Cursed City – Carried Items
Recently I completed the core Cursed City game. My group never made use of the Carried Item slot on the character card. It was a mystery the whole time. Spoilers below! After finishing the game, I read every Crisis in the Quest Book. Read no further if you wish to avoid crisis spoilers. We wondered what we were missing. Turns out, not too much in terms of game effect. I wish there were more of these/or that the odds were better of hitting them. It’s a fun and mysterious gimmick that we would have enjoyed. The odds of hitting the first part of these little side quests aren’t super great. We never hit one. Then, you’d have to have a hero carrying the item on the board, which isn’t guaranteed, there are eight heroes in the box + all the expansion characters now. THEN you have to get a lucky…
New priorities
I’m trying out a new hobby priority: No More Unassembled Models! My M.O. has been: I’m thinking about cutting out a lot of middle and get models ready to paint or play more quickly. I’m not sure how much value there is for me to have unassembled models that I can’t do anything with except hoard like dragon treasure. In fact, maybe that’s what I’ll call pre-usable models. Dragon Treasure. A dragon can’t spend gold, drink out of jeweled goblets, or wear filigreed armor. And I can’t play a game with models on sprue, or unbased lead. So I kicked it off without really thinking about it this past October. I had two spooky unassembled Blitz Bowl teams that, checks-watch, I’ve had for years! Time is literally flying. I asked myself: do I assemble both now or save one for next year? In my generally morbid mindset, I replied: What…
Cursed City Named Tiles
Did you know that some tiles in Cursed City have names? There isn’t a ton of information in the early White Dwarf magazines, but that’s one interesting piece from White Dwarf 467. That’s right! Even though the tiles don’t have any identifying markings on them, some have names. In a way, it’s nice to not have markings on the tiles, which could potentially mar the game experience. But on the other hand, sometimes it’s tough to track down the right tile to make a map. My tip is to sort tiles by shape type. Also, it’s easy to imagine the design team having names for files/tile while working on them. They just weren’t communicated in the box. Regardless! The art is great! It’s brooding, dark, and mysterious. Just the way I like it! Games Workshop gives us the following named tiles: The pages as they appear in White Dwarf 467…
Warhammer Quest Cursed City Order of Operations
As serious games go, Warhammer Quest: Cursed City isn’t that complicated. But to non-gamer-types (like me), it’s tricky to remember to do everything. Not to mention doing it in the right order! I’ll update this page as the steps are refined. Also, these steps are Rules-As-Written, feel free to house-rule as you like. Here’s my attempt to memorialize the WQCCOoO: Hostiles Then after all this is over, roll the quest die on the Event table, and apply effects. Let me know if I’m missing anything or am out of order.
Callis & Toll – Saviours of Cinderfall
Callis & Toll have rules up on Warhammer Community. Though I’ve never read any of the books, they look like a fun group of adventurers. They’re ideally suited to go up against the ghouls in White Dwarf 498-499. We now have a ton of heroes with Cursed City rules. It’d be great to have some more rules/adventures with other factions. Skaven maybe? How about orks? Dark Elves are always nasty. Here’s the video from Always Board Never Boring. Individual Character Rundown Armand Callis (Stalwart, Human, Order of Azyr, Saviour of Cinderfall) No surprises here. Callis wages absolute destruction. Hanniver Toll (Executioner, Human, Order of Azyr, Saviour of Cinderfall) Deadly, but less tough. Witch Hunters are cool. Lyssa Revenya (Blade, Human, Soldier, Saviour of Cinderfall) Very fun to play. We house-ruled the grapple to allow her to zip to visible locations, rather than limit it to the current board. Mistress Verentia,…
White Dwarf 496 – The Cities of Sigmar Cursed City Heroes
These characters are a fun refresh for Cursed City. They come from three different sets: Freeguild Marshal and Relic Envoy, Alchemite Warforger, and Freeguild Command Corps. In addition to the 3 things below, I find the subtitles on the cards interesting. The original heroes in the box also include vocations (Soldier, Priest, Death Scholar, etc.), and we get a few new ones on these cards. There is no current game mechanic (that I know of) that relies on you being a Whisperblade vs a War Surgeon. Is that trait intended to be a portion of some larger/additional aspect of gameplay? I feel like GW could release a book (similar to WHQ 1995 Role Play) that could VASTLY expand roleplay, no additional components necessary, it’s a great box. Now, there’s nothing to stop us from doing that ourselves, but (zombie voice:) we must obey the marketing! And GW generally does a…
Only good things about Warhammer Quest: Cursed City
Sometimes people get a bit too down on Cursed City. It’s a fun game with lots going for it. Sure, GW has been pretty weird about it. Or at least we think they’re being weird because GW has literally NO stated position about the game at all! What’s not to like?
Modern miniatures and the uncanny valley
I’d like to revisit a topic I talked about a couple weeks ago. Modern Games Workshop models. This is a controversial topic because people are passionate about both old and new. It’s really great that people have found things they genuinely enjoy, and I do not meant to diminish anyone’s interest in anything. This is a longer article than I usual write, so if you want to skip right to the uncanny valley section, it starts in section 3. I’ve been trying to psychoanalyze myself as to what drives my personal preference in miniatures. Opinions and biases are 100% subjective. I am in no way saying something is right or wrong. I’m going to be talking about my own personal preference. I’m sure this won’t ingratiate me with anyone. To break it down, I’d say there are 3 factors driving my preference toward older miniatures. All of those are real…
White Dwarf 2024
I got my hands on the latest iteration of Grombrindal, the White Dwarf. White Dwarf 500 has rules for Cursed City, Age of Sigmar, Underworlds, and Warcry. I’m most interested in Cursed City and hope to try him out in the next week. Always Board Never Boring goes over his rules. He’s a Loremaster in Cursed City, which is interesting because his stats are very stalwart-ey and he has no spells. Oh but that axe! He’s going to do some damage. Admittedly, this is a splurge purchase and at nearly $40 US, it’s pretty steep for one single-little-itty-bitty piece of plastic. But, I’m a bit of a white dwarf collector, so I can stomach this one. Having game rules definitely helps too. I’ve been somewhat critical of the tiny pieces in some GW sets. Not so here! Look at these beautiful chunky pieces! This thing went together great, no fiddley…
One Man Army
Old Man Time has really started cranking the wheel hard because believe it or not, it’s been over a year ago that Warhammer Community published rules to use some truly mighty heroes in Cursed City. I printed up the cards and was ready to roll right away. I have absolutely no problem proxying minis that are a close facsimile to the originals. Take the Cryptguard ghouls for example. I’m not going to spend $50.00 US on 20 ghouls when I have perfectly good ghouls at home! However, I’m loathe to proxy character models. So I got all three. Well, I already had Gotrek Gurnisson, so getting Cursed City rules was an added bonus. I’m a big Gotrek & Felix fan -Me (2005) I really had a blast playing a couple games as Gotrek. I have to admit, I was a bit star struck. I even got everything painted up! I…