OnBoarding and Fragging: How to Teach Warzone Eternal to a New Player

Now that models are finally getting to game stores and becoming available to the general public, it’s going to be up to all of us to teach/onboard new players and get them excited about this wonderful game. I’ve been helping out with Warzone Eternal at conventions for over a year, teaching the game to hundreds (at least fifties!) of people in that time. I’ve been subjected to many bad demos in my time and want to spare you all that pain. Below is the way that I teach Warzone Eternal and encourage everyone else to do so as well.

Step 1: Listen

The first step to any growth is understanding, and that’s what we want to do with new players. Before even showing a card or talking about how cool the Mutant Chronicles universe is, ask your prospective player about their gaming experiences. This does a couple things:

1.  At a con, it helps break down the barrier between seller and potential customer and,
2.  It gives you information on how to contextualize Warzone for them. What this means is that you get to leverage their prior knowledge to help them make sense of the game. Some examples…

• New player, “I mainly play 40K”
  • My response, “Hey great! This game is a little different, in that it’s much smaller scale. You can kind of think of it like Kill Team, if you’ve ever had a chance to play that!”
• New player, “I’ve never played a wargame before, but play DnD!”
  • My response, “This is really similar to DnD in that each character, we call them models, gets two actions and it’s a d20 system. Instead of only controlling one character tho, you get to control all of them! And it’s a roll under system, meaning 1s are good! Might be time to dust off the dice that misbehaved in DnD!”
• New player, “I like board games, like Clue and Monopoly!”
  • My response, “Oh that’s great! This is much more complicated, and there’s a whole hobby behind it. But I’ll tell you, this is a great game for your first wargame – it’s small scale, the game is fast and furious, and the models are super cool.”

As you can see, we’re trying to make a connection. Don’t badmouth any prior experience they have or any other games – doing so will only make you look like an ass and drive people away.

As you explain the game, keep in mind what they’ve told you – and customize your explanations to fit wherever you can.

Step 2: Models have Cards, Cards have Stats

It’s easy to want to start with the big picture with games, and normally with board games that’s what I tell people to do. For wargames and Warzone Eternal though, I like walking players through a basic stat card, starting with MV and going all the way through a weapon’s stats. This makes the game more digestible. Again, pin these explanations to their prior gaming knowledge where possible, and take questions throughout. Don’t be afraid to say, “this means X, which I’ll explain later,” though. A few notes…

• When describing “Close Combat,” I like to say “How good you are at hitting someone with a stick,” and follow up Strength with, “How likely you are to damage someone with said stick.”
  • When talking about Strength I also like to mention that it determines how far a model can throw grenades – really helps whet the appetite for more
• I go ahead and explain all the weapon bands – going through the math too, with two different stat cards to demonstrate
• This is also a good time to explain Damage and wounds and the sliding scale of success, even if I don’t explain Pinned Counters right away.

Step 3: Special Rules and Abilities

At this point in the demo, I tell the person that each model and weapon can also have special rules, all of which are described on the back of the card. If I’m fortunate enough to be demoing with a force that the person has expressed interest in, I will go more in depth here about certain abilities that are particularly cool, like Shift for Shinobis or Blitz for Blitzers, but try to keep this brief – the new player will have plenty of time to discover these later.

If it’s more of a generic army, I might get into some army-wide style rules, like Networked or Faith, but again keep it brief. Once we start chucking dice we can get into the nitty gritty.

Step 4: Alternating Activations, 2 Actions Per Model, and Reposition

This one is pretty simple and self explanatory, but it’s important to hit it. I remember teaching a friend who had only playing Bloodbowl in the past and he was blindsided that we were doing alternating activations because he was so used to the GW model. Don’t make my mistake.

Once a player understands alternating activations, mention that each model gets 2 actions each time they go. Don’t get into what those actions are just yet, but you might say something like, “so a model can shoot and then move, or move then shoot. Heck a model can even shoot twice!”

This is also where I mention the “Activation Counter.” You’ll also want to mention that a model can only get one activation per game turn.

Here’s also a great time to introduce the Reposition mechanic, demonstrating with a model on the table. Expect to remind new players of this rule throughout play, as most won’t have experienced a game with a rule like this before.

Step 5: The Menu of Actions

After establishing the two action rule, I hand the player the wonderful Action/Reaction Menu listed on the Trans Atlantis website. In a con situation this is usually printed on a really nice thick chipboard, but when doing at my local store, its usually on paper I printed myself. As a benefit to this, I usually let the potential player take it with them.

Here I go through each action pretty thoroughly. My favorite is Brace, because I mime using an HMG and squatting to fire. This is also a great time to go over the Dotman and how to determine Line of Sight, which I again mime, by pointing to each part of my body.

Again, emphasize that it’s two actions/model and that they can be taken in any order.

Step 6: The Menu of Reactions

After going actions, we talk about Reactions. I purposely save this for this moment, sort of as a surprise and to help get the baselines established first. Now if you’re looking at the Reaction Menu, Ambush is first, and I always say, “We’ll come back to this one, because it’s special.”

Introduce the “Reaction Counter,” and really hammer home that each Reaction triggers off of an opposing model’s actions (e.g. being shot at triggers the potential to Dive for Cover). Here I really emphasize timing and reestablish the “Pinned Counter.”

Go over, “Dive for Cover,” “Counterattack” and “Parting Blow” first. Typically for “Parting Blow” I liken it to the old “Attack of Opportunity” rules from 3.X DnD, which usually helps.

Only after those three, do I go back and teach Ambush, explaining that it takes both a models Reaction Counter and Action Counter for the turn. Use models to really emphasize that the reacting model can stop an opponent at any point of their movement to Charge or Shoot.

Step 7: Damage

I like to go over damage one more time, really talking about how most models only have two wounds and can be taken out in a single shot. Also a great time to re-emphasize cover and to avoid shooting alleys in the game.

Step 8: Play the Demo!

If I’m at a con, this is usually where my lecture ends and the dice throwing begins. Make sure you set up the models in such a way that you all can shoot or charge instantly – you want the new players to understand the math right away and see how explosive the game can be.

I don’t bother with a Scenario or secondary objective here, it’s all about actions, reactions, and taking each other out.

Each time they select a model to activate, mention what it does and encourage them to flip the cards over to read the abilities. I don’t like to feed them exactly what everything means, but if they’re about to resolve something incorrectly or not at it’s full power, I step in and say so. This might be, “Oh yeah, that model has Evasive, so they’re even harder to hit!” or “That model has Shift! They teleport!”

Don’t get too bogged down – we’re trying to make a positive impression.

Do not, and I repeat do not, get salty about losing this demo game or losing any models. You want them to kill your guys dead! Something I’m going to be trying is setting up a challenge – if they can kill three of my models in a single turn I’ll buy them a soda or candy bar. I’ll let you know if this gets any takers.

Step 9: Going Further

After the game, here’s where you can do the rest of your pitch. This includes

1. Finding out what force they want and helping them make a sound purchase – at the con, through their FLGS, or through TrenchWorx. Bonus points if you can get them to talk to their FLGS owner to get it stocked!
2. Telling them how to get the all the rules and stat cards on the Trans Atlantis website
3. Getting them on the Discord server (you’re all on the Discord server…right?)
4. Explaining that games have primary and secondary objectives
5. Showing them how to list build. Include The Agents of Light and Servants of Darkness rules
6. Exclaiming that’s there is this cool blog written by some really hunky dudes

In Conclusion

I know that this is a lot, and maybe overly banal, but you need to have a way to teach this game quickly and efficiently. I pride myself on teaching essentially the entire core rulebook (barring some special rules) in about 15 minutes. This not only gets them playing, but acts as a strong selling point for the game.

I wish you all the best of luck in getting others involved. If I missed anything, or you have any other teaching tips, sound off below!