Warcrow Adventures

What is Warcrow Adventures

Warcrow Adventures is a co-op dungeon crawler for 2 to 4 players from Corvus Belli, set in the same world as their wargame Warcrow. The rulebook calls it “a cooperative, campaign-based board game.” Each scenario is an episode in an ongoing story, and your hero carries gear, skills and scars from one game to the next.

It’s set on Assail, a large island that was home to the capital of an extinct elven empire. A strange Fog covers half of it. About a decade before the story, the Fog pulled back from one stretch of coast, and rumours of old elven artifacts drew every nation in. After a few wars, the Hegemony of Embersig, Mounthaven, Feudom and the Merchant Alliance signed an armistice and set up a free port. That port grew into Hawthorn Point, where, in the rulebook’s words, “legionaries, mercenaries, merchants, settlers, outlaws, and thieves all have a place.” People who go into the Fog mostly don’t come back, and the few who do come back strange.

You need the free companion app to play. It runs the campaign, sets up each scenario tile by tile, spawns the enemies and decides what they do. It’s on iOS, Android and Steam.

It’s a board game first, with a fixed cast of heroes and monsters in the box, rather than a wargame you build an army for. You don’t need it to play Warcrow, or the other way round.

How it plays

Pick a party. The core box has five heroes, and you take four of them on each mission. The ones in the rulebook’s examples are Darach, Ludivine, Nayra and Zsoka.
Explore, then fight. Out of combat, players activate in whatever order they agree on, and each hero gets a move and an action, or two moves. Searching the map means attribute tests against markers the app tells you to place.
The initiative dial. Once enemies show up, every hero and enemy goes on a 10-space initiative tracker. A dial ticks round it, and whoever it points at activates. After activating, your token moves forward by your Initiative value, so a fast hero can go two or three times in a round while a slow one goes once.
Energy cubes, not action points. Each hero has five lines on an activation panel, each with a cost. You pick a line, place cubes on it left to right, and each cube triggers an effect on the way. Then you take an action. Spending extra cubes on a line (up to three) gets more triggers, so you’re always choosing between one strong action and several weaker ones.
Coloured dice and switches. Rolls use 18 dice in six colours, three for attack and three for defence. Fights are face-to-face rolls against the enemy, and spare symbols pay for switches, extra effects printed on your cards. Corvus Belli uses switches in Warcrow too.
Stain and the Tinge. Using magic or dark energy builds up Stain on your hero. Clear it between missions or it hardens into a Tinge card: a strong permanent effect that pulls in more Stain. A hero who gets a third Tinge card leaves the campaign for good.
Wounds stick. A downed hero can be pulled back up, but draws a Consequence card that stays until it’s healed. A hero with three or more Consequences sits out the next scenario.
Hawthorn Point between missions. After each scenario the app takes you back to the city. You visit locations to heal Consequences, cleanse Stain, trade ingredients for consumables and improve an attribute, then play short narrative encounters before the next mission.

How to start

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Warcrow Adventures Rules (free PDF)

The full rulebook, straight from Corvus Belli.

Read the rules for free. The full rulebook is a free download. The official How to Play page covers the app, the enemies and the Hawthorn Point phase.
Get the core box. It’s everything you need for the main campaign: the heroes, enemies, tiles, cards, dice, energy cubes and the initiative tracker. Corvus Belli says it has 11 scenarios and “more than 30 hours of fun.” Miniature Market lists it at $139.99. The miniatures come unpainted.
Download the app. It’s free on Google Play and the App Store, and the rulebook says it’s on Steam too. You can’t play without it.
Then expand. Deathclaws of the Dream is the first expansion, a follow-on campaign on an island freed from the Fog, with new rules including pets. The Underground Rascals (7 miniatures) and They Came from the Fog (9 miniatures) add new enemies.