Cthulhu Wars Windwalker faction impressions

While Cthulhu Wars inclusion of four highly asymmetrical factions gives it high replayability, Petersen Games has made a few other factions available to expand the experience. I had the opportunity to look at the Windwalker faction and find out what made these units unique.

Once common unit to all factions are the Acolytes, and the Windwalker faction isn’t any different. The Windwalkers use two different monsters. The four Wendigo available don’t cost any more than an Acolyte, but they do contribute a combat die to battle. Four Gnoph Keh give three dice each to the combat roll, but they cost the same amount as the number still in the pool making them less expensive the more are already out on the board. The Windwalkers have two Great Old Ones instead of one like most of the other factions and cost six power, making them less expensive than most other Great Old Ones. Rhan Tegoth adds three dice to the combat pool and gets summoned in an area with the Windwalker glyph. Ithaqua must be summoned in a location with the Windwalker Glyph and a gate after Rhan Tegoth has been awakened. However, Ithaqua replaces the gate in that area and rolls half the number of dice of the opposing player’s Doom total rounded up. While Ithaqua is on the board, monsters can’t capture Cultists. The Hibernate ability allows you to add one power to your total for each Great Old One in play, but it doesn’t allow you to take any more actions during the turn. However, you don’t lose your power going into the next round.

Windwalkers have three ongoing Spellbooks, a pre-battle, a post-battle, and an action Spellbook. The ongoing Spellbooks force the enemy to take away a Monster or Cultist for each Gnoph Keh killed in battle, pay five power for the Ritual of Annihilation, and allows units to move with Ithaqua. The pre-battle Spellbook forces an enemy to retreat a unit before the battle begins to an adjacent area, while the post-battle Spellbook spawns a Wendigo or Acolyte in an area enemy units were killed in battle.

The Windwalkers start out slowly but get more powerful as the game plays on. The Gnoph Keh are a great example of this. Ithaqua doesn’t contribute much to combat early in the game but becomes an overpowering force of nature later in the game. I personally find faction expansions for any game to be the most interesting, and the Windwalkers in Cthulhu Wars are a great addition.