t want the Marines, and I already have the ogryn and commissar models from their release in Blackstone Fortress, so I’m thinking that I might sit this one out. That terrain is, of course, wonderful, but given that they split these boxes up eventually anyway, I think I might just wait.

It does look tempting, though!

New logo and new location for Warcry, as we head into a cursed jungle for what many seem to think will be a soft version two. I’m not sure about the jungle, because I personally love the aesthetic of fighting in these abandoned cities (or mines!) and can’t really see that translating well. I’m prepared to be wrong, of course!

We also have a new warband preview – the Horns of Hashut – which is odd because it feels like they’re half of the suspected new box… We also have the centaur dude who looks pretty great – I hope this is going to mean we get more unique crazy sculpts for these sort of mercenary allies as time goes on!

I have to say, though, I’m disappointed to hear that the new setting is going to bring with it more AoS races “to the fore”. I don’t think Warcry is good when we have just any old fantasy race; I much prefer it as a Chaos vs Chaos game. Don’t get me wrong, I know why they’re doing it, and adding in the whole AoS catalogue has probably kept interest in the game to the point where we’ve been able to have so much amazing content for it. But I really preferred it when we were seeing bespoke, weird Chaos warbands unique for this game…

The final day, yesterday, brought the big news about Horus Heresy 2.0 that has been teased and spoiled and goodness knows what for a long while now. We’re getting a new box set, which is huge, and new MkVI marines. New plastic tanks, and a slew of plastic weapons upgrades to try to muscle in on people who have been 3D printing their own. It’s an interesting move, and I wonder if they’ll start to do these kinds of weapons packs for other armies, giving Kabalite Warriors a second blaster, etc? It’ll be interesting to see whether these Necromunda-style upgrades have any traction into 40k, anyway. Without being a Heresy aficionado, however, the final day was otherwise a bit of a whimper, to me.

But it was definitely an exciting few days, and here’s hoping that I am the lucky one to win everything they’ve previewed here!! 🤣

March 2022 retrospective

Hey everybody,
March has felt like a long month, do you think? It seems to have been a long time since I last wrote one of these retrospective blogs, at least, and I was a bit concerned that I might have missed it! It’s also been a fairly slow month, in many respects, although I think that’s possibly due to me taking a week off work to sort the garden out, which meant my hobby time was otherwise fairly limited!

However, I did get the Tau Commander painted up quite quickly, which I was very pleased with! It didn’t seem to take all that long, either, so I was pleased with the progress there, though said progress then seemed to just atrophy, as I began casting about for other projects. I did have a pretty hefty focus on Warcry, and have managed to get all of the Red Harvest terrain built, as well as the Tarantulos Brood. I still have some of the Darkoath left to put together, but it’s getting there!

Warcry is such a beautiful game though, and I love how GW are still putting out content for us to devour. The Tome of Champions 2021 is a good example of this, keeping the game fresh with stuff all the time. Of course, I don’t play it anywhere near as much as I would like, so it’s hardly at risk of going stale for me, but even so! I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get some more games in soon though.

Kill Team Nachmund has been released, as well, and so I’ve also been spending time building up that, starting with the Corsairs and then terrain, as well as the Heretic Astartes upgraded models. This last in particular has now got me in full flow with my Chaos once more, as I’ve been working on some Black Legion guys as a bit of a palette cleanse following two-and-a-bit months of painting Sa’cea Sept. I do keep thinking that I need to return to the Tau, of course, but I do feel the need to get something different painted.

The Black Legion are proving to be a little troublesome for me, because of the amount of detailing etc, and I’m not all that sure about the scheme right now. I think Chaos Marines are probably just one of those model sets where they are difficult to get painted well, due to all of the baroque finery. In comparison the Tau were a piece of cake! For now, I’ve decided that I’m going to get five Marines and the Sorcerer finished, all models that I had started working on a long time ago, so it’s definitely something that I need to get finished!

Star Wars
March has been quite the month for Star Wars as well, though, as I have been reading The Fallen Star and watching the Prequel movies. My wife Jemma isn’t entirely fussed on watching them, but we started watching the Prequels mid month and have decided to just keep going through them all, so that’ll be good! It’s got me thinking about re-reading some more of the Legends books and comics, as I did talk about in last month’s blog, and so I’m planning to do something throughout the summer, so watch this space for that! Should be quite a hefty series of blog reviews and so on, but hopefully it’ll be interesting for you all!

We also had the first trailer for Kenobi, which is excitingly coming out in May, so not too long left now! Mandalorian season three is still on the cards for the end of the year, as well as the Rogue One prequel series Andor coming out at some point. This photo was doing the rounds in October 2021, purportedly showing what we could expect in 2022, but with Mando being pushed back, who knows when Ahsoka will be coming back to the screen?


Watching the movies has put me in such a Star Wars mood, though – that probably accounts for some of the hobby dip that happened. Though I have got those Legion miniatures out of the attic, so who knows whether that will be a feature going forward?! Legion is something that I have thought about a lot over the years, though my first serious thoughts came when we were a couple of weeks into the first Lockdown, and nobody really knew what was going to happen. It was a nice distraction at the time, but I ended up not doing anything with this as we all settled into the new normal, and I went back to 40k. Well, maybe something will happen this time?

I’m always a bit wary of making these sorts of announcements, because I invariably get distracted, but hopefully it’ll be a big summer of Star Wars here on the blog!

Arkham Horror LCG
I have surprised myself this month by playing a couple of games with this, getting three-quarters of the way through the campaign before (spoiler alert) my investigators were killed! In my game day blog on Tuesday this week, I had said I wasn’t sure whether I would shuffle up and try again, or accept their fate and close the book on Innsmouth for the time being. Well, I have decided to close the book, and have dismantled the decks for Stella and Zoey – they weren’t a bad pair, if I’m honest; I just don’t think I was as into everything this time around for some reason. Possibly because I was snatching games where I could, and not really making the time to enjoy the game.

I’ve since made up two new decks, using Ursula Downs and Lily Chen, and I’m pondering my next move as regards which campaign I’m going to set off for. I’m currently favouring The Forgotten Age, though the allure of the new Edge of the Earth is also calling to me! I did feel bad for skipping TFA when I embarked upon The Circle Undone, more than twelve months ago now, but obviously campaigns don’t need to be played in the order they were released, so that doesn’t really matter.


My Ursula deck is pretty standard fare, leaning heavily into her already-high investigation attribute to really bolster this, and then use it (so far as Seekers allow) to fulfil other tests, too. The theme of using one attribute for another is more prevalent in the Mystics, of course, but Lily is a curious one in that she has a very high combat attribute already, so I don’t necessarily want to include a lot of spells that allow her to use her willpower for everything. I have included those spells like Rite of Seeking that allow her to investigate with willpower though, and there are a couple of ways for her to improve her willpower too, as I tend to split my party in games, to cover more ground, and so I like to have my investigators able to be as flexible as possible.

Lily is also curious in that she is a Mystic who can only use Level 0 Mystic cards, but can lean into Guardian cards up to Level 5. Whether that’s simply to allow for her to use the butterfly swords, I have no idea, but I find it interesting that this is going to likely become a deck that bears no resemblance to its beginnings, although of course we shall see how that transpires! I’ve only played a Mystic a couple of times, but I seem to recall there are a lot of good, higher-level cards that I like. Hm.

At any rate, Mystic and Seeker are my two favourite classes, and so I am looking forward to taking these two out, whichever campaign I decide to embark upon!

Warcry Updates

The Tome of Champions 2021 is here, and it’s quite a hefty book in comparison to previous years! This is mainly due to the enormous appendix though, which has the Bladeborn Fighters rules.


The book is split into the usual Open, Narrative and Matched play, and incorporates all of the stuff we had for free on the WarCom website back last year, such as the Cursed City content, the AoS Dominion content, and so on. Open Play is a very short section, giving the rules for Siege Battles and using the example battleplan of the Siege of Carngrad. Narrative Play can be split into two, really, giving four more Branching Quests for each faction, different to those initially presented in the Red Harvest book, and four more Fates Quests, again one for each faction. The second part of the Narrative Play section is Narrative Campaigns, and reproduces the online content while also giving another one, which can be played co-op or solo, where you play against marauding Skaven in the city of Excelsis. It’s an interesting idea, although does require players to have 1200 points of Skaven and the Agents of Chaos book that shows their profiles. However, I imagine it could be quite easily adapted for Nighthaunt or something, as you’re trying to clear out an infested city. Matched Play introduces a new tournament pack, The Fell Nyroth, but without being a tournament kind of player, I can’t really offer much in the way of comment there.

There is a lot of content here, and it’s interesting to see how the various battleplans continue to make use of the vast array of stuff that’s out there for Warcry. There are points adjustments across the board as well, making this much more akin to the General’s Handbook for AoS. In the Appendix, we get the fighter cards for the Lumineth Realmlords, Soulblight Gravelords, Dominion armies, and Bladeborn Fighters, which I’m sure will be the big draw for the majority of folks picking this up.

The rules for Bladeborn Fighters allow you to include the fighters from Warhammer Underworlds warbands within your games of Warcry, which is kinda fascinating as it opens up so many more options for playing the game. The way this works is to align each band to their Age of Sigmar faction, and then presents fighter cards that can be used when mustering a Warcry warband from that faction. So for example, the Thorns of the Briar Queen belong to the Nighthaunt faction, which means they can be added into the mix just like any other Nighthaunt model that has a stat card for games of Warcry. Each warband has one or two unique abilities that can be used, although they have access to the full suite of abilities from their parent faction, anyway.

I find this approach quite interesting, because it means that the Underworlds warband can be split up, they don’t come as a unit as I had initially expected. I suppose that makes sense, because some warbands are only three fighters, so could potentially have a very hard time going up against other warbands in the game. But it somehow loses a bit of the flavour that I like about those guys, and I think if I were to ever play with Underworlds warbands, I would try as much as possible to keep the band all together, if you know what I mean. Even the larger warbands are only around the 700 points mark (the Thorns are closer to 800, but still) so would need some bolstering from the more “regular” models from the range.

That said, I think I still prefer to keep things to the Warcry-specific warbands whenever possible, anyway, so it probably won’t turn into that big of an issue for me!

In other news…

I’ve finally built up all of the Tarantulos Brood miniatures! I think they’re one of the bigger Warcry warbands, which should be interesting to see how they play as they have a lot of lower-level fighters, it seems. I do love the look of these models though, and I think I might try and get them painted up sometime this year, rather than letting them languish like the rest of my Warcry stuff! However, I did kinda decide around summer last year that I would try to get the Iron Golem painted up next, so I don’t quite know how it’s all going to fit in! Unfortunately, I do seem to have stalled a bit with my Tau painting project, since I spent the beginning of the year painting nothing but Sa’cea Sept colours – I think I could well be due a change!

I think I’m going to try and get another game of Warcry in soon, as it has been quite a while since I last played. I think it could be fun to try out the new Red Harvest stuff as well, so hopefully I’ll be able to report back soon on that!

Warcry: Red Harvest terrain

Hey everybody,
I’ve finally finished building up the terrain from Red Harvest, and I’ve just had to come here to write about it because this stuff is just amazing!!


It’s gonna look even more stunning when painted…

The board is really quite full with this stuff, as well, which I’m quite impressed by, considering there are only four structures and then a host of sluices. I thought it would lead to a table that feels more open, but maybe that’s just the configuration, or something.


I’m very impressed, anyway. There are, as I say, four big structures that form the cornerstones of the terrain: two multi-level platforms, and two “delve engines”, the Pit Dredger and the Varanite Syphon. The Syphon is the beam engine thing that has that beautiful daemonic head at the top, while the Dredger is the winding gear with the ore buckets on it.


I particularly enjoyed getting the Dredger built, despite its reputation that I’d heard about with getting those buckets to line up! The winding capstan has got three poor unfortunate skeletons on there who have seemingly died in service to those Chaotic bands who are plundering the Varanite Delve, which I think is a beautifully creepy touch to this piece! Both platforms have got a lot of character to them, as well, with manacles and skeletons hanging around them. I’m really looking forward to getting these painted, even if all of the metallic barding is giving me palpitations!

In game, these engines have got rules whereby fighters can be pushed into the moving parts, dealing damage to them, and fighters within 1″ of its moving parts can turn the machine on, which damages fighters who are on or within 3″ of any sluices connected to the machine. It’s a nice way to interact with the scenery, and I love that kind of thing – even if, when I’m playing, I usually forget all about such rules!


Each machine comes on its own sprue, and the platforms likewise have their own sprue each. The sluices are doubled up, with two sprues of six sluices each. I can see this stuff being released separately at some point, either packaged as a machine and set of sluices, or also with a platform. It certainly seems to have been produced with an eye to re-packaging, anyway, the way these things are so self-contained.

The set also includes the barricades that were in the original set, which is nice to have as there are plenty of elements in common with the new stuff that keeps everything in the same aesthetic mould.


The two warbands, though, while they have each really grabbed my attention, are still in the process of being built. I’ve got a fair number of the Tarantulos Brood fighters built up, though only one member of the Darkoath Savagers so far. I really like both of these warbands, for different reasons, and I’m very much looking forward to getting them all built so that I can try them out. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some more games in with Warcry now that all of the lockdown measures appear to be easing, and the country is getting somewhat back to normal! Not many in my gaming circle have been too taken with it, sadly, so I think it might well need to be pickup games for the time being, but I guess we’ll see.

It is such a good game, so fast-paced and brutal, I really do love it. The terrain in this box is so different to anything that we’ve had so far, and lends quite an oppressive atmosphere when you see fully-painted tables of it. I find myself hoping that we might have almost the equivalent of 40k Sector Mechanicus stuff for Age of Sigmar, with more daemonically-possessed machinery to supplement this. Although of course, what we have in the box is entirely suitable for games of Warcry. I love everything about this box, though, and I’m so glad GW are continuing to bring out stuff like this for the game.

Tome of Champions 2021 is also out now, of course, which seems to have bundled in the DLC from last year with rules for the Warhammer Underworlds warbands, plus more quests and so on. Sounds like a cracking book, and one that I really need to get my paws on!

Hobby Update 2021!

Hey everybody,
It’s New Year’s Eve, which can mean only one thing – let’s evaluate the past twelve months, and tot up all the places where I succeeded and where I missed out on my hobby goals that were projected a year ago! Spoiler alert: I don’t think I did very well…

Paint up the Sisters of Battle 500-point list (well, it’s a little more than 500 points, but the point stands!)
Hm. I did make some efforts with the Sisters during the year, and I think I have a colour scheme that I like now, but I have not made massive in-roads here, as the project was fairly quickly abandoned, if I’m honest! I don’t want to get rid of these models though, so I think I might give it some more thought in 2022 and see whether I can make more of an effort to get some models finished.

Finish up the Drukhari models – 5 Wracks, 3 Grotesques, 5 Incubi and Drahzar.
I did actually paint up 5 Incubi, and I’ve done the skin on both the Wracks and the Grotesques. But that’s pretty much as far as it goes. I don’t know if it’s been the lack of games, or something else, but I just haven’t really been feeling the Dark Eldar in 2021.

Paint up at least 2 Tyranid units, at least one of which is a big bug!
Well, this one failed pretty badly! I have sort of painted five Genestealers, but I don’t think that’s even a minimum-sized squad. Tyranids have been big on my radar during this year, but for whatever reason, I’ve just not really found the inclination to actually make this one come through, either.

Continue rescuing Necron models – Triarch Praetorians, Canoptek Spyder, etc
Okay, so I have painted some Necron models, but I haven’t really rescued all that many. They’re on my list – heck, some of them have been on my painting station for a long time! – and while I still have a lot of affection for the undead space robots, I haven’t managed to get all that many models painted this year. I did paint the five Triarch Praetorians that were a rescue job around two years in the making, and I have painted up a couple of the character models from Indomitus and the Psychomancer, so it’s not a complete failure on this one.

Paint more Grey Knights! At least three more units, maybe a vehicle too.
Well. I’ve not actually finished any further Grey Knights units just yet, but my goodness, I’ve been playing with them, and it has been great! I’ve started work on my second Strike Squad, but I really want to do these models justice, so I’m just slowly taking my time and working through them, and I hope that eventually I’ll have a good force fully painted up. As ever, stay tuned for this one!

Also paint more Chaos Marines! At least three units, and perhaps a bigger thing, as well.
I haven’t painted anything for the Heretic Astartes this year – shocking, I know! I believe there is a huge new release due for them in the new year, however, so I imagine there might be some more movement on this one soon…

Make a decision about the Scions, Deathwatch and AdMech models! Do I want to keep all of those Space Marines kits?
I don’t know! I really don’t know if I want to keep all of these extraneous models. I just want to have them, but I can’t really imagine myself ever playing games with them, really. AdMech I can possibly see myself playing as allies for maybe the Grey Knights or something, though I just don’t know yet… These are mostly just kept in the loft still, though. Shame!

Paint more terrain – mainly for Necromunda, but also general 40k stuff.
While I haven’t painted any more terrain (certainly not to completion), I have built up plenty. The Gang Stronghold from last Christmas, the new Kill Team box, the Sanctum and the associated ruins… There is a lot of terrain that has been constructed in 2021, and I think I need to be better at chipping away at this sort of thing, though without a real plan for it I do find myself floundering at times! All that said, I have done myself proud with the Zone Mortalis stuff, getting a few walls and columns painted up there. So it hasn’t been a complete waste, at least!

Okay, so if that’s all of the stuff that I had planned to do – what have I actually been doing with my time?!

To start with, I painted up a fairly significant chunk of Ossiarch Bonereapers, I think the final count has it around 1500 points of models there, not quite sure. I do love those models, and I’m thinking I might come back to them in 2022 if there are more models promised for release – archers, maybe?! I also painted up some of the Sigmarite ruins scatter terrain, a fairly quick job across some small pieces, and finally finished the Unmade warband for Warcry. That game has informed a lot of my time in 2021, I feel – and a surprise discovery of Underworlds meant that I spent a good chunk of the early part of the year in the Mortal Realms – which, of course, I hadn’t planned for!

Back in September, though, all of my hobby plans were slightly de-railed when I decided to throw everything out the window and focus almost exclusively on my Genestealer Cultists, having had the models since their initial release in 7th edition, but never really making any serious effort to paint them. Well, I’m currently around the 1200 points mark with these guys, which is just great, so I’m looking forward to getting their codex in the new year, and hopefully getting some games in with them!

Speaking of games, I’m surprised at how many times I was able to play GW games this year. True, a lot of these were solo affairs while we were stuck in one of the many lockdowns, but I’ve still managed to play Necromunda, Warhammer Underworlds, Warcry and Warhammer 40k during the year! Underworlds, as I mentioned, was a surprise at how much I enjoyed it, and while I might not necessarily be following it in the new Harrowdeep season, I do like the fact that I have a good collection of stuff to have (hopefully!) many fun and enjoyable games in the future. Warcry is a firm favourite, and the recent Red Harvest set has just bowled me over once again at how much they put into these releases. I’m still in the process of building this up, so I haven’t yet been able to try out the new mine terrain etc, but I am very excited to get it all finished, etc!

40k has been good, as well. I’ve played a lot of games with Grey Knights, both small and large, and I think I’m getting to grips with the way these guys play now. It’s been a lot of fun to play the smaller scale games with James and his Black Templars, as we’re both learning these armies, but by extension we’re finally getting to cement the small rules tweaks of 9th edition in our minds, as we’re not playing particularly rushed or competitive, but instead taking the time to ensure we’re doing things properly. James is a great thinker about the game, too, and he watches more battle reports than me, so I enjoy the post-mortem afterwards as we go through what had happened.

Come back tomorrow, though, as I run through some of my hopes and dreams for the hobby in 2022!

November Retrospective

Hey everybody,
The end of the year is fast approaching, and it’s been really great to have these monthly retrospective blogs to look back on the progress that I’ve made with all manner of projects – hopefully they’ve been as interesting to read as they have been to write!

For November, the pace seems to have been a bit slow, as we slide towards the festive season. I’ve been reading a lot of weird fiction this month, which has shown itself in two blogs covering a variety of stories from contemporaries and followers of HP Lovecraft, before then the man himself popping up last week with The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. I do love a bit of cosmic horror, and I think it’s been good to read some of the more extended mythos stuff this time around. It’s all very uneven, of course, and a lot of these stories could hardly be called masterpieces, though they are fun, which for me is the main thing. I am planning to read more of Lovecraft’s own horror stories over Christmas, of course, so do stay tuned for the traditional Mythos Delvings blog!

Reading so much weird fiction has, of course, gotten me back into playing the LCG. Having kinda planned out a series of games with Trish and Agnes, playing through some of the standalone scenarios, I’ve since pushed this idea to the side in favour of an actual campaign once again: The Innsmouth Conspiracy has well and truly started! I’ve built new decks, for Stella and Zoey, and hope to finish that in the coming week or so. I’ve got next week off work, so fingers crossed I can have more games then, if nothing else!

I have been trying to get somewhere with my painting though, and after a month off in October, I’ve been back to the Genestealer Cults, getting more Neophyte Hybrids painted up alongside an Acolyte Iconward and a Clamavus. These characters weren’t part of my original scheme, so it may mean that I end up not completing the 500-point list by the end of the year – that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it! I’m hoping to move onto the truck next, and still have the 5 Hybrid Metamorphs to do something with. So, we’ll see how far we get. But hopefully it’ll be a nice-looking little force, so I’m excited for that!

The Genestealer Cult hasn’t really been languishing for it, but I have moved on a little bit to another little project. After starting to read the third novel in the Grey Knights series, Hammer of Daemons, I’ve obviously moved on to these fellas once again, as it’s now a bit of a tradition for me to see how far I can get with them! I’ve got another 5-man Strike Squad on the table currently, along with a Brother-Captain. My painted Grey Knights are currently somewhere on a par with my painted Genestealer Cultists, in terms of size, so I suppose there’s a nice symmetry there in terms of building up both of the smaller forces. While I did initially think 9th edition might mean a slimming-down of my backlog, both of these armies are quite beautiful, and I really feel that I want to keep them.

My big news for November is that I’ve actually played my first game of Warhammer 40k this year, at last! Lockdowns do get in the way of these things, don’t they? JP and I took the tried-and-tested Chaos Space Marines vs Necrons out for a spin, but as ever, we spent most of the evening talking about all manner of junk and didn’t get much gaming actually done! I’m still not wholly sure about 9th edition, if I’m honest – I think it might be the subject for another blog, but I’m still not entirely in love with it. Which is slightly concerning, because if the recent pattern still holds true, we’ve only got about 18 months left before 10th edition rolls around…

It hasn’t even changed a great deal from 8th edition, really, it’s just the additional stuff in the rules have made it feel like it’s an overly complicated game now. When I sat down with the core rules a while back to try to make sense of them, it really surprised me just how little has actually changed. It certainly isn’t the seismic change from 7th to 8th that I experienced as my first edition change, but there’s something just stopping me from really enjoying it. I think this is probably something to explore in another blog, though. I might have a smaller-scale game with the Genestealer Cult and my mate James’ Black Templars soon, though, so maybe playing with a smaller model count might make things a bit better to understand, etc! Of course, that has its own problems when playing with an older Codex for the Genestealer Cult. Hm.

At any rate, I have been thinking that I would like to get more of my Necrons painted – I do have a lot of Necrons painted, for sure, but I need another ten Immortals, 5 Lychguard and 5 Tomb Blades to be finished before I can say that I’m happy with the force as it is. I’ll then be turning my attention to the stuff that I currently have painted, but which could be done better – some stuff like the Annihilation Barge could do with a bit of work to make it a bit more visually appealing, I think. So, I’d like to try and get the models that I think of as “finished” up to a better standard. Then there’s all manner of other units I need to turn my attention to.

I’m really chuffed to have got my hands on the new set for Warcry, Red Harvest, and have already started to build up some of the models from it. The design team are really knocking it out of the proverbial right now with this stuff, and I am utterly bowled-over by how good this stuff is. I think the terrain is what got me interested in this box, but the actual game content seems to be really great, too. It’s always nice when you get something like this – essentially a box of plastic – and there is a great rule set to go alongside it! My current plans, though, are to build up the new Tarantulos Brood warband, then potentially try them out in some regular games of Warcry with the core set stuff. It might be quite some time before all of that terrain is built, after all!

I have no more plans to attach to any of my hobby things right now, though. I think I just want to concentrate on getting my Genestealer Cultists done, and seeing where I can get to with the Grey Knights and the Necrons. If I can build and/or paint anything else, then that’s a bonus for me! I’m looking forward to making my way fully through the Innsmouth Conspiracy, and will have some more thoughts up here when that is all said and done. Who knows what else the month of December may hold? I do have some time off to look forward to, so there could be many exciting things yet to fill 2021!

Warcry: Red Harvest (first look)

Hey everybody,
So I am a very lucky boy, it seems, and have been able to snag myself a copy of the new Warcry: Red Harvest set, which came out a couple of weeks ago and looks an absolute delight so far, I have to say! I’ve not been able to get a game with it yet, because much like the original core set, there is just so much stuff in there to build, but I thought I’d come along here for something of a first look, and general geek-out over the new plastic!

And what new plastic it is. We get two honking big Chaos-infused industrial machines, two substantial, multi-storey platforms, a whole bunch of sluices to create all manner of layouts, and the barricades from the original Warcry set.

This stuff does look really nice, and I think it was certainly the thing that initially attracted me to the set. It’s the sort of thing that just really captures my imagination, and I know I’m definitely a sucker for these sorts of releases, but it definitely excites me for these types of games!

The story of this box is the pursuit of varanite, a type of realmstone particularly attuned to the power of Chaos, with which warbands can become super powerful. Enter the two forces clashing in this set, the Darkoath Savagers and the Tarantulos Brood. It’s always great to get more Darkoath models, as it brings me closer and closer to that dream of reworked Chaos Marauders. There are a total of ten Savagers in the box, which makes them one of the biggest Warcry specific warbands, I think? At first, I did think they might just be a close repeat of the Spire Tyrants, who were almost the generic Chaos Marauder style band, but these do have a very nice aesthetic that is noticeably different to the other band, not just with a different paintscheme.

The Tarantulous Brood is unlike anything we’ve seen before, a Chaos cult devoted to Chaos Undivided in the guise of an eight-legged spider. They are specifically seeking varanite to enact foul mutations, bringing them closer to eight-limbed perfection, and it is just utterly bizarre – I love it! I think they’re going to be the first warband to get my attention, when I finally get round to building these things up!

The new rules are particularly exciting, I feel. Of course, most of this is the basic Warcry stuff, but the new terrain comes with new rules for the Varanite Delve machinery – as the expansion is set in the cursed mine of Krath, there are rules for using the machinery against your foes, such as turning it on to flood any sluices with molten ore, or using the moving parts to crush foes who are dealt damage when next to the machinery. I really liked the look of this machinery when we first saw the set shown off, but with all of these additional rules it is really giving me Temple of Doom vibes, and I absolutely love it!

As ever, each warband has got two bespoke quests, each of which uses the new terrain, and we have a new type of quest, Branching Quests, which are aligned to each of the four grand alliances. These are really quite something, and remind me almost of a Choose Your Own Adventure style thing – after the first convergence, there is some fluff to read, and you’ll choose which path you want to follow, which will give you additional options to complete your quest, with spoils of war appropriate to the final choice you made.

It’s a very nice addition to the game. We also get the core rules, along with stuff about narrative campaign play (no open or matched play rules though, curiously). So it’s a strange one, especially if this is your first taste of Warcry as you’ll also need to get the core book. I do like the fact that GW has listened after the Catacombs thing, and we have battleplan cards for this box. That’s always a nice touch, even though it doesn’t look like we have the boxes for them this time? Unless I’ve not found them in my box, of course!

I do like the dice that have come in the box though – they are much more square than the rounded-corner dice from previous sets, so they land better!

In general, as a Warcry fan, I really like this set. I think it is glorious, unlike anything GW has put out previously with the mining terrain and the Chaos spider stuff. I’m really looking forward to having more toys in the toybox when it comes to this game, so it’s definitely time I started building this stuff!

On a somewhat-related note, I wonder if we’re getting a Tome of Champions 2021? With the Branching Quests for all four alliances in this book, I don’t really know what else we could expect to see in the annual round-up book. Of course, that’s probably why I don’t work as a game developer, and they could have all manner of good stuff up their sleeve, but I think I would have expected to have seen it by now, if it was indeed in the works? Didn’t the last one come out with Catacombs?

Well, anyway. Red Harvest is a very welcome addition to the line up. I’ll doubtless be coming back here in the coming weeks, as I build up some of this stuff – maybe even paint it! You never know…