Only have around a dozend games of Warcry under my belt but I'd much rather play a warband with some flavor than just picking the ones with highest dmg output.
Thanks for the vid. I definitely appreciate the conversation. The hardest thing is when you come in with Hrothgorn Ogors completely ignorant of the power gap to a new store, new group of people & completely alter the local meta because you just happened to have them sitting on a shelf & wanted to try the game.
We had a similar situation in the fighting game community. In 90s arcades nobody knew shit. We'd get these nerds who had access to BBSs and have FAQs downloaded. They had all the moves and were like holders of arcane knowledge. Then later people would horde knowledge calling it "discord tech". In a way it kinda stinks to have established metas for me. If I happen upon something that is considered meta it takes away what would have been my expression and I just look like a meta chaser
I don't believe that the game is 'solved' yet but imo it kind of depends on people wanting to look into different fighters and warbands to get around the best playstyles.
The discovery process is my favourite part of Warcry. Whether that is taking a maligned warband like Cypher Lords and finding out how to make them tick, or taking something new like VFS and grinding every permutation of unit combination to find the perfect balance. Like you said, this comes from ye olde days of Warhammer during the infancy of the internet. The downside of those times was always the individuals finances hindering them from engaging fully in that aspect. With the dawn of the internet, we have so many ways to fast track progression and list building, but we’ve also got the tools to experiment for free. The discovery process has been somewhat lost, but with TTS, the means to fully engage in the hobby and that process have never been more accessible. I am all for people net listing if that’s what they want to do. But I will always push for people to find things and make it their own. Warcry is not a solved game and metas change and develop when new eyes take a crack at old things
I play a LOT for fun. Salty did a list last week, and I was surprised to see my favorite, fun-to-play warbands are just so low on the competitive side. But then there are DICE and wow I’ve had terrible DAYS where I’m seeing 1s, 2s, etc Meta cannot help against dice gods.
For Chaos, I have Chaos Legionnaires and a Centaurion, as well as a beast lord and a beast shaman that I can use as proxy for other stuffs. Love the models, I know some of their abilities don't feel worth it, but those are the ones that got me into Warcry. For Death, mostly SBG with skeletons with a "skeleton" bonemarrow herald and the Headman's Curse for a "Failed Arthurian Legends" theme. I have a variety of heroes so I can build some thematic lists. I love skelly boys, and even if some are way better heroes, you can't beat good old wight king trio. For Order, Hexbane and Xandire. I didn't want to make an Order warband, thought they were thematically boring until I found Order of Azyr, which is basically Old World Witch Hunters. Also, doggoes. And Xandire is a good build option, and fits how Stormcast Eternals should feel like, rare and accompanying basic human forces. Also, love the visual of a lantern piercing the darkness around the battlefield. Not sure for Destruction yet, might go just Goblin cavalry and bouncing around.
I mostly play regular AoS, but I completely agree with people becoming lazy in list building due to the internet. Lots of people that want to be competitive go for variations of netlists. Funny thing is, you also regularly see a single person showing up with something completely off meta but powerful and winning major tournaments. You can really profit from thinking outside the box.
I understand the point of the "that saw no-one coming" all to well. Recently, I managed to win a Warhammer Underworlds tournament with the unlikely combination of Elathain's Soulraid with Force of Frost (the caster deck, even though the Idoneth don't sport a magic user) Nemesis concoction, instead of the regular suspect Toxic Terror. I beat all the usual "net list uberbands" like Ephilim with Force of Frost and Domitan with Seismic Shock. Everyone was suprised by the speed I scored a glory lead, because no-one realised (now they do it seems hehe) that Elathain and the Frost deck share a lot of similar objectives, resulting in being able to score glory often for doing the same thing, or in case of a good draw even score double points for one action. For me, the win was of course great (we are in a tournament), but the satisfaction of finding something I never saw anywhere pop-up made it very, very satisfying.
Warband strength 'good' or 'bad' is all highly relative to who they're fighting and what mission you're playing. You can have a terrific game between 2 low power teams when evenly matched. Which is all that really matters outside of tournaments which most of us are never playing anyways
For casual players, I think the question is not "Are bad warbands bad", or "Do I have to buy 2-3 boxes per warband to git gud?", but more, are the warcry boxes - old and new - balanced to each other? I just started Warcry, still painting up the terrain, but if you have to make an investment of 3-400$ (exaggerated) to be top tier, meta competitive, then why even bother? For me, it's more fun that I can just buy a box and use it as is against friends that do just the same.
This is kind of what we were alluding to during the video; if someone is playing casually then for the most part the warcry bespoke boxes are balanced (ish) against eachother. Its true that some are better then others but for the most part if you play a variety of missions, the wins even out imo.
This is a Great conversation! I’ll need to visit your guests channel! I play for fun only, though it’s still nice to win at least some of the time. And that’s what I’m after, play what you like and hopefully most boxed sets are balanced against each other. I’m collecting the older Warbands, and want to take a Warband through a campaign, fighting all the others along the way. I do have some 2 box Warbands, but that’s about as Meta as I get, aside from an ally. If I use AoS Warbands, I make sure that they’re not too strong vs a boxed set.
That's it right? It happens with pretty much all games where people talk about whats the best, or whats meta when in reality it only affects maybe the top 10% of actual players in an event or playgroup :)
Excited to see how the person in comp league this month will do with the thricefold and 2 ogroids. Seems hella wack but potentially quite spooky. Also the vashtiss and stormvermin combo crazy good
Two of my friends and I just picked up some Warcry stuff to start having a play, haven't had our first game yet though. I randomly picked Askurgan Trueblades because they looked cool and, if I'm being totally honest, I mistook them for humans (yes I'm that guy who always plays a human), and so was overjoyed to subsequently see they were the first ones to land in shit tier in your tier list video 😂🙃 This video was a nice counter though, so thanks. I will give them my best go!
Hah, I'm sorry about the Trueblades XD That being said, I'm right now writing a video for the supposed 'worst' warbands in the game and taking a serious look into listbuilding with them so watch this space :)
Loved the chat! You handsome men are great! Rob: there was no guides for WoW back when the internet was a wild west. Me: my brother in christ. WoW-head existed >.
Funny you mention Pyregheists, I took them for a spin straight out the box on Sunday, played 4 won 2 against various none warcry specialist teams. I agree their gimmick is pretty hard to get anything out of (I didn’t manage it) but that to one side they were fun to play and the fly and none cremate abilities were really good fun to play. So yeah I think labelling warbands as bad/writing them off is a huge problem for Warcry.
I have this thing with DoK. I've always wanted to have them, and im not interested in AoS as a game, but having them for WC is a nice alternative. They may not be meta (and im not a tournament player)but they have lovely models. :)
The thing with tierlists, and talks about what is good or not, is that they only really take a snapshot of the tournament scene at the time; For casual play anything goes as long as you dig the minis and are having fun rolling dice at people :)
I think that whilst it's true for the bulk of warbands it doesn't matter; especially in pre-april 2024 format there was still such a big difference between the top and bottom warbands that even two new players into the game would notice it.
I think one of the interesting quirks let's say, (at least from my polling and view rates) is that even casual players have an interest in competetive content and what's going on in events so that skews listbuilding somewhat even in those playerbases that wouldn't ever see the inside of an event hall.
Only have around a dozend games of Warcry under my belt but I'd much rather play a warband with some flavor than just picking the ones with highest dmg output.
100% Not to say that warbands that have flavour and damage output don't exist but I love to see players figuring those combos out :)
Thanks for the vid. I definitely appreciate the conversation. The hardest thing is when you come in with Hrothgorn Ogors completely ignorant of the power gap to a new store, new group of people & completely alter the local meta because you just happened to have them sitting on a shelf & wanted to try the game.
We had a similar situation in the fighting game community. In 90s arcades nobody knew shit. We'd get these nerds who had access to BBSs and have FAQs downloaded. They had all the moves and were like holders of arcane knowledge. Then later people would horde knowledge calling it "discord tech". In a way it kinda stinks to have established metas for me. If I happen upon something that is considered meta it takes away what would have been my expression and I just look like a meta chaser
I don't believe that the game is 'solved' yet but imo it kind of depends on people wanting to look into different fighters and warbands to get around the best playstyles.
The discovery process is my favourite part of Warcry. Whether that is taking a maligned warband like Cypher Lords and finding out how to make them tick, or taking something new like VFS and grinding every permutation of unit combination to find the perfect balance.
Like you said, this comes from ye olde days of Warhammer during the infancy of the internet. The downside of those times was always the individuals finances hindering them from engaging fully in that aspect.
With the dawn of the internet, we have so many ways to fast track progression and list building, but we’ve also got the tools to experiment for free. The discovery process has been somewhat lost, but with TTS, the means to fully engage in the hobby and that process have never been more accessible.
I am all for people net listing if that’s what they want to do. But I will always push for people to find things and make it their own. Warcry is not a solved game and metas change and develop when new eyes take a crack at old things
listen to this man! he knows what's up!
@@OffMetaMusings I have the occasional nugget of wisdom. I am the Wheelcry D Tier Champion after all XD
I play a LOT for fun. Salty did a list last week, and I was surprised to see my favorite, fun-to-play warbands are just so low on the competitive side. But then there are DICE and wow I’ve had terrible DAYS where I’m seeing 1s, 2s, etc Meta cannot help against dice gods.
ah yeah, the only guaranteed way to win is to decide that you only want to roll crits and quads XD
For sure. Some warbands need less dice to do work or have a higher statistical chance to do work , but 1-2s cannot help you!
For Chaos, I have Chaos Legionnaires and a Centaurion, as well as a beast lord and a beast shaman that I can use as proxy for other stuffs. Love the models, I know some of their abilities don't feel worth it, but those are the ones that got me into Warcry.
For Death, mostly SBG with skeletons with a "skeleton" bonemarrow herald and the Headman's Curse for a "Failed Arthurian Legends" theme. I have a variety of heroes so I can build some thematic lists. I love skelly boys, and even if some are way better heroes, you can't beat good old wight king trio.
For Order, Hexbane and Xandire. I didn't want to make an Order warband, thought they were thematically boring until I found Order of Azyr, which is basically Old World Witch Hunters. Also, doggoes. And Xandire is a good build option, and fits how Stormcast Eternals should feel like, rare and accompanying basic human forces. Also, love the visual of a lantern piercing the darkness around the battlefield.
Not sure for Destruction yet, might go just Goblin cavalry and bouncing around.
I mostly play regular AoS, but I completely agree with people becoming lazy in list building due to the internet. Lots of people that want to be competitive go for variations of netlists. Funny thing is, you also regularly see a single person showing up with something completely off meta but powerful and winning major tournaments. You can really profit from thinking outside the box.
100%
I understand the point of the "that saw no-one coming" all to well. Recently, I managed to win a Warhammer Underworlds tournament with the unlikely combination of Elathain's Soulraid with Force of Frost (the caster deck, even though the Idoneth don't sport a magic user) Nemesis concoction, instead of the regular suspect Toxic Terror. I beat all the usual "net list uberbands" like Ephilim with Force of Frost and Domitan with Seismic Shock. Everyone was suprised by the speed I scored a glory lead, because no-one realised (now they do it seems hehe) that Elathain and the Frost deck share a lot of similar objectives, resulting in being able to score glory often for doing the same thing, or in case of a good draw even score double points for one action. For me, the win was of course great (we are in a tournament), but the satisfaction of finding something I never saw anywhere pop-up made it very, very satisfying.
Warband strength 'good' or 'bad' is all highly relative to who they're fighting and what mission you're playing. You can have a terrific game between 2 low power teams when evenly matched. Which is all that really matters outside of tournaments which most of us are never playing anyways
For casual players, I think the question is not "Are bad warbands bad", or "Do I have to buy 2-3 boxes per warband to git gud?", but more, are the warcry boxes - old and new - balanced to each other? I just started Warcry, still painting up the terrain, but if you have to make an investment of 3-400$ (exaggerated) to be top tier, meta competitive, then why even bother? For me, it's more fun that I can just buy a box and use it as is against friends that do just the same.
This is kind of what we were alluding to during the video; if someone is playing casually then for the most part the warcry bespoke boxes are balanced (ish) against eachother. Its true that some are better then others but for the most part if you play a variety of missions, the wins even out imo.
Love this discussion. Really glad you brought out this video after all the negativity around Warcry's balance recently.
Glad to hear it!
This is a Great conversation! I’ll need to visit your guests channel! I play for fun only, though it’s still nice to win at least some of the time. And that’s what I’m after, play what you like and hopefully most boxed sets are balanced against each other. I’m collecting the older Warbands, and want to take a Warband through a campaign, fighting all the others along the way. I do have some 2 box Warbands, but that’s about as Meta as I get, aside from an ally. If I use AoS Warbands, I make sure that they’re not too strong vs a boxed set.
That's it right? It happens with pretty much all games where people talk about whats the best, or whats meta when in reality it only affects maybe the top 10% of actual players in an event or playgroup :)
Excited to see how the person in comp league this month will do with the thricefold and 2 ogroids. Seems hella wack but potentially quite spooky. Also the vashtiss and stormvermin combo crazy good
re. Vashtiss, I may or may not be looking at a version of that list for my next event... will keep everyone posted
Two of my friends and I just picked up some Warcry stuff to start having a play, haven't had our first game yet though.
I randomly picked Askurgan Trueblades because they looked cool and, if I'm being totally honest, I mistook them for humans (yes I'm that guy who always plays a human), and so was overjoyed to subsequently see they were the first ones to land in shit tier in your tier list video 😂🙃
This video was a nice counter though, so thanks. I will give them my best go!
Hah, I'm sorry about the Trueblades XD That being said, I'm right now writing a video for the supposed 'worst' warbands in the game and taking a serious look into listbuilding with them so watch this space :)
Loved the chat! You handsome men are great!
Rob: there was no guides for WoW back when the internet was a wild west.
Me: my brother in christ. WoW-head existed >.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I needed wow-head more than I want to admit
@@FamilyTabletopNight haha for real right. it was the one-stop bible for the game at the time.
Funny you mention Pyregheists, I took them for a spin straight out the box on Sunday, played 4 won 2 against various none warcry specialist teams. I agree their gimmick is pretty hard to get anything out of (I didn’t manage it) but that to one side they were fun to play and the fly and none cremate abilities were really good fun to play. So yeah I think labelling warbands as bad/writing them off is a huge problem for Warcry.
Love your stuff warband idea - akhleian king, isharan soulrender, elathain ill fated, tammael, namarti thrall x3
I have this thing with DoK. I've always wanted to have them, and im not interested in AoS as a game, but having them for WC is a nice alternative. They may not be meta (and im not a tournament player)but they have lovely models. :)
The thing with tierlists, and talks about what is good or not, is that they only really take a snapshot of the tournament scene at the time; For casual play anything goes as long as you dig the minis and are having fun rolling dice at people :)
@@OffMetaMusings Agree! Thank you a lot for the video!
Ah, the ancient question rises again; are you even good enough at the game for tier lists to matter?
I think that whilst it's true for the bulk of warbands it doesn't matter; especially in pre-april 2024 format there was still such a big difference between the top and bottom warbands that even two new players into the game would notice it.
WAAC players are the problem
I think one of the interesting quirks let's say, (at least from my polling and view rates) is that even casual players have an interest in competetive content and what's going on in events so that skews listbuilding somewhat even in those playerbases that wouldn't ever see the inside of an event hall.