Seeing everything going on with Games Workshop lately and with how Warcry releases have been recently, I'm wondering if Warcry is ending.
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It would be absolutely classic GW to make an incredibly successful specialist game, only to just completely trash it a few years later.
No one plays it. Dead game.
Incredibly successful? Do you have the numbers to back that claim?
They wouldn't do that, would they!? *Remembers Warhammer Historical, Old-School Necromunda, GorkaMorka and, of course, Mordheim* They wouldn't do that again... would they..? 😶
Is it incredibly successful?
@@belgarath97 sure was on release :)
The quarterly big boxes model is what scares new players away. Every other skirmish game concentrates on buying the core warband and expand it later, a more affordable model for players.
I hope they re-release with town/city combat, give it some Mordheim flavour, Skaven vs the new Human guys in a city combat could be very cool.
i been hearing some whispers about something like that coming, which would be pretty cool
Agree. I think the only chaos/evil warbands were a big part of warcry’s problem.
@@knighthaunter I hope not, because then GW might rope me back in.
The Underworlds & Warcry warbands have been the most interesting ones for years. The pace of seasons is just way to fast. I hope they keep making these smaller themed warbands as they have often been very nice models. GW rules etc are always hopeless (lasting six months at the best and often FAQued upon release even). The inital lowlife cahos aspring warbands where amazing and a very nice theme (more streamlined fantasy Necromunda kind of). I think they will always have their fans :)
Totally agreeing on gw too fast too furious release cycle as of late ... It is crazy to try follow it.
> The pace of seasons is just way to fast This. I know GW is a business and their business model means churning out frequent releases for all of their games. I also know I'm a particularly "slow" player, but damn... I'm still painting my warbands from the original Shadespire (back when Underworlds wasn't even the name) and now there are tons of warbands and seasons and they may be thinking of shutting it down. Meanwhile, indie hobby companies are still supporting games older than original Shadespire... I don't like FOMO and so this kind of business model puts me off. I'm not arguing it doesn't make sense for GW as a business, but it's just not for me as a customer and hobbyist. I don't need constant releases of stuff (I didn't even agree with people complaining there weren't more releases for Blackstone Fortress... I mean, I didn't need anything past the core box, which was an amazing self-contained box. I do regret missing out on Escalation though).
Seems like it's time for Snarling Badger to make a fantasy skirmish game. Ya know... something just right for using old Warcry minis...
I don't think they're retiring the game. I think they overdid it with the large boxes for both Kill Team and Warcry. All my local shops have piles of them sitting around, taking space. The smaller boxes and individual gangs are the way to go--they're way more retailer-friendly and have a more accessible price point for new players. The chaos gangs are just being retired because the setting of the game has turned away from the chaos vs. chaos struggle. I think there were a lot of players who didn't buy into the 1st edition of Warcry because they didn't have any interest in chaos.
I agree. $220 for two squads, a ton of terrain, and a new rules system is a commitment. $60 for a box of dudes that can also be used in my main AOS or 40k army? That could be a spontaneous purchase.
Really? Weren't those big Kill Team boxes sold within minutes of launch? There was so much moaning online that you need to be really lucky to get one. At least those pre-Bheta Decima ones.
@@joshp2657 Yes-ish. Though the amount of Terrain in the first and second edition of Warcry was staggering and amazing to build up a thematic table with. The third one in Ghur is still okayish, but not as fantastic imo. For me, that is a bigger pullfactor than a squad of a few dudes. You have to keep in mind that the terrain and verticality plays a much bigger role in Warcry, Killteam or especially in Necromunda than in the bigger army style games. Thus, having like one boulder and some scatter terrain wont make for a very interesting game.
I think you nailed it. They have a tendency to do this, we saw it in the past with territorial stuff, like Spanish and German versions of GorkaMorka in the ‘90’s. We even saw it in the ‘80’s with TSR AND dragon dice. There’s a distressing tendency to overproduce a “bells and whistles” set and just not being able to shift them out of the store because it’s just an intimidating amount of stuff for an intimidating amount of money, or they have absolutely misjudged the trends in particular territories, or whatever. So, for my money - you’ve got it right, I’m almost certain.
@@robertchmielecki2580 nearly all the online sales for the past few YEARS has been scalpers for eBay and the like.
please god no... I literally just got into warcry this year and have been loving it. Its the thing that finally got me to dig out my old unpainted AOS 1.0 models (which i never even played), work on them, build custom terrain, throw together some compendium lists, and quite frankly get back into the hobby! Warcry is the only reason I recently picked up my first vangaurd box, spending hundreds $$$ on GW products just so i could have fun with warcry list building options (and its been great!) Buuuut, yeah... I guess I just said it myself - i'm buying AOS products (to field in warcry), and I've never actually bought anything branded for warcry itself... I wonder how many similar sales are on the books, potentially misleading GW on the profit margins of keeping this game afloat...
I’m sure every business meeting boils down to: is this keeping the customers on the plastic treadmill or not? The Platonic ideal for them is that a new $400 box of Warhammer: The Old Team UnderCry of Sigmar 40k comes out every day and the customers buy it religiously while new customers join the treadmill at or above the rate that old ones die under box avalanches.
The changes to Warcry are in line with the changes to Kill Team. Smaller boxes with less terrain. The discontinuation of warbands is in line with Underworlds. They cannot keep them around indefinitely because of the AoS compatibility. Too many units that no one can find anymore creates frustration. Also, they seem to have moved on from Warcry being a game about chaos tribes and made the sensible decision to include all factions from AoS.
The very first box for Warcry was an absolute steal. It was like £100 and it was an entire game in a box. GW should have kept launching those. Folk would have kept buying them. New terrain, new models, new cards. It also baffled me when they stopped the random card selection as a main feature. That was one of the best parts.
They stopped random scenarios? When did that happen?
110% agree on the card thing, that was (is) so much fun just by itself!
@@Redskies453 well they stopped including stuff in boxes and it stopped being the big selling point.
@@RotGolem totally agree. It meant to could not just build a force that was good at one thing. To play well you had to either lean heavily into a skill your faction possessed or go wide and hope you could cover an objective well. I mean they stole the concept from star wars legion and it's perfection in that game. It's what GW do well, take concepts and make them even more fun and interesting. Lately it always feels that Warcry is so fixated on the competition of the game.
What baffled me that they moved the setting to the Realm of Beasts and then stopped using Chaotic Beasts as a rule. I thought that would've been the best part about it, give us all sorts of weird monsters roaming around.
Low-key GW's best game.
Yeah it's cool I like the game. No one talks about this but unfortunately they went for the "chaos" aesthetic which isn't everyones cup of tea.
@@anthonyisback I didn't like that they focused on Chaos (at least at the outset), but the Chaos cultists turned out to be some of their best AoS-style models.
Gotta say their old specialist games are top tier (Gorkamorka, Mordheim, Battlefleet Gothic, etc) but Warcry is not bad for their supported games
blowing up the chaos warbands for AoS is a sign of the impending (end, heheh) times for Warcry (and personally really angers me because I LOVE how diversely weird the chaos warbands are in warcry, as they should be). Leave it to GW to can their best currently-supported game. Guess it didn't compel consumers to hoard enough plastic for the shareholders
Didn't meet the 300% profit return margin.....
They want you buying their new all female custodes
Big update for Warcry yesterday with around 2 dozen new profiles, lots of rules updates, and a lot of points adjustments. We also got John Bracken the Lead Game Developer on Warcry talking about the game in a metawatch video. In that video he talked about the game currently and the future. When talking about a few points and rules adjustments for the old v1 warbands he said "These warbands are still very much part of the game, lots of people own them, they're the OG of Warcry. People are very very fond of them. We want people to be able to feel they can use those in tournaments and not feel like they've got one hand tied behind their back." . When asked about the long term of Warcry John said: "We want to keep an eye on the points values, we want to keep an eye on the overall balance, the over all integrity of it. We want to make sure it's in a nice healthy place for matched play across the world in addition to producing cool new narrative content whenever possible." "What we really want to do is whenever new models are added into ranges that we update those as quickly as we can so people have new toys to play with. All that sounds like Warcry is in a very good place and isn't going away anytime soon.
"Heart of Girr" - an Invader Zim RPG XD
WHAT IS IT???
@@benjaminpowers609 A bad pun!
I feel like in 15 years this game is going to be viewed a bit like Mordheim; a great game GW gave up on.
If it was selling they wouldn't have given up on it. Reminder that tactical Marines, a single kit, outsold the entire Warhammer fantasy range for a quarter, hence why they got rid of fantasy and made so many space marine releases
Either their clearing out to old warbands to focus on taking warcry in a different direction artistically, or it really is the prelude to the game's swan song. If they are canning the game, I hope they'll be considering a similar skirmish style replacement because they're a much easier sell when convincing the unconvinced to give it a try.
I mean the game already switched dramatically in direction. Those warbands going OOP, those were all part of the original idea for Warcry, a game about different Chaos (and ONLY Chaos!) warbands fighting over the favour of joining Archaons army. That is no longer what Warcry is for quite some time, it is now "just" a skirmish game where everybody from AoS can throw their hat in the ring.
If they switch to a different skirmish game, will players who invested in Warcry also invest in the new game? Or will they have learned their lesson, and know the new game isn't a safe bet?
@@theandf well id presume they could port those warbands over, even if they are just proxies for something new? Like any original Chaos could be Generic Darkoath, right? Just with different weapons and/or aesthetics. They could just do away w/ WC as a separate product, label it all "AOS", keep the Core Rules and continue to make cards/handbooks for any new Aos models? Aos Skirmish was a thing, but that isn't what we'd want. I don't even bother w/ Aos Main if there is WC, but maybe GW sees that as an issue-not enough players make the Jump to the Bigger Game
I reckon sales have probably dropped due to buyers fatigue from the rate of releases This has been a common theme for folks who used to be into underworlds for a while now
The issue with Underworlds is the need to have the up to date cards. It's why I'm glad I got out of MTG after Beta. With Warcry, I'd imagine that those that already had warbands they liked probably enjoyed not having to buy a couple of warbands they didn't want, just to get new terrain. And those that already had plenty of terrain liked getting new warbands without a bunch of terrain they didn't want. And for some of us, it let us spread out buying both the warbands and new terrain into separate purchases so we didn't take such a big hit to our wallets at one time.
100% agree.
I have a feeling the business thinking in a company like GW think they can channel the same players into fewer lines of games with fewer armies and figures for the to make, but just have people buying the same products. The Mordheim players, i think, are that special kind of old school players that like to model build and have rules that are not play out of the box simple for younger players. That kind of game that seems to be going away.
Well, Mordheim still there. It's not like they can unprint older games. It's only the players' fault chasing only the newer shiny...
Mordheim is not for everyone. For example, I don’t want to touch the old world because of _specific community_ then Mordheim is FB².
Good to know that "I like this and then it disappears" phenomenon isn't just happening to me. Happens when a company wants to focus on a few things that are very popular but even when they're not so concentrated I guess it happens. Best thing for me is to stock up on stuff I like, but with food that has a practical limit. From the start I dug what Warcry was trying to do, but I guess people who are really into it might have good insight into why they maybe couldn't get other people to go along with them. Wouldn't mind a comparison between Warcry and like Frostgrave, since I'm much more familiar with the latter. Probably can find it on here somewhere. Thanks for this vid
Horns of Hashut was a surprise because it was released with 2nd edition. The rest were all 1st edition Warcry and I hope it's just to make room for new sets and a new 3rd edition next year.
At our local Warhammer store we tell people not to waste their money on the new " starter set ", I also tell people that want to get into the game to buy Heart of Ghur online for the best value and we teach them how to play the game using our warbands and terrain and if they enjoy it they end up buying the Heart of Ghur. Our local group plays every Saturday and we are always getting someone new into game because we make it fun for them. Anyway, my 2 cents lol.
Or they might be getting ready for the new AoS edition, with also new Warcry, something like they did with Kill Team, which would be a huge shame, cause the current rule set for Warcry is very good, unlike Kill Team
i really dont understand KT tbh. if they had just made "Warcry, but 40k!" I'd be playing both, i'd imagine. Just bake in some Overwatch rule to compensate for more ranged weapons? Bang, I'm in. I bought KT then sold the books, maybe it will change to more WC-like
I feel like Kill Team's starting to wind down a bit, too. They've done the same thing with splitting the boxes into models and terrain, and there doesn't seem to be as much marketing around it lately.
Except Kill Teams allows them to release new and updated units for armies without having to wait for the next Codex release or army update. Warcry has an element of this as well, but it's not as consistent.
@@AndrewMcColl Which is why the Kill Team releases have been getting more and more bland and less flavored specifically for Kill Team with fewer specialists. I hate it
@@Flight_of_Icarus I think they made a mistake coming out with killteams. They should have stuck with the first edition rule where you could build a killteam with the models you own.
It feels like they didn't really plan on a third season of Kill Team. Feels like they just slapped together some stuff they were already releasing and put some gubbins in the boxes to pad it out. At least the first couple boxes.
@@reloadded2959 In the context of games like Kill Team and Warcry, the boutiques are kinda the core of the game- the fact is, a skirmish game is a lot more accessible to a new market than a full army wargame. Building your own teams is an incredible feature that should've stuck around (like in Warcry) but honestly, the boutiques make the game so much more approachable. The ideal solution imo would be to return the list building mechanic while still releasing kill teams of weird little things, like the releases we were seeing until the current "season"
I don't think they kill it outright, but it might rebrand and rebalance around the verminthingy in AoS. I agree it's my favorite ruleset, and made me really interested in skirmish.
GW's version of "War of the Ring" for mass combat in Middle Earth was kinda neat
Honestly, I feel something like that is happening to Kill Team. Let me break down the different seasons: - Season 1: Great season, it came with all 4 boxes, different terrain on each one, regular WD articles that gave rules for 4 other factions, 2 extra kill teams when Annual came out. In total we got: 14 kill teams, 4 of which were new minis, 4 were older minis with upgrade sprue, 4 were just normal minis from 40k (the WD ones) then the 2 from Rogue Trader Kill Team from years ago (a good thing to have those minis back in my opinion). 4 different terrain sets, annual book that compiled all WD articles and throws some extra. All rulebooks were available to buy separately and the Annual was an addon to the game, rather than a compilation of rules from previous boxes. - Season 2: Mid season, 5 boxes, but each one has the same terrain with only an "upgrade terrain sprue" to make it different from one another. No WD articles, no extra Kill Teams in Annual. In total we got: 10 kill teams, 4 of which were new minis, 4 were older minis with upgrade sprue, 2 were normal minis from 40k. In the middle of the season things changed, the individual kill teams and their rules were no longer being released on their own or in time (usually when next box hits). Annual was just a compilation of the rules of the 4 first boxes. Rules for playing Ashes of Faith campaign were not released on their own, if you didn't get this box which had very low printing numbers, you were out of luck. The middle of this edition, after Shadowvaults is where GW began delaying releases and not releasing the rulebooks independently. To add insult to injury, the last 2 boxes were produced in low numbers, probably because GW was preparing for 10th edition and printing the Leviathan boxes. -Season 3: Bad season. Ok, I know, the season only has 2 boxes out, and only the 3rd announced. But 10 Striking Scorpions is not a kill team, everyone is exactly the same in there, everyone, and the same could be said about the Mandrakes, no matter how much GW tells us that one of them, who looks exactly the same as everybody else in the kill team is some kind of special type of mandrake. We also got another Kill team with chaos marines, with a different upgrade, cool minis, but virtually the same as Legionnaires from 1st season. Like in 2nd season, I don't see any articles in WD, nor rules released on their own book for each box. Meaning, if you don't get the big boxes, you miss out. To make matters worse, the terrain is sold separately, with the boxes only containing some upgrades to play with the missions. All in all, this is shaping to be the weakest of the seasons, hopefully they will keep up production, as we are nearing AoS's 4th edition.
I don't think a whole new set of terrain every three months is very sustainable so I don't mind a bit of consolidation there. I just wish the base terrain kits had more light terrain. ITD and Bheta Decima feel kind of empty. I do agree on the models this season, feel kind of a placeholder until the next season.
As was seen in the latest FAQ update, Warcry is not going away. Yeah, boy!!! I can get out my aggradons, raptadons, and new kroxigors. Fun times ahead!!!
I hear a rumor that they're going to re-launch warcry as a new incarnation of mordheim, with skaven vs. cities of sigmar. I have no idea if it's true, but I hope so!
Kill team has gone to the same release model and all the recent releases seem to be stealth 40K releases but rumours are that a new starter box is coming with flight rules. It may just be that Warcry is in a similar holding pattern until the release of the new AoS.
Warcry is the best game GW published since ages and its actually the only GW game I play. I hope they just slow down their release schedule on Warcry and go back to publish big boxes (book + 2 warbands + terrain), because I think that's what they did right in the first edition: yearly boxes that focused on chaos with lots of stuff for a relative (!) low price. But the quarterly releases and the thinner boxes kind of kills it. I began to skip boxes while I bought every box in the first edition. It's just too much to buy, to paint and to manage. I can't manage 20 warbands :D
I'm not entirely convinced the Warbands are going away - the article was specifically talking about sets being retired for AoS, and while rarer, there were actually Warcry sets in AoS packaging - specifically a lot of StD factions from first edition. What makes me hesitate to think they're leaving all together is that on GW's site, the Warcry stuff only has "temporarily unavailable online" but you'll notice the Stormcast models that were set to be removed are listed as "last chance". Imo there's a not unreasonable chance that the kits are being removed from sale and support as AoS units, but will continue to exist on the Warcry side of things. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but time will tell.
With the release of the first-ever Warcry MetaWatch this past week it doesn't look like the game is going anywhere!
I will be keeping Warcry on my shelf. I really like it. My favorite batrep ever was a covid time twitch stream from GW where Peachy ran a warcry warhammer quest game. Best idea ever.
I've kept the links to those warcry warhammer quest twitch streams ... That was just amazing even as just watching it evolve on your screen. We need rules like that! Those links sadly are dead now on Twitch.
As a Chaos, Seraphon and Sylvaneth player I've really enjoyed the meat tree and temple terrain from this season of Warcry. I hope there is another season just to see what other realm they will battle in next.
I don’t know that Warcry is winding down. All of the kits they pulled from AoS were from the Slaves to Darkness, which is already a bloated line. Of the two sub AoS games, I feel like underworlds is in more danger.
If you went all in on Heart of Ghur to Nightmare Quest is was $770 and three meat tree duplicates. If you did one Scales of Tlaxis and four Hunter and Hunted style boxes it’s $632 and no terrain duplicates. I think this was a move for the better. Warcry Warbands were removed from AoS but they lost the cards when they transitioned so if they stay Warcry only that’s good as well. I for one bought Blacktalon specifically because they did Warcry rules. I don’t see the game going anywhere it’s just that the fantasy half of GW has never been as popular as 40K
Less duplicate terrain indeed, but also price hikes if we are being honest. Sad to see my wage doesn't grow accordingly as how the gw shareholders are getting returns!!!!!!
This sums up one of the biggest reasons I stopped supporting all GW products a few years back. They openly don't care about the player base and change or discontinue IP's on a whim.
I wish they’d compile all the warcry terrain sets, then maybe sell them as sets or as mordheim-esque narrative games. I’d love some of that terrain, but it’s overpriced behind the various boxsets. Like imagine a narrative game set in Ghur or the 8-points… would be great
I think what we are seeing is not so much the end of Warcry but the end of cross-purpose models. I would not be surprised when the fourth edition of AoS drops we see "Warcry" and "Underworlds" specific warbands dropped from battle scrolls. If that is the case then I am sure some accountant type at GW figured well 20% of Warcry sales are from AoS-only players so we need to up the price of Warcry by 20% without just upping the price overall. Another hint at this is that Beastmen can't exist in both the Old World and AoS, so Beastmen got shipped off to the Old World (and now GW doesn't have to refresh the line, win-win for them I am sure). I don't think GW expected that the Old World would take off like it did and I would not be surprised to see its popularity impact Warcry, Underworlds, Necromunda, and Blood Bowl. Keeping in mind GW can only produce so many kits at any given time (though based on what I see I think that is like 5 kits and they need to give 3 of those away as review copies to KZheadrs), so they are going to make what sells the most. With the Old World, they get to sell kits at a very high price while leveraging the back catalog of fantasy models (and not pay for tons of new sculpts), so why not move production from the other "niche" games to the Old World? I would not be surprised to see the warbands leave AoS as each army book is released, I think they will still be in the free PDF rules at launch (cause they still have products to move). With each game becoming self-contained over the next 2 years at that point, each game (from a sales and profit standpoint) needs to stand on its own. If this is not the case conspiracy theories are fun so no harm done.
Seems to be their cycle, GW releases a nice box set to get a game started, it really builds up hype, they immediately double the price to get into the game, they wait a couple years, they double the price again while simultaneously running out of good ideas to expand things, the game clogs up store shelves because nobody wants it. I think they're trying to fully monetize on the company having such a massive customer base, they can't seem to make models fast enough, but that only applies to stuff people actually want, and as we saw with Necromunda, Warcry, and Underworlds by the time they're trying to quadruple the price they're on to their worst ideas.
I'm not trying to spread rumours, but I've heard from a friend of a friend who works for GW uk that warcry being discontinued. I didn't want to believe it, but the evidence fits.
I am another sufferer of the painful syndrome described by Uncle Atom with regard to the disappearance or non-availability of favourite products and flavours. A case in point is Piper’s Atlas Mountain Wild Thyme and Rosemary crisps (potato chips) in the UK. This was the only flavour in their range that I, being vegan, could eat and also happened to be delicious. All of a sudden it could no longer be found on supermarket shelves, presumably due to poor sales. The flavour is still in production but limited to the largest supermarkets, and not all of those. I could, of course, go on.
I am sad that they are ditching a bunch of war bands, but in the story, most of this chaos war bands are gone, In the catacombs child of the ever chosen, you see the end of splinted fang, iron golems, flames of the sion and untamed beasts.
Think the older Warcry boxes on shelves, while indicating that not as many people are into Warcry (and AoS in general) as compared to Kill Team/40k, also just shows how out of touch GW is in regards to supply and demand. I don't know the exact numbers, but it kinda feels like they are printing the same amount of boxes for both WC and KT, but the demand is heavily weighted to the KT side so we see the new KT boxes selling out day 1 while the WC box sits on a shelf and eventually get discounted to free up said shelf space.
I’ll admit, I got a little nervous for the state of things with how buried Pure and flood got. On preorder week GW only mentioned that it would be available for order but neglected it in their spotlight articles. But as you’ve said, I think this game has enough of a cult following to keep going in a similar fashion to Mordheim
For me I didn't really get into KT or WC because they were completed separate rules sets. At one point Kill Team was just 40k rules with some altered list construction. IIRC you paid codex points for a unit and then each model would act independently (I forget the points limit. It was maybe 200pts or something). I'd like to see something like this again so I can use the same rules I'm familiar with on a smaller faster skirmish scale.
I swear people like me wonder how GW ever made it past 5 seconds.
They do beggar belief on most days. It's hard to believe that during the first twenty years, they were pretty much the 'saviours' of tabletop and role playing gaming and were pretty much responsible for making them mainstream hobbies. Fast forward to now, and they 're trying to push it all right back where they found it; an expensive hobby for rich old men, slowly aging out of the demographic while they make zero effort to replace them or grow the business with younger players by offering cheap and accessible gateways to draw them in. I think the only reason they're still going is that every now and then while the upper management are squabbling and stabbing each other in the back, someone at ground level uses the confusion to slip a good idea under their radar...
@@TwinStripethis is correct
My take is that they were a good company but once they established themselves as kings of the hill, their dominance of the hobby market put them in a position to be not so nice. Currently their pricing model and their business tactics make them anti-costumer in my opinion. The nicest companies seem to be underdogs, or at least, not as big as GW.
@@TwinStripewhile at the same time single handily altering more to appeal to 'progressive' kids who think that everything must be diverse, and inclusive, even 41st millennium space fascist Nazis. Further alienating the older players who don't give a hoot about this kind of virtue signaling, most of all not in their established lore of Sci-Fi space Nazi satire.
Test
with Crypt of Blood came my first discovery of all the "full" rule PDFs being released in their download section. Find it very strange Hashut is being cut, but NOT Rotmire Creed, which was in the same starter box. Also still waiting for the Slaaneshi warband to be released for Heart of Ghur setting... would be nice to actually get all 4 chaos gods + an undivided force (Hashut)...
I think Kill Team is in the process of returning to be a gateway 40K with no special teams or sprues. Warcry is likely going the same way
I feel you on the things you enjoy getting discontinued. The foodstuff is alright towards the end as it tends to get shunted to discount retailers, i wish that happened to the minis I like that get canned.
I am holding out hope as a romantic that they just haven't announced a new, killer starter for Warcry yet. I mean this year we have a new AoS edition, new Skaven, and Mordheim turning 25. The stars are aligned and I want that comet to hit again.
This video has done me a frighten! ...but, yes. All sounds rather plausible 😬. All my digits are crossed for shiny new Warcry things in the future. Love your content as ever - cheers! :)
Definitely on the way out or will be rebooted as something new. Nice video. Keep up the good work.
I thought the warbands just get no rules in aos? It doesn't automatically mean they are discontinued, because there's no last chance tag on them
GW should finance a Warcry based feature film and bring fantasy back! WAAAGGHHHH! A friend and I are so new into Warcry that we own minis and still haven't played a game yet. However, we've played our share of Killteam amongst other games, and the fresh rules and dice play are what initially drew me in. (Ok the Seraphon Dinos riding on Dinos are what did it.) The beasts and monsters a close second. As a culture we sway from Sci-Fi to Fantasy quicker than new Disney + acquisitions so I think Warcry just needs to hang in there until the next Lord of the Rings-esque movie shows up and it will bounce right back.
What is warcry? Its a necromunda in age of sigmar. But necromunda does so well due to nostalgia and then has been well looked after. And warcry is for an iP that had the worst start to audience perception. I will take a good guess that sales got better when they started to consider it like kill team and released models from existing ranges. But too little too late imo. Warcry never pulled me. But a carbon copy with old world would. So bring back mordheim
We saw some drop off in Warcry near the end of both editions that isn't happening with Kill Team, and I think that has a lot to do with Kill Team changing up the setting twice in the same edition. They started with urban sprawls, then they did boarding actions, and now the new thing is fighting on an oil rig. Warcry, however, never transitioned to a significantly different locale. I have a strong suspicion if they changed the terrain and scenario significantly we'd see a big jump in player count. A Mordheim/Frostgrave Urban sprawl would be welcome.
Let's talk about the Cypher lords. They were sold in a box of 16 for AOS. Im witch army could they be used?
They were previously Slaves to Darkness units in AoS
I doubt its dead, but it sure is changing. Seems like the new way forward with WarCry is releasing units for the AOS factions as stand alone units in WarCry first with unique rules. The last three releases have just been that, KillTeam has drifted that way as well. It makes sense, GWS has too much product to stock any store reasonably, there needs to me more cross DNA in their games, and from a business point of view WarCry should act as a starting point for people to get into AOS. As cool as the unique war bands are, they hurt both of these things more then they helped.
Quick question, I have the warcry catacombs set - are the starter sets new editions with different rules? Could I buy the core rulebook without invalidating the resources in the set? Cheers
I think so? But honestly, I’m not sure - I never got Catacombs or Red Harvest. Thanks for watching!
Short version, I think you'd be fine but I haven't tried it myself yet. There's very little difference to the game play rules between the 1st and 2nd editions of Warcry, so I think you'd be able to combine 2nd ed with Catacombs. You might find the shadow stalkers slightly disadvantaged, because I think their Reaction (in 2nd, models can spend an action during the opponent's turn when attacked, to choose a reaction from a very short list plus a warband-specific one) is a movement ability but I can't think of any other obstacles. The campaign system is very different but you would just have to choose which one to use, if any. The stats and points for fighters were rebalanced for 2nd ed as well; those are in the compendia that can be downloaded from the GW website. The Scions are in the Warbands of the Eightpoints document and the Khainites are in one of the Order files. Or you can just agree with whoever you're playing to keep using the original fighter cards. There might still be a downloadable "light" version of the 2nd edition rules as well.
@@TheKrenshar thanks a lot! Found the downloads from gw, should be okay now cheers
I think that for both Kill Team and Warcry we are seeing the new release structure. Going forward at the beginning of the edition you will get the big starter box and then it will be followed by the new smaller sets with one piece of additional terrain and the each individual war band. Both WH40k and AoS essentially do it this way in terms of large box complete with rules, cards etc. The large Warcry boxes are costly to ship and take up a lot of shelf space in your local GW store. Additionally, after you have bought the first large box you don’t need to repurchase another box full of dice, tokens and similar terrain. The new packaging is the same size as Combat Patrol and the new Spearhead boxes. Which leads to storage and shipping synergies. All the game boards for WH40k, AoS, Warcry, Kill Team, and Underworlds are designed to ship in the uniform box size. Additionally , while unfortunate I think it is necessary to pare back the ranges. There are too many skus to keep in stock and unique rule sets have lead to significant bloat in certain AoS armies. Finally, the recent model releases in both KillTeam and Warcry are amazing. I don’t think Warcry is going away. I think that the product has been better designed to offer customers a way to purchase warbands, terrain and the game in more modular pieces that also helps GW optimize display, storage and shipping.
I have the original warcry box (best starter ever?) plus almost all the books prior to 2.0 which I never got so I will continue playing with my friends regardless. I would also love to hear more thoughts from you about the state of WH Underworlds. IMO this was the best gateway game on the pre-pandemic market and the one that brought me into the hobby.
I really doubt they’ll rid of the new player friendly gateway plasticocaine. I just started playing and I might expand to AoS at some point, but not in the near future.
GW seems to have a very strange counter-intuitive financial strategy that I struggled to comprehend 30 years ago and still struggle to understand. What you describe though appears to be very similar to they did just a few years ago with Necromunda Hive Wars with the lighter rules and not including the full rulebook. Now full disclosure I do not play either War Cry or Necromunda but continually look to GWs other games for ways to add to the GW games I do play, which rings true with your last statement as my most played game is Space Hulk and I recently looked at the Necromunda boxes for additional terrain to take the map tile three dimensional with a large full table game mat. As I investigate these other games I am always looking to see if it is something I want to pickup for the intended game as well to justify the hefty price tag GW requires. I have found the small gateway game boxes perfect for what I tend to both play and create expansions for my favorite games. The Space Marine Adventures Doomsday Countdown was a huge hit for me, which I then went on to expand the war bands of both sides as well as lite rules for versus games more reminiscent of Space Hulk. As GW rarely ever supports these games with additional content, it relieves me of any disillusion that they may, forcing me to do it myself. I am nearly finished with the 2nd Doomsday Countdown expansion that replaces the Chaos faction with Genestealer Cultists and incorporates an AI inspired by the Deathwatch Overkill Gambit cards. I enjoy creating these just as much as I enjoy playing them. For your sake I hope they continue to support the game you most enjoy.
Random question do you know of an army painter wash that is close to sepia color?
They've delicately wound down the Killteam releases as well, but the big boxes server to sell faster than they can make them, so do sure about the logic there. Perhaps making train is difficult for them. The current 40k terrain is very boring compared to the 8th edition Sector Imperialarlus stuff.
Sorry swipey phone keyboard correct messed that up.
I really would be surprised warcry would disappear. Mainly because necromunda is still a thing. Maybe that will go away too?
I'd not be completely surprised if they turned Warcry into Mordheim. I remember seeing "Cities of Sigmar" units coming out, and if they pulled the rats for a remodel, it could be the direction they're going. Especially if Old World gets any push.
Warcry is a Specialist Games department game that uses Mainline AOS minis. With the current crack down of separating model lines, in addition to everything else you mentioned, it's not looking good.
Another great vlog, very thought provoking.
As someone new to the game over the past year, I went a bit berserk and bought all the huge box sets and was also surprised by the shift in direction to smaller boxes and separating the terrain. I also find it strange that they don't seem to go all-in for competitive play (same for Kill Team) as they do for AoS and 40k. I also agree that the decommission of so many armies is strange, but my hope this indicates a new season with a new setting. Or maybe they're waiting to see if Spearhead with AoS v4 will replace Warcy? We'll have to see. But, like you, I've really enjoyed Warcry for its short and well structured play.
Rumour mill is suggesting they are dropping it (or shifting it) for a mordheim remake. Could be total nonsense, but you never know.
Kill Team is highly competitive. Warcry is an incredible amount of fun, I love it personally, but it's a bit too swingy with dice rolls to really fit a competitive scene.
My view on GW's whole OOP fiasco: Given what I know of GW in the past, it's unlikely that they'll keep selling the minis BUT they will likely retain rules for the foreseeable future at least; the proof for me is the massive number of supported bladeborn units that you can't actually buy but still have rules for. However, I am all for GW removing support for minis that people can't actually buy; the game shouldn't be pay £100 on EBay for Horns of hashut boxes to win events. As for the packaging of new warcry product; GW are doing the exact same thing with Killteam so again, nothing new there. Recently pretty much every AoS and WH:U product has got warcry rules also and (shipping issues aside) we are getting new actual Warcry Warbands every quarter. Tl;dr I'm not worried about it.
I am not sure if I will get into Warcry. I wanted to recently, but with the current starter box it is not really a thing for me. I own already all of the models included and the terrain is rather rudimentary. The former box sets are no longer available here in Austria, except for exorbitant high costs, like 300 Euro a box, delivery not included. From the USA or GB the prices may be cheaper, but the customs are rather high, so I am again at a similar price. Maybe I will buy only the core rule book for now. What rules in addition you might suggest should I consider to buy when I want to start the game today? As I said I have both warbands from the current startet (Vampire, Stormcast) and I have the Darkoath Savagers and The Splintered Fang miniatures as well. I don't have any monsters so far.
At worst, I'm hoping that the warbands just get put on a rotating made to order schedule where like each quarter a few warbands become available and then they only have to produce enough to fulfill orders. So if you want one of those old warbands, they would be available from time to time and in the meantime there are plenty of other warbands available to play. As for getting into Warcry, you can just buy the rule book, download the compendiums from Warhammer-Community, and then just buy the mini's you need to to create a warband. And if you aren't trying to play at an official GW event or store, some warbands can be made from 3rd party mini's. I don't think Warcry fans need to be concerned just yet. I think they just realized many people either wanted just the warbands (because they already had terrain) or just wanted the terrain (because they already had the warbands they wanted). I know during the original season of Warcry, box two was the only one I bought in full, while I picked up everything but the warbands from boxes one and three cheaply on Ebay as I really didn't want the included warbands.
Maybe when your product is something someone enjoys after a long period of both saving for and building the thing wich can take months, maybe a year or more for some ppl. it could be a mistake judging success of that kinda product quarterly like regular retail.
every time people post this, I keep replying that in the hopes that GW sees. I have spent the most money on warcry thees past few years (handful of release combo boxes plus some books) and it is my most played game and my gf's only game. I hope they keep it, it is my fav
GW is at that critical point where they are making more money than ever, but their model production capacity has hit a pretty big choke point: they now have to decide if they want to expand, which I think they are, and until that capacity is online some plastic will get made and some won’t. It’s going to be hit or miss for models for awhile I fear, and terrain might be a big afterthought.
I was using Untamed Beasts for my Marauders of Chaos in Old World; now my project is scrapped three kits in.
Just wait, been seeing rumours that Legions Imperalis hasn't been the hit they wanted it to be and are reconsidering it's future.
I quite like the crypt of blood box, I picked it up on release for like £50 or something, I like trying new games but I don't always want to spend loads on a box with two big armies before I know if I like the game. I also like how the book that comes with the box is very hand holdy, that works well for a caveman such as myself who can get overwhelmed with new rules. My one complaint is that book had a lot of errors, for example one of the starter missions you're trying our how melee works, one model goes down to one wound and then in the next paragraph they take more damage so should be removed but GW forgot that and they're back to full health. And once me and my friend were done learning how to play the game we sold it on to move onto the full game.
I think there is a rumour that Warcry will become another version of Mortheim next year. I might be terribly wrong here right now but I hope it will be true.
I can't wait for Briar and Bone. While I do see the stealth price hike I really like this release structure. I'd much rather have 2 teams plus one terrain/scatter terrain and have the choice to buy the terrain separately. They are doing the same thing with Kill Team as well, which I really appreciate. Considering these are the only 2 GW games I play I hope they both stay in production, although I wouldn't mind a setting shift for Warcry. Edit: I do wish they'd include the team rules in the Kill Team individual boxes like they do for Warcry warbands.
It's more than a little frustrating and discouraging being a new mini painter but not yet wargamer looking at all the games available, and trying to figure out what is a) likely to find people to play with locally b) still going to be available two years from now and c) doesn't cost an arm and both legs. I'm currently painting up some cheap minis for one page rules age of fantasy skirmish, but I'm far from confident that I'll be able to find anyone else interested. At least I get painting practice on cheap minis and can experiment by myself to find out if I actually like wargames. And there's definitely D&D groups around that would probably be happy to have someone show up with a bag full of minis and a willingness to learn D&D.
Great insight! I got into Warcry because I wanted a fantasy experience like Kill Team. It’s an easier game, but they have downplayed the create your own warband. They focused on the Chaos factions they are discontinuing. Plus, a lot of old school models went back to Old World. I want a skirmish game with old world fantasy. I feel your pain about really liking something and it going away though.
I think Dana said something about warcry in her most recent video where she thinks they're still going to have the game but it will be focusing a completely different narrative now where it'll be like the skaven vs stormcast with tons of "cities" terrain.
to be honest, i prefer the new way of doing warcry. I am coming down with terrain at home, I have been saying that GW should have been doing this for an age. They have also done this with Kill Team. Again i approve. Do i think Warcry is on its way out...yes. It is clearly apparent GW is desperately trying to reduce the model range across the board. This may lead to some systems doing the way of the Doodoo. Its happened before when GW killed off Specialist Games and became a two game system company and that was more hurtful that what they are doing now, but you can argue that GW as having massive problem with production of models, for example the Kill Team Terrain boxset has been out of print pretty much since it first run sold out. Reducing there model range will A) allow them to produce models that have a higher demand and B) free up needs space in the warhouse for said product. Also GW will be looking at their own stores to see, as they only have so much space on the shelves and can display everything. I remember going into a GW in London 2yrs ago to get some aeronautica models and they kept them in an old cardboard box in the back of the shop as they had nowhere to display them. I knew then that the game was doomed, and completed my SM force a month later before they went out of print. Welcome to the GW purge people. Its happening so say goodbye to old models and underperforming game systems.
I completely understand the concerns with the amount of winding down, and phasing out that even very recent things seem to be. But we know that there are lots of production issues, and I assume they are having to look at how to cut their model range down, most likely by getting rid of things that don’t sell as well. At the end of the day GW is a corporation, not a person, it has no feelings, it isn’t out to get you, and it isn’t out to please you, it exists to bring in a profit by brining in new clients and selling new products.
As someone that only plays Warcry and Underworlds from GW, hopefully it sticks around. Warcry has given me so much good terrain across the board as well which is cool.
A Warcry Warband or Kill Team exists as a whole/list doesn't change much. So people only need to make that initial purchase, which is a better lower option point to play the game. Warcry and Kill Team also don't have that 'continual/consistent' sales, as much as the larger game variants require you to to keep purchasing more products. W40k/AoS, you need to construct a much larger army force and which requires more boxes purchased, and you have to update it generally also. Probably just comes down to sales, they want more people buying AoS and 40k products.
Kill Team is also going to the same sales model as Warcry (1 big season terrain box; multiple little "army" boxes). This could be an indicator of long term support. But it could also be indicator of it being shut down. Who knows with GW.
Aw dang. I want some of those warband boxes too. Have to see if I can raise funds selling space marines...
Ive got a feeling if it does survive it will become more like kill team, where its less boutique warbands and more a vehicle to add units to existing armies.
10:03 This is actually a known thing, the people who buy the ice cream line that fails are the same ones that buy the failing clothing lines, toys and games or whatever. A lot of money goes into finding these people so companies know what not to make, the term is "Harbingers of Failure"
Its not a bad thing for Warcry to be condensing its box sets. Iv heard similar to KT that people were tired of spending money on terrain and books they didnt need. Secondly, with focus on just models, its way cheaper than those quarter box sets. Also I still dont understand why people keep assuming because GW removed a lot of Slaves to Darkness warbands, that Warcry is going away. When in actuality its just slimming down the StD range so they dont have to make rules for 15 battleline units. GW is lazy, its simple as that. They dont care about your unique warband for your StD army as much as they do slimming down AoS. Killteam doesnt get treated this way because theres no faction with 12 or so teams that need rules for 40k.
Remove Goliaths and Escher etc. from Necromunda, then go to the necromunda community as say "I dont understand why people think necromunda is going away just because they removed the core of the game it is based on". Enjoy the responses.
@@Colorcrayons you literally missed my point. No other faction in Warcry and Killteam has so many different warbands. Removing most of them, which are older, doesnt mean the game is going anywhere. GW just doesnt care to sell them anymore. Even in the article it mentions the Darkoath being their mortal worship replacements. Early Warcry was GW having fun coming up with wacky cool worshippers of chaos. That time is over as the game continues to progress towards warbands that closely follow the factions they are within. Trying to compare random warbands to entire gangs in a system is foolish and quite laughable. GW didnt remove Slaves to Darkness or Chaos from Warcry just the niche warbands that were hardly selling anyways.
I mean the boxes being split has happened to kill team n i doubt they’d drop kill team, also wasn’t there decent amount of talk in the community about not wanting/needing the terrain in the same boxes??
The splitting of the boxes isn’t the important part exactly (except for the stealth price hike, of course) because, as you said, Kill Team is doing the same. It’s mostly the disappearance of so many of the old warbands and the low-effort starter box that makes me nervous. Thanks for watching!
@@tabletopminions true true
In the notice about all the Age of Sigmar models being retired, the mention of the Warcry bands going away, it seemed to specifically say that they won't be supported as troops for AoS Slaves to Darkness armies; the new Darkoath models are supposed to be mainstay troops.
This doesn't disprove your possible Warcry theory, just that the column did specifically state: "With the arrival of the Darkoath, the Slaves to Darkness have finally found their definitive mortal followers. This means that a number of warbands representing the wider worshippers of Chaos in the Mortal Realms will be retiring from the spotlight - and the range. This mostly involves warbands from the previous edition of Warcry, as well as Khagra’s Ravagers from Warhammer Underworlds - but they’ll all get Legends warscrolls." I think that the original Warcry warbands fell behind the power curve when game opened up to all the other factions from AoS. Those original chaos warbands were designed to fight against each other; they had trouble competing against high toughness warbands like Stormcast, Orruks & Nighthaunt and other powerful armies that had greater access to ranged weapons tended to pick them apart (in my experience). Those original chaos warbands were designed to fight against each other, they didn't get updated properly to handle the influx of the other factions. 2nd edition warbands did better (though the Horns of Hashut warband still plays like a 1st edition warband, so maybe that's why it is being removed). BTW: I agree with you about the Warcry game, it is one of the best rulesets that GW has put together and almost every game I have played has been a nail-biter. The game system achieves what it set out to do and that is regularly balance game play!
Maybe. That being said, I think a comparison to Kill Team is in order. Obviously a 40k game will have certain built in advantages over an AoS game. However, Kill Team (in it's latest iteration) has, almost, only produced bespoke warbands that directly tie into existing (they still do go somewhere, but yes breachers, arbites, rogue trader, and that weird nurgle one paired with rogue traders don't smoothly fit) armies. Warcry in the beginning was truly doing out there stand alone warbands that were under the banner of Slaves to Darkness, but clearly weren't really designed to be AoS units. Kill Teams ARE designed to slot into their parent armies. And thats more what we're seeing now. Warcry warbands designed to partially or in full, integrate into already existing AoS armies. I'm hopefuly the original Warcry warbands will be re-stocked and rebranded as exclusively Warcry products, but I also understand GW needing to trim the number of skus they're keeping active. What gives me more hope is every warband that has a direct AoS parent army, and more importantly, fits into that army (note, the Darkoath Warcry warband isn't going anywhere) is still available and that the releases going forward will be that, warbands that tie into existing armies. It isn't as creative or cool, but it would likely be a more sure sales strategy, and if helps the game stay alive, and perhaps even grow, awesome.
I love your insights, but hate it when you are right. I bought a starter and had a master plan of this being a starter/gateway game for my regular gaming group. COVID happened and it kind of fell into the back of my mental closet. Now that I have time to get back into it this sucks if true.