Warkraj 2023

On 18.03 (the day this article goes live) the biggest Polish Warcry tournament will take place in Warsaw. This article will provide my in depth analysis of tournament battlepack and full listbuilding process. Tournament has 32 places and 4 rounds.

Let’s start with the battlepack itself. We will play randomized battleplans from slightly modified RumblePack. The 3 main points that most of my analysis will focus on are:

1.       List of possible primary+secondary combinations. Tournament Organiser (later referred as TO) limited the possible combinations of battleplans and sidequests to 16 options listed below. Spoils of War (burning objective mission) is replaced by Reaper. The battleplan cannot reoccur in later rounds, but the sidequest can.

1.1) Loot and Pillage + Strong-Arm the Competition
1.2) Loot and Pillage + Run Interference
1.3) Loot and Pillage + Predator & Prey
1.4) Loot and Pillage + An early Grave
2.1) Reaper + Stolen Wares
2.2) Reaper + An Early Grave
2.3) Reaper + Strong-Arm the Competition
3.1) Seize and Control + Run Interference
3.2) Seize and Control + Predator & Prey
3.3) Seize and Control + Strong-Arm the Competition
4.1) Power Struggle + Strong-Arm the Competition
4.2) Power Struggle + An Early Grave
4.3) Power Struggle + Predator& Prey
5.1) Supremacy + Strong-Arm the Competition
6.1) Tides of Battle + Predator &Prey
6.2) Tides of Battle + Strong-Arm the Competition

2.       Monsters are banned – this is actually a great information for me as the only games I didn’t won the last 2 tournaments were against monsters (4 wins, 1 draw against Zombie Dragon and 2 loses against another Zombie Dragon and Chimera)

3.       The time for game is only 70 minutes and unfinished round isn’t scored. The combination of RumblePack favoring hordes and tournament play being slower than casual one will IMO result in most games not finishing all 4 rounds, so bringing warband that can get leads round 1 is very important. Fortunately the first tiebreaker is Victory Points so fast play is reworded as more finished rounds equals more points.

Battleplans analysis

Sidequests:

Strong-Arm the Competition – Every turn the player with higher Wounds characteristic sum of his fighters within 3″ of the battlefield center gets 3 VP

Run Interference – Every turn if your opponent dropped the treasure that turn or you gained control of your opponent objective you score 3 VP

Predator & Prey – Every round both players select enemy fighter and if that fighters at the end of that turn is dead/within objective range/carries treasure the player who chose that fighter gains 2 VP

An early Grave – You gain 6 minus current turn number VP for killing enemy leader

Stolen Wares – Round one there are 3 treasures added within 3″ of the center of the battlefield

Loot and Pillage exist with 4 potential sidequests. Strong-Arm the Competition, Run Interference and Predator & Prey makes fights around middle treasures way more important than the side ones as they can start sooner and can grant more points than the actual treasures. Fighters in Hammer should be durable to fight for Strong-Arm points and deny Predator & Prey points for you opponent (as “Prey” is chosen before reserve phase it must be from Hammer for first 2 turns), have good attack profile to potentially score in Run Interference, Predator & Prey and potentially an early grave. Loot and Pillage in this combination of sidequests certainly favors quality over quantity in Hammer.

Sidequests selected for Reaper are Stolen Wares (it isn’t featured with any other battleplan), an Early Grave and Strong-Arm the Competition. Two battleplans above are the only ones where Hammer starts the game round 1. Both battleplans are the only ones that can have treasures in it and both lack scoring mechanisms that reward you for number of fighters. Putting leader in Hammer is risky as 2 out of 3 kill-leader sidequests exist in battleplans above. Long story short: Hammer should be the most elite heavy of all deployment groups as killing and not getting killed is what grants most points in this battleplans.

Seize and Control is interesting battleplan where 2 furthest objectives are 13,92” from Shield deployment point, which means that with proper positioning and spending a double on Rush ability even 3” movement fighters may reach (baarely) the furthest objectives.

Because of importance of early lead (as probably only 2-3 rounds will get finished due to challenging time restriction) and ability to reach every objective from the start the number of  fighters you put into Shield is very important especially as with high activation number, if you manage to have last activation in turn you may both react to what your opponent has done or punish his bad decisions. Particularly interesting combination is Seize and Control and Run Interference as in my opinion in most cases if your opponent moved to both of his closest objectives the best play in most cases is to not take the closer right objective to deny opponent 3VP next round and focusing on both protecting your left objective next round and conquering the objective close to where both of your battlegroups will appear. This is very achievable plan that leads to 6-4 lead at the end of second round. Bigger number of fighters in Shield will let you play objectives while also participating in 2 other potential sidequests – Strong-Arm the Competition or Predator & Prey (for the first 2 rounds the “Prey” must be selected from Shield battlegroup so it may be a good idea to not overextend with less durable fighters). I don’t expect the bonus points for controlling all objectives to matter but as the Victory Points are the first tiebreaker in horde vs elite matchup it may be a good idea to attempt it assuming the risk won’t be too high.

Power Struggle is probably the most challenging battleplan for 3” move fighters as only 1 objective is in their range round one assuming no abilities will be used. With +1” move universal ability properly deployed fighters may reach the 2 sideobjectives with only 1” to spare so terrain or clever bodyblocking of fast units can deny access to objectives round 1. With Strong-Arm the Competition in play the distance from deployment point to the battlefield center is the highest (12″) across the whole battlepack so the way to win the sidequest vs for example Sir Jedran Falseborn may be through body blocking the access to the middle.

As VP for controlling objectives are ramping up sidequests are way less important here. Due to the fact that Victory Points serve as tiebreaker, ability to play fast in this battleplan can decide who will win the whole tournament. Predator & Prey sidequest is a possibility with both battleplans where the game starts with only Shield in play and in such case it may be important to not overextend round 1 too much especially because the opponent deployment area is basically half of the battlefield edges.

Supremacy is the easiest battleplan to prepare to as there is only one sidequest attached to it. What is important here is to have fighters with high Wounds characteristic to win Strong-Arm points and enough fighters for standard objective play. The key to winning objectives round one are bigger bases as with all ovals or 60mm+ rounds you can contest 2 objectives with 1 fighter, so ideally what you want in Dagger is 1 big guy for Strong-arm the Competition, 2 small chaff guys for your side objectives and 2 fast fighters on smaller oval bases to cover 4 furthest objectives. If this would be possible (terrain may screw this up) and not stopped by opponent (you can bodyblock the ability to stand directly between objectives with 4” move fighters if you are aware of this tactic) then you have 1 fighter on every objective and 1 fighter in the middle which should provide early lead. Eliminating other sidequests also removed any incentive to wait with deploying Hammer round 3 so I don’t expect anyone doing that. What is also important here is that without movement abilities 3” move fighters can’t reach “middle objectives”.

Tides of battle is very similar to Supremacy, but the possibility to score two objectives with 1 fighter is removed and there is a second sidequest – Predator & Prey. This sidequest is a very good reason to have as much fighters in dagger as possible as unlike Supremacy 4 objectives are reachable by 3” move fighters and as one of them can be “removed” from objective play by being “Prey” it is a good idea to have 5 fighters in Dagger. Both “Dagger” missions also provide unique situation that opposing player deployment group starts in the corner right to your Dagger. This situation can be used to setup a trap or block your opponent ability to leave this corner (it can even be done with single fighter assuming it has big base and a net ability, like for example Lord of Afflictions)

General Conclusions:

• The smallest deployment group is Hammer
• I want access to mobile oval bases
• I need to be able to compete in Strong-Arm the Competition with every deployment group and winning it with Dagger should be easy
• I need at least 11 fighters (4-4-3, Dagger, Shield, Hammer) and preferably 13 (5-4-4)
• I need durable leader to deny an early grave points
• I can’t require to roll sixes to do damage
• Durable Chaff to not auto-lose Predator and Prey

Which faction will give me an edge?

Nurgle Daemons

Nurgle Daemons have great durable leader that is super valuable in Strong-Arm in PlagueBringer. They also can field cheap mobile oval bases with Chaos Warhounds, can reach required size of warband and have access great allies that could hunt enemy leaders or other fighters in Predator and Prey. Last but not least – one of the best chaff in the game. Potential choice.

Horns of Hashut

Horns of Hashut are great in Rumble pack and against hordes in general due to their powerful triples scaling up with the number of models in the area. They also have access to one of the strongest chaff models in the game: Shatterer and similarly to Nurgle Daemon have easy access to cheap and mobile oval bases with Chaos Warhounds. Sadly they have very weak leader and have problem reaching the number of models I would like.

IronJawz

IronJawz certainly can’t have functional warband with my size requirements but access to “You messin” is lowering my expectations in this area. With 15 wound chaff models IJ can kill many models before they are forced to remove their own but with only 70 minutes for game I don’t belive Orks will have enough time to kill the number of chaff fighters required for them to win.

Soulblight Gravelords

SBGL even after nerfs kept their ability to “cheat” in Reaper and Predator and Prey with resurrection. They are one of the strongest factions in Rumble Pack but the big chance for multiple Strong-Arm the Competition sidequests requires them to build differently. As far as oval bases are concerned they have access to best fighter in this category – Dire Wolf, they also have the easiest time out of any warband to get to highest fighter number thanks to skeletons costing only 40 points. Second potential choice

Ossiarch Bonereapers

OBR is extremely strong in Rumble Pack thanks to 3 factors:

• you can’t easily kill their chaff
• they are very strong in killing chaff with stalkers
• they are great at objective play with access to both numbers and dire wolves

Sadly the main job for stalkers in this battlepack will be fighting around the middle because of Strong-Arm the Competition sidequest and their Strength 4 and Toughness 4 won’t let them outfight elites from other factions. They also have only 2 good leader options and Hekatos is too weak for high Early Grave potential and the Liege-Kavalos makes reaching horde status impossible.

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In the end the 2 strongest factions are in my opinion Nurgle and Vampires. Both have durable leaders. Dire Wolf wins comparison with Chaos Warhound with his ability to pick up treasures. Both factions have great chaff, but Soulblight has Grave Guards and Resurrection. As far as mobility is concerned Nurgle requires 130 point dedicated hero, that in standard builds is the star of the faction but early grave risk is too high for me and skeletons and Grave Guards have Shambling Horde ability which makes them way more mobile and flexible than Plaguebearers. As far as hunting enemy fighters or usage of rampage is concerned Nurgle certainly has the advantage with access to allies like Varanguard or Slaughterpriest with his powerful pull ability but the usage of such “dragons” will be restricted as they will be required for Strong-Arm the Competition. Such concentration of offensive power is also very susceptible to enemy nets, so I prefer the scattered damage concentration of Grave Guards (which is also more point efficient).

Listbuilding

In order to save some points I will make some sacrifices, that I have already tested and that had worked for me before:

• I won’t use OBR/FEC ally for their movement buff from triple
• I will only have 1 hero with resurrection

The reason for no OBR/FEC ally is simple – getting to 13 models that I would like to have is difficult and to not end up with only skeletons I need to cut some corners. In the end Shambling Horde ability and Dire Wolves that I plan to use will grant me some mobility and from my tests I know it is enough in most situations and even with the access to movement boosting triple I often prefer resurrection. Lastly as only 1 battlegroup starts in first round the power of movement buffs dropped significantly.

The reason for only 1 hero is simple – in most of my tournament games my opponents greatly “overspend” their resources trying to shut down my “resurrection engine” which let me focus on objective game when my opponent was focusing on “disable necromancy minigame”. Having only one hero should make such perspective way more tempting to my opponents so 1 hero will simply be a bait that hopefully will redirect damage from quite squishy (but in my opinion way more impactful and valuable) Dire Wolfs or Grave Guards. Nerf to resurrection also makes including only 1 hero way less painful. That single hero obviously must be durable, otherwise this paragraph would make 0 sense.

There is also Strong-Arm situation – I need someone with a lot of Wounds on “sidequest duty” and as I only plan to use 1 hero and because I want to get to 13 body (I’m on a budget pointwise) the obvious choice is the pair of King Morlak and his overgrown bastard.

As I already mentioned I want to have 2 oval bases for Dagger so next 2 fighters added to roster are 2 Dire Wolfs. As my playstyle is very reactive I want some fighters that I would not feel are “wasted” on Wait actions so every deployment group will receive a Skeleton with spear (they are a bit more safe with 2″ range and I don’t attack with them much in the end as they are mostly moving, waiting and using faction reaction)

At the moment the list looks like that:

King Morlak Velmorn (160 pts)

Sir Jedran Falseborn (150 pts)

2x Dire Wolf (170 pts)

3x Skeleton Warrior with Ancient Spear (120 pts)

in total 7/13 (600/1000)

For the remaining points I need some damage and there is no better source of damage than Grave Guards and since resurrection nerf the best Grave Guards are legitimate sons of king Morlak, so I have found the next 2 fighters

Fortunately the remaining points can be spent on 4 Grave Guards with Great Wight Blade and the list is complete.

King Morlak Velmorn (160 pts)

Sir Jedran Falseborn (150 pts)

2x Dire Wolf (170 pts)

3x Skeleton Warrior with Ancient Spear (120 pts)

4x Grave Guard with Great Wight Blade (260 pts)

Marshal Faulk Velmorn (65 pts)

Thain, Fourth-and-Last (70 pts)

13 Fighters (995 pts)

With the list complete its time to split it to Dagger, Shield and Hammer. Let’s start with Dagger as I already described the perfect formation (in case you forgot, as this is already quite lengthy article, it was 1 dedicated Strong-arm fighter, 2 oval bases and 2 “normal” bases): Sir Jedran Falseborn (150 pts) must be here as battleplans where Dagger start round 1 have the highest chance of Strong-Arm, 2 Dire Wolves for “2 for 1” in supremacy, Skeleton Warrior as every group must have one and the last fighter should be something with damage: standard Grave Guard.

Let’s move to Hammer now as it’s the most difficult group to fill. I definitly need some mobility there as this is the place where treasures can occur so I think it would be smart to put my leader here so I have access to Shambling Horde, but the risk for an Early Grave is high and I have no idea if sir Jedran will be fast enough to save his dad from charging Tyrant with his Sleepless sentinel ability. But there is no Victory without risk and I don’t see good reasons to put my leader into Shield so here he goes.

To not make my opponent life easier in Reaper the Toughest Grave Guard will also be put into Hammer, together with “obligatory” Skeleton Warrior. The last spot will be filled by standard Grave Guard.

Which leaves Shield with Thain (he is the strongest Grave Guard as he is not only resurrected with full health, he can use Sibling Rivalry better than his older brother. Chance for two times better onslaught makes him potentially very deadly), 2 standard Grave Guards and “obligatory” Skeleton Warrior.

For the remaining 5 pts I could improve one of Skeleton Warriors to a better version that was released in The Exiled Dead Underworld warband so the perfect version of the restoer would have a 2 wounds better skeleton in Hammer but as I don’t own this model I will pass on that option as I don’t expect 2 more wounds on one model will change much, to justify buing the Underworlds warband (I think Deintalos in one of the best leaders in faction so maybe in the end I will buy it).

My expectations with the list

I believe the list I crafted will have hard time not winning Supremacy + Strong-Arm due to massive number of bodies and almost certain advantage in 1st round. I expect the list to do well in all 4 objective based missions, but I’m aware that against more elite warbands I can have problems in Reaper and Loot and Pillage, fortunately resurrection is still denying points from the opponent in Reaper (and also potentially in Predator & Prey) so I have some tricks there, but I don’t expect to be favored in this battleplans. So long story short – I believe that a lot will depend on which battleplans and in what order will be drawn but I’m very happy with the list, I did not lose single game during my preparation to the tournament with it so if the mission draw will be favorable I feel there is a significant chance for finishing close to the top of the standings.

Bonus content: Display board for painting competition

As there is a painting competition attached to the tournament and my wife who will also be attending has better paintjob on her models I decided to “cheat” by bringing display board as I’m much better with terrain than with painting miniatures. The text on the note is in Polish and the translation is:

“Dried up riverbed revealed a long hidden secret – the Tomb of Helmar the Hewer. Now when immortal king has gathered all of his sons again noone in Thondia can feel safe”