Warcry - Cursed Relic

On Saturday afternoon Amanda and I sat down to try out Warcry. 

She wanted to try using her Sylvaneth and so I helped her put together a small warband. I ended up using the same warband I'd used in my game with Vera a few days earlier.

She ended up fielding:

• Kurnoth Huntmaster with Kurnoth Great Sword
• Branchwych
• Kurnoth Hunter with Great Bow
• Kurnoth Hunter with Great Bow
• Gossamid Archer
• Gossamid Archer

The Nighthaunt force I fielded:

• Knight of Shrouds on Etherial Steed
• Dreadblade Harrow
• Dreadblade Harrow
• Chaingast
• Chaingast

We rolled for a scenario and got Cursed Relic, which saw a treasure token placed in the center of the table and could be picked up. Whoever was holding it at the end of the game won. (OR if no one was holding it, whoever had the most miniatures within 3" of it at the end of the game won). Also, the treasure token was cursed, so anyone holding it at the end of their activation took d6 damage!!

All set up and ready to go. 

Apparently treasure tokens can be picked up for free (no special action required), at any part of a move, as long as a model passes within one inch of it...? But it requires an action to drop it... I was surprised that picking something up didn't end a move! I'll have to go back and reread that! 

So, having the initiative in the first round, my Knight of Shrouds galloped up, grabbed the treasure and galloped as far away as he could - back in the direction he'd come from - and then dropped the treasure so he wouldn't have to take any damage from it! 

The Kurnoth Huntmaster moved up a bit, used the Envoy of the Everqueen ability to super-buff every Sylvaneth within 6" of the Huntmaster (because the value of the ability was 6, they added +3 to Strength AND Toughness attributes!)? and then took a wait action. 

The chaingast threw chains at him. 

Kurnoth Hunter took some shots at...? A Chainghast...? I think, dealing some damage. 

One of the Dreadblade Harrows charged in to the Huntmaster, hoping to hold him up and keep him from advancing towards the Knight of Shrouds... it was unlikely the Dreadblade Harrow would deal nearly enough damage to take down the Huntmaster, even if they fought for the next four rounds... 

The Huntmaster reacted and dealt the Dreadblade Harrow some damage. 

Gossamid archers moved up and shot arrows at the Knight of Shrouds. 

Now... initially I'd read the deployment map all wrong... I'd thought my own reinforcements came in behind me, but at the beginning of the second round, when reinforcements were to arrive, I happened to look at the deployment map and realized it was the opposite of what I'd thought and the Sylvaneth reinforcement were coming in behind me! 

WHOOPS! 

Luckily, I again had the initiative, and went first with the Knight of Shrouds, picking up the Cursed Relic (before either of the nearby Sylvaneth did the same and scarpered with it!)... then charged into the Branchwych to see if I could deal some damage to her BEFORE Amanda had a chance to use the Envoy of the Everqueen ability again (as Amanda had rolled ANOTHER Quad set during initiative!?) and give her +3 Toughness and +3 Strength 

As the Branchwych didn't need the ability, the Huntmaster used it and hit the Dreadblade Harrow HARD!!! Bringing it to within one or two of it's Health limit! Later in the round, a Gossamid archer stepped in and finished it off! 

Kurnoth Hunter shot at my arriving reinforcements...

And then I forgot to take pictures for the next two rounds... 

mostly it was static, belligerents had been paired off and just hammered on each other, neither really having much chance of single-handedly taking down their opponent... 

In the third round, the Knight of Shrouds did finish off the Branchwych... 

In the final round, the Knight of Shrouds galloped away from the Gossamid Archer he'd been fighting and tried to get as far from ALL of the Sylvaneth as possible... The Knight of Shrouds had pretty good move, so could easily get far enough that the Kurnoth would not be able to get to him. He needed to be far enough away that, if the shooting took him out, there wouldn't be any Sylvaneth close enough to dash in and pick up the treasure! 

(or perhaps the Gossamid archer had withdrawn from combat and shot at it, and opened the Knight of Shrouds to be an available target for ALL of the Sylvaneth shooters!) 

All the other surviving Nighthaunt rushed to their Knight's aid!surrounding him so that if he was taken down, there'd be enough of them nearby contesting the dropped treasure they would maintain control of the Cursed Relic. 

Afterwards, we realized Amanda has a faction reaction (Vengeful Spites!) that she COULD have made good use of that could potentially have dealt a lot more damage to my Nighthaunts! 

As it was the game was VERY close - the Knight of Shrouds had been reduced to his last few health. In the last round I think I'd used a Respite ability and that is the ONLY reason he was still alive at the end of the game. A bit luckier rolling on Amanda's part could have seen him destroyed by the Branchwych and Gossamid archer he'd been fighting... then the nearby Kurnoth Hunter could have stepped in and picked up the Relic and there was NO WAY I'd have been able to wrest it from that beast by the end of the game! 

Warcry does not seem like an exceptionally deadly kind of game... It's not super easy to take an enemy out unless they're weak and your fighter is exceptionally hard-hitting and/or has some wicked abilities that buff them, or you can get multiple fighters to gang up on one... it seems more like a game of positioning and maneuver. Which is kind of interesting. Maybe we've just not been playing with the right sort of things. I feel like maybe the better strategy is to have 2-3 hard hitting heroes, then a bunch of chaff - as many low-point heroes as possible to hold position or act as speed-bumps to tie up opponents Heroes...? 

It would be fun to toy around with this some more! I do have a LOT of options for forces I could field! 

Drycha Hamadreth - Regent of the Outcasts

I FINALLY finished up Drycha Hamadreth! This model has been sitting on the corner of my painting desk, almost entirely painted for... months now...? I think what was holding me up was not being able to decide how to paint ALL THE BUGS... and in the end I decided to just make them all blue-glowy-spirit-bugs, just to make it simple and get it all done! 

Drycha Hamadreth - Regent of the Outcasts

She can launch a swarm of Flitterfuries as a ranged attack or a swarm of Squirmlings into melee and has some nasty sharp claws of her own! 

ALL the Sylvaneth, so far... 

I still have a pair of Treelords to finish up (a Treelord Ancient and Spirit of Durthu) and fifteen Tree-Reventnats or Spite-Revenants. I could wait until Amanda's played with both to decide which she'd prefer... or I could wait until the new Battletome comes out later this year and see if and how either changes... OR I could just say screw it and make them ALL Spite-Revenants for Drycha Hamadreth - Regent of the Outcasts to lead into battle!! 

Currently this could be fielded as... 

Treelord General’s Regiment 

• Hero - Treelord (1) 210 
• Unit - Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows (3) 200 
• Unit - Tree-Revenants (10) 180 
• Unit - Gossamid Archers (5)  120

Total: 710

Branchwych’s Regiment

• Hero - Branchwych (1) 110 - Any Infantry
• Unit - Dryads (10)  90 - Infantry
• Unit - Dryads (10)  90 - Infantry

Total: 290

Drycha Hamadreth's Regiment 

• Hero - Drycha Hamadreth (1) 220 - 0-1 Forest Sentinel, Any Sylvaneth
• Unit - Spite-Revenants (10) 160 Infantry

Total: 380

Faction Terrain: Awakened Wyldwood

ARMY TOTAL: 1380

The additional Treelords will add another 550points which will bring the force to 1930! The additional Revenants will add 240-270 points of optional extras!

Oh, I think I also have one of the Endless Spells to finish!  

It's Been Kind of Quiet Around Here...

I haven't been painting a lot of miniatures so far this year... 

Partly this is because I've been a bit busy, having returned to school... 

But also earlier this month I injured my shoulder and neck and that's made it pretty painful to sit and paint or assemble miniatures... 

This is really kind of bumming me out as I was REALLY hoping to be playing Warhammer Quest: Darkwater in February, but I still have so many miniatures to paint still!!  

On the plus side... 

(this meme was probably funnier when a friend posted it on their discord just a week into the year!) 

It's a bit more of an actual brag that I made it through January without buying any miniatures! 

Especially considering Dragon's Den Games had three copies of Fury of the Deep and one copy of Warcry Heart of Ghur on their discount shelf at 40% off! The contents of Fury of the Deep I think I calculated to be around $500CAD now... and 40% off the original retail price put it at around $120...? At one point I would not have thought twice about buying that... do I NEED a force of Idoneth Deepkin or Fyreslayers?! Fuck no! But they would be FUN to have a paint up! 

Realistically, I haven't painted more than a unit or two... or maybe a Unit and a character...? from the last three of those old battle boxes I've picked up...

(no... that's not true, I DID paint ALL of the Nighthaunt half of Arena of Shades! That's kind of how I ended up with a Nighthaunt Spearhead Army - after I bought a few more units...) 

I DID pick up the new Nurgle Battletome... but that's about it... 

NONE of the new Nurgle units or the new Nurgle Spearhead army, though! I'll probably pick up that new spearhead - just to get the units it contains (SO MANY NURGLINGS!!) for considerably less than the regular retail price of the individual units! 

(The above image is ©2026 Games Workshop and used here entirely without their permission for the purpose of review)

But only AFTER I have ALL the other Maggotkin of Nurgle stuff I already have done (including the Warhammer Quest Darkwater stuff!)... 

(which is four Pusgoyle Blightlords, five of the older Putrid Blightkings, a Harbinger of Decay, ten Rotmire Creed, a Sloppily Bilepiper, and the Feculent Gnarlmaw... and from Warhammer Quest: Darkwater; a pair of Cankerborn, eight Pestigors, fourteen Poxwretches, and maybe all the Sylvaneth stuff I have... If I add in the Sylvaneth, I have fifteen Spite-Revenants, two Treelords, and Drycha Hamadreth to finish up - though the latter is nearly done!) 

I was pretty excited about the Tzeentch stuff presented at the New Years Preview. There wasn't much in terms of new miniatures - just faction terrain and a mortal infantry hero... 

(The above image is ©2026 Games Workshop and used here entirely without their permission for the purpose of review)

The new faction terrain looks really interesting. 

What also caught my eye was the Battleforce Box being released along with the new Battletome and the new Spearhead - all look fun. There is nothing new in either of those boxes. Just a lot of older miniatures all at deeply discounted prices! 

(The above image is ©2026 Games Workshop and used here entirely without their permission for the purpose of review)

The Battleforce: Warpflame Cavalcade contains a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, three Screamers of Tzeentch, three flamers of Tzeentch, an Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch, a Herald of Tzeentch on Burning Chariot, and ten each of Pink, Blue and Brimstone Horrors! A great big PILE of Daemons! 

(The above image is ©2026 Games Workshop and used here entirely without their permission for the purpose of review)

The Tzaangor Warflock Spearhead is all Tzaangors - a Tzaangor Shaman leading three Tzaangor Enlightened, Three Tzaangor Skyfires, and 10 Tzaangor. 

(The above image is ©2026 Games Workshop and used here entirely without their permission for the purpose of review)

So I'll probably pick up the Battleforce box and Battletome when they're released (as the Battleforce Box  will only be available for a limited time) and then I'll pick up the terrain and the Tzaangor Warflock Spearhead when I finish the daemons in the Battleforce box (and... maybe the Tzeentch Spearhead I already HAVE?!) 

Because, apparently, I need ANOTHER chaos army... 

Hopefully none of it is released until later in March... 

Maybe this will be the YEAR OF CHAOS!! 

Spearhead - Doubles

Late last year, Games Workshop released some Doubles rules for Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Spearhead. So back in December we decided to try it out. Orion  and Nick were coming over to play Soulbound on a Sunday afternoon and brought over her two Soulblight Gravelord armies to play with in the evening after we had some pizza! Orion  and Nick played the Soulblight Gravelord armies, and Amanda and I played with our Sylvaneth and Stormcast Eternal forces, respectively. 

(Originally I'd through of playing the two Khorne Spearhead armies so it could be an Soulblight versus Khorne battle... but Amanda has a hard enough time remembering the rules for the rules for the Sylvaneth that she's played at least half a dozen times, so I thought it would be best to stick with that, and the Stormcast do team up with the Sylvaneth quite regularly in the greater narrative of the Age of Sigmar, so....) 

Orion played the Soulblight Gravelord Deathrattle Tomb Host army and Nick played the Soulblight Gravelord Bloodcrave Hunt. Amanda played the Sylvaneth Bitterbark Copse, and I played the Stormcast Eternal Vigilant Brotherhood.

We had the first go, I advised caution, but Amanda wanted to play aggressively and just go for it... 

So her Treelord advanced and seized an objective... 

The Stormcast also surged forward... 

So both sort of advancing evenly... 

And then the Charge Phase happened 

And the Stormcast swept forward into the Undead lines... 

The Prosecutors took the fight right to the Enemy General! 

It got... messy... 

and drew most of the two spearhead forces into a savage melee! 

and... Amanda and Orions armies just sort of stared at each other across the grassy green fields of Ghyran... 

We took an initial lead in the Victory Points... which really just meant Nick and Orion were the underdogs for the entire game and got all the advantages of being so... 

On the bottom of the first round, Some skeletons charged the Tree-Revenants...

Meanwhile, my Stormcast Eternals were almost entirely destroyed! 

The Lord Veritant took charge of the remaining Liberators and tried to hold on to ALL THE OBJECTIVES... 

Amanda sent the treelord over my way to help out... 

Since most of the fighting was going on over on my side of the table!? 

Kurnothi and Tree-Revenants trying to deal with one unit of skeletal warriors that just kept standing up again as fast as the treeples could knock them down... 

More savage combat over on my side of the table... now involving a Tree-Lord! 

Tree-Revenants were finally killed off and a replacement unit brought back mid-field for... reasons...? 

MORE brutal combat over this ONE Objective location!? 

Kurnoth Hunters holding the left flank! 

All the stormcast destroyed, only the Treelord remained to fight off the Vampire and Wight cavalry... 

Kurnoth Hunters used Strike and Fade to slip out of combat and deep behind enemy lines and seize one of their objectives. 

Tree-Revenants did similar with their other teleport ability... 

Reinforcement Prosecutors arrive to harass skeletons and keep them contained and from running all over the left flank seising all the objectives... 

Vargheists drop in and seize objectives... 

Vampire General does the same... 

Treelord still fighting the Undead that just won't go away... 

Liberator reinforcements arrive and attack the Vampire General 

End of the game... not a lot left on the table... 

On their final turn of the final round, Nick and Orion scored enough points to tie up the game... 

It was a fun game. I liked it better than regular Spearhead. It was a long day of gaming and a long game and ended up being a bit of a let down to fight so hard to hang onto that early lead only to have it tied up at the very end. I swear if we (okay, if **I**) could only make AVERAGE rolls, it would have been a pretty solid victory... 

Would play this again, though! 

Age of Sigmar: Spearhead - Sylvaneth and Nighthaunt in Dolorum

For the first game of the year, Amanda and I played a game of Age of Sigmar in the Spearhead format. I am less keen on Spearhead these days, but I had recently finished painting the Nighthaunt Cursed Shacklehorde, so Amanda gathered her Sylvaneth Bitterbark Copse and gave battle. We played in Shyish using the Sand & Bone gaming pack and fought in Dolorum. 

Amanda found it a little confusing to switch back to Spearhead, because so many things are just slightly different than regular Age of Sigmar, which she was just starting to get her head around... 

I've liked trying to type up narrative reports for these games, rather than simply a play by play of what was going on in the game... but it's so hard to make up any sort of narrative that makes sense of the wild back and forth movements to snatch objective areas from opponents from turn to turn in games of Spearhead. So... 

Amanda was the attacker and chose to go second, which was probably a mistake. The Nighthaunts are CRAZY fast and on my first turn I was across the table and fighting all her forces in her territory vying for control of the objectives in her territory... and scoring a lot of points in the process. 

The Twist for there first round was players scored a bonus victory point for each friendly unit in combat at the end of their turn. 

Harald, the Spirit Torment, General of the Cursed Shacklehorde failed his charge roll and was kind of left behind...  (calling this Spirit Torment Harald because that's the name of Amanda's Spirit Torment character in our What We Do in the Realm of Shadows role-playing campaign) 

The Chainghasts charged the Tree-Revenants on one of the objectives I was holding a victory point card for... they REALLY needed the Spirit Torment to have joined them to a) hopefully destroy a few Tree-Revenants and b) provide a few more control points...  

The Dreadblade Harrows charged the Treelord, hoping to distract the Treelord from the Chaingasts and/or score the "be within 3" of the enemy long edge" scoring card which I also held. 

The rest charged the Kurnothi Hunters and Branchwych... 

So my whole army (less the Spirit Torment General) Was deep in enemy territory on round one engaging them on their objective markers... 

I ended up scoring 7 points at the end of my turn... three for units engaged two or three for objectives...? and one or two for cards. 

By the end of her turn which followed Amanda had killed both the Dreadblade Harrows and the Chainghasts... 

and I'd killed the Branchwych... 

And the Kurnothi had used Strike and Fade to teleport out of combat... so she gained NO points for units in combat (the twist bonus), two for holding objectives and one for cards... 

which put me in a four point lead at the end of the first round... 

At the beginning of the second turn, Amanda won the Priority Roll and decided to take a double turn (going first in Round Two after going second in the first). The penalty for this was not being able to draw new cards.. but she was still holding two from the previous turn, so.. 

All her army on the move... 

and then suddenly converging on Harald! 

Seriously, I though naming my General Harald - after her character in the role-playing game, saying this was back before the campaign when Harald lead an entire army, would mean my General would be safe and Amanda would leave him be! Not so!!

LUCKILY, I was holding the card with the command ability "translucent flesh" which makes any attacks that target a selected unit not cound any rolls of 1-2-3 to hit or wound!? This TOTALLY saved Harald!!

And then he retreated out of there as quick as he could on my next turn! Running for the protection of a reserve unit of Dreadscythe Harridans that had just entered the field of battle, seizing one of the Sylvaneth's objectives! 

The Sylvaneth split up and went off to seize other objective and destroy other units of mine... 

The Treelord went after the remains of the Dreadscythe Harridan unit that had started on the table at the beginning of the game. 

Both the Dreadscythe Harridans and Bladegheist Revenants - which are normally fielded in units of 10, in regular Age of Sigmar - are broken up into two units of five and one of each of those units remains in reserve at the beginning of the game and starting on Round Two I can bring ONE of them on as reserves in my movement phase... 

Kurnoth Hunters and Tree-Revenants went after the Bladegheist Revenants... but both failed charge rolls. 

The Treelord did not and the last of those Dreadscythe Harridans were destroyed! 

The following turn the Tree-Revenants charged the Bladegheist Revenants and did them in over two turns of fighting.

The Kurnoth Hunters moved on an obejective I was holding with two reinforcement Dreadscythe Harridans.. They didn't charge. They didn't need to... they each had a toe on the Objective and had a higher control score, so they flipped the control on that objective at the end of their turn... 

Having secured the objective in the corner, the Treelord returned to the middle of the battlefield to secure the objective there... Some newly arrived Bladegheist Revenant reserves charged the massive creature thinking they might take it down... 

ha... 

Dreadscythe Harridans weren't going to take that objective back just standing there and charged... and one got destroyed, further consolodating the Sylvaneth hold on the objective (kind of forgot the Kurnoth had FIVE WOUNDS and 4+ saves... ) 

The Dreadscythe Harridans joined in... but they couldn't even carve their initials on that giant tree, let along fell it! 

that last Bladegheist Revenant went down fighting... and took exactly ZERO Tree-Revenants with them... it kept dealing ONE damage... which the Tree-revenants would immediately heal at the end of the turn after the Combat Phase because they were within 3" of Terrain!?

I did manage to squeak out a victory - in terms of victory points (20-16) - largely because I'd take that lead in the first round and then we both scored about the same every turn for the rest of the game - Amanda slowly scoring more each round, me slowly scoring less... but she just couldn't score enough to catch up! There was very little left of my force at the end of the game... while most of Amanda's army was still on the field of battle... If more rounds were played I'd have certainly lost! 

I'd really like to try these out in regular Age of Sigmar - as a Path to Glory force... I'm not sure they'd be all that effective, but I think they'd be fun and interesting!!

I'm quite behind on game reports... I have several drafts for games played in December (and one from October?!) that I'd like to finish up!? There is the Finale for the Ravaged Coast campaign, two episodes of the What We Do in the Realm of Shadows role-playing game, two Warhammer Quest: Cursed City Journeys - hunting down Kritza the Rat Prince, the aforementioned Bolt Action game played in October, and a test game of Warhammer Quest: Darkwater?!

I hope I get a chance to get a few of them done this week. I'd REALLY like to, at least, get the Warhammer Quest: Cursed City reports done BEFORE the next Cursed City game on Tuesday! We shall see...