Warcrow Adventures

The Gelatinous Cube tried to be a therapist, but all his advices were a little too transparent…

Warcow Adventures is a typical dungeon crawler. We descend into the dungeon, fight monsters, cast spells, loot corpses and exp while continuing the storyline. So a tried and tested formula that should work.

Unfortunately, however, this dungeon explorer made me crawl a little closer to the floor than I would have liked.

Plot

Our heroes arrive at Hawthorn Point. The town is surrounded by a magical fog and we must uncover the mystery of a missing expedition. We quickly find out who is behind it and later it turns out that someone else is behind it, and behind it… generally I hope you know what I’m getting at.

The story contained in the game didn’t draw me in as much as I would have liked. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t particularly stand out either. I liked the atmosphere of the game and the world itself. It was dark and very interesting. It made me want to play an RPG in the world of Lindwurm.

During my playthrough I was also faced with some important plot choices. Something I actually enjoyed. Although it’s hard for me to say anything more about the consequences of these decisions. I’d probably have to play the whole campaign again to see if it would change certain scenes and the fate of some characters.

Exploration

The gameplay in Warcrow Adventures is divided into 3 phases. The first of these is exploration. This consists of walking around the tiles of the dungeon and clicking various markers on the app. Because, by the way, it’s a game with an app. If you are still here then I can continue my long rant….

Once we have clicked these markers then the app will tell us what happens next. Sometimes we’ll loot chests, sometimes we’ll activate a secret passage, talk to NPCs and mostly we’ll discover new elements of the dungeon. On top of that, we will perform various tests of our stats to, for example, to avoid traps or convince the characters we meet.

So it’s like playing a good RPG. Although this walking through the dungeons is quite linear considering that sometimes we will have to go several turns to some marker that is located at the other end of the dungeon. It heightens that kind of feeling of emptiness in Warcrow Adventures.

Initiative combat

Dungeon exploration is often interrupted by combat. Then we place ourselves on the initiative wheel and are ready for battle.

To perform actions in the game we will place energy cubes on 1 of the 5 bars on our hero card. Each bar can only be selected once during our activation and not all fields on it are mandatory. This is where this super system of Warcrow Adventures comes in, giving us such a jigsaw puzzle. Because by placing dice we set off various triggers that will affect our actions. These can include upgrading attack dice, gaining extra rerolls or obtaining a token with our character’s special ability.

The whole trick is to do as many actions as possible in our turn. This, however, requires the right deployment of energy cubes. Because even these optional fields can be very powerful and you will have to balance whether we might want to do more actions in your turn or maybe less, but with extra effects. This is just great. We will be hindered in this game by our opponents, who will even have the ability to block us from certain bars. So we wouldn’t be playing by heart.

However, let’s return to combat. We take the dice from our weapon and from our armour. We check to see if the skills allow us to upgrade them and once we have that, we roll. The star is a wound, the shield defends against damage and the exclamation mark can set off our skills. It seems simple enough. However, this is when switches come to life. These are skills that we can activate using the results from our dice. They can change the outcomes to something more useful, they can give negative statuses to an opponent, etc. At the beginning these options were quite few, but the more I developed my heroes the more switches awaited me. The opponents also took advantage of this.

You could say that the combat is the best part of Warcrow Adventures. Because we really have a lot of cool options to do thanks to those triggers and switches. However, there is something that spoils the epicness of the battles.

I’m referring to the fact that most enemies have a damage reduction ability. This is based on the fact that if we inflict 2 or more damage on them then reduce it by 1. Given that the further we play, our enemies also become stronger and even get a built-in shield on their character card. Through this we regularly deal 1 damage to them, maybe sometimes 2. Our weapons also scale and we gain extra dice, but I don’t feel any stronger through this. I would like to feel the power of my attacks and plays. It was terribly demotivating and could prolong clashes, which turned into a festival of constant dice rolls. Probably the most frustrating was when I fought a boss that could heal itself. Now I understand all these memes.

It’s at the end of this long description that I’ll deal with the initiative wheel a little more. Each time a character activates, they will move forward on this wheel. Some triggers will add time and some will subtract it. Which also provides us with such a little puzzle of how to get the timing right on it. Especially given that if there are several characters in one spot we will resolve the one on top first.

A little development for exp

In the base box we have 5 heroes. The priestess heals allies and spreads a magical aura around herself. The orc barbarian rages and they spend this rage to amplify their attacks. The elven archer marks his enemies to convert exclamations into hits. The dwarven archer tanks and assists her allies in defence. Then there’s the sorceress, who casts powerful spells, but this comes with certain consequences.

All these character classes are such typical Dungeons & Dragons stereotypes. Although that’s actually a good thing, because at least it felt like a dungeon. Most importantly each hero played differently and each had something interesting to offer. There were even quite a few options for cooperative play which is also something I really like.

Our heroes can theoretically be developed in several ways. As we progress through the scenarios, we get new skills and weapons. As for skills, we can choose several options during each scenario. They modify our basic mechanics and sometimes even add actions. The new equipment provides us with better attack and defence dice. Although we don’t have too much of it to choose from, as it’s usually some subtle dice upgrade and that’s about it. Considering what I wrote about combat, I didn’t feel that my characters became more powerful.

In the city, we can also upgrade the attributes of our protagonist, which will help us in tests while exploring dungeons. However, the method of marking this upgrade is s… here I would probably use a very nasty word, but I will refrain. We mark the improved attribute with a micro token, which can easily get lost in the meanders of our carpet. Such a solution cries for vengeance to heaven. Wait until I get to the application, however.

Our Enemy

Warcrow Adventures for this surprises me in terms of available enemies. Because it is quite non-stereotypical. We will be attacked by husk, cultists, oversized bats, tailed beasts, metallic warriors and other dark oddities. In terms of the diversity of opponents, it is really good. Especially since we will use some of the figures for stronger versions of enemies with increased stats and better attacks. We also have a few bosses, with which I fought a rather tough but tedious battle. In this aspect Warcow Adventures does not disappoint me.

Long Rest in Town

After each finished scenario we will return to Hawthorne Point. There we will heal wounds, improve our attributes, clean magic stains(liquid from the bag won’t help), craft disposable items and even get a tattoo. At the beginning of the game, this phase was quite unclear to me. Because it looked like I could place characters in particular locations. These locations provided us with all those special actions I wrote about earlier, but not everything I could perform. Because it turned out, for example, that I didn’t have the right favor in a specific faction. The level of this favorability was influenced by some of my choices, but it was hard to keep track of that.

There were also such one-off events waiting for me in the city just like in Gloomhaven. There was some situation in the district where I placed my hero, and I had to choose what would happen next. Actually, that was pretty cool. I like such small events in games.

App

An app is something that should make gameplay easier in such big games. Well, the app in Warcrow Adventures so half-heartedly supports our journey. Because in it we will read the entire storyline, click on tokens, see what the opponents will do and keep track of their health bar. Although handling the menu with opponents is not convenient.

It’s a pity that the application doesn’t save our newly gained attributes or received magic stains. Because the only saving option is the ability to take a picture of our character card after each playthrough. Later we put it all in the box anyway, and if we play after a few weeks we may not remember who had what on them.

The app also has a few word errors and one of them is even during the selection of the main campaign.

There were also some strange situations with the interaction between tokens in the app. Because, for example, I was able to attack a boss after his death by throwing a jar of corrosive acid at him. Because somehow the app did not take into account that he was long dead.

I know how the wheel works

The manual has its strengths and weaknesses just like the game itself. The strong point is the description of the initiative wheel and about how tokens travel on it. The manual devotes a whole 3 pages for that. However, the rest of the information is scattered throughout the manual, and in the beginning I had a hard time understanding, for example, that I had to place energy cubes to perform an action. Even when moving.

How many players does it take to penetrate a dungeon?

Does Warcow Adventures somehow change in terms of the number of players? No. It doesn’t matter if you play with one hero or four. The number of enemies will be exactly the same. As at the beginning of my adventure it may have seemed like a good idea to play fewer characters. That said, later scenarios definitely required a full party. As for handling such a party, it was not bad. Because I played the whole campaign solo and sometimes my wife helped me. Although I preferred to play with her, because I happened to forget some of the heroes’ abilities that reduced the dice of the enemies. There were a lot of passive abilities.

Quality and Components

The miniatures have a lot of detail, the cards have nice illustrations, and we still get a ton of tokens and tiles. The quality is good. Even the insert is okay, but you have to put everything together well. It’s just a pity that the figures have such a push on the base, because it looks rather unaesthetic. A strange solution is that when we have a squad of enemies consisting of two figures, there is no method to distinguish who is number one and who is number two.

Summary

Warcow Adventures is a dungeon crawler that starts off slow. Because at the beginning of my adventure I felt that the scenarios were too easy and I could literally play on autopilot. I was traversing dungeons, clicking on markers, and reading what the app was telling me (despite its bugs).

Halfway through my journey, something changed as new skills came in, fights became more challenging and it was somehow better. However, as soon as things started to progress, that’s when the damage reduction came in, which turned battles into a tedious festival of dice rolls in which I felt no progress. On top of that, some locations seemed too empty, and the story itself somehow failed to engage me in the end.

I always dreamed of having Warcow Adventures in my collection and thought it would never happen. However, in this case, I may not necessarily be satisfied with the awakening this game serves me.

Final Verdict: Because the dungeons were too empty to penetrate them

Pros

• Action system
• Triggers and switches
• Heroes from D&D
• Enemies Horror Body modification
• Exploration markers
• Small town event

Cons

• Who’s behind the plot?
• Empty dungeons
• App so almost necessary
• Minor bugs
• Damage reduction and tedious combat

[Game provided by Corvus Belli]