Putting together a Warcry warband from your existing Warhammer Age of Sigmar collection is a surprisingly simple and rewarding experience. Grab a handful of models you most likely already own, along with a pack of cards, and get to know them in a new way!
As the process works about the same way for every warband, we’re going to walk you through some of the steps with an example Flesh-eater Courts warband of our own creation.
In the Beginning…
Do you start with the models? The background story and motivation? The names? Yes, all of that!
But seriously, you have to start somewhere, and generally it’s choosing a campaign quest and filling out your warband roster. Unlike building an army to use in Warhammer Age of Sigmar, for Warcry, you’re just generating a pool from which you’ll choose up to 15 fighters to take part in any given campaign battle – it’s low pressure, and high fun.
The roster sheet has space for one leader and up to 10 fighters. Simply use a second sheet if you want to add more. For this article, we’ll stick with a warband of 10, just to show you the ropes.
Choosing a Campaign Quest
Every warband has their own goals, motivations, and story to tell – this is called their campaign quest. Certain factions have quests that are ideally suited to them, and in this case Seekers of the Chalice is a great choice for our fledgling Flesh-eater Courts warband. Their story begins innocently enough – an ambitious mordant has heard a tale of a blessed relic known as Ushoran’s Chalice, said to grant great power to those who imbibe from it, and his lord sends him to retrieve it.
The large dots along the path each represent a battle the warband must fight in their quest for glory, and the skulls mark pivotal campaign battles called convergences. To play your first campaign battle, however, you just need to be able to rustle up at least 1000 points of fighters, and an opponent who’s willing to play a campaign battle with you.
Choosing Fighters – and Naming Them!
This is the fun part for lots of folks. Chances are, if you’ve got even a modestly sized Warhammer Age of Sigmar army, you’ll be able to fill your roster with a variety of different fighters and a suitably powerful leader.
All of these fighter types are drawn from common units in a Flesh-eater Courts army, and this is typical across a wide variety of warbands available for Warcry. Of course, if you choose to add new fighters, one box of models can generally make a couple of different types of Warcry fighters.
Your first real crossroads is choosing a leader with the appropriate runemark on their card.
In the case of Flesh-eater Courts, that could be either a Crypt Ghast, Crypt Haunter, or Crypt Infernal. We’ll choose the Crypt Infernal because they’re fast and they’ve got loads of wounds. The Fly runemark allows them greater mobility across terrain, and the Leader and Agile runemarks open up options for special attacks during your games.
Now let’s give our fearless leader a name! Rolling on the charts, we get Ubricht the Noble. Sounds suitably heroic, don’t you think? Come on, he LOOKS super noble, right? RIGHT?!
From here, we simply go along and look at the models at our disposal, and start plugging them into the spots on the roster. Since you can only have one leader, that precludes Crypt Ghasts and Crypt Haunters.
Let’s start with two more flying fighters to make sure Ubricht has a little support that can keep up with him – we’ll write in two Crypt Flayers named Nathran of the White Order and Regulus the Merry.
Both of them share the Agile and Fly runemarks with Ubricht, as well as his high Move characteristic, and they hit nearly as hard in combat.
From there, we can add three Crypt Horrors to the roster, forming a solid core of reliable fighters. We’ll call them Maldoros, Bromm, and Pergrin.
To round things out, let’s choose four Crypt Ghouls, loyal servants willing to lay down their lives in the service of their rightful lord. Taking up all the rest of the names on the list, they’ll be called Glorich, Vushor, Glabios, and Edren.
Flesh Them Out
The names really help breathe some life into these deluded cannibalistic warriors, but we’re not done yet. To start, we can roll on their Origin chart. Scoring a 1 on a D6, we’ve got Questing Knights.
That sounds perfectly appropriate, having been sent on a holy quest by their liege lord, to strike deep into enemy territory. And now for Ubricht the Noble’s background… Another D6 roll gives us 4, Honourable Duellist. Though in reality he tears his opponents limb from limb and rips bloody gobbets from them with raking claws, in his mind he’s a skilful swordsman, observing proper martial decorum at all times.
Now we’re starting to get to know them well enough to grant them a suitably fancy name – let’s call them Ubricht’s Sojourners. Write it on the top of their roster and we’re finished! Only once they recover the chalice may they return home and earn their just deserts. Now, who’s ready for a game?
As you can see, the process of choosing your campaign quest, filling out a roster, and adding a few key details is the work of a relaxed evening – assuming you’ve already got the models ready to go. Utilising your existing collection is not only economical, but it’s also a lot of fun to take a look at some of the lowly foot-troops and mid-tier leaders through a different lens.
If you haven’t already, grab a pack of cards, like the Flesh-eater Courts deck we used, plus the Warcry Core Book, and see what you can put together!