Whisper, Warcry is probably the best game in the Games Workshop lineup. Titles like Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar are becoming popular names, but the rules of Warhammer fantasy skirmishes allow them to be made public among small bands of warriors in crazy landscapes. This makes them slimmer and faster than their larger siblings, while still having the same amazing quality miniatures, giving the design team more room to add strategies and improve balance.
“This is one of the most tactically interesting games I’ve worked on,” said Nyle Ajina, product developer at Games Workshop. And since we’re working on a second edition with game designer Dave Saunders, it’s going to be more tactically interesting. They gave IGN an exclusive interview to talk about how it improved.
“”The biggest change is more narrative play, “explains Azina. “Previously, there was one linear story that we wanted to tell for each warband. This new mode tells an evolving story, not a specific story.” He told the new core box, Heart of Ghur. Here is an example that is included. “There is a three-game campaign arc that lets the included Warband, Horns of Hashot and Rothmai Acreed fight each other, and it’s on top of a more free and detailed standard story play than before. . “
Sanders is particular about the details. “You can move on to a campaign arc that can involve very short or many battles,” he continues. “You can also participate in quests. This effectively provides a kind of secondary purpose of combat. Next, there is a Warband camp. You are not safe for a long time, so You should always be looking for a new place to find your camp. Gnarlwood will eat it or rival warbands will encounter it and endanger it. “
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The core rules remain about the same, but there is a new mechanism. It’s a reaction. “You can do something like a counterattack when someone makes a melee attack against you, uncover when someone is shooting you,” Sanders explains. “There are more decisions than in the previous game, but because we’re exchanging actions for reactions, things don’t slow down. Also, each faction has a custom reaction. It’s always in the game. It means you’re engaged. You don’t have to sit down and wait for someone to do something. “
Veteran players may be disappointed to find that these new faction-specific rules mean that existing warbands will need a new stats line to be valid for play in the second edition. not. However, Games Workshop plans to make new material available for free on the Warhammer Community site. This includes about 800 miniature stats from both the old Warcry Warband and other factions across the entire Age of Sigmar. Those who want to see physical books will have the opportunity at the Warcry Compendium in late 2022. “I have this big dream in every home,” Sanders laughs.
The gist is also aimed at fixing issues in the first edition. It was that warbands from the wider Age of Sigmar universe tended to be stronger than those of Warcry alone. “Dave has done a lot of work to create a very powerful loyalty calculator that even describes his abilities,” says Azina. “This should improve all the balance,” Sanders explains, which includes new materials. “Even if you have a classic warband, you’ll find that there are many new tricks based on the information you get from calculators and tests.”
Previously, the Warcry Box focused on the Eightpoints chaos cultist, the connection between the Age of Sigmar’s various worlds. As the name implies, the Heart of Ghur moves the action to one of those worlds: Ghur, the realm of the beast. There are still plenty of interactive landscapes where models can hide behind, climb and fight, but the look and feel is very different. “We have these Gnarloaks, these giant muscular trees that are eating around people,” Ajina enthusiastically says. “All this bamboo on the platform and things.”
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When you switch to Ghur, Warcry will be more consistent with the Age of Sigmar settings. “We want Warcry to be more aligned with the core game so that we can tell more detailed stories as well as different stories,” continues Ajina. “So we’ll focus more on a particular location, and the story you’re going to tell is about more individual miniatures. Build a warband from an Age of Sigmar military model and talk about reconnaissance units. can also do.”
In addition to these changes, Games Workshop is switching gears to match the release schedule. “It will expand in a really fast and amazing way,” Ajina confesses. He also drops a teaser that some of the releases go in unexpected new directions in the game. No matter what comes, I think it’s enough to get Warycry out of the shadows and put it in the right headline game.
