The Walking Dead: Call to Arms – what are Strategy Points?

We’re on day four of our Call to Arms week and we’ve only really scratched the surface of the game. Alongside the blogs, we’ve also been featuring videos with Ronnie talking about the game and over the coming weeks, we’ll be handing over to the likes of Blackjack Legacy and T&G Productions to give you even more in-depth coverage.

However, today we wanted to talk about one of the big,
exciting differences between All Out War and Call to Arms: Strategy Points. One
of the phases in Call to Arms is the Strategy Phase. No, this isn’t the point
you realise you’re terrible at tactics and start weeping into your replica Carl’s
Hat. This is the point when you generate Strategy Points, ready to kick ass and
take names (in that order).

You generate Strategy Points (SP) based on your models’
Strategy Rating. The points can then be used to boost Actions, perform special
actions and strategies, or sometimes to perform your Group Special Rule – as briefly
mentioned in yesterday’s blog. If you look at a Survivor’s character card,
typically they’ll have a Strategy Rating. If they have a – that means they don’t
generate SPs. Take a look at Rick’s card below.

The first value is what die they’ll roll to generate SPs if
they’re the nominated leader of your group. The second is how many they’ll
generate if they aren’t the leader, but are still part of your gang. At the
beginning of the Round, you work out how many dice you generate and then roll
them. Each success rolled on the dice is the amount of SPs generated that
round. You then place a pool of tokens to one-side for use that round. You can
only use them that round too – so remember to use them, or lose them.

STRATEGISE TO SURVIVE

There are a set of generic Stategies that characters can
use, depending upon their class. These are:

• Bash! (Bruiser Only) Any Bruiser that performs a
  melee attack may spend SP to reroll blank dice from its melee attack roll, at a
  cost of 1SP per die.
• Crackshot (Marksman Only) Any Marksman that
  performs a ranged attack may spend SP to reroll blank dice from its ranged
  attack roll, at a cost of 1SP per die.
• Encourage (Support Only) Any Support character
  may spend 1SP during their activation to give a target model in their Kill Zone
  a +1 Action counter.
• Tactical Flexibility (Tactician Only) Any
  Tactician may spend 1SP to treat their type as either Bruiser, Marksman, Runner
  or Support for the rest of the round. They retain their Tactician type in
  addition to the new type. Further SP may be spent to perform Strategies in
  accordance with their new type.
• Turn of Speed (Runner Only) Any Runner may spend
  1SP when performing a Run Action to add 1" to their Sneak distance, or
  2" to their Run distance. This does not apply when mounted.

Alongside these standard abilities, Leaders also have access
to their own Special Orders that can be activated by spending SPs. For example:

Charge!: While engaged with an enemy, the Group Leader may spend Strategy Points to move friendly models within 6" into contact with enemies in their respective Kill Zones as a Free Action, at a rate of 1SP per friendly model moved. This special move may only be performed if the enemy can be reached without moving a total of more than 4" (due to intervening models and scenery, for example). Models may attempt to Climb only if there is no other way to reach the target enemy.

Finally, as if all this Strategy wasn’t exciting enough,
some survivors have their own unique abilities that can be triggered by
spending SPs. Take a look below at Andrea’s Pinpoint Accuracy skill:

Strategy Points are an exciting and integral part of Call to Arms and we can’t wait to see some of the disgusting, beardy combos people come up with when using them.

The Call to Arms pre-orders go live TOMORROW! Are you excited?