Stuff is going fairly well with Warcrow, and we arrive at part 7 of this magnificent series. Enjoy this one, as this will be a deep dive into the Commanders from the Warcrow Battle Box. What is all this I hear you say? What?! Did you not read the previous 6 parts of this great series about the most anticipated game of 2024!? Read all about Warcrow, here on the Bloggotron 5000!
If you feel you need this game already and are convinced this is indeed the game of the year… go to our shop and get the Warcrow battle box Winds from the North as one of the first to order it!
Do know, that we base our Warcrow information upon what we know so far. The given info could be subject to changes. Don’t shoot me again, shoot the one changing them.
Warcrow : Alborc and Dragoslav
Let’s start off with the two named characters in the Warcrow battle box. For the Northern tribes Alborc and for Embersig, Dragoslav.
Starting at the top, Alborc is 50 points and gives 3 command tokens. Drago is 40 points and gives the same amount. Looking at the core stats, the total move is the same per move skill at 5, whilst Alborc has two more extra strides in his charge. Alborc seems more buffed with 1 more wound, but his willpower is a yellow dice less than Drago’s. Moral is the same and, as characters, their availability is the same at 1.
Moving to the characteristics and keywords, both share character, their race and high command. This last meaning that, if fielded in a force, they have to be the army commander and there can’t be any other units in your list with this characteristic.
Both have “join”, letting them tag into specific units in their army. Both have elite, which lets them convert hollow results on dice to solid ones. Often these results wouldn’t have any effect, so being able to convert any and all of them into successes is pretty damn good. But you don’t HAVE to… Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Switches… More on them in a minute.
Drago also has the bloodlust Varank. This means that if he’s not engaged in combat and there’s a Varank unit in charge range, he has to charge it. Then, when he did, he gets to reroll attach dice against that unit as long as they are engaged. Great for damage output, not so great if your enemy can control what Drago does by good Varank positioning.
Attacks and Defense
Starting with Drago. He has range 8, 1 weak yellow dice attack with a built-in hit. No switches or mods on it, just a feisty slap to the communication regions.
In close combat, he has two strong red, two weak yellow and a strong green defense dice. Yup, Drago defends and attacks at the same time! In this case meaning that he can parry attacks, all while turning enemies into gratin. Next to that, he can also take a stress token to add one extra hit and solid exclamation mark to his result. Then he gratins even harder!
Drago also has a switch (here it is) that, if his result includes two exclamation mark, he can give his target the vulnerable condition. If he does, then the next attack against that target may cancel a die with a successful block on it.
For defense, he has two medium blue dice, a built-in block and can push to gain a stress and an extra strong green defense dice.
Alborc is a bit of a beast
With no ranged attack, we get right into the blender part of this monstrosity. One strong red, two orange and an automatic hit are his pool. He can then push to gain a hollow hit and a filled exclamation.
His switches are strong too, with two exclamations that let you cancel a defense from your target and gain an auto hit, or a hollow exclamation giving vulnerable, or a hollow hit giving one stress.
This is where Elite being an optional keyword is important. If you had to convert hollows, then Alborc could never get his switches off. Being optional, you can choose to push to gain a hollow hit, then use that as a switch to give out stress OR use Elite to convert that hollow hit into a solid hit to end a target. As Elite is applied after all dice, rerolls and switches, you can make that choice after you’ve got a clear view of the combat’s outcome.
On defense, Alborc has two medium blue dice and a weak black, with the option to push to roll a strong red attack dice and gain an auto hit. That’s nice!
Alborc has much more reliable damage output than Drago, even with his defense including the option to slice up your opponent. So, What does Drago do then. Back to the Drago Studio!
First off, we have on the right the conquest value, which is how much weight these two add to controlling an objective. With 0, Alborc doesn’t help when controlling an objective. Drago most certainly does. With objectives being central to winning a game, this is very important.
On to Abilities
Drago time. The Anvil command skill buffs a unit’s conquest value by 2. Again, this is key for winning the game, so really important.
Inspiring leadership is a passive ability that lets units use his will power when making power checks. These are uses for a range of things including rallying troops, ignoring certain conditions and abilities. This is a really nice buff to keep your units in the fight and functional.
Alborc, by comparison has the Warg and the Crow command ability to use once per round. This lets an activated Orc unit trigger a Varank unit to complete a single action, or vice versa. This extra action doesn’t count as the triggered unit activating, so does not lose its activation. It also doesn’t gain a stress token.
Passive abilities
War Alliance allows characters who can join Orc units to join Varank units, and the second, Sword of the Sun, buffs Alborc when he is hurt. First, he gains dispel, so he can start to cancel magic attacks, and he gains a yellow attack dice to his attack and defense rolls.
Both can join units, so have the Character unit portion of their profile here too.
Drago brings his willpower and an extra morale to any unit he joins. He then adds a hit to all attacks and can push to add a second. He also adds a successful defense and can push to add an extra strong green defense dice.
Furthermore, he then adds two to the unit’s conquest value, which is nice as it makes him stronger in a unit than out at controlling objectives. The anvil command ability remains, so that +2 conquest value to a friendly unit stays, so he is now adding 4 conquest to the army on his own.
Nobody falls under my command passive lets you reroll any defense dice… awesome!
Alborc by comparison, brings his willpower, +1 morale, an extra hit in combat, an extra success in defense and no conquest value. There are no pushes added in there either. Simple, solid, reliable but not so potent. All of his abilities go, bar the Warg and the Crow.
Alborc is a lonely-fired cannonball and if you even try to hit back, Sword of the Sun makes it even worst for the unit trying. If you add him to a unit, he loses all of his passive abilities and becomes a quiet little fluffy eh… thing they call cute in Lindwurm.
That’s enough Warcrow for today!
So, that’s the first of a 3-part episode 7. Yes, you will be treated to 3x the fun this week, since there is just too much information to put it in one big read.
All aboard the Warcrow hype train, next station, the Hetman and the Wraithmane!
