Gaming Articles, On The Table

Warcrow Wednesday: After Action Report

Last night, our gaming group dove headfirst into our new Warcrow routine, which is lovingly called Warcrow Wednesday. I took my first crack at an actual game of Warcrow taking a break from my extended deep dive into the lore the last couple of weeks. As one might expect with the novelty of a new game I was super excited to play and now to write about it afterwards. While it was well past my bedtime, I thought a quick after-action report and a first impressions article were in order while everything was relatively fresh in my mind.

Our battlefield was a mix of ruins with one raised platform smack in the center of the table and a river flowing off to the left. Most of the important fighting took place over the central objective at least until the final moments of the battle.

I’m not going to mince words here, from a sheer fun factor and gaming experience perspective Warcrow blew the bloody doors off the hinges. Don’t get me wrong, I have no idea if it’s a good game from an objective standpoint or whether it’s balanced or any of that. That sort of more detailed assessment is going to take a lot of games and some serious deep diving into the gameplay to figure out which will be the focus of my final article and review for the game. That said, just from a, did I enjoy myself perspective, my reflex reaction is… it was awesome!

There are a number of reasons that shape this first impression, but on a high-overview level, the game was intuitive, highly tactical, tight as nails, and awesomely cinematic.

Diving In

We didn’t ease in with a simplified tutorial or starter game and we probably should have just to get a feel for the game, but my gaming crew is made up of seasoned gamers and even though it was my first go at Warcrow, we just jumped straight into building full warbands and playing a full game.

I took command of the Hegemony of Embersig, while my opponent unleashed the Scions of Yaldabaoth, a twisted horde of undead monstrosities.

My warband was a wild mix of units. I had the Bucklermen, a sort of mainline unit that I realized would have the primary mission of holding objectives and holding the battle line with their exceptional defense capabilities. Aggressors powered by a War Surgeon were geared towards a more assertive direct assault though they would end up playing a much smaller role in the fighting than I initially planned for them.

My Aggressors were clearly destined for great things, they are a powerful unit capable of dishing out serious damage, but in my first game, I found them to be completely out of position pretty much always, a mistake I won’t make again.

I had twin elves (whose names escape me), that are designed to work together, one mage and the other a sort of protector. I’m fairly sure I did not leverage these characters to their fullest potential, but they would turn out to play a major role in the battle just the same thanks largely to the mage’s battlefield control magic and his twin brother’s very impressive battle stats.

I had a dwarf with deployable robots that didn’t do much most of the battle but became fairly significant towards the end game as my opponent and I fought to control and score on objectives in the final round.

I had a mage named Frostfire Herald who I intended to be sort of my “sneak into the backline and steal enemy objectives guy”, as he was quite fast but he ended up spending the entire fight just watching the fight from the bleachers. I just had too many priorities in the main battle, this mage’s secondary mission was a luxury I just couldn’t afford.

The army was led by Drago the Anvil, whose passive abilities were critical to my success though he managed to pitch in considerably in the fighting in all three rounds.

I had a couple of other characters in there as well, honestly, it’s hard to remember them all, but all and all, compared to my component I think I had almost twice as many units as he did.

Which brings me to one of my first great discoveries in Warcrow. There are no initiative “issues” in the game and weird advantages because you have more units than your opponent. Each player gets 5 activations per round regardless of how many units you have and while there are benefits and drawbacks to having more or less units, it didn’t unbalance the gameplay either way. I can tell you from tons of experience that initiative and army size balance are major problems in almost every miniature game I have ever played, it was nice to have that complaint eliminated in Warcrow.

Both my opponent and I took a pretty straightforward, “go up the middle” strategy, partially because the center objective was the only objective reachable by either of us in the first round, but also because the terrain sort of created a funnel towards the middle. It was a setup for what would become a major fight over the center.

The game’s character/unit design made everything excessively intuitive, despite the depth of abilities and mechanics of each unit and character. Warcrow presents information clearly and efficiently—iconography, abilities, and unit roles all feel transparent. The only issue I had was that the font on the cards was so bloody tiny that even with my brand-new super glasses I had to strain pretty hard to read the cards.

You know when a modern iPhone can’t take a clear picture, it’s too bloody small. Unless you have perfect 20/20 vision, reading these cards is going to be a pain.

Sure, I missed tactical opportunities and I’m certain I did not use my units to their full potential just by the fact that I was so new to the game, but I had no trouble understanding what each unit did, what their role in the game was and/or how to use them.

The only exception in our deployment was this guy who decided to go on the right flank and threaten my home objectives. It would prove to be a critical decision for my opponent as it worked as a major distraction for me. I had to deal with this threat, there was no ignoring it.

I think the game is very well organized and the structure of the turns flowed smoothly. It only took me a couple of activations to get a sense of the mechanics and my units, all of which drove the game forward. I immediately found myself looking for combos and making key tactical decisions without a lot of questions or confusion. The game went from setup and rules explanations to legitimately good gameplay in a matter of about an hour.

High Octane

What struck me most wasn’t just the clarity—it was the intensity of the gameplay. From the very first activation, every decision felt critical. Warcrow doesn’t have downtime; there’s no point where the game drags or loses momentum. Every action, every move, every ability used matters.

When we finished the deployment and it was time to make the first moves, one thing you realize right away is that the entire game has this tense time pressure. 15 moves, that’s all you get and the game is over! You gotta make it count.

Mathematically, each player gets 15 activations across three scoring rounds regardless of how many units you field—which means there’s zero room for wasted moves. This is a game about efficiency and optimization, where every decision carries weight. It never felt like I was just “going through the motions” or had spare time—each round felt like the final act of a high-stakes battle and there was never an activation in which the decision of what I must do was easy. There were drawbacks and benefits, risks and rewards for every action.

In a word the entire game was rather stressful and tense, it never let up.

Cinematic Feel

When we first started playing I had the sense that the game was very tactical, very regimented, and that it would not have that cinematic flavor of games like Warhammer 40k or Battletech. I was expecting a larger focus on mechanical execution, something you might see in games like Star Wars Shatterpoint or Star Wars Armada. What I didn’t expect is for the game to unfold in a cinematic way. Despite the game’s mechanically tight gameplay, it created a lot of great moments that felt like they were right out of an action movie.

At one point, my commander charged a grotesque, multi-mouthed abomination—only to get slapped across the battlefield and dumped into a river. It was a disaster. It was awesome and just felt great. It not only instantly changed my priorities and altered the face of the battle, but I felt a sense of urgency to get payback. I know there were objectives to control and points to score but my commander had just gotten knocked down on his ass and I needed payback! Win or lose as long as I got the chance to choke the life out of that multi-mouthed bastard, I was satisfied, and taking him down with a massive counterattack a couple of activations later felt so satisfying!

Warhammer 40k has a lot of flaws as a game, but no one will ever convince me that it’s not epic and cinematic game, driven by narrative and lore. That foundation is key to the success of the game and while I know people play it competitively, I’ve never understood why as it makes a very poor competitive game. 40k is a narrative and cinematic game first and foremost. GW, the makers of Warhammer 40k have never been able to convince their own audience of that despite decades of trying.

Feel-good moments like that weren’t rare. The dice told their own story despite any tactical shenanigans and it was very clear to me that while there are very tight competitive mechanics here, the experience was going to be shaped by events and twists that weren’t fully in my control. Last-minute heroics, epic successes and failures, clever moves, and sneaky tactics, are all part of this game.

It’s not just a well-crafted game—it’s a battlefield alive with tension, strategy, and moments you’ll remember long after the dice have settled which is exactly what I’m looking for in a game. There is a good reason why games like 40k are so popular. We spend so much time preparing and painting our mini’s, lovingly giving them personalities in our minds and what we want is for them to do something awesome on the battlefield rather than just being part of a cold mechanic. Warcrow achieves this in much the same way as some of my favorite miniature games, but it does it with well-governed and structured mechanics. You get the best of both worlds, a strong competitive mechanic and a great cinematic feel.

The Relief

I have to say that I’m super relieved. My biggest fear of taking on a big game review like this aside from the potential of being disappointed by the lore is playing a new miniature game for the first time and discovering that I hate it. I know it’s weird, but I hate reviewing games I don’t like and I’m always preparing myself for disappointment so to find out after the first play that the game is good and fun, is like a big pressure release.

As a huge fan of the Masters of the Universe franchise, when I sat down to play the miniature game for the first time I was super nervous because I wanted it to be good desperatetly. Discovering that it was a great game was such a relief!

Now I can relax and sort of enjoy the experience, write my articles and know that while I’m sure I’ll find a few flaws here and there, overall, it’s going to be a positive experience and I don’t have to worry.

Conclusion

While the lore is great and the first impression was exceptional, it still remains to be seen whether this game has the legs for a long-term experience. It’s very difficult to see it through a lens of novelty and games can be exceptionally deceptive. There have been plenty of games I was super excited for after the first play that would come to disappoint me, so while I’m relieved that the initial experience was great, its time now to start deep diving into this game to see if it has that lasting appeal and long term replayability.

Ultimately our game was a 6-6 draw. We fought bitterly to the end with lots of movement shenanigans in the final moments. I mostly blame the wizard lurking in the shadows, he was supposed to be my secret weapon but managed to achieve a grand total of zero. I wish I was more aggressive with him, I think it would have put me over the edge.

To me while lore is a major precursor, the truth is that I can enjoy the lore of a game and not play it that much, case in point, Warhammer 40k. I play it a few times a year, but most of my time with 40k is spent reading books, painting miniatures and just enjoying the atmosphere. Whether I play the game or not is not that big of a deal.

To really nail “it” a game has to have that ineffable addictive quality that makes you obsess about list building and coming up with new strategies and all that fun stuff.

Next, I plan to build some minis and do some painting to see how that side of the game works, but from this point forward I will be simultaneously trying to get as many games in as I can in preparation for that all-important gameplay review. We are just about in the middle of March so there is still plenty of Warcrow March Madness to go!