Category Archives: Warcry

Realm of Warcry – Part 1

16 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Realm of Warcry, Warcry

≈ 17 Comments

Greetings Terrans. So last post talked about the genesis of my RoW project… this post deals with how I went about generating the warband – I’m going into some detail in case anyone fancies giving it a go themselves.

.

First up I wanted to randomise my Chaos power – I’m really not invested in any of the ‘Big Four’ or ‘Chaos Undivided’, so letting fate decide my patron, (or lack thereof), seemed appropriate. The Dice Gods spoke, and I rolled Tzeentch – so plotting, scheming and sorcery it is then!

Next, I generated my Champion using the tables in Slaves to Darkness. I rolled a middling level human hero as my starting point, and then took a single roll on the Chaos Reward table, and a single roll on the Tzeentch table. My first generic Chaos reward was an Attribute, for which I rolled ‘Oversized Hands’ (a further roll determined that they were twice as large). The next roll was for a Gift of Tzeentch, for which I rolled the ‘Gift of Magic’ – super appropriate! I was already starting to form an image of a decent fighter who had thrown in his lot with Tzeentch in exchange for magical powers…

With this in mind, my next step was to look for a suitable Warcry card that represented a middling level Champion with a magic attack. There are a number to choose from, but I settled on the ‘Scinari Loreseeker’ card from the Lumineth range. It’s a nicely balanced card that seemed appropriate – not very tanky but still a decent fighter with a solid magic attach and a tricksy ‘shoot-and-scoot’ special ability.

I then took two rolls on the followers table and ended up with 3 humans and 6 Beastmen. This worked out really nicely for me because my Spire Tyrants gave me plenty of humans to choose from, as well as one of the Beastmen that I needed. I was off to a great start, however, I needed more Beastmen so I used some more Birthday money (thanks again M&D) and picked up the ‘Grashrak’s Despoilers’ Underworlds warband. This gave me five more ‘regular’ Beastmen, plus I had Grashrak himself as a ‘spare’ Shaman for future use. Importantly, all now have Warcry cards thanks to the Tome of Champions, so happy days!

I quickly got to painting & so here they are – the Beastmen that I’ll be using for my starting Warband:

.

Plus Grashrak as the ‘spare’ Shaman:

.

This effectively locked me in to a points cost for the Champion & Beastmen, but I still had some flexibility in my choice of Human followers. After a bit of numberwang, I settled on adding the Spire Tyrant ‘Headclaimer’, a ‘Pitfighter with Net’ and a ‘Pitfighter with spear’ for a total of 990 points. Here is the warband minus their Champion:

.

Properly RoC!!

Anyway, that’s it for another post – catch you all next time when we meet the leader of this savage band.

Realm of Warcry – Intro

10 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by in Realm of Warcry, Warcry

≈ 22 Comments

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I’m super excited to get this post out there because I’m breaking cover on a new project that has really got my creative juices flowing – a new hobby adventure that I am calling ‘Realm of Warcry’… There will be lovely minis and conversions of course, but also plenty of fluff and fiction – this will be an evolving story, and I don’t know how it will end… Dear reader, let me explain.

.

Now, I know that many of you will know what I’m talking about when I talk about the ‘Realm of Chaos’ books, (RoC for short), but for the uninitiated, let’s lay it on the line.

RoC is comprised of two classic Games Workshop books from the late Eighties called ‘Slaves to Darkness’ and ‘The Lost and the Damned’. These tomes dealt with Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy and 40k, and they are gorgeous things packed full of lore, rules, art, army lists, photos of minis, etc. One of the coolest and most inspiring things about RoC is the framework it presents for creating your very own Chaos Champion and Warband, including tables for mutations, attributes, gifts, followers, their gifts, and so on. It is super-detailed. And I’ve always had a soft spot for the idea of creating a Fantasy Chaos Warband in this way, but the game of Fantasy Battle itself was not my cup of tea, and the minis were too expensive for me to ‘do it properly’ back in the day.

Fast forward a few decades and Warcry arrives – this is a nice little skirmish game for Chaos Warbands with a tight rule set, and it very much tries to channel the spirit of RoC. I dabbled a bit with the game when it first came out, and even started up a Daughters of Khaine warband, (Seros the Thrice Cursed is still out there somewhere!), but it didn’t fully click for me – there was something missing…

Fast forward to April this year and my kids bought me a set of Spire Tyrants and the ‘Ogroid Myrmidon’ for my birthday. Here they are:

These are fab minis, really nice to build and paint. I aimed for a range of skin tones across the range, and the Myrmidon got some nice stripes to add some interest. I enjoyed the models so much that I picked up the Warcry Tome of Champions and Agents of Chaos books, and began reading. I suddenly I realised that I could introduce just about any model I liked into the game and so the idea clicked – use the Warcry profiles and rules to run a pick’n’mix warband generated entirely from the RoC books… Hence ‘Realm of Warcry’ (duh)

.

So Realm of Warcry was now a thing in my head, but I needed to put a guiding framework around the project to stop it just being a ‘buy all the things’ activity. After a bit of thinking I came up with the following:

1: Everything for the warband must be randomly rolled as described in RoC books and using the RoC tables – 100% honesty, no cheating out of a bad roll!

2: The Champion and Followers must all have a corresponding Warcry card – creative interpretation is allowed – card and model do NOT need to match! (so if I roll up some Dark Elves, I could use any card from any race, along with any base model I like, as long as model and card feel appropriate & makes sense fluff-wise).

3: I will roll to see if I can add followers after every game rather than as determined by victory conditions. The wider warband will be bought, converted as necessary, painted and added to the group. This will form a pool from which I can select fighters up to whatever limit in whatever game.

4: I will ignore any faction rules and so on, instead creating a ‘Warband’ faction that applies to all members, and replaces their original faction. Any special faction-specific Actions also transfer in the same way.

5: I will roll for Chaos Gifts after every game, and I will allow myself to accumulate up to 5 such gifts before I build and paint a new version of my champion to reflect them all in one go. This is intended to avoid having to remodel my Champion too often if I don’t want to. I may also choose to roll gifts for specific warband members if they do something especially cool in any game.

6: I will not change the card that I use for any Warband member (including the Champion) unless I first earn one or more Gifts, and the model is changed accordingly

7: With an opponent’s permission, I will play narrative games specifically designed to add specific models to my warband, and will reciprocate whenever asked.

8: I will create accompanying fluff like camp followers, alters, terrain and so on. These won’t have any combat role, but are intended to add flavour, plot hooks for narrative games, etc.

.

So that’s all I’m ready to share on the project right now, I hope this has whet your appetite a little… In fact, I’d be delighted to hear if this has motivated you to do something similar – heck, why not join in! If you have access to the relevant books then just go for it, blog about it, share pics, etc. If you don’t have access to the books then pm me – we can jump on a Zoom call, grab a set of D&D dice and get rolling. I’d love to see a few more Realm of Warcry projects out there, and if we get a few of us then I might start a WhatsApp group. Who knows, maybe we can even get together to scrap it out for the glory of Chaos!!

Anyway, that’s all for now – I am hugely grateful to my kids for choosing them and for inspiring such a cool project, and I hope you are excited to see what’s next :-)

The Wrath of Seros

06 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by in Daughters of Khaine, Warcry

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

,

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I wanted to put out a quick post to elaborate on the four DoK Melusai I did for Fembruary – they are intended to grow the small DoK warband I started last year, very much with Warcry in mind. Collectively named ‘The Wrath’, these four outcasts have sought Seros out, as rumours of her status as prophetess have spread:

I’ve gone for a 50/50 split between hitty Bloodsisters, and shooty Bloodstalkers. I also built one as a Bloodstalker Krone in case I wanted her lead the warband some time instead of Seros herself (who will count as a Bloodsister Gorgai).

 

Speaking of Seros, I originally built her without a specific weapon loadout in mind, and she needed a big shitty spear to roll as a Gorgai. I didn’t want to mess with the model, so I had the idea of converting a male Dark Elf retainer to carry it for her, along with some yummy squeezy-heart drinks:

As he took shape, I decided that he represents Kaulgar from the background fiction that I wrote last year. (TL;DR, Kaulgar was Seros’ lover before Morathi found out about the couple & got all cursey and shit). Kaulgar won’t have an active role in-game, and is just there for fluff reasons.

 

I also used some spare bits from the Blood Cauldron to create some themed scenery – nothing fancy, just using up bits to make some themed scatter:

 

And here’s the whole warband as it stands, ready to make their way into the Bloodwind Spoil:

 

 

Finally, a bit of accompanying fluff – I want this warband to be really driven by the narrative, and for them to have a good reason for venturing into the Bloodwind Spoil. If you like, you can read more about Seros’ background here and here, before you get the latest instalment:

 

For many months, Seros continued to grow her strength during her exile in Chamon, the Realm of Metal. Increasing numbers of would-be followers sought her out, but most failed to survive the venomous ‘kiss’ she used to single out the worthy. Those that did undertake the ritual consistently displayed the blood-red flesh and ruined face that characterised her followers, but more extreme mutations also began to manifest themselves.

Seros intuitively knew that the mutating power of her venom would increase in potency as she grew in power, and with growing excitement, she observed that some Aelves undergoing the ritual began the painful transformation to forms that resembled the half-snake Melusai, or graceful winged Khinerai. However, they always succumbed to her increasingly potent venom, and her Chamonite lair became littered with the bones of such failed aspirants.

Fused femurs and ribs were mixed with twisted and elongated spines and the bones of vestigial bat wings, and the skeletal remains began to pile up in drifts. Seros made no attempt to hide these remains, and her reputation as a rising power ensured that new aspirants continued to arrive and subject themselves to the ritual in spite of the danger. Their mutated bones continued to join those of their predecessors, until eventually the day came when a quartet of Aelves proved strong enough to withstand the transformation to Melusai. These four became the first of Seros’ elite foot soldiers, and were thereafter known as The Wrath of Seros.

The creation of The Wrath was a pivotal point in the rise of Seros – for the first time in history, Melusai were created that did not originate from Morathi herself. Seros knew that her power had passed a crucial nexus, and that her former mistress would not bear another to share her ability to reshape Aelven souls to create new life. Seros began to get restless – she knew that she needed to move on from Chamon, but was unsure where to strike out. It was at this point that a lone Warlock found her lair – the first male Aelf to have done so.

Her followers immediately surrounded the Warlock and were about to execute the intruder out of hand, for Khainites have little tolerance for males within their society. Seros stayed their murderous instincts, for she recognised this Warlock as none other than her former lover Kaulgar, and her heart broke anew. Kaulgar also recognised Seros, and while his heart and soul were no longer capable of feeling love thanks to the Doomfire runes were burned into his flesh, he certainly remembered their time together, and he remembered the vengeance that they owed to Morathi.

This was why Kaulgar had sought Seros out after all this time – he had travelled widely since the fateful day that they were cursed, and had learned much. He spoke to Seros of a wild and dangerous place called the Eightpoints – a bastion of chaos, but one littered with items of  vast power. He proposed that they venture to the Eightpoints via the Bloodwind Spoils, seeking such artefacts, looking to grow the power they would need to overthrow Morathi once and for all. We join Seros and Kaulgar as they leave Chamon and embark on their quest for revenge against a goddess.

 

So that’s it for now folks, I hope you’ve enjoyed this update to the narrative. I think I’ll be adding a few winged terrors to this warband over the coming weeks, and maybe a few surprises as well – we’ll see how March goes.

One thing for sure, I’ll be starting my prep for BOYL in April, so expect a pivot back to the Oldhammer scene between Easter and Summer 😊