OPEN PLAY TERRAIN

Warcry uses terrain cards to determine the scenery features that will be set up on the battlefield. This ensures your battles are fought over interesting and varied layouts that can be quickly assembled. However, if you wish to use a collection of bespoke scenery features to create your battlefields, it can be understandably tricky to follow the layout given on a terrain card. This section will detail three alternative methods for creating battlefields and ideas on how the terrain kits available from Games Workshop can be combined and customised.

METHOD ONE: THE ARCHITECT OF FATE

One player is assigned the role of the Architect of Fate. This player sets up all the scenery features on the battlefield before any of the battleplan cards are drawn. When the battleplan cards are drawn, no terrain card is drawn. In addition, the player who did not set up the terrain decides how to orientate the deployment card with the battlefield and chooses which player will use the red deployment points and which player will use the blue deployment points.

While the Architect of Fate has free rein to set up the battlefield as they wish, it is not in their best interest to give either half of the battlefield an advantage, since the other player will be able to seize that advantage when they orientate the deployment card and choose their deployment points.

This is a great method to use if one player has time before the other arrives to set up the battlefield, thereby allowing the battle to begin straight away when the other player gets there.

CREATING A BATTLEFIELD NARRATIVE

Using this method, the Architect of Fate is encouraged to think about where the two warbands will be fighting and set up the battlefield accordingly. Will the battle take place down the cramped back alleys of Carngrad or out in the wastes of the Bloodwind Spoil? Let your imagination run wild and see what locations you can create with your terrain collection.

Here are some ideas to inspire you:

• A Khornate altar dominates an ancient and crumbling ruin.
• Crude symbols of Gorkamorka rise high above the debris of civilisation.
• A mysterious Realmgate provides passage to a shrouded Stormvault.

METHOD TWO: USING THE TERRAIN GENERATOR

Follow these steps:

1. Use the terrain generator to determine the total number of scenery features to be set up on the board.
2. The players then take it in turns to choose a scenery feature from their collection and set it up on the battlefield.
3. Once all the scenery features have been set up, the players roll off. The winner determines the orientation of the battlefield by picking one table edge to be 'north' and aligning it with the Orientation runemark.
4. The rest of the battleplan is determined as normal.

TERRAIN GENERATOR

D3	TERRAIN DENSITY	LARGE SCENERY FEATURES (Buildings, platforms, large statues, trees)	SMALL TERRAIN FEATURES (Debris, ruins, small walls, walkways)
1	Sparse Terrain	D3	D6
2	Medium Terrain	D3+1	D6+3
2	Dense Terrain	D3+3	D6+6

Ladders and stairs can be added to buildings without counting towards the total.

METHOD THREE: CREATING YOUR OWN TERRAIN DECK

Some players may even wish to construct their own terrain deck to randomly draw from each battle. To do so, follow these steps:

1. A terrain deck contains 36 ‘cards’ or layouts. 18 of those layouts are roughly symmetrical (and have the Symmetrical runemark and 18 are asymmetrical.
2. To create a terrain deck, you do not need to create physical cards; instead, you need to create 36 layouts with which to populate a D66 table. One way to do this is to sketch 36 layouts. Alternatively, you could set up different terrain layouts on the board and take a photograph of each one. Give each layout a unique number from 11 to 66, with no digit exceeding 6 (i.e. the first 6 layouts will be numbered 11-16, the second 6 will be numbered 21-26, and so on).
3. The 18 symmetrical layouts should include 6 that have sparse terrain, 6 that have medium terrain and 6 that have dense terrain. The asymmetrical layouts should follow the same format. Use the terrain generator table as a guideline for how many scenery features each of those layouts should have.
4. Instead of drawing a terrain card, roll a D66 to determine which of your layouts is in play. Follow all other rules in the Core Book for setting up the battlefield as normal.

Using these Methods in Narrative and Matched Play

Although these set-up methods are designed in the spirit of open play, they can lend themselves to both narrative and matched play, especially if the players have a large collection of bespoke scenery features.

NARRATIVE PLAY

If both players agree, when playing a campaign battle that is not a convergence, the players can use one of these methods to set up the terrain. The first method (The Architect of Fate) works particularly well with narrative play because it allows one player to create an atmospheric location in which the campaign battle will take place.

MATCHED PLAY

If both players agree, these methods can be used in matched play battles. The second or third methods work particularly well as it is important that the battles are fought on a varied amount of terrain. This is because some warbands will naturally favour sparse terrain (those with a selection of ranged weapons) while others will favour dense terrain (those who prefer to fight up close).