A few weeks ago, Games Workshop released their latest game set in the Mortal Realms. More precisely a game set in the realm of eight points, where champions of the dark gods seek to prove their worth and gain the favour the Everchosen on fields of blood and bones. I am of course talking about the wonderfully brutal game that is Warcry.
In Warcry you take control of a warband of warriors either dedicated to the worship of the chaos gods, or to the service of one of the grand alliances, as they seek fortune, fame and glory. For some this can be as simple as crushing their enemies. For others it could be the seeing them driven before them. And for the rest… well you get the idea.
Like many others in the hobby, I entered eight points in the hope of gaining glory and victory. However, despite starting a new chaos army last week I decided to enter the fray with a different force. After all, I can’t do battle with the followers of Nurgle and make use of my new Plaguebearers (yet) so instead I’ll be bringing the thunder with Sigmar’s very own Stormcast Eternals.
Games of Warcry are brutal affairs, with fighters taking multiple wounds ever turn in bloody melee and ranged combat. Most fighters have between 8 and 15 wounds, and as a result they can easily be taken out by a solid attack roll. This is especially true when you look at critical hits that can do a ton of damage, and the use of abilities to give fighters more attacks dice or multiple actions. However, Stormcast Eternals aren’t most fighters.
Living up to their nickname as ‘Sigmarines’, all Stormcast fighters start with 20 wounds and a defence of 5. As you might expect, this makes them some of the toughest units in the game, easily able to stand toe to toe with most other fighters. Couple this up with their solid attack stats and range abilities and you don’t have a warband, you have space marines.
Even the non-Stormcast fighters in the game have something to add to this warband. Gryph-hounds have all the hitting power of their armoured cohorts, only losing one point of defence but getting a greater movement stat and a solid triple ability. The Aetherwings might not be on the same level as the rest of the warband, but thanks to their low cost and speed they make great filler and objective grabbers.
These warriors of Sigmar however do come with a bit of a drawback. Their cost. With Vanguard-Hunters costing 165 points and leaders ranging from 210-280, you will be lucky to get more than six or seven models in your starting thousand. This can be a bit of a drawback when it comes to alternating activations, as you can easily find yourself been outmanoeuvred and outplayed by larger forces. However, a cautious player can play around these issues, and use their superior fighters to carry the day.
When it came to my warband I decided to take a fairly solid and flexible list, opting to play the follow build.
1 Hunter-Prime; 210
2 Vanguard-Hunters; 165ea
3 Gryph-hound; 150ea
Total; 990
This list doesn’t offer much in terms of available abilities (only been able to use three of the SCE specific ones) but more than makes up for it in hitting power. I’ve played a fair few games with them in the last couple of weeks and they have done me very well, winning me around two thirds of my matches. The only losses I’ve had to date have either been from not being able to match my opponent at objective taking, and one game of assassinate where my opponent was very lucky with his finally fighter. The Gryph-hounds are pound for pound, one of the best units in the game, able to speed up the board to take out opposing fighters before disengaging from the fight.
All my fighters (expect my leader) have 20 wounds, meaning that they can usually last a few rounds of combat before been taken out of action, which can slow down my opponents majorly in a game with limited turns. They also have very similar damage outputs, dealing 1-2 damage on a regular hit and a solid 4 damage on a critical hit. Given every fighter has a melee attack value of 4 and the Hunters have a range attack of 3, the warband can easily put several fighters out of action very quickly.
All in all, Stormcast Eternals are a solid non-chaos option for players wanting to get into Warcry. I’ve been having a lot of fun with my current build of these thunder warriors and can’t wait for Monsters and Mercenaries to come out so I can build on the force. I will probably be looking at the other warbands in the near future and giving a similar rundown of their playstyle and abilities, so if that is something you would like to see let us know in the comments below.
I want to know what you think of Warcry. Have you been playing it at your local store or home? What warbands have you been trying out? What are you looking forward to in the near future? Once you have let us know your thoughts, why not like and subscribe to us here at Master of Magics to keep up to date with all we do,
We also have a Patreon, so if you want to support future content for the site, consider becoming one of our Patrons. Just $1 a month would do so much to help us create more of the content you enjoy. But until next time, remember: “You cannot hide from doom”.
