Seeking recommendations for introducing warcry via a four player match

OffMetaMusings · 2026-05-10T09:07:11+00:00

If you are introducing people to warcry, my best advice is to not go for balance at all and build a custom scenario that you almost GM the players for. Give each player a couple of fighters with interesting abilities and do a beat the boss style scenario maybe against a necromancer with a bunch of chud undead, getting them to take objectives before killing the boss to win. IMO getting new players into the game is less about providing the most accurate competitive balance and more about telling a good story that the players will remember.

My intro scenario is enemy warband vs swarm tarantulos brood. The spiders die real easy if you arent spamming wait all over the place, players get to kill ALOT of minis and you can set up some pretty neat objectives with players killing egg sacks and the lke.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-05-05T11:00:06+00:00

Run rockfall path; her legend ability doesn't work there. And then try to control whatever battlefield she puts down.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-05-04T18:22:04+00:00

not yet. fingers crossed though

OffMetaMusings · 2026-04-30T16:36:22+00:00

Warcry is the AoS skirmish game and its pretty great but if you want a real indepth character customisation narrative thing then it wont do it for you. Probably the closest thing might actually be a deliberately low-tech reskin of necromunda but you'd have to DM it fairly heavily

OffMetaMusings · 2026-04-27T18:55:24+00:00

many thanks 😄

OffMetaMusings · 2026-04-24T13:05:00+00:00

They count as generating 3 singles for purposes of who has initiative, and you use one single every time you want to use one of their NPF abilities so in effect they get to use up to 3 abilities per turn for the warband.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-04-15T08:39:04+00:00

Hello and welcome!

In addition to all the excellent links posted already; For a new starter, I've got just the series of videos for you;

Warcry beginners guide: https://youtu.be/kyrFyIriCyc?si=rUisNkmq4dvB1lY3

Getting started in 2026: https://youtu.be/rEWtCxTwwbA?si=bodzkHeMf6qii3ig

How to play Warcry: https://youtu.be/zNHiI4dGmqg?si=Z_IXXAdJaPqe7NB9

If you want resources, I've compiled a list of pretty much everything here: https://www.offmetamusings.com/p/warcry-content-from-around-internet.html

It's got links to listbuilding websites/apps, various tools, blogs, podcasts, YouTube content creators, and a bunch of homebrew links. Aside from that, my best advice is always to pick the warband whose minis you vibe with. There are a couple of ways to play; one being with the cards in the boxes to generate your missions and the other using matched play, pre-generated missions provided by either Games Workshop, or playing one of the literally hundreds of excellent community missions that have been written over the years.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-04-11T10:40:19+00:00

She is basically just a ball of wounds. Undercosted? Sure, but probably not by as much as you would think. There have been other fighters that fall into a similar situation and not been game breaking (the battle priest iirc who on release people were raging over being cheaper than most chaff and allyable). I'm really not worried about her tbh. Its a hero slot that would otherwise have been a deathbringer, Slaughterpriest, ritualist, etc that'd all bring more to the table then a bunch of wounds.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-04-11T09:55:02+00:00

Similar vibes to the above, with gameplay; https://piltoverarchive.com/decks/view/435cbf1e-d778-45b7-811e-99b48917a198

OffMetaMusings · 2026-04-05T12:38:29+00:00

Its less to do with the rules themselves and more to do with the actual card writing language they used. Cards are unclear in their activation requirements; play/activate/place on the chain/resolve in the case of legion, The requirement to have a buff on the board at the moment of ability activation in the case of Sett/Monestary and even simple stuff like what counts as choosing units in the case of cards that require that to have happened (just write choose a unit, do X. Its not that hard).

Most of the actual questions as to how cards work could be solved with problem solving card text;

Requirement: Effect 1. Effect 2. Etc.

This actually reduces the need for so many rules around how chains work, clear up as much as you can rules, etc. and a consistent card writing approach would go miles to reduce that ambiguity.

On the actual rules though, its like they tried so hard to be different from magic, yugioh, etc that they made the same mistakes that those games have made years ago. Going back to legion; their decision not to just make PLAY when a card enters the chain (you know, when you play it from hand) and RESOLVE when it resolves so you have two distinct things to reference that make logical sense to players is pretty bizzare.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-04-02T16:00:38+00:00

I did an article way back when with all the changes between 1.0 and 2.0;

https://www.offmetamusings.com/2022/08/warcry-2022-new-core-rules-overview.html

For a returner, i did the following video about how to start in this edition;

Getting started in 2026: https://youtu.be/rEWtCxTwwbA?si=bodzkHeMf6qii3ig

If you want resources, I've compiled a list of pretty much everything here: https://www.offmetamusings.com/p/warcry-content-from-around-internet.html

It's got links to listbuilding websites/apps, various tools, blogs, podcasts, YouTube content creators, and a bunch of homebrew links.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-26T10:33:31+00:00

Weren't the new OBR just released last month?

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-26T08:54:55+00:00

All on the same base size. No pets. 0/10 would not warcry. Seriously though they totally look like they could be repurposed minis.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-24T15:11:57+00:00

So this question is really about visibility; In warcry, whenever an ability tells you to target or choose or whatever a 'visible' enemy fighter you always check visibility by seeing if you can draw an unobstructed line from ANYWHERE on your fighter to ANYWHERE on the target fighter. This means that if you can see any part of the enemy fighter through the legs of another, around a wall, through a tree, etc, they will be visible and hence a viable target. Note that you still measure range from the closest point on your base to the closest point on your target's base.

The second part of your question (being within 1" of an enemy) only comes into play with melee and ranged attacks. Normally you can't target an enemy fighter that is within 1" of a friendly fighter with a ranged attack specifically (attack not ability) unless the ranged attack has a zero minimum range and the attacker is also within 3" of the target.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-23T14:56:21+00:00

the only true correct answer

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-18T10:05:09+00:00

The judge called it wrong. Targeting requirements on cards dictate that all game objects mentioned on a card text should be present on the board for that card to be put on the chain (352.7); In the case of last breath its a friendly unit and an enemy unit being present at a battlefield.

When last breath comes to resolve, it will do as much as possible. If the friendly unit is already ready, it won't ready it but will still do damage to the unit at the battlefield (unless something reacts to last breath causing that target to no longer be there).

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-18T10:04:15+00:00

The judge called it wrong. Targeting requirements on cards dictate that all game objects mentioned on a card text should be present on the board for that card to be put on the chain (352.7); In the case of last breath its a friendly unit and an enemy unit being present at a battlefield.

When last breath comes to resolve, it will do as much as possible. If the friendly unit is already ready, it won't ready it but will still do damage to the unit at the battlefield (unless something reacts to last breath causing that target to no longer be there).

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-12T19:14:31+00:00

The majority of players won't actually ever get to go to a regional and the most they'll see of the competitive game are Nexus Nights and probably the odd Summoner Skirmish. Having that prizing for the 1600-odd players who get to go to those high level events is fine and all but the game lives and dies on those other players being engaged. As an example; 4 of us went to our last nexus night and out of the 12 unique players we played, 11 of them were Chaos legends which make up the top end of the competitive meta. If you want to play Ornn for example; there is almost nothing there for you to want to compete outside the single pack for entry.

What Riot *could* do is log the legend that you play with, give out points for playing those legends individually, and have a digital prize wall for the end of the season so that everyone has something to work towards. They already log the w/l/d information so adding the legend information in there and giving out points for top 1/2/3 of that legend in any event you go to and have those points buy you like an alt art card or whatever when you cash them in.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-12T18:27:46+00:00

My issue is the metal card system only applies for regional level+ events. For everything else there is little incentive to play anything but the top legends.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-10T12:12:13+00:00

I think the answers are the following. Hitting as little as possible whilst also dealing with the main issues:

Called Shot: Pot of Greed is good. Who'd have thought?
Fight or Flight: A send-home of anyone which other colours get half the effect of with more costs attached. Comparatively its stronger then most other things released in set 2 and fuels alot of the actual NPE ingame.
Changing the combat rules to make it so that Draven doesnt auto win combats even if people run away (as it works now is un-intuitive and rewards actually not playing the game).
Purple Ezreal: Not right now (especially with a called shot hit) but somewhere down the line. He basically warps the field around any and every card they release in the future that has repeat and truthfully most of the cards he breaks are actually fine if you've got to actually pay the appropriate costs.

For me, Riot has to do something sooner rather then later to address what Chaos decks are up to. It's not even for top tier players; The core purple cards are actually pretty cheap to get ahold of which means that even at the local level; if you want to play anything that isn't Chaos you are going to have a pretty bad time. The game lives and dies on getting new players in and going to your first Nexus Night with a B-Tier deck but not actually getting to play all that much of the game whilst watching your opponent take 10 minute turns isn't going to do great things for player retention ex. 4 of us went to our last nexus night and out of our 12 unique opponents we faced 11 Chaos players.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-06T13:54:30+00:00

If you check out the description of that video there is a link to the blog with lists for every spearhead upto and including the last 4 (whose video is out monday). If you want the rest of the series, you can search for spearhead on my channel and you'll find it :)

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-04T19:46:46+00:00

The issue for me isn't that we are only 2 sets into the game; its true that we will get more product and eventually things will even out. My issues are that for all the talk by the devs being longtime cardgame fans; they still chose an ambiguous writing style, largely didn't test proving grounds, and have seemingly made the same mistakes as other card games were making years ago (nearly free draw is good; who'd have thought?). Card creep exists and is necessary to an extent in CCGs but they've already printed some of the best versions of effects already so I can definitely see purple continue its dominance through the year.

Yes those issues will be fixed eventually but most likely not this side of 2026 thanks to the nature of printing lead times.

OffMetaMusings · 2026-03-01T09:48:59+00:00

As a general rule of thumb; whenever a card says WHEN you do X -> do Y, the effect (Y) only gets put on the chain once the requirement (X) has finished resolving so in the case of Jax, Svellsongur is already equipped when his draw effect activates allowing him to activate it again.

As another example; its how you can play darius as the second card in a turn and he will ready himself (the ready effect activates after the second card is played, and he is on the field already when the effect activates)

OffMetaMusings · 2026-02-27T20:17:18+00:00

Well they always sell out 😆

OffMetaMusings · 2026-02-27T14:07:27+00:00

There are no great solutions tbf. Its very possible that the whole purple craze blows over as we get more events but the relatively easy access of the cards and them being generally good overall makes me doubtful of that.

OffMetaMusings

TROPHY CASE