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+.