Warriors of the Eightpoints rejoice – the Tome of Champions 2021* arrives for pre-order this weekend, and it brings with it a wealth of new content to make your skirmish campaigns bloodier than ever. New rules for Bladeborn fighters bring Warhammer Underworlds warbands into the fray, you can get your siege on by assaulting massive fortresses like Carngrad, and the book even includes Warcry’s first ever round of points adjustments.
In a triumphant return from Warcry: Red Harvest, branching quests are back! These quests work similarly to the regular campaigns in the Warcry Core Book, but with a choose-your-own-adventure twist. After the first and second convergence battles, you get to pick which path you take through the campaign – eventually leading to a specific conclusion and a unique, powerful artefact you can carry forward into your next quest.
Tricky decisions present themselves at every stage, providing a huge variety of stories to tell – with wildly different possible outcomes. What might have been a triumphant victory over impossible odds can turn into a desperate flight with treasures in your arms, for great danger brings the promise of equally incredible rewards.
Each Grand Alliance has a distinct quest chain with its own juicy narrative hook. The forces of Order seek relics from the Age of Myth, abandoned when Archaon claimed the Eightpoints, while the Chaos campaign sees you gather power for a coup against the Everchosen himself. Warbands of Death, on the other hand, have been tasked by Katakros to establish a grim and lifeless outpost in the Eightpoints, and the no-nonsense warriors of Destruction are rustling up a legendary feast fit for Gorkamorka.
Branching quests allow you to decide how the campaign will play out, with battles and rewards depending on your own choices. Perhaps a band of Kruleboyz on the search for a morsel worthy of their god’s epic appetite could barter for information with a local troggoth hag – but which lead will they follow?
Wondrous artefacts of power await warbands who make it all the way through, and each branching quest offers six different rewards. Depending on which fights you end up picking, the forces of Destruction might scrape together a batch of mind-altering mushrooms from their defeated quarry, or fashion a brutally effective weapon from the wreckage of a plundered machine.
These artefacts will serve your fighters well in quests to come, and they’ll need all the help they can get if they’re to survive brutal battles like a multiplayer siege of Carngrad. Not satisfied with the loot? Your warband can always dust itself off and try again for a new reward – perhaps Gorkamorka would prefer a nicely grilled Raptoryx wing this time?
Get stuck into everything the Tome of Champions 2021 has to offer when it arrives for pre-order this Saturday, the 12th of February. Warbands from the Daughters of Khaine, Lumineth Realm-lords, Hedonites of Slaanesh, Stormcast Eternals, and Orruk Warclans are also on their way, so this is the perfect time to scan the points adjustments and muster a new gaggle of eager warriors.
* Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that the year is, in fact, 2022. Unfortunately, time in the Realm of Chaos is mutable, and the Tome of Champions has only just made its way back to our world.