Welcome to the draft of the 0.9 playtest! Rather than replacing the current playtest, I want to give everyone a chance to review the changes. You'll be able to toggle between the stable 0.5 playtest and the draft in the main navigation. Unless anything major pops out, I'm planning to flipping the wiki over to the 0.9 playtest in about a week, at which point the Zine Rulebook will be updated with the wiki rules and made available for printing.

Looking forward to hear your feedback on discord

Core Rules

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Core Principles​

• The Defense characteristic is gone and replaced by Armour. (also, see the overhauled Attack Action)
• A fighter that has any damage points allocated to them is considered to be wounded. This state is called upon by abilities such as Beastman rage and some vampiric abilities (it’s a nifty state for homebrew warbands too!).

Setting Up A Battle​

• Warcry style scenarios are back! Players generate a scenario by rolling up a deployment map, a victory condition, and a twist.

The Battle Round​

• Re-introduced the reserve phase, as the new deployment maps may have fighters arrive on subsequent battle rounds.

Actions​

• The Attack Action sequence has been completely overhauled.
  • Melee attack actions now compares the Fight characteristics of both combatants
  • Ranged attack actions compares the Shoot characteristic against a flat difficulty rating (with modifiers)
  • Wearing armour now provides a flat damage reduction instead of a bonus to Defense
  • Each weapon profile now has a real, tangible trade-off. Axes deals more damage on average, hammers are superior against armour and combining a sword and shield can even make a mook last longer in combat.
  • This also means that mixed weapon dual wielding is working properly
  • Diving Charge now confers a flat bonus to fight, rather than being an ability
• Channel Magic
  • The Magical Calamity table has been expanded to use 2d6 instead. Lethality has been toned down somewhat, there’s still a 50% chance of suffering damage, but the wizard only blows up when rolling snake eyes.

Reactions​

• Take Cover has changed name to Hunker Down and now increases the cover bonus during the attack.

Abilities​

• Onslaught is back to being a double, but for a single attack
• Respite is back to being a triple, but heals d3+3 damage points (tanks would be unkillable with armour and a double!)
• Rampage is toned down (free move is X")

Panic​

• Terrifying now only applies for Melee Attack actions (not Ranged Attack actions).

Scenarios​

• As mentioned before, players now randomize a scenario (like in WARcry!)
• Fighters can now carry multiple wyrdstone tokens (because Thralls keeps dropping them)

The Aftermath Sequence

Has been totally reworked. You'll now lick your wounds and send a search party into the city to look for treasure. Exploration can result in crashed whales, robbing treasure hunters or having a fighter join the black parade the cursed cavalcade.

There's also loot tables and magical items. I very much hope that you will enjoy them and I'm looking forward to hear more about your campaign experiences.

Factions

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Clan Eshin​

• New faction rule: Black-Clad Killers. You can set aside hidden Eshin fighters when splitting up your warband into search parties, and reveal them in later battle rounds.
• All fighters now have the Murder-Stab ability. Murder-stabbing someone in the same battle round as revealing your fighter reduces the target's Fight characteristic (stab-stab)
• The Assassin Adept has gained a new (old?) ability – Running Death. One with the shadows is now a [double]

Possessed​

• Mutants are now consumed by chaos on a stability roll of 9+ (as ordained by the changer of ways)
• The Mutation Table now uses a d66 to make it more chaotic (the shadowlord doesn’t care for probabilities)
  • The new dual-wielding rules has opened up the design space around Daemonic Weapons. Tentacles, Great Claws and Scorpion Tails now have unique weapon profiles.
• All fighters can use Glorious Death as a reaction to generate Wyrd Dice for their Magister
• You may now field up to two Possessed, and they're always marked for greatness
• The Darksoul has a new ability – Baleful Challenge, replacing Display of Brutality

The Undead​

• The Vampire was a hot mess. Ravenous / Empowered is out. Vampires can always make a free move action instead. Feed also generates Wyrd Dice.
• They’re also immortal and doesn’t roll on the injury table. Take them out of action however, and the warband starts wavering - and while an undead warband is wavering, all thralls suffer damage.
• Ghouls are no longer terrifying but gained a new ability (bloody feast)
• The Terrifying Howl of the Dire Wolf now tags enemy fighters when activated and prohibits tagged enemy fighters from making reactions.

Witch Hunters​

• Reworked the Zeal Table and its thresholds
• Sudden Accusation is now available to all fighters, so that Witch Hunters can save their actions to reload their new hard-hitting crossbows.
• Witch Hunters and their captains can now incite rabble to get their henchmen into the fray quicker. Also generates Zeal.
• Flagellant Self-Flagellation is now a budget onslaught rather than a free attack action
• The War Hound's Death Grip triggers on hit or crit (rather than only hits)

Sisters of Sigmar​

• Sisters can now pray while Waiting to generate Wyrd Dice (#prayermeta)
• The Augur has a more defined role: she can use Foresight to aid a fellow sister, or Doom her enemies.

Mercenaries​

• Strategize is now a double, generating Wyrd Dice on a 5+.

If you can read this, it means that you've successfully found your way to the 0.5 playtest! Welcome! This website is the most up-to-date version of Wyrdcry, and will be until the project is wrapped up and new PDF:s have been designed. Here, you will find everything you need to play a game of Wyrdcry, the first 6 factions, and the campaign rules. Soon, there will be a warband builder too!

So, what's new in 0.5?

The 1000gc warband limit​

Wyrdcry now uses a 1000gc warband limit, similar to vanilla warcry. The 0.4 playtest has been used to come up with new cost profiles for determining fighter and weapon costs, which will help as we're starting to playtest the final 4 warbands.

Rebalancing of Skaven and Mercenaries​

The playtests submitted during 0.4 indicated that Mercenaries were struggling hard into the Ratmen. To address this, we're doing a heavier nudge by making Mercenary henchmen cheaper, while making their Skaven counterparts more expensive. Armour are now cheaper all across the board, allowing you to gear up your tanks, and Champions have been given some new tools for when you find yourself outnumbered. You can read more about the new Mercenaries here.

New Warbands​

Based on the feedback you all provided, four new warbands are now available: The Sisters of Sigmar, Witch Hunters, The Undead, and The Cult of the Possessed. These are beta rules so expect some rough edges. The goal right now is to get them on the table and find out how broken/fun they are to play.

Weapon rebalancing and cost profile​

The cost profile for weapons has changed a bit, putting more weight on amount of attacks and actual damage output. Pierce has given way to Mighty, by suggestion of the community, to make combat calculations quicker. The second dagger is no longer free, which stops night runners from simply running two daggers for cheap.

New Warbands​

Based on the feedback of our project champions (and our smoking hot cost profiles), four new warbands are now available: The Sisters of Sigmar, Witch Hunters, The Undead, and The Cult of the Possessed. These are beta rules so expect some rough edges. The goal right now is to get them on the table and find out how broken/fun they are to play.

What's next?​

This is the biggest playtest to date, and I'm eager to see more people picking up the game and submitting their games on discord. With your help, I'm hoping to lock down the ruleset and create new PDF:s of the rulebook (and the factions sometime in June). Please keep an eye open on discord as I'm also planning on adding a lightweight warband builder in the near future.