Tuesday, 13 February 2024

Warcry: The Ferocious Gnarlwood (Feb 2024) - Tournament Report


I was back at Warhammer World last weekend (for the second time in 3 weeks!)

Three tournaments in, and the "competitive" Warcry community has been really awesome - it's always been a pleasure to join these events as everyone has been friendly and welcoming.

At five rounds, this one felt like a much longer day that the last one. But it was totally worth it to play lots of Warcry with lovely people.


I headed to Bugman's, to register / check-in and for a much-needed triple-shot americano.

The first person I saw was Ash (front left), who I played in March last year at my first Warcry tournament. Stevie (back left) and Ed (back right) arrived soon after.

I didn't get selfies with Michael and Leila but Leila took this one last month, so I'll use that here instead and we can all just pretend it was from this event.


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During registration everyone was given a sheet to record the Tournament Quest they had chosen for each game and whether it was successfully completed, and a cardboard Warcry dice dashboard. I thought the dashboard was a really nice touch as I know the one I made makes a massive difference and more people should definitely use them.


The event team told us to check on the BCP website for our pairings and table allocation at the start of each round and asked us to enter our results there after each game. They advised against using the BCP app, and as a few people had already noted it was crashing a lot, that definitely seemed like a good idea. As it happened the website seemed a bit sketchy on the day too, and the event team had to enter a lot of game results manually instead.

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My warband for the day: The Plunderblades

DAGGER
- Kaptain Borgoth - Megaboss [225]
- Drabbler - Ardboy with Ardboy Choppas [80]
- Mr Flea - Ardboy with Ardboy Choppas [80]

HAMMER
- Docker Goff - Ardboy Boss with Ardboy Choppas [135]
- Mizzen Grom - Ardboy with Ardboy Choppas [80]
- Skarlud - Ardboy with Ardboy Choppas [80]

SHIELD
- Hurdygurdy - Brute with Pair of Brute Choppas, Divine Blessing of Fortitude (+4 Wounds) [140+15]
- Hogline - Ardboy with Ardboy Choppas [80]
- Gundeck - Ardboy with Ardboy Choppas [80]

9 Fighters
995 points

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The Games




Game 1

Battleplan - Treasure Hunters
Opponent - Stephen Morgan
Warband - Ossiarch Bonereapers (Khainan’s Reapers with Sons of Velmorn)
Result - Major Win
Quest - Overrun: completed

- Mir Kainan (230pts, Hero)
- Mortisan Boneshaper (150pts, Hero)
- Mortisan Soulreaper (150pts, Hero)
- Binar Khenta (145pts)
- Hakor (90pts)
- Nohem (80pts)
- Karu (80pts)
- Senha (75pts)

8 fighters
1000 points

This was a great start to the day! Stephen was loads of fun to play and, even though I nabbed three out of the five treasures in round 1, he never let up the pressure once. I felt like I really had to concentrate to keep hold of them.

I nearly got one of his two treasures but he fended-off my crew skilfully. He earned considerably more Kill Points than I did and very nearly stopped me completing my Tournament Quest as well, though he probably didn't know it at the time.

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(I forgot to take a selfie with Tom!)

Game 2

Battleplan - No Quarter
Opponent - Tom Hill
Warband - Order of Azyr. Hexbane Hunters, with Calthia and another SCE
Result - Major Loss
Quest - Hold the Centre: completed

DAGGER
- Knight Arcanum with Blessing of Might [225] Ally
- Ratspike [55]

SHIELD
- Haskel Hexbane [125] Leader
- Aemos [105]

HAMMER
- Calthia Xandire with Blessing of Might [230] Ally
- Brydget [95]
- Quiet Pock with Blessing of Might [165]

7 fighters
1000 points

Another really enjoyable game against a very cool opponent and on a beautiful board. Tom's warband was really well painted, in a dark and moody scheme that suited them very well. The two Stormcast were painted to fit in with them, so the whole warband had a great, cohesive look.

I might have been too focused on taking Calthia down, knowing how useful her abilities are, especially for a battleplan that can very easily be a draw if both warbands have movement shenanigans.

But really the result was settled when I made a crushing mistake in my final few activations of the game: I left Kaptain Borgoth on the border between two quarters, so he was unable to claim being in either.

Instead of a draw and 10 tournament points I got a Major Loss and a big old zero points. It was a fun game anyway.

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Lunch and Favourite Warband vote


My photos of the cabinet all came out absolutely rubbish, blurry and with lots of reflections, so these are the ones the event staff took and posted on the WHW Facebook page. The standard of conversion and painting was incredible and I didn't want to sell anyone's work short with my terrible pics.


(A couple of notes, because I expect people will ask!

The Rebel Grots are classic 1990s metal Gorkamorka models with a couple of Blood Bowl goblins mixed in, and they were played using Kharadron rules. Their Big Lugger vehicle used War Hydra rules!

The Chaos Dwarfs were also classic metals, and were played as Slaves to Darkness.)

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After lunch, the games continued!



Game 3

Battleplan - Brutal Conquest*
Opponent - Eliott Sinclair
Warband - Questor Soulsworn
Result - Minor Loss
Quest - The Champion: not completed

*There was a note from the WHW events team about this Battleplan: When a great champion is taken down, their tally carries over to the next fighter that becomes that player's great champion.

I think Eliott's list was something like this (but it wasn't uploaded to BCP):

- Questor-Prime [170]
- Soulsworn Knight-Relictor [165]
- Errant-Questor armed with grandhammer [165]
- Errant-Questor armed with grandhammer [165]
- Errant-Questor armed with grandblade [165]
- Errant-Questor armed with grandblade [165], Leader

This Battleplan is pretty weird, and I think I need to play it at least a couple more times to get my head round it. Regardless, Eliott was a lot of fun to play against.

We had to read the scoring conditions several times during the game. The first two Battleplans of the day were entirely scored after the final round, but this one is continuously tallied across the entire game, and has some very specific conditions.

I racked-up a huge number of Kill Points but still lost 54 to 44 points on the Great Champion's Tally. Stormcast are tough.

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Game 4

Battleplan - Reaper
Opponent - Dimitrios Ntagias
Warband - Slaves to Darkness with Ephilim’s Pandaemonium
Result - Major Loss
Quest - Blunt: not completed

DAGGER
- Aspiring Champion [155] Hero
- Apo'trax, the Starefysh [70]

SHIELD
- Ephilim The Unknowable [145] Hero
- Chaos Warrior with Chaos Hand Weapon and Chaos Runeshield [110]
- Spawnmaw [105]

HAMMER
- Aspiring Champion [155] Hero
- Flamespooler [95]
- Chaos Warrior with Chaos Hand Weapon and Chaos Runeshield [110]

8 fighters
945 points

This was my favourite game of the day. Dimitrios was brilliant, and we hit it off right from the start. We had briefly chatted before we were paired off as we knew each other from the Warcry Discord (and Dimitrios won the Tangled Depths tournament, last year!).

This meant we talked a bit too much (about dice collections, ADHD, customising gaming accessories and probably a few other things) and the last round was a bit hurried as a result, but I don't think I stood a chance anyway. I was over-confident about how squishy the daemons look on paper, and I did not realise how mobile and shooty some of them were.

I also over-extended my warband in the very first round. I used a quad to Mighty Waaagh! and rushed Kaptain Borgoth forward so the rest of the crew were just in range of the (huge!) area effect of that ability. I banked on them being able to benefit and follow close behind the boss. I did not expect him to be pulled further forward by the daemons! What looked to me like a crazy strategy absolutely worked though, the rest of the crew were left slogging slowly toward the Kaptain. Who, despite being so close, still wasn't able to get into choppa-range of the teleporting beggers!

Dimitrios got the victory point in the first round, but neither of us killed anything in round two and it felt more like I still had a chance. But after he got the VP in round three I knew there wasn't time for me to catch up.

Despite the result it was such a great game and his warband looked amazing.

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Game 5

Battleplan - The Hidden Vault
Opponent - Richard Fabian
Warband - Ironjawz
Result - Minor Win
Quest - High Ground: not completed

DAGGER
- Megaboss [225] Leader
- Brute with Pair of Brute Choppas [140]

SHIELD
- Brute with Pair of Brute Choppas [140]
- Brute with Pair of Brute Choppas [140]

HAMMER
- Brute Boss with Boss Klaw and Smasha [195] Hero
- Brute with Jagged Gore-Hacka [150]

6 fighters
990 points

My second victory of the day, in a game that, despite being a mirror match, felt heavily stacked against me. I tried to use my greater numbers to best advantage, and claimed all three objectives early, knowing that to lose control I would have to be outnumbered.

I sacrificed a lot of Ardboys by feeding them one at a time into choke-points made by the scenery around the last objective. By doing so I kept hold of it, while avoiding losing too many models in one go. If one less Ardboy had died it would have been a Major Victory, but I was very happy to get a Minor.

I also totally forgot about my chosen Tournament Quest (High Ground), so I missed out on what should have been an easy extra tournament point.

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I placed 32nd out of 44 players. Which isn't surprising since I lost 3 out of 5 games!

The social side of the event was brilliant: I spent loads of time with friends. I chatted with a few people I have met at previous events. I got to put faces to names of a few people from the Warcry Discord who I'd never met before.

The games were all challenging and enjoyable.

There were some incredible warbands, as I said earlier the standard of modelling and painting was really high. I got a lot of complements for the theming of my warband and gaming accessories, but also for my gaming logbook, which I was really pleased about. And two people gave me custom dice!

Overall it was a fantastic day. I can't wait for the next one!



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