Fighting Campaign Battles
Once you have completed your warband roster, you are ready to start fighting campaign battles. A campaign battle can be fought against any opponent who has also completed a warband roster for their warband. To fight a campaign battle, follow all the rules for fighting a standard battle with the following additions:
- When picking your warband for the battle, all fighters must be drawn from your warband roster.
- You must include your leader, and they are the leader of your warband.
- The points limit for each warband is determined by their encampment location.
- After the battle, each player must complete the aftermath sequence.
For your first few campaign battles, it is likely that your warband for the battle will include every fighter on your warband roster. As you begin to expand your roster, you may find that you have more than 1000 points' worth of fighters and so have to choose which to include in your warband for each battle. Having a larger roster has a few benefits. Firstly, fighters who do not partake in a battle are more likely to recover from any injuries they have. Secondly, the location of your encampment may allow you to include more than 1000 points' worth of fighters in your warband.
The Underdog
When fighting a campaign battle, before the battle begins, both players compare the reputation of their warbands. If 1 warband has a greater reputation than the other, the warband with the lesser reputation is the underdog for that battle. When a warband faces an opponent with a formidable reputation, they will likely seek to call in favours and draw upon any special resources they have available to even the odds. To represent this, the underdog gains the following bonus:
The Underdog Bonus
The underdog receives 1 additional wild dice in the initiative phase of the first battle round. If their opponent's reputation is greater by 5 or more, the underdog receives 2 wild dice instead. If it is greater by 10 or more, they receive 3 wild dice instead.
In addition to this bonus, the underdog will gain extra glory as detailed in the aftermath sequence.
Fleeing The Battle
Playing a Warcry campaign gives you many different things to manage, and as such you may wish for your warband to flee from a losing battle to lessen the impact of injuries. At the start of the initiative phase, if at least half of the fighters from your warband have been taken down, you can choose to flee from the battle. If you do so, all fighters in your warband are immediately removed from the battlefield. Fighters removed in this manner are referred to as fled fighters.
If there is anything your opponent still needs to achieve (such as fulling the criteria of a quest), the remaining battle rounds are played through to their conclusion. If not, the battle immediately ends.
If your warband flees from the battle, fled fighters are considered taken down for the purposes of calculating glory and considered taken down for any criteria for your opponent's quest. However, they are not considered taken down for any other rules (for example, you do not need to make injury rolls for them). In addition, your opponent wins the battle regardless of the victory conditions.