[WARCROW] The new fantasy universe by Corvus Belli

colbrook · Aug 24, 2023

The big thing so far for the setting is the fog, it seems to be caused by/powering the Scions of Yaldaboath and slowly encroaching on everyone's territory. The Northern Tribes in particular seem to have been displaced by it, resulting in an alliance of Orcs and Varank migrating southwards as they are driven from their homes.

So we've got a setup not far from Infinity or a number of RPGs. Multiple nations that had been nicely coexisting with only the occasional Border conflict and deniable operation suddenly facing a slowly encroaching outside threat. This causes rising tensions between and within these nations in addition to the slowly rising power of "evil outsiders" (EI/Scions). Plus various smaller or neutral factions trying to make the best of the situation for their own advancement (JSA/Merchant Alliance/Tohaa/awful lava goblins)

sevsterino · Aug 28, 2023

A video with mostly already known info for someone following Warcrow, but I think they also speak about some mechanics that were not talked about in the official videos.

Wizzy · Aug 30, 2023

Brutal Cities blogged about the interplanetario. Here's the part about warcrow.
Article: https://brutalcities.com/blogs/news/interplanetario-2023-tables-and-acherons-fall

Warcrow Fantasy Skirmish Game Demo
Hoopoe, the Corvus Belli ambassador for Warcrow, ran me through a game of the new Fantasy Dungeon Crawler/Skirmish game. About a year ago now I played the dungeon crawling version but was much more keen to give the skirmish game a go. A highlight has gotta be my Spanish accent being called precious. But that's enough flexing.

I was the Northern Tribes, consisting of orcs and varank and fighting against the Hegemony of Embersig. The models themselves are absolutely beautiful and my 7 year old iPhone doesn't do the detail justice.

A mix of different units from the Warcrow skirmish game.

The game is still in the development phase, so we were playing a dumbed down version of what will later be the full rules. Even with extra rules added I can imagine it will still be a quick game to pick up, organise and teach to other people so that's a win in my book. The downside for Infinity is it's so mentally draining and takes a couple of hours, so more games like Aristea! or Warcrow would be great for more casual play.

The scenario was to control the two objective markers at the end of each round. Each player gets to activate a unit to do two actions like move, then move again, or move and shoot, or cast spells. You can reactivate a unit that's already been activated but it gets stress tokens, and can only be activated up to about 4 times (depending on the unit morale).

Each unit has a captain and the other models have to be within 2 strides (the game's measurement system) of the captain or else they lose unit coherency. There are special characters you can add into the units as well. Here's a quick example:

The unit cards change depending on how many models are in the unit, and whether there's a character attached.

The combat uses the same dice for Aristea!, Defiance and the dungeon crawling version of Warcrow. I like the interactions and choice between choosing to block or take damage but dish it out on the attack. There were about 5 different units in our playtest. The game ended in a tie as I didn't take advantage of the multiple activations to actually get stuff done, but the combat worked well.

A really neat rule is that if the opponent has had their activations (one for each unit, but you can sacrifice an activation and use it on a different unit), whichever unit is the furthest away gets one free move at the end of the round to try and catch up to the rest of the faction.

There were other interactions too, like the infamous Fog which exists in the Warcrow Universe and is the reason for all the changes in Lindwurm (the world of Warcrow). It's a malicious fog that has it's own turn, and once in play it settles over the nearest unit based on a dice roll and associated random action.

Activating in the fog led to one of my units being wounded by an unseen menace, so I quickly got out of there. The only annoying thing is having to place a thick card template under models. With a thin template to slide under the models it would work better.

The fog over my band of orcs. Some evil tentacles wounded them!

Big thanks Hoopoe and my opponent for the demo, it was great!
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[WARCROW] The new fantasy universe by Corvus Belli

colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

sevsterino Well-Known Member

Wizzy Well-Known Member

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