I think that’s right, but you still can’t shoot targets next to yourself.
Thanks for the pinning info. So, are the Marauder and Dwarf Ironbreaker more or less likely to break free from pinning than the Wizard? Based on their pinning values, I’d say more, but the Waywatcher’s value of 8 seems out of place. Why not just list Immune or something?
Ugh…another crash, and I haven’t even played the game for more than 3 hours. This time it crashed after tapping on the “You are victorious!” screen. Prior to the crash, I’d received a sweet blue dagger as part of my reward. After reloading, though, I was returned to the point before I’d killed the last critter. This time, my reward didn’t include the dagger, but rather an item to sell at the market and a fire scroll. :-(
And the app was the only app running on my iPad 4. They need to fix these crashes (and the annoying grammar errors).
I really hope they continue to support this game, not only with additional content but with fixes and polishing. Many times I’ve been given a quest to retrieve a, say, helmet, but the text says it’s a blade, or vice-versa. Little crap like that, plus the horrendous battery usage and the crashing. Still maddeningly addictive though.
The Maurader and Iron Breaker are LESS likely to have free movement than the Wizard. For whatever reason it looks like they went to ‘higher value is better’ in th iOS version.
I am pretty sure this will have continued support for quite some time in both patching and monetized content (both are a-okay with me). I believe an inventory that doesn’t require physical tipping of the device is part of what is being worked on now. I too have experienced some crashes now, so I hope stability is improved. As to content (and this is just a guess), I am thinking a Chaos themed critter/campaign pack can’t be too far off. I say this because of the tool tip that refers to beast men and the background art that clealy shows those who have given into Chaos.
In an effort to help those not familiar with the board game understand what is probably going on under the hood and to have an easier time enjoying WHQ iOS I thought I would put up some rule quick references:
WHQ is a game that uses a standard 6 sided die. This means often when the rules refer to something that has “a chance” it is probably a 1 in 6 chance (Trip, Berserk*, etc).
WHQ is a critical fail/ critical success system. A 1 is always a failure and a 6 is always a success.
*Berserk is somewhat special, it is a d6 chance that the Barbarian will freak out and hit anyone next to him at the start of the turn if there are monsters present (and then lose all other actions). This chance goes down with each monster he has killed, but as above the critical fail/success system applies.
Phases of the Game:
[ul]
[li]Power Phase (Winds of Magic roll)[/li][li]Warrior Phase (Hero characters move and attack)[/li][li]Monster Phase (monsters move and attack)[/li][/ul]
Encounters:
During the Warriors phase, if there are no monsters, heroes move around, can cast spells, and adjust inventory.
Once a Warrior steps on a doorway tile (marked with a large arrow in the iOS game) a new room tile is drawn to generate the dungeon
[ul]
[li]If the tile is a hallway, nothing happens and the warriors can move on[/li][li]If the tile is a dungeon room or the objective room, a monster encounter is drawn[/li][/ul]
A warrior can make as many Ranged attacks in a round as their ranged attribute indicates and as many melee as their melee attack attribute indicate. These are independent so the default level 1 Ranger can shoot once and melee once.
Inventory (between main stash and character slots in the iOS) cannot be adjusted until all spawned monsters are slain
Spell Casting:
A spell caster needs power to cast spells
Power comes from 2 places:
[ul]
[li]Power from Winds of Magic[/li][li]Power from Reserve Power pool[/li][/ul]
The Winds of Magic is a use it or lose it mana pool that is generated each turn as part of the Power phase. In WHQ this is a simple d6 roll per turn but I think WHQ iOS is something like D6+Wizard Battle Level. Note: on a roll of a 1 for the Winds of Magic, the wizard gets no power to cast spells and an event card is drawn (this usually means monsters are going to spawn)– this will be the source of most of the tension in the game. The other sources of Power is the Reserve Power Pool that is generated (in the iOS version) by Wizard Level or items; this pool does NOT refresh until you have left the dungeon. The current Reserve Power the Wizard has is the number next to the fireball icon in the iOS game; a level 1 Wizard in WHQ iOS has no reserve power.
Chance to hit in melee combat is a comparison of WS of the attacker to the WS of the defender.
Notice this means a WS match-up of identical values is a 50% chance-- so expect a lot of missing in the game. Like, a LOT! Managing actions and minimalizing the consequences of failure is as much or more of the game than crunching %to hit.
Wounds= Hitpoints
Strength= raw damage added onto weapon damage
Toughness= flat damage taken off of damage that is about to be dealt to a target
Melee Combat damage formula on a hit: (Weapon + Strength) - target’s Toughness = actual wounds lost
Melee Combat Example:
A Dwarf with WS 3 wants to hit a Giant Bat with WS 1.
WS3 vs WS1 (from the chart above) means a hit on 2+ (on a six sided die or 83.3% chance of successfully hitting)
roll of 4—hit!
The Dwarf Ironbreaker has an axe that does 1-6 damage; he rolls 3 damage
The Dwarf also has a strength of 4 and the Giant Bat has a Toughness of 2.
(3+4)-2= 5 wounds dealt to the Giant bat.
The bat only has 2 wounds-- it dies!
Ranged Combat:
Chance to hit is just based off of the ballistic skill of the shooter and the BS value is simply the X+ needed to hit. That is a BS of 4 hits on a ranged attack on a roll of 4 or higher.
Damage is based off of the weapon damage roll plus the ranged weapons strength value - target’s toughness. In the iOS game they seem to have condensed the values so it is just weapon damage roll - toughness.
Pinning:
If monsters are still alive the turn after they spawn, they will “Pin” warriors next to them. This means a warrior cannot move unless it succeeds in a break away roll. I believe in the iOS version a hero that started a turn next to a monster can only move if they roll less than or equal to their Pinning attribute. So a Wizard with a Pinning attribute of 4 can move if he rolled 4 or less (again on a d6) at the start of the turn. I also believe this is automatic in the iOS version and you will only see if you failed (indicated by no movement squares and red “pinned” when you first activate that hero). The Ranger (Waywatcher) can’t be pinned.
Cheers and happy spelunking.
Awesome!!! Thanks Chaplin.
Fantastic breakdown, thanks! I especially was wondering about the strength and toughness modifiers.
Thank you for the details, Chaplin!
Really? So, the higher a character’s BS, the less likely he is to hit? That’s opposite of the WS. Where’s the consistency? :-(
I’m really loving this so far. Just using the default warriors but the DLC is actually tempting. I haven’t had any crashes so far on my iPhone 4, but being on the iPhone leads to my only complaint so far. The text is just too damn tiny most of the time. My eyes aren’t the greatest and it can be a real chore trying to make out all the tiny text.
Didn’t you know all the innovation in board game ports is happening on iOS now?
To your main point, it is a little wierd, but they are consistent in that BS checks don’t compare stats, they just give a to hit roll where lower is better (in the board game). Melee is the same, but only after a comparison check is done in the chart. So while a higher WS is desirable, it is desirable because it will give a lower number needed on a to hit roll. I don’t know, chalk it up to late '80s/ early '90s game design. :)
To those that found the information helpful, glad I could help! It really is a solid game, but can definitely be obtuse to someone who knows it is a board game, but has never played the board game. And the journal pretty much fails at breaking down any kind of numbers. My other main dissapointment so far is while it is a great Warhammer Quest experience for the older gamer like me that has a tragically underplayed set collecting dust, a large quantity of the magic is missing when you don’t have a bunch a guys around a table all crying bullshit at a series of misses or a failed power phase roll when already knee deep in a nail biting encounter (although I have cussed at the iPad a few times, so not all is lost).
This is also why I think I may just go ahead and push forward with an attempt to generate seed-like WHQ community challenges. The idea may flop, but if it gains any traction, then it will fill the main void that the iOS version has once the rules are understood. This is also why I tried to condense (what I think are) the rules so that I can refer to them later.
How would you do that, since the game doesn’t display seed numbers?
The other day, I rolled three consecutive zeroes and was swarmed by monsters. Party wipe!
I have been pondering how best to do it as indeed there are no seeds. The game does seem to segregate event cards (monster spawns) by city hub (including attribute stats) and the main quests have boss event targets. Esentially it is a fully random game (as was WHQ), but each quest has a set pool of what can be randomized. I didnt outline how a dungeon deck is setup in the board game, but it looks like WHQ iOS is using it. So while not an exact copy of experiences, it should be similar enough that say, gold count and item comparisons should be close depending on how far someone got, yet the men would stand out from the boys as power rolls failed and a goblin shaman rather than an Orc War Boss were drawn in the boss encounters. Not a true competition, but a fun way to compare what happened. Maybe. I quoted myself once before, so I dare not do it again, but I tossed some ideas around previously in the thread.
As to your tripple WoM fails followed by a wipe, you got to love it when the game tosses you that curve ball. It is especially fun for me now as smaller River Troll encounters are popping up in the Power Phase. My best advice is to watch party placement so that your high WS/ strength characters can cleave down the trash monsters when they spawn with chained Deathblows.
Yeah, I had a level 3 party wiped on a River Troll in a dungeon where I had three consecutive zero rolls. The first two failed rolls I held my own, and got the Troll down to a couple dozen health, but the third did me in.
Thanks for the post on the mechanics, Chaplin! For items that gives the wizard +power, is that just towards the reserve you get at the beginning of the dungeon, or does it have other effects?
I’m finding this game surprisingly engaging despite the simplistic combat. Playing hardcore mode, haven’t lost a character yet, but then I’m paranoid and over level my characters before moving each main quest. (Some close calls with Shamans though, they’re pretty scary – how do they work in the board game? I saw one rolled a 0 for power, and then next turn, a 1, then he proceeded to one shot my ranger. Luckily I learned from this thread that you can revive downed characters – that probably should have been in the tutorial.) I would probably spring for the dlcs if there was a bundle option, but I’m pretty content with the initial heroes right now.
The Shaman’s have a number of spells they can cast that are pretty vicious. I’ve seen DaKrunch which “cannot miss and causes 10-15 damage” and Fist of Gork where “fires a volley where each shot has a 50% chance of causing 7 wounds.” Fortunately they seem to have a low probability of getting power, but when they do …
For a while I kept Uncommon healing items on all characters to get me out of trouble when things really hit the fan. But now my Uncommon items inventory tier is filled with equipment, which means I’m back to Small Bandages and Small Provisions for healing. So while overall my characters are stronger, I feel that my margin for getting through disaster is a lot thinner.
I have sprung for a few Rare healing items, but they are very expensive.
+Power items add to the roll (but a 1 is still 0 power and an event or ambush). my wizard currently ranges from 3-7 power per turn.
Plus to Power items should add to your reserve count only. This is the pool you get to spend extra points from when you don’t have enough to cast a spell in a turn. When you level up you get X amount for your reserve. Items can also give you more. I found a College Hat (the one without the tubes and the beer cup holders) for my wizard the lets me use it once per dungeon and every dungeon to add power to my reserve. Other more common items are the Orbs that are on shot consumables (essentially a potion, but for the reserve pool). I am pretty sure the game is also giving a plus to your Winds of Power rolls each level along the lines of 1d6 + (X-1) where X is the casters level.
I agree about the game system. It is simple, yet the sure randomness of it and the limited resources (actions, power, etc) while knowing and trying to plan for the inevitable dung hutting the fan can be a deceptively compelling experience (more so in a multiplayer/ live setting, but I have already lamented that). I don’t have my books with me, so I can’t look up monster spell rules, but I think Ydejin is on the money. Basically, kill the casters quick or feel the wrath of Gork, but spawning placement rules can really hose you on that strategy. :)
I don’t have any DLC yet as I want to experience the first play through vanilla (even though there is good reason to buy it out of the gate). However I fully plan to buy every content pack they put out at this point.
I found this link on the Pocket Tactics forum, fwiw: a manual for the tabletop game:
http://users.telenet.be/WHQ_TheHouse/Docs/WHQ%20-%20Rule%20Book%20v0.01.pdf
The To Hit chart posted by Chaplin earlier is at the end of this.
Ugh three of my party survived a river troll only to find an ork shaman and five boys in the last room. Ork boys all doing extra attacks from “ere we go” made short work of my wounded warriors. Loving this, time to start over!