Warcry Catacombs Review

Last Updated on April 23, 2021 by FauxHammer

With Christmas drawing ever closer, Warcry Catacombs leads the charge on your hapless finances as the first of a slew of boxed sets that Games Workshop releases at this time of year. Without futher ado, let us begin our (belated) Warcry Catacombs review.

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Catacombs is the first full-sized boxed set released since the launch of Warcry and the Iron Golems vs Untamed Beasts Starter Set last August. This expansion allows players to fight battles in the claustrophobic, trap-ridden environs deep below the All Points.

What does Warcry Catacombs have to offer? Does it expand on a streamlined, easy-to-learn game in a meaningful way, or is it a dud?

Warcry Catacombs Review – Summary

Whilst not really a Starter Set per se, Warcry Catacombs really now has the job of filling the void in the product line left by the (now discontinued) Golems vs Beasts Starter Set. It even comes with the Core Rulebook for the game.

It may seem somewhat strange essentially merging a Starter Set and expansion into one product, but Warcry really is a game that is so streamlined it would be difficult to distil it down further in the way that the 40k Start Sets do for that game. Nevertheless, this is a set designed to work for newbies and journeymen alike.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Unboxing

The box is a hefty beast. It bears the striking red-and-white Warcry logo and notably bears the “Catacombs” label where the “Starter Set” label had been on the August 2019 boxed set. Some beautiful artwork of the two factions duking it out in a dungeon adorns the box lid.

What immediately jumped out at me when I first took the box out of its packaging was that the card used for the box itself was of a markedly inferior quality to that used for the Warcry Starter Set box. I could even make out small indentations on the top of the box where the sprues had punched into the card.

I opened the box and that incredible new-box-of-toys aroma washed over me. I huffed that in for a bit, then began my rummage of the contents of said box.

As we’ve all come to expect, the sprues all were sat right at the top of the box, miniatures on top of the scenery/terrain. Nothing was damaged at all in spite of the slightly less robust packaging and the ominious dents therein.

Here’s what Warcry Catacombs nets you in plastic crack:

• Scions of Flame Warband (8 miniatures including leader)
• Khainite Shadowstalker Warband (9 miniatures including leader)
• 10 x Dungeon Doors (6 open, 4 closed)
• 2 x Door Levers
• 2 x Metal Dungeon Bridges
• 2 x Wooden Dungeon Bridges
• 6 x Dungeon Scenery Pieces
• 1 x Bell Tower
• 2 x Ruins
• 8 x Barricades (Various Sizes)
• 3 x Small Scatter Terrain (Various Sizes)

You’ll also get:

• Warcry Core Rulebook
• Warcry Catacombs Book
• 1 Double-Sided Game Board
• 1 Measuring Stick
• 1 Punchboard of Various Tokens
• 18 Six-sided Dice (6 Red, 6 Black and 6 Beige)

*Wheeze*

I know, I know! Yes, it’s not quite the amount that you got in the original Starter Set but it’s still a pretty hefty amount all the same!

Once all of the sprues have been dispensed, the patented GW Artful Divider awaits us. If you’re lucky and this hasn’t been pockmarked too much in transit these look very nice framed in a game or hobby room. This one is particularly spectacular.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Khainite Shadowstalkers

Between the new Lumineth Realmlords, Broken Realms: Morathi, Morgwaeth’s Bladecoven and the upcoming Shadow and Pain boxed set, it’s a pretty good year to be an aelf fan.

And now we have the Khainite Shadowstalkers!

Whilst older Warhammer fans will be aware that traditional Dark Elves were split into smaller factions, the Khainite Shadowstalkers have that feel of getting the old band back together again. But also with one or two new, slightly younger members of the band because some members of the band have taken too many drugs to be able to perform as they used to.

The Shade Queen is a stunning model, an amalgam of the Mistweaver Saih and Tenebrael Shard models that came out a few years back in the Silver Tower boxed set. A few of the models are immediately recognisable as Witch Aelves in cloaks, whilst others bear a striking resemblance to Shadowblades and even the Shades of old.

Dark Elves are back.

The cloaks are what really set these models apart. They have the cloying, oily density of living smoke or shadow, but they’ve also got this sinuous, insect-like quality that ties in beautifully with the chitinous weaponry the models bear. Equal parts graceful and sinister, the Khainite Shadowstalkers are a brilliant evolution of a popular and established concept.

Given their ethereal, almost fluid appearance, it will not surprise many to hear that they share many of the same problems as the Nighthaunt model range. There are a lot of narrow, weak parts on these models that are highly susceptible to breakages. However, I did only have one piece break on me whilst I was removing it from the sprue and I was able to repair it.

Add to the fact that these phantasmal models are also aelves, you’re going to want to be very careful with measuring tapes and long sleeves around these guys as they are as spiky and spindly as they come.

Good thing I’m not moving house any time soon and don’t have to experience the existential dread of packing them and blindly hoping they come out the other side in one piece!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

It’s hard to be mad at models that look so pretty, though. Spiky and floaty bits aside, they’re still made from the usual hard plastic that GW is known for so with a bit of careful handling and clever packing you should be ok. You just can’t handle these aelves the way you would many of the other Warcry warbands.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Scions of Flame

The long-awaited Scions of Flame are the second warband included in the Catacombs box.

Those more familiar with Warcry will know that the core game originally centred around the conflict between various groups of Chaos warriors from specific realms. The Iron Golems from the Realm of Metal, the Unmade from the Realm of Death, the Splintered Fang from the Realm of Life.

The Scions of Flame are religious fanatics from Aqshy, the Realm of Fire (surprise!).

As such, they are mentioned quite often in the Core Rulebook that released last summer. They even have 2 quests in there and name generator tables. It’s nice to finally have them, of course, but it’s strange that a warband that really was set to have a place in the starting lineup has taken this long to join us.

But, man, have these guys been worth the wait!

It’s as if somebody took the best bits of the Iron Golems and the Untamed Beasts and asked themself: “How do we make these guys even more badass?” (The answer obviously being – Fire.)

Burly and broad-shouldered, the larger members of this warband stand roughly shoulder-to-shoulder with a Stormcast Eternal. They present a brilliant contrast to the Khainite Shadowstalkers – both conceptually and physically.

Age of Sigmar draws upon Ancient and Classical cultures and motifs more so than most fantasy settings and these guys really typify that approach to world building. Kilts, robes and warmasks evoke a strong sense of spirituality, whilst the abundance of spikes and chains make it immediately apparent that these guys are followers of Chaos.

Given their bulky profile it came as no surprise at all that these guys are considerably more robust than the aelves included in the set. They were a joy to build, required very little clean-up, and I was able to easily arrange them into sub-assemblies for painting later on. No hassle here at all.

Whilst the Khainite Shadowstalker models can mostly be built with a couple of different weapon options, only 2 models in the warband have weapon options that carry different profiles in the game. Outside of these 2 it’s really a question of what you think looks coolest. I did like the fact that the leader can be built without his mask for the Bane look.

Being Chaos, these guys do have a lot of spikes and hooks that can potentially get snagged and break, but they certainly do not have the issues that the Khainite Shadowstalkers do as far as fragility goes.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Scenery

The scenery can essentially be split into two collections.

We have a portion of the “Warcry” scenery first featured in the August 2019 set. Specifically one each of sprues A, B, C, and E from that box, and the new “Dungeon” scenery to be used specifically in Catacombs games.

Confession time: I did a bit of a Blue Peter with the “Warcry” scenery.

This is a set that has been out in the wild now in various forms. It was obviously available in the original Starter Set, and it was made available over several issues through the Mortal Realms partwork. And now you can get a portion of it via Catacombs.

It’s honestly some of the best scenery currently on the market.

Pieces like the bell tower can be the centrepiece of a battle, a decent amount of verticality is afforded by the set and it can be arranged in many ways. There’s also a good amount of scatter terrain to really bring your battlefields to like. If gaming ins’t really your thing, pretty much everything in this set can be used for basing and converting.

Most importantly of all, it looks fantastic. It really serves to evoke the feel of the fallen grandeur of the Mortal Realms with its defaced Sigmarite iconography and abundance of skulls. But the skeletons in the iron gibbets? They’re as flimsy as they look. Miraculously, mine have survived the aformentioned house move thanks to an abundance of bubble wrap.

The Catacombs scenery is very much the thing that has had Oldhammer brigade squealing with delight, and it’s with good reason. The designers have perfectly captured the feel of classic 80s fantasy with these pieces.

In true Warhammer fashion, there are skulls everywhere. They really evoke the spikey, sinister gloom of Archaon’s basement, but the best thing about them is that they harken back to things like Hero Quest and early Warhammer in general.

Though perhaps not as versatile insofar as gaming scenery as the “Warcry” set, the “Dungeon” set holds even more creative potential for the modeller and miniature photographer alike.

The scenery elements of the boxed set are as easy to clip off of the spure and assemble as hard plastic kits can come. As always, some mould line removal and filing is probably in order.

Good news! See the scatter terrain with the skeleton in the gibbet? There’s an additional point of contact so he won’t snap off in a breeze!

Bad news! They forgot to include assembly instructions for that piece!

Good news again! It’s very easy to put together.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Wargear

Continuing the trend of the much improved boxed sets we’ve been seeing of late, Warcry Catacombs gives you literally everything you need to play the game in the box. Even things that are omitted from many other boxed sets – but which consumers of other tabletop games have come to expect – are present here.

A healthy amount of wound counters of various values (double sided with a higher amount on the opposite side) are included, in addition to the “Activated/Waiting” tokens that are essential for keeping tabs on the games’ action-based economy. Also included are a number of tokens that can be used as objectives and icons to represent buffs and debuffs.

The punchboard the tokens come on is identical to the one that was included in the original Starter Set. Lots of red and black with jagged, white motifs to keep everything consistent with the Warcry branding. The card stock is thick and tough; you really don’t need to worry about these tokens wearing out any time soon.

As a bit of a board game nerd, I appreciate a good quality board.

The double-sided board included in the set is made from the same hard-wearing toughened card stock as all of the boards that Games Workshop have produced for their boxed games over the past few years. You’ll be using this bad boy for a good while. One side is a desolate landscape of the Eightpoints, whilst the other features the epoynmous Catacombs.

The printed map on this board is fantastic.

This is every bit the lair of the Scions of Flame. The impassable walls, doorways and rivers of lava are all clearly deliniated so there can be no confusion as to where fighters can and cannot go. Best of all?

Each of those slabs is an inch.

It’s such a clever wee piece of design that saves so much downtime and confusion whilst playing. More of this sort of elegance in design, please.

Also included are the measuring sticks that GW now included in all boxed sets that I have previously waxed lyrical about. (They make learning the principals of movement in wargaming very easy to learn.) Three varieties of 16mm bevelled chunkeh dice are also included; one for each warband, and one for the “Wild” dice mechanic unique to Warcry.

Having played quite a bit of the Warcry base game now, 18 dice doesn’t feel quite enough to do everything the game demands of the player. A supply of 6 wild dice is probably enough, and you can certainly scrape by with 6 dice for each player, but you’ll need more than this is you’re serious about playing the game.

The supply of small plastic bags is a small but very welcome addition. All of those tokens need somewhere to live when they’ve been punched and you do not want the hassle of sorting them every time you go to place the game.

As is the norm with every Warcry box (large and small), your fighters come with Ability and Fighter cards to keep track of as much information as possible on the fly. Helpfully, this also means you can use the cards to keep track of a fighter’s health instead of sprinkling the board with health tokens the inevitably would end up in a confused mess.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Books

In the box you’ll find a fair amount of literature. Amongst these is obviously the build instructions for the models and scenery.

The instructions are – thankfully – printed in full colour, making alternate build options and points where adhesive should be applied abundantly clear.

Handily, the base size comparison diagram first seen in the Indomitus instructions has also been implemented here. As somebody who has on more than one occassion mistakenly consued a 25mm base with a 28mm, this is an invaluable resource and one I consulted a few times throughout building my own figures.

Thankfully, the Catacombs instructions steer you towards building your ruins in a manner that works better for the battleplans included in the book and on the battleplan generator cards (noticably absent from this set).

The instructions on the 2019 set basically read as “Do whatever the hell you want!” and came with various monstrous, rainbow-coloured examples of the ruins in different arrangements. No such hassle here.

The only real gaffe I could find in the booklet was that there were no instructions whatsoever for building The Wall Breach, which wasn’t a big issue owing to the simplicity of the build. I suppose some painting suggestions would have been helpful but Warhammer TV has gotten much better at uploading tutorials in tandem with releases.

The Core Book for Warcry is included within the set. I won’t dwell on this too much since Catacombs is the focus of this review, but this is one of the tightest, most elegant rulesets that Games Workshop has ever delivered. Ever.

Warcry is very easy to teach and learn, but also packs a deceptive amount of depth which – in this writer’s opinion – is what separates the truly exceptional games from the mediocre. It also features a unqiue campaign system that has since been grandfathered into the Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition ruleset as the Crusade system.

A modestly-sized tome as far as many of Games Workshop’s offerings, the Catacombs book is only 65 pages long. It contains plenty of the evocative artwork we’ve come to expect from such books, the usual miniatures showcase and a bit of background explaining the subterranean conflict between the Khainite Shadowstalkers and the Scions of Flame.

The rules for fighting Dungeon Battles (which I will examine in detail in the Gameplay section of this review) are only 5 pages long. But that should not be cause for disappointment at all. Simplicity and elegance has remained firmly at the heart of developing this expansion.

A concern that always crops up in an expansion is how a change to rules affects existing factions, characters, weapons etc.

Prior to reading the Catacombs book I had reservations about just how effective factions like the Corvus Cabal and Nighthaunt – both of whom thrive upon exploiting verticality – would fare in the close quarters environs of a dungeon. It seems that this already occurred to the team as abilites specific to these factions are included in the Dungeon Battle rules.

No mad dash to release a FAQ needed here!

Something that did irk me somewhat with this book was that it makes reference to other different dungeon locations in which Dungeon Battles may be fought. Only one of these – the Infernal Forgefloor – is included in the set whilst the others can be purchased separately in the Catacombs Board Pack.

Whilst there is a bit of a”Day 1 DLC” feel to this practice, it really is a symptom of the problem of the set trying to be both a Starter Set and an expansion set in one. It’s a bit annoying that in a boxed set allegedly all about fighting dungeon battles that you are given only one dungeon to fight in as the other side of the board is to be used for regular Warcry.

As there are no battleplan generator cards included in the set, a battleplan generator is included in the book. This is specific to dungeon battles and can be used with any of the boards. Having to refer to a book constantly mid-battle can be a a faff, particularly if – like me – you’ve grown accustomed to having reference cards but it’s not a game breaker.

At the back of the book are 3 quests for the Khainite Shadowstalkers, 2 for the Scions of Flame (who already had 1 in the Core Book), 4 Fated Quests for any warband to undertake, and a name/background generators for Khainite Shadowstalkers should you wish to craft more of a narrative for your fighters. Nothing really surprising here.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Gameplay

Miraculously, I was able to actually play the game in the middle of navigating a house move. In the middle of a lockdown.

I’ll just leave this link here.

My long-suffering wife – being something of a goth kid – opted to play as the Khainite Shadowstalkers. I played as the Scions of Flame.

As we just wanted to see how Dungeon Battles work we didn’t use any campaign rules, merenaries or thralls. This was just Emos vs Pyros – nothing else.

Much as I have joked about my “long-suffering wife”, she has actually played quite a bit of Warcry and does enjoy it. We had been playing through a campaign of Untamed Beasts vs the Unmade until it got derailed by other things, so she knows the rules of the game very well. We just had a quick refresh of the basics before diving into the Catacombs rules.

What immediately impressed us above all was that the Catacombs rules see you essentially “switch off” a bunch of rules used in basic Warcry to use a few other rules in their place. Rather than Catacombs adding a bunch of extra stuff to the Core rules, it feels more like an alternate game mode.

Deployment follows the first few steps that the Core Book does, but deviates therafter since battleplan generation for Dungeon Battles is completely different.

Annoyingly, there are no Dungeon Battleplan cards in existance currently. When one of the great selling points of Warcry was how quickly it can be set up and played, having to continually refer to the book for Victory Conditions and Twists is a bit of an inconvenience.

It’s even more annoying when you realise Dungeon Battles only require 36 cards.

It may sound pedantic but as anybody who has played enough tabletop games will attest, “out of sight, out of mind” can be a real problem when you don’t have a computer resolving everything for you. It’s also hard to shake the feeling that quite a bit of cost cutting has gone on with Catacombs compared to some other large boxed sets.

After battleplan generation is complete, players taken turns deploying a piece of dungeon scenery at a time. This forms a sort of pre-battle mingame with each player trying to set up the board to hinder their opponent and help their fighters as much as they can.

As much as the absence of the full compliment of battleplan cards may seem like a loss at first, it’s with mechanics such as these that we begin to see why the developers are trying to move Warcry away from reliance on a specific range of terrain (which was what some of the cards inadvertently did).

Alternating deploment of the scenery really creates a feel of these factions modifying the landscape to their advantage, which is something actual armies did (and still do) and is something I feel is sadly absent from many wargames. My wife, naturally, used this opportunity to pen in 2 of my best fighters.

Finally, before the battle could commence we were required to resolve any instructions on the Twist “card” we rolled. The one we got was called “Lost in the Dark”, which is very thematic. From the second round onwards, players roll for each fighter in reserve and on a 5+ they have made their way to the battlefield.

Cool as Lost in the Dark sounds, we found in hindsight that it was incredible swingy. Because of the fairly tall odds it is entirely possible that a fighter doesn’t show up until it’s a bit too late for them to make a difference. It’s possible they may not even show up at all. This was unfortunately the case with my wife’s Shroud Queen.

Ultimately, the battle ended in a sound thrashing for the aelves.

Lost in the Dark definitely hurt them quite badly, but the battleplan also placed my fighters in the centre of the board defending the objective. Had the Scions of Flame been forced to try and move from the board edges to capture the objective whilst being shot at by the much faster aelves, things would definitely have been different.

The Khainite Shadowstalkers struck me as being a much harder warband to pilot than the Scions of Flame. Yes, the Scions are slower and don’t have much in the way of range, but they have 3 big men that hit hard and are tough to take down. The Khainites are more or less toughness 3 across the board so they really need to pick their fights.

All that being said, it does overall feel that the Scions are just the better warband. This is very much a boxed set where one of the factions is the plucky underdog. Again, Catacombs’ problem of both trying to be a Starter Set and an expansion rears its head. A disparity in potency can be a good thing when playing with a beginner, but will frustrate experienced players.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Price and Availability

How does Catacombs stack up against the Summer 2019 set in terms of value?

There’s absolutely no question that there’s been a price hike. The Warcry Starter Set retailed at £100/$170 USD/130 EUR, whilst Catacombs comes with a RRP of £125/$210 USD/160 EUR.

There are some slight differences with the wargear in that the original set came with the 4 decks of battleplan cards and Catacombs with Catacombs book. But how do the two sets measure up insofar as the models and scenery you get?

Warcry Starter Set Value

Warcry Catacombs Value

Presented like this it’s clear that both boxes net you a saving on what you would pay for all of their respective content individually.

However, we can see that the removal of what amounts to a sprue of models – coupled with a price hike – means that the total saving is greatly diminished.

I think that part of the problem is that the SOriginal tarter Set was possibly too generous in the eyes of GW. Given that the it’s been a price increase of £25/$40 USD/30 EUR in just over a year, people have understandly balked at it. Things like the separate dungeon boards and inferior card stock used for the box itself don’t really help.

Just bear in mind that most indepenent retailers will offer anything from 10-20% off of RRP. Given that most of the world is currently looking at reimplementing lockdown measures to combat the pandemic, they could frankly use your business, too.

Warcry Catacombs Review – Final Thoughts

It’s a shame that this does feel a bit like GW’s first fumble in a long time with a release because the models are easily amongst the best to join the market this year.

My feeling is that this really should have just been an expansion set for people already playing Warcry and looking for more rather than trying to be a starter set, too. (FH or at least have a mid-tier expansion only offering alonside) Releasing the additional dungeon boards at the same time feels a bit cheeky, and if they hadn’t tried to make Catacombs double as a Starter Set, we could have easily had them instead of the Core Book.

I can’t shake the feeling that somebody wasn’t too happy with the way the Starter Set was priced and they’ve been keen to get it off the market to replace with something else. It’s normal for prices to increase over time – even expected – but the increase relative to last year was a bit surprising.

It doesn’t detract from how good an addition the Catacombs rules are to the game. They’re exactly what you want in an expansion; they add to the game in a meaningful and interesting way, whilst keeping it fully recognisable as Warcry.

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Summary

Reviewer

Oberael

Review Date

Reviewed Item

Warcry Catacombs

Author Rating

4

Product Name

Warcry Catacombs