Thanks for the tests Ydejin! I think we were both testing at the same time in fact. Without detailing my results, and adding yours in, I am pretty darn sure the the only variable at character creation in the iOS game is the starting wounds. This is a god send for wizards. Starting gear, skills, and attributes are all static. All bets are off at level up though.
Can I quote myself?
This disappeared quickly and was buried in other text so I was not sure if nobody was interested or if nobody saw it. What do you folks think?
Wait, WHAT???
Playing hardcore. Final boss fight in the dungeon. I’ve got my Waywatcher (level 3), Warrior Priest (level 2), Archmage (level 2) and Ironbreaker (level 1). We’ve managed to take out all the Ork Boyz helping defend and it’s just me against the boss. We’re low on supplies, but the boss is almost down. My Warrior Priest is going toe-to-toe with him, but he’s very low on health, and I’ve repeatedly expended supplies to keep the Warrior Priest alive. My Waywatcher takes a shot and it’s a hit. The boss is down to 4hp, Waywatcher takes his second shot and it’s a miss. End of turn.
No problem, we still got this, I’ve got four heroes and the boss has only 4 hp left. The boss hits my Warrior Priest and my Warrior Priest goes down. My Ironbreaker is right next to the Warrior Priest and has bandages as does my Archmage who is just behind the Ironbreaker. Should not be a problem for one of them to revive the Warrior Priest and then I’ve just got to have one of my four heroes strike a blow to kill the boss.
Then bamm, four rats show up. My Ironbreaker uses his bandages to revive my Warrior Priest and … action fails … (I didn’t even know bandages could fail)! Just need to move my Archmage over and … he’s pinned by the bloody rats and I can’t move him next to the Warrior Priest to do the bandaging. No, no, this can’t be happening.
Wait, I’ve got one more chance. I just need to kill all the enemies. My Waywatcher knifes the rat next to him. He shoots the boss dead. Ironbreaker hits a rat and gets a Deathblow and takes out a second rat. It’s looking good. Only one rat left, my Archmage strikes at the rat and misses. No, no, no.
Ah, wait my Waywatcher hasn’t take his second missile shot. He shoots the rat, and it’s victory, glorious victory. Ending the dungeon means that the Warrior Priest is automatically revived. And we all go back to town to get drunk.
OMG, I wish I could play all this iOS crap on my PC somehow.
From the descriptions, it seems that this game is just like Card Hunter, correct? I like the idea, but it does get boring after a while.
Yes and no. The overall structure is very similar, but the combat mechanics are extremely different. Also the vibes are extremely different, with Card Hunter having it’s nerdy gaming RPG veneer and Warhammer playing it straight and more visceral.
That said, I’ve been following Card Hunter closely since last August and finally got into the beta on Tuesday, but I haven’t played it because Warhammer Quest came out the next day and I agree that they seem too similar to be playing simultaneously. I do expect I’ll get back to Card Hunter in a week or two.
They’re both dungeon crawlers but they are very different. WQs appeal is in the nice presentation of the warhammer universe and the diablo-ish loot/level grind. Card Hunter comes more from the Sid Meier school of “interesting decisions”. The rules are deeper and much more in your face.
WQ is trying to present a world, Card Hunter is very much a game. I much prefer Card Hunter because its got much better game design, but you have to remember that WQ (the board game) was designed a long time ago.
Tony
Ah - and since I find Card Hunter boring after a few games, I guess this isn’t for me after all :-)
Great. How much variation are you seeing in the starting wounds? I got through the starter dungeon on a new playthrough so I could check the initial stats for the DLC heroes. This is what I came up with:
Dwarf Trollslayer:
Move 4, Weapon Skill 4, Ballistic Skill 3, Strength 5 (actually 4 + 1 from starting Rune Axe), Toughness 4, Melee Attacks 1, Pinning 1, Wounds 15
Warrior Priest:
Move 4, Weapon Skill 2, Ballistic Skill 2, Strength 3, Toughness 2, Melee Attacks 1, Pinning 3, Wounds 13
Archmage:
Move 4, Weapon Skill 4, Ballistic Skill 3, Strength 2, Toughness 3, Melee Attacks 1, Pinning 3, Wounds 14 (actually 11 + 3 for his starting Moon Staff)
The game just locked up on me while the monsters were taking their turn. And I’m only on the first quest after leaving the first settlement! Not good.
From Rodeo Games Twitter account:
Warhammer Quest tip of the day; Want to rename your Warriors? Simply visit a settlement and tap on your character’s name on the main screen.
I am liking the game quite a bit, but it does lock up regularly on my iPad 2. It’s usually the same thing: I enter a room, it generates an encounter, gives me the “3x Ork Boyz 1x Ork Arrer Boy” message, then goes black again as if it’s generating another encounter, and then freezes. I restart the game and re-enter the room and it’s fine, but it’s annoying.
I have had the same lock up behaviour a couple of times, too. In spite of this and the quite frankly infuriating random negative surprises in towns, WHQ is the iOS game I’ve enjoyed the most since…um…Ascension.
ydejin: The wounds varied by a few points which matches up with the board game rules. My iPad is downstairs, but I want to say the Ironbraker dwarf had a range of 9 to 13 starting wounds on the characters I created. I have seen zero variation for abilities and standard attributes. This isn’t too different from the board game as I think every character had just wounds as a variable except caster spells and chaos knight’s mutation. For example in the board game a Wizard split his spells into three piles (healing, damage, and support) and then picked a random card from each pile (which is clearly not what is going on in the iOS game–and that is fine because sometimes you had a kick ass wizard but more often than not you had a really sub-par one when it was randomized). Most starting wounds would be like the formula of 1d6+5 or something.
Edit: the stating wounds are 1d6+8 for the Dwarf in the board game. So that seems pretty dead on for the tests.
I ran a test of my initial challenge run idea, it took about 30 minutes to do and ended with a wipe to an objective room containing a Goblin Shaman that I tried to get too greedy with by saving my Finger of Death. Ultimately, and in desperation, I used it, but it was too late. Since it just ends the game at that point I looked at my pre-run gold as it loaded an auto-save (kinda weak for a “hardcore” mode) and ended with 299 gold (no inventory counted since they would have been dead and the gear lost). Party wipe in the Minstrel instrument room. The most amazing moment was at the very end as my Ranger was the last one standing, and despite an ambush event roll, she went ape with 1 hp for like 3 or 4 rounds dodging or being missed while dropping fools like nobody’s business. Eventually the would be challenge run was ended by a lowly (and last) Night Goblin Archer, that like a bridge, was too far.
How does a warrior’s Pinning stat translate into gameplay?
Found the answer via a rules summary for the physical version:
A warrior is pinned and may not move if there is a monster in an adjacent square at the start of the Warriors’ phase. A warrior may not use a missile weapon while pinned. He may however turn to face any direction.
To escape from pinning and move normally a warrior must roll a die and score at least his pinning value (only one roll is required no matter the number of pinning monsters).
I found a link to [the actual board game rules](http://users.telenet.be/WHQ_TheHouse/Docs/WHQ - Rule Book v0.01.pdf) although I haven’t actually gone through them. You can see the Pinning numbers that Chaplin and I dug up for 1st level characters. They are all quite low, except for the Elf Waywatcher who never ever gets pinned (someone said on another forum that in the boardgame he can’t get pinned).
Pin 8: Waywatcher
Pin 3: Wizard, Warrior Priest, Archmage
Pin 2: Dwarf Ironbreaker
Pin 1: Marauder, Dwarf Trollslayer
Per my handy dandy WHQ rule book over here:
Pinning occurs when a warrior (hero character) starts a round with one or more monsters adjacent to him or her. When pinned a warrior may not move during that round unless they successfully role to escape pinning. To do this you must roll higher than the pinning stat of the warrior. If a successful pinning break roll is done, this counts for all monsters and the warrior is free to move. Since GW games are d6, if your character has a pinning stat of 6 they can only move on a roll of 6 on a d6. If their stat was 4 they could move if they rolled a 4, 5 or 6.
Edit: in the board game a wizard escapes pinning on a 4+ whereas the Barbarian escapes on a 6+. It could be in WHQ iOS they just reversed it for some reason and made pinning a stat to roll under rather than over. The Ranger indeed could never be pinned.
I think the iOS game auto rolls to escape pinning. If you fail it will say “pinned” when you select the character. If not you will have movement squares when you first select the hero in the warrior phase.
Also, I still don’t know if WHQ iOS has the exact same mechanics moving behind the UI. Some things seem dead on (wound calculations, combat calculations). Other things are clearly different (starting spells, monster placement when entering rooms, power rolls).
I won’t swear this is the case but it seems like pinning does not eliminate your missile attack in the iOS version.